BOUNCED? No, it's an independent site, set up and maintained by Christian Shelton (out of Univ Cal) about 15 years ago. There are also several others (e.g., Redscape, the Judges, etc)

I learned to play on bounced, and while there are more features, the learning curve for the interface is definitely steeper. I mostly play here nowadays because there are more players, and nowadays it has all the essential features (back in 2007, not so much!)

What do you prefer about the interface, Zappa?

You beat me to it ATC. Hello Zappa, to my knowledge we have one of the largest communities, specifically when it comes to live and gunboat games, with a large emphasis on classic style of play. Our community works to set up tournaments and teaching games for other members. If there is anything specific you notice missing here please let me know!

We also have the largest selection of lighting fixtures and web-hosting services.

I like being able to type my orders, sending press to any combination of other players, country preferences, rating and reliability bounds for joining games, email notifications, being able to do random convoys for communication in gunboat games, and different phase lengths for retreats, builds, and moves.

peterwiggin - an old BOUNCED hand I recognize - listed some of the features there that are very nice to have (press to some but not all the players - yes! country preferences -- YES!). Also, I think the maps are much more readable, the layout of seeing the orders processed is clearer, grey press can be an interesting feature, it is possible to use HTML on your presses to slant and emphasize them more subtly. Also, so far anyway, it appears to me that the players on that site tended to write longer press messages, so that the "diplomatic" aspect of the game becomes richer, deeper, more nuanced and complex. But the great advantage I see to this site is that it has a much larger pool of players -- a huge big plus. But why?

Because where else can you buy oil paintings, argue about Israel-Palestine relations, and play Mafia?

Or debate who in theory is the best historical figure.... Because really... They alllllll compare *feel the sarcasm*

different phase lengths for retreats, builds, and moves.----this is IMPORTANT---

On play dip they have that too

BTW, looking up pterwiggin's rankings, I notice that he is in the top 1% in this site, and also about the top 1% on BOUNCED too. A freakishly amazing accomplishment, I'd say. (And with relatively few games played on both, to get so high.)

he smokes good weed

If we ever get January ghostratings (which are more like the ratings on bounced), I might be number 1 for standard wta games.

I'm still the worst gunboat player ever though.

So that's the secret to getting so high eh? Now why didn't I think of that? ;-)

And yes, these ratings do seem less discerning. It seems they do not take into account the strength of those you are playing against, is that right?

Correct. And you choose how much you bet each game. Most of the high level players don't take webdip points seriously, which is why we have ghostratings

Question: has anyone run a correlation on points v. ghost ratings?

+1 ssorenn

I needed to google the Bounced-site because I did not know it. After browing the site for a few minutes only, one aspect that might partially explain the bigger player pool here is that I was not able to see a map or a game over there without registrating (guest account did not help either). So you have to register before getting a real look at the site, while here you can see a lot more before registering.
... and do they have forums over there? I wasnt looking for them but also do not remember seeing them.
I might be wrong on some points, but that s my impression after a first quick look via mobile phone

There's a for called full court press. It's not very active or feature filled.

Another reason for the difference in size might be a simple as the name. WebDiplomacy let me know specifically what I was looking for. I played the board game for years and knew exactly what I was looking for. I joined playdiplomacy very early on (I think they were still in beta?) and came here soon after. Both times it was the name Diplomacy that I was looking for.

Zappa: You may want to take a look at my Ranking of web-based Diplomacy websites series: threadID=477664, threadID=489951, threadID=513357, threadID=535114, threadID=538014, threadID=662728, threadID=815834 and threadID=1134388.

Wow, thank you JECE, for having compiled and kept up with all this info over the past five years. There is a lot to absorb here. And a lot of suggestions made by many others over those years, including,I see, requests for country preferences, press options for sending press to more than one player, better map visuals...
Another line of thinking is who tends to go to which site, not only nationality wise, but which sites get better in game communication. Lots to ponder here!!

I've always been a PlayDiplomacy guy just because i got introduced to the game through co-workers who invited me to a game, at this point these are the only two sites i've ever played on just because any other sites i'd researched seemed either low in population or pretty bad interface. I might check out a couple of the others mentioned here just for variety now.

I personally like the interface, forum, and email interface much better over on PlayDip while over here i like the high player variants, more active membership, and there's some UI features that make mis-ordering easier to avoid.

I liked to interface on playdip, the ability to changes durations of retreats and builds is a great feature as well as making certain days non-playable. I thought I like the email part, but became quite annoying after a while. The best part, especially for live games, is that once all players have agreed to join, there's one more recheck to make sure everyone around before game starts. This will decrease a lot of 01 NMR and eventual CDs

this site brings several internet communities:

http://diplom.org/Online/communities.html