Mini 737 - Hack Poetry Mafia (Game Over)

[fhqwhgads]

At last, the rhymes done,
but it certainly was fun...

Seriously though,
the biggest thing for me so far is budja's third vote. Well, he got tongues wagging, but now you gotta follow through buddy.

I do find it interesting that Red Coyote is trying to cover for him.

I think this is a bit of a reach.

[TonyMontana]

Vote Count

Spirits high, the mood was good
And people rhymed the best they could
But while the rhymes are fun
In syllables and puns
The town awaken, seemed to see
No poetry is taken seriously

Budja

(2) RedCoyote, don_johnson

springlullaby

(2) magisterrain, Goatrevolt

WolfBlitzer

(2) Ice9, Budja

don_johnson

(1) Azhrei

fhqwhgads

(1) Spolium

Goatrevolt

(1) Lynx The Antithesis

magisterrain

(1) WolfBlitzer

RedCoyote

(1) fhqwhgads

With 12 alive, it takes 7 to lynch

[Lynx The Antithesis]

What I don't like about the Budja vote is the fact that he said Wolf's vote was a joke, but joined Ice's wagon which was based on serious suspicion. I don't mind pressure votes or bandwagons to get the discussion flowing. However one done in this manner is unproductive. He basically goes against Ice's whole reason for his vote, and simply joins the wagon anyway. Then later tossing in the "spark discussion" doesn't help his case either.

[Budja]

I didn't realise Ice was being serious on his suspicion, maybe more serious than a complete random vote but not much. It was page 2!

I am definitely not trying to piggyback on his suspicions. My third vote was a push to escape the random stage. It was badly done, I'll admit and my choice of words were influenced by trying to make it rhyme.

[Azhrei]

I was thinking about replacing out with all of these rhyme schemes(I feel like I'm back in 12th grade English). It's gonna be nearly impossible to keep up with and

people can justify slips up by saying that they needed to preserve rhyme.

I don't mind the rhyme once in awhile, but this way is just over-kill. I think we should just play normally with the ocasional flavor thrown in to the mix.

Heh, it's just happened.


Budja, I'm finding you a bit suss as well.

[RedCoyote]

I didn't realise Ice was being serious on his suspicion, maybe more serious than a complete random vote but not much. It was page 2!

I am definitely not trying to piggyback on his suspicions. My third vote was a push to escape the random stage. It was badly done, I'll admit and my choice of words were influenced by trying to make it rhyme.

Budja, to me it seemed like a piggyback, but if you want to clarify your

individual

suspicions on Wolf then I am of course willing to hear what you have to say.

[Goatrevolt]

I don't see how Budja was piggybacking off of Ice. It looks like they voted for entirely different reasons. Clarification?

I'll buy Budja's explanation that he was trying to segue out of the random phase. It seems consistent, and he mentioned that when he dropped the vote. Trying to make a move out of the random phase is pro-town, however I'm a bit iffy on the manner he went about it. The things I'm suspicious of are:

1. That he voted a target in expectation of

later

seeing scum tells rather than based off of something he thought was scummy.
2. When I questioned him on 1, he responded that he was just trying to spark discussion, which is completely different reasoning than above.

So, Budja: What kind of later scumtells did you expect to see, and why would you vote for someone expecting to later see them do something scummy. Again, isn't that a bit backwards? Secondly, what kind of discussion did you anticipate your vote would spark?

[Goatrevolt]

Furthermore: Isn't a bit counterproductive to tell someone you're voting them just create a bandwagon and that you have no legitimate suspicions of them? If the point of bandwagoning like that is to gauge a response to pressure, why would you tell them your vote has no real pressure?

[Spolium]

The things I'm suspicious of are:

1. That he voted a target in expectation of later seeing scum tells rather than based off of something he thought was scummy.
2. When I questioned him on 1, he responded that he was just trying to spark discussion, which is completely different reasoning than above.

I really don't see this big difference you keep talking about. If there's more discussion taking place then there's more opportunity for scum to slip up, so prompting discussion is more likely to lead to a scumtell than not doing so (as you said yourself, drawing town out of the random phase is essentially pro-town).

The only thing which really bothered me was the fact that Budja's announcement of his intentions was indeed counter-productive, and despite this move being anti-town it doesn't exactly follow that it was a

scummy

move. Frankly, I'd expect scum to take more care in avoiding this.

Secondly, what kind of discussion did you anticipate your vote would spark?

I'm not sure that this is a fair question. When trying to provoke discussion, it's impossible to determine exactly

what

sort of discussion is going to arise (particularly so in a game where everyone is second-guessing themselves/others, and scum are waiting to pounce on any careless townie).

In order to answer your question, Budja would have to blindly speculate about what

might

arise from a provocative vote, and such speculation would be easy to criticise. I mean, what answer could Budja give you here which you would even accept as valid?

[Goatrevolt]

I really don't see this big difference you keep talking about. If there's more discussion taking place then there's more opportunity for scum to slip up, so prompting discussion is more likely to lead to a scumtell than not doing so (as you said yourself, drawing town out of the random phase is essentially pro-town).

This depends entirely on the type of discussion. Discussion of the wrong things can actually harm scum hunting. For example, have you ever seen two townies go at it with each other for 3 pages over minor things? I would argue that isn't helpful discussion. All it does is muddy the waters and make it difficult to pick out who the real scum are.

Anyway, to answer your question, I do feel there is a difference in his two answers. His original reasons were to create a situation where Wolf might provide some scumtells. Later on he mentions that it was to spark discussion. Sparking discussion can mean any number of things, including but not limited to Wolf providing those scumtells. So, in essence, he broadened his reasoning from the specific: "getting Wolf to screw up" to the more general: "generating discussion."

So, to be more specific on my reasoning:

1.

"That he voted a target in expectation of later seeing scum tells rather than based off of something he thought was scummy.

" To go with what I said above, I think this can generate the wrong kind of discussion. Sure, it might generate discussion, but I don't think we'll be any closer to catching scum if everyone votes like this.

2.

"When I questioned him on 1, he responded that he was just trying to spark discussion, which is completely different reasoning than above."

His original reasons were specific: To pressure wolf into making scumtells. When I asked him about that, he backed off into the more general: "just trying to spark discussion." To me, that rings of him knowing his original reasons were bogus and so he fell back to "trying to generate discussion" which has the connotation of being a pro-town play. In reality, generating discussion is only pro-town if the discussion has any useful merits in catching scum. So while getting out of the random phase is pro-town, getting out of the random phase via discussion that is unlikely to actually lead to catching scum isn't so much.

The only thing which really bothered me was the fact that Budja's announcement of his intentions was indeed counter-productive, and despite this move being anti-town it doesn't exactly follow that it was a

scummy

move.

I agree. Announcing intentions isn't helpful, but it's not necessarily scummy

Frankly, I'd expect scum to take more care in avoiding this.

Why, exactly?

Secondly, what kind of discussion did you anticipate your vote would spark?

I'm not sure that this is a fair question. When trying to provoke discussion, it's impossible to determine exactly

what

sort of discussion is going to arise (particularly so in a game where everyone is second-guessing themselves/others, and scum are waiting to pounce on any careless townie).

In order to answer your question, Budja would have to blindly speculate about what

might

arise from a provocative vote, and such speculation would be easy to criticise. I mean, what answer could Budja give you here which you would even accept as valid?

Basically, he voted Wolf, admitted Wolf hadn't done anything wrong, and then said that his vote was specifically to get out of the random phase. By explaining the motivation behind why he did everything and admitting his vote wasn't based on anything, I feel like he shut off meaningful responses. I wanted to know what meaningful responses could even be possibly generated from such a vote. My question was basically a "what did you expect to gain from your actions" kind of question. While he certainly can't predict exactly how people are going to respond to it, I would expect he at least has some general idea of how it could be helpful to the town.

[Budja]

"That he voted a target in expectation of later seeing scum tells rather than based off of something he thought was scummy."

I don't see anything wrong with this, this is no worse than a random vote. The fault I made was to declare the vote was pretty meaningless. People's responses when votes are placed on them are a large part (IMO) of finding scumtells.

I disagree with you on this point. My fault was not my action but the fact I openly displayed my reason. Saying a vote is for pressure reduces the pressure and makes the vote meaningless,

that was poor playing I did there

, I will admit that.

Sparking discussion and seeking scumtells are not fundamentally different reasons and I did have both in mind.

[Spolium]

This depends entirely on the type of discussion. Discussion of the wrong things can actually harm scum hunting. For example, have you ever seen two townies go at it with each other for 3 pages over minor things? I would argue that isn't helpful discussion. All it does is muddy the waters and make it difficult to pick out who the real scum are.

I agree totally.

So, to be more specific on my reasoning:

1.

"That he voted a target in expectation of later seeing scum tells rather than based off of something he thought was scummy.

" To go with what I said above, I think this can generate the wrong kind of discussion. Sure, it might generate discussion, but I don't think we'll be any closer to catching scum if everyone votes like this.

But since he was called out before the discussion had a chance to start, it's impossible to know what the nature of the resulting discussion would have been. How can you judge the usefulness of a discussion which never took place?

2.

"When I questioned him on 1, he responded that he was just trying to spark discussion, which is completely different reasoning than above."

His original reasons were specific: To pressure wolf into making scumtells. When I asked him about that, he backed off into the more general: "just trying to spark discussion." To me, that rings of him knowing his original reasons were bogus and so he fell back to "trying to generate discussion" which has the connotation of being a pro-town play.

The broader explanation doesn't exactly contradict the more specific one, either.

Don't get me wrong - I'd like to see a fuller explanation from Budja too. I'm just aware of the fact that he made plays like this as a townie in another game; he seemed to be wishy-washy and vague, was the prime suspect for an entire day, came ridiculously close to a lynching and ended up being the guy who zeroed in on the scum.

Frankly, I'd expect scum to take more care in avoiding this.

Why, exactly?

Because in my experience scum take care to avoid appearing anti-town.

In order to answer your question, Budja would have to blindly speculate about what

might

arise from a provocative vote, and such speculation would be easy to criticise. I mean, what answer could Budja give you here which you would even accept as valid?

Basically, he voted Wolf, admitted Wolf hadn't done anything wrong, and then said that his vote was specifically to get out of the random phase. By explaining the motivation behind why he did everything and admitting his vote wasn't based on anything,

I feel like he shut off meaningful responses. I wanted to know what meaningful responses could even be possibly generated from such a vote. My question was basically a "what did you expect to gain from your actions" kind of question.

While he certainly can't predict exactly how people are going to respond to it, I would expect he at least has some general idea of how it could be helpful to the town.

I see where you're coming from, but I'm getting mixed messages from the emphasised part. Since it is true that he "shut off meaningful responses" by revealing his motives, how could he possibly validate what he did?

This doesn't excuse the fact that his vote explanation was self-defeating, but despite this enquiry amounting to a rhetorical question you're expecting him to answer regardless.

[don_johnson]

"That he voted a target in expectation of later seeing scum tells rather than based off of something he thought was scummy."

I don't see anything wrong with this, this is no worse than a random vote. The fault I made was to declare the vote was pretty meaningless.

the problem is that you were trying to take us out of the random stage with a vote that was "no worse than a random vote" and "meaningless". this is counterproductive. i have employed similar tactics as town before, so this is not necessarily a scum tell. what ends up happening is that if your target eventually does slip up, your accusations have little credibility due to the fact that other players will see it as the pot calling the kettle black.

as for the vote and its "self defeating" explanation, i am not sure i agree with spolium and goat. a vote carries with it an inherent "ability to lynch". saying a vote is a "pressure" vote does not defeat the purpose. the vote carries pressure until said player unvotes, as we have no way of knowing if it is scum or town placing the initial vote. i.e. scum

and

town can easily place a pressure vote and go v/la, "forget" to remove it, and contribute to a lynch. scum can do so intentionally and hide behind this excuse.

unvote

[Goatrevolt]

"That he voted a target in expectation of later seeing scum tells rather than based off of something he thought was scummy."

I don't see anything wrong with this, this is no worse than a random vote.

Yes, but random votes aren't also dressed up and used as pressure votes.

But since he was called out before the discussion had a chance to start, it's impossible to know what the nature of the resulting discussion would have been. How can you judge the usefulness of a discussion which never took place?

Obviously, I have no way of knowing what could possibly result. However, I will say that anything useful that would come of that discussion is not going to come from the pressure of the vote itself. In other words, a vote on someone that isn't based on any perceived existing scumtells is not going to generate any useful information.

For example: I vote you and say "I don't think you've done anything scummy, but I'm just voting you to see if you react in a scummy manner to the pressure." Your response is going to be "there is no pressure on me, I have nothing to react to." There's no useful discussion there. The only useful discussion that could possibly arise is people attacking me for using poor reasoning to place votes, etc. (basically the type of discussion that we're seeing here). On the other hand, if I attack you and say "I don't like the way you went about doing X. I think the way you did it is scummy" then you can respond in a variety of ways that tells us something about you: "That's BS, you're scum for pushing that" or "No, it's not scummy because of Y" or "You're right, my bad" etc.

The broader explanation doesn't exactly contradict the more specific one, either.

It doesn't contradict it, no. However, instead of addressing the specific reasoning, he immediately defaulted back to the broader one. My issue entirely stems from the fact that he didn't even make a move to defend his stated reasons for the vote and immediately went for the more broader reasoning (and reasoning that I don't consider to be inherently pro-town. That's why I want to know what kind of discussion he wanted to generate, because I don't think discussion itself is inherently pro-town).

I see where you're coming from, but I'm getting mixed messages from the emphasised part. Since it is true that he "shut off meaningful responses" by revealing his motives, how could he possibly validate what he did?

He really can't validate it. However, he can give reasons why he thought it was a good play in the first place, etc. which is ultimately more important. The mindset behind why people do things is more important than what they actually do. Hence why I wanted to know "what did you think your actions would achieve." Or in other words "What is the pro-town mindset behind doing this?"

[RedCoyote]

I cannot pretend
that I want the random voting stage to soon end.

My third vote was a push to escape the random stage.

To me, this is contradictory. I don't know, Budja seems like he's sincere in explaining he misworded his comments but I have to admit I am still comfortable on him for now.

Another example:

I didn't realise Ice was being serious on his suspicion

I have to assume [Wolf was] for real, not for play
And the only recourse is for

my vote to stay

In random vote stage

I can only assume

[Wolf was] grasping at straws

when you sang that tune

To everyone else, a wagon we need
My words are what you surely should heed
WolfBlitzer is trying to deflect what I've said

So I say to you all, "Off with [Wolf's] head!"

(emphasis added)

Again, it's arguable either way really... but something tells me Budja saw an opportunity to be the infamous 3rd vote, putting Wolf at L-2, while saving himself an out for later by claiming, "Oh, lol, thought it was still random ".

---

don't see how Budja was piggybacking off of Ice. It looks like they voted for entirely different reasons. Clarification?

First of all, I'm not so easily buying Budja's explanation, just to let you know we differ on that point as well.

Second, to clarify my allegation,

To everyone else, a wagon we need
My words are what you surely should heed
WolfBlitzer is trying to deflect what I've said
So I say to you all, "Off with his head!"

So I will join your bandwagon here
in the hope that some scummy signs do soon appear.

What's more, one could make the argument that Budja didn't even necessarily find the comment that Ice9 is upset about all that scummy when he said,

Wolf's statement seems to be a joke,
cast in the spirit of a random vote.

So his vote was, unless someone can show me otherwise, almost entirely put up based on the fact that Ice9 had requested it. I don't see anything in post 32 that indicates that Budja had unique suspicions of Wolf that Ice9 didn't.

Isn't a bit counterproductive to tell someone you're voting them just create a bandwagon and that you have no legitimate suspicions of them? If the point of bandwagoning like that is to gauge a response to pressure, why would you tell them your vote has no real pressure?

This is exactly my point. This is the claim Budja has made for voting Wolf (which, to his credit, he regrets doing), but I personally don't think it's good enough.

---

In any case, I agree with Budja in post 60, but just recognizing a questionable move after the fact might not be enough.

[Lynx The Antithesis]

I find it to be just a poorly placed vote in the first place. Like others have stated, pressure votes are basically cancelled out after making them out to be meaningless when you apply it. You can't side with the person then vote for them. Something which he did by saying he interpretted Wolf's vote as a joke. So there was really nothing at all to be gotten from Wolf. Considering that there's no reason to feel any pressure from a baseless vote.

This was something to push the town out of the joking random phase(which it pretty much did). I believe his spark discussion and pushing us out of the random phase defenses are one in the same and not contradictory. All in all I just think it was just a bad move.

Another thing is that I agree that asking him to tell what he expected to gain from such a move is hard to accomplish. There's no way to gauge what could have happened and we must keep in mind that he was cut off before anything could happen.

I'm gonna

Unvote

while I'm at it as well.

[Goatrevolt]

Again, it's arguable either way really... but something tells me Budja saw an opportunity to be the infamous 3rd vote, putting Wolf at L-2, while saving himself an out for later by claiming, "Oh, lol, thought it was still random ".

I don't see how he could possibly make this claim, considering he stated (more or less) when he voted that it wasn't random.

I'll take that back. He could

possibly

make this claim, but I'd assume we'd just lynch him immediately afterward for blatantly lying.

What's more, one could make the argument that Budja didn't even necessarily find the comment that Ice9 is upset about all that scummy when he said,

Wolf's statement seems to be a joke,
cast in the spirit of a random vote.

That's why I was confused about your claim that Budja was piggybacking off of Ice's suspicion, considering Budja didn't even vote for the same reasons. I think the difference was our definitions of piggybacking. You were using piggybacking as hopping on the same target, whereas I took it to mean hopping on the same reasoning.

At any rate, why is piggybacking (under either definition) scummy?

------

I'm going to keep/upgrade my random vote on Springlullaby, because I know she's posting in other games, but she's avoided this one. I feel like I'm getting bogged down in the minor details with Budja. I need to step back and assess the big picture and see if his actions really make him likely to be scum or not.

[fhqwhgads]

I'm mostly with RC here (damn, again?! How do you do it? )

I am however, willing to accept Budja's retraction. I just get this funny feeling that he's being the scapegoat here...

...speaking of which, if he IS the scapegoat, I find it interesting that Goatrevolt is pushing him the hardest. It by no means is a scumtell, but if Budja just made a mistake (and taking Spolium's word for it, not for the first time), your case on him can be used as a misdirection by scum.

I think the ones we should be looking at, are the lurkers. If we are just townies fighting among ourselves, the ones winning is scum lurking and waiting for us to string up one of our own.

[TonyMontana]

The reaper is grim, but so is the mod
And after a skim, I can see we need prods
magisterrain, the thread has been callin
wolfblitzer, reply, or your heads will be rollin

[Goatrevolt]

...speaking of which, if he IS the scapegoat, I find it interesting that Goatrevolt is pushing him the hardest. It by no means is a scumtell, but if Budja just made a mistake (and taking Spolium's word for it, not for the first time), your case on him can be used as a misdirection by scum.

I think the ones we should be looking at, are the lurkers. If we are just townies fighting among ourselves, the ones winning is scum lurking and waiting for us to string up one of our own.

Unvote, Vote fhqwhgads

1. I don't like the implications of your first paragraph. You seem to be saying that pressuring mistakes is a bad thing because it could possibly result in a mislynch or misdirection. Sure it could. It could also possibly result in catching and lynching scum. I don't like how you attempt to shut down scum hunting because of the possibility for error.

2. How do you know "we are just townies fighting among ourselves?"

[Ice9]

WolfBlitzer's prolonged absence in the face of my suspicion is mighty convenient for him. He seems to have dropped off of everybody's radar altogether.

---

I do find it interesting that Red Coyote is trying to cover for him.

I think this is a bit of a reach.

And I think that's an easy way to try and smear me without explaining your thought process whatsoever.

---

He basically goes against Ice's whole reason for his vote, and simply joins the wagon anyway. Then later tossing in the "spark discussion" doesn't help his case either.

This pretty well sums up the issues people seem to have with budja for his vote, which I agree with.

---

I didn't realise Ice was being serious on his suspicion, maybe more serious than a complete random vote but not much. It was page 2!

It was page 2! is not a valid excuse. Is there an arbitrary number of pages that have to be produced before votes can be considered serious? If so, I didn't get the memo.

---

The things I'm suspicious of are:

1. That he voted a target in expectation of later seeing scum tells rather than based off of something he thought was scummy.
2. When I questioned him on 1, he responded that he was just trying to spark discussion, which is completely different reasoning than above.

I really don't see this big difference you keep talking about. If there's more discussion taking place then there's more opportunity for scum to slip up, so prompting discussion is more likely to lead to a scumtell than not doing so (as you said yourself, drawing town out of the random phase is essentially pro-town).

The only thing which really bothered me was the fact that Budja's announcement of his intentions was indeed counter-productive, and despite this move being anti-town it doesn't exactly follow that it was a

scummy

move. Frankly, I'd expect scum to take more care in avoiding this.

Holy alarm bells, Batman! Why are you trying to minimize damage for budja? Both of you are labeling what he claims to have been trying to do ("move us out of the random stage") as generically pro-town, which is a silly idea in the first place because if that is always considered pro-town then the scum will just

do that

to get brownie points, but at least goat broke down the flaws in budja's actions and pointed out the possible scum motivation for them. You just blandly agree with the assessment that trying to end the random stage is pro-town while trying to get goat to drop the rest of his argument. And then you go on about how budja is being anti-town but not scummy... uh, what? Could there be a more perfect way to try and get your scumbuddy off the hook? And the last line is just a WIFOM mess. You're saying budja can't be scum because scum wouldn't be so sloppy. Yeah right.

Secondly, what kind of discussion did you anticipate your vote would spark?

I'm not sure that this is a fair question. When trying to provoke discussion, it's impossible to determine exactly

what

sort of discussion is going to arise (particularly so in a game where everyone is second-guessing themselves/others, and scum are waiting to pounce on any careless townie).

In order to answer your question, Budja would have to blindly speculate about what

might

arise from a provocative vote, and such speculation would be easy to criticise. I mean, what answer could Budja give you here which you would even accept as valid?

And you just keep going on the budja cover-up, fielding a question for him by means of trying to get it disqualified. What you've essentially said here is that budja can't answer this question without implicating himself, so he shouldn't answer it at all.

FoS: Spolium

---

When I asked him about that, he backed off into the more general: "just trying to spark discussion." To me, that rings of him knowing his original reasons were bogus and so he fell back to "trying to generate discussion" which has the connotation of being a pro-town play.

These were my thoughts almost exactly as I read through the same section.

---

"That he voted a target in expectation of later seeing scum tells rather than based off of something he thought was scummy."

I don't see anything wrong with this, this is no worse than a random vote. The fault I made was to declare the vote was pretty meaningless. People's responses when votes are placed on them are a large part (IMO) of finding scumtells.

I disagree with you on this point. My fault was not my action but the fact I openly displayed my reason. Saying a vote is for pressure reduces the pressure and makes the vote meaningless,

that was poor playing I did there

, I will admit that.

Sparking discussion and seeking scumtells are not fundamentally different reasons and I did have both in mind.

This is just a big pile of lame excuses. You were playing poorly, so we're expected to just let you off the hook?

---

Don't get me wrong - I'd like to see a fuller explanation from Budja too. I'm just aware of the fact that he made plays like this as a townie in another game; he seemed to be wishy-washy and vague, was the prime suspect for an entire day, came ridiculously close to a lynching and ended up being the guy who zeroed in on the scum.

So what you're trying to tell me is that budja looks scummy but he's actually secretly the best player we have so we shouldn't lynch him. Well, at least you're getting creative in your protection now.

---

I'm going to keep/upgrade my random vote on Springlullaby, because I know she's posting in other games, but she's avoided this one. I feel like I'm getting bogged down in the minor details with Budja. I need to step back and assess the big picture and see if his actions really make him likely to be scum or not.

Your hesitance to pull the trigger on your, in my opinion, well thought out and presented Budja case has me a bit confused. After all the effort you went through, debating with Budja and Spolium, you'd really rather go on a lurker hunt? Am I missing something here?

---

Preview Window Edit: I agree with everything Goat just said in regards to fhq.

FoS: fhqwhgads

---

Unvote, Vote: Budja

[Goatrevolt]

Your hesitance to pull the trigger on your, in my opinion, well thought out and presented Budja case has me a bit confused. After all the effort you went through, debating with Budja and Spolium, you'd really rather go on a lurker hunt? Am I missing something here?

I should have voted him originally, to add some pressure to my case. At this point, I'm no longer sure if I'm even on the right track, or just suffering from tunnelvision. I need to step back and reassess.

As for springlullaby, I've played with her where she was scum, and she tended to lurk through some of the more critical periods of the game. Considering she's posting in other games, but hasn't posted here during that same period, I'm suspicious.

[RedCoyote]

considering he stated (more or less) when he voted that it wasn't random.

I cannot pretend
that I want the random voting stage to soon end.

You don't think this could've been construed to say that he was still voting at random? I agree that indeed it wasn't a random vote, I'm just saying I think it's funny for him to make this comment. He's essentially saying he wants the random voting stage to keep going despite his vote not being random.

You were using piggybacking as hopping on the same target, whereas I took it to mean hopping on the same reasoning.

Well, I have the same definition as you, I think I'm just looking at it differently. I didn't explain myself very well:

I don't see any reasoning at all in Budja's vote, and because he posts right after Ice9 (obviously having read Ice9's post and subsequently agreeing with it because he uses the same terminology Ice9 used), I can only assume that his lack of reasoning meant to imply that he both accepted Ice9's vote

and

reasoning as his own. I just assign him that position by default since he hasn't given me acceptable, independent reasoning for the vote.

Of course, if you accept the idea that he was voting purely out of pressuring Wolf, then piggybacking would indeed be the wrong word; I do not accept that reason.

The biggest reason why piggybacking is a bad thing is that if townies do it they aren't giving enough of their own opinions and it gives us less to critque them on, if scum do it gives them an opportunity to "blend in" with the crowd without sticking out because if they agree with one arguement, bad or good, other townies are more reluctant to push two people than one. It's definitely always a scummy thing to not give yourself an individual presence in the game.

---

I'm mostly with RC here (damn, again?! How do you do it? )

But it's okay this time because I'm really a townie! Honest!

I am however, willing to accept Budja's retraction. I just get this funny feeling that he's being the scapegoat here...

I have to admit I agree with Ice9 and Goat's suspicions of you, but for me this statement is worse than the rest of the post.

You're making a very vauge accusation against multiple people and you end it with the ever-hated ellipses. You're essentially saying "ya, budja sounds bad but what if he's good and u are bad..................".

---

I very much like Ice9's post 70, and I agree with Goat that Spring needs to get back to this game (about how long before we should start asking for a

prod

?)

[Spolium]

Holy alarm bells, Batman!

Why are you trying to minimize damage for budja?

Both of you are labeling what he claims to have been trying to do ("move us out of the random stage") as generically pro-town, which is a silly idea in the first place because if that is always considered pro-town then the scum will just

do that

to get brownie points

Getting out of the random stage IS generically pro-town, regardless of whether scum initiate it. That doesn't mean that Budja (or anyone who does this) is off the hook - it means that even if it's handled poorly I still view it as a step in the right direction.

but at least goat broke down the flaws in budja's actions and pointed out the possible scum motivation for them. You just blandly agree with the assessment that trying to end the random stage is pro-town while

trying to get goat to drop the rest of his argument.

I didn't think that it was a terribly productive way to ascertain the reasoning behind Budja's actions, for reasons which I've stated already.

As it stands, I don't think Goat should drop his argument and I better understand his reasoning following our exchange. I

do

think it would have been better to see where Budja went for a little while before jumping on him.

And then you go on about how budja is being anti-town but not scummy... uh, what?

Could there be a more perfect way to try and get your scumbuddy off the hook? And the last line is just a WIFOM mess.

You're saying budja can't be scum because scum wouldn't be so sloppy. Yeah right.

I think it's important to make a distinction between the two, since townies can easily and unintentionally do things which are anti-town.

Scum actively try to avoid appearing anti-town - I've found this to be universal. To say my comment is "a WIFOM

mess

" is something of an exaggeration.

I'm not sure that this is a fair question. When trying to provoke discussion, it's impossible to determine exactly

what

sort of discussion is going to arise (particularly so in a game where everyone is second-guessing themselves/others, and scum are waiting to pounce on any careless townie).

In order to answer your question, Budja would have to blindly speculate about what

might

arise from a provocative vote, and such speculation would be easy to criticise. I mean, what answer could Budja give you here which you would even accept as valid?

And you just keep going on the budja cover-up

, fielding a question for him by means of trying to get it disqualified. What you've essentially said here is that budja can't answer this question without implicating himself, so he shouldn't answer it at all.

Not quite. My point was that he couldn't answer the question in a meaningful way, nor could anyone. He had already explained his motives as being "to apply pressure" and "to spark discussion", so the only way he could expand upon this would be to guess how a group of individuals (most of whom he hasn't played with before) would react to either of these. He would basically be guessing, and be open to criticism not in the sense that he would be implicated, but in that there would be no "right" answer to give.

Don't get me wrong - I'd like to see a fuller explanation from Budja too. I'm just aware of the fact that he made plays like this as a townie in another game; he seemed to be wishy-washy and vague, was the prime suspect for an entire day, came ridiculously close to a lynching and ended up being the guy who zeroed in on the scum.

So

what you're trying to tell me is that budja looks scummy

No, I don't think he looks particularly scummy. Where did you get that idea?

but he's actually secretly the best player we have

so we shouldn't lynch him. Well,

at least you're getting creative in your protection now.

My argument was that in my experience Budja has played like this as town, and to say that he's proven himself perceptive and capable where necessary is a far cry from claiming he's the best player we have.

I

really

don't like this. Your flagrant misrepresentation of my arguments (not to mention loaded language - see the bold text in the above quotes) concerns me a great deal. Aggressive play is one thing, but it looks like you're just casting suspicion around in the hopes that something will stick (not to mention throwing your vote at an existing case without contributing anything of substance).

Oh, and this seems relevant as well:

WolfBlitzer's prolonged absence in the face of my suspicion is mighty convenient for him. He seems to have dropped off of everybody's radar altogether.

This was the last game in which WolfBlitzer posted (on 31/01/09), and

he hasn't posted elsewhere since then

, even in his other active game.

This is a ridiculously insidious way to drum up suspicion against someone.

WHOOPS I GUESS I'M PROTECTING WOLFBITZER NOW TOO, RIGHT?

Unvote, Vote: Ice9

[Spolium]

EBWOP:

This is a ridiculously insidious way to drum up suspicion against someone.

Omit "ridiculously" from the above. It's a relic from my initial draft and doesn't really make sense in the current context.