I have been tasked setting up a new Forum - one of the requirements is that new registrations require a moderators approval.

There is an existing board, but the problem is folk creating multiple ID's and trolling.  What we would like is for the user to enter there membership number, we can then verify it, then approv or reject.

Idealy, when a user registers it should send an email to the administrator, with a link that the moderator can click on to approve/reject a registration.  Then a normal email would be sent to the user asking them to confirm there registration.

I have done quite a bit of research, and I have only come up with one  idea - create a group and set as startup group, and set it so it cannot post or reply etc.  Basically they are regsitered, but can't do anything.

On the whole I have found this forum program straight forward to customise, easy to administrate, and doesn't require special server software.