Yosarian2 wrote:You forgot one:
3) Sometimes scum lurk, because the only thing scum really care about during the day is to not get lynched, and a person who's not really saying anything isn't giving off scumtells. If the town's not willing to lynch lurkers, then lurking is a smart move for the scum to do.
Every game I have ever played in here has had a person pointed out as being a lurker. If any scum is worth his salt, he (she) will do everything to avoid anything that might make him look suspicious, including lurking. I am not saying that scum never lurk; I am saying that more often than not town lurks worse. By your thought process, the two roles most likely to lurk are scum and town-power, to try and "stay under the radar". If that's the case then lurker hunting can hurt the town terribly even with your thought process about the theory of the game.
Any good town has to do both, both go after lurkers and go after active players who look scummy. It's not an either-or choice; they both need to be done.
No, they don't both need to be done. See below. Also, especially for players with a lurker-hunter tag (like MeMe and yourself - kinda knew that we'd get into an argument about this from the first time I saw your sig), players can lurker hunt
as scum
without appearing scummy. For example, if you start voting lurkers and someone says, "that's scummy and opportunistic," and you say, "well, thats how I play, see my sig," you have a rep built on that and can't be looked at as scummy because of it. It gives you a free ride, not only in the game you are currently in, but in any game where town allows a lurker hunt. So the second part of your above statement is incorrect. If town allows lurker hunting, then by definition lurker hunting can't be scummy in that game, and scum can use a useful tactic with impunity.
That's only a small part of it. Lurking lowers the town's chances of winning, no matter if the lurking player is pro-town or scum, and I still do think that lurking is at least a minor scumtell; sure, anyone could lurk for whatever reason, but from a stratigic point of view there's always more reason for scum to lurk then for town to lurk, so if someone's lurking, and especally if they seem to be activly and intentionally lurking, I consider them more likely to be scum then someone's who's being active, and so all else being equal, I'm always more likely to vote for someone who is, was, or has been lurking.
And in any case, if pro-town people lurk, or semi-lurk, they tend to either not vote much at all, or if they do vote, they tend to just follow the crowd; either way, every pro-town lurker makes it that much easier for scum to control the game. So either way, lurking is bad for the town and the town can never afford to allow it.
Here I completely agree and want to make sure you understand where I am coming from. I think lurker hunting is bad. I think lurking is also very, very bad, for all of the reasons you mentioned. IMO, the correct way to handle a lurker is to "force" the mod to make them post or replace them. This
will
make the lurker post or be replaced, and it avoids distracting the town and allowing active scum to find and attack easy targets.
Let me clarify something; everything I feel about lurking and lurker hunting is
in the absence of any other evidence against the lurker
. If someone is obviously intentionally lurking then the town should take action. For instance, if a player only posts once or twice after a mod prods them, doesn't post for a couple weeks, gets another prod and posts a little more, they are obviously trying to stay in the game and lurk. Or if a player is in a lot of trouble, with a lot of votes, etc. and the player decides to drop into the background and let pressure moves somewhere else before posting again, town needs not to let that happen.
The point is that in the absence of other information, lurker hunting is distracting and more often than not targets protown players. If this isn't bad enough, it also allows active scum to appear more town and participate in the lurker hunt without raising suspicion. For example, imagine that TCS is scum (he might be, I haven't yet got a great read on him). With an active lurker hunt (which this game has thankfully not turned into yet), TCS' post #656 (well, the last half of it that actually pertains to the current discussion) could fly totally under the radar. Town is hunting lurkers, TCS votes a lurker, TCS must therefore be town. He doesn't have to answer the obvious questions that typically follow someone placing a vote. Like, "TCS, what is the obvious reason for voting BT?"
Is it that BT was lurking, or that BT doesn't like lurker hunting, or that someone else answered a question about BT when the original question was asked of a third party? Or a combo of the three? Or something else entirely. Or did you even have any reason, other than seeing what might turn into a nice wagon that could lead to a lynch?
But what makes you think Billy is pro-town? I have so little read on him that I'm kind of baffled at how you reached that conclusion.
