No, it isn't. I know when you first posted you needed to be approved, but I removed that... It's too annoying for members and I think that was since I first set this up as a test forum! I think the default is that newly registered members need to have their first 2-3 posts approved. But I went through all permissions and set standard access for all members (also newly registered). I now have it set so that new registrations need to be approved, with some additional antispam measures, that should be enough.
It's driving me nuts to see how spammers destroy the joy of running a website. These forum scrips are a bit outdated in style (although here at least the design is quite modern now) so maybe they attract spammers because there are probably many abandoned forums out there.