Random Mafia

You were all like a town vig would Vig freudian to keep us from a mislynch today.

Seems way too convenient. This game seems full of ““But of course that is why X would do that.”” It just strikes me as knee-jerk to the first reason someone would do something.

**Just because a path can be taken to get to an action, doesn’t mean it is the exclusive path to that action. It doesn’t even mean that path was taken. **

Scum would want town to go down the primrose path of assumption. Especially if it plays into an assumed “That’s better for town if it happens that way” school of thought.

But Easter has gotten me too far removed from this game. I need to catch up.

We have people flipping coins to place votes now?! really?

**But, I think we have a red herring factory elsewhere. It needs to be stopped. **

I have suspicions, but not on text color.

Bringing this up does no good for town, in any event. Noise, not signal, at a point when the game can barely handle more noise.

Vote TexCat

Ack.

Unvote

Vote TexCat

I think that Chronos is looking pretty bad right now between his missing the non in front of third parties and his lack of responses to Guri. I’m going to go back and flip through his posts and see if I can find anything more substantial but for right now I thinking that a pretty good case is shaping up on him.

I don’t buy the Tom ‘slip’ considering he was referring to a post in this thread over Night. I tend to look at the simplest explanation and that seems to match up pretty well to the facts but I’ll review Tom while I’m at it in case I missed something during my primary reading.

Yeah, it definitely looks like Chronos is trying to trump up cases against people. I don’t think it makes sense that he missed the “no” in that sentence, because if he did, what he was reading Guiri as saying was patently untrue according to the rules. For me to accept his explanation, I’d have to also accept that Chronos somehow didn’t notice that there are no third parties in this game, something that was explained in the rules posting and has been reiterated by quite a few players during the game itself.

vote Chronos

I’m also suspicious of TexCat for the bit of craziness about the flip upthread, but I can’t really see a scum motivation behind it–it’s not an idea that anyone would expect to gain traction, and could bring a lot of negative attention upon the one who brings it up.

Yes, I brought it up. I have already said that I didn’t realize that it was so gastardly when I brought it up. If I had thought it was totally out of the question then I never would have brought it up. I don’t think I’m causing the noise about it now…Tom is the one who continues and continues to bring it up, as well as Jimmy here:

This post seems particularly bad to me. Jimmy, people can read what I said. They don’t need you paraphrasing. (This, Meeko, is what causes noise.) Let me try it again. After OaOW showed up in blue ON THURSDAY, I was convinced that Freudian was scum. When Freudian showed up in blue ON SATURDAY, I was surprised and started thinking about what I now realize is a too gastardly twist. When you snipped my quote, you lost the first part about the timing, “this mOrning”.

Ok. I’ve sat down to make this post a few times, but actually cutting through the backlog and ignoring all distractions has proven to be a bitch.

Vote Tom Scud

I picked up on him looking primarily at voting history and a quick look at his posts. I realize that others are voting for him, but I don’t want to rely on those cases, so I’ve gone through all of his posts to cite my particular references for my vote.

Exhibit AAn early soft claim alluding to the ‘townieness’ of his name.

[Exhibit B] A bit of a smear on my former incarnation here, but most importantly is what I consider may be an exploit of the ‘eek’…some people get Meeko and Peeker, and some people don’t. Even if you’ve ‘gotten’ either of them in one game, doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll ‘get’ them the next time around. Alignment usually has no bearings on who does and does not parse their styles of play. As such, they may offer scum some convenient leverage if a Townie happens to fall on the wrong side on the suspicion spectrum.

[url=http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=12258493#post12258493]Exhibit C](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=12252839#post12252839) On the flip side of the scum-would-know-peeker-was-town-and-use-it-to-their-advantage coin, despite using lack of understanding of Peeker against Texcat, he seems perfectly willing to embrace suspicions of Peeker here. The juxtaposition strikes me as someone who is trying to have their cake and eat it too.

Exhibit D
Seems to arrive back at the conclusion that peeker is just misunderstood town, while being careful to say that he has no idea of peeker is scum or town. That’s a lot of flip-flopping with respect to Peeker and he still seems to be allowing himself the flexibility to continue to flip-flop in case it comes in handy again, if he hadn’t died and flipped Town. Contrast this behavior with a single-minded pursuit of Texcat consistently through the game, and I think it is interesting.

It also leads me to Exhibit E where he switches his vote from Texcat, who he still thinks is the scummiest, to my predecessor. It doesn’t matter if your views are unpopular, Town should vote with their suspicions instead of muddying the voting history by joining a more popular bandwagon.

Exhibit F, the potential slip about a Night thread.

Exhibit G Another vote change away from his favorite whipping horse, Texcat, this time onto a known townie-lynching bandwagon on Freudian.

That’s as far as Ive gotten in my review, but more than enough to make me happy with my vote.

Quoth TexCat:

I was waiting until you replied on this point to comment, but should I take this as meaning that you’re dropping the “maybe Freudian was Scum after all” discussion? That’s good enough for me.

Oh, and Meeko, there are at least three reasons why it’s good tactics for a Vig to shoot the runner-up, not just that it might prevent the waste of a lynch. First, someone who a lot of folks voted for is more likely to be Scum than someone selected at random, and of course it’s the best-case scenario if the Vig actually hits Scum. Second, killing someone (and thus, learning their alignment) who’s gathered a lot of votes yields more information than killing someone who hasn’t had as much interaction with other players. And third is the possibility of preventing a wasted lynch, on the assumption that someone who got a lot of votes the previous Day might get a lot of votes on the next Day, too.

Uh, whatever. We were discussing whether a name claim would be useful. It was relevant though not very illuminating.

Well, yeah, re: the smear - Kelly had done something that didn’t look good, and I said it didn’t look good.

On exploiting the eek - so anyone who ever votes peeker/meeko is exempt from scrutiny? Peeker’s 303 was about as clear as I’ve seen him be, and the real explosion didn’t happen until after TexCat’s vote.

I was trying to understand the argument being made; Ed was at least making an argument about scum motivation, play, and something other than “peeker is SOOO weird”. It was a pure relief to be back into something remotely rational.

I listened to ed’s (and Chronos’s) argument, once there actually WAS an argument about peeker, and didn’t in the end like it.

This is pure bullshit. If I see a bad lynch happening, I’m not supposed to shift to someone who I think is scummier than the primary lynch target? I think that’s crazy, and I’ve caught scum before for refusing to make such a shift on “principle”.

About which I’ve said what I have to say.

Who had just made a terrible defense of a not-very-good vote on OneAndOnly. And who had been on my radar since her vote of Meeko earlier.

And yes, I’ve continued to be suspicious of TexCat. Shocking, I know.

Meh. It looks like I’m hanging today. At least there’s data being generated.

Chronos (3): special ed 924, Red Skeezix 974, Drain Bead 984

Tom Scud (4): Mahaloth 931, Zeriel 954, Chronos 971, ComeToTheDarkSideWeHaveCookies 986

Jimmy Chitwood (1): TexCat 941

TexCat (2): Tom Scud 969, Meeko 982

I went back and looked through Chronos and in general he’s pretty clean. I really can’t find anything besides through twisting his statement to mean more then face value. On the other hand I am getting seriously pinged by the things that have been brought up toDAy (missing the non and ignoring arguments but pushing a case).

For now I’m going to vote for him but I’m worried about creating another tie, we have time to break it, but I think the scum keep pushing us into situation where we have two strong candidates while they sit back and laugh.

Vote Chronos

Y’know, I’m not exactly eager to get lynched, but I don’t entirely mind being in a close race with Tom. I think this is a close race between a Townie and a Scum, and the voting in that kind of race generates a lot of useful data (as opposed to a close race between two Townies, like we had yesterDay).

This whole post REEKS. So you’ve got someone who is “pretty clean,” but you’re going to vote for him to create a tie, even though you don’t want to create a tie? Wow, talk about trying to create deniability. And nothing in there says you bothered to examine any of the other vote getters, or anyone else, for that matter. I am not liking this vote at all. Even if Chronos comes up Scum, which I think he is at this point, I still find this vote incredibly suspect.

Basically, ties are bad. In the tie break mechanism of this game my vote is worthless because Tom got there first so in order for my vote to count I have to hope someone agrees that Chronos is scummier then Tom. Maybe it’s just me but that seems pretty open to scum manipulation and I don’t like that.

I didn’t find anything to add to Chronos’s case which strikes me as pretty clean but I think what’s already there makes him scummier then Tom. Z is the only person who’s put together a case that’s even slightly convincing against Tom. I think I should vote for the better case even if that person is pretty clean.

So you want me to post an evaluation of every single case or every single player to prove that I’m examining other players? I went back and reread Chronos and Tom. I haven’t done more then have an initial impression on the other cases but they didn’t strike me as very solid. Honestly at this point in the Day I don’t think it’s worth bothering with one off votes but I’ll review the Texcat case and let you know what I’m thinking.

Uups, it wasn’t Z it was Cookies that put together the good case against Tom.

+1

Oredigger’s “case” reeks of someone saying, ‘there aren’t any good cases, so I’m going to vote for the least bad one, but don’t hold it against me, I mean, it’s not like I could actually make a good case. You guys forced me to pick between 2 good cases.’

PS, does “while [the Scum] sit back an laugh” strike anyone as gloating?

So, to break the tie, let’s try this:

unvote Chronos
vote Oredigger

is it correct that Day ends in about 24 hours?

NETA

good" should be “bad”

Yes, unless this Day is different for some reason.

Quick thoughts since I’ve been rather busy lately.

  1. I think my vote for Tom is still the best vote, though Oredigger’s vote up there(for Chronos) was ridiculous as well.

  2. I don’t get the case on Chronos. I mean, I guess his errors could be intentional, but I don’t get the scumminess of them. Anyway, I don’t really get it.

Man. I really can’t believe that vote.

On the one hand, it’s completely shocking to me that in a game where so little pressure’s been generated, a member of the scum would turn up with a vote like that and be so baldly disinterested in justifying it. Right? To say “yeah, he looks clean, and I’m voting for him” suggests an incredible apathy toward the way that message is going to be perceived, which doesn’t, to me, really seem like the mentality I’d expect from the scum at this point.

On the other hand… shit, what else can you do when it happens? Drain Bead is exactly right about the deniability issue, and Oredigger’s response is just as worrisome as the vote was. It’s definitely not an approach that seems at all geared toward actually finding any scum.

In each of those two posts I think the main theme is just not caring that much how it plays. That is, to some degree, how each of the previous lynches was determined – a town player being thoughtless and kind of silly, somebody getting on them about it, and then a whole bunch of votes piling on top. That trend bothers me a lot.

I don’t think I’m comfortable voting for it. Could you guys run down for me how you think an Oredigger-as-scum scenario plays out such that he was inclined to make that post? Is it premised on Tom being scum, or do you think it doesn’t matter?

I’m not sure about the scum motivation for an intentional error but I suspect he’s trying to act like he’s hunting scum but making the minimum possible effort to avoid attracting too much attention. While I understand there’s an element of omgus and personal annoyance in my case against him, he’s basically repeated that he’s suspicious of me on a number of occasions but each time I’ve replied, either to comment on the same Day1 issue (Peeker’s “claim”) or to defend myself, he’s chosen not to respond. I realize there’s no rule about having to reply to a defense post but I’ve even asked him directly and have not received a reply. This is getting a little irritating and I see no pro-town aspect of rehashing suspicions (and fabricating evidence based on a false premise he himself was aware of irrespective of the “non”) against another player on multiple occasions without actually interacting with the accused in any way. What could the scum motivation be? To try to give the impression that he’s actively looking for scum, is suspicious of a number of players and is unwilling to engage with me because the case is so weak that it would be obvious to all that it’s just a show. It’s not watertight but I’m comfortable to:

Vote Chronos

Possibly, although I think Tom could be scum too.