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

[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.

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

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!!!