Membership Levels
By creating membership levels, you will be able to assign custom titles and powers to members of your community, as well as give users posting and viewing limits. Post and view limits allow you to control all non-supporters posts and views on your community. This will serve to keep costs down, control spam and reward loyal users. Membership levels can be either manually or automatically added and the number that can be created is almost unlimited. This means that you have the choice to control membership levels for your members manually or allow members to reach different membership levels after a certain number of posts. Please see Custom Titles for information on assigning titles to your members' user names.
Key Information
- You will typically want to keep Moderators and Administrators as manual user levels. Having users automatically gaining these powers may introduce a security risk.
- Setting viewing limits lets you efficiently manage your Gold Community cost. ezSupporters are exempt from viewing limits since they do not add to your cost.
- Posting limits can be a highly effective tool against spam.
How to Use User Levels
- Quick reference table on Membership Level terms
- What do the default Membership Levels specify?
- How to add new user levels
- How to make automatic user levels
- How to change/give a user level to a new user
- How to effectively use the Post and View limits (Daily Maximums) with your Membership Levels
Quick reference table on Membership Level terms
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Level | An arbitrary number from 0-999 allowing you to have up to this many levels (1-998 user definable). With numerical ordering, User Levels can be easily organized and grouped together. |
| Title | This is the description of the equivalent User Level number. The title can be whatever you desire. |
| Powers | Three levels of power: Administrator: Complete, unrestricted access to community management and customization. More info: http://www.ezboard.com/help/community/adminpowers.html Moderator: Access to topic commands (such as: delete, edit, move and other functions). More info: http://www.ezboard.com/help/community/moderators.html · Standard: Basic user privileges. |
| Type | Can be set to either Automatic or Manual. Automatic adds the user after a specified numbered of posts. Manual requires the admin to take action to add a user to the level. |
| Max Posts | Specifies the maximum number of times a user can post in your community per day |
| Max Views | Specifies the maximum number of times a user can view your community per day |
topWhat do the default Membership Levels specify?
- The default levels are the minimum number of Membership Levels your board can have: 999 = ezOp (community creator); 0 = Registered member; and two non-member levels.
- If you choose to allow unregistered users to post, you can edit the title you wish to give them. If you do not want unregistered users to view and/or post at your community, please see Who Can View & Who Can Post for information on viewing/posting restrictions.
- The registered non-member level is any user who is a registered and logged in ezboard member, but has not posted at your community. You can place viewing* restrictions on these users.
- The registered member user level is the level each user reaches once they post to your community. You can place both viewing* and posting restrictions on these users.
* ezSupporters are exempt from viewing restrictions since they do not add to the cost of Gold Community.
How to add new user levels
- Log in to your Control Center and click the My Community tab.
- Click on the Member Management button.
- Click the Manage Membership Levels link.
- Click on the Add New Level button.
- Enter the Level #, Level Title, Level Powers, and the Level Type with which you would like to add the Level to the user(s).
- Click on the Save Changes button when you are finished.
How to make automatic user levels
- Log in to your Control Center and click the My Community tab.
- Click on the Member Management button.
- Then click the Manage Membership Levels link.
- Click on the Add New Level link.
- This will bring you to a new screen where you fill in the new Level, Title, and Powers.
- Next to Level Type, select Automatic and fill in the desired posts to reach this level.
- Click on the Save Changes button.
How to change/give a user level to a new user
- Log in to your Control Center and click the My Community tab.
- Click on the Member Management Button button.
- Type in the name of the user you wish to edit and click View.
- Place a check next to the user(s) you wish to change/give a user level to.
- From the drop-down box at the bottom of the page, select Edit Member Levels and Custom Titles and click on Do It.
- Assign a level from the Membership Level drop-down box and enter in a custom title.
- Enter your password in the field provided and then click on Save Changes.
How to effectively use the Post and View limits (Daily Maximums) with your Membership Levels
- Use these limits to separate new members from loyal members. You can limit a newly Registered member to very few views and/or posts per day. Then once they prove themselves to be a loyal and valued member you can create another automatic or manual level for them to graduate to.
- You can create a level that has unlimited posts and views for all users that donate to your community to reward them for their support. You will need to manually add users who donate to this level.
- By creating groups of users with different levels of access to your board, you can better manage your users.
- Prevent spam by creating a new Membership Level that only allows a few posts per day for those who have recently joined. i.e.: Level : 1 Title: Newbie Powers: Standard Type: Auto after 1 post Posts per day: 5 Views per day: 20
- Limit views on all Membership levels at your board to manage Gold Community
costs. By being able to set viewing limits, we’ve given you the tools
to determine your own cost of Gold Community.
e.g.,
Level : 1 Title: Newbie Powers: Standard Type: Auto after 1 post Posts per day: 5 Views per day: 20