Geez, your going around criticizing people. 'Anonymous Police' is what you are.

How am I ruining the game by asking for two more players?

Because the game is not anonymous anymore.

@KoD. If you're not a cheater, you should be happy that there's an 'Anonymous Police'....

OK, so we know 1 person is in the anonymous game (Caedus), but we don't know what country he is playing, so it's still pretty much anonymous.

Guaroz, what is the borderline for advertising an anonymous game? Most would agree that a WWIV game would need advertising, even if it were anonymous. Similarly, most would agree that advertising an anonymous 2-player game is pointless and gives the other player your identity. (unless you proxy-advertise....). So, where would you draw the line between ideal anonymity and practical advertising?

It also isn't a huge deal because the country assignment is still random. If it were a game with the country choice option enabled, advertising would give much more information.

Yeah, and even in that case, the only way you could know for certain was if it was country choice enabled and you advertised it while you were the only one in the game. It seems like almost a technicality to me. I mean, as long as you're not an idiot about how and when you advertise, there's not that much cheating potential. Assuming the above case doesn't happen, 50% of the time (at the least) you'd guess wrong when trying to contact someone in an anonymous gb and get reported faster than you could blink.

These 2 pages should be the only advertising you need in order to:

-join a new game
http://www.vdiplomacy.com/gamelistings.php?page-games=1&gamelistType=New
-take over a country from civil disorder
http://www.vdiplomacy.com/gamelistings.php?page-games=1&gamelistType=Open

They are enough.

Advertising a game by thread should be done only for live games and "special" games
(uncommon rules or features decided beforehand inside a forum thread)

If you have some time to spend on the 'Anonymous Police' topic I suggest you to have a look at thread=23668.

Good luck stopping people from posting on the forums. And actually, I'm pretty sure this was the idea of the forums, was to help advertise games and discussions on games...

Good question, gman314, thanks.

First, the point is not knowing which country has one player. The point is knowing that a certain player is in. This must not happen.
So yes, if it happens when the country choice option is enabled is surely worse than when it's random. But this doesn't mean that random is ok.

Coming to give an answer, IMHO, talking about Anonymous should be always forbidden. Only EoG threads allowed.
Advertising is useless, since every experienced player open the "New" page everyday. It may have some ascendancy only over some noob.
They open it often because, before they join the first thing they see on their homepage, they want to know if there's anything better. "Who knows, maybe there's a better game. Let's look inside!".
Do you always believe in commercial Ads? The toothpaste made by Mr.Rottenteeth is really the best?
Advertising is even backfiring: I don't join an "advertised" Anon. If someone ADs an Anon I just joined, I leave it at lightspeed, before it starts. I know I'm not the only one who does this way.
I'm sure that if Advertising Anon was seriously forbidden, everyone would just check the "New" pages twice a day from first to last one. Everyone, noobs included. Everyone would read it all, and choose.
It takes 5 minutes, I always do it. I read ads just to know which games I must not join. Or I must leave.

Coming to your objection. gman, this is not the old OliDip anymore. There were 250 users and to set up a Chaos Oli himself was forced to Ad it and double the pot. Remeber? :) An epic past.
Now there are over 2,000 users and the number increases by 30 new users a week.
Even WWIV doesn't need ADing anymore.

So. Always forbidden talking of Anons for any reason in any case. No excuses.

Then, IF a Chaos gathered 31 anonymous joiners already, IF 'countries' is random, IF there are only 3 hours left to deadline, IF someone opens a thread "Great Chaos! Only 3 spots left. Hurry up! Only 3 hours !!!! Please do not post in here, just join!""bump""bump", IF it's the first and the last time he does such a thing like this, IF he's the only one who posts in it.... I wouldn't mind. :)

@butter. Thanks. I'm actually a lucky guy, who knows...

I agree on discussion. Too many ads, not enough EoG, in this Forum.
Perhaps it's because any idiot can open a thread ad say "Hey! Look what a nice game I just created, join it! It would be very satisfying for my idiot ego!".
On the other hand, since a game has only 1 winner or a few winners (draw) and MANY losers, it's not easy to find people strong enough to discuss their mistakes and learn.

I actually very rarely look in either of those pages to find a game. If I want a specific game, I'll start it myself and if it needs advertising I'll post on the forums. I'll also join other peoples' forum advertised games whether or not it's anonymous. So, advertising a game can get the attention of people who otherwise might not have joined it. The other power of advertising games is that it allows you to easily advertise passworded games. This leads to a whole different "semi-anonymous" game where you know who's playing but not who's which country. Unless you're really determined to cheat, you won't use the means at your disposal to figure out who's which country. There are people, myself included, who like anon simply because you don't know who's playing. These people take care not to disrupt the anonymity of the game unless necessary and will not take advantage of this knowledge. In order to find each other for gunboats which are almost necessarily anonymous, these players can advertise password-protected games on the forum.

Another reason to advertise anonymous games is if the variant is large. It is difficult to get 34 other players to join you in a WWIV game if you don't advertise on the forum.

Also, as you said, anyone who cares about anonymity enough can leave the game if it hasn't started yet, so there isn't a problem.

gman, you were replying to Decima, I guess. You can't write this, after you've read my post!

Private (passworded) games are a completely different matter. Being private, the owner can do anything with them and you join at your own risk. Actually, if you know who are the players in it then it's rather pointless make it anon. But if the owner likes this way...

Also, as you said, anyone who cares about anonymity enough can leave the game if it hasn't started yet, so there isn't a problem.

Are you kidding me?

ehh, for me its a moot point, I've pretty much decided to make all games I create invitation only or part of a series for elite players, don't get me wrong I don't mind noobs (fresh meat for the kill lol) but I just don't like CDs

for me it's a clear point.
your right to advertise a game shouldn't kill my right to be in a real Anon.
Then, since Anons are already advertised in
Games/New page,
you DON'T have the useless right to advertise Anons in the Forum and, doing this way, to break their anonymity.

Simple, clear and working.

Yes, but not everyone looks at the games section, and many times the game will be 2+ pages down. This is a simple and effective way to 'get the word out'. It's not really advertising IMO, as it's not selling anything, but it's simply getting the word out to people who are looking to join a game.

I think creating threads like these is OK, but usually I just stick my links into one thread.

This is a simple and effective way to screw games. It's pointless to make anon games and tell everybody that you are in the game...

They'll learn to click on the blue arrow to turn pages.

I for one will not stop posting my game links on the forum, anon or not. I advertise them to get them to start, I'd rather play my game than worry about anonymous(of course most of mine are typically non anon)

I believe that all the people who advertise Anon share your concern, butterhead.
But don't you think that stopping ads would give to all Anon an equal chance to be joined, and, further, with the great advantage to preserve their anonymity?

I love gunboats and I always create Anons. And 95% of them start. Maybe it's because I'm able to create games that look funny. Who knows. People who got lower percentages of success should not start making ads. They should wonder why their games suck!