Mini 701 - That's a Wrap! (Game Over)

[Ectomancer]

/confirm

[Ectomancer]

Vote: Vollkan

Vollkan, why on earth would you self-vote?

Vote: Vollkan

I don't believe that I've self-voted, though I have asked the town to kill me in a very specific way before (worked out as I had asked and I won with the town)
So to repeat your question to yourself, why would you self-vote Vollkan?

[Ectomancer]

Self-votes count only if the player is not at L-1.

Ok, doesnt this mean that there is no self voting? As soon as they reach L-1 (by anyone), their vote automatically drops off, meaning they cant be involved in lynching themselves in any way.
In other words, all this mechanic does is throw off the actual vote count if someone is voting themselves. Creates confusion is what it does. The enemy loves confusion.

Now that we are aware of this mechanic, can you still justify your self-vote Vollkan? Since this mechanic wasn't stated

prior

to your self vote, include what you were thinking then, and what your thoughts are about it now. Is the move still valid?

[Ectomancer]

I don't believe that I've self-voted, though I have asked the town to kill me in a very specific way before (worked out as I had asked and I won with the town)
So to repeat your question to yourself, why would you self-vote Vollkan?

Now that we are aware of this mechanic, can you still justify your self-vote Vollkan? Since this mechanic wasn't stated prior to your self vote, include what you were thinking then, and what your thoughts are about it now. Is the move still valid?

5 people cast votes before I did. Like my vote, not one of those votes was backed up with any reasoning or justification.

In other words, you found something distinct about my vote. Obviously, it was the fact it was a self-vote that set it apart, as you yourself identified.

But...let's stop and think for a second - YOU are the one who is positing that there is something so unique about my vote that it, and it alone, requires an actual justification.

Thus, I'd like to hear from you as to why you think that self-voting is so special that it requires justification?

As for my reasons: I have learned over my time here that self-voting is one of the best ways to stir the pot. People have a tendency to leap onto it with presumptions and prejudices (ain't that so, Ecto ), which means it provides a lovely springboard for discussion//

First off, whether those other votes had reasoning has little bearing on a self-vote being an anti-town move (notice I did not say scummy).
2nd, you invalidated your point that there was nothing different between their vote and your vote by the manner in which you did it.

Vote: Vollkan

Vollkan, why on earth would you self-vote?

Vote: Vollkan

You didn't give a reason, yet ask the rhetorical question of why you would vote for yourself. I've yet to hear a pro-town reason for it in any discussion I've read and participated in.
You here imply and leave it hanging that you have some special reason. Hence, you've been asked to explain yourself, which you are welcome to do without answering with a question in return yourself. No dodging the question Ehh? Good.

3rd - Do you really think you are the first player with the wonderful idea of voting themselves to spur discussion? Here's a good paraphrase of why its crap move from your own mouth.

The only effect of a "pressure" vote is to, potentially, cause someone to react badly - but that is not any more or less likely to come from scum or town. It ultimately just reflects the ability of the players and says squat about their alignment.

The only effect of a "self" vote is to, potentially cause someone to react badly - but that is not any more or less likely to come from scum or town

because self-voting is inherently a bad play

. Any reaction from a player says squat about their alignment
That means, despite your smarmy last comment, I ask of you the same question you asked yourself. You said it to stand out, now you've been called out on it. Dont tell me you didnt have an answer prepared. Or did you expect to be able to say "AHAH! Someone asked me about my self-vote, gotcha scum!!"
You've also come to a completely wrong conclusion:

As for my reasons: I have learned over my time here that self-voting is one of the best ways to stir the pot. People have a tendency to leap onto it with presumptions and prejudices (ain't that so, Ecto Wink), which means it provides a lovely springboard for discussion//

It's a terrible springboard for provoking discussion because what you get is A: a player who could be town or scum self-voting (I find it to be about equal) and B: Anyone who questions the move could be either town or scum because self voting is anti-town play.
So you've created a wonderful WIFOM to kick off the game, that tells us no information about alignments. All you've done is given yourself a reason to feel self-important enough to make unjustifiably smug comments.

I don't care how "minor" a suspicion is. If you suspect me for something, you have to prove that it is scummy.

And,"I don't like it"/"distaste" is NOT an acceptable justification for suspecting something!

Wrong. While it would be nice for us to understand why he has a suspicion, he doesnt have to "prove" it is scummy. (By the way that's a scummy attitude in games I've played Vollkan. Scum gets into a "You got no case on me Copper, you cant prove nuttin" frame of mind)
Players are allowed to play by gut, and I've seen some that are very good at it. It is optimum for them to be able to convince town of why their gut is pointing at a player, but we dont have "game lawyers" who will come busting into the thread to force him to "prove it".

Now back to your own question, and no dodging this. Answer it. The cop out answer of "it spurred discussion" wont cut it.
Self-voting I've seen equally from scum and town, but using the "I was trying to spur discussion" excuse, that's mostly scum. I took especial note of your comment that

only scum or idiots would remain opposed to me at the end.

Oh my, we wouldn't want to appear to be idiots casting shadows from your amazing brilliance. Only idiots would disagree with you? You might find yourself in a crowd of them. Mtfixij already has the right of things. You are so bent upon the thought that your logic is infallable that you dont seem to care to listen though.

Anyhow, let's hear this nugget of Knowledge that you asked yourself...

Vollkan, why on earth would you self-vote?

P.S. - a self-vote may be anti-town, but is not inherently scummy. I DO find Vollkan's maneuvering and justification for his anti-town move to be scummy. Calling the town idiots or scum unless they agree with him is a perfect example of lower level psychological manipulation.

[Ectomancer]

I know we could go back and forth creating a larger and larger response everytime for pages and pages, but we already know where that leads.
So, some quick things.

First off, conversation in general is pro-town, but useless flummery is not. Having a major role in the conversation generated by your self-vote, I'd rather not consider it to be flummery. In doing so, I have to concede that in this case your self vote was not an anti-town move. There are many ways to generate a conversation, and this is as valid as any. Makes it a neutral tell.
Giving the "generating discussion" reason after your coy question to yourself was lame. LAME! But again, it did what you purport to be after, and so is also an acceptable response. Neutral tell.

Here's where I continue to disagree and can certainly prove it if I want:

Anyone can play the game the way they want. Your like or dislike of the words 'distate' or 'I dont like it' is irrelevant. People can play by gut, they can give exactly those reasons and nothing more. They have the right to play their own game and your Vollkans ground rules dont extend beyond your own keyboard.
Now, you can build cases on people based upon their actions, you can threaten to vote them, try to build a coalition to dump them for their lack of reasoning. But, in the end, the can still behave as they want (within the mods rules).
You are a perfect example of this fact. You self-voted even though I dislike it, even as

one of many

valid ways to spur page 1 discussion.
You are also free to use scum and idiots if you wish. But I am also free to point out that labeling people who do a certain thing an 'idiot' is a low grade psychological tool. It is resorting to feelings. People certainly don't want to be called idiots. On a subconscious level, if they are sheep (and we know there are alot of them), they will tend to follow as you lead with your negative reinforcement. Still, wanting to be able to sway the town where you want them to go is also a neutral tell. Why scum wants to manipulate the town is obvious. But if your ego tells you that you are a better town player than the rest of the group, then you still want to be able to manipulate the town into voting your target when you believe you've found scum.

Yes, I do believe it will be a good game.

I intend my next post to be much smaller, as we are getting into one of MY ground rules. "Muddying the waters" with either large blocks of text or taking us off on an irrelevant tangent is a great scum tool. People tend to lose focus or patience, either way, and make bad lynch decisions.

[Ectomancer]

That wasn't so quick as I had originally planned...

Looking at Spyrex's response, I see that my last paragraph is roughly similiar to a couple of his points. To fend off cries of plagiarism (which I've seen called scummy, taking someone else's ideas and recycling them as your own), you can search Ectomancer and "muddying the waters". You'll find it in completed games.

Sorry to see you go Juls. I hate that you got a bad first impression. Stick around and give this game a chance? We wont go easy on you (scum!), but we would certainly try to make you feel welcome to the site

[Ectomancer]

@Spyrex - You do realize that his self-vote could not have generated discussion if it was ignored?

@Vollkan - Would you consider this to be playing by gut, or do you think this is an example of a logical reason being used?

Its the style and choice of aggression. Honestly, its good for discussion but pigs will fly before a case based on self-voting is going to mean anything. That level of aggression on something that, from his own mouth, is considered to be null just reeks of pushing for pushing's sake.

I don't believe that pushing for pushing's sake on page 2 'reeks' of anything at all.

[Ectomancer]

We see things quite differently Vollkan, and I see you trying to use a time loop to use my later judgement of your defense to criticize my early statements. You see a problem with me being convinced by your arguements? Why do you argue if you dont expect to be able to sway players to your line of reasoning.
Asking you to justify your vote is based upon exactly the same reasoning as your self-vote in the first place. Generating discussion. You dont own a monopoly on that tactic you know.
By rhetorically asking yourself why you placed that vote, you

did

differentiate yourself from the other random votes. It's not a 'weak' statement. I'm right, your wrong.
Whether you think pressure voting is stupid is as irrelevant as my opinion that self-voting is stupid. K?
There is no strawman. I've found that scum tend to fall into that "you cant prove your case, so you cant vote me attitude'. That's called experience. You can argue with the position if you like, but my experience tells me Im right.

Players can play by gut. They dont have to follow your "prove it!" gameplay if they dont wish to. You can vote them if you like, but you cant

make

them do anything. This is also not a strawman, as it directly contradicts your 'groundrules' that

you

posted.

Going to work.

Thanks Mana_Ku, Im doing ok, trying to take it easy

[Ectomancer]

Another counter opinion to yours Vollkan. The onus is on the prosecutor to

present a case

, the onus is on the defender

to point out the flaws in the case

.
By repeatedly saying that the onus is on the prosecutor, what you seem to be purporting is that you dont have to defend yourself, because the prosecutor has to prove 'he got you'. Accusations are as much about generating discussion, or getting specific people to talk, as they are about lynching people.

One more question for you:
You didn't like that I was swayed by your arguments regarding your self-vote. So tell me what conclusion you had come to if I had dug my feet in and refused to budge? Stubborn townie or scum?
Because you realize that if you say scum, then you simply setup a catch 22 situation in which either way a person responded, they would be scum, and this situation was derived from a self-vote on page 1, to which either town or scum might equally react towards.
I'd like this one addressed, and I dont care about the 'onus on the prosecutor'. This isn't a prosecution, this is a debate.

[Ectomancer]

Another counter opinion to yours Vollkan. The onus is on the prosecutor to present a case, the onus is on the defender to point out the flaws in the case.
By repeatedly saying that the onus is on the prosecutor, what you seem to be purporting is that you dont have to defend yourself, because the prosecutor has to prove 'he got you'. Accusations are as much about generating discussion, or getting specific people to talk, as they are about lynching people.

By saying the onus is on the prosecutor, isn't it being implied that one only has to defend themselves from an

actual

case (the he got you part) - there is no real defense from attacks that are unfounded in general. So, of course the onus is on having a real case versus just needle attacks.

No. The accused has got to explain

why

it is isn't an actual case if he

believes

it isn't. Others may have a different opinion, it's up to the defender to demonstrate why it isn't an actual case. It's the defenders job to make sure town understands the problem with the attack, or defend against the case if there is one.
Without it, you allow the player to ignore what they want on the grounds of "it isn't actually a case" without having to actually explain why. That player also runs the risk of having ignorant town (Vollkan likes the name stupid) assume that the attack was a valid one since it went unanswered. Whether one would appreciate the fact or not, people do play this game on their gut feelings about a player. You either tear apart the argument, or defend against it, not let it stand flawed and unexposed.

[Ectomancer]

4-5 players talking aren't enough to lynch anyone. Pending replacements aside, let's see some chat going on. Pick a side in a debate, pick on someone, but stop sitting there picking your nose. Do some typing!

[Ectomancer]

The entire discussion is pointless? Cmon, how about my motives for jumping on him? What about MrFixij and his comments? What about Spyrex's input? Was he overly sucking up to Vollkan in his post 75? You've got to be able to dig something to comment on aside from the self-vote itself. What about all the commentary

after

the self vote?

[Ectomancer]

I wanted to hear the answer to the question that he asked himself.

[Ectomancer]

And what insight have you gained from your 'jumping' on him?

And yeah, other people need to chirp in more.

Early debate is a great personality probe. It doesn't always have to be the person that you 'jumped on' that you are interested in either. You gain insights from how others react, or don't react to it. I should know something of your character when I make judgment calls later in the game concerning your motivations.

[Ectomancer]

Why is Springlullaby following Spyrex (she says Ecto is scummy), but votes Vollkan?

What, can people only be suspicious of one person at a time?

QFT. Do you have some reason that we do not to decide that Vollkan and I are diametrically opposed in alignment? I see no reason that Vollkan and I could both be town, nor do I see a reason why it could not be proposed that we are both scum putting on an elaborate staged swordfight for town's benefit to distance ourselves from one another.

@Spyrex - Strongly? If you follow Vollkan's prosecution rules, then the onus is upon you to prove that opinion.
In point of fact, the actual events dispute that statement. I yielded to Vollkan's point rather easily, considering theory discussions to be a nice way to get things going, but something that belongs in the Mafia Discussion forum if you want to write pages and pages about it.


Alright, let's also talk about the term 'jumped on'. Let's jump in the wayback machine and look at this 'jumping on'.

Vote: Vollkan

Vollkan, why on earth would you self-vote?

Vote: Vollkan

I don't believe that I've self-voted, though I have asked the town to kill me in a very specific way before (worked out as I had asked and I won with the town)
So to repeat your question to yourself, why would you self-vote Vollkan?

Let's see, I say that I've not personally self-voted, though I had asked to be killed before, and it was for a town win that I did it.
I then ask Vollkan to answer his own question.
---I dont see the 'jumping on' event here. So what's next?

Self-votes count only if the player is not at L-1.

Ok, doesnt this mean that there is no self voting? As soon as they reach L-1 (by anyone), their vote automatically drops off, meaning they cant be involved in lynching themselves in any way.
In other words, all this mechanic does is throw off the actual vote count if someone is voting themselves. Creates confusion is what it does. The enemy loves confusion.

Now that we are aware of this mechanic, can you still justify your self-vote Vollkan? Since this mechanic wasn't stated

prior

to your self vote, include what you were thinking then, and what your thoughts are about it now. Is the move still valid?

The mod chimed in to explain the mechanism for self-votes, which boils down to, you cant lynch yourself.
I explain my interpretation of it, and ask Vollkan if his move was still valid, and to include his reasoning prior to this revelation.

---Still don't see a 'jumping on him'. No aggressive talk at all so far.

The next step in the chain of events was this post by Vollkan.

I don't believe that I've self-voted, though I have asked the town to kill me in a very specific way before (worked out as I had asked and I won with the town)
So to repeat your question to yourself, why would you self-vote Vollkan?

Now that we are aware of this mechanic, can you still justify your self-vote Vollkan? Since this mechanic wasn't stated prior to your self vote, include what you were thinking then, and what your thoughts are about it now. Is the move still valid?

5 people cast votes before I did. Like my vote, not one of those votes was backed up with any reasoning or justification.

In other words, you found something distinct about my vote. Obviously, it was the fact it was a self-vote that set it apart, as you yourself identified.

But...let's stop and think for a second - YOU are the one who is positing that there is something so unique about my vote that it, and it alone, requires an actual justification.

Thus, I'd like to hear from you as to why you think that self-voting is so special that it requires justification?

As for my reasons: I have learned over my time here that self-voting is one of the best ways to stir the pot. People have a tendency to leap onto it with presumptions and prejudices (ain't that so, Ecto ), which means it provides a lovely springboard for discussion//

Now

this

is a jumping on post. Vollkan was waiting to pounce, probably on anyone who bothered asking him about his self-vote. The particularly galling statement was at the end:

People have a tendency to leap onto it with presumptions and prejudices (ain't that so, Ecto )

Read my first two statements again. I see no presumptions or prejudices evident at this point, yet Vollkan is giving the old as though I had?? This statement here was the first 'jumping on' and it certainly wasn't by Ectomancer.
This is what I was referring to earlier when I said that Vollkan likes to use a time loop to take things I said later in the game and applied them to earlier situations. It does not matter that later in the game that I expressed my distaste for self-votes. My first two posts asking him about this move were deliberately neutral. It benefits him from a debate standpoint to try to establish a link from my own opinion that was revealed later concerning self-votes to the first two statements that began this entire chain of events.
Read those statements. They were not 'jumping on', nor did they include any 'presumptions and prejudices' that Vollkan refers to until

later

in the discussion.

To put it simply, the argument that both Spyrex and Vollkan are trying to use against me, that I was 'jumping on' Vollkan and first attacked Vollkan with presumptions and prejudices is patently untrue.

@Vollkan - this post is not about questioning your own motives. I consider them to be neutral still. I simply disagree with some of your analysis and believe that it is as tied to your ego as it is suspicions against me.

This post was put together to question the motivations of Spyrex, who I believe to both be buddying up, and 'taking sides' in an argument that he believes could result in the lynch of one or both of us. If you need an extrapolation, it is my suspicion that he could be scum that was simply looking for the first crack between two town players (this theory is dependent upon Vollkan being town of course), and then Spyrex is simply making himself the wedge to widen the crack into a lynch.

This post was way too long... I'm going to go ahead and end it with my first vote of the game.

vote Spyrex

[Ectomancer]

I'm not bothered by his vote. I didn't find him scummy for his actions, and my statement that his ego was driving some of his statements was sure to provoke some type of reaction.

Here is where you jumped on:

I don't believe that I've self-voted, though I have asked the town to kill me in a very specific way before (worked out as I had asked and I won with the town)
So to repeat your question to yourself, why would you self-vote Vollkan?

Ecto, as I have stated repeatedly now, your initial question betrays that you assumed that the self-vote was somehow uniquely warranting of further justification (and your subsequent "case" against it shows just baseless that assumption was). It's "jumping on" because you were basically going against something based on nothing more than preconceptions, at best.

You're the type that just has to be right aren't you? In this instance, you are not. At this point in time, you have no idea whether I have preconceptions or not from the way this question is phrased. I, in fact, went out of my way and stated a situation where I did something odd, that was still pro-town. If anything, Im giving you the benefit of the doubt to present a pro-town reason for your self vote, not 'jumping on you'. It was only later that I revealed that I dislike it.
This just reinforces my statement that you were waiting for someone, anyone, to mention your self-vote so that you could say "Ahah!"

On to disliking it, it's because we are the two primary participants in the discussion, yet there is no indication of alignment based upon which side of the debate we are on. The reason that I am not continuing to harp on the relative usefulness of an opening self-vote is twofold.
1: It belongs in Mafia Discussion, not in the middle of a game for pages on end.
2: Despite revealing little in the way of alignment of the baiter and the enabler, you can still gain insight into other players by the way they react to the situation.
Without us finding an actual case somewhere, your self-vote is still useless. Lucky for you, I've found fertile soil for a case that is at least indirectly related to your self-vote.
You are still a null tell despite your stubbornness.
My statements against Spyrex are valid ones, and enough for me to place for my vote, and I'd like him to answer to them

himself

and not by

you

.
You see, this is where that 'gut' thing comes in. Your gut doesn't like the way I've addressed your self-vote. My gut doesn't like what I'm seeing from Spyrex. As for your alignment? I've already stated where I stand on your alignment. What I dont know is whether Spyrex

does

know your alignment or not, and how he might react to being called out on something he very well may be doing. A vote reinforces it, adding

pressure

(dont care that you dont like pressure votes).


P.S. - read the "There is no OMGUS" thread to understand why the term "pseudo-OMGUS" certainly doesnt exist.

[Ectomancer]

Vollkan - I'm not going into another quote pyramid to restate the position we are both taking, which is, "I'm right and you are wrong."

What I find ironic in this is that I took the early position that 'gut feelings" are a perfectly acceptable manner of playing mafia. Both Vollkan and Spyrex took opposition to that form of play. But when pressed, the actual reasons they give are what boils down to "gut feelings".
Without wading back for quotes, I believe both said something similar to:

"It wasn't what he did, it was

how

he did it".

Argue otherwise if you would like, but when others do not agree with your assessment there, what it comes down to is that

your gut

doesn't agree with how I did what I did. I know it galls you to hear it, but your assessment of my alignment comes down to an entirely debatable "gut feeling". As I said, they can be valid, so I dont discount it as a reasoning at all. I just find it funny that you

would

discount it if it were coming from someone else.


@Spyrex - You made an obvious error in 2 ways. First of all, you made my 2nd questioning of Vollkan as "Point 1", when anyone reading the game can see that it was not. My first two statements were deliberately neutrally phrased, just as they are, and both are important to

the early stage of this conversation

.
Your points 2 and 3 are from

after

Vollkan responded, responses that I didn't like, hence my strong responses. We

continue

to have disagreements over it.

What you are trying to do, as I accused Vollkan of doing, is create a timeloop to take my later responses and tie it back to the original questions concerning his self-vote. What is worse, you quoted me 3 times, and

removed Vollkan's responses

. Don't you think those responses provide the context to the statements you quoted? What use is your argument without context?

So your question of: "Why did you jump so strongly on Vollkan for his self-vote?'
Is that: "I didn't. My "strong" push on Vollkan was for some of his

subsequent

responses, that I did, and still do "strongly" disagree with. But there was not, as much as you two insist upon it, a "strong" negative attack that kicked off this entire conversation.
By the time we get to anything that can be considered "strong" or "negative" was after we had gotten into theory debate and well past the self-vote itself.

[Ectomancer]

Oh I expected you to argue over what is "gut". No surprise there.

The enemy loves confusion statement still allowed Vollkan to give his original intention for his self-vote and gave my own opinion on the likelyhood of whether a self-vote would still be valid. The mods statement certainly narrowed the options for the original self-vote being a valid one. Giving my own interpretation of a mods ruling is hardly an attack on a player, especially when you allow the player in question an opportunity to address it.

I'll grab a quote of Vollkan's to address the rest of this:

Ecto #2 wrote:

Now that we are aware of this mechanic, can you still justify your self-vote Vollkan? Since this mechanic wasn't stated prior to your self vote, include what you were thinking then, and what your thoughts are about it now. Is the move still valid?

Pretty much the same thing. You're demanding justification of me particularly.

And don't kid that you weren't relying on prejudice. The question "Why would you...." implies that there is something which needs to be justified. It holds that one set of behaviour is the accepted norm and that a deviation must be justified. That's prejudice.

Right here, its all questions on whether he still considers his move a valid one after the mod made a clarification on the mechanics of the game. No 'strongly attacking' at all here. The "Why would you.." came from Vollkans

original post on this topic.

. Those were the exact words he used. In fact, to flip it around, Vollkan

himself

is the one that implied that there was a justification there to be had. My parroting his own question to himself

in his own words

does not then make myself the originator of the question in that manner.. He then attempts to blame the introduction of the "Why would you..." on me in order to attack me, supporting my earlier assertion that he was simply waiting for the first person to respond so that he could go on the attack.

As for your scummy moves Spyrex, as you say, its all in how you are doing it. If the 2nd post I made was the issue, then why did you label it as point 1, and then post 2 more quotes taken out of context without Vollkan's responses? It looks like you were simply trying to 'pad' your case (which I consider anti-town at the least, possibly straight out scummy). It took another response by me for you to cull your attack back to a specific part of a post you feel was negative. Why? Why did it take so many posts and refutations for you to finally find your real point?
I'll concede that the term 'the enemy loves confusion' could be taken by some as a negative connotation. It could also be taken in the manner I meant it, which was to 1: give my interpretation of the mods rules, and 2: warn against creating confusion in the game when confusion benefits scum.
Which brings us back to you and your actions. You spent pages arguing without bringing up the nugget that was central to your argument

and that nugget was on page 1

. That tells me (and my gut), that you were trying to inflate your position, forcing me to refute your points along the way, until finally you were backed into your last point of refuge in regards to your case.
Like we 3 have said, its how you are doing what you are doing that is scummy. And yes, that falls under a judgment call, and judgment calls are inherently a 'gut' decision because it isn't a logic decision.

My gut also tells me that you will complain that I gave you nothing to defend yourself against. Not true. I give you your entire course of play to defend yourself against. My sympathies go out to you that you created such a large mess to defend. You've moved way beyond being able to point out a phrase on page 1 that could, admittedly, be interpreted in 2 ways (or more). You should have gone for that right off the bat. Instead, you get to explain why it took 4 pages of accusations to finally fall back on it.

[Ectomancer]

So, basically, you think that you are exculpated because your question was mere parroting? As I said above, the whole point of that question was to set up a pit for the uncritical in order that a debate may begin. You're in control of your own language; you wrote "Why would you...".

Because it was prefaced by, "So to repeat your question to yourself" of COURSE I'm going to use your turn of phrase in asking the question. I left out "on Earth" because it was unnecessary and could be construed as mocking, and not my intention. Once I stated that I was going to ask of you your own question, the language is going to be yours.
So yes, basing your prejudices upon that turn of phrase is mistaken if you think it originated with me. It was an echo of yourself that you heard.

[Ectomancer]

I dont even want to try and do the word count that explained why already, but I'll give you a short summary.

I questioned your motivations for your actions. I pressed on you (when Vollkan wasn't in the way defending you) and it took 4-5 pages for you to finally spit out that your issue was a turn of phrase from my 2nd post. (unmentioned before then except a vague "You've been aggressive" or "you attacked him strongly") This is something that I could have explained to you on my 3rd post. No, instead you let it ride, or didnt even notice it back then, but found it when you needed a case? Then ignore Vollkan's responses in all of your references back to me. You then take only my posts to try to back up your case.
Do you know what context is? The context of his posts is what garnered the aggressive talk, not the self-vote.

Now, you've been talking about this 'strongly' forever, but only when hard pressed can you come up with something solid to be addressed. Then, rather than concede there could possibly be different interpretations of a phrase used on page 1, you forge on stubbornly with your accusations.
All of this smacks of someone who established a prejudice, and has gone about it for so long now, that you were forced to go back and cling to whatever you can so that you can hope to have an actual case. Revisionist history is what they call it I believe.

Hmm, wasnt so short after all.

[Ectomancer]

Thanks for your detailed input orangepenguin. Absolutely insightful.

[Ectomancer]

That really wasn't a case, FYI. I didn't really do the whole "show scummy stuff with quotes supporting it" dealio, so don't count that as a case.

Glad you said it so I didn't need to.

Alright, rather than go through each section, I'll hit a couple and let everyone else pull up my posts, and then look at your post by post summary.

You may have been trying to sum up those posts in a quick 1 line, but in several of those posts, there was a HECK of a lot more going on than you chose to summarize, most of it more important than what you chose to put in a summary (IMO), plus a quick glance shows some of it to be just plain wrong.

Let's look at #7 for example:

Post 7 - Long post, basically saying vollkan can "go by gut" but don't expect others to follow and how they disagree.

That's your summary, but look at the actual post:
You crunched several points into "long post".
That final paragraph wasn't a summary of the entire post.
From what you did summarize though, you didnt get it right:
It doesnt tell Vollkan that he can go by gut.
It says that

other players

have a right to play by their gut.
It doesnt say that other players dont have to follow Vollkan's gut, it says they dont have to follow his rules of "prove it".
That's quite a different point than your summary makes it out to be.

We see things quite differently Vollkan, and I see you trying to use a time loop to use my later judgement of your defense to criticize my early statements. You see a problem with me being convinced by your arguements? Why do you argue if you dont expect to be able to sway players to your line of reasoning.
Asking you to justify your vote is based upon exactly the same reasoning as your self-vote in the first place. Generating discussion. You dont own a monopoly on that tactic you know.
By rhetorically asking yourself why you placed that vote, you

did

differentiate yourself from the other random votes. It's not a 'weak' statement. I'm right, your wrong.
Whether you think pressure voting is stupid is as irrelevant as my opinion that self-voting is stupid. K?
There is no strawman. I've found that scum tend to fall into that "you cant prove your case, so you cant vote me attitude'. That's called experience. You can argue with the position if you like, but my experience tells me Im right.

Players can play by gut. They dont have to follow your "prove it!" gameplay if they dont wish to. You can vote them if you like, but you cant

make

them do anything. This is also not a strawman, as it directly contradicts your 'groundrules' that

you

posted.

Going to work.

Thanks Mana_Ku, Im doing ok, trying to take it easy

Quick look at another:

Post 9 - Response to spyrex saying that people go on gut, but that their cases are flawed and stuff

*sigh*

Look at the post.

It is about the defender being responsible for pointing out to the town the flaws in an argument against them. It is in direct response to Vollkan's and Spyrex addon statement that you dont have to defend against a case that "isnt real". It addressed Vollkan's "onus is on the prosecutor" that you allude to in summary 8 as my phrase when it originated with Vollkan.
It is a post laying out the responsibility of town players. It does not summarize into "people can go on gut, but their cases are flawed and stuff"

Another counter opinion to yours Vollkan. The onus is on the prosecutor to present a case, the onus is on the defender to point out the flaws in the case.
By repeatedly saying that the onus is on the prosecutor, what you seem to be purporting is that you dont have to defend yourself, because the prosecutor has to prove 'he got you'. Accusations are as much about generating discussion, or getting specific people to talk, as they are about lynching people.

By saying the onus is on the prosecutor, isn't it being implied that one only has to defend themselves from an

actual

case (the he got you part) - there is no real defense from attacks that are unfounded in general. So, of course the onus is on having a real case versus just needle attacks.

No. The accused has got to explain

why

it is isn't an actual case if he

believes

it isn't. Others may have a different opinion, it's up to the defender to demonstrate why it isn't an actual case. It's the defenders job to make sure town understands the problem with the attack, or defend against the case if there is one.
Without it, you allow the player to ignore what they want on the grounds of "it isn't actually a case" without having to actually explain why. That player also runs the risk of having ignorant town (Vollkan likes the name stupid) assume that the attack was a valid one since it went unanswered. Whether one would appreciate the fact or not, people do play this game on their gut feelings about a player. You either tear apart the argument, or defend against it, not let it stand flawed and unexposed.

Brevity has its place, but it is useless if it gets the summary wrong, or leaves out important points.

Thanks for the PbPa. I dont think it supports your vote though. In fact, looking at your summaries vs what is in my posts, I would say you might want to re-examine the content and reconsider some of your summaries. If your vote was based upon them, it is standing on unsound ground.

[Ectomancer]

[quote="TDC"]Ecto: Do you think he's scummy for that pbpa summary?
I mean it doesn't support his vote reason (you pushing crap logic) at all, and I think if he was going to fudge a pbpa then it would've made sense to fudge it in a way that supports his vote?quote]

No, I think that he just botched the job of it. A pbpa is only useful if it actually reflects/summates the actual events. I can tell from reading it that he got at least a few of his interpretations entirely wrong. It looks like a skim job, but I cant entirely blame him for that due to the length of the posts that have been made.
What I'd like is for him to take what errors I pointed out, go back and apply it to the summary he made, and then see if he still arrives at a conclusion that says "Lynch Ectomancer".

[Ectomancer]

I dont have time to answer all of this right now. Do me a favor Vollkan and unvote if it gets too close to lynch. (Though Im thinking I probably wont be quick lynched, but just in case) I'll be back to give detailed responses. Busy day today though, might be tonight or tomorrow.

[Ectomancer]

Hey Vollkan, let me try this analogy, because we are not agreeing on this thing about self-votes and random votes.

We got a pen of sheep. Those sheep are white. They place random votes.
One sheep dyed itself black by placing a self-vote instead of a random vote.
Then the black sheep bleated "why did I dye myself black?"

So there were two things here.

You've said that there is no difference between a random vote and a self-vote. That just is not correct.
You differentiated yourself with a self-vote, and you did it on purpose, right? I mean, a self-vote didnt just randomly come from your keyboard. And you did that because you wanted to spur discussion, right? (If you didn't, refer to the original question of why did you self-vote)

That's where you, the black sheep, differentiated yourself from the other random voting white sheep.

You then made sure that everyone knew you were doing something different by asking yourself why you would do such a thing.

Now, going back to the analogy, you are now saying that you are just like the other white sheep, and the fact that you bleated was irrelevant.

Well, I disagree. You dyed yourself black with that self-vote. You are not like the other white sheep that random voted. You differentiated yourself, and then called attention to the fact that you differentiated yourself with the question to yourself.
Then, when given attention, you protest, "Why pick on me? Im just like all these other white sheep!"
Well no, no you aren't.
You are a sheep that wanted to talk and tried to give a way for a conversation to get started. I dont blame you for that.
But for sheep's sake, I will never buy your point that you did not differentiate yourself from the random voters.

[Ectomancer]

Unvote

Ok. I acknowledge the case isn't strong enough to keep a vote on him. Unfortunately this will probably just bring me under further suspicion as past experience has dictated. I blame your gambit, Vollk.

Well, this response just might. What we need to know is, what were you thinking? What reasoning did you go through to arrive at your vote? Simply acknowleding that your "case" wasnt strong enough isn't good enough (and I think the problem is that you didnt have one of your own and referenced someone who didnt either).
Blaming Vollkan is not an excuse by the way, and is a bit of an emotional appeal isn't it? If you are blaming Vollkan, are you saying he is scummy? What exactly is it about his 'gambit' that you are blaming for your action?

[Ectomancer]

The fact that every sheep is white (votes for other people) doesn't mean that any sheep painting itself black (self-voting) places an onus upon the black sheep to justify a deviation from the status quo. That's simply a sneaky way of shifting the onus of proof.

What I did was say "Hey, look at me. I am being non-conformist". That doesn't in anyway warrant inquiry in and of itself UNLESS there are reasonable grounds for considering that deviation alignment-relevant

Vollkan, simple question. Were you, or were you not intending to spur conversation when you made your self-vote?
You are stuck on this "onus of proof". What need of proof do I have to question you about the move you made to invoke questioning about the move?
Never going to agree with you over this.

P.S. - it looks like you are getting my point that you cannot prevent someone from using "gut" as their reasoning. The only thing you can control is how you react to it. Voting works wonders.

[Ectomancer]

While it is certainly a feasible hypothesis that I am scum and tried to distance myself from the responsibility for my vote from the get-go, I can only claim what it was- a poor voting choice.

Here's my problem. I dont get the impression that you unvoted because it was a poor voting choice. I get the impression that you are now saying it was a poor voting choice due to the flack you got over it from all sides. (something Im certain you didnt expect) Your case wasn't developed because you were trying to ride the coattails of others. Mine was a developing wagon. My opinion is that you may have been trying to reserve a 'safe' seat on the bus. You didn't start the wagon, thus avoiding too much attention, and you don't have to end it either, once again avoiding too much attention.

The telling event here is your referencing orangepenguin as a source for your case, when he said himself that it wasn't one. Additionally, you had to climb over the posts where I demonstrated where his analysis fell short, or was just wrong. You didn't even talk about those points at all, or really any other point from anyone else either.

I'm also not satisified with you answer concerning the justification of your original vote. Telling us that you no longer believe it, therefor why would you explain something you don't believe is hogwash. You know why you did it back then, and current belief holds no bearing on a belief you supposedly once held.

[Ectomancer]

Mine was a developing wagon. My opinion is that you may have been trying to reserve a 'safe' seat on the bus.

You can make an argument for someone being scum for joining a bandwagon at any stage. "You started the bandwagon against him, therefore you're scum", "you were the second vote in the bandwagon, if that isn't scummy I don't know what is", "you were the third vote on the bandwagon- you were trying to join an already established bandwagon and hope you could ride it to the end"..."you hammered, you're getting lynched next". I worry that most people's case against me relies on very specific interpretations of what my goals were, which are no more privileged than any other interpretation. This is really no different from what I said in post 143:

Are you really trying to pick out a single point in my argument against you? This statement is part of an analysis of your motivations after establishing that your every move was about not making waves or putting yourself in danger. (Except you misjudged that part.) It is a single piece of several that demonstrate a pattern of behavior.

I'll be expecting a response to the actual case when you aren't so busy.

[Ectomancer]

OrangePenguin, your pbps missed a ton of point by points, and it also got several of the points flat out wrong. You are welcome to talk about that if you are going to avoid putting a case for your vote into your own words anyhow.

[Ectomancer]

Your impulsiveness ratcheted up an existing live wagon. Are you saying your motivations were not to increase the pressure, nor to advance that bandwagon? It was simply any impulsive thing you did with no thought put to it?

[Ectomancer]

@Ortolan -

Your impulsiveness ratcheted up an existing live wagon. Are you saying your motivations were not to increase the pressure, nor to advance that bandwagon? It was simply any impulsive thing you did with no thought put to it?

@Orangepenguin

OrangePenguin, your pbps missed a ton of point by points, and it also got several of the points flat out wrong. You are welcome to talk about that if you are going to avoid putting a case for your vote into your own words anyhow.

[Ectomancer]

It's speculation about my motives rather than any coherent and internally consistent case for me being mafia.

I could say for example "vollkan's gambit was intended purely so he would have a device for continually launching suspicion on different people- firstly he could launch suspicion on those who called him on his self-vote, then he could launch suspicion on those who called the caller on his self-vote etc., basically a mafia's dream". However this is just an interpretation. It is ironic however that the people who attack me either aren't aware of or deliberately ignore the fact that what I am being attacked for- making a subjective determination, is exactly what they're doing in attacking me, they're just better at pretending they're not being subjective.

This is also very relevant to springlullaby's case against me:

(The statement I quoted was "Two non joke votes, two vote that sucks." and asked for an explanation for it)

lol, this is clearly not my quote Vollkan... I don't think I ever used the words "internally consistent", "coherent", "device" or "subjective determination" in any mafia game. Clearly Ecto's.

No, this is Ortolan's post 189.

Getting your quote pyramid wrong is generating confusion Vollkan. Due diligence please.
Try again with the responses directed to the correct player? My question now is if you responded to the original, correct player who made the quotes, or if your response was to the player that you made

appear

to have made those quotes.
We're proven to have 2 players who dont generate cases of their own, and 1 who does pbpa's that get the pbp's wrong. Worse, 1 is blindly following the other with their vote.
It makes for an easily manipulated situation. You commented on something like this earlier:

I guess the best way to put this is that we all play with a presumption that other people are competent. If somebody does something which is only consistent with them being pro-town in the event in a scenario where some lapse has to occur in their standard of play, that action should generally be treated as a scumtell.

Is this an "Oopsie! Wrong player assigned to the quotes!"

Personally, I'd have to flip a coin to decide whether this was an accident or not. Ordinarily, I would say, likely accident, as anyone could go back and show where it was wrong.
Problem is, we've got the two O's whom we know dont read or think for themselves, and then Mykonian, who I dont consider incompetent

also

got the wrong player for that particular quote.

Firm it up will you?

Fixed quote tags, you other silly goose!

Reminder: Don't put any spaces in your quote tags.

[Ectomancer]

Yeah, I generally copy/paste into notepad, especially when Im having to jump back and forth through the thread for different quotes. Helps keep the mistakes to a minimum.

[Ectomancer]

*sigh* - duly acknowledged.

[Ectomancer]

Old hash vote acknowledged.

[Ectomancer]

Do we really have no other idea's then vote ecto, or vote vollkan? As good as it started, voting for the major players is still kind of random.

I don't believe I have yet advocated lynching Vollkan.

If we assume the two O's are town, then scum would have known it. Not recalling who brought it up at the time, I would wonder about quick votes on the wagon, or of course, the person who first complained that the wagon was "building too fast".

[Ectomancer]

Do we really have no other idea's then vote ecto, or vote vollkan? As good as it started, voting for the major players is still kind of random.

I don't believe I have yet advocated lynching Vollkan.

If we assume the two O's are town, then scum would have known it. Not recalling who brought it up at the time, I would wonder about quick votes on the wagon, or of course, the person who first complained that the wagon was "building too fast".

How would scum have known that they're masons? IIRC, momentum halted as soon as the mason claim came to be. I think this course of thought will only yield a WIFOM, which I'm not a big fan of following. I'm still not a fan of Spyre's appeasement strategy and his counter-aggression against Ecto's fast play.

Where did I say that scum would have known they were Masons? I said if we assume they are town. They both looked bad, though Ortolan looked the worse. It is not a far out assumption that scum would have been quick to jump on the wagon,

or

seasoned scum could instead be the "hey, this is building too fast" voice of reason.

I realize it is about me, but havent you beat that horse to glue? You wondered where we might find scum, so I pointed out areas we might look. Just wonder why you got a bit defensive and then went back to old hash.

[Ectomancer]

I saw the exchange, thought ortolan was calling OP 100% town because he followed him, saw your unvote, wondered about it, considered asking you about it, decided to leave it until later, went on defending myself against a couple "me too" voters until the full claim. I still remain responsible for my defense, even if I had decided the attacks were from very probable masons, especially as baseless as they were.

[Ectomancer]

Anyone see the Apple Dumpling Gang?

[Ectomancer]

Ok, so the analogy isnt the same, but the two O's remind me of Tim Conway and Don Knotts.

Here's a numbers game for why you dont lynch someone because they can't be meta'd. In every game, town outnumbers scum. In point of fact, if Vollkan looks the same in every game, you might argue to

keep

him around. Random assigning of roles should work out that you will play as town more than you will play as scum.

I dont propose that course of action, just pointing out that if you want to do something with Vollkan due to that meta, you are actually arriving at the wrong conclusion and choice of actions.

[Ectomancer]

Ecto, I feel that the same applies to you, that there is little difference between town ecto, and scum ecto. (based on reading games)

But doesn't everybody know that meta is not a very strong way of research. You have to get scum on the way they choose. If vollkan scum makes a habit of making bad choices, then we lynch him. If vollkan makes a lot of good choices, we lynch him in the end just after his buddies. That is the way you can get every scum.

Wait, if Vollkan makes bad choices, we lynch him, but if he makes good choices, you still plan to lynch him in the end? On what grounds?

[Ectomancer]

I concocted about 3 different ways to say this, but I'll do it as a question. What is this that you refer to as a "bad choice" or a "good choice"? Think you can define them? I hold that whether a choice is 'good' or 'bad' is only decided when someone convinces the town that it is. Witness that Ortolan following OrangePenguin was a 'bad' choice until masonry was claimed, then it was no longer a bad choice, but a mason following his partner.

I guess that's my roundabout method of poking fun at your last sentence:

That is the way you can get every scum.

[Ectomancer]

At best, Ecto's post is the first case- expressing an attitude towards me without giving reasons. At worst, it is the second case- hoping by merely parroting vollkan's suspicion of the paragraph he will be vindicated by whatever vollkan makes of it.

I understand the individual words in this quote, but put together like that, I am unable to decipher the underlying meaning.

@Whoever griped that I kept going back and arguing about page 1 events, I first discussed it with Vollkan repeatedly, then Spyrex jumped in, then orangepenguin with his pbpa.
I was tired of discussing it too, but when a wagon is building on you, you are obligated to defend your position, even if for the 3rd or 4th time. Im tired of discussing my discussing it

[Ectomancer]

Just a quick section pulled out of SL's post:

No, I did not like the fact that Ecto was pushing Vollkan while staying short of being really aggressive. aka I think his behaviour toward Vollkan could be qualified as passive-aggressive, he was needling him on many things but never expressed suspicion that was backed-up with a vote. This is bad because it puts people in a defensive position whereas there is no clearly stated game relevant opinion opposite.

I believe Vollkan and I were

both

very aggressive in our debate, and we

did

take clearly defined positions. This attracted other players into making their own opinions, basically forcing them to take sides.
Do you really think you should vote for anyone who you have a disagreement with in game? A simple bit of advice for you. Disagreement /= scum. You place a vote when you think you've found scum, or are close enough to merit ratcheting up pressure.
I never found Vollkan scummy during our head to head exchanges, nor did he need more pressure. Pressure enough was being applied.

You say passive/aggressive, I say measured and deliberate.

[Ectomancer]

And the wheels grind to a halt...

It's time for some lynching. If nobody has much to say, I'll give my top 3 lynch list and we can go from there.

[Ectomancer]

Let's string up Springlullaby, Mykonian, or mrfixij today.

[Ectomancer]

C'mon, no fair playing by different rules. The game goes, you give your 3, then we get to ask questions.

[Ectomancer]

You are semi-playing my game mykonian, so you get your comment.

You've been extremely defensive of SpringLullaby. Established yourself as the SL protector you have. You've even been the attack dog against MrFixij and his vote against SL.

So I throw you (mykonian), SL, and MrFixij on a list and see what happens.

Mykonian the Defender steps up immediately to stick up for SL again. Though I gave 3 names, 1 his own, the other his target, he fixates on SL again and lumps me in with the SL 'bandwagon'. He criticizes the bandwagon itself because he thinks it follows a 'big post' by Spyrex as if Spyrex cant possibly have a valid point, but no recent Spyrex bashing.

We have 1 mason pair claim already, it is Day 1 so no investigative time. What do you know about SL that we do not Mykonian?

When you gave your analysis of players, I noticed that two names were glaringly missing. SpringLullaby and Spyrex. Why fail to establish your feelings for these two, of ALL the people in the game? One you are defending heavily, the other is the attacker you are defending against. What is it you are wanting for us to assume about your position on these two players?

-----------Break for an aside. I'm going through the posts a number of different ways. I wanted to see which side of the initial argument SL and Mykonian took. I've been looking at the thread as a whole, and then filtered by player.

I didnt see what I thought to find, I found something different when reading Mykonian:

What I saw was Mykonian putting some early hits on SL. The points were actually fairly reasonable. He jumped off SL before building any steam on him and chose to vote Spyrex instead. A short time later he unvotes until he places his most recent vote on MrFixij.
Now he is actively defending SL, placing suspicion on anyone who looks to be convinced by Spyrex, or even saying anything against SL, and yet nothing against Spyrex now that his vote dropped.

Where did this 180 degree turnabout on SL come from?
What's the deal with attacking people who might be convinced by Spyrex's arguments, but not on Spyrex?
Why would you address only SL's name on a 3 person list, and not your target or even yourself? It looks to me like you ignore yourself because you aren't a serious lynch candidate (until this post), and your target didn't look like he would be lynched anytime soon, while SL was rising rapidly.

Some people play by logic, some people by gut, I like to look for patterns, or sometimes broken patterns. So, somebody interpret this pattern I found (or think I found).

vote Mykonian

[Ectomancer]

Ecto: Is myk's "turnaround" scummy regardless of sl's alignment?

It could be argued either way. If SL is town, I would say that the case would not be as strong unless you argue that Myk's initial vote was weak and now he is defending hard in order to be vindicated if SL should turn up town. (Of course for Myk, it would be when SL turns up town)

A better question I think TDC, would be if that turnaround is a 'natural' or 'contrived'. That's probably an opinion based question.

Let's say it this way, SL's alignment is not dependent upon Myk's, but if SL were to turn up scum, I would expect that Myk is also scum.

[Ectomancer]

Those big posts with the red in them are killing me to have to read. It makes it hard for me to figure out who you are talking to, and I think sometimes you forget to put in the [red]red[/red] and so then I have to try to figure out who is talking in that section.
There are some good points I think you have, from what I was able to discern of it.

I wanted to restate that you are correct, there is nothing that could prevent myself and Vollkan from being scumbuddies. Just because we had a big argument doesnt mean anything in terms of our alignment. Alot of it was just theory talk anyhow. But, there is also nothing that could prevent us both from being town, or just one of us being scum.
I realize that you were just trying to make sure that players did not get into the mind set that Vollkan and I could not be partners, but I also dont want them to get into the mindset that we

must

be partners, or that either one of us should be lynched from simple fear of that possible scenario.

[Ectomancer]

Talking about that: Ecto, I have still not heard why you think spring and mrfix scummy. Could you please do something about that?

I think I already explained why I chose the 3 names that I did.

And the wheels grind to a halt...

It's time for some lynching. If nobody has much to say, I'll give my top 3 lynch list and we can go from there.

At this point I'd just like to see it move. So, if that sparks something, go for it.

Let's string up Springlullaby, Mykonian, or mrfixij today.

Game slowed to a near halt. Ectomancer says 'Im gonna grease the wheels", Spyrex says "go for it". The wheels got greased.

I wouldn't call it a lie, but sometimes you do things to see what happens. I needed to see what would happen if I put those 3 names together on a list. I didnt know what reaction I would get, but Im content with the results.

[Ectomancer]

I've been following this and I've got 2 observations:

Vollkan is overly verbose, giving Orto's post 430 some legs to stand on. It can also be blamed on the observation below.

Ortolan was an early candidate for a VI. I can see why Vollkan might be inclined to not want to argue with him if he thinks he is a dim star on a cloudy night.

[Ectomancer]

See post 429

[Ectomancer]

Murky waters indeed.

Alright, we have a bit of an issue. We've got 2 players that we believe are likely town. That's not bad really, but in this situation, the ordinary course of action isn't really occurring.
One of them has decided to actively lurk and focus on other games.
The other has (at least with me) a credibility issue he shares with his partner. Sitting here as the town player you and your partner tried to railroad does not inspire me to follow you in your case.
Thirdly, game theory is important, but so is brevity. I'm getting glassy eyed reading over these large texts subjective objective Bluuuurrrr.

After 18 pages, we have enough to rely on actions. Let's take it apart, see who has done things that could be scum motivated, decide which is the likeliest among the pool of cases and string that person up. I'd like to see some brief, concise cases written up from people. Make them on me if you must. Also, if you must use quotes, keep them few in number. Better to refer to post #'s if possible.

OrangePenguin, you need to play the game out. You may not be under pressure personally, but you are under obligation to (try to) do some leading after your claim. Besides, few things are as annoying as having to replace in to a game where the player before you claimed and quit. You know? I always think " Jerk, if you were going to quit, why the hell did you claim?"

[Ectomancer]

Ok, my current one is Mykonian. The simple gist of it is that he has had a remarkable 180 degree turnaround on SL with regards to his early attacks, followed by his recent vehement defense. Nothing in game seems to be the source of this new direction, therefore ulterior motives are suspected.

Who else's name do we toss in the hat and why?

[Ectomancer]

Ok, my current one is Mykonian. The simple gist of it is that he has had a remarkable 180 degree turnaround on SL with regards to his early attacks, followed by his recent vehement defense. Nothing in game seems to be the source of this new direction, therefore ulterior motives are suspected.

Who else's name do we toss in the hat and why?

Did you have any more specific ideas as to what ulterior motive might exist for such a change in position, or is the simple fact of a "broken pattern" as you called it?

I briefly touched on this topic in a response to TDC, but to put a fine point on it, there are 2 ways to interpret it with Mykonian as scum:

1: SL is scum. Mykonian came out with an early attack for distancing. Symptoms of this are that A: Mykonian has a good basis for his attack but B: Dropped it for no apparent reason.
*Argument against this is the hard defense by Myk for SL. I'm not certain a scum buddy would stick their neck out that far.

2: SL is town. Mykonian came out with an early attack with good basis, but didn't follow through because he didn't want to be seen pushing the wagon against a town member. Now defending SL to be seen as the voice of reason in the event of a townie SL lynch. Problem is, there is no evident reasoning for sudden vehement support.
*Argument against this is __________


@TDC - I dont sleep with an alarm clock because, in general, my internal clock works fine and wakes me when it gets close to being time to get up. Mod vote counts are roughly a game equivalent of that. I may take a quick glance at it, but not closely unless I'm going back looking at trends, or I know that a wagon has been building enough that a more accurate count than my general awareness is needed.

unvote, vote Mykonian

[Ectomancer]

O
M
F
G
W
T
F
W
T
?
?
?
?
?
??
?
?

[Ectomancer]

Did anyone do a summary post on the SL case? Mind doing another brief?

[Ectomancer]

In light of spam being such a scummy and important issue for you, what do you think of Ecto's 494? Surely that gives him away as obv-scum...

Heheh, that was an expression of pure, unadulterated pain.

I must confess that I have considered putting Vollkan up for the lynch, but not because I think he is scummy. My analogy is of the reflectors you put in your car windows to block out the heat. Sure, its doing the job and is beneficial up there if the car is just sitting there, but if you are trying to drive around, you've got to remove the damn thing from your windshield or you'll never get anywhere, OR can't see where you are driving.
Or maybe he is that steady drizzle that turns into driving rain that keep you from being able to see through the windshield unless you turn on the wipers and wipe it away.

@Spyrex - Why do you think that a deadline would be beneficial?

[Ectomancer]

ecto wants to lynch volkan for his verbosity, SL seems to agree.

Confession to thoughts of sin are not acting out on them. That paragraph was actually a super top classified ultra secret message to Vollkan.

[Ectomancer]

I'm absolutely positive had I not been a mason he would have pushed all the way to get me lynched.

I would have lynched you too.

[Ectomancer]

I'm absolutely positive had I not been a mason he would have pushed all the way to get me lynched.

I would have lynched you too.

are you conceding as scum?

The point is, were it not for the claim, you would have been lynched. It wasn't just Volk, or even just Volk and Ecto, it was more than that.

[Ectomancer]

Well if 3 people say that to me, at least two of whom are of extremely questionable alignment, you'll understand if I don't take it to heart

You might if you ever intend to be any better at the game

[Ectomancer]

I was hoping Ecto would reply to my last retort. I have found all of his last three posts wanting

ecto wants to lynch volkan for his verbosity, SL seems to agree.

Confession to thoughts of sin are not acting out on them. That paragraph was actually a super top classified ultra secret message to Vollkan.

Why ridicule the suggestion you are scum with vollkan? Seems much more of a viable match-up than other scumpairs or trios I can see.

Pure crap. First off, this isnt ridiculing ANYTHING.This is clarifying that I dont want to lynch Vollkan for being verbose AND points out to Vollkan that the previous statement was direct towards him. Secondly, your statement is flat out WRONG. Could you read the game? Is it any wonder that I criticize you? Read the

bolded

part and then explain to me where in the hell you got that statement above.

Those big posts with the red in them are killing me to have to read. It makes it hard for me to figure out who you are talking to, and I think sometimes you forget to put in the [red]red[/red] and so then I have to try to figure out who is talking in that section.
There are some good points I think you have, from what I was able to discern of it.

I wanted to restate that you are correct, there is nothing that could prevent myself and Vollkan from being scumbuddies. Just because we had a big argument doesnt mean anything in terms of our alignment. Alot of it was just theory talk anyhow. But, there is also nothing that could prevent us both from being town, or just one of us being scum.
I realize that you were just trying to make sure that players did not get into the mind set that Vollkan and I could not be partners, but I also dont want them to get into the mindset that we

must

be partners, or that either one of us should be lynched from simple fear of that possible scenario.

Then Ecto offers:

I'm absolutely positive had I not been a mason he would have pushed all the way to get me lynched.

I would have lynched you too.

Implicit criticism of my play and attempt to undermine my opinions, implicit endorsement of vollkan. All dressed up in apparent apathy. No reasons given? Ectomancer, why would you want to give that impression?

This isnt implicit endorsement of Vollkan, this is a plain statement that your play sucked.

Then plays the newbie card on me:

Well if 3 people say that to me, at least two of whom are of extremely questionable alignment, you'll understand if I don't take it to heart

You might if you ever intend to be any better at the game

I never denied being new, especially at the time I first came under suspicion this game (this day has dragged on so long I even now consider myself substantially older and wiser). Do you believe your one-line smartarse replies are assisting in scum-catching this game Ectomancer?

[/quote]

Playing the newbie card? How about I jumped your case for dismissing input on your quality of play? How about I want to see you improve? How about I'm afraid that you will be alive in endgame and my win will be dependent upon your play? Glad you think you are much wiser. Let's assume you are town. That gives you no better insight into who is scum and who is not. The only advantage you have right now is that you probably know OP's alignment

and that is it.

It doesnt make me anymore likely to follow you unless you build a solid case, and you aren't doing that. Understand?
As for my oneliners finding scum? They are doing something equally important, which is to prevent YOU from lynching on a crappy case. If you want people to follow your lead, build a better case and stop crybabying. "You don't like my case, you're defending my target!!"

No, I'm pointing out that you CAN'T use the fact that Vollkan wanted to lynch you as evidence that he is scum. The REASON you can't is because at least 1 TOWN player thought you were scum and WOULD LYNCH YOU.

FYI, you aren't proven town, so arguing from the vantage point of being confirmed town isn't going to fly. Lucky for you, OP was believable in his breadcrumbing prior to the claim, but that's all it is, is believable.

Now, you need examples of crap play? How about this one?

Dont ask for a deadline when you haven't even addressed the cases presented!!!

What the hell are you and Spyrex doing?

Why did you ignore my case on Mykonian and yet ask for a deadline? Didn't Vollkan accuse you of being tunnelvisioned? Don't you realize that this is a perfect example that makes his point? I thought you weren't going to allow Vollkan to back you into a corner? In this case the corner is your exclusive focus on Vollkan himself. You aren't a cop, so pardon me if I don't take your word too seriously.

[Ectomancer]

@Mykonian and Spyrex - My emphasis on the Mykonian case was to illustrate the tunnel vision that Ortolan is having. I'd like him to take a crack at analyzing it rather than getting pissed that he can't move the Vollkan wagon.

Meanwhile, people are criticizing Orto's play, which may be bad, but that's for the post-game report, not a critical time when we have a new guy replacing in.

Yes, Orto and Orange were playing badly. No, we shouldn't lynch them for that because they're all but confirmed town. So discussing their play is sidetracking, and popular sidetracking to boot.

This last page and a half has yielded no information except Don's lack of information and the zealousness to discuss bad play of confirmed town.

Completely disagree. Ortolan is basing his vote on Vollkan at least partly on Vollkan's willingness to lynch Ortolan. Ortolan says that this means that Vollkan was willing to lynch someone who is town, therefore Vollkan is scum.
That means that Ortolan is basing his judgement upon the quality of his own play. It is more than pertinent to this discussion to point out that Ortolan's play was hardly pro-town and therefore would have attracted a lynch from both town and scum as is evidenced to

me

by the fact that I am town.
That makes Vollkan's willingness to lynch Ortolan a null tell, knocking out a major leg of his case.
Once Ortolan accepts the fact that his play was no stellar performance and stops trying to build cases on that premise, we can drop the topic.

This is an attack on a case, not ad hominem. It is an attack on the logic and the evidence. If it comes off as me protecting Vollkan so be it (though if anyone should be lynched for protecting Vollkan it would be Spyrex)

P.S. - Quit asking for deadlines. Next one who does gets my vote. Don't care if there is no other shred of evidence of being scum.

[Ectomancer]

First of all,

you are making arguments with the premise that YOU are town

. As you say, this is not known by any means. In addition, unless you are stating that myself, Vollkan, and Spyrex are 3 scum in a 10 player game,

there was at least 1 town member on your wagon and one of them was me

. Care to argue over whether there would be 3 scum in a 10 player game?

Rather than me going and digging up sludge you threw at mykonian (who I've been reading as pro-town all game) perhaps you could make more of an effort to convince.

Give me a break. Don't give us this lameass excuse to throw off attention to the fact that you ARE tunnelvisioned on Vollkan to the exclusion of everything else.
Why the biased statement? How do you know if it is sludge if you dont even recall it?? Here is the post and it isn't a case buried somewhere or pieced together over several posts. It was ALREADY summarized for you.

Ok, my current one is Mykonian. The simple gist of it is that he has had a remarkable 180 degree turnaround on SL with regards to his early attacks, followed by his recent vehement defense. Nothing in game seems to be the source of this new direction, therefore ulterior motives are suspected.

Who else's name do we toss in the hat and why?

Did you have any more specific ideas as to what ulterior motive might exist for such a change in position, or is the simple fact of a "broken pattern" as you called it?

I briefly touched on this topic in a response to TDC, but to put a fine point on it, there are 2 ways to interpret it with Mykonian as scum:

1: SL is scum. Mykonian came out with an early attack for distancing. Symptoms of this are that A: Mykonian has a good basis for his attack but B: Dropped it for no apparent reason.
*Argument against this is the hard defense by Myk for SL. I'm not certain a scum buddy would stick their neck out that far.

2: SL is town. Mykonian came out with an early attack with good basis, but didn't follow through because he didn't want to be seen pushing the wagon against a town member. Now defending SL to be seen as the voice of reason in the event of a townie SL lynch. Problem is, there is no evident reasoning for sudden vehement support.
*Argument against this is __________


@TDC - I dont sleep with an alarm clock because, in general, my internal clock works fine and wakes me when it gets close to being time to get up. Mod vote counts are roughly a game equivalent of that. I may take a quick glance at it, but not closely unless I'm going back looking at trends, or I know that a wagon has been building enough that a more accurate count than my general awareness is needed.

unvote, vote Mykonian

P.S. - You can take this as you will, but I would vig you in a heartbeat.

[Ectomancer]

First of all,

you are making arguments with the premise that YOU are town

. As you say, this is not known by any means. In addition, unless you are stating that myself, Vollkan, and Spyrex are 3 scum in a 10 player game,

there was at least 1 town member on your wagon and one of them was me

. Care to argue over whether there would be 3 scum in a 10 player game?

When did I say I think SpyreX is scum? (well admittedly he was one my suspects in the "post your three top suspects" game but that doesn't mean I think he is scum- it was more from a process of elimination, which is now redundant due to revised opinions anyhow). And haven't you again adopted the entirely-reducible-to-WIFOM attitude of "hehe I *know* I'm town, I don't *know* you are".

Thanks for making my point for me. Durrh. It doesn't matter if you believe that I am town or not, the point is, town was on your wagon for good reason. It doesn't matter if it was me, Vollkan, or Spyrex.
ONCE AGAIN IN CASE YOU MISSED IT. Are you planning to argue for 3 scum in this game? If so, for town to NOT to have been on your wagon that would HAVE to be myself, Vollkan, and Spyrex.

In response to your points about my lack of playing ability:

Firstly, it is independent of my alignment.
Secondly, it occurred in the past and I don't believe it applies presently.
Thirdly, I never disputed that I had played badly initially.
Fourthly, as mrfixij says, all you seem to be doing by referring to my acknowledged previous bad play is distracting attention from any actually relevant discussions.

Grant me the ^!##@ serenity...

1: Who said it wasn't??
2: When you are trying to use it to implicate someone it damn sure does.
3: Then why are you trying to say that Vollkan must be scum for wanting to lynch you??
4: WTF? Your case is faulty so my pointing it out is distracting? From what? Your narrow focus?

Rather than me going and digging up sludge you threw at mykonian (who I've been reading as pro-town all game) perhaps you could make more of an effort to convince.

Give me a break. Don't give us this lameass excuse to throw off attention to the fact that you ARE tunnelvisioned on Vollkan to the exclusion of everything else.
Why the biased statement? How do you know if it is sludge if you dont even recall it??

Massive lol at this. If you haven't noticed who I've been attacking in my last two posts, it's not vollkan, it's you. Nice use of the chainsaw defence on someone who I'm not even targetting currently. For a good example of a "biased statement" read the sentence preceding your use of this phrase.

<facepalm>

Look here, this is the way time works. It goes one way, see? Your focus was singularly on Vollkan. Just because I point it out along with a flaw in your reasoning, your resulting OMGUS does not change history. You still had tunnel vision and my argument has not lost a whit of its validity. It's not impressive that you decided to turn on your critic.

P.S. - You can take this as you will, but I would vig you in a heartbeat.

I assume this is addressed to me? I "take it" as another useless remark on your part. But it is nice to know you would vig me, this knowledge does assist in scum-catching.

I'm a great fan of sarcasm.

[Ectomancer]

Here is the post and it isn't a case buried somewhere or pieced together over several posts. It was ALREADY summarized for you.

Ok, my current one is Mykonian. The simple gist of it is that he has had a remarkable 180 degree turnaround on SL with regards to his early attacks, followed by his recent vehement defense. Nothing in game seems to be the source of this new direction, therefore ulterior motives are suspected.

Who else's name do we toss in the hat and why?

Did you have any more specific ideas as to what ulterior motive might exist for such a change in position, or is the simple fact of a "broken pattern" as you called it?

I briefly touched on this topic in a response to TDC, but to put a fine point on it, there are 2 ways to interpret it with Mykonian as scum:

1: SL is scum. Mykonian came out with an early attack for distancing. Symptoms of this are that A: Mykonian has a good basis for his attack but B: Dropped it for no apparent reason.
*Argument against this is the hard defense by Myk for SL. I'm not certain a scum buddy would stick their neck out that far.

2: SL is town. Mykonian came out with an early attack with good basis, but didn't follow through because he didn't want to be seen pushing the wagon against a town member. Now defending SL to be seen as the voice of reason in the event of a townie SL lynch. Problem is, there is no evident reasoning for sudden vehement support.
*Argument against this is __________

Honestly, from a completely impartial perspective, I don't even see how this is a case. You've just given us two possible interpretations of mykonian's behaviour consistent with him being scum, but no reason to buy either of them.

Maybe you are just misunderstanding what I'm trying to say then. The crux of the case is inconsistent behavior on Mykonian's part. This is illustrated by his early attack on SL with some legitimate legs to stand on, to unvoting, to now vehemently defending him with no discernable change in game state that would allow for such a reversal.
Vollkan asked me how this could be interpreted to see Mykonian as scum. I provided 2 scenarios based upon the flipflop in which the logical conclusion would result in Mykonian as scum.
As you can see, SL's alignment is not revealed should Mykonian flip scum, another point I was clarifying as it is of import when deciding who to lynch today to maximize our information return.

[Ectomancer]

Heh, I took so long putting my responses together that Vollkan beat me to the punch.

[Ectomancer]

I love vollkans post 606.

And ecto, the way you present it there you do two important things: first, you assume that my first attack on spring was a strong one, which it wasn't, I criticized a weak FoS from spring. Really not a stance I would like to stay long, luckily I didn't have to, because it was my first post, day 1. Second, you only name the scenario's where I am scum. Not surprising you end on the conclusion that I'm scum everytime.

And I certainly hope you are not the vig

I've been satisfied with your answer Mykonian. I'm just extremely irritated that real cases that could be discussed are being ignored because our mason thinks he is suddenly in charge (answer for you Spyrex?). Sorry, even proven town has to prove their logic if they want to convince the rest of the town.

[Ectomancer]

@Mykonian - Im through with berating Ortolan, that's why I broke my last posts to him into 2 sections. I agree that he is at least a better player than OP is being.

unvote

[Ectomancer]

You are scum. I can not believe otherwise.

Really?

[Ectomancer]

So...I see Ortolan has two votes in this game so long as OP is alive...

[Ectomancer]

vote OrangePenguin

Their claim needs to be tested and confirmed. I'm not going to fall for a VI scheme.

"Hey, if we get into trouble, let's claim mason so town wont lynch us and then play scummy so that "scum" wont kill us. Haha!"

At the very least, Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels need to be neutered. Take out the inactive one.

[Ectomancer]

@TDC - Think of it as a protest vote. Kind of like putting the Libertarian Party on the ballot. You know you aren't going to win, but you do it anyhow.

Now that I've stirred you, mind taking the lead here? I re-read over your posts, and you have contributed, but you haven't taken a lead role as far as I can tell in a brief skim. We've gotten ourselves into a deadlock and we need to come up with a way to break it. Let's hear the direction you think we should be taking.

[Ectomancer]

Apparently vollkan has a reputation for being good at this game. In light of this I find his dogged argumentation extremely perplexing. The points he argues with don_johnson are both extremely subjective and convoluted. They aren't good scumtells, they're just vollkan being blatantly nitpicky to a point which benefits no-one. It's not just don_johnson he's done it with this game either.

I do recall reading in mafia discussion a comment that mafia is, or should be more a psychological guessing game than one which worships "logic". I find vollkan's persistent adherence to a skewed conception of logic and an almost deliberate effort to tunnel in his arguments rather than think of alternative explanations for others' behaviour as something he would only do as scum.

Best argument you've made this game.

[Ectomancer]

Quote:
He isn’t hunting, just sitting back and pointing fingers after saying that it was an irrelevant argument so early in the game.

I'm sure you think there is a distinction, but I fail to see it in reference to Spyrex. He was scumhunting, you said twice or more that he wasn't, but its pretty clear that he has been in my view. In fact, early on it was Spyrex who took the offensive with me, far more so than Vollkan IIRC.
I dont know why we are splitting fine hairs and completely missing each others point in this game. I realize that people are saying that Vollkan has been stretching the conversation out, but I swear I see his recent antagonists constantly repeating the same thing in a different, and longer manner. Then he is attacked for answering repeatedly to the same thing?
Calling it as a see it.

[Ectomancer]

Yes, let's waste our lynch on somebody who is basically confirmed.

FOS: Ecto

I really like my vollkan vote, but I now remember why I was voting ecto back in the day...

Ok, let's jump in the wayback machine and recall what those reasons were.

Vote: ecto

.

He's pushing a pretty weak case against Spyrex, mostly based on craplogic, and I don't like the case at all.

That really wasn't a case, FYI. I didn't really do the whole "show scummy stuff with quotes supporting it" dealio, so don't count that as a case.

But I think ecto's behavior in this game has shown scumminess. ort's show sheepiness.

I'm sorry. I claimed and then I for some reason, I haven't really said much sense. It appears ort disappeared as well. I'm not as sure about Ecto (being scum) anymore the more I think about it. I think tomorrow, I will look things over, and reassess it.

unvote

- Looking things over, I realize that my reasonings for voting ecto were bad, I must admit. Like I said above somewhere, I am going to read through in a couple days, when I finally have enough free time (ugh! =[..) to properly do anything.

Only your first paragraph gives a hint of a reason, but when pressed, you never even tried to give supporting material for it, and eventually you simply gave up. This is precisely what lead to the suspicion on you, which spread to Orto after he followed your vote, and eventually led to the 2 of you claiming.

You apparently had nothing back then, because when pressed, rather than give a case, the two of you ended up claiming instead. (a point towards the two of you being scum claiming masons)

Contribution. It's what's lacking.

[Ectomancer]

and so ecto opened the possibility of lynching a mason, and vollkan doesn't disagree with it? You are making it far to easy for orto to confirm all his theory's.

This is exactly the type of statement that creates the "nitpicking" that Vollkan is being accused of,

and

creates all the excuse he would need to display that people are putting out crap that he is forced to respond to.

@Myk - Your stance right now is that Mrfixij is an active scummy lurker and not an actual inactive lurker? Don is attacking the wrong person, but is it scummy? Why?

[Ectomancer]

@TDC - Think of it as a protest vote. Kind of like putting the Libertarian Party on the ballot. You know you aren't going to win, but you do it anyhow.

Their claim needs to be tested and confirmed. I'm not going to fall for a VI scheme.

Doesn't read like a protest vote for me at all. Sounds like you genuinely want him lynched.

I want the Libertarian candidate to win too, but we know he wont.

What would've happened had anybody jumped on?

That's the 64 dollar question isn't it? Encourage more to join?

Now that I've stirred you, mind taking the lead here?

Asking me to "take the lead" when you yourself have a vote going that you admit will never lead to a lynch is funny. Is that what you consider "taking the lead"?

Of all the players, in my view I consider yourself and the recipient of my current vote to have been sideline players for much of the game. Your derogatory statement about my direction ignores the easily demonstrable times when I have attempted to lead the discussion.

Let's hear the direction you think we should be taking.

I think dj should finish his re-read. I don't know why answering to current things and re-reading are impossible for him to combine, but it just leads to him bringing up things that we've already heard. This whole orto/dj vs vollkan thing is leading nowhere, everytime I open this thread there are a couple new walls of text which just re-iterate things that were already said multiple times.

I can agree with this.

When dj has done that, I'd like to read this:

I will wait till johnson catch up before posting one summary of why I think Vollkan is scum. Then everybody here is going to have to explain point by point why they are not voting Vollkan.

because I still don't get how either of her, orto or dj have come to conclusion that vollkan must be scum.

Alrighty, but V/LA until Jan 2nd unless we get a replacement that isn't likely to know what that summary was.
--

[Ectomancer]

Alright, I'm going to go ahead and claim by saying that

I'm

not standing in the way of this being mountainous.

Advantage to killing OP, we confirm Ortolan or catch them both Day 1. At the very least we keep the verbose one and his word is at least unquestionably coming from a townie.
The reason this question needs to be answered today is to avoid a LYLO where scum convinces the remaining vanilla member to test these two and it turns out it is only

mostly

mountainous.

Now obviously, there is reason for some members of the town not to overly protest the validity of this. It's why its such a damn thorny subject to get around. I had to claim even to be able to talk about it, and to dispute it here and now, a power role would need to claim.

But Ectomancer, wouldn't their gambit mean they are gambling on there being no investigative role?
Would that really be a stretch even in the slightest? I mean think about it. Here you are in a 10 player game, you get your role of Goon, and that you also have only 1 scum buddy who is also a Goon. Do you think there is an investigative role? Do you think claiming mason is really such a risk for scum in that scenario?

When do you think would be a good time to test them if not today? Assuming they really are Masons, do you really think we also have an investigative role to confirm them? Probably not is my guess.
So does any of this mean scum has to NK the masons? Not until after the first LYLO. They get to try to get the masons tested, or get the townie killed for a win. Failing that, even should one of them get lynched, they kill a mason and go into the final day only needing to convince the remaining mason that the other guy is scum in the final LYLO.

I'd prefer to win today, or confirm the remaining one and let scum decide when they will either NK him or have to go into the final day with him as judge.

[Ectomancer]

Alrighty then. Sometimes you put a line in the water not knowing what you might get. At that point I didn't really care what I got so long as it was more than what we had going on. Policy lynch all liars? Sue me.

You can either ignore the "lynch OP today section", or you can press me for the details. All I can say is that it is a gambit rooted in psychology. I realize that people get nervous around gambits, but if you want a weird Ecto townie read, you can check out viewtopic.php?t=8488&start=500 (not the same situation here!) or viewtopic.php?t=7503&start=0&postdays=0 ... highlight= (Got first scum, but HackerHuck owned me in endgame. My guess rooted in psychology in that situation was that the real cop would not try to counter my soft claim.)

Now that we have a more amenable atmosphere between the players here, let's continue.

unvote

OP and Ort managed to actually put together decent posts. I particularly liked Ortolan's.

Now, I'm going to go back to the one case that I felt was on solid ground, Mykonian. I quoted once again my statement on it, and I'll elaborate once again here. In this case, I am actually going

against

my gut impression on Mykonian's post catalogue. (He reads town).
I look for motivation in people's play. Why did they do what they did?
In Myk's case, it was the 180 on SL.
He has already answered to this, and I was satisfied with his answer. Satisfied, but not convinced enough to let it go.

I realize that Ortolan read this already, but didn't think the 2 scenarios were a case. In fact, they weren't. The case is the unexplained 180 on SL. The

possible motivations

are the 2 scenarios. Once again, explaining those 2 scenarios are important because they demonstrate that SL's alignment is not dependent upon Myk's. ie, if Myk is scum, it doesn't mean that SL is too.

Someone said they thought we would get more info out of an SL lynch, but I look and we only have 1 vote on SL? Maybe Vollkan was the one who said that, I'd have to look back again.

Ok, my current one is Mykonian. The simple gist of it is that he has had a remarkable 180 degree turnaround on SL with regards to his early attacks, followed by his recent vehement defense. Nothing in game seems to be the source of this new direction, therefore ulterior motives are suspected.

Who else's name do we toss in the hat and why?

Did you have any more specific ideas as to what ulterior motive might exist for such a change in position, or is the simple fact of a "broken pattern" as you called it?

I briefly touched on this topic in a response to TDC, but to put a fine point on it, there are 2 ways to interpret it with Mykonian as scum:

1: SL is scum. Mykonian came out with an early attack for distancing. Symptoms of this are that A: Mykonian has a good basis for his attack but B: Dropped it for no apparent reason.
*Argument against this is the hard defense by Myk for SL. I'm not certain a scum buddy would stick their neck out that far.

2: SL is town. Mykonian came out with an early attack with good basis, but didn't follow through because he didn't want to be seen pushing the wagon against a town member. Now defending SL to be seen as the voice of reason in the event of a townie SL lynch. Problem is, there is no evident reasoning for sudden vehement support.
*Argument against this is __________

unvote, vote Mykonian

[/url]

[Ectomancer]

Those are 3 great questions. Glad you asked them. Those really are the questions aren't they? You can't look in the back of the book for the answers though. Have to wait until we get there.

[Ectomancer]

I'm not willing to hammer you.
From what I can tell, neither SpyreX nor Ecto want to do that either.
So, I guess the ball is in orto's court on whether you should claim or not.

--

Ecto: When do you plan to reveal your gambit? I have trouble understanding what it was supposed to achieve.

Probably endgame. I understand where the trouble comes from. If you'll bear with me though, I think it should work out. I might be able to talk about it earlier if it fails. If you want to create a case based upon it, not much I can say except please build your cases on other material. The tree is planted but might not bear fruit, and definitely wont if I tell everyone where the tree is.

[Ectomancer]

everyone runs gambits. i wanted to see reactions.

I DID NOT PUT HIM AT L-1

. that was mykonian. i wanted to make the point that my voting pattern should be relevant. the fact i didn't vote for you should be relevant in that i listed you as one of my top suspects at that point in the game which i had completed reading. i didn't come in half cocked gunning for your lynch without all the facts, i merely found it interesting that someone on my list was calling for a deadline.

Hrmm.

If your placing a vote on Vollkan was a gambit, I think you misunderstand the term gambit. Do you mean you applied a pressure vote?
You tried to put him at L-1 if I'm following events correctly. The only reason your statement is true isn't because you didn't

try

, but because your vote was not counted by the mod due to no previous unvote. I thought

above

you were trying to say your vote was a gambit, but in the same breath you didn't put him at L-1? Wait,..what?

[Ectomancer]

maybe i am misusing the term "gambit", but my vote on Volkan was to prove a point. now we are back to arguing semantics which is not productive.

Ok, perhaps it is a pet peeve of mine, but words have meanings. There is quite a difference between a gambit and a pressure vote. In a game where preciseness of language is as important as it is here, I disagree that it is semantics, or unproductive. Clear communication is important.

Your vote was to prove a point, so did it? Stated simply, what was it? Please don't regurgitate the conversation with Vollkan. There's no need to defend yourself against him, this is for me. I don't need frills, just plain statements and I dont care what Vollkan has interpreted as your motives.

How far along are you with your read? Caught up yet? (I may have missed that somewhere if you said)

[Ectomancer]

Don, if you could pull yourself away from Spyrex for a moment, I believe both myself and TDC have asked questions.

[Ectomancer]

Your vote was to prove a point, so did it? Stated simply, what was it? Please don't regurgitate the conversation with Vollkan.

How far along are you with your read? Caught up yet? (I may have missed that somewhere if you said)

yes, caught up. still trying to sift through a ton of information. my vote

was

to prove a point. the point was that

my

voting pattern should be as relevant as anyone elses. THAT VOTING PATTERNS ARE RELEVANT. they are actually some of the ONLY concrete evidence we leave behind as our posts are subject to much more opinion and conjecture.

Ok, this is still not showing

how

you proved your point. Did you vote only to prove a point? Specifically, what about you voting for Vollkan shows that voting patterns are relevant? I'm not getting this. Do you think Vollkan is town and your vote on him was scummy...or...what? I understand that you are going on and on about voting patterns being relevant, yeah yeah, we get that, please go on. How do you apply that specifically to what you did, and where do I see your successful application of it?

[Ectomancer]

Overall a good post Don. There are some minor things that I could go after, but I'm not going to nitpick.

In the interest of moving this game along, and (no offense Vollkan) in an attempt to clear the clutter should this result in a lynch, I'm going to put Vollkan at L-2 and request a claim.

@Everyone else - Please don't give me reason to lynch you tomorrow by hammering before the claim, or even after it before we discuss it.

[Ectomancer]

@TDC - Several reasons. Vollkan has been the focus of the game in a number of ways. He was at the center of several lengthy debates with a number of players including myself. He has a peculiar relationship going with Spyrex. That alone makes his alignment of particular interest.
While you may not feel that I have particularly expressed any recent suspicion on Vollkan, you can find instances where I have chastised other players in this game for their play that makes Vollkan's points against their cases appear legitimate. I've also warned Vollkan directly about his play.
You get a knot in your hair, you can tease it with a comb all you want, but eventually you're forced to cut the knot out.
As for Don_Johnson, I can understand what he's trying to say. Though I haven't stepped into it with he and Spyrex, I understand why he made that early quote from me. The only way I can understand Spyrex's point is if he thinks Don read my quote first, then made a comment about Spyrex in his notes first, then quoted me. (Read ahead, then went back and created his view of the situation)

vote Mykonian

You've got to be kidding me. Tack this weird vote for a Day 1 claimed Doc on to my earlier complaint against you and I'm comfortable in actually taking this one to a lynch.

[Ectomancer]

Ecto: Do you agree with dj that if vollkan were to come up town, SpyreX is more or less confirmed, too?
I can understand the possibility of them being a scum pair, what I don't get is how it is supposed to work the other way around.

Neither will reveal the alignment of the other.

I find myself looking for a town buddy as scum often enough. In this case, Spyrex would be the instigator of the relationship. Vollkan flipping town wouldn't comment on Spyrex's likely alignment though. Also, he

could

just happen to agree with Vollkan.
You generally want your buddy going along for the ride with you, but if he has to die and come up town, especially if you two are *tied* in the town's eyes, so much the better. Once 1 member of a *scum pair* comes up town, I find that the case against the other is easily pursued.

[Ectomancer]

EBWOP: is

not

easily pursued.

[Ectomancer]

Neither will reveal the alignment of the other.

I find myself looking for a town buddy as scum often enough. In this case, Spyrex would be the instigator of the relationship. Vollkan flipping town wouldn't comment on Spyrex's likely alignment though. Also, he could just happen to agree with Vollkan.

Well.. what would a vollkan lynch tell you then?
You said:

He has a peculiar relationship going with Spyrex. That alone makes his alignment of particular interest.

So I assumed a vollkan lynch would tell you something about SpyreX, but now you say it wouldn't?

You chopped my statement. Don't do that.

@TDC - Several reasons. Vollkan has been the focus of the game in a number of ways. He was at the center of several lengthy debates with a number of players including myself. He has a peculiar relationship going with Spyrex. That alone makes his alignment of particular interest.

"That alone" refers to the entire paragraph. It means I shouldn't need to provide any reasons more than those.

On the soft claim - Im in the same class as yourself and Mykonian. Since it wasn't just me that missed, I would have to attribute it to the incredibly difficult read this game became with the pages upon pages of massive walls of text and quote pyramids. Harkening back to my quote above, Vollkan was at the center of many of those sections.

[Ectomancer]

I'm wary of Ecto for he ultimately caused the vollkan claim for "moving the game along" and for his undisclosed-mason-vote-gambit.

Luckily for me, moving the game along is exactly what has occured. As for the latter, its still day 1.

[Ectomancer]

unvote

while I go back and look for (in)consistencies on Vollkan and Mykonian and their claims.

[Ectomancer]

"That alone" refers to the entire paragraph. It means I shouldn't need to provide any reasons more than those.

My bad, I thought it only related to the third point.
Either way, you've not answered the question: What would a vollkan lynch have told you (the other two points seem to say that they'd gain us information about other people, too)?
Other than this new development of it telling us a lot about mykonian, of course.

Not to be splitting too fine a hair with you over this, but my statement was that his alignment would be of particular interest. The information gained would be more of one that

eliminates

specific paths of possibility. At the time of my post, our (or at least my) view of this game, especially where Vollkan is concerned, lived in the world of infinite possibilities. The revelation of Vollkan's alignment would remove every path that was derived from the supposition of him being the opposite. That would then allow us to review the multitude of interactions that he has had with other players in that light.
I'm a troubleshooter. When trying to resolve what a problem is, sometimes you have to resolve what a problem

isn't.

Vollkan was our Gordian knot. He had to be cut.
While I could not foresee the end result here, I think that my instincts were proven to be correct. We have narrowed down scum to 2 people (unless Vollkan and Mykonian somehow managed to counter-claim each other to "clear" one of them, and did it without night talk, dont think so). It is my belief that the masons have been confirmed.
If the measure of an action is by its results, I think I stand vindicated in my move.

[Ectomancer]

Something to think about, Masons and a Doc and a 4th unnamed-as-yet role would DEMAND offsetting roles for scum. Also don't forget that they if they are the sole remaining scum, they can both kill and use their power on the same night (roleblock Doc and kill mason).

[Ectomancer]

Oh FFS...

Breadcrumb is situational type of evaluation. Unless you really think you have something, treat it as a null tell.

I dont agree with the criticism of Mykonian's play surrounding a CC. His play is consistent with someone trying to get scum lynched without being forced to counterclaim.

However

Overall, reading through I gave the believability to Mykonian. But then my brain turned on and started noticing things and decided to point out to me that while defending, Mykonian was appealing to me? Why me? I feel like with the reason you gave for your moves, you were treating me as confirmed town and it makes me very nervous and suspicious.

[Ectomancer]

God love you OrangePenguin, please talk about what you are thinking. What made you decide to unvote just then?

[Ectomancer]

I liked post 899. You should post like that.

[Ectomancer]

Alright, some things that need to be talked about.

Mykonian, what are your parting thoughts?
Vollan, what are your parting thoughts?

Both of you are dead. There may be a delay if we hit town today, but you are both dead.

[Ectomancer]

I really dont see why a scum Mykonian would cc a Doc, knowing it would just get him killed, and they would get the doc tonight anyhow.

Hold on the hammer until we've beat this horse to glue.

[Ectomancer]

The whole "This CC makes sense because Myk was a high-chance lynch suspect and gives him a 50-50 shot of surviving a night AND killing the doctor"

You know, everything I said the last few pages.

Looking to get your ego stroked?

Mind cutting out the damn voting?

[Ectomancer]

Mind cutting out the damn voting?

i thought about that after i hit submit. myk can't self vote, though, and there should only be one other scum, so i wouldn't worry about it yet. but yes, noone else should vote until we agree to move on.

And OrangePenguin is dead now, yet I still worry...

[Ectomancer]

Ignore Myknonian and don't be goaded into anything. I'll have more time in awhile.

[Ectomancer]

I generally like to drag things out (long days benefit town more, blah blah blah), but I'm with Spyrex here. I dont have much to say, it isn't as though we

aren't

going to lynch Mykonian. (which limits information we get from the usual maneuvering) I believe that we really need only wait until both MrFixij and Ortolan have had their eulogy speeches. Ask for closing remarks, then prosecute the lynch.

If you decide to give me the finger for cutting off discussion, please have said discussion prepared to hand in, double spaced with margins.

[Ectomancer]

Great improvement from your early game Orto.
Everyone else who read his post and didn't get it, it doesn't matter if he is town or scum at this point. He does what Orto said, period.
If scum decides not to kill to setup WIFOM, awesome. One less townie dead while we unravel the string.
We need to focus on another target and worry, or not worry about MrFixij tommorrow

[Ectomancer]

vote mykonion

[Ectomancer]

I enjoyed the game, though it was frustrating at time. 2 mafia groups explains that handily. I also thought the mod did a good job...except on the setup. I mean seriously, town mislynched on day 1 only and lost and 4 votes were from scum, with only 6 needed to lynch.