FIDE: Confidentiality Clauses and Secret Votes

Insert 'not' into line 3 above after the word 'can' I think @Lion_of_chess @NabokovLolita

Anything that looks like mandatory occupational licensure always stinks. If you have to buy some organisation's chit before you can do your job, in the long run they _will_ abuse that power; and this invariably leads to a restriction of supply. Every cartel of this kind, whether one of the Professions (medicine, law, etc.) or something as harmless-seeming as chess trainers, makes the same arguments about "ensuring competence" and protecting people from unqualified practitioners; none of them ever provides any reason why a voluntary licensing scheme could not achieve the same. After all, if their examination were any good, people would take it — and require it — without needing to be forced.

Adding the "you must buy our course in order to take the exam" just makes the graft even more explicit.

Aagard responds to criticism about licensing cost saying that it is all spent on handling that cost. That is a ridiculous defense, that means the cost should be removed immediately. But it is not, so it must be generating money, and his claims are at best misrepresentation.

ec429 just hit the nail in the head.

@H-HH @ec429
With respect to your opinions, I would not want either a lawyer or doctor without the correct certified licence. Whilst chess training is not quite life or death, I think some sort of certified licence scheme is preferred.

@chessspy1 the point is not whether you choose the licensed practitioner, but whether the choice is yours to make.

Ok @ec429
I take your point. Thank you

@chesspy that you don't want a doctor or a lawyer without an official license is a choice of yours, that should be respected. Others may have other choices, like private licenses, or no licenses at all, and that should be respected too (but isn't). That's the actual point.