I think that an auto email should be generated to all the existing registered users , when a new user is approved and included in the community.
Anybody

Thanks

Good idea but I have 2 suggestions:

1. Make it optional in admin as I am sure some sites won't want it.

2. Make it optional at the user level as I am sure some people will not like getting an email everytime someone registers, epecially if it is a very active site. Some of the more active sites get 100 or more people a day which could be a pain for some.

Excellent additional details, Rick. I think this is a cool idea for community based sites, but not all sites using CB are "community" sites. Most of the sites I manage are not, so having it as a default would definitely be a problem for me - yet I can't now imagine running my sites without CB.

I think it could link up with various lists and give the option to which specific list mail is to be sent.

Thus the admin can choose who all get auto email.
Or the option can be with the user to activate auto email in his profile.

I think a feature similar to subscribe in forums can do the trick. Here the user has the control if he wants to be informed about new member addition.It can probably be included in the profile where he can check the field and as soon as a new member is approved a mail would be sent to him with pre configured text.

Yes, I think a subscription model would work well for this.

Also, would the new user have the option of being "announced" or not? I can imagine some situations where folks might not want to have their presence announced without knowing who the announcement is going to. There is quite a range of sensitivities to issues like this that could be seen as relating to privacy (then again, in some cases perhaps if privacy is that big an issue for someone, why are they joining a community anyway?)