Firstly, all three of your votes are against relatively "easy targets" - by which I mean, they were doing things that other people had already found or were already finding suspicious
I don't pick my targets on how "easy" they are. I pick them as I see scumtells. Are you saying I should have no voted for any of those people because it is "too easy?" They were exhibiting scumtells, so I went after them. Are you saying that because I voted for people for the same reasons as other people, (in this case 2-4 people max) that I am bandwagoning?
To be fair, though, you and ProHawk said the same thing, and ProHawk said it first, but I was suspicious of ProHawk too. He responded in a way that cleared my suspicion. You have not; you have only expanded my suspicion of you in the rest of your actions today.
How did he respond?
What I was really getting at is that you've picked easy targets so far, and your only major contribution was your Human_Destroyer vote, which I find a little unsettling as H_D made a post that, in his mind, may (assuming he's town-aligned) have been a very valuable post for the newer players in our latest game.
Wait, what? You've changed subjects. This started as me going after "easy targets," but now because I went after
HD after
HD made a post that would be helpfulto new players? You imply that the nature and context of his post is irrelavent, but rather implying that because of the content of his post, I was wrong to vote him.
Regardless, discussion was started by this vote and wagon, which is exactly what we want to do as townies. So your Human_Destroyer vote, taken alone, isn't suspicious.
Just to throw out there, the vote/wangon for
Vablakes and
vegitalian started disscussion, but you didn't point that out.
Vablakes is where it begins to get a little fishy. I like how boldly you present a one-sentence post that consists of "You're using terminology well therefore I don't think you're a newb" (I'm paraphrasing, yes, you expressed less certainty than that) as your evidence of "But I was already suspicious of Vablakes!" I don't think I have to explain in detail why #309 is an interesting observation but hardly a scumtell. The idea that he is new but tried to read up on terminology so he knows what's going on is much too reasonable.
Your actual vote for Vablakes was - paraphasing again here - essentially on the grounds of "He's admitting to his mistakes too easily and that looks scummy to me." Sure, this is a new point of view that no one else has taken on Vablakes... but I think that's just because it's not really a valid argument against him. He's a new player (by his account but also by the account of others in the game by now), he screwed up, and he makes the good townie move: rather than getting super defensive and drawing further attention to himself, he owns up to his mistake and tries to play better instead. He fails at first, but, we're reading his actions, not his success, and though some actions might have spelled scum to me, "I'm sorry I misspoke" certainly wasn't one of those things.
How about you don't paraphrase my words, and quote them instead.
Unvote: Human Destroyer
Vablakes is looking fishy, the 3rd or 4th time he said he "had no excuse for xxx" it started to look less like a person making bad plays with a person trying to cover up his misplays. He didn't get defensive, he got submissive, admitting to everyone that they were right and he was playing bad. It strikes me as trying to play to their ego almost. Even when he defeneded himself he wrote with a very submissive tone.
I also don't like how he posted "i'm going to reveal guys." without the reveal. That implies he needs to buy time before me posts it. I don't like it, not at all.
Vote: Vablakes
Convice me otherwise and I'll unvote you.
He's a new player (by his account but also by the account of others in the game by now), he screwed up, and he makes the good townie move: rather than getting super defensive and drawing further attention to himself, he owns up to his mistake and tries to play better instead. He fails at first, but, we're reading his actions, not his success, and though some actions might have spelled scum to me, "I'm sorry I misspoke" certainly wasn't one of those things.
First off, i want to be clear on something, I could care less if a player is new or not, I don't afford them any handicaps. If they are playing scummy, then I call them out. Stop trying to use "he's new" as an excuse. That vet vs newb crap won't fly with me. You are paraphrasing my words and trying to use my current situation to make all the people I voted for seem like victims. Second, you just flat out said that it's ok for him to play terribly and create scenarios that read scumtell because he's new and he owned up to his mistakes....and what, I should not have voted for him for acting scummy? You yourself just called his actions scummy. I didn't vote for him because he "mispoke." Read my post, DO NOT twist my words, DO NOT take what I say out of context. That is why I told you not to paraphrase, to quote me. I voted for him for continued misplays, evasivness in defending any of his actions and submissivness in accepting everything his critics were grinding him for. That is combined with the fact that he said "I'm going to reveal guys, but not yet." That's the kind of panic mode you go into when you are really worried about something. He had barely any voted at all when he did that, so yeah, I thought he was bing scummy.
Let's say jpulice isn't scum: do I still find your vegitalian vote suspicious? A little. He's another very easy target. Another player(s) already pointed out that he's been playing a little weird. He's also another self-proclaimed new player - is H_D new??? - and has been making some simple errors that didn't add up to any really firm scumtell, just enough to earn suspicion. You started a major campaign against him, yeah, but a campaign that consisted of bullying, riling-up, and arguing that I've already made very clear I found distasteful at best.
You find my
vegitalian vote suspisious? Because another player had already pointed it out? Because he's new? Because he has made no scumtells?
So you don't find
vegitalian suspisious. Is that what I am reading? Did you ignore all the evidence I placed on him. Did you ignore how he responded to me? Clearly you did. You seem very intent to go after me for HOW I conversed with him, rather than what was said. So let's see, by your own words I msade my case "consisting of bullying, riling-up, and arguing "
Should I not have argued? How do you play this game without arguing? Bullying? By all accounts he was encouraging it, calling e a wolf, ignoring my points, OMGUSing (indirectly) people who targeting him...(these are all things you have yet to address). I was simply tearing his arguments to shreds, I hardly call it bullying. Riling-up? You are right, next time I'll calmly ask him if he is a wolf and when he says no, I'll thank him for his time and leave.
On that note, I'm really interested in how YOU responded to this whole
vegitalian situation.
Not long after I made my initial posts against him you posted:
yay I'm not crazy for thinking vegitalian is suspicious. Gotta stop putting off homework and stuff now, but I thought I'd do this much at least.
got my eyes on you jpulice. Unvote: jpulice ;; Vote: vegitalian
Let's see where this takes us!
Wait a darn second....that contradicts what you JUST posted:
Let's say jpulice isn't scum: do I still find your vegitalian vote suspicious? A little. He's another very easy target. Another player(s) already pointed out that he's been playing a little weird. He's also another self-proclaimed new player - is H_D new??? - and has been making some simple errors that didn't add up to any really firm scumtell, just enough to earn suspicion. You started a major campaign against him, yeah, but a campaign that consisted of bullying, riling-up, and arguing that I've already made very clear I found distasteful at best.
However you quickly shift gears, do a complete 180 and post this:
This is ridiculous. At this rate you two are going to create some absurd number of full pages of uselessness that will destroy any attempt at useful conversation. We have four to five full days of discussion left before we need to come to a decision, and you are going to prevent that discussion from taking place.
AT, you are a smug little troll-child on a playground. Cut it out, I'd have expected better from you. Vegitalian, quit while you might still have some semblance of hope left.
Unvote: Vegitalian
Now what's going on here. I thought you found
Vegitalian suspicious? Why are you unvoting him? He's in no danger of a vote that ends the day early? Why do you want him to stop talking, that's seem counter productive to this whole "information" thing. I also am curious, do you think the ENTIRE conversation I had with
Vegitalian is useless, including all the scumtells he made, and all the points I made to prove he was a wolf? Absured number of pages? Hyperboli much? We argued for like 2-3 pages....hardly cluttering anything. And wait, did you just say that I was destroying any attempt at useful conversation? When did I go out of my way to STOP people from talking about anything else other than
Vegitalian? Never that's when, as stated before, the lack of conversation on OTHER topics has nothing to do with me and
Vegitalian arguing. What do you find to be useful conversation exactly? For me, grinding scum is useful, but you disagree.
Next we have this, I cut up this post to deal with it more effectively:
At this point I'm not even seeing you as scum, AT. I'm seeing you as dangerous and immature. Cut it out.
Wait, that’s not what you just said right here:
Assuming
jpulice IS scum, which I already know is a bad assumption to make, but ASSUMING that,
Absoltrainer reads strong scum to me, and otherwise reads low-medium scum. My reasoning is
here. The post itself isn't important -but scroll up. Immediately before this otherwise very abrupt subject change, jpulice was doing his acting-weird-and-trying-to-come-off-as-aggressive-townie thing.
IF jpulice is scum and
IF he was pressuring me because he felt threatened by me, then Absoltrainer might have tried to change the subject forcefully to defend a valuable ally, then gone on a massive two-page tirade against Vegitalian in order to try to drive the discussion out of our minds. This is an argument based on assumption, so I can't act on it, but it's one that I can't help but find very interesting. If it had just been the sudden "I'm going to vote Vegitalian" and then nothing else, I might not have been so intrigued. It's that, in combination with last night's argument, that has me worried.
If jpulice is
not scum, I still read moderate scum on Absoltrainer just because so far as I've been able to see his votes have all been "I'm late on the bandwagon guys!" except Vegitalian, and I had mentioned twice already that I found him suspicious (I don't think I'm the only one). Further, AT's posts are all combatative and are either directly responding to other members in a primarily defensive way, or trying to rile them up in a more hostile aggressive way. He posted
a fairly well-intentioned post that, taken alone, isn't fishy, but Vablakes is such an easy target and there were already FOUR other votes on him in that page. Similar logic followed for AT's vote on Human_Destroyer; it was one of the first major scumhunting posts we had, but think about where the discussion has taken us from there and how disorienting it must have been for the people H_D
might have intended to help (if he was town).
All in all AT's play is easy for me to place as strong wolf play, but harder for me to imagine as strong town play. I don't like anything about that.
Now this would imply that between these two posts, I did something that made you change your mind, but ALL of your evidence is from events PRIOR to the first post where you said you weren’t seeing me as scum, which implies conflicted feeling when you made that post. Even more interesting is this link with
jpulic. If
jpulice is a scum, I’m a wolf, if he isn’t a scum, I’m still a wolf. What’s the connection between me and
jpulice? It appears your ONLY connection is that
jpulice made a post you found scummy and then instead of attacking
jpulice (for a post I did not find scummy) I went after
Vegitalian who I found scummy. Other than that baseless argument, you offer no reason for my connection to
jpulice
I love this part especially:
Similar logic followed for AT's vote on Human_Destroyer; it was one of the first major scumhunting posts we had, but think about where the discussion has taken us from there and how disorienting it must have been for the people H_D might have intended to help (if he was town).
If my post was one of the first major “scumhunting posts” we had, then doesn’t that contradict what you said when you called it a “bandwagon post?” My favorite part is where you say that I was disorienting people
HD wanted to help. Haha, so what you are saying is that BECAUSE
HD’s post could help new players (regardless if he is town [you even say “if he is town]), I should not go after him because it would confuse the people he is trying to help? What?
We learned a lot about Vegitalian from his responses to pressure. We stopped learning things around the time he said he didn't care, and you embarked on this battle of utter fluff that has taught me only that you don't seem to have any regard for collateral damage, or the need of momentum to maintain active scumhunting. I'd be surprised if you really didn't understand this, so I hold out hope that there was some obscure purpose to your banter.
What collateral damage? I don’t have the momentum or need to maintain active scumhunting? Isn’t that what I was doing when Iwas grilling
Vegitalian for information? Battle of fluff? I’ve learned a LOT about
Vegitalian. I have also learned a lot about those around him. Maybe you stopped reading after he said “I don’t care,” but I started reading even more intently AFTER he said that. He more or less incriminated himself, and kept talking, that’s about as awesome of a situation as you can get. You bet your ratatta I’m going to press the advantage.
You did do something wrong: you continued to defend yourself when there was nothing worth defending against. As a townie, you do not fear his offense (...right? Didn't you make that point against him earlier? scumpoints++?) I'd be amazed if you actually felt a need to respond for the sake of your livelihood in the game. I can appreciate that you were enjoying yourself, but at some point, it needed to end.
I have nothing to fear from wolves, I stated this many times. Wait…are you trying to say that BECAUSE I defending myself against him, that it makes me look scummy? What? What needs to end? Our conversation? Consiering that you un-voted
Vegitalian, it would imply that the conversation is NOT over because you DON’T think
Vegitalian is a wolf for some reason. You don’t even bother to defend
Vegitalian, rather get upset at me for “being too mean to him.”
He should stop this pointless debate, bide his time, and respond once he's had a chance to collect his thoughts. That is exactly what he is doing.
Actually if he’s scummy we should keep pressing him and see what he says…letting him bide his time, and plan his moves is the opposite of what we want. Speaking of which,
Vegitalian, I am sure you are reading this, I have not forgotten what you said. You said you were going to counter my points today, I expect to see it:
I will counter your points tomorrow, when I have more energy.
Oh, we agree on what would be useful, it's just that you are characterizing a conversation as "finding and accusing a suspicious person of being a wolf" when it's actually a game-within-a-game for you. You feel so comfortable and confident in your logic that you don't feel any need to hold back or reserve yourself. Well, so do the rest of us. You don't need to hammer it in any further. We get it. We'd like to talk about something else and make use of the rest of the game day.
If “we get it,” then why did you un-vote
Vegitalian, and then later say you found my vote strange:
Let's say jpulice isn't scum: do I still find your vegitalian vote suspicious? A little.
It was useless because nothing new and helpful was being said. I thought that was obvious.
Clearly then, you stopped reading the posts, because there has been a LOT of new and useful information since then. I learned a lot, if you did not, that is your loss
I can't wait for you to try to go back and justify individual portions of your posts with him that were relevant. Maybe you will really have a point, but more likely, you'll just decide I am your new playmate. But I've better things to do. Like hunt NEW scum.
I don’t post for the sake of posting. Also wait…hunt new scum? You don’t even think
vegitalian is old scum, you unvoted him, you called my vote for him strange, and now you are saying you don’t find him scummy!
Firstly, to Eclipse. I'm less suspicious of Vegitalian now. He seems like a victim of poor early gameplay. He was really goaded into a lot of negative or subpar responses by AT, so I don't want to read too strongly into their exchange yet. (Also it's painful to read, as you noted.)
Curious how you found space to throw in a quip about me in there. Wait a second….
He was really goaded into a lot of negative or subpar responses by AT, so I don't want to read too strongly into their exchange yet
Are you making assumption and conclusion based on a conversation you just admitted to NOT HAVING STRONGLY READ YET?
Major QFT. This is exactly why I feel AT's huge firestorm with Vegitalian was a waste of our time.
Hunting scum is NOT a waste of time.
2. Vote: Absoltrainer. Because I'm hesitant to vote, but it's becoming clear that that is a fault and not a strength.
3. I don't want to commit to believing in Vegitalian's innocence. I am voting and pressuring with the intent of gathering information, not making a lynch. Give it another day or two and I'll start thinking about serious lynch targets. If it pleases you, this basically amounts to: I don't HAVE a case for his innocence, I'm just interested in AT's play now that I've seen more of it and want to examine that rather than beat a probably-not-dead-but-unconscious horse.
You don't have a case for his innocence….well if you can’t find one, doesn’t that imply that I am right, and he is a wolf? You want to pressure vote me? I guarantee you; one vote for me does not scare me in the least.
4. When I refer to a pressure/vote target being "easy", I mean that that player is making scummy plays that are so obvious that virtually everyone sees them. The town goes after these people naturally, making it "easy" to target them. That doesn't necessarily make them bad options, but it's important to remember that bad play does not make someone a wolf immediately, which is a trap I think towns fall into too easily D1 and D2. A "hard" target would then be one that you find by examining interactions and 'reading between the lines' as it were. AT is the closest thing I have personally to a hard target right now.
This completely contradicts what you said before. This with you earlier information stands to say that you are saying that BECAUSE I voted for people who are quote “making scummy plays that are so obvious that virtually everyone sees them” that this somehow makes me bandwagony and scummy. By your definition, all three of my votes were “hard-targets” (see this post:
http://pokegym.net/forums/showpost.php?p=2363594&postcount=480 ) , I made my case by examining interactions and reading between the lines. Then you go on to call me a hard target. What have I done that’s scummy? Nothing, you’re only case against me is that I’m being a meanie.
I don't really see the game in terms of "easy" people vs "hard" people.
Then do NOT use it as an argument against me.
