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I've been testing out the sponsorship tools with WSNCL and to me they seem completely out of order in terms of steps a person must take to register.
Right now (as per your recent changes to turn off direct registration) this is what I must do as a user which is completely backwards from a user point of view.
1) a user registers for usergroup 2 which is 99$/365 days
2) the admin must validate membership before user can pay (see the sponsor page) if admin doesn't......
3) user can't login to pay until membership is validated by admin Or
3.5) if admin DOES validate user the....
4) user HAS the ability to skip sponsorship page and NOT pay and have access to all abilities of usergroup 2.
Using a real world analogy, this the same thing as someone standing in line at a cash register trying to buy a map, only they're looking at the map while they're waiting. Once they reach the cashier, they put the map down and walk away because they have the info they need and the cashier no longer needs to accept money from them.
It would seem more logical to me to follow this protocol:
1) user registers for usergroup 2 but is not validated in terms of full access given to usergroup 2.
2) user is sent to sponsorship page to make payment
3) the payment validates membership (as well as the admin verifying payment) which officially turns on the membership to allow full group access allowed to usergroup 2
Using the same real world analogy, it's the same guy in line to pay for a map that's wrapped up in plastic to avoid tampering. Once he pays for the map, he owns the map and has access to the data on the map.
I know I'm not using the right terminology to communicate with you but this is all I have. I'm a designer not a programmer. I find the sponsorship section the weakest link to wsn and I only want to help make it clearer and more user-friendly for the people who use the software and the surfers who visit it in action.
Right now it's a completely user unfriendly and I'm so close to dumping this all together. Yeah, I'm that frustrated and I'm sorry.
I must be a complete idiot not to understand this. If anyone is successfully using the sponsorship section, please contact me, I'd like to talk user to user as well.
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On a blame me note: Because I have 3 types of member usergroups, I have three custom registration forms.
Each custom registration form has a hidden variable setting the usergroup number. If this hidden variable is there, it's forcing the users into the proper usergroup and possibly screwing up my sponsorship flow because it's making them the usergroup 2 for instance giving them data access without paying first.
Perhaps my registration flow should NOT set the usergroup, or perhaps a sub station usergroup like guest but without data access, and the admin will set the usergroup once the payment is made?
That's probably the issue and it's been my crappy logic in designing the registration forms that's causing this mess.
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Maybe if guests chose which usergroup they wanted, were sent to a form that sent them on to paypal (or other payment system) first, then auto generated account information (for usergroup X) would be sent to them. I don't know I'm just throwing out ideas for possible custom work...
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Or, in order to prevent surfing if unpaid, an if statement where if funds are less than 1, they are forwarded to the sponsorship page until they pay....wouldn't that solve my problem. Of course admins would have to remain exempt from that. That would mean direct registration would be perfect and need to be enabled again.
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