[Theforum] A neat thing for members

[rudy]

> Actually .. this might work well within the member page area.

true

in fact, the way the member records are designed, we wouldn't need to do
anything to allow this to happen, members could do that themselves within
the generic structure

> Our main stumbling block is defining/determining the difference
> between a user/member... once we get past this, I think we can
> work on creating this project logically and somewhat easily.

nicely stated

to recap, here are the entities we've identified so far --

anybody can browse the www.evolt.org site (priv=0)

users must log in to submit, rate, and comment on articles (priv=1)

members -- ah, that's the grey area (priv=2)

admins have priv=3

one or two admins have priv=4 ("god"powers in the system and database)


the difference between a user and a member is that we basically don't need
nor ask for any info from a user -- anybody can come along, register with
whatever userid and password they wish, and we wouldn't know a thing about
them

a member, on the other hand, needs to be "known" -- we would probably want
a real name, for instance


another basic concept behind "member" is that there's one record per
person, but a person can have multiple userids (consider all those people
who have registered with work-related email ids, what happens when they
change jobs...)

the only thing that's keeping us from moving on this project is the
unfortunate fact that the word "member" is also used for several other
concepts --

  ~ a subscriber to one of the evolt lists is an evolt "member"
  ~ only "members" of evolt are allowed to elect the board of directors
       (if and when we achieve the not-for-profit status we were seeking)
  ~ some people have a "member" account (web space)

i would advise not to launch the project until the definitions are cleared
up


the project, from what we know of it already, involves moving personal info
away from the userid record in the database into a member record, to which
the other attributes can be tied, and setting up a proper one-to-many
relationsship between member and userids (e.g. rudy is the member, and r937
and rudy937 are two of his userids, both of which he can post with, and
both of which will identify the same person when it comes to authorship of
articles, tips, etc.)


rudy