way to not know what your talking about at all mad dog.

oginschile wrote:

"Thank you, Erik! chess.com is great!"

I can only thank mad_dog_98 for the opportunity he has given us to once again thank Erik and the chess.com staff for the only social life I have.

EXCELLENT EXCELLENT job!

lol

erik wrote:

is it ethical? you should look up the word "ethical" it's not like i'm murdering baby seals  :) almost every single website in the world has advertisements. the good news is that i give you a way to remove the advertisements by subscribing - something myspace, facebook, google, youtube, etc don't do. i'd say that's pretty nice of me  :)

this "money making scheme" is called my job. i'm trying to buy food for my kids. so far it hasn't paid the bills. go figure.

next question: is it ethical to complain about something you get for free? :D

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I am not looking for a controversy here and since I have studied philosophy for 2 years, there are two very distinct views or approaches on ethics:

1. One has to do with morality and conformance to accepted rules and conduct of a person in a society or religion etc....

2. The second approach has to do with "values" and I think this is what you are referring to, nothing to do with "seals", either on an enveloppe or in the sea..l.

Just a joke!

Ethics is one of a philosophical domain.

What you want to do, I think, is to add value for the people that pay for a membership and this is what you are doing.

Is it ethical, absolutely, is it practical and realistic, maybe for now and I am not even sure 100%, when you say: " so far it has not paid the bills".

A more pragmatic approach, what is called an postiori  approach or based on experience versus an a priory approach based on no data, value or experience, what can be called shooting from the hip or a gut feeling, and I am not suggesting at all that this is your approach, I am merely explaining the definitions, a more pragmatic approach would be in my opinion:

1. Consider minimal advertising on the paid membership site. I mean allow only up to 5 advertisings for a maximum period of 6 to 12 months max with a premium for having the access to this advertising.

2.Your site is free, nothing in this world is free, allow people to join and get free access for up to 6 months and then if you only ask $5 for kids up to 18 years old to $10 a year for adults that's fine with me!!! Do the computation yourself you will be flying like an angel when you get the numbers, and if $5 to $10 is too much go from $2 to $5, come on even a kid can afford $2!!

Last but not least I for one understand very well that you want to run your site the way you see it. I agree and admire entrepreneurship I also have a very small company and do understand some of your hardaches. Why not ask for input?

As you know two heads are better than one and what does thousands of brains can bring to you?

So why not ask in a forum people's their contribution to up your earnings and do invite company holders and accountants to make their suggestions?

Just hope my suggestions are of interest to you and for the first time on the forum I would like your feed back.

Just trying to help put food on the table and give the lady and family a vacation well deserved and thank you so very much for what you are doing irregardless of your direction or decision.

I do not have a membership yet, I have joined your club in march of this year and I can guaranty you that before the 6 months period is over I will have a membership.

The best to you and your family, you are doing a super job.

Kind regards and do have an inspiring moment when you have read my text.

I appreciate Eric's (and the rest of the staff's) dilemma here, even though I've never run anything as large as chess.com

I think it would be pretty hard to make this a pay-only site (it's chess, not porn!) and still be viable.  Pretty much any site that wants a large user base needs to be free, in some respect.  People have other options which ARE free, and even if they are not as good in some ways, being FREE makes up for a lot of other deficiencies, for many people.

Like it or not, internet advertising is the realistic solution to this dilemma.  You might as well complain that google and the New York Times are unethical since they have ads too (maybe they are or aren't ethical, but complaining about it isn't going to change the way they operate their websites) - and I don't think Chess.com has anywhere near the capability that those sites do to try something different on the web.  It's just the way business has to operate in this medium (now some sites are not businesses and do without ads, but that's an entirely different story).

I personally think that any site out there that I enjoy visiting is worth some expenditure on my part.  If I'm not willing to shell out cold cash, then filling up part of my screen with ads is the alternative.  I can live with that price.

I don't know why anyone would expect to get it all FOR FREE.  But then, I don't know why people do half the things they do.

neospooky wrote:

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.

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shut up

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

Go canadians

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 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.

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thank you for understanding.

I was right this is better then watching T.V.

AtIas wrote:

That's a damn good post Paul211

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 I am so happy that someone has responded to my comments in such a way , thank you.

I would ask you and all of the other people what is it that you agree upon.

I think that it is important, as Erick is I am sure is looking for positive feedback.

The word philosophy comes from 2 greek words:

1. phaleîn or philos which means to love, just like in German when you say ich liebe dich mein fraulein kumm zur mir, schlafem with ... or in italian, tara mia ti voglio bene or in french my native language, Je t'aimes.

2. the second word comes comes from again the greek and is : sophia , meaning wisdom.

The point of this exposé is :

When my wife was expecting a baby 30 years ago, she said to me if it's a boy I want to call him  Jason and if it's a girl  you pick the name you want.

Well it was a girl and I hesitated between Sonya and Sophia.

Remembering about my greek background I called  my daughter Sophia, in Greek translated into english:" De Philosophia"or about the philosophy, which means really about the wisdom of life.

A philosophy is all about a way of living, but to make it short it's really about the way we choose to live our lives.

In the end I had at one time to explain to our daughter why she was called Sophia and I can to this day still remember what I said:

You are Sophia such that every year, when you reach your birthday, you do become a better person, a wiser person, in all the sense of the word!

In the finally what is philosophy?

It is very simply a way to live what you really like and expand and express yourself so that you become a better person as you see it.

Philosophy: the way you live life and integrate in your day to day living!

It is the wisdom that comes in our heart every we live.

Great site Erik.

Glad I can support it in some way.

I notice three messages exactly the same complaining. You get what you pay for. Keeping improving this excellent site. Erik.I play on 7 sites and this is a great site!!

MainStreet wrote:

Great philosophical lines, guys!

And if I may add:

The 5 branches of Philosophy are:

1.  Metaphysics = nature of things 

2.  Epistemology = theory of knowledge (using reason = logic + integration)

3.  Ethics = what we ought to do

4.  Politics = how we ought to deal with each other

5.  Esthetics = art / enjoyment of life

I do not know if you really have studied philosophy other than stating generalities since you do not expand on them, neither I am not convinced that you truly understand what you say, and no offense to you since your reasearchch may have brought some insitgh into  your philosophy, but you are on the right track.

1, Metaphysics studies the nature of the person and the why it in this world, it is called so as "meta" in greek means beyond. So it means what is our purpose to be in this world beyond what we are doing daily, I leave it to you the answer as everyone has a different approach or should I say a different view to the explanation to an end, is it Nirvana or receration or...?? Cosmology does attempt to provide an answer but you are the ultimate decider!!

2.Epistomology is simply about the debate in one's mind about truth , belief and the ultimate ending of all of these analysis, not simple.

3. Ethicks has 2 facets: one is morality or confomance to societal rules and the other is the emphasis put on :values" in this world"

4.Political philosophy is simply about how we apply rules and laws in our society, common rights, laws application etc...

5. Aesthetics is simply how one perceives emotionnal sensations.

6.There is also logic: that deals with frame of thinking, for instance there are 7 rules of syllogisme, one of them is: where the first premisse and the second premisse, read sentence, contain the same argument  you cannot deduct a conclusion that is right. For instance, if a comb has teeth and a horse has teeth, you cannot deduct that a horse is a comb.

There is also the philosophy of the brain and the philosophy of the mind, the language, the anthropology etc...

Philosophy is a way of life, so it is at the end what you can do and accomplish, truly a philosophy is very simply the love of life in it's application every day to become a better person as you see it!!

Not sure if this has been mentioned yet (to much to read completely through).

But we pay for Cable/Satalite, thats 20-40+ dollars a month (in the US and varied from service and package). Yet, there are TONS of ads on that. So for TV you will pay and have ads (many annoying ones) and then complain about ads on here, something you're not paying for?

To the original poster: You Kant be serious.

Ellbert wrote:

I was right this is better then watching T.V.

 

What was right???

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MainStreet wrote:

I suddenly remembered a quote:

"Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall."

Just... (",)

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 Would you mind explaining, I am french but truly the language does not matter, can you expand on your thoughts?

Ellbert wrote:

I was right this is better then watching T.V.

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 I agree with with you, but was was right?? Can you elaborate on the post you are commenting?

MainStreet wrote:

I suddenly remembered a quote:

"Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall."

Just... (",)

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 I am positive that you for one understand this quote, just remember that people of several nationalities are out of connection like myself, and I do realize that I can do research on the internet to understand. However I do feel that it is your responsibily to explain as you made the quote.

Please help me top understand.

MainStreet wrote:

Atlas, I'm with you on those. :)

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 Mainstreet what are you on those?

There are so many comments on this post that I am baffled as what you are referring to? Can you tell us?

MainStreet wrote:

Paul211, it's a quote from the bible, cautioning people to look at their ways of thinking, speech and actions.

It's quite connected, though not directly, with a quote from Confucious, to wit: "Don't complain about your neighbor's roof when your own doorstep is unclean."

Anyways...

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 Thanks for the explanation, but I do prefer to have to clean my doorstep cleaned than to replace my roof as it costs me $7600.84 to replace it  2 weeks ago.

malasakit might be similar to philanthropy

Yeah, throwing that pun out there was categorically imperative.