I will permit you to post it on the regular forums but not here in this meeting. It is not appropriate here. I might even tolerate it in new business in this meeting as it is a new business but just not CFC business.Quote:
Originally Posted by Sasha Starr
5A. Discussion Items - 1. Premium Chess FIDE's online server and training platform
What kind of discussion is it if the Voting Members are disallowed to post? Where one is presenting advantages of one site, but same is disallowed to someone else (to post an info about another site)?
Need to have opinions of the other Voting Members.
I would be curious to see what are the exact benefits of all options.
However, I firmly believe we should join a site that has already proven its worth. I'm thinking about Chess.com, ICC or Premium Chess. There is a lot of advantages in joining Premium Chess, since it is owned by FIDE, but we also all know how FIDE likes to take the biggest cut... So, a deeper financial analysis is probably required.
One major issue from Premium Chess though is that our rating appears on the FIDE website... Given how bad I am at blitz, I wouldn't quite want that to happen... :)
As far as Chess Supersite goes, I like that they include a lot of different options. However, the website is very amateurish and the interface very poor. I understand this is a beta, but one thing I learned is that such design flaws usually hide a lot of worse problems under the hood. And I honestly wouldn't take the chance there.
Premium Chess is offering a deal which has no cost to the CFC and could result in significant revenues if their plans bear fruit. I am talking about revenues equivalent to what we earn from memberships. If that happens most of our problems would mostly go away though we would get new problems. We have to update the Canadian portion of the website. My understanding is that we could do this with our newsfeed and maybe some linking to our facebook content. They are not asking very much from us at all which is good as our volunteers are stretched thin.Quote:
Originally Posted by Félix Dumont
Are they asking for a minimum number of players though? If I recall well, last time the CFC wanted to go ahead with a deal, the terms were completely out of reach (something like 2000 members willing to pay $60/year each).
They are not asking us to get those players. They are asking us to lend our name and some support like maintaining a small portion of the website pertaining to the Canadian scene and to allow them to get those players. They also want us to answer emails and organize some tournaments including a national online championship. In exchange we get a cut of the action.Quote:
Originally Posted by Félix Dumont
If they get no results then we are at the same place we are now and we could start again with someone else like Playchess.com or chess.com after they kick us to the curb. Both of those companies gave us very interesting options. We talked to a bunch of server companies and there were some interesting ideas on the table. When we were at the point of trying to decide on one someone (Hal Bond) suggested we get involved with FIDE's efforts which was being organized by Premium Chess. That week they contacted me spontaneously with a sales job that wasn't necessary because I had already explored the idea and was primed. Now we've been circling in a holding pattern for months and I am sure they are getting frustrated. This is the third VM meeting where this was a topic. This thread is not so much a thread to convince everyone that this is a good idea but a thread to announce we are going ahead and hoping that this becomes something very important in the further development of chess in Canada.
They also offer some web services which we might look at later but we have to start somewhere. The corridor principle: Once you walk through the door and walk further down the corridor, you see new opportunities that you couldn't see or guess at if you stay behind the closed door.
Felix, in all fairness your statement "the website is very amateurish and the interface very poor" is incorrect. You should've said instead "in my opinion"... and so on... There are opinions very different from yours including very-well known GM's: a few of them even became our shareholders!