Checking in to the thread. My 2 cents… well, actually, my 4 cents:
On lynching the lurker: I’m generally against lynching randomly, as because of scum’s lesser (fewer?) numbers, it’s much more likely we’ll hit town. Also, I’m don’t like the notion of lynching the quieter posters, especially early in the game. The whole “should we lynch the lurker” argument gets some talk in every game AFAIS, and it’s safe to assume that scum will avoid the appearance of lurking. It’s more useful to lynch based on the substantiveness of posts.
On mass role claims: Seriously, has one of those ever worked out for town? I’m only being 25% sarcastic here; I really would like to know. In the first instance I experienced, it was a closed game, nobody was town, and everybody lied. It was somewhat useful for other scum clans, but not so much for the Masons (this was the Not-so-Simpletown game).
In the latest game, it was pretty much useless for town. Again, all the scum lied, and one scum did get caught out in his lie, but it came down to one person’s word against another, and the wrong person ended up lynched.
There may have been instances where mass claims were beneficial to town, but I’m inclined to agree with Imaginary Fiend. They won’t necessarily give townies worthwhile info, since the scum can easily lie, but they will certainly give scum extra info. Seems like a very bad idea.