G-Man, there’s something I'm missing.
You said more than one time, in different manners, that the addition of any rating to the Original Game may change what players do. Ok. So now my questions are:

1- How can you add something to a game without changing it?

2- And mainly: if, when there’s an addition to the Original Game, the players’ behavior changes, then isn’t it a clear evidence that the game has changed?

(Now please don’t say that all games are different because of subjective matters. That’s understood. But the addition you make when you “rate” a game is there for every player: it’s objective. What's subjective is how players perceive that addition. Also please forget PPSC for a while: we agree it’s much different. Talking about differences between Saturn and Jupiter, you can’t say that they’re alike just because they’re both much different from Mars)

As you said Guaroz, if we play Monopoly for $5000, it will likely change the way we play the game. Just the same as if we play with the all-time Monopoly champion, it will likely change the way we play the game. However, in both cases, we did not change the rules of Monopoly. We are still playing the game the same way that everyone else plays it. Now, if we play Monopoly, but say that the players who would otherwise lose when they go bankrupt will now get points based on the number of properties they owned and be ranked from 2nd - last based on those points, we've changed the rules of the game and are no longer playing the game the same way that everyone else plays it.

I have my Monopoly Rulebook here. I see no mention of anything like a draw in it. So, unlike Diplomacy, a Monopoly game can end in only one way: one player win, the others lose. So in Monopoly you can’t play for the Draw in order to avoid a (whether big or little) loss of money, cigarettes, jelly beans, hard candies or whatever else you bet to pay your buy-in. You have only one way to walk to have something back: win the game. It’s like tennis: either you win or you lose, you don’t change what you do because you bet 10 candies or 10 dollars or 10 thousands: the only way to have them back is to win.
“As you said Guaroz, if we play Monopoly for $5000…” I didn’t say it for Monopoly.

Diplomacy is different because its Rulebook says you got 2 positive results: Win and Draw.
Example. Like never before, today 7 children decide for the first time to rate their weekly game adding a buy-in of 10 candies and they decide that the Pot-Rule is what we call WTA.
Well, unlike Monopoly, they have EIGHT different ways to have their candies back: win, 2wd, 3wd, 4wd, 5wd, 6wd and 7wd. Obviously someone could argue that the only real draw is 7wd, because in each one of the other 7 ways you’d have back more candies than you bet, so you’d win something. See? Something already changed just betting sweeties. You have 1 way to keep your candies and 7 different ways to win some. That's why children would make different decision than before.
While this addition (the buy-in, the Pot and the Pot-Rule) is equal for each child, hence it’s objective, it’s not equal the way the children perceive the addition. Say one unlucky child is diabetic: he couldn’t care less about losing or winning candies, so I guess his playing won’t change that much. Well: this is the subjective side. Similarly, other children could have different degrees in how they like candies. Anyway it’s not unlikely that from today on you’ll see these children often making different decisions than before: the game has changed. (Unless they’re all diabetic, but in this case, why would they be willing to bet candies?)

And yes, PPSC is even more different from Original game. I agree. There’s no need you remind it to me again. No need to do examples with tennis betting 2 $ per each of the 5 sets. PPSC is undisputedly different from the Original Game.

What I want to know from you is why you think that WTA would be the Original Game: here we’re disagreeing, not on PPSC.
So I have to ask you again:

If, when there’s an addition to the Original Diplomacy Game, the players’ behavior changes, then isn’t it a clear evidence that the game has changed?

If we add the $5,000 wager to Diplomacy, or Monopoly, or football, that doesn't change the rules of the game, though as we both agree, that may change the way players play the game. But the game itself is still the same game you can find played anywhere in the world, despite the addition of the high stakes, or player rating, or what have you. But if we say you must also have conquered three supply centers from another power and eliminated the last unit of another power to achieve victory, then we have added new objectives and victory conditions to the game and changed the rules of the game, creating a variant of the game, and we are no longer playing the same game others around the world are playing.

Now that I had my ass burned with gameID=14379, I will try to make sure that my next WTA games are clear of beginners. Particularly WTA with no press.

Compared with playing Diplomacy at a table among known people, some oddities arise from the internet environment: depending on the players involved, there may be some level of ignorance of the rules, unawareness of the game settings, NMRs and so on. Those oddities have to be balanced somehow.

This is probably the main reason why Oli’s predecessors ( IDK whether kestas or someone else before him ) implemented the PPSC system and had it set as the default pot type, consequently calling WTA “For more experienced players” .

Having a beginner in a WTA can be compromising for the rest of the players.
Having a beginner in a PPSC doesn’t make the “supposedly good” players upset, since everyone ending alive is given back a small “reward” in order to make him happy to a certain extent.

A WTA is indeed a more delicate game to handle.
I am confident that WTA is potentially more fun than PPSC is. But if even a single player in the group is not completely aware of the game rules… it’s not going to be fun anymore.

Do you truly believe that Italy cost you that game? Do you not believe that different actions by yourself would have prevented the way he played?

In playing that game I was in awe of Russia's decisions thinking they were crazy and that he figured it was a PPSC game and I felt bad for Italy because he was never given the opportunity to attempt a stalemate. So, perhaps you need to look in the mirror before you make such blanket comments.

Jimbozig,
it is not a dig at you. Any comment on that game is on the game page.

I’m not interested on the single game, I’m interested on the general discussion.

Nevertheless, the blanket comments (if blanket means generalized) are what I do believe.