A tier I have known off and on for a long time tried to join FAOL a while back, and didn’t know what he needed to do. He sent an email in, but never heard back.
He had been a member years ago, but didn’t know how to get a password, etc. I advised him that it had been so long since I joined that I can’t even remember how.
If you log yourself off, you’ll see the register button.
I imagine the admins have purged inactive users more than once over the board’s life. If your friend re-registers using the same email address as before, and if his username/account has not been purged, then the server may recognize him.
If your friend wants, he can send me an e-mail denny@conranch.com with his previous user name and I will check and see if he is still in our data bank. If so, then I can then send him his password. If he is no longer in our records, I will contact him by e-mail and am sure we can get him on board.