I'm a bit disappointed by those that didn't answer my questions, but with the deadline coming I felt it was best to just press on. Here's my thoughts on each player:
John/TeamQuiggan/Lateralus
John was scummy. Early on, he pressured Guardian by voting for him “just cause it might quiet him down a bit”, which is scummy. Furthermore, he actually pressured lurkers, even though he was essentially lurking in plain sight, and not providing information himself. During the early stages, he also voted hopped quite a bit, moving between several lurker targets and Guardian. A prime example of his early posts is the following:
John wrote:I'm posting to show im not lurking, but have no information at this time to contribute. Everyone is bringing up logical points, and I am unable to tell who I should trust. I'll try to come up with something by tonite.
He also didn't tend to read the thread much and was pretty careless. In post 247, he votes for Peter by using the "too townie" argument, something that had already been discussed and affirmed as weak reasoning. As Occult said in the next post: “You’re being hypocritical and using BS reasoning.” And this post also jumped on the Peter wagon that was forming. His post 302 is similarly odd - he points to a Peter/Avinyl partnership, but gives no reasons (when pressured, he finally says this is merely because they are his top two suspects, which is obviously flawed logic.) He also voted for Thesp because of his playstyle, yet showed no indication of actually finding him scummy, yet eventually conceeds this was his reasoning for voting and notably refuses to remove it. This is not pro-town play.
After a while, TeamQuiggan replaces in and gives a fairly wishy-washy analysis, not really taking a stand on much. He later joined the VKR wagon at the end of Day 1. Interestingly, and not particularly surprisingly, he comes out on Day 2 criticising those who essentially led the wagon against VKR, which seems to be like backpeddling. This was probably the most important thing about TQ's time in the game.
Lateralus jumps in a while later, saying Peter is acting odd, but not saying why. He also basically admits he is going to lurk (sitting back and waiting for others to give their opinions). He also jumps on the Paradoxombie wagon, without giving reasons. Notably throughout Day 2 he gives no fresh analysis. I find this incredibly suspicious. Day 3, he jumps in saying Zombie is innocent, and actually appearing pro-town with his suspicion of Zombie. Later hints at Zombie's innocence again.
Overall, until his recent hints, I would have been perfectly comfortable saying Lateralus was scum. Now, I think it would be best to keep him around.
Occult
First thing in my notes on Occult is his opportunistic FoS of Vryklan on page 6. Hypocritically, one page later, he says that Vry shouldn't have four votes and all the suspicion against him because of lurking, even though Occult expressed suspicion against Vry too. Unfortunately, I wrote that that post (156) was scummy, although I didn't write why in my notes. I assume this was because of the above hypocrisy. Later he says Guardian is the mostsuspicious, yet his reasoning is weak and vague. His vague and non-committal nature is shown by post 186, where he goes after Avinyl for pretty vague reasons.
My early suspicion of Occult is most accurately described by Guardian, who said: "My accusation of Occult, however, which he has not addressed, is that of going with the flow on all his voting/fos's, and not independently targeting anyone.” Guardian further went on to say: “…and honestly I see you as trying to divert attention from yourself and to whoever is convenient to lynch or interrogate.” This opinion is emphasised by the way he later goes after Avi/Ichigo on page 11/12, showing he does seem to go after easy targets and lurkers.
I don't have anything else on Occult for a while, although I did note he seemed to defend Thesp when Thesp replaced in. And his non-committal nature is emphasised by post 509:
Occult wrote:Sorry about my slight absence.
First, I don't like Deathsauce's vote on CTD.
Secound, I'm gonna go ahead and
vote paradoxzombie
I see the case on VRK, also I didn't completly like his last post but, so it doesn't seem like I'm avoiding a stance on the issue, I'll say I don't think there's enough for his lynch.
Instead of explaining his suspicions on VKR, he just seems to be going with the flow. I find it interesting that he doesn't want to "seem like I'M avoiding a stance on the issue," showing perhaps his motives.
Sometime during this period (my notes are unclear), he says that he finds Zombie, Peter and pickem suspicious, yet doesn't give reasons. This is later founded when he jumps on the Zombie wagon without reason in 622, and when pushed still gives no reason in 624. Also something very interesting to note is that Occult didn't take a side on the VKR/Peter debate. I find this non-committal edge to him very scummy.
On Day 2, while still having given no reasons, he says he is for a Zombie lynch. He asks questions that others have already asked. Occult gives baseless statements (682) about his reasoning concerning being suspicious of Zombie. 683 – describes his posts, but doesn’t explain them or draw any conclusions. Agrees with Paradox’s defence, even though it is still very flawed. He finally hammers DS without reason, something I find incredibly suspicious at the moment.
Day 3: even though people found it suspicious, he doesn't explain why he hammered, instead giving another vague opinion, this time on Lateralus. He wants a deadline, and says the exchange between Paradox and gorckat/SSF leaves him wanting to vote Paradox. I unequivocally disagree with this - it leaves me with the complete opposite.
To conclude, I could very easily see Occult as scum at this point, and would not hesitate to apply pressure on him.
gorckat
I don't have very much information on gorckat. Early on, he wanted to go after lurkers, yet became a lurker after that. In post 413, he finally gives some concrete suspicions against Guardian, Peter, John and Thesp. He points out Paradoxombie's weak reasoning, and I do agree with lots of his reasoning about pickem on page 21. I don't like his vote against VKR, though - he basically didn't provide any reasoning and just jumped on the bandwagon. This definitely caught my eye on Day 1
He has some pretty random speculation on page 637, where he wrote that only one scum was on the VKR wagon, although I have no idea how he got this, and this could be a way of clearing himself. He also voted Death Sauce, jumping on the bandwagon against him. I find this noteworthy and scummy, especially since SSF and Occult seem to be getting the blame for his lynch, yet gorckat is almost as responsible for it.
He has remained suspicious of Paradoxombie (and now SSF, though interestingly not Occult). Whilst at the beginning, I was happy with this, I now think it is scummy he went after Paradox so obviously on Day 3 and I really dislike his vote on him.
I could easily see gorckat as clever scum, hiding. And I could see Occult definitely as his partner - note they had said barely anything about each other previously, which is why I asked them both about each other.
Thesp
I love Thesp's playstyle - it is pretty aggressive, yet eloquent. I'm actually finding him pretty pro-town at the moment - I find his observations are often spot on.
Some notable things about Thesp - he came in saying "VRK and Vry are scum, as are Peter and Occult, but not together. John is the SK," yet doesn't mention Mustafa (myself), gorckat, Raffles/SSF or Zombie. Seems odd to me. I also wrote that he defends Occult (I'm not really seeing what I meant, judging by their later interactions) and attacks Raffles, and was firmly on the VRK wagon, which seems understandab;e since he was probably the first person to finger him as scummy.
Day 2, he comes out and votes for Mustafa (having not mentioned him at all Day 1), TQ (which I agree with), and DS (who I remember he had a positive opinion on in Day 1.) Later, he says TQ isn't suspicious, but I would vehemently disagree with this. Even though John was more suspicious than TQ, TQ was suspicious as well, something Thesp doesn't really say.
I find his thoughts on Paradox interesting - he says here he would be happy to let Paradox swing, but says he didn't like the case against him initially (why?). Under 20 posts later, he has a complete u-turn and says he would be unhappy with a Paradox lynch. Day 3, he hasn't made much of an impact, although I agree with his points that Lateralus and Peter aren't scum, and I like his points against gorckat.
Even though I have a few issues with Thesp, I couldn't really see him as scum at the moment.
Peter Venkman
I don't really understand why every argument in Day 1 is WIFOM - I hope Peter can enlighten me when he gets back. His outlook seems relatively one-dimensional - he says in posts 215 and 219 that scum basically have one way of acting, which is completely wrong. Another example is this line: "A good townie is a patient townie." I also don't see how not pointing out scum tells is at all pro-town...
He seems pretty consistently suspicious of Guardian/pickem throughout Day 1, and I'm not sure I like how resolute he was that Guardian was scum. Overall, I found that he contributed mainly to theory and not discussion in Day 1, until the VKR debate. I also wrote in my notes that in post 421 he voted for John without reasoning, which is scummy.
To be honest, I have basically no idea what to think about Peter, concerning the VRK debate - on one hand I agree with those that say VKR wasn't scummy, but at the same time I do think that Peter was justifiably on the bandwagon, and had reason and justification for his vote. Also, I sense that he wanted to lynch VRK for more informational purposes, as he wrote in post 449.
VKR labelled Peter as anti-town. His response is in 532. He says he is pro-town because he contributed the most posts (lots of which were devoted to theory), pressing the most players (I disagree) and is aggressively hunting scum (I would also disagree – isn’t this the guy who ignores scum-tells?) I also wrote that post 550 is WIFOM, but at this point I have been doing this for almost 2 hours so I am not going back to check (my definition of WIFOM is sometimes pretty skewed, so I could be wrong).
Day 2 sees a notable fall in activity from Peter. He seems almost apologetic in his first post, and then basically becomes the "lurker police". I don't see any real scum hunting going on. In post 691, he says scum wouldn’t vote for VKR, and therefore suspects Mustafa, Raffles, Zombie and Death Sauce. Interestingly, Gorckat and Occult are conveniently ignored from this list. Also, why wouldn't scum vote for VKR? And Day 3 he basically says he doesn't have a clue and is hiding.
Overall, I don't really know what to think of Peter. I could see him as town or scum at the moment.
Zombie
He provides no content on arrival. This is scummy. Paradox comes in and votes Guardian for the same reason everyone else is (I wonder if he actually knows what that is…) When pressured, he gives reasons: Guardian has been vocal (not scummy), and he has given off more tells than anyone else (though doesn’t say what the tells are). Overall, typical scum explanation for a vote. Don’t like post 309.
Jumps on the Avinyl wagon, saying he won’t come back. This is scummy and puts Avi at -1. He is heavily bandwagoning. Also, what’s the point? If someone won’t come back, they will get replaced. They don’t need votes. This is illogical. Don’t like post 367 – he jumps against Thesp. Interestingly, he points out how Thesp said Guardian was town, and not any other thoughts about Vel-Rahn Koon or Vryklan, or more interestingly Occult and Peter.
Post 399 Paradox revotes Guardian. Note that until then he had given no reasons for his vote. When asked for reasons, he said “same as before”, which basically means he had no reasons. When pressured for reasons, he says no. Scummy.
470 – Also, he doesn’t seem to respond to people who notice this, instead just unvoting, and then proposing people list people they find scummy and they come to a mutual decision. Five days before a deadline? Scummy. Never gonna happen.
I also find it scummy how he says nothing on the VKR debate.
605 – Zombie says he only votes in non deadline situations. Why not voting in a deadline? This is highly illogical.
Day 2, he immediately puts a FoS on Death Sauce wit no reasoning. (636) Explains his FoS in 650 – I don’t understand his reasoning. His reasoning he reaffirms in 653, which basically is where it is confirmed WIFOM. He finds Gorckat’s dismissal of his weak points suspicious – basically an OMGUS (664) 669 – He admits he doesn’t want to be scrutinised for being on a bad wagon. SCUMMY. OMGUS attack on Gorckat around page 29. 725 – lazy. Basically admits he can’t bothered. Useless town or scum. 781 – tries to justify his votes and fails miserably.
Day 3, I find him far more town. I actually agree with his suspicion against gorckat, Occult and SSF. And I agree with his post 919 against SSF. From what Lateralus has said I willing to bed Paradox is simply a scummy townie.
Sorry, this was a bit crap, but I hope it explains all of Paradox's actions that I find suspicious, even if it is a bit of a summary.
Somestrangeflea
I'll say something interesting about Raffles tomorrow. Basically I found he was active and aggressive, then fizzled out.
Post 804 – SSF joins. Says John/TQ/Lateralus didn’t give any particular vibe (disagree, very scummy). Says Death Sauce is aggressive, yet says he is neutral (I would say scummy.) Says Occult seems to know what he is doing (???), and says gorckat seems like a genuinely nice guy and pro-town (no explanation). He found Mustafa like Occult, and didn’t agree with Thesp on some things (yet doesn’t clarify what he means). He doesn’t like Peter’s attitude (what about his actions?), and says Paradox is scummy, yet doesn’t say why, and says he can’t really get a vibe from CTD. Overall, the perfect scum entrance – is unsure about basically everyone and says one person is scummy. Incredibly non-committal.
Interestingly in post 842, he changes his stance on gorckat completely and says that Lateralus and gorckat seem like a scum-pair. No reasons are given. Jumps on the DS bandwagon. When later asked why he is on the DS wagon, he says “the same reasons you are…”
Day 3 he jumps in and votes Lateralus, as well as throwing suspicion against Zombie. Wants a deadline, which I find scummy. I don’t really like his convenient Paradox vote.
Ya, that's it for now. I would be fine with a gorckat, Occult or SSF lynch for the moment. Not sure about a vote for the now. I'll see how people respond to this before anything.
