Default Usergroups

Every member on a vBulletin discussion board must belong to at least one usergroup. These usergroups allow you to control who has access to what and later on (Chapter 5) we will be taking a closer look at the usergroups. However, vBulletin comes pre-installed with default usergroups, which can be used to get the forum up and running quickly.

There are eight default usergroups:

Default usergroups

For the moment you only need to be concerned with three of the usergroups:

• Administrators—These are the users with the most power, and membership should usually be restricted to forum owners. Administrators have control over almost all features of the discussion board.
• Moderators—These are members with more powers than regular members but less than administrators. These are normally the people who look after the forum—moving posts that are in the wrong place, deleting inappropriate posts. Choose trusted people for this role.
• Registered Users—Almost everyone else! These are the people who sign up to participate on the forum.

Tip

Banned users!

Handling banned users is something that we will come to in Chapter 5.

These are the main vBulletin usergroups, and most members will belong to these (unless you have made some significant changes to the way your forum works).