Some tips for those looking for a sitter:
- Without providing links to the game, list each game's year, type, and phase length.
- Give a clear start and end date to the necessary sitting period.
- Prepare notes on each game, including actions or quotes of importance, your stance on what should happen in the near future, and your opinion of each player. It is not wise to expect your sitter to read the press history for any game.
- Make sure to let the other players in the game know you will have a sitter for X time and try to have as many of the games paused as you can.
- If the games are double-anonymous, and/or any are tournament games, send an email to the moderators with links to each game and the player(s) interested in helping out. We'll let you know if there are any conflicts.
- Change your password and give that new password to the sitter.

Some tips for those being awesome and sitting a player's account:
- Set two alarms/reminders at two times you can log on to check the games each day.
- Never log off the account without having entered orders for every game. Even if only support holds. NMRing on a sitter account is very embarrassing.
- Never finalise.
- Use Chrome's incognito feature (or something similar in another browser) to login to the player's account without having to log out of your own.
- Make sure everyone in the game knows you're a sitter. It can be useful to remind them of this so they refer to plans previously made, but be wary of someone trying to take advantage.
- I find it useful to treat sitting as starting a new game. Message every country, even if just to say hello.
- Demand a plan for each game from the player. Stick to that plan. Try to make as few decisions on your own as possible. The more information the player can give you before your sitting starts, the better.
- Keep notes (I like to do this by sending PMs from the sitter account to my own, but you might want to use email if there are a lot of games). It's very useful to the returning player, but it also keeps you from having to explain everything when he/she returns.

That said, I'm not sure I can help you Diplo, since you've not told us what days, but assuming its the American Thanksgiving holiday week, I'm also out of town. =(

I agree with just about everything there except for telling everyone that you are a sitter. Occasionally I will not mention it to the people in the games I'm sitting because I am sure that one country or another will take advantage. This is a really good post Geo, you should post it in a new thread so all the hoards who have Diplomat muted can take a look.

I usually post it to every sitter thread, I just hadn't in a while.

A player taking advantage of a sitter is a price to pay for telling the group there's a sitter, but I don't come across it often and when I do, its easy to spot. I find it easy to avoid as a sitter because I often require the other players to quote me what they're referencing, so I can quickly Ctrl+F the passage.

The consequences of trying to hide it can be far worse, especially if the sitter hasn't been properly prepped by the original player. Accidentally breaking plans because you weren't told about them can be devastating, even if its something small as a perpetual bounce. It's always best just to tell everyone, so they know how to approach you during the sitting time.

Give us more info and I may be able to help. I need exact start and end times. Plus exact # of games.

bump

...
You're not going to get a sitter if you don't provide more details.

Hey Diplomat, do you have Geofram and Tom muted or do you just not want a sitter?

Diplomat, still need one? if so, email me. [email protected].
I'm on hiatus but still can sit...

Bask, Mr. President, miss you guys!
Indy