I’ve been long awaiting the debut of phpbb3 to make a certain plugin. (May not succeed; check that — probably won’t succeed — since my programming “experience” consists of two undergrad courses writing tictactoe and “Hello world” scripts.)

But anywhere I’ll ramble a bit about it, not trying to elicit a technical response, more trying to think the finale through:

The plugin WP-united unifies the WP and PHPBB3 logins (which uses PHPBB3′s system).

Part of the site concerns Darwinism & economics, and is invitation-only by necessity, mainly limited to researchers & students in the area. (It is no good to if disinterested passerbys clog such discussions.)

Except not exactly: Those invited can in turn automatically invite anyone they judge interested. And here’s what the new plugin offers:

An “Invite a Friend” form, which simultaneously emails Friend and preapproves the associated email for registration in the PHPBB3 system (utilizing PHPBB3′s new registration approval feature). This way Friend can register — if he so chooses — without webmaster intervention.

I am awaiting the Gold version to see what modifications I will have to make.