In post 5578, Enter wrote:mcqueen is scum. His response to being wagoned is not only anti-town, it's pro-scum - let me explain.
Most pushes include three parties - the accuser, the defendant, and the impartial third. The accuser believes a member of town is mafia, and pushes their lynch. The defendant is that party and any one who believes that party is town, and thus defends their lynch. The impartial third is the group of players who aren't particularly convinced one way or another.
The accuser wants, as town, to not force the lynch through if the lynch is on town. Their goal is to push the defendant until a reasonable doubt can be presented as evidence that the defendant is town. The mark of an accuser who is scum is the player who does not fully know, explain, or care for their case and wants the lynch more than they want the alignment of the player.
The defendant wants, as town, to be recognized as town, and thus maintains the duty of presenting evidence of their towniness. This should be done by providing counter-points to the accuser's points, addressing arguments where possible, while simultaneously pushing elsewhere, providing reads, and accumulating information for associatives. The mark of a defendent who is scum is a player who does not respond to the accuser's case, who squirms placing the defendant's survival over all else while simultaneously withholding reads and reasoning (the latter is important, a list of names means barely nothing when you're being pushed) and a player who sits there and allows the wagon to grow. This is because scum can rely on two things - the fact that town want to be correct in their lynch on town and the paranoia of such a town to disassemble the wagon over time as long as it is ignored, and the ability of their scum partner to push this paranoia over the edge until another player is lynched. A scum player does not want to respond to the accuser's points and does not want to try to provide evidence as to their towniness, because that keeps the attention on them, and the more words spoken as a mafia player, the more likely you are to be found out, especially when the spot light is on you. A wagon that disassembles as the player addresses the points made against them is often a wagon on town (because the player can maintain the town-oriented mindset for the entirety of the time the spotlight is on them and it will be easier to refute points made against them due to the fact that they are town) and a wagon that disassembles as the player ignores the wagon is often a wagon on scum (because the scum does not want to respond to that wagon, the more they do, the more likely they are to slip and when they are lynched, the more associatives will be revealed).
The impartial third party wants, as town, to recognize who is town and who is scum in the exchange, and thus maintains the duty of fact checking and verifying any evidence provided both ways. Response without reason is the mark of scum responding here, jumping opportunistically, etc.
mcqueen did not really respond to his wagon with reason. He did not try to disassemble it, he sat and let it fall apart. There was no attempt to better town, only a few moments of rage (that TBH felt a bit fake to me, but I won't worry about that right now because it's not part of the overarching idea of this post) and then silence. There was no attempt to prove his towniness, no attempt to scum hunt in any other direction, no attempt to help clear things up in the obviously clouded minds of his accusers. He sat and hid, hoping the wagon would fall apart and knowing that if it did there would be no associatives coming from his slot because he did not respond to it at all.
I made this post not because I was particularly scared mcqueen is town, but on the rare chance that he is, I'd really like to see town improve. I've seen a lot of town do anti-town things in response to being wagoned - especially responding with large amounts of AtE (which doesn't build up town in any way, only makes people feel bad), and even sometimes seen people do pro-scum things in response to being wagoned (the first newbie I replaced into when coming back to site was like this). I think a generally better mindset as to how you should respond to being pushed when being wagoned will make these games a bit easier on everyone and maybe we'll get a little bit less outrage at being pushed and a little more sensible responses.
