I think Ed is going to swing because (I think) he has been the 2nd runner-up in votes for two Days now, and his lynch will potentially give us info that I don’t think we can get from anyone else. If he’s scum, the voting record on Day Two is useful. If he’s Town, we should look carefully at Day One.
More later.
There’s another issue in play as well here. The handshake attempt was started at Night. Scum would have been able to discuss the handshake as it was going on, at least for a little while. Whether Ed was scum or not, does not play in so much here, but it does mean that scum would have had at least a short time to strategize collectively around how to mitigate the handshake or participate.
If the Scum had the vanilla PM, true. But if they didn’t, then they sure as hell weren’t handshaking. And we don’t know if they did or they didn’t yet. The only way we’ll know for sure is if a dead Scum turns up who shook.
People generally say that a Cop’s job isn’t so much to find Scum as it is to confirm Town. At middle and endgame especially, confirmed Town is worth as much if not more than outed Scum. It makes it harder for Scum to hide and makes them have to do more killing to win. Investigating other Town power roles is somewhat pointless–they can, in many instances, self-confirm. Vanillas cannot, and finding a potential pool of vanillas to report back about later is a boon, not a drawback. Had all the power roles figured out what ed was doing and remained silent, ed could potentially be the Town MVP at this point (to borrow from Meeko). And I guess that’s the source of my biggest issue with an ed lynch–we’re blaming him for not being able to predict the actions of others.
I was going to vote Pleonast at this point, but I’ve decided that I want to do a WoW on him first, just to make sure. So that’ll be coming today.
**Vote Count:
Specialed(3): Astralrejection, Chronos, Meeko
Astralrejection(1): Redskeezix
**
Scum can’t talk during the Day?
Where do you get this information, Red?
Nice catch.
waits to hear from Red
You know, I thought that I saw a post earlier where Mahaloth said that Scum couldn’t communicate during the Day, so I went back looking for it. It turns out that he said that only fluff posts were allowed in the thread at NIGHT for everyone, but specifically had no comment when asked about whether Scum could talk during the Day.
Interesting. Maybe after I finish my agonizing slog through Pleonast (only one more page, and the search page died so I have to re-do the search), I’ll do one for Red. Then again, given the fact that my eyeballs are bleeding from Pleonast and his 70 game posts, can I beg one of the rest of you to do it?
not necessarily. what i was merely attempting to point out was the statement, while appearing to have content, had none.
i want you to do mine next.
Right, ok, I was one step beyond that. I Was thinking that a Scummy Drain would say something meaningless [as you point out] to misdirect us into looking someplace else, anywhere but looking at Drain.
I left off everything before role confirmation, as it’s pointless in determining his alignment. I’m also just going to paraphrase posts rather than quote, as it’s faster and I always screw up the damned coding. Plus, there are 72 posts and this is going to be a damned slog regardless.
175: – Confirms, says he has a Town power role.
185 – Says that anything other than a confirmation of no recruitment from Mahaloth means we need to consider recruitment an option. Lynching people who are anti-Town is a given, but figuring out what that is might be harder, and that’s what we should be focusing on. Explains that claiming a power role is a game he plays with Scum.
194 – Refuses to answer questions about his soft claim because it’s doing the Scum’s work for them. Says that Town should ignore his claim.
228 – Asks ed if he has powers, since his PM has a powers section.
240 – Reminds Gadarene that the mod said no powers during Night 0.
244 – Says it’s important to discuss discrepancies in people’s descriptions of their roles during the handshaking. Mentions that ed is either not vanilla or that vanilla PMs have a “powers” section. Discusses the difference between section and paragraph break with peeker.
246 – Tells peeker that if he didn’t want to discuss section vs. paragraph break, he shouldn’t have attacked ed over it.
253 – Is unsure if peeker is attacking him or just being incomprehensible.
259 – His victory section is a paragraph break, not a separate section. Some snark with peeker.
265 – Peeker isn’t clear.
268 – Peeker was the first to bring up semantics. Also, he’s still not clear.
273 – Never defended ed, just countered peeker’s unfounded accusations. Thinks what ed posted regarding wincon section was clear. Says that peeker accused ed of obfuscation through semantic niggling, when really peeker is the one who was doing that.
349 – Wanted to put out an early vote, but re-read the thread and doesn’t see anything that stands out as worthy of one. Doesn’t place any value in Town confirmation through handshaking. Thinks it’s possible that Scum could slip while doing it, so is fine with other people handshaking, but won’t do it himself. Comes up with the idea of handshaking through a “signed” hash.
357 – Estimates number of Scum in game and gives number of mislynches we have for each potential number of Scum. Assumes 5 Scum.
359 – Refuses to engage Gadarene’s questions about his power role claim.
363 – Says that his analysis of Scum numbers wasn’t considering power roles, and that he addressed recruitment/godfather in a previous post. Also, in response to SP/Mahaloth, says the less mod intervention the better.
369 – Says he didn’t consider every recruitment possibility in his numbers analysis, nor did he ever claim to. Says that Town to Mason recruitment does not change victory conditions.
375 – Benefits of “salting” the hashcrumbs.
408 – Responds to Hoopy Frood voting for Chronos. Says that Hoopy’s vote is poorly-reasoned and votes for him.
429 – Says that peeker has complained a lot and contributed little.
632 – Not all Town will be members of the Fellowship, because of numbers. Considers the usefulness of everyone claiming “I’m in the fellowship” or “I’m not”. Advantages will include giving mostly confirmed Town (minus Boromir), disadvantages are that Scum might be looking for a specific member and can narrow it down. Thinks it’s too dangerous but worth discussion.
644 – Says his second soft claim (which I think was his mentioning of not having the vanilla PM) was a logical follow from the first, and a warning to other Town power roles to STFU with the handshaking. Wonders why more mods don’t consider open rulesets. Says SP was being wishy-washy. Accuses Meeko of near non-participation. Says to peeker that he doesn’t have a magic bag because he never promised to reveal anything. Votes SP for his 22-people-want-me-dead comment showing anti-Town thinking. Asks Mhaye to explain his SAHM acronym. Says SP makes a good point about peeker’s quantity vs. quality.
646 – General gameplay comments. This is not a gastard game. Unsure about the pressure being put on Chronos to reveal more of what he knows. Comments about mistrusting another player is useless, because mistrust is generally what the game is about. Name claims are not necessarily anti-Town. There are considerable risks with name claims for both Town and Scum, and forcing risks onto the Scum is valid play.
649 – Likes multi-voting.
656 – Asks MHaye if he defined his acronym before using it. Points out that Astral and SP jumped on his “second” claim as if it meant something more.
666 (ooooh) – Says peeker is unclear. Says that just because AP didn’t like his answers about why he soft-claimed doesn’t mean he didn’t answer. MHaye’s unexplained use of SAHM means that he used it somewhere else and explained it there. Says that this is worthy of a vote but he has a more suspicious target.
677 – In response to Nanook lambasting the fellowship/not idea, says he’s a fan of high-risk, high-reward ideas. Says that AP trying to shoot down the idea is scummy, but won’t vote him for it because he’s new.
683 – Responds to me by saying that it wasn’t the use of the acronym that bothered him, it was the use without explanation. Says that people usually explain new terms when they use them, so MHaye most likely had explained it somewhere else.
691 – Thinks it’s interesting that people are saying that their alignment matches their role name without much discussion, because it might out borderline roles that the Scum are looking for. Asks what the upside of consistency claiming is.
697 – Is not convinced that players with inconsistent names to alignment will be 3rd party. Says if we’re making claims based on our names, we might as well just name claim, because that at least forces scum to take risks.
Post 698, which I will not link to, says that this post was in response to Hoopy.
702 – A consistency claim has no risk for Scum and some potential risk for Town.
710 – Suggesting ideas, even bad ones, is pro-Town. Discussing them is also pro-Town. Doing bad ideas is anti-Town. Argues with Telcontar about the risk involved to Town in the name/alignment claim.
757 – Disagrees with me that MHaye’s use of that particular acronym would not have happened in an off-board Scum thread. Says that MHaye’s reasoning for using it didn’t matter if he was Town or Scum, and that he still thinks it’s more likely that he used it off-board in a Scum thread. Says that peeker is capable of posting clearly. Says that cucuy is using bad logic in his vote for SP (while mentioning that he is voting SP also), because peeker is not a true active participant in the game. Says a single Mason is still confirmable Town.
761 – Says every single Townie is the arbiter of what is anti-Town. Points out a good peeker post and asks him to post more like that.
767 – Expands on the single Mason comment earlier. In summary, any claimed Mason should not be lynched until the unconfirmed pool is gone.
768 – Tells SP that if he’s being mislynched, he should be looking for anti-Town motivations in other players and vote for them based on that.
783 – Agrees with peeker that self-preservation is not a win, especially for VT, whose job is to get NKed.
880 – Says to SP that he has not refused to answer questions about his soft claim, and that not liking the answers is not an excuse to deny their existence. Says that peeker is using poor logic when he says that ed tried to say he was confirmed Town by providing the vanilla PM in thread, and that peeker looks like Scum trying to get ed lynched by spinning his words.
884 – Unvotes SP after his claim. Says that his powers are confirmable, although his alignment may not be. Votes MHaye.
885 – Asks Telcontar why he was voting for SP if he didn’t want to lynch him that Day.
888 – Tells peeker that claiming vanilla is not the same thing as claiming to be confirmed. Says peeker is using faulty logic.
895 – Says that evidence of use of another board is a Scum tell, and how quickly other players figured out the acronym was beside the point, as MHaye’s lack of explanation means he likely explained it elsewhere. Again says that ed never claimed to be confirmed. Is undecided on ed, but wants arguments against him to be sound.
908 – Says that SP’s claim fits in with canon and color, but has issues with what “claim” means in the context of him having to claim after finding Scum. Says that it’s too vague and that he doesn’t like post restrictions.
912 – Says that MHaye’s explanation of why he used the acronym (because he doesn’t like to use the term Scum) would apply even if he was Scum or Town, and his problem is not that he used the acronym, but how.
916 is a joke post, not linking to it.
941 – Investigations are going to be a little bit in doubt because recruitment is not specifically off the table.
1004 – Switching vote from MHaye to SP because he no longer believes that the claim is plausible.
1140 – Happy with his current vote.
1410 – Votes MHaye with his first post on Day Two. Gives a second vote for peeker for his multitude of fluff posts noising up the thread. Says he’s intentionally trying to muddy the game, which is scummy. Says that alignment investigator is easy for Scum to fake, because third-parties aren’t going to admit they’re wrong. Does not post during fluff-only Nights. Thinks Meeko is asking for a PM from him.
1417 – Accuses Meeko of fishing since Meeko was really asking if he got any PMs overnight. Again accuses peeker of noise.
1435 – Is unsure why Meeko or Snickers expect info from him.
1447 – A different way of saying the same thing he said in 1435.
1631 – Votes Meeko ahead of MHaye and peeker for role-fishing. Says that he’s not confirmed and never claimed to be, and doesn’t have a magic bag because he never promised anything. Not answering questions about his role because to do so would be to reveal it. Says that Town has nothing to gain from it. Again reiterates in response to a question from cucuy that Meeko is being scummy by role-fishing.
1632 – Asks peeker why he was assuming that he was either the Cop, RB, or vote changer.
1635 – Searching for power roles is one kind of fishing. Asking a power role reveal info is another kind. Revealing info is not necessarily a reasonable pro-Town activity. Only the person who has that info can judge. A claim of a power role does not have any implied promise of future information revelation.
1641 – Says that Meeko is now making good accusations of him, but it doesn’t erase what he did before. Meeko and peeker are trying to accuse him of getting “townie cred” and making a case against him for an unpopular tactic that didn’t give him any cred at all.
1646 – Has not accused anyone else of trying to get cred.
1652 – Only comments negatively about people who are using bad tactics. Points out the difference between Meeko and Snickers trying to fish and my attacking him based on other reasons, without trying to gain more info from him.
1657 – Thinks that drawing out anti-Town behavior is a good thing. Asks ed which Townies have been forced to act in an anti-Town manner due to his actions.
1676 – Thinks ed is wrong that Town was likely to react in an anti-Town manner because of his soft claim. Is not sure what Meeko is on about, and tells him to vote for who he thinks is Scum and tell everyone else why, rather than trying to figure out the whole game on a meta level.
1700 – Says that he thinks Meeko’s issue is that the game is a closed rule set. Is still voting for him because of his anti-Town actions.
1743 – Asks Meeko to quote a statement that Meeko said he made about how Pleo understands at least part of why Meeko is voting for him.
1762 – Tells Meeko that he misunderstood. An accusation of lying is not anti-Town, but role-fishing is. Is equally suspicious of Meeko, peeker, and MHaye. Votes peeker because he’s in the lead amongst the three.
1763 – Summarizes cases against each. Peeker = spamming, Meeko = fishing, MHaye = potential for off-board conversation
1779 – Responds to Gadarene asking why MHaye would use SAHM on the Scum board. Says the same thing he said before–issue is not that he used it, but how. Responds to my annoyance at his multi-voting by saying he’s making it clear who he wants to vote for.
1786 – Talks about the acronym thing again, this time to Chronos. Says to me that he doesn’t think his votes are confusing, but will color the other votes differently just in case.
And that’s it. Will come back and post my analysis in a few. I’ve been at this for nearly two hours and my brain hurts.
And how, exactly, did that statement do that?
Also, peeker…FUCK. YOU. 
First off, Drain Bead. Your post is all kinds of weird, drawing conclusions that don’t follow your internal logic. Ed has already done an excellent deconstruction of your posts, so I don’t need to go into any more detail here.
@Red Skeezix:
You’re ignoring Chronos’ posted reason for voting for Ed. You’re ignoring most of my posted reasons for voting for Ed. Our case does not just boil down to “the handshake didn’t work.” Our job is to catch scum in lies. To use an example from the page before, consider this lie:
@Special Ed:
Maybe you should be voting for me then. :).
In case you missed it, I want to re-ask a question from earlier. When you handshook in your 4 previous games, did you use the powers section?
@Peeker:
That cracked me up so much, you have no idea.
Okay. So I know I said I wanted a break, but I don’t want to have to deal with this after lunch, so I’m going to muscle through.
First off. If anything, Pleonast is damned consistent. I find a few things he did a bit disingenuous, though. He talks a lot in the peeker vs. ed thing about how peeker is the one who brought up semantics and is being a bit of a hypocrite for accusing ed of trying to use semantics to trip people up. But he’s just as likely to use semantics. For example, when people say that he’s refusing to answer questions about his role, he always says something like “I have answered, and just because you don’t like the answers I’ve given doesn’t change that fact.” But in analyzing his WoW, the only actual answers he’s given has been “I’m not going to answer any questions.” Which is AN answer, yes, but it’s not the answers that people are looking for, and he knows that. To say that he’s answered questions people have asked about his role by answering the questions with “I’m not going to answer” is weaselly–it makes him look better by saying that he’s answered, but the answers he’s provided were not actual answers to the questions asked. (Which is not to say that I think he SHOULD, provided he’s an actual Town power role–I’m just pointing out a bit of hypocrisy.)
Ditto with the MHaye thing. He says multiple times that it’s not the use of the acronym that bothers him, it’s HOW it was used. But he’s still sidestepping the question that’s being asked! Yes, MHaye did say that he prefers not to use Scum, and that’s fine…but nobody’s really asking about what MHaye prefers. The question that’s being asked, which has been posed in different ways four separate times by my count, is WHY do you think that MHaye would have used that particular acronym for the first time on Night Zero (or, I guess, Day One) of a SCUM board, given that Scum have no need to come up with anything to refer to themselves as other than “us” or “we”? If you insist that the use of an acronym in the thread without reference to what it means is a tell that the acronym has been used and explained elsewhere, why couldn’t it have been a Mason board, for example? Wouldn’t Masons have a need to refer to the Scum as another entity that the Scum might not? But Pleonast does not answer these specific questions, instead repeating his same basic answer over and over again, claiming he’s already addressed it when he hasn’t.
Another thing that I’ve noticed is that while ed has gotten a lot of flack (and votes) for his bad idea, Pleonast’s almost equally bad idea (post 632) garnered hardly any attention at all. Heck, it was barely even discussed. I didn’t even notice it until my re-read of his posts. Had we actually done what he suggested, would we all be voting for Pleo now? And is that idea not just a glorified (and more subtle) way of fishing for potential power roles, as he rightly accuses Meeko and Snickers of attempting repeatedly? Or is it only fishing if you ask one person directly?
Other than those issues, his play is consistent with that of what he claims to be, which I was not expecting to see as much of as I did. I’d like to see how he responds to this before placing a vote. I have to admit that other than what I mentioned here, doing the WoW caused me to lessen my suspicions of him just a bit. If he addresses the issues I brought up sufficiently, I may begin looking elsewhere.
and scum do like to make what appear to be meaningful contributions while really not saying anything. it keeps the volume up but doesn’t really corner you into a hard position. i am not willing to make that leap on drain yet.
that’s why i am having trouble with an ed lynch. if he is scum and did the handshakey to out power roles then it was effective. but it was only effective because other folks played along with that game. and a scum ed could not know beforehand whether it would work or not so he leaves himself open to a whole shitpot of monday morning quarterbacking (which has occurred mightily). and if he is scum then that means he would have wanted to coordinate with his buds to get a little traction behind that ploy.
i find it more likely, at this point, that ed was just galumphing through the forest disturbing the peace and tranquility of the arborean setting. that’s a much more likely town play than a scum play.
my two cents, ymmv, etc.
Well, to be fair, this statement has me looking back at you. No worries on that one.
name the hotel and i’ll pay for half. 
I don’t see why my strong misgivings and your potential scummitude are mutually exclusive. I can still have nagging doubts even when I think you very well might be Scum. Hell, absent a Cop investigation or you claiming Scum, if I didn’t have those doubts I’d start to wonder. My post was merely an attempt to walk myself through WHY I have those doubts, and to show why I’m pressing those voting for you to make cases other than the handshake idea. This is because I think that while the drawbacks of your handshake are showing up now, the potential benefits may not show up until much later. And I think everyone is ignoring the benefits because the drawbacks are so immediate, and blaming you for something that isn’t entirely your fault.
I think I addressed the rest of your points earlier, but my scroll back to figure out exactly what Astral was referring to by your excellent analysis caused me to realize that I didn’t address this bit. Hopefully it makes it clearer for everyone.
And I guess by walking myself through that, I am willing to put my money where my mouth is and NOT vote for you. I agree with peeker’s most recent analysis of the situation.
Also, peeker, I didn’t say WHO would be fucking you…
This was back when the “handshake” started. Skeezix seems matter of fact here. Bolding Mine.
Nothing by itself here, but if we are looking at Skeezix for a possible slip on scum communication, this might need to go along with.