@ubernaut and others, re spam, I would appreciate hearing from the more experienced dev and web masters about the pros and cons of a private membership site.
By not allowing just anyone to become a member you automatically arrest spam. Of course, you also impede your growth because legitimate users can’t join.
One way to get around this is to use the great invite anyone plugin and have the original number of ‘seed’ members invite their friends and their friends invite their friends and so on.
Limited but organic growth in members and a total elimination of spam!
What do you guys think?