XF 2.0 Manually approve first posts by new user

[b0_123]

I have a lot of spam problems in my forum. New Chinese users are registering and posting spam. Within my old forum software (phpBB) i had the option to manually approve posts by new users of a manually specified number (e.g. the first five posts). I can't find any corresponding option in XenForo and the existing manuals in this forum are only for XenForo 1.2 or 1.5. Can someone tell me how to set up manual approvement of first five posts by a new user?

Thanks !!

 

[Martok]

The example on how to do this in the XenForo 1 manual still applies to XenForo 2.

https://xenforo.com/help/user-group-promotions/

All that's changed (I think) are a couple of phrases:

"Not Set (No)" is now "No"
"Follow message moderation rules" is now "Submit content without approval"

@Chris D it looks like the User Group Promotions section of the XF1 manual is missing from XF2. Maybe worth adding to the new version either by you or a willing volunteer?

 

[b0_123]

Yes I saw the mentioned option, but I can't type in the post count until manual approvement is necessary. If I activate the option I think I have to approve all posts made by registered users (also by users with more than 5 posts).

 

[Martok]

Yes I saw the mentioned option, but I can't type in the post count until manual approvement is necessary. If I activate the option I think I have to approve all posts made by registered users (also by users with more than 5 posts).

No, that's not the case. XenForo user group permissions are cumulative, as explained in this document:

https://xenforo.com/community/resources/implementing-permissions-across-multiple-user-groups.358/

and also how the cumulation (of Yes/No/Never) works in the XF2 manual here:

https://xenforo.com/xf2-docs/manual/groups-permissions/#permission-value-priority

So members in the Registered user group only will need to have their posts approved.
Members in the Registered + Promoted Member groups will not have posts moderated ( as the cumulation of the "Submit content without approval" permission is No + Yes = Yes).

So all existing members (with more than 5 posts) will be in both user groups (after the user group promotion runs) and they can post freely.

 

[b0_123]

But why this is so difficult? In phpBB i only had to check a box and enter a number of posts... That's it.

 

[Martok]

But why this is so difficult? In phpBB i only had to check a box and enter a number of posts... That's it.

I wouldn't say it is difficult, it's just different to what you are used to. I originally came from phpBB and the XenForo user group system and user group promotions I think is far easier, better and more powerful than those in phpBB.

 

[Martok]

But why this is so difficult? In phpBB i only had to check a box and enter a number of posts... That's it.

Oh and as a further example of this, you could tailor that user group promotion a lot more than you probably could in phpBB. So you could make it so that users aren't promoted until they have made 5 posts and been a member for at least 7 days (which stops the human spammers posting a few 'nice' posts quickly and then spamming after that; they are less likely to do this if they also have to wait 7 days). Also other requirements could be added if desired. Granted it's not a single click and type a number but it is more powerful (and not difficult at all once you are familiar with it).