The Nerjin/Remuthra ConnectionIn which I give my promised analysis of Nerjin and Remuthra's interactions to help establish just how suspicious we should be of TheWetSheep.Their first interaction is a softball question from Nerjin:
@Remuthra: You seem to be enjoying yourself. Do you feel that superBlast is merely putting on airs and trying to buddy or is he simply jovial?
If Nerjin were scum, this would be a nice beginning to setting up Superblast as the fall guy. Remuthra's next few posts don't answer the question, and then:
First off, Remuthra, you seem to worry about getting killed. Scum don't wanna die really badly, you know? Since there is so few of them, death affects them a hell a lot more then townies. That's the reason you wanna stay alive right?
I'm not picking on you, I'm really not, but this is flawed logic. No one wants to die in this game. It's similar to being a politician and getting elected. All the good intentions in the world do you no favors if you're dead [or not elected for the metaphor.] When someone is threatened with death they will try to put up a defense. This defense is how we actually catch the scum.
Then Nerjin stands up for Remuthra against Superblast (a now confirmed town member). On its own this isn't too suspicious as he makes a fair point. Will we find anything worse?
Their next interaction is Nerjin's speedy reply to Remuthra's newbie question:
By the way, what does WIFOM stand for?
Wine in front of me. Check common abbrevitions under the OP.
Note that Nerjin never follows up his initial question to Remuthra that went unanswered.
Then comes Remuthra's Ultimate Scum Tell, where he says he's going to kick back and let everyone else do the hard work:
Not too experienced with the subtleties of random voting, and I personally trust you to be town, so I'm cool to just sit here until I see something suspicious.
Nerjin posts immediately afterwards, starting with a small attack on Superblast:
First off... man I hate not using edit.
First off, Remuthra, you seem to worry about getting killed. Scum don't wanna die really badly, you know? Since there is so few of them, death affects them a hell a lot more then townies. That's the reason you wanna stay alive right?
No, the reason is I played in the SC2 version, and it wasn't the best community. You got lynched a lot for arbitrary reasons, and nobody likes randomly being killed.
Seriously? That's kinda stupid... I mean the reasons part, not the not wanting to die part. Also i have no idea what SC2 is... well if it's not important then don't worry explaining it to me. Anyways your off the hook from me for now, back to random voting.
"That's a stupid reason. I'm going to unvote you." Doesn't make sense to me.
(I've tried to neaten up the broken quote pyramid from the original. Let me know if I made a mistake here.)
He doesn't then change his vote to Remuthra or anything like that, but rather he gives Remmie some play advice:
Not too experienced with the subtleties of random voting, and I personally trust you to be town, so I'm cool to just sit here until I see something suspicious.
I refuse to allow this. Lurking doesn't help. You need to pressure those who have not said anything and put even MORE pressure on those who have. Now for that answer me a question: Why do you trust him to be town so early in the game? Do you truly believe lurking will help? What exactly did he say to convince you of his town-ness.
Remmie answers his questions this time:
I refuse to allow this. Lurking doesn't help. You need to pressure those who have not said anything and put even MORE pressure on those who have. Now for that answer me a question: Why do you trust him to be town so early in the game? Do you truly believe lurking will help? What exactly did he say to convince you of his town-ness
First, I would like to point out that was three separate questions.
1. Not quite sure but he seems pretty trustworthy at this stage. That could definately change later.
2. No, but badly formed accusations won't help much either.
But since you insist, hey Spaghetti. How would you best keep the scum from targetting you?
Nerjin replies, giving some helpful advice:
I refuse to allow this. Lurking doesn't help. You need to pressure those who have not said anything and put even MORE pressure on those who have. Now for that answer me a question: Why do you trust him to be town so early in the game? Do you truly believe lurking will help? What exactly did he say to convince you of his town-ness
First, I would like to point out that was three separate questions.
1. Not quite sure but he seems pretty trustworthy at this stage. That could definately change later.
2. No, but badly formed accusations won't help much either.
But since you insist, hey Spaghetti. How would you best keep the scum from targetting you?
Why is he trustworthy? It's a simple question my friend. I understand the first day jitters. Just try to actually answer the question alright? Some people may take that as evasive. You need to be specific, preferable quoting the posts.
It's less of a badly formed accusation and more of a prod into what you should be doing already. Simply a saying "A is B." get's no one anywhere. You need to back up all assertions with "A is B because C."
This isn't a good stance, Remuthra. In a game like this, the only way to be sure of someone else's alignment is to be scum. You also can't just wait for scum to fall into your lap or make a slip; when are you going to start hunting?
PPE: Ninja by Nerjin, but my question remains.]
Double ninja'd, actually. And it's not so much sure of alignment. It's a temporary stance, similar to others taken previously.
Fixed that for ya. Now, I'd like to point out that you have sort've hunted for scum but you need to be more forceful. Think of it as a pyramid. At the base EVERYONE is suspect. Then you narrow out a few based on evidence, then a few more, then you grill someone until they either break or assuage your suspicion. What happens from there is obvious.
Yes. Why so evasive?
I'm not being evasive, I thought your other question was just another way of saying be more serious.
And no, not really.
(SC2 stands for starcraft 2, by the way.)
As I understand it he asked "When are you going to start hunting?" to which you STILL have not provided an answer.
I've highlighted a line where Nerjin seems to go beyond newb-friendly light-pressure to apologism territory.
Then there's a series of clarificatory exchanges:
As I understand it he asked "When are you going to start hunting?" to which you STILL have not provided an answer
He never asked me that.
Not too experienced with the subtleties of random voting, and I personally trust you to be town, so I'm cool to just sit here until I see something suspicious.
This isn't a good stance, Remuthra. In a game like this, the only way to be sure of someone else's alignment is to be scum. You also can't just wait for scum to fall into your lap or make a slip; when are you going to start hunting?
PPE: Ninja by Nerjin, but my question remains.
Not too experienced with the subtleties of random voting, and I personally trust you to be town, so I'm cool to just sit here until I see something suspicious.
This isn't a good stance, Remuthra. In a game like this, the only way to be sure of someone else's alignment is to be scum. You also can't just wait for scum to fall into your lap or make a slip; when are you going to start hunting?
PPE: Ninja by Nerjin, but my question remains.
That one is made invalid because in the post above it I started hunting.
(going to bed now, don't kill me in my sleep)
Finally, Nerjin has enough:
Unvote
Remuthra That is not gonna fly. You avoided the question because it was invalid? Earlier stating that it was never asked at all? I find that unbelievable. Get your story straight before you start trying to get me to believe it.
Could this possibly be distancing? Let's see if he keeps up the pressure.
And then:
Remuthra @ 69: [What part of "no edits" was unclear in the rules?]
... Didn't notice that until you pointed it out. Doesn't he get mod-killed for this?
Curious level of concern? Odd attempted mod-bus? Or just a null tell?
A few pages later though, after Remuthra has said no new thing, he unvotes to vote the completely inactive Lord Al:
Unvote
Lord Allagon to borrow some language "Get your ass off the lurk-train and onto the forum."
Lurking doesn't help anyone. Maybe you think you'll hide in the back and let everyone else hunt scum for you but that doesn't help anyone. You signed up for mafia, I bid ye to at least say hello to us all.
Could this be masking the removal of suspicion from Remuthra by making a reasonable looking pressure vote?
Shakerag rightly pulls him up on this:
Nerjin: [If you have time to poke at lurkers, you have time to poke at active players too.]
While true I feel I've done rather well with the active players. So far nothing is striking me and I'd like, nay desire, nay need, nay demand more input from those who haven't at this point.
And Nerjin clearly implies that Remuthra isn't scummy, forgetting his earlier vote.
Shakerag keeps up the pressure, and Nerjin evades:
And so you're just going to wait for the scumslips to fall into your lap? While resting a (presumably) pressure vote on a lurker? I know you've got some experience under your belt, so what do you think of me calling you out as activelurking scum, Nerjin?
I think you don't truly believe it as I have been rather active and scum-hunting. I think that you're putting that vote on me in order to try to get me to slip up and say something damning.
(
Tiruin, what do you think of this exchange?)
Townmember Spaghetti joins the hunt:
Alright Nerjin, if you feel you've done well against the "active" players, give me your read on them, and reasons.
And Shakerag isn't having any of Nerjin's nonsense:
And, so ... what? You're going to take a break from that now? Established some scum hunting up front so you can activelurk the rest of the day away?
You can "demand" that lurkers post in one hand and shit in the other and see which one fills up faster. In a situation in which nothing is striking me, I start asking everyone questions.
Nerjin finally gives his reads, assembling his mis-case on Superblast, while stating Remmy's probable guilt (and doing nothing about it).
Superblast: Likely either scum or flailing newblet. I say this because he keeps tossing out WIFOM and while I’m not sure which it is, gauging by his behavior in the previous BM [as short as he was] I’m leaning towards Scum. I’m also getting a vibe of him trying to play himself as a victim. Pathological appeal and whatnot. More recently he’s begun to appeal a LOT more via emotional methods. I am always distrustful of emotional appeals.
Remuthra: Far too evasive to be a coincidence. He may actually just not have been paying attention but I’m leaning towards scum as well. As I’ve stated before his ignoring of a question because it was ‘invalid’ is unforgivable. The more I think of it the more scum he appears. Also NO EDITS!!!
Honesty or pre-lynch distancing?
Remuthra apologises:
Again, sorry, I really should have read things more thoroughly. And I am trying to hunt.
And then proceeds to vote for the still-inactive Lord Al, a safe choice:
Lord Al, when should you remove your vote, and when should you press?
Most interestingly, who does Remuthra give his greatest praise to in his list of tells?
Alright then. Here's my suspicions list.
Me- Not sure, pretty suspicious and evasive... [/sarcasm]
Shake- Null, not really posting much.
Nerjin- leaning town, being good and hunting and all that
Irony- leaning town, see above
superBlast- null
Soldier- leaning scum, because so focused on getting me lynched instead of asking questions
Borno- null
LA- leaning scum, because of inactivity combined with being active elsewhere
Spaghetti- null
He paints my wholly inactive predeccessor Lord Al and most-town-like-player The Soldier as 'leaning scum', while saying that Nerjin is 'leaning town, being good and hunting and all that'! I should stress the Remuthra was
not a sophisticated player. I think he might have given the game away here.
Again, Nerjin takes a softly-softly approach to Remuthra:
Again, sorry, I really should have read things more thoroughly. And I am trying to hunt.
No one's gonna get on you if you don't post right away. Take your time to look over your posts and read everything carefully.
Remuthra then leaves Nerjin out of his 'lean list':
Lean List
SB- scum, too much WIFOM, not much good hunting
Irony- town, seems solid, needs to post more
Shakerag- town, seems solid
Spaghetti- slight scum
Soldier- slight town
Both Remuthra and Nerjin leave the game shortly after this with no further interaction. The short lived Flying Dice replaces Remuthra, and Silver Dragon replaces Nerjin. FD sends a gentle question to Silver:
Silver: Care to give us your own little list of suspicions, once you've had a chance to read over the thread?
We should always be suspicious when scum goes overly easy on a player.
Later:
Silver: Still waiting on your list of suspicions. Or anything, really. Why haven't you been posting? I just checked, and you've been online today at the very least.
Irony, NQT: Wake up. Please.
FD pokes Irony and myself broadly, but singles out Silver specifically. An urgent plea for a scumbuddy to appear?
Silver Dice never posts, and TheWetSheep appeared after Spaghetti, Onyx and myself lynched Flying Dice.