Talk:Internet Diplomacy/Archive 1

Objectivity
This article needs to be more objective, rather than just singing the praise of DPJudge. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Millis (talk • contribs) 00:12, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Have at it then? At least three people have been working on this page trying to get it to meet the minimum standards as is. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.193.244.201 (talk • contribs) 05:42, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
 * As someone who knows very little about this, it seems that the differences between Judges is presented in a matter-of-fact manner. If more information on the non-DPJudge systems is needed, that's one thing. To dispute the article's objectivity due to this is quite another, I think. (Harropc) —Preceding comment was added at 13:58, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
 * I think the phrase "revolutionizing the format of Internet play" is a bit much, and it does hint that it was written with bias. I'm not familiar enough with DPJudge to know which parts, if any, have been exaggerated/left out. Kestasjk 01:13, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
 * I agree that the POV seems biased - although the tag was a bit too general. The rest of the article seems to be a stubby, with most this section wanting to grab all the attention.  (Added:) I could replace it with the  tag instead.--Sigma 7 22:30, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Took liberty of making slight amendment to DPjudge entry - aiming for more neutral style. Kept essential content unchanged as am in no way expert in these things. JAH89.240.110.75 21:17, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Internet Diplomacy not the 1914 game

 * [Refactoring note: Long off-topic February 2007 post by 68.81.164.180 (diff) was removed in April 2007 (diff); the earlier "Objectivity" section which had been removed in January 2007 (diff) was restored in the same April 2007 edit.]

Whatever the case, this article is for Internet Diplomacy and not the board game; thus, I have edited the lede to reflect that Internet Diplomacy is the subject of this article and that its origin is from the board game.Harropc 20:05, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Variants
Starting w/ a fleet in rome as a variant predates the internet. I'm sure a lot of interesting variationscame about from internet play, but it is clear that which ones were truly spawned from internet play has not been researched yet. FleetRome at the very least should be removed from the sentence implying it was started as a variant from the internet, and possibly others, though I haven't done the research myself to find out which. &mdash; Eric Herboso 01:44, 22 April 2007 (UTC)


 * In fact, the original 1958 self-published Dip rules had Fleet Rome in the setup. This was found to leave Italy too vulnerable to Aus-Hun in 1901, with the benefits of a second fleet not bearing fruit until 1902.  This was one of the changes made between that version and the 1961 Games Research Inc version.  If you check the Miller Number records in Everything..., I believe you'll find several Fleet Rome variant gamestarts. Barno (talk) 00:19, 26 January 2008 (UTC)


 * From the DPjudge's website: "This variant was created by Richard Sharp and introduced in his book The Game of Diplomacy. Sharp felt that starting Italy with a fleet instead of an army in Rome enhanced play balance." That 1978 book predates Internet play. Barno (talk) 05:23, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

Reworked it a bit
"Fleshed out, fixed a few minor inaccuracies, added some structure, see talk page about server self-promotion"

I tried to make the page a lot more neutral [diff]. Before I got the feeling the page was about play-by-e-mail, and web based was an afterthought. A more general definition of Internet Diplomacy is in there now that isn't related to e-mail specifically

I padded out the history a bit, again adding some web-based history where missing and filling out e-mail history where weak or confused. It wasn't very clear what a "Judge" was so that should be a bit better now The problem with the padding is that there are no references. There were none before of course, but there was less text before; now it's more obvious that there's no citation. Hopefully this'll improve with time

There were a lot of problems with self-promotion in the links. (Full disclosure: phpdiplomacy.net is my link) I made them into sub-sections to add some organization, and I put them into (what I think is) chronological order.

The reason for that is the Playdiplomacy guy put his site up at the top, presumably to try and get more hits to his site. He also called it "Internet Diplomacy" or "Online Diplomacy", so I can only guess he was trying to get it placed in the article so that people would stop looking after seeing his. (Note that his site ended up below mine in chronological order, but Diplomaticcorp got placed above mine, so this wasn't for the benefit of my link)

Also he said "fully-developed" in the description, but right at the top of his site it says "beta - Dec 2007" and "Bugs will be fixed within a month". After removing all the opinion and lies there wasn't much left

That entry was easily the worst, but a lot of them did it to some extent. It's silly seeing how "blarDiplo is the first to do this, the best at this, got the most of this, and is much more popular than asdfDiplo". I tried to remove anything where a description was comparing itself to other sites, giving opinion on itself, praising its own features, etc. I think the site blocks should do nothing except describe the site's features, and not refer to any records it claims to break or other software it claims to be better than

People mentioned below about variants, and how it was claimed that internet diplomacy took credit for all variants. I also noticed that and thought it was mistaken so I changed it to "non-trivial" variant (i.e. with a new map or new rules). I don't think face-to-face has any exposure to extra maps or rulesets (but correct me and the article if I'm wrong, preferably with citations)

Someone may decide one of the issues wasn't taken care of so I'll leave it for someone else to remove the talk points below, and here, as they see fit

Kestasjk (talk) 13:34, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

Bias
While I don't deny that user Kestasjk (talk) has done some good work on the structure of the page (seperating e-mail/web variants and making them chronological), he obviously is biased and will not stop promoting his own website phpdiplomacy.

Every time someone makes a contribution about a Diplomacy website that is NOT phpdiplomacy, Kestasjk (talk) removes the text again so that only a maximum of 2 lines of text remains. Of course phpdiplomacy gets the biggest write-up with 8 lines of text.

Kestasjk (talk) also edits the description of competitor websites to make his own website look the best.

Someone should really get a neutral opinion in here. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Lawine (talk • contribs) 08:40, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

Re: Bias
All the changes being made by 84.193.140.205 [ 84.193.140.205 (talk) ] are getting rid of cited facts, cutting down phpdiplomacy's size and removing any data on phpdiplomacy features, adding playdiplomacy features and adding that they are "advanced" and "complex", adding comments about my bias to my user page, tagging images which I uploaded and have absolutely no copyright attached as being in violation of copyright, and calling my site "obsolete".

All I've been doing is undoing the changes that have been made. 84.193.140.205 is certainly a biased individual, very possibly the owner of playdiplomacy, who can get away with calling me biased because he doesn't use an account and admit to any reasons he may be biased, whereas I let everyone know openly for the sake of full disclosure. But there's a difference between keeping any biases I may have in check and freely changing and removing cited facts.

Also note that 84.193.140.205 was the person to first add the section on PLAYdiplomacy months ago.. Look at the PLAYdiplomacy section he added a few months ago, it reads like an advertisement. Also look at this edit here: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Internet_Diplomacy&diff=218699959&oldid=218699644 When someone added that PLAYdiplomacy was based on open-source software, which is now publicly known and admitted, the comment was removed by 84.193.140.205. The idea that I'm biased and 84.193.140.205 isn't is insane! The idea that 84.193.140.205's edits should be kept as the unbiased truth while mine are removed is absurd.

All my changes have been trying to add citations, remove anything that's opinion or tries to compare sites, and all the changes being made are reversing that process.

See my talk which I added below [above] from a few weeks back; look at the page before and after that edit, and tell me that I'm biased and trying to promote my page, and not being objective. Compare that to 84.193.140.205.

Also I don't know why you're reverting the site to changes made after 84.193.140.205 has made his biased edits, and not considering the version before the edit-war began as the version which should be taken as the default until further notice. Why are all the edits made by your account related to this internet diplomacy page? Who's biased here?

Kestasjk (talk) 09:26, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

Third Opinion
Hey guys,

I have to say some of the edits by a a number of users could be classified as bias, and are bordering on blatant promotion of the various web based gaming sites. Alot of the information in this article seems like original research. The underlying issue here is a lack of verifiability and a lack of notability. It is important to know that forum posts are generally not considered acceptable. (In a nutshell: you don't have reliable sources to back up the claims you are making in this article).

What I think needs to be done:

Find reliable secondary sources about internet diplomacy. Use them to shape this article. The list of websites among other things will probably have to be deleted unless you can find a reliable source which mentions their significance. If there isn't enough content to write a good article I suggest merging this article with Diplomacy. Hope this is helpful. Ziphon (ALLears) 12:19, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

Notability??
I noticed that Ziphon recently added a notability tag to this article, but has not offered any explanation for doing so. Could you please tell us why you don't think this article meets notability guidelines, Ziphon?? It seems to me that it clearly does. In any case, I will remove the tag if no explanation for it is given within the next few days. 71.231.87.53 (talk) 13:11, 14 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Internet diplomacy does not seemed to be documented by reliable secondary sources. Check the notability and web content notability guideline for more information. Please do not remove the tag until you can provide references which can establish notability. ThanksZiphon (ALLears) 01:10, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

Neutral Opinion / Consensus
I believe that we are unlikely to get any truly neutral opinion that is knowledgeable about diplomacy since those people are likely to play at one diplomacy site or another. Instead of that, we should try to reach a consensus about what to include:

My suggestion is that:

a) Description of each site should include:

1- Their dates of creation 2- Their aims (if any) 3- The unique features that they have which can not be found in any other sites 4- The code/source/whatever they're based on.

b) Description of each site should NOT include:

1- Comparisons: ie, newest / fastest growing / best / greatest / most stylish / best looking. These are mostly subjective and impossible to verify.

2- Any kind of advertisement

3- I also believe that whether the creator of phpdiplomacy stopped coding or not should have nothing to do with this article. Maybe if one day there's a separate entry for him or the phpdip project.

c) Suggestions to prevent a continuing Edit War:

1- Try not to make changes before agreeing with others here.

2- Do not make any changes without accounting for it here

3- I think site owners should be able to contribute as they know the most about their site, but they should openly state which site they own and their edits should be monitored to prevent advertisement / unverified information.

What do you say? Babutsa123 (talk) 13:45, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

My specific suggestions:

I believe these additions and alterations would help. I'm posting them here so that we can discuss before the change is made.

1- I don't know what happened to the paragraph for phpdiplomacy.com, but we should probably re-add it and work on that as a basis in establishing a more agreeable article.

2- Remove the bit about the creator of phpdip stopping development. It does not belong here.

3- There seems to be an edit war about the 'based on phpdiplomacy' bit in playdiplomacy's description. I think an appropriate way to solve this would be to stop adding that and instead list the sites/ports based on phpdiplomacy under its own paragraph.

4- Perhaps we could put a screenshot of the gaming window of each website, with care not to breach copyrights of course.

5- We might want to agree on features that all/most sites have and add it to the description of internet diplomacy itself. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Babutsa123 (talk • contribs) 13:55, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

Response
I agree; in fact if you look to the section below which I wrote after reworking the page you'll see that I made a few of the same suggestions to try and tackle the bias. I'll re-add the missing paragraph referenced below and the image that keeps on getting removed, and remove the part about how I'm no longer working on the code.

As you suggest I'll also add that playdiplomacy is a phpdiplomacy derivative in the phpdiplomacy section instead of it being in the playdiplomacy section. (I don't see why it's biased or undesirable to have it in the other section, but if that's what it takes to stop these petty edit-wars.)

Thanks for giving an unbiased view, but I think my reversion will be re-vandalized again without regard for your comments or mine, as it has been before.

Kestasjk (talk) 14:08, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

Response to Response
I'd rather we waited for more people to comment before making the changes so that

1- we deal with any possible problems 2- we have more people agreeing so there's a stronger consensus 3- possible vandals and bias is marginalized.

I can't guarantee that moving it to phpdip's paragraph will end the edit war - We should probably wait and see whether those objecting to it will agree. Another option would be to add it to the end of the paragraph of playdiplomacy, along with the other code it is based on such as diplojudge etc.. I can understand that it makes the playdiplomacy.com look bad if the first few words of its paragraph mention phpdiplomacy

Babutsa123 (talk) 14:15, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

Re:
Sorry, I reverted before reading this, although to be honest it looked more similar to the way it looks now before the edit-war started. Also it looks like someone else has added their project, and didn't put it in chronological order like all the other projects, and had a thumbnail which was oversized.

I'm going to try and take a step back now; now that some unbiased 3rd parties are paying attention I hope this can be brought under control.

I am happy with the way my section is, and am happy to see PLAYdiplomacy's admin add distinguishing features and remove the phpDiplomacy reference, as long as value judgements aren't given to the features like you said. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Kestasjk (talk • contribs) 14:24, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

Re: Kestas
I removed the phpdiplomacy reference in playdiplomacy's paragraph since it is mentioned under phpdiplomacy now. I also agree that the owner of playdiplomacy.com should be encouraged to expand his paragraph as long as we all make sure that none of us make comparisons / try to advertise.

Perhaps we should try to contact the owners of other diplomacy sites and invite them to expand their own sections since none of us seem to be qualified to do so? Babutsa123 (talk) 14:36, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

Internet Diplomacy
I suggest we either get the other sites' paragraphs to the same quality and length as Internet Diplomacy or try to curb Internet Diplomacy's article. I prefer the former.

Would it be feasible for all the site owners here to suggest a paragraph for their own site IN DISCUSSION so that we can agree on the actual paragraph before adding it?

Babutsa123 (talk) 14:20, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

phpDiplomacy


Started in December 2004, phpDiplomacy is an attempt to make Diplomacy more accessible to people who haven't played Diplomacy before as a board game. Orders are entered by choosing valid options from drop-down lists, instead of being entered in with text, and a points system is used to let players find people of their own skill level to play with.

Since it's open source it can be used to help create new web-diplomacy sites more easily, such as Facebook Diplomacy, Strategery, and PLAYdiplomacy.

I'm happy with the above two paragraphs; references are given, it lists distinguishing features, value isn't assigned to any features, an image is added without copyright concerns.

I might accept that "an attempt to make Diplomacy more accessible to people who haven't played Diplomacy before as a board game" is biased now, but I think it needs to be taken in the context of the historical order of the sites: Before phpDiplomacy text-orders used in the board-game were used to enter orders, so focus on players who aren't assumed to know order syntax is something relevant in the historical context. If this seems biased I'm open to a 3rd party's opinion.

Kestasjk (talk) 14:29, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

I don't see a problem with it, hopefully we will get more feedback

Perhaps it might be a good idea to add license information and such as in the case of Internet Diplomacy? I am not sure whether these stuff belong here though.

Babutsa123 (talk) 14:39, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

I think unless there were several open source web-diplo platforms, each with different licenses, it's not worth going into which license specifically. If Internet Diplomacy sticks around I'll add license info, but see below for my comments on whether Internet Diplomacy is currently worth a section.

Kestasjk (talk) 18:53, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

PlayDiplomacy.com
As the administrator of Playdiplomacy.com I'm glad to see 3rd party involvement. Thank you, Babutsa123, what you've been suggesting certainly sounds very reasonable. Myself, I will write a more detailed description of my own website and post it here for verification.

I don't want to be a nitpicker, but I do believe describing phpDiplomacy as "an attempt to make Diplomacy more accessible to people who haven't played Diplomacy before as a board game" is not acceptable, because it's something that all Diplomacy websites are attempting.

A listing of all Diplomacy websites based on phpDiplomacy can be listed under the "phpDiplomacy" paragraph, no need to relist it under the Playdiplomacy.com paragraph.

Volo Media (talk) 15:00, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

Re: Volo Media

Thanks for contributing. I agree that there is no need for relisting under the playdiplomacy paragraph.

Your point about 'the attempt to make diplomacy more accessible...' is understandable, however I think we should hear Kestas' response before editing. Maybe his site has a special case that we are not aware of, or perhaps you two could work something out. Babutsa123 (talk) 15:13, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

I suggest we wait until you post the playdiplomacy paragraph, see if there are any other site owners that want to help and revise all the website descriptions under the discussion section to see if there's any expansion / corrections possible.

Currently two issues we should talk about during the revisions seem to be:

1- The line you mentioned in phpdiplomacy's paragraph

2- Whether 'Internet Diplomacy' has any excess information, eg, its license status, etc.

I think we won't have any problems as long as we keep discussing here and refrain from editing without discussion

Babutsa123 (talk) 15:14, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

I see that the paragraph describing phpDiplomacy has been removed by an anonymous user, please not that this was not me. I will not edit the page without your approval.

Here is what I would like to see added to the Playdiplomacy.com paragraph:

--- Started in December 2007, PLAYdiplomacy.com is the first to offer a full point-and-click interface. When a unit is clicked, the available options for that unit are displayed on the screen, eliminating the need to enter a correct order syntax.

PLAYdiplomacy attempts to adhere to the original rules of the boardgame as closely as possible. That means only solo victories are allowed unless all other surviving players agree to a draw.

Unique features of this site are the option of playing speed games (with turns every 5 minutes) and a wide range of rule variants (gunboat, fleet rome, winter 1900, industrial revolution). ---

Please comment.

Volo Media (talk) 15:53, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

Comments:

My objections are mostly with the structure and grammar. These are my proposed changes and comments:

Started in December 2007, PLAYdiplomacy.com is the first to offer a fully developed point-and-click interface. Upon clicking on a unit the available options are displayed on the screen eliminating the need to enter the correct order syntax.

PLAYdiplomacy attempts to adhere to the original rules of the boardgame as closely as possible. That means only solo victories are allowed unless all other surviving players agree to a draw. (I am not sure if this is needed - How do the other sites behave regarding this? Is it a unique/rare feature?)

Other features of PLAYdiplomacy include the option to play speed games (with turns every 5 minutes) and a range of rule variants.

(I think we should not use the word 'unique' since it is possible that another site might adopt the same procedure, and as it seems too blunt. I also think we should not list the variants as this page is not meant to be too technical.. though I have no major problems with listing them)

Are these fine? Also waiting to hear from Kestas regarding this description and the objection to the line in his description. We should also start talking about the paragraph regarding 'Internet Diplomacy'

Babutsa123 (talk) 16:59, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

I don't want to be a nitpicker, but I do believe describing phpDiplomacy as "an attempt to make Diplomacy more accessible to people who haven't played Diplomacy before as a board game" is not acceptable, because it's something that all Diplomacy websites are attempting.

I can understand that, but it's a question of whether the page is following a historical perspective or not. phpDip was the first web-diplo site to not require text-based orders to be entered, and that was one of the main goals phpDip had at the time; it's not a unique feature any more, so it doesn't work as an advertisement, but it does represent a departure from what came above it chronologically. The article tracks the progression of internet diplomacy from start to current incarnations, and the accessibility comment is a part of that.

e.g. These software Judges were eventually extended to include adjudicators; no-one mistakes this as claiming that nothing else has automated adjudicators, instead it's assumed that everything since does have automated adjudicators unless explicitly stated otherwise.

This is why I think "playdiplomacy was the first to have point and click" is redundant; because it's in chronological order as long as it's noted that playdiplomacy has point and click I think any reader would rightly assume that means it was the first to have it. There's no point in writing about things that other sites already had, unless we're ditching the historical format (which I think would be less informative and read more like a series of ads).

This is also why I'm not sure about ...displayed on the screen eliminating the need to enter the correct order syntax., because needing to enter the correct order syntax hasn't been a requirement since before phpDip.

Perhaps '''phpDiplomacy was started in December 2004[1] as an attempt to make internet-Diplomacy more accessible to people who haven't played Diplomacy before as a board game. Orders are entered by choosing valid options from drop-down lists, instead of being entered in with text, and a points system is used to let players find people of their own skill level to play with.'''

I also think, for the same reasons, PLAYdiplomacy.com was the first to offer would fit into the article better, and helps users understand the progression more easily.

The "solo victories" thing is an allusion to the altered points system, where in playdiplomacy you only get points as the winner unless there's a draw. This might not be a good distinguishing feature to add since phpDip has had winner-take-all games which go by the same rules since 0.8 came out in January. If, despite this, it's still considered a distinguishing feature it should probably be more specific in that it's about the points system.

The speed games and rule variants are unique to playdip as a stand-alone web-diplo platform, perhaps these (and point-and-click) could be made more central to the playdiplomacy.com section as distinguishing features which it brought in? This way it's more easily implied that it's building on the feature set from previous ones, but brings these extras, which is what I tried to do with each section in the article.

Okay, now onto something we will probably both agree on: "Internet Diplomacy", aside from having an annoying name in the context of this article, doesn't actually have any content to back it up. There's no code available, no further information; its section in this article may be the only reference to it anywhere.

Perhaps it shouldn't be there until it has at least a notable site going?

 Note: Once again, I think this sort of self-interest motivated argument is further evidence of Ziphon's point regarding this article as a whole. phpDiplomacy is completely self-referenced, as is PLAYdiplomacy. Internet Diplomacy is referenced by its project page, just as phpDiplomacy is. Kestas' comment is completely hypocritical in that regard. It's clearly obvious that the sole motivation for these hypocritical criticisms is to eliminate or reduce a new entry that competes with your own. This follows a clear pattern of behavior that has been going on for quite some time between competing sites, according to the edit history for this article. I'm starting to think more and more that this entire article should be stripped and merged into the Diplomacy article. That way, all the implementations will be minor stubs, simply listing key features and technical statistics. No self-promotion, no vandalism, no self-motivated attacks, no fighting, no bias, no problem.76.104.240.119 (talk) 21:03, 16 June 2008 (UTC) End Note. 

Facebook Diplomacy has hundreds of active games and Strategery was released only a couple of weeks ago, yet neither of these have a section despite being more active/newer than the Internet Diplomacy section.

Editing things this way is tedious but I think it'll be worthwhile once there's something we can all agree on up there

Kestasjk (talk) 18:47, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

I think 'Internet Diplomacy' should have a place, but be limited to a sentence or two mentioning:

a) that it is under development

b) a list of the unique features it is expected to have

c) perhaps the day it will come out?

 Note: This should be included in the "Internet Diplomacy" section below. All these online Diplomacy implementations are still under development, so there is no reason for Internet Diplomacy to be treated any differently, simply because it's in a slightly earlier stage of development. Furthermore, your characterization of features "it is expected to have" is inaccurate, as most of these features are already completed and fully implemented. I sense the attack on Internet Diplomacy is motivated purely by self-interest since it's a competing entry. See my contribution below (in the appropriate section) for more commentary on that.76.104.240.119 (talk) 20:51, 16 June 2008 (UTC) End Note. 

About Strategery and Facebook Diplomacy, perhaps we should talk more about them, preferrably under phpDiplomacy rather than in new sections. From what I understand, Facebook Diplomacy is the same as phpdiplomacy, so saying that it is a facebook port would be sufficient, but we might want to mention the different features of Strategery if there are any.

Lastly, I think and hope you two will come to an agreement about the descriptions of your sites, and you seem to be. I also think that it might be a good idea to add the proposed article for playdiplomacy (with some revisions done after mine and Kestas' comments) to the page as it is while we are discussing, just like what we did with phpdiplomacy. It might not be perfect, but it can't be worse than the way it is at the moment, and it will be a nice basis for discussion, allow us to discuss for a longer time as we wouldn't need to hurry up, helping us come up with a better paragraph in the end.

Babutsa123 (talk) 08:31, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

OK, after sleeping on it, I'm fine with all proposed paragraphs here, including the one about phpDiplomacy being the first attempt to make Diplomacy more accessible.

The "solo victories or draw" feature is indeed a specific feature for Playdiplomacy, as it seems the tendency for Diplomacy sites to allow other ways to win the game which are not in the original Diplomacy rules. I'll lay the focus more on the extra functionalities, as Kestas proposed.

Volo Media (talk) 09:01, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

Could you also add a thumbnail picture like phpdiplomacy and 'internet diplomacy' did? It could be your website's logo or anything related to it, though I'd prefer that you add your map or picture of an ongoing game to keep up with the pattern.

Babutsa123 (talk) 09:13, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

I like the way playdiplomacy and phpdiplomacy's articles are now. They might or might not be perfect, but I think it is very easy for us to slowly work the rest of the problems while not suffering from incomplete descriptions or edit wars.

Internet Diplomacy
The only bit that needs to be altered severely is Internet Diplomacy. I have posted my thoughts about it above, here is how I think it should be:

Internet Diplomacy is currently in development and not yet open to players, but project documentation announces that the site is scheduled to be open for public Beta testing by July, 2008.[6] It is expected to include a number of new features such as a fully-featured AI, support for adjustable phases that can be set by the game host to be as short as 3 minutes or as long as 72 hours, modular coding support and enhanced map graphics that include a unit's national flag for the era.[5]

Babutsa123 (talk) 15:08, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

Internet Diplomacy


Started in May 2008, Internet Diplomacy is presently the newest incarnation of web-based Diplomacy. Actually Strategery was released after May 2008 a couple of weeks ago Written by Kris Craig entirely from scratch, No other sites have info on who wrote it, so this doesn't really fit this version boasts a number of unique features not found in previous implementations, '''Well, not yet.. These can only be assumed to be planned features. And as someone who understands the difficulties behind adjudication I am really skeptical of the promise of AI from a PHP environment.. including: A fully-featured AI, support for flexible "live" play with phases that can be set by the game host as short as 3 minutes or as long as 72 hours, enhanced map graphics that include a unit's national flag for the era, modular coding support "modular coding support"?''', etc. Releases in the near future are also planned to include "play by email" support and advanced AI personality subroutines.

Internet Diplomacy was written in PHP 5.2.3, licensed as open-source under the GNU GPL, and operates on a MySQL database backend. '''Why 5.2.3 specifically? PHP 5 is the same language across all point releases''' It is currently in the Alpha stage of development and not yet open to players, but project documentation announces that the site is scheduled to be open for public Beta testing by July, 2008. '''This todo list lists every feature listed above, as well as features required for even the most basic functionality. Based on this todo list the map image provided was probably edited by hand as a demo'''

Sorry if I sound harsh, but there's really nothing here except a (very ambitious) todo list and he's not doing anyone any favors, including himself. Kestasjk (talk) 15:29, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

Yes, you are right. Including things that exist only in name and in a to-do list is against the spirit of Wikipedia. I think we should either mention just its name and the release date, or not mention it at all.. I'm starting to lean towards the second, at least until it is released to public. Do any of you object to me removing it until then?

Kestas, can you also update the phpdiplomacy bit about its creation reason to its last version which Volo Media agreed with?

And lastly, does anyone mind if I remove the line breaks from playdiplomacy and merge it into a single paragraph? It looks sort of bad, right now.

Babutsa123 (talk) 15:06, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

'''Kestas, can you also update the phpdiplomacy bit about its creation reason to its last version which Volo Media agreed with? ''' Hmm, I think it should be the one agreed on now. I may have updated it without seeing this first.

Also note that Volo Media has been banned for being a representative of a company (nothing to do with me, incidentally), so he may use his Lawine account Kestasjk (talk) 14:48, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

Corrections to Misleading Posts by Kestas and Babutsa:
Respectfully, you guys have it wrong. Most of the features listed are not "to-do" items, but are already fully-implemented. The to-do list includes items that have already been completed, as it was originally written at the very beginning of development.

This version of online Diplomacy is at the tail-end of alpha development, which qualifies it for listing. I understand that there's a bit of an edit war going on right now, but I'm not going to get involved in that, and I will not let my work be forced-out by authors whose sole motive is the promotion of their own competing implementations. I will reverse any edits that attempt to delete Internet Diplomacy's legitimate inclusion in the article.

I am very troubled by Kestas' inaccurate characterization of Internet Diplomacy as an "ambitious to-do list." I would like to give you the benefit of the doubt in assuming that you merely misunderstood the documentation and that it wasn't a deliberate attempt at deception on your part.

As for Strartegy, it doesn't qualify as a separate implementation of online Diplomacy, as by all accounts is appears to be little more than phpDiplomacy slightly modified to run on Facebook. This is not to belittle their efforts by any means, but it hardly constitutes a new incarnation of online Diplomacy. Internet Diplomacy, on the other hand, was written completely from scratch and includes a whole host of unique features (already implemented!).

There are a lot of other features yet to be completed, yes. So, if you believe that disqualifies our listing, then I'm sure you then also won't mind de-listing every single other entry for a version that has plans for future feature additions. :P

I'd prefer to stay out of this little editing war, which seems to be mainly between phpDiplomacy and PLAYdiplomacy. Just leave me out of it. I know there seems to be the perception that more competing entries somehow threatens the amount of traffic you'll get to your own sites, but I really don't care about any of that. I don't see why y'all can't just be adults about it and leave each other be without all the self-promotion language and vandalism.

And finally, to Ziphon: After seeing the back-and-forth over the last few days, including the biased attack on my own work, I've had a total change of heart with regard to your tag. At first I didn't see any problem with all the self-citation in the article, but that was before I saw just how much that was being abused. It now seems fairly obvious that we do need to re-work the article based on unbiased, independent sources. And if there aren't any, then this section should be merged with the Diplomacy article, with each implementation limited only to a very brief, 1 or 2 sentence list of key features (type of implementation, coding language, project status, etc).

I'm sorry but I'm just utterly appalled at the amount of effort you guys are putting into this self-promotion. I thought that this was a community-oriented article for listing current online Diplomacy implementations, not a forum for advertising and self-promotion. If this continues, I think everyone else will be more and more inclined to agree with Ziphon that this article should either be better sourced or stripped and merged.76.104.240.119 (talk) 20:40, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Response of Babutsa123
There is no edit war going on at the moment. There was one, but it was solved with the efforts of Volo Media, Kestasjk and me. I would also like to add that I've no interest in the promotion of any website here, and I consider myself to be neutral. I believe Kestasjk and Volo Media would agree with that, considering my role in bringing the edit war between them to an end.

The problem with your site is that, there is absolutely no way for us or anyone visiting this site to prove that those features in fact exist, or are going to exist. We can't test it. We can't see the sourcecode. We can't prove or disprove it. This makes it dependent on your word and a map you could have drawn without the actual code, which is against the whole idea of Wikipedia as we are not supposed to be included unverified, original information.

Another problem is the excess of information. There is no need for things like the creator's name, the version of the license, etc.

Lastly, there is a problem of comparability. Your section, while not involving any actual site or anything such, takes up 2 long paragraphs, while the other sites, that are actually running with hundreds of games and thousands of players, take a few sentences. I also think it is plausible to assume that other sites like playdiplomacy and phpdiplomacy have new features that they're intending to do add, and even ones that they've coded but have not integrated yet. I assume that because playdiplomacy is in beta testing and phpdiplomacy has not reached version 1.0 yet. None of these unadded changes are listed here, because of the reasoning I mentioned 2 paragraphs above, ie, it is impossible to verify.

I'm waiting for your response and I hope we can reach a consensus. There are 2+ people here which have little or no direct interest with your website and valid points, if you are just going to ignore their arguments and revert anything that they agree on, in order to interfere with information on a site you are going to own, I believe you would be the one in the wrong, especially if it becomes an edit war. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Babutsa123 (talk • contribs) 09:29, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

kestasjk's response
You hit the nail on the head Kris; the reason we want to cut your section down is because we're scared your to-do lists will steal users away from our site. That's the only possible explanation..

Couldn't be anything to do with the quality/relevance of your submission, must be bias right?

(Btw you haven't produced an AI in a PHP environment; it's one of the "distinguishing features" you list, and it's completely absurd..)

Kestasjk (talk) 11:18, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

Notability
Hi guys, I've had a look at your discussions and changes you've made to the pages and I have a proposal. Basically, before you add a internet diplomacy website find references from external reliable secondary sources which indicate the significance of the site. My main suggestions for such sources are: If there are no such sources for a website it should be removed from the list. In about 5 days if no sources are found we can start removing webpages. If any new websites or new unsourced information about existing websites is added to the this article it should be reverted. This is just a suggestion feel free to comment about it.Thanks Ziphon (ALLears) 11:42, 17 June 2008 (UTC)
 * game review magazines
 * established game review websites
 * websites such as Alexa which can show the number of users for that website.

Re:
Thanks for stopping by Ziphon, more 3rd party perspective is welcome. Here's my POV on notability, which unfortunately I can't say how much it bears on inclusion in Wikipedia, but I think it helps explain why I've spent time helping to maintain and improve this article, and why I think it's important despite some recent squabbling.

Diplomacy is currently played mostly over the web, mostly on the sites listed on this page. I know your WikiBrain is screaming "citation needed!", and I can't think of anyone notable who writes about such things. But playing in real life is so much harder to organize and maintain than playing on these sites and via e-mail, requiring such a larger investment of time (and money), that it's a safe assumption which I think anyone who plays Diplomacy would agree with.

There are also commercial games playable in single player on a PC, the sort of games which get reviewed in magazines, and which appear in the Diplomacy article. But I also don't think anyone would disagree with the statement that no-one plays on these old single-player games; the AI is terrible and makes no sense with the internet and countless human opponents available.

Internet Diplomacy implementations may not get reviews in game magazines (since you can just go and try them for yourself), but they are the main way Diplomacy is played today. Considering internet diplomacy non-notable in the context of the game Diplomacy is like considering Wikipedia non-notable in the context of Encyclopedias (if you'll forgive the cheesy analogy).

I don't know Wikipedia policy well enough, maybe this argument doesn't run with it. I'm thinking maybe someone can take this view and express it in Wiki-rules-&-guidelines speak, if not then so be it. I do think a relevant look at the game Diplomacy can't ignore internet diplomacy, and that it'd be a shame if official notability rules meant that couldn't happen, but I can see why these rules are needed and rules are rules.

Kestasjk (talk) 14:24, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

Clarification
Hey Kestasjk I'm not proposing that this article be deleted. I'm just saying that the list of websites should be removed. With notability, internet diplomacy definitely deserves discussion but the question is to what extent. The problem is that a lack of secondary sources limits this discussion. Even the safe assumption of "diplomacy is mostly played over the internet because its easier etc" is at the end of the day an assumption. This is an encyclopedia, we can't just add assumptions. What we add has to be based on reliable evidence. And the idea of notability is to assess whether people will be interested in this topic. Ziphon (ALLears) 05:01, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

Update
Hey guys, I was just interested in what other editors of this page think about what should happen. Whether, you think we should keep the page as it is, delete the list of websites and keep the rest, merge the page into the main diplomacy article or some other option. Also if you could mention your reasons that would be great. Kestasjk has already indicated his opinion (thanks :P) but if the rest of you could do this it would be helpful. BTW. this is not a vote or anything like that I just want your ideas.

Alexa
I suppose we could add an alexa comparison of the sites, but I don't see how that would help.

Alexa

Babutsa123 (talk) 08:07, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

I've got the following info traffic ranks for playdiplomacy 333,355 phpdiplomacy 250,891 stabberfou 3,038,238 dipbounced 748,379 The differnce in rankings of phpdiplomacy and playdiplomacy only reflects a small difference in the actual trafffic. Intepretation: Not significant no point in including it in the article. To ceck other websites visit http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details/dipbounced.com replaced the dipbounced by whatever website you want to check. Ziphon (ALLears) 00:55, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Dipbounced has historical significance in the context of web-diplomacy, that's why it's in there along with various other older and less-used ways of playing. Just like how the old single player games are still included in the Diplomacy article; I think it reads less like a list of ads when it documents the progression of internet diplomacy.

Thanks for getting those traffic ranking stats, I expect the reason phpdiplomacy is ranked higher than playdiplomacy because it has been around longer, rather than because it has more current traffic. A better (but not perfect) metric would be the number of active games going on, but then the problem of self-citation comes up again.

I also wonder if the website-notability-guidelines were for cases where the website is the subject of the article, and not just a sub-section within an article. I think requiring reviews in game magazines for a two paragraph sub-section is rather extreme, and it's definitely not followed as rigorously elsewhere as is required here.

Kestasjk (talk) 12:39, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Kstasjk your right about the notability guidelines are for when webcontent is the subject of the article. A large component of this article is about websites. I'm not sayin you need a magazine review to have a subsection about a particular website. It was just a suggestion. I thought it might be a possible soure of information. Its just that you have to find some reliable evidence which expalains why each website deserves a mention in the article. I'll be frank at the moment I don't think that the websites deserve a mention. It may seem as though I'm kind of overapplying the notability guidelines. My main problem is not that the list of websites doesn't meet the guidelines but I don't understand why each website deserves a mention. Ziphon (ALLears) 02:21, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Well phpDiplomacy and its derivatives (Facebook Diplomacy, playDiplomacy) are the most popular ways to play internet diplomacy (by any metric; Alexa, active games, registered users), and this is an article on internet diplomacy. :-| Surely in an article on internet diplomacy the sites used to play internet diplomacy, which define what internet diplomacy is, deserve a mention?

I think you might be a little pedantic here I have to admit, but I would definitely like there to be some well defined criteria for inclusion, so that the obviously non-notable "Internet Diplomacy" can be justifiably excluded, at least until it has an active website with a community of users.

The problem is that there are other sites which I've left in because they track the development of internet diplomacy, which don't have any real user backing either but which most would consider notable nonetheless.

Kestasjk (talk) 09:17, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

What i understand is the these are the reasons to include a list of th major diplomacy websites:
 * 1) They are an important aspect of internet diplomacy topic.
 * 2) They help track the development of internet diplomacy

My problems
 * 1) I accept that it its an important aspect of the internet diplomacy topic but does this topic deserve its own article? I know you previously said that internet diplomacy is the major way of playing diplomacy but where is the evidence? Even if there is evidence, it does not mean it deserves an article. What is the significance of diplomacy being played on the internet? What changes does it bring about to the game? Sure you may have played on the internet and noted some differences but at the end of the day this is your opinion. The only way to deal with my concern is to:
 * Find some sources of information

Out of interest how many users are in the major sites. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ziphon (ALLears) 23:32, 20 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Trim the article down and/or merge it into the diplomacy article.

Using the search engine test if I search for all the popular internet diplomacy software titles I get ~22,000 results "Internet Chess Server", for comparison, gets me ~88,000 results. "A quick check at 16:01, 16 March 2007 shows approximately 2000 chess players at Yahoo!, 1800 at ICC, and 3800 at Playchess." There's no mention of whether these users are active or not, but here are the user stats for internet diplomacy servers:

phpDiplomacy games: Joinable (19)  Active (199)  Finished (2508) phpDiplomacy users: Logged on:19 Registered:6320 Pages served: 8574883

playDiplomacy games: 504 active games 1197 archived games playDiplomacy users: Total number of players: 5877 Total number of active players: 1462

Facebook phpDiplomacy games: Joinable games (220) Viewable games (537)  Finished games (359) Facebook phpDiplomacy users: 768 daily active users, 20% of total

Plus the last two of these sites have only been around for a matter of months There are also many sites set up devoted to internet-diplomacy (since web-diplomacy is new most of them focus on the older e-mail games, which are also a big part of this article)

It's not as big as chess, but does it have to be to warrant inclusion?

You can dismiss this offhand by saying it doesn't establish notability, but there are no real guidelines for what does establish notability. In the web-notability page you flagged the article with (which only applies to articles devoted to a website) it says The content itself has been the subject of multiple non-trivial published works whose source is independent of the site itself., which phpDip seems to pass anyway because 3 forks of it which made extensive modifications have been made

Wikipedia articles should not exist only to describe the nature, appearance or services a website offers, but should describe the site in an encyclopedic manner, offering detail on a website's achievements, impact or historical significance, which can be significantly more up-to-date than most reference sources since we can incorporate new developments and facts as they are made known. This is also something which I've stuck to closely, following a chronological order. This also follows the [|recentism] guideline.

''Editors should also bear in mind that restrictive, arbitrary and subjective standards of notability, like this one, can be seen as the activism of a group of Wikipedians who take a certain position in the overall debate on what Wikipedia is or should be. This debate has been characterized as inclusionism versus Deletionism. Deletionists tend to want Wikipedia to be a traditional, rigorous encyclopedia that happens to be read online rather than in print. Inclusionists, generally, are not so tied to the traditional ideal and tend to want Wikipedia to be a compendium of all knowledge''

So that's my final word on notability, if the admins read this and decide to delete then I'll respect that.

Kestasjk (talk) 10:15, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

I don't think were going to agree on this. But just a note, about multiple non-trivial published. Its important that the sources are non-trivial. If you read on you'll note that these sources must be reliable. And just another thing, I'm not suggesting that this article be deleted. Worst case scenario I'm suggesting this article should be merged and redirected into the main diplomacy article. Admins are not required for this. Ziphon (ALLears) 11:23, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Internet Diplomacy once more
Internet Diplomacy



Internet Diplomacy is currently under development and not yet open to players. It is expected to include a number of new features such as a fully-featured AI, support for adjustable phases that can be set by the game host to be as short as 3 minutes or as long as 72 hours, modular coding support and enhanced map graphics that include a unit's national flag for the era.

This is the way I would have it as a compromise, even though I am of the view that it should either just be mentioned or not at all due to it being the worst case of notability here (A to-do list and a map drawn by the developer without even an actual game.. Come on)

One problem is that maps bleed down to the references section as text gets shorter. How do we solve that?

Babutsa123 (talk) 08:33, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

I think you could cut the map size down by removing some of the map text, which is a bit redundant. But I'd say the whole thing is redundant. (And the "fully-featured AI" thing is just plain embarrassing.) But yes I do think your edit is an improvement.

But until we understand the actual notability guidelines for getting a sub-section I guess technically even a to-do list may be notable..

Kestasjk (talk) 12:44, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

I tried to edit it with the map and references and it was a mess. I couldn't find a link that says it would be opened to the public on July and the map looked awful. Can you give it a try too?

Babutsa123 (talk) 18:42, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

I'm going to wait to see what comes out of the notability discussion before trying to edit this section. Kris probably needs some time to cool down and/or develop his software before he gains some perspective and we work out these issues here. I'll wait a week or two and see what happens I think (but thanks for trying, looks like it was reverted though)

Kestasjk (talk) 09:25, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Re: More Trash Talk from Competition
How exactly is a fully-featured AI an embarrassment to the game? It is a feature that has been requested by players of online Diplomacy for quite some time from what I've seen. Or are you saying it's an embarrassment because you don't think it's feasible? Well, just because your PHP skills are limited and you don't know how to accomplish something, doesn't mean it's not possible. By your logic, any feature not included in your version would be absurd and an embarrassment.

Or perhaps you're playing a childish game by taking the term "AI" to its most literal extreme? By AI, I don't mean it will be a sentient PHP-based lifeform capable of acheiving consciousness and, perhaps one day, even love.... Perhaps I could be more specific by using the term SI (simulated intelligence), but AI in the gaming context already means that anyway. All an AI requires is the ability to analyze possible moves and weigh benefits and other factors. Hell, "AI" chess opponents date back virtually to the birth of computers. Since all the data is stored in a database and thus all the analytics can occur in a single script execution, there is no reason that PHP cannot support this sorta thing. The basic tactical AI is one of the last remaining alpha components I'm working on and should be done in the next week or two. I'll be setting-up a pre-beta demonstration page to show it off, as well as give outsiders a chance to view adjudication code at work and report any judging errors, so you'll be able to evaluate it for yourself very soon.

Regarding the map, I think it looks a hell of a lot better than yours, though I wasn't going to say anything until you started trashing mine. It's much easier to see, particularly on higher screen resolutions, whereas yours only looks halfway decent if a user clicks on it to see the "full size" version. I'm sure it'll evolve as users give their feedback on it, but in the meantime I think it's definitely the best-looking map in use thus far, though of course that's just my own biased opinion (just as yours is).

As for your motives, you clearly have a vested interest in maximizing the exposure of your own subsection relative to the others, Kestas. Anyone who looks at the edit history (long before I ever showed-up even) can easily see that. Whether that's your motivation here or not is anybody's guess, though it would certainly fit your previous pattern of behavior toward perceived competition. I personally stand by the belief that this whole article should at some point be removed entirely. At first I couldn't understand why Ziphon suggested that, but I have since seen more than enough examples to support the case he made to me. By its very nature, the subsections in this article are almost entirely self-sourced, even authored by those promoting them, and thus have an inherent bias. Since clearly this has led to rampant abuse and conflict. And since all these sites in question are self-sourced and therefore do not meet Wikipedia's standard notability guidelines, now we sit here talking about creating our own "guidelines" so we have an excuse to decide which competition is listed and how it's worded. This is just a mess.

At any rate, until this problem is fixed, I won't allow any subjective, inherently biased attempts to create any arbitrary standards by those who are clearly not qualified to do so (conflicts of interest notwithstanding). So, in the meantime, since all these subsections in question are self-authored anyway, I suggest we put a freeze on any non-self subsection edits, except for vandalism, spam, obvious falsehoods, and deprication of other subsections, until we are able to completely restructure this article, up to and including potentially merging it with the parent Diplomacy article, written by NEUTRAL third-parties and only using citation that is 100% independent and in accordance with Wikipedia's guidelines. Until then, my subsection will remain where it is without vandalism. 76.104.241.22 (talk) 03:18, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

'''How exactly is a fully-featured AI an embarrassment to the game? It is a feature that has been requested by players of online Diplomacy for quite some time from what I've seen. Or are you saying it's an embarrassment because you don't think it's feasible? Well, just because your PHP skills are limited and you don't know how to accomplish something, doesn't mean it's not possible. By your logic, any feature not included in your version would be absurd and an embarrassment.'''

'''Or perhaps you're playing a childish game by taking the term "AI" to its most literal extreme? By AI, I don't mean it will be a sentient PHP-based lifeform capable of acheiving consciousness and, perhaps one day, even love.... Perhaps I could be more specific by using the term SI (simulated intelligence), but AI in the gaming context already means that anyway. All an AI requires is the ability to analyze possible moves and weigh benefits and other factors.'''

Having written an adjudicator myself, any AI which tries enough moves to a depth large enough to be called a "fully-featured AI" (or even "SI") would take far too long to execute in a server-side game written in PHP. This doesn't even include the code required to negotiate with other powers. You're free to prove me wrong of course, but I'm guessing this discussion will remain theoretical :-)

You still seem to think that a todo list can attract users away from an actual site, and that I'm trying to get rid of your link to increase exposure for my site for that reason, which seems strange. If you look at my edits and the work I did restructuring the article you'll see that I've tried to make the article less biased, more concise, and follow the guidelines more closely. That's why I'm opposed to people trying to move it in the opposite direction.

Kestasjk (talk) 05:54, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

Hmm you and I must have taken completely different approaches to handling this. So far I haven't had any issues arising from script execution time. I haven't looked at your code in detail, but basically I just have a large multidimensional array that stores each territory as a multidimensional array, containing data such as: Ownership, occupied by, type (land, ocean, coast, 2coast), pixel coordinates, name, land/ocean/coastal adjacents (as recursive pointers to keep things simple), etc. Orders are stored in an array for each territory, then processed by calculating move/hold points based on supports/disruptions, then those with highest points have orders processed while others are converted to holds (in a separate outcome array). The use of pointers helps mitigate the need for excessive recursion, which might account for the lack of execution time needed. Though I'm sure others will be able to come up with a more detailed explanation once the code is released.

Regarding the competition, there is no threat of people going to what you call a "to-do list" as opposed to a live site. But people will take notice of a new implementation of Diplomacy with exciting new features, and will be more likely to move over to the new site once it goes live in less than a month. It also simply takes attention away from your entry, which in and of itself potentially makes them less likely to go to it. You can be coy and deny it all you want, but it's blatantly obvious that your primary motive is to minimize even perceived competition.

Also, you can't say you're trying to follow the guidelines "more closely" when they're not being followed at all in the first place. "Material that is self-published, whether on paper or online, is generally not regarded as reliable..." The exception to this is verifiability, which the sources here do not meet the qualifications for.

The only way to bring this article into compliance (without stripping or eliminating it) would be to find new, independent, preferably peer-reviewed sources to cite. Unfortunately, no such sources for this specific subtopic really exist at present. Therefore, this article can only continue to exist if the self-citation does not begin resulting in conflict, such as complaints, editing wars, advertising, bias, etc. Clearly, this article is and has been for some time exhibiting those characteristics. Given this longstanding history of competition and the degree of at-times bitterness involved, not to mention the fact that this article has already been locked at least once due to editing wars, I believe the only rational conclusion is that this article clearly does not meet notability guidelines because it cannot be adequatlely sourced independently. I like the formatting of the article overall and like the fact that it allows users to have a detailed look at different implementations, particularly in the absense of any other independent resource that serves this purpose. So I'm willing to hold-off on supporting a merge at least until we can find an acceptable solution that we can all agree on. But if this is going to devolve into another editing war, or if the talk here will continue to be used to badmouth and question the legitimacy of competing implementations, then I'd say our best option is to just scrap the whole thing and merge it into the Diplomacy article as a plain linked-list. 192.211.25.229 (talk) 23:24, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

'''Orders are stored in an array for each territory, then processed by calculating move/hold points based on supports/disruptions, then those with highest points have orders processed while others are converted to holds (in a separate outcome array). The use of pointers helps mitigate the need for excessive recursion, which might account for the lack of execution time needed.'''

Using an algorithm like that your adjudicator won't be true to the official rules. This document is helpful for creating a correct algorithm, but it does take considerably more processing power: http://web.inter.nl.net/users/L.B.Kruijswijk/#5

Check out http://phpdiplomacy.net/datc.php to see the DATC adjudicator tests, and try them in your adjudicator to see if your algorithm has any shortcomings.

Also remember the number of combinations which need to be attempted can make even the fastest individual adjudications add up to a long time overall, and in a server-side environment resources can be more constrained than a desktop environment dedicated to one game.

'''Regarding the competition, there is no threat of people going to what you call a "to-do list" as opposed to a live site. But people will take notice of a new implementation of Diplomacy with exciting new features, and will be more likely to move over to the new site once it goes live in less than a month. It also simply takes attention away from your entry, which in and of itself potentially makes them less likely to go to it. You can be coy and deny it all you want, but it's blatantly obvious that your primary motive is to minimize even perceived competition.'''

Well what can I say.. that's not the case. I've actually added links to "competitor" sites, like Strategery and Facebook Diplomacy, and given other sites like Diplomaticcorp position above my own on the page to be true to chronological order. I'd have no problems with your entry if you waited a month until you had a joinable site with verifiable features. This is the difference between self-citation and the other sites on the page; other sites are joinable and so the claims can be independently verified (meeting the verifiablility requirement), self-citation is a link to a self-posted page which lists features which are claimed to be present (can't be independently verified). I hope you can see the difference, and that my position would be indefensible if your site was online and the features were verifiable.

Kestasjk (talk) 07:12, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

By the way my adjudicator is open source, you could use it if you want (but it needs to stay open source according to the AGPL license), so you can check out the source of the root adjudicator node here (or the class structure here) and see if my PHP is terrible and I'm just talking trash, or if I am talking with some experience.

Kestasjk (talk) 07:40, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

I've been working from the 2004 rules edition published by Avalon Hill. There are some minor flaws in the adjudication, but they come up in very rare circumstances and will be easily fixable during the beta phase (which will be used to find and correct such adjudication errors more than anything else). Other than a few rare theoretical instances, however, every scenario I've plugged-into it has adjudicated correctly according to the rules.

Regarding competition, it's good that you put "competitor" in quotes, since both examples you cited are really just Facebook implementations of your own code, and are both listed in a context that builds-up your own project. Of course in the end nobody can know your true motives except you, but there's plenty of evidence to suggest an abundance of self-interest at play here, even if you're not aware of it yourself.

I do thank you for your generous offer with regard to using your adjudicator code, but it's a little late now. If you recall, my initial goal was to work off of your code and work with you to make some improvements in certain areas that were in high demand. But I couldn't even get a recent copy of the source from ya, and when I said I'd just go ahead and use the older one you had made available, you got so defensive and acted so threatened by that, I decided to just save myself the headache and write one from scratch. I prefer to save the politics for the game, after all. =) 76.28.191.142 (talk) 20:46, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

'''I've been working from the 2004 rules edition published by Avalon Hill. There are some minor flaws in the adjudication, but they come up in very rare circumstances and will be easily fixable during the beta phase (which will be used to find and correct such adjudication errors more than anything else).'''

Hmmm, well Kruijswijk didn't write the DATC for no reason of course; a correct diplomacy adjudicator really is more tricky than it seems, I've written two of them myself remember. :-(

If you recall, my initial goal was to work off of your code and work with you to make some improvements in certain areas that were in high demand.

Ah yes, I didn't make the connection before now. :-) That definitely adds a lot of perspective to this whole thing, for me.

I think I was only defensive because you were repeatedly suggesting that I should incorporate features into my own site which I didn't want, and I felt I had to speak plainly to get across that I didn't agree with your ideas. In fact I think I ended by telling you that I'd be happy if you used my code. But anyway let's not dig that up again. :-)

Mainly what I don't understand is if there are only minor issues left, and the public beta is coming out this month, then why not just take the unverifiable section down for that short period as a compromise?

Once you have the site online and the features you list can be verified then no-one will have any justification to remove your section. (Least of all me, since I want this article to be correct, neutral and thorough.)

Kestasjk (talk) 22:06, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

(Why do I get the feeling that, despite the week without any response, any changes I make would be undone in hours?) Kestasjk (talk) 21:13, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Since it has been almost 2 weeks since I've heard a response I've added this tag: Category:Upcoming_software To the Internet Diplomacy subsection, which I think is a perfectly and obviously justified and unbiased alteration and will serve as a fine compromise. Kestasjk (talk) 04:47, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

(changed above tag, since otherwise this talk page is also tagged)Pizzaman79 (talk) 18:19, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Request for comment (extra opinion(s) )
The article has been undergoing an edit war due to possibly biased statements and original research. Should this article be kept as it is OR have the list of websites and other unsourced possibly biased information removed OR redirected/merged with the diplomacy article? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ziphon (talk • contribs) 12:15, 7 July 2008
 * If sufficient accurate third-party information on the Internet game is available, I recommend opening discussion on a proposed Merge into Diplomacy (game). However, if this Article proves to be almost entirely original research, it's a nominee for deletion per WP:NOR.  I haven't enough information on the subject of this Article to rewrite it to satisfy WP:NPOV as of this post.  B. C. Schmerker (talk) 04:04, 19 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I feel at best this is a merge article (with the original board game). There does not appear to be sufficient notability to support the various internet versions as separate from the board game.padillaH (review me)(help me) 13:08, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
 * I agree with the above two commentors. The biggest issue here is not POV, it is a lack of suitable sources; without appropriate sources, POV is difficult to judge. If suitable sources (see policies on WP:NOR, WP:RS, etc.) can be found, this should be merged into the main Diplomacy article. If suitable sources can not be found, this article should be deleted. Cmadler (talk) 14:14, 11 September 2008 (UTC)