Do you use any kind of spam protection?

[Shortie]

When it comes to running either a blog or a forum, spam protection is very much needed as it's so easy for bots to be able to register an account and just spam continuously around your site or forum if there is nothing in place to prevent them from doing so.

Do you use any kind of spam protection and is it the built in one you use, or do you use another type of spam protection? How well does your spam protection work and have you noticed any flaws with the protection you use?

 

[Cory]

Jcink uses reCAPTCHA by default and it seems to keep the spammers away from my board. If I've ever had spammers on my board, I'm pretty sure they were real people and not bots.

 

[oldbuddy]

The only spam protection I use is I don't have any comments allowed. If they want to say anything, I leave a link to a Forum I use and tell them to message me there, so I can block them if they spam.

 

[Heatman]

Jcink uses reCAPTCHA by default and it seems to keep the spammers away from my board. If I've ever had spammers on my board, I'm pretty sure they were real people and not bots.

From my experience with using reCAPTCHA, it works very well. It's what most forum owners that I have come across make use of and it works satisfactorily.

No bot at least for now have the capacity to bypass reCAPTCHA. It might change in future but for now it's full proof.

 

[Jason]

At user registration, people have to answer a question. It involves spelling a word backward. This method works well for both free and paid forums.

 

[Arantor]

When I ran forums, I had custom lines of defence for blocking spammers - no reCAPTCHA, a simple question on registration and some measures I don’t want to talk about, but enough to keep out even spammers on guest posting.

 

[Jason]

When I ran forums, I had custom lines of defence for blocking spammers - no reCAPTCHA, a simple question on registration and some measures I don’t want to talk about, but enough to keep out even spammers on guest posting.

I'm sure that works. I guess everyone has their own style. Anyway, I do instant registration also, no email validation.

 

[Arantor]

Email validation hasn’t been an anti-spam technique in 15+ years, it is at best a safety check for users not typoing their emails, but it’s not an anti-spam measure.

 

[Ravenfreak]

I typically will have questions that users have to answer when registering, if the forum is based around a specific niche. Otherwise I just use reCAPTCHA and in some cases if I do notice spammers getting through I'll change my settings for registration, from email activation to admin activation. It's rare that I have to do that however, I know that can be annoying for those who are legit members wanting to join.

 

[Shawn Gossman]

I used to use Security Questions but I find that more and more they're getting infiltrated.

I've had a lot of success with reCaptcha version 2.0 for the last few years.

I also have honeypot and stop forum spam enabled.

I catch most of the spam. Every now and then one gets through.

I also ban email domains, here is a list of the ones I banned in case it helps you:

*.space
*.top
*.email
*.kz
*.quest
*.wiki
*.ink
*.pics
*.fun
*.club
*.site

 

[Tracy]

Use the built in XenForo stuff.
For captcha--- CloudFlare Turnstile
Askimet
StopForumSpam
DNS Blacklist
Project Honey Pot