Users or members are people who have permission to interact with your site in an active way. Membership structures support the creation of a sense of community.

Members can be registered with the site:

• themselves, through an automated process which enables you to collect information about them, and which requires them validate their membership by responding to an email sent to the address they give.
• By invitation
• By being assigned a membership directly by a back end user.

Depending on that information, you assign them to user groups (or they may select their own) which can access particular content or functionality.

For example:

• everyone might be able to see comments on a page, or entries in a Forum but only members of a particular group might be allowed to make comments. 
• People with particular interests can be placed into a group which is shown additional pages and/or which gives them access to downloadable material
• People can register for newsletters, which the system sends to them
• concert promoters can submit and edit details of events
• news events can be submitted
• small ads entered or properties registered for display
• clients can have their own areas, with support forums and helpdesk functionality, for example.