This question has come up from time to time, and so I googled it a bit. Result: There seems widespread puzzlement over this amongst vBulletin board users, and tightlipped silence (possibly caused by the fact that they don't know either) amongst vBulletin admins.
So I poked some more. Apparently I can set up groups for special interests. The documentation, buried deep in the bowels of the vBulletin labyrinth states: "If this option is enabled then users will be able to request membership to this group from their User CP. Join requests are queued up in the Usergroup Manager where you can handle them all at once."
I interpret that as me being able to create forums that either are password protected and only accessible via public group membership, or that those forums may only be seen by those who have been approved as members of that public group. So perhaps we might want to investigate this a bit.
So I poked some more. Apparently I can set up groups for special interests. The documentation, buried deep in the bowels of the vBulletin labyrinth states: "If this option is enabled then users will be able to request membership to this group from their User CP. Join requests are queued up in the Usergroup Manager where you can handle them all at once."
I interpret that as me being able to create forums that either are password protected and only accessible via public group membership, or that those forums may only be seen by those who have been approved as members of that public group. So perhaps we might want to investigate this a bit.
