From the WWPA home page:

What is the WWPA?

The Weewar Players Association is a community of like-minded Weewar players.

What is the purpose of the WWPA?

The purpose of the WWPA is to serve as a useful social resource for Weewar players. It was created in response to the need of the Weewar player base to regulate itself in terms of fair play and good sportsmanship.

What can the WWPA do for me?

The WWPA maintains and publicizes a list of players who adhere to some modest guidelines on fair and honourable play. You can use this list to help you find opponents who won't spoil your fun.

What does it cost?

Just like Weewar, WWPA membership is absolutely free. Registration is quick and easy, and you don't even need to provide an e-mail address.

Join now!

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Okay, folks, I have been hard at work on this for many days, and I have it in what I believe to be a presentable alpha state.  Before we go all majorly public with this, would the Tangling Weewarist population please pop over, signup and test the site.

Once you're signed up, please certify all your friends and previous honourable opponents.  The more certifications, the merrier.

Please expect plenty of bugs, 404's and other nasty errors.  Just report any problems back to me here in this thread.

Any [constructive] feedback, suggestions or comments on the WWPA are welcome!

Just a quick note as I'm signing up - I like the verification method. Original!

I like your certification standards, though I think that as time goes on they can be expanded on perhaps? Or set in better terms perhaps? They work well, but I think they could be reworked.

My only wish is that by submitting someone for certification that hasn't joined yet (being that the member list only shows myself and Pistos) that an email or message could somehow be sent to them inviting them to join the site now that they are deemed "WWPA" Certifiable. While that seems to be a grey area due to privacy policies and the such I would love to see it happen in future versions of the site - even if that requires some overlooking and agreeing from the WeeWar admins to make it "official". Another thing that I can see - and this is more of a feature idea (which I realize it may be a bit early for) is some kind of badge. Just thinking....

darthnerdus: Thanks for visiting the site, and thank you for your insightful feedback.

The standards are by no means set in stone, and I had full intentions from the outset to make them rather malleable as the community sees fit.  I just threw together some rough guidelines to start with based on what I've read and discussed with others here on the Weewar forums.  Did you have any particular suggestions?  I'd love to hear them, and I can make any improvements.

As for e-mail... that is a bit trickier.  I haven't thought of a satisfying process.  For example, I don't have any secure mechanism to interact with the live weewar accounts, and I wouldn't suggest this for the time being, either, for security reasons.  So, the only other way I can think of is if we let people send an e-mail alert to an address that they type.  But in that case, the WWPA becomes a potential vehicle for spam, and that would be most undesirable.

Perhaps if there were some static e-mail template that couldn't be modified... "Your friend foobar has certified you at the WWPA.  Click _here_ to join the WWPA and accept the certification." or something like that.  What are everyone's thoughts or suggestions on this matter?

Badges: Could anyone draw something up?   I'm not much of an artist.  There was that fellow who made the transforming unit animation, he offered to do up widget graphics.  We could try to contact him.

I note now that the Weewar Labs server is unreachable for some reason... I am looking into this.

Site down.

p.s. I can help with the graphic stuff. What do you need. I sent you a private message so we can talk more about it.

Yeah, I think the server is dead until further notice, unfortunately.   I can't get access to it for probably another 8 or 9 hours.

madmike: Okay, I'll check out your private message.

madmike: Well, basically, I suppose you could just quickly draft up some rough sketches/ideas/outlines on a scalable badge that had the text "WWPA Member" or "WWPA Certified" or "WWPA Certified Member".  We'd probably want something that could scale to sizes like 200x200 for full display, all the way down to maybe 32x32 for inclusion on a website.  Or maybe a little bar (12x90 or something similar) to put on websites.

ok. will do.

madmike: BTW, thanks.

Server is back up.  Everyone please check it out and contribute your presence to the community. 

sounds like a pretty cool idea...nice work

Thanks.   Spread the word, so we can get more certs...

dpache1: I note that you haven't verified your account yet.  Did you not want to, or did you not know that you had to? 

Great work Pistos. I am curious where this is going to. A few questions:

Is there a way I can see who certified me? What does the 1.0 mean?

I'm as confused as bert, clarification would be helpful...

also, if the numbers have anything to do with certifying, than the certs that I am sending out are not going out and are registering on Pistos... (how convenient)

I had a feeling there would be confusion.   I will post a FAQ up on how the certs are calculated.

I will also add a listing of who certified you.

TheTorrent: I will add this to the FAQ in detail, but basically, people aren't going to show up as certified until they actually signup for WWPA membership.

Thanks for signing up, guys.  Spread the word, and try to point the site out to your friends and favourite opponents.  The system works better with many certs.

Alex: Both the Rankings page and the WWPA page are fit for blogging now. 

cool. will do asap! Very exciting!

Pistos, I'm just getting into CSS and HTML, so I could help clean up the sight style/layout.

I'll see what I can do with it, and send you a some (hopefully) improved versions just for fun.

The one thing that I've been wondering about Pistos is why in the world the certification ratings go on forever and ever into the high hell of decimal values. ie. Why don't we just cut off the repeating decimals? I think that would make it look a lot more presentable.

darthnerdus: Q: Why?  A: (i) because I didn't realize it would be an issue until the system actually got some use, and (ii) when I finally saw it, I did not have a chance to fix it until about 16 hours later (now). 

Cypy: Okay, thanks.  I have been focusing far more on function than presentation.  Feel free to make up some graphics or send some CSS patches or whatnot.

Anyway, folks, I've updated the certification description page with some more details on how it's calculated and what it means.  I hope this answers everyone's questions.

madmike has generously donated time and effort to create some cool WWPA membership badges:

Feel free to grab these and use them to show off your WWPA status!

I have also added a "Certified By" section in your member home page to show you who certified you.

nice work, madmike. I think I have finally found a profile image

oooh.... very nice!!

I'd better get my act together and sign up for WWPA

(do I qualify?)

Awesome work Pistos and madmike.

Thanks. 

dekrazee1: Anyone who has a Weewar account can signup for the site.  After you signup (which takes only 10 seconds), verify your account by following the instructions, and then go ahead and start certifying your friends and respected opponents.

There are no special or secret entrance requirements for the WWPA. 

There are no special or secret entrance requirements for the WWPA.

Being Tangler's mascot helps though 

Here is an example of the updated personal badge.

And a blank one, for you to decorate as you like:

Alex/bert: Now, if we could allow some simple HTML or bbcode in our profile text, we would include small images like this on our weewar.com accounts.   And crosslink them, too.

looks great

do the bullets have a deeper meaning? the more you have, the more trustworthy you are?

Well, he just put those as an example, or such.  I haven't decided anything about bullet meanings or whatnot.  There is theoretically no upper limit on one's certification level.

We might be able to do something via percentile, though.  "Player X is in the top 10% of certified WWPA members."

Ya, the bullets are an example as a rating stars.

Although, like Pistos said he would need to figure out how much one bullet is worth.

Pistos: I have all the different badges from 0 to 10 bullets, without a space for players name.

We should discuss if such a rating system should be implemented into Weewar. If the game is finished, you could rate the other players. The more "bullets" you have, the more your vote counts

That would take us to the next step: Transforming Weewar into a Social Networking site

Kurisu: The system already works somewhat that way.  The higher your own certification, the more "powerful" your own cert of other people.

(I mean the WWPA system, not the weewar.com system)

heh

Next on the table for the WWPA is a player matching system, so you can find people that play at your frequency, availability, etc.

great!

hey Pistos, I'm having trouble verifying my account...can you help me out? sent you a message about it. Thanks

dpache1: For some reason, I thought you had eventually gotten verified, so I ignored your message.  Sorry about that.

Alex/bert: Check this out, http://weewar.com/api1/user/dpache1 is a 404, but http://weewar.com/user/dpache1 is fine.  I'm using the API to verify WWPA accounts.

dpache1: I have manually verified your account for you.

Ahhh..... thanks Pistos! I thought you had to have a certain number of points or something

And Kurisu, stop calling me a mascot! hehehehe

mascot or chat plugin - you decide 

HAHAHAHAHA

I love chat plugin cos it's just so funny! Cracks me up everytime!

But then everyone will think I'm a bot! (I have a hard enough time with that as it is!)

mascot plugin should solve that problem 

anyway, I think your services should get a "real" domain, pistos. like weewar.net / .org. it would cost a few dollars, yes, but that should be worth it, shouldn't it?

Weeell... I'll get it later.   I don't have a dollar tree growing in my backyard, so I can't justify the expense yet.  Perhaps when there is more traffic, popularity, etc.  I don't think I'd get weewar.net or .org though; I think the main Weewar guys should get those, if they aren't grabbed already.

sorry for such a mundane request, but I signed up for an account two nights ago, and am certified, but my password that I chose for WWPA does not seem to work at all. There is no mechanism on the site to reset ot request my password so....? Could someone reset it for me?

alison @ pixelpixie dot net

I now have a blurry, downsized, over-compressed one of those badges in the bottom corner of my avatar

Its just about possible to make out what it says if you look at my profile, and I put a brief explanation in my profile text 

Hi guys. Have joined up on the site but don't appear to be able to verify, even though I've added the relevant words to my profile. Anything else I need to do?

Great idea, btw.

alison: I have deleted your account and changed any existing certs for you into pending certs, so when you signup again, they will automatically activate.  Just make a new account now.

hb239: You suffered from the same problem as dpache1.  Apparently, the user API is broken for select people.   I have manually verified you, too, so you should have full access to the system now.  Thanks for joining.

Thank you Pistos, that took care of the problem.

How do we rate players who join a game, play a few turns then apparently wander off without notice leaving the other players with their thumbs up.  I don't mind waiting for a player who has the good grace to alert me when he will be delayed.  I waited three days for a player who informed me he had busines to take care of and would not be available.  I have no patience for anyone who is so rude as to delay the game without alerting the other players.

I realize that some games have one day or longer turn limits.  I  also know that I will never initiate another game with a turn limit of more than one hour.

There is a chat line.  Any player who leaves the game for more than a few moments should be obliged to alert the others that he will be away.  Any player who leaves for more than a few moments with alerting the other players should be liable for peremptory expulsion from the game.

<hanging around two games - half my available space- waiting for some putz to complete his move>

slugthog: In the general context of Weewar, I agree that abandoning games without communication is bad, and it's even worse when intentionally done in order to avoid rating loss.  However, the vote-out ability available to all players is a reasonable deterrent to the latter.

In the context of the WWPA: I am still mulling over how to incorporate negative feedback or negative peer review into the system.  It's been asked about twice already.  The current system is a positive system by design.  The intention was to imply either uncertainty or negative review via low cert level or absence from the WWPA.

slugthog, your comments started me thinking.  at first i was having a problem with your attitude/expectations, especially when i got to reading your third paragraph "There is a chat line..."  i was thinking of replying to you and saying, just that, for me, during the first day of a game, especially when i'm playing with folks i haven't played with before, i try to let them know when i'm leaving, either to go to bed that night, or to leave from work to go home, where i might not get back online to weewar for a couple hours or more.  but from then on the only schedule stuff i talk with them about is if i think i might be gone past the time limit.  i've done this a couple times while playing for the past few months.  the first time i was gone, which was for the longest time, i didn't realize i'd be gone that long and didn't say anything, but they waited for me.  another time, i was pretty sure i would be gone for a few days and i surrendered my games, however it ended up that i got back in a day or two, so uh-oh, i possibly now have a lower rating/score because of that.   another instance of where i won't mention to them that i might be gone for a few hours (sleep anyone?) is if they themselves seem to be taking a few hours.  they must have different schedules than i do. 

however, if you want to only play 1 hour or less time limit games, that's fine.

nonetheless, a couple ideas that i have had because of your comments are:

1. a message to all feature, which has been mentioned elsewhere, just to lazy (and busy with work) to find it right now.  and it wouldn't really be a message to all, with all meaning everyone in the whole game system/server, but rather to everyone that you are currently playing against.  this is kinda like bulletins in myspace.

2. chat log times, which again has been covered in other threads.

3. a notification that would be next to your name in each game that says an estimated time to be back.

Having an "e-mail all" button might be handy, though possibly abused.  Having a way to give a status message in your account might prove useful, too.  "Will be back Saturday at 10pm" or whatever.

Okay, folks, I have added a juicy feature to the WWPA: Notification via instant messenger.  I am quietly announcing it here in this thread, because I don't have it working perfectly yet, but I want current WWPA members to test it out and help me iron out the bugs and problems.

To get IM alerts, login to the WWPA then go to your member home page.  You should see two new submenu options, one to setup your IM contacts, another to setup game watches.  Try these out, and let me know what's working or not working.  Thanks.

I was not able to successfully test this yet (still waiting for the other party to play) but this is great. You are on a roll! I hope you might spin this off into a separate app though I can see how it will really benefit the wwpa. (Side note: I think the feedback link in the main navigation should be visually different from the others  as it takes the user out of context)

Alex: I saw you set it up and test it.  According to my logs, it sent an alert to your IM account.  Did you not receive it?  Thank for the feedback. 

I'll think about making it available to non-WWPA players as well, but that would probably be later once this has matured and stabilized.

I will try to make the Feedback link a bit more distinct.  Thanks.

Might have missed adding your robot to my contacts - now I have but it has not been my turn since. So I am not sure what happened but will confirm once it is my turn while I am online. Naturally I am looking for the error on my end first

  Okay, let me know.

i'm having success!

Cool. 

Let's see if it can consistently alert you, though.  I find it sort of breaks down after a while.  Hopefully it won't. 

it's still alerting me.

hey pistos, question: what would happen if i change my username at weewar?  i would think that it would affect wwpa.

Question.  We have a player in a game who is online but has not moved in fifteen hours - though the times says he only six  and a half hours have passed.

1) Has anyone else noticed that the timer is operating in failure mode??

2)  Is there any way to boot the player before the timer hits 24 hours - if it ever does.?

luckymustard: I that case, I think it's only fair for you to also make a new matching account in the WWPA.  The two names would be separate entities, as it were.

slugthog: The timer seems to have reset when they did the release.  I think this is a "feature" in response to people complaining that they got boot prematurely because they were unable to login to take their turn during the downtime.

slugthog: afaik, when the server is down for an update that tends to reset the game timers.

We reset the timer for all games when  we are coming back up after a scheduled downtime in order to avoid people getting kicked without being at fault at all. We'd prefer to simply turn the time back to account for the exact down time but unfortunately for the time being our only option is a total reset - which is still much better than simply letting the clocks run.

ok, so now what we need is a blacklist of players that should be boycotted.  I'd like to nominate nhatinator to start off the list.

I played a game with nhatinator not too long ago. He seemed like a nice person and didn't do anything offensive or bad. What did he do that deserves to be placed on a blacklist?

possible droner, and a spammer. Started a game got only 2 rounds in before the other players abandon the game. Due to this spamming the chat box.

always wants to play 3 player with himself, and his friend nogglebeak as player 2.

Pistos: Bargain, thanks, works a treat.

How long does it normally take for a certification to go through? I'm apparently uncertified on the members list but I have one certification in my profile.

I love this idea, it's fab

hb239: Certification should be instantaneous.  However, the person that has certified you is themselves uncertified, therefore he has no power to grant you certification.  Thanks for joining, and thanks for your feedback.

ok, so if you are uncertified and you certify someone else, it doesn't count until you yourself become certified?

Is there any way to determine if a player is running more than one side in a game?  IP check?  Call his mom?  Whatever.

I'm wondering if WeeWee can check IPs in multiplayer games and bounce two players with same IP if at least one player with different IP?  Or perhaps just not score points.

How could that work though? Workplaces? I play at work. I also happen to live on campus at school 0 which means they provide internet... I always show up as the same IP - not mine. Just like everyone else here at my school... So we can't play together?

This is a public access online game so we can't ban IPs which is why the WWPA was created. Also this game is still in it's early development stages so we want it to grow as fast as possible to ensure it's success so making it's environment hostile with bans would be counter productive. Games are on invite only and you always have the option of declining invites so this problem can be avoided without dev intervention.

I'd like to keep the weewar society as friendly as possible and if there are repeated offenders then I'm sure the WPA would have some sort of demerit system to forewarn players.

But there is no clear way to identify cheats, is there.

We could examine a player's record.  If two nicks frequently play in the same games and one of them always loses...  Beyond that there is nothing to prevent abuse.

defbyte: That is correct.  Your certification strength is a function of the number and strength of certs you have.  In general, if your cert level is low, try to play games against those with high certification so that they can get to know you, and then cert you after two or three games.

Re: IP check: Perhaps if we could get a little notification in the pre-game about whether some players are from the same IP.  Then it could be up to one's own discretion to join or not.

Re: cheaters, etc.: I have been formulating a system which I hope to incorporate sometime in the next few days.  It will essentially be a relatively informal adjudication system, where you present a case with some evidence against a transgressor, and if your case is deemed sufficient, then the player will be added to a blacklist, which will be made public (along with brief reasons, such as public game replays).

(little note: For those players who use the name changing feature to cheat or stay unnoticed, we have silently introduced a public, unique and permanent id for each account visible from the profile - not much but might be handy...)

This will come in handy for the blacklist.  Thanks, Alex/bert.

ah so there is a blacklist, this is good, unfortunately I have already deleted the game

yeah as mentioned in another topic, I've got a game with hugger kicking me when I was winning. I archived it it's

http://weewar.com/game/17711

also, is there a place to formally report this? if not there should be one

TheTorrent: I haven't coded anything yet, it's all in my head.  I hope to have something in place over the next few days, though.

oh ok, thats good

I have the game Archived Torrent.

pistos, here's a bug:

i input a game number and it says that "No such game id: 20812".  yet, in fact, it does exist.

Well, the API gives a 404 for that game.  I look at the game normally, and I get greeted with: "Sorry, but this game is not public.  Private games are only available to participating players."  I suspect we will be unable to watch or notify for private games. 

(Since I have no way of determining who's playing or whose turn it is)

I will adjust the error message, though.

Alex: If we could be able to access accounts using their ID number as well, e.g. http://weewar.com/api1/user/12345 that would be nice.  That way, I can link to blacklisted players using the ID instead of their name, which could change.

another thing, now that you have the blacklist up and running... i must admit at this time that i broke one of the rules/standards.  it was a long time ago (few months) during probably the first month i was playing.  i, and another player by majority, which was unknown to us that that was how it worked, kicked another player out of game who had previously told us in the chat that he was going to be gong for some extended period of time.  the other kicking out player and i, after doing so and hearing back from the player that we kicked out, only then went back and saw his message that he would be gone.  in other words we had both forgotten that he said that and we didn't properly check to see if he said anything like that before we kicked him.  we were then very apologetic.  however, speaking for myself here (and elsewhere - who could i ever really speak for?), i did go about making the point along the lines of that (not verbatim) "hey, we agreed at the beginning about the time limit."  i have since gone to great lengths to be much more considerate and i'm thinking that i haven't kicked anyone out (except in the first three rounds on the test server recently) since.  i hope this mostly makes sense, i feel like i'm rambling here, but i had to get this out in the open.  btw, the person we kicked out is one of the people that has certified me.  so if he, or anyone else, wants to take away his certification of me, so be it.  again i'm sorry.

luckymustard: Well, I can't speak for anyone else either, but as for me, if it's long ago, and you've proven yourself with a good track record for a while now, then I think whatever happened in the distant past doesn't matter any more.   I won't add you to the blacklist.

In other news: I have added a button on the Game Watches page to let you refresh your watch list from the live server, so that it is watching the games you are active in right now.  This makes it a bit easier to add and remove the right games, assuming you always want all games watched.  You can still manually add or remove games, though, if you find yourself needing to for whatever reason.

Out of curiosity: In light of the fact that such a thing is missing on weewar.com, would anyone want a basic message system on the WWPA?  For use with things like strategizing with teammates in private, or for gently tapping a player that seems to be taking too long, to ask what's up, etc.  It could be either a direct message system (where you login to the WWPA to read and send messages), or an e-mail proxy (send a message to player X, and that player will get an e-mail forward of your message, without you needing to know his e-mail address), or both.

thanks pistos.

Pistos: Just so you know, I tested whether or not I could certify myself and it turns out I can! This should probably be fixed, but until then I'm removing the cert

It's permitted, but has no value. 

If people are bothered, I could make this impermissible? 

Naw, leave it.  It will make for some amusing future conversation

@Pistos:  I was just unsuccessful messaging you in PlayersAss.

ErrMsg: Failed to deliver message to Pistos.

And the message vanished.  annoying.

Question was about yer stats page.

Apparently you give losses and ties the same weight.  I would be more inclined to weight wins & losses at 3 and ties at 1 or zero.

A tie can often represent a game not played: players examining a map, a gimme to a noob, a map begun then abandoned for technical reasons.

Am I still registered? I can't find me on the memberlist and I can't login (although that may be that I'm getting the password wrong)

I personally do not agree so much with the new black list while I very much appreciate the self organizing white list (it is kind of telling that one needs much more moderation and administration then the other). That said I can see why it can be a really helpful feature.

I would suggest to make the black list only visible to logged in wwpa members - so it becomes a service for members (which would be much more true to my understanding of the wwpa as a voluntary system of good conduct). It will certainly take heat away

anyway - it is just a thought ... I like the wwpa fo what it is and for just being there, too.  It is immensely rewarding for us to have attracted such  a great community and to see it evolve on its own!

slugthog: I will see to doing something about lost messages like that.  Sorry.

Super-King: You don't seem to have a user record.  Just register again.  I'm not sure what could have happened if you registered before and disappeared.

Alex: Your opinion has a lot of weight.  I will make the blacklist viewable by members only unless and until there are strong demands to make it public.

My input on this should be no more important than anybody else's . This is yours and thereby your call entirely - my suggestion came from me as wwpa member Cheers!

Okay, then... what does everyone else think? 

Tried to re-register, said that I already exist

Turned out I just forgot my password, but I remembered it eventually 

I assume that hitting the "verify account" button will mean I'm now on the record

Super-King: You must receive a "this account is now verified" sort of message.  What's your account name?  I thought it was superking.

Yeah, SuperKing if its case sensitive

When I logged in there was a link there to verify, now it says I'm verified

Okay.

slugthog: I have fixed things so that message failures should keep the text in the input boxen.

Denks.  Good Job.

Vis-a-vis black list:

There are significant benefits to knowing the players who are abusing the system.  I can understand Alex's concern that WeeWar is new and doesn't want to turn away potential customers.  OTOH, cheaters and abusers can turn away new users even more quickly.  Word of net that WeeWars could be fun but is full of cheaters or lurkers will keep folx away in droves.  Reputation is everything.  If WW early develops a bad reputation, all of the invested time and money will have gone for naught.

It is consistently a problem that abuse is the last thing developers consider when creating a product.  As a consequence systems to control abuse often are tacked on late in the testing process and almost always are inadequate.  When the developers are not able to control abuses from within the game then citizen's committees of vigilantes usually take up the task

The problem with this sort of solution is that it creates, at least from the perspective of the noob, an In-group and an Out-group.  Elitism replaces Egalitarianism, important in keeping the game enjoyable for all players. even if such was never the intention.

This can be somewhat nullified by incorporating the vigilantes into the game system and making it responsible to the developers.  To incorporate it into the game system simply draft anyone who has played in a minimum number of games.  That way the Society of Vigilance contains all regular game players.  To make it responsible to the developers they, the developers, must grant the Society of Vigilance it's imprimatur.

White lists become "players in good standing", Black lists become "players not in good standing", and a well defined methodology for moving a player from one list to the other must be available to all.

As I've said on other threads about the "black list", that i think it is a bad term to use. the term "cheaters" is being thrown around which I feel is not accurate... Waiting for the last minute to boot someone is not cheating...even if it's not the most friendly thing to do. Let's not call these players cheaters when they are not.

Now, droning (playing with multiple accounts) is cheating and this should not be dealt with by the WWPA, but the devs. Whoever is caught (and backed up by proof) droning should have their account completely removed...period. All WW players should have the right to report someone that is cheating this is not a WWPA responsibility.

I still believe that the "black list" as it is being called right now should not be a place where everyone who is put on this list is ostracized from the community just for playing for points instead of friends.

Remember that every game you join, you agree to play within the alotted time or else. if you don't conform to the contract, you are at the other player's mercy. You can text him, beg him, call him or whatever...it's his right to boot you. And some people have this mentality about games; being on the top of that leader board is the most important thing.  These people are not evil; they just have different priorities that you.

We should call the list of these players the "Powergamer List", "Hardcore List" or "No Mercy List" to let people know the type of player they are, instead of telling everyone to refuse to play them.

I am willing to change the name of the list.  Besides dpache1's suggestions, does anyone have any other possible names to contribute?

Indeed, the name needs to connote more of the fact that they are simply not following WWPA rules.  I agree that this does not necessarily mean they are bad, evil, cheaters, or what have you.

There is some merit so dpache's post.  We should not ostracise them, nor brand them with a flaming iron but neither should we laud them by assigning them badges of honor like "Powergamer"

A simple field associated with the player's name could contain a terse comment or two such as: "Plays the clock strictly" , "Has attacked allies" or more strongly "Has employed drone in competition"

Having a drone account in order to study maps is not itself a sin particularly if the games are played to a draw or abandoned.  Employing a drone in game with others is flagrant cheating.

To be clear: Using a dummy account for investigative purposes does not break the WWPA standards as currently laid out.  Droning is using dummy accounts for point gains.

ah good - I sent an invite to myself ages ago to check out something on a map.. or maybe it was just to see if emails were gettign through, either way I then drew the game. Wouldn't want to now be accused of foul play 

@ pistos:  another reason draws should not be included in player rating or stats

slugthog: I'm just drawing the numbers straight off the official weewar.com site.  The only number I have control over is whether draws are counted against win %.  This is easily changed or added (i.e. I could have both types of win %).  Would this be to your liking? 

If I understand you clearly, yes - leaving draws out should give a more reliable measure.

BTW, you have known me long enough now that, "you can call me slug, or you can call me sluggy, or you can call me slugster, or you can call me sluggo or even you can call me OldFart but ya doesn't has ta call me Johnson!"

Hey, how about adding a five game moving average so we can watch our improvement ... or decline

Hmm... what's your suggested formula or algorithm for that?

I'd like to be able to put in more information about myself.  For instance, I am a strict adherent to the time limit, but I state that clearly up front when I start the game.  If someone lets me know in advance that they'll be gone for a specific amount of time, then I'll be patient.  Otherwise, I'll boot at some point after the time limit.  (This is why I'd like to see timestamps and arena entrance/exit notices in the chat window.)

I'd also like to see a ratings (like eBay?) system for all players, regardless of whether they've registered with WWPA, so that you can quickly identify questionable players.  Not necessarily drones or other egregious offenses, but poor sports who should be avoided.  (And with a ranking system, if they change their ways, future players give them a better rating and over time my negative rating counts for less or falls off the chart.)

Besides "WWPA Member", what about recommending other text in a profile, like all the items we hope to eventually see in a matching system?  (Time zone, preferred game size, turn limit, rating variance against your own, etc.)?  http://weewar.com/user/tvjames

tvjames: If the WWPA standards do not cover your idea of "poor sports who should be avoided", what other criteria would you add (or take away)?  The WWPA standards are not set in stone, and I would like the rules to cover what the majority thinks of in terms of good vs. bad sportsmanship.

Just to update folks on what the WWPA offers now:

What can the WWPA do for me?

The WWPA maintains and publicizes a list of players who adhere to some modest guidelines on fair and honourable play. You can use this list to help you find opponents who won't spoil your fun.  There is also a blacklist of players to avoid.

The WWPA also offers an instant messenger notification service to members.

There is also a member-to-member messaging system. This can be used for many things, such as inter-team strategizing, or trying to get in touch with absent players.

Use the Player Match system to find opponents that match your preferences.

there are a couple ways to compute moving averages.  The simplest is to sum the previous five scores and divide by five but weighting the more recent scores responds more quickly to recent changes.

Whoops forgot to put my shoes on.  Averages of averages don't mean much.

MovAve5.thisGame(wins) = Sum(wins,thisGame, thisGame-4) / 5

MovAve5.thisGame(losses) = Sum(losses, thisGame, thisGame-4) /5

MovAve5WinLoss.thisGame = MovAve5Wins.thisGame /( MovAve5Losses.thisGame +1)  {gotta watch out for Divide by zero}

or you can calculte WinLoss by WinLoss = thisPlayer.wins / (thisPlayer.wins +thisPlayer.losses)  { another way to prevent Div by Zero}

Unless I put on the wrong shoes

I have joined, but yet to be "accepted" or "certified" although i have verified ^_^

Very nice idea, original way of gathering like-minded gamers and it smoothly interlinks with the main site. Now that's silky!  Good work!

Demonicy: Just play one or two certified members, then ask them to certify you after the game. 

And thanks for the positive comments. 

pistos, i just got sent here by wwpa.  it tells me to tell you about "what went wrong". 

anyway... in the "find opponents" area i was clicking on the type of units selection (radial buttons) and i clicked on the far right one, pro units required, i think.

Okay, thanks, I'll check it out. 

Okay, fixed!  Thanks for reporting it, luckymustard. 

what are the checkboxes for that are next to the members on the certified members list?  they don't seem to do anything... yet!

I was going to ask about the tick boxes too

what are they for? Tell us tell us tell us tell us tell us tell us tell us! 

Heh.  I am ramping up for a "start new game with these players" feature.  Stay tuned! 

I was proud to play the 2nd rank seed moJoe and got talking to him a fair bit (plus i had a practice with pro units!) I haven't checked anything yet but hopefully he has given me a credit like i gave him.

Hi Pistos, I forgot the password i used to log into wwpa its really frustrating is there a reset my pwd type thing or .email me my pwd????? please help i want o to certify and be certified : ( Thanks

Fluffy: The usernames are case sensitive on the WWPA (unlike weewar.com).  There is a "Fluffy" account registered 2007-08-26, and a "fluffy" account registered 2007-09-13 (today).  Try logging in with both with some password guesses.  I am unable to send anyone their current password because it is one-way encrypted.

I can also just delete both accounts and you can reregister.  I can preserve your certs in such a case.

ehm... A few days ago I joined, was in the new members line, but now I am all out of the list.

Is that good or bad?

I was just about to convince a few players to put in a good word for me...

I had the same thing happen, then I logged in and it asked me to click to confirm the account, did you do that yet?

erm... not sure

wait ....

exellent. works now. thanks for the tip. Your the King!

I'm in!

Easy to do... Good job!

so if I get this right, after a game is over I should rate my opponents?

how do I do that? by certifying them?

Once you think you know someone well enough to attest that he or she will not break the WWPA rules of conduct, then you certify them.  When you do this will vary from person to person; perhaps you already have been good friends with someone for years and know their character.  Then you can certify them right away without ever having played them.  With a stranger, you probably will play at least one game, and chat with them a bit during the game.

Hi Pistos, yes please could you delete both fluffy accounts - they are both me! - I will start again with a sensible pwd i can rememeber this time!

fluffy: Okay, done.  Proceed with the username Fluffy, with a capital F, since that is what is on the weewar.com site.

In order to become a certified member of the WWPA, you need to play a game with another member or defeat them?

Chaos

Play them, demonstrate your moral/honourable play, they certify you as conforming to the wwpa guidelines (you also have to register yourself)

Okay, good.  I have played moJoe before.  I'll see if he'll vouche for me.

I'll also see about playing a couple of other players as well.

Chaos

I have known slugthog for a long time.  He is a surly, nitpicking know-it-all.  Can I get him banned from WWPA?

slugthog: With convincing evidence of rule violations, yes.

additional support herein for banning slugthog from all proceedings. Returning points for past "defeats" at the slugthog's hands also recommended.

Ah, the quisling Vichy Ho again raises his traitorous wail.

Is it the line-up to ban Slugthog?

Yaaay! I got certified! Thanks Pistos!

Pistos, can you add a link to the main home page in the list of links that are there when you are logged in?

Shoot I am not certified yet.