I've developed a working solution that currently runs under these conditions:
[:"red"]*[/] Ubbthreads 6.1 - I'm sure it will work for 6.2 but I haven't upgraded yet.
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.htaccess type authentication (apache unix/linux) - This could probably be ported to IIS authentication if needed. The system could also be changed to simply use the UBBT authentication without much trouble but since I offer other content besides a forum profile, I require the server authentication layer.
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Netbilling solution provider - Ibill also works and I just downloaded the paypal pdf tonight regarding their membership billing system. Looks like it may work with a little shoehorning.
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Essentially a user clicks the join button, picks a username and password, pays the membership fee (credit card/debit/online check processed securely on Netbilling's side) and the account is automatically created both for access into the "/login" area on the server and in the UBBT database.
To make sure the user only needed to authenticate once, I had to do some heavy tweaking of UBBT and the perl scripts supplied by Netbilling which reside on my server. I also created custom scripts to handle account removal when a user expires from the billing system. Everything is working smoothly and I recently added a secondary (free) signup system that gives users an account on the forum with more restrictions on file type/size posting, forum access etc.
I don't have a manual for setting this up and to do so would require a fairly advanced understanding of perl/php programming, MySQL, unix/linux systems running apache and of course, experience with the billing solution provider systems. I can tell you however, that it works nicely and allows me to gather revenue without resorting to commercials or relying on donations.
With a big enough user database and traffic flow a membership system can generate revenue for years to come while saving bandwidth costs by adjusting content for pay/free users. Just 500 paying subscribers at $5 a month (roughly the cost of a magazine subscription) equal $2500 a month or 30k a year.
If anyone is interested, I am available for consultation and custom programming. This is a very advanced 'hack' and cannot be done in just a few minutes. My fee will be adjusted accordingly. I can be contacted here (private message me) or at []
[email protected].[/]
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- Simon[/]
