JDodge wrote:
Again, there is no reliable scum reaction for anything. What makes this any different? Even if a townie comes under suspicion for the trap, don't you think that will still help us in the long run? Personally, I don't think you "ran in and defused the trap" like you said. I think you stumbled right into it and are now trying to cover that up.
Scum claims (and similar) are different for the simple reason that grounds for suspicion are infinitely easier to contrive (there's no difficulty in claiming scum) and don't require the "claimer" (our apparent scumhunter) to actually justify themself with any meaningful explanation.
Concocting arguments to prove someone's guilt isn't hard - we all do it when we are scum. However, it's also dangerous for scum because it requires them go out on a limb and present arguments which not only need to be decent at the time, but that they need to keep a consistent playstyle in light of.
I don't think a townie being caught will be helpful in the long run. If traps are reasonable, and voting people based on their reactions is reasonable then, bravo, you've created an easy-access method for scum to push lynches.
As for there being no such thing as a reliable scumtell generally, I agree with you. All of the stuff you said about going into detailed analysis etc. is required no matter what the situation is. The point is that it's a lot easier to dissect arguments and logic than it is to judge reactions to things like scum claims. While any assessment requires consideration of the individual's playstyle, at least when it comes to the former class of things there are explicit things to look out for that don't depend entirely on how you read the individual (eg. contradictions from an experienced player, kid-glove distancing, etc.).
JDodge wrote:
But in the end, most everything in the game boils down to that; either someone who does something, be it claim scum or whatever, is either scum or town. Your point actually works against scumclaim as a scumtell; if both town and scum can do it, it's not really alignment-indicative is it?
Scum and town can pretty much act any way they want during the day. Both have the ability to do
anything
within the constraints of the rules and their role.
Things that are factors in indicating alignment are behaviours which are ostensibly anti-town. Nothing is a total proof (again, both can do anything). I've already explained why I think scum claims are anti-town (for those of you watching at home, it's because there's nothing to suggest they are good at catching scum and will most likely end up hurting the town by casting suspicion on townies)
JDodge wrote: I just told you how to reliably assess them. When you can't win an argument, say "you're missing my point" and ignore the other person! What a brilliant debate tactic.
You did miss my point, though.
Your comments on deep analysis and psychological roadmaps have my entire agreement. That's the sort of thing that one needs to do in response to any tell, so you needn't have pointed that out to me. What you missed was what I had been trying to get across regarding the reliability of any assessment of scum claim reactions.
JDodge, if you had said: "Scum claim. Unvote, Vote: Adel" I would not have had a clue how to go about working out what your intentions were. I couldn't start from the assumption that you agreed with me. I'd be stuck thinking "Maybe JDodge is being opportunistic, but he might just have the view that Adel is serious or is being anti-town." It would basically be rendered as a null-tell in my head at that point.
JDodge wrote: I am voting you because you hopped on Adel's wagon while even stating that you did not know how a scum claim is scummy.
JDodge wrote: 2) You hopped on a wagon because "claiming scum is scummy" without any substantiating evidence anywhere.
I'm voting for Adel because she committed behaviour which I think is anti-town, ergo a factor indicating scumminess. If Adel explains herself adequately, not to point of achieving my agreement (we'd be here arguing for a looong time), I will unvote and file her scum claim away in the null tell box.
JDodge wrote:
1) As with all tells, how reliably you can judge someone with it largely varies from person-to-person, situation, etc.
I just mean generally. If X votes Y after a Y scum claim, do you find that you can reliably analyse X?
JDodge wrote:
Ugh, you're one of those lynch-all-liars fanatics aren't you.
No, I don't advocate LAL. I've lied as town in the past.
My exact position is lynch-all-liars-unless-I-can-understand-what-they-are-doing-or-they-explain-themselves-to -me.
JDodge wrote:
So you have no problem lynching a townie if they're supposedly "anti-town"?
I don't think I have ever lynched someone over a single anti-town play. I do, however, treat anti-town plays as scumminess indicators until they argue their case decently.
JDodge wrote:
Testing the waters.
If town puts themselves in the open with arguments that can be logically analyzed, they are also liable to fail. Anyone is liable to fail at arguing. Anyone is liable to fail at anything, which is what makes your argument so shaky. And really, if you think voting on gut/feeling is scummy, then there's a bit more of an issue there.
Failure at argument doesn't equal automatic lynch. I know that lots of people aren't comfortable at it. However, serious, uncharacteristic failures/discrepancies are the things that I scumhunt from.
And yeah, I have issues with the gut.
JDodge wrote:
What will you accept? How can I show you exactly what I mean when you just brush it off as nothing?
I think one aspect of this is the fact that I find such reactions pretty much impossible to judge as anything but null-tells, without some outside evidence strong enough to push my mental see-saw one way or the other. In that sense, short of crash course in "Reaction Judging ala JDodge" I'm not going to be swung round to agree with you.
That said, I see the sense in what you are saying and, were it not for the fact that I still don't think this can be judged reliably (again, the votes on me proved this to me), I would agree with you entirely.