Baron. Take a look at the post from our newest "member" Jromeo under the Thread - Want to Share. His post is the very reason you need to review first posts before they get into a thread.
Anybody would, who wants to belong seriously to that community. I have found a science message board and I guess due to similar problems, they simply don't allow new members to join. I find that very undemocratic and kind of shooting themselves in the foot. They are also talking about invitation only and other measures, but simply blocking every new members is just plain wrong. Actually, there is an advantage in having the first few posts delayed/moderated. Newbies would search HARDER for simple answers instead of just firing off the same old questions...
I don't understand your logic. You are new, you join, your first 10 posts are reviewed by a moderator before they appear on ET. Why would that keep you from joining ET? How are those "terms" so offensive?
The best idea yet. Virtually every other single approach mentioned so far can be defeated rather easily. If you're a dedicated spammer -- that is, you (aim to) make a living through online streams of revenue, whether above board or not -- you'd readily adapt to having to post (say, in Chit Chat) a few times to establish quasi-legitimacy for your handle; dealing with a waiting period or probation; forging / anonymizing your IP; etc. But I submit that you'd have a very hard time adapting to the swift sweet justice of the invisible armed posse that never sleeps...
probably not. A spammer knows he has few chances when he tries something. He knows that if he spams here he probably won't be successful. Spammers usually aim to get their message to a lot of people. Posting here to spam later would just be a waste of time.
Just create a couple of moderators for the late Asian - European period. They don't have to do anything except delete the repeated spam posts/threads when they appear. Baron said just complain but the response is pretty slow during this period.
I vote for the 10-20 post review period. I don't think it would deter anyone from joining ET. There are a few resourceful spammers who might make that many posts to establish credibility, but my guess is that it would eliminate 95% of them. I don't like the idea of making some people spam moderators and letting them delete posts. Soon there will be posts deleted that are not spam, and all kinds of issues will arise. We can all see the problems that pop up with current "full" moderators as it is.
I would suggest placing a "report spam" button at the top of every thread. Once the thread is reported by an arbitrary number of ET members (say 10). Then the thread is suspended until further review by moderators. This way everyone can do their part.