Just saw this post as I was spot checking for spam...thanks folks, I try my best. Actually, since rebuilding the forums some years ago and being diligent on spammers, it's fairly easy to delete/IP-ban spam and keeping this site clean. The forum statistic are highly accurate re: number of users, posts, etc, and not fluffed with spam accounts.
Some of the less posted subforums auto-notify me when there is a post, and it's obvious when a spammer cross posts. Also, the community here continues to do a great job flagging spam for nuking.
Labor is super cheap in China where the vast majority of spam originates. So the forum registration CAPTCHA thwarts the auto-registering spam bots, but not the many many Chinese humans. I use to IP-range ban the spammers from WhoIs queries, but resorted back to individual IP's after a few mistakes and accidently blocking valid IP's/users. So the efforts continue, just a minor annoyance but well worth in keeping it "real" here