One tool that we use for Portland Intown Contra Dance's Facebook group is "Membership Questions" that pop up when someone requests membership in our group. Asking people to answer 3 questions and select that they agree with the group rules helps make the decision to approve someone or not. I recommend this tool to others.

Our questions are:

"Hi! Just want to make sure you're not a robot. Are you a robot?"

"Are you joining this group so you can post in here about an event you're organizing? Please do that in this group instead: Portland, Maine Friends of Old-Time Music & Dance."

"You know we're in Maine, right? If you're looking for contra dancers in Oregon, you're in the wrong place."

People often leave cute answers to these questions, so that's fun.

Dugan Murphy
(he/him)
Portland, Maine
dugan at duganmurphy dot com

Date: Sun, 31 May 2020 19:15:36 +0000 (UTC)
From: bobfab@aol.com
Subject: [Organizers] Facebook join requests
To: organizers@sharedweight.net

Hi organizers.

The Rochester NY Contra Dancers FB page is getting a few join requests per week from people in other countries, from accounts that have very recently been created and have only a very few, if any, friends or other groups joined.

We are leery of trolls who intend to disrupt the group, and have been rejecting them.

I was wondering if other group pages are receiving similar requests, and what they have done about it.

Thanks,

Bob Fabinski