I’m looking for a solution to moderate new subscribers, preferably in a way that regardless of whether it’s a comment on the WordPress side of things or a topic or reply on the bbPress side, once a new subscriber’s first post is approved, that user is allowed to post comments, threads and replies freely (unless caught by Akismet).

Has someone here faced the same challenge and successfully implemented a solution that works well and is a pleasant user experience for visitors?

The bbPress Moderation plugin should in theory be the answer to this, but it appears to no longer be maintained, I couldn’t get it to work on my website (it moderates all posts for me, even for a user whose posts have already been approved), and based on the plugin’s support section it doesn’t really seem to work optimally anyway. Which is a pity.

Another approach that I have been thinking about is making a new subscriber’s default user role something else than Subscriber, and never displaying comments, posts or threads written by a user with that user role (or displaying a “waiting for moderation” text instead of the post) until the user’s role has been updated to Subscriber. So, moderate a user rather than the content. I’m just not entirely sure how to implement this. Modifying the theme to accomplish it should not be difficult, but how about dealing with RSS, email notifications, etc. so that posts by these users don’t show in them? It seems that many things could go wrong and not play nicely with other plugins.

At the WordPress side, things work flawlessly spam-free with anonymous comments disabled, a custom question in the registration form (stops most spam bots), a mandatory e-mail confirmation for new subscribers, auto-moderation of the first comment (stops manual spammers) and Akismet (which doesn’t really have anything to do at the end). On the bbPress side, I’m only missing the moderation of a user’s first comment, which is letting through some spam.

Any ideas or experiences about a solution to this particular problem?

[@robkk Moderator 9 years, 4 months ago]

Yeah bbPress Moderation is what you are looking for although it seems to be unmaintained. Only thing I can say about this is to make sure you have the plugin set up properly, to make sure it works well.

There is a bbPress role of Spectator which the user cannot post and only view forums. You can later switch them to Participant later in the Users section in the WordPress backend.

[@vilimaunula Participant 9 years, 4 months ago]

As much as I tried earlier, I couldn’t really get bbPress Moderation to work. It may have something to do with my theme, but I also see that I’m not the only one with problems.

I’m not sure if I follow what you are saying about Spectators. Since they cannot post, there isn’t really any moderating to do either as far as I can see. Or am I missing something?

I’m increasingly thinking about writing a custom plugin. I suppose one basic idea would be to create a new user role like “Untrusted Subscriber”, make it the default role for new subscriptions and mark all comments, topics and replies by such users as “pending” until the user is updated to regular “Subscriber” status. The system should also serve a page explaining this when these users post. Something like that.

I’m just not entirely sure if it’s more time and effort to write the above than it is to manually delete spam messages and users. So, I was wondering if someone else may already have found a solution.

[@robkk Moderator 9 years, 4 months ago]

I’m increasingly thinking about writing a custom plugin. I suppose one basic idea would be to create a new user role like “Untrusted Subscriber”, make it the default role for new subscriptions and mark all comments, topics and replies by such users as “pending” until the user is updated to regular “Subscriber” status. The system should also serve a page explaining this when these users post. Something like that.

If you make a plugin like that create a topic in the plugins forum on this site. This could also be useful in the core of bbPress too.

As much as I tried earlier, I couldn’t really get bbPress Moderation to work. It may have something to do with my theme, but I also see that I’m not the only one with problems.

If you are a plugin dev, you can always fork this plugin to make it work. If you want to share your forked version with other users for bbPress then you put your fork on the WordPress plugin repository.

I’m just not entirely sure if it’s more time and effort to write the above than it is to manually delete spam messages and users. So, I was wondering if someone else may already have found a solution.

You can bulk delete spam posts in the WordPress backend to make things go faster. There is also a plugin to autodelete spam replies on wordpress.org.

[@vilimaunula Participant 9 years, 4 months ago]

You can bulk delete spam posts in the WordPress backend to make things go faster. There is also a plugin to autodelete spam replies on wordpress.org.

Unless I’m missing something, since the problem in my case is that some spam posts get through (don’t get marked as spam), a plugin that automatically deletes spam posts wouldn’t really help here.

To reiterate: the problem I’m trying to solve is manual spammers who register on the website and post on the forums. The most straightforward way to combat this would seem to be to moderate all messages by new users, which is a built in function of WordPress but not bbPress. The bbPress Moderation plugin in theory offers that functionality but doesn’t seem to work for me and also doesn’t appear to be maintained any longer.

[@robkk Moderator 9 years, 4 months ago]

@vilimaunula

I’m just not entirely sure if it’s more time and effort to write the above than it is to manually delete spam messages

I was basically saying you do not need to manually delete every spam post, but you can bulk delete and auto delete spam posts. With Akismet installed it marks registered users posts that may be from spammers as spam, using the comment blacklist (bbPress uses this too) will put posts as pending as review. So that may help keep spam to a minimum.

I tested bbPress moderation, and it seems to work fine when I tested it.

I tried guest posting, registred member posting, and it seems to put the posts into moderation as pending.

You set up bbPress moderation in settings > bbPress moderation in the WordPress backend. I had everything enabled just so I can test anonymous posting too.

I received emails immediately for any posts pending moderation. I had checked that the respective posts were shown in the WordPress backend in the posts section (Either Topics or Replies in All Topics or All Replies), and when you see the pending action link all the posts in moderation should be there. To approve a reply the plugin author lists it here https://wordpress.org/plugins/bbpressmoderation/faq/.

If you are 100% percent sure that it does not work, try some troubleshooting to find any possible plugin conflicts. I had a simple test site with bbPress and bbPress moderation only, and it worked fine.

Troubleshooting

Also know that some of the bbPress moderation functionality is set for core, and might be in the plugin next big release, but like I said before the plugin works fine for now, but there could be a possible plugin conflict with another plugin.

[@vilimaunula Participant 9 years, 4 months ago]

Thanks for your time and effort in trying to help me Robkk, but I am aware of the above. Perhaps I should have mentioned that I have been using and developing with WordPress since around 2005 and my history with bbPress goes back to when it was first publicly released as the 0.x versions. So, I do know my way around the systems and have an understanding of how things work in general and what to do if they don’t. Still, I do appreciate your time.

I also don’t doubt that bbPress Moderation works for most installations. It doesn’t for me (every post gets moderated, even after approving a user’s post), which may be due to my theme but could also be because of a plugin conflict, as you mention. The question then becomes whether I start troubleshooting my installation for a plugin that doesn’t appear to be supported any longer and based on its support forum seems to have some kinks, or if I should try an alternative approach in case someone has found a better solution to the problem. Considering that this thread has been here for almost a week now, I am starting to think that no alternative solutions are going to come up, which then leaves me to either try to get bbPress Moderation to work as you suggest, or write something myself.

A third option could be to wait for the maker of the bbPress Notify (No-Spam) plugin to come up with something, as his future plans with the bbPress Moderation Plugin Add-On appear to be to turn it into a successor for bbPress Moderation. But that one’s not here yet (if it ever will), and it of course also comes with a recurring subscription fee.

Or I could wait for this feature to end up in core bbPress itself, as you mentioned.

Well, at least I have options. 🙂

[@robkk Moderator 9 years, 4 months ago]

Thanks for your time and effort in trying to help me Robkk, but I am aware of the above.

I am just making sure.

I also don’t doubt that bbPress Moderation works for most installations.

Tell me how you are set up.

Do you have anonymous posting enabled? Because after more testing Do not Moderate A topic or reply by a previously approved author does not work for anonymous posting, it still works well for registered members posting though.

I am starting to think that no alternative solutions are going to come up, which then leaves me to either try to get bbPress Moderation to work as you suggest, or write something myself.

A third option could be to wait for the maker of the bbPress Notify (No-Spam) plugin to come up with something, as his future plans with the bbPress Moderation Plugin Add-On appear to be to turn it into a successor for bbPress Moderation.

Yeah, you don’t have to use the bbPress moderation plugin. You can always fork it, or use any available alternatives, free or paid.

[@vilimaunula Participant 9 years, 4 months ago]

I have anonymous posting disabled. The setup, as described in my first post (the bbPress setup tries to mirror the WordPress setup as closely as possible):

At the WordPress side, things work flawlessly spam-free with anonymous comments disabled, a custom question in the registration form (stops most spam bots), a mandatory e-mail confirmation for new subscribers, auto-moderation of the first comment (stops manual spammers) and Akismet (which doesn’t really have anything to do at the end). On the bbPress side, I’m only missing the moderation of a user’s first comment, which is letting through some spam.

Anyway, I don’t really want to turn this into a troubleshooting exercise for the bbPress Moderation plugin as that’ll just needlessly eat up your time. 🙂 I can give the plugin another go later if I decide to go down that route. But thanks again!