I don’t fully trust chatgpt, but here are steps it suggested.
Set Community to Restricted or Private During or after creation:
Go to your community page.
Click “Community Settings” (gear icon if you’re a mod).
Under “Community Type”, choose:
Restricted – Only mods can post; anyone can view.
Private – Only approved users can post/comment; content may be hidden from outsiders depending on server config.
🔒 Private is best for a fully closed community.
- Control Who Joins Still in settings:
Enable “Require mod approval to join”.
You can also toggle:
“Allow users to follow”: turn off if you don’t want lurkers.
“Enable posting for approved users only”.
- Manually Approve Members To approve users:
Users request to join your community.
As a mod, go to the mod queue and approve or reject requests.
Good thing chatgpt burned through a logs worth of CO2 for nonsense