MyBB Community Forums

Please forgive my ignorance but installing plug ins has me baffled as there seem to be conflicting instructions on how to do it.
(I've just installed Mybb 1.6)
My first try is with Mybb Stop Forum Spam:

Readme says: "If you do not have StopForumSpam installed, simply upload the plugin to your forum root (ensuring the folder structure is followed) and install via your ACP plugin manager."

I uploaded the whole folder via FTP to the root of my public_html folder which is where MyBB is located. The folder (as downloaded from MyBB is named 1865-13518-11245-Mybb-Stop-Forum-Spam)

Other instructions I've seen say that plugins should go into the inc/ folder.

I would be most grateful for any assistance

You need to first extract the plugin, then upload the files.

I have unzipped the package and uploaded the contents.
Does this mean that I don't upload the unzipped folder, but only the files inside it?
There are inc and language folder to - do the contents go into the existing inc and language folders, or..?
I wish there was a clear simple explanation for newbies to MyBB.
I'm used to using WP plugins which work differently.
Thanks for any help

Yes, exactly as you described It's slightly more confusing than WP, but you should get used to it fairly quickly.

For future reference of anyone not familiar with MyBB plug ins I would do this for the Mybb Stop Forum Spam plugin :
1. Ignore the installation instructions given with Mybb Stop Forum Spam
2. Open the plugin directory on your computer at the 'inc' level.
3. Open the languages directory, and then the 'english' directory to show the language file.
4. Find the same directories on your server, and upload the stopforumspam.php file into the English directory of the Language directory.
5. On your computer navigate to the 'plugins' folder of the plugin and open it to show the two php files.
6. On your server navigate to the inc/plugins folder and open it.
7. Upload the two files into that folder.
8. Go to your Admin CP and click on "install and activate".

I wonder why its so hard to have such instructions in the readme document instead of "upload to your root" which tells you nothing.

Most plugins are in folders like:

Upload/
*pluginname*/

And within those folders, will be inc/, and maybe another folder or two, depending on the type of plugin. Just upload those through FTP, they'll merge the folders together and everything will be placed in the right directory.

Once they're uploaded, navigated to your Admin CP > Configuration > Plugins, and activate it. If the plugin is incompatible, edit the plugin in the inc/plugins folder and make the compatibility "*", it's not a smart idea with some plugins but most you can do that and not notice a difference.