A "Members' Onlyl " issue...

[annieb]

Hi -

I am the process of installing a vBulletin system on my membership website. I want a customization that may be a bit unusual. Hopefully someone here will be able to help. I am happy to move this posting to the "paid services" area if that is what will be required.

I run a story website (erotica for women). We update weekly with six new chapters of continuing serialized stories. My members have been wanting a forum for a long time, so they can discuss the stories and interface with the authors.

I want the forum POSTING to be limited to members ONLY. However, I want the general public to be able to read the exchanges, as I think it will induce people to sign up for the website members' area. The easiest - and most obvious way - to accomplish this is to put the forum in the free area of my site and I know that there is a way in vBulletin to restrict posting to members only. However, I need a way to automatically "reconcile" the vBulletin membership list with the website members' list (written to an .htaccess file in my members' area continually by my credit card processor). We really want this to be a members' only perk and with our large membership (minimum 15-20 people sign up, cancel, or their cards decline daily) we do NOT want to have to do this manually. So the first option would be to create some sort of script that would reconcile the board members list with the website members list.

The second way that occurred to me that this could be accomplished is to put the forum inside the members' area. That of course solves the problem of members coming and going, but how does the general public then get access to read? I was wondering if it might also be possible to create a script that would write a mirror image duplicate of the entire board to the free area of my site daily - identical in every way except that posting would be disabled.

Any ideas about how to accomplish this would be GREATLY appreciated.

Anne