[wolpertinger]

... subscribe to the BEA (part 1/3)

First let me confirm: nowadays a subscription to the BEA-forum for free is not available.
Some discussions with "veteran members" of the BEA clearly manifested, that their free memberships dated well before 2025.
So let's enter the registration process: when on the BEA-page simply press the "Register"-card on the menu bar.
You will see the following form.



Here you can select the duration of your membership, enter a "coupon code" wherever you may get one, your Name, (this needn't be identical with the name on page 2 of the registration which deals with the billing details).

Now comes the "tricky" part of the form:
1) Your E-Mail Adress
that this should be a valid address, you have access to, is self-evident. However you could run into problems during the payment process, if this is an address of e.g. your own domain.
A confirmation mail will be sent to this address if you once click on the "Next"-button on the bottom of this form.
2) Display Name
the purpose of this name will remain the secrets of the BEA or ccBill respectively.
In any case this will not be the name (moniker) you will see on your posts!
3) Choose a Username
     (This is a private name, only you will be able to see it)
this is the stultification ¹⁾ "of the year"!
Exactly the name you'll fill in here, will be used in your sign-up process if you are once registered and will be displayed in all your replies, opened threads etc.
The name you are chosing here will become your moniker which will be seen on your posts!

The rest of the form-fields is self-explanatory and works as one can expect.

¹⁾ I had a much stronger word in mind (starting with p***), but avoid to use it here!

To be continued ...

[wolpertinger]

... subscribe to the BEA (part 2/3)

upon pressing the "Next"-button in the form above, you will be prompted with the following message:

Following the link submitted, you will be provided with page 2 of the registration:



When pressing the "Place your order" - button you will receive a message, if your registration was successful.
Congratulations! You have become a BEA member.

[wolpertinger]

... subscribe to the BEA (part 3/3 "what can go wrong, will go wrong")

If your payment was not accepted, you will get the following message:

The reasons can be manifold:
besides the obvious reasons, like mistyped CC-no.s, invalid/mistyped CC-holder names etc. there are mainly two reasons which cause the decline:

1) you have used a "prepaid CC" which is not accepted by ccBill or
2) you have used an E-Mail address, which doesn't conform with the Credit Card company's "safety checks", e.g. an E-Mail address of your own domain.

In case 1) you don't have any alternative than to try another CC.
In case 2) you should try an address of a "common" site like e.g. gmail.com or yahoo.com.

You can change this E-Mail address in your member profile later on if you finally have sucessfully subscribed to the BEA.

Regardless whether your order was declined, you have already a valid BEA registration where you can log-in.
However since you don't have a valid membership, you cannot post and your membership information will look like this:

If you have successfully subscribed to the BEA however, your membership information will look like this:

Again congratulations you have become a valued member of the BEA and can enjoy all the nice threads ... and boobs - of course! 

[solvegas]

I am a member/subscriber to Botcomics, so I think that helps me. 

[MaxBigfoot]

I had a site on the main BEA for quite a while, and I received a Free lifetime subscription as part of that.  My login screen shows that still is in effect.

[solvegas]

I had a site on the main BEA for quite a while, and I received a Free lifetime subscription as part of that.  My login screen shows that still is in effect.

Yes, I remember your gallery. 

[wolpertinger]

I had a site on the main BEA for quite a while, and I received a Free lifetime subscription as part of that.  My login screen shows that still is in effect.

I'm absolutely not denying, that free memberships do exist or maybe, better, have been existing; however despite I've tried really hard, to get at least a temporary access to post some ideas of mine, I couldn't find a practicable way to get this access to the BEA for free.
Therefore I've started this little instruction series in the "How to ... " thread, started by Bombayduk.
But maybe I took the thread "Invite to all the Lurkers to Join!"
https://forum.bearchive.com/index.php?topic=70741.0
too seriously. Maybe the opposite is meant and what I've interpreted to be a invitation is just some kind of fig leaf to show, how "open" this forum presumes to be?
BTW, apparently also others experienced problems when trying to become a BEA member for free:
https://forum.bearchive.com/index.php?topic=10007798.0
or
https://forum.bearchive.com/index.php?topic=10008826.0

Perhaps all this sounds a little bit too envious against the 'honourable senior" members of the BEA which have achieved their free membership in exalted position and over the years.
Frankly speaking however, I like to save every single "buck" where I can save one, but spend one, where I have to, and find it worth to spend one.

May I finally draw your attention to my first post in this forum concerning lurkerism and how your plea looks to them:
https://forum.bearchive.com/index.php?topic=70741.msg10695395#msg10695395

[MaxBigfoot]

I wasn't meaning to make anyone envious.  I mainly meant that was the only method I know of to get a free subscription.  I know the main BEA site still has user galleries, though I have no idea what there is in them, since my subscription doesn't give access to them. 

[wolpertinger]

... I know the main BEA site still has user galleries, though I have no idea what there is in them, since my subscription doesn't give access to them.

Sounds interesting but what do you understand under "main BEA site"? The site you can access via the "Home" card on the BEA "Forum"-site?
If not so, pls. could you provide a internet link to this site?
Thanks in advance.

[MaxBigfoot]

... I know the main BEA site still has user galleries, though I have no idea what there is in them, since my subscription doesn't give access to them.

Sounds interesting but what do you understand under "main BEA site"? The site you can access via the "Home" card on the BEA "Forum"-site?
If not so, pls. could you provide a internet link to this site?
Thanks in advance.

Yes, the site you access via the Home button on the main BEA Forum page.

[wolpertinger]

many thanks MaxBigfoot for your prompt reply.
Apparently there are two different memberships at the BEA available nowadays: one where only the discussion forum is accessible and a "full access" membership, where also the main site "Homepage" can be accessed. The first membership however is only available for members who have gained their merits at the BEA in the past.
Due to my experience, you can become only a "full" member of the BEA where you have access to the "Forum"- and the "Home"-page today.
I must admit however, that so far I went very hardly to this "Homepage" since I miss any structure there.

[wolpertinger]

... customise your "Signature"

wondering, how other members managed to "customise" their Signature (the text which is displayed at the bottom of each post or personal message) I've found a quite interesting information there: "BBCode and smileys may be used in your signature", meaning, that you can apply (at least) all formatting features as in your regular posts.

With this knowledge, it is quite easy getting your Signature customised: you start e.g. a reply with the text and all the formatting features you want in your Signature, mark this text in the edit box completely, copy the text and paste it to the edit box of your "Signature-field" on the "Profile page".
You can check the outcome easily by using the "Preview" function.
Whether even pictures can be embedded (see e.g.:
https://forum.bearchive.com/index.php?topic=10007412.msg10696757#msg10696757)
by this way I didn't test so far.

[wolpertinger]

... customise your "Signature" (addendum)

also pictures can be embedded in this way.
QC 2025-10-10 W  L

[wolpertinger]

... link pictures direcrtly to the post (I pity the poor lurkers ^*) ) -update-
see also
https://forum.bearchive.com/index.php?topic=10007412.msg10696757#msg10696757

When in 'Modify' mode, just press the 'Graphic'-button (the button below the 'Bold'-button) and fill in a valid link to a Graphic File between the 'Graphic Brackets'.
It must be a graphic file e.g. with a *.jpg, *.png, *.gif-ending. The direct link to the filehost (e.g. https://ibb.co/9kWPYDxt as in this example) will not be processed correctly or better not at all by the {img}{/img} (image) command.
But clicking on this link will show up the corresponding picture in your browser. Now you can get the link to this graphic file (in my case "tap 'n' hold" - in other OS' this may be the well known 'rightclick'). In the above example you get the following link: https://i.ibb.co/Zpx9TjQm/Beshine-bartending-gif.gif
Inserting this link into the "image function" will give you the result below.



Done!

^*) see my post
https://forum.bearchive.com/index.php?topic=70741.msg10695395#msg10695395
... and excuse me corrupting a well known song title of fabulous Joan Baez

+=========================+
|           Test Environment               |
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| SAMSUNG tablet SM-T555         |
| Android 7.7.1                                 |
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| Firefox 140.0.4 Internetbrowser |
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Hardware appreciated permanent loan of Konrad Zuse Museum
https://www.zuse-museum-huenfeld.de/de/
Konrad E.O. Zuse (22.06.1910 - 18.12.1995)
(Inventor of the first, fully functional, programmable computer of the world, [Z3, 1941])
https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Konrad_Zuse

[Bombayduk]

Thanks very much, you are very tech savvy.  I think I was trying all 3 buttons below B U S, but had no luck multiple times, though in retrospect, I think after maybe one try, I cast off the image (under B) simply because I misconstrued the purpose.  I had viewed a number of these larger gifs on DA, now they can serve a purpose.  Thanks again, Wolpertinger.