I don't see why this wouldn't be allowed - within reason.

I think there's a difference between asking someone for help and having someone else enter the orders/press for you (which would just be essentially multi-accounting, and bad)

But, what's wrong with saying "hey, have a look at this game that I'm playing - what do you think?". How different is that to reading relevant strategy articles? Or from looking at the board for a really long time, working out all the possibilities?

Personally, I'm not really FOR it - it's not something I'd want to see happen a lot - or throughout a whole game. Just like I wouldn't want non-players commenting on chess games that are currently in progress, I'd prefer the game be influenced mostly by the *actual* players. But, I think that preference isn't something that everyone would agree with, so I don't think it needs to be enshrined in the site rules.

Also, I think that the question "is it ok to ask someone else to discuss your board with you" is different to any potential effect on your rating system of choice.

Personally, ever since I've taught my girlfriend how to play. (For a face to face game hosted by a bunch of my friends), I've taken to bouncing ideas off her for games that I'm in on this site. (She doesn't have an account so I know there is no risk of breaking anonymity ).

I find the most helpful thing, is getting a second perspective, as well as having someone to vocalize your ideas too that has no skin in the game. You might argue its different since she's only played for a couples months so if she was on this site her hypothetical ghost ranking would be below mine. If I talked with my other diplomacy playing friends more, I'd probably bounce ideas off them too, once I was sure they didn't play on this site.

I've never really considered it to be a problem. So its interesting to see how others might consider it to be problematic.

I think officially we discourage the practice of seeking explicit advice for a particular game you're in, but in practice it's not an enforceable restraint if we were ever to make a formal rule forbidding it.

I'm not sure about that though. Prolly ought to wait for a longer-tenured member of the staff for an answer

As an ex-staff member, I have to say that it's fine. When I started off on the site I bounced ideas off of other players in order to gain an understanding of the game faster, and I still do from time to time. Honestly, so long as the other person isn't playing your game for you, essentially, I don't see a problem with it. Also, as Eden said, it would be very hard to enforce.

As long as the player isn't in the game and you know they aren't in the game, I see nothing wrong with asking for friendly advice. There are still situations where I could use a second perspective after years of playing so I understand when another player wants an outside opinion.

this is exactly what made the webdipdummy 2 player per country game great, bouncing ideas and strategies off one another

My concern is less about PM advice (although a noob could get an undeserved win that way) and more about how discussing ongoing games on the forum could unduly influence the game. You wouldn't have a chess match discussed as it is going on such that the players could see the discussion, so why let this discussion influence a diplomacy game?

A rule against PMing about a game is largely unenforceable so I don't think we bothered setting one (but I wouldn't encourage it). With the forum I definitely discourage it, not sure if there's a rule in place forbidding it but IMO there should be.

Obviously anything used to circumvent in-game rules (anonymity, press restraints) is off-limits.

And of course if there's some other extenuating circumstance that may override the above rules. (ex: School of War, where TAs are explicitly selected to advise players and professors are explicitly required to discuss the game on the forum)

That's probably the closest we have to an official policy on this. I agree with you Draug, public discussion of ongoing games where the players involved can see them should be disallowed.

Thanks, Eden. The official word from JMO though, is that discussion of full press non-anon is perfectly acceptable on the forum.

Hey PE, that's actually not the official policy :). Check out my reply in the other thread on this topic where I lay out what is/isn't allowed currently. That said, we're currently discussing it via mod email with Zultar, and reviewing how it's been used in past cases, and if there have been any problems with the current policy.

time for me to check mod email then lol

Oh good, check Draug's request too then ;)

make the new guy do the hustle work huh?! ;)

Draug, just unpaused the game, y'all should be good to go. Lemme know if you need anything else!

Hah, yeah. Do all the work new guy... *sips lemonade while getting fanned off by the Swiss bikini team*

OOPS wrong thread lol

Oh well

Also writing to confirm, I am wrong about da policy, pls ignore last post on subject. JMO et al is correct

Hopefully the review of the policy will result in some more slight revision. If it were just points where everyone has equal skin, that would be one thing, but someone with a 250 GR and a noob with a 100 GR, well, the noob gets help from the ideas in the thread, wins the game, but only risked 40% of what the experienced player did.

Draug - so what? SO the noob ends up higher than they should be, on their own. If they stop asking for advice, they'll quickly give the points back. I don't see how, in the long run, this is a problem.

GR affects ranking in tournaments and challenges. I'm less concerned about the noob and more thinking about the experienced player dropping in rank. If it were actual money you wouldn't be saying "so what?"

I agree with mendax- I don't think the details of a rating system are relevant to the discussion of whether or not it's ok to ask for help in games.

The player was being resourceful. It completely seems to be in the spirit of diplomacy as I understand it.

I would say a player with the initiative to seek out quality advice (or even the sort of advice you find here) is a better player than one of similar background skill and less initiative. I don't think the narrative of the poor player who has his game essentially played for him by a top ranking diplomat is one that exists in reality. No one frankly has the time. A bit of advice every now and then, however, is no bad thing for a game.

can we ask for advice for a full press semi-anon game?

Rating systems are never going to predict individual games accurately - they're there to reflect long-run, systematic results.

But the forum leads to full on discussion of the game and can alter the outcome. I'm only talking about a ban on forum discussions. There is no forum in F2F diplomacy, so why allow the forum to affect the outcome of a game here.

One of my favorite ways of playing was what me and my friends called war room. We would get around 10 people together and play a game on a different site. We all played as one country and would go over the moves as if we were in a war room. Everyone proposing battle plans and working them out in sandbox until we decided on a policy. Then we would ready our moves and go again. It was amazing to have 10 minds looking at a board and figuring it out. Especially when half those minds are art cadets lol.

Army cadets*

My two cents:

Diplomacy is a social game. Back when I started playing in high school (13 years now) the boards would be posted in the hallway and we had a core group of 25-30 people playing games at any given time. Discussion was not only rampant but encouraged because it helped us learn the game.

That being said, there is a clear difference (again, in my personal opinion) between "what would you do?" and "what should I do?" Draug brings up a good point regarding the forum affecting the outcome of a game but at the same time I know most of the members on the forum actively discourage this practice anyway even without a rule.

Personally, I talk about my ongoing games whenever I get the chance. I have a few good friends on the site and we love to talk shop and give advice. However, I do think that there are players here, especially new ones, who would use the forum to their advantage. Another reason to get rid of anon games, I guess.

"Another reason to get rid of anon games, I guess."
Perhaps better suited for another post but I wonder what keeps people playing anon games. Non-anon seems few and far between. Personally, I'd prefer the social aspect of a non-anon game but really, really, hate the time stamp.

While I don't agree with 2WL on the getting rid of anon. I agree the game is social, I started playing f2f about 4 years ago. I think I understand draugnars point but I don't see the issue actually happening. Have there actually been cases of high gr players playing a game almost entirely for a low gr player? What would be interesting is to see if several players would like to volunteer as TAs and be listed on the site somewhere so that new players could ask questions. I don't know how difficult this would be. But it may help both sides. It would prevent too gr players from over assisting a noob but would also allow for noobs to receive small assistance and perspective.

Anon helps a lot with randoms because it really sucks to have people gang up on the dude with comedy cubes and four-digit point values.

Don't really get the point for organized games though. I prefer non-anon full press games when they're organized beforehand.

That's why I keep my point total so low...

The easy solution to the gang up issue is to hide points from everyone but the point holder and tow remove the comedy cubes again.

Non-anon games would be so much better if you couldn't see time stamps on messages and when the person last viewed the map. I like the aspect of being able to ignore people I don't like.

I get the not wanting every one to see the last time you logged into the game, but what's the big deal with the times stamps. A new message appears and they will know it was between two times: the last time they were on and the present.

I was under the impression discussing ongoing games in the forum isnt allowed.

But discussing them privately is.

So now I am confused.

See Rule 3 here: http://webdiplomacy.net/rules.php - only threads about gunboat and limited press are forbidden.

I think asking for advice should be welcomed. We want to create better competition and have more users. The GR ratings will sort themselves out. With a little help and guidance there will be more people here to play more good games. If anyone asked for my advice, and I was not involved in the game, I would give my 2 cents. As long as it is ok by the rules.

Agree with Ssoren on this. More questions= better players. More good players= more good games. More good games= Even better site. Simply math guys.

For what it's worth, here are my thoughts on asking for advice:

1) Figle said it's OK and that's good enough for me.
2) As others have mentioned, better players can only be good for the Site. I do not see how asking for advice (assuming you ask the proper people) can do anything but improve one's skill.
3) Unlike Chess, it is hard to just "give advice" in Diplomacy, as people familiar with SoW know. What may look like a sensible move by glancing at the board, may actually be a disaster when taking press into account. I think it's fair to say that most advice is fairly limited in its impact.
4) Discouraging asking for advice would essentially be impossible to enforce and since the potential rewards (better players) seem to outweigh the harm (artificial skill inflation), I don't see why one would bother trying.

In regards to asking for advice on the Forum, there I am torn (which, incidentally, is why I waited to say anything until my opinion no longer mattered). I can certainly sympathize with people that don't want to be pulled into the Forum just because they're playing on this site. At the same time, though, you can easily create anon games to prevent this from happening.

If someone posted a thread on the forum asking for advice and someone else from the game asked that people instead discuss the game in private, I don't really see people being dickish enough to continue. I think we're worrying about scenario that hasn't and likely won't happen.