I don’t know if he can actually. I tried to invite him to his thread in Outside the Beltway and got this error message…
You mentioned @sglazier456 but they won’t be notified because they do not have access to this category. You will need to add them to a group that has access to this category.
Yes. It’s been that way since the beginning of this new forum. It was originally called “The Lounge”, but was changed to what that forum was called on the old board. Long time members were granted access by messaging a mod. Maybe the OP can try that.