In post 14, MagnaofIllusion wrote: In post 9, The Fonz wrote:For me, gut-based or unexplained votes always draw more heat relative to ones which are neatly explained, even when the underlying motives aren't any less valid. I feel they are unfairly presented as scummy when they're not.
Here's the thing ... I understand your point but we have two votes.
One with attached reasoning.
One without.
The first can be analyzed for such things as scum intent and how said reasoning melds with other posts by the player.
The second cannot.
Well, the first can be analyzed for scum intent. You ask yourself rather than the player why they made that vote. And has been said already in thread, how good or consistent the logic appears to be seems to me much more a function of the player making the argument than the alignment making the argument. Generally, if a player is making arguments at all in the early days of a game, I'm not that interested in attacking them, I prefer to attack those who show little interest in going on the offensive at all. Later on, I'll rely more on looking at wagon dynamics and the timing of votes and things like that.
While we seem to be on opposite sides of the spectrum as to thinking explanation is a Pro-Town action it is easier for scum to hide their pushes under the second kind of vote and say "I thought it was obvious, draw your own conclusions". Town can do it also but that only enables scum to do the same.
Well, I don't think explaining yourself is antitown. I certainly think players should usually explain their thought process if asked to. I also think both of you and I could do with being more concise in general. I just don't assume that because a player votes with one line of justification or none at all, it follows that he doesn't have any reasons. I also became excessively aware a few years ago that when I built cases of the kind you tend to deploy now, which at the time I did a lot, people would just sheep me without thinking about anything at all for themselves.
I've seen players like Chamber and Jack come under undue pressure because their posts were short far too often. Some of the best scumhunters I've seen were short post types. X-Com Terror From The Deep Mafia was one of the best examples I can think of. Chamber, playing under an alt, voted for a scum immediately after that scum had made a scummy as fuck post. And it immediately caused all the (fairly inexperienced) townies to scream 'OMG Chamber doesn't have reasons for his vote! Scum!' and he was lynched D1. Whereas to me, when I replaced in, it was excessively obvious why he'd voted the way he did when he did.