Contributing Memberships How-To
 

I believe all the pieces are now in place to implement this. First off I want to thank everyone in advance for even thinking about doing this. I really appreciate the offers of help I have gotten and the thoughtfullness from people willing to help with this site in so many aspects.

THANK YOU!!

To help some along who may want to participate in this project, I have done some screen shots of the pertinent pages and marked the images to help point out those options needed in order to make this work. So follow along with me....

1. The two levels of contributor memberships (Silver & Gold) can be found on the Paid Subscriptions page on this site. Finding that page is not all that easy, (which I will try to change for the better when I can), so here's the steps to get there and what to do once you do.
2. Near the top of the page, you will see a menu bar with the text "UserCP" at the left hand end of the bar. White lettering on the reddish bar.
   http://www.corvetteflorida.com/pics/user_cp1.jpg
   
   Click on that text to take you to the UserCP menu.
3. When the UserCP menu is displayed, you will see an option close to the bottom of the list that says "Paid Subscriptions".
   http://www.corvetteflorida.com/pics/user_cp_menu1.jpg
   
   Click on that option in the menu.
4. The Paid Subscriptions page will then display, showing you all the options for both Contributing Memberships, as well as the Sponsor Options available.
   The ones a regular member will be interested in to participate in the Contributions options will be the top two. One being the Silver Membership, and the other the Gold Membership.
   http://www.corvetteflorida.com/pics/subscriptions01.jpg
   
5. From this page you can select which membership level you are interested in, as well as which payment plan you wish to utilize. For the Silver membership, the contribution options are:
   • 1 year - $25
   • 2 years - $50
   • 3 years - $75
   The multi-year options are really for those people who would prefer to not have to worry about a yearly renewal every year.
   
   For the Gold Memberships, the contribution options are:
   • 1 year - $100
   • 2 years - $175
   • 3 years - $250
   
   These options are selectd from a menu to the right of each of the membership levels on the Paid Subscriptions page.
   http://www.corvetteflorida.com/pics/...ons_menu01.jpg
   
   You simply click on that down arrow to display the options, then click on the one you wish to select.
   http://www.corvetteflorida.com/pics/...ons_menu02.jpg
   
   Once you have the option selected, you then click on the Order button.
   http://www.corvetteflorida.com/pics/...ons_menu03.jpg
   
6. When you click on the Order button, that takes you to a new display giving you a rundown on what you have selected, and shows you the payment options. At this time, only PayPal is available, but if someone does not have a PayPal account, please private messaage me about an alternate means to forward payment to me.
   http://www.corvetteflorida.com/pics/paypal01.jpg
   
7. If everything looks OK at that point, click on the button "Order Using PayPal". That will then take you to a PayPal page where you need to log in to your PayPal account to complete the process.
   http://www.corvetteflorida.com/pics/paypal02.jpg
   
8. If your PayPal payment is an eCheck, bear in mind that it will take about 4 business days before the payment actually clears PayPal, which then sends a notice to this site to activate your membership.

I think I've about covered everything. Well, most everything I guess. I did make up a chart of the few optionals I am able to grant contributing members, so perhaps that is best put here for you all to see:

_	Visitor/Guest/Not logged in	Registered member	Contributor 1	Contributor 2	Sponsor
Icon	None	None	http://www.corvetteflorida.com/forum...ntributor1.jpg	http://www.corvetteflorida.com/forum...ntributor2.jpg	http://www.corvetteflorida.com/forum...s/sponsor1.jpg
Yearly Contribution	none	none	$25	$100.00	$100.00
# of PM recipients per single message	0	5	10	50	100
Ability to give positive reputation points	_	X	X	X	X
Ability to give negative reputation points	_	_	_	_	_
Can display signature area	_	X	X	X	X
Avatar size limit in pixels	0	160x160	160x160	160x160	160x160
Avatar size limit in kbytes	0	20	40	60	60
Profile picture size in pixels	0	640x480	640x480	640x480	640x480
Profile picture size in kbytes	0	60	75	100	100
# of allowed stored private messages	0	100	200	400	400
Can post, edit, and delete public calendar events	_	X	X	X	X
Registered user name changes permitted	_	_	X	X	X
Can view members name who left reputation point comments	_	X	X	X	X
Can create custom member titles	_	X	X	X	X
Can edit own posts in discussion forums	_	X	X	X	X
Can edit own posts in Board Of Inquiry forum	_	_	_	_	_
Ability to view IP addresses in Currently Active Users display	_	_	_	_	_

There really wasn't much to pick from on optionals, since I basically gave everything away for free right off the bat. But I was able to tweak a few things.

One other perk not mentioned here that I am toying around with is a special forum available only to contributing members and sponsors. Kind of a Insiders Club or a Guidance Counsel sort of thing.

Anyway, that's it in a nutshell. Any questions of concerns, please contact me about them.

Again, thanks to you all for all of your help with this site. I really do appreciate what you have done here.

Addendum added 09/30/07 -

DUH! It finally dawned on me that most people here may not have a PayPal account. I'm used to running sites composed of people mostly in business and nearly all of them do. A number of people have already asked me about me mail address to send a check or money order, so I guess I should put that here for reference.

Rich Zuchowski
P.O. Box 7547
Tallahassee, FL 32314

Please make it out to me name, as I haven't set up a CorvetteFlorida account with my banks. And please enclose a note with your member name here identified so I will apply the contribution to the correct member.

Thanks!

Subscription sent. I assume that one could upgrade at a later date???

Actually the code does not have any ability to automatically handle upgrades. That's because I'm not using the Subscription program code exactly how it was intended to be used.... :)

But I guess the fair way to do this would be to honor an upgrade at the difference in price anytime within the first 6 months of the current level. How does that sound? But this would all have to be done manually and is not as easy as just doing this all within this system. You would have to contact me and notify me of your upgrade intentions. Then manually go to your PayPal account to send me the difference in price. I would then have to go in and manually terminate your current subscription, and then create the new one at the higher level. Like I said, not quite as easy as it should be, since the code didn't have this in mind when the developers wrote it, apparently.

Also, I forgot to mention that there is supposed to be a display in your UserCP showing any currently running subscriptions and the date they will expire. You should also get an email notifying you of a subscription expiring. So please make sure you have your registered email address uptodate in your profile.

Thanks! Got two contributing members already. One came in before I even had this thread posted, so he beat me to the punch.....

:yourock: :yourock: :yourock:

I'm In!!!:party:

:dancer01: :dancer01:

Thanks, guys. I really appreciate this gesture. :thankyou2: :thankyou2:

Rich, we have been bugging you for months to let us do something. We appreciate all that you do and are proud to be part of this forum or I think it would be better called a FAMILY :yesnod:

Checks in the mail. I'm in .Small price to pay for this much fun.

Subscription sent with gratitude. Thanks Rich for a great Forum. Mark :thumbsup:

Heck, I'm not being rude and not thanking you all personally when you make those contributions..... One of the glitches I have been fighting with since the latest server move is that I lost email for my rich@corvetteflorida.com account. So I'm trying workarounds and having the server techs look into it. Supposedly all the ducks are lined up correctly, but it just isn't working. :banghead: If any of you want to try to get self induced brain embolisms, look into web server administration. :crazy03: :crazy03:

So, I'm not getting those notices and don't even know who has signed up until I check here and see the highlighted member names.

But THANK YOU all!

Thanks for getting this worked out:thumbsup:

I don't use PayPal so...the checks going out in the morning:thumbsup: