I also wasn't making an appeal to authority. Debatepro said this and I want to make sure it doesn't become a thing anyone else believes. My post was just "look, there seems to be a near perfect split of players with all vets being off wagon, isn't that kind of interesting?" I didn't draw any conclusions about it except some weak theorizing about how the scum team would treat the wagon. It's kind of moot now since the observation wasn't even correct, but nonetheless, I didn't say and didn't mean to say that the wagon was bad because no vets are on it.
That's how the "non-vets" took it especially when it's coupled with "weak theorizing".
That may be how you took it. Why are you generalizing to other people?
I'm not going to say that I have no responsibility for people reading things into what I write that aren't literally there, because, well, words mean what people think they mean and if my writing is commonly misunderstood, that's something I should fix. On the other hand, it's pretty annoying to constantly think about what something could imply and then add a disclaimer that this isn't what I mean. Communicating clearly is a genuinely difficult problem.
But I can tell you right now that I don't like hinting at things without really saying them, at least not important things. Moreover, I think I'm unusually difficult to predict if you don't know me well and the way I think is unusual, so if you guess what I might have meant, you'll go wrong quite often. Long story short, if I didn't say something then I most likely didn't mean to imply it, either. Please take me by what I say.
Being incorrect about your "observation" is somewhat interesting, is it common for highly regarded and skilled players to make ~mistakes~ like that?
I think it's safe to say that it's common for me but less common for most other vets. (Talking about these kinds of little mistakes in particular, not mistakes in general)
But also -- I have to question you on your choice of words there. This post really feels to me like you're trying to paint some kind of narrative of low status people vs arrogant high status people. For one, you called vets "highly regarded and skilled?" Who says vets are highly regarded and skilled? That's certainly not true for every vet, and I'm sure I never said anything to that effect. Then you framed me making a mistake in a way that almost feels like you're trying to get me to admit that vets can make mistakes, as if that's a big deal.
Status is a real thing and I think often toxic if it's in the background with everyone pretending like it's not there. If you have any particular point you want to make about status, I think it's best if you make it explicitly.