Comments/Ratings for a Single Item

I´m paying my inscription and Antoine Fourriere´s inscription (he paid mine
the last time) with the money I won in the last Tournament, and I´m going
to pay up to 4 (four) inscriptions of new players, those who have not
played the First Game Courier Tournament, but I don´t know the mechanism
for doing that, so it should be good that the organizers clarify how can a
new player make effective his(her) inscription in this way. If there are
not new inscriptions, or the number is less than 4, well, we need to talk
about.
Time controls must depend on the preferences of majorities, but the
suggested is fine with me. Ith should be good a 'permission time', to be
used only once, if it is the need, by a player which must, eventually, be
out of the Tournament by a period of time, say no more than 10-15 days.

Roberto,

Assuming that David has withheld your prize money from the previous
tournament on the understanding that you would just use it to pay for your
registration, Antoine's, and that of four others, I can add you and
Antoine to the Signed Up list right away, and you need to tell me who the
other four people are. These four people should also inform me of their
intention to register. Then I can add them without any of them needing to
go through Paypal.

I will be participating.  Any time controls are fine with me, although I
don't see why things need to be any different than the last one. 
Although I didn't participate, I can see how long it took to complete,
and it doesn't seem unreasonable at all.

Regarding Chess with Different Armies: This could be handled in a lot of
ways, but it what might make sense it to have each participant select
which army he wishes to play (out of the supported four) before the
tournament begins.  Army selections probably should not be made publicly
available ahead of time, or people might want to select late and try to 
meta-game with their selection.

I look forward to the start of this epic struggle, in which I will likely
be defeated by decisive force!  P.S.  I'll send the money shortly :)

Roberto,

I have added you to the Signed Up list, and once Antoine formally states
his intention to compete in the tournament, I will add him too.

I also wish to compete in this Tournament. Please count me in.

Regarding time limits, I have no strict formula in head, but I'm on the
side of leniency. Yes, 14 days of spare time does seem an improvement.
I'm also in favor of giving the players the possibility to allow each
other more time through a command (rather through repeating idle moves).
I would suggest to state that the referee may start a new round of games
without the agreement of the players which haven't completed all their
previous games (but not without two-week advance notice).

Another problem might be: what if there are more participants than last
time? How do you decide who is going to face whom? Through a random draw
of the opponents (alphabetical order is as good as any the first time, but
might become bothersome the following year), and game assignment only
later? (Perhaps Fergus might then propose an exchange of opponents to a
group of four players in order to meet their preferences.) If and when
such a problem occurs (and I hope it eventually does), I would suggest
some kind of play-off (say, a round of four/six games between the top
five/seven, with ties broken through the round-robin ranking) at the end of
the year to mitigate the luck factor.

Time controls will remain outside the control of individual players. They
are set for the sake of the tournament as a whole and should not be
subject to changes by individual players. The main thing is to find the
right balance that will allow a fair amount of time to play without
allowing the tournament to run on too long. 

Even creating a command that allows one player to give some of his time to
his opponent would run into the problem of its fair use. If one player gave
some of his time to his opponent and then lost on time, the question of
whether his loss was fair would arise. It is best to avoid such issues
altogether by not allowing players to give time to opponents.

Roberto:  Thanks for paying my fee!

Chess-with-Different-Armies:  I do not really like the Paulowich plan,
because White gets to see what army Black chooses before making a
decision.  I think this gives White an additional advantage.  You could
argue that this system actually gives Black the advantage, because they
get first pick, but I would disagree.  I think second pick is better
unless one army is definitely better then the others, and I don't think
that this is the case.  I think each player should have to select army
without any knowledge of what he is facing.

count me in.

i'll figure out a way to pay in the next week or two.  it's new years
week here at the moment.  i still have to pay for last time as well.