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[Ishmael]

khaan lodges a random on Ishmael, Ishmael is willing to let Visor live and lodges a "pseudo-random vote" although his reasoning is entirely random:


He also briefly mentions khaan's random vote as well as an unrelated, meaningless article I linked to in my "argument" with Visor.

None of this is particularly consequential, but I'll address it anyway out of completeness. My vote was 'pseudo-random' in the sense that I didn't vote for landlubber randomly, but rather because I wanted to make a comment on his name (amusingly, it was 'khaan's post that had put me in the Moby Dick mindset). On the other hand it wasn't deliberate inasmuch as I had no 'real' reason to be voting for him, and it might as well have been a standard D1 random vote. My comments on the posts of the two of you were for exactly the reasons I stated - I appreciated the reference in 'khaan's, and I found the article you linked interesting. That's it, I'm afraid.

Ishmael then switches to Winston in an accusation of bandwagoning on Visor. He adds this as an addendum, which normally I wouldn't comment on were it not for the fact that it references JHT:

The addendum in question was a light-hearted observation intended to take some of the sting out of my words, since I was worried my accusations might have come off a bit too harshly.

Ishmael comes in with a semi-long post on #136. Part 1 is agreeing with Monty that khaan and I are suspicious. Part 2 is agreeing with khaan and I that BSmith is suspicious. He lodges a vote on BSmith using the following reasoning:

Firstly, I'd like to clarify that I did not at this point say that I found you suspicious. I stated that the confidence of your posting made me nervous, and that you were worth keeping an eye on; the reason being that assured scum tend to be better at manipulating the town and avoiding suspicion, which meant that if you were mafia, you'd be dangerously effective (as evidenced). I acknowledge that I could have been more clear here, but then again I would hope it is obvious that I don't consider people being confident and relaxed to be a scumtell.

As for my vote on BSmith - sure, I agreed with your reasoning at the time, and found BSmith scummy. There is a distinction between leaving room to change your opinions of people and ensuring that if you change your vote, there is no evidence to say that you have shifted your position. My opinion at the time was that BSmith fell on the wrong side of that line, and I was wrong on it, but I don't think it would be fair to say that it was a horrendous misplay.

Csargo died. Monty calls out Ishmael to post more, lubber does the same for john. Hmm.

This is Ishmael's response:



Which immediately twigs Monty's scum sense. Ishmael asks if Monty thinks he's partnered with khaan, Monty's noncommittal. Lubber votes for john, backing up his earlier calling-out. John shows up but it's basically his usual self (ugh this is what happened in Campground too) so it's hard to keep that line of argument going. Lubber agrees and switches to Ishmael.

khaan and Winston get into their argument over my guilt re: Visor and other things. John comes in after it, doesn't mention it at all, and votes Winston. Ishmael says he thinks lubber is town and then says he thinks I'm the least scummy after lubber. Winston's also off his suspect-o-meter because Winston's acting a lot like lubber now in terms of offering analysis, etc. His order of suspicion at this point is Monty-khaan-john-Winston-GH-lubber. He votes Monty. Ishmael's average post length is also much longer than everyone else's at this point (I don't have any data with which to back this up, just eyeballing it).

Not much to say here, since it's mostly just the facts. For completeness' sake I'll point out that I had 'khaan pegged as somewhat more scummy than Montmorency, but as mentioned in my vote post I voted for Monty as he was the only one of the two in contention for lynching at that time. I suspect my post length is in fact larger than my average, given that this is the first game I've played in a while. Also, for the record I didn't realise what a tiebreaker round would entail - I thought it would be a fixed time extension in which votes could only be placed on the tied players, rather than a first past the post system.

Winston offers up additional information about Monty PMing him, Ishmael remarks that's something that town Monty does. Not enough to move his vote off him though. Ishmael, Winston, and Monty want to agree on a compromise vote on khaan.

Enter chaos. Monty now pairs Ishmael and lubber as scum after khaan defends himself. I switch over to Monty. Ishmael says he's loving this phase end. khaan switches over to Monty about .00000000038 seconds before deadline. Ishmael brings up the fact that it might actually, defying probability, be me and khaan as a scum pair.

I didn't change my vote immediately partly because I was thinking things over (and rereading the thread), and partly because I wanted to see Montmorency's reaction to the recent posts. Both of these satisfied me that 'khaan was a better lynch option, and (more importantly) a viable one.

At the time I also still believed that you were town, believe it or not. I might still believe it if it weren't for the fact that since you and 'khaan are a voting bloc, if you aren't his partner then it's game (and I'm an optimist at heart).

Lubber starts to get agitated. Lubber starts to get despondent. Maf thinking he might be lynched or townie realizing that if he goes, the town loses? Maf has margin for error this round, town has none. Statistically more likely that he's town.

I'm sorry, wasn't it about 95% certain that landlubber was scum?

Ishmael has been an infrequent contributor. He makes longer posts than the usual. He commits but he doesn't. He doesn't typically join in arguments unless it's directly addressed at him.

I do have to take some umbrage here. I obviously disagree with your assessment that "he commits but he doesn't," but this is really something that people have to look over my posts themselves to decide. As for not joining in arguments, I feel that you're flat-out wrong here - I got involved with the argument against Visor, I got involved in the argument against you, and I even got involved in the argument against 'khaan this day phase (well, part of it).

Ishmael and John have never once interacted with or referred to each other in the entire game aside from that one weird instance of Ishmael pointing out how john's name was initially posted on the sign-up sheet as vote:johnhughthom. I find this very interesting. On Winston's D3 suspect list, he put john in the middle, "by default".

I personally think we're looking at an Ishmael-JHT mafia team upon rereading. They haven't really voted with each other, but they haven't needed to. They've come in, said what they've needed to say, and let events occur as they have. That said, I'm more confident in Ishmael being scum than john, simply because of his innate john-ness. That'll be research for another day if we live to see it. But in the meantime let's give ourselves another day to do it.

I've not interacted with jht because, in your own words, "John had been John." As mentioned at the time, that's why I had him coming in third in my scum list - because I had nothing on him. There's really not much more I can say here.