Mini 611a - Troy, Meet Helen (Restarting)

[Walnut]

/confirm

[Walnut]

Wow, that got under way quickly! So much to read before carefully placing a random vote. I am tempted by Hadhfang trying to subtly influence the mob by referring to Charter as "cHATER", but in the end my vote goes on Near. Why? Well, coincidentally I had been following the game in which Macavenger participated in the unfortunate tracker lynch (Mini 578), but then Near dropped out and his replacement was... spectacular.

Vote Near

You may find it weak reasoning, but if having a replacement like that is not a scumtell, what is?

[Walnut]

To explain my previous post, I had confirmed in thread. Next time I logged in, the game was already in page 2. Unlike various others, who as a policy did not want to random vote, I took the other reasonably common option and random voted. I had thought that I had chosen a reason so absurd that no one could possibly take it seriously, but somehow Macavenger wanted an explanation, Blackberry didn't like it and thought it sounded silly (a random vote being silly? oops, my mistake), CFRiot had a problem with it and honestly didn't understand it, and Acidmix thought I had posted multiple confusing messages.

Aside from my head-smacking disbelief at the reactions to my first post, much appreciation to all the people who are posting- much better action than some previous games I have been in.

And Battousai- might be time to update the sig, as q21 owned us in Newbie 595, unless you want to claim that you were a late replacement and not involved in the loss

[Walnut]

I've seen people vote for reasons they thought were too absurd to be serious before also, and get questioned about it. Keep in mind humor doesn't carry nearly as well over the internet as in person, since we can't read vocal inflections and stuff, just the text. If you're going to do that in the future, I recommend adding smilies or something to make it more clear it's a joke.

Mac, you are trying to be helpful and what you are saying does make sense. But... if people are that dumb, I would have to stop and think if it is worth playing. It is like "Someone said /firmcon instead of /confirm- better lynch them quickly!".

I can accept the fact that that was a joke. I'm a little curious why you have nothing else to say about all the posting that's happened to this point, though. Surely you could have found something to comment on in all this stuff swirling around charter, in addition to answering questions about your random vote?

Seeing the trouble that Charter got into for not answering, I am tempted to add annoying to my current reputation of confusing and silly and just say "No". To elaborate, usually I am helpful, logical and constructive... and get lynched night one for my efforts (see my sig, and Newbie 595 and 616 for evidence).

But it is too hard to resist, so here goes.

CFRiot- For me, the question of "rank scumminess on 1-10" can be seen as a conversation progressing tool, but also can be a bit scummy, as it was devoid of any personal input. As Netlava initially said, it put all of the pressure on Charter to explain his opinions without CFR having to voice his.

Charter- As many people have pointed out, simply answering the question would have got him straight off the hook, but a refusal to answer stood out as being inappropriate for such a minor issue. That said, I think he has done a good job of dealing with all of the fuss around it, and I am not getting a big scum feeling from him.

I am impressed by Netlava and Hadhfang seeing the key points of the arguments to date. Most of the rest have not posted enough for me to have much of a read on. Speaking of that, I will leave my vote on Near, if only to remind myself and others that he has a grand total of one post so far.

[Walnut]

OK, time to say something that will hopefully get people thinking, rather than following "Scumhunting for Dummies" Just to be helpful, I will even mark with an * the standard scumtells I am giving.

As town, we* want to eliminate all threats to the town. Given that the opposing win condition* is usually based on having equal to or more members than the town, the natural corollary to this is we don't want to eliminate town members. I am not liking the way this is going, particularly with Macavenger and Battousai.

Townies lynch townies. It sucks, but it happens. We have to deal with it.

Walnut: I don't add replacement games to my list unless I play for more than half the game, but I have a feeling I'm going to have to add a loss pretty soon.

There is not enough responsibility being taken here. You see this with a surprising number of players on the site, who have a complacent 'Oh well, I honestly thought he was guilty. Now, how about this other guy..." that allows them to mislynch and move on. I don't like this, as a) it often leads to incorrect lynches, and b) it is a great defence for scum. As for townies not caring how they look the next day because they made their best guess, surely if you think you are a reasonable player or a power role* it is in the town's best interest for you to stay alive.

Charter, don't answer questions not directed at the whole group or yourself. Now I don't know what acid really would have said if you hadn't answered by himself. His answer could have been manipluated by you because now he knows he has support with this reason.

Interrupting questioning like that is almost never protown.

Some people write more logically, persuasively, or coherently than others. One of the challenges of online mafia is that all we have to work from is what people write, but inability to articulate clearly does not increase the likelihood that the person is scum. Therefore, while some people want to pursue lines of questioning unchecked, it naturally follows that their target should not have to always be their own spokesperson. At the extreme is a question like "Are you the cop, and who are you protecting tonight?"- I would hope that any townie would jump in and say it was not in the town's best interests to for the cop to answer this. More generally, you often see a confident, aggressive player leading the lynch in a direction that you think is incorrect. Of course in that instance it is appropriate to disagree, including removing weapons from their rhetorical arsenal (such as direct questions). In any case (other than a deadline) there is plenty of time to build an impression and a case, and each person's interjection will be noted. In this case, it appeared that it confirmed Macavenger in his suspicions, as he shrugged off Acidmix's vote and focused still on Charter.

It is a common approach to pick someone early on and pressure them. What I am seeing is that it is working in that both Charter and CFRiot are feeling the heat and have said things that sound possibly scummy. On the other hand, I am scared by this comment Macavenger makes in reference to Near's scumminess:

Just to humor you, I'll say 2 because his silence is starting to border on lurking, but enough scumvibes are coming from the people posting that I think there's a good chance the scum lie elsewhere.

Later on Mac notes that 5 of the 12 players need to post more, which is encouraging as I hate to think that anyone is drawing conclusions too soon. Recently I was recently in a game where Day 1 ended before 2 players had posted!

We have all day- and that can be months so long as people keep posting. Don't just pick one or two players and pressure them, put all twelve through the wringer. Ouch- I just realised how painful that may be for blackberry if he keeps trying to provide a comment on almost every post

Oh, and in general about this post:
* Any discussion of theory is a scumtell, as it lets the mafia appear to be posting a lot without saying anything useful.
* The fact that I did not end up voting for anyone is a scumtell, as I am trying not to look guilty for tomorrow. (Actually, I am still voting for Near, for the same reason as previously.)

[Walnut]

Speaking of Blackberry, Shadowgirl has posted three times since he last did. If we are asking for a prod on her it seems fair to ask for

prod Blackberry

please.

[Walnut]

Near, you amuse me

It is disarmingly honest of you to recognise that you have been absent and admit that it is a "read" rather than a "re-read". On the other hand, in tripling your post count you have... more or less just unvoted. I am happy to leave my vote where it is.

A couple of other things: Acidmix's most recent post (#132) with no capital letters and little else by way of punctuation suggests that post #89 was more or less standard, and easily confused.

Shadowgirl, I am glad to see you back and getting stuck in. Good posting! But... were you serious in this question?

Macavenger wrote:

Usually I PM the mod along with my scumbuddies talking about our pregame strategy, obviously. But Mizzy wanted me to confirm in the thread this game. D:

Was mentioning 'scumbuddies' necessary? Or was this merely a joke?

Did you really think this might not have been a joke? That Macavenger slipped up and made a horrible mistake in mentioning his scumbuddies? If so, I fear that we are checking the book on the standard scumtells and rolling them out.

[Walnut]

Walnut, what is your obsesson for looking for non-standard scum tells? Are you worried that you might make some and get noticed?

Actually, no. What I am more worried about is that it is easy to lynch people based on "standard" scum tells, when those people are often not scum. If you say "Player A showed standard scumtell 1, 2 and 3" then lynch them and find out that they were town, people don't take responsibility for the mislynch, they just blame it on Player A's bad play. The sad truth is that you are still down a townie, which may have been avoidable. So I guess what I am saying is sure, point out why someone's play could be seen as scummy, but don't make the logical leap from someone showing something that is a known as a standard scumtell to being convinced that they are scum. Macavenger does well in avoiding this in his comment on Acidmix's vote on him being something to ignore rather than a definite scumtell.

This is not at all helpful. Stop now. Very suspicious that you could be trying to draw attention to minor tells you might commit and not mark any major ones, hoping they slip by as a result.

Sorry Macavenger, I am not following your script. That is exactly what I am trying to say. I am challenging you to use your brain and interpret what you see before you, not to simply use a mental list of known scumtells and check them off as they go by (references power roles? check/// insinuates that he is town? check/// shows concern for rep for next day? check/// defends another player? check etc). I would also challenge your definition of helpful, in that whatever is posted here may be helpful to some member of the town, even if not to you. A bit like someone answering a question for someone else- it is not the result that you desired, but it is still unquestionably part of the puzzle.

And what is with the "Stop now."? Should we all be following your playing style? Are you 7 for 7 or what?

[Walnut]

A couple of times I have come up on people's "not posting enough" lists. Basically, due to timezones and lifestyle, it tends to be that I when I get to log in a bunch of stuff has been written since I last logged in. I post something in response to that. Then, usually no one else has posted when it is time for me to log out, so I log out without posting again. In this case, I am posting a couple of hours after I last posted, and the usual story holds.

[Walnut]

Triple post, sorry.

The advantage of hanging around this time is that I was able to ask the mod a question about game setup and get a reply back (thanks Mizzy). Based on that, FoS Netlava.

To summarize:

Had is scum, batt is probably the second. Third, dunno yet.

There is no game setup metadata that says that there are three scum. Would you care to explain?

[Walnut]

Anyone who goes by a literal list like the one you give there and lynches only based on that is probably scum looking for easy lynches anyway.

Good try, but what I have been saying all along is that apparently scummy play (such as lynching solely on standard scumtells) can well be town play. Incidentally, you say power roles is a decent one (scumtell)- what do you think of Hadhfang bringing up the possibility that Charter has a power role?

Had -- I don't like the fact that after someone says "I don't think it's xxxx and xxxx" you try to counter their thoughts and make them think otherwise. I may or may not be correct when thinking this next thought: but the way you talk to him it's like you're trying to convince a townie otherwise. You are not considering he may be scum with an alternate plan. Just the way you speak to him is as if you know he is a pro-town player? Am I making sense? lol.

I have something to say about this, but I suspect that if I jumped in before Had replied half the town would want to lynch me.

[Walnut]

As I said to Mizzy in PM:

Sure- we can begin all of the same arguments again

Count me /in

I will try not to bait Mac this time... maybe

[Walnut]

Oh, and I was a weak doc- planning to protect Mac night one, and (depending on how things were going) even make an unprompted claim on day 2 if it seemed beneficial.