im going to slice this first post backwards, for no other reason than i want to save the part i feel strongest about for last, although all of it bothers me
okay, so, a lot of cape's early posting can be summed up as "doesn't get jokes". now, not getting jokes isn't inherently wolfy. but take note of the verbiage here - "a little odd". not only is it hedgy it stops short of actually making a call on my alignment - "odd" does not equate to "wolfy", townies can be "odd". it's a little thing but often wolves tend to avoid directly actually calling anything wolfy.
additionally he says katze's response seems "justified" - what parts of that post seem justified? it's...an obvious joke about voting "sleep" to take a nap. it's messing around, there's
again, not getting a joke is not a crime in and of itself but it doesn't seem to me like he's actually reading what is being said in a critical way
now, running back in time 5 seconds, we have another instance of cape not getting a fairly obvious joke
the problem here is he's only responding to this post with a cookie-cutter, broad brushstroke argument - "busywork". what parts of that post seem like busywork? we don't know, because cape doesn't respond to any of the content within. to me this looks like he's making reads based on form rather than content, which is again wolfy because it's a sign that he's not actually reading the game critically - if he had actually tried to engage with any of the "points" zack made in that post i'd be willing to give credit for being tryhardy even if he missed an obvious joke. but as it is, it doesn't look like he actually tried to meaningfully evaluate the stuff zack was saying, because I think if anyone puts more than two seconds of thought into reading his words they'd say "oh, this is an obvious joke".
as it is, it looks like he saw that it looked like a post by post analysis list and decided to call it busy work and shade it. he didn't stop to actually read it.
this part here is just...super wolfy? "hey guys, surprised no one is calling this wolfy, i mean i dont, but you might?". it's such a bizzre comment to make, like he's tossing out a bit of bait to see if someone will bite, but keeping his own distance from it. the problem is this: if he doesn't believe that sort of thing is a meaningful tell, why bring it up at all?
it just doesn't read like a natural thought at all. when someone doesn't think a post is alignment indicative, they typically don't talk about it. but here he's simultaneously trying to shade the post and distance himself from it. i dont get the sense this is something said by someone who is trying to find wolves.
"i don't see it" in response to an early wolfread push. not inherently bad in and of itself, but it is the kind of thing wolves frequently say in the earlygame - being dismissive of early wolfreads is an easy way to fake content, because all they have to do is disagree with people. wolves rarely are the type to lead a charge on someone so they'll often hold back when someone makes a stretchy case in the early game
i can sense some people probably rolling their eyes at this, and that's fine, it's a very minor point but i still wanted to discuss it because it pinged me. like i said, by itself this isn't a strong point at all because it can easily be said by a villager, but within the body of work i find it problematic.
says nothing, does nothing.
what, exactly, is there to like about this post? it's kind of generically agreeable in that it makes a point about how to play the game, and I agree that some forward momentum is preferable to a tepid, stagnant game, but it doesn't actually give me feelings on newcomb's alignment one way or the other. and again the verbiage of "in a sort of random way" is another statement that doesn't really do anything except to soften the read that follows.
first point, he "doesn't like" a read. but does it mean anything for ladds alignment? he doesn't bother to say. it's easy to agree or disagree with things other people say, but what is harder is to generate your own analysis and thoughts. and what we have is that he is "sort of villagery" (again, more soft language) for "actually the same reasons", which...doesn't make sense at all? it doesn't actually meaningfully address the points ladd is making. why is he villagery for mostly responding to things or "posting just to post"? it's a totally half-baked response, there's nothing in cape's posts that gives a real indicator of why he thinks ender is villagery.
This is a very pedantic sort of dismissal to ender that doesn't really engage with the substance of the argument being made at all. "you said he was putting it forward as if it was a deep read, but it was on one post so it can't be deep at all". which, okay, but he very clearly meant it as a serious read, and cape selectively cuts off the latter parts of his post where ender gets into the more elaborate parts of his thinking about how wolves sometimes try to get too serious too early and hard switch. it doesnt look like hes meaningfully evaluating or considering enders words, just blandly dismissing a point he feels is eay to shoot down. this looks like cape isnt actually trying to read neb or ender. it kind of feeds back into what i said earlier about wolves tending to spend a lot of time in the early game shooting down reads rather than trying to solve.
(fwiw, i did like nebjiamn trying to make a serious accusation early there, and i think the antsiness to move the game forward and disappointment at being engaged with is towny. i didnt really want to respond to the read at the time though because th read itself felt stretchy and it would be more useful to see how the person being accused responds to it rather than saying anything myself. i think dobbys response to it is fine for now. i dont agree with enders take that it could be a wolf play although i understand the reasoning)
this is maybe the most egregious instance of cape's hedgy verbiage - why qualify the read in this way? how can something almost look really wolfy?i can find it understandable only finding something slightly suspicious in the early game, but this just comes across like he's afraid to throw a punch. reads very unnatural. either it's really wolfy or it isn't.
that is to say nothing of how again this is an egregious misreading of katze's post - if he was actually paying attention he'd have noticed the second line talks about a "pasta" and i assume cape is at least familiar enough with the concept of "copypasta" to know what that means.
and again not getting smeone's inside joke is not a crime, but what this again demonstrates is that cape is not really reading posts critically, but selectively, picking and choosing things to comment on. he picks out the first and last lines to attack while missing the part that tells him the bottom part of the post is fake and therefore irrelevant.
again with the verbiage heavy on qualifiers, cape can hardly make a read without distancing himself from it
and again he can't actually bring himself to say how the post was supposed to be an "attempt at doing something". he doesn't engage with the substance at all. zack called something like 90% of the posts to that point wolfy, which is obviously absurd. i dont...get the sense cape was actually reading or evaluating that post in a meaningful way, just glossing it over and assuming it had to have been serious
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