VtM:M - Vampire the Masquerade Mafia

[Shale]

...I'm hoping that seoncd comment meant that you're familiar with Eddie Izzard.

Mais, la souris est en dessous la table, le chat est sur la chaise et le singe est … est … le singe est disparu!

(No, I don't have that memorized. Had to look it up. Sadly.)

[IhatethisCPU]

*Tilts head.*

While I appreciate your attempts at encouragement, this is my... 25th game in two years, spread out over a number of different messageboards. Nineteen of them were marked by horrendous play, but it wasn't noticed because everyone else was worse. ^_^'

Three ended up with me not having to do anything, since I was scum, but the Godfather all three times was a master of the art, so I really didn't have to worry about scum losing. The master of the art thing is kinda of how I feel about QR and Shale, without the scum bit.

Two, I felt pretty good about the whole thing, and finished the game fairly painlessly.

And the last one is the "Insult everyone in the game to bait scum, get lynched, and see if any scum jumped on the 'lynch the silly bastard' train posthumonously.". That ended with Cid Modkilling me and Fnorder doing an excellent job of actually being able to help town.

Also: Snow sucks.

Woo, Shale!
*Noah, played by Sean Connery, roars by on a speedboat.*

[Otter]

Uh, okay, if he's requesting removal theeen not much point to this.

##UNVOTE: CPU

A Cid train is fine too.  ##VOTE: El Cid

Dinner now, will certainly be back before the Rat-deadline hits us.

[EvilTom]

Ahem. Ladies and gentlemen, a small announcement if I may; there has been a TIME EXTENSION! Daaaytona
Day 1 will now last a total of 72 hours. It will now end 1pm Friday (+11 hours timezone)


IHateThisCPU has asked me to replace him. This will be done ASAP. Cries


Now, time for a little update; there's been a lot to keep track of, so forgive me for any errors:

Votes
El Cideon (3): Carthrat, IHateThisCPU, Sir Alex, Smodge13, Otter
Excal (0): Shale
Smodge13 (1): QuietRain, Corwin
QuietRain (1): Lady Door
Ciato (0): El Cideon
VerySlightlyMad (0): Otter, Carthrat
Andrew Rogue (0): Excal, QuietRain
Otter (1): Corwin, El Cideon
Corwin (1): Sir Alex, Excal
Sir Alex (2): VerySlightlyMad, Anonymous
Oblivion Knight (3): Carthrat, Carthrat, Andrew Rogue, QuietRain
IHateThisCPU (2): Smodge, QuietRain, Corwin, Otter

A number of 8 is required for majority.


There is just over 51 hours till Elysium ends for the night.

My my, this is the first time we've ever been asked to extend our opening ours on the first night, we are doing well I must say; I'll inform the caterers, they'll require overtime pay though...

[Veryslightlymad]

That anon vote isn't me, so far as I am aware of.

My vote stands anyhow, because Alex saying "Let's vote in a timely fashion" goes against EVERY FUCKING GAME I've played with him, where he's all "More talk is good. Talk helps town."

On the other hand, I got to Otter's post on the fourth page, before I could read no more. I have to go to class. I'm late as is. I'll dissect more and better when I return.

[Sierra]

One of the few things that disturbs me more than this is El Cid making the extension a scum/town political issue for this game, threatening Excal and voting Otter over it.  This is the most significant development so far, aside from Rat's claim, and I'm not liking it at all.  The whole business of extensions and timeframes shouldn't be politicized into a specific game, especially not this one where we've got a double lynch and an instant jump to serious votes.  This strikes me as a more likely initial scum position than anything else so far.

You misunderstand. I'm not voting for Otter for the simple fact of him disagreeing with the extension. I'm voting for him because the wording of his post made him come across as being disinterested in the discussion surrounding the kill itself. I'm not politicizing the extension; going "I'm voting for you because you disagree with me!" is idiotic and accomplishes nothing. I'll elaborate in my response to Smodge (below), because the two of you are more or less pressing the same argument here.

Smodge: I don't object to Otter being aggressive, and that's not why I'm voting for him (seriously, why would I expect *Otter* to not be aggressive?) I've also stated that I agree with using the daykill as the majority vote dictates. However, I will note that "jumping straight to the kill," as you put it, does not help us. The act of killing someone, by itself, tells us only one thing: whether they were town or scum. If we don't take time to let everyone weigh in on the target ahead of time, we potentially lose valuable information in the long run. Parsing through the discussion surrounding the kill, we can potentially glean much more than the dead player's alignment, pick up clues as to the motives of those involved in the train, etc. Otter's post was worded in such a way that it seemed to me that he was eager to bypass discussion, or at least streamline it. This is not in Town's best interest. The day one kill is always going to be relatively uninformed, granted; given that we're going to be making TWO kills in the first game-day, I think it is imperative that we give everyone an opportunity to contribute to the discussion...or NOT contribute, of course, which in itself is an important scumtell. The rule of LAL exists for a reason; cycling through kills as quickly as we would've done it without an extension potentially gives lurkers an excuse to miss the talk surrounding the kill without looking quite as bad ("I didn't expect it to happen this fast!" is something I'd expected to see from a couple people if we'd gone ahead with the daykill within the next few hours; hell, OK hasn't even posted yet). Day one kills are always shaky, and this is exactly why we want to get as much discussion surrounding them as possible! We're always likely, statistically, to kill one of our own day one, so if we're killing two people on this day, I want to make damn sure that we get something more out of it than a corpse. Rushing it only ensures that we have less to analyze later.

Again, this does not benefit Town. Town wins by talking every subject to death. Can you not understand why I would get suspicious when I see someone acting in a way that I perceive as being detrimental to thorough discussion? Now, if Otter's intent was simply to convince us to compress the discussion and get our usual meandering done in half the time? All I can say is that perhaps others here have more faith than I do in our capability to actually be that coordinated.

Okay, that was snarky, sorry. Seriously, though, I view this as a matter of logistics. Shale illustrated this nicely, so I'll quote him:

Also, personally I want an extension because it would avoid the entire serious portion of the day taking place between when I went to sleep last night and when I get home from work this evening. With the day 1 startup time factored in, you're talking about a "day" less than 24 hours long, which means people's schedules start to seriously impact if they can participate at all. That's not an idea I like.

[EvilTom]

[GM]
Ok, I managed to rope a friend into playing; I had to do this as I've been trawling for players for ages, so yeah, new player. He hasn't played online mafia before (only real-life), and he's doing me a favour by filling in at ultra-short notice so please don't get too angry at him for noob-ishness.

IHateThisCPU has been replaced by Drac.
[/GM]

On an unrelated note, the time extension cannot be undone once it has reached majority vote (just like a regular hammer), so keep that in mind for future days.

[Shale]

Drac? Vampire game? Meant to be.

Same Drac from Soulriders?

[Ranmilia]

There is nothing in my role (that I know of, at least) that would cause an anonymous vote to appear anywhere.  So if it's *not* VSM... I really have no clue.  Highly odd.

El Cid...  You coupled the vote on Otter with a statement about Excal, to wit:

"I disagree with this first point. More time also gives scum more opportunity to hang themselves, which I think more than outweighs the possibility of them having more time to plot things. The second paragraph looks worse. We can't make an informed decision, so let's just kill someone and hope we get lucky?

Now, I see Excal has since reconsidered his stance on this issue and put in a request for an extension. This is good, and lessens my suspicion. Otter has not come back to rescind the similar statements he made early on page 2, though, and this I find disagreeable. Otter of all people saying it's best to cut off discussion early and go straight to the kill, in this kind of situation? That doesn't sit right with me."

That, uh, sure reads to me like you're using the extension as a litmus test, and carries an implied threat that you'd have voted Excal if he hadn't reconsidered. 

Town does win via discussion, but this should not be confused with "Well let's make every game day a week/month/Mafiascum.net so we discuss thoroughly!"  There just isn't a need for it, past a certain point the game drags and people get into the habit of procrastinating and not taking action as well as discussing things.  And I have said this in every game I've played in, plus the ones I've modded, and yelled it at the ones I haven't done either in.  Loudly.  Soooo... not sure where VSM's coming from there.  I'm not anti-discussion, I'm pro-action.  </Super Tuesday madness>

[Sierra]

Alex: Poor wording, then. Otter looks worse for seeming disinterested in what I see as necessary discussion and basically not addressing my post in any meaningful fashion. So you say you're "Pro-action, not anti-discussion, Alex?" Okay, then. But is Otter? I wouldn't know, because he never really got back to me.

And I maintain that logistical issues do genuinely set a kind of limit on how quickly we can get through a day. I would not ever suggest extending one game-day to "week/month/mafiascum.net," as you suggest. That's just silly nonsense and you building a strawman. In other circumstances I would not suggest an extension. In other circumstances, forty-eight hours would be just peachy for day one. I simply think that this is an unusual situation that bears more consideration than one kill per twenty-four hours allows. And apparently I'm not alone in this regard, since we voted for an extension.

Anyway...stuff that reviewing Smodge's post made me think of is below (was working on that before I saw the Alex post).

Could be OMGus spurring this, however it seems like an attempt to make me blow up, with lack of Tom around it is possible scum could try it as a tactic, but seems like he's making a mountain out of a mole hill, then again day 1 not much to go on he may be thinking along the same lines as me.

Mountain out of a molehill? That's...pretty much what's happening as a result of people pouncing on me for voting Otter, actually. I've wound up talking about one issue far more than intended (usual day one clusterfuck in progress, then?) I saw something that twigged as not quite right for the poster saying it and called him on it hoping he'd respond...which Otter only kinda did, actually. He tossed a couple sentences into a long post about someone different and then later came back with a vote post that says nothing about why he's voting for me. Which is enough reason for my vote to stay right where it is too.

Otter of all people saying it's best to cut off discussion early and go straight to the kill, in this kind of situation? That doesn't sit right with me.

This argument here doesn't sound right, many of us know of Otters Overaggressive play, which we haven't seen in a while, yet you complain that he wishes to jump straight to the kill?.
Following that same line of thinking shouldn't then Alex be suspicious because of his urging us to make decisions?, yet once again not a single mention of him.

Do forgive me for not comprehensively analyzing every poster involved in the issue in a single post. [/sarcasm] Seriously, though: do you think Alex is suspicious? You have a bad habit of echoing him, whether you realize it or not. Scum let you do it in Touhou because it helped them. I don't have a strong read on him yet here, but I will just say, as a general rule: be careful whose opinions you take for granted.

As for my thoughts on Alex? Doesn't look great for exaggerating my point against Otter, but the mammal attracted my attention first and I'm sticking with him for pretty much not responding in any helpful fashion.

[Luther Lansfeld]

Well, in the last game we played, scum had anonymous voting? If that is the case I do not like the sound of that at all. Or possibily a role like Rat's in WoT Mafia, where he spread his anon vote. I'm really hoping it's not the former not only for in-game reasons but I think giving scum an anon vote like that is pretty ridiculous in concept. -_-

With that said, I agree with Alex in that we can't dilly-dally forever, but the main reason that I voted for an extention is that this isn't really a full day if we are going to be lynching two people in a day. 36 hours a piece is still less than normal, and I don't think we need a nightkill to dissect who is trying to train people. I believe that giving 36 hours to assess our options is far superior to 24, personally. I don't think I'd approve of an extention in a normal situation, but I think this one warrants it. It's not like 36 hours for decision on a lynch is an unreasonable amount of time to want.

With that said, I am kind of suspicious of people overblowing statements, and I am -very- suspicious of Otter's snotty tone on his latest post. He seems to be leaping from person to person, although he did lay off Rat pretty quickly. To be fair, I don't think there was a lot to be said to Rat's response since the entire thing is a very logical thing to do (in my eyes), but the VSM and particularly the CPU stuff I find rather bothersome.

Smodge: VSM "lacks a sense of self-preservation" for criticizing Rat? I disagree. If any one of us sees something suspicious, they should share it with the rest of us. You think he looks bad just because of who he's attacking?

Could be OMGus spurring this, however it seems like an attempt to make me blow up, with lack of Tom around it is possible scum could try it as a tactic, but seems like he's making a mountain out of a mole hill, then again day 1 not much to go on he may be thinking along the same lines as me.

What? I wasn't aware he was making a mountain out of anything. I think that trying to say that this statement is something that's trying to make you mad is what's making a mountain out of a molehill personally. >_> What exactly in this statement is offensive?

Otter of all people saying it's best to cut off discussion early and go straight to the kill, in this kind of situation? That doesn't sit right with me.

I kind of agree with this, advocating haste in this situation doesn't seem wise (but seems advantageous to the scum), but why exactly do you say 'Otter of all people'? He's pretty gung-ho by pretty much all I can tell from playing Mafia with him.

[Lady Door]

##UNVOTE QuietRain Since, y'know, jokevote phase is long since over.

...

On Lady Door's concerns: Yeah, they're quite serious. But if you think only a portion of people would decide the lynch with their arguments, it still leaves others plenty of time to pitch in for the real lynch at the very least. In fact, the full day would be longer if we extend it to get enough debating done for our two lynches per day. We won't be starting it all entirely from scratch after our Prince kills the first target, after all.

True enough. My concerns over the dayvig relate primarily to how they unfold during this initial phase. It seems like it would be only too easy for Day 1 (the day which, traditionally, holds little in the way of content) to turn into a massacre against us what with dayvig and the lynch and the night. After whatever happens, happens, we can pick up the info and move on from there, surely. Until then? It's worth considering that this day, the one so commonly discarded as a day of joke votes, could be the most decisive for us.

...

I was going to comment on the whole El Cid/Alex and smodge calling him out thing, but more discussion happened while I was tending to the chickens. So! Analyzing the argument. Alex's press worried me, especially since he keeps saying the same thing. Yes, we get it, more time often leads to procrastination, dragging it to the deadline, et cetera. However, I note that Excal, Shale, Corwin, QuietRain, Ciato, myself and (sort of) Otter, in addition to El Cideon, all commented on the merits of using an extension in this particular case, on this particular day 1 to take account for the time zones/short day one/dayvig problem.

I can see the problems that develop later if this becomes a habit, but your insistence on the point in the face of people agreeing with you in general but arguing the necessity of it in this case makes me wary.

The "value of the extension" discussion delves far too much into metagaming to be wholly comfortable for me to draw analysis from (after all, I wasn't here for a single one of the games being cited as examples of why X or why not Y), but I am uncomfortable with people who post in the midst of the debate, talk about time limits, and don't make a single comment on the extension. Completely avoiding the argument at hand? That looks a little off to me.

That currently leaves me suspicious of Alex (repeated attacks, and setting up a straw man) and Andrew (for completely missing out on the extension discussion, either for or against, despite posting in the midst of the argument and citing lynch deadline problems). Primarily? Alex's harangue leaves a bad taste in my mouth. So:

##VOTE Sir Alex

[Carthrat]

It is very, very hard to not make a snide remark. oops too late.

<->

Okay! Anyone ELSE want to claim responsibility for that vote? If VSM is a doublevoter and doesn't realise it I guess we'll find out as time goes on. Since we can't verify the origins of that vote, though, I'm not going to take it into account with midday lynches.


<->

As far as I know, I have no limit to who I can kill. The arguments over timing are great and all but I feel that my original decision to kill at the halfway point each day remains the best. The basic fact is that if we kill any later, we cut off the more involved discussion that goes into the second lynch; kill any earlier and the same applies to the first.

Concerns that a particular party might exert more control over one lynch than others aren't that valid because...

1) In order to do so reliably, they'll give themselves away.
2) And when you take out any population of the game, you are going to get more town than scum. So it's highly likely that the lynch will still (mostly) be in the hands of town regardless.

Alex is going to have to get over days not rocketing forward at the speed of light; I feel the halfway mark each day is quite reasonable. It's better to set a deadline here than have none at all; I'll recind my earlier thoughts and state that if we DO get -1 to hammer within the first few hours, I'll probably finish the job early.

<->

OK still hasn't posted, thanks to the extension he'll have had PLENTY of time and there's just no excuse. Our replacement will naturally have to post as well.

The whole 'Rat isn't yet cleared of suspicion!!!111' thing is getting kind of old. Let's hear it when you actually have something suspicious on me.

Corwin, people playing slightly different in terms of posting times doesn't really matter much at all. That you mentioned it is odd. It's also kind of invalid because Otter has been called out for not posting early an awful lot recently and it seems unfair to act as if doing the opposite is worthy of mention. And Cid, I don't think his reasons for voting Otter were intended to be nonsense or jokevotey at all, really. Lacking in much strength, perhaps! But there WERE reasons and they weren't clearly dumb.

<->

Lady Door, there is PLENTY of logic behind my decision. As everyone has no-doubt noticed, the game has been propelled into serious mode from the get-go, which was part of my intention. My power needs to be used and using it in this fashion is very pro-town. I could have randomly died tonight and not have had a chance to exercise it. Discussion has been propelled in meaningful directions. I believe having two lynches that are dicussed over a relatively short time period and yet do indeed have real and useful information in them is going to be of more benefit to town than one day 1 lynch of complete randomness.

<->

I kind of want to hear what Otter's got to respond to Cid with. I've got to say I haven't really liked people coming out and saying 'we don't need no extension', not with the way the game has started late and the way I forced it into taking a dramatic turn from the get-go.

[Shale]

True enough. My concerns over the dayvig relate primarily to how they unfold during this initial phase. It seems like it would be only too easy for Day 1 (the day which, traditionally, holds little in the way of content) to turn into a massacre against us what with dayvig and the lynch and the night.

Well, the reason Day 1 sucks is that we have exactly no evidence to go on. What makes Day 2 not suck is that we can examine who voted for who while knowing, for at least one vote-getter, whether the person was town or scum. With a dayvig giving us two lynches per day, that essentially gives us the information we would have had on Day 2, but on the second half of Day 1 instead. People with power roles are more in the dark than they'd otherwise be, but unless they were going to roleclaim Day 2 (which they wouldn't, because it would be dumb), that wouldn't help town anyway. And this way we get to perform our second lynch without losing anyone to nightkill yet.

[Excal]

Alright, glad we got that extension in.  Things have heated up nicely, and it looks like something will come out of this.

Anyways, let's start with this.

##Unvote: Corwin

You've not really done much since I voted for you, but I imagine you need your sleep.  That, and better candidates have come along.

El Cid, I have to say that I disagree with your argument in general terms.  Yes, it is good to have more conversation, but as Alex has readily pointed out several times dragging the day out for the sake of dragging the day out not only does no good for town, but it gives scum time to think up defenses while the town is unable to dig much further into the haystack of clues available.  Remember, a good townie is going to be consistant with what he does and what he eventually says he is, and no reports from town aligned sources will ever contradict it.  Whereas scum will be limited in what they can claim.  The less provable by actions their fake role claim is, the less likely it is to save them.  The more they try and breadcrumb to make it look better, the more they risk getting outted by a lucky investigation (I had to ditch two perfectly good cover stories in Discworld because my name and my house boundedness were confirmed.  And if Sopko hadn't of claimed...  well, he could have caught me when I said my name was Carrot).  As such, scum need to think in order to say something that has some connection to past actions and fits with what is presently known.  That said...  you've been stressing the need for an extension in this particular case since at least early page three, and specifying why it is important in this case.  It's that fact that kept me from jumping on your case when I got back, and had me scouring the archives for a while.  While I think you advocate bad policy, the fact that this case is the poster boy for the Extension cause and that that was the main case you argued, I'm willing to give you a bye for now.

Shale...  I can't remember a thing you've said since the gang beats on VSM last night.  Most of your stuff has been putzing around with CPU, and a few side remarks on why you voted to Extend.  (On a random side note, why is it important that the monkey dissapeared?)  It's not that you aren't here, but more that you seem to be making enough posts to be noted as being here without actually contributing anything.  And I'm kind of uneasy about that feeling about you.

Smodge...  Is mostly just here because he seems to be reading more into a comment towards him than was actually meant.  That, and his mimicry of Alex is a little troubling.  Right now, no real read on him, though an eye is trained on him.

OK...  Despite the fact that Alex can't seem to make up his mind on whether our target of choice should be low post count, or people whose flips will tell us something, OK is the guy that's yet to say a thing.  So, naturally we should vote him, right?  Nope.  I like Alex's idea.  I like going after someone whose flip is more likely to tell us something so that we can discuss it while it's fresh in our minds rather than waiting and letting the thoughts grow cold and stale.  So, let's stick him on the shelf until the second half of the day.  I'm sure he'll keep, and we've got bigger fish to fry.

Namely, Alex himself.  Him I find to be the opposite of El Cid.  I agree with his stance in general, but...  in the particular instance presented here, I cannot help but feel that there's something off.  Things noticed when rereading his posts and exchanges with Cid, and which Lady Door also noticed.  Namely, that he ignores the core of El Cid's argument, and is trying to present things in very general terms.  Yes, we don't want to cluster around deadline.  No, that isn't why we requested an extension today.

It's odd, but part of what's causing this is your defense of me.  Reading back, I can see why El Cid said what he did.  He made the mention of the specifics of today before I even voted for an Extension, which means that yes, I can see where he's coming from, and the application of those specifics to that comment should have been possible even before he elaborated in his defense.  His main problem is the fact that his comments, and that post in particular, look to be poorly worded.

However, you've ignored several defenses and elaborations on this, and you drive home on a point which was never truly there to begin with, but you're happy to claim your target supported anyways.  As such, I think that, at the moment, you're the one looking the worst.

##Vote: Sir Alex

[Shale]

Excal, you've got a point about me. I'd like to go more in depth, but I've been posting from work all day and haven't had the time or focus to do more than respond to one post at a time. I'll try to put some effort into an analysis with some depth, but making money comes first, I'm afraid, and I've still got more articles to write.

[Lady Door]

Lady Door, there is PLENTY of logic behind my decision. As everyone has no-doubt noticed, the game has been propelled into serious mode from the get-go, which was part of my intention. My power needs to be used and using it in this fashion is very pro-town. I could have randomly died tonight and not have had a chance to exercise it. Discussion has been propelled in meaningful directions. I believe having two lynches that are dicussed over a relatively short time period and yet do indeed have real and useful information in them is going to be of more benefit to town than one day 1 lynch of complete randomness.

I didn't question your logic. I fully believe an early reveal can be positive. My concern, and what I actually said, is over how it's used. It is great that you are giving us the power to decide who gets lynched during the day. My argument is against your power, not you, and it's more that I worry about speculation driving 2 lynches when Day 1 typically ends poorly for town. I'm not suggesting that we don't take advantage of it, I'm just suggesting that we be CAREFUL about doing so, since 2 lynches + whatever happens at night could VERY quickly degrade into bad juju for us.

It's why I segued into censure of Sir Alex and his very, very strong argument against the concept of requesting an extension. He seemed to be willfully avoiding the fact that this is NOT a typical day 1 and we DO have a fair amount of information to go off of so it's not fair to start off throwing away this chance to make a meaningful pair of lynches just because Day 1 got shorted 24 hours due to the normal flow of Day 1 action. I know, Shale, that Day 1 has no real information -- at least not information levels on par with Day 2 and beyond -- and that dayvig is our only way to get information this early, but that doesn't mean it makes sense to push for the quickest possible lynch in hopes of getting something out of it. Someone mentioned before that more talk time/debate time is good, and while I can see how it can be bad, on this Day 1 I can only see it as a way to pull for information.

[Ranmilia]

And now I am forced to post in my own defense.  So.

OK...  Despite the fact that Alex can't seem to make up his mind on whether our target of choice should be low post count, or people whose flips will tell us something...

This is false and mischaracterizing.  I have made up my mind and cast my vote.  Low post counts and lurking are not something I have addressed yet in this game, because to date I have felt it too early in both game and real time to do so. 

However, you've ignored several defenses and elaborations on this, and you drive home on a point which was never truly there to begin with, but you're happy to claim your target supported anyways.  As such, I think that, at the moment, you're the one looking the worst.

What point are you thinking of, exactly?  The point I've been driving is that politicizing the extension is a bad thing.  The entire debate about deadlines and extensions has no bearing on this game, and supporting or not supporting the extension should not be used as a basis for votes.  Period.  El Cid shouldn't have used it as a basis for attacks on Excal and Otter.  Nobody should be using it as a basis for attacks on anyone.  Yet people are doing so.  This continues to baffle me. 

Yes, El Cid's now saying he's voting on Otter being against discussion.  That may be true - but the post of his in question was worded in a way that made it very clear to me that he was using someone's voting for or against the extension as a litmus test for whether that person was for or against discussion. 

"Against discussion = scummy" = fine
"Against extension = against discussion" = not fine!  This is what I'm arguing against, and what Cid appeared to be doing in his post.
"Against extension therefore = scummy" = even less fine!

It comes down to the same thing - he's voting for/against people based on whether or not they voted for/against the extension.  If a position on the extension is influencing his (or anyone's!) votes or opinions on whether someone is town or scum, that's not good. 

Cid was the first person I saw to bring it in as an issue, and he did so quite strongly.  Since that time many others have picked up on it and expressed similar sentiments.  The end of Rat's latest post indicates that he's starting to consider people's position on the extension as a factor.  LadyDoor's post is even worse, reading to me as:  "Look at all the people voting for an extension!  Since most people are in favor of it, those who aren't are scummy!"

People being for or against the extension should not be considered a tell in any way.  It definitely should not be converted to a sign as to whether or not a person is for or against discussion.  I'm seeing people doing that and this is what I am objecting to - and calling scummy, yes.

Nor do I give much credence to the argument that El Cid's post was just poorly worded.  He came out and said outright "Excal wasn't in favor of the extension, so I was suspicious of him.  But then he changed his mind and was for it, so now I'm not."    I have an extremely hard time seeing that as just poor wording.  If he's voting Otter and was suspicious of Excal solely because of the wording of their posts, not because of their position on the extension... why mention their position on the extension at all?  I'm not ignoring his explanation - I don't believe it.  Flat out. 

-----

LadyDoor is also stating that I am suspicious for saying the same thing over and over.  I find that taking a definite statement on issues and having a continued presence in discussion is the best course of action for all townies.  In other words, uh, what would you prefer me to do, lurk and say nothing, or contradict myself?

[Lady Door]

No, Alex, I did not say that "these people all voted for an extension, so they're good, and those who didn't are scummy." I said those people

all commented on the merits of using an extension in this particular case, on this particular day 1

I said it in opposition to your repeated posts regarding the bad effect of sitting on a deadline, waiting for action until time hammers for us. You, again, weeded out the specifics that were the very point of my argument.

I am not commenting one bit about the extension issue. Those people pointed out reasons why an extension could work in favor for us even though people sitting on a deadline can cause problems. See, that part in italics is the crux there: THEY AGREE WITH YOU. The argument I'm making is about you continually harping on an issue which doesn't exist, namely that people seem to be wanting an extension but extensions are bad. Everyone knows this. Those people, after a fashion, all acknowledged it. You have yet to respond to our justification with any real argument, instead offering merely a reiteration in the general.

I'm not anti-discussion, I'm pro-action.

My challenge to you is, if this is the case, why are your posts devoted to repeatedly skirting an issue which you keep bringing up?

Your latest argument touches on some real issues, but what concerns me, again, is the statement you're making.  So you're saying using votes placed on game play issues and taking a stance on what someone's actions mean is bad? I thought that was the whole point of the game?

[Veryslightlymad]

The thing is though, we asked for an extension and we DID have quite a bit of actual discussion going. Things didn't suddenly die. We got out of joke-voting right away. So the extension, in this case, is because people seemed like they were hashing things out. So yes, yes it IS kind of fishy to be against the extension. Remember that we're running on half-time here too, because Rat has decreed that one must die.

[Otter]

El Cid, what exactly are you "waiting" for me to get back to you on?  Is my position still not clear to you?  I didn't see the need for an extension and I didn't want to promote town dependency on extra time (a dependency I see as harmful, especially in a game where we need to hammer to lynch) by voting Extend right off the bat the way some people did.  I've been saying this all, as clearly as I can, from the start.  Judging by your reaction to Excal's reconsideration, you're considering my failure to vote Extend as a failure to vote for Discussion, and thus you're interpreting this as a scumtell.  See Alex's post, basically: this is ridiculous.

What's more, the Extend vote has already passed now.  Politicizing the Extension decision isn't just a waste of time, it smacks of a scum attempt to divert everyone's attention.  Are you seriously, as Alex suggested, using this as a litmus test?  You're saying townies always vote extend at the start of every day no matter what so there can be MORE DISCUSSION, while only scum would suggest that we go right for the discussion and get it done with in less than the maximum number of possible hours?  I'll say it right out: I don't think we SHOULD let every day drag on for every possible second before hammering, because while that technically gives us more minutes of "discussion," I don't think it necessarily produces any more HELPFUL discussion.  More content helps us, but more TIME on its own doesn't unless we're tearing through high-content issues and there are SO MANY of them that a few more hours would let us get even more done.  That wasn't the situation when people started voting Extend.  Does this mean THEY were scum!?  No.  The Extension vote isn't a scumtell one way or another, and I've only justified my non-vote (again) because Cid's apparently been waiting for me to do so.

Namely, Alex himself.  Him I find to be the opposite of El Cid.  I agree with his stance in general, but...  in the particular instance presented here, I cannot help but feel that there's something off.

However, you've ignored several defenses and elaborations on this, and you drive home on a point which was never truly there to begin with, but you're happy to claim your target supported anyways.  As such, I think that, at the moment, you're the one looking the worst.

There's "something off."  What, exactly?  You go on to say that Alex ignored the real points Cid was making and changed the topic into something else, but... I didn't see that happen at all.  I think Alex has addressed what Cid was talking about as directly as possible, and if you say he deflected the conversation into something else, what exactly was it?  I have no idea what you're talking about and it looks like you're building a case on "I can't help but feel there's something off," which is weaksauce especially when you admit there are plenty of lurker options right now, whose absence is a lot more tangible than your gut feeling about Alex with no substantive back-up.  I agree with Alex's stance in general, just like you!  And I also agree with it in this case, in fact!  And I don't think El Cid's problem was that his posts were "poorly worded" and the suggestion that this poor wording was the entirety of Cid's error looks suspiciously myopic to me.

Basically, see Alex's latest post, because I think he defended himself pretty cleanly, but I'll add that the sudden train on Alex looks an awful lot like an attempt to bury the Cid train that started just beforehand.  Excal in particular is building a weak argument.  And meanwhile, we're giving the lurkers a free pass, and we need a lot more people to stop deliberating and put some damn votes down.

[Kilgamayan]

An update:

Votes
El Cideon (3): Carthrat, IHateThisCPU, Sir Alex, Smodge13, Otter
Excal (0): Shale
Smodge13 (0): QuietRain, Corwin
QuietRain (0): Lady Door
Ciato (0): El Cideon
VerySlightlyMad (0): Otter, Carthrat
Andrew Rogue (0): Excal, QuietRain
Otter (1): Corwin, El Cideon
Corwin (0): Sir Alex, Excal
Sir Alex (4): VerySlightlyMad, Anonymous, Lady Door, Excal
Oblivion Knight (3): Carthrat, Carthrat, AndrewRogue, QuietRain
IHateThisCPU (2): Smodge, QuietRain, Corwin, Otter

A number of 8 is required for majority.

Roughly 26 hours have passed since Elysium began; A little more than 22 remain.
(However, given the number of Extension votes since Tom's last update, I'm almost positive one will be instituted.)

[Carthrat]

Ah Kilga we DO have an extension going at the moment.

<->

I don't actually know what the beef with Alex is supposed to be. As far as I can tell, it begins when he votes for Cid on grounds of turning the debate over an extension into something worth voting over. After reflection, I agree with this to a point (I DO think an extension was still called for today. But I'm going to *try* to not use debate over this as a tell one way or the other from now on. I can't make any promises because that's all anyone seems to be talking about, though.)

I'd like Lady Door to tell me exactly what I'm missing from Alex that supposed to implicate him, because I'm just not seeing it. And speaking of Lady Door, you HAVE, in fact, commented on the extension issue (in a quote in your own post, to boot)

As far as I can tell, what Alex is actually doing is calling out Cid for equating being against extensions with being scummy and placing an odd vote on Otter- which, to my mind, had little more justification than Corwin's.

[Otter]

Your latest argument touches on some real issues, but what concerns me, again, is the statement you're making.  So you're saying using votes placed on game play issues and taking a stance on what someone's actions mean is bad? I thought that was the whole point of the game?

Huge huge strawman, he didn't say anything like that and I challenge you to quote the exact text if he did.  Putting words in someone else's mouth like this looks awful to me and, just so you know, not responding to this and hoping I skim over the point and forget about it probably isn't going to work out too well for you.

VSM:  Neither Alex nor myself voted against the extension!  Alex said he would if he could at one point, apparently forgetting that he could, but in the end neither of us put down anti-votes.  The problem with everyone voting Extend right off the bat on principle (which is what happened) is that there's not a really good reason for it.  Having high pressure to get the issue settled isn't a bad thing, and I don't think wanting more time is automatically pro-town.  If he let us extend it to week-long days, would you vote for that?  By Cid's reasoning, surely you would if you were a townie, because a week of discussion is much more than a day of discussion, and more discussion helps town!  This is bogus, though, because we don't NEED that much time.  We can put out high-content posts, make decisions, and vote much faster than that, and we SHOULD be doing so, and the people who aren't doing so stick out to me right now.  A noncommittal and essentially time-wasting attitude is a popular one for scum, since it means they can essentially lurk without appearing to lurk.

[Lady Door]

Mmph... *rubs head* Maybe I'm just being really unclear?

My point is not about the extension. I don't think I've said much over whether it's a good thing or a bad thing, though some of my opinion undoubtedly colored how I phrased things. For the record, I think it's a good thing. However, it's not a good thing because more time = good thing, it's a good thing because this short day 1 has been crazy AND it was effectively cut in half by your role-claim.

That's my beef with Sir Alex. It's NOT about extension as a concept. It's about extension as a means to help us make the most of Day 1 and this dayvig power. That is why I cited those other people -- they've all made that distinction after a fashion. That's why I keep frowning at Alex -- every time he posted, he made it sound as if a vote for extension was stupid on the basis that "more time = more waffling/indecision/procrastinating." I'm all for someone deciding that they don't like extension. Awesome. What I don't like is when discussion moves past the general into the specific -- in this case, why this Day 1 in particular is a great candidate for extension -- but one person stays back in the realm of general without acknowledging that this case might be different (or why it's not).

If that's not clear enough, I'm not sure what else I can say.

Your latest argument touches on some real issues, but what concerns me, again, is the statement you're making.  So you're saying using votes placed on game play issues and taking a stance on what someone's actions mean is bad? I thought that was the whole point of the game?

Huge huge strawman, he didn't say anything like that and I challenge you to quote the exact text if he did.  Putting words in someone else's mouth like this looks awful to me and, just so you know, not responding to this and hoping I skim over the point and forget about it probably isn't going to work out too well for you.

... ... ... seriously? I mean, you do realize that quote you pulled comes at the end of a post in which I get upset with Alex for doing the exact same thing? At the end of my post which is directed specifically against Alex's last post prior to it, which he ends with a similar smarmy suggestion? Perhaps I should include more action text, such as what I was going to attach to that very line: *tongue in cheek*