Open 18 - Game Over - before 424

[Ripley]

Random

vote: john

[Ripley]

Leaving my vote where it is, on John. He's made 17 posts (of a total of 53 total posts made by 9 players + 1 mod) almost all of which have been junk. I've seen in other games how a player like this can damage a game by clogging it up with rubbish posts. It becomes all but impossible to reread; it's so hard to find the relevant material amongst the junk that people tend not bother trying, which only helps scum. And players like this are never nightkilled, and become more of a liability as the number of people alive dwindles.

Maybe, just maybe, this was an early flurry of posts that will turn out not to be typical. If it starts to look like that was the case I'll reconsider.

[Ripley]

BTW, Ripley still hasn't posted again. I can't make an accurate analysis if people are lurking/not posting. I can't judge them, and it really holds up the game, even more than my spam posts.

_Converge has made one jokey post, which was more than a week ago, whereas I made a post with content 2 days ago, so I'm guessing your problem with me is not primarily a lack of posting, but that you didn't like me criticising your posts.

Maybe I overreacted to being told I was spam posting, but when someone comes in who hasn't really posted at all, and tells me to stop, it angers me, and I hope you see why.

I didn't tell you to stop. I didn't even ask you to stop. It's entirely up to you how you react. I don't really understand why you would get so angry; as far as I can tell you're particularly put out because I hadn't posted much myself. But your own posts were a large part of why I wasn't posting. It all gets a bit circular.

Anger is not helpful in finding scum. When you start attacking a person because you're angry with them, you want them to be scum so much that you can't view them logically. It clouds your judgement. Your OMGUS vote on me sounded like pure anger, and that's almost never a good reason.

[Ripley]

Panzer: at first I thought as you did, that mustafa was claiming TCS had provided good explanations for his actions, but actually what he says is this:

Well, I just don't think that the things TCS have done seem very likely for a mafioso to do

, especially in a game where there are only two mafias, so I guess there is a lot of WIFOM going on which is why it is only a hunch. I just feel that of the people doing controversial things in this game,

TCS's have explanations that I think are pretty viable

.

and if you connect the two bits I've bolded, it looks like he's saying "I can see why TCS might do that". Not "TCS has explained why he did that."

I thought it was clear enough what spectrumvoid had said about John, but I've seen IH take an apparently clear statement and wreak havoc with it before, so it doesn't necessarily mean anything.

[Ripley]

Two posts from me have been lost. One was mostly a response to Simenon, after which I think he said he'd taken the whole issue far enough and unvoted. I also asked what exactly the case against Panzerjager was, other than reacting when he found himself at lynch -1 on page 2, which I thought was not unreasonable. And I said I was a bit surprised by spectrumvoid getting so worked up.

My other post was in response to John asking whether I would agree that he'd stopped the spamming, and I said yes, I did agree, but that he had stopped before and started again so I wasn't counting on anything just yet.

One thought that went briefly through my mind but that I never posted was the possibility that Panzerjager, seeing that John is taking nearly all the flak for their exchanges, might have at least semi-deliberately provoked him. It was fairly predictable that his post 83:

John will never be capable of sophisticated acts so QTF of the above.

would get John absolutely incensed and start him off again.

[Ripley]

You just voted spectrumvoid, who just voted john, and you want

john

to claim?

[Ripley]

So... erm... you confused Panzer with John, thinking spectrumvoid had put Panzer at lynch -1, so you asked John to claim, thinking

he

was at lynch -1, and you were also confused by Newbie 313, although neither John or Panzer is in that game, and you actually don't want anybody to claim at all. Is this right?

[Ripley]

Mistakes, however careless are not scummy. Do you really think I welcome all of this attention?

I agree that mistakes are not necessarily scummy, and the only reason this still has my attention is your inconsistency in explaining the mistake. First off (Post 148) you say you confused Panzer with john. Then (Post 151) you say you confused this game with newbie 313, where you also asked spectrumvoid to claim (although in this game you did not ask her to claim), and then (Post 153) that you confused spectrumvoid with john. So, finally, what you're saying is you confused john (in this game) with spectrumvoid (in another game, not containing john), and that Panzer had nothing to do with it at all?

This all seems terribly muddled, and not very convincing, and as I said, it's this that makes me suspicious, not the fact of making a mistake. A simple mistake could happen to anyone but if it were genuine you'd expect there to be a simple explanation.

[Ripley]

Has there been a prod on bird1111? Two brief posts, the last one March 31st...

[Ripley]

Someone said one person was baiting the other; this is intriguing and i want to hear more about it. Who said that? About who? *trying to rememebr from reading a bit yesterday*

Don't know if it's what you're referring to but I raised the possibility of Panzer baiting john in post 141. Nobody showed any interest in the idea so I more or less forgot about it.

[Ripley]

Where is Ripley? The last thing he said was how panzer made me look scummy, yet not unvote...

I said it was a

possibility

. Total amount of support for this idea from the other players: zero.

However, for the moment:

Unvote: John

. It seems there's a straight contest between John and Panzer here, and I haven't reevaluated my original vote on John for a while. I want to reread the game before deciding what to do. I'll try and do this later tonight but it may end up being tomorrow.

Simenon is presumably just messing around with colons and intends to vote Panzer in the approved format. Is this right?

[Ripley]

Why exactly was it scummy of Panzer to vote John? They're clearly the only two lynch candidates. barring some late dramatic surge of scumminess by an outsider. If Panzer is town, what's he supposed to do? What's wrong with self-preservation in that scenario? He would

know

if we lynched him we'd be losing a town player, so surely it would be right to try and get someone else lynched instead.

Ok, let me rephrase my deadline ultimatum, I will hammer on Tuesday. I think we'd have alot more information from a John lynch though, as scummy as he has been, his last post or two sounds more newb town....

Does this mean you think Panzer is the scummier of the two right now? I'm not sure I agree we'd get a

lot

more info from a John lynch. Panzer's been under the spotlight too. By my records 4 different people have voted Panzer and 4 have voted John, and Panzer has actually voted more people than John has. So using that as a rough yardstick there's not much in it. Certainly not enough for me to do anything other than lynch the scummier-looking one.

Skruffs, I was hoping for some startling new insights from you. Well, "startling" is optional, any new insights would do. Do you think John is scummier than Panzer? Are you considering both of them as potential lynchees?

[Ripley]

I replaced into four games at once, insights will come later.

We have a deadline coming up...

I don't like how Panzer voted john out of self defense, and then asked (as if in afterthought) well, how do we KNOW he's not scum?

If you mean this:

How do we know he is townie?

this is surely in response to you referring to John as a townie in post 195. It's not like Panzer's just plucked it out of thin air. My own reading was that you basically meant "claimed townie", but the claim was easily missable, it's buried in John's post.

Also, I hate it when people ask me for insights, because when I post insights, I invariably find them disagreeable to the town's collective logical reasoning. Give me stuff to work with, I can form a good conclusion, but ask me to speculate? Nobody's going to like that.

This whole paragraph just sounds like a massive evasion. You're saying you don't like to offer original opinions, because towns find this disagreeable? That you only want to offer opinions on other people's observations? You think this town actually has a "collective logical reasoning"?

[Ripley]

No, but they should both be at minus 1, and I obviously can't hammer John if I'm already on him, but the mod is not counting Simenon's vote.
So, meh, it really doesn't matter. You do know deadline is on Wednesday, correct?

Yes, I know. I read the game through quickly last night. I didn't actually think there was much to choose between John and Panzer in scumminess and as I already said I don't think there's much to choose in terms on useful info from their deaths. But I'm almost certainly going to revote John unless someone gives me a good reason why not. Although he stopped the spamming he's basically added almost nothing in the way of observations of other players throughout the game (except Panzerjager), and we know we won't be hitting a power role. So hopefully he's scum but if not it's not too bad a loss.

Skruffs, you didn't answer my question. Are you considering both John and Panzer as potential lynchees or have you made up your mind?

Everyone yet to vote

: please make sure you get the damn colon in your vote in the right place. Deadline's approaching fast and there's not likely to be time to change a mistake.

[Ripley]

Ripley - Why do you want to know?

I'm asking because I still have doubts and any thoughts from the other (apparently) undecided players might be helpful. You have not, so far been helpful, and seem to be deliberately refusing to offering insights (which is about as unhelpful as it gets) but I never entirely give up hope.

No, if I was seriously suspicious of John, at this moment, I would have lynched him. As I am sure you would have, too. Right?

I was never in a position to lynch John (though several other people were) because the only time he was on 4 votes I was one of them.

Are you seriously suspicious of Panzer? Of

anybody

?

[Ripley]

Ripley, I've been in the game four days. It's a little early to insinuate I'm not being helpful. I think replacing into the game at all is very helpful.

Erm... you were the one who made that speech about not being willing to contribute insights or speculation because they would be "disagreeable to the town's collective logical reasoning". Virtually a declaration of unhelpfulness on your part.

I've not read. I posted a little prod on the panzer/john thingie to see what that was about. I'm *not* up to date, and I'm not going to start barrelling into something that I haven't got any clue about. I'm abotu two pages back so far inthe game, but i replaced into a few others that have been soaking up my attentions.

A lot of this game was rubbish going back and forth between John and Panzer. It doesn't take long to read. I know because I did it last night. And since you knew the deadline was almost upon us I think it's reasonable to expect you to prioritise this game at least to the point of actually reading it.

However, I would definitely prefer that the deadline be removed until you've had the time you need to catch up.

I will also PM the mod and ask for an extension.

That makes 3 of us so far.

Who are YOU suspicious of, Ripley? You've been here since the beginning. If you want to pressure me for opinions after 4.0 days, you better have one after being here for 40.

Trying to evade questions by turning them back on the questioner? I've seen that tactic before. Anyway: I'm reasonably suspicious of John and Panzer, who are the only possible lynch candidates unless we get an extension. After rereading the other two who caught my eye were Simenon and yourself. I disagreed with practically everything Simenon said in the early pages, and I was never really satisfied with his explanation of asking John to claim (his explanations seemed contradictory and muddled). I am suspicious of you partly for reasons already stated and partly because your predecessor contributed almost nothing either.

Now, your turn perhaps? I sense that the town's logical reasoning is not so collective as to present a serious obstacle, so grasp the moment!

[Ripley]

IH, you need to PM the mod and ask for an extension.

[Ripley]

I think our chances of getting an extension are very small considering the conditions we have to meet, although we really, really need one. It's ludicrous to have a situation where a player who claims not even to have finished reading the game could easily have the casting vote. In case my previous post gets overlooked, please note that to get an extension

you have to PM the mod

. And it needs 7 of us to do it.

I'm increasingly worried about Skruffs' behavior so I'm going to get my thoughts down in writing now.

If, as he claims, he hasn't finished reading the game, he should have said so before, knowing as he must that his vote is likely to be crucial. Only under repeated pressure to post his suspicions does he finally make this announcement and ask for an extension, by which time it's only about 18 hrs from deadline and it's very unlikely we'll get 7 requests in that time.

Also - I thought he reacted surprisingly negatively and defensively to what was really not aggressive questioning. I just wanted to get some input from him - reasonable enough, surely, with a deadline looming, to hope for something from the fresh pair of eyes ? That whole "I hate it when people ask me for insights" response was weird, and, I thought, evasive. In subsequent posts he's pretty much avoided posting any opinions at all, falling back on the belated "I haven't read the game yet" announcement and then trying to turn my own questions back on me rather than responding. Given that we got practically nothing from bird1111 (his predecessor) either, Skruffs is ringing all kinds of bells with me right now.

I'm abotu two pages back so far inthe game,

Does this mean you've read the most recent two pages but not the previous ones? Or that you've read the first seven but not the two most recent ones?

I haven't forgotten that I'm not currently voting. I'll be around for another 4-5 hours yet.

[Ripley]

No time right now to reply to every word of Skruffs' post but I'll deal with what I can.

To turn around and say that I am evading the question by asking you the same question, uh... isn't that evading the question that you yourself are inferring that I evaded?

No, Skruffs, I evaded nothing, because I

replied

. It's the penultimate paragraph of post 217.

The following post is even more bizarre; apparently I'm the only person who might hammer one of two people that you claim to be suspicious of. Well, don't worry, I try not to hammer people I don't have a reason to hammer, unless it's eitherme or them. It's not me or them. I'm not going to hammer, unless I find a reason to do so. My earlier thing was a jab at IH; he was sayign he would hammer, so I wanted to one up him and hammer first. Then I realized that was stupid.

Bizarre? You just admitted you'd earlier said you'd hammer (how am I supposed to know you've now decided that was stupid), and as almost everyone else is already voting I don't see how it's remotely bizarre to suggest you could end up with the casting vote. And I didn't say you were the

only

person that might be. I said it

could easily

be you:

It's ludicrous to have a situation where a player who claims not even to have finished reading the game could easily have the casting vote.

Ripley, doesn't it bother you that IH is pushing for someone else to vote so he can hammer before the deadline, but is also sayign he wants to extend the deadline?

Not at all. I want to extend it too, but it's unlikely to happen, so we have to try and get somebody lynched. It's perfectly reasonable to do all we can to enable a lynch if the deadline is imposed, while still wishing that it won't be.

If you are suspicious of John, why are you unvoting him and tryign to get someone else to tell you why you should vote for him?

This is just nonsense. I unvoted him while I re-evaluated and reread the game. I asked you for your opinions on John

or

Panzer, or indeed anybody else.

Most of the rest of your post is just more waffle and a whole load of excuses about how you're entitled to be evasive and not read the game and not post opinions, and really, Skruffs, if you'd simply spent the same amount of time actually rereading the game as you did writing those excuses, you'd probably be right up to date. Maybe you don't

want

to read the game, because claiming ignorance of most of the game is your core excuse for avoiding posting content.

Anyhow. As I said earlier would probably happen, I'm going to revote John. I think that puts him on 4 votes with Panzer on 3, Simenon and Skruffs not voting. If everyone who claims to have PM'ed for an extension has actually done so, that makes 6.

Vote: John