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<P>Given the way this page is written, it fosters confusion between the concept of a member and the concept of a registered user. The first paragraph recommends becoming a member and lists various advantages of membership. But the second paragraph says you must be a contributor to become a member, and the third paragraph offers the alternative of becoming a registered user, but it neglects to mention that you get all the same things from being a registered user as you do from being a member. Since I knew that registered users had all the benefits of membership, and since I didn't pay close attention to the details on this page, I have been using member in an inclusive sense that includes both members and registered users. Meanwhile, Antoine Fourriere had noted the distinction between members and registered users and assumed that registered users could not vote in polls.</P>
<P>So how can this page be changed? One solution is to rewrite the first paragraph as follows:</P>
<P><KBD><BIG>
Please consider becoming of member or registered user of the Chess Variant Pages. Members and registered users may participate in polls, such as the polls for selecting Recognized Variants, play games on Game Courier, modify their own information page, edit their own comments, and receive news and event mailings from chessvariants.com.</BIG></KBD>
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<P>Another solution is make the distinction between 'member' and 'registered user' with more fitting terms, such as 'contributing member' and 'non-contributing member'. After all, our members are also registered users, and registered users have the same benefits as members. With this solution, some of the revisions shown above would be retained, and the second two paragraphs could be rewritten as follows:</P>
<P><KBD><BIG>
If you are a contributor to our pages (either as an author or inventor), simply go to our Contributors Page, select your name from the top list, press the 'Send' button, and then follow the instructions on the screen.</BIG></KBD></P>
<P><KBD><BIG>If you haven't contributed, but you would still like to become a member of the chess variant pages, just go to our registration page.</BIG></KBD></P>