RSS and user spam

[simonjng]

Hi - two questions... I can't believe these haven't been covered before but a search showed nil results so here goes!

1. RSS - can anyone recommend a tool (nil or low cost) that will allow the board to auto-create RSS feeds on a per thread/per category/entire board basis?

2. Like everyone (no doubt) I'm already attracting a fair few Viagra/Credit/Porn pushers... while the on-board spam filters are catching 90% of the posts they try to make, I don't really want 7user with names like "Che@p Viagr@ 0nline" being able to join... but I also don't want to add hurdles to genuine users by moderating all users and posts. Can other users suggest the best tools and happy mediums to deal with them?

Many thanks for all responses!

Cheers
Simon
http://www.MyAyOkay.com

--------------- Added [DATE]1237280456[/DATE] at [TIME]1237280456[/TIME] ---------------

Have I posted in the wrong forum here? Apologies if so... perhaps it's more of a programming rather than general issue.

Simon

[TigerC10]

vBulletin already makes RSS for you.

AdminCP -> vBulletin Options -> External Data Provider -> Enable RSS Syndication


That allows vBulletin to create RSS feeds for your entire board, or for a particular thread, or even for user blogs if you have that addon.


As for your spam registration, sign up for reCaptcha and set your Human Verification Manager (underneath vBulletin options on the left side of the admincp) to recaptcha. This is the most tried and true method of preventing spam registrants.

[Lynne]

I sue these for spam and we don't get much at all (once a week?). The Is Bot catches/stops about 100 users a day for us.

Is Bot: Registration Time Check
One-touch Spam Ban and Cleanup

[simonjng]

Thanks to both of you for these!

I'm embarrassed that the RSS feed creation was already there and I couldn't find it. I really did search, but obviously not well...

I've managed ot get an entire board RSS feed up and now have to work out why Feedburner/Google keep insisting my feeds are over 512K when they are less than 60K!

I look forward to killing-off the spam pushers. BTW, the Typepad Spam Beta has done a very good job of diverting posts from these idiots into a Moderation queue, but more weaponry can only be better than less.

Thanks
Simon