Animal rescues lean on group chats to coordinate fosters, transport runs, vet appointments and adoption days. The work is urgent and emotional, which unfortunately makes rescue groups attractive to scammers who know that people want to help quickly.

This post outlines a moderation approach for rescue volunteers, foster networks and adoption event groups on Telegram.

Disclosure: this guide is from the team that develops 虾宝 (Xiabao), a Telegram anti-ad and anti-scam bot that is free for group owners.

Scams that show up in rescue chats

Fake adoption listings. Photos of puppies or kittens copied from real rescue pages, offered "free to a good home" with a transport or vaccination fee paid upfront. The animal never existed.

Donation impersonation. Accounts that copy a coordinator's name and photo and post an urgent appeal with a personal payment link.

Emergency vet-bill appeals from strangers. Heartbreaking stories from accounts with no connection to the rescue, asking members to send money directly.

Pet-product spam. Bulk ads for supplements, collars and "calming" products, usually with shortened links.

Rules that protect animals and volunteers

• Every adoptable animal is posted by a named coordinator and links to the rescue's own listing.
• Donations go only to the payment details in the pinned message. Any other link is treated as a scam.
• Transport and fostering requests come from coordinators, not from new members.
• Volunteers never pay a member privately for an animal, a crate or a transport slot.

Put these four lines at the top of the pin, followed by the coordinators' usernames, so anyone can check who is genuine.

New volunteers

Rescues need new people, so screening should be light. A join question such as "Are you interested in fostering, transport, events or adopting?" sorts newcomers and filters out bulk accounts. Turn on join requests before large adoption days, when the group link is shared on posters.

Automate the background noise

Coordinators are busy with animals, not with deleting spam at midnight. A filter bot handles the bulk junk around the clock.

With Xiabao in the chat, spam links and fake appeals are removed within seconds and repeat posters are banned after a warning. Foster updates and adoption photos come through as normal. The Xiabao guide for charity and volunteer group owners covers setup and permissions; it takes a few minutes.

After an adoption day

Rotate the invite link, check members who joined during the event but never posted, and repost the donation rule. Scammers watch for big events, and a fresh pin right afterwards closes the gap.

How the hell are we allowing this to continue? Musk is literally buying our government, again.

wired.com/story/elon-musk-just…

Sometimes some books make me question my reading and comprehension skills (of English) and make me question the time I have spent over the years learning them 😐

I have been reading Ernest Bramah's "What Might Have Been" (In the US, the book is called "The Secret of the League") and I have only been able to grasp the barebone structure of the plot and think that all the intricacies have been lost upon me, it is not the first time I am reading something penned by Bramah (I have read his detective stories of Max Carrados) but the writing style here is very difficult for me to understand with archaic words used sparingly. 😞

I hope it is okay to post this here.

Please don't respond in a negative way. I just don't think I could take it right now.

I posted on a different social media awhile ago about my sister and realize there needs to be more back story. My Mom cut my sister out of the will. I gave her half. She lost her job and wanted me to be there for her to talk, sometimes daily, even though I had a full time job and was a single Mom. Granted. I got really sick and needed her support. Nope. not available. She has now moved across the country to be "closer" to me and I hear and see from her less than ever. Since then, she has met a man and now I feel like I don't exist. She never texted or phoned unless I did first. She even cancelled our previous plans for Christmas. I am NOT a selfish person and don't begrudge her sharing Christmas with her new boyfriend. I just wish she hadn't said she would come, then back out. Heartbroken. Whatever. My son's 6 year partner recently broke up with him. I am heart broken. At first he was suicidal and came and stayed with me for a few days. He is still very severely depressed. Heartbroken. Our relationship has been fraught with misunderstandings and poor communication since he was a teenager. A couple of years ago a friend helped us with mediation when all my son did when he would got in touch with me was yell at me. We were doing better for awhile. For the first time in the last 20 or so years, he lives about a half hour drive away. Nearly every time I reach out to him, he ignores me. It was his 40th birthday yesterday. I sent him an e-card, posted a nice message on Facebook (which his Dad piggy backed on because he didn't have the courage or whatever to post his own) and left him a voice mail. When I didn't hear from him ... at all ...by late afternoon... I texted him. Thank God he responded! I was seriously worried that he had taken his life. And yet - not much more I can do. I have been very respectful, giving him his space. I haven't seen him in 3 weeks. Which some of you might think... not a big deal. It is a big deal to me because I know he will move away as soon as his lease is up in April and then I won't see him at all! and yet, if I say anything, he will run away even more. I know he is depressed and probably doesn't want to see anyone and that I shouldn't take it personally, though it is very challenging. Heartbroken.

Feeling like chopped liver with half of my family members. Geez

I have been crying for weeks over these two family dramas in my life.

As if that weren't enough, I finally found someone to play music with and now neither of my flutes will play very well. Those can be fixed, though in the meantime...Heartbroken.

AND I have tendinopathy in my right arm, which is preventing me from doing all of the things that I Love - crocheting, paddling and including playing my flute. I also make Christmas wreaths, which I probably won't be able to do this year. Heartbroken.

I deal with low energy, dizziness and other multiple other issues from a chronic illness every day of my life and manage to rise to many challenges. To some, these things that I have mentioned may seem minor. And compared to others, yeah, not a big deal.

I can't sleep. I lay down to sleep and I cry. Woke up at 4 am yesterday crying. My nervous system is so screwed up.

I have a counselor and she is helpful. I have friends. I am not a selfish person who makes everything about me. I have done personal growth workshops and have done a lot of work on myself.

I also have a husband who loves me and another son who does reach out often. Too bad my sons don't get along and the one who does talk to me can't handle me even bringing my other one up. sigh.

I just really need this pain to end. I am not suicidal. I just need a break.

I am not asking for advice, just understanding and moral support. Please don't respond in a negative way.

Heartbroken

Fiz as contas para um gabinete com seis postos e partilho o raciocínio.

Cenário assinatura: custo mensal por utilizador, pago todos os meses enquanto o gabinete existir. Ao fim de 4–5 anos, o total acumulado ultrapassa largamente uma licença perpétua.

Cenário licença perpétua: paga-se uma vez por posto. Sem nuvem incluída, mas o gabinete já tinha o seu servidor de ficheiros.

O que pesou na decisão

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Escolhemos o Office 2024 Professional Plus com licença vitalícia para todos os postos. Fatura em nome da empresa, uma chave por PC, tudo registado no inventário.

A regra que tiro disto: primeiro perceber o que a equipa usa, só depois escolher o modelo de licença.

Hello folks,
I was hoping to hold on to the good things that made social networking fun, and release the stuff that has made it awful.

I'm aware of network effect Wikipedia and I'm not going there. Though I'd like the policies income up with to scale.

I'm coming from the positive technology interactions of those iMessage Whatsapp signal threads I have with my family and neighbors. I'm recalling what it was when Facebook Myspace and Friendster were in their infancy.

We live in a world that does have all those things available, so what's the draw, or the niche, to a smaller crappier software that can be used by better community?

Some of the things I'm thinking of for my deployment.

Technically. I already have a home server running Unraid and Docker. I thought I'd self-host for now. That would be getting Friendica setup in Docker, another SQL (postgres) container for the database portion. If it grows or is popular I might do a Pangolin to VPS connection to hide my home ip address.

Curious to see you you have any thoughts. Thanks.

I recently watched Le Comte de Monte-Cristo and it was refreshing to see that they kept many things from the original book (though they left some events/characters) but kept some very good elements like the Count's penchant for theatricality and deception with the disguises he used when he went around inquiring about his enemies. Haydee is not presented by the Count as a slave here and there is no Sign of his manservant Ali and Noirtier de Villefort as wel. In the end Haydee ends up marrying Albert (in the book, the Count ends up with Haydee).

After watching the movie I discovered that a mini-series also appeared in the same year about the 'elusive count' and the series started well for me apart from a few minor hiccups in the beginning where sometimes the characters used French terms like 'Monsieur' and sometimes 'Sir' and at least here we had Noirtier de Villefort (instead of the invented character of de Villefort's sister) and Jeremy Irons who plays the role of Abbe Faria brilliantly esp these bits went missing from the movie where the Abbe teaches Edmond about the sciences, the arts etc. But I still have issues here that the Count of Monte Cristo is not cold and calculating here, there is no mystery here with no disguises of a clergyman (Abbe Busoni) the English nobleman (Lore Wilmore).

The three conspirators (Caderousse, Danglars and Morcerf) have been turned into three cos the Count forgives Caderrouse (who is apparently a black man in this interpretation and here I started to notice something else), most of the people the count encounters are complete scoundrels but there is the midwife who is sprung from a lunatic asylum (a character which was not part of the original book, is played by a Black Woman) and in the beginning of Episode 5 we are introduced to Haydee (again played by a young Black woman) while in the book she was the daughter of Ali Pasha (who was an Albanian) and his Greek wife (Kyra Vassiliki) 😐I am all for diversity but how the heck are you going to fit this in the story ?! Ali Pasha's wife was not Greek or she was some part of Africa ?! 😒 and the pattern I was talking about the all the black characters are what one can consider somewhat 'good' compared to all the others !

On the good side, we get to hear about 'Sinbad' this series provide us with Luigi Vampa and the carnival, and the scene when Albert witnesses an execution of two prisoners in Rome, I still haven't finished the series yet but I am beginning to think that making a movie/series which will remain faithful to the original book is perhaps impossible (considering the length of the book) but maybe someday we might get an anime or another tv series which can do justice to Dumas' masterpiece