The Great Vote Count Analysis (Pre-Discussion)

[Zantetsu]

Who is Elli? I think someone told me about a player who can call scum teams D1 with good accuracy and that their methods were unconventional. But I can't find the reference. Could this person be the mystical Elli?

[Zantetsu]

elli is "ellibereth".

Yah that's the one thanks. Time to do a search, I am genuinely curious. I don't doubt that it's possible to build an algorithm to detect posting patterns that indicate scum, I'm surprised someone would do it though because it would take all of the fun out of a game that exists solely for the purpose of having fun. There are no other rewards. But maybe I don't understand what Elli is doing.

[Zantetsu]

Hm. I randomly sampled a bunch of their threads. It was hard to find games they actually played in, but when I did, I didn't see anything unusual. Not sure what my source was telling me.

[Zantetsu]

I'm not sure what you expected, or what was "unusual" that you thought you'd find. I can personally confirm to you that ellibereth is widely regarded as one of the most accurate town players and played exceptionally in multiple games.

Thanks for your reply. The way it was described to me I expected to find posts like "The scum team is X, Y, and Z" on D1, and have it be accurate. Obviously that was an exaggeration. I don't doubt that ElliBereth is a great player and super accurate, but I don't have the energy to confirm that form myself via more than cursory inspection. Also I did not mean to imply the ElliBereth was cheating or would cheat in any way, the suggestion from earlier in the thread was that the player uses some algorithmic assistance from a computer which I have no idea if it is true and if so, I wouldn't call it cheating anyway. I would call it 'taking the fun out of the game' though. No need to even play if your goal is to create an algorithm to find scum and see it in action, you can do that on completed games without disturbing in progress games.

[Zantetsu]

I don't doubt that it's possible to build an algorithm to detect posting patterns that indicate scum, I'm surprised someone would do it though because it would take all of the fun out of a game that exists solely for the purpose of having fun.

What is the functional difference between "using an algorithm to detect posting patterns that indicate scum" and "using [your brain] to detect posting patterns that indicate scum?"

Which part of the process would an algorithm "take all the fun out of?" Would it still be fun if you used the algorithm to learn what patterns to look for, but applied those learned principles in live games without the algorithm? If not, why not?

Lots of players apply "tells" that they learned from other players, rather than discovering entirely on their own. Is this functionally different from learning a "tell" (which is what it would functionally be) from an algorithm? Is the difference the fear that it might be more accurate?

Yes it is different, very different. Kind of like playing a sport against someone who uses nonstandard equipment to give themselves a competitive advantage.

Anyway, like I said already, if you're just developing algorithms, you don't have to play in ongoing games. You can just turn them loose on completed games and you won't disturb any games in progress.

[Zantetsu]

Although I suppose that if part of your algorithm uses results of its own votes to further refine reads, then you'd have to do it in live games.

[Zantetsu]

My friend's wife used to play an online version of the game Boggle. One day my friend and I wrote a program to solve the Boggle board for words and we fed her answers while she was playing a game. It was fun for about 30 seconds to watch people being astounded at how quickly she could come up with words. Then it got boring because we weren't really accomplishing anything. We weren't even playing the game, we were just watching our program spit out words. I imagine using a program to find scum for you would feel like that.

[Zantetsu]

I wouldn't compare it to sports teams using unfair equipment, I'd compare it to statistical analysis being introduced to baseball (it was). Did it ruin baseball? (It didn't)

Hm this is getting pretty far out there but I wonder if players being told in-game where to position themselves for the best chance of making a play against each hitter would take some of the fun out of it for both teams. I'm talking about amateur sports being played for fun here, not pro ball where who cares how much fun they have (not even the players, I'll bet, except when the fun doesn't impact their paycheck).

If the players all had smart phones in their pocket and on every play they were consulting the phone to be told what to expect and where to position themselves for that play ... which I think is a better analogy here ... I can imagine not wanting to bother playing if I felt like the other team was more likely to win because their smart phones were better.

And speaking for myself, I don't like the idea of playing against someone using anything beyond their own note-taking to facilitate their mafia play. I cannot know who if anyone is doing it, nor can I know who if anyone is communicating off-site for personal advantage, but in any case, to the extent that I would be aware of it, I would not like it. But that's just one insignificant person's opinion.

I do like the idea of learning what statistical analysis shows about mafia games. Studying up ahead of time and being well informed seems fine, and interesting, to me.