Mini #682: C9++ (Game Over!)

[Wall-E]

I didn't write down the things against him. I can go through the thread and pick them out if you'd like, but building a case against someone I think is town seems distasteful to me.

[sekinj]

@wall - voting without reason seems distateful to me. and it did from the beginning. This is exactly why voting with no reason or "secret" reasons is always suspect and should never be ignored. Now, it just looks like you were voting for me to see how easy a lynch I was. Now you unvote and claim me town? don't like the lack of reasoning or the buddying.

[Wall-E]

You don't have to like it. I still stand by it. There was a lot of discussion about you when I started checking you out, so I don't feel I was wasting my time (or anyone else's, for that matter).

[germy]

Okay. So, at the time of your vote, when you said you had a case and a reason, you had none, right?

Unvote

Vote: Wall-E

[Wall-E]

If you want to argue semantics, yes.

Hi.

I'm Wall-E.

[germy]

It's not arguing semantics. You lied.

[mykonian]

Wall-e, I would like it if you posted reasons for a vote, so we can have that information too. We may have missed the points you tought reasons enough for a vote, and it can be the beginning for our thinking. If you are town, giving your reasons can only help.

[Wall-E]

It's not arguing semantics. You lied.

Can you quote the lie(s)?

Wall-e, I would like it if you posted reasons for a vote, so we can have that information too. We may have missed the points you tought reasons enough for a vote, and it can be the beginning for our thinking. If you are town, giving your reasons can only help.

Ok.

sekinj votes without a reason, then later gets indignant when someone invariably calls her on it, starting in isolation post 14.

I didn't care for the bit in isolation 20 where sekinj compares another player she's arguing with to her husband, saying words to the effect of, "I can't argue with you. You argue like my husband, the lawyer."

It sounds like a compliment bundled in clever deflection.

In isolation 30, unvotes Kair after the false choice given of "Oh, I didn't know he wanted something BESIDES to have a town power wasted on him. In that case, I trust him."

I didn't mean that just because artem thought you were godfather he was correct in the previous argument, but from my words do bear clarification.

This is a pet peeve. What does this sentence mean? Its meaning is lost forever. The reason? Bad grammar. Nobody will ever be able to figure out what in the hell the words "but from my words do bear clarification" means. I'm not going to say sekinj was doing things like this on purpose, but if I ever got good enough at doublespeak, throwing in logical nulls like this would make for some awesome scumplay.

My case continues on for a while, but guess what? You're not getting any more of it! Why? Because I think sekinj is town, and if you want to hang him, you're going to have to do the dirty work yourself! Like a prospector! With a goldpan!

[mykonian]

I hope people that are voting Sekinj have more of a case, because after reading the post Wall-e mentioned, and what his comments on it are, I can't say it would have been a strong case. Good you didn't vote her for this.

[Shanba]

OK

I hope people that are voting Sekinj have more of a case, because after reading the post Wall-e mentioned, and what his comments on it are, I can't say it would have been a strong case. Good you didn't vote her for this.

This illustrates my problem with the case on sekinj. mykonian, here, seems unaware of what the case on sekinj actually is. As am I. At any one time, there seem to have been about 3 or 4 seperate cases on sekinj, each one fragmented into a thousand tiny posts and growing by the second as each of sekinj's responses become amalgamated into the whole. sekinj did not "ping my scumdar", so I seek to understand what it is that people find scummy about her. Could someone post a summary of the case against her?

Scigatt is fairly obviously scum. His first four posts all have disclaimers in them for their lack of content. I understand he's overwhelmed with exams, etc. but he clearly has a certain amount of time to post - or at least, he managed to find some when people began attacking him.

If we look at his actual contribution to the game, it is very little. There is nothing scummy about trying to catch up with a game you have fallen behind in. The problem I have with him is that he doesn't seem to be giving much effort to this. If we look at his posts, we see that he has focused more on refuting attacks against him than catching up. In other words, his first priority is survival. Um.

There's also a few completely awful moments in his posts themselves.

However, sekinj, from what glances I've seen of his posts and cases against him, looks interesting at least. I'll look at him later today.

Next post opens with:

While I was looking at sekinj, I took another look at this post. (Maybe someone spotted this before, I'm not sure.)

We never learn what he's thinking about sekinj. He's spotted a target. A target, that, incidentally, has 2 votes on him and has called him out as suspicious. (Incidentally, there's also a plausible link between Scigatt/sekinj here - at the time there are three competing wagons, sekinj, scheherazade and SL. As Scigatt has already come out in support of Zade, if he wants to push an alternative wagon to sekinj because they are scumpartners the only alternative available is SL. This is a tipping point - SL emerges here as a plausible alternative, and ends up being lynched by votes from, principally, Kairyuu and Zade. Without Scigatt's vote, if Zade wants an alternative lynch to himself, he must support the sekinj wagon. Scigatt's vote here offers an alternative. A similar thing is true with Kairyuu's vote. But I digress - I will be revisiting this if either player turns up scum, however.)

Vote: Scigatt

Next, Wall-E.

I'm going to

Vote: sekinj

. I have reasons, but wish to withhold stating them publicly for now. I also have a reason for that, but I'll save that, too.

I have to admit, I very nearly choked when I read this. Wall-E, um, I'm not sure how to put this. Am I misunderstanding something, or has your position shifted 180 degrees since that other game? I'm also extremely wary of the fact that the person you chose to attack was one of the people who was most likely to be lynched and that when you chose to attack him you could count on a decent consensus. Given this is pretty much all I have to judge you on, as your predecessor barely posted, I'm leaning towards you as scum.

On the claims (and the half claim): I believe them. Well, the masons especially. It's well nigh impossible to pull of a gambit of that magnitude, and the risks far outweigh the rewards for scum in that situation. Especially as, although mafia may leave them alive for a few days (and even then I'm not sure it's optimal strategy for them to do so), SK simply can't afford that risk. We know now that there probably isn't an SK, but at the time this was not true.

I was, however, suspicious of mykonian before the claim. This post in particular I found scummy:

I think Kairyuu has a powerrole. He either is a power role and hopes that germy is his backup, or they are masons, or he is the little girl. He is too confident in that sentence, where you accuse him of godfatherness. I think it is too obvious.

(Disclaimer - this is not the full post, only the relevant part.)
It was not that he was

stating in thread

tha he thought that Kairyuu was a power role - that sort of play is antitown, but not necessarily scummy - it was more that he had actually made judgements about who he thought power roles were. Scum are looking for power roles, not town. Town are hunting for scum - something which mykonian had not done much of so far. The fact that he seemed more interested in hunting for power roles than for scum rang all sorts of alarm bells. But then the claim came and everything made perfect sense again. Peace was restored to the world.

Germy is less clear cut. I'm still leaning town on him, but there's a larger margin for error, if you will.

I am somewhat suspicious of Zade, too, for reasons I find hard to articulate. I agree with Kairyuu's interpretation of

d) because my number one suspect, Sekinj, has gone on record strongly against springlullaby and I hope spring's alignment might strengthen or weaken my case against Sekinj (I'm keeping bussing in mind, too, don't worry).

Scum like to have this kind of two-for-one deal - lynch one townie, blame it on another, lynch that townie. Kairyuu's quote has a different feel to it. In general, I guess, it's just that Zade... well, he feels a bit like a slick politician to me. Not sure how better to articulate it. Nevertheless, both Wall-E and Scigatt are higher than him on my suspect list.

As for the rest of you, well, I'm still not certain.

On to a little bit of meta - obviously, Artem and I share the same role. For that reason, it would be foolish for you to discard any reads you had on him when I replace (I have seen that sentiment put forwards before - indeed, I think Silverphoenix has mentioned something similar in this very game regarding zade/afatchic.) However, it is occasionally true that it is playstyle differences that cause disagreements between players. Use my play as corroborating evidence for your reads on me/Artem. That's pretty much the only advantage anyone gets out of a replacement - otherwise, it's much easier if one player plays the same role the whole game.

[mykonian]

I knew for a fact that Kai had a powerrole, and I acted from the assumption that if Kai had to claim, I had too. So it could be usefull too defend Kai at all costs. Because, if even then it proved useless, Kai would have to claim, and so would I. If for some mysterious reason it would have worked, Kai wouldn't have to explicitly claim day, but day 2 and we as masons would have a bigger impact on the game. I hope it explains that, I admit, weird post.

[mykonian]

I knew for a fact that Kai had a powerrole, and I acted from the assumption that if Kai had to claim, I had too. So it could be usefull too defend Kai at all costs. Because, if even then it proved useless, Kai would have to claim, and so would I. If for some mysterious reason it would have worked, Kai wouldn't have to explicitly claim day, but day 2 and we as masons would have a bigger impact on the game. I hope it explains that, I admit, weird post.

[Shanba]

I knew for a fact that Kai had a powerrole, and I acted from the assumption that if Kai had to claim, I had too. So it could be usefull too defend Kai at all costs. Because, if even then it proved useless, Kai would have to claim, and so would I. If for some mysterious reason it would have worked, Kai wouldn't have to explicitly claim day, but day 2 and we as masons would have a bigger impact on the game. I hope it explains that, I admit, weird post.

Yes, I can see why in retrospect - my point was that before I read the mason claim, it seemed incredibly scummy - however, the post makes perfect sense if you and Kairyuu are masons. Indeed, the post lends credence to your claim - you shadowed the claim before he made it. Either you are both masons telling the truth, or you and he are scum with astounding co-ordination.

However, that's really besides the point. No one is that interested in quizzing you - the basic assumption is that the claimed masons are town. I'm much more interested in what you make of the rest of my post, particularly the section on Scigatt.

[Wall-E]

I hope people that are voting Sekinj have more of a case, because after reading the post Wall-e mentioned, and what his comments on it are, I can't say it would have been a strong case. Good you didn't vote her for this.

The implication here is that you are aware of a stronger case than mine might potentially have been.

What case is it?

How are you confident my case would never have convinced you sekinj is scum?

I understand you've claimed mason, but I'd still like to hear your thought process.

[CF Riot]

For Shanba (and Myko I guess): Lets all vote Sekinj! You can add to that: staying true to the form of waiting for other's support before committing to an opinion and continuing to attack his attackers.
----
Wall-E, I'm not in a hurry. I think Sek is scum. There were 2 votes that agreed with me, and now they're gone. This makes the Hulk have a sad face.

[wolframnhart]

If a townie says they are not going to reveal their reasoning right away, it's better not to push them. If they're mafia, they won't say anything, anyway. It sounds like wolframnhart is trying to build suspicion on someone for this.

Again, what was your real reason for voting sekinj in the first place? And why did you feel the need to keep such reasoning secret?

Wall-E - you still never answered CF_Riot's question. Why did you vote sekinj? (Besides "he pinged my scumdar"). You specifically said you had a reason, and built a case.

And you didn't answer my question. If sekinj just "felt scummy" to you, why did you need to keep this to yourself when you voted?

Germy, you said that with me asking Wall-E about his reasons for voting Sek were suspicious, that along with the questioning of CF_Riot, i was becoming suspicious to you. Little bit later you start asking Wall-E the same line of questioning about his reasons and now there is nothing wrong with it?

[SilverPhoenix]

First, welcome to the game, Shanba. I'll do a nice customary

Unvote

until I get a better understanding of you. Note, however, that you are still on my radar as Artem's actions of adopting popular opinions blindly were perceived as scummy on my part.

Scigatt is fairly obviously scum. His first four posts all have disclaimers in them for their lack of content. I understand he's overwhelmed with exams, etc. but he clearly has a certain amount of time to post - or at least, he managed to find some when people began attacking him.

If we look at his actual contribution to the game, it is very little. There is nothing scummy about trying to catch up with a game you have fallen behind in. The problem I have with him is that he doesn't seem to be giving much effort to this. If we look at his posts, we see that he has focused more on refuting attacks against him than catching up. In other words, his first priority is survival.

I can agree with that. I said something similar before (quoted below).

On a tangent, I am finding germy's case on Scigatt stronger as time progresses. Edify only had one post, basically telling germy that he was trying too much too quickly (although it was accompanied by a vote). Scigatt, however, is pretty much actively lurking. Excuses along with procastination and, most importantly, no opinions. This stuck out the most.

Also, many of you have posted reams of text that for me to give any reasons as to my positions would just be repetition.

Even if you repeat what others have said (either knowingly or not), it at least shows that you actively have opinions about how the game progressed. I know that midterms are tough sometimes (finished with my first a couple of weeks ago), but continually putting off important discussion doesn't seem like honest town behavior and more like scum that doesn't know where his vote is supposed to go (as scum are expected to vote for the lynch).

FoS: Scigatt

The "survival" part is an interesting case to make, although it could be a panicked townie-tell. But as a lurker, Scigatt really makes it seem that he is perpetually stalling, as if he made an initial bad mistake that he knows will get him lynched. Not townie behavior.

FoS: Scigatt

. That can change to a vote if it gets down to the line or Scigatt offers something else I find scummy.

[Scheherazade]

@CF Riot: I'm still here, considering Sekinj. I've been hovering, yes. Lately, I've been looking at her exchange with Wall-E and trying to see what was so town that he was convinced not to vote for her.

@Wall-E: What was so town?

@Shanba: Please don't mistake a diffuse case for an unfocused one.

I'll try to summarise it. The specific posts and arguments have been posted previously.

In short, the case against Sekinj hinges around her vote for Kairyuu. It came at an opportunistic time, it was uncompromising, and it used other peoples' reasoning. That in addition to its position on the bandwagon (conservatively late to reduce the burden of proof from her and close enough to risk lynching him before he could respond to the charges against him) made it look like a scummy vote.

She also makes a claim in this game that she doesn't throw her vote around. Her move on Kairyuu and her rapid unvote seem completely out of her self-described character--one proven by her earlier fixation on springlullaby. Inconsistency in play style is scummy in my mind. It looks like she's putting up the appearance of pursuing town goals until an opportunity to accomplish a mafia goal comes along.

Looking at her play leading up to her vote, she seems to have the appearance of taking sides without taking sides. I'm looking at the dispute between Artem and Kairyuu. Also, she doesn't take a hard position on germy's claim.

When she does voice an opinion or go after a player, it looks like it's always after other players have committed to it. She doesn't add a whole lot of original content or perspective.

Later, she avoids direct answers, shows irritability with even being suspected, and attacks her accusers, mainly CF Riot.

Now, some of the posts against her you might look at are 327 and 333. There's been a lot of posts between those and now which deserve a comprehensive treatment, but I think her play now is simply a continuation of the patterns she established day one.

[Wall-E]

@Wall-E: What was so town?

His posts 13, 23 and the conclusion in 40 is sound, and I liked bits of post 58. His reaction to my vote on him was also taken into account.

[Scheherazade]

@Wall-E: I'm re-reading those posts. Do you mind if I ask a few more questions?

Is post 13's sentiment, which, if I may paraphrase, is that she's waiting on more reactions to vote, itself town to you?

I agree with the sentiment here as well, "it's hard for me to seperate whether you are just winning the argument, or are actually the one in the right," but I do fail to see what's inherently town about this statement. Help?

Which conclusion do you mean from post 40? And do you think that they are merely sound conclusions or do you feel that they are the correct ones and therefore suspect CF Riot? How does his response affect your interpretation of this post?

Which bits of post 58, if I may ask? And, because this post does take a faintly accusatory tone with SilverPhoenix, do you share sekinj's reservations about his actions at this point in the game?

I'm sorry to be grilling you so. Obviously, I'm very interested in the subject.

[Wall-E]

@Wall-E: I'm re-reading those posts. Do you mind if I ask a few more questions?

Never.

Is post 13's sentiment, which, if I may paraphrase, is that she's waiting on more reactions to vote, itself town to you?

It's more about the tone of it, as if she's saying "Excuse me, I'm playing a game here. Do you mind?" Typically scum don't have balls like that.

I agree with the sentiment here as well, "it's hard for me to seperate whether you are just winning the argument, or are actually the one in the right," but I do fail to see what's inherently town about this statement. Help?

It behooves scum to conflagrate conflict. This post helped douse the flames.

Which conclusion do you mean from post 40? And do you think that they are merely sound conclusions or do you feel that they are the correct ones and therefore suspect CF Riot? How does his response affect your interpretation of this post?

CF

p0 - "Forgive me for keeping the possibility open that you're lying. =] " --

I never liked the ambivilance shown by CF's first post.

p1 - "@All: Question, what is the down side to a mafioso claiming miller?"

p2 - "I didn't ask you anything. No one asked you anything. ???" --

CF brings this up again later, questioning chuck pretty heavily as to what he was answering. This even makes CF put chuck as #3 on his early LoS... I'm not sure why CF put so much emphasis on this, and why he apparently considered it scummy.

p3 - "Nightwolf and Kairyuu's arguments have me leaning towards it hurting the town more than it helps. " --

looks like he is trying to buddy up to the players that seem the most town so far

p4 - "I'm going to throw out the idea that if no one has claimed miller by the end of page 5, we don't have any.<snip>I think any miller claims after page 5 can be considered lies, with reasonable exceptions." --

I don't liek that he felt the need to have to tie this down. What was the point of this? So that if anyone claimed miller later he could point back and say it was already scummy? I don't really see the need to define/discuss/warn about what actions will be considered scummy if they occure.

p7 - I make #2 on his LOS after calling him out on not making accusations. --

seems convenient. his only case at that point is the SL joke vote.

p12 - addresses SL asks her to verbalize a statement more thoroughly --

This is the first and last time he EVER addresses SL. the only other mentions of her name are when he is talkinga bout his case on me. That makes this really seem more like coaching than actual clarification.

p14 - "I think Sekinj could be a good lynch, and I'm considering Artem after a reread, now that you're claimed mason." --

this post was made Mon Oct 13th... keep this in mind...

p15 - one example of charter as scum and one as town --

sorry, I don't buy it. I'm in a game with charter that just now ended and his behavior in this game breaks your little scenario wide open. i don't buy it one bit. over-reacting is a null-tell, and has more to do with playstyle than alignment

p16 - defends not wanting Kair to claim fully. "Wolf, Germy, who are you looking at now?" --

the last part seems like he is trying to deflect in order to get the discussion off of himself

p17 - says my thoughts/defense had no bearing on his opinion

p18 - pushes me to vote

p20 -

seems liek too much of an appeal to the town. Instead of strongly stating a defense he asks if he should point out things, and post his earlier thoughts on afat (which are practically null now anyway)

p21 - "Did a reread of Artem, and I don't really see anything suspicious there, but I was iffy about him earlier in the game so I guess now I'm neutral."

-- this was posted Oct 16th (see his post#14) Artem had made 5 posts between the time CF did his first "reread" of artem and then this his second "reread" of artem.

A) what exactly in those 5 posts made artem go from being 'considered after my lynch' to 'nothing really suspicious' (maybe it was the purrr post). B) Why does CF feel that Artem needs to be reread so often?

These questions are sound. I like how the entire post leads up to something. This player has purpose, and it shows.

Which bits of post 58, if I may ask? And, because this post does take a faintly accusatory tone with SilverPhoenix, do you share sekinj's reservations about his actions at this point in the game?

I don't share his viewpoints publically, but I do see what he did as something to be applauded. The implications in the post are "Don't talk unless you're ready to back it up, buster." and "I won't be an easy target." Again, these are typically town tells versus scumtells.

I'm sorry to be grilling you so. Obviously, I'm very interested in the subject.

I always enjoy a good grilling.

What did you think of my vote-without-a-reason? What was your first reaction to it? Do/did you think it was scummy?

[Scheherazade]

@Wall-E: My first reaction was "that's suspicious."

Thinking about it, I saw that we weren't in any immediate danger of lynching sekinj based on your unsupported vote. I'd have been more alarmed if sekinj were closer to being lynched.

You also seemed very confident of your ability to back up your vote: I thought that we'd get your reasons in due time and I could make a better judgement then. Of course, if they never came, I would have been rather suspicious, too.

So it was a flag for me, not outright scummy. I think my final thought was that scum wouldn't really have anything to gain at that point with a post like that. You may still be scum, but I don't see any substantial gains for the mafia by that post except possibly information.



Looking through your responses, I do have a couple further questions.

First, I agree with your observation that "It behooves scum to conflagrate conflict." Do you think that the sections of sekinj's posts 12 and 21 directed at Kairyuu and Artem are trying to extinguish or fuel the dispute between them? In their effect, which do you think they accomplished?

Second, you think that the purpose of her post 40 was to ask those two questions?

[mykonian]

Shanba: I think your case against Scigatt is quite clear. That with his weak hop on SL's wagon, and what I think was placing things out of context in order to defend Zade, is why I vote Scigatt on the moment. I agree that he is quite obvious, far more then Sekinj.

That case on Sekinj that I thought weak:
post 14, Wall-e interpretation was that Sekinj had voted without reason (she hadn't voted yet), but this was about Springs semi random vote on Sekinj action against Edify (I thought that action justified).
post 20, this is an "if she is scum, this would be something scum could say, because" argument. Or she is town, and then this is useless.
post 30, this is a weird move. The unvote before Kai claimed. She could have read me and Kai right, or it was something else, but is it scummy?
and then something that is not understandeble.

Guy's, this can hardly be a reason to vote for someone day 2. This are no found reasons, these are sought. If nobody has more on Sekinj, the lynch of Sekinj can't be different then a bad one. But there is more then one person on Sekinj, and yesterday was, so I can't imagine this is everything against Sekinj, because then the votes are in my eyes completely unjustified.

the main case I see in CF's post, is active lurking. If you want to lynch a lurker, lets go for Scigatt, because he has done scummier thing in the posts he posted.

To conclude, Sekinj's play hasn't been strong, but also never antitown. She has done nothing to derail the play, nothing that benefits scum. Active lurking is about the weakest reason you can place for a vote. Scigatt is much clearer in this. He is clearly lurking AND his posts have been far from town. He hopped on the SL wagon for little reason... Can hardly be town. Sekinj had been there for a long time, posted reasons for that, and her vote was therefor much more town.

[Shanba]

@Shanba: Please don't mistake a diffuse case for an unfocused one.

I never called it unfocused, and it was not my intention to suggest that it is. It is more that because it is diffuse, I'm having a hard time pulling it all together in my mind to get an overall picture.

One of the cornerstones of the sekinj case is the accusation about her vote on kairyuu. Kairyuu makes the remarks which get him into hot water in post 162. In post 168, springlullaby tears into him for it. Artem says it sounds like a godfather talking in post 170. sekinj then makes one post (post 172) in which she doesn't mention this fragment and then, 4 posts later, votes Kairyuu. Her reasoning is basically a tying together of Artem and springlullaby. There's nothing wrong with using someone elses reasoning, of course - I'm using CF Riot's and Zade's right here - but does seem a lot like she wants everyone to think that the reasoning is her own.

This is the pattern that I assume Riot is talking about with all his stuff about "echoing": she kind of pads he posts with other people's reasoning.

The unvote I don't think is as bad - it's odd that she accepted Kairyuu's word so blithely - but the logic for the unvote is, at least, her own, and it makes sense, if you only have a little time, to quickly post only the unvote to avoid him being lynched.

The second accusation (made by Zade) that I find interesting is this one:

Looking at her play leading up to her vote, she seems to have the appearance of taking sides without taking sides. I'm looking at the dispute between Artem and Kairyuu. Also, she doesn't take a hard position on germy's claim.

This is actually fairly scummy. The feeling I get from reading these sorts of posts is that sekinj is commenting for the sake of commenting: she's not adding anything, she's just adding noise, and again, padding her posts.

Thank you. I do see the arguments against her, even if they are a bit fragmented. Some of it could be down to playstyle/newness/whatever, but it's still a decent case. I think the case on Scigatt is still stronger, however, and I'm also completely thrown for a loop by Wall-E (who I would quite like to answer my question.)

(On a side note, SilverPhoenix, I'm pretty sure I've played with you before, but I'm finding it nigh impossible to place you. Argh.)

[mykonian]

Wall-e has just a playstyle that seems scummy (please, change it, in time). I'm happy that Artem had a solid play, that gives Wall-e room to play (don't use it too much).

I don't see how something like: "she only copies what others said" can be a valid argument. I used it as scum ones to make a "case" on a towny. Most times I said he didn't bring anything new, and a few, barely scummy posts. If you looked objectivily at it, it was completely insane, but if you tried to search for something scummy, the "case" actually seemed to have something good in it. I'm afraid something like that happens here also. A scum driven, weak case based bandwagon. If nothing changes, and after I read, Wall-e, CF, and Shanba's cases, I don't see any reason for me to vote for Sekinj, also because I think Scigatt is far more scummy, and zade is also above Sekinj on my scumlist.