Installing Anti Spam Plugins..

[ROBD]

OK.. I could really use some help with spam. It's frkn killing me right now.

I've done a bit of research on the best installs to stop spam, and it seems people recommend Xen Util add on.. problem is, I can't even figure out how to install it. I'm sure it's simple, but I'm lost when I'm anywhere on the web outside of Wordpress.

Could someone plz provide me a link or something with easy install instructions, or even tell me where I could pay someone to do it for me?

Also, are there any other addons I should be installing in order to get the best spam bot defense?

Man, I've done WP sites for years and just recently decided to give a forum a go... This spam crap is highly irritating, and makes me not even want to mess with a forum. I don't even really understand why they bother... it just gets deleted, right? What's the point. I'm sure there is one, whatever.

 

[BGL]

You could pay one of the mechanics here to put in the XenUtlities. I guess it helps but I have them and still have to check a couple times a day to ban the spammers who get through. Comes with the job of setting up a forum I guess. Wish there was some internet policing going on to ban the spammers. They have to be costing the web a large chunk of bandwidth.

 

[craigiri]

Definitely install stop country spam as well as Xenutil.

Someone will surely do it for you very inexpensively - unless you want to learn. It's not hard if you are basically familiar with FTP and stuff.....

Also, use all the tools at your disposal. The imagecapths or the QA's usually help a lot. If your question and answer pertain to your subject - even better! I used one such as "the first name of the founders of Apple".....or something like that.

I have a large forum and I manually approve ALL new signups. It's not that hard - takes me less than 10 minutes a day with maybe 25 new members daily. That way I can look at their usernames, locate their IP's, etc. and make a fuzzy logic guess as to whether they are really interested.

Even after that we moderate the first posts......but I don't think we've had 1 out of 1,000 that have been bad (SPAM). Maybe we'll stop doing that....

It would be better to start a forum with very strict control and then loosen up later - than to just open a forum and have it be a spam magnet.

 

[ROBD]

I have a large forum and I manually approve ALL new signups. It's not that hard - takes me less than 10 minutes a day with maybe 25 new members daily. That way I can look at their usernames, locate their IP's, etc. and make a fuzzy logic guess as to whether they are really interested.

Even after that we moderate the first posts......but I don't think we've had 1 out of 1,000 that have been bad (SPAM). Maybe we'll stop doing that....

It would be better to start a forum with very strict control and then loosen up later - than to just open a forum and have it be a spam magnet.

I am not opposed to manual approval at all. How do I go about setting this up? I assume it's just an option in XF dashboard?

Thanks for the replies.

 

[Digital Doctor]

You want to moderate new users.
It was awkward how to do it. Give me a min.

 

[craigiri]

Oh, manual is just a checkbox in

• Home​
• Options​

User Registration

 

[Digital Doctor]

I am not opposed to manual approval at all.

http://xenforo.com/community/thread...gistrations-approve-new-users-manually.40752/

 

[ROBD]

Cool. Thx for the help guys, really appreciate it.

Lol, I feel pretty stupid that this whole time all I had to was check a box to stop the spam.

This has me wondering why more people don't choose to do this? Yes, you have to manually do something, but you end up having to manually delete spam anyways, right? I'd much prefer approving members, rather than deleting spam.

Maybe I'm missing something here? Has it been "proven" to lower membership conversions? Would love to hear other's thoughts/experience on this.

Thx again.

 

[ROBD]

http://xenforo.com/community/thread...gistrations-approve-new-users-manually.40752/

Hey, thanks for making it so simple (noob proof)

 

[Jake Bunce]

FYI:

http://xenforo.com/community/resources/dealing-with-forum-spam.980/

Another option is to moderate new posts instead of new accounts:

http://xenforo.com/community/thread...osts-into-moderation-queue.33381/#post-387464

 

[craigiri]

Cool. Thx for the help guys, really appreciate it.

Lol, I feel pretty stupid that this whole time all I had to was check a box to stop the spam.

This has me wondering why more people don't choose to do this? Yes, you have to manually do something, but you end up having to manually delete spam anyways, right? I'd much prefer approving members, rather than deleting spam.

Maybe I'm missing something here? Has it been "proven" to lower membership conversions? Would love to hear other's thoughts/experience on this.

Thx again.

I think it's simply laziness - or maybe subconsciously some forum members like to see all those "new" members!

At the very least, most forum admins should do manual approval for the first couple of weeks until they see what is up! During that time they can install some of the other tools and see if it stops most SPAM.....

I occasionally get lazy myself and allow for email verification - but, the registrants still had to go through SFS, Stop Country Spam and then the first post is moderated. I also look for links in their profiles - and, I don't allow members to have those profile pages others can post on. That seems like trouble and, frankly, I've never had a single request for such a feature.