Topic: Is BuddyPress for me?

Is BuddyPress for me?

@richrf

Participant

16 years, 5 months ago

Hi everyone,

I am the registered owner of the domain Links.com.

For some time, I have been looking for some good community software that I can run on it, but I have rejected everything I have come across, because of on-going maintenance issues, both with the software and the community comments.

Before, I consider the subject matter, I want to make sure that I will not have major headaches that will interrupt by rather quiet retirement. So I have two basic questions:

1) How good is BuddyPress right now at quashing spam comments and links. It is imperative, that I keep this to zero, just as I have on my WordPress blog that exists on my site at this time. Right now, on WP, I am using Akismet and WP-Spam, as well as moderation on any comment that contains a link.

2) Are there developers available that can enhance spam protection for me. I would like to include plugins that will eat any post that contains blacklisted words, compare any links in a post to the urls that appear in the Google Safe Browsing API database (I have working PHP code that does this for another app I developed), and also compare and reject any post that has links on the urlblacklist.com database or comparable (I also have working code for this).

If I can be comfortable that I will not have to go around with a fly swatter deleting nasty posts and comments, I think I can go ahead and look over the software further.

Thanks for the help.

Rich

Viewing 6 replies - 1 through 6 (of 6 total)

@suchaqd

Participant

16 years, 5 months ago

BuddyPress runs on WPMU, so you can run most WP plugins your BP installation including Akismet or whatever other spam plugin(s) you’re using — that would take care of the blogs. As far as spam coming from actual registered users, that could be another issue. I wouldn’t anticipate this becoming a big problem in the first place, because a BP user has to register (get an email) and then confirm (get another email) registration before getting started to spam anybody. By the time that *could* happen and BP user John Doe decides to spam link everybody on the Wire and elsewhere, you as the admin could just suspend/delete his account. I’d say go for it. I love this system the moment and wrote a lengthy comparison between BP and another system, Elgg, here… http://www.michaelkuhlmann.com/category/buddypress/elgg-vs-buddypress/

There’s also another social networking system out there for Joomla called Anahita, in case you’re interested. Hope this helps!

@richrf

Participant

16 years, 5 months ago

Hi Mike,

Thanks for the reply. I will check out your comparison.

I have quite a bit experience with Links.com using WordPress, and there is no question that spam is going to become a major problem unless I clamp down early on. The current plugins are inadequate for a social networking site on my domain. The last thing I want is to appear on some blacklist list. It has already happened once and it was a huge effort clearing thing up.

Thanks again for your response.

Rich

@suchaqd

Participant

16 years, 5 months ago

Your welcome Well, in that case… you might want to check out Ning for a complete hassle-free solution. I think all you have to do is point your domain to it and style it within Ning.com. You’re kinda stuck with the whole layout and functionality but this might be the answer to what you want to build. Here’s a good example of what you can do with it… http://www.urijahfaber.com/

@richrf

Participant

16 years, 5 months ago

Hi again Mike,

I checked into Ning quite some time ago. I was never comfortable with their spam protection or was I comfortable putting my data in the hands of some outside organization. By concerns turned out to be well founded.

“Clients of Ning are outraged [Link disabled by Ning] over a decision that Ning made public last week. The software maker sent out an email to all of its clients, those who have created a social network on Ning, stating that they would email all members of all websites who use the Ning software to promote the newly designed Ning.com.

http://www.chartingstocks.net/2009/03/ning-exposed-tech-company-ning-scams-its-clients/

â€œPlease do not send the email to my members. I pay you not to advertise on my site and I donâ€™t think you should target my members directly,â€ says one Ning network creator and paying customer. Ning charges network creators to keep all Ning promotional links off their site. Some members have been paying this fee for years and so are even more upset at the direct email marketing campaign. Why pay the fee?

To make matter worse, the new Ning.com combines all member data from all websites created using the Ning system. The owners of the websites have no option to opt out or remove their members. Thereâ€™s going to be a lot of explaining to do when members see their own picture, profile, and information on Ning.com, a website that most members have never even heard of.”

There are other white label sites, but they all basically have the same problem. I, the owner, am beholden to whoever is running the software for me. I have no control.

Rich

@kunal17

Participant

16 years, 4 months ago

I just recovered from a bad spam incident on my buddypress site. A user (who looked legit) suddenly started private messaging the whole community with obviously spam material resulting in some very angry members

I will go ahead and install Akismet and a captcha during registration H.owever, is it true that each user has to obtain their own key from wordpress.com and plug it into Akismet to get it to work? Is there an alternative that I can just activate for everyone? Or can I just provide all my members with my key to activate their akismet?

Also, what steps have other BP admin used to prevent the kind of spam that I mentioned above? I do not think Akismet & the captcha during registration would have helped in this situation.

Is there a plugin that flags users who message a lot of users in a short time? Something like that might help fight spammers.

Thanks.

@apeatling

Keymaster

16 years, 4 months ago

Kunal17: a plugin for this would be very handy.