Well, I don't know where to start, so in no particular order:
Regarding bad play on my part - I have no way of knowing what is good and bad, having never played before, and having never read the other Mafia games, except part of Day I for MIII. That's one reason I made it clear early that I was NOT reading the other threads.
I have no need to debate whether it was bad play, I'll take it on faith that it was. My thoughts were that I would likely not survive the night, and I didn't want the one extra weapon I had to go wasted. I did consider that running the investigation might have been a waste, for two reasons. First, anyone I picked was likely to come back "town", even when the player isn't town, and two, I may not be believed when I report the result. Both of those seemed less grievous errors than allowing the resource to go unused (if I were killed). I did consider that the tool might be more valuable later. I also debated not using the tool simply because I had another whole set of decisions on when and how to report the results (more on that in a moment).
I chose Tables because he had posted so little AND because for every post he had a "reason" for posting so little. Jo would have been my third choice. My second choice I've not yet written about, and hope to when I can point out things I've noticed that seem inconsistent to me. I hope that post will be helpful to the town.
I have had the luxury of playing this game with complete transparency. I've not lied about anything. I'm very glad I was town, as I would not have known what to do if I were mafia, so I would have done what Tables did. Post very little, explain why that was, and lay low. So he caught my eye.
There have been questions about exactly what the moderator said. I can't quote him, there's a rule against that. However, from the explanation in my role description on page one, you can see that I was expecting one of three results ("Once at night, you may investigate a player in the game by PM'ing the mod. You will get results back in the form of Town, Antitown or No Result"). I got the single syllable response. (Hope that gets around the quoting issue.) That's why my "here's what I have to report post" laid out the three possible scenarios under which I would have gotten the result I got.
I disagree with the post that the doctor should protect me tonite. I think protection is better spent on someone who might be a town Power Role.
I guess I also need to have it explained why me saying that Tables is town would put a target on him tonite. Mafia already knew he was town, or that he was mafia, so nothing has changed there. I don't see why it would increase the chances that an SK would kill him.
One final note: I don't know if this is a game where the presence of people who don't know what they are doing really screws up the game itself, or just adds another note to the overall symphony. If I've drastically affected the play of the rest of the game in a non-routine way, I sincerely apologize.