A few days ago I "translated" the "Classic - Pick your Countries" for diplomacy.s-website.de, a German diplomacy-site using the webdip-code. After I finished an idea came to my mind that it might be a nice feature to make some variant-specific options like the country-selection a general option for every variant (like the options for anonymous games or different in-game messaging). The available features could be even extended.

Here is a list of the options I have in mind:

1. Pick Countries: For every game, a user could select which countries should be played. Games like RomeVsCarthage on the AncMed-Map or a 10-player-game on the new WWIV-map would be possible. In addition to that the game creator can decide, that some countries get merged, so that games like FranklandVsJuggernaut would be possible on other maps as well.

2. BuildAnywhere: Build Anywhere as an optional feature for every variant.

3. GreyPress: Anonymous messages could be posted in every game in which this option is switched on.

4. CustomStart: The game starts with a build-phase.

5. FogOfWar: FoW for every variant. (This feature might be more difficult as there have to be a prepared map for FoW. But this should be available in the near future when Oli gets enough time to add the final version of the interactiveMap which needs such a map as well. (already made for around the half of the variants and will be completed))

6. Do you have more ideas?

All five options are at least partly implemented in some variants so the code is already available and theoretical it could be used for other variants as well. But if they should become a general option, there would still be some work to do. I'm sure all the listed options can be implemented (perhaps with some exceptions for some variants e.g. BuildAnywhere with Lepanto).
I know that the variant creators have something in mind when they decided to make a variant BuildAnywhere or not or with FoW or not etc. but it might be nice feature to change these settings even if the game might be less balanced with different settings.

So my question is: Would you like such a feature and would you use it? Or do you think implementing something like this would be wasted time?

I'm posting this over here and not in the developer forum as vDiplomacy has the most already implemented features compared to other webdip-sites I know and the developer forum is very slow at the moment and doesn't have that much players who would be potential users of such options. :)