Within a Deep Mafia Forest - Game Topic (GAME OVER)

[Luther Lansfeld]

So getting townies lynched by blowing up everything is playing for Team Town? Incorrect. Your playstyle has NOT caught scum, it's just made people frustrated. But do you think to yourself "Hey, maybe since this isn't working I should stop?" But this is not what you do. You continue to insist that it's your way or the highway.

http://www.rpgdl.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=10274

For example, I don't see any jokevotes on page 1 of this Mafia, and yet, discussion exists! It's only recently that we've become dependent on this crutch. How... how... is thinking that not voting IMMEDIATELY is scummy? You accused me of not laying down a vote on the beginning of Page 2, for god's sake. It's not like I am embracing an anti-voting policy or anything here, just a careful voting policy.

Anyway, I'd argue that by simply putting issues on the table and having discussion, we are doing a lot more for town than people who aren't doing either, which is why I'm not voting for you. During morning I am going to look for who I think hasn't tried to contribute to the topic. So I'd like to see what other people think about this.

[Kilgamayan]

I'm not sure I buy the "scum don't pay attention" idea. I might be unique in this regard, but whenever I'm scum I try to pay more attention than normal simply because I don't want the attention garnered from saying something dumb (as my lynch would hurt my team more than it would if I were town).

Otter vs. Ciato sounds like townie vs. townie spat to me. I don't really pick anything up from it, aside from a very small possibility that Yakumo is scum trying to cash in on Otter's aggresive and argumentative presentation of his position.

[Excal]

I agree, Kilga.  I can't think of why scum would let themselves make such, well...  obvious mistakes.  Especially when they have buddies that they can confer with.

On to Otter vs. Ciato?  Otter, is it scummy if everyone sticks out a jokevote, and yet conversation dies with it?  Imagine things this way, what if everyone gets a single vote on each other, and says not much of content in their joke posts, so that there isn't really anything to form a base of further conversation on?

Now, compare this to a game where there's only a handful of votes, but there is a lively conversation going on, even if it's not entirely game related.  Each of these joke votes are related to the banter in question, though.

Which game is going better for town?

[Lady Door]

I'm personally having a hard time getting anything much out of the argument at this point. Otter has such a, mm, polarizing personality when it comes to these things that it seems to be obfuscating the issue at hand. No matter how much logic his argument holds, the attack is just so personal seeming that it's hard to take seriously. Ditto Ciato when she's defending herself. Yakumo chiming in seems more like someone trying to get at the heart of the argument than scummy me-tooism.

At this point... I don't really think I want to vote for either of them. I'd rather let some things develop. I think LaL is appropriate on Day 1, and this is the LaL of the "now where did they go off to?" variety rather than the "posting a lot, but not posting anything of substance" variety. To my mind, that brings up:

1. Dhyer, who hasn't posted in 24+ hours and whose only posts were jokevote and real (ie, following-the-rules-so-this-one-counts) jokevote
2. Fnorder, who h... uh, well, the exact same thing

There are a couple other people who have made surface appearances, but because they're more recent I'm less inclined to be worried about it at this point.

[Excal]

Ciato, while you're argueing in your defense, I figure I might as well add on some questions for you.

Looking at your link, you seem to have been very consistant in your anti-lurker lynch position.  And yet, you say high-quantity/low-quality lynches (+Qn/-Ql) are fine.  The thing is, you argue against going after the people with (-Qn) on general principle.  Now, I can see why you would make that point.  The scum know which ones are town and therefore safe to hunt, and can generally get a good amount of support from town due to the policy of LaL.  I'll even grant that when dealing with -Qn/+Ql type posters that it is, in fact, a very bad idea.  Quality posts are not to be discarded just because the poster in question cannot make a regular habit of making them.

The problem lies with -Qn/-Ql posts where you have a whole lot of nothing.  This is not a position that is exclusive to town, as the recent Vampire game showed due to us hitting scum through a lurker lynch.  Discworld also had a lurker lynch in Nitori's death on day 2.  So, scum hide there.  And, so long as town is there, it gives them good cover, because that way all they need to do to hide a copious amount of contentless posts is to simply not post at all and hope to hide in the crowd.

And the only way to thin that crowd, so a lack of content is always a dead giveaway, is to reinforce the notion that lurking is bad town play.  And we do that by lynching anyone who does it.

So, why are you still encouraging us to avoid this tool?  Why do you think that it's a bad idea to force scum to have to post more often and hopefully trip themselves up with vapid posts of little content.  Especially when you agree that that's one of the better ways to catch them?

[Dhyerwolf]

And I'm back.

I think that main issue with Ciato's view was the way she initially stated it. Leading off by calling throwing out a joke vote for the sake of voting retarded was kind of an off statement when everyone else had already it done (if not always correctly!). Her position strikes me one that has some valid points but one that wasn't well stated. I can think of at least one reason that always leading off with joke votes could be harmful, but it's not secret that day 1 sucks! You have to start somewhere, and calling the starting point most of picked today bad without really offering anything else right off the bat isn't all that great an idea. Not really getting a feeling of scumminess from this though, because I do see some validity in her argument (For all that bringing up a game where a large group of us were pretty inexperienced and was basically 2-3 pages of just jokes instead of joke voting doesn't really strengthen it. Joke-voting may be jokes, but they are jokes that at least give us some basis to work off joke. Plain old jokes would be far less effective for that). Would be nice to have some easy to way to jump into the game without throwing jokes, but those instances just tend to be extremely rare.

Otter's going after her pretty hard, but seems like more of a case of going after bad wording. I agree with his general argument about the general necessity of joke votes, but not about how it implicates her as scum. She's defended herself pretty thoroughly.

Why would he go after her this game and not previous ones? Well, she did say it was a stupid method this game instead of just not participating in it. Seems like that's a major difference to me. Also, any argument of Otter smokescreening goes back to...smokescreening what? Yes, this is the majority of the serious conversation so far, but there really hasn't been very much else to examine. If you think someone is smokescreening, bring up a different matter of discussion!

Now, if I'm reading Excal's post right, he's accusing Ciato of going against a form of LAL? I don't think I saw where she put something like that forth, so a more specific link or wording of her's would be useful there.

And on the note of not posting for 24 hours: there was nothing for me to respond to this morning (pure joke vote phase was still in effect) and I only feel comfortable posting at work near the end of the day when I'm basically the only one left in the office.

[Mad Fnorder]

I've been reading along, and to sum up my thoughts on the current discussion:

Ciato's statement is odd, but her action is utterly typical of her play in the past. I seem to recall a previous game where she said something along the lines of 'I hold my votes until I'm serious to give them additional weight.' Yes, if everyone did this things would stagnate, but I'm not going to take a player's personal quirk as a indictment.

Otter... well, it's a class one Ottersault against Bad Behavior. I sort of agree with Kilga's stance that it seems like a  townie spat. I'm still not entirely convinced they're on the same page in terms of the greater argument, anyway.

Moving steadily along... Hey, Smodge!

WoW my day 1 vote was a joke vote.
Here however its serious, i find it surprising that Andrew has done exactly what i did only aimed at someone else and you didn't see it as a reason to vote?, if anything one would think after confirming i was scum in WoW mafia you would be more likely to jump on the same scenario if repeated.

Since when is your action as scum, being the second vote on day one, (Which obviously wasn't much of a tell, since you survived that game), that you yourself said was a joke when you did it, suddenly someone else's scum tell? After your vote on Andrew, you sort of vanished- it's been a day for you, too, so care to clarify a bit?

[Excal]

Ask, Dhyer, and you shall receive.

LaL is only really valid to me in situations where cases weren't built against people during the day. This happens a lot in Day 1 because people just jokevote instead of doing anything else (which is my point). It's just... I mean, it's infinitely easier to gauge where someone stands if they speak, soooo yeah. Of course, there are two types of LaL; the people obviously around but producing low content/regurgitating points and people who just don't exist. From past experiences the former has been more effective, whereas the latter seems like more of a way of just getting rid of someone who forgot about the game. Debate of exactly how useful the latter is for lynching can be made.

Let's add another quote that I was also using.

Nah, that's not true particularly. Lucavi like to get the lurkers hung. If anyone starts growing horns, watch out for Cyclops.

That one's from the old FFT game she linked to.  That said, no real suspicions going her way, just want some clarification on her position, since the only reason we're getting consistent reads of the type she urges us to go after are because people want to avoid being in the situation that she's advocating we ignore.

[Otter]

And what Ciato's doing isn't "suddenly" scummy, it's consistently, constantly scummy.  Every time.  Every time a player acts blatantly anti-town, that is blatantly anti-town behavior.  If they do it enough times, does it become "normal" and thus okay?  No.

LATER:

You're deliberately ignoring my point.  You are attacking Ciato for doing something she does EVERY GAME, yet all of a sudden in this game it's a scummy thing to do when it never was before?  This is a horribly flawed arguement with no basis to it except a difference of opinion about the way the game is played.

Uh yeah.  I'm not at all sure you're even reading my posts anymore.  The "Why start persecuting people on this horrible play NOW?" argument doesn't hold up because I've been doing this consistently, from the very beginning, whenever I play town (and survive long enough for it to become an issue, which doesn't happen often, since I keep getting NK'd on night 1).  If I've been quieter on the subject, it was typically because I was, you know, scum, and didn't want to cause a lot of discussion on the subject that would bring unwanted attention to myself.

I'm really still waiting to hear how "watch and wait for scum to make mistakes," which Ciato has suggested is her chosen role as a townie, could ever possibly win a game if it's what the town honestly chose to do.  Really!  If you think this is a great alternate way of playing, a "different style" with equal validity, then tell me how that could ever result in anything but scum victory.

Fnorder: promoting passivity isn't just bad behavior.  It's infectious bad behavior, and if it convinces enough townies, we're doomed.  That's not an unrealistic scenario, people are already looking convinced.  Notice how people are actually leaping to her defense and acting like she's not playing poorly, just "differently," without ever being able to explain how wait-and-watch could even theoretically help town?

Ciato: if you honestly think it's scummy to do what I'm doing (according to you, inflating what you apparently consider a small issue), then why aren't you voting for me?  Or do you also not vote even after people start looking scummy to you?

[Otter]

On to Otter vs. Ciato?  Otter, is it scummy if everyone sticks out a jokevote, and yet conversation dies with it?  Imagine things this way, what if everyone gets a single vote on each other, and says not much of content in their joke posts, so that there isn't really anything to form a base of further conversation on?

Now, compare this to a game where there's only a handful of votes, but there is a lively conversation going on, even if it's not entirely game related.  Each of these joke votes are related to the banter in question, though.

Which game is going better for town?

Jokevotes do not equal instant productive conversation and I never said they did.  Having a base of jokevotes is one way to spark meaningful discussion (for example, one person could overreact to a jokevote, or pretend to make a jokevote but actually pile on a 2nd vote to somebody which puts them in an early lead...), and it also accelerates the day by leaving most people with a vote or so on them from the get-go.  This is handy for getting trains started, which is when attacks must be taken extremely seriously and defenses must be written up carefully.  It is in these high-pressure situations that we, you know, actually have a shot of spotting a scum slip.  It ain't gonna happen with no votes on anybody and everyone sort of lingering around saying "Well, such and such has been talking a little differently, but..." with no substance backing it.

Both of the games you describe are floundering.  Jokevote phase with virtually no conversation?  No votes going around, plenty of conversation but it's not really game-related?  The former provides literally no information and the latter provides an excess of worthless information.  When they say more discussion helps town, they're not referring to the wordcount, they're referring to the content.  If that content is meaningless banter -- and it WILL be if nobody's in serious danger -- we're getting nowhere just as fast.

[Corwin]

Okay. I've never been in a game where flavor was actually enforced, and my last post/vote for the day was next to Alex's. I didn't realize yet at the time that the mammal thing was mandatory instead of some accounting mistake, and I try to avoid flavor in settings I don't know.

Ciato's stance is puzzling. It'd be one thing if she championed debate over voting, instead of just doing away with 'pointless' votes that leave behind a record. Then again, looking it over once more, it's the way she said it that bothers me, not the actual arguments. Not dropping a vote, here.

And Andrew still looks shady. So, once again, ##Vote: Andrew, unless I need to actually say some name for it to count.

A quote from Otter, of all people, that I found relevant to the matter:

Let me introduce you to something called "the unvote."  It's when you take back a vote that turned out to be pointless and based on nothing, enabling you to use your vote on someone else.  We recover all the ammunition we use to spark the conversation, with no harm done, and there's usually plenty of "Okay, I'm removing my jokevote now, and now that I've got more in front of me, I'll put down a more serious vote" type posts.

Exactly right. If you jokevote and lay a second vote on someone by mistake... you can just unvote him later when you use a serious vote. Doing it to re-jokevote, only on someone with no current votes to minimize confrontations of "You're starting a train on me, you scum!" is something I consider scummy.

[AndrewRogue]

It isn't a flavor thing though. It is a rule thing. It says that you explicitly have to do something to prove you've read the rules. Hell, it really looks like you're still trying to vote me without first following the rules!

As far as unvoting Excal goes... well, why should I have left my vote there to begin with? I didn't want to put down a second vote on someone at that point because, shock, I didn't see anyone worth putting it down on that one. Even after I put it down on Excal, I think it should be obvious that I made a mistake. Given that this wasn't what I'd wanted, I was left with three options: fix and vote the way I'd wanted, leave the vote on Excal or just retract the vote. Out of all those options, the first looked the best to me. The second merely puts pressure down in a way I didn't want at that point (why would I want two votes on Excal there?) and the third does about as much as the first. So, again. Given that it was early game and I had no reason to actually pressure Excal, why should I leave my vote there and not do what I'd actually meant to? Honestly, it isn't like any of these options are going to lift the pressure off me as, you know, I've now got the stigma of having made a mistake, put down a second vote and all that on me.

Of course, I also have a problem with Smodge at the moment. Any chance you could elaborate on why you are voting for me beyond you doing the same thing as scum in WoW mafia? It is really bothersome to have someone put down a vote, say they'll explain later and then have a fairly large chunk of time lapse without any elaboration.

Add in that he's also one of the more lurky posters at the moment, and I'd say this feels far more distressing than Corwin's own, somewhat ironic, mistakes.

##Unvote: Corwin
##Vote: Smodge

The Ciato/Otter thing... bleh. It basically feels like fairly regularly spats out of both of them. Ciato's early comments are a bit harsher than normal, but it really doesn't seem to be a tell one way or the other.

To Kilga... I know people talk about it as a scumtell, but I tend to think that the real dislike of mistakes comes from the fact that, if they are generally treated softly, it lets scum conceal their actions by claiming "oops, bad play!" I tend to find that my concentration on both sides of the field is fairly similar. It is just that town has to jump on mistakes so that scum can't sneak out under the guise of accidental bad play.

[Corwin]

Haha I actually used 'Otter' which is a mammal and a small one even if the name is capitalized you are not paying attention die scum-- oh please. I just can't get into flavor I don't know so I try to avoid it altogether so as not to ruin it for those that are in the know.

Anyway. I'm following the rules to the letter, now, so the vote should stand. Moving on... I accept your explanation for the unvote bit, though I'd keep my vote on you for the time being until I see someone scummier or town reverts to LAL. Smodge's explanations to you might change that.

[Excal]

Andy...  From all I can tell, the only thing he did was not notice that I already had a vote on me when he posted.  Given his claim for why he did it, there's little that can be done, and he did give us an angle to start some conversation on that doesn't revolve around a single issue.  Honestly, given all that's going on, I'm thinking he's, if not the least of our worries, not a major one either.

Dhyer, has posted, and though it doesn't sound exactly like he's tackling hard issues, neither is he waffling.  For now, I'm content with him, and given that we've definatly left the joke vote stage behind...

##Unvote: Dhyer

Ciato, I'm waiting to hear some reply to my earlier question.

Otter, you're a hard one to pin down, always.  Your relentlessness is very useful for town, but...  if you're scum, well, it's behaviour that makes a good cover for making other people look bad.  I see the point you're getting at, and I think I understand why you're driving things the way you are.  That said, I've not much to say on your issue.  And I do agree, we need the votes to be coming in light and free at the start.  However, I disagree that, in this case, they made a good litmus test because almost all of them were made without banter or interaction.  If Andy hadn't of voted while groggy, then what would we have gone off of?  Heck, I suspect the timing of your comment on votes was less because you wanted to harp on the issue, and more because there was no conversation hooks and you were trolling for comments.

Well, kudos to you for starting it, regardless of your reasons.

Now, as my vote shouldn't be without a home, and my old target is no longer fitting, I suppose it's time to look at the rest of you.  It's a bit early to start calling lurker just yet, though I would love to hear some more from Fnorder, OK, Nitori, and Dhyer.  So, there's two people who I do find mildly interesting.

Smodge would be the first.  What with his jumping on Ciato around the same time Otter does, going for a softer reason at first (namely for not acting the same way she did once) and then making a seperate post that pulls a 'that's what I meant' me too right after Otter launches into his spiel against Ciato.  And...  that's it.

Yeah, all we get after that is a vote shift from Ciato to Andrew, and a promise that we'll hear the reasons later.  So, yeah, I'm certainly curious as to what he's got.  Especially since Andrew didn't do anything except his double vote by then.  Not to mention that Smodge is letting himself fixate on a single first day vote of one time he was scum, which just seems off no matter how you look at it.  As such, I think I'm gonna join Andy here with a quick...

##Vote: Smodge

Now, as for the second person I find questionable, it's Nitori.  Mostly because, again, two posts, as well as completely forgetting he's in the game.  As for his posts, you've got your joke vote, and then you have the one serious post.  He summarises the Ciato and Andy arguments, and then says that while Ciato is acting normally, she seems to be really off.  How fascinating.  He states his list of priorities, and that he can't vote for one of them, but never states why he can't vote for the other, and so instead of placing his vote on someone he finds suspicious, he sticks with his joke vote.  Final comments seem to reside along the general lines of sadness over people not having time to comment in the four hours of activity (one hour of serious posting) and a general desire to avoid LAL because it's boring?

I can't help but think that in a post that was meant to be serious that the term boring at the end, well...  seems more suited to a joke post.  Unless your goal is more about exciting lynches at deadline or fireworks as poster shouts down poster, as opposed to simply shedding someone who either cannot, or will not, aid town.  And I'm curious about the bias you're showing there Nitori.  There's also the question of why you didn't at least vote for your second choice who wasn't vote laden.  Especially given that, if Ciato does somehow prove her innocence or otherwise buy time, that secondary vote would encourage people to go for someone else you consider scum and decrease the chance Ciato would be on the block when Day ends.  All in all, your move seems irresponsible, and therefore questionable.

[Ranmilia]

Haha I actually used 'Otter' which is a mammal and a small one even if the name is capitalized you are not paying attention die scum-- oh please. I just can't get into flavor I don't know so I try to avoid it altogether so as not to ruin it for those that are in the know.

No, actually, just 'Otter' doesn't work.  This is because the entire point is to prove that you've read the rules, which merely mentioning the name of a player that happens to fit the criteria does not do.  The condition is totally arbitrary and has nothing whatsoever to do with game flavor, it's about whether or not you read the rules.  Which a disappointing number of people apparently didn't. 

I didn't really expect it to incite controversy, nor for anyone to actually fail to fulfill it before the game got into wall of text stage.  (To the people who said they were saving it till they voted, you realize that just makes my job annoying when I have to scan all your posts to see if you've done it yet, right?) It was just meant to be a PM confirmation kinda thing.  After all, I even changed the formatting of the rules to make it clear that they'd been rewritten, and put the condition at the end instead of being mean and sticking it in the middle.  But this is a learning game, and hopefully learning is to be had all round from it!  Read the rules!

Votecount! 

With 13 alive, it takes 7 to lynch.

LadyDoor (1): Dhyer
Excal (1): Nitori, Andrew
Otter (1): Yakumo
Yakumo (1): Kilgamayan
Corwin (1): Fnorder, Andrew
Dhyer (0): Excal
Andrew (2): Smodge, Corwin, Otter
Ciato (2): LadyDoor, Otter, Smodge
Kilga (0): Smodge
Smodge (2): Andrew, Excal

33 hours have elapsed in day 1!

[Corwin]

I misunderstood it, since the whole forest and balls over the top thing seemed related to small mammals, Alex. It... didn't seem like a rule you would seriously enforce, unlike being civil or not quoting PMs. Anyway, mind doing another clarification? If you choose to impose a deadline, is it a no lynch if it is reached without majority?

[Smodge13]

Smodge would be the first.  What with his jumping on Ciato around the same time Otter does, going for a softer reason at first (namely for not acting the same way she did once) and then making a seperate post that pulls a 'that's what I meant' me too right after Otter launches into his spiel against Ciato.  And...  that's it.

Ok
1. I never did a "yeah thats what i meant" my whole reason for voting Ciato was that she picked up what i did in WoW mafia as a scum tell, where here the exact same scenario she doesn't consider as one.
I stuck to this as my reasoning for the vote, Ciato's tendancy to not vote is whats he does in other games, which i even point out.
The whole reasoning behind my vote was Ciato acting different.
However after i left for work i got thinking on the motives TO not bring it up, why would a scum Ciato not vote for someone who was townie?, therefore the only way for me to consider Ciato as scum for this scenario was if Andrew also was, Andrew had the vote and retraction which is means 2 thigns against him, vs Ciato's 1 strange action.

Hence the switch.
As for the no comment on others i have a 10 minute lunch break, 2 minutes spent running up 5 floors of stairs, 2 minutes back down, so 5 minutes time to post, nowhere near enough to log in and read everything over, i knew i wouldn't get home for many hours so i decided to place the vote-switch then and explain later instead of leaving it floating around for around 8 hours.

More comments once i read the thread more in depth, may switch vote but i'm not sure.

[Smodge13]

woops i refer to you as a he Ciato at one point, sorry about that, i must have missed hitting the S button.

[Smodge13]

I didn't really expect it to incite controversy, nor for anyone to actually fail to fulfill it before the game got into wall of text stage.  (To the people who said they were saving it till they voted, you realize that just makes my job annoying when I have to scan all your posts to see if you've done it yet, right?) It was just meant to be a PM confirmation kinda thing.  After all, I even changed the formatting of the rules to make it clear that they'd been rewritten, and put the condition at the end instead of being mean and sticking it in the middle.  But this is a learning game, and hopefully learning is to be had all round from it!  Read the rules!

To be honest Alex, the ONLY reason i read them was because i noticed it was a different shape to what is normally there.
If it looked the same i never would have even read it.

[Smodge13]

Vote staying where it is for now.

Andrews vote looks bad also it would help clear up my thoughts on Ciato.

Otter VS Ciato, seems town vs town, it honestly seems to be a difference in plastyle Otters gung ho methods and Ciato's pasifisticness (is that a word?).
Anyway their at opposites of a scale and if the town opted a whole mentality of either person the whole game would go up in flames, what is needed is a balance, people like Otter put pressure and cause slip ups, people like Ciato cause crushing blows because their 1 or 2 votes count more than others.
 
Yakumo - seemed like a mediator more than anything.

Kilga - low post content only minro comment on Ciato v Otter, finds Yakumo suspicious, but also see's it as him "cashing in" on Otters aggressiveness, if my vote wasn't for Andrew it would be here.

Excal - seems to be contributing, although a bit aggressively, nothing major though.

[Nitori]

Re: Excal. I didn't shift the vote there simply due to the tenets of of the serious discussion having not been in effect for that long, although in hindsight there really wasn't much of a reason to do that. As for the general tone of the post...well, I can't exactly say that it isn't my opinion, it was more a reference to the simplistic yet effective ploy of LaL.

The smodge thing is interesting, as the issue obviously isn't the amount of the time between the vote and the justification, but why someone would do something like that in the first place; laying a vote then saying "reasons later", as has been pointed out, does look really bad, although any argument made in favour of voting Andy at that point in time would be due to that gaffe. His reasons...aren't great, though. He does mention the gaffe, but he also seems to question why a theoretical scum Ciato would ever vote for scum; scum can do that for confusion purposes. I'm also confused as to how he implicates scum Andy from scum Ciato. In short, the reasons offered seem a bit...cover-up-ey. I'd like to see how this works, when you get the time.

##UNVOTE: Excal
##VOTE: smodge

[Luther Lansfeld]

Hmmm, just dropping in for about two minutes before class, but Excal, all I'm trying to say is that lynching people who don't really even post doesn't really give a lot of hints regarding voting patterns, since it's not a polarizing issue or even really any argument behind it, just kind of the default backup plan. I don't really disagree with it (contribution is good and such) but all I'm trying to say is that there's a definite difference between someone who is lurking and someone who is, say, in the emergency room (yes, I know OK was scum, but I somehow doubt that really factored into anything here!).

Anyway, this issue has been somewhat tired for me, so I'll be looking at other things. But class now~

[Luther Lansfeld]

I lurve rats. Not to be confused with Rats, which are vile creatures (ha ha you can't respond).

So far, my top suspects are Kilga, Corwin, and smodge. Kilga is pretty low on content thus far, kind of tries to wiggle a finger at Yakumo and nothing else. Corwin... nothing substanive yet, but his phrasing I find somewhat bothersome for now and I find the Andrew train suspicious. smodge seems to be hopping to whatever train he thinks will get going the fastest, which, well, I find to be HIGHLY suspicious. I have no idea where he is drawing that Andrew being scum would make me scummy. I guess it's because Andrew jokevoted Excal, bringing it to two votes. But as I'VE EXPLAINED, two votes in a game with a higher lynch threshhold is simply not as suspicious. smodge looks objectively the worst for kind of sticking his foot in his mouth, but at least he's talking to be able to stick it there.

##VOTE: Kilga

[Lady Door]

There's a whole lot of off stuff that's been going on lately, so allow me to pick out what's sticking out to me. Major WALL OF TEXT warning. I'll try to post smaller, more temporally relevant things over the course of the day, since it's a fairly light class load for me on Wednesday. If you tl;dr this post, at least read the bit after the "---" where I'll summarize what I'm doing with the information.

So... both Dhyer and Fnorder posted within 30-45 minutes of my post pointing them out as lurkers. That takes them out of the "they've been gone over 24 hours" pile and puts them in the "where's the content?" pile.

1.

Since when is your action as scum, being the second vote on day one, (Which obviously wasn't much of a tell, since you survived that game), that you yourself said was a joke when you did it, suddenly someone else's scum tell? After your vote on Andrew, you sort of vanished- it's been a day for you, too, so care to clarify a bit?

I read this as "since when is what you did as scum a reason to pick out another person who did that thing as scum?" which seems kind of silly. I've seen a lot of argument revolving around what person X did as scum last time and what that therefore means for this time. Past behavior, argument surrounding what one did when they were scum and anyone with similar behaviors might be scum too, et cetera. Excal did it in VtM without being scum, so I don't really see why it's not a valid argument. You might possibly be saying that because smodge claimed it was a joke it was not in any way a reflection of his having been scum, but that doesn't seem particularly important. What he says is far less important than what he does.

2. (re: http://www.rpgdl.com/forums/index.php?topic=375.msg8421#msg8421 ) Otter, I really think your argument is losing value because you insist on using such extreme vocabulary. From your quote: "it's consistantly, constantly scummy. Every time" and "blatantly anti-town". Then from the post: Then the very polarizing and inflammatory way you begin your post (doubting whether someone's "even reading my posts anymore," insisting on completely consistent play, stating nearly outright that what you're doing is your Town marker and if you were doing it any differently you'd be scum). Then you wonder how Ciato's apparent play of choice could "ever possibly win a game for town" and ask people to tell you "how that could ever result in anything but scum victory" (in that case, your emphasis and not mine). I find it hard to believe that you couldn't allow for a single circumstance in which a person -- a single person, in this case, since you're attacking Ciato for her personal actions -- sitting back and watching how things develop through the beginning of the day could be working for town.

Personally and generally, I agree that the game needs to move and people not participating is missing the spirit of the game. However, I don't think it's any more anti-town to do that than to repeatedly and rather viciously attack someone for doing so even when the conversation begins to drift elsewhere. The only reason I'm not voting for either of you on those respective points is because I've seen an argument like this crop up in every single game, and I've been involved in them as town, and I don't think that it in and of itself is going to tell anyone much of anything.

I really don't agree that someone needs to be in danger before meaningful content can be found, as you're suggesting in your subsequent post. It helps when they're responding to specific criticism, it's true, but sometimes what they do and don't say when no one's suspicious says volumes.

3. Corwin, I'm beginning to respond to this post, but what I have to say carries on into the others you have. Why on earth are you finding it so hard to slip in that one thing which will validate your votes? It very, very minorly relates to flavor, but it is not in any way shape or form phrased that way in the rules. Even your response to Alex stating very plainly that your belated attempt to slide it in by using Otter's name doesn't count, you simply say you didn't think he'd take that requirement seriously. Yes, now everyone is aware that you have in fact read the rules and your vote counts, but I can't fathom why a small thing like that is such a sticking point, to where you're willing to risk being eyeballed rather than fulfill it.  Seriously, why? I have a hard time not seeing it as an honest mistake -- not reading the rules -- that you'd rather take a principled stance on rather than admit you've made a mistake and are trying to avoid people calling you scummy for not paying attention.

4. Andrew I'm ... kind of on the fence about. The one thing which really sticks out to me from his defense is what he says to Kilga. Bad play is never and has never been a safe thing to hide behind. See how often smodge and Tom got lynched for it, see how quickly someone picks up on inconsistent arguments, watch how easily a train gets started on a townie who uses logically sound but game-play dangerous arguments like "if I were scum." That mistakes are a valid point of contention is the debate, but calling people on bad play is not. They are not the same thing. This feels a little too "hahah, see how good-natured I'm being about being called on for my totally honest mistake? it's only natural, I expect it, 'cause it's a tool we can use to catch the REAL scum!" for my tastes. It's a continuum of response, though, and not something I'd be comfortable voting him for at this point since the alternative ("Gosh, you guys suck, it was JUST A MISTAKE and townies make mistakes too!") would be equally off-putting.

5. smodge is digging himself a hole, I see. The thing that sticks out to me the most is that his quick overview of his thoughts on other people pretty directly summarizes what's already been said about them or what they've said about themselves. I don't have a problem with someone agreeing with another's arguments, but I do have a problem with a lack of independent direction. It seems far too convenient to hop on trains that have already formed and justify why you're doing that thing other people are doing because they're doing it and they seem to have reasons that I don't find an immediate need to question. I can at least agree with Ciato in that thoughtful voting is far more useful than tossing one's vote around. Here, I see smodge doing the latter -- it's not the number of votes, it's the ease and frequency (relative to posts and their content) with which they're tossed around.

6. Kilga and Fnorder... they've made an appearance, as I noted at the beginning of this massively long post, but as has been pointed out it was a fairly surface appearance. That still makes me a little uncomfortable, but it seems to be something to hold when there might be no better information to gain from other directions. Definitely going to take this moment to point out to them that they're on the radar for low-content lurking, and hope that encourages them to find something to say the next time they post.

---

This day is pushing 48 hours (I believe we're around 40 right now) and I don't see the need to drag Day 1 out as long as humanly possible. I want information. I would feel comfortable lynching a lurker in order to keep the game moving and stop people from later going "hey, where's so-and-so, let's vote them for skulking about!" when there are serious fingers being pointed about; it only seems distracting and handy for scum to be able to finger someone who's not contributing to get the heat off of their own scummy contributions. However, the flow doesn't seem to be going this direction and ... well... there is no direction.

smodge has 3 votes, Ciato and Andrew both have 2, and pretty much everyone else has 1 -- a number of which are still jokevotes -- so that's not really somewhere to go. smodge seems the worst off in this case with me amongst those who could conceivably attain consensus without a whole new line of argument, so that's where I'm going to put my vote.

##UNVOTE Ciato
##VOTE smodge

[Corwin]

##Unvote: Andrew
##Vote: Ciato

I honestly thought it was bad phrasing and town-vs-town day 1 arguing thus far, but Ciato's last post bothers me quite a bit. In the same breath she calls my second vote on a person a train and suspicious, while the next sentence condemns smodge for seeing a second vote as scummy and starting a train. And then she returns to two votes in a larger game (such as this, wrt WoW) not being as suspicious after all.

Yeah, this looks like a shiftier stance than Andrew's to me, especially since it comes later on in the day and not in the transition from jokevote phase. When I try to read your arguments, Ciato, I find some of your words refuting or invalidating others of them, and that simply shouldn't happen. That it isn't the first time you... misspoke? Slipped? Well, that's disturbing and vote-worthy, IMO.