WW16: The Outlaws and The Olives

[novice]

Ichabod = 3 /\/\ 0 /\/ 1 0 7 4 1

Injera #1466 =

Ichabod's emotional, is that what you're saying?

[Meiz]

Fork

[uberfish]

Haven't reread anything yet but Injera seems to have degenerated into general whining this morning. You know, pretty much everyone else on the wrong side of Thestick's lynch has been attacked too and the response hasn't been to moan about how mean their attackers are being about it :/

Someone mentioned pressuring Selrahc. I think it's pretty obvious that's not actually going to do anything and he's going to remain in his current null-to-scummy state until (at least) Wednesday. On the other hand he's also very little threat as far as scum vote manipulation goes. Since if he pops up and throws some last minute suspicious vote, he'd obviously be lynched given his play so far. I also think as lurkers go Arromir is currently worse and I'd prefer his lynch if we go that direction.

Btw if we have a vigilante - we're reaching a point where we have too many people not contributing to the game, please start shooting some because we're automatically going to lose in endgame if the lurkers are all still alive and lurking by then and I'd bet the game on at least one of the lurkers being scum in any case.

Rowain is just always like this. When I said he was easy to read on day 1, I meant that because he shoots from the hip so much that he can't help dropping actual major scum tells at some point if he is scum. See for example the Xcom and FFH games I ran. I've not seen anything to indicate a scum point of view from him so far.

I get mixed signals from catwalk. I thought he was defensive near the start of the game with that 2nd post he made, but he's been a lot more relaxed since then which is usually a village tell. He made some good posts near the end of day 2 but the fact that he seems to be buddying me to the extent of copying my entire suspect list today (with the post where he highlighted Sareln voters) is... weird.

[Meiz]

@uberfish #1, Fork

[Lewwyn]

I've started going through posts, but I saw the recent stuff and I just wanted to clarify, as I said before, that I do not want to go after Catwalk because of his GG post.

Catwalk also says:

Lewwyn, what exactly do you suspect me for? I'll remind you that you've found me scummy in just about every game we've played together (and the same has gone the other way, although I have tempered myself lately).

I've tempered myself as well. I have been holding back on voting for you mostly because I am aware I often suspect you of being a wolf. So yes I'm going to be careful about it this afternoon and go over the things I find scummy.

Injera:

No, that's not it. It's not Catwalk being Catwalk, it's a person that looks unreasonable on the surface, but if you look at everything in a line it fits a reasonable pattern.

This confuses me. Catwalk is an unreasonable person and as such his unreasonableness fits a reasonable pattern. This does not surprise me. My point as you will see is that I believe this is all part of his wolf plan. And the reasonableness truly is reasonableness that is being faked.

I get that the piggybacking is bad, especially if you're going to ignore it when you choose. It's anti-village. And God knows I despise the idea of throwing off independent thought, which is why I read that the same way you did. But big picture I'm not seeing anything that says, "This guy is a wolf" as opposed to, "this guy is an earnest villager." Maybe I'm grading on a scale.

Maybe you're grading on a scale? MAYBE? So Catwalk decides to "give up independent thought" then decides to have independent thought when it suits him. And that doesn't ring an alarm bell? A wolf would love to be able to simply say I'm not going to contribute to cover any lazy voting. But then he also get's to pick and choose when his lazy voting is covered? Come on man!

Let's look at a few of Catwalk's defense posts (I'm using the scrapper so I don't have the links to the posts in here but I'll put the post # in there so you can find them):

Ugh, not nice putting me on the spot like that. I tend to piggyback other people's suspicions after a few mostly confirmed townies have been identified. In this case, I'm inclined to trust the judgements of zakalwe + novice + Bigger + Mattimeo. I somehow always put myself in a situation where people think I'm either a wolf or just incredibly wrong, which puts a bit of a damper on my enthusiasm to go hunting. I wish I could say they were wrong

This post here happens BEFORE Catwalk claims to ditch independent thought. Thing is it reads a lot like a defense of the coming statement. Now he's basically saying, yeah I'm inclined to trust people I think are innocent. You know we've all done that. Thing is wolves have also all done that, in fact, that's the most likely place to find wolves. Following other people, lurking. I'm not suggesting Catwalk is a lurker, but he himself is suggesting he's following.

I ditched independent thinking a while back. I like the cases against Q and Ichabod (although I think they're highly unlikely to both be wolves, far too indiscreet by Q) and would like to hear their responses to current accusations.

The post that made my mind explode. There's no WAY a wolf says this. Right? That's sort of the point.

To clarify, I never intended to simply follow you everywhere. I think I explicitly stated that in an earlier post where I addressed my piggybacking. My argument was that in absence of any reads of my own, it made more sense to me to follow the lead of a mostly established townie (is your head going to explode yet TT?). I did have a read on Azza, as I thought it extremely peculiar how he got minimal attention with practically no activity day 1 and nothing with any substance day 2. I still think that's a good read, and I'm still wondering why noone picked up on it.

Mnnnn yeah, you actually did specifically say you were throwing away independent thought, and in the earlier post you simply mentioned piggybacking confirmed townies so that you didn't actually have to wolf hunt because it makes you look scummy (#614). But, oh right, there is this little loophole I forgot to mention about my intentions.

Ichabod questions Catwalk about this and Catwalk replies:

Following novice's lead doesn't necessarily mean backing every single vote he makes. About Selrahc (and someone else I didn't follow him on as well), I responded to that earlier when novice inquired about the same thing. Anything specific you find contradictory about this?

Right you answered novice's question about this, now where was that? Oh right, the response to novice is the exact one Ichabod questioned you about and now you are referring Ichabod back to that same post (#1118) to answer the questions he had about that post. Everyone got that? (I can't believe we actually have a smilie for this.)

So is there anything specifically contradictory about these two posts? I can't say that there's anything contradictory but then that wasn't what Ichabod was asking:

There's something strange with your reasoning here, Catwalk. You said that following a mostly established townie is a good thing to do, in your opinion, when you don't have a lead on anyone. Than you say you have a good lead, a lead that you still thinks is good. So, how does this fares with you following Novice, then not following him and voting Azza (your good lead) and then following him again? It's hard not to make a connection with the player that Novice voted that you didn't follow (Selrahc, if I remember correctly).

He's right. Why does Catwalk only Sometimes vote with novice and then when novice switches off, suddenly Catwalk decided to follow his lead, but when novice switches again suddenly Catwalk's lead isn't good enough anymore so he switches to follow novice again? And instead of answering this question, Catwalk directs him back to the post that Ichabod is questioning about.

So how does this fit into my overall argument about Catwalk? Let me give you the thesis now since I've already started in this post:

Catwalk is playing a dangerous game. He is deliberate in his actions and much of it is planned. He's extremely self-conscious of how scummy his actions will make him look and so he's always defending his actions as he makes them. He's also always falling back on the "its my style" argument whenever the "a wolf wouldn't do that" argument fails.

An example that ties into the above line of postings occurs just 5 posts after he clarifies for novice why he's piggybacking but not really.

Injera, I have been around a lot today and checked this thread a lot, but I did do other things as well. Around the time of those exchanges, Civ4 and preparing dinner were high on my list. And I had to run off for a bank meeting for 2h. I did notice novice switching to Ichabod, but Ichabod was defending himself pretty fiercely around that time. When I switched back to pindicator it actually had nothing to do with novice, it was uberfish bringing up pindicator's reaction test which I thought sounded like a decent argument.

That said, I don't think I'm at risk of hanging and I'm tired of defending myself. My style is a bit unorthodox (and seems to attract a fair bit of suspicion), but I don't think my actions show me as scummy at any point this game. When thestick was being strung up, I did nothing (that I recall) to divert attention away from him or defend him earlier on the day. Only when I saw a really big push for him with little competition did I start becoming wary, and convinced that he was being set up. Many have agreed it was incredible how easily thestick went down, and attribute it to either bussing, inactivity or experience (or a mix).

I have cooled down a bit from being annoyed earlier though, and I'm still playing to win. I do not intend to hang around piggybacking, although I maintain that it's not a bad play if you have little to go on yourself. Part of my frustration was also the information overload from having 26 players in the game, that should get better soon.

I know noone really asked for this, but here you have it anyway. If anyone wants to accuse me on grounds of something substantial I'll address it, if I get more crap from people who don't like my style I will most likely ignore it.

1) The "I'm tired of defending but really I'm not tired defense", with an added bonus of "its my style"!

2) The "everyone else thinks so too" argument.

3) The "emotional stress" argument is one of my favorites because basically Catwalk is saying he was all riled up earlier, but ok it all right, he's calming down now! I looked back for any sign of Catwalk getting riled up or upset. Here are the 3 posts of his that come before this one and his response to novice:

Welcome back novice So, did you fake it?

I'm inclined to believe Waterbat's claim, and I don't think he would have posted at all if he was scum. Noone was expecting him to post, the safe thing to do as scum was to simply check in later and offer the same excuse.

It would actually be hilarious if a wolf fakes a post restriction tomorrow Scum, I dare you!

So 2 out of three are joky and smiliy. Maybe he's hiding his aggression somewhere else, but for me all I see is him deciding to use it now in this pretty chock full defense to hit an emotional nerve as well. It's a brilliant post that is a preemptive defense for the next day. He's concious of the votes and he's throwing everything out there. Why do I say preemptive?

4) This is the big one and the reason I suspect Catwalk. Here he is telling us his whole defense and noone asked for it he's simply giving it to us to cool the tensions and head off votes. We read it with all the defense we hit the emotional edge, we feel sorry and then we say it wasn't ACTUALLY a defense because no one was really attacking him and, duh, it was at night.

Is this what you mean by a reasonable emotional line Injera?


Hey fun thing about PRs, remember that post about I mentioned earlier? :

It would actually be hilarious if a wolf fakes a post restriction tomorrow Scum, I dare you!

And then you remember what Catwalk said the moment Meiz posted for the first time?

Oh look, Meiz is faking a posting restriction too! This one seems to be different, though. Meiz, can you tell us anything about what you're allowed to type?

And After Meiz posts again:

I think I will pass, I'm not into seafood. Can you type anything else?

Right. SO is Catwalk being Catwalk? Is he being obtuse? Or is it on purpose? Is he painting Meiz to be scum from during the night forward?
-"Hey wolves fake a restriction."
-"Hey Meiz you must be a wolf with that restriction, lol Jk Jk, I kid, but here's some dirt on you when you can't really talk anyway."

As I'm reading back the whole thing strikes me as WTF sketchy. Would a wolf do that? If he thought it added to the "a wolf would never do that" defense I think he would.

And that's the reason I can't sit back anymore. You have the incredibly staged opening and scummy follow up post. You have my original WTF post that I've quoted in other places where Catwalk insinuates Gaspar is trying to get him lynched because he sees an opening or a weakness while at the same time referencing and likening it to a conspiracy theory about aliens and the pyramids.:

I don't see why you'd call that anything but a joke vote, that's the definition of a joke vote. Your comment in parenthesis strikes me as peculiar, especially after you later clarify that you had a little gem of an insight after someone else started throwing some mud my way. I made a brief post, easy to analyze and probably easily attracting attention. Did the little gem happen after it looked like there was an opening to have me lynched? Is it a coincidence that it happened right as you got two votes on you? Could it be (as Ancient Alien Astronaut theory suggests) that the Pyramids were built by extra-terrestrials? You have much to answer for Gaspar!

All it did was create confusion and IMO it set a baseline and it helped counteract the more planned opening to make catwalk seem even crazier. From that point on he can just point back to that and say, oh yeah that's my style. I say its your plan Catwalk.

[novice]

Really? As far as I see I have answered your accusations and the questons. But do what you want try to lynch me but for someone who loved to run his mouth how stupid various villagers were your play isn't any better. So when ever you lurk after this game STFU in the luker-thread you ain't so good & smart as you paint yourself in them.

Rowain, the aim of this game is not to get mislynched so that you can sit back in the lurker thread and tell everyone how smart you are. If that's your aim, at least try to get night killed instead.

[novice]

Fork

So what does Ichabod being emotional say about his scumminess? And same question regarding Rowain. Answer with smilies.

[Lewwyn]

FYI going out to dinner soon and then we're going to this hot dog restaurant where you go into the bathroom, push a button, the wall slides open and there's an oldtimey secret bar. A speakeasy if you will. I will have my fully charged phone.

[Meiz]

@novice, Lobster...

Injera #1466 =

+ #1474 = Injera Bananas?!

[uberfish]

Injera reread...

day 1

Defends catwalk on meta. Attacks gaspar for attacking catwalk.
Defends thestick on meta. Decides bigger is scummy for sheeping zak against thestick. Votes bigger fairly early. For the record I have no problem with this line of argument since I had a gut feeling that thestick was a mislynch too.

day 2

Reevaluates everything. Points out that sareln and I were on both counter-stick wagons. Votes sareln. Doesn't comment on what this says about my alignment at all although my voting profile has been very similar to that of sareln. Odd. (If Injera's scum this might be because he thinks sareln is an easier target than me.)

Decides sareln is actually scum hunting. Flips to ichabod because Ichabod hasn't moved on to "big" tells and is being defensive. I don't think injera has really spent much time discussing "big" ideas in d2 either though like whether the counter-stick wagons were scum moves, whether there's bussing or not etc.

Talks about catwalk and reactions to catwalk a lot.

Reacts to every death post with "oh <good/bad>, thanks for playing <player X>", is this a standard injera thing?

day 3

as I mentioned earlier complaining about people being mean feels a bit out of place, since back at #1282 he's already agreed his d2 play wasn't great


Evaluation: moderately suspicious