Site News doesn't allow replies, so I'm posting a reply to your site upgrades post here. To get rid of bots you should use a honey pot. It's just a field that only bots can see. If it's filled out on sign-up you lock the account and add the IP to a deny list in .htaccess.
For humans you need forum moderators that do their job, daily.
Locking out all new users til they are approved, on a site that doesn't have highly active moderators, is as good as shutting down registration. Even if you keep this method, pruning out bots with a honey pot makes the moderators job easier. They don't have to worry if there are bots in the approve list, only bad humans, and honestly, there is no way to tell if a human has bad intentions until they start posting.
For the humans you could implement a report system. Something like numberOfDaysAsMember * postCount * 2 spam reports locks the account for moderation. Then you don't have to suppress registration, at all. Honey pots for the bots, community provided spam reports for the humans.
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