Not really sure what you are getting at. I am not even trying to debate whether it was a good or bad idea. My point is that increased registrations are a result of the removal of "newbie jail" and the corresponding farming of accounts, not because of genuine forum activity picking up.
I am sure it does have to do with the lack of newbie jail but that was removed a long time ago, over a year (?) now.
I am not in a debate too. Yes, you both are right but IMHO now newbies can go straight into the thing they want, Technical Support, Dev & Tech Discussion, Services etc... and yes they can start a scam too. They are like a coin with two sides, almost everything has both advantage and disadvantage.
-MZ
And newbie jail didn't protect against that, it just delayed them a few days. I remember I graduated newbie jail pretty quickly.