I need some creative help

[LittleBigDawg]

Hi Everyone,

I'm creating a networking website for pet sitters and I got VB with the plans to use it as the actual networking tool. I need some help in setting up what I want to accomplish with this site as I'm very much a VB newbie (and in general technology hates me :P ). Here's what I want to do.

There will be two main user groups: care providers (group1) and clients (group2). Group1 will have privileges to discuss in their own private forums things that relate to the industry as well as referring clients to each other. I want group1 to eventually be on a paid membership basis. In the mean time I'm letting members join for free to build membership and so that they're not paying for nothing for now so to speak.

I want the clients group to have access to the public sections of the forum so they can participate in general discussions if they wish. I also want to have a forum set up where this group of members can post when they need to hire a service. Now here's the tricky part. I need this to be viewable only to the members of Group1 and not the general public or some one who signs up as a client. This is meant as a sort of a bonus of being a member of this network, having that access to potential clients. We plan on advertising the site to encourage potential clients to post "wanted" ads in our network for our network members, and those ads need to be restricted from view by anyone not authorized to do so (ie not a member of group1). Otherwise it would be a little pointless to pay for a membership to be a part of the network if you can get this benefit by just joining as a potential client.

I'm wondering if I can restrict the client group in such a way that in this one specific forum, they can post an ad for service, view their own post, view replies to it and add their own responses, but not be able to see any of the other threads by other clients within this forum? If not, can any one suggest another creative way to accomplish the same goal?

Thank You!

[Hex_legend]

Send me a PM, I'll do all this for you