Thanks for raising those points, Clark.
The discussion forum plug-in as currently deployed is OK as an occasional bulletin board but it isn’t fit for purpose as a community forum. At present the spam filter traps a large amount of replies (131 today so far), but for some bizarre reason it fails to trap the same type of spam messages when they’re posted as new topics. Continual checking and weeding is required but a slow and buggy control panel means this duty has to take low priority. Major improvements are under consideration, and your input is very welcome. Expect an email with more technical details soon.
We should be able to edit any pages currently bogged down with embedded media links: just let us know what needs attention.