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?