Support Forum

Let's do the second question first. A User Group and a Permission Set are 'married' when you create a forum. You can set up the User Group/Permission relationships when you create a Forum Group which will then be used for each NEW forum you create within that group by default. And/or you can be more granular and specify for each individual forum the relationships. In this way you can tailor the overall user experience based on which forums individuals can access and what tasks they can carry out within them. I hope that all makes sense!

Now to the first question. User registration along with login/logout and basic user profile data is all carried out by your WordPress site. Simple:Press just sits in top of that and makes use of, and extends, the WP data created. So Simple:Press does not, itself, institute any new user controls. Nor does WordPress. For this you will need to look to other plugins like - for example - 'Theme My Login' - which will, I understand, allow for email address verification before allowing a user to register and, I believe, full moderation by the administrator. There are also a plethora of membership type plugins that you may like to take a look at which will offer even greater levels of control.