DISCUSSION - 2 tier membership system (paid members!).

[chrispadfield]

I think a lot of us are feeling the strain of the cost of running out own servers with pathetic advertising revenue.

I am quite keen on a subscriber/donation type system where users pay approximatly $5 per month. I am going to "market" this as somewhere between a donation and a subscription and it is the later i need to think about.

My plan would be to have all the subscribers in a seperate user group. Now, the possible things i have thought about adding are:, importantly i am trying not to reduce any current features:

POSSIBLE - very easy hack to add or a feature already
NOT POSSIBLE - more significant hack

i) a "badge" by their username saying that are a donator. POSSIBLE.

ii) a different template set with no banners. I am not 100% sure how to do this. One way i am considering is just doing an if/elseif routine inside the phpinclude template which will not load the banners if usergroup = x. The problem with this is the ugly empty spaces left in the tables if i do. Other option is a seperate template set but i force templates on some forums. This is again the nature of the problem with having the header and footer part of a whole style! It should be independant!!!!!!!

iii) Variable amount of pms based on usergroup. Currently NOT POSSIBLE

iv) Avatar based on usergroup. Personally i do not want to limit avatars to subscribers but it is an option. I am pretty sure avatars are not based on usergroup so again NOT POSSIBLE

v) variable limits on amount of pms sent to buddy POSSIBLE (not much of a feature!).

vi) An extra forum just for subscribers POSSIBLE

vii) Email account @domain.com, integrated into private message system and ability to collect through pop3 account! NOT POSSIBLE and requires a very significant hack, especially for pop3 account which would be server and email program (sendmail/qmail) dependant.

viii) Searching on/off. On my forum this would not be much of a feature but on some it would be a very useful for feature to allow searching for a "paid" usergroup and not for another.

Currently that is all i can think of. Anyone with any other suggestions? From that list the only one that is of any real value is the advertising one. What does everyone else think?

[eva2000]

yeah i NEED something like this too - there's another thread here too http://161.58.84.213/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=19177

[chrispadfield]

the other thread does not add much, in fact most of it can be done.

99.9% sure that the template thing can be done, assuming you only had one template set as it is. All you do, is set the template in a users profile but do not allow users to select templates. I think that works but i am not convinced. The template selection procedure does mistify me a bit still. This is why i plan to do it by taking the code out of the phpinclude which can be done so easily. A template set would be better perhaps though as things like postbit could be changed (removing eva'200 amazon stuff par example).

The "logo" can be done. Just use a modified version of freedies star's hack. if userid=blah then do $cool_user = "<img src et...

The page of subscribed members can also be done easily, use the "show mods/admins" hack someone made, i think Kier but not 100% sure, the one Me2Be requested. (man i read these forums to much!).

That is all i can really think about. The request to the developers would be to make the private message limit usergroup based

[Me2Be]

Subscription based communities are the wave of the future I'm afraid, even we've been considering it lately so I'd be very interested in hearing more discussion on this!

[Wayne Luke]

I have hacked most this already... I just haven't gotten the entire package together in a presentable package yet.

So far I have the following included....

1. Avatar by user group.
2. Custom Titles by Usergroup.
3. PM Limits (testing now).

I want to add....
1. PM Backup to email... Could use Bira's hack but won't (see below).
2. Customized Index Page via Subscribed Threads.
3. Show Forum Descriptions (on or off).
4. Receive entire message in Email notification.

Now 1 and 2 are features I won't use and will default it to on but the others I can use.

The reason I don't want to use Bira's hack is because I want to charge a small fee for this hack. Probably about $35 dollars. However I am willing to work with a small group of people on this in developing a strong hack with a good range of ideas. These people would get to test it and get a free copy.

[chrispadfield]

goodye, the custom pm numbers by usergroup i am definitely interested in, that will be very useful.

[JackG]

I think your ideas are great, but why the 'No Banners?'

Well.. maybe I should look into what type of site you have.
My site is about a music genre called 'Freestyle' (not rap).
The sponsors are usually Record lables, Party promoters, etc.
That's great info for our visitors. It provides a service.

I am for your idea's..except for the no banners part.

I think PM's and email features (thread responses) should ony be for paid members. Give's people a reason to want to support your site for only a couple bucks a month.

I don't charge on my site. But if the demand grew, I would defanatly look into it. The work we put in is hard!

[chrispadfield]

my banners are untargeted and serve as no added content. Finding sponsors for my genre is not easy, entertainment sites are one of the worst hit in the advertising slump. not surprising really, much wider and less targeted demographic.

[Robert Basil]

Wow,

You all have read my mind. We have a bunch of people who have donated to the site and I have been trying to figure out a way to reward them.

wluke if you need a beta tester I'm your man!

[Castel]

I'll just add my voice to this type of request topic again :). I've already started one myself a week ago and replied in the thread eva mentioned.

I think we'll see the need for subscription/donation only increase as advertisement revenue just plain and simple sucks. And in order for members to be encouraged to do this is give them extra goodies they normally can't have, make them feel special over people who do not support the community financially.

JackG, I think pretty much anybody hates ad banners and especially pop ups (which now I am forced to use in order to survive) If somebody pays even as little as 10-15$/year it will probably generate more from that one user than any ad can. Why not reward them with an ad free browsing experience.

wluke, I hope you plan on releasing it as you are on the right track. This could be a VERY useful hack for a lot of forum admins. I believe that something like this could very welll save my site from going down a few months down the line, 35$ would be a small price to pay for your work and I'd be willing to test as well.

[kdog316]

does that mean when you have sites with over 5k people they get expensive to run :eek:

[tubedogg]

Originally posted by kdog316
does that mean when you have sites with over 5k people they get expensive to run :eek: What is your obsession with sites with 5000 users?

[Joe]

I would gladly purchase a script / hack that does this for $35.00 If at all posible, i would like to have an affiliate type program built in, where each time a member refferes a nother member to the forum (current feature) and that member "donates" or becomes a paid member, the affiliate would get a commission. The reason behind this, is there are over 4500 cycling sites in the yahoo directory, i would love to have 5 - 10% of thoes sites promoting my forum to pay for there site :)

[chrispadfield]

Originally posted by kdog316
does that mean when you have sites with over 5k people they get expensive to run :eek:

the number or registered users is probably the most irrelevant statistic as to how expensive a board to run is that you can find. Number of users online and daily page views and bandwidth usage give much better indications.

[kdog316]

thats what i mean like how much bandwith do you guys use a day

[tubedogg]

That's what Chris is saying - he could give you numbers all day long but it won't be the same for you or anyone else because if you have 5000 members but only 10 of them post in a given day, it's going to cost a LOT less than if you have 500 of them post in a given day.

[JackG]

true dat

[Wayne Luke]

Originally posted by kdog316
thats what i mean like how much bandwith do you guys use a day

We used 15 gigabytes last month for the forums alone. It would have been closer to 30 gigabytes if we didn't have gzip compression turned on. I am currently working to double our traffic through various promotion techniques.


All told for the whole network we used over 60 gigabytes in the month of May.

[kdog316]

damn

[Robert Basil]

Originally posted by kdog316
thats what i mean like how much bandwith do you guys use a day

Forums: Last month just over 6 gigs (yes wluke, thank God for gzip!)

Entire Site: Last month just over 75 gigs

But the forums load our servers more than any other area of our website.

Now let's get back on topic. :)

[Dakota]

I think that is a great idea, although I wouldn't use it on my forum. Mainly because my forum is for a Q3 total conversion called Bid For Power, and we are hosted by another site. I know alot of forums out there will find it very useful. I need to learn how to code in php that was I can make some small hacks for my forum.

[GeorgeofCS]

I'm definitely interested and would gladly pay for a hack that does all those things and was fairly easy to install :)
Unfortunately my site is one of those humor sites in a slump and I know people are willing to help out, but want something in return. I think this would be the best thing to give them. However on my board at least it would I would need it to work in a multi-template board. My main site is the backbone behind 6 different sites.

[eva2000]

Originally posted by wluke


We used 15 gigabytes last month for the forums alone. It would have been closer to 30 gigabytes if we didn't have gzip compression turned on. I am currently working to double our traffic through various promotion techniques.


All told for the whole network we used over 60 gigabytes in the month of May. well off topic again i posted this at SPF's search engines forum about Alltheweb.com's Fastsearch partner site program http://www.fastsearch.com/index.php?d=products&c=internet&s=partnersite :) waiting for the reply to my inquiry about the program

my forum before gzip compression used 45 - 60GB/month and now with gzip compression uses 25 - 45GB/month all up around 100GB/month

wayne i'd like to be in the testing group as well.. but i thought your off on a break for your wedding coming up ?

[Wayne Luke]

I will be away for the last 9 days of June... I will most likely release something on the First of July. This is three weeks from.

This is only so I can be around to support those that need it.

[Wayne Luke]

Okay here is what I have worked up for my own purposes.

A new group will be created for subscribers.
There will be a cronjob script provided that will notify subscribers before their subscription expires. An expiration added to the user table will handle this.
Expired Subscribers will be relegated back to the Registered User group via another cronjob. (configurable)
The following will be controlled on a UserGroup Basis: Avatars, Custom Titles, User Badge (look at SitePointforums.com for example), PM Storage Limit, Download PM's to Email, Message in Email Notification, Default Styleset, Download Attachments.


One thing I plan on doing is allowing my members to "purchase" their subscription with participation in the community but more about this later.

Looking at Chris's original post, setting the email up the way he wants to do it will be the most difficult. However I am open to ideas.

[JackG]

Please make it work on Windows NT!

[Wayne Luke]

Originally posted by JackG
Please make it work on Windows NT!

Well the "CRON Jobs" will simply be made up of PHP Scripts that would be run from the command line. You could set them up to be run by Windows Task Scheduler in the same manner. So it should be Windows compatible.

CRON is just the unix/linux version of Task Scheduler.

[JackG]

Thanks for the info WLuke. This is pretty wild!

[chrispadfield]

this is awesome wayne, looking forward to it.

[steven]

Wayne-
I think that we all anxiously await your release of the script. I was wondering how you plan to accept customers payments with this script, will you use a gateway service or is a merchant account needed?

[gmtalk]

I would be interested in this hack for another one of my forums that is going nuts.

If you are still taking signups WLuke then please count me in. BTW the info you sent fixed the prob I was having. Many thanks

[eva2000]

well waynes off at his bachelor's party or recovering from it :)

[gmtalk]

Lucky dog. I still remember mine. Hey got the video right here. Were is the wife. ;)

Well congrats Wayne

[Castel]

Just bumping this up. I don't know if wluke is back in action yet after his honeymoon but I don't want this topic to fade away. I need this hack more than ever to keep my site alive.

[joebob]

I have tried to do something like this with my forum. But the forum got split up. I gave people that donated a special title and the rest of the members were pissed! They were mad because they think that just because others helped me out that they got something that they didn't! I kind of understood it and I kind of didn't.
My forum is pretty big, but I don't know if I could support this. I think this is a really good idea and I probably will try it out, but it has taken me awhile to get my site as big as it is and keep the forums from going chaotic.
What would you guys do. I know you don't know my entire situation, but hey just throe your opinion at me!

[Castel]

The way I see it, people that support the site deserve the extra perks. Whether the others will complain or not I don't care...they aren't paying the huge monthly hosting bills.

And if some of them happen to leave because of it, so be it. I'd hate to sound harse but if they leave that's less hosting money out of my pocket...it's not like page views are generating any revenue nowadays anyway.

[JackG]

Castel, I feel that way also.
I would like to offer perks to members who
donate or pay a small fee to help out with server
expenses.

joebob, I think it has to be a delicate transistion.
I plan on casually promoting this new user status, and advanced features. That might work. The web is still a new media, we got to gives things a shot, and sometimes another :-)

[ToraTora!]

I just want to throw in a objective opinon here. Please dont hate me for bringing this up, for Im just pointing out things that have made me much more aware to things on the internet, and members in general. It is nothing more than a opinion, and I am not directly pointing fingers here ok? :) Here it goes:

I can see the points and views on this, however have any of you been around EZ board lately?
Pop-ups on every link you hit, huge assed ads that plug the entire footer section, and a big advertising header under the banner that assures people that if they buy into thier services, the ads will disappear. This slows up loading times, generally makes the site look like a porn pay site, and is a automatic no show in my bookmark section.

To me, i dont even deal with looking at sites like that anymore. I have no tolerance for pop up ads, nor huge chunks of advertising as a whole.
People are interested in your site, not the ads that appear there, and they know that having those ads there, means you are making money. (we all know this is false due to the advertising slump, however the user does not know that)

Basically, what I am suggesting, is that if you go with the payment route for your site, make sure that people fully understand the whole spectrum of payment, and its benefits.
People do not want to donate to a site, when the site's administration is screaming that they cant afford it anymore, and the site will be shut down. Why give money to a site that is going to close?
Make it a must rite off the bat. If the ads are not paying for anything anyways, as everyone seems to be complaining about, get rid of them altogether, and make it a membership only board to begin with. Of course this varies from site to site, but for people that are giving computer information, or web page help, or any services that are from the administrator or the staff, there is no sense in giving it away period.

The whole thing with pop ads that i have seen from site owners, is that they do not pay.
If that is the case, than get rid of them, because there are a few sites i have seen, that the minute you hit a link, its pop-up, and not just one mind you, but 4-5. After a few clicks, and noticing that this is NOT a one time around ad window, I immediately leave.
This is a every link ad rotation. In a forum, every link is quite a few dont you think?

The bottom line is this. If you are going to have a program for people to pay for your site, make it reasonable. Dont get greedy.
I have seen a few sites owned by some of you here, and they are excellent sites. I think also that some are on the greedy end of things due to the amount of pop up ads i have seen on them.
It always seems to work in direct corrolation with the amount of members. The higher the membership, the more advertising pop ups. Of course, the argument is, there is more bandwidth used, with more members. True, however if pop-ups are not making anybody money, why have them? I mean, thats the biggest complaint i have heard, is that pop-ups generate nothing, however they are still there, annoying the piss out of every potential new member.

I see no reason in that other than greed. If money is a concern, just make it a pay site to begin with.
From what i have seen, i would definitley pay for a couple of your sites memberships without hesitation. The content is there, its not a self glorification project, and much of the site itself is informative. Also, the site itself, from a visual aspect is above normal as well. A good example would be the member here who has the motorcycle web site. Nice set-up. Very informative, and very well put together. He also added a image gallery, that costs a pretty penny as well. That is what i am driving at here. Offer something, to get something.
I cannot say that about some of the others i have seen though, and frankly, just as some slight business advice, think it over before some of you start hitting up members for money.
Its possible to loose one or two people, and not loose much sleep over it, but when one leaves, they will take more with them, because now they feel betrayed..and as such..will leave you holding the bag. When a site only has three to four hundered people on it, it WILL kill the site.
This will funnel, as members who formed a "bond" with others, will now leave to. It happens, all I am saying is make sure the price is fair, and that there is benefits to doing so. Stars by a members name wont cut it as a whole. Throw some drawings in there or something.

Im just offering some advice is all. Im not out to make enemies here..im just pointing out that the pop up ad argument is a worn out record, and if your site has the gusto to make it a pay site, than make it as a whole, and not as a part, by penalizing people with a pop up ad. I would rather have 10 members who are paying monthly, and contributing, than 4,000 members ducking membership because they are to cheap, and running up the costs.

[Cold Steel]

I would love a hack that would allow paid members to not see ads.

One possible way of doing this might be to set up a subdomain/directory such as adfree.forums.com and then use iBill, revecom or other such service to provide password management services.

Don't know how workable that is...

Anyway - any update on this?

[Cold Steel]

Would something like this be useful?

http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showthread.php?threadid=18888

[Wayne Luke]

Okay, I am back. I plan on getting something released before the fireworks fly on the 4th... This is like one of my favorite holidays so I have to celebrate (the other two being Xmas and Halloween).

I have the hack mostly finished, it just needs some polishing. I have picked some people to test it for me. (Please don't email or PM me at the last minute to be picked).

While reading the latest posts, I can see some valid points. I would like to address some of them.

If people get upset about preferential treatment given to subscribers, that is their own problem. I for one will not remove any rights or privileges given to current members. New members will still have all the same rights. However Premium members (subscribers) will be given access to more features. This will allow them to use the system better. It will be more than a fancy title. It will be access to features.

I will also be giving SPF members a couple of ways to pay for their premium membership.. They can purchase it by contributing to the community and earning credits towards the membership or for those who don't want to contribute as much they will be able to eventually pay by cash. However, I will be pushing the contributing method heavier.. Why? Because we can already get a decent income for targetted ads. While not great it is fairly good income. My main goal is to be able to do this full time and pay my volunteers a small monthly stipend. If that is greedy then so be it. As of now, I have no pop-ups on the site, however that will change and only for quests. I am planning a unique pop-up campaign that will be geared towards getting the guests to register. These will be dynamic, self closing windows that stay on the screen for up to 15 seconds, not to invasive if you ask me.

AS far as increasing the major income potential of the site, I feel that it isn't in the current ad structure or even in subscriptions but I do have a few ideas and working on them now. Too soon to discuss them and once in place, I will share.

[thewitt]

It will be interesting to watch the dynamic in the online community space, as people move from one free community to another.

I suspect that many will leave as the community either becomes flooded with ads they can't stand to have pop up all over the place, or when the site becomes pay-for-use.

Most Internet communities are not driven by the owners, they are driven by the members. When the members feel like they are no longer members but paying customers, I suspect most will go somewhere that feels more like a community than a pay-and-get-in club.

As a paid service, you will also be expected to provide higher level of support and services, and when the service is not received, you will not get those customers to sign up again unless you go out of your way to provide other significant value for the money.

I'm not suggesting that anyone not go down this path - only that it may not be exactly what you think it will be in the end. I left the pay-for-talk services like AOL, Compuserve and Genie when the quality of talk on USENET was higher than those subscription services. I never looked back. I suspect others will do the same in the new Internet order of pay-as-you-go forums.
-t

[ToraTora!]

Originally posted by thewitt
It will be interesting to watch the dynamic in the online community space, as people move from one free community to another.

I suspect that many will leave as the community either becomes flooded with ads they can't stand to have pop up all over the place, or when the site becomes pay-for-use.

Most Internet communities are not driven by the owners, they are driven by the members. When the members feel like they are no longer members but paying customers, I suspect most will go somewhere that feels more like a community than a pay-and-get-in club.

As a paid service, you will also be expected to provide higher level of support and services, and when the service is not received, you will not get those customers to sign up again unless you go out of your way to provide other significant value for the money.

I'm not suggesting that anyone not go down this path - only that it may not be exactly what you think it will be in the end. I left the pay-for-talk services like AOL, Compuserve and Genie when the quality of talk on USENET was higher than those subscription services. I never looked back. I suspect others will do the same in the new Internet order of pay-as-you-go forums.
-t


I could not of said it any better. There are sites that can pull this off from a information, and service route, however there are quite a few that basically hit on topics that a thousand or more sites do as well, that have no pop-ups, or advertising to speak of.
There will be a major shift down the road from members jumping to other free services and forums. Unless there is really something special to offer, or the site that is tied in with the forums, somehow has something that is a stand out from others, people will find the next free thing, and stay with it until that site decides that it wants to become a pay site.

Members, or customers, all have one thing in common when it comes to raising prices. They feel they have contributed already by visiting the site or establishment. Religiously, they have visited the site or establishment dozens of times, and whether or not they bought anything during that whole time is irelevant to them.
They feel, that you owe them something. As narrow minded as it sounds, it is the truth.
There are people out there that feel no matter what you offer for thier membership, it is not enough to cover thier loyalty, and as such, will leave to another free site or establishment, to openly bash your site or establishment at any given moment. Hense, one walks out, he will take more.
That can mean potential customers, or current.
Give something, to recieve something is all i am saying.
I think Luke's approach is a good example of how to approach the sensativity of "pay" or not to "pay" for members.

people are not dumb enough to extort themselves for the good of others.

[Joe]

Whats the latest on this? :)

[Wayne Luke]

I have been overwhelmed. I have been working on it a little here and there but haven't finished it. I have one more hack to finish for Hystersisters.com then I will finish this up tomorrow and email it to a few people who have expressed interest.

[Wayne Luke]

Both Tora and Thewitt raise valuable points.

For people looking to the subscription model, think about what added features you can offer your subscribers. Whether that is an email alias or some neat new features. Don't take features away from your existing members though because they will go elsewhere at this point in time.

However recent studies have shown that people will be willing to pay for internet subscriptions if they feel there is value and that the subscriptions will provide for stability. In the same study, people have proven that the Internet is a research resource and they use it like a library. They would still pay for these services but not without samples or some basics for free.

When I roll out my subscription memberships, my existing members will lose nothing in fact in the past week they have gained 2 different new features that gives them more control over their accounts. These include the ability to turn the forum descriptions on or off and the ability for them to choose the forumdepth shown on the index page. There will be more features like this both for subscribing and non-subscribing members.

[Joe]

Nice, i look forward to the release. Keep up the good work. Btw, while im here, i just noticed im in the in-active group on your forums, can you move me to the registered group? Username is RoadRash, im ready to post and help out on your forums :)

[Wayne Luke]

Fixed...

Please verify that your email address doesn't bounce or have an auto-responder on it.

[Castel]

wluke has the features list changed at all from what you mentioned before?

I won't be taking away any feature from the current users as well since I don't offer custom avatars or titles at this moment. I also don't allow images in signatures...how about allowing that for the premium members?

[joebob]

which sites allready have a subscription service??

[AaronB]

A little late on the discussion, but sticking in my .02 anyway.

Will there be an option for multiple levels of contributers? Like with PBS you get a hat for $10, a video for $20, and a new car for $100 or whatever.

So will these new options be something that I can asign different groups to?

If I create 3 new groups "Contributer" "Super Contributer" and "Mega Contributer"... can I give the Contributer no ads, the Super Contributer no ads and more PM's, and the Mega Contributer all of the above?

[TurboFC3S]

I'm extremely mega friggin' interested in this hack :D When you have something, could you copy turbo@nothnbut.net on the announcement?

Thanks,
Ryan

[DevilsMania.com]

Originally posted by TurboFC3S
I'm extremely mega friggin' interested in this hack :D When you have something, could you copy turbo@nothnbut.net on the announcement?

Thanks,
Ryan

yepsssssssssssssss :D
webmaster@devilsmania.com

[BradC]

I would be interested in this hack to.. I don't know about implementing it.. but just seeing it cause I want to learn more php..

But what tora and thewitt said seem true for most cases, especially if they are small sites with little member support, throwing in a paid-to-use service would instantly kill the board I don't care if they are family and close friends :)

wluke but I would say a site like yours, and some others that over ALOT of GREAT information and services could pull this off with no problems what so offer :)

but if you get this done could you send it my way also.. :)

bclampitt@mail.com

[Dark_Wizard]

Wayne,

I would love this script for a customer who has a "not for profit" organization and relies heavily on donations to keep their site alive. I am also sure they would be more than willing to pay for this as well and if not I will! Let me know if you need more testers. Thx.

[datman99]

joebob, castel and others......

All of my registered members only have access to about 50% of the entire forums. Subscription fee is $22.00 a year. That's less than $2 a month.

I created another user group for the subscribers that gives them full access. I placed a "+" symbol at the end of each subscribers name. This tell me and them , who has subscribed to the forums and who has not.

The default theme/template has my banner code, so non-subscribers still generate revenue for me through their page views while they read the board.:D

No Merchant acccount, I'm running it throught PayPal and taking payments via snail mail at my PO Box.

I started this on July 1st , 2001. In 20 days I have made a little under $500 dollars. Now let me see if my banners can generate that kind of income in 12 months.:D I have been using Virual Marketing to generate new members.

Donations are fine and I have the Virutal Tip jar on the main site, but I felt that my forums were niche/special enough to warrant subscription. I think we all feel this way about out forums...don't we? Besides, only a few folks would ever donate to the site and www.thewell.com has been charging their members since 1985.

Heck, when you go to their page, you will not see a thing (No free tour) until you get your credit card out.:D

Gentlemen...let's all face it! The " Internet Free Lunch Program" is now over. All of the Free things on the web are now changing to cost money. ListBot, just emailed me telling me to pay $149. a year if I wanted to keep my email list with them. I moved it with the quickness.:D

Sites like:Ebay have been charging for years and no one has protested.

Napster
Yahoo
Netzero
AOL
Earthlink
Juno

Have ALL had to change their business plans and either raise prices or add services that cost, to stay afloat. Look at Webvan...great company, great service.....now bankrupt!! Wow!

ToraTora!
I do have a prize vault for subscribers only! These prizes are donated by record companies and other organizations. I do not have the purchase the prizes, but only subscribers can win them...so that is incentive right there.:D

Downside: Yes, I did loose about 50% of my members, but I made the announcement 45 days before D-Day. In other words, they were ALL well informed. Some members felt that I betrayed them, others understand that the Hosting company bills me each month and that only I pay the bills and work for the site. they also undertand that I have no VC in my life.......just the black wallet in my back pocket.

So, if any of you have any questions about how this is working? Please email me at: helpdesk@dailydiva.com and I will be sure to answer your questions.


;)

[wajones]

wluke, hope I'm not too late to get a copy of your membership hack. Thanks My Email (joneswaj@home.com)

[std]

This is certainly something that would be very helpful for me as well. I have folks who are willing to donate some funds to keep the site running, but would like to reward them for this donation.

I am sure there are many other vBulletin License Owners who could use this hack too...

[AaronB]

Any status on this? Haven't seen anything from wluke in a while. Must be really enjoying that honeymoon ;)

[Castel]

I know good things come to those who wait :rolleyes: but I am curious as well about the status of this hack. Give us an update wluke. I am actually anticipating this hack more than a vB upgrade.

[datman99]

Seems that the paid community model is not widley accepted thses days...but I have a good feeling it will. Expect some members to leave your communities in search for other FREE ones.

Once you take the step towards Paid subscriptions, there is no going back. Good Luck to all and wluke take your time and do a good job:D

[Morgo]

Any more news on this hack! I'm eagerly awaiting it!

[AaronB]

Desperation is setting in... is this being worked on at all, or has it been dropped?

[Castel]

I hear you AaronB, I check upon this thread daily awaiting the release but wluke seems to be ignoring it lately. It looks like he has it up and running on SitePoint, did you decide not to make it public after all?

Just let us know what's going on with this hack, if you have dropped the project maybe somebody else can take a swing at it.

[datman99]

Hey guys....why not just do it manually like I did:D Until we here from wluke..

[Castel]

I literally couldn't afford to wait much longer on this, so I put the little PHP knowledge I have to work on a "watered down" version of what has been discussed in this thread.

Everything worked fine in testing and of this morning I am using it on my live board, which earlier today had 100+ users on. So I think it's pretty solid.

I only worked on the features I was looking for to begin with in this hack. There is no such thing as the cron job wluke mentioned since that is beyond my knowledge at this point (if only I had the time to learn more about PHP and MySql) so if you plan on awarding perks on a yearly basis it will require some manual book keeping or your end.

This what I have working so far based on a newly created usergroup.


Allowed to upload custom avatar
Allowed to pick custom title
An additional title such as "Site Supporter" title under the custom title
A special supporter's graphic. In my case this is an additional unique Galaga Ranking shield, but it could be a row of stars (if you don't use the stars hack by default) or whatever else image you would like to use.
Selectable style, for example an ad banner free style. I had this working in my test. The style is not selectable upon registration but supporters can select it from their CP after they have been moved to the new usergroup. However I ended up not using it because any user could just add the style ID in the browser address bar. Regardless of how little banners generate these days I cannot afford to lose that revenue because forums users will figure out this easy work around.


All of the above require very little and simple code changes. Now that you have this new usergroup you can also add a private forum for your supporters (I plan on pre-releasing new media and maybe even a couple of supporter exclusive downloads by means of this forum) ,give this group the use of forum search if it is not already in use now (taking it away from your current users might not be the best course of action :)) and increase the Mass Buddy PM limit for this new usergroup.

Like I said, a simple watered down version of what wluke had in the works or might still be development. If anybody is interested in it I'd be happy to document it properly and post it here.

[JackG]

hook us up!

[datman99]

Castel, that's exactly what I have done, but with no PHP...I just created a new group like you said. Bravo for going manual..

[chrispadfield]

hehe i just started some part time work on this. What i have done is:

- add an extra field to user table for special member
- if special member then they display a specific icon beneath their username (ie subscriber icon)
- if special member then the header and footer are different. I use my styles for different forums so i could not have a banner free style, instead my header and footer (which are global) always have the banner in and i created one without the banner.

I didn't want to do this by usergroup because again i use that seperation for other things so a subscriber user group was not practical.

Anyway, that is it really. Just thought i would explain what i have done in case anyone in same cicrumstances. Over riding pm limits, custom avatars, etc is simple from here on.

It is going to be harder using my method to have a forum just for these members. Not sure the best way to do this yet really.

p.s. a cron job is not really anything to do with mysql and php it is simply a server command to make a certain program/script run at a set period.

[mkilty]

Please please hook us up. I've been waiting for something like this for sometime.

Thanks,

Michael:)

[Castel]

Perks Hack for vB 2.0.3

This is a revision of what I mentioned above, thanks to what chrispadfield posted I got a better idea for handling the ad free browsing part of this hack. You will not be needing a new style now, so there is no way for the users to add a different style ID in the browser address bar and on top of that you won't have to update 2 style sets if you make some template changes. I almost feel like a real vB hacker now j/k.;)

Anyway, the usually hacking rules apply. Back up you files or try this out on a test forum first. This is working without any flaws on my forum, but you never know. As mentioned earlier I am fairly new to the PHP realm so don't expect any professional type support out of me.

Let's recap what you get with this hack. Perks based on premium user group:

Hacked Features:
- allow custom avatars
- allow custom titles
- ad free browsing template for usergroup, mods and admins
- special recognition graphic and title

Possible Non Hacked Features (basic admin panel operation):
- private forum for exclusive content
- allow searches (if not on by default)
- increased mass buddy pm limit

Extras :
- run ad pop-ups just on the forum index, while blocking them from premium usergroup, admins and mods
- incorporate recognition icon and title in the Galaga Hack if you use it

[chrispadfield]

good work, exactly how i did the header and footer :)

some of those extra bits you added are great, thanks.

[Wayne Luke]

I am not ignoring the thread... I just haven't had much time to work on this lately...

With Family, 3 Jobs, a father recovering from double by-pass surgery and many other things interfering with my life, it leaves very little time for programming. Heck, I haven't even checked to see if my DNS change from two weeks ago has gone into effect on my own site which is still in development.

However even with all this... The majority of this hack has been running at SitePoint Forums for 2 weeks now in a testing phase. I should be releasing my version of it soon. It is just finding time to write up the documentation and creating an installation script now.

[BradC]

Originally posted by wluke
I am not ignoring the thread... I just haven't had much time to work on this lately...

With Family, 3 Jobs, a father recovering from double by-pass surgery and many other things interfering with my life, it leaves very little time for programming. Heck, I haven't even checked to see if my DNS change from two weeks ago has gone into effect on my own site which is still in development.

However even with all this... The majority of this hack has been running at SitePoint Forums for 2 weeks now in a testing phase. I should be releasing my version of it soon. It is just finding time to write up the documentation and creating an installation script now.

I thnk we all understand it takes time... and with all that you have going on... it can be difficult.. I am very sorry to hear about your father :(... I hope for a very speedy and healthy recovery!!! My Blessing go out to him, you and the families.

I have noticed all of the new things at Sitepoint.. looks great.. actually it has always looked great, now it has enhancements :)

[FreshFroot]

Are we getting any closer? We're preparing to launch in two weeks, and this would be a great addition to our forum section.

[Castel]

That's totally understandable wluke. LIke I said this is just a trimmed version of what you r working on for the people who are in dire need of this like myself.

Without a doubt you'll a much better job at it then I ever could.

[Sal Collaziano]

Wow. Sorry to hear about the ups and downs, WLuke.. Take your time. We're all living without this modification as it is - when you finish, you finish.

Otherwise, just to let you know, I'm interested in this. I just moved www.80sxchange.com to a new host and it's not even ready yet. As soon as my UBB goes up and is functioning, I will be converting to vBulletin 2.03 - so yes, I am very interested in this feature you are working on...

[Sal Collaziano]

I think it would be a great idea to allow this system to work with PayPal's subscription service. Is there any way that can happen? It would really be pretty amazing if this could all be automated. As soon as someone donates, they get the features...

[TigerLily]

I would definitely be interested in this too! I would like to reward some of my members who have donated to our site and literally kept us going this year. These ideas are great, and $35 for a hack like this is certainly worth it!

Thanks also for the great ideas on this thread- I hadn't thought about doing this manually, and I really appreciate the perks hack as well. Lots to think about as we try to stay solvent. My biggest goal this year is not to go in the red!

TigerLily:)

[rebby]

this sounds like a great hack... can't wait.. :D

[REDPGT]

A guy a know that coded a new PHP board (based off PHPBB) made a donation system.

1) Users who donated money were given one green star for every $20 they donated, the amount could be set to any amount of money to equal a star. This could easily be changed to any symbol.

2) Users who donated $20 got a pre-selected avatar (an image of a car that you could select from about 15 different colors) and users who donated $100 got to have their own customizable avatar (based on the URL of the image). You could set size limits or dimension limits on the image.

3) A member with 5 stars ($100) had access to a 5-Star section of the club, that is not viewable to any of the members except the 5-star guys. Only they had rights to post in there.

This is by far the best (and only) system I have seen and it resides here:

http://www.probetalk.com/

This WILL be gone very soon though as they are switching over to vBulletin but the Donation hack is being worked on.

Here is a basic posting:

http://64.60.145.228/forums/viewtopic.php?topic=40591&forum=1&37

You'll see there are quite a few members who have donated and you can easily distinguish them, either by number of stars, the default image, or a customized image.

Here is my profile on that board, notice it says how much money I have donated (it doesn't say it on the main section, it's only shown by green stars):

http://64.60.145.228/forums/bb_profile.php?mode=view&user=4924

[REDPGT]

Originally posted by rebby
this sounds like a great hack... can't wait.. :D

Hey Curt, I see you are part of this board too :)

PS: My above post, I said it was the only one I have seen personally, there may be others out there, and another thing, the hack that we use could use some work but all in all it was pretty nice.

[mkilty]

Originally posted by wluke
I am not ignoring the thread... I just haven't had much time to work on this lately...

With Family, 3 Jobs, a father recovering from double by-pass surgery and many other things interfering with my life, it leaves very little time for programming. Heck, I haven't even checked to see if my DNS change from two weeks ago has gone into effect on my own site which is still in development.

However even with all this... The majority of this hack has been running at SitePoint Forums for 2 weeks now in a testing phase. I should be releasing my version of it soon. It is just finding time to write up the documentation and creating an installation script now.

Hi wluke,

Any idea on when you are going to release your hack? Just give a date that you might release it so I can know what to do.

By the way my father just did a double bypass at Walter Reed Medical as well. He did very well and was lucky to have caught it in time. Glad to see your father is recovering good as well.

Michael

[Dark_Wizard]

Wayne, my best to your father and I know what it's like, my dad went through a triple bypass and a valve replacement 2 years ago...take your time as I'm sure everyone will understand.

[bargie]

ok i might started on this hack. if anyone has anythink allready e-mail it to me. but i just want every one to post what they in this hack as reading through the previous posts seems there are a lot of ideas.

i know how to git rid of the banner system for donated users thats the easy part, need the ideas all sumarised

[chrispadfield]

well your first decision is is the subscriber status going to be made by using a usergroup (in my opinion a bad plan because users can only be in 1 usergroup) or by an extra field in the user table (IMHO a good idea).

Benefits include:

1) Seperate header/footer/headinclude templates (to take away banners and pop-ups
2) Different pm storage limits
3) Different mass send to buddies limits
4) Avatars only for subscribers
5) Different post settings on custom avatars
6) Ability to post public events in calendar
7) A forum for subscribers only
8) Turn off limits such as 60 seconds between pm/searching etc.
9) Recognition icon.
10) A subscriber page
11) Automatic email notification of subscription expiration.

probably more....

[chrispadfield]

of course it is up to you but useing user groups destroys any previous use people have them for. As people can only be in one usergroup any past use is gone. I have moderators who subscribe and moderators who don't. Using your system it would not work :(

If you do the extra profile field, the only problems are that it is harder to have a permission system for a forum for only subscribers.

As for setting up a subscritpion, writing a script that does

UPDATE user SET name_of_field = 1 WHERE userid=form_input is not hard, it is exactly what i do and takes me 5 seconds when i get a subscription notification.

[bargie]

i will work on this over the weekend, should be ready by the end of next week

i will try it by adding a new table.

hope it works.

jamie

[Ashura]

I would recommend just using an extra field in the user table instead of a seperate table.

[mcncyo]

has anyone done this and makeing a money money off of it? What is your topic? How much are you charging? What are you offering?

[Brian]

On the "private" forum for paid members perhaps options to just make it viewable to other non paid members but not able for them to post in it. This would be good for sites that have for sale forums, and to incourage people that want to sell stuff to pay :)

I would be willing to pay for this feature in vb.

-Brian

[Morgo]

You can do that already! assuming that your paid members belong to a different group, give your normal member group the right to read the forum, but not post.

[debpub]

Yes, it would be easy to control it using user groups.
You just have to be a little imaginative.

I guess the problem for some people is that they started their forums with the intentions of letting everything be free. Then they realized like everyone else in the "physical" world already knows that you can't keep giving away something for free without *someone* paying the price.

But their user groups are based on other things already like number of posts and other stuff so it is hard for them to switch over to paid and unpaid memberships based on usergroups.

If you are just starting your forum, then paid memberships is the way to go. If you currently have forums, then you are going to have to make a hard decision...

People realize that if you pay for something you will get something of higher value than if it were free.
Hey, just look at all the free discussion forum software and compare it to vbulletin! Jelsoft doesn't give vbulletin away for free does it?

[Brian]

I know you could do that know, I am talking about implementing this on the "paid" system being talked about :)

-Brian

[debpub]

Oh ok. I am not sure if the vbulletin developers are planning on adding this to the current code in the next release. Anyone reading this thread care to respond?

In the meantime you could implement your own paid system like a few people described in earlier posts.

[Steve_S]

I'm also strugling with "monetizing" my Forums. Iv'e read a few pages of this thread so please excuse me if the following points has already been discussed. Warning: this may seem heartless and my own members should not jump to conclusions. Business is business :)

The implication in this thread seems to be that you have to "give" them some new feature (via the hacks mentioned) inorder to get them to pay in an established board. I'm not entirely sure this would ever work.

-1 Why not "grandfather" your current member base and charge all new members? New members have the same features as the grandfathered user base.

-2 or - Why not just "turn the key" and move all current members to a restricted user group. They can read but can't post. After they pay they are moved back to the paid member group.

Obviously you would take some "flack" for this and would loose members but this would also lower your bandwidth costs and admin time.

-3 Some of you could even create a "cartel" of sorts so that if all the cool Forums in a given space did this at the same time the user base has no other option.

Thoughts ?

[wajones]

I "grandfathered" my "active" and regular participating members. Thats the only fair way to do it. Even then some members you may have forgot and that haven't been around in awhile come back and raise all kinds of discontent. But they wouldn't have contributed anyway, depending on their responce I have either given them membership or not, good boys in, bad boys out :) simple as that.

The biggest thing is that the regulars, the ones that contribute the most by way of participation usually contribute even though you don't require or ask it of them, even come back and contribute multiple times.

[chrispadfield]

I know of only one vb board that has restricted membership to only paying customers and that is paintballcity.com and it has worked well apparently.

To be able to do that you really need a forum with little competition or a unique selling point, quite hard to have at the moment. I don't think forcing people to pay is the best option unless you have something very special but encouraging a subscription for some extra benefit does work.

[wajones]

Originally posted by chrispadfield
I know of only one vb board that has restricted membership to only paying customers and that is paintballcity.com and it has worked well apparently.

To be able to do that you really need a forum with little competition or a unique selling point, quite hard to have at the moment. I don't think forcing people to pay is the best option unless you have something very special but encouraging a subscription for some extra benefit does work.

Your right, that's about it in a nutshell, for every site that charges there will be more than a few offering the same or better service for free.

The only thing I can see is that if you have a popular board, the membership may want a private area that their willing to help maintain with contributions. Keeps out the people that just frequent to disrupt things, that could be a perk in itself. But then you would have the problem of enticing new members ???

Sounds like a no win situation. :(

[rowanthemanfish]

I would love a copy of this hack, anyone know when itl b ready. Im sure everyone is awaiting this one with!!!

Count me in i want a go!!!

[NitroSimSev]

Is the hack available yet? Willing to make a donation if it is.....

[certify]

I'm willing too. :)

[fonzerelli_79]

it seems that subscription based forums are the way of the future.

As a webmaster, this could be a god send but as a regular at several forums including vbulletin.org, vbulletin forums, phpportals, sitepointforums etc , i simply could not afford to take part in all these discussion boards.

And would it be worth it??

[Joe]

Once again, i would love this hack / script, and would pay for it! I doubt i'll ever go to a full subscription based community, but i have over two dozen donating members at this time that i would love to offer extra features / benifits.

[Splitfyre]

I like everyone's ideas here. I'll be looking at this once we hit the 1000 user mark.

[harley3049]

I have a small question that I have with one of the perks in the download.I am installing perks section that involes avatars and I need to add more than one user group to be able to upload custom avatars.Now in the insructions its says to do this

FIND:
-----------------------------
if (($avatarallowupload or $avatarallowwebsite) and $bbuserinfo[posts] >= $avatarcustomposts)
-----------------------------

CHANGE TO:
-----------------------------
if ((($avatarallowupload or $avatarallowwebsite) and $bbuserinfo[posts] >= $avatarcustomposts) || ($bbuserinfo[usergroupid] == 9))
-----------------------------

NEXT FIND:
-----------------------------
if ($bbuserinfo['posts']<$avatarcustomposts) {
-----------------------------

CHANGE TO:
-----------------------------
if (($bbuserinfo['posts']<$avatarcustomposts) && ($bbuserinfo[usergroupid] != 9)) {

Which I have done and I get no errors but the problem is what I changed it only sees the first group of users.What mine look like is this

if ((($avatarallowupload or $avatarallowwebsite) and $bbuserinfo[posts] >= $avatarcustomposts) || ($bbuserinfo[usergroupid] == 8)
|| ($post[usergroupid] == 9) || ($post[usergroupid] == 7) || ($post[usergroupid] == 6) || ($post[usergroupid] == 11) || ($post[usergroupid] == 5)) {

And this

if (($bbuserinfo['posts']<$avatarcustomposts) && ($bbuserinfo[usergroupid] != 8) && ($post[usergroupid] != 9) && ($post[usergroupid] != 7) && ($post[usergroupid] != 6) && ($post[usergroupid] != 5)) {

What is it that I am doing wrong??????
Thanks for you help as I am very new at php and just cant firgure this one out....Thanks

[certify]

I don't think this is going anywhere. I'll hire a full-time PHP programmer to work on it.

[TigerLily]

I have started the transition on my site to paid memberships, and surprisingly, it's gone quite well! It's strange, but it seems that people appreciate communities more when they know they have to pay for them or they'll cease to exist.

I announced the changes on my site right before Christmas and expected to get a LOT of backlash about it, but haven't had hardly any negative comments. The members have been very understanding. Their reaction was not only "Yes, we're willing to pay" but also "Let me send in an extra payment for someone who can't afford to stay." It's been a pretty amazing experience!

I hadn't planned on taking any membership fees until mid-January, but have already been inundated with payments, and the members have 4 more weeks to get them in! To say I'm overwhelmed is an understatement!

I'm running into some problems with the amount of time it takes to process these payments and send out receipts. I'm wondering if anyone has done this or has ideas on these two issues:

1) Automating payments with vbulletin - I'd love to automate it with PayPal, but have read all of the manuals and am not sure how to integrate their subscription service with vbulletin- the subscription forms don't allow for passing a username variable (unless generated randomly by PayPal). This is a problem for existing members wanting to pay that way- unless they already have PayPal and add their username to the notes area, I have to match up email addresses, and even then sometimes their registered address at my site is different from their PayPal email address. (I also allow people to pay by check, those just take longer, oh well!)

2) Emailing new profile field info in receipts to users in paid members group- I'm wondering also if anyone knows how to add new variables to the email scripts so that I can sort the members who have paid and email (and maybe even PM) their receipts to them, automatically including what type of membership they bought (I'm offering 3 kinds- yearly, 6 months and quarterly), what they paid, and when their subscription expires, plus any notes about their payment.

On the two tiered membership- I decided to handle it by moving everyone who pays to a new paid members group, and turning off the privileges for the "registered" group on Feb 1st. They will be able to view the boards for a while, but not post, until I figure out how I want to do things like free trial memberships, etc. Not sure how to expire an account after two weeks.

If anyone has ideas or questions on how I'm handling this as I'm implementing it, I'm happy to help and would love help from others. I wish I knew more php! I can add hacks with no problem and tweak things just fine, but writing new code throws me for a loop right now. Time to crack open some books I guess!

Thanks a bunch,
Kim:)

PS I had posted earlier in this thread that we were trying to stay out of the red till the end of the year. We made it up to December, and then I had to pay for server costs out of my pocket during Christmas! That was the galvanizing factor for the changes, and now I'm glad I had that push to make the tough choice of going with memberships. It was a huge relief and I have no regrets about it. :D

[stilger]

Tigerlily, From reading your message it looks like I want to do the same thing you are doing on my site. My question is. How are you keeping track of who paid? How long they paid? So that you can change thier membership if they do not renew?

Thanks

[grb123]

TigerLily, I've done something similar to you, although we have a Registered Member and a Premium Member. Premium members pay an annual fee via Worldpay and a receipt is sent to them automatically. We then add them to a separate groups which gives them access to more forums and and also marks them as a premium member (plus a range of other benefits).

As far as renewals go, we haven't done any yet as it's only been going a couple of months, but basically we added a field to their profile (only viewable by admins) with the month/year their membership is due to expire. Then every month all we have to do is search for all members with that month in their profile and send a renewal notice. At the end of the month we search again and anyone who still has that date is made a normal member again.
So there's still a bit of admin involved but I'll see how it goes before I change it.

You're very lucky not to have had any backlash. We haven't because it's voluntary, but I think we would if we made it compulsory. How much are you charging?

[okrogius]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by chrispadfield
I think a lot of us are feeling the strain of the cost of running out own servers with pathetic advertising revenue.

I am quite keen on a subscriber/donation type system where users pay approximatly $5 per month. I am going to "market" this as somewhere between a donation and a subscription and it is the later i need to think about.

My plan would be to have all the subscribers in a seperate user group. Now, the possible things i have thought about adding are:, importantly i am trying not to reduce any current features:

POSSIBLE - very easy hack to add or a feature already
NOT POSSIBLE - more significant hack

i) a "badge" by their username saying that are a donator. POSSIBLE.

ii) a different template set with no banners. I am not 100% sure how to do this. One way i am considering is just doing an if/elseif routine inside the phpinclude template which will not load the banners if usergroup = x. The problem with this is the ugly empty spaces left in the tables if i do. Other option is a seperate template set but i force templates on some forums. This is again the nature of the problem with having the header and footer part of a whole style! It should be independant!!!!!!!

iii) Variable amount of pms based on usergroup. Currently NOT POSSIBLE

iv) Avatar based on usergroup. Personally i do not want to limit avatars to subscribers but it is an option. I am pretty sure avatars are not based on usergroup so again NOT POSSIBLE

v) variable limits on amount of pms sent to buddy POSSIBLE (not much of a feature!).

vi) An extra forum just for subscribers POSSIBLE

vii) Email account @domain.com, integrated into private message system and ability to collect through pop3 account! NOT POSSIBLE and requires a very significant hack, especially for pop3 account which would be server and email program (sendmail/qmail) dependant.

viii) Searching on/off. On my forum this would not be much of a feature but on some it would be a very useful for feature to allow searching for a "paid" usergroup and not for another.

Currently that is all i can think of. Anyone with any other suggestions? From that list the only one that is of any real value is the advertising one. What does everyone else think?

[rawnet]

Hi TigerLily,

Could you possibly post copies of the email and/or page text which you used to inform your visitors? I think that people's reaction would vary greatly depending on the tone used to request paid-for memberships, and it would be useful to see how you phrased things.

[TigerLily]

Hi all- wow, I haven't been over here in a couple of weeks or I would have answered your questions sooner! Sorry about that- the membership stuff is going great on my site, and keeping me incredibly busy!

How are you keeping track of who paid?

That was the biggest pain to figure out! I haven't found a tool that is really great for doing everything I need to do, so for now I'm improvising. My system is far from perfect- much more automation is needed, and I'll definitely be tweaking it for a long time to come!

Here's how I have it set up:

-Group permissions- Vbulletin's existing permissions make managing the groups easy enough, but it's still a lot of work initially to filter out who's staying and who's leaving. I chalk that up to growing pains. Once you've got everyone sorted out, it's much easier to maintain from then on- it's that initially sorting out that's the bugger!

-Paid Members go into a "Members" group that I move people over to when they have paid (and that's when I enter in their info from Excel too.) I gave members until a certain date to get payments in (gave them plenty of time- 6 weeks until the changes, and another 6 weeks to view but not post after changes).

-Nonpaying Members- they're all registered category, which will have viewing privileges for another 6 weeks, then they will be moved to an "inactive" category. If they want to pay, I can moved them to the Members group. If they don't, their account is deleted after it's been inactive to 12 months.

-Free Trials- attracting new people is just as important as keeping old members, so I'm giving people a month of free viewing (not posting) so that they can see what our community is like. After their month is over, they are invited to join. If they decide to leave, their accounts are moved to inactive (I want their info on file so they can't sign up again and again.)

-Member Payment information- I created hidden custom profilefields in the vbulletin database. They are easy to manage and I'm working on ways to pull information from them so that users can view their own payment info and verify everything is correct. (I'd also like to send members a receipt through the mass email function by using variables, but I'm having trouble figuring out how to call them the correct way for email functions.)

-Coordinating Payment Info- I found that Excel spreadsheets were a good solution for me. Excel seemed to be the easiest, and cleanest way to view everything I needed to see at a glance, and it's compatible with so many other programs. I have several of spreadsheets in a workbook full of my masterlists (which is backed up regularly!) I have lists in that workbook for payments coming in through paypal and through my PO Box (I had to do checks for my community- my content and users aren't into credit cards, LOL).

-Accounting: I use MS Money because it works well with my online banking and paypal as well as other online services. Quickbooks is a major pain and for me it was a waste of time. It's not compatible with much and you have to pay through the nose if you want any additional "features".

-To keep everything up to date, I have to regularly check a few programs to make sure all of the data is correct. I sometimes wind up checking quite a few things- PayPal, my email inbox, my PM inbox, MS Money. But everything goes into Excel- that's where I coordinate all of the info, and THEN put it into vbulletin.

- I DID try programs to handle the business end of things, such as Quickbooks, but it was a nightmare! That thing doesn't import or export to anything and really isn't set up for online business needs, especially online communities that sell memberships! I ditched that idea very quickly! For the accounting stuff, I use MS Money Home and Business- that does everything I need it do, and interfaces with tax stuff, etc.

How long they paid?

I offered my members a couple of choices. They could have a yearly membership, 6 months or 3 months. Since I have to bill more often for 6 months and 3 months, I charged a little more per year that way- it's an inconvenience to me to offer those, but having some choices has definitely come in handy.

I also offered discounts for members who wanted to send their payments in together or buy 1 for themselves and give one to someone else. The result surprised me- my members were buying 1 for themself and then giving the other to another member who needed it or their spouse (very surprising, since my site is mainly women, but it's fun to have the husbands online with us too- we now have quite a few!)

So that you can change thier membership if they do not renew?

I am using the search function in the admin panel to find people who need to renew by a certain date. One of the custom fields I added was a renewal field so I can pinpoint who has a 3 month subscription and send them an email reminding them to renew. If they don't renew after being notified, I move them to the inactive group until they renew or their account is deleted after 1 year of no activity.

I hope this is helpful! Let me see what other questions there were. This is a learning experience for me too!
TigerLily:)

[TigerLily]

Originally posted by grb123
Premium members pay an annual fee via Worldpay and a receipt is sent to them automatically. We then add them to a separate groups which gives them access to more forums and and also marks them as a premium member (plus a range of other benefits).

Yes, that sounds a lot like what I'm doing here. I'm basically using a custom Members group that has to pay to do everything. I'll be emptying the registered group into an "inactive" group with no permissions after a certain date. I gave them 6 weeks to use the boards fully before going to paid memberships, and another 6 weeks to view the boards until their privileges are turned off. New members can register and will be able to view the boards for a month, then they are invited to stay or sent to the inactive group.

For me, that was the simplest way to do it, and most of the people paying didn't want the non-payers to be able to see the boards forever. That may sound a bit uncharitable, but the same people also bought gift memberships for quite a few of our members who couldn't afford to stay. So as far as I know, we helped all the ones who needed it- which was a lot of work, but really enhanced the spirit of our community!

we added a field to their profile (only viewable by admins) with the month/year their membership is due to expire. Then every month all we have to do is search for all members with that month in their profile and send a renewal notice. At the end of the month we search again and anyone who still has that date is made a normal member again. So there's still a bit of admin involved but I'll see how it goes before I change it.

Yes, I found that to be the easiest way too! I like using vbulletin and Excel to keep all of the information correct. From there I can update other things, like MS Money. I also have to check my PMs and emails to keep the gift memberships straight, members problems, etc. I found that centering everything around vbulletin and coordinating the info through Excel was the best way to handle it for now.

I'd love to make everything automated, because this way of doing it is very labor intensive. I know over time I'll find a better way, and now that we're almost through the changeover, I've learned a lot about what I need and don't need! Short of cloning myself, I'm definitely going to have to automate more!

Here's what I'd like to do:

-Activation upon online payment- get the online payments to go directly to the database and then the system can activate the user's account. I know PayPal can send payment info to your server, but I haven't found a good way of getting that info in the database. One of the problems is the subscription pages don't have a username field, so unless a user has a paypal account and sends money directly from it, there is no way to match up the names. You could match by email address, but some members use different ones for PayPal and for their vbulletin account.

-Automatic, emailed receipts- with variables that pull the info from the custom fields. I'm working on this, cant' get them to show up right.

-Automated renewal reminders sent- or perhaps a function that could search the renewal dates, find the people who need to renew, and email them with a reminder- all with a click of a button/link in the admin panel.

You're very lucky not to have had any backlash. We haven't because it's voluntary, but I think we would if we made it compulsory.[/B]

I agree- I've been amazed at how everyone responded to my announcement! I really thought they would be screaming "off with her head!" Almost all of the members have been really great.

One of the things I really tried hard to do over the past several weeks is to be very open with the members, give them updates on how signups were going, and answer all of their questions. That went a long way in helping reduce problems.

I had a few members get uppity, but I took the time to explain publicly why we were doing things this way or that way, and that seemed to be all they really needed. They were just a bit confused. Many of them had no clue how expensive running a website can be, others wanted to make sure that we weren't going to take their money and shut down. I think you have to lead your members by the hand through the changeover to reassure them- even if they are tech-savvy. They need to know that things are going to be fine after the changed, if not better!

The only flack I've received was from inactive users who registered a while abck and never posted. I sent out an email to all registered members about the change in policy, with a link the announcement and the mention of paid memberships. The inactive users freaked out a bit. I got about 200 "delete me now" requests, and about 10 nastygrams. But that's out of 8,000 registered members, so that's really not bad.

How much are you charging?

Here is what I came up with for my community, which is geared towards saving money and is made up mainly of women:
(See notes below it too)

-$25 for a yearly membership
-$15 for a 6 month membership
-$10 for a quarterly membership
-group discount for those who sign up together- 2 yearly memberships/$40

I would have loved to have charged double that, but my members would never pay that. Some balked at the idea of paying $25 a year- but that's only $2/month. That really is cheap! I broke down the costs per day too- it's about 7 cents a day. I used any illustration I could to put the cost into the perspective of other things they pay for and to demonstrate how cheap it was: the cost of two delivery pizzas, or taking your family to one movie at the theater, the code of 2 CDs, etc. That helped put the membership fees into perspective for many of my members.

How I came up with the prices:

I researched the rates before I made the announcement because I felt that I really needed to get the dollar amount just right. It couldn't be too high or too low, or the members wouldn't pay and the community would fall apart without their support.

I needed to figure out how many people I thought were going to sign up. I purposely figured it very low, since memberships are still not all that common, and some people wouldn't want to pay.

I also needed to figure out what I had to charge in order to cover operating costs. I figured that I needed about $10,000 for basic operating costs- server, any extra bandwidth, my internet connection. If I could get more than that amount, I could make improvements and pay myself for my work (what a concept!)

So I needed a price that was reasonable to the members and was something I could operate the site on. $25 seemed to be the magic number. The overwhelming majority of the members have signed up for the yearly membership and have been very supportive.

And this week, only 5 weeks after announcing changes, I hit my goal of $10,000! So I've got the operating expenses for the entire year, and we're not out of January! Anything else I make can go to making improvements or paying myself.

Hope this answers some questions- this is a BIG learning experience, but I'm so glad I did it. It's a more practical business model, and a much better fit for my site than ad revenue ever was, and the focus is so much simpler: the members. No advertisers to please, no networks telling you what to do, just deal with the members. Keep them happy, have fun with them, and keep the site going. I like that much better!
TigerLily:)

[TigerLily]

Could you possibly post copies of the email and/or page text which you used to inform your visitors? I think that people's reaction would vary greatly depending on the tone used to request paid-for memberships, and it would be useful to see how you phrased things.

You are exactly right- tone is everything! Everything turns on how that announcement is written. If writing is not your strong point, definitely find someone who is good at it to help you clarify your thoughts and get them down on paper.

I love to write (as you can see by the length of my posts! LOL), so writing an announcement didn't seem hard at first. I kept trying to write a formal "official" sounding announcement, and wound up scrapping it entirely- it was missing something important. I had been talking with my moderating team about how to do the memberships, how much to charge, what to tell them, and found the answer quite by accident.

It was suggested that the price I wanted to charge was way too high, that something like $10 a year would be better. That price seemed like an insult to me. I got upset and spilled my guts to the moderators. I told them how much of a struggle last year was, and how I NEVER wanted to do that again- and I certainly wasn't going to do it for a measley $10! LOL! Even though I work with them closely and I tell them a lot, they really had no clue HOW bad it was, and how hard I hard been working to keep things going.

That was an eye opener, because I'd posted about it before, but they hadn't put the entire picture together. Once they understood, they were incredibly supportive and said I should charge double the amount I was asking for. They told me that I needed to tell the members about the changes in the same way I'd just told them. It was the best advice I could have gotten!

So I would up writing my announcement from the heart. I just let it all hang out, did a lot of editing, and polished it up a bit. The response to that announcement was incredible. It was probably the best Christmas I ever had because the support of the community was just amazing.

You can see the announcement and the reactions from my members here:
http://frugal-moms.com/boards/showthread.php?&threadid=70630

This is a VERY long announcement, but it needed to be- there was a lot to say! (Please note that I'm turning guest access off in about a week, but by then I'll have some static pages set up.)

It's been quite an experience and I still have a lot to learn, but I've gotten so much from the vbulletin community and wanted to be able to give something back. I hope this is helpful to some of you! Good luck!
Kim:)

PS I hope my answers aren't too repetitive and make sense! I've worked some insane hours this month (and I have three kids!) I'm pretty tired and fried! :)

[kidney]

Looking forward for that hack.....

[JohnBradshaw]

Hi this is what I would like to do to my board and I am willing to pay!

1 - Payment page, free trial or paid usage.

- perl/php script will need to be written to deposit user info into database

- will need to add field to the database for user type, in order to distinguish between paid users, trial users and admin and Perl interface to pull info from database to site

- WorldPay or Cheque will need to be added to the payment page if not already defined

- a perl script to email the users after their credit card has been verified for paid user with user name and password info

- a Perl script to run a SQL query to run for trial users that searches the database for previous trial use. if they have not used the system before, email the user name and password to user, if they have roll page to next sign up page stating their free trial is up, please pay for service.

- add an admin page to update prices for users/groups/surcharges so it will not have t! o be hand coded everytime there is an update

2 - VBulletin admin to check database for valid user name.

3 - Write script to email user name and password if they have forgotten this info.

- there is already a portion of this created by the vbulletin board, would add to the verification process that if the account is expired that it sends an email stating the account is expired, if you would like to make a purchase click here

4- Database fields to be created

- add expiration dates
- add field for paid users
- add field for paid groups
- add field for trial users
- add field for admin users with unlimited access
- add user type and other fields as necessary
- add index fields for each user type to reduce search time
- add field for pricing for each user type (make adminable)
- add field for discounts (make adminable)
- add field for worldp! ay surcharge
- add field for repeat monthly charges to be automatically debited by world pay

5. Automatic email to send to customers 30 days prior to their expiration date so they may make another purchase.

- This will need a nightly chron job run to test for expiration dates, drop email addresses into a flat file and run a Perl script to email all addresses in the flat file asking them to renew their purchase.

6. Automatic emails to trial customers
4 or 5 days prior to expiration date so they may make a purchase.

- This will be part of the nightly chron job that is running tests for expiration dates, however it will have an piece of code added to run on trial customers only.

- Perl script to email addresses in a flat file asking them to make a purchase.

8. Pop up for users who's user name has already expired.

- Perl script to run a SQL querey to check for expired passwords

- when an ! expired user tries to login it should roll to a page stating their account is expired, if you would like to make a purchase this will be written as a validation in Perl.

9. Single login for individual users, which means that a person can only log into one session at a time, even on their own computer.

- This is a simple verification process. login code modifed to query database to see if user/password combination is already logged in.
This implies modification of code to 'logout' users when a certain amount of time has expired if they don't explicitly logoff the system.

10. Multiple user access for group access.

- This will need to be added to the database and have a perl script check the database for single or multiple user status.

Thanks,

[Steve_UK]

Can anyone confirm these hacks will work with 2.2.5? we're trying to re-apply them but with no success...

And also would it be possible to have one style setting for normal registered users (IE a default) and just allow the site supporters to choose which style they want if we added 3 or 4?

[hypedave]

has anyone had success with this yet

[Neo]

In my future projects I am working on a store / payment system for members... but I am trying not to use shaftpal for payment.

[amity]

does the old hack work? any further discussion or ideas on how well this works? i am interested in seeing how things are going...

blessings,
amity

[huss]

We actually succesfully launched a two tier system this weekend, and our users are signing up faster than we expected. We save all the vb pretty bonus features for paying members and make basic just posting and reading.

[amity]

hey, i went to your big soccer forums and i am wondering how you are working your two tier membership? what are you offering the different members? how much are you charging? has anyone complained?

also, i love the way you have a side bar with your chat, store, etc. can you share your template that you used for that? i would like to add a side bar to my forums as well.

great job
amity

[dgessler]

huss,

Did you hire a programmer to make the little system? How did you get ahold of something like that?

Dan

[okrogius]

There's a code that 2checkout gives out for basic membership stuff, plus that code isn't something hard. All you need to do is have two usegroups and based on results of transactiosn move the users around them. Nothing hard.

[thirdwatch430]

I'll probably going to be having a donation membership option to get free stuff, don't know if it will be monthly or just a one time small donation. I am going to use the template modification where for ads for non contributing members. Sounds easy to integrate and I'll be giving away more things.

[EchoHype.com]

Are there any of these in developement?

Will there be one out? etc....

If nothing if moving....I'd love to pay a VERY skilled programmer/developer to bring it all to life.

Thanks!

[dgessler]

Originally posted by Codename49
...Nothing hard.

Yeh, nothing hard for a php programmer... :ermm:

[Neo]

I am sure it isnt hard since you have to get the correct transfer protocalls so that you can submit those nice little credit card transactions... but since gaypal usual wont let you do that unless you pay them like 8000 a month... :p

[EchoHype.com]

Well if any skilled programmers want a job doing it, contact me asap!

It pays too

[huss]

Originally posted by dgessler
huss,

Did you hire a programmer to make the little system? How did you get ahold of something like that?

Dan

We wrote it from scratch. Frist it checks if you are subbed. If not you can go thru sub checkout. That connects to 2checkout recurring biling. Then your usergroup and your styleset are chnaged. Then you see the site in the new style and the usergroup gives you access to ce3rtain forums. The styleset has all the features like forumjump and no ads that the default set doesn't.

[huss]

Originally posted by thirdwatch430
I'll probably going to be having a donation membership option to get free stuff, don't know if it will be monthly or just a one time small donation. I am going to use the template modification where for ads for non contributing members. Sounds easy to integrate and I'll be giving away more things.


/we started with donations. the response was so high we decided to make it a legit program. when we launched 2 tiers, all the donaters got upgrade credit. the recurring billing is the key to long term success imho.

[thirdwatch430]

huss: yeah i agree, however I am just testing it out and if I get a good response will develop the program further. Except I have no clue where to start developing a script so hopefully by then one will be released.

[huss]

I need a lil hacker help.

In showthread, I wanna check a user's usergroup, and if it is say 6 (i.e premium member) print 'xyz' by their name.

Help?

[grb123]

Originally posted by huss
In showthread, I wanna check a user's usergroup, and if it is say 6 (i.e premium member) print 'xyz' by their name.

In admin/functions.php under Start buildpostbit add:

// Premium Members
if ($post[usergroupid]==6)
$premiummember = 'xyz';
else
$premiummember = "";
// End Premium Members

Then in your postbit template where you want the xyz to appear add:

$premiummember

[gengar003]

Hmmm... how about, plain and simple, create a special usergroup for donators, and when they're put in it, they get to use custom styles and template sets, whereas non-contributing members get the basic Vbulletin look? Probly would only need a simple hack to prevent the changing of styles if they're not in the usergroup...

[caislander]

Guys,

This looks like an awesome hack, we would certinaly be interested, has it been released, or is it available for purchase. I read the whole thread but didn't see that anything was released by wluke did I miss something

[Neo]

I have a system in the works. If anyone wants the system faster they can contact me at twilightstar0@hotmail.com for information.

[pgowder]

Can you tell us more about your system?

[Neo]

not on vb.org

once I have it somewhat done I will post info about it.

[Caliber]

I have read most of these thread and with no disrespect to anyone here, I think some folks do not have a good sense of what you have to provide in terms of additional features to get your members to pay in a meaningful way.

We run elitefitness.com, the largest site for bodybuilders and one of the largest vBulletin's. A few stats -- we have about 40,000 visitors a day and we serve about a half million pages a day. We have just over 1079 members paying on average $11 per month. That's nice revenue, but we have a monthly ISP bill of over $4,000, so we have to charge -- there's just no way around it. Here's what we offer our "Platinum" members (taken from our sales letter):

______________________________________________

Post as many pictures as you like anywhere! Uploaded from your PC, or using the [IMG] tags.
Access full size pics when you click any thumbnail on all the Picture Boards Including:

Pictures of Gear (Never get fake gear again)
Pictures of Our Members (Check out our members)
Pictures of Men (For the ladies)
Pictures of Women (Hot and sexy!)
Pictures of Competitors (Amazing Pro Physiques)

Access the private Platinum Hardcore discussion board!
Access the private My Training Journal board!
Access the private Best of Elite Fitness archive board!
Platinum Chat -- so you can chat live with all the other members, moderators, and me! Private and Uncensored! We use volano chat.
Become eligible for special Prizes and Contests!
Priority for becoming a Moderator!
Free Telephone and Free Email Support!
Special Stars and 150 free Karma points for supporting the site!
Get 200 PMs (private messages) mailbox size. Regular users only get 50 PMs.
Turbo Code -- this makes the boards run 50% faster -- just for Platinum Members.
Personal Photo Gallery -- Access your own photo gallery of every image you ever posted and see every member's photo gallery -- full size images!
Task Bar Ticker -- Just like the stock exchange -- see the latest posts as they are made scroll by!
Images in Signatures! -- back by popular demand, put a picture in your signature for the whole board to see!
Stealth Web Address -- Does your boss know you surf Elite? Using the stealth address, your boss or company's IT department will think you are checking a PC Technical Support web site, because that's what the web address (URL) will look like to them. In fact, you'll be surfing the elitefitness.com boards at work -- not getting caught!
Get your own Avatar (Profile Picture) right away -- no waiting!
Use the new advanced Spell Checker!
No Advertisements -- NO banner ads and NO pop-up ads!
You save the $40 initiation fee!
You get a permanent 10% discount on all products at MassQuantities.com (on top of any other discount) plus other exclusive discounts and specials. Make your membership pay for itself!
Plus, for signing up before midnight Saturday, December 14, 2002, you get seven free bonus reports -- a $273 value, all for Free! including:
The 7-day DNP Fat Loss Inferno Cycle -- a $39 value, yours FREE!
Modafinil: Science Makes Sleep Obsolete -- a $39 value, yours FREE!
Xyrem -- New Pharmaceutical GHB -- a $39 value, yours FREE!
Why Billy has Breasts -- Understanding and preventing gynocomastia -- a $39 value, yours FREE!
Botox for Bodybuilders -- Do it yourself guide! -- a $39 value, yours FREE!
Engineered viral delivery of IGF-1 for huge muscles -- a $39 value, yours FREE!
Huge GHB busts! And how two athletes beat the system and got off! -- a $39 value, yours FREE!

Only $8.98 per month -- Less than a movie! When you join for three months and get an extra month FREE! And we'll waive the $40 initiation fee.
_______________________________________________

Even with all this, we still have trouble keeping our members paying. Two things we are considering are closing the boards to new non-paying members, and making the search a paid feature.

We spent a small fortune developing this and it runs on 2.6

Click here for our site:
http://www.elitefitness.com

Here for our boards:
http://boards.elitefitness.com/forum/index.php

And here for how we market our Platinum memberships:
http://www.elitefitness.com/reports/platinum/

I would be happy to provide the entirity of our code to someone who could port it over to the new version 3.0 and then we could give it away or sell it as a complete hack.

It would be great to hear from the other sites that have actually implemented a paid membership program and more specifically, hear from sites that have a significant number of paying members.

[jam583]

I plan to implement this very soon. My system won't be as complex, as I haven't found a hack to do it.

I am running 2..2.9 so if anyone knows of one please let me know.

What I want for contributing members at a price of $5/month:

1. They get another special title under name.
2. They get access to a contributing members forum. This forum is key and will hold hundreds of technical documents all in PDF format. Documents added monthly.
3. A monthly publication
4. Access to a forum to ask questions and a website tech answers (technical automotive questions).
5. Ability to upload an avater

The main thing people will like is the publications we will release. They will be how to documents and more.

Anyone know of a hack where I could put peole an a usergroup and they can get access to a special forum, custom avaters, and be able to have another title that says "Contributing Member" under name?

Hope to hear some feedback.

[proxyMX]

Im only making mines a special category access, plus they get some extra cash donned into their banks

[Mike11212]

im going to do it for 2 bucks a month

[Kaelon]

I offer a subscription-based system using some ideas from this thread (great discussion, by the way), and I have found that most users are not willing to pay more than a couple of bucks a month.

Best of luck to my fellow webmasters out there!

Kaelon

[PurpleCow]

There seems to be more than a couple of hackers working on this hack with their own versions ...!

Anyone have some kind of demo links ... or if u want me to, i can beta test for you.

Let me know, and i'd be very much interested in such a hack.

Cheers

[Dean C]

I have been working recently on a system for my forums. Photo in profile, vbpad, double points for posting, and loads of other priviliges around the site for donator. It's all automated too and memberships expire after a year automatically. Also i plan to modify it so you can have lifetime memberships and have a price for each tier of membership whether it be 1year,2years or 50years :)

- miSt

[bandersen]

I have just installed an Addon that does some of this. Here's a link:

https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?s=&threadid=53320

[PurpleCow]

bandersen - That link tells me, i have no authority to acces that page ? :(

Anything out as yet ??

Thanks

[bandersen]

I guess the hack was removed as it became a paid hack - but it handles paid memberships...

https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?s=&threadid=53580&highlight=vbtrader

link (http://www.atmyparty.com/network/forumdisplay.php?s=&forumid=717)

Today at 08:08 AM PurpleCow said this in Post #149 (https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?postid=426536#post426536)
bandersen - That link tells me, i have no authority to acces that page ? :(

Anything out as yet ??

Thanks

[SmEdD]

Theres a addon for vBtrader. I don't know where it went either. I think they deleted it because it was a sign of promotion tho it was free. The add on was done with pay-pal and only needed slight modifacation.

PM traffix and I'm sure he'd had ya a copy of the integration. He's a good guy.

[noonespecial]

all of this in VB3!

[allandk]

using paycom/epochsystems. anyone else using them ?

[AN-net]

please dont bump up dead threads:)