Antispam after an upgrade to version 1.2

[ForestForTrees]

Before upgrading to version 1.2, we had a great antispam system in place. We only get a couple of new members per day, so our strategy has been to work to ensure that all accounts are from non-spammers. We don't even worry about evaluating posts, etc. The system worked perfectly.

However, new features in 1.2 overlapped with some of the add-ons we were using, so I uninstalled them. Now we get a spam signup almost every day.

An upgrade to 1.2 seems like a good time to reevaluate anti-spam postures. What anti-spam tools do people use and recommend with version 1.2?

 

[oman]

http://xenforo.com/community/threads/spam-prevention-and-management.51091/

http://xenforo.com/community/threads/1-1-4-anti-spam-improvements-for-registration.45829/ << was introduced in 1.1.4, but is still a handy feature.

Good Q&A questions usually help too.

 

[AndyB]

What anti-spam tools do people use and recommend with version 1.2?

Depends on the type of forum you have. If you have a forum that is about a particular subject, a good Q&A will keep out most spammers.

 

[ForestForTrees]

Thanks oman. Those are great links, but we're already doing those things and while they help a lot, some spam is still getting through. We clean the spam and report them almost immediately, but we are hoping to do it even more rapidly. We're looking for add-ons and strategies that might get us back to where we were before. We could just reinstall the same addons that we had before, but since much of their functionality just reduplicates features that are now in the core, we thought it might be worth looking around again.

If you have a forum that is about a particular subject, a good Q&A will keep out most spammers.

AndyB, we use Q&A but decided against using subject specific questions because we rely on a steady stream of newcomers and don't want to dissuade them.

Another great resource is Jake Bunce's excellent Dealing With Forum Spam resource. It didn't mention some of the features from the 1.2 update, though, so I wondered if it had been updated since then. It seems like the go-to addons might have changed with the upgrade to 1.2. To some degree, I think that antispam addon recommendations for XF 1.2 are most of what I'm looking for. Once I know what to install, I'll read all of the documentation and am good to go. I've gone through the options for the core xenforo antispam tools, and I'm looking for a little more.

One addon I was considering was Jaxel's XenUtiles. XenUtiles worked well when we were using XF 1.1, but I wasn't thrilled with his support for the XenMedio MP3 Premium addon when Google Webmaster Tools started complaining about errors in the sitemap it generated. If I remember correctly, he canceled the add-on without fixing it and never refunded my money. I don't think he ever responded to my posts. Reference 1 and reference 2 . It's not that the money is a big deal, but the time I invested was. I want software that is well supported. I'm sure he's a great programmer and I value the other contributions he's made, but at the same time, I'm interested in investigating other alternatives.

 

[ForestForTrees]

This one looks really good:
http://xenforo.com/community/resources/foolbothoneypot-bot-killer-spam-combat.1085/