README

A Flarum extension. Effective tools to manage spammers on your community

Features

Content Filtering (New!)

Automatically detect and prevent spam content from new users before it becomes visible:

Automatic Detection: Monitors posts and discussions from recently registered users for common spam indicators
- Phone numbers in international format
- Email addresses
- Suspicious URLs not on your allowlist
- Custom blocked words and phrases
- Advanced regex pattern matching
Smart User Targeting: Only monitors users within their first few posts or hours after registration
Flexible Actions:
- Automatically flag suspicious content for moderator review (requires flarum/flags)
- Send suspicious content to approval queue (requires flarum/approval)
- Configurable spam score thresholds (0-100)
Custom Flag Type: Uses a dedicated spam flag type with prominent score display to distinguish automatic detections from user reports
Configurable via Admin UI or Code: Full configuration through admin panel, or use extend.php for advanced customization

User Management

Set default actions to be processed when a user is marked as a "spammer"
Select either "delete" or "suspend" for users
Select "delete", "hide" or "move to tag" for spam discussions
Select either "delete" or "hide" for spam replies

StopForumSpam Integration

Option to submit spammer details to the StopForumSpam database
Check new registrations against the StopForumSpam database to block spammers before they can register on your forum
Supports OAuth registrations (fof/oauth, fof/passport)
Configurable confidence and frequency thresholds
Regional endpoint selection for compliance

Configuration

Basic Setup (Admin UI)

All settings can be configured through the admin panel:

Navigate to Extensions → FoF Anti Spam → Settings
Enable content filtering
Configure user targeting (post count, account age)
Enable detectors (phones, emails, URLs)
Set spam score thresholds
Configure automatic actions (flag/unapprove)
Add allowed domains and blocked words

Advanced Configuration (extend.php)

For programmatic configuration or version-controlled settings, you can configure the extension in your forum's extend.php:

use FoF\AntiSpam\Extend\ContentFilter;
use FoF\AntiSpam\ContentFilter\Detectors\PhoneDetector;

return [
    // ... your other extenders ...

    // Configure content filtering
    (new ContentFilter())
        // Enable/disable content filtering
        ->enabled(true)

        // User targeting: monitor users within first N posts
        ->monitorUsersUpToPostCount(5)

        // User targeting: monitor users within first N hours
        ->monitorUsersUpToHoursOld(24)

        // Domain allowlist
        ->allowDomain('youtube.com')
        ->allowDomain('github.com')
        ->allowDomains(['stackoverflow.com', 'wikipedia.org'])

        // Custom domain validation
        ->allowDomainCallback(function ($uri, $user) {
            return str_ends_with($uri->getHost(), '.mycompany.com');
        })

        // Block specific patterns (regex)
        ->blockPattern('/\b(viagra|cialis)\b/i', 'Pharmaceutical spam')
        ->blockPattern('/\bcrypto\s*currency\b/i', 'Cryptocurrency spam')

        // Enable/disable detectors
        ->blockPhoneNumbers(true)
        ->blockEmailAddresses(true)
        ->blockUrls(true)

        // Spam score thresholds (0-100)
        // Each detector awards 50 points per match
        // Default: 50 for both (single detection triggers actions)
        ->spamScoreThreshold(50)  // Auto-unapprove threshold
        ->flagScoreThreshold(50)   // Auto-flag threshold

        // Enable automatic actions
        ->enableAutoUnapprove(true)  // Requires flarum/approval
        ->enableAutoFlag(true)        // Requires flarum/flags

        // System user for automatic flags
        ->assignFlagsToModerator(1)  // User ID (defaults to 1)

        // Disable specific detectors if needed
        ->disableDetector(PhoneDetector::class),
];

Configuration set via extend.php will override admin UI settings and be displayed as read-only in the admin panel.

How Content Filtering Works

Spam Score System

The content filtering system uses a point-based spam scoring mechanism:

Each detector awards 50 points per match (capped at 80-100 points per detector)
Multiple detections stack up to create a cumulative score
Default thresholds are set to 50 points (meaning a single detection triggers actions)

Example: A post containing both a phone number and an email address would score 100 points, triggering both flagging and unapproval (if enabled).

Custom Flag Type

This extension uses a custom spam flag type for automatic detections:

Spam score is stored in the flag's reason field
Detection details are stored in the reason_detail field
Display format: "Automatic Spam Detection - score {score}"
Provides clear visual distinction from user-reported flags

Detection Methods

Phone Number Detector

Matches international phone numbers with + or 00 prefix
Requires at least 9 digits
Examples: +1234567890, 00 123 456 7890

Email Detector

Matches standard email addresses
Example: spam@example.com

URL Detector

Matches HTTP/HTTPS URLs
Checks against allowlist (your forum domain is auto-allowlisted)
Example: http://suspicious-site.com

Pattern Detector (Blocked Words)

Case-insensitive matching
Whole word boundary matching (e.g., "viagra" matches "viagra" but not "niagara")
Supports multi-word phrases (e.g., "crypto pump")
Advanced: Custom regex patterns via extend.php

Requirements

Flarum 2.0+
PHP 8.2+

More integrations

Future integrations with extensions such as:

fof/user-bio
fof/upload

and more, are planned soon.

Installation

Install with composer:

composer require fof/anti-spam:"*"

Updating

composer update fof/anti-spam
php flarum migrate
php flarum cache:clear

Links

An extension by FriendsOfFlarum.

fof / anti-spam

Maintainers

Details