Intellexual wrote:

Does that mean quiet time is over?

Haha quiet time is the hardest for Intellexual, who found himself veritably scaturient with verbiage, crescendoing immanently and desdirating to ejaculate from his oscular aperture.

Haha you were going to expatiate a sentiment analogous to my utterance?

Sorry if I came down hard before on Erik, I know he wasn't trying to be offensive. I'd be ridiculous to think that.
What fired me up was that I saw that when someone (Erik or not) thought of something unethical, killing seals immediately sprang to mind. As if to say, "Well, of course the seal hunt is the most inhumane unethical thing you could do, everybody knows that". As if it's a fact known globally.

You see, in Eastern Canada, it is that big of a deal. Everyday you hear of some well-to-do treehuggin' hippy radical from New York or England or something shooting for their mouths about people just trying to eek out a living.

So Erik, I'm sorry if I came hard on you, it really wasn't warranted. As I said before, it just irks me that such an ignorant falacy is so wide spread. You and the guys are doing a great job on the site, keep it up! Never mind the advertisement garbage.

And guys, leave the teachers alone... god, haha.

No problem. Again, I wasn't giving seal-clubbing as an example of the most unethical thing, I was giving it as an example of the most controversial ethical topics for jobs. Your post confirms I was right, and your sensitivity is totally understandable. :)

if you don't like the ads pay a few bucks.... all forms of entertainment cost money.... chess.com is the 'best' of the chess sites.....

i don't have problems with the ads..

geez people get so worked up...

Mad_dog_96 wrote:

I have noticed a few things about the advantages of paying a subscription to chess.com and apparentally one of them is removing advertisements? What exactly does this have to do with chess? It seems like some sort of blackmail to me. Fair enough, there are some great features in paying money for the site but this is a step too far in my opinion. Chess should be about chess, not money and advertising. It's a free country so I can honestly say, you're getting greedy Erik.

shut up

I've been thinking about becoming a premium member here and because of this thread..I will hopefully become one tonight and if not tonight tomorrow! Thanks for the site Erik. Not only has it been my first online chess experience but its encouraged me to play. As I drop my paintball hobby due to lack of the $50 it costs to play every week.. I think I can pay the $30 for a whole year of chess.com membership! Thanks for helping me find a new hobby to help my wallot!

I apologise for my fellow countryman. What's his problem? I play chess on this site. I don't look at the advertisements and they don't bother me because I would actually have to deliberately scroll up to even see them. You either play free with unobtrusive advertisements, or pay a subscription to avoid them. It's your choice. Businesses advertise to increase revenue and keep people like Mad_dog_96 in a job....unless he works for the Government, when the revenue raised by advertising pay the extra taxes that keep him in a job.

TiagoDevesa wrote:

chessplooge wrote:

Mad_dog_96 wrote:

I have noticed a few things about the advantages of paying a subscription to chess.com and apparentally one of them is removing advertisements? What exactly does this have to do with chess? It seems like some sort of blackmail to me. Fair enough, there are some great features in paying money for the site but this is a step too far in my opinion. Chess should be about chess, not money and advertising. It's a free country so I can honestly say, you're getting greedy Erik.

shut up

 Here you can observe one of the finnest (if not THE FINNEST) example of american literature.

Go canadians

 I'm unclear.  Is a Finnest example of American literature the piece of American literature most resembling the writing of someone from Finland?

Also, when did Portugal become Canada's chrome polisher?

The beauty of the above response, in case anyone's literary criticism skills aren't up to snuff, is that it concisely refutes an overlong rant with precisely the amount of attention it deserves.  In that sense, it is one of the more valuable responses in this thread.

Adieu.

This threads brings me back to one of the principles of negotiation.

"Never give anything to the other side for free"

Number one you're giving away you're bargaining chips, but more importantly and of more relevance here, is that something given for free is not valued by the other party.  Now, make them work hard to get it, you can bet that they will value it, because now it has a value to them, namely their own hard work.

Maybe a way around this on this site, is for chess.com to limit further the amount of features given to non premium members, until they have made a contribution to the site, not monetary, but of value nonetheless, in the form of articles, puzzles, contributions to debates and so forth, such that for every ten member points they receive, another facet of the site becomes available to them, up to the current level for non-paying members.

Just a thought.

Sorry about the very long sentence in my previous post, hopefully the punctuation works.

Interesting thought evil homer but I'd be willing to bet gaining member points is a lil less important to erik than gaining the funds needed to employ the people needed to perfect the site. 

People who can (I understand some simply can't due to age, finiancial restrictions, etc.) need to cough up the cash plain and simple.

Some things are already as Evil_Homer suggests. For example, you have to play a certain number of games before playing in a tournament.

I agree with ih8sens...

$30 USD is not a lot to pay for the benefits of this site. A worker is deserving of his wages...

Who here has gone to a restaurant, eaten and left without paying? Who has played a round of golf without the green fees? Who has gone into an amusement park, ridden the rides, went to the shows without paying the admission price? Who here... I think you get the point.**  So, why is it that people think that they can utilize the services (often) of a fantastic chess web site and then piss-and-moan when they have to deal with ads or some feature doesn't quite suit them?

And, to those people who could but don't pony-up the $30 and yet still complain: shut-up. Go somewhere else if this isn't what you want. You're not investing in the product anyway, you have spent no money... Go somewhere that will make you happy (and in doing so make us happy as well).

And, to those who cannot pay the $30: I bet you're just glad that the site was made available to you as well, and dealing with the ads and downgraded features isn't that big of a deal to you. Glad you're here playing.

** As a footnote I know that there are those that will say something along the lines of, "I play golf and don't pay green fees." Ok, either you sneaked onto the course (and thereby stole from the course) or you knew somebody that let you slide. That's not what I mean, and I believe you know that.

ih8sens wrote:

Interesting thought evil homer but I'd be willing to bet gaining member points is a lil less important to erik than gaining the funds needed to employ the people needed to perfect the site. 

People who can (I understand some simply can't due to age, finiancial restrictions, etc.) need to cough up the cash plain and simple.

I think you misunderstand.

I am suggesting that perhaps too much is given away free and that some of what is currently free should be earned through contribution, thereby making those users feel that what they obtain has a value.

Premium membership would remain as is, I am not suggesting that they change the economics of the site, just the amount of value that people feel they get, even though it would still be free.

As loomis says, this effectively exists on the site, so it would merely be an extension.

Of course, if people were to pony up some cash all the better

De-Lar wrote:

boy, you can't even sneeze without offending somebody.

 achoooo, sorry if that offended someone!

Compared to other websites this one is in my opinion the best. brainking, gameknot, itsyourturn, and the rest all have various disadvantages for non subscribers:

brainking: board sucks, two clicks and an extra refresh per move

itsyourturn: 15 moves per day (wtf?!)

gameknot: 12 games max

I'm playing a whole lot of games right now, and still havent hit the limit. I love the display, and how it lets me drag the pieces.  And  feautures like vote chess r really cool.

I only wish fischer random chess was available, but still, great website.

credit Eric for having the testicles to highlight aggressive criticism of CHESS.COM..and then let the members have THEIR say.  ads or no ads, CHESS.COM IS - in my humble opinion - a simply fantastic site which has given me endless enjoyment and no doubt it will continue to do so, as the ads...oops,sorry, the improvements roll in.  Heres to you, Erik and Co.