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 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 was always willing to save my own skin (short of, perhaps, something like a doc claim), and I knew that people wouldn't dislike me for that. As you've quoted, I didn't want it to
just be about the self-preservation. Especially had it ended up being me and not him (not particularly clear until
Kilga?), I didn't want my final hours to be 'pick
Sopko because it isn't me' when I had other opinions.
I didn't want to vote
Sopko much earlier on for fear of
Sopko being justified dropping his vote back on me (which he could have done anyway, I know), resulting in a) me being miles out ahead and perhaps unrecoverable again and/or (depending on the time of day) b) definitely turning it into the specific two horse race it became when I'd have wanted it elsewhere (yes, b) doesn't clarify alignment).
So yes, me versus
Sopko sees/saw me supporting a
Sopko lynch, but whilst I did think poorly of him (and more poorly when he went silent when he started going under), I didn't think he was the worst. And in no uncertain terms can I say that my underline in your quote was never a reason for me to consider not voting for him.
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?
As a quick aside, note that in that quote you've taken there I made my position on the previous point clear - that I'd vote to save myself if need be, but would rather take the train elsewhere, namely
Tom (I know the second half still doesn't help given the flip, but the first half clarifies that I wasn't against self-preservation as a motive, I hope).
a) the 'obvious' alternative to
Sopko was
Tom, not
Affinity.
b) the 'obvious' reason on
Affinity was that he'd been completely absent since page 2 and all but entirely forgotten.
c) you've misquoted 'obvious' from my quote to mean a) rather than b).
d) people were claiming lurking as the main case against
Sopko. Whilst I could see where they were coming from I saw it as being no worse than
Affinity or
Bardiche. I can't help but disagree with the point saying that
Affinity had done more than
Sopko at that point.
e) no comment on
Affinity before then because there was nothing disagreeable until time made it more clear that there was just nothing.
f) not to get too far into WIFOM or anything, but precisely given that there was no strong backing on
Affinity makes it an odd choice for a deflection, unless you think it really was that desperate.
In summation,
Affinity didn't become attention-worthy until his contributions had fell off the map for some time, and the comparison to
Sopko was mostly of the 'here are people I think
Sopko is less bad than' flavour - it had always been
Tom that I wanted the pressure on instead.
I'm not sure why you're only concerned with the
Affinity half and not the
Bardiche half there, anyhow.
Do you want me to respond to any of the rest of it? I'm not sure I can do much else than go 'that's not true, because I'm town' at it, especially when it gets into WIFOM.
