What membership gets you

**kdrickard** · 10-07-2003, 09:21 PM

Forgive this suggestion as I'm probably missing something here... ??? Tonight while logging out of the board (just a weird security habit I have), I noticed the sponsors area went away as expected. As I poked around I did not see any reference to the board topics members or trial members could access. So, out of curiosity I created a trial member account to see what a trail member would have access to (sorry for creating a trash account). When I logged in to the trial account I could post, but saw the same topic areas as a just someone who did not have an account.

Suggestion: Mention somewhere if the automatic upgrade from registered to trial member takes some amount of time to activate and/or list the specific forums full members have access to. In a perfect world, seeing the member board topics but not being able to access (view) them would probably the most obvious way to illustrate what member status gets you.

I may be getting it all mixed up on how it's supposed to work, but thought it might be worth mentioning.

Thanks,

Kevin

P.S. The trash account I created was "DeleteMe" (sorry again).

10-08-2003, 07:30 AM

I concur with Kevin. I'm experiencing these issues right now. I just signed up for the sponsorship (via PayPal); however, there is no automated feedback as to when the upgrade (from registered to sponsor) will be effective or where the sponsor sections of the forum are located. A practical implication of this is my need to find some archived solutions recommended by members so I can work on the TMnr this Friday in preparation for a trip this weekend but I feel left in limbo. Regards, Vortex

10-08-2003, 07:31 AM

I concur with Kevin. I'm experiencing these issues right now. I just signed up for the sponsorship (via PayPal); however, there is no automated feedback as to when the upgrade (from registered to sponsor) will be effective or where the sponsor sections of the forum are located. A practical implication of this is my need to find some archived solutions recommended by members so I can work on the TMnr this Friday in preparation for a trip this weekend but I feel left in limbo. Regards, Vortex

**Chris** · 10-08-2003, 11:26 AM

Great feedback. I'll look into it and see what we can do to make that more indicative of the flow of the process.
Thanks
Ct..

10-08-2003, 08:32 PM

Chris:

There's a conversation in the "For Sale" section with Bill_NM. He's talking to a trail member and it's evident from the conversation that the trail member thought he was accessing everthing possible on the site. For him that's true, but apparantly what he didn't realize was that there's lots more if you become a sponsor. Bill explained what else is on the website.

Suggestion: Is there a way for trail members to see all the topic areas, but only be able to access those we've already agreed would be for trail membership. Once trail members realize there's a maintenance area, and tips, etc, I'll bet there'll be more who become sponsors.

What do you and the other "bogwons" think?

Ed

**mjlaupp** · 10-08-2003, 09:55 PM

When I suggested the current board layout I also suggested an access level plan as follows. I think that this scheme should provide the incentive for recruting new site sponsors.

Quote:

Access levels:

Guest - Can view all areas to the string subject level. Can not open a string or post.

Registered Guest - Can view and post to "Guest Area" and "For Sale". Can view "Sponsor's Area" and "General System Notifications" to the string subject level, but can not open a string or post to these areas.

Trial Member - Same access as a Site Sponsor for 10 to 30?? days then reverts to Registered Guest access.

Site Sponsor - Full access to all areas except those reserved for the administrator.

MJL

**Chris** · 10-09-2003, 07:26 PM

Mike,
We got to as much of that as we can. We can't open it to them without Registered Guests having full access.
Thanks for the idea though.
Ct..

**mjlaupp** · 10-10-2003, 09:47 AM

10-14-2003, 04:42 PM

Well, I think since it is our board, keyword "our", we should feel free to tell people about the other sections, and encourage them to try out and be a trial member just as Bill did. Word of mouth after all is what this place is all about after all. As it doesn't cost a penny to "try it out", I think this is the best approach with the impliments we have at our disposal......so basically, Chris has things right........Great job Chris! I say if any of us sponsers see's someone that is unaware of places on this site, Tell em about them!!! Hey guys, we got this far, we can sure get further! My $0.02

[glow=red,2,300]Happytrails..........[/glow]

10-20-2003, 06:26 AM

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Would someone please "...Tell em about them!!!..." for me -- I paid up but I'm still a trial member and I have no idea where to go to access the Maintenance section. I offered to waive the "free" month of membership to get to the membership level required to access the MT&T section; however, no answer (from Tina).

I work in the software integration business and I don't believe there is any reason why this (MT&T-access) should be so complicated, confusing, difficult, and darn right frustrating.

Usually permission levels can be set for different forums for different user levels. If they can't in this case then it can be recommended to the software developer for incorporation into the next bug-fix or major release of the software.

Vortex