Notifications
Social networks are often the target of aggressive spam tactics. This most often comes in the form of fake user accounts and spam in comments or blogs.
To get to the “Spam and Banning Tools” page, in your Admin panel navigate to Settings > Spam and Banning Tools. On this page, you can manage various anti-spam, ban, and censorship features.
To ban members by their IP address, enter their address into the field. Addresses should be separated by commas (example: 123.45.67.8, 23.45.67.*, 192.168.1.1 - 192.168.1.55). This helps to prevent abusive members from remaking new accounts from the same IP address.
To ban members by their email address, enter their address into the field. Addresses should be separated by commas (example: email@domain.com, email2@domain.com). You may use an asterisk
as a wildcard character (example: *@aol.com).
To limit signups by profile address, enter the addresses into the field below. Addresses should be separated by commas (example: SiteAdmin, Postmaster). You may use an asteriskas a wildcard character (example: *Admin, *Postmaster, Admin*).
Enter any words that you want to censor on your members' profiles as well as any plugins you have installed. These will be replaced with asterisks, and will only affect new content. Separate words by commas (example: word1, word2). Remember that administrators and moderators can always directly delete any offensive content that is not censored.
You can enable anti-spamming technique in signup form for email field.
You can enable anti-spamming technique in login form for email field.
Require new users to enter validation code when signing up?
This setting enables the validation code (Captcha) to show for users joining the site.
Require users to enter validation code when inviting others?
This setting enabled the validation code when inviting users.
Require users to enter validation code when signing in?
You can enable this to require users to enter a captcha code when signing in. Be aware that this setting can be frustrating to users as they have already joined the site.
Require users to enter validation code when using the contact form?
You can enable this to require users to enter a captcha code when using the contact form.
Require users to enter validation code when commenting?
Block Account on Unsuccessful Login Attempts
As added security, you can enable the setting to block users from logging in after a set amount of unsuccessful attempts. Once enabled, you would set the number of attempts allowed before being blocked and the duration, in seconds, of the block.
If you select "YES," members will receive a code at their registered mail and have to enter that code for verification. If you select "NO," then users can directly delete their account.
ReCaptcha is a similar method for validating that a member is human. To use reCAPTCHA you will have to create an account at https://www.google.com/recaptcha , or log in if you have an account, https://www.google.com/recaptcha/admin#list and input your domain. Choose the reCAPTCHA v2 or V3.
Copy your Public and Private Keys and paste them in your SocialEngine Admin panel input boxes. 
You can choose to allow HTML in comments. By default, members may not enter any HTML tags in comments. If you want to allow specific tags, you can enter them below (separated by commas). Example: b, img, a, embed, font. We recommend that you only allow this for trusted member levels as HTML can be used for nefarious purposes.
Note: there is still a pre-programmed list in the source code that limits the allowed HTML tags in an entry. If you would like to see the list of forbidden tags, please refer to the /application/libraries/Engine/Filter/Html.php file. These tags were forbidden to prevent the corruption of the site's styling, however, if you would like to take any of the tags off the list, you are more than welcome to at your own risk.
Please remember to click “Save Changes” to save your settings.
Note: To turn on the two-step authentication feature (a popular anti-spam tool), see the Settings > Signup Process page.
You can view who logged into your site, at what time, and other information in the “Login History.” To access the “Login History” page, click on the “Login History” tab.
In this tab, the “Login History” for the website is displayed by “Member Name,” “Email Address,” “IP Address,” “State,” “Source,” and “Timestamp,” You have the option to clear the history as well.
State - whether the login was a success, bad password, disabled, or no member (member tried to login with incorrect email address that does not exist in the database).
Source - whether the member logged in through Twitter, Facebook, etc. Just a dash (-) means the member logged in normally by using an email address and password.
If you wanted to go back to a clean slate and start keeping track of sign-ins from now on, you can click on the "Clear History" button in order to erase all the of the logged sign-ins.
Great work with Spam and Ban settings! Please feel free to contact us if you have any questions or need further tutorials. Visit our community to have more interactions with us and other clients or third party developers. We’d love to see you there!
