This is a case study in the making, so this is the first stage outlining the process. The objective is to make a website private members area that is accessible only to registered users (subscribers). The private section will act like a forum with members allowed to post, comment, upload images or gravatars and see other member details. The critical feature of that this whole section is accessible only to registered users who are subscribers. Here are some plugins that I will be using to build the members section

1. Register plus. provides password, special invitation code, invite, disclaimer, captcha, email, validation
2. Profiler. plugin for generating and displaying profiles, and aggregating post and comments for the registered users on a WordPress site
3. TDO-miniforms. Provides a custom post submission form for users to create entries
4. Get-recent-comments Allows comments to be displayed from seleceted categories only
5. User photo allows users to upload their own photo from profiles for use in posts and comments.
6. Role scoper At last a real option to control the permission layer to make all this happen.

The concept goes as follows:

Users register for membership

Register plus provides excellent options to control private membership, including branding, invitation codes for exclusive registration. Also, can require agreements to privacy policy, TOS etc. In addition Register plus gives unlimited custom fields for creating a real member profile page. Yes, Cimy plugin is similar…

Once registered and logged in, users have access to a new wordpress category called 'forum' This is kept exclusive and private by the use of Role scoper. Additional pages are also available to members providing extra features. The idea of the new category is that it is where the plugin TDO forms submits all the entries from registered users and shows these as separate posts in the category. TDO forms can offer multiple submission forms that post to separate categories. In this case, we could make sub-cats of the forum main category.

Posting
Members post using TDO forms, simple but configureable form that can include uploads, images and tagging. Tags can be shown exclusivly in the members area, thus providing a topic cloud.

Commenting

members can also comment against other member posts and these comments are shown exclusively in the member area only

Images/ photos /avatars

These can be uploaded by members and will be shown against all their posts and comments.

Member interaction

The profiler plugin shows a full list of all members, in a table. Each member username is clicked to show his/her profile details and contacts. All posts and comments are also listed against each member.

The above brief is already built, except for the permission layer and so far it works very well. What I need now is to figure out the basic method of privatising the forum category to members and admins only and It's pretty well in shaped up.

I think the above provides a very decent framework for a members area allowing exclusive content, interaction, communication and privacy.

Maybe I have missed a few points? I'll add here as things work out…