Ok, I can bring a bit of gasoline but if we want to burn tires as well we need to get someone for that too

jmo, answer to you point would be "Message read" indicator. Because that is exactly what you are assuming (wrongly) the online status indicator does.

No it isn't...the message read indicator shows if *you* have read a message sent to you. Not if someone has read yours.

No, as in adding a new feature, to see if the receiver has read the message (sorry, I wan't clear on this). Like facebook has.

There are a couple of ideas that I have which I haven't seen in this thread. My apologies if they were somewhere in pages 6 or 7 as I started skimming at that point.

First, I agree that you don't necessarily need an app built for a specific native environment (like ios or android) but your site could really use some responsiveness built into it. Even a basic bootstrap setup would make it easier to view the site and the game on a phone or other smaller device while not being overly difficult to implement.

Second, on the orders screen there should be an option to add "standing orders" for units that you plan to do the same thing for the foreseeable future. That way you don't have to remember to put in all those support holds at the end when you really have only 3 or 4 units that are your primary aggressors and the rest are just holding back making sure your ally doesn't suddenly turn on you. Obviously you could change the order during any given turn but as long as you leave it on "standing orders" version of support hold, it will continue to do so.

Third, unless I'm missing it somewhere, I really wish there was a search feature for the threads or a way to mark them as 'watch' so that updates to those threads were shown in my profile page or something. I've been a member a short time and I'm already tired of scrolling through all the crazy threads to get to the ones I'm particularly interested in reading on.

Anyway, those are just some ideas to the developers of this site/game from a newbie member/fellow website and game developer.

I think that would still create the same issue people are unhappy with, when they have time to read a message but not to reply right away.

Exactly. Because it would be just as ridiculous. JMO, do not try to recreate the experience of F2F by simply bad features. How about seeing who's talking with whom, maybe you should add that feature?
"Currently Turkey is talking with Russia" would be the absolute classic... I mean, in F2F you often see who's talking with whom

And while yes, it would create the same issue with people who don't have the time to respond to all messages, with a limited amount of time you could decide to not read some messages (i.e., for example not open a game that still has long to go to the next phase)

BTW, another feature (that if mentioned before I apologize for):

If you have an open tab with a game, when the timer hits zero (turn to Now) that could be a sound signal. That would be especially useful in the case of live gunboats, when you do your moves in 20 seconds and have to wait the nextt 4m40s because somewhat didn't ready up

Sorry yassem, but I'm not really sure what you're asking for here.

To add an option to disable to being online indicator. You explanation doesn't make sense, because you should make this game too much like F2F, especially in such a naive way.

Right, this is the part I'm not understanding:

"You explanation doesn't make sense, because you should make this game too much like F2F, especially in such a naive way."

"The online status symbol helps our site better mirror the real game. In face to face you can see the person you are talking too, and know if they are paying attention." So I'm telling you, first of all, it surely doesn't tell the person who sent the message if your paying attention (i.e., actually read the message) - if anything it can give a really false impression.
IF you wanted to make it more like F2F you should make the "the recipient has read the message" indicator.
And of course this site isn't like real game, because you don't have the information you normally get (example I gave, in a real game you can often see who's talking to whom). And you apparently have no problem with that, so why did you chose to bring this particular feature to the site?

It makes it closer then taking it away would. If you don't like it, play anon games, that is why they are there.

jmo, I guess I wasn't around for that part of the discussion.

As someone who very often plays from his phone or checks messages during quick breaks at work, I don't like that other players can see when I've logged in. It gives the false impression that I'm ignoring people. I imagine that this is the same reason other people dislike the 'last visited' tag.

Diplomacy has a rich history of PBM and PBEM. Long phase games here continue that tradition. There's no reason to go out of our way to emulate FtF games

Anon games give so extremely more than that. Especially, they deny the opportunity to analyze previous games of given player.

Later I will go through and explain every reason why it's useful. I don't have the time right now.

I will gladly read that

I definitely believe you that it's useful in some cases and for some people.

For some people, however, it would be their top answer if you asked them what they'd appreciate to be changed here. It's just our two cents here and we're obviously at the mercy of what ATC wants as we aren't exactly contributing our time to development.

If enough people that want some sort of "stealth" feature speak up, maybe some benevolent and not-so-dismissive developer puts it on the to-do list, even if it is at the very bottom. That's all I'm asking. It's not a critical feature, but it would be nice.

theres already an in-game stealth feature.... its called anonymous

I like @MageMaker's suggestion. I often want to search for a thread that I remember from way back:
"....I really wish there was a search feature for the threads"

Search feature is already enabled:

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=you+don%27t+know+shit+about+the+congo+site%3Awebdiplomacy.net

:)

Now that Live Games will probably fill more easily with the widget display (nice one, ATC!), I think the first phase NMR suggestion, where a player who NMR's in first phase is kicked out, and the first phase is extended without moves processing, in order to allow time for a replacement player (with game showing on widget needing 1 replacement player!), would make live games the best they've every been in terms of both filling live games and in getting a clean start!

Can I get a feature that makes me better at Diplomacy? Maybe something like having PW play for me?

I do like the first turn NMR cancelation idea. Restart isn't ideal, since it would only create an endless loop of false starts, and I don't think replacements are a good idea either, since there is still a stigma attached to takeovers, especially if the game happened to be full press. A cancelation, though, would save a great deal of aggravation.

wasn't the argument against automatic cancelation that it would make leaving much easier if you get a country you don't want? so i'd hesitate to implement that before you can add a minimun rr in the game settings.

Why not implement vDip's "Reliability rating requirements" and "NMR policy" new game advanced settings here? They work fine over there :)

@2wl, I don't think there would be a takeover stigma, since the first phase never actually processed yet. A lot of games have a false starts now with first phase NMRs, and the players have to go set up another game, and they lose momentum, with players dropping out, and the game needing to refill from scratch. If the game automatically showed up on the new widget with only 1 player to fill(replace) in the next 5 minutes, I think a lot of those games would be able to restart very quickly and get a clean start on the second try.