Captcha-like security for group join to stop begging bots.
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Medea Destiny
Yet another day of begging bots hitting many groups and asking for 100L. It's deeply tedious for group moderators, and users are being scammed. For whatever reason this is a problem that has plagued SL for years without any sign of resolution.
A common solution has been to put a L$1 sign up fee for groups. This is less than ideal because it creates a barrier to users who have no money at that moment. Also it's no longer working, as I've seen a begging bot kicked out of such a group today.
We had a big discussion about solutions in the "Friends of Philip" group, and finding any solution that doesn't create problems of its own seems hard. However I'd like to suggest that when people join a group, they are presented with a challenge-response problem. The issues with Captcha itself are well documented, but some simple challenge that's easy for users and hard for bots (perhaps based on the "honeypot" method?) could dramatically help with this.
Maybe this should be a separate entry, but it would also be immensely helpful to have an alternative to group bans, allowing us to temporarily ban a user. Currently these bots get banned, vanish, and are still clogging up the group ban list. If we had temporary (say 1 month) bans as an option, they'd get cleared out of the group ban list.
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Warship Waifu
Just give me a checkbox for > 30 days to join group
Zia Underwood
AI can beat captcha now so it would just be annoying to humans.
kittensusie Landar
These people (almost always one day old) are a pain in the arse. I co-own three groups all of which are free to join, but after the recent spate of beggars hitting several groups I'm also a member of, I am seriously considering having a small joining fee for them. I will take that up with the other co-owners, as these groups have been free to join for years (15 years for one of them) so putting a joining fee on is no small matter. We do care about our members however and do not want them to be inflicted with scum like this.
BTW I recently 'bought' a L$100 note from MP (it's free) to send to these beggars. If they received dozens of these things from each group they spam on, maybe that would deter them? Make sure that the ones you send are no transfer, then they can't return them to you ;)
Kira Skydancer
It doesn't even have to be fancy. One webpage I go to asks a simple question, then has 4 radio buttons, one of course has the correct answer. Sometimes they're images "which one is a horse" type thing, but text might even fit in the current group join dialog.
Please, please don't do the bingo pictures thing. Some of us have trouble seeing the details and it makes those types difficult.
Cayenne Republic
This is an excellent idea
Spidey Linden
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Issue tracked. We have no estimate when it may be implemented. Please see future updates here.
DolCute Resident
Love to get my own sweet person back to here... miss DolCute Resident... help
DarkNess Bloodstone
PLEASE! The begging got old YEARS ago.
Beatrice Voxel
Something that might be useful for a lot of the "product support" groups is making the entry-level group "read only". Case in point: Mama Allpa. You can join the group if you know the URI, but the role given is not given the permissions to say anything. However, if you click the Group option in the HUD menu, it passes you a URI link with an elevated role, one that DOES allow chatting in the group.
I would think that with all of the 'Attach me to unpack' HUDS and texture HUDS packed with nearly everything, a simple "Join Support Group" button could be included, which again would elevate the user to a higher role than "everyone". Since it's unlikely that scammers will go around spending lindens on their bots to purchase items just to join a group (and manually clicking buttons) they'll be relegated to the cheap seats, where they can't post a thing to the group.
Kimberly Lemongrass
This is definitely a good idea.
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