Shirt has arrived, and it fits!
@BunsenBurner, I saw the same thing the first time I read it!
Hmmm, never thought of making a shirt into a pillow. I think it’s a nice gesture as well. I figure it will add to my growing collection of long-sleeved shirts suitable for travel.
As I said elsewhere, I thought about getting it but then I decided that I don’t want to be recognized as a “woman who wasted a lot of her life on CC” while doing volunteer weeding of public lands. ?
I got it. It’s kind of a crappy color, and I really don’t like the logo, but it fits me pretty well. I might use it in the cooler weather to wear while weeding or something.
Hey, it was free. If I wear it for a while and decide don’t want it, to Goodwill it goes. It will do someone some good somewhere.
I received mine on 8/8/2019.
I am a little shocked at how rude some of these comments are. If you didn’t want the shirt, fine. Totally OK to decline. If you accepted this GIFT from the people who run this site, then I would hope you would be a little bit gracious. Someone did this to recognize people who have been on the site a long time and contribute (for better or worse). It was someone’s idea and it cost something. I hope you are a little more courteous when people in your “real” life give you something you might not absolutely love.
^^^ You’re right of course. Ok to accept, ok to refuse.
As expressed above my biggest red flag was the timing - so that turned me off. That it was timed with the site changes. And if I’m looking at the other side, maybe it was a move to encourage regular posters to stay attached - which if I was on the business side I would want to do.
I don’t think I’ve ever been part of a message board where perks like this might be offered. So that also surprised me - but maybe it is something others have encountered.
I’m the first to admit my snark can come out. And it did. While the content of my posts were accurate to my feelings I could have left it as “I didn’t elect to accept the shirt”.
Is it a gift if they’re trying to drive behavior? I don’t think so. A gift is freely given with no expectation of a return of any kind. That only certain posters (the high volume ones) were targeted puts this squarely in the area of a marketing campaign. That’s business, not personal.
There was no announcement of any kind beforehand that if you make 10,000 posts you will be entitled to a shirt, so the gift was NOT to drive behavior. It is stated as a reward and recognition for behavior already performed, and said to be a one time reward. At least, this is my interpretation.
I was pleasantly surprised to be offered it and thought it was nice of them. I also have once gotten a guidebook from contributing a comment to a Fodors.com website. Other than that, I rarely receive gifts for my online contributions or posts.
There were no strings attached at all. I regarded it as just a recognition and perhaps some advertising if we wore it out and about and were asked about it. I never considered that it was any sort of bribe to stick around- I mean, those of us who are well past the years of having college kids and mainly post in the Cafe are not the meat of the Forum anyway.
CC just had a 100-page thread +/-, where a lot of long time and I assume newer posters either threatened to leave or did leave because of white space, scrolling and fonts. And voila! A t-shirt offer to posters over 10,000 posts. You can either see the timing as curious, see a connection or not.
Personally, I don’t care. But I find some of these threads “amoo-zing.”
For the sake of accuracy, the shirt offer predated the thread. Was the offer was tied in with the site redesign? Maybe. Maybe not. I have no idea. But I doubt that anyone said, “Hey, since we know the redesign is gonna suck, let’s offer a shirt.”
Thanks @skieurope I was thinking I got the offer just before the site redesign.
Here’s another take- maybe it was a gentle nudge that some of us have passed our “sell by” date and it was sort of a retirement present! 
I woke up that day to the free pullover offer and the site changes. They happened very close together.
This is a business not a person. It’s purely a marketing freebie. Not a gift in line with a gift from a personal acquaintance. But it seems to be working for many so money well spent by this for profit entity.
The sire changes were someone’s idea as well and people felt free to bash those.
My message re: the free shirt was June 25 - I believe the sites change was June 26.
My offer came on June 25 as well. I just looked at it again, and I guess I didn’t put much thought into it, because the photo that came with it clearly shows some kind of nylon high neck shirt with a short zipper. Not a bad looking shirt, but certainly not a soft comfy sleeping tee.
I see the controversy continues.
The plot thickens. ??
The shirt offer is why I even came back in the first place. I was curious as to what I could’ve done this time to get the specific poster to message me since I hadn’t been on in quite some time.
It was upon opening to answer that message that I was met with this god-awful mess and started complaining lol.
The shirt is actually pretty nice. I can probably rub off the logo but either way it’ll make a nice around-the-house shirt. Don’t know how much longer it’ll fit me though ?
Even if I had been offered one, I wouldn’t take it. 1. In protest over new boards and the bribing 2. Wouldn’t want anyone to know I frequent here…it’s my anonymous place.