I'm sure that with the appropriate plug-ins, all of the scripts mentioned above can indeed be effective when it comes to putting a stop to SPAM.
Correct - all software's have great spam filters. phpBB has a nice one, MyBB has a great one and SMF, not sure; but I am sure, as Chris said:
SMF has a few edges over MyBB and phpBB. One, its StopForumSpam integration mod actually integrates into the administration panel - MyBB and phpBB have no such handiness. It lets you review and handle borderline cases individually. Two, SMF has built in user and IP tracking. MyBB has this to a lesser extent, but you can't go to a user's profile and see who might be a dupe at the click of a button. More so, SMF allows wildcard searching for IPs which MyBB does not. SMF's administration control for thousands of users is far, far superior. MyBB does not even begin to compare, though this is primarily a UI issue. phpBB is a little better, but not much more so.
Don't get me wrong, I think MyBB has a lot of potential, but I don't think the developers realized how annoying checking a hundred unactivated accounts for potential reasons one at a time would be. SMF makes this -very- easy, I comb through about five hundred users each month, takes me an hour. The unified user control is also very nice. Edit: Five hundred new users. The grand total is about a thousand because I try to keep people from falling through cracks.
Doesn't Askimet trigger on post rather than registration? Horribly inefficient, in my opinion. I also see it blocking a lot of legitimate posts. SMF tracks the ips of all members pming or posting within a certain timeframe. So if someone tries to create a dupe or thousands of accounts on a small swarm of IPs, it is far more obvious in SMF than it is in MyBB, to say nothing of how easy filtering them is in SMF.
phpBB? Good looking?! Please let me put you up to a debate, please! Also, Vekseid, you're correct. Askimet is a post spam filtering service; after too many edits, it will automatically ban the user.
It's good to see that we have some phpBB users here now. Gaz, what are your thoughts on the style differences between phpBB2 and phpBB3?
Setsou's askimet banned me for posting a tutorial containing a lot of outbound images. Now isn't that fun? Hahahahahaha. Define "easy to use"? Let me take quick reply, a standard on a lot of other forums as an example. To install a quick reply on a phpBB forum, you need to edit 3 base files at the least. >.< The base is clunky at best (no ajax makes me sad panda), with a poorly designed ACP. What do you people like about it?
Yeah. Go go automatic kismet, banning good people since its invention. SFS integration all the way. It's just insanely popular, everyone uses it and there are literally thousands of absolutely beautiful themes for it. MyBB is almost unknown and theming SMF is not an easy task for most people. I'm a function > form person, so SMF is great for me, but still...
Is that so? Go ahead and look at these phpBB skins and you can tell me that phpBB is not good looking. Phpbb3 Styles - RocketTheme Phpbb3 Styles Club Demo Site