[Yankidank]

This article outlines methods that can be applied to prevent spam from appearing on your site.

Nothing will kill spam altogether, but you shouldn't be receiving a significant amount of daily spam on your site if you are taking the proper steps to protect yourself. We offer a number of really effective anti-spam modules that are free, with a few additional methods that we offer for sale that are used to defend against spam and at the same time provide additional functionality to your website.

Free anti-spam modules

1. Akismet. Included with Pligg, but requires an API key.
2. Captcha. Included with Pligg, automatically installed for you.
3. Spam Trigger. Included with Pligg. Set up words or phrases that should be flagged as spam.
4. Human Check. Included with Pligg. This fights automated spam bots.
5. SFS (stopforumspam.com) Antispam. This checks registration information against a database maintained by a third party. Requires manual installation.

Paid anti-spam modules

1. Karma Wrangler. Users have to vote on existing articles before they can submit stories.
2. Story Admin Email Moderation. Receive an email alert whenever a new story is submitted and manually approve articles before they ever appear on your site.
3. Registration Email Domain Check (REDC). This lets you set up a whitelist or blacklist for allowed/disallowed email domains.

Also, another good defense is to make sure that you enable Email Validation from the Admin > Config section. This only allows members who have validated their email address to log in to the site. This will defend your site from maybe 20% of the less sophisticated spam systems.