This must work:
Dashboard > wpForo > Settings > Spam Protection > Posts must be manually approved

Please check it again, then go to Dashboard > wpForo > Overview admin page, find the button and click it. If this option doesn't work then your forum is crashed. This is the only option which will work for all non-moderator and non-admin users.

When you check it, make sure you're logged in with and account which has Registered or other non-admin non-mederator usergroup.

It is checking the user's usergroup and looking for can( 'em' ) or can( 'aup' ) and setting the item status accordingly.  Seems like status set to 1 forces moderation.

In the database this particular usergroup has the following json stored...

a:37:{s:2:"mf";i:0;s:2:"ms";i:0;s:2:"mt";i:0;s:2:"vm";i:0;s:3:"aum";i:0;s:3:"vmg";i:0;s:2:"mp";i:0;s:3:"mth";i:0;s:2:"em";i:1;s:2:"bm";i:0;s:2:"dm";i:0;s:3:"aup";i:0;s:9:"view_stat";i:1;s:4:"vmem";i:1;s:4:"vprf";i:1;s:4:"vpra";i:1;s:4:"vprs";i:0;s:3:"upc";i:1;s:3:"upa";i:1;s:3:"ups";i:1;s:2:"va";i:1;s:3:"vmu";i:0;s:3:"vmm";i:0;s:3:"vmt";i:1;s:4:"vmct";i:1;s:3:"vmr";i:1;s:3:"vmw";i:1;s:4:"vmsn";i:1;s:4:"vmrd";i:1;s:3:"vml";i:1;s:3:"vmo";i:1;s:3:"vms";i:1;s:4:"vmam";i:1;s:4:"vwpm";i:1;s:3:"caa";i:1;s:12:"vt_add_topic";i:1;i:0;s:0:"";}

You can see the value of em is 1 and in auto_moderate finds the value of 1 for em and sets the status to 0 thus allowing immediate publication.

This is my basic understanding but I'd be happy for you to clarify if I have it wrong.

Is this correct?  What setting causes the system to store em to 1 in the database?  What does em stand for and what does aup stand for?

If I want to force all posts and replies to be queued for moderation I was thinking of overriding this function in our child theme and returning status = 1 always.  Does that sound like sound logic?  Since I do not see any hooks here, would overriding the function in our child theme be problematic with WPForo plugin updates?

I would greatly appreciate it if you can answer my questions.

Thank you.

I just created the second post for my test user and the post was published immediately and nothing is in the moderation queue.

Please let me know if you have any other suggestions/ideas.

Thank you.

Please navigate to Dashboard > Forums > Usergroups admin page.

Edit all Usergroups one by one and make sure the “Can pass moderation” permission is not enabled.

I am looking to force all posts to be held for moderation.  I do not want any threshold to be met which allows for posts to be published immediately.

Please advise if this is possible.  It seems I have configured the plugin as you and the documentation has suggested but still no posts are held for moderation.

Thank you.

Logically, there are only 5 posts that need to be manually approved.

User is New (under hard spam control) during first posts



what value are you using

5
10
100
1000
10000
or
0

Do you know if moderation rules are ignored when the user has an account and is logged in?

Dashboard > wpForo > Settings > Spam Protection > Posts must be manually approved