Survivor: The Second Age

[Lalaith]

I think it's all got a bit grumpy for me. Sorry.

But here's a parting gift for Anguirel,

++ELENDIL

Reasons:
a. Too many Elendili
b. He got the Faithful out of Numenor, he'd done his bit. Why put him through the rigours of Survivor as well?
c. Ang's right. WHY don't we know his wife's name? Kept barefoot, pregnant and in the kitchen, was she, when the census taker came to call? For shame.

[The Saucepan Man]

At the risk of flogging a dead Khamul, let me try to explain further the reasoning that has led me to the position in which I now, reluctantly, find myself. Hopefully, this will enlighten those knuckle-headed types who refuse to accept any position which does not neatly conform to their own world-view (mentioning no names ), although I don’t hold out much hope on that score.

The problem is that, even with Formendacil’s explanation, we are still left with no clear understanding of the basis upon which votes will be counted or discounted. He has not explained which votes from yesterday were discounted and which were not. Even had he done so, the position would be far from clear.

To take a phantom’s ever so unbiased ( ) analysis as an example, I fail to see why votes for Elrond because of perceived character flaws (mormegil’s and Elu Ancalime’s, for example) should be discounted. Those personality flaws are necessarily Tolkien-based because they are based upon the voter’s perception of a character invented by Tolkien, albeit a perception undoubtedly (and, in my view, legitimately) skewed for game/humour purposes. They could, I suppose, have said something like “based on his behaviour in Middle-earth, he comes across to me as a sissy”, but what is the point of that? The first part of that sentence is surely implied by the context. Calling a vote into question simply because no specific reference is made to Tolkien or Middle-earth necessarily requires a value judgment to be made by the mod (as to whether he agrees with the reasons given by the voter). That is unacceptable as it brings the mod’s partiality into question and leads to far too much uncertainty.

If these votes are to be discounted, then why not also discount the votes for Oropher which simply relied on the fact that he is not mentioned by Tolkien much and so, by implication, did not do much? There is hardly any more intelligent reasoning involved. I can think of better reasons to give for evicting Oropher, such as that his rash charge in the War of the Last Alliance imperilled his side’s victory and got a lot of his people unnecessarily slain. So, if the votes of morm and Elu are to be discounted, then all of the votes for Oropher should also be discounted, leading to Elrond’s eviction.

But I would count all of those votes. On that basis, the only votes for Elrond which might arguably be discounted are those which were cast by Diamond and Gil-Galad as they did not relate to the character in question but to game events. That would leave Elrond and Oropher on five votes each and lead to a double eviction. Possibly a fair result.

Or one might take a different approach. A phantom discounts TORE’s vote because it refers back to spawn’s reasoning. On that basis, the votes of Celuien and (particularly) lord of dor-lomin would also need to be discounted, leaving Elrond with four votes and Oropher with three, resulting in Elrond’s eviction.

You see the problem? Even with a vague indication that only Tolkien-based votes will count, the game is still riddled with grey areas. Too much scope for mod partiality and too little certainty to make the game enjoyable. As I have said, the way that this game has been played involves a fair bit of effort and it all seems rather pointless when that effort comes to nothing on the whim of the mod.

Formendacil, you have said that you have not been rigging the votes. I fully accept that you did not act in bad faith. Nevertheless, the fact that you chose to count the votes for Khamul, even though this issue was raised (by me) during that day of voting, but discount certain votes for Elrond does not give me any comfort in this regard. Even though you may not have consciously have rigged it and thought that you were acting fairly, it is clear to me that there was a degree of partiality involved in the manner in which you exercised your discretion.

In past games, the rule, I believe, has been, not that Tolkien-based reasoning was required, but that reasoning of some kind at least was required. In other words, votes for a character without more were not allowed. That works well, because it forces people to give some sort of reasoning (and therefore provokes discussion), but does not require value judgments on the part of the mod. In other words, it avoids the grey areas that my analysis above has highlighted and is easily enforceable in a non-partial way. Applying that rule, all of the votes yesterday, for both Elrond and Oropher, should have counted.

I don’t expect any response to this, nor any concessions. I just wished to make my position crystal clear before politely withdrawing from the game.

It was fun while it lasted.

And for old time's sake, I shall contribute towards Lalaith's parting gift, adopting wholesale her immaculate reasoning (if that's allowed ).

+ + ELENDIL

[Eomer of the Rohirrim]

Phantom and Lord, you weirdos.

Ents take too long to get to the point, eh? Did it ever occur to you that Ents live far longer than you do? 'Hasty' and 'Takes too long' are both relative descriptions. Considering how sweet and wonderful Treebeard was to Merry and Pippin even though they were on the opposite end of the scale, I think it's downright nasty and despicable to hate the poor Ent based on that.

He could just as easily hate you for being unlike him but he's not like that. He's nice.

As for not doing anything of value, was it not Johnny T. himself who said that it would be better if more of us valued the simple things in life. Just because Treebeard wasn't always going around picking fights in some foreign land you want to kick him out? He just wanted to take it easy!

Plus, with the exception of Sauron, Treebeard could defeat anyone in that list in a fight – including your precious Elrond and Isildur.

Treebeard is awesome. Case closed.

[Tuor of Gondolin]

+ + Treebeard

If you leave him in some movie maker
will make him out to be a doofus easily
tricked by a couple of immature hobbitses.

[Thinlómien]

Ang has convinced me.

++Elendil

Plus, I've never been an Elendil-fan.

[the phantom]

Ang, there is something in your Elendil argument I don't agree with.

"Out of the Great Sea to Middle-earth I am come. In this place will I abide, and my heirs, unto the ending of the world."

You think this Elendil quote was a display of arrogance. It wasn't- it was foresight. There's a big difference.

And then this-

The fact that we have more material on Galadriel is a sign that Celeborn was indeed a loving and appreciative husband.

Either that, or perhaps Celeborn took great pleasure in displaying his trophy-wife at every opportunity, where as Elendil had enough respect for his wife to allow her to live her life as she wished and didn't insist on showing her off. Did you think of that?

Now, that said, I do believe the Elendili tribe should be trimmed soon, so a vote for Elendil isn't the worst thing in the world, though I'd rather vote off Anarion than Elendil.

But the person I'd really like to take care of is Treebeard, so I will now respond to Eomer's defense of the stiff, inactive old bore.

'Hasty' and 'Takes too long' are both relative descriptions.

Yes, relative to me, and you should know by now that I care about how things relate to me far more than how they relate to anything else.

Considering how sweet and wonderful Treebeard was...
He's nice.

WHAT?!

Take your time reading the line below, Eomer. Let it sink in.

Treebeard....was...not....nice.

This is what Treebeard said to Merry and Pippin in the chapter entitled "Treebeard"-

But if I had seen you, before I heard your voices- I liked them: nice little voices; they reminded me of something I cannot remember- if I had seen you before I heard you, I should have just trodden on you, taking you for little Orcs, and found out my mistake afterwards.

The only reason Treebeard didn't squash Merry and Pippin immediately was that he thought their voices were cute. That doesn't sound very nice to me.

Treebeard needs to go.

And now, to respond briefly to Sauce.

He has not explained which votes from yesterday were discounted and which were not.

I explained though. Can't you infer from my explanation what probably happened?

I fail to see why votes for Elrond because of perceived character flaws (mormegil’s and Elu Ancalime’s, for example) should be discounted.

Oh, come on, you're just being stubborn. "Elrond is a sissy" is obviously not a legitimate argument. No where in Tolkien's books does Tolkien hint at Elrond being a sissy. On the contrary, Tolkien describes him as strong. If Formendacil accepted a vote that said "Elrond is a sissy", he would have to accept a vote for Sauron that said "Sauron is a messy eater".

When making a vote, you can't just claim personality flaws without a reason, particularly flaws that are completely absent from Tolkien's writings. That is extremely easy to understand, SPM, so don't even try and wiggle around and pretend that you don't get why morm and Elu's votes were likely not counted. I'm sure the two of them understand completely.

The people who voted for Oropher put their finger cleary on the fact that not much was written about Oropher. The people who called Elrond a sissy or unwise or whatever weren't putting their finger clearly on anything at all. If you don't understand this then you are conciously trying not to.

the phantom discounts TORE’s vote because it refers back to spawn’s reasoning. On that basis, the votes of Celuien and (particularly) lord of dor-lomin would also need to be discounted

Nope. False.

TORE did not quote Spawn's reasoning, nor did he attempt to put the reasoning into his own words. All he said was that he was leaning towards her reasoning.

Celuien and lord, on the other hand, both gave reasoning in their own words. That is an important difference. When you are at school, do teachers allow you to answer a question "I think the same thing as John does"? No, they expect you to give the answer in your own words, even if your reasoning is the same as John's.

That is the situation here. Don't even try and argue it. It mirrors what is considered an acceptable practice elsewhere, so rather than complain or fight it just live with it.

[Elu Ancalime]

Lommy........<sigh> (I like Elendil)

++Treebeard

He really didnt do anything, and besides, he could've prevented the attack on the Entwives. If the Ents checked up the Wives more regularly, maybe the Wives would have stayed West of the ANduin, and Sauron might have left them alone.

SpM, you do have a point about character flaws. This may invalidate my own vote for Elrond, but to an extemt you are right. It is Tolkien-based if one makes a vote based on an assumption from character. However....I regret to say I can not find any direct proof that Elrond is a sissy. That is my perception of him (in a Mirthful way) But then there would be exact specifications on what can and can not be assumed, if assumption is allowed. But then a character like Oropher would be gone, only because 'he never did anything.' So, putting it in that perspective, I would then theoretically totally support Elrond, and campaign against 'idles', but then if that was true, Formendacil, or any other Survivor Mod should not have put Idles in to maintain that.

Oh, come on, you're just being stubborn. "Elrond is a sissy" is obviously not a legitimate argument. No where in Tolkien's books does Tolkien hint at Elrond being a sissy. On the contrary, Tolkien describes him as strong. If Formendacil accepted a vote that said "Elrond is a sissy", he would have to accept a vote for Sauron that said "Sauron is a messy eater".

But see, assuming Formendacil is a government and not one person, a vote like that should be accepted regardless because most ballots anywhere dont have three lines after where you write why. If that was true, then the democratic world would have the best leaders. My dad once made a joke that he couldnt vote for Al Gore in '00, because:

"Joe Lieberman looks funny"

Now he didnt do that, but nobody cares about that, because in popular vote, the idea is that the people can vote for any candidate. Debates and speeches are for the people, so that they can think why they would consider this candidate. The reasoning is for the person, not the people. As a person, they have justification to vote for somebody and not have to tell anybody else who they voted for or why, because they wouldnt vote unless they had a reason, no matter how silly. Even the fact that most people only see one side of an issue, if they are completely ignorant to the fact, they are allowed to vote. That is an example that nobodys perfect.

Also, this was posted in Formendacil's opening post and other past Survivor Mod posts. Obviously this is Formen's game, but just a general idea of Survivor. Survivor Sillmarillion was a little bit different as it including reasoning on challenges, so i dont think its liable in this instance.

=Formy The person will be evicted from the game by the voting of YOU the readers

I assume this implies personal justification, which is eprsonal.

=Glirdan2) You have to come up with a funny excuse for you reason to vote that person out. It can be an inside joke or something that everyone will get. It doesn't matter as long as it's comedic.3) Lastly (and most importantly I might add), HAVE FUN!!!!!

This is a little critisism for Formen, but Boromir88 who created survivor on the Downs said this.

Please list votes like so ++Frodo, and it would be funner if you give an explanation as to why. By all means, this is Middle-earth Mirth, think of something totally whacky.

Since this is Mirth, I think the silly and absurd reasoning should be allowed to a healthy point. I really did not expect a bandwagon to start about how sissy somebody was. I expected a bandwagon about evicting Elrond.
________
Vt800

[Formendacil]

Originally Posted by The Saucepan Man

The problem is that, even with Formendacil’s explanation, we are still left with no clear understanding of the basis upon which votes will be counted or discounted. He has not explained which votes from yesterday were discounted and which were not. Even had he done so, the position would be far from clear.

I agree. I've admitted that keeping which votes were accepted and which ones weren't (although some can be deduced) was a mistake. It is, however, a mistake that is over and done. All the records I've kept are the ones that you see on this thread.

For that reason therefore, I am not going to go back and list all of yesterday's votes and explain which ones are acceptable, and which ones aren't- because with the eyes of everyone on me, and being in a different frame of mind, I may well count differently and I have no desire to be further accused of bias.

What's done is done.

I shall, however- AND ALL YE TAKE HEED- be counting votes today based on Tolkien-related criteria. I shall analyse each vote and give a verdict. I should have done this before, but I didn't, I apologise, and at least I am doing it now.

To take a phantom’s ever so unbiased ( ) analysis as an example, I fail to see why votes for Elrond because of perceived character flaws (mormegil’s and Elu Ancalime’s, for example) should be discounted. Those personality flaws are necessarily Tolkien-based because they are based upon the voter’s perception of a character invented by Tolkien, albeit a perception undoubtedly (and, in my view, legitimately) skewed for game/humour purposes. They could, I suppose, have said something like “based on his behaviour in Middle-earth, he comes across to me as a sissy”, but what is the point of that? The first part of that sentence is surely implied by the context. Calling a vote into question simply because no specific reference is made to Tolkien or Middle-earth necessarily requires a value judgment to be made by the mod (as to whether he agrees with the reasons given by the voter). That is unacceptable as it brings the mod’s partiality into question and leads to far too much uncertainty.

The Phantom's analysis was not perfect- it was not MY analysis. However, I will say that it came close on some points...

Mod's partiality?

My dear SPM, have you completely forgotten the Silmarillion Survivor? Anguirel was partial to certain parties- very partial to certain parties.

He gave several characters a free bye into the later rounds by not introducing them till then, and (probably faulty) memory seems to recall him summarily killing off some of the characters simply because their "time had come".

If these votes are to be discounted, then why not also discount the votes for Oropher which simply relied on the fact that he is not mentioned by Tolkien much and so, by implication, did not do much? There is hardly any more intelligent reasoning involved. I can think of better reasons to give for evicting Oropher, such as that his rash charge in the War of the Last Alliance imperilled his side’s victory and got a lot of his people unnecessarily slain. So, if the votes of morm and Elu are to be discounted, then all of the votes for Oropher should also be discounted, leading to Elrond’s eviction.

But I would count all of those votes. On that basis, the only votes for Elrond which might arguably be discounted are those which were cast by Diamond and Gil-Galad as they did not relate to the character in question but to game events. That would leave Elrond and Oropher on five votes each and lead to a double eviction. Possibly a fair result.

Or one might take a different approach. A phantom discounts TORE’s vote because it refers back to spawn’s reasoning. On that basis, the votes of Celuien and (particularly) lord of dor-lomin would also need to be discounted, leaving Elrond with four votes and Oropher with three, resulting in Elrond’s eviction.

You see the problem? Even with a vague indication that only Tolkien-based votes will count, the game is still riddled with grey areas. Too much scope for mod partiality and too little certainty to make the game enjoyable. As I have said, the way that this game has been played involves a fair bit of effort and it all seems rather pointless when that effort comes to nothing on the whim of the mod.

Perhaps then, having made thorough analysis of the whole "Tolkien criteria" issue, you will see why I wanted to keep whose votes were in and whose votes were out a secret?

Formendacil, you have said that you have not been rigging the votes. I fully accept that you did not act in bad faith. Nevertheless, the fact that you chose to count the votes for Khamul, even though this issue was raised (by me) during that day of voting, but discount certain votes for Elrond does not give me any comfort in this regard. Even though you may not have consciously have rigged it and thought that you were acting fairly, it is clear to me that there was a degree of partiality involved in the manner in which you exercised your discretion.

I don't deny there was a degree of partiality- I think I have admitted to that a long time ago. I also don't think that's necessarily a bad thing.

As for you raising "the issue" on the day of Khamûl's eviction, I maybe should have cracked down then on non-eligible voting. In my mind, I didn't want to be overly dictatorial: in other words, I didn't want something overblown like this to occur. My original intention in stipulating Tolkien-based rationale for votes was to discourage one-liner posts. Therefore, I didn't want to be putting the Mod's boot down on the necks of the players so eagerly. I wanted, rightly or wrongly, to wait a couple days and see if a trend towards greater post length/reasoning developed.

It didn't...

That I chose yesterDay to put my foot down was, I thought, a somewhat politically astute choice. Neither the Elrond party nor the Oropher party was winning by a landside (one vote's difference, I believe). Nor did I REALLY care to save either character, so I hoped to avoid accusations of bias. I PREFERRED Elrond, but not with the passionate drive of the Phantom.

In past games, the rule, I believe, has been, not that Tolkien-based reasoning was required, but that reasoning of some kind at least was required. In other words, votes for a character without more were not allowed. That works well, because it forces people to give some sort of reasoning (and therefore provokes discussion), but does not require value judgments on the part of the mod. In other words, it avoids the grey areas that my analysis above has highlighted and is easily enforceable in a non-partial way. Applying that rule, all of the votes yesterday, for both Elrond and Oropher, should have counted.

Alas, but perhaps I was doomed to problems in this field... When I say "Tolkien-based criteria", what I MEAN is "rational reasons", and since all of these characters come, in their entirety, from Tolkien, the word Tolkien has been used. It is perhaps not the wisest choice of words on my part, but I don't think that I've been unreasonable in expecting them to interpreted as intended. Show me where Elrond, Oropher, Khamûl, or any other is shown to us by anyone other than Tolkien (or Tolkien Jr.) and I'll gladly rescind the rule.

I don’t expect any response to this, nor any concessions. I just wished to make my position crystal clear before politely withdrawing from the game.

It was fun while it lasted.

I'm truly sorry to hear that. You have been, and I wish you could continue to be, one of the more entertaining players: you get drawn into the alliances, but you avoid getting entrenched too deep in them, as some do. You have always included a rationale for your votes. You are erudite and witty, and you have the value-adding gift to this game of inspiring grudges and revenge among those less fortunate.

If however, you feel that this game is rigged, unfair, and unjust, or that there is too much bad blood here to continue, then yes, you ought to leave. No sense in prolonging this pained situation longer...

And, regarding prolonging this pained situation, is there even a consensus that I should bother trying to keep running this game?

I don't want to step down. As Mod, I thought I had a pretty good game going. I was proud, in a parental way perhaps, of the alliances and petty grudges the players had developed. I thought I had put a pretty good cast of characters together, and that I doing a good, clean job of keeping my Moderator's Nose clean and unbiased.

I have been more than a little offended by the accusations against me, and although I don't bear any one particular 'Downer, or even a particular four or five 'Downers any ill will outside of this thread, I am irked at how large an issue this has grown into.

I remain,

~Michael A. Joosten - Survivor: The Second Age Moderator~

P.S. Analysis of votes coming up in the next post, to be followed by the official Day End. Any votes cast after this post will be counted towards tomorrow's tally.