Good.
Apparently not. Which is rather the point.
That’s a question? Fair enough: no; it wasn’t.
Chronos, giving scum no targets isn’t an option that I’m aware of, so it isn’t clear what your argument is there. It’s not like if we don’t confirm anyone they’re going to wonder who they could possibly night-kill.
Following up to my own suggestion: paulwhoisaghost last posted in #168 (if I used the thread tools correctly), and his last few posts were about the distribution of character names from various seasons of LOST. In short, all he posted was fluff.
This does not help my defense one bit.
(For comparison, I volunteered for the substitutes list around post #173.)
Surely you know that the Scum already know who the Townies are. We can’t give them no targets.
This is a dangerous way to play and certainly anti-town. Waiting until each player is under suspicion leads to last minute claims, vote switching and bandwagons, all of which favor Scum. By reducing the number of unconfirmed town, we will have fewer people to scrutinize and consider as lynching options. Consider the case of two or more Masons who have claimed and mutually confirmed each other. From there on out the Town is able to read their posts with the assumption that their reasoning and motivation is solidly pro-Town AND it allows Town to look elsewhere for Scum. This also forces Scum into a WIFOM situation every night deciding if they should kill a confirmed town, hunt for other possible power roles, kill a random townie, etc.
If I didn’t already have my vote on you, I would certainly do so after this.
Well, yes, but in that sense their pool of targets is the same size no matter what we do. But surely you know that some targets are of higher value to Scum than others? If we mass-claim, then we give Scum a large pool of high-value targets, whereas if we don’t mass-claim, then we give them zero high-priority targets.
**
I reject the question. **
I further reject your pushing nature here. There is no reason to ask this, other than to get me to thinking about voting the other person today. That, or you are trying to make me look bad, even though I’ve already claimed. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but there is pinging here, it’s a hell of a lot better vote for me now, than the vote I held.
You assume I wanted to change my vote. I clearly did not. As I understand the question, you are asking why I didn’t vote for one of two candidates. Apparently, not voting for either, was not a good enough reason for you.
**And what if they both prove to be town? **
**
Unvote USCDiver**
Vote Scuba Ben
Which players would compose the large pool of high-value targets?
Because I found neither of the main candidates particularly scummy at the time (despite the rampant scumminess of Chronos’ statement today) and the vote was clearly not going to end in a tie?
Look, it’s not a good policy to force town onto those kinds of votes, because A) it dilutes the ability to read motives of people who switch to them voluntarily and B) it gives the scum camouflage for piling on to the candidate of their choice in a swarm of townies being instructed to do the same thing.
Forcing townies to switch to one of the main candidates at the end of the day = giving Scum a free anti-bandwagon affirmative defense of “but I found HIM more scummy than OTHER GUY, even though I don’t find either of them particularly scummy”. When we actually rail a scum, I want to have a much better idea of the motives of the people who switched around to save them.
The flaw in your plan is this: Most townies don’t claim until they have to, which is usually nearer the end of the day. If they then are believed, then we have so much less hunting time, so what if we land on a doc by mistake or something?
For that matter, the name claim has been proposed as a potential rubric to help sorting–especially if there’s a cop who can use it. Not as a be-all end-all.
As in, an ordered list of suspicion? I suppose, but anyone can come up with some criterion for producing such a list.
I explained why I voted for you (and, more to your question, why I didn’t vote for the others) in Post 765, post 766, post 767, and post 840. If you have any additional questions, feel free to ask.
Checking in. I am back online and will post my thoughts and vote later this evening (and respond to your question, Scuba_Ben).
The real issue, the only issue in fact, is finding and lynching mafia. Yet another discussion of name claims (including your latest “are you on this list”) is the sort of thing that keeps a person looking active without running any danger of actually being helpful. you post about that, town argues about whether its safe to confirm or deny, I call the whole thing useless, shadow posts an alternate list…so, in effect, lots of sound and fury, but no substance. I’ve noticed that meta issues tend to very rarely pan out to much of anything, so discussing them really is a distraction.
I got the internet only fios, we didn’t have any real use for the landline or tv options. And (as you might have guessed) it’s installed. I’m now following this thread very actively again.
I could be wrong about story. I was tempted to vote IF just to see whether I should be paying attention to the day 1 vote switching (if he turns up innocent then all of that is a null tell), but at this point he isn’t any more suspicious than anyone else. Chronos isn’t striking me as any different than in previous games (where he also floated some off the wall ideas), and I’m inclined to think he’s innocent, so I thought it best to cast some vote rather than passively allow people to rally around him.
Absolutely, but how? The best idea I had was that program, and it appears to be insufficient, at least until we have more information. Let’s get some more ideas!
Zeriel, thanks very much for the detailed reply. Hopefully it’ll improve my Mafia-playing. Which, as noted overNight, mostly consists of me putting both feet in my mouth and then trying to cram a hand in.
ShadowFacts, I appreciate the response. #840 summarizes as you didn’t see a case to be made for either player. Fair enough.
Meeko, I wasn’t trying to be pushing, or at least not as pushing as I seem to have come across. Your response did do one useful thing: I now feel that I can assess ShadowFacts’s posting history without any qualms of OMGUS.
I also see that cardinal_fang checked in. Welcome back! I’ll do my best to cover both you and SF at once. Efficiency, and all that.
Wall of Words – ShadowFacts
Pure fluff posts ignored.
I apologize for not having URL links, but I got the formatting very wrong and hit the same post every time. It’s clearly the p parameter.
84 – SF says he doesn’t like automatically lynching the lurker on Day 1.
114 – SF comes out against suspecting people for suggesting ideas. He also is disinclined towards a name claim.
181 – The reason SF voted for me late on Day 2, and now: “everyone must give documented reasons for your votes”. He says he’ll “be looking at voters who don’t articulate good reasons carefully”. In and of itself, this is a good policy.
202, clarified in 211 – Thanks for storyteller’s #200, which had summarized the Lost characters.
220 – Non-comment on pedescribe voting and unvoting for Chronos.
226 – Doesn’t vote for Meeko but keeps him under observation, for a weak case on pedescribe. SF voted for me for a weak case on a vote, but didn’t vote for Meeko for a weak case.
248 – Tries to talk Meeko out of a spat. Continues to point out that Meeko had a weak case against pedescribe.
285 – Third post about Meeko having a weak case for a vote. Also says that Meeko’s vote for Jimmy Chitwood “doesn’t seem much better.”
319 – Fourth in the series of exchanges with a snarling Meeko.
362 – Fifth in the exchange with Meeko.
385 – Votes for Telcontar, with the reason: “telcontar went from reading pedescribe as “town,” though “slightly concerned,” to voting for him.”
408 – Post-count and lurker check. Flags Paulwhoisaghost and BillMC as low-activity; the two are later replaced. (Counts himself as having posted 11 times up to that point, so our counts agree.)
459 – About the name claim idea: “Fiend’s language was SO “colorful” that he’d have to be a pretty ballsy scum to come out that hard against it.” SF is torn between IF and Telcontar, keeps his vote on Telcontar.
485 – Switches his vote to Ichini Sanshigo (since revealed as Town). Unvotes Telcontar partly because his “current vote is floating in irrelevancy”. Votes for Ichini for having an unexplained contradiction.
544 – Apologizes to Ichini, suggests looking at who started the case against Ichini, which he identifies as Chronos. Also says, “I could have stayed on the sidelines with a pointless vote”.
642 – Weekend check-in, isn’t thrilled by the idea of lynching IF, promises to reread the arguments on IF.
In the next two posts, 643 and 644, I start playing. In 644 I vote for ShadowFacts on the weak basis that he put Ichini into a tie.
653 – Says that the case against IF is based on what people said about IF the previous Day. Smudges pedescribe for joining the Day 2 bandwagon on IF as “a lazy vote.”
655 – Replies to my vote and shows how weak my vote is. In 656 I acknowledge his reply and in 658 I change my vote to Zeriel, but it’s still a weak and hurried vote.
690 – Challenges Oredigger on suspecting the three last-minute votes for IF. (These were ShadowFacts, storyteller, and Oredigger himself.) Refers back to his 655 for why suspecting voters for IF depends on suspecting IF.
753 – Acknowledges he hasn’t voted yet.
765 – Lays out his brief assessments of five votes, and says he’ll go back and review Telcontar and my voting.
766 – Votes for me based on my inaccurate assessment of Zeriel.
767 – Having reviewed Telcontar’s vote, he is not persuaded to vote to lynch Oredigger.
840 – Says he didn’t have time to review cardinal_fang’s vote on Chronos, and says he won’t change his vote with 15 minutes to go.
903 – Lists major characters in Lost, subtracts those who have been name-claimed or killed off.
930 – Posts a combined list (his and storyteller’s) of Lost character names.
947 – Back to mixing it up with a rough-edged Meeko.
956 – Lists possible reasons that there were no night kills.
960 – Mixes it up with Meeko one more time.
975 – Votes for me for having weak votes on Day 2, waffling, and backing off when my weak reasons get shown to be weak.
1008 – Concurs with Zeriel that Chronos in #1005 posted a ridiculous idea.
1030 – Replies to my question on why he didn’t change his one-off vote at the end of Day 2.
Assessment: ShadowFacts did not vote for Meeko on Day 1, even though he had three consecutive posts about how Meeko’s votes on pedescribe and Jimmy Chitwood were very weak. SF unvoted for Telcontar at the end of the day because SF’s vote was a one-off. On the other hand, SF voted for me on Days 2 and 3 because I had weak votes that I retracted as soon as they were shown to be weak, and did NOT withdraw his one-off vote on me.
ShadowFacts, would you please explain this contradiction? You didn’t vote for Meeko for materially the same reasons you DID vote for me; you changed your one-off vote on Day 1 to one of the two leading candidates, but did not do the same on Day 2.
I’ll review cardinal_fang after dinner.
Wall of words – cardinal_fang
(Yay, I got the URL tags correct this time!)
117 – Agrees with Chronos (#112) that a mass name-claim would not be a good idea.
125 – Says he looked up his character, and can’t tell if the name and role match.
217 – Opposes ranking votes. Continues to oppose a name-claim for the present.
287 – Acknowledges the weakness in a name-claim that the role is not necessarily obviously connected to the character. Votes for pedescribe as “borderline bizarre” actions, and says it’s “not a great case.”
294 – Talks about building a case, and how on Day 1 there’s very little of a case on anybody.
463 – Unvotes pedescribe as now having a better case on somebody, who turns out to be Imaginary Fiend. He votes like this based on IF posting in #129 on the dangers of name-claims if the names haven’t been randomized from their roles. Fang’s reason is that Mahaloth posted in #124 that he “more or less tried to put the characters where they usually seem to be” in terms of Town / Scum.
464 – Defends his low post count.
716 – Votes for Chronos after a Wall of Words. Assesses Chronos as afraid of a name-claim, probably because Chronos is Scum, but possibly because Chronos is a Town power role and would be outed by a name-claim.
719 – Discusses with Meeko on name-claiming and why Fang continues to think it’s a bad idea.
720 – Rebuts Chronos’s defense (# 718).
723 – Rebuts Meeko.
724 – Replies to Chronos.
789 – Another reply to Chronos and maintains his vote on Chronos.
792 – Asks pedescribe to explain his vote on Fang.
793 – Asks what a Redirector role is.
939 – Replies to pedescribe (#797, a “really really strong gut feeling.”), which is in reply to 792.
943 – No comment on the character list strategy.
Assessment: cardinal_fang was fixated on the name-claim idea (and so were many other people on Day 1). Fang also had decent reasons for his two votes, so I think the fact that he was the only vote for both runners-up was a false positive.
But please note #287 – Fang votes for pedescribe on a weak case, and ShadowFacts does not appear to call him out for this. Also please note #797 – pedescribe votes for Fang on nothing more than a gut feeling, and ShadowFacts has not called him out for this.
I await SF’s reply to the question in my previous post.
I also ask for feedback on my two long posts. How’d I do on assessing the players? What should I be looking at that I didn’t? What distractors did I get caught by?
Now that you point it out, I’m wondering about ShadowFacts’ difference in behaviour towards you and Meeko, too, but I’ll wait until I see a reply from him to say more on that.
And I don’t think that cardinal_fang voting for both of the runners-up is grounds for suspicion: After all, both of the lynchees turned out to be Town. So basically, what that amounts to is that he hasn’t lynched a Townie yet, which if it means anything more than luck, is a good thing.
**Heads Up:
Having internet problems. I expect them to be resolved, but if not, slight delay in end of Day.
I will get to an internet location to end Day, but if don’t be too surprised if there is a minor delay.
Continue.**
Yes, I will respond, but first let me say that I think your analysis here of someone who is currently voting for you is well done and fairly unbiased, so thanks for not going all OMGUS on me. That actually gives me a little pause about voting for you, which I will have to consider. But anyway…
I explained the reason I did not vote for Meeko in post 226: “Well, I am tempted to vote for Meeko, too, just because that has to be the biggest steaming pile of voteage I think I’ve ever seen (that is, his “case” against pedescribe). But, because it’s so ridiculous, I’m leaning that it’s more likely overeager Town than overeager Scum. I’ll reserve judgment for the time being.” (bolding mine, added now) I re-assessed and reiterated that reason in post 285: “All that said, meeko still reads like overeager Townie to me, so I’m not going to vote for him at the moment.” My read on **Meeko **at the time was overeager Town, and I still stand by that read. Bad reasons for voting for someone are anti-Town and can be an indicator of scum, but they are not *necessarily * or *always *scummy. My initial vote on you was not just that you had a bad case, but that your case was based on a (seemingly, to me) deliberate misrepresentation of Zeriel’s post. Bad case + misrepresentation = more likely to be scum. My vote for you toDay was for that and more, as outlined in my vote post.
The reason I changed my vote to someone in lynch contention on Day One is that the reason for my vote on **Telcontar **was substantially similar to the reason that **Chronos **had presented to vote for **Ichini **(both had minorly contradicted themselves in a short period of time). Since the cases/reasons were pretty much the same, it was better for the Town for me to weigh in on a relevant case. (And, to reiterate, not a wise move for scum looking to stay out of the spotlight). The reason I did not switch on Day Two was because I was not convinced on any of the existing cases (and unfortunately did not have time to review one of them, because it was huge and I was swamped), and while reviewing them came upon something you did that I thought was suspicious (see post 1030 above where I link to the posts in question, in which I lay out my thinking and process in detail).
In sum, while on the surface and in a summary, my actions may seem like contradictions, in context they are not at all.
And I just realized that this is Tuesday night already, and I still don’t have a vote down. I don’t have a strong case on anyone, but the strongest case I have is for storyteller. First of all, his place in the voting patterns, as identified by my program, is scummier than anyone else (though, as I mentioned, not by all that much). And second, his position on the whole name-claim thing looks bad to me: He was basically silent on it before the rule-change, when it really would have hurt Scum, but then became its biggest proponent after the rule-change, when it at the very least wouldn’t be nearly as good.
So I’m going to Vote storyteller. I’ll try to be on tomorrow morning before the Dusk, but in case I’m not, at least I have a vote in now.