Thread: Premium Membership

SIGNUP LINK: http://stoptazmo.com/payments.php

I know many of you are going to hate that we are doing this or even wonder what’s going on, but the thread title really explains all of it. We are opening a premium service. It’s not going to be like other sites, so I ask all of you, before you pass judgment on us to at least read this entire thread to hear what I have to say.

In the Anime Community, premium memberships and asking for donations have been widely abused. Just look at NarutoMania and NarutoFan, they each rake in thousands per month when they really don’t have a need for such money, our premium service is really a last resort option, and really you cannot compare what we are doing to what they are doing.

I am going to break this down to make it simple for everyone to understand why I am opening Premium Membership and what you can expect from it.

Why we need premium membership?

Every month I am forced to spend close to $900-$1000 or so on servers for this site for downloads alone. The last few months that we were accepting donations we pretty much made no money from it. The last month we accepted donations for a full month we made between $130 and $200, I cannot remember exactly at this moment, but it’s no where near the goal that we needed. I do not have the money to continue to pay $800 out of pocket or so. Even this month, after 11 days we have only collected $60 in donations. We have tried every sponsor out there, and it just does not cover what we need, we need our users to support us, we need premium membership so I am able to pay for the servers. I have my own bills and I cannot afford to continue to pay for everything, and even now we are going to need a new server and I cannot see myself paying for another 100mbps server. We need premium membership so we can keep growing.

What about the people who don’t pay?

The only difference between the people who do pay and the people who don’t pay in terms of downloading will be that premium users have download manager support (Links last for 7 days), and they have the ability to burst to higher speeds at times. They also do not have any ads on the download pages. There are no Manga series or Anime series that only paid users get to access. We are NOT selling access to Manga or Anime, we are only giving users additional features such as Download Manager Support, No Ads on Download Pages, Premium Member Forums (For Suggestions for site features/Help), Avatars, Larger PM Box, Manga Requests/Feature Requests and you get to say that you are a supporter of the StopTazmo Community.

As you can see premium members only get additional features, we are not selling access to Anime or Manga. I do not wish to disrespect translators or any of the people who are spending all their time working on getting releases out there.

Where can we expect our money to go to?

We have a lot of bills and upgrades we need to take care of. I would like to get a second 100mbps server and add an additional 600+ Manga series or so. Even right now I am working on getting another batch of new series uploaded.

The way things are looking now are as follows: $1500 or so at least for Download Servers, and we need more money to buy better servers and upgrades for StopTazmo.com, which I expect to run thousands, maybe $5,000 or so. The more members we receive the more downloads we can offer. It’s really my goal of being able to have every Manga series available on this site for members to download.

Can we trust you?

I have been running this site since October 2004. It’s now September 2007. I have for about 3 years now continuously added new Manga updates every 2 days, excluding a few days were I had emergencies I needed to take care of. I ran this site for a good 2 years or so asking for nothing, and only within the last year did I even begin to think of accepting donations, it is not my goal to profit from this, it never was, if I really was a bad guy I would be doing what many other webmasters have done by now, setup a premium membership, remove 90% of our downloads for free members and force you to upgrade.

Assuming you earn more money than you spend what do you plan to use the money for?

I’ve done a lot of talking with the moderators, and we agreed that we would like to use the additional money to deposit into a bank account so that we can save for a few months, so that we can each get cars such as the one in the link below for us to drive around in.

http://www.sportscarcup.com/cars/porsche-carrera-gt-parked.jpg
Porsche Carrera GT - $440,000

I am just kidding. Now, being serious, the money will be placed into account for when it’s needed, and I honestly do not expect to get too many premium members to signup for this service, so I do not expect us to break even from our Premium Service. If we do, disabling new signups is always another option, and donating the additional money to the people who are doing all the hard work is another.

How can I signup?

I’m glad you asked. You can signup by going here: http://stoptazmo.com/payments.php

We only accept Paypal, and once you pay you should be instantly activated, if not, contact me with your subscription ID and I will take care of you. The cost is $5/m for 30 days of membership.


I hope by now all of you understand, we are not in any way like other premium membership sites, we do not force you to pay to download or get anything that is hidden from the people who don’t pay. All you get is additional features, your voice in maybe new Manga series being added, new features being added, avatars and a much bigger PM box. Thoughts/Suggestions/Questions? Post Below.

hmm all of that seems pretty damn reasonable to me, I'm curious as to how much faster the downloads will be though

Premium Member Forums (For Suggestions for site features/Help), Avatars, Larger PM Box, Manga Requests/Feature Requests and you get to say that you are a supporter of the StopTazmo Community.

Does this mean than normal members won't be able to post avatars anymore?

Can you also elaborate on the extra forum(s) that you mentioned premium members would have access to?
Right now, I really hate the extra forum option a lot because I love posting here and talking with the people here, and I like the fact that all the forums are (currently) accessible to everyone. But I'm still a minor and won't be able to pay for this service with surveillance, so I just don't want to be excluded from a forum because I can't pay. I understand people getting better :

Download Manager Support, No Ads on Download Pages, Avatars, Larger PM Box, Manga Requests/Feature Requests and you get to say that you are a supporter of the StopTazmo Community.

The Premium Member Forums really sounds unfair to me and the Avatar mention made me think that you would take away a currently free functionality.

Cool, Avatars I always wanted an avatar - maybe I will subscribe for paypal

Urameshi - you can't have avatar, you never could - only moderators can have one.

^ normal members can't and never had the possibility to have avatars (only moderators could, until now).

edit : too late

So I understand correctly, after I (maybe) will become premium member, I will be able to post in Help section ? That's unneeded, I think...

... now I REALLY need to get a paypal account...

Originally Posted by trifan

hmm all of that seems pretty damn reasonable to me, I'm curious as to how much faster the downloads will be though

It will vary depending on peak time.

Originally Posted by Urameshi-sama

Does this mean than normal members won't be able to post avatars anymore?

Can you also elaborate on the extra forum(s) that you mentioned premium members would have access to?
Right now, I really hate the extra forum option a lot because I love posting here and talking with the people here, and I like the fact that all the forums are (currently) accessible to everyone. But I'm still a minor and won't be able to pay for this service with surveillance, so I just don't want to be excluded from a forum because I can't pay. I understand people getting better :

The Premium Member Forums really sounds unfair to me and the Avatar mention made me think that you would take away a currently free functionality.

I should have been clearer, nothing is being taken away from Free users. I mean profile avatars and other things that only the moderators have at this moment. The extra forums are for feature suggestions, general chatting, and support requests for issues relating to premium account issues. Don't worry, it won't take over the forum or other subforums, threads and posts will be moved in needed. No one is being excluded for not being able to pay, don't worry. I hope this clears things up for you.

Originally Posted by Kolox

So I understand correctly, after I (maybe) will become premium member, I will be able to post in Help section ? That's unneeded, I think...

No, the help section is still free, and I still resolve problems to this day there, it may not seem like it sometimes.

Originally Posted by Kolox

So I understand correctly, after I (maybe) will become premium member, I will be able to post in Help section ? That's unneeded, I think...

Originally Posted by The Welcome

Welcome Premium Members,

I’m glad you decided to join and become a premium member to help support this great community, since you are reading this post I assume you now release you have access to hidden forums that other members do not have. If you have a support issue, make sure to post in the Premium Support Section for me to resolve.

You no longer should see any Ads on the download pages, so it should be much easier to browse all the pages. Download managers should now work, the links should exist for about 7 days, so you will have 7 days to complete the downloads from the time they get added into your download manager from queue, which I believe is long enough.

I just want to clear things up about the “Manga Requests/Feature Requests” option you all saw when you signed up. I cannot promise I can add every request, but if I do get a feature request I will see if it’s possible for us to add it, and if it would be of any use to the average member. If I get Manga series requests, I will do a quick search to see if it can be found, but I cannot guarantee I will be able to find it and add it. I am only human after all. I just want to note, you would need to post your request in our premium member forums, as otherwise one of the moderators might not realize you are a premium member and might disable your account, or even I might by mistake.

If you have problems with your premium membership, I cannot read your mind, please post in our Premium Members Help Section to bring your issue to my attention. It is the only way to get things resolved.

The Support section is more a dedicated Tech Support/Help section, with much faster and more detailed help.

Originally Posted by shautieh

^ normal members can't and never had the possibility to have avatars (only moderators could, until now).

edit : too late

Jyuu gave out a couple of avatars for regulars, after a "post your avatar" thread was created.

I won an avatar, but due to some bug in the system, it seems to be not showing :/

I know for a fact that Madi-chan had an avatar when she wasn't yet a mod (is she a mod now?). Hers is bigger in dimentio than the ones any normal mod could get too. Lucky her. :P