Would not have it any other way. Webdip-Webdip-Webdip. Who ha!!!!!

I thought it was that webDip encrypts users' passwords.

zaneparks, you still have much to learn. There is only +1 whoring (see above), there is no -1 whoring; valiant try however.

As opposed to the asylum being run but a waterproof MP3 player company?

"here the asylum seems to be run by the inmates"
It's called open source collaboration; that's a good thing. Too bad for you that the PLAYdiplomacy founder copied our asylum's source code for his own asylum project where misled souls pay to use free software.

@JECE, the owners at playdip have credited Kestas for his code, and they have in recent times customized much of it. Personally I still prefer this site due to the high class games, active live game community, and the free part.

Oh, pardon me: '. . . the PLAYDiplomacy founding inmate who outsourced the coding of his own website to entrepreneurs who simply copied our asylum's free source code for his own asylum project where he then unwittingly misled souls to pay . . .'

Hmm, that sounds a bit crazy, doesn't it? ;-)

The main difference for me that I've found is that it's a bunch easier to play on my mobile phone on playdip than on webdip. Also getting email notifications of ingame messages on playdip is a big plus.

There seems to be some misconception that you have to pay to play at PlayDip. There are *some* advantages to being a premium member that can be had for the outrageous sum of at least $1 a year. I do agree that open source is a wonderful thing. And I'll probably contribute here as soon as I figure out the obscure currency you use.

jmo1121109: Hmm, last I knew they deleted the phpDiplomacy credit (which they were hard-pressed to include in the first place) after updating their website. I'm glad to see that phpDiplomacy is mentioned again, albeit buried as an aside in a giant block of text.

I searched google for play diplomacy and got a bunch of results. backstabbr.com stabbeurfou.org as well as playdiplomacy webdiplomacy. And I know there is at least vdiplomacy and I feel there are other sites where you can play online. Even I could probably make an online diplomacy playing site in a couple of months. Seems like a crowded field.

Well, the game and Long Distance play have been around for decades. It was a very natural evolution. Indeed it somewhat is; if only because by it's nature it's somewhat strictly better for it to be consolidated rather than not. phpDiplomacy (the foundational and former name of webDiplomacy) was built as much as a coding exercise as anything else; the inner workings were hand made even when there were already various parts that could perform that job then stitched together (i.e. the moves adjudicator was home-made even though there already existed many on the internet)

I forgot to mention the obvious that phpDip/webDip came before Playdip, Backstabbr, Vdip, and more

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Diplomacy

That wikipedia article is terrible and should have been deleted a long time ago. It turned into an edit war between Kestas and Avalanche over which site was better when PlayDip and phpDip were both very young, and since then it's just been used as an advertising platform.

Oh I noticed. I was just using it for rough dates. Most of them are *straight* out of the About sections on the respective websites.

I'm pretty sure the biggest difference between webdip and playdip is that our penises are bigger. Unless you're female. Then, um...well I got nothin. But whatever it is, it's bigger.

What is this "Scrabulous" case? This company had to change the name to Lexulous and actually reorganize the game board to avoid being shut down by the courts? What a load of crap. How can copyright protect a game board layout? Game board layouts do not seem like copyrights or patents or even trademarks to me. I wonder how much of the lawsuit had to do with the name.

Seems like Avalon Hill could shut this all down. Intellectual "property" (monopoly) enforcers strike again.

Scrabulous was making $25K a month off advertising and Hasbro wanted a piece of the pie. WebDiplomacy makes no money off advertising (or variants, for that matter) so legally we ought to be in the clear.

OK... maybe Scrabulous did not have to change the board layout. Actually who knows with retarded courts, but this is from the US Copyright Office

http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl108.html

Copyright does not protect the idea for a game, its name or title, or the method or methods for playing it. Nor does copyright protect any idea, system, method, device, or trademark material involved in developing, merchandising, or playing a game. Once a game has been made public, nothing in the copyright law prevents others from developing another game based on similar principles. Copyright protects only the particular manner of an author’s expression in literary, artistic, or musical form.

This is in reference to video games, but I don't see how a board game is different.

It may have already been mentioned, but one difference is webDip has a very nice map whereas the payDip one hurts my eyes worse that sulfuric acid.

Oh actually we have no rule of law. It turns out Tetris won a case against Mino because the judge felt like the games were similar enough based on his kingly judgement.

And actually I realize that the quote does not mean much because a judge could still claim those parts are subject to trademark protection rather than copyright. Which is theoretically worse, as copyright should expire after 100 years or something as opposed to trademarks which are permanent. But actually copyrights are permanent. All copyrights granted since Disney started will be protected in perpetuity. Disney will always have the money to keep extending the protection forever.

+1 abge. For truth.

"Scrabulous was making $25K a month off advertising and Hasbro wanted a piece of the pie. WebDiplomacy makes no money off advertising (or variants, for that matter) so legally we ought to be in the clear."

Yeah but who owns this website? Who controls the server and domain? Seems like someone will be trying to make money off it someday. Facebook did not have any ads and did not make money off it either... for years and years.

Actually then again, the people who control or started this site can maybe get around it if they just made the site itself nonprofit, but then just paid themselves salaries. A lot of nonprofits do that. So you can get money from donations while still saying you are not for profit...

I guess it depends if this website can get big enough, although they said somewhere that it is currently expanding its user-base so who knows.

The site is run entirely by unpaid volunteers, and the owners have no intention of changing that. All donation money goes towards keeping the server running and buying human meat for our yearly retreat to the Congo.

There's also the matter that Hasbro tried to purchase Scrabulous for a figure in the neighborhood of $10 million. Should the owners of this site be approached with a similar figure, the mod team will not hesitate to do the right thing and take the money and run.

"The site is run entirely by unpaid volunteers, and the owners have no intention of changing that."

Most non-profits are like that, run nearly entirely by volunteers. You have organizations where the executives pay themselves over 100k a year when 90% of the staff is getting nothing at all. It's pretty good as long as you can swing it.

Thing BIG

The CEO of the Boys and Girls Club of America earned the highest pay in the group of $1.85 million

http://money.cnn.com/2013/10/10/news/nonprofit-ceo-pay/