Keep the user group called everyone, but disassociate it from guest

I just treat everyone as guest, I find it's easier doing it that way then I just make my user groups on top of that.

Quote from Adam Howard

1) A user group that can be used as base for all other registered groups

Just use "users"

This takes all registered users into account!

For me, I would prefer the group system to be like vbulletin (atleast prior to vb5). I feel more comfortable with individual groups for everything, not just regular user groups, moderators etc but banned users, users waiting email activations, users under moderation etc it's more intuitive, direct and easier to control and just makes more sense.

I still prefer burning board over any others any day but that's the one thing that annoys me the most.

From what I understand, it's easier to let all usergroups alone, and just put "Everyone", "users", "admin", and "moderators" groups in top categories for everything, and be done with it. Just deny "everyone" everything except viewing forums, and be happy. Oh, maybe tweak "guests" group permissions in under "general" for them not to see useronline, memberlist, profiles, create wall comments, etc though. Other then that, it shouldn't be hard to do what you want. If you do it from top level categories, those same permissions flow down through the child /sub forums.

Example:
"Welcome" - top cat group perms; Everyone: enter and view only. Users, Admins, & Mods, create threads, view, etc.
- Introductions
- Site News
- Feedback

Done.

Guests can't do anything but view or enter the forums. Do same for Blog, gallery, calendar. Just view, don't write articles, etc. I know what you're saying though too, I was disliking the "everyone" group at first, but grew to love it later lol