What forum software to use?

[glowleaf]

My question is rather simple, but I have a real problem. I had to shut down 3 fora I had, because of spam.

How can I avoid that? I want a solution like akismet for blogs, one that blocks 90% of the spam, allowing me to check it once every month.

I used an SMF installation, with the akismet plugin, but the plugin does not prevent the posts from getting indexed! My fora ranked for porn terms, because of the spam posts. I had to delete the porn posts, but until I did, they were already indexed.

So, how can I make a spam proof forum (as much as that is possible)? I want both spam posts protection, and spammy accounts prevention. What forum engine, and what plugin do you suggest?

 

[TylerL]

Vbulletin with something like MonkeyStop - Auto-Moderation of Spammer Keywords and URLs by postcount - vBulletin.org Forum

 

[glowleaf]

I will try that. Thanks a lot Tyler

 

[bobsoap]

Have you tried bbPress with Wordpress yet? It's a forum plugin for WP and I assume it would be integrated with Akismet because of that. I haven't tried it myself yet though.

bbPress » Home

 

[guerilla]

vBulletin. There are a lot of ways to do it.

Make sure you alter the default captcha. That makes it harder for spammers.

Moderate signups and new posts.

Use a custom profile field and include it at registration. Make the question like,

Are you a spammer? Yes/No. Default answer, Yes. That should help you sort out spam accounts as well.
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[geeman]

I'd go with vbulletin.
you can customize the captcha protection as far as I remember and there are also a few fancy spam protections mods out there and the custom registration questions will weed out the bots.

phpbb needs updates all day long to close all security holes - nothing to run on autopilot.
I haven't tried bbpress so far.