OK, cool. That was pretty much as I expected.
Time for a wall post.
If you are hiplop or Rhinox, read at least the first section.
Rhinox/hiplop is town v town. Nacho is town, largely for trying to make them realise that (so Rhinox and Nacho are both town! Hooray!). LS is town a bit for that and more generally for scumhunting. Alice is probably scum.
Rhinox vs. hiplop
I think this is pretty clearly a town v town argument, where hiplop in particular has gone off the rails and started replying to Rhinox assuming he's scum rather than actually answering things. Events as I see them:
- hiplop's early vote on Rhinox is essentially for not believing Rhinox's posting - thinking it was forced, and an attempt to look town. I thoroughly disagree, but don't find it particularly unlikely from town.
- Rhinox replied "yeah, can't really respond to that" - which seems fair - and asked hiplop why he commented repeatedly before Rhinox responded, which is also reasonable. Hiplop's reply was unilluminating.
- hiplop 177 asked if anyone had a deep Nachometa, because Nacho was trying to avoid his meta. I found that a pretty town question and said so at the time - it's the sort of contrived point scum don't make. This continues to be true through hiplop's attacks on Nacho and the Nacho/Rhinox link; hiplop seems to be convincing himself of things, which is something only town can do.
- hiplop 218 seems to think "DDD, Rhinox and Nacho are scummy, and Rhinox and Nacho are connected". If anything, you'd probably say Rhinox > DDD > Nacho from it.
- hiplop 228 is
weird
in its reply to Nacho. He says that his mind is lapsing on the connection between Nacho and Rhinox, and that for why Nacho is scummy he is working on it, having to make a jump on this case and build a "bridge" from Rhinox to Nacho to do it. That's bizarre - it reads an admission that his Nacho hop is forced, and simply doesn't bother to justify the connection that then becomes even more crucial. It doesn't read remotely like hiplop is trying to make his scumhunting sounds good, and it seems really unlikely from scum. I read hiplop as town with a stretched case he's convincing himself of here.
- Rhinox 257 argues with hiplop about Nacho - tbh, I think meta is a really difficult subject and have little idea who is right. Neither side of the argument is nearly wrong enough to be scummy. He also asks why the switch to Nacho; hiplop replied that Nacho had more interest and Rhinox was away.
- Rhinox 266 is the first post that worries me in this exchange. The reasoning isn't very strong at all. Rhinox says that hiplop has moved onto Nacho despite reading Rhinox as #1 scum, and having said "not too long back" that Nacho and DDD were vying for second place. But that's not how I read hiplop at all - he'd made several posts since 218 (where DDD/Nacho was expressed), and they pretty clearly show hiplop plumping on a Nacho/Rhinox scumteam. I don't see anywhere in his posting that Rhinox is comfortably number one, and him going with the flow on Nacho didn't seem at all unnatural.
- hiplop 272 has an air of frustration culminating in a pretty bad dismissal - "Essentially rhinox's points are based on his lack of comprehension, i can't fucking reply to lack of competence". I usually expect these discussions to have gone on for longer, and got rather more ranty, before town start saying things like that. This is the start of hiplop's descent from actually arguing with Rhinox.
- Rhinox 274 clarified, saying that he was concerned about hiplop's dropping of DDD for Nacho/Rhinox. Well, that reads like a change of tack to me - 266 was pretty clearly saying that the problem was that hiplop wasn't going for Rhinox, his #1 scumread. Not particularly scummy - the points are related, and I can see 266 just being a poor expression of Rhinox's views. The new point is much better - DDD dropping off hiplop's radar needs an explanation.
- In 280 and beyond, hiplop is not good at separating "arguing with me" from "scum". He starts accusing Rhinox of using wiki-tells, which is not at all fair, and of just calling Rhinox scum, which is unproductive. I read this as town who gives up arguing with someone because they are convinced they are scum. I can't see scumhiplop doing this tactically. Rhinox's explanation is that scumhiplop has got flustered after being called out by Rhinox - but Rhinox's points just aren't that scary for him. The case is essentially:
a) The move to Nacho, voting the #2 suspect over the #1 suspect - hiplop addressed this, and his posts bear his claims out.
b) The unexplained dropping of DDD; well, hiplop was happy to explain that as soon as
someone else
asked him. He clearly wasn't scared of the point itself, and it was just being asked by Rhinox, who he was convinced was scum, that made him respond badly.
I'm practically certain these two are town. I really understand hiplop's posting - he displays confirmation bias in an unwise but entirely townish way, slowly convincing himself of his grand Nacho/Rhinox theory. Rhinox just reeks of town in this argument and elsewhere. They should really, really take a step back and vote someone else.
Other townies
Nacho reads hiplop/Rhinox wonderfully, and attempts to defuse. He is not scum without one of them, and so he is in fact town. LS does the same to a lesser extent – though he doesn't really explain enough that he's at all likely to help. More to the point, I'm pretty much certain he's trying to catch scum, so he's very likely town.
Alice is scum
Alice's move to hiplop is really bad:
In post 279, Alicewondering wrote: In post 266, Rhinox wrote:Do you think a replacement provides more/better information if they aren't under any pressure, or if they immediately have to face a bandwagon full of voters who found their predecessor scummy?
Townie replacements will certainly have motivation to post better content, but they are likely to become frustrated with being judged on their predecessor's actions. Scum replacements faced with a bandwagon will carefully post content that may appear to be good, but will actually be very misleading, so there's not really a lot of information to be gleaned by welcoming someone with a bandwagon.
DDD, I want more reads from you. Besides Nacho, what do you think about the players in the game?
Stole this quote from Rhinox, who quoted Hip.
In post 274, Rhinox wrote:You, and nacho are about equal in my books. Can you really not grasp basic connotation? I used "maybe even DDD"...because my only thought on him is hes kinda lurky.
I'm refering to this:
In post 218, hiplop wrote:DDD and Rhinox are scum, imo. Maybe even Nachomama instead of DDD.
Nacho is doing what every player who has been "Scum-meta'd" does, "CHANGE THEIR PLAYSTYLE" in heavy air quotes (its more fashionable that way). And quite bluntly, I see a connection between rhinox and nacho. DDD feels independently scummy, some for his lurking, some for his actual posts.
LOL Hip can't even remember his reads.
UNVOTE: VOTE: Hiplop
She tries to parrot Rhinox, but oversimplifies to the point where I struggle to believe she understood or believed the point - in her repetition, the point just becomes "reads changed -> scum". If Rhinox vs. hiplop is town v town, Alice is stirring the pot, and that's scummy as hell. LS's case on Alice is a mixed bag. Hypocrisy forms a central role, and that's just not remotely scummy. “You didn't apply that tell to everyone” just doesn't do much for me. Of the 4 points, only 2) and 4) do anything for me – Alice's contrived explanation of the simple fact that defending scum is scummy feels off, and not trying to get a read on themoaner is also bad. Also, Alice's backing off from hiplop in the face of pressure looks scummy. All in all, Alice is looking like scum here.
Kortul hasn't done much. He asks relevant questions, but doesn't take many stances, much less controversial ones, and doesn't seem to follow up much. Scummy side of neutral.
Funkybike is worse than a standard lurker - I can't see satisfactory answers to these questions:
In post 156, Fishythefish wrote:@funkybike:
In post 145, funkybike1 wrote:Rhinox
has changed his behavior from previous games quite a bit, he's played here like a decent townie.
What did you mean by this? How has Rhinox changed his behaviour?
In post 196, Fishythefish wrote:@funky:
- Why did you think Nacho was scum?
Where is his "decent explanation for his behaviour"?
Particularly the first – it looked to me like he was parroting my fairly tenuous meta on Nacho, without really understanding it. Feels very much like he's trying to force some reads he doesn't really have, and that is a bit scummy. For the second post, he backs of Nacho very fast when he's criticised. He says “Nacho managed to provide a decent explanation for his behavior; I find it believable.” - but it's not at all clear to me where that explanation could be.
Themoaner's content so far has been fine. Malee's scumminess is rapidly fading from my mind, but it shouldn't be – this slot is still pretty likely scum.
DDD hasn't done much, and I don't have much of a read on him. If themoaner's scum, so is DDD:
In post 136, Debonair Danny DiPietro wrote:Can't say I'm really interested in a Malee wagon right now since I think the fundamental point she made was a sound one about Nacho.
Here, DDD is saying that the Malee case is poor because she made a decent point against Nacho. But that's not the point at all – DDD expressed the actual case
himself
here:
In post 63, Debonair Danny DiPietro wrote: In post 51, Rhinox wrote:It was a good point (not a strong point or a scum point) you had but it says more about you than DDD.
I'd love to know why it was a good point other than pandering to LastSurvivor because even you recognize the point was easily addressed.
VOTE: Nachomamma8
Malee is pathetically shrimping away from this, but I like the point. Nacho's an above-average player and when he's on cruise control and not reading things deeply that suggests to me he's not really looking for scum that deeply.
Malee's “pathetic shrimping” is pretty much the issue with her attack on Nacho. I said that I thought the case wasn't about the actual point, and DDD's answer was that Malee wouldn't bus Nacho. So, we have DDD basing a Malee townread on a Nacho scumread. That seems pretty tenuous – particularly since it seems unlikely that by post 136 DDD had a very strong scumread on Nacho.
4n hasn't done two much. His main actions have been a vote on Alice, which was ok, and one on Rhinox, which isn't terribly reasoned but could be scum stirring the pot. Possible under-the-radar scum, but pretty null atm.
Vincent: not terribly active, but what content there is is pretty sound.
SA: he's done quite a lot. Lots of it feels town, nothing scummy there. Pretty likely town.
Town:
hiplop, Rhinox, nacho, LS
Probtown:
SA
Null:
Vincent
Leaning scum:
kortul, DDD (probscum so if themoaner is scum)
Probscum:
Alice, themoaner, funkybike
