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This September marked the opening of a new judge designed to serve the needs of students and teachers. ZAED, the South Africa Educational Diplomacy judge, serves the privacy needs of players under 18 by requiring less registration information than a public judge for adult players. When the student player is accompanied by an adult to monitor his email account, the registration requirements allow players under 13 years of age to play in an environment that is compliant with the United States Children's Online Privacy and Protection Act, known as COPPA. ZAED uses the NJudge Wrappers web interface that Chris Babcock originally introduced on USAK. The NJW program suite wraps the judge in a group of tools that exposes the judge's operation and documentation to the web. This provides access to help easier and trains the user in the email interface by functioning as a wizard constructing the �signon� line that troubles most players new to judge Diplomacy. Additionally, ZAED provides local maps on the http://zaed.asciiking.com website. This bypasses the need for the floc.net tools, which would otherwise be problematic from a privacy standpoint since Floc archives judge registration data as a third party site. Diplomacy provides significant educational value in the areas of English composition and logic as well as history and geography. ZAED provides a safe environment for educators to introduce their students to this valuable experience at any age. Students of any age who enjoy the game may find opportunities to compete with their peers around the world on ZAED. Those 13 and over who desire stronger competition are welcome to register and play on USAK, http://usak.asciiking.com. The administrator for the ZAED educational Diplomacy judge may be reached at [email protected].
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