My attention is primarily drawn by Xanth at the moment. A question directed at him first, then some conjecture on my part about his and Soppy's actions yesterday.
Kiro: my vote was never going to make me look better, regardless of the result. It was mechanically useless (as I think I must have said?), but pins me to another stance. I was apparently wrong not to doubt Sopko more, but I didn't want my opinion to sink into just 'there's no helping it, it's him or me'. I'm aware that him flipping scum is likely to reflect badly on me for not pushing harder.
I'm forced to ask "Why?" in response to the sentence I've underlined. Self-preservation in such situations is a wholly understandable motivation for a townie. We generally don't automatically suspect someone for being ready "to vote for someone not me" (since the only thing a townie knows for sure is that he is in fact a townie), so I'm forced to question your claim that this is why you didn't vote for Sopko. And I'll echo Kiro's comment that "pinning yourself to a stance you didn't have before is relatively pointless." You didn't express enthusiasm or significant support for his lynching until we'd nearly nailed the coffin shut. I find this particularly telling:
I'll vote to save my own skin if I have to, but I'd rather the attention was on Tom (can't answer before deadline, I know). I can't say I'd be against lynching Sopko, but would still put him behind Affinity for the obvious and probably also Bardiche for the aforementioned style. I'd prefer he talked about more, but I've felt that Sopko's been fairly incisive in his points on me.
Again, I wish to direct attention to the underlined sentence. What about Affinity made him such an obvious choice at the time? Affinity is one of the least active posters in this game, but he was on a par with Sopko at that time and did not have a notably lower level of contribution to discussion (remember, all Sopko had when people started poking at him was a couple one-liners; it's not hard to beat that). This comment of yours is even more puzzling given that there was no noteworthy case on Affinity making the rounds at the time (the only vote he'd received was a jokevote from Bard). I just scanned through the entire topic, and you yourself had never once mentioned him before touting him as an "obvious" alternative to Sopko. So what made him such a clear candidate all of a sudden? My speculation is that you were trying to deflect heat from a scumbuddy who was (quite unexpectedly) crashing and burning. I believe that the timing of how the trains played out yesterday supports this:
-Sopko backed away from the Xanth train twelve hours from the end of the day. As it turned out, this is not an unreasonable amount of time in which to totally turn a train around. Tom had two votes on him at that time, and others (myself included, also Alex) expressing misgivings about Tom could conceivably have been persuaded to vote against him. It would've been feasible for scum to try to railroad Tom had the Soppy lynchtrain not materialized.
-As Sopko was in no danger himself at the time of his unvote (no one had voted for him yet, and I think it's safe to assume that the scum did not see the train on him coming given how late in the day that happened), I don't believe he did it specifically to spread confusion amongst the town. Had he already been going down in flames, I could accept the unvote being interpreted as a deliberate piece of misinformation designed to send town into WIFOM convulsions, but, again, Sopko surely had no idea at that time that he was going to die.
-His
stated reason for unvoting Xanth is obviously bunk because he's scum and lying is his job, so what does this leave us with? Scenario A) Sopko wanted to avoid being seen helping to kill a townie (if Xanth is town). I find this unlikely; Sopko had not invested a great deal of text in the case against Xanth (his vote on Xanth, way back on page one, had only a sentence to justify it; I believe it was just a placeholder vote that Soppy could use to make himself look active while waiting for a good train to hop on) and probably wouldn't have gained much townie cred from backing off. Scenario B) Sopko, apparently not a suspect himself at that time, decided to take a risk in order to save a scumbuddy and direct attention towards someone else. The latter part of that plan, of course, got waylaid by the case against Soppy himself.
Anyone, please tell me if you spot holes in this theory. Admittedly a lot of this is conjecture into scum planning, which can be a dubious enterprise. But I believe the scenario is realistic given the timetable involved and it only helps shore up my other problems with Xanth. Altogether, this feels like my best bet right now:
##Vote: Xanth~
Other comments:
1) Bard needs a Vote More prod. I'm not seeing anything on the record except for his opening jokevote. His long absence is also not encouraging. The last time he was active, he claimed he'd return in eight hours or so and failed to post again before the end of the game-day (and he had well more than eight hours before deadline). Definitely want to see more activity and more decisive opinions from him. Promising activity and not following through is a surefire way to attract the wrong kind of attention. So, here it is:
GAoS (Gatling Arm of Suspicion) in his direction.
2) Tom's not really on the radar at present, despite my having some problems with him yesterday. May change if I turn out to be wrong on Xanth, but he's currently only a minor concern.
3) No one else looks especially bad right now. Vague townie read on Strago, unsure on others.
4) Wufghl. Yeah, that's enough typing for now. I'll stick around for another half-hour or so in case anyone responds.
