StopForumSpam

StopForumSpam.com maintains a database of spammers that post spam on forums and blogs. When a forum or blog makes a report to StopForumSpam this information protects other websites from spam attacks in turn.

Included in all plans, Vanilla Forums has a StopForumSpam plugin that looks at this information to keep your community spam free. While most Spam does get caught by other solutions in our service, sometimes human added spam can pass filters.  This is where StopForumSpam can help. If you are finding Spam sneaking through, it may be time to review the default settings of your StopForumSpam plugin.

How To Modify StopForumSpam Settings

To make changes to your StopForumSpam plugin, go to browse add-ons, find the StopForumSpam “settings” button and you will be taken to a screen much like the following:

The IP Thresholds are the number of times an IP appears in the StopForum Database. Once an IP hits 5 in the StopForumSpam database the comment is flagged as spam. At the second threshold of 20 times, the users will have content auto-rejected. The other factor looked at is the email address. Once the email threshold hits 20, the users content will automatically be flagged as spam and at 50 times, the content will be completely rejected. If you find there is lots of spam making it through past Akismet and other spam checks, you can consider tightening the email threshold, and even the secondary IP threshold.

Other Solutions to Combat Spam

There are even more ways to combat spam in Vanilla. You can enable the Spam Reaction, so members of your community can help police for spammers. You can also use Ranks to make new users earn trust before they can do such things as post links. If you are still having issues, reach out to us in our Support Forum.