I personally am a little uncomfortable with the notion. I wouldn't want it to be normal practice. But maybe I'm just squeamish.

I have never had a telephone interaction on a diplomacy game.

It's an interesting idea.
No, aside from the skill levels of the players the game should be equal from the outset. Those who can talk on the phone would have an advantage.
Yes because anyone can chat using MSN or Skype etc. Therefore there is no unfair advantage.
No because Phpdiplomacy is a messaging game. Some players might not feel comfortable actually talking on the phone to a stranger. All communication should be done within the message boxes provided. This ensures that no player has a communication advantage.
Still think it is an interesting idea. Maybe one day we will see more of this style of diplomacy. Maybe even video conferencing?

One aspect may be that if you are talking to someone you may be less likely to call them an 'idiot', 'fuckwit hypocite', 'asshole' and assorted other love notes I have seen passed in the games here.

Also there is no record of the message, which also has some interesting spin offs.

I remember calling a player in Texas in one of the Highlight games that had
high power FtF and email players put together in a demo game. The player was stunned as he had NEVER had a conversation with anyone at anytime about Diplomacy and did not know how to react. ((he died)).

((he died)).
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Now that's why I don't play ftf, such ghastly occurences over a game! I'm being half serious unless you're serious that he died in which case I'm fully serious.

Well, it might introduce some disadvantage... but I think that since you're phoning a stranger they're just as likely to help you as a result of you calling them as they are to completely stab you when you think you have them convinced.

With that said, I say go ahead and call someone if they've given you their number and don't mind being contacted by phone.

EdiBirsan you have been playing the game for a long time. Have you not come across phone diplomacy before? There has been snail-mail, email, online variants. I am surprised there hasn't been a phone variant.

I guess the phone game intrudes on daily life a bit too much. That the only reservation i have against it. I might not want to be disturbed at dinner because of this game.

I read in more than one article about phoning players, in those non FTF games that were played before e-mail become a normal commodity... I think that it would be interesting under many regards.

That said, experts in communication have proved long ago that different mean of communications change the nature itself of the communication (not to talk about the outcome), so I think that use of phone should be either common to all players in a game (at least as a possibility) or not used at all.

While I could be interested in experimenting once with a phone variant of the game, I think that I would not like to have it normally implemented. Phone requires simultaneous presence at the two ends of the lines of the two players, something difficult to co-ordinate with everyday life and games that can last for weeks if not months...

"Hello, I'm mapleleaf. How are you this evening? I wish to offer you an exciting NAP, as well as some terrific long distance savings......"

In the early postal days (1963=76) I never hesitated to pick up the phone to talk to a player in any of the high tension championship games or on occasion in the regular games. In fact I was somewhat famous *or infamous in my bad boy teenage years for doing it. I even set up conference calls on a few championship games.
Then you had to remember that the gamers were more social oriented and the postal gamers were frustrated face to face players. We went to conventions not to play in the championships (many of the early events did not even have a tournament structure) but to meet other players that we had conversed or written to.
The explosion of email in the 90's brought with it an influx of people who never played Face to Face and whose communication modus was the shorthand of net-speak without the entire cultural background of written game communications where press releases meant stories about the game and not regular communication.
Thanks for the digression into nostalgia ...
I now return you to your regular scheduled whatever.

That last option you refer to really intrigues me. In playdiplomacy.com there's a function in the 'shoutbox' (say, global chat) with which the player can post anonymous. In one game we had a reporter from 'the Geneva Times' wo commented on every move, spring or fall (or even before...). He did it rather good and it put a new dimension to the game. Here, I've tried it already in a Wilson game, with the independent news agency 'Roma Victor'.