# Are Moderated User Invites a thing?

**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/are-moderated-user-invites-a-thing/83403
**Category:** Feature
**Tags:** approval, invites
**Created:** [March 20, 2018, 3:19pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/are-moderated-user-invites-a-thing/83403 "2018-03-20T15:19:37Z")
**Posts on this page:** 1
**Showing post:** 10

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### Author: ![jericson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/jericson/32/116215_2.png) [@jericson](https://meta.discourse.org/u/jericson)
#### Post date: [December 1, 2023, 7:24pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/are-moderated-user-invites-a-thing/83403/10 "2023-12-01T19:24:32Z")

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The way I’d go about this is to have a “waiting room” that anyone can join and then put the _real community_ in group-restricted categories. Here’s how it might work:

1. Anyone can join Discourse without restriction.
2. Create one category that anyone can see. It might be read-only or unrestricted depending on what makes sense for your community.
3. Create a [closed group](https://meta.discourse.org/t/configure-private-closed-group-access-membership-and-visibility/138296) that can only be joined when a group owner approves.
4. Decide who gets to be a group owner and make them owners of the group. 😉 This can be moderators, staff or anyone you like.
5. Create [new categories that are stricted to the closed group](https://meta.discourse.org/t/understanding-groups-and-category-permissions-security-settings/87678). This is where the real community participates.

One advantage of an open waiting room is that new people can ask about the community before they really join. But I think it would also work to have the waiting room static with a single topic explaining the process.

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_[View the full topic](https://meta.discourse.org/t/are-moderated-user-invites-a-thing/83403)._