How to grant access to comments only from paid members?
I have an static Website and I want to charge a fee to those who want to comment on pages (as most newspaper are doing). How can I do this with Talkyard?
Example: You enter to a page and you see the comments from other people, if you want to comment, you have to register and pay a small fee. If you pay for one month, you will not be able to make more comments after the end of such month.
I want to install talkyard in my Webserver.
Thank you
KajMagnus @KajMagnus2020-02-25 20:53:33.843ZThere're groups and a permission system. You can configure read-only access for "strangers", and let only members (or even members of a specific group) post comments.
To enable groups and the permission system, go here:
https://your-talkyard/-/admin/settings/featuresand click Enable discussion forum and Save.Then, click Back from admin area, and you'll notice that now there's categories. Click Edit category and then the Security tab. You'll notice that Everyone can post comments — you can un-check that. And click Add ... at the bottom, select All Members.
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However, how do you keep the Talkyard users up-to-date with which people have actually paid the fee?
How do you keep track of which people have paid?
What payment system(s) are you considering using?
In which coutries(s) are your readers located? What about taxes (VAT can be really complicated I think)?
Maybe there could be a webhook and API request that made Talkyard actvate that person / move him/her to the right group?
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It'd be interesting to have a look at your blog
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(There's no built-in micro payments functionality in Talkyard.
Hmm, that'd be a quite interesting thing to have, however, not so easy to make happen :- / )
The answer to your questions is a simple membership program but it needs access to Talkyard database and I have not found a way to make it.
For those with the same needs, today I found Commentics has it.
KajMagnus @KajMagnus2020-02-26 11:56:46.634ZI'm curious about how that works? (And yes, like you said, maybe good for others to know too)
You use WordPress or some other PHP blog?
With a membership plugin?
And then you connected this membership plugin, to Commentics?
... by writing some PHP integration code, which updates Commentics' tables, whenever someone signs up for a Membership-plugin-membership?Resulting in Commentics letting people with accounts in your WordPress members database, post comments? (but others can view only?)
(Commentics: https://www.commentics.org, right)
It is so simple that I guess Talkyard does not include it because of an ideological matter.
When the user wants to make a comment, the system asks to the membership program for the user rights instead of making it by itself. ie. When you log into Talkyard it goes to its database, checks your credentials and gives you rights (write, groups, etc). With a membership program, Talkyard would ask it for the user rights and only such (the membership program) would be able to modify them.
I am using plain HTML pages not a Blog, this is why Talkyard was my first option. By definition a Blog must include a comments system, otherwise it is not a Blog but a CMS. WordPress and Serendipity (my favorite) are Blogs and both have their comments system in the core and they have a lot of good membership modules, but I am not using them.
Commentics works as a said, you can find it in its FAQ, but this feature requires the page to be fully rendered as PHP.
Yes, that is the link to Commentics. It is worth to say it is not a SaaS, it must be deployed in your server, the same that I would do with Talkyard.- KajMagnus @KajMagnus2020-02-27 08:31:57.224Z
Thanks for explaining.
I guess Talkyard does not include it because of an ideological matter.
this feature requires the page to be fully rendered as PHPActually, Talkyard being a separate web server & tech stack, makes it not-so-easily integrated with the membership database. With PHP, all code runs in the same process, and different plugins / PHP modules, can set global variables that other parts of the PHP code, e.g. Commentics, can see. But Talkyard, running in another process, or even on a different machine, cannot access those variables. Instead, maybe a HTTP API request from Talkyard, to a membership database & API, could work. Or, the webhooks approach mentioned above, or some Single Sign-On integration. — But it would have been more complicated, in whichever way it was done.
(B.t.w. note to myself: A link to the "How to allow only paid members to make comments?" over at Commentics: https://www.commentics.org/forum/showthread.php?tid=1934 namely this PHP Commentics code snippet:
<?php $cmtx_logged_in = false; ?>)
Anyway, closing this topic & best wishes with the blog.
- Progress