gift subscriptions

[renegade600]

I think it would be nice if there could be a way to give gift subsciptions to others here at cth.

any thoughts or flames...

[TJolly]

What do you mean Dan?

[Vercades]

I will make it my personal attempt to get all little posting privilages given to suscribers without paying! By God as my witness I will find a way. :evil:

[lufbra]

I'm sure MishY would let you purchase a subscription for any other Member you'd like. :)

[renegade600]

I'm sure MishY would let you purchase a subscription for any other Member you'd like. :)
I was thinking about a way where you would not have to bother MishY.

[lufbra]

Well, the forums belong to MishY, he pays for all the running of this set, so unfortunately he would have to deal with this. Besides, if he let AnnMarie deal with it, the money would go towards her beers, if Zip dealt with it, he'd get a new tinfoil hat, Smurf, well he'd buy a new Linux 'puter, and Degsy, he'd be off to the nearest Weatherspoon for a cheap vindaloo and a few pints. :p

[hypnotizeminds]

I think it's a great idea. Who wouldn't want a subscription to CTH? ;)

That's just it, though. The whole thing would be about the idea of giving a gift, the actual means of subscription and payment would be identical to the current means of which to do so.

The only thing that would have to be done in order to allow someone to give a years subscription as a gift would be to allow a user to pay the $5, then allow him to make a new username right then and there for the person to which the gift will be given. Afterwords, CTH (or the gift-giver himself) could send a customizable, personalized e-mail informing the recipient of the gift, who it's from, and how to use it. It would be a lot like sending an e-card to someone with money or a gift attached. There would really need to be very, very few changes made to make this possible...

...or at least, that is my take on it. Of course, I am no web designer, nor do I know first hand how much these things cost, but it doesn't seem unrealistic at all to me. Just my two cents... :wave:

[lufbra]

I'm sure that if anyone wanted to do this, all they have to do is send MishY a PM or email, letting him know what is going on, giving the Members username that the subscription will be a gift for, then MishY could work on the rest, assuming that MishY would be prepared to do this :)

[zipulrich]

Well, the forums belong to MishY, he pays...

Happy to say I was among the first to send MishY 5 bucks. Yes, I was already a moderator here. That's not the point. And I'm not the only mod to do so. Unlike some other tech support boards, CTH is not owned by 'Saturn Media' or some other big Conglomo. Nothing wrong with it - but MishY foots all the bills himself. Plus works a 'regular' job. And has a life, like most of us do. So when a server 'bites the big one', or a hard drive dies, guess who pays for replacement? And uses his own time to do the install? So a fiver really isn't that much.....but I guess each little bit helps.

For all you 'regulars' here, you should check out what CTH used to be like a few years ago, get a little "history". I think you'll be surprised! ;)

[degsy]

There would really need to be very, very few changes made to make this possible...

...or at least, that is my take on it. Of course, I am no web designer, nor do I know first hand how much these things cost, but it doesn't seem unrealistic at all to me

On that point you have to realise that the forums use vBulletin software.
vBulletin is quite expensive and although it can be customised in terms of skins/themes and other mods it would take a whole lot of work to integrate a full site system.

If you look at the other CTH pages you will get a feel of the original theme which had to be created manually along with the pages such as downloads which is a totally seperate CMS to the forums.

[hypnotizeminds]

On that point you have to realise that the forums use vBulletin software.
vBulletin is quite expensive and although it can be customised in terms of skins/themes and other mods it would take a whole lot of work to integrate a full site system.

If you look at the other CTH pages you will get a feel of the original theme which had to be created manually along with the pages such as downloads which is a totally seperate CMS to the forums.
I would never argue about this sort of thing because, as I stated before, I really don't know much about all of it. Certainly not as much as most of you, I'm sure. The only thing I have to say in return is the following; is it not possible to perhaps construct HTML code for the basic process I described earlier outside of the forum itself, but still on the CTH site and put a "Subscriptions make great gifts!" link on the home page? Would that not make things easier by not using the vBulletin software, rather HTML or perhaps another method that is even easier?

I want to make it perfectly clear if I can that I am not trying to argue my ideas as "right" or prove anyone wrong or anything like that, I am just asking questions to see where I went wrong in coming up with them, so thanks in advance for understanding this and helping me out. :wave:

[Vercades]

Just wanted to make the topic HAWT! :michaelan

[renegade600]

Oh well, it was a thought. Thanks for the comments. :wave:

[degsy]

is it not possible to perhaps construct HTML code for the basic process I described earlier outside of the forum itself, but still on the CTH site and put a "Subscriptions make great gifts!" link on the home page?

That would be upto Mishy. Renegade mentioned about not bothering Mishy with requests, but at the moment the PayPal system requires manual intervention to accept payments.
Mishy then manually upgrades the user account in the forum software.