Participating on many forums, the problem is rampart.
My suggestion, along with ECA's, is harsher. An account should be fully moderated until someone vouches for the person, or, the board Moderator can have at least one private email exchange.
Take my case, I was active on the blog, using a real email address, and created an account here with same email address & name. So easy to verify my identity with a private email.
For others, the email address they supply to create an account, you send a private email, from say,
CageMatch@gmail.com, asking the person to honestly answer a couple of questions...
To validate your account, we first need to verify that you're a real person. This helps us fight spam bots on the forums. A simple phrase will suffice for an answer.
1. Why do you want to participate in Cage Match?
A: (a simple phrase will do)
2. From where did you first hear about John C. Dvorak?
A: (a simple phrase will do)
I'm willing to wager that 99.9% of spammers
WILL NOT bother to answer the above questions in a respectful manner.
Problem Solved 
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