After thinking about this some more, I'm beginning to believe we're making this harder than necessary.

Rather than use the API to directly subscribe, you could use PHP to capture the email entry from the form and send a message from that address to the group's +subscribe address. Having done so, the person would then only have to check their email for the confirmation email from groups.io and reply to it.

The html/PHP below has been tested and it works. Be sure to change GROUPNAME to the name of your group in line 6, then paste it into your page. You will also have to enable PHP on the page, of course.

Hope this helps,
Bruce

<div>

<?php

//if "email" variable is filled out, send email

if (isset($_REQUEST['email']))? {

? ? $email = "From: " . $_REQUEST['email'];

? ? mail("[email protected]", "Subscribe", "Subscribe", $email);

? ? echo '<span style="text-align:center;font-weight:bold;"><p><br /><br />Your email address has been submitted.<br /><br /><h2>YOU ARE NOT DONE YET!</h2><br /><p>Check for a confirmation email from groups.io and reply to it.</p></span>';?

}? else? {

//if "email" variable is not filled out, display the form

?>

?

<div class="classictemplate template" style="display: block;">

<style type="text/css">

? #groupsio_embed_signup input {border:1px solid #999; -webkit-appearance:none;}

? #groupsio_embed_signup label {display:block; font-size:16px; padding-bottom:10px; font-weight:bold;}

? #groupsio_embed_signup .email {display:block; padding:8px 0; margin:0 4% 10px 0; text-indent:5px; width:58%; min-width:130px;}

? #groupsio_embed_signup {

? ? background:#fff; clear:left; font:14px Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;?

? }

? #groupsio_embed_signup .button {

? ? ? width:25%; margin:0 0 10px 0; min-width:90px;

? ? ? background-image: linear-gradient(to bottom,#337ab7 0,#265a88 100%);

? ? ? background-repeat: repeat-x;

? ? ? border-color: #245580;

? ? ? text-shadow: 0 -1px 0 rgba(0,0,0,.2);

? ? ? box-shadow: inset 0 1px 0 rgba(255,255,255,.15),0 1px 1px rgba(0,0,0,.075);

? ? ? padding: 5px 10px;

? ? ? font-size: 12px;

? ? ? line-height: 1.5;

? ? ? border-radius: 3px;

? ? ? color: #fff;

? ? ? background-color: #337ab7;

? ? ? display: inline-block;

? ? ? margin-bottom: 0;

? ? ? font-weight: 400;

? ? ? text-align: center;

? ? ? white-space: nowrap;

? ? ? vertical-align: middle;

? ? }

</style>

<div id="groupsio_embed_signup">

<form onkeypress="return event.keyCode != 13;" method="post">

? ? <div id="groupsio_embed_signup_scroll">

? ? ? <label for="email" id="templateformtitle">Subscribe to our group</label>

? ? ? <input type="email" value="" name="email" class="email" id="email" placeholder="email address" required="">

? ? <div style="position: absolute; left: -5000px;" aria-hidden="true"><input type="text" name="b_5862886679057115531" tabindex="-1" value=""></div>

? ? <div id="templatearchives"></div>

? ? <input type="submit" value="Subscribe" name="subscribe" id="groupsio-embedded-subscribe" class="button">

? </div>

</form>

</div>

</div>

?

<?php

? }

?>

?

</div>

---

Check out the groups.io Help Center?and?groups.io Owners Manual

Hi Donald

I have to say I have received replies to my pending subscription?

questions even more vague than that but turned out to be genuinely?

interested in the group, some people don't like answering questionnaires?

so keep it brief

Spammers tend not to reply to a pending subscription questionnaire at?

all or give a generic response, yours mentions amateur, I would not?

expect that from a spammer

If I had received that reply I might consider it is someone with an?

interest but not the best at communicating or using social media or?

English wasn't their first language

I might add them, or at least send them a message requesting more?

information, they would be moderated for their first message anyway and?

if that raised an eyebrow when received you could either unsub them or?

moderate for a longer period (I have it set as one post then unmoderate?

and that works well)

Your choice of course but just wondered if you were banning a legitimate?

subscriber

Nivard Ovington in Cornwall (UK)

On 23/11/2020 02:16, Donald Hellen wrote:

We had a spammer try to join some ham radio groups. He made a very

general comment that was so general that we knew his next post would

be spam, so I notified the group owners and they took swift action.

I had another suspicious person try to join one of my ham radio groups

today. I let him join but instantly put him on full moderation. His

comment when applying to join was this:

"I'm an amateur and find this group to be interesting to my needs.

Thanks,"

?

Scott -- Based on what you've sent us so far, the group is not moderated, but topics are getting moderate without your intervention. On that basis I can only guess that you've previously set up the group to moderate topics after some period of time.

Go to Admin>Settings, click open the Message Polices tab, and uncheck the box indicated in the screenshot below. Be sure to save your changes.

Any existing topics that have already become moderated due to this setting will have to be manually changed back using the instructions I previously sent you.

Hope this helps,
Bruce