Anyone can still register. Penny just had to change the way we register because of the enormous amount of spambots ST was getting. Here is what she said on how to register:

Hey, folks - a quick word about registration. Thanks to those crazy botnets generating literally thousands of new and bogus memberships every month, I have set the board software not to accept any new memberships at all.

Yes, there is a way around this! so glad you asked. If you want to register to read fanfic and other members-only sections, e-mail me at penny @ stranger-things dot net with your desired user name and confirmation e-mail address. I'll create your membership manually and set up steps for you to validate it.

Thank you for reading this message!

For reading the stories, damnskippytoo has been updating the archive of Just Fic. So after the ficathon, they will be posted to Just Fic for nonmembers to read. :)

I hope that helps. And totally no problem on being confused. They had to change some things around at ST.