I don't see how pending a member will help prevent spamming if they never signed up on the board unless they're just trying to sign up again for some reason when they were banned.
A lot of you are saying how "serious" we should be about this message board. We do need to abide by the rules, but don't forget, message boards are supposed to be fun communities too, that's the point of them. Message Boards aren't supposed to be taken seriously. At least, not the way you guys are putting it. If we all took message boards too seriously, then no one would want to join.