Setting my group to non-public would just not be an option since we're out to be newbie friendly and inclusive. We've been lucky so far not to have a truly serious griefer.

http://forums.secondlife.com/showthread.php?p=1551641

• Group founders can check a box to turn group "join fees" into "deposits".
• Deposits are billed the same as group join fees when a person joins a group.
• When a person leaves a group, they get the deposit they paid (if any) back.
• When a person who paid a deposit is KICKED from the group, they do NOT get the deposit back.

Fundamentally, group join deposits could encourage people to behave better in group chat, and provide a way to provide lasting discouragement to spammers.

The only thing I'm not sure about is the priority of this issue. I run several large groups myself, and I just use a join fee of L$45 to keep out the spammers. It helps with funding project land, as well as keeping out spam.

So, I'm not really sure the whole deposit idea (or the ban from groups) idea is necessary right now. I figure Linden Lab probably has a ton of more important things to be doing.
That said, I do think that giving group owners the ability to ban certain people (either individually by name, or collectively by membership of other groups) from being able to join their groups, would be nice.

JZZ

My group Ravenglass Rentals, a large open rentals group, is probably joined by more people on the mainland than any other group, or at least is definitely in the top 10 or so.

And for this reason alone, and due to my controversial blog, this group is often joined by griefers, especially from conspiratorial griefer groups targetting me specifically.

Nevertheless, I oppose the banning of people from open groups. Why? Because making open groups, yet putting restrictive clauses in them is merely bolstering the authoritarian rule of SL by certain control-minded and security-minded individuals. It gives them the means to gather in huge numbers of followers – then control them needlessly, so they can't even talk, vote, etc.

If you want the ability to control people, have the group invite-only, charge a fee if it is open (to prevent day-trippers) that can even be returned later, and toggle permissions.

I don't like the idea of fantasizing about things that "don't scale" based on a few atypical groups like "Capture Roleplay," a simulated rape game.

Most people behave if you ask them and state what the rules are. It's in fact borne out by the fact that I have only 1-2 miscreants join my groups perhaps only once every 2-3 weeks, out of hundreds of people coming and going. In fact, all but a few miscreants get it when expelled, and don't attempt to return.

I solve this problem by creating tiers with powers, i.e. "everyone" and "resident" and "manager" etc. So anyone can join, but only after payment is received, etc. are powers to ban/terraform etc added.

People get far, far too upset over spam. Precisely if it is an open group, you can leave and come back to it if there is spam!

Under no circumstances should residents of SL be given the power to IP ban. This is far to vulnerable to abuse, and entirely defeats the purpose of a shared world in Second Life.

Some of these groups perform really important services to newbies, special interest groups, charities, etc. Others are a valuable tool for businesses that want to offer update notices to residents who ask for it.

But with the rising abuse of search and classifieds by spammers and grifters, open groups are often overlooked as victims of this recent snake-oil approach to business. No amount of "talking nicely" is going to get through to someone whose only concern is littering private land, search, classifieds and open groups with their unceasing attempt to peddle their shoddy wares in inappropriate venues.

As land owners we have the right to leave our lands open to the public and choose to ban specific individuals after they have misbehaved. Having the same abilities as owners/officers of our groups simply makes sense.

The poster who takes issue with this function can simply choose not to use it in their groups and not belong to groups that use it, simple as that.

Now, let's say someone fills it up with garbage.

Should we not allow the person running (and paying tier for) this sandbox to control that individual's right to build, all because "garbage" is subjective?

The fact is, it's way too useful to have the 99% of people who want to use the sandbox constructively be able to join without having to cajole or prove themselves to the owner. If your heart bleeds for the 1% who get stepped on, you can always find a different sandbox.

Prokofy, your argument doesnt totally make sense to me: The control freaks will find their members leaving, they'll go out of business and Prokofy you'll continue to have success =)

A group ban list would help reduce time spent on ARs.

Heres an example of a group with no land. An open-enrollment group allows all chat but does not allow advertising. In this case, removing chat ability from the EVERYONE role would ruin the purpose of the group. But a ban list would help prevent abuse from advertising spam and other types of "chat" that the group deems unacceptable in their group.

In the end the real people interested in the group leaves cos enters people speaking of other things or making spam.

In other side I am moderator in a public group of freebies, the nice thing of it is that everybody that joins is allowed to to make announcmente about freebies, was easy when we were 200, but now we are 1500 and often comes people and start to make annoucments of publicity or another things not related with freebies, the nice thing is that u cna kick them so many time sas u want, that they return and post again an announce about parcel rents, and we can't do nothing, we can't ban them neither delete their announces.

I really shouldn't have to make my group "closed" just to keep rare jerks like that away.

If you have an open enrollment group, and someone joins who is then kicked, they are no longer able to re-join without an invite from someone.

just an update that some of this has been delt with and i'm guessing database issues prevent any such changes in the near future without major group fixing.

Groups are the basis for many things here in Second Life and as such group owners (such as myself) should have powers to not only eject someone but ban then as well, if we can ban them from land, then group bans cannot be that difficult to implement.

With the lack of this feature many groups are no longer open groups, but you now have to IM the owner which places an undue burden upon them, especially in the case of large groups.

i had requests.. from some friends who like to have a ban-list in each groups. Because the groups open to all, are generally not controllable if it ejects the user, it can still re-enabled the group.

Thank for all

from what amount of voters, Linden opens an eye on this demand?

Thx

Today, a spammer hit up my group list, and many others. Through a series of networking among fellow store owners, after relaying the spammer's name among business owners, we could have immediately put their name on a ban list, to keep them from entering our groups, just as we put them on our land ban lists, to prevent them from setting foot on our land.

Please give priority to this one - thank you.

Yeah, not having a blacklist makes Open Enrollment unmanageable. I never noticed as I operate my group by invite only however I totally support this as invite only isn't feasible for every group.

On further thought having a blacklist would, in fact, benefit invite only as well. It's easy enough for a troublemaker to contact some unwitting staff to get back in. Blacklisting that person would be a catch-all as far as that account is concerned.