wow, thanks a lot for your thorough advice :)
tbh I really hate putting road blocks in front of people who would like to contribute to the database, however we were the victim of a huge spam attack with completely random ip rotations.
I will eventually remove the mandatory sign up once we have a strong moderation system in place, this shouldn't be too far from now.
Thanks again, I really appreciate your comment :)
That's true; the mandatory sing-up is a temporary measure, I'm sure there are a lot of ways to fight spammers including the method you mentioned. Thank you for your suggestion.