Admin Forum

Fresh forums attract self-promotion attempts. This is one major problem with new forums. What rules, filters, or onboarding steps helped you reduce spammy signups without scaring away genuine contributors? What worked for you early on before the community was big enough to self-police.

New members who join only to promote their own work can derail trust and quality. You can reduce this by setting clear rules, delaying link privileges, and encouraging genuine engagement first. Creating intro threads, spotlighting meaningful contributions, and guiding behavior with friendly reminders helps shape expectations.

This one was a big challenge to me when I first started. I had to set small rules like “no links until 5–10 posts.” That simple rule alone reduced the spam so significantly. Even with those rules in place, some people don’t even read rules, they just drop their links and disappear. So you must be ready to moderate your steadily.