Newbie 480: Game Over!

[Ripley]

Vote: peapod

Random.

[Ripley]

I agree that Civil Scum is sounding more unsettled by being on 2 votes than the situation really warrants. It's quite common for people to be on 2 votes on page 1 and I've never seen anybody request an unvote in that situation before. The last newbie game I was in, 437, I was put on

three

votes on page 1. I didn't come to any harm. One of the existing voters immediately unvoted, and we went on to lynch the guy who placed the third vote. He was scum. Also, we got some useful information from people's reactions to the whole thing. This sort of outcome is surely far more probable than a trigger-happy townie going berserk. And Civil Scum is only on two votes.

[Ripley]

K whilst im waiting for someone to post can one of the ics tell me how to watch a topic, thanks.

At the very bottom left of this page, under the page number, it says "Watch this topic for replies". Click there.

[Ripley]

I'm rather concerned that Porochaz, Civil Scum, and myself have all gotten wrapped into a discussion and it's been quiet from everyone else... especially at our IC brethren who I would have thought should have stepped in (or will step in shortly since this has been the weekend) to ensure that the town has some potential information to work on for day 2.

You have a misguided idea of what the role of an IC player is if you expect them to "step in" every time newbies get involved in a debate. And why would you expect such "stepping in" to be necessary to ensure the town has potential information? Don't you think that useful information has been gained from the discussion anyway? If that's not what you meant by "stepping in", what did you mean? I don't try to steer the course of a game, or to take control, nor have I seen another IC do so other than in my very first game here, where the IC who did so was scum.

Also, you probably aren't used yet to the pace at which games move here. This game is moving along just fine. There may come a time when we have to put pressure on lurkers - people who aren't posting, or who are avoiding posting useful content. This happens in almost every game on Day 1, whether it's a newbie game or not. But we've only been going for two days. It's nothing.

Finally, not everyone will always have an opinion about everything. An argument or debate in which you, personally, are involved will always seem far more interesting and significant than one in which you're not. In this game, I still think CS's uneasiness at receiving a second vote was more interesting than anything that's been said since.

I've gotten wicked spoiled by Gmail apparently; is there any way to start a reply and save it as a draft or should I just cut and paste what I started to write and save it somewhere else

You could try the Notes feature (at the top right of the page), though I've never used it myself and don't know exactly what it does.

Can I suggest that people try to include the quotee's name in quote tags? It's already becoming really difficult to follow some posts, for example CS's post 25 where his quotes are from posts by a number of different people, and Porochaz's Post 27 which contains some nested unattributed quotes. This isn't meant as criticism. I had problems with quotes myself when I started here, but it's really worth doing properly for the sake of clarity. If you didn't know, this is the structure:

Code: Select all

 [quote="Ripley"]

Porochaz: you said on page 1 you were "sure" Civil Scum was scum. This seems remarkably early to reach such a decision. Has your opinion wavered at all?

[Ripley]

? for the IC's (mostly): is doing 1 for 1 trading good or bad for the town ...

I don't think there's a simple answer to that; so much depends how things go. I'm assuming the situation we're talking about is the one where a scum gets the opportunity to quicklynch a townie early on a Day 1 and goes for it, and the scum is then promptly lynched Day 2. I agree with peapod that the lack of posting brought about by two quick days is a big disadvantage. You can so easily end up on Day 3 in a lynch or lose situation with almost nothing in the way of information, and both surviving townies have to get it right. On the other hand, you do at least definitely get to Day 3. All too often in a newbie game you're faced with the lynch or lose situation on Day 2. And of course you may have power roles who manage to survive and get useful night choices in.

There's also the fact that a game in which four out of seven players are eliminated rapidly isn't a very interesting experience for those players, and doesn't give anybody any kind of a feel for how Mafia is usually played. The importance you'd give to this factor really depends if you think the result is what matters above and beyond the experience.

In this game, I still think CS's uneasiness at receiving a second vote was more interesting than anything that's been said since.

Soooo, cornered/worried scum, or panicky noob? I guess I don't see how any of this is evidence.

This strikes me as a really strange remark by CS. He seems to be saying "You can't tell whether I'm a worried scum or a panicky newb, so that's an end to it; move along, please." What, exactly, do you expect in the way of evidence on Day 1? Nobody except the scum knows anything beyond their own role. It's basically guesswork, guesswork that's as intelligent as possible, based on what we can figure out from people's posts. The posts are the evidence. We have to interpret it as best we can. If we discarded everything that couldn't be proved, we might as well give up.

[Ripley]

I agree that if CS's concern was, specifically, that he didn't want to be on two votes, there was no logical reason to address one voter in particular. An unvote from either of them would have been just as good. Obviously people often don't behave in a perfectly logical fashion even when they're town, but I think it was a worthwhile observation by Zeek.

CS's phrasing was half-joking (he referred to Porochaz's random reasoning regarding his civility) and his OMGUS vote was on the first voter, not the second. It's not like he didn't mention leetonicon at all in the post.

Yes, but he subsequently told us the vote on leetonicon was an automatic vote arising from a self-imposed obligation, which makes it pretty much meaningless. (How far does this obligation go? Suppose somebody had stuck a third vote on immediately after Porochaz's, accompanied by another witty crack about Civil Scum's civilly scummy name. Would CS have stuck to his rule and OMGUS voted the first voter rather than the

third

?)

[Ripley]

Ripley and peapod are lurking a bit yeah?

I'd say I'd contributed roughly as much as Zeek and that both of us have contributed significantly more than peapod. peapod certainly stands out to me as the only real lurker at this stage. Makes me wonder if you don't want to see peapod singled out for lurking and are getting a pre-emptive strike in.

[Ripley]

Any kind of behavior that seems unnatural, illogical, perplexing, inconsistent or just slightly odd is always worth noting, as is behavior that seems nervy or an over-reaction. You can't always neatly summarise such an observation with a precise account of what the person stood to gain from this behavior if they were scum. Scum don't by any means always behave rationally, especially if they're a bit nervous. Lots of these leads eventually lead nowhere; it doesn't mean they weren't worth pointing out.

Nervous behavior is particularly interesting, because although nobody likes to be in danger of getting lynched, and it's possible that a new player might get nervous on two votes, scum are basically more nervous than townies to start with. That's the effect of a guilty conscience.

I really have nothing significant to add to the CS conversation because the issues have already been throughly explored. Over-explored, if you ask me.

Can you suggest something you think we'd have done better to explore?

I'm admittedly glad that Ergo is sticking up for me so readily, I doubt a scum would come to my aid in explaining what I have tried to. It is coordinated, but for me this makes me lean town in his direction.

Scum buddying up to a townie is the oldest trick in the book. If you're town, you can see by your own reaction here how well it has worked. Erg0 has gained your support, which will be valuable if you survive. If you don't survive he looks good for sticking his neck out to support a townie who was under pressure. I'm not saying Erg0 is scum; he could perfectly well be genuine. But you should be aware of the dangers of assuming anyone is town for this reason.

[Ripley]

I'm planning to reread the game and post some thoughts tonight or tomorrow. One thing, however, that struck me as a bit surprising on reading Porochaz's player summaries is his generosity to peapod:

Town but not 100% until we have a few more posts.

I agree that it's too early to form any firm decision on peapod, although the game has been running for eight days now, which is long enough to start to take notice of a player who's posting excuses rather than content. But "Town but not 100%" is a way more charitable verdict than I'd be willing to make at this stage on a player who's posted so little. I'm certainly quite happy leaving my originally random vote in place.

[Ripley]

I've done a reread and will post my thoughts without attempting to form them into a neat essay with conclusions.

peapod: At the risk of getting slammed for pressuring an afflicted newbie, I think peapod needs to make a rapid decision as to whether she's ready to start playing properly and posting regular content. If not, she could ask to be replaced; there's absolutely no stigma attached to that, it happens all the time. The sooner a replacement gets the chance to start playing, if that's how it's going to end up, the better. Not only do they have less reading to catch up on, but the more pages that go past with one player not contributing, the harder it is for the rest of us to form any opinions about that player.

leetonicon, Porochaz: these two players are linked in my mind due to the strong similarities arising from their dealings with Civil Scum. Both vote him jokingly on account of his name. Civil Scum votes first one, then the other, then reverts to the first. Finally, both unvote CS almost simultaneously.

leetonicon seemed to come up with a string of theories, both general and specific, very early in the game: 2 bandwagons good, 3 bandwagons (I think) better; the notion of "unstable" or "incestuous" bandwagons; players at L-1 good; the idea that Porochaz and CS were working together. And all this as early as Post 22! CS has made some observations about leetonicon's posts with which I broadly agree. He (leet) has backed down quickly when his views are challenged, though you can't make too much of this from a newbie in their first game. I also thought CS made some good points about leet's Post 66:

I came in with certain assumptions which may or may not have had any validity to them. These are below and hopefully justify why I've said/done what I've done so far. More importantly, my original intention was to then lay out why I'm still most suspicous of CS, by laying out places where he appears to be strategically twisting what I've been saying, the problem being that when I went back to cite places where he did, if I look at them objectively, he's making certain assumptions which are opposite certain assumptions I was making so I don't agree with him, but I can't say it's as scummy as I was thinking.

???? They show that you're behavior is very odd, you don't lay out why u are most supicious of me (in fact you unvote me after objectively viewing my assumptions, which are?), strategic twisting had nothing to do with any of the questions I asked you (just wanted you to clarify the ideas in your posts).
My disagreement with your assumptions and concept of BW's and whatever the hell else is what made you think I was scum, Leet?
(Ergo had recently mentioned that Leet's inactivity and dead-lock vote on me were suspicious)-> Leet goes on to invoke some strange/insincere reasoning as to why he no longer feels I am most suspicious. This looks a bit like justifying an unvote which would otherwise seem very suspect, and still does in my book.

I don't see the "strategic twisting" leetonicon refers to. Civil Scum in Post 25 asked a lot of questions about the points leet had made regarding bandwagons etc. When leet replies (Post 35) he doesn't appear to think any twisting has gone on. So what does he mean? I agree that his arguments in post 66, and the list of assumptions, don't have anything to do with his reason for voting CS in the first place and don't really explain the unvote.

Porochaz: Said he was sure CS was scum back on page 1, which now rings very hollow because Porochaz is voting for someone else. I've already asked him about this and he explained it was part tactical, part over-keenness:

The "sure" comment was A. To keep the pressure on Civil and B. a slight mistake on my part showing my over keenness in the game... I believe that him asking me to take a vote off is suspicious and I think that his OMGUS vote confirms that I should be voting for him currently, but no, to be honest, I'm not sure. I would be very foolish of me to be so. Only 3 people, myself included, have talked in depth, in this game, 33% of the suspects (viewed from me).

It's usually a mistake if you're protown to say anything that's untrue, even if your intent is in part to spark a reaction. It undermines your own credibility. It was never realistic to make such a claim so early in the game, and Porochaz knew at the time how few people had spoken. I've seen premature claims of "I'm sure X is town" from newbie townies before, but never on page 1.

However Porochaz does seem to be putting a good effort into scum hunting and I'm not particularly suspicious of him at this stage.

On to Erg0.

The overreaction aspect has been well explored, I didn't see a need to throw my two cents in as well at that point, because CS was already under plenty of pressure and I wasn't going to put him at lynch-1 for it. The appropriate thing to do at that point was look around for other topics of conversation.

Ah, the power of words. Is there any practical difference between "looking around for other topics of conversation" and "trying to change the subject"? Yet one sounds so much sneakier than the other.

I'm not sure what I think about Erg0 yet, to be honest. He seems quite open about directing the conversation, and according to himself makes a habit of stepping in to perceptively explain the intention of newbies. This is not a style I instinctively favor, though it might of course be just that: a question of style. But he has definitely been actively helpful to CS, who incidentally seemed on the whole not to be struggling particularly, but to be well able to defend and explain himself.

I think CS caused unnecessary confusion by describing his vote on leetonicon as "obligatory" without at the time explaining what he meant by that. I don't blame Zeet for misunderstanding. I don't think this issue is going to be helpful towards finding scum. It was just a distraction.

I have already said that I thought Zeet's other original point about CS's different treatment of leet and of Porochaz was worth making.

Over the course of the post he flip-flops back and forth on me a little. Saying I do look scummy, then maybe not

Yeah, but I do that kind of thing myself all the time, I see things about a person that seem scummy and things that don't. I don't believe there's any point holding back your thoughts until you've reached a firm conclusion about a person. Better to say whatever you think even if it's inconclusive. Somebody else may pick up on one of your thoughts and take it further. As I said at the start of this post, you can't always streamline your ideas into a neatly argued essay.

[Ripley]

No need to apologise. I hope things go OK for you and that you enjoyed the game at least a little bit. I'll miss your avatar actually, so many people seem to go for dark sinister gloomy images, it was cheering to have something a bit sunshiny to look at.

[Ripley]

Sorry... I've been doing it too. I'll be careful in future.

[Ripley]

Hello again destructor. If that rabbit of yours values its life, I advise it to keep a safe distance from mine, at all times.

[Ripley]

Hoping peapod and destructor will be able to start playing soon. I can't see much point in trying to push on without them.

[Ripley]

Also, I have a question for anyone that cares to answer it: Is it scummy to ask the second voter to unvote you but not the first? If so, why?

You're just going over old ground here. peapod already covered this in post 60:

So why is the OMGUS vote scummy?
So why is asking someone to unvote twice scummy?
So why is his ignoring leet scummy?

I replied to that:

Any kind of behavior that seems unnatural, illogical, perplexing, inconsistent or just slightly odd is always worth noting, as is behavior that seems nervy or an over-reaction. You can't always neatly summarise such an observation with a precise account of what the person stood to gain from this behavior if they were scum. Scum don't by any means always behave rationally, especially if they're a bit nervous. Lots of these leads eventually lead nowhere; it doesn't mean they weren't worth pointing out.

Do you disagree with this? And why are you bringing this up again now - is it just because destructor mentions it in his summary? You've already complained that this point has received too much attention, and really you set that in motion yourself with post 38.

Also, this is a second example of peapod and Erg0 saying very similar things (the first was noted by destructor in post 118) - despite peapod having at this stage posted more excuses than content.

With destructor leaning slightly in Ergo's direction (who is currently at L-2) and Ripley being suspicious of destructor (L-2), we appear to have two non-incestuous BW's.

Ah, incest rearing its ugly head again. Actually your unvote reduced destructor to a single vote, and Erg0 is voting destructor which, as I understood it at least, is incestuous, and I was quite suspicious of both leet and Erg0, though slightly less so now of destructor.

Whether peapod thought she had requested replacement or not, she clearly said on Thursday that she intended to play on. She said she would "do my best to be an active member." which sounds despressingly half-hearted. Still waiting for some content from you, peapod.

[Ripley]

Ripley are you a he or a she? I dont see it on your profile

Do you know, I think that’s the first time anybody’s asked me that in all the time I’ve been here. Ripley has been called “he” by almost everyone, so it’s probably less confusing if you use that, though I have no particular preference.

Mod

: please would you prod peapod?

[Ripley]

When I said something about Peapod lurking, Ripley suggested that it was something I may have done to prevent her for being singled out for lurking and drawing heat as a scum-lurker. This accusation confused me.

If you're referring to what I said in Post 56, I've just reread it and it seems pretty clear to me, but ok, if you're confused let's go through it again. You said:

Ripley and peapod are lurking a bit yeah?

I replied:

I'd say I'd contributed roughly as much as Zeek and that both of us have contributed significantly more than peapod. peapod certainly stands out to me as the only real lurker at this stage. Makes me wonder if you don't want to see peapod singled out for lurking and are getting a pre-emptive strike in.

Do you not understand this? I was wondering if you had bracketed me with peapod here, and put my name first, in order to avoid pointing a finger at peapod alone. It's become clear since then that peapod is the lurker par excellence in this game, but back on page 3 maybe people might have believed "Ripley and peapod are the lurkers". if I hadn't challenged it. And if I hadn't said anything it would be easy, later in the game, to point back at your post later and say "look, Ripley was lurking just as badly as peapod back then." Also, it's possible that your remark was a way of trying to spur your scum buddy into some kind of action without singling her out for attention. Unconfused now?

I find it odd that Ripley has made an issue out of anyone's dealings with peapod, and suggests that somehow there is an association.

And

I

find it odd that when destructor, who was the first to point out such a possible link between Erg0 and peapod, Post 118, made his point:

Very similar wording and sentiment, six posts apart. I'm not sure if this says more about peapod or Erg0, if anything at all.

.. you didn't find it worthy of any kind of comment. I probably wouldn't have bothered noting the Erg0/peapod correspondence that I did in Post 130, had destructor not picked up on the earlier one. Why do you refer to me as "making an issue" out of it when you had nothing to say about destructor who started this theme in the first place? Wouldn't you agree that a second piece of evidence confirming a first is worth posting, even if the issue turns out to be a false lead?

Zeek was making assumptions about CS's motivations too. His (and yours, apparently) were considerably different to mine - he assumed that CS's post was motivated by scummy goals. I thought (and Ripley apparently agrees) that this was a stretch.

I don't see Zeek assuming that CS's goals were scummy. I see him noting behavior he found illogical from CS, questioning it and wondering why he did it. Time and time again he asks: "Why?"

[Ripley]

I'll give you guys the notes I've been making while catching up waiting till pablito PMed me my role and gave me the all-clear for posting here.

Can I just clarify this: are you saying that the notes you just posted were made before you received your role, but you have now received your role?

[Ripley]

Just noticed in post 147 I for some reason assigned the quote to myself. It should of course say "Garnasha wrote".

[Ripley]

I don't think it's reasonable of Garnasha to keep complaining about "walls of text". This game has not been especially text-heavy by the standards of this site, And Garnasha only had about five and a half pages to catch up on, which really isn't much at all.

destructor has only recently joined the game and has had therefore to cram all his thoughts about the first 5 or 6 pages into a few posts. Plenty of people scarcely bother to comment on the earlier pages when replacing, and I actually appreciated the detail destructor provided, which didn't seem excessive. And if he wants to take the time to respond to CS and Erg0 in detail, well, that's fine with me too. They're both voting for him, after all. The post in which he replied was clearly written and well-illustrated with quotes. It's not a difficult read. I understand that Garnasha's remark about lynching him was a joke but his annoyance at "walls of text" is not. I'm automatically suspicious of anyone who appears to be discouraging people from posting detailed thoughts.

In re-reading I found that I actually raised this myself as well, in post 54 - this is another point of mine that peapod repeated. Peapod's post 60 actually seems extremely similar to my post 54 in all respects.

You're absolutely right. I missed that. All of peapod's Post 60, apart from the excuses and promises, was indeed recycled material from Erg0's Post 54:

The overreaction aspect has been well explored

the issues have already been throughly explored.

There's no question that it's overly defensive, but can you present a reason why it's

scummy

?

So

why

is the OMGUS vote scummy?
So

why

is asking someone to unvote twice scummy?
So

why

is his ignoring leet scummy?

In the second example, although peapod does not include on her list the particular behavior referred to by Erg0 (freaking out on 2 votes) and changes the italicisation from

scummy

to

why

, her questioning is very similar. Almost like a continuation. What does this mean, if anything? I agree with destructor that it says more about peapod than about Erg0.

Ripley is more or less playing the middle so far, but again you dismiss this because he's "scum-hunting". You seem to miss the fact that he hasn't moved his vote since the very first post of the game, a fact which I find very interesting.

Why?

As peapod's contribution style of lurking/excuses/promises/more lurking/more excuses etc etc became more firmly entrenched, I had more and more reason to be content with my originally random vote. I commented on this at one point in the game. And I've done more than anybody, throughout, to press peapod to start playing. I'd have thought it would be more noteworthy if I'd

unvoted

her. So: what was it about this that you "find very interesting"?

And I'm not getting the greatest vibe from Garnasha right now, so the vote stays where it is for the present.

Has anyone seen these types of things before from an overeager town newbie who doesn't know the game's pace, is not remiss to hop onto the first BW, and doesn't fear forming early conspiracy theories? Can the issues with Leet's (hence destructor's) be newb town?

leet couldn't really be said to jump onto a bandwagon. He was the first person to vote for you. However the nature of his vote did change from (originally) jokey to serious. I agreed with you earlier that his post 66 didn't apparently make a lot of sense, but possibly he had forgotten his original vote came before any suspicion - as you seem to have done by saying he jumped on the bandwagon. He seems to be saying that he doubts the validity of his assumptions about the game, and that his case against you is based on your opposition to these assumptions, so it's not worth a vote any more.

Overeager newbies who don't know the game's pace are very common, and rushing to judgement is pretty common too, though I can't relate that to conspiracy theories specifically.

Leet goes on to invoke some strange/insincere reasoning as to why he no longer feels I am most suspicious. This looks a bit like justifying an unvote which would otherwise seem very suspect, and still does in my book.

Why do you think he would have wanted to find a reason to unvote you?

Anything thats makes you seem scummy to me completerly screws me up, because as I said I don't think poro and leet can both be scum.

All of my reasoning revolves around destructor's scumminess and this is sort of a problem.

I think if you're struggling to see Porochaz as scum simply because he doesn't fit as a scum partner for destructor, then you're way too closed-minded. As you seem to be acknowledging here.

[Ripley]

Why do you think he would have wanted to find a reason to unvote you?

I think that when believeing you have a dead-lock on someone (me) and being concerned with D-2, you should have some justification for removing your vote. A simple unvote would have looked bad.
He obviously wanted to find a reason for unvoting me, other than the fact that the heat was coming off. His post letting us know that he in fact unvoted at the same time as Porochaz shows this. He wanted to find a reason, otherwise it looks bad. For scum or town I 'spose.

You've misunderstood the question - not your fault, I didn't express it clearly enough. What you have explained here is why a person wouldn't want to unvote without providing a convincing reason. But what I meant to ask was: why did he want to unvote? And want it badly enough to take the trouble to concoct a weak justification? Do you believe he would do that simply because he felt the momentum was moving away from you? Do you think he was lying when he said he hadn't seen Porochaz's unvote? If you look at the timing of the posts, I think it supports his version. leetonicon's post comes only 7 minutes after Porochaz's unvote, and there's nothing in Porochaz's previous posts to indicate that he's planning to unvote. leet's post clearly would have taken more than 7 minutes to write, and he doesn't just tag on the unvote randomly at the end, but says earlier that he no longer thinks you (CS) are as scummy as he did originally. He could, just about, have edited the original content after seeing Porochaz's unvote using Preview. But it seems against the odds.

On Ripley: Leaving a random vote on is one thing, but we're up to page 7 and this game isn't light on content.

I've explained more than once now that the vote ceased to be random some time back.

He seems content to poke and prod, without really doing anything that will thrust him into the spotlight, such as expressing genuine suspicion or placing a vote or an FoS.

You appear here to be accusing me of faking my suspicions. Are you going to offer any evidence for this? It seems like a very presumptuous thing to say.

I've seen no reason to move my vote from where it was in the first place, and have virtually never used FOS's. Since you can't be exactly sure of the precise degree of suspicion any individual person attaches to the term, I prefer to try wherever possible to express suspicion in other words.

Ripley points out the panic, Zeek says he thinks ripley understated and interprets CS his obligation remark as feeling a need to justify his vote.

Where does Zeek say he thinks I understated?

The combination of excuses and promises we've been getting from Garnasha is eerily reminiscent of his predecessor, only they come a lot more thick and fast and Garnasha throws in threats and complaints as well. To be fair to him, some people have been pressing him to get posting quite quickly. But even so, there are ways of reacting to that...

[Ripley]

Ergo- I'd like to hear any sort of case someone could make on Ripley. I have gotten this general feeling, but I don't see much evidence. Besides his keeping his random vote. I think Ergo blew this out of porportion, considering that Ripley has explained it and it sounds legitimate.

Ergo, did you point a finger at Ripley just to do it? Or is there something else behind your suspicion, besides past game experience?

Wow. For someone who can't find anything suspicious about me, you sure are keen to encourage someone else to.

You picked up right away on the comments made about me by Erg0 in Post 168, although the only concrete thing Erg0 is able to come up with is that page 7 is a bit late for a random vote - a vote which I had already explained, twice, was no longer random. The rest of it is vagueness about things I haven't done. Including, apparently, "expressing genuine suspicion", a remark I have objected to, and I'm still waiting for him to get back to me on that one.

But Civil Scum is happy to echo Erg0 in his next post, telling me: "You are fencing it a little bit though. A tad noncommital. " Maybe hoping someone else would pick up on it and take it further? Or that Erg0 would be encouraged by this voice of support and take it further himself. And when this didn't happen, perhaps he can't quite bear to let it go so, is afraid to wait in case the momentum passes and so makes a direct appeal to Erg0.

You see, looking at CS's words quoted above through suspicious eyes, it's quite easy to see this subtext: "Erg0, I'd love to help you try and take Ripley down but I can't find any evidence against him. Will you have another look and see if you can some up with something more incriminating? I'll back you up. I'll say for now that I have a

general feeling

about Ripley, which I can flesh out later. You haven't let me down all game, so go for it!"

Ah yes - that "general feeling". I've come across people with these feelings before; they tend to originate in the gut, and to be extraordinarily difficult to put into words. I believe that if you think you have a "feeling" about another player the right course of action is to look at the player's posts and try to figure out what is it that is causing you to feel. If you can't do that, you probably oughtn't to be posting about it. For one thing, how on earth is a player to defend against a "feeling" backed up by no evidence? They can't. For all I know, your "general feeling", if it exists, is caused by the fact that a kid called Ripley was mean to you when you were eight.

Civil Scum has gone up quite a few notches on my scale of suspicion. Also, I haven't forgotten how Erg0's helped him out and explained his motives for him, and how CS has twice gone out of his way to point out what an unlikely scum pair they must obviously seem, to the rest of us.

I'll be a lot busier than usual for a week starting tomorrow (Sunday). I'll keep up with the game but may not be able to post as much as usual.

[Ripley]

That was the most anti-Ergo post I've made.

Well, it didn't come across to me as anti-Erg0, though as you say it is possible to misread tone and intention.

And if no one can make any sort of case (Ergo did blow the random vote point out of proportion) then I'd like to label you town for now.

... but here I don't see how any reasonable person could get this meaning from what you actually said. You didn't say "I can't find any evidence against Ripley, and unless anyone else can, I'm going to rule him out for now." This would in itself be quite an odd thing to say. I mean, normally if you can't find anything suspicious about someone, you surely mentally label them "town, for now" and concentrate your efforts on the people you

do

find scummy. Without making an appeal for anybody else to make a case against the person. I've never seen that done before.

But what you actually said was: "

I'd like to hear any sort of case someone could make on Ripley

." Because you had "gotten this

general feeling

". Maybe your words were poorly chosen or not fully explained but it comes over quite definitely that you're hoping for someone else to give you something concrete to work with to back up your "general feeling".

I thought Ripley was waiting for Garnasha to find some way to "apologize" for peapod's absence.

I'm completely unable to see what this has to do with anything you said before. And it's quite a weird thing to say anyway. We're all of us waiting for stuff from Garnasha, but apologies and explanations for peapod's behavior would only mean anything from peapod, who is no longer with us.

Ripley:This is concerning my point no 3. I'm not sure you answered this and I dont really want to open a new window to check in case my internet screws up again so I cant check but what was your previous mafia experience before this?

Sorry - not sure what you're asking... You mean before I started on this site? Or other games before this game? If the latter, there are lots, and you can easily find them using the Search page.

oh dear, enough material to work with without going through the previous 8 pages.

Have you read those pages? It's really hard to tell from your posts what you've read and what you haven't - you started off with notes about posts up to early on page 3, and that dried up there, then in post 172 you say you'll make notes at the end of every page, and go back to page 1 again to do so, and again that approach seems to dry up there. As do all the approaches you announce, actually. Like "the rapid-firingposting suspicion cannon mode I'm planning to enter once I got the time. I will be asking everyone in turn about every little thing that I find illogical,". And what about this:

prime suspects atm: leet/destructor for independent scumminess (I'll elaborate later), Erg0 for a link to CS or Zeet for a link with CS. I'll be more precise and look for more once I got more friggin time.

You never followed any of this up. Also, you stated in the quote above(Post 163) that leet/destructor is a prime suspect because of "independent scumminess", though shortly after in Post 179 you say:

so if destructor did anything strange independant of leet's behaviour I'm going to suspect a mutual cause, ie. they are scum.

which surely says the exact opposite, ie that you

haven't

found anything independently scummy in destructor's behavior.

I just get the impression that Garnasha has put a lot of time into announcing his various intended approaches, together sometimes with reasons for the failure of the previous approach, and posting details of his RL schedule, commitments and state of tiredness, in preference to actually working on the game. A bit like a person who spends hours and hours drawing up a beautiful, color-coded revision schedule. And such little as he's had to say hasn't even been accurate (it was Erg0, not me, who used the words "a little panicky" to describe CS, that were quoted by Zeek).

[Ripley]

CS knew full well when he started this that I wouldn't be around much this week because I had posted that information, and I don't doubt that this factor entered into his calculation when he decided to "take me down". I'll respond as best I can in the limited time I have.

What CS has done here is something I've seen done before, and seen done better - he's gone through all my posts and found ways to present everything I've said or done, or not done, in a negative light. It's not that difficult, if you have even the smallest talent for spin, distortion and misdirection.

CS undermined any case he might have had by stating that he couldn't see much evidence against me (and for "much" it's reasonable to assume he means "any", since he doesn't present any) in post 178 where he tries to spur on other people to make a case against me. Just 20 posts later, he has moved from not being able to find anything scummy in my posts to finding everything I've ever done scummy. This is quite clearly an intellectual exercise rather than any genuine change of belief. He has simply decided to have a go at taking me down himself for the sheer amusement of it, and as a personal vanity exercise, his attempts to prod others into doing so having failed. Helpfully, he actually spells out his motivation; he's thinking of leaving Mafia after this game and wants to go out in what he perceives as a blaze of glory:

And I might as well go out trying to take down an IC.

This comes just 3 hours after a post in which he announces he's tempted to vote for Garnasha. Nothing has happened in the interim that could possibly have caused any kind of genuine turnabout. He's just decided to abandon all pretence of open-minded evaluation, and see if he can get an IC lynched from nowhere as a kind of personal power trip. Just for fun. In complete contempt for the protown players in this game who have actually invested a lot of their time in trying to find scum.

He follows the usual path taken by people following this kind of strategy. Whatever I've done, he finds ways to make it sound murky, though of course if I'd done the precise opposite he'd simply trot out a different set of accusations. He complains a lot that I express suspicion of people without voting for them, hoping that if he repeats this often enough it will start to seem like scummy behavior. Of course if I had changed my vote a lot it would have been described as "blatantly opportunistic vote-hopping". If I raise things I find suspicious, CS calls this "damaging people's credibility", though if I do too little raising of suspicious issues I am sitting on the fence and playing all sides. He accuses me of not "taking the reins" - as if it were my business to do so - though you can be sure that had I done anything like that he'd be shouting me down for trying to take control.

And naturally, if I attack someone it's "wily distancing". I say "naturally" because the charge of distancing is a key feature of the "you can't win whatever you do" kind of attack that CS has embarked on here. He is unable to put together a coherent or lucid case, so rambles on, increasingly contradicting himself and changing theory midstream. My entire relationship with peapod/Garnasha was apparently a fiendish exercise in wily distancing, while at the same time I'm scum with leet. I am variously accused of being "tunnel-visioned", (despite casting suspicion everywhere), of only linking people with peapod, of linking CS and Erg0 by "disgustingly" insinuating they might be scum (wow - strong choice of word there - hit a nerve maybe?), and, most bizarrely of all, of not doing enough to explore links CS personally thinks should have been further explored.

It bothers him not in the least that none of the things he now finds so suspicious struck him that way at the time, nor even that he is forced directly to contradict himself in separate posts on the same page, on the topic of my keeping my vote on peapod:

I think Ergo blew this out of porportion, considering that Ripley has explained it and it sounds legitimate.

an oddly kept vote, it does seem odd to me now

He's also strongly targeted Porochaz, who's on record as not finding me particularly scummy, and who has been one of the players I'm the least suspicious of myself, to try and win him round. He announces "I've also disagreed with every point Ripley makes about Porochaz", repeats what must be pretty much the only two issues I've raised with him all game, and vociferously argues in Poro's favor on both counts. He's scoured my posts for absolutely anything he can use directly on Porochaz, who I suspect he would regard as a major scalp in his campaign.

Ripley, I guess my point is that this "general" feeling exists for very certain reasons. This is how you've been playing. Your style as town or scum, I'm not sure.

Then go and do some research. It's not difficult to find out that this is how I play as town - cautious, thoughtful, openminded, not very decisive, rational. You can't complain of ignorance in a situation where all the information you need is there on record.

And it goes without saying that my having found the time to respond to CS will be portrayed as "desperately defensive panicking", whereas if I hadn't done so I'd have "given up, unable to find decent replies". This is how CS works, I realise that now. It's all spin. Spin from start to finish.

_________________________________

Poro posted something very strange, I responded, and after that Ripley felt the need to put my analysis in other words, naming the things that I pointed out by their proper names, but not really adding something. Why say it then? Making an analysis you know to be pro-town because a townie made a very similar analysis?

Sorry but you'll need to provide quotes or post numbers, because I have no idea what you're talking about.

[Ripley]

I have maybe 30 minutes so this will have to be brief. I

may

be able to post more later but have very little free time basically until Monday.

Poro: Erg0 mentioned something recently that I agree with, "voting a player based on someone else's bad case is apparently a very reliable scumtell". CS began his campaign against me very shortly after this, and his case on me was

so

bad that actually for a while I did consider the possibility that he was staging it as a trap to try and lure someone into supporting it, in which case he'd have turned around and said "gotcha; it was obviously a fabricated load of tosh".

It's turned out that he did mean it, but I was still watching for anybody who seemed to be looking to do just what Erg0 said, vote me based on CS's bad case. I thought I detected from a couple of people signs that while they weren't exactly prepared to be vocal in support at that stage, they were perhaps clearing their throats ready to test the water. And honestly I would have been more suspicious of anybody going after me based on CS's arguments than I was of him making them in the first place. He

might

have been a bored or frustrated townie on a power trip. I've seen townies behave in very anti-town ways before.

One of the people I was watching was Garnasha; although he actually voted destructor, there was a paragraph in his post 199, which I've already quoted, that caught my attention:

Poro posted something very strange, I responded, and after that Ripley felt the need to put my analysis in other words, naming the things that I pointed out by their proper names, but not really adding something. Why say it then? Making an analysis you know to be pro-town because a townie made a very similar analysis? That's what I noticed scum did in mafia 479

I already said I have no idea what he's referring to, and he hasn't chosen to clarify it, but the point is that he sounds like he's echoing CS in making some incredibly weak argument against me (like I would need to, or want to, copy

Garnasha

in order to try and sound protown?) and tagging a reference to what scum did on a previous game, just like CS did. I wondered if Garnasha was, effectively, clearing his throat here.

I'd hoped to leave things to simmer a while longer; if CS isn't scum, the only thing we could really have hoped to gain from his increasingly obsessive campaign against me -would have been if scum pretended to find it convincing. But if you are insisting that you know right now what's happening with my vote, I guess I have to explain to you what I've been thinking. I'm at least as suspicious of Garnasha as I am of CS, who has at least been willing to put himself in the spotlight. Garnasha has lurked, complained, threatened, promised, grumbled and finally voted on what seems to me to be the flimsiest of reasoning. His contributions have been incredibly sketchy and it's not clear he's even read the thread, His predecessor did nothing but lurk and parrot. CS is a nightmare, but he might, as I said, be a wildly deluded townie on an ego trip. Unfortunately in Mafia you have to cater for people like that and not just scream SCUM at them automatically.

So are you going to vote for CS and prove his argument wrong?

Can you explain this? I don't understand how my vote would prove or disprove his case. Let's be clear about one thing: if I changed my vote at this point CS would crow "Ripley backed down under pressure as expected". Whereas if I don't he will continue to crow whatever he's been crowing thus far. Accordingly, I'm taking no notice at all of his taunts and voting how I please.

With a deadline now set we may all need to be more flexible in our voting choices. We have to avoid a no lynch at all costs. CS is my second choice at this stage, and Erg0 would be my third. I'd like to hear more from destructor and Zeek, both of whom seem to have been very quiet lately.

A couple of final points about CS's arguments regarding other people.

I can see nothing odd in a player who has just unvoted posting to clarify that they hadn't seen a different player's unvote, made while they were writing their post. I can't recall this exact thing happening to me, but I think if it did I'd probably do the same. It baffles me that anyone could use this as a basis for serious suspicion.

The thing with Zeek and Poro keeping their votes on Ergo, and his being at L-2 for so long, and so much attack but no FOS no voting, leads me to believe Zeek and Poro are town, as well as Ergo. I don't have time to go into this, gotta study for a test. Let's just call it a feeling for now.

This baffles me even more. If you're going to infer any meaning at all from this situation, where a player is at L-2 for a while without any apparent interest from other players in furthering the case, surely the meaning you would infer is the precise opposite of what CS says here. If the scum have made no move to advance a promising bandwagon, the likeliest reasons are that they're on the bandwagon already, or that the person being voted is scum. I'd like to hear CS's reasoning on this, if he has any other than "a feeling". To me it just sounds like he's invoking "feelings" wherever they'll back up the "Ripley and destructor" are scum theory, and regardless of the actual logic of the situation.

[Ripley]

I never said I knew what was happening with your vote.

Sorry, phrased that badly because I was in such a hurry. I meant that you wanted to know what was happening with my vote, not that you did know.

[Ripley]

I'll look at Garnasha's other games as soon as I can.

Porochaz, part of the reason I'm still uncertain about CS is that something quite similar to this has happened to me before. I'll link to it here in case you or anybody else is interested. The game was Ogre Village Mafia. A player called Turbovolver decided to take me to pieces, quoting pretty much every post I'd ever made and finding ways to call them scummy, in a massive megapost you can see here. Now,

that's

what I call a wall of text.

Anyway, after a few more pages of trying to get me lynched he just changed his mind and went after someone else. The point here is that we were both town; he was just plain wrong, though utterly convinced he was right. Although Turbo's style and tone is different from CS's, some of his arguments were similar and it's because I've been through this once that I'm willing to accept that occasionally, overconfident, frequent-voting types of player do genuinely have problems with my playing style because it is so different from theirs.

It's wonderfully ironic that I'm actually speaking up in possible defense of CS here while he continues to rant at me for trying to get him lynched. He seems completely unable to bear the fact that I've left my vote in the same place, while at the same time being suspicious of other people. It's become the single issue of this game for him. I've been the target of an obsessive ranter too, more recently - can't link to that one because it's still in progress. But I know this much: there's no point reasoning with a player in the grip of an obsession. They're not open to reason.

[Ripley]

I don't think CS is overconfident, by looking once again at the L-2 situation early on.

When I said overconfident, I meant it in the sense of being very confident that their opinion is right, that they've found scum. It's impossible for me to imagine that I could ever, as town, be as sure as CS was on day 1 of a newbie game, with no night info, no definite roles and the presence in the game of 5 newbies - who are often fairly unpredictable in their behavior even as town.

He may not like your playing style but it jut smells newbie scum screaming for a way out rather than overconfident townie who thinks people with a different playing style are all scum.

Yes - but screaming for a way out of

what

? He wasn't in any particular trouble by that stage. He didn't have a single vote. The only person who could be said to be in trouble was Erg0, on 2 votes. (Plus I had my 1 vote on Garnasha, but until Zeeks' recent post it never looked like anyone was thinking of joining me there.) If the aim of this whole crusade was to distract from the current target and try to create a new one, I think these are the only people he could have been worried about.

BTW, I'be been meaning to ask this for a while: Civil Scum, what do you actually mean by "civility"? Because you've used it several times in a context that doesn't make sense to me:

Porochaz, you're awfully defensive and seem to take most comments as an attack on your civility.

Ripley saying that leaving his random vote was not random, and that he has been concerned with peapod's civility this entire time

Of course practically the entire case against Ergo rests on my civility.

I thought "civility" meant "politeness". My dictionary says "politeness; an act of politeness; civilization (archaic); good breeding (obs)." What do

you

mean by it?

I agree with Zeek's arguments as to why Garnasha is a good bet for lynching, and would do so even if my own vote weren't on him. When a game is deadlined I look at this kind of thing a lot. A player like Garnasha, if town, is unlikely to be nightkilled, so if he's not lynched today and we lynch wrong, tomorrow we're very probably in a lylo situation with a player we know almost nothing about. With so little from him OR peapod in the way of interactions with or opinions on other players, we'd have a real problem. Whereas if we lynch Garnasha, either he's scum, or else we can at least rule out all the possible scum pairings that would have included him, leaving us with a group of players (except destructor) who have interacted a lot. With destructor we do at least have leet's history and destructor's own PBPAs. Though since then he has been

much

too quiet. I only just realised that he's posted nothing except a brief excuse post in the last 9 days. Since that post was now 3 days ago I'm going to repeat the prod request:

Mod

: please could you prod destructor? If possible, with a notification that the game is deadlined.

I took a look at the completed games (1 each) of CS and Garnasha, though I don't have time to sit down and read them in detail. Garnasha was scum in his game and he started off with a string of very brief and contentless posts - he went on and on about timezones, threw in some newbie questions, some useless "I'm off for an hour and a half" kind of posts, more stuff about timezones... As the game moves further he starts to post some content. It's hard to make a direct comparison because in this game he was a replacement and many of his nothing posts have been on the subject of his catching up and posting content, or rather, reasons for his not doing so. It's hard to draw any firm conclusions other than that in both games all you get from him for a long time are lots of useless clutter-type posts.

In his game CS got himself lynched D1 despite being town. I'm mildly surprised he hasn't mentioned that, actually. CS, a question: could you briefly summarise what you did wrong to get yourself strung up in that game. Actually, 2 questions: did you set out to play differently in this game as a result of what happened in that one?

[Ripley]

I hope you don't vote for peapod/garnasha cause I'm pretty sure she's town, but not 100%

vote: garnasha
Unfortunate, but there's nothing he can say or do that would make me think it worthwhile to keep him around. REGARDLESS OF HIS ALIGNMENT
He tried to get things going back on destructor at a strange time in a strange way and I have a sneaking suspicion that he could very well be scum.

What???? This is one heck of a turnabout to make in 4 posts, and without a word of justification or explanation for the change of belief from "pretty sure she's town" to "could very well be scum". Garnasha posted nothing in between these 2 posts of CS's. Did CS

forget

that he'd just said he was pretty sure Garnasha was town? If he genuinely believed it how could he forget it so quickly? Scum, of course, have to fabricate their suspicions and if they're careless can forget what they

pretended

to believe.

Incidentally, I thought at the time of Post 238 that CS's comment quoted above about peapod/Garnasha was incredibly odd. What on earth is there in the combined efforts of peapod and Garnasha that could lead any reasonable person to be "pretty sure they were town"? Even before the turnabout it was hard to accept that CS could possibly believe this, unless of course he was scum himself and

knew

it to be true.

once again I think Zeek would get my nomination for 100% town if such an award existed.

Again this strikes me as really strange. What has Zeek done to earn such unflinching support on Day 1? 100% town? Maybe I need to reread, but I have the impression Zeek's been pretty quiet in the second half of this game and that the major stance he's taken was his case against Erg0, of which CS had the following to say (Post 81): "I agree that Zeek's case against you, while not exactly crap logic, is about as strong as the one directed at me. " OK, it's perfectly reasonable to say that overall you get a protown impression of a player from their posts, but there just doesn't seem anything that could justify the very extreme position taken by CS here. Again, the only way he could genuinely be that certain is surely if he was himself scum.

I'm going to reread this game tonight or tomorrow.

Mod

: would you consider a deadline extension, given that destructor, who was a replacement in the first place, has been unable to post for almost two weeks? He claims he will be free after the 31st - the 31st is Wednesday, so that must mean not till Thursday. The deadline is Friday. Since the game has kept busy in his absence I can easily foresee him requiring a couple of days to catch up, which would mean we'll get nothing from him before deadline. This seems very harsh on the rest of us who have had no choice but to play with one player taking no part for an extended (and, I think, unreasonable) period.

[Ripley]

Since there is only one pair of scum, obviously one of these two "pairs" is just a coincidence, but I find it hard to believe that both are, so IMO, I think I've narrowed it down to the scum being either Porochaz and Garnasha... or Erg0 and Civil Scum.

So, who do we lynch today to figure out which pairing it is?

I just can't agree with the premise that these are the only two scum pairings that should be taken into consideration. I think it's a real mistake to be eliminating people on these kinds of grounds on Day 1. Like when CS said he couldn't consider Poro as scum because he couldn't see him as scum with leet, who he was

sure

was scum at that stage. As a general principle I think this kind of logic is a dangerous way to proceed.

I was really considering moving my vote to CS yesterday, not just because of the things I mentioned in my last post (247) but also because I was getting the impression that since he'd been put on 2 votes he'd become markedly more agitated, aggressive and (as Poro pointed out) started swearing, and it reminded me of his unease at being on 2 votes at the start of the game. OK, so nobody likes being voted for, but he has seemed really uncomfortable with it, and I had another look at his previous game (N466) where he was town, and I couldn't see any similar reaction in that game, although he got himself lynched. Surely that was a more stressful situation that anything that's happened to him yet in this game, and it does make me wonder, again, whether it's scum nerves setting in.

But then, Garnasha... where do I start? Not only are we blamed for walls of text but also now for not making the game interesting enough for him to pay attention to. It turns out that in the pitifully tiny amount of comment he has provided amongst the reams of excuses and grumbles, he has managed to confuse me and Erg0 twice. He says:

up till about page nine nobody did something so scummy I could make a case out of it. Guess my problem is that I'm better at logic than at detailed reading 10 pages of text.

.. and I have serious doubts as to whether he's actually read those pages. Garnasha, maybe you should be exercising these logical skills you claim to have, and making a logical case as to why we should keep you alive, because I'm damned if I can see one.

[Ripley]

Zeek: I've been so surprised by scum pairings in the past that although obviously some pairs look much more feasinble than others, I try to keep an open mind as far as possible on Day 1.

For example I just can't see CS being scum if Garnasha turns out to be scum.

I mean, besides everything I already pointed out, all you need to do is just look at the votes; CS & Erg0 have voted for Garnasha while Porochaz & Garnasha have voted for CS...

but which is the group of scum that is trying to advance the bandwagon on a townie, and which is the group of townies that has correctly identified scum? That's what I am having trouble figuring out.

I don't think you can rule out CS/Garnasha. At this stage their votes on each other don't really mean a thing; I mean, who the hell else are they going to vote for, with the deadline approaching? Whether they're scum or town their priority is going to be to keep themselves alive and it looks as if they're going to be the only 2 serious lynch candidates. Prior to his sudden turnabout that I've already commented on CS was arguing

against

lynching Garnasha:

Well, now you're still sure (sort of?) that I am scum but will be willing to go along and lynch someone else if need be. Who's crap logic case will u follow I wonder? I hope you don't vote for peapod/garnasha cause I'm pretty sure she's town, but not 100%

And looking back at Garnasha's posts, prior to CS voting him there's no attack on CS that I can find. He says this:

prime suspects atm: leet/destructor for independent scumminess (I'll elaborate later), Erg0 for a link to CS or Zeet for a link with CS. I'll be more precise and look for more once I got more friggin time.

CS doesn't even make his top 3 suspects although two other players do on account of "links" to him.

I think Erg0 has managed to slip off the radar.

I agree with this. It seemed like Erg0 was keeping a profile so low as to be almost invisible while CS pursued a case against me that was at least partly triggered by Erg0's comments in the first place. I think he's got away with posting very little recently and I'll certainly read any case you make with interest.

Oh, and happy birthday from me too.

[Ripley]

Jokes aside, it almost seems as if Poro would be content with a no-lynch if the deciding vote were his.

CS has a point here, that no protown player should let his convictions get in the way if the alternative is no-lynching. A no-lynch is the worst possible outcome for the town and everyone should be willing to do whatever it takes to avoid it, even if that means moving your vote from your first choice. But it's hardly fair to single Porochaz out; here's Erg0, post 270, before Porochaz's "I'm not changing" post (which was 274):

I'm not moving my vote unless Garn changes my mind.

Erg0, you're an experienced player; do you not see the problem with this stance?

And now Garnasha:

That was me rereading the thread, cut short by the bell.

A bell, this time... Always

something

, isn't there?

I will still try and reread the thread, but unless I see something really extraordinary I won't change my opinion.

I think we can assume the reread is unlikely, since in his very next paragraph Garnasha, ever the king of the backtrack, announces "I don't think my attention here is needed till day 2 (and even then only if CS or Erg0 turns out to be town). I'll make sure I'll have caught up at daybreak." So, basically, "see you tomorrow", then.

destructor, you say you'll be posting some non-Erg0 material tomorrow. I'd really like to get your current opinions on CS and Garnasha in particular. Most of what you've posted since your return is to a large degree taking up with Erg0 where you left off two weeks ago, and things have moved along since then. Unless there's a move towards voting Erg0 from someone else, your own vote on him may be useless at deadline.

Sorry for my recent lack of content, I've been really busy this week and the debates of the last few pages have done little to inspire me.

This really bothers me. Erg0 was the one who started off the arguments against me that CS took up with such boundless gusto. In which case I find it very surprising that he should have found CS's case, and his many posts on the subject, and my own responses, so very devoid of interest. I mentioned earlier that I thought I saw possible signs of throat-clearing from a couple of players after CS got started on me. Throat-clearing as in: not yet being willing to openly support the case without gauging the reaction from other players, but making a tiny preparatory sound of approval. Here is Erg0, Post 205:

I like that big post, CS. What is it about Poro and Zeek's votes on me that makes you sure they're town?

Really these two sentences should be separate paragraphs since they have nothing to do with each other. The question about Poro and Zeek relates to what CS has just said in post 204, not to his big post which was 198. All Erg0 can find to say about all the sterling work CS has done to try and prove the suspicions originally stated by Erg0 himself is "I like that big post, CS". So, is this a throat-clearing? Waiting to see if anybody buys CS's case? And then, when nobody does, quietly backing off? Looking back, Erg0's lack of interest in the whole affair really strikes me as odd.

[Ripley]

Well done you two.

I spent a long time debating my night choice although I thought there was a good chance I wouldn't live to tell you. Civil Scum and Erg0 seemed to be leading the pack in terms of suspicion so I really needed to investigate one of those two.

I looked hard at all the possible pairings and came to the conclusion if Erg0 was innocent Zeek was almost definitely scum, whereas if CS was innocent there wasn't a clear scum, so Erg0 was the choice to go for. My working is here if it's of any interest:

If ERG innocent and I investigate him

POR CS so unlikely that if both alive, vote third
CS DES v unlikely, if both alive vote third

so if ERG innocent ZEE scum

if CS innocent and I investigate him

DES ERG alive, vote third
POR ERG – less clear

so ERG best choice

Incidentally, the only comment in my notes about the Zeek/destructor scum pair was:

DES ZEE – Nothing!

The two of them had steered clear of each other so thoroughly that I hadn't found a single piece of evidence either way.