Quote:

we could migrate to a new forum software. Our current forum system is old which means that it doesn't have as many anti-spam features as newer tools.

To me, that does not make any sense at all.
You then have to learn the new forum system. And it is not like these "new blocking tools" are an end-all. You're still going to get spam - no matter what.
And even worse then "spam" is AI. "Spammers" now use AI to "reply" such that their responses are very coherent & on topic.

I linked to an "AI" post here, https://www.dslreports.com/forum/r33713020-Who-else-here-is-paranoid-with-security-stuff. Even the admin (at informaction) didn't realize it, at first (& responded back to AI).

"Blocking spam" is not a valid reason to do or not to do something.

Quote:

There were 124 new users registered in 2023 so far.

In the scheme of things, that is nothing.

(Again at informaction.com, in the day, we would get hundreds of new registrations - a day, with the majority of those being spammers. And we even wrote scripts to zap them in mass. Over time, updates to software, & blocking... & changes to the way & where spammers operate has changed, so there is a lot less now, then there was - in the day, but it still exits & evolves...)