Just let it go. Keep the bots out, keep the underage out, and keep the horny bastards in check. But let it be, don't be a helicopter parent.
That's exactly what I'm doing. And I'm trying to not let these particular entities get access to the dick pics. I don't think that in particular is overstretching by any means.
It's not possible to both allow everyone access as before and not allow everyone access. But, let's go back a little and address the other parts of your comment.
Do you really want to manually screen permissions for each member?
I already do, due to the bot spam. Every year the security questions leak and then random spam bots wreck the place until I change the security questions. So I do some minimal checking on the registering users, and approve them, nowadays within 24 hours even. These days it seems like it's about 99% legitimate users (most of whom never return the next day to post or even to read, even before the permission rework, oh well).
Some users are obvious (either way), they are easy to sort. Some aren't so much, and I'll gladly admit I'm not absolutely sure how I'll deal with them. The change, which has been sitting on the back burner for a few years (and as I said, things probably should always have been opt in), was in part triggered by an influx of young users, some with an apparent penchant for self-harm, and I don't want to feel responsible (or anyone to feel responsible) if they do anything stupid despite a handful of people telling them otherwise.
I for example joined - bad timing - to try and see a picture as an attachment on a thread. It's not because I am looking for a 'dick fix', but I have a tight ridged band, I've been unable to stretch it, and apparently this one guy who keeps it retracted has stretched past the tightness and documented the process. I wanted to see the pictures to see if there's some hope in it for me, as an alternative to minor surgery, full surgery, or just giving up and living with it.
You're right, it's bad timing. You hit a transitional period, and this not being my job or even a super important hobby, I'm not spending hours upon hours working on it. I hope it'll clear up soon enough though.
The dick fix comment was meant to be in jest really, maybe I shouldn't have put it there. But hey, there was at least a smiley
I'm sure there are at least some people who feel robbed and not because of a lack of information or educational material.
I tied my frenulum through the Yahoo group when I was 16 or something, when I discovered I had an issue. I do understand why you have done away with the tying part of the forum as people can get a bit obssesive.
While I'm glad it worked (and it indeed goes without complications for most people), your age at the time is also exactly the reason why I don't want to give access to the body mod board to randoms.
Anyway, I digress. My point is, I think your actions in controlling the forum and community are going to have a detrimental effect on it. Point is I have a lot to contribute, a lot to gain, and I'm a perfect member. Not only did I have to wait for my account to be manually approved, but now my account can't do much anyway. You tell people to look in this thread, and they have to go to the last page to figure out what's up with the site.
In my case, I certainly don't have the patience to wait around, I came back to check if my account was activated and I can't see what I wanted to see anyway. What's the point? I am the perfect target market, the ideal community member. And instantly I'm confused, unwelcome, and can't get any benefit out of being here.
I approved you well within a day, and all my links lead to the exact post (which in turn links back to the previous post it is a reply to), it's not really hard to go to the right place.
Your account can do quite a lot: you can post an introduction, you can post in the general discussion or in polls, both comments and new posts. You can ask questions and get answers. Were it not for the change being very recent, you wouldn't even know you're missing out on anything.
This change cannot be made without a backlash, no matter how mildly I do it (I could have just hidden images, I could have just hidden the board — I could still go on separate permission groups for those two things, but that doubles the load with barely any perceivable improvement for the users). Do you perhaps have any suggestions that serve the purposes I laid out?