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.

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.

Whats the latest on this? :)

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.

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.

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 :)

Fixed...

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

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?

which sites allready have a subscription service??

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?

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

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

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.

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.


;)

wluke, hope I'm not too late to get a copy of your membership hack. Thanks My Email

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...

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

hook us up!

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..

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.

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

Thanks,

Michael:)

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

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

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

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 :)

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

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.

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...

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...

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:)

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