# Become a Premium Member



## Administrator

Hello!

BC Aquaria offers a Premium Membership for those wanting a little more out of their usage here on BCA.

Here are the perks associated with being a PREMIUM MEMBER:

-Your Pm inbox increases from 100 pm's to 400 pm's. That means your inbox does not get so full so quickly giving you an opportunity to save more pm's for history.
-Custom Rank/Title
-Customized Signatures including putting banners in

*To become a PREMIUM MEMBER:

Follow this link: *http://www.bcaquaria.com/forum/payments.php*

-Under the "PREMIUM MEMBER" row select "CA$25.00" or "CA$15.00" from the pull-down menu and click the "Order" button

Your PREMIUM MEMBERSHIP status takes effect immediately. You may want to log out and in to refresh your account.*


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## effox

Just renewed my donator status.

Cheers,
Chris


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## Diztrbd1

now your not a mod


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## effox

I've emailed him regarding that, lol.

Oh well, I'll get a day or two off the job, that'll be nice.


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## tony1928

Hi guys,

Just a question as my Donator status is expiring this month. I know that many of us did "donate" to the cause when Shawn and Clarence were running this site on their on their own dime. I totally get that and was very happy to donate to a community that was run by hobbyists and I enjoy being a part of. However, now that the site is owned by Vertical Scope and run purely as a business, I have to ask myself what exactly is the purpose of soliciting donations? I understand that Donator status provides the user with some additional perks, i.e. more PM room, etc. Perhaps the "Donator" status should be renamed to something more appropriate? Call it a VIP member or whatever. Thoughts?

Tony


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## 2wheelsx2

I am kind of curious. I was thinking about it, and I don't think there have been many prize giveaways of late and no donator only prizes at all for probably a year. I was reminded of this when I saw:
-From time to time we have donator only prizes. In the past we have done aquarium setups, Metal Halide lights, etc.

I did a search and I could only find a prize give away in October of last year, of any sort, besides the Marine photo contest, which was not open to everyone on BCA (people without SW have a tough time entering). So will this be re-implemented? Or was this just an accidental cut and paste?


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## The Guy

tony1928 said:


> Hi guys,
> 
> Just a question as my Donator status is expiring this month. I know that many of us did "donate" to the cause when Shawn and Clarence were running this site on their on their own dime. I totally get that and was very happy to donate to a community that was run by hobbyists and I enjoy being a part of. However, now that the site is owned by Vertical Scope and run purely as a business, I have to ask myself what exactly is the purpose of soliciting donations? I understand that Donator status provides the user with some additional perks, i.e. more PM room, etc. Perhaps the "Donator" status should be renamed to something more appropriate? Call it a VIP member or whatever. Thoughts?
> 
> Tony


Ya I was wondering the same thing + 1 to the rename idea.


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## tony1928

My thoughts exactly. Lots of sites charge extra for "premium" memberships. As much as I don't like that practice, I understand that for many sites, its part of a business model that allows them to continue on. I remember back in my university days, my hardcore PC gaming buddies had a few sites / gaming servers set up. Back when there was no web ads/other monetization of web traffic, running an enthusiast site or a gaming server was always something of a "pass the hat around the table" and see what we can get from our friends/members. Sometimes it was some "donated" server hardware, sometimes it was some "donated" bandwidth. Often times it was simply "donated" time from the members who volunteered to moderate or provide technical support/services. If this site is now corporately owned, I'm going to make the presumption that beyond the mods' time (thank you guys and gals!) everything else is no longer applicable.


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## April

I'd Just change it to a bigger mailbox fee.
I agree it's a
Corporation and I'm sure it's
Making affiliate money etc. 
or add another feature like a blogging feature for "donators" or Payment for perk fees.


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## Administrator

Thank you for your feedback guys. I did cut and paste from the original thread posting made by Shawn/Clarence years ago to give some update to the program in terms of who you guys can contact about questions regarding to this. I am in favor of changing the name of the program to something more appropriate to reflect the present status of BCA. Let me run this by a few people and see when we can get this done.


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## Immus21

Any updates on the renaming?


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## effox

I've contacted him to let him know that an update was requested. I'm curious as well.

Cheers,
Chris


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## Administrator

Updated.


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## effox

We need our fish icon changed too


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## fishdragon

wonder what kind of banner it can be , how far the banner can go ? i mean is there anything pre-forbid or anything is ok ?

eric

Sent from my LT15a using Tapatalk 2


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## effox

As long as it's not an advertisement or inappropriate content I'd think you can put whatever you could imagine in the banner.

Dimensions will need to be stipulated for sure. We'll leave that up to Yung to declare.


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## Diztrbd1

current size limit for signature pix/banner is listed on image below:











if it helps, my banner is about the max size allowed.
and yes just about anything can be in the banner* excluding* advertising, websites and such.


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## crazy72

How about the ads? Can you confirm that premium members are spared the ads? Especially those banners at the top that have audio going when your cursor goes over them?


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## Immus21

crazy72 said:


> How about the ads? Can you confirm that premium members are spared the ads? Especially those banners at the top that have audio going when your cursor goes over them?


I don't see the ads and I am a Donator. Although I seem to have lost my little golden fish...


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## effox

John: Thanks for the details, I never saw that.

Crazy72: I've PM'd Gary as he is a donator. I don't see ads, but I'm also a moderator, and I've set up windows to block a lot of domains, so I can't confirm myself as either one of those may be why I don't see them.


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## crazy72

Immus21 said:


> I don't see the ads...


Really? Top of the page, for me there's usually a sponsor banner, which is fine with me, and then just under it there's a commercial ad (car manufacturer right now) with audio that starts when my mouse goes over it for more than half a second or so. I find those very, very annoying. They didn't use to be there.


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## crazy72

effox said:


> John: Thanks for the details, I never saw that.
> 
> Crazy72: I've PM'd Gary as he is a donator. I don't see ads, but I'm also a moderator, and I've set up windows to block a lot of domains, so I can't confirm myself as either one of those may be why I don't see them.


Thank you Chris.


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## Immus21

I guess that solves it then. Premium membership = no ads.


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## crazy72

Immus21 said:


> I guess that solves it then. Premium membership = no ads.


I didn't realise you were a premium member. How can we tell? (Apart from banners in the signature, obviously.) Is there anything like the old donator fish to flag it to the world? :bigsmile:


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## effox

Most donators change their user title, that's one way to know as of right now.

Yung is going to come up with a Premium Member tag of some sort. Obviously a donator fish wouldn't have worked any longer


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## 2wheelsx2

Yep. No ads.


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## scott tang

ud like to become a donator but do not have pay pal only cash


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## Diztrbd1

I might be wrong, but I believe paypal is the only payment option at the moment.
Paypal is free to set up and use. Could always get a prepaid CC and use that.


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## effox

Yeah, a prepaid credit card and a paypal account (free) would be the way to go. Might have to pay $1 or so to send a money transaction though.

Keep switching pre-paid credit cards as necessary with the same account. You wouldn't even need to be a verified member since it would be sent as a gift\service, and not need a confirmed shipping address.


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## Sandy Landau

What is Vertical Scope?


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## Morainy

Yungster, can you help me with my premium membership? I have had a "donator" membership for years and it seems that is now called a premium membership. A couple of days ago, I noticed that t had expired. I purchased a new premium membership and it doesn't seem to have kicked in even though I have logged out and in again several times. I'm still being invited to purchase a premium membership. I do have my receipt from PayPal. What should I do?


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## Pamela

Morainy said:


> Yungster, can you help me with my premium membership? I have had a "donator" membership for years and it seems that is now called a premium membership. A couple of days ago, I noticed that t had expired. I purchased a new premium membership and it doesn't seem to have kicked in even though I have logged out and in again several times. I'm still being invited to purchase a premium membership. I do have my receipt from PayPal. What should I do?


I just saw this post and sent a message to Yungster asking him to look into it, so you should hear from him soon.


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## Morainy

Thank you, Pamela. You seem to have worked magic -- my status has changed. Thank you!


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## fisherman

Can I get a life time supply of premium member please. Thanks.


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## bigbookworld

Yung is going to come up with a Premium Member tag of some sort. Obviously a donator fish wouldn't have worked any longer


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