Happy to be of service 
Yeah, Koldanar mentioned something similar up above about peekercpa. He’s definitely been posting a huge amount, and there’s a lot of chaff in there about coding and whatnot. But to me it reads like eager townie rather than obfuscating scum (reminds me of myself in my first game, actually). I wouldn’t think a scum would be waving the “look at me” flag so much.
I’ve been thinking about a person claiming a power role to avoid a band wagon kill (one especially uninformed as our first lynch). It’s my understanding that roles are rare, baring any mason’s (I know what they are, just not how they play out), we’ll have just one doctor and detective (or about two similar roles), if we’re unfortunate enough to lynch one of those the first turn town is serious trouble. What precautions does town usually take so this doesn’t happen? If it does, how can we make the best of it? Granted it looks like a 1/8 chance of lynching a town power role, the odds being twice as likely that we’ve picked scum that’s then claiming to be a power role for town. The reason we’d even lend any credence to his/her claim at all is we think such a power role might exist, we still just don’t know. I see these as the five likely outcomes of a power claim to avoid a lynch:
The person about to be lynched says they are in a pro town power role and are either telling the truth (12.5% of that I guessing, yet will still then not outlast the night) or:
1.) Someone else stands up and says no, because THEY are the role and are not lying.
2.) Someone else stands up and says no, because THEY say they are the role and are lying. (a ballsy strategy that only pays off if both are scum, which will ultimately provide a massive tell in later days)
3.) No one else stands up because person actually in said role is scared of being night killed.
4.) No one else stands up because the role claimed doesn't actually exist and so no one can honestly counter claim.
The odds for #4 cannot be determined but I see them as unlikely (this game was claimed to be pretty vanilla), the chance #3 happens is very very good in the beginning (and since its the best outcome for town, the essence of my conclusion), and if #1 happens and we lynch the first guy (town or no, killing all liars seems like a solid policy) we’ll then know if the person lynched is the actual power role that was claimed. If so, the counter claimer is a dead man, a town power role for one early scum (I’m including lying townies) is a high casualty rate but I believe near acceptable.
The odds of picking scum or a townie that’s lying is so much greater than actually lynching someone whose honest in claiming a power role that can’t actually be proven that I see no rational alternative.
We have to lynch in spite of power role claim, if only to keep the good guys honest and the bad guys shitting their pants.
Arrg; this is something I have to go back and check. Damn weekends don’t let me read much for the time being. I’m in semi-lurk mode till tomorrow (maybe longer) so I wanted a vote out.
Grrr. Okay, I screwed up, so I’ve decided not to punish zuma for the edit infraction.
Reasoning:
My original plan was to remove any player for editing a post and be strict about it; however, I forgot to put the rule in my list of rules which I posted on page one.
Hawkeyeop reminded me of the omission, and I planned on reposting the rules with the no edit rule in place at the beginning of Day One. Unfortunately, I forgot.
So as of now I never explicitly stated the no-edit rule, so it doesn’t seem fair to punish zuma for the infraction (even though he should know better!).
So zuma will not be removed. But I’m reposting the rules right now with the no-edit rule there for all to see.
The game will operate on a weekly schedule. Days will start at some semi-arbitrary point during the weekend; ideally Saturday Afternoon (4PM EDT), but no later than Sunday Morning. Days will end at precisely on Thursdays at 4:00 PM EDT by the SDMB clock. Board outages will not change the end of Day; plan carefully. All votes must have a time stamp of Thursday, 3:59 PM EDT or earlier. Posts and votes with time stamps Thursday, 4:00PM EDT or later will be ignored.
Night instructions are due by Saturday 4:00PM EDT by SDMB clock.
Failure to meet the deadline will result in no action.
Vote LikeThis
Votes must be in bold blue, on a single line, by itself. Please don’t play hide the vote from the moderator. Everyone will be happier with accurate vote counts. (For strict interpretation, any vote in blue will be considered an intended vote. Bold, single line, by itself is a moderator request, not a requirement)
Unvote LikeThis
Unvotes are to be made in bold red, on a single line, by itself.
Messages to the moderator should be in bold green, on a single line.
The moderator encourages questions to the moderator to be sent via PM.
Lynches will be by plurality. The leading vote-getter at 4:00PM EDT on Thursday will die.
Ties are bad. Don’t do them.
Ties will be resolved by random lynch of the tied vote-getters.
A No Lynch will occur if an uncontested plurality of votes accumulates for No Lynch. A tie with No Lynch will result in someone getting lynched as if the No Lynch votes didn’t exist at all.
Substitutions/Removal:
I will allow substitutions up through the Dawn of Day Four. Past Day Four’s Dawn, missing players will be removed from the game with no public indication of role or alignment. Substitutions may happen at anytime. Removals will occur at Dusk.
Prodding:
The moderator will not prod anyone. Failure to participate will result in substitution/removal. A minimum of four substantive (non-fluff) posts is required per day to maintain standing in Simpletown. Less than that and people will forget you are part of the town (Substitution/Removal).
Win Condition:
Individual win conditions will not change during the course of the game. Your team wins when all threats to your team are neutralized.
Closed Setup:
An inventory of roles will not be published.
The standard Town role PM will be public information.
Stuff you should already know:
I’ve gotta say, I’m not unhappy with my random vote. Menocchio has been really quiet after such a commanding presence in my last game - pushing votes, posting a lot, and being really assertive. I haven’t seen that today. He was a Doctor then, granted, but hanging back early doesn’t seem like something he would do as a townie.
sachertorte, why is editing in Mafia so frowned upon?
Sorry,
[COLOR=GREEN]sachertorte, why is editing in Mafia so frowned upon?[/GREEN]
Thank you sach…
I agree with you. He seems to be around just enough to meet the minimum requirements, but is not contributing much at all. It reads “lurky” to me.
Since Nanook has returned and offered some substance, I am going to
Unvote Nanook of the North Shore
and
**Vote Menocchio **
Og do I suck,
sachertorte, why is editing in Mafia so frowned upon?
I was under the weather, still am to an extent. Please don’t read anything into my relative lack of presence than the fact that I’m all hopped up on NyQuil.
(Color Removed)
Because if someone lets something slip we don’t want them to go and edit it out. That leads into arguments over who saw what and editted what.
Post editing is not permitted because the written record should be immutable. I could see arguments that the SDMB disallows editing of posts longer than 5 minutes past posting is a sufficient restriction, but I’m not bucking the no-edit tradition for this game.
Preview is your friend.
I suppose I should elaborate on my thoughts for the day so far.
I usually could go for the “lynch the lurkers” thing, except that I’m rather sympathetic to those that couldn’t drag themselves to their computers this weekend.
Like others, I’m most suspicious of peekercha, but that’s likely just because he’s made himself so visible.
So I guess I should lurk 
I don’t think peekercpa is trying to cover for being scum with his eager-beaver posting, it seems to me more like he doesn’t want to be lurky. I would tend to think he was being scummy if all he was doing was throwing suspicion around (which it does seem like he’s doing, but I’ll attribute it to zeal, as others have), but he’s also making fluffy sorts of posts about his evening plans and his coding issues. That doesn’t strike me in as something that he would do in an attempt to draw suspicion away from himself, which makes me think there’s not a lot of premeditation. In the absence of more compelling evidence I’m going to give him the benefit of the doubt.
Sorry guys, trying to catch up after the weekend, as I don’t tend to have time for the games on the weekend AND I’m trying to catch up on the maelstrom that is the off-board Batman game… I saw this right near the end and figured I’d comment on it…
To put an example to this, in the Sekham game which I moderated, one scum actually slipped up and posted something in the game board that was intended for the scum board and another player caught it before he editted the post out. Comparing this to a live game, anything he said would have been heard by all players, so it’s not fair to anyone who didn’t happen to be logged in right then that they didn’t see it because it’s information outside of the intended bounds of the game. Even further, by editting, by virtue of the fact that it had been seen, he implicated not only himself, but a fellow scum, where had he not editted, it could have been played as an intended slip designed to smear a fellow scum.
Besides, the only legitimate reason to edit is to fix typos or grammar, and with the no edit rule, I’m sure most people will cut everyone else slack, unless the spelling or grammar is so horrific the post is incomprehensible. Either way, IMO, if you’re too careless to actually preview and you DO make a slip, you probably deserve whatever consequence may come.
I can’t put my finger on it, but Shadowfax is acting slightly different today. Maybe fewer people are asking questions, or maybe he’s revising his strategy to avoid looking skummy. I’m still suspicious, but…
Ah, whatever. It’s the first day, it won’t turn into a bandwagon (famous last words)
Vote Shadowfax
On the other hand, this might be confirmation bias rearing it’s ugly head.
Sitnam seems very ordinary, as well as zuma, fluiddruid, and Meccichino (iff he is under the weather as said). Not much to say here.
Queen of Town is striking me as suspicious. She’s posted more than her share of fluff (correct me if I’m wrong, but name thing, and blackberry thing), and I haven’t really seen anything substantial, except ‘trust peekercpa’. I may switch my vote.