Although we still offer basic, Free membership, and Paying membership which entitles you to receiving our print magazine Pagoda World and our news letter, as well as full access to our technical manual, the membership system has been completely revamped on the new system.
A visitor to the site lands on the front page and sees a row of buttons at the top. These buttons allow him/her to Register (if he or she is not yet a member) or to Login.
Everyone who registers is a Basic Member of the Pagoda SL Group. The member can access their Profile using the modified button bar that appears after a successful login.
Logged-in Button bar
After logging in, this button bar appears, with additional options. The main one we are concerned with here is the Profile button which allows the user to:
change account related settings (including those required for full membership)
change preferences and settings on the board, for instance how the board looks, the order of messages, the kind of notifications received and so on
Profile
Profile Summary
After clicking on Profile, this profile summary appears. It shows you at a glance your name, title, membership status (Basic or Full Member), the number of posts, your ranking based on the number of posts, the date your first registered and when you were last active.
Profile Menu
In the profile menu at the left of the page you can perform Full Member Actions depending on your status. These comprise:
Join as a full member... you are asked to complete address details and payment options, and then you are taken to a Payment page. Here you can select to pay with PayPal (which is the recommended option, as it allows us to automatically activate your membership once we receive payment confirmation from PayPal) or you can choose postal payment with can take anywhere between 1 and 6 weeks to be processed;
Renew your membership... if you are already a full member you can extend your membership by an additional year. You can do this at any time, not just when your membership is due to expire;
Cancel your membership, which will prevent you from getting reminded that your membership is due to expire. Your active membership will not actually be stopped until the expiry date is reached;
Review your Membership History. That Membership History is essentially an audit trail of all activities on your account. It shows when you initiated a join or renew action, if a payment took place, if you or an administrator changed your status, or if a payment has been processed. All automated actions (such as sending you a reminder or expiry notice) are also logged.
Internally we keep two statuses, and your full membership is only activated when payment is received. Typically the system will automatically send you a warning e-mail when your membership is due to expire. After expiration we warn you again, and offer you a small grace period before your membership is actually de-activated.
Profile contents
Profile Contents
For a Full Membership we require additional information over and above the details provided for a basic membership. We need a valid postal address to send Pagoda World to, and payment details. We keep track of:
your full membership status (have you tried to join?)
your active membership status (have you paid, and aren't you expired yet)
your last payment date
your current expiry date
the currency and amount paid
Your Membership History shows an audit trail of your account... when you did what, when the system sent you notifications or when the system or an administrator changed your status, and if payments have been processed. If you have any queries, check your membership history and if that does not tell you all, just contact the membership administrator at membership@sl113.org.
