Ghost Forum: PMs from living players

[Gandalf]

I sent PM's to All Clear and Plain M&M (since they didn't vote last round), asking them to check in.

Plain M&M hasn't posted (at least under that ID) in 2 weeks. He/she may be a lost cause (or may be keeping track of things under the "Sunny" ID - WILD THEORY there).

Posting these will do wonders for my post count. Maybe I should have posted all the past ones, even ones from someone now dead commenting on someone else now dead.

[Gandalf]

Plain M&M hasn't posted since 1 April. This suggests an argument for innocence, similar to that for duodenum. If M&M is EC, he has either been checking in regularly without posting, or has gone on vacation and left a contingency list for Mr. P. For duodenum both of these seemed rather unlikely.

However, there are a couple of differences here:

1) Plain M&M joined in Jan 04 and only has 50 total posts on the entire forum. The majority of these are in the EC thread. A few are in other games and sports threads, but M&M is also found answering questions about PD in the exam threads. This strikes me as slightly odd for a presumptive newcomer to the board last January.

So the question is, who is M&M? A newcomer to the forum? Or the alternate identity of a forum regular? For example, M&M could easily be urysohn or Obi-Wan or E Blackadder. If this is the case, a posting absence since 1 April is really meaningless.

2) A key aspect of the evidence that duodenum was innocent was that Jables died during the period of her absence. This rather rules out the possibility that if duodenum was on vacation, she might have sent Mr. P. a list of people to kill while she was gone. The same argument cannot be made for M&M. In other words, if M&M is EC and went on vacation, he could have sent a list to Mr. P. of who to kill. duodenum probably would not have done this since Jables was still alive at the time duodenum went missing.

So in summary, I think M&M's absence for the last 2 weeks tends to slightly suggest that Plain M&M is innocent. Though the evidence is less strong than it was for duodenum. And it also becomes a problem if we have inactive players alive at the end of the game, since they are potentially unavailable to cast the crucial needed vote for lynching when only 3 or 5 students remain.

I will also add that there are several posters in the thread (myself included) who have commented on the oddity of Plain M&M's absence. If he suddenly appears to defend himself, this adds credence to the theory that they are the alternate ID of someone else on the forum such as urysohn or Obi-Wan.

With the advent of the spectral forum, I am now only copying my PM's to Gandalf, since he has apparently been the lead in getting the forum established. I trust that to the extent he finds these relevant, he will post them in a place where all ghosts may read them and comment upon them.

[Gandalf]

There is a pattern to the killings by EC which begins with the death of Jables:

EC targets (w/ Jables): HC, Kenshiro
EC targets (w/o Jables): Cho Da, Gandalf, Asynch, JT, and 42.

All of the people on the "After Jables" list are among the more vocal people who have been making relatively sequitur postings.

As has been noted recently in the public thread, it is a disadvantage for the students to have inactive students or (to use the term Cho Da coined) "nutjobs" left at the end of the game. It follows that it is a good strategy for EC to lynch people who are active and who are not nutjobs. Particularly if the students are not inclined to lynch them.

This may also provide some insights into who is EC. These killings are not random, but part of a calculated strategy. EC is someone who would embark upon such a strategy. For example, it seems unlikely that Voter would select a strategy like this. So you might take this as evidence of Voter's innocence.

I would also recommend that ceteris paribus,our lynchings tend to err on the side of lynching the quiet or the nutty. Otherwise we are just helping EC do their natural work. This creates something of a contradiction since the really quiet people (like M&M) can be taken as appearing to be innocent due to their absence. I'm not quite sure how to resolve this, but just throwing it out there at this point for your consideration.

This PM is only to Gandalf, intended for his posting in the spectral forum.

--4σ

[Gandalf]

With the advent of the ghostly forum, I imagine that you and others are posting the various PM's you've received from players.

I wanted to recap the PM's I've sent. If you're missing some of these, I can resend them to you. My reasons for this are twofold: 1) I want to make sure you have all available data for analyzing who is EC, and 2) Many of these PMs would be against EC's best interest to send, i.e. evidence that others are innocent increases the likelihood that EC gets lynched. So I submit this as part of the formal record of my innocence.

Here are the PMs that I have saved a record of. Let me know if you would like any of them resubmitted:

30 Mar: PM to HC. Arguments for why Gandalf and Avi are innocent.
31 Mar: PM to HC. Thoughts on the guilt or innocence of Anonymouse.
1 Apr: 2 PMs to HC, Gandalf, and Cho Da (hereafter H/G/C). Discussion of endgame strategy.
1 Apr: PM to J.T. (still alive at the time) urging that endgame strategy not be posted publicly at this time, due to the help it would give EC.
1 Apr: PM to Gandalf regarding endgame strategy.
5 Apr: PM to H/G/C. Argument why duodenum is innocent.
8 Apr: PM to H/G/C. Argument why Avi is innocent, in case HC had not shared my PM of 30 Mar with G/C.
8 Apr: PM to H/G/C. Follow-up on the decision to lynch duodenum in light of my earlier PM advocating her innocence.
8 Apr/9 Apr: 2 PMs to Cho Da, regarding his red vote for me.
10 Apr: PM to H/G/C/J.T. Analysis of stapler voting. Indicates some likelihood of innocence for RedSoxFan.
12 Apr: PM to H/G/C/J.T. My ranking list of remaining players' likely "EC-ness."
12 Apr: PM to H/G/C/J.T. My best defense of why I am not EC
14 Apr: PM to Gandalf. Discussion of evidence for why Plain M&M is perhaps innocent.
14 Apr: PM to Gandalf. Discussion of pattern to EC Killings.

Hope you're having fun over at the spectral forum. Almost makes me want to hurry up and die so I can see what you're all posting over there. Though I would be delighted if I never get the opportunity until after the game is over. (Will the forum be opened to the public after the game ends?)

--4σ
I still have most of the PMs listed above that were sent to me. I can post any of them that people think would be useful. I think most of them are adequately summarized in his most recent list.

At the moment, I am strongly of the opinion 4sigma is not EC. It's a hell of an impersonation of an interested student if he is.

[Gandalf]

With the advent of the ghostly forum, I imagine that you and others are posting the various PM's you've received from players. You can imagine. I shouldn't comment.

It may be too late, but if I were you, I would create a single thread devoted to thoughts about each remaining living player. For example, a "4sigma" thread, a "Rocky" thread, a "voter" thread, etc. Then perhaps a couple of additional threads regarding strategy, a thread of player rankings, a couple of threads for general analysis such as the "EC killing patterns" PM I sent you.

[Traina]

At the moment, I am strongly of the opinion 4sigma is not EC. It's a hell of an impersonation of an interested student if he is.

I'm not convinced. I think it's kinda odd, that any student would be so sure that other players are innocent. I had no clue (still don't) as to who are the innocent ones left. The only people who definitely know the innocents are the EC. Also the EC has a vested interest in trying to appear innocent. Generally the typical student wouldn't bother.

Anyway, JMO.

[Traina]

However, the pattern he mentioned in the killings seems to make sense.

[Hagbard Celine]

I'm pretty sold on 4 sig's innocence. 4 sig and Voter.

If I had a list, I'd rank them at the bottom.

[J.T.]

I'd like to see the two PM's on Anonymouse and the innocence of Avi, if one of you don't mind.

[Hagbard Celine]

Ask and you shall receive.

Hagbard,

Here are my thoughts so far on people who have demonstrated innocence:

1) Gandalf. He has gone far out of his way to post strategy that is helpful to the students. Strategy that we would not have come up with on our own. If he were EC, this would be a very bad strategy for him.

2) Avi. The evidence for Avi being innocent is less strong, but I think that there is some. For example, his post near the bottom of page 16, where he mentions that EC, if they identify the slayer somehow, should wait until there is one EC left before they kill the slayer. I think this is correct strategy for EC, though nobody had mentioned it to that point. If Avi were EC, I think he would have kept his mouth shut about this rather than post it. This is pretty thin, but it's something, so I pass it along for your consideration. Avi has also posted some really random stuff, including the theory of eliminating all the Diplomacy players and experienced "Exam Committee" game players, so he's something of a wild card.

I think there were a couple more things that I noticed but I haven't had time to go through and document them for you yet. And since I'm on record supporting Gandalf's "Tell a Ghost" strategy, I figured I'd better not be a hypocrite. :)


Additional observation -- I'm sure a couple of people have already mentioned it to you. There is this odd exchange on p. 7 of the thread. During a flurry of posting to this thread by the over-testosteroned chess players (Voter, RSF, EK, etc.), Jables votes Anonymouse at 9:09, while a lynching for Macroman and EK are already well underway.
Cho Da then inserts a post urging people to not trigger the quorum rule, and at 10:00 Jables offers to unvote Anonymouse if he'll unvote RSF.

The point of all this is that on the surface, it may appear that Anonymouse is not EC, since Jables voted for him. But this vote is cast in the context of two other people already having received several votes, and is also unvoted within an hour. So I think this "evidence" of Anonymouse being innocent is rather weak. It could just as easily be a ploy to divert attention from Jables if Anonymouse were ever discovered to be EC.

I'm not saying that this makes Anonymouse likely to be EC. It just means that I don't think this is particularly good evidence for his innocence.

[J.T.]

This doesn't make me less suspect of Avi at all. Does anyone else (Gandalf, I notice you have him low) have any reasons why they think Avi is innocent? If it's gut, I respect that, but he was high on my list. Fairly uninvolved at the beginning, but more involved later in the game. I know he's studying for the same exam as me, but I haven't seen that he is participating in that group a lot either.

He makes me uneasy, and early votes from the EC (people they killed) were quiet and uninvolved. Jables was that way to an extent, and had he lived, I'm sure he would have come out more towards the end of the game.

[Gandalf]

Mainly gut feeling, but very strong feeling. That particular strategy post didn't impress me much (especially since I didn't buy into it at the time, though I do know for the specific and unlikely case that the EC knew the Slayer while two EC were alive.)

I think it is extremely unlikely an EC would have come out with such a strong attack on Voter as Avi did. The EC doesn't gain if any particular student is killed, especially one that it looked like the students might kill anyway. Sure, it could be a ploy, but it was a lot of work for a stunt that might not have been recognized (and while Avi made some points in his own defense that I don't think are even worth repeating, not bad but not compelling, he did not call that attack to our attention. So if he's EC, he has no reason to think the ploy worked, yet seems unconcerned about it).

Also, Avi's other strategy ideas have seemed sound, and he's public comments about who is guilty seem reasonable to me.

[Gandalf]

I don't put the time or thought into this that you ghosts do, but FWIW:

Most likely to be EC:
CubedBee - dental excuse has expired and he's still too damn quiet
Avi - not sure why, just a feeling

Least likely to be EC:
Voter - I have inside information on this one! :)
4sigma - all his whining about prolonging debate doesn't seem EC-ish

And the rest - like the professor and Marianne, nothing really stands out about them.

[Hagbard Celine]

:lol:

When I read that, I was thinking "what kind of inside information could he possibly have?"

:lol:

[Traina]

And the rest - like the professor and Marianne, nothing really stands out about them.

:rofl:

[42]

FWIW, I got one PM from Macroman last week (while I was still alive). It read as follows:



While I have no desire to indict my friend RSF, I have to agree that he has done a couple suspicious things.

1. The Jables connection on page 7
2. He was one of the first to come out against the ghost plan.
3. He's been relatively quiet since Jables was nabbed.
4. He seems to be trying to form alliances by publicly campaigning against people being the EC. The implied payoff would be that they'd do the same for him. He did this for me when my butt was on the line early...

Right now RSF is the only individual I have a real reason to suspect. There are also a few quiet ones which could be suspects or just indifferent. Let's keep this on the QT, huh?

What do you think?

[Ebenezer Kohl]

He seems to be trying to form alliances by publicly campaigning against people being the EC. The implied payoff would be that they'd do the same for him. He did this for me when my butt was on the line early...
I agree with all four but especially this one. RSF did strike me as an alliance builder and for that (as well as the other reasons) I thought delaying his lynching further was a bad idea. I've been concerned about a student revolution against the ghosts. I could see RSF trying to pull Macroman, All Clear, and Anonymouse, all chess players and claim no chess alliance because he was constantly after Voter.

Macroman is rising to innocent student on my suspect list.

[Hagbard Celine]

Macroman is rising to innocent student on my suspect list.

Agreed.

Although, he never really was very suspicious on my list...just sort of lurking.

[Gandalf]

One of the ideas of proposing that the students vote on who to hit in the round of 9 and the round of 7 was that it would give the EC more reason to eliminate threats to them, since voters would not be controlled by ghosts. Did they hit 42 to silence a threat? To suggest he was a threat when he was not? Because, evil as they are, they realized ridding the world of a slug is a good thing?

I don't think EC necessarily sees the implications of this yet. The students have not particularly shown definite signs of moving away from the ghost system before the round of 3. I believe EC targeted the slug because of his vocal nature and would rather be left at the end of the game with a silent / nutjob instead of the slug. All this tells me is that EC is not a nutjob. They may very well be somewhat silent.

In case I didn't spell this out clearly enough earlier, I consider this to be evidence in favor of Voter's innocence.
I'm not sure what this has to do with Voter; maybe it relates to something in the public thread. I have 4sigma and Voter as strongly students, but this PM had no impact on my thinking.

[Ebenezer Kohl]

All this tells me is that EC is not a nutjob. They may very well be somewhat silent.

In case I didn't spell this out clearly enough earlier, I consider this to be evidence in favor of Voter's innocence.
I'm not sure what this has to do with Voter
Speaking as a vocal nutjob, the implication is Voter is a vocal nutjob. The reasoning is sound.

[Gandalf]

Ah, you have found the gist of the argument. Then it does further strengthen my belief in Voter's innocence.

[RedSoxFan]

FWIW, I got one PM from Macroman last week (while I was still alive). It read as follows:



While I have no desire to indict my friend RSF, I have to agree that he has done a couple suspicious things.

1. The Jables connection on page 7
2. He was one of the first to come out against the ghost plan.
3. He's been relatively quiet since Jables was nabbed.
4. He seems to be trying to form alliances by publicly campaigning against people being the EC. The implied payoff would be that they'd do the same for him. He did this for me when my butt was on the line early...

Right now RSF is the only individual I have a real reason to suspect. There are also a few quiet ones which could be suspects or just indifferent. Let's keep this on the QT, huh?

What do you think?

I think I would have made a good EC member :)

Of course, I'm dead now, so maybe not.


I wouldn't mind seeing CubedBee or Rocky get taken out next. I was big on Voter earlier, but I'm becoming convinced he's innocent. I also think Voter is more likely than most others to get killed by the EC.

[RedSoxFan]

By the way, I saw someone mention that they think 4-sigma is likely to be executed by the EC soon because he's a vocal strategist who we feel is innocent. Makes sense, HOWEVER, wouldn't we particularly benefit from 4-sigma being slain since he'd be able to communicate as a ghost AND in the normal thread? It'd be a lot better for us if 4-sigma could post here directly than him having to go through Gandalf.

So maybe that increases the chances they'll kill Voter next. I don't think Voter has posted much of value, so our net gain from having him as a ghost is less.

[Traina]

I would think they would want to leave Voter in, as he's kinda loose cannon...this could be beneficial to the EC as the endgame approaches.

[Gandalf]

CubedBee
plain M&M
USCanuck
Anonymouse
4sigma
werewolf

The 6 above have not voted yet. One more vote is needed to condemn B^3 to a rope swing without the tire.

4sigma, Gandalf doesn't seem to be concerned about the timing, so if you (or one of the others that haven't voted) would vote soon we can keep the game moving.

What do you think of Rocky's quote? Trying to "move the game along" sounds just like the EC to me.
My defense of Macroman is based almost exclusively on his willingness to become our first ghost, and I still think that's sound. I don't find this "evidence" about Rocky very meaningful. A little suspicious, but not very.

[Ebenezer Kohl]

My defense of Macroman is based almost exclusively on his willingness to become our first ghost, and I still think that's sound. I don't find this "evidence" about Rocky very meaningful. A little suspicious, but not very.
Being the other potential lynchee, I don't recall him being very willing.

[Gandalf]

I'm referring to the very first lynching. Maybe you were the other potential lynchee, EK, but neither you nor Macroman was lynched: stu was.

Mar 21, 00:08 I first spelled out why I thought a Ghost Strategy was so important for the students, and that we needed a ghost we could trust on board.

Two posts later, in a situation that his offer could easily be accepted
I'll go along with Gandalf's proposed strategy if you want to lynch me. I would be a ghost you could trust.

I still think it's a better idea to lynch cmu_stu because I think he's shown himself to be suspect by the PMs and then committed at least a minor breach of ettiquette by posting the PMs.

Then later, after cmu_stu raised a concern about the ghost strategy:
cmu_stu, Gandalf addressed that (quoted below)....

....
Minor flaw: two people might tell the ghosts they are the slayer. In that case, (unless a real student non-slayer is acting irrationally), one of them must be EC. The ghosts select one of the two for lynching this round. If unfortunately we lynch our slayer, we’ll still get a replacement, and we know to lynch the imposter the next round.

.....

Thanks for stepping forward to volunteer, cmu_stu.

It appears that we now have 3 volunteers to be the trusted ghost, myself, Gandalf, and cmu_stu. I heartily suggest that the remaining students select one of us and lynch us forthwith.
At that point his risk may not have been too great, since it was looking like stu would be accepted, and if not I was probably considered trustworthy enough. Still, if he were EC I think he would have just suggested hitting stu, which he could easily have done by saying along the lines of "Since the only objection to hitting stu is Gandalf's concern that we have a willing ghost, and stu is willing, let's go ahead. If he's EC, we've hit one. If he's not, we have our ghost." This would not have been suspicious since there was clearly a strong move to hit stu anyway.

Also, before I spelled out the ghost strategy,
I'd say we need to go ahead with a lynching to see how the EC reacts, if it's me then so be it. I'm a team player. While most seem to favor lynching someone who has not posted much, I think there is an upside to lynching an active poster. The reaction of the EC may be more readable if the lynchee has some history. I don't want to post a vote until a reasonable consensus develops.No indication of fear that half his team may be about to be wiped out.

It is the first of the three quoted posts that I find most compelling, but the other two reinforce my opinion.

[42]

By the way, I saw someone mention that they think 4-sigma is likely to be executed by the EC soon because he's a vocal strategist who we feel is innocent. Makes sense, HOWEVER, wouldn't we particularly benefit from 4-sigma being slain since he'd be able to communicate as a ghost AND in the normal thread? It'd be a lot better for us if 4-sigma could post here directly than him having to go through Gandalf.

So maybe that increases the chances they'll kill Voter next. I don't think Voter has posted much of value, so our net gain from having him as a ghost is less.

I would think they would want to leave Voter in, as he's kinda loose cannon...this could be beneficial to the EC as the endgame approaches.

I agree with Traina. While 4sigma may contribute more as a ghost, the students' chances are better if he is left in the final 3 since (hopefully) the other innocent student will see that 4sigma is innocent. (That's assuming that he really isn't EC!) With Voter, they may not be as certain (even though we think he probably is a student).

[Hagbard Celine]

It seemed a lot more conclusive when I had read through all the pages on Friday, but here goes...

I looked at the past games, and went through this game. One generally common theme abounded throughout the play. A player would be suspected by a few others, a semi-large mob would grow suspecting this person (sometimes even voting for this person), at which time that person would explain that he was not EC, and that he should not be lynched. Sometimes he/she would suggest someone else, sometimes he/she would bring up reasons why a reasonable person would think he wasn't EC, and sometimes the reasons were none of the above. (Zakarin and Duodenum this game, as well as other people in previous games that never posted, do not count in this analysis- of course they did not post anything, being that they never posted at all, not following the thread)

One exception was most notable, when looking through the threads. Macroman was suspected early on, for absolutley no reason. Of the people that were casting votes, maybe 80% went to him. Macroman claimed he wasn't following the voting at that time. Once he saw it, though, he wrote just a one liner (on Page 8). Not saying why he could not be EC (though at the start of the game, there may not have been any plausible reason), and not suggesting anyone else. Even after someone pointed out later that page that he had written pretty much nothing so far, he only responded to that with a short two line message, even though this was after work hours.

This goes against the grain of Macroman, who generally writes longer messages. Nearly all of the other posts he made after that point in the EC thread were quite longer, as are his posts in other threads (including a recent chess post, made today (Sunday)). I noticed such a difference in his posting, and thought of this reasoning- Perhaps he was scared to say too much at the time, not wanting others to suspect him even more. Being EC, he was worried he might slip up and say something he shouldn't, now that everyone is watching him. Macroman only makes his long post on page 9 (and continues making longer ones after that), after the tide has turned and people decided they didn't want to lynch him after all.

Of course, as I said at the start, this seemed a lot more conclusive on Friday. Even so, I thought I should send this, unsure if it will help the ghosts discussion or not. I remain suspicous of Voter because of reasons outlined earlier, though because he has not done anything recently to keep me worried, he is a bit less worrysome in my mind for being the EC member than he was early on in the game.

[All Clear]

And once again, thanks, CubedBee. Because of you not posting your death scene 24 hours earlier, I end up writing 6 paragraphs about the guilt of the one person the ghosts had decided could not possibly have been an EC member... If I don't pass Course 3 this May, the blame goes on you- this took away a good hour and a half of study time. :-)

[urysohn]

So the question is, who is [plain] M&M? A newcomer to the forum? Or the alternate identity of a forum regular? For example, M&M could easily be urysohn or Obi-Wan or E Blackadder.

Interesting theory and I don't have time to read through all the messages to see if this is expanded upon. But I would have to say that it would be somewhat unethical for a person to be both playing the game as a contestant and hanging around the game in another persona - knowing that as an "active non-participant" they could be subject to having private discussions with some of the actual participants. Just my opinion. But for the record, I was not playing in the game.

[Sunny]

And once again, thanks, CubedBee. Because of you not posting your death scene 24 hours earlier, I end up writing 6 paragraphs about the guilt of the one person the ghosts had decided could not possibly have been an EC member... If I don't pass Course 3 this May, the blame goes on you- this took away a good hour and a half of study time. :-)

:lolup:

This is funny.

[cubedbee]

And once again, thanks, CubedBee. Because of you not posting your death scene 24 hours earlier, I end up writing 6 paragraphs about the guilt of the one person the ghosts had decided could not possibly have been an EC member... If I don't pass Course 3 this May, the blame goes on you- this took away a good hour and a half of study time. :-)

:lolup:

This is funny. :D

Sorry :oops:

[Macroman]

And once again, thanks, CubedBee. Because of you not posting your death scene 24 hours earlier, I end up writing 6 paragraphs about the guilt of the one person the ghosts had decided could not possibly have been an EC member... If I don't pass Course 3 this May, the blame goes on you- this took away a good hour and a half of study time. :-)

As someone who has failed by very narrow margins twice (once on the old 110 and once on course 3 both apparently by a single question) I'd make every possible effort to replace that hour and a half if I were you.

I don't really blame you for being suspicious, but offerring oneself up as a sacrifice is a very dangerous path indeed, just see what it did for RSF.

[EC2W]

As someone who has failed by very narrow margins twice (once on the old 110 and once on course 3 both apparently by a single question) I'd make every possible effort to replace that hour and a half if I were you.

I don't really blame you for being suspicious, but offerring oneself up as a sacrifice is a very dangerous path indeed, just see what it did for RSF.

tiene miedo no mas you need to sacrifice youself you go next tiene miedo

you never will defeat dat evil genius in ec2 andale andale ariba ariba let me end su vida now