If a person signs up and then their membership expires are they listed as a ‘Guest’ ?
Or are they ‘Member’ with no mention of their lapse ?
Just curious. Thanks.
Anybody without a current subscription is listed as “Guest.”
Charter Members become Members. Members become guests when lapsed, and then back to member status when paid up, I believe.
What they said.
If someone is a Charter Member and they fail to resubscribe they become a Guest, like any other lapsed subscriber. Upon resubscription (at the regular rate and not the Charter Rate) they are styled “Member.”
Once Charter Membership is lost it cannot be regained, so keep those Charter Member subscriptions in force. You can resubscribe at any time for a total of a little less than two years.
For regular Members, it’s much the same procedure; if a subscription is allowed to lapse status reverts to Guest, with no posting privileges and no search access. Upon resubscription they become Members again and everything gets turned back on.
This seems like a good place to ask.
I’m just curious about the technical workings of the board; how does the paid subscription system know who is a Member and who is a Charter Member - is it determined by title, or some other flag?
Or in other words, suppose my title was changed to ‘asshat’ for a day, then when it was restored, it was put back accidentally as ‘Cahrter Memebr’, would the system still regard me as a Charter Member when I came to pay my subscription?
Just tell me to mind my business if this is too probing an enquiry.
It’s two different things and two different systems are involved.
Every registration is assigned to a user group. That may change as circumstances change. We have some flexibility as to how most registrations are assigned; for instance, I can move regular members into SDSAB, we can ban people. (“Banned” is a user group.)
User titles are a separate entity and may be assigned to a user group or changed manually as appropriate.
The designation between Charter Member and regular Member is defined in the Reader subscription system which is not controlled through vB but feeds into it. We cannot assign registrations into the Charter Member user group; that’s why once a Charter Membership expires we cannot return it to the user group, the registration passes into the regular Member side of the system from that point on and there is nothing we can do about it.
Thanks for that clarification.
I’m still waiting for my “Helped Cecil feed the hamsters on the first day” tag. 
“Suck Up” is a user group?
Regards,
Shodan