TDBF

One of the ways I handle spam posts is to set the first post to moderate.
Go to your ACP, then Member groups, click on members and then the Content tab. Set 'Remove content moderation' to 1 and 'Approve items of content (posts, comments, etc)'.
While it may be a bit more work, at least this keeps the spammers posts off your forum, and you can just hit the spammers icon to get rid of them at your leisure.
I have been using this method for about 4 years and I get virtually no spam on my forum.

Why not do a license check for testinstall.  If running under that license type disable all functionality you wouldn't want running under that kind of environment. 

Marc, I have been asking for you guys to change this for years now, I have suggested that when on a localhost these options should be disabled by default.
Sometimes when you copy a live site over to a localhost environment, you can forget to turn these options off. The last time, this caused me a lot of issues, with a few members accusing me of trying to rip them off because of the double payments.
 

It's like that everywhere: https://invisioncommunity.com/forums/topic/472995-polls-not-working-correctly-random/
You can replicate it in Yes/No fields.

I’m not judging in any way, just listing some observations about the developer/Marketplace situation in the recent years. 
4.5 tightened the rules drastically. Result: several developers left for good. price increases. Developments needs a self-hosted installation and possibly a demo website. It’s now 850 + 300 annually. Someone starting out as developer really needs some killer products to earn that back and then generate profits. Cloud testing of resources would make it even more expensive (+1,788 annually).  Shift/changes to cloud. The lower tiers don’t have the ability to install third-party products. This decreases the reach and makes running independent third-party shops less useful/profitable.  Signatures turned off. No possibility for passive advertisement through community posts.  Limited compatibility field. Sales can only be created for one version, limiting the income.  I have no magical solutions to offer, but are improvements for this something we could put on the table for 2023?
Currently, I am not very optimistic. We only have a handful of active developers left with continued announcements of departures. If it is still working well for some (?), it’s probably because of a large set of files and existing customers with renewals. But I can’t see how new developers would want to get involved in the current situation, replacing the ones who left or even growing the marketplace. 
I understand the costs and downsides for IPS. Paying for code reviews, chargeback fees and of course all the support issues with third-party resources. But then again: Looking at the broader field of online software: all the big players strive with and in part because of a flourishing third-party marketplace. So, improvement could easily be a “win-win-win” situation for IPS, developers and IPS customers. 
 
(I would have some suggestions myself but I don’t want to push the topic in a specific direction, so I am leaving it at the problem statement for now.)

Couldn’t agree more.
I'm evaluating whether it's worth keeping development when IPS5 is released. I'm probably one of the top earners due to the insane number of resources available but It's not worth it anymore. So much hassle for so little return. It definitely used to be better. In my specific case, while I have a lot to deal with/support, it's not a lack of support or new stuff. It is just what the marketplace became… and that’s it.

This makes me sad.  I remember visiting the Marketplace to see the new and exciting offerings.  Now those are rare.
I use several mods to make my site what I want.  Regardless of the "community" direction IPS is taking for its high-paying corporate customers, I still use the software almost exclusively as a forum.

Marc, I have been asking for you guys to change this for years now, I have suggested that when on a localhost these options should be disabled by default.
Sometimes when you copy a live site over to a localhost environment, you can forget to turn these options off. The last time, this caused me a lot of issues, with a few members accusing me of trying to rip them off because of the double payments.
 

Use API to get topics and display in php? 
https://invisioncommunity.com/developers/rest-api?endpoint=forums/topics/GETindex

Oops 😛
Well, the problem is fixed, my bad.
I uploaded again the template I had a problem with and enabled the designer mode again I tried "Advanced: Sync from file system" and it seems to work now. 
Why didn't I think of this before? 😞
Anyway, thank you everybody for your time and help 😛

Just an update. I will be discontinuing any further development of this plugin in the future.
I have, however, totally rewritten this plugin from the ground up as an application instead. Not only that, but I have removed some features as they are no longer required due to being in the core now, and plan to add more features in the future.
The first release will be a beta version for testing purposes. if you would like to help out, let me know, and I will send you a copy to play with.

Just an update. I will be discontinuing any further development of this plugin in the future.
I have, however, totally rewritten this plugin from the ground up as an application instead. Not only that, but I have removed some features as they are no longer required due to being in the core now, and plan to add more features in the future.
The first release will be a beta version for testing purposes. if you would like to help out, let me know, and I will send you a copy to play with.

Just an update. I will be discontinuing any further development of this plugin in the future.
I have, however, totally rewritten this plugin from the ground up as an application instead. Not only that, but I have removed some features as they are no longer required due to being in the core now, and plan to add more features in the future.
The first release will be a beta version for testing purposes. if you would like to help out, let me know, and I will send you a copy to play with.

Just an update. I will be discontinuing any further development of this plugin in the future.
I have, however, totally rewritten this plugin from the ground up as an application instead. Not only that, but I have removed some features as they are no longer required due to being in the core now, and plan to add more features in the future.
The first release will be a beta version for testing purposes. if you would like to help out, let me know, and I will send you a copy to play with.

sorry Daniel, but this is NOT a third party issue. This is an engineering problem inside the framework. This was an issue reported/showed up almost 2 years ago and u guys did nothing to fix it or even comment on it, it was left up to me to debug it and come out with a solution. This is a good example of us using features of php (and of IPS) and since the framework is still mostly a pho 5.3 framework, it not playing nice with the modern versions. This is honestly the kind of nonsense of why I left.
These are not third party developer issues, don’t let IPS TELL U THEY ARE. these are issues caused by an engineering problem with in the framework as demonstrated by the topic Adriano linked too. They are eval’ing a non extended class to check for errors or something like that and that is where it throws the deprecate notice in 7.4 and the fatal in 8.0+. Put IPS’s feet to the fire, demand better from a software company that charges $300 a year for renewals for mediocre improvements and many years of outstanding bugs they ignore or refuse to fix.

I pointed this out just recently mate. 

Literally one reason I wouldn't look at Cloud... Cost.
It's far too expensive. I looked at moving to Cloud and worked out my yearly costs would be 400% what they are now, including the license fees for the IPS software.
I would love to move to Cloud for the simplicity, but it's far too expensive to be able to justify it.
 

this is one i would disagree on. the documentation states this:
so this tells me that my hook is being extended by the compiled theme class, which looks like this:

any developer worth their weight in salt, would come to the same conclusion that calling a parent in an overloaded method, should not be a problem. its a basic feature of OOP in php. so i would still argue that the problem is an engineering one inside the framework. 
this is why i get extremely frustrated with IPS. its a substantial investment on my part to be apart of the third party community (renewal fees + time), then to be told that a lot of the support issues IPS faces if from third party and frankly a lot of that is on IPS hands. you give us almost no tools, no real sdk (like example or boilerplate code), IDE plugins, cli generators, etc, that a lot of free frameworks will have available.  like most of the "incompatibilities" created by third party i've ever run into in IPS could be eradicated with with included developer tools like a  proxy class generator or a way for hooks to be understood by IDE's. 
sure i understand IPS isn't a multibillion company and doesn't have the resources to develop like a IDE plugin for its framework, but most of the other things i mentioned, i was able to create without any of that and i'm just one guy with a linux PC and a deskcat. 
any way, i'm not even suppose to be here today!

 

New version waiting for approval in the marketplace.

You can probably request to the dev to update it:
 

New version waiting for approval in the marketplace.

This is one of the major reasons we are having to migrate away from invision community after using them since the early 2000's.
We will not be renewing any licences for the foreseeable future.
The new plugin developer restrictions and rules are stopping developers offering new products like in the past.
The steep increase in renewal costs and lack of new apps and plugins are to name another two reasons.
This section used to be buzzing but it's like a graveyard now - Highest Rated Submitters
That in itself should tell a story.
Maybe one day if things could return to the good old days, we will return and renew a licence or two plus all of the plugins and app licences.
Hopefully invision community will have it's Ouroboros moment and have a rebirth, as it has been our number one choice for a CMS as said, since the early 2000s.

If it ever happens it'll be a cloud feature to rub everyones noses in it

I would specifically request that optimizations be made to the getItemsWithPermission() function
Seems like all things and kitchen sink at the moment. Perhaps there is opportunity for SQL optimizations here?
Queries relating to this function are currently the slowest on my site. they regularly show in my slow query log.

That would probably slow things down as you need to keep multiple DB connections open and less chance of using joins, etc.