How do you set permissions for a discussion page on a website?

[Terry]

I'm using Front Page 2003 and inherited a website..the website had a
discussion page, when you clicked on the discussion page button you were
taken to a registeration page, filled out the registeration page hit submit
button and wait until the webmaster contacted you with permission to access
the discussion page. When all this was accomplished the webmaster received an
e-mail letting him know someone wanted to join the discussion page and he
would go through the administration page from the tools menu add the person
and send them an invitation. The problem is the page looked to messy and I
cleaned it up by deleting the posts, I checked the page after doing the clean
up and it would not prompt you to register anymore.....I've looked and read
the help area and either couldn't find it or didn't know what I was looking
for....anyway the other webmaster died or else I would ask him what he
did....I would like to be able to provide the discussion page again but I
need to know who is on there to keep out non members......if anyone knows
about this or understands my post please contact me at (e-mail address removed)
Thanks, Terry

 

[Andrew Murray]

The FP discussion template (which I assume you're using) is very basic.

Take a look at these below for ideas.

www.yabb-forum
www.phpbb.com

There are plenty of these "discussion boards" around, much better than the
basic one provided by FP - which seems to be more "complicated" than those
above. The above boards allow for user "sign up", and can be moderated etc.
I don't know about the Member Application Approval (for want of a better
description) thing you mentioned below