SFFBC Is Temporarily Private

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

Hello all,

We would like you to know that we have made the decision to be a private group for the time being.

We do not like this. We do not like having barriers to meeting new people with an interest in SFF. However our tools against spammers are limited, and we've been getting hit quite regularly. To discourage this, we have changed our membership procedure.

Please know that this is not our preference, and that this will not be used in any sort of discriminatory or selective way. Ours is purposefully a large tent and we intend to keep expanding it. The sole intent is to make sure we are not allowing scammers to harass us.

We hope this will not be a permanent change, and that after being thwarted for some amount of time, the scam accounts will drop us from their scripts.

As always, we welcome any feedback, questions, or concerns. Please feel free to tell Goodreads/Amazon of the difficulty this is causing, as ultimately they are the ones with the tools to handle this more proactively.

Thank you for understanding and your patience over the past few months!

[DivaDiane]

I’m fine with this decision. People can still join, right? Or do people just not see the group at all?

[Anna]

They can still join, but the mods have to approve them.

[Gabi]

Totally understandable. The amount of spammers (and I'm sure I only saw a small part of it) was overwhelming. You must have spent quite a considerable part of your free time eliminating them. :(

[Sarah]

It isn't just this group either- I'm seeing them in other groups I belong to too. It's awful.

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

They can see that we're a group and what we're reading, but nothing else until they are approved as new members.

[Silvana]

Good decision, you have my full support.

[John]

Totally understand. I had to do the same with an amateur astronomy forum I ran -- got bombarded with dozens of spammers every week, finally had to make everything private and require a prospective new member to jump through a few hoops to prove he or she was really a "person of interest" to the group. Had to close the last public section of it (the Guest Book) a few months ago after getting a barrage of spam and porn links posted.

[Melanie, the neutral party]

There's a clubhouse reference in here somewhere if it wasn't so unfortunate. Yeah, more imaginary cookies for us???

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

Thanks all for your support!! John, so annoying! You have my empathy. It is such a waste of everyone's time and a hindrance to enjoying these nice communities.

LOL Melanie! I like your optimism!!

[Dawn F]

Do what you gotta do, Allison! I haven’t personally been bothered by spam but I know it’s different from an admin perspective.

[Tyler]

Too bad there isn't a way let folk read but not post if they aren't a member. I always find it beneficial to read a group's posts to see if I'd be a good fit.

[Anna]

Tyler wrote: "Too bad there isn't a way let folk read but not post if they aren't a member. I always find it beneficial to read a group's posts to see if I'd be a good fit."

Yes, this is why we're not happy about this, and didn't want to do this until we felt like we had to. GR doesn't give us better options, so we're working with what we've got.

[Michelle]

First email spam, then robocalls constantly bombarding us, and now our book clubs?! Nothing's sacred anymore! I agree about the privacy status.

[Rosina]

Michelle wrote: "First email spam, then robocalls constantly bombarding us, and now our book clubs?! Nothing's sacred anymore! I agree about the privacy status."

I am just glad to be able to post here, given how often My Internet Provider has phoned to tell me that my access would be terminated, because of suspicious use.

[CBRetriever]

those phone calls might actually be spam themselves. I remember getting one where the person said that the computer I was using at this moment was doing something suspicious and had a problem. I was riding in a car at the time and hadn't been near my computer for several hours.

[Rosina]

CBRetriever wrote: "those phone calls might actually be spam themselves. I remember getting one where the person said that the computer I was using at this moment was doing something suspicious and had a problem. I wa..."

Of course, it might have been an indicator that someone had broken into your home and was suspiciously using your computer!

I did ask the woman if she thought her mother would be proud of the use she made of the English she had learned at school. That was before they started using a recorded message.

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

Thank you all very much for your kind words and encouragement! I will be locking this thread shortly.

[Anna]

Anna wrote: "Unfortunately non-members can't see our discussions or our shelves."

I lied. They hid the options in a weird place, but I found them eventually, and now non-members *can* see our discussions and shelves, yay!

[Karin]

Thanks--this was a tough call, but I appreciate the efforts you're making to keep this group free from relentless spamming, etc. They don't go after small groups that I have seen, but this one is popular.

[Anna]

Yes, they go for the Popular Groups list, it's clear when you look at the spammer profiles. But it's been nice and quiet on the spammer front lately :)

edit: Closing comments again.

[Anna]

Hi all!

We're private for a little while again, while GR sorts out a nasty bug that's been giving us a hard time lately. Anyone can still join, but the mods will have to accept all requests, so please be patient while we try to remember to check them! :)

edit: We're public again for the time being, but if the bug isn't resolved, we might go back for a bit.