I believe I found a pair of bugs.
First: When registering for the forum, there's a little box at the bottom of the register page for putting in an answer to 'stop spambots' or some such. There was no question to answer, and leaving it blank allowed me to progress.
Second: When checking my own banner link to see if it works, I apparently visited myself and gave myself gold. I'm not sure if this is more a bug or an exploit but .. well there it is. If it 'is' a bug or exploit and the gold needs to be removed, the amount I attained was 175 gold.