Moderating Requests for New Members

[Mark Greenfield]

As our site has grown, we are seeing an increasing in inappropriate activity including new members joining with the sole purpose of soliciting their services and worse. Many Ning sites have enabled the mechanism to approve new members. I'm thinking this might be a good idea for this site that would hopefully limit this type of malicious activity.

I would like to get your thoughts before implementing this approach. I look forward to your feedback.

[Nancy Kroes]

I think you made the right decision Mark. Thank you!

[Cecilia Marra]

I also appreciate your willingness to put in the time and effort to keep this site a pleasant place to visit. As someone (like most of us here, I'm sure) who has had to administer these sorts of lists, it's often not a trivial effort. And you have to make decisions that won't please all the people all the time. Thank you, Mark, for you effort and commitment.

[Stuart Elliot]

as others have said I would say: Your time therefore your call :)

One thing I would say though re needing a .edu address, that is not the only indicator of a valid member - I work in the UK for a university and therefore my address is .ac.uk - please don't exclude us poor chaps and chappess' across the water :)

[Mark Greenfield]

I don't require a .edu mailing address for the reasons you stated.

We will be revisiting this issue in the near future. I continue to get numerous requests from people who are in no way affiliated with higher education web development. These membership requests are denied. Going forward, I want to create clear rules and standards for membership.