For Premium Members Only...

Yet another opportunity to go on and on about being a "copywriter". Quite apart from anything else, while everyone has to make a living somehow, you do realise that bragging about being a marketer is at best one step above bragging about being a tax collector, don't you?

Unfortunately for you, you chose to make a post in a forum which is open to all Chess.com members, and you don't get to decide how it goes. Like it or not, how you present your posts here is a relevant topic for discussion. Like it or not, giving the appearance that you're trying to take advantage of the members for your own unspecified gain is also a relevant topic for discussion. I think you have some questions to answer which won't go away just as a result of you calling "off topic".

Sorry, but you're not taking advantage of me. You're not that good of a marketer.

Can a CHESS.COM staffer please post that learningthemoves is authorised to offer the prize here? I had assumed - perhaps subnconciously - that such authorisation was a given. But I think that it has got to the stage where a staffer has a moral and legal duty to clarify this.

I do not know anything about the laws of the US. But in general there are limits to someone's legal ability to offer a financial or prize reward for an act such as writing a post. That's why say on a lotto ticket you will see in small print "authorised by gaming commission of Nevada" or whatever.

I just think that this thread has got out of line. It is no longer proceeding ina way that is of benefit to either players or this chess site.

It doesn't matter that you think I have some questions to answer. I have no questions to answer.

Like it or not, there's no "conspiracy" to unravel here so if you were looking to cast aspersions on me, you'll have to remain empty of a reward.

Finally, we do agree on something. I don't get to decide how it goes.

Having administered a discussion forum of my own in the business community years ago, I had the authority to ban trolls at my discretion because the site was privately owned by me and I called the shots.

Those who attacked members or otherwise attempted to derail the thread, could be nuked for breaking the rules according to the agreement upon registration.

Those who troll though, generally don't last long in that type of discussion community anyway. Their conduct ensures that.

All I can do is create the thread for discussion and hope for  meaningful discussion which despite your efforts to the contrary has happened.

Your fear of being taken advantage of has nothing to do with how good a marketer is. To even suggest that, implies you equate marketing with taking advantage of people instead of creating value for them.

Once again, the value you get is usually in direct proportion to the value you provide.

This is true in this thread as well. For example, I know those who have shared how their chess has improved since being a member here has inspired me and motivates me to continue to learn and improve.

Your pot shots, character assassination attempts and urges to deviate from the thread topic haven't provided any value to anyone.

But you are the one who must accept the consequences of your own actions.

I've not given any appearance of taking advantage of anyone. The fact I've written and write sales copy for a living has nothing to do with anything or anyone here, but was only mentioned in response to your criticism of my conversation style.

I'm free to write how I speak, have the authority under the rules here at Chess.com as a member to create forum threads and have done so.

If you don't like it or are afraid of being taken advantage of...

 -- that has absolutely nothing to do with me, but only exists between your ears.

You've made it clear you don't wish to discuss how your membership here has helped you improve your chess and stated, "Sorry, but you're not taking advantage of me" and that I don't get to decide how it goes and that this is open to all members, etc. as the reasons for not wishing to participate.

You've made it clear you don't wish to participate in this discussion topic because you equate it with being taken advantage of somehow. Well, then fine...no one has suggested you share anything you don't wish to share if you don't want to contribute.

However, I did and still do encourage my fellow premium members here to share their experiences as a member for mutual edification and motivation.

And they are free to do so as well.

Don't want to participate? Fine, have it your way. Don't participate.

For those who do, the opportunity is here for us to do so.

It's part of the membership we paid for and quite frankly, if you have some kind of problem with that or me, I only wish you the best in resolution...

but understand this: I certainly don't have any more inclination to waste space to pacify anyone who is opposed to creating threads, discussing our premium memberships and using the features we've already paid to enjoy. <End troll feeding>

Apparently no good deed goes unpunished.

I am not suggesting any conspiracy in any way, shape or form. I am not making an accusation. I seek only clarification from a staffer on this site. That is all. Please put any "straw man" suggestions that I was suggesting any "conspiracy" to one side.

^ You seriously didn't know that?

Each member has the opportunity to "Gift a Membership".

See?

Apparently the features of the membership and how you have benefitted from using them are worth discussing!

Nothing was out of hand except someone attempting to derail the discussion because they didn't like my posting style.

@Linuxblue1, I wasn't responding to your post, but the one above yours. Not strawman by anymeans, but the Y_Ddraig_Goch "character" hiding behind a cartoon dragon avatar who thought it would be funny to take a cheap shot at my writing style in his first post in this thread, then proceeded to bash me after I defended my style of writing.

It's obvious many members have benefitted and are benefitting from the forum discussion here because they've said so.

I also find what we've accomplished with the help of this membership quite inspiring and motivating. You don't or think it's out of hand or think some staff member of Chess.com should tell you what's already made available for you to offer as a "gift" to your friends on the site?

No one is "required" to post anything. It's up to you if you want to or not.

But if I'm going to spend more of my money, I'm going to decide where that money goes or allow members to vote on a "most motivating" or "most inspirational" personal experience with the membership.

I had no idea simply interacting with our fellow members about how we use our memberships to improve our chess would for a moment be attacked.

Makes you wonder who doesn't want us to talk about how premium membership here at Chess.com benefits your chess...

could it be a competitor?

If you can't talk about the features and benefits of Chess.com premium membership at Chess.com premium membership forum as a Chess.com premium member...where can you discuss?

Something which, as your third post to this thread makes pretty clear, you didn't have in mind when you made your "offer", since you needed to be "reminded" of it.

OK. Then I would like learningthemoves to add this to the OP and the next post:

"I am making this prize offer of my own accord under the ability to gift a membership. My actions and offers are entirely my own; they do not represent the views of chess.com as an organisation or those of staffers. I am, to the best of my knowledge, allowed as an individual to offer an incentive for a reward of a gift membership".

Look. I am trying to save you from a lot of hot water here. I'm free. I'm no lawyer [or as you say in the US attorney] but I am trying to apply my 37 years of human life and the mustard seeds of common sense that I have acquired usually via osmosis ratherthan intent.

Writing a long and rambling post as a (badly written) marketing spiel, freely admitting later that you wrote it that way on purpose, going on and on about being a marketer, and then offering to pay people money in return for them telling you lots of personal information and experiences is not "simply interacting". Nobody but you "simply interacts" like this on these forums. You've already obvious misled at least one person into assuming you were acting on Chess.com's behalf when you weren't, and you're even trying to brush that off as nothing, just as you're evading all the other inquiries into your motives.

You've acted, and continue to act, in an incredibly suspicious way throughout this entire thread.

Linuxblue1, your post seems to be genuinely sincere. And your request reasonable enough.

Look, I only want to participate, share, add to the community as a member as I'm sure you do as well.

I believe members of the membership truly "are" members.

I took the offer to become a member of Chess.com at face value and believe Erik has overdelivered on all his promises to us. 

And I will discuss it and encourage others to do so too.

There's already enough negativity online and in the world.

So if being positive about the membership features and benefits membership has to offer ruffles some feathers, feathers ruffle.

We're about the same age and I know I am most certainly *not* required to post some kind of disclaimer to gift a membership to someone at Chess.com who posts in the forum.

But! I'll add a disclaimer if it helps you or anyone else to feel better about sharing the goodness.

Man, if doing exactly the bare minimum incites this much, I wonder what going above and beyond would yield. Nevertheless, I'll stand by my conviction and principles. And I will continue to seek to improve chess no matter the opposition.

And in the endgame, I'll even use "opposition" if I must to do so. 

*Disclaimer: for those who haven't been watching the end game videos available, basic direct "opposition" occurs when there are even numbers of squares between your king and your opponent's king with you to move and when there are odd numbers of squares between your king and your opponent's with your opponent to move next.)

I didn't mislead anyone about anything. I clearly stated the topic for discussion and the purpose for it. 

I didn't go on about being a marketer. You attacked my writing style and i simply corrected you when you attempted to publicly defame and mislead others about my knowledge of copywriting and/or paragraph use, sentence structure, grammar, writing for readability vs. writing scholastically.

I simply informed you that I quite know how to write both academically and also professionally with different formats for each. 

You didn't like the style of writing and assumed it to be "incorrect" when actually you are in no position to judge my writing style and have presented me no credentials for doing so either. I simply stated I do it professionally and therefore possess the expertise required to judge it contrasted with someone who doesn't.

And when that didn't "sit well" with you, you decided to continue your attack against me based on the appearance of my suit in my avatar while you yourself use a cartoon and I'm supposed to care what you think about writing style or conversation in a forum?

In my area of expertise, I am the authority compared with someone who doesn't know the difference between writing an essay for university or writing more conversationally or with readership in mind.

Yes, I do make money from writing, but just because I worked and studied to earn and possess the ability to do so, doesn't mean I would ever use the skill for anything other than perfect ethics.

All this in spite of my continued efforts to ask you to behave like an adult member of this discussion community and stick to the forum topic and your refusal to do so.

Quite frankly, I'm not into placing blame and so have only illuminated the areas where you have transgressed against me in response to your accusations that I have done anything other than work to provide value to my fellow members and get some motivation/inspiration to improve our chess!

Let us kindly agree to disagree and move from the tit for tat and return to us sharing how we've benefitted from what we've learned and accessed here as members.

And yet someone was misled, so you obviously did.

You really are dragging this thread off-topic, now, but your writing skills are appalling. Any empty claims you make about "expertise" or "authority" are easily trumped by the evidence you've presented yourself. That's the thing with writing on the internet - you show everyone what kind of writing skills you have, and once you've done that, no amount of claiming "expertise" or "authority" makes a jot of difference. You can't market yourself out of your own evidence.

Stop acting so suspiciously, and we won't disagree any more.

Thank you for your contribution to the community. Here is my reply to each of your comments.

Not one was misled. If one were to be misled, it wouldnt be my me.

That's right. Once my results have been verified online, they do provide quite the proof.( I have several testimonials from clients worldwide.) They, along with the results the copy provided for their companies, reinforces both my expertise and authority. It's called social proof and makes a world of difference. I hope I never market myself out my own evidence. I never acted suspiciously and we shall see if we agree.

I'll take the actual evidence you've presented in this thread over this "social proof" you merely claim exists, if it's all the same to you.

It's not the same to me because I don't get paid to write in forums and therefore don't write copy as a forum member in a forum. 

I'm not going to present my evidence in this thread as then someone could try to accuse of solicitation or whatever and having been a forum admin myself of a couple of forums over the years, I'd prefer to just purchase a solo ad to a customer list with a free introductory offer to begin the relationship or purchase an ad on the site if I were to market in forums. I've run and written several ads in forums before, but those were in business and marketing forums...but if you didn't demand actual evidence of my work to be posted in this thread, I wouldn't have to explain to you that I don't write copy in forums. As I said, let's get off my accomplishments in the marketing and business world and stick to the chess and chess membership please!

YDG - why don't you take your whining somewhere else?  Like others, I also took the OP at "face value" and found no harm in doing so.

I continue to find it humorous how many internet people choose to be "grammar police" instead of contributing constructively to a chess discussion.  Your FIRST post in this thread (quoted above) was nothing more than an unnecessary insult.

Your own blog posts are nicely formatted (yippee), and focus on chess (bravo). What benefit do you derive from lambasting others for their formatting choices in a forum that you don't even need to post in?

You already did.

Irony.

The "why" is already clear in my posts. If someone gives the appearance that they're trying to take the membership for a ride for some kind of concealed personal benefit, I think that's worth commenting on and examining. You're under no obligation to agree.

Ah! You got me.

I stand to make $1.57 million dollars once I get Y_Ddraig_Goch's opinion on how using the tools provided to diamond members helped him improve his chess.

If only he hadn't been so smart, I'd be sipping drinks in glasses with those little umbrellas in them somewhere on an exotic island.

But now Y_Ddraig_Goch has ruined everything...and I'll be lucky to earn only $2000 without his contribution.

I would have succeeded to, if hadn't been for that pesky dog and his friends.

After carefully planning a secret hidden marketing ploy in the copywriting lab every day since September 2006, the one variable I hadn't counted on (Y_Ddraig_Goch's interference) was the one that cost me.

Looks like it's going back to writing sales letters for information product publishers, business coaches, accounting firms and other companies, now that I may never realize my true life's calling of "taking the membership for a ride" in my new baby lambo for a unique concealed personal benefit.

Oh well, you win some and you lose some.

@Y_Ddraig_Goch: Well played sir!

Update as of 9-13-2012

Congratulations to:

*Shadowknight911

*OneMoreCup

*LinuxBlue1

*Hessmaster

*Namssob

*Wbilfc