I have an intentional Drupal site that is primarily used for forums. There are about 20 people on it, all of whom I know personally. It is 6.x, and I am considering upgrading to 7.x soon.

I am looking for best practices and experiences in building out such a site, using something like invitations/codes. I am not trying to build a huge site, and I am the only one maintaining it. We don't need moderators because to join you have to know someone in it already. So, I really just need a mechanism/system to letting everyone else on the site invite people in, without me being a part of that action.

Also, I would like to hear from people who have also done similar things like this. It is really nice to have forums that you know aren't going to be spammed or flamed. ^_^