Sorry guys. I hit submit on this last night, then went to bed. It obviously never went through, so here it is now, with one clearly marked edit. I'll post something more current a little later.
In post #65, Justin Playfair wrote:You are drawn to MafiaSSK… based on a highly suspicious, inaccurate and absolutely WIFOM premise you invented that someone would have to be “uncannily perceptive” to have been suspicious of Xtoxm’s original post.
Please reread what you quoted from my post. I said that perception level would be required to find
honest
suspicions, not just for him “to have been suspicious.” And I was right, Mafia was lying. So my premise was not inaccurate. Whether it’s suspicious is a matter of your opinion. WIFOM deals with what people
choose to do
and why they choose to do it, not what they are
capable of doing
. Please know what a term means before you accuse me of it.
Justin Playfair wrote:...you have seen plenty of wagons build over far less than what was in Xtoxm’s first post
I never said I hadn’t. Are you suggesting that because something has happened to a greater degree in other games, we can’t point it out as fishy here? Ludicrous.
Justin Playfair wrote:But I’ve certainly seen those bandwagons, and pushed by folks who weren’t scum. One might even say they are more likely to be pushed by people who are “less than uncannily perceptive”.
I never meant to connect my “perception” argument to any accusation of pushing a wagon. I said that three random votes on one person without in-game dice rolls was interesting. Then Apyadg questioned the reasoning behind Mafia’s vote. These are two different things. My perception argument suggested that Mafia’s
reason
was false, addressing the second of these two different things, not the first.
Justin Playfair wrote:...claiming that it would take someone uncannily perceptive to discern suspicious intent from Xtoxm’s first post seems possibly self-serving, since the same not uncannily perceptive someone might have seen your post as a reason to be suspicious of you.
That
is what WIFOM means. How ironic.
Justin Playfair wrote:And if there is an “easy answer” to Apyadg’s question… what would that answer be? And why would it be an easy answer?
Something along the lines of what Incog said: that we were being too harsh in the random vote phase, that his vote was indeed random, that “they seem suspicious” was no more scummy than voting for someone based on an avatar or name. He could have said he was being sarcastic. He could have disarmed the statement by saying something like “I meant he seemed suspicious because he doesn’t have an avatar, or because there are too many exes in his name.” I call these “easy answers” because I thought of them as possibilities when the question was asked, and I’m probably not the only one who did.
Justin Playfair wrote:You have cast reflective suspicion back at all three players (Xtoxm, Chronx and Incognito) who questioned you about your posts.
Interesting preemption in an attack post full of rhetoric, repetition, misrepresentation, misquotes, improperly applied terminology, reaching arguments, crap logic, opinions touted as evidence, and even an outright lie. So let me get this straight, if I point out that you are doing these things while accusing me, that makes
me
scummy?
I think you’ll find that I’ve cast suspicion on just about everyone I’ve talked to or about. I’ve cast suspicion in most of my posts. Just because someone is accusing me does not give them immunity to my suspicions. Calling it “reflective” because it coincidentally appears in a defense post is misleading. Have I cast an OMGUS vote? No. Have I attacked in place of defending or to cover up a weak defense? No. Have I redirected attacks vehemently enough to distract people from suspicion on me? No. In fact, as you quoted, I’ve invited suspicion, often right near the end of my posts where it will not be missed. Whether or not these statements “play as sincere” is, again, a matter of your opinion.
Justin Playfair wrote:You take your vote off MafiaSSK because he has become “abstract” which is neither an accurate description of his post (if I am incorrect about this using any conventional meaning of abstract, please explain).
In #40, Mafia makes what sounds like a scummy confession, but he adds a smiley at the end. Was his confession serious? Was it sarcastic? A joke? Then, in #42 he simply posts that he was lying. About what? His suspicions? This seems to be the consensus, but maybe he meant he was lying about what he said in #40. If so, was he lying about a serious #40 or a sarcastic one? Mafia leaves all of these important questions for the reader to answer subjectively. So yes, I believe abstract is used properly here but,
even if it isn’t
, you are arguing semantics.
Justin Playfair wrote:You then amend your reasoning for taking your vote off MafiaSSK into being because Incognito obviated the need for an answer to your initial question,
I didn’t amend anything, just explained it better when asked. I pointed out Incog’s obviation in the same post that I mentioned Mafia being abstract (#48). Forgive me if I don’t spell things out as verbosely as you do. I’m perfectly willing to explain myself better in later posts, which is helpful to the town so long as somebody isn’t twisting my words.
Justin Playfair wrote:even though Incognito’s answers didn’t address any of the possibly relevant suspicions of MafiaSSK’s behavior, only the ones you were pursuing based on your false premise.
I’ve explained above how Incog gave the easy answer, and demonstrated that my premise wasn’t false. Besides, Incog
doesn’t even mention
my premise in that post (#44).
Justin Playfair wrote:You also point to MafiaSSK refusing to answer your question as a reason to give up,
I said he dodged the question, not refused to answer it. He dodged it
by
being abstract, which behavior I mentioned in the original “unvote” post (#48). Again, I say something in brief, am asked to elaborate, and do so, then you come along to make it look like I’m changing the pith of the answer.
Justin Playfair wrote:...you refer to other players who have done what MafiaSSK has done as though by doing this you make your response more authoritative.
How many times are you going to attribute false motives to me? It would be horribly inefficient for me, a self-claimed n00b, to strategically post in order to sound authoritative. I’m working against myself in your scenario.
What I was saying by bringing up those other players is:
Hey guys, you know those people who end up distracting town from the scumhunt and sometimes get themselves mislynched by playing poorly enough that everyone thinks they’re scummy? Those players best dealt with by taking their actions with a grain of salt or even simply ignoring them? I think Mafia might be one of them, rather than scum, so let’s be careful here.
Which is very much implied in my original statement about him being abstract. Again, I was elaborating, not changing my stance.
Justin Playfair wrote:To me this looks like false scum hunting on your part, deliberately leading the bulk of the discussion of MafaiaSSK’s behavior away from what might have been legitimately suspicious and down obviously non-productive paths.
There have been only four reasonable suspicions posted about Mafia. (1) he placed a third “random” vote on Xtoxm, which I pointed out first in #19 (2) he didn’t explain his suspicion, which I assisted Apyadg in pressuring him for in #30 (3) he couldn’t have honestly suspected Xtoxm at all, which I pointed out first in # 30 (4) he
probably
admitted to bandwagoning/lying, which really isn’t worth examining, because we’ve already determined that he bandwagoned and lied, so a confession of these things is moot. I don’t see how my part in any of this was “false” anything, or how I’ve lead anyone away from legitimate discussion of his behavior, being as that I started half of that discussion and participated meaningfully in another quarter of it.
You really think your questions regarding Mafia are legitimate discussion? Fine. Keep asking them. None of us have stopped you and, thanks to chiding by me and others, nobody else is answering them for him. Don’t forget that
your
legitimate discussion is in response to statements prompted from Mafia by other players including me, the false scumhunter. But, most of all, don’t try to tell me I’m scummy because I’ve gotten a read on a player more quickly than you and I want to move on.
Your tunnel vision is
at least
as detrimental to the town as my multiplicity.
My addition this morning: Justin seems to have changed his mind about the usefulness of pressuring Mafia, so this statement of mine is no longer valid. I've only left it here so that you can all see the post as it was meant to be last night.
Justin Playfair wrote:And overall your posts look like they’re laying a veritable carpet of reasons to excuse any behavior you engage in. I’m new! I’ve read games for two months and have an IQ of 143! I may tell you to mind your own business if you ask me a question, but if I do it I’m pro-town!. Let’s look at that bandwagon I was on that I’m not on anymore and got off of for reasons which will evolve as they need to, and let’s start by looking at that other guy!
If you want to quote me, why not hit the quote button? I guess then maybe you wouldn’t be able to change words, type in things I never said, or put your poorly formed opinions into my mouth for emphasis. Are the exclamation points there at the end of every phrase to make my actual points seem foolish?
I have made exactly two preemptive statements meant to explain my behavior: I’m a n00b, and I don’t always share information upfront. Both are true. Neither was said to be a towntell (I only said the latter was a null tell). Each was meant to forestall overzealous players from mislynching me based solely on my known bad habits. Too bad Mafia didn’t make a post like that, huh?
Every other statement I’ve made to explain my behavior has been in answer to a direct question or accusation. In these cases, I feel that neglecting to answer would have made you no less suspicious of me.
Note also: in #52 I conceded that one of my posts seemed overly scummy. How does this fit into your “veritable carpet?”
Justin Playfair, regarding his vote wrote:I might change it if I come to believe what I’ve seen above was early game jitters or if I see someone who I think is more definitely scum.
This is the icing on a multi-layered crap cake. Way to falsely limit the possibilities. What you’re suggesting is that either my points so far are invalid, or I am scum. The funny part is that this premise is based on your accusations being reasonable, which is clearly untrue.
I'm very interested to read others' opinions of Justin's #65.