Rumley's point is that nobody except for you cares Jece and so we shouldn't change anything.
The game of diplomacy has a long history of being played postally (and by email or by using some kind of web client like this) and in this history the term "Civil Disorder" has become separated from that of "NMR" (no moves received) and now means a country that is not expected to receive moves (the precise details of this vary from organisation to organisation - some will throw you out of a game if you miss too many deadlines, here it means that the country is ripe to be taken over if the original player doesn't make an order beforehand). The use of "Civil Disorder" here is in tune with how it is used in the rest of the hobby although I accept that it is slightly different from how it is used in the rules for the board game (which are written to govern the game how it would be played face to face, not how it would work postally. An example of how the rules of postal play differ from F2F is that it is commonplace in postal play to submit your retreats and builds in the same set of orders as your move orders and to make them conditional on the results of the move orders if necessary).
There. I don't think it's likely to be changed. I don't think it should be changed. I wouldn't be upset if it was changed. I don't think anyone cares enough to code it for you but I suspect that if you learned to code, joined the development team, submitted a suggested alteration and made the change yourself that nobody would mind (or care, or even notice if I'm honest).

The problem as I see it:

It may appear that I am mostly interested in semantics here, and this is partially true. However, there is more to it than that. This site lacks any comment at all for a player who misses a turn. Nothing is marked and no indications are given. Nothing is even sent to the player to warn him or her that if they miss another turn other members will be able to take up their position.

Since the rules of civil disorder are followed for a player who misses their phase, I say that the player should be warned that they have entered civil disorder. If adding ‘NMR’ or ‘No moves received.’ is preferred, then it should be added as so. I don’t mind there being minor differences like this to the board game, as long as they are justified.

The controversies:

“However, if you just miss a single turn on webdiplomacy.net you can come back and enter a retreat order. Its only when you are in CD (after the next turn of missed orders) that the units is auto-disbanded.” – Centurian

This is a challenge to my assumption that there is no difference between missing one turn and entering what this site calls ‘civil disorder’. The problem here is that a member of this site is able to join a game during the retreats phase and during the disbanding phase, so, frankly, I don’t see any difference there. If players insist on having separate names like ‘NMR’, then let that be the case anyway.

Non-related change of rules from the real game to this site’s interpretation of it:

The “Civil Disorder” section of the rules is very vague, so it’s hard to tell what is meant. One of the only two ‘bugs’ in the latest rules is in this section. (See http://www.stabbeurfou.org/docs/regles/en/Compl_Hasbro_en.html) This, however, has very little to do with what I would like to see changed.

Parallelopiped, you said a lot for someone who doesn't care in the slightest.

Since you are "challenging my assertion" I may as well respond. Of course players can join during the retreat phase, they just can only join countries that have missed atleast 2 straight moves. Ok? Do you understand now?

Not only do you have to miss two consecutive turns, but they have to be turns in which you had orders to enter. So, this could theoretically mean four total turns (fall missed, no retreats, no builds/disband, spring missed) or it could mean missing a retreat or build followed by the movement turn. But JECE, there is no way you can just miss a movement phase and someone take over for the retreat nor could you miss a retreat and someone take over for the build in the winter. It has to be two turns in which you could have issued orders.

Oh and one more note. Putting a notice of NMR on the page is a BAD idea. B. A. D. Bad. This would give the opponents a clue that you are liable to go CD. They can already (and do) deduce that from your last login time. Let's not make it any easier. I do agree, however, that email notifications would be nice and I believe they are under consideration on the developers forum.

hear hear Parallelopiped... well versed in the history of Postal play as well I see ;)

JECE... dont take it personal - I know you mean well and we are just ribbing you a bit... but indeed what you are drawing attention to is so minor, and in fact counter to the communal history of how Dip has developed over 60 years that I dont think you have managed to convince others of your argument.

but your tenacity and your attention to detail is appreciated by all i'm sure ;)

Centurian: Why do you have "challenging my assertion" in quotes? No one has said a variant of 'assert' yet in this thread.

Centurian and Draugnar: I know how this site works. I have said that there is no difference between missing one turn or going 'CD' on this site "other than with phase times and the ability to join games". Both of these are "policies", so they have little to do with the rules.

Draugnar: Why would you be opposed to "give the opponents a clue that you are liable to go CD". That is like taking advantage of someone for not knowing that Norway is connected to St. Petersburg.

I just thought what you said was funny. I would have italicised it if we could do that here.

Obviously you don't understand how it works, because as I have repeatedly said, there is a difference. It is just miniscule, just like the importance of this debate. I regret getting involved really.

>But JECE, there is no way you can just miss a movement phase and someone take over for the retreat

This is incorrect. (Unless it was changed for 0.9?)

If you miss a movement phase (or any other one phase in which you had orders to submit) and, at the end of the phase, you have only 1 SC, then you go CD (in this site's sense of that word) ~immediately~. I have seen this happen with my own eyes. (^_^)

So it's 2 missed phases normally, but only 1 missed phase if you have only 1 SC.

Of course, you won't be counted as CD at the end of a move phase if there is still a retreat phase to go, since you might retreat to a SC. But if there's nothing to retreat, then you're out right away.

@JECE - not knowing how things work in a game and having your opponents take advantage of that fact is an in-game thing. Taking advantage of suspecting a person may CD is metagaming. We discourage it. If we are going to start provide more info to allow metagaming, then we should accept that refusing pauses and refusing to unpause are just as acceptable as taking advantage of a person you suspect may go CD.

Wait, Draugnar, is that you? Ha ha, I thought you left this site for good. Maybe you did and are just annoying me. See this huge discussion, people: http://webdiplomacy.net/forum.php?threadID=472356&page-thread=1#threadPager

As for meta-gaming, the defenition (found here: http://webdiplomacy.net/faq.php#faq41) is:
"
A meta-gamer is someone in more than one game who lets one of his games influence how he plays in another one. The classic example is threatening a stronger player in a weak game with a country in a different game where the tables are turned.
Meta-gaming is usually frowned on, but is acceptable in some cases and not seen as being as bad as multi-accounting.
"

Centurian: You are still talking about the Auto-disband, aren't you? The auto-disband you see has to do with phase lengths. When a player has missed two turns and is in 'CD', then they cannot submit orders, so the game skips their retreats (auto-disbanding) or auto-manage their disbands. However, if another player joins a game during a retreat phase or a disband phase, they are able to order a retreat, build and disband. But it doesn't really matter. NMR is a good label.

Toby Bartels: I didn't know about that. Are you sure? I thought you had to miss two turns, but people after that could join whenever, including retreat and disband phases.

"When a player has missed two turns and is in 'CD', then they cannot submit orders, so the game skips their retreats (auto-disbanding) or auto-manage their disbands."

I've been in a game where this did not happen.

What do you mean?

A player missed two straight turns and a retreat phase, and was retreated rather than disbanded.

@Acosmist: That should not happen. The only way you can get a retreat is by ordering a retreat yourself - so you have to log into the game to do that. If, as you claim, a player missed the retreats phase, but his unit(s) still retreated instead of disbanding, then either:

a) You have made a mistake, or
b) the country did actually go CD, but was picked up by a new player in time for him to enter the retreats, or
c) it was a bug.

If you are confident (a) or (b) are definetely not the case, then I suggest you email the mods, including the game ID, and the year/phase in which the potential bug occurred, and ask them to check it.

@ TobyBartels: "So it's 2 missed phases normally, but only 1 missed phase if you have only 1 SC"

I'm very sure it's not supposed to happen like that. Again, as I said above, if you are confident that this did happen, and you didn't make a mistake, then I would email the details to the mods, because it must be a bug.

"a) You have made a mistake, or
b) the country did actually go CD, but was picked up by a new player in time for him to enter the retreats, or
c) it was a bug."

I have not made a mistake. I was there - he didn't enter orders for two straight turns, and he never got on for the retreat phase. I noticed it wasn't a care of submitted-but-not-finalized, but there was just nothing there. I expected his unit to disband, and was shocked to see that he had "been retreated" to the only available province. I checked to see if he had got on just under the gun (I was logged in about 5 minutes before the phase and he had nothing submitted), and he hadn't logged in at all for several hours.

The same guy eventually (in a subsequent year) started entering orders again, so I know no one replaced him.

*wasn't a case of etc. Sorry, typed that rather carelessly.

Acosmist, the person would have had to enter the orders. This happened to me where a dormant England entered retreats at the last moment. Are you sure no one else took over for him?

Yes, I'm sure.

Here is the thread where the rule was first explained to me, by someone who should know:
http://webdiplomacy.net/forum.php?threadID=364994#364994
Because of this, I don't think that it's a bug; I think that it's intentional. (I leave open the possibility that this was changed in the 0.9 upgrade, however.)

Here is the game in which it happened:
http://webdiplomacy.net/board.php?gameID=8216
France made the Autumn 1904 moves, missed the Autumn 1904 retreats, and immediately went CD.

Of course, there's no record of that now, but for corroborating evidence, here is the forum post where I recruited a replacement:
http://webdiplomacy.net/forum.php?threadID=374653#374653
The situation described there matches the game only at the end of Autumn 1904.

You know, a bug in which NMR leads to a retreat (instead of a disband) when there is only one possible place to retreat to, that makes a lot of sense.

If you're in that situation and you log in, then you will see exactly that offered to you: Retreat (rather than disband) and then the only possible selection for the location filled in next to it. If you have more than one possible target for your retreat, then nothing will be filled in; but if you have only one, then it will be filled in. It would be very easy for the same logic that programs that to also program this bug.

(If it is a bug. Surely it's not intentional!)

Airborne soldier took over France in Spring 1904 and ordered a retreat. (no problem there). Airborne soldier then orders two moves and may or may not have missed his retreats phase. (OK) Then MatGB takes over France in Spring 1905. (OK, that is the problem) and dies that Autumn. OK, I can't help you there, except that it looks like MatGB joined with a bet of 16 .

Maybe Airborne soldier was banned. Of course, we can't find out without his ID #.

"Acosmist, the person would have had to enter the orders. This happened to me where a dormant England entered retreats at the last moment. Are you sure no one else took over for him?"

Unless someone took over for him, then the SAME GUY took over right after that, somehow, yes.

I'm sure.

It's almost like the software is buggy, like it assigns the same person the same country constantly.

Off topic, but what happens when only one player is not cd? What if all players are cd?

JECE - I was gone for a while. And I said "a while" to the mods..

Re: Metagaming. Spewing the same crap quote over and over doesn't change the fact that the mods have declared certain other things to be metagaming and that the real definition, as accepted by the players on this site, is taking advantage of ANY external factor to affect the outcome of the game. So, while not explicitely called out, threatening to track a person down and kill their dog if they don't do what you want is metagaming. I wish someone would change that lame ass definition on the site and refer to the wikipedia page for metagaming.

If you'll recall, part of the reason I left for a time was because a mod declared my refusal to unpause and forcing an opponent to draw to be against the rules and that he would forcibly unpause a future game should that happen. The consensus of the site was this was unacceptable metagaming, where as refusing to pause, while dickish, was acceptable metagaming. Neiher fits your lame ass definition of a quote (change it already Kestas!) but both are forms of metagaming.