Supporter - Membership of NikonGear

[Jan Anne]

Fons, the transfer has been properly cleared and the automated script has extended your subscription

With our forum software only PayPal offers an automated subscription capability which works 99% of the time. So it requires very little intervention from our side which is a good thing as non of us are getting payed to manage the NG forum.

[Akira]

Now Fons' name has been back to orange for a while, but I noticed the status of Armando (armando_m) is "NG member" and his name is displayed in brown just like Fons'.

Does the brown color mean his/her payment via PayPal is on hold?

When I forgot to renew my NG subscription, my status was displayed as "newbie" instead of "NG member".  I don't remember the color of my displayed name, though.

Are there any means for these?  I'm just curious...

[Andrea B.]

Initially lapsed subscriptions became "Newbie". I think at some point we tried to have lapsed subscriptions become "NG Member". The subscription software is not particularly easy to fix, so I'm not sure it always works. If anyone ever becomes a "Newbie", then just let us know and we can manually reset the designation.

[Akira]

Andrea, thinks for the explanation.  Personally I don't mind if my status is indicated as "newbie", as I feel I'm always newbie in different ways.  As I said, I was jus curious.  The change of status indication works good as the reminder of the expired subscription. 

[rosko]

To the Crew :

Help !

I just noticed that I had been downgraded from supporter to member. I am not sure since when, but that happened without I was informed.

Perhaps it's related with the previous issue about Paypal (which took twice the amount of money in my account) this year and previous years.

Jan-Anne resolved promptly the issue at the time.

I want of course to stay supporter.

Many thanks to letting me know and tell me what I have to do.

Francis.

I hope this is the suitable thread.

[Birna Rørslett]

Obviously there has been a glitch somewhere ... your subscription was marked 'elapsed' by July 30, 2019.

Until Jan Anne has investigated the financial status and what really happened, I made a temporary fix to extend a complimentary subscription until end of 2019. Thus you are now properly designated 'Supporter' once again !!

[rosko]

Many thanks, Birna for your rapid answer and decision.

I will keep an eye on this thread to see what was going on.

Gratefully,

Francis.

[Jan Anne]

Rosko, it seems that PayPal did extend the subscription with another year but somehow that extension didn't sync properly with your NG account which l will fix manually.

So its the opposite of what happened last year where multiple auto renewal subscriptions successfully extended your membership multiple years into the future

I suspect that PayPal tried to extend you membership in the same timeframe that NG had some accessibility issues, when I have more time I'll check the subscriptions of other members which were automatically extended in the same period.

[rosko]

when I have more time I'll check the subscriptions of other members which were automatically extended in the same period.

Thank you Jan-Anne !

I had a look on my paypal account, but I could see activity only from 1st January 2018, hence no possible to know the balance.

I'd PM this balance if you need.

All the best, Francis

[Bob Foster]

I no longer maintain a PayPal account.

I'd very much like to retain my subscriber status at NikonGear.

Is there any alternative to the use of PayPal for supporting Nikon Gear?

Bob

[Birna Rørslett]

I sent a PM to Jan Anne and he should be able to help.

[Bob Foster]

Thank you Birna.

[Birna Rørslett]

I have made some minor version updates to the forum software, which now runs SMF 2.0.19 instead of the earlier 2.0.16. SMF claims the update contains unspecified 'bug fixes'. That remains to be manifested?

I also did a DB validation and subsequent repair.

Let us hope these measures improve the current issues? Except those possibly incurred by Paypal, however.

[ColinM]

Is it my imagination, or am I noticing some new or less familiar names posting in the last week or so?

If it's a result of the increased awareness for paying members, it sounds positive and maybe a sign of the change were hoping for?

[Birna Rørslett]

What we are seeing now is that some of the 'old' subscribers start to renew their lapsed subscriptions. A trend we think is very good.

There are > 100 of those old subscribers at present.

By the way,  the subscriber count is updated manually, usually once a day. Thus don't expect the count to increase immediately after a subscription is completed!!