I moderate a number of Theory of Constraints and Agile yahoo groups. It's one of those invisible little things I do that doesn't take up a lot of my time, but makes other peoples lives easier. I also get to see just a tiny little bit of the world that others don't.
For instance, this morning I received this request to join the CriticalChain yahoo group:
Hi,
I am MIT graduate,
I love to join to this group.
Thanks
I saw MIT and almost immediately clicked reply (which approves the request) because the request jelled with the sort of person I had in my mind who normally joins our group. But then I noticed that the message never mentioned anything about Goldratt or Project management. It could, in fact, be a generic message from a spammer - just a little cleverer than the usual "My name britney. I love you long time". Might be, might not be.
I sent an email to find out more details. I used to ask a question like "What does TOC stand for?" (hint, not as one spammer actually replied "Table of Contents?") but nowadays I usually ask "Why do you want to join the group? Sorry, but I have to ask to avoid spammers" and about a third of suspect requests turn out to be genuine.
I thought I'd share this because if you do request to join a new group then please add something that makes it easy for the moderator to recognise that you're not a spammer. I promise to love you long time if you do.
Yours, sincerely,
Britney.
