[Organizers] Re: Facebook join requests

Hi Bob, and all I maintain a few Facebook groups and it's something I deal with frequently. As Emily and Alan suggested, I would set up your group so that people have to answer three questions before they are approved. It's definitely more of a captcha-type, prove-you're-not-a-bot exercise, but it's good. If they don't answer the questions, I usually don't let them in. Even when folks do answer the questions, I'll still check their profile to make sure they have a certain number of friends (mutual friends are even better), and a good number of "real" posts with comments on them, to see if they're real people (so not just cover photo and profile photo). Even then I'm a little suspicious if it's not someone local. It's so frustrating that we have to be so diligent about this stuff, but we have to be careful. Even people who are "legitimate," "real" people can be problematic sometimes (I had that issue with one of my groups recently). In terms of having friends, I don't agree that more than 1,000 means they're selling something. I have more than 1,000 friends because i've lived in different places and do different kinds of activities (ie: dancing, writing, cruising etc). Having lots of friends doesn't necessarily mean they'll bombard your group with junk. When you go to your Facebook group, look under the ...More dropdown and go to Edit Settings. There should be an option to add questions there. Good luck! Renée Camus