First of all you seem to forget that he isn't a "protective" role like a doc. His ability to protect people is very, very limited unlike a real doc, which would be a much more scummy role to claim. Second, he has other uses than just protecting people - his watcher-like ability can also confirm innos to narrow down our lynchpool later in the game. I think that's too useful to lynch and not really a scummy claim. On the other hand it's not overpowered either.
Third, there are no CCs, his role fits his character and his role is useful for town so I can't see why we should lynch him now.
First of all, the fact that he claimed a weak version of a doctor makes it less painful to lynch him. A lot of times I am more hesitant when it comes to lynching protective roles, but depending on the way Mac set up his game, it's very possible that he can only protect 3-4 people, which, in all honesty, isn't very useful.
To your second part, first of all people need to stop saying it's a "watcher like" ability added on. If he was a watcher/doc, he would be incredibly useful. Instead, we have an extremely dumbed-down tracker which, if the mafia doesn't all visit, doesn't help us at all, and if they do all visit it would be impossible to differentiate them from PR's, and odds would be highly in favor of hitting a visiting role to a point it's low chance to confirm any nillas.
To the final point, does no CC's really mean anything? Yeah, Flanders is a big character, but it's also very possible that the mafia was given safe-claims. Yeah, if someone claims a big character it should be considered, but at the same time I could easily see Mac throwing a wrench in the claiming by giving mafia safe claims.
It's not just protective though, he's not even as good as a doc. Watchers are useful. What if he comes out D2 with useful information on scum?
Best case scenario: We spot scum today because we don't lynch cacti, he comes out tomorrow that so-and-so went somewhere, perhaps leading to ANOTHER scum lynch, which COULD be the game right there.
Why pass up on that possibility? Why don't we simply ask him for what he finds tomorrow?
Yeah, watchers are useful. Too bad he isn't anything like a watcher and people have been calling him that for no reason. He is a ridiculously dumbed-down tracker. He can not get useful information on scum. Why are people considering this as an important part of his role? He sees someone visit, for all we know it could be a pr. He sees someone no visit it could be a scum that wasn't involved in the kill. So, his role can protect maybe 3-4 townies tops, and potentially 1-2 mafia depending on how Mac is running the game, gives us no usable info from the pseudo-tracking, how is this a really useful role?
Now, why pass up on that possibility? Because name-claim=/= clear. Cacti has seemed scummy today and it is completely reasonable to continue lynching him, especially since he has a nigh worthless role. And why not ask what he finds tomorrow? Because if mafia doesn't kill him people are still going to be suspicious, and if he chooses to protect a mafia involved in the kill, when he says they left the mafia can say they are vanilla, and we'll end up lynching him anyway. Also, what if he is scum? If he has a safe-claim, and says "I protected X and they weren't home" and we ask for confirmation, congratulations we just outted a PR to mafia. Really, his role gives more info to the mafia than it does to us.
Also, Jungle, I can kinda confirm non visiting roles if I do not see them visit.
You can confirm non-visiting roles, but in many forum games not all of the mafia go to the kill, so you potentially give us no info there.
Now, after rattling off my thoughts to respond to Steel's post, I realized just how worthless Cacti's role is. Not only can he only protect very few of us, but if he comes out with information about his power and says "so and so left last night" or "so and so was home," that tells us NOTHING because we don't know how Mac is modding the game, so we have to assume visits could be PR's or maf/indie, and no visits are nilla or maf/indie. However, if he outs results(the only way to confirm him) it either tells mafia who a PR is and sets up a target, tells them who a nilla is lowering PR possibilities, or is on one of them.
Knowing that his role is potentially far more useful to mafia, and nigh useless for town, coupled with the very high potential of mafia WIFOM'ing the situation if we don't lynch him, I'm still in line to lynch the scummy player despite his name-claim.
Vote: Cacti
If anyone can explain to me why I'm wrong that his role helps mafia more than us, or why I'm wrong that leaving him alive causes problems later in more crunch situations if he continues to do things that build suspicion and isn't killed, then I will consider unvoting. However, right now I see him as being more of a potential damage to town later on than a help.
