How can someone become a member without the moderator's approval? And how can I keep spammers from joining?

Question

How can someone become a member without the moderator's approval? And how can I keep spammers from joining?

Answer 1

Go to Group settings and change it to :

Membership approval needed.

Also you can make it 'private' if it is a group of known people only.

You can ban membership too.

Remove those from list.

Answer 2

if you have your group set up to approve membership- when invites are sent, that by-passes approval.

you never know who is going to be a spammer either until they post

Answer 3

Check your group settings.  If you have your membership type as Open (anyone can join), then members do not need moderator approval to join.  To change this, go into Management and under group settings, select membership.  Then click the edit next to membership type.  Select Restricted (you approve all requests for membership) and save changes.

Another option to limit spammers, but keep membership open, is to moderate new members.  That way, anyone can join, but you get to approve the messages before they are posted.  If the first message is spam, you can ban the member.  If not spam, you can change the member to unmoderated.