I need a new directory website built that is integrated with vBulletin for user authentication and management.

ABOUT ME

I'm a former developer who am blessedly now successful enough that I hire out most of my work and take on a more managerial role running my business, which is a business of publishing content and ecommerce websites. I mention this to let you know that I can converse on technical details with my programmers. I am not a lay person.

THE PROJECT

I need a directory, multilevel categorization, with a many::many relationship between listings and categories (listings being in multiple categories).

On the surface the directory will look like any other web based directory. Users will be able to browse it, going down deeper into categories, finding a listing they want, they click the listing, a profile page for that listing comes up, and on this page is the ultimate link off the site (as well as of course, details for this listing).

Only I, the admin, will be able to add listings. I will require an admin backend allowing me to manage listings, categories, and comments. Listings will consist of a text description, a url, and an optional uploaded logo file.

The admin area does not need a user authentication system, since there is only one admin, we can simply use .htaccess password protection.

The directory will be attached to a vbulletin forum to handle user management and registration. There are existing classes to do this, it is very easy, I can show you how if you do not know.

There will be two levels of users, two usergroups.

Level1 users will be normal registered users (the default usergroup for registered users in vbulletin). They will have the ability to comment on listings in the directory on profile pages. Comments are to be plain text, free of bbcode or html. These are the comments mentioned above.

Level2 users will be a custom usergroup within vbulletin. To change from a level1 user to a level2 user the user will need to fill out a form submitting various required additional data (5-10 fields). Upon submission they are now a level2 user, and their usergroup needs to be changed.

A level2 user will have access to an additional profile page in the directory portion of the side. On this page he is allowed to upload an image, create a textual biography (again, no bbcode or html), create a title or name, address, phone, email (form based) and provide a link to his homepage (if he has one).

Now it gets a little tricky.

Level2 users are "team leaders" okay, they will be provided with a special link to refer people to the website. When a user comes through their link, through cookies and session management, that user is now defined as being on the level2 user's team. They will see an altered directory homepage featuring the "team leader's" profile as mentioned above, and on every page of the directory they view they'll see a message indicating what team they are currently on.

Additionally, every listing in the directory will be appended by the teamleader's id while the team member is browsing.

A registered level1 user or an unregistered person will be treated the same in this regard. If they visit through the teamleader's special link, they're marked as part of that team. The only difference is that if you're registered the links in the directory will also be appended with your ID, so they will be example.com/track=teamleaderid-userid

There will need to be a link to a search feature to find a new team on the website. So if you want to change teams, you could go to the team search, search by location (a team from your city perhaps) name, or generic keyword pulled from profile information, get a list of matching teams, and choose to join one of them instead, thus changing your cookie.

That is it, it may seem like an incomplete concept, but we'll be handling the tracking and reporting and other programming in-house. We just want someone to build us the directory portion.

DESIGN

We have a logo, we want a clean css based design in a web 2.0 style like nutriquiz.com or answers.yahoo.com Just something simple and clean.

PLATFORM

You can develop on your server or on ours. The site needs to run on php/mysql/apache.

I do not want a hundred people to email me saying "We are very pleased to meet you, allow us to introduce ourselves, we are programmers..." If you want this job, don't give me a form letter about your company. show me you understand what I need, show me that I'm not going to have any problems communicating with you, and perhaps show me that you're the type of person that can intuitively do things without me needing to micromanage.