Sticky How to protect my forum from spam

luisvegeta wrote: Is it possible in K1.6.1 to require approving initial posts? I need to moderate the first X posts of new users, and tried some 1.5 hacks, and nothing works. Can anyone help me?

K 1.6 is nothing like K 1.5. Most of the programming used in K 1.6 was changed from K 1.5; any "hacks" (all of which are unsupported by the project, by the way) you might have tried with K 1.6 will only make your K 1.6 unusable. Don't do it!

The short answer to your question, "Is it possible in K1.6.1 to require approving initial posts?", is no. Good idea, though, if you think you are going to have a problem in the area. I've been managing web-based discussion forums for over 10 years and I've never come across this issue as a problem. I've come across the issue, that is, if you allow anyone to join your website then you allow the possibility that these newcomers might be trouble, but that's where your vigilance and daily monitoring of your site should prevent those kinds of problems.

If people really would like to see the inclusion of a new feature in Kunena to "moderate this user until they have posted x messages" then let people ask for this feature. The more people who actually want this feature will encourage the development team to include the feature. Alternatively, if people would like to contribute towards the cost of developing this feature then that is another way of encouraging the development team to increase the priority towards this activity.

Its a great idea I certainly would find that feature useful!

sozzled wrote: ...inclusion of a new feature in Kunena to "moderate this user until they have posted x messages"

The above is an excellent idea.

Having something like bigo or some other integrated captcha system would be a very desirable feature for anonymous (unregistered visitor) posting.

iapad wrote: Thanks for the reply. This is what I found on the joomla site: extensions.joomla.org/extensions/access-...authentication/10802 (Registration Validator 2 (pro)). The developer claims it works well with Kunena. Did anybody try it out?

Yes, I'm using it on K1.6 (now 1.6.1). I installed it about a month ago, and it has made a HUGE difference. Its name is slightly deceptive because it does more than just registration validation. It can (optionally) also validate each posting against a database of spam posts. This has also prevented a few from getting through where the spammer himself was able to register OK. I think it's FANTASTIC.

As a matter of principle this is also a better solution than pressing the hard-working guys here at Kunena into finding a solution. Leave anti-spam code to those who are expert in it, and leave forum development to the guys here, who are experts in that.

now lot of people register with my forum, some people do spam some people just register and do nothing. some have nearly the same user name..
are they bots ? or what ? is there any way to stop this ?
this is the forum

www.exinkai.com/forum/index

Can anyone tell me how to enable the "Moderators' review option" before posting a thread or reply ? :blink:

This is what solved our spam problem: www.alphaplug.com/index.php/products/alpharegistration.html

I guarantee it will work. However, already registered users may spam still.