Overview

Aurora Communities include automatic spam detection and spam-management tooling that runs in the background to test new messages for spam and improve filtering over time.^[1]

During a targeted spam wave, you may see a sudden increase in spam registrations/posts and increased manual workload for moderators. This article focuses on customer-actionable controls you can use immediately, plus what to collect if you need Support assistance.

Solution

1) Confirm spam management is enabled^[2]

• As an Admin, open the Account menu and go to Settings > Features > Moderation.
• Toggle Spam management on.
• If you need to enable/disable spam management for a specific category/group/board, go to Settings > Community Structure, select the place, and toggle Spam management in its Moderation section.

2) Use the Spam management tab to review and process spam efficiently^[3]

• As an Admin or Moderator, open the Account menu and go to Manage > Spam.^[4]
• The Spam management view lists spam items and includes a Moderator column (who reported the spam).^[3]
• Spam items are removed from the Spam management view after 30 days (you can still find them by searching).^[3]

3) Make sure moderators explicitly reject true spam as Spam (and recover mistakes)^[5]

• Rejecting content as spam adds information to the automated spam rejection filter logs and helps the Khoros spam filter learn what you deem inappropriate.^[5]
• To reject a specific post as spam: open the post’s Options menu, choose Reject, select Spam, then confirm.^[5]
• If a post was mistakenly marked as spam, recover it by using Mark as Not Spam (either from the post itself or from the Spam management tab).^[6]

4) Quantify what the system is catching vs. what moderators are catching^[7]

• Open the Account menu and go to Manage > Moderation.^[7]
• Open Filters and set: Moderation Status = Rejected, Found In = Posts and Replies, and Reject Reason = Spam.^[7]
• For each rejected post, you can see who rejected it (a moderator or the system).^[7]
• Use this view alongside Manage > Spam to estimate volume/rate and see whether the system is rejecting a meaningful portion automatically.

5) Temporary operational mitigation: use Required moderation where appropriate^[8]

• Required moderation sends content to moderation before it’s made public and is described as the best way to combat spam and abusive content (with the tradeoff of additional moderation workload and potential delays).^[8]
• To set defaults at the community level: Account > Settings > Features > Moderation and edit the relevant Moderation Types settings.^[8]
• To override at the category/group/board level: Account > Settings > Community Structure, select the place, then in its Moderation section set the content moderation types for content review.^[8]

6) Optional: verify trusted roles aren’t bypassing spam detection unintentionally^[9]

• If you grant a role the Bypass automatic spam rejection permission, members with that role can publish content without being scanned by the spam detection engine.^[9]
• To review/update this permission: Settings > Users > Roles and Permissions > Moderation.^[9]

If you still need help from Support

If spam volume remains unmanageable after the steps above, open a Support case and provide:

• Your instance URL and the affected time window (start/end in UTC).
• Approximate rate (items/minute) and the total volume during the window.
• 5–10 examples of spam posts that were not automatically rejected (include direct links/IDs).
• Confirmation of whether Spam management is enabled, and whether you enabled Required moderation (and where).
• Screenshots from Manage > Spam and Manage > Moderation with the filters shown.

<supportagent>

Agent note (public article): if Support needs to investigate spam-filter effectiveness, ask for a short, well-bounded window (for example, the last 1–4 hours) plus examples of missed spam links/IDs, and confirm moderators are using Reject > Spam (not just moving/locking/hiding) so the automated spam rejection filter logs receive the appropriate signal.^[5]

</supportagent>

References

1. About Aurora Communities spam management
2. Aurora: Enable spam management
3. Aurora: Managing spam in your community
4. Aurora: Review posts captured as spam
5. Aurora: Reject individual posts or replies as spam
6. Aurora: Recover a post mistakenly marked as spam
7. Aurora: Review rejected posts or private messages
8. Aurora: Enable content moderation and set content moderation defaults
9. Aurora: Bypass automatic spam rejection