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?

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

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

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!

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.

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

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!

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.

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!

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.

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?

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 :)

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.

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

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.

true dat

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.

damn

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. :)

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.

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.

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?...&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 ?

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.

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.

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.

Thanks for the info WLuke. This is pretty wild!

this is awesome wayne, looking forward to it.

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?

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

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

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

Well congrats Wayne

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.

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!

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.

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 :-)

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.

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?

Would something like this be useful?

http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showt...threadid=18888