Mini 738: The Town of Merrin - Game Over

[subgenius]

confirmed

[subgenius]

Good morning, neighborinos. It looks looks like we've got ourselves a little murd-didilly-erer on the loose here. Well, isn't that a pickle? I hate to point fingers, but I have strong suspicions against Militant. He doesn't mow his lawn on schedule, there's a big oil spot in his driveway that he hasn't cleaned up, he refuses to remove those awful lawn ornaments despite being asked by the home owner's assocation several times, and he's left his trash cans at the curb after pickup twice in the last three months. I try not to call people names, but he's a miscreant, and he's hurting our property values. Now, I'm not some sort of expert on the mind of deviant criminial underworld types, but it seems to me that this is exactly the sort of inconsiderate attitude that a hardened gangland assassin would have.

vote:Militant

[subgenius]

Well, it looks like there's quite a bit going on already. It seems to me that some of this talk about whether or not we have an SK to worry about is premature and probably counter productive to our efforts against the one threat of which we are certain, the mafia. I think we ought to wait and see what happens tonight and reopen the discussion after we have more concrete evidence to look at.

That being said, I think that this whole SK issue could very well be used by the mafia as a red herring to distract the town from pursuing our primary threat, which makes me suspicious of MacavityLock and Mykonian because it appears that they are the two players that have been most responsible for promoting the SK hunt. Mykonian broached the subject in his first post, while MacavityLock made an entirely separate SK accusation in post 47. I'd like to hear some reasoning from Macavity for this vote that explains why I should take it seriously and not consider it a mafia devised decoy.

One more question, just a clarification for a newer player. Are the terms 'scum' and 'mafia' entirely interchangeable, or does 'scum' also include SK or any other non-town aligned roles? The reason I ask is that GRIEFF's pre-game accusation referred to 'obvscum' which most people seem to interpret as meaning mafia, but could mean 2 mafia + 1 SK, or some other combination of non-town roles. On the first and second page, Mykonian and Goatrevolt both seemed to take it for granted that GRIEFF was referring to 3 mafia players. Is it possible that one or all of them inadvertently showed a more complete knowledge of the game set up than a townie would have?

[subgenius]

First, I'd like to assure everyone that I am keeping up with thread despite my admittedly low post count. Having read through the last few pages, I feel like we are chasing our tails a little bit. I don't feel like I have a lot to add to the game theory discussion going on at the moment, but there are a few points I'd like to mention.

First, I'm still not a big fan of Macavity's vote on Panzer. According to post 81, he considers Panzer the leading suspect for both SK and mafia, which would seem to be a pretty dire accusation, one that would warrant applying some tough questions to Panzer, but Macavity has neglected to ask any questions of Panzer that would help him build a case. At best, I feel this is perhaps complacent town play, but I think it could also be an example of scum trying to appear aggressive without every presenting a trail of arguments or claims that could later be used against him. It's unfortunate that Macavity has been forced to take a short hiatus, but I would really like to know why he isn't a more active participant in the bandwagon on Panzer if he feels that Panzer truly represents the both most likely SK and mafia suspect.

One other trend that I notice is Dourgrim's penchant for explaining his habits without real prompting. In post 80 he describes himself as a verbose and visceral player who has a tendency to interject himself into different discussions and operates on hunches. In post 128 he mentions that he's been away from the game for awhile and might be a bit rusty on theory. I feel that this sort of preemptive defense indicates a certain kind of paranoia that a townie wouldn't have. I'm willing to dismiss post 128 at face value, but post 80 especially looks like a defense for an accusation that nobody had yet presented.

[subgenius]

You slipped. If you meant dejkha, you would have said "picking on dejkha." You just revealed that you know dejkha is town.

Do other agree that this is a big slip, or am I just tunneling here?

I agree that this could be viewed as a slip. It's very odd that Panzer would simply assume Dejka is a townie. At the very least, Panzer has backpedalled and modified his reasons for voting for SL from a more general accusation of "picking on townies" and I guess what could be described as opportunistic voting, and he is now complaining of SL's attacking one player and not another. This switch-up alone I think shows that his main reason for voting on SL is to move attention away from himself rather than having a legitimate case. It looks like a vote of self-preservation more than anything else. Very scummy.

FoS: Panzer

I'm going to put off my vote for now, because by my count one more vote would put him at L-1, but I think this is the best lead we've got so far.

[subgenius]

I guess I missed Macavity's unvote.

unvote
vote: Panzerjager

[subgenius]

SL's argument against Dekhja, as I understand it, is that he voted for Dourgrim out of a sort of vicarious OMGUS.

1. Dourgrim votes for SL based on her casting a random vote early in the game despite actual discussion taking place and after her absence had been noted.

2. Dejkha FoS's Dourgrim and mentions that he too has been guilty of light posting, and could be one of Dourgrim's targets based on the criteria the he used to vote SL.

3. SL argues that Dejkha's FoS of Dourgrim is OMGUS because he is responding to Dourgrims vote against SL, which was based on criteria that could equally be applied to either SL or Dejkha. It's sort of an OMGUS once removed.

At least I think this is what SL is saying, she can confirm or deny.

[subgenius]

I don't have too much specific to add to the parsing and nitpicking cases that seem to be dominating at the moment, but I'll try to at least post an overview of how I'm reading things right now.

My vote is currently on Panzer, and nothing that's happened in the last few pages has made me think about moving it elsewhere. I'll try to show my reasoning and explain the timing of my vote in order to address Ting's comment about my vote being a little suspicious. Up until his 'slip' most of the discussion about Panzer revolved around if/when he realized Myko's initial vote was serious or not and whether or not this constituted a lie. To be honest, I didn't find this line of questioning especially interesting at the time it was occurring. What I did find interesting is that he made his 'slip' and attempted to start a new case against SL at just about the same time that GRIEFF had all but confirmed that Panzer wasn't being completely honest about his vote on Myko. As I mentioned in my first FoS of Panzer, I thought the timing of his case on SL very suspicious. Why would he wait until page 7 to start pressuring SL for a vote that she made on page 4? He posted 3 times after SL's vote on Dekhja before he decided to make a case out of it. This elapsed time combined with the awkward segue of "Hey, I'm not a liar, but check out what SL did," seemed like a likely attempt to divert attention with an arbitrary accusation. Secondly, I do think that the 'slip' was no small thing. Panzer strikes me as almost a stream of conscience poster. I think it's extremely plausible that he made a fruedian slip without noticing it. This kind of mistake doesn't make sense for a townie at all. Panzer claims that he only wrote "townie" because he didn't feel like looking up Dejkha's (i'm sure I mispelled this) name. I can sympathize, but I think an actual townie, espeically one as experienced as I think Panzer is, would have chosen "player", "poster, or "person" rather than "townie". I hope this explains the timing of my vote to those who thought it was a little abrupt.

As far as SL fence sitting or applying scum tells inconsistently, I don't find either of these accusation especially compelling. It makes sense to me for someone to find a case convincing yet not be ready to cast a vote that would place the victim within hammer range. It also makes sense to me to apply a scum tell to one person over another in some situations, especially if your goal is to apply pressure in order to squeeze more telling reactions out of a player. SL explicitly stated in her vote on Dejkha that she was unhappy with the current discussion and wanted to start more focused discussion. So she focused on Dejkha. Arbitrary? Sure, but it makes sense considering her stated motive. If we later confirm alignments on Dekjha or Ting, we might be able to make more out of this seemingly arbitrary decision, but I don't find it very suspicious for the time being.

As for Grieff, I appreciate his pointed questions and aggressiveness for now. I think that this aggressiveness has been responsible for pushing Panzer into what I feel was a legitimate mistake. On the other hand, I think Dourgrim has a point when he says that Grieff has a talent for prying scum tells out of posts that might not actually mean anything. This is certainly a double edged sword. Unless Dourgrim comes up with something pretty damning, I don't think I'll be persuaded to vote for the most active scum hunter, but depending on how things progress, Grieff's posts from Day 1 might require some very careful re-reading.

Most of the other players seem to have blended into the background, which I think is somewhat dangerous. Despite feeling pretty confident about the case on Panzer, I think it will be a good thing to get some opinions from Dekjha's replacement, militant, and macavity. Let's not forget, Macavity still hasn't explained why he named Panzer as his #1 SK and mafia suspect long before the bandwagon started filling up. He still needs to answer some questions about that.

[subgenius]

I'm confused, are you saying that Beyond's notes are scummy or are you casting a vote out of annoyance? You agree with his assessment of Gieff's case and then vote for him. What am I missing?

[subgenius]

Zilla, seriously, how can you cast a vote that quickly when I assume you still haven't read anything in the last 8 or 9 pages aside from the most recent vote count? I think Goatrevolt has clearly explained why he feels that it would be beneficial for you to go back and read the thread with an unbiased perspective.

You're campaigning pretty hard for a vote yourself. All those past votes are going to do exactly what any current post would do, but those past posts don't take into account that I am playing the game, and don't involve me on a personal level.

These responses make me feel your arguments are totally invalid, you are unwilling to back them up.

First, just because the earlier posts don't involve you on a personal level doesn't mean that you can't glean details from them. I assume your goal is to figure out who the scum players are. Regardless of whether or not the previous posts concern you personally, they contain details that will help you achieve this goal.

Secondly, I'm just flabbergasted that you would cast a vote based on Goatrevolt's very reasonable request that you read the thread for yourself. There's 11 pages of evidence for you to look at, and you fired off a vote based on :

1.

He's got no votes and I don't like his attitude.

As Goat already said, I'm not sure how having no votes is a scum tell, and I unpleasant attitude is not a scum tell.

2.

Moreover, his logic also doesn't make sense, because the players are going to try to convince me in the past already anyway. It shouldn't make a difference if i'm reading old posts or new ones.

You didn't really address Goat's argument as to why you'd be better of reading the thread without a summary. Just because you say the logic doesn't make sense, doesn't make it so.

3.

He's got a vote that needs explaining, also. He's the only one on MacCavityLock, and he should be explaining why he's there and where he stands on the top vote getters (something missing from the last few pages, at least).

Guess where you can find this information? He alluded to his reasons for his vote on Macavity on page 4, and if you read the thread you'll see his opinions on the top vote getters. In any case, what would Goat's stance on the top vote getters even mean to you? You haven't read the cases against them.

[subgenius]

@Panzer

I'm confused how in the same post you can describe Beyond Birthday's unvote as "by far the scummiest thing in this thread" and then finish the post by voting for Zilla and claiming she is in fact far scummier. You actually built something of a case against BB and explained how his unvote could be seen as a scummy flip flop. I'm not really seeing any case in your comments about Zilla. You characterize some of her post as lying, but I'd like to hear more about why you think she is lying. If she is, in fact, lying, I would surmise that her motive is to avoid rereading the thread, which isn't really all that scummy. Why do you think these alleged lies point to her being scum?

Why do you think that Zilla is so much scummier than BB? According to your post it seems to me that BB is the more likely scum, while Zilla is just a replacement that is trying to avoid reading 11 pages of play.

[subgenius]

First off, I get the feeling that Zilla's strategy is mostly about throwing a bucket of feces at the wall and waiting to see what sticks. How she could attack Goat so adamantly and with so many different accusations while fully admitting that her main motive for voting for him was because he didn't want to write a summary is amazing. I wouldn't call it scummy, but I wouldn't describe it as helpful either.

Here's something I would like explained from myko: (post 306)

Panzerjager wrote:
WOW WAIT A SECOND.

Didn't you just that being the first person to say SK was completely ridiculous and minute and not a big deal. holy christ, again I'm gonna have to Unvote. Vote:Zilla

I now see her as willing to say/do anything in order for people to see her as pro-town.


You aren't defending me, are you?

What exactly are you trying to communicate to Panzer here? There's already some discussion about a possible Panzer/Myko pairing. What did you mean by this? When I first read it, it immediately occurred to me that you could be trying to remind a partner not to become too involved in mutual defense.

Also, GRIEFF, concerning post 305:

I do agree with others who have expressed suspicion at BB's hop off the wagon. I asked him in Post 235 if he thought my original points were made less valid by my later points. He gave a wishy-washy answer in 237 and said he wasn't really all that sure about the wagon (not the reason he originally gave for unvoting), and then said this:

BeyondBirthday wrote:
it is just a petty argument over, apparently, a random vote.

No, it isn't. Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong. IT WAS NOT A RANDOM VOTE. And the Beyond_Birthday of a few pages back agrees wholeheartedly:

Post 150

Beyond_Birthday wrote:

GIEFF wrote:
This is another post by you that seems to indicate you took mykonian's vote seriously. If you thought it was a joke-post, you wouldn't think he was really calling me anti-town.

You didn't realize he was trying to be funny; you thought he was really calling me anti-town. This is abundantly clear based on your past posts.

And you just lied about it.

I agree.

Beyond_Birthday wrote:

Panzerjager wrote:

I knew that he meant for it to be a joke. I did NOT see it in this way.

Now this IS scummy. You knew it was meant to be a joke, but you blatantly ignored this to make a case with the assumption he did not mean it to be a joke...?

eh heh heh...NO.

Vote Panzerjager

Sure doesn't look to me like you thought it was a petty random vote when you hopped on the wagon, but I guess you thought it made a convenient excuse for jumping off, especially because the first reason you gave ("your additional points don't make sense, so I'm unvoting, ignoring your previous points") was questioned.

HoS Beyond_Birthday. Busted.

That's a much longer quote than I usually like to post, but my question is this: According to the GRIEFF scale of lying, I think this case more than qualifies BB as a liar. At one point he agrees that panzer was lying, and later he calls it a mere random vote. These points of view are contradictory, so clearly one of them is a lie. You have said it is scummy to inconsistently apply scum tells to different players, yet you continue to primarily pursue the Panzer wagon even though I think it is obvious that BB's vote against Panzer was far more serious than Panzer's vote against Miko. According to your cases, BB and Panzer are guilty of the same scum tell, yet BB lied about a vote which was cast after the random voting stage. Why do you continue to push the Panzer wagon? If any lie is worthy of a lynch, would you be equally content to lynch either of them?

[subgenius]

This whole town must hate accountability, and I'm oh-so-unhelpful for trying to get some. Lord, what a sin it is to attack someone reluctant to provide their own opinions. It can't be helpful at all to see if someone is being inconsistent, ESPECIALLY when that has already happened with Panzer, and especially given that people's opinions have suddenly and inexplicably changed at some points in this game.

Woe be to the person who wants to know where everyone stands, but fear them not, for they may be shunned if you merely tell them to "read the thread." You can go unaccountable as long as you wish.

Jesus, I wasn't even talking about whether or not your summary request was valid. I'm just trying to say that tearing into a player like a pit bull with a laundry list of grievances while admitting that only one grievance actually has anything to do with the hostility isn't all that helpful. Neither is this unwarranted sarcasm.

I find it ironic Mykonian accuses Panzer of defending him, considering he's also covered for Panzer.

I'm not so interested in whether or not it's ironic. Do you think it's scummy? Was Mykonian trying to nudge his scum partner away from defending him too much?

This is an excellent point. I'm going to give you "grief" about one thing though. His username is GIEFF, not GRIEFF.

Questions: What is your own take on BB? Who do you think is scum? Despite posting this, why is your vote still on Panzer as well?

Oops, honest mistake. I think I must have been doing this the whole game.

As for BB, I think the points made about the reasoning behind unvoting Panzer are pretty interesting. He certainly did not adequately explain it, and it would make more sense for scum to hop off a building wagon than a townie, especially with the level of commitment that BB expressed for the vote. I did a partial re-read a few days ago of the first few pages of the game, and I too noticed that he has a habit of posting other people's opinions and merely posting an agreement.

As for scum, I'm still a little attached to the Panzer wagon, and I think it's probably because I think the townie slip was real. This, combined with Mykonian interactions continues to add just enough fuel to keep me leaning towards a Panzer/myko scum pair. I think the case against BB is pretty solid, and he'd definitely make my top two list, but I still like Panzer. One other benefit to lynching Panzer, is I believe his alignment would tell us more than BB's.

In my post towards GIEFF, I was mostly trying to draw conclusions from GIEFF's own posts. I don't necessarily agree with those posts. The GIEFF scale of lying and the Subgenius scale of lying differ somewhat in that mine allows for people to change their minds sometimes. I don't believe in LAL, and I wouldn't characterize BB's contradictions as lies per se. I still think his disengagement from Panzer was fishy, but more because it was inadequately explained than due to any issues with lying.

[subgenius]

And no, I think scum GIEFF would have went completely over the top if this was bussing. Panzer would have been risked for close to nothing by scum GIEFF, while also his unnatural actions would put him at risk. I don't think scum would gamble that much.

This makes sense if you're talking about distancing, but not really bussing. He's going over the top if he's simply distancing, but if he's bussing, he's doing a killer job of it.

[subgenius]

I'll go first: I believe the GIEFF's reasoning behind Panzer's "lies" regarding his vote are overblown (even though I do tend to agree with the logic itself), and I think the "Dourscum" incident (may it live forever in infamy ) was an attempt to influence the other players in the game in a potentially dishonest manner rather than an honest mistake (because I don't believe it could have possibly been an honest mistake).

Speaking as a player who apparently mistook a player's name for 10+ pages of posts, I completely believe GIEFF when he says he made an honest mistake. He hasn't resorted to anything similar in any of his other posts, and just based on his fixation on proper logic and argument I think he would be just as irritated Dourgrim if someone was doing something similar to him.

I agree that a succinct restatement of people's cases might help, especially from some of the less vocal players.

I still think Panzer is most scummy. I'm not a big subscriber to the whole lying case, but I think there might be something to his town slip, I think his interactions with myko are fishy, and his attempt to buddy up to GIEFF (I'm still typing GRIEFF and having to edit myself, dammit) is a bit suspicious.

[subgenius]

Funny how people listen to Dour .

To be fair, we all know that Dour has read the entire thread already.

[subgenius]

I'm thinking Panzer is the right choice for today's lynch. However,

before we start voting,

I want to hear the lurkers' opinions on my logic, and I want to hear from GIEFF (who has been strangely absent today), Goatrevolt, and (brace yourselves) mykonian. I think myko's reaction to this could be key, and so I urge the Town to not lynch anyone until we've gotten a clear, detailed answer from him.

Make sense?

I agree with this. I think it's unlikely that we're going to break much more ground in Day 1, and though I think that the case against BB and Panzer are both fairly strong, we have a lot more to gain from knowing Panzer's alignment.

[subgenius]

Responding to prod. Quite honestly, I'm not sure what I can contribute here. I am doing my best to keep up with the thread, but I'm not seeing anything that grabs my attention. I think we're being crippled by having the entire game revolve around the same 3 or 4 arguments that only involve less than half of the town. Given the absence of any truly solid information, we're going to have to realize that these arguments are impossible to definitively wrap up in a way that leaves us a with a generally accepted conclusion. Different players will continue to have their own ideas, and at some point folks will need to settle for simply knowing that they've made their points as clearly as possible so that everybody else can weigh them fairly. We're spinning our wheels.