Member blogs, but not full site. How To?

Howdy all,
I want to create a membership site around a common interest. So I’m trying to pull together S2 Member, BuddyPress, and WordPress. I think I mostly have S2 Member Framework up an running. This morning I was able to buy a membership through paypal, get transferred back to the site and create an account acting as a member. As part of the account creation process, I also requested that a site be created, which seemed to work. So far so good. And so far this is a very typical set up.

But this community site wants a “facebook-like” experience. By that they mean that pretty much everything they post is intended for members of the community. Within that community, they might have sub-communities and the sub communities may share somethings among themselves. But the main point is that for these folks “Anyone” need so mean “anyone that is a currently paid member.”

For my main site in the network, this is not too much of a problem. I use S2 Member to restrict access to the Buddy Press URLs and this covers 99% of the content that the members will be generating. I and also use S2 Member to restrict access to pages an posts in the main site blog. This gets a little tricky because you’ve got to figure out how to show visitors to pay and sign up (and give them a sales pitch.) But I think I can tweak the S2 settings and eventually get something I like.

But here’s my problem. When a new member requests a new site a few things happen that don’t match what these folks want to do. First of all, the new user is made to be Administrator of the new site. I think this is going to be overwhelming for new people in this community. I’d much prefer that they be given a lower role. Either a low enough role (Editor) so that all they can do is write and publish posts on their blog. Or maybe a role just high enough that they can customise ther theme but not change it. And maybe create pages on their site.

But the real problem is that by default the new site appears to a) have its own instance of S2 Member and b) is initially configured so that the entire blog is public instead of just being visible to logged in members of the community. What I’d prefer to have happen is to just have one instance of S2Member controlled at the network level or by the main site that manages access for every site in the network. Is this possible? If I turn off the “blog farm setting” in S2, will there just be one instance of S2? Will it turn off site creation all together?

The only way I can think to do this is is to disable site creation at payment/registration and set up a system where the members mail me requests to create a site and I manually create the site, add the user to it, set their role level etc. But this obviously does not scale well.

Thanks
Calvin

• This topic was modified 3 years, 10 months ago by  Eduan. Reason: Moved to the pre-sale questions forum
• This topic was modified 3 years, 10 months ago by  Jason (Lead Developer). Reason: Moving back to Community Forum

I’m moving this to the pre-sale questions forum since you are asking a question regarding the blog farm feature before acquiring the pro version. :)

Thanks for the heads up on this thread :-)

Is this possible? If I turn off the “blog farm setting” in S2, will there just be one instance of S2? Will it turn off site creation all together?

I don’t recommend turning off the Blog Farm option in this scenario. Turning off the Blog Farm setting eliminates the additional security enhancements and profile editing considerations (which are SUPER important) in a Multisite Blog Farm that is allowing other site owners to operate Blogs in your Network. These security enhancements and dynamic mutations of the s2Member® software application are discussed in greater detail by an additional PDF document that we make available to s2Member® site owners that purchase a Network Support License.

The only way I can think to do this is is to disable site creation at payment/registration and set up a system where the members mail me requests to create a site and I manually create the site, add the user to it, set their role level etc. But this obviously does not scale well.

This could certainly be an option for you. Either this, or adding custom code of your own (i.e. hacking s2Member®); or by integrating another network-wide plugin that helps you accomplish this in the way you’ve described. I can confirm that s2Member® alone will NOT meet all of your needs here. You will need to seek developer assistance for things like modifying the default Role of new site owners and/or limiting blog exposure to other community members. The BuddyPress community would also a great resource.

See: Knowledge Base » Hacking s2Member® Via Hooks/Filters

Moving this back to the Community Forum for greater exposure now. If you would like Blog Farm support from s2Member® Support Reps, please purchase our Network Support License. Thanks! See: s2Member® » Prices/Licensing