ZAED, Zuid-Afrika Educational Diplomacy, is the semi-private judge run by Chris Babcock and Dorian Love for students, educators and homeschoolers. If you are a student, please have a teacher, parent or other adult sponsor you.
ZAED is being set up to recognize the following age-equivalency groups and educational objectives:
Diplomacy is for ages 12+, but ages 10 - 12 are prime ages for learning to use a map. The up to 12 age group is not intended to be competitive. Generally, the ages are proposed to be rough guidelines.
Students in ZAED will be able to interact with students their
own age all over the world. Parents can monitor communication for
safety or for the purpose of evaluating the skills being practiced.
Diplomacy is a board game that teaches map reading, problem
solving, history and interpersonal skills. Hasbro is releasing its 50th
anniversary edition, but the game has also been played by email for
over 25 years.
The Diplomacy rules and maps are available at this site: http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=ah/prod/diplomacy
You don't have to buy the board game, but it's nice. (We don't
sell it.) Maps for games in progress can be viewed using the utilities at floc.net.
Alternate maps and other ideas that employ the same game mechanics can be found at the Variant Bank. Not all variants will be available on ZAED. Contact the Judgekeepers to check whether a specific variant can be readily added to the judge's repetoire of games.
A responsible adult should send a brief email to the judgekeeper address describing their interest in the group. The responsible person will eventually need to provide a valid email address, complete phone number (if in the US or South Africa) and a scan of a photo ID - either a government or school issued identification card. Adults outside of the United States may not use gmail or certain other webmail services for their primary email account with the server. This individual will be responsible for adding the email addresses of his or her students to the list of players permitted on the judge. The sponsoring adult will have limited availability of games.
Students will have a sponsor so that they may register for the judge providing minimal personal information. Their sponsor will be responsible to make sure that duplicate registrations and various other abuses do not occur. In this way, fair play can be ensured without collecting excessive personal information from minors. Students will also receive a forwarding address for email so that they don't have to have their actual email address published. This forwarder may be monitored at the sponsor's choosing.