Not much people know this but you can use WordPress’s comment moderation and blacklisting settings for bbPress.
Using WordPress Comment Moderation Settings If it does catch a topic that is spam, you will see it in the WordPress backend in the topics section under spam, and the same process for replies. Akismet scans a bbPress topic or reply before it is posted to see if it is spam or ham (not spam) with it’s scanning service which runs hundreds of tests and either marks a post as spam or not. Going higher on this setting would be better but make sure that it would not annoy your users.ībPress is fully integrated with Akismet. The default setting of 10 seconds is fine. This is to avoid users posting multiple times in a short time span and to help avoid abuse from programs delivering spam. Throttle time or flood control, is the required amount of time a single author is able to post. This setting does not affect Keymasters and Moderators as they have the capability to edit posts indefinitely.
Going lower on this setting would be better but make sure this doesn’t annoy your users. The default setting of 5 minutes should be fine. This is great to fix minor typos, unfortunately it also gives some spammers a chance to write a friendly reply first then edit it later to link back to the spammers website. Inbuilt Tools to Handle SpamĪll these settings should be in the WordPress backend in Settings > Forums.ībPress allows users to edit their own topics and replies. It is best to have moderators in your forums to decide on which users are in fact spammers based on their observations of the user, and see if they do any of the actions listed above. Human spammers could be incredibly difficult to distinguish from other users in your forums, but you can identify a spammer by their actions on your website by checking their activity on their forum profile. The human spammer will most likely do all of what is listed below as well as possibly do some actions a normal spambot would do. Some won’t be as obvious as this though so it is the moderator’s decision to make any further. These spammers could be easily handled by some plugins listed in this guide.īelow is an example of a human spammer that leaves posts similar to this. These usually fill out most input fields automatically and are very easy to spot and identify.
Post in an entirely different language then what is in the topic.Have their display name and username be the website they are linking to.Titles of some topics may seem not to be relevant to the information in the posts content.Reply to topics and leave a minimal reply like “good” or copy an existing reply in a topic but slip in a link at the end.Leave a description of their website in posts and also their forum profile.T he links could be hidden in a large amount of text for it to not be easily seen. Place a single link or multiple links to a site/s for a business or service.The automated spam bot will most likely do all of the actions listed below. Human – An actual human being spamming websites.īelow is an example of a spambot that leaves posts similar to this.Automated – Mainly a script that is able to register an account to websites and post.It is most common for spam posts to consist of links and more often with an advertisement that leads to external sites with the goal of increasing search engine visibility and generating more traffic to their websites. There is many areas on your site where spam could wreak havoc that you will need to focus on, and while spam can increase the workload of forum Moderators and Keymasters, t his guide will hopefully lead you in the right direction to add a wall of defense against spam and help keep spam on your website to a minimum. Codex Home → Getting Started → Forum Moderation → Dealing with Spam