Okay, let's deal with these, and hopefully end this argument once and for all.
You cannot take back a move in chess. That is against the rules. But it is not against the rules to take a piece of paper, draw out a chess board, and then make a picture of a move that you might make, and wave it around in the air, showing everyone your move. There is no rule that says you cannot tell the other player what you are going to do, and then change your mind and do something else entirely. There is no rule that says you cannot say "I will move my knight to B3 next move:, and when your opponent sets up a queen to take out your sad little knight, you unexpectedly clobber the queen with a pawn. It's the other guy's fault for being thick enough to believe you.
Do you understand my metaphor? This thread is the board, and the posts on it are the pieces. They are what is binding, what cannot be taken back. PMs are just drawings on a bit of paper, advice thrown into the air. They are basically just a private form of communication, no different to if I had instead been sending EmoHaruno emails, or talking on a phone, or using AIM, or whatever. They are not part of the game - I can say whatever I like on them (provided it stays friendly), and get away scot free, because they are not part of the game. They do not count. They might as well never have exisited for all the amount that they bind you to your word (not at all). If I had posted that pic on the thread, that might have been a different story. But by using pms, I conveniently found a place where I could make plans that would never be followed.
Another chess metaphor. If I were to move a piece into a certain position, and my opponent demanded to know what I was planning to do with the piece, and I told him/her something that I might do with that piece, and then did something entirely different, it would not be against the rules. Once again, the fault lies with the bamboozled opponent for not taking everything they recieved that wasn't binding with a pinch of salt.
As for Isabel's post:
It's fairly simple: Isabel thought that I must have known EmoHaruno was going to betray me because I found out that she had betrayed my well-demolishing move to you (and here we have another perfect example - I spent a long time exchanging pms with EmoHaruno planning how to destroy those wells, but after I realised that you had found out about the plan, I simply abandoned it, and did something else. I could do this because it was just in the planning stages - ideas sent back and forth via pm - meaningless), but I assumed that anyone in their right mind would wait until after the Comet had passed before openly betraying me. So I knew EmoHaruno would eventually betray me (just as I know that you and Isabel will eventually betray eachother, etc, etc), but I had no idea that it would be happening during that move, as Isabel suggested. So this was an example of miscommunication, not prevarication.
I hope that tha clears things up.
In summary:
- Nothing sent over a pm can be held to account (I am more than willing to keep debating this point if you aren't yet convinced).
And:
- I wasn't lying to Isabel, rather, Isabel misinterpreted what I was saying.
Glad we could get that sorted out