Hello,

The new Group module enhancement is all about approval. It is a violation of privacy to have someone add you to a group without your consent, so now you always Invite users to groups (whether it is by adding or by "Invite to Group"). They receive an email invitation (which you can customize to punch straight into the group) and then they can accept or decline the invite. If it is a private group then they can see the group (but not send messages etc) and can make a decision to join it or not.

I don't know of any site/social network where a user can add another user to a group without their consent, but if you really want to use it like that you could probably modify the stored procs (ie. you don't need the source) and change the Approval code when it does the GroupUser insert.

Ok, so there are two sides to approval –

1. A group Owner can now optional approve all new group member requests. This is a setting when editing a group. If a new user applies to join then they have to be approved if this is set. If not, then they are instantly added.
2. Acceptance of group invites. Nobody can ever add anyone else directly to a group without their consent. When a user invites (this is a better word than “adds”) a user to a group then they receive an email inviting them to the group (like YouTube/Facebook etc.). They can then decline or accept the invite.

It sounds like you are using the Groups module in a slightly different way than how it was intended (the instant add was always a half-way house until the full approval step could be put in)– can you elaborate on your business requirements and current usage?

Yes, I do remember - I think the easiest compromise might be to have a setting at Module level which is "Invite vs Add" and then it will either invite the user or add them. Unfortunately it is not as simple as it sounds (there is quite bit of logic around approval) - could you please raise a Feature Request for this so I can guage the demand for it.

Hi David,

No, sorry,  I have not worked on the Groups module in a while - I'm trying to get the next version of the Events module out and then I can try and do a small Groups release. I will try and make this an optional step, but we still looking at a month or 2 of dev away.