Mini 659: The Neighborhood- Game over on Day 6

[iamausername]

Alphabetical

Vote: bionicchop

.

And also, I'm holding to the theory that an immediate claim is a good idea for millers, so here one is: I'm a miller.

[iamausername]

Dang, I actually did read them while we were still waiting for the confirms to come in, but I forgot about that. I imagine that will happen quite frequently.

##vote: bionic

[iamausername]

Clearly this is going to be something I forget regularly.

##Vote: iamausername

Heeeey, that's not who you voted originally!

[iamausername]

Yes, I wouldn't just randomly come out with that for no reason.

[iamausername]

I always thought millers were unknown to the actual miller (they think they are vanilla).

Sometimes. Obviously not in this case.

Otherwise scum could do what iamausername did and claim miller on d1. Yes they will come up as guilty if investigated, but it wouldn't matter. Effectively, what iamausername did was make it pointless to investigate them - if there is a cop.

Certainly. That's why I think claiming immediately as miller is a good idea; it prevents the cop wasting an investigation on me. If I didn't claim, and was investigated tonight, we'd likely have a cop outed for no reason, and a mislynch tomorrow, because no one would (or should) believe someone who claims miller AFTER a cop comes out with a guilty on them. Better that I get mislynched today, if it comes to that, and leave the cop free to make actual useful investigations.

Also, it gets us straight out of the random stage, which can't be a bad thing.

My vote is completely not random because I don't see how a miller claim could be a pro-town move. I can be convinced if there is some discussion thread about this play, but for now

# # vote iamausername

.

Here's a Mafia Discussion thread about the subject. There's some good points on both sides of the argument.

[iamausername]

If I was going to show up innocent to a cop (whether because I'm normal town or inv-immune scum), why the hell would I claim miller?

[iamausername]

I'm not exactly inclined to believe iamausername's claim at the moment since it appears to be lacking a certain flavor. Maybe he could remedy that.

Oh, sure. I'm the Piano Teacher, and because I tortured you all as kids by forcing you to play scales and stuff, you have an irrational hatred of me and will find me guilty even though I'm not.

(2) As long as he's alive, user is an excellent way for cops to test their sanity. A result of "guilty" on him means that you are sane or paranoid (which is easy to figure out) while an innocent result would mean you are naive or insane (which is almost as easy to figure out). Of course, if your sanity is guarenteed (or you figure it out some other way) then this point can be ignored.

Eh, I think the chances of a cop being anything other than sane in a mini normal are small enough that using me to test sanity is unnecessary.

[iamausername]

I believe iamuser, at best, has prevented himself to be lynched on day 1.

How's that, exactly?

[iamausername]

Speaking with the knowledge of my role: If another miller showed up dead, I'd assume that meant there was no cop, and that gorckat deliberately designed the setup to throw us off guard.

Speaking objectively: If another miller showed up dead, I'd probably want to lynch me too, if I were anyone else.

---

##Unvote, ##vote: crywolf

. I don't like the way she pushed a Tony wagon in this post without actually commiting to it herself. Feels like she was fishing to see if it would gain any traction, and retracted her 'suspicion' when it became clear it wouldn't.

[iamausername]

I find it odd that people agree with crywolf looking scummy, but then vote for Lowell.

Indeed.

I mentioned the word "lynch" once. (far from suggesting it)

So, if I was to say "we should lynch TonyMontana right now", would that not be suggesting it?

How was I "pushing" for a bandwagon in that post? (It's post 50) I FOSed him, and that was good enough for me at the time. I didn't go shouting that we need to lynch Tony that moment.

By pointing at him as suspicious, you're inviting others to take a closer look at him to see if there is any truth to your points, that's how you're pushing. And by using a FoS instead of a vote, it's easy for you to back away from it when nobody bites.

I shouldn't be completely trusted.

QFT (that means Quoted For Truth, FYI (that means For Your Information)).

---

I need to get a meta read on town-fhqwhgads, to see if he's reminding me of his scum play because he's scum, or if it's just because he's fhqwhgads.

[iamausername]

3)

User - Can you honestly say that you dont think the bit in 107 about suggesting lynches is a logic stretch, a leading question, and really not too relevant to the original usage of the word lynch? If not, then why make the post?

It's certainly a logic stretch, that was kind of the point. I was stretching Tony's argument to its logical end to show how it was invalid. Reductio ad absurdum.

What are your opinions on crywolf and why are you exaggerating points on her?

I currently think crywolf is the most likely scum in the bunch. Which points do you think I've been exaggerating?

Generally speaking, those who at this point are STILL clamoring for more flavor are not doing the town any favors.

True, but I can't see how saying the flavour I've given sounds plausible is in any way pushing for me to provide more.

[iamausername]

OK, I was considering changing my vote to Darox for some pretty shameless bandwagoning on Lowell, but then crywolf went and OMGUSed him to L-1. Other Lowell voters, are you entirely content with this situation?

[iamausername]

Do you want to maybe explain how "being ruthless to everyone" is in any way a scumtell?

[iamausername]

I think we're all in agreement that his push on me was without basis, and suspicious, play-style notwithstanding.

I don't. Lowell's case is not nearly as strong as he appears to believe, but I wouldn't say it is entirely without basis.

I am of the opinion that meta can't be used to defend poor behavior.

The idea is they eventually get broken out of the habit.

##unvote, ##vote: Darox

. You appear to be advocating voting for someone you think is town playing poorly. Explain.

Also, you said in Post #129 that you "haven't liked [Lowell's] play at the start". Please elaborate on this.

[iamausername]

True. But if we believe him, which I'm inclined to do, it narrows the search for scum as well.

Why do something so stupid? Well, geez if we're BELIEIVING people, why don't we just have townies claim, I'm sure teh mafia

wouldn't lie!

.

The idea is that I've narrowed

the cop's

search for scum. I've already told him the result of an investigation on me, and unlike everyone else, who is obviously claiming to show up innocent, he can trust me, because there is no reason for someone to falsely claim that they'll show up as guilty.

I realise that this is not what Tommy said.

4. We are actually promised a lot more information in night than usuall. We are promised (but not guarrenteed) a cop.

I'm confused as to what you mean by this. How are we promised more information than usual?

Things I don't like about Lowell. Fishing for role claims day one. 100% belief in miller claim. Case on tony.

Do you think your style of saying the fewest words you can is the best way to benefit the town? (BTW, if you'd just said "rolefishing", you could have reduced the word count even more!)

neutral as in you have no read on him, or neutral as in 3rd party alignment?

When I read Darox's response I thought, if I was scum I would ask Darox what he meant by neutral. Don't know that this says anything about bionic's alignment, but the thought came up so I figured I'd mention it.

Your comment makes no sense to me. Is somebody who is 'neutral' to you right now the scummiest person you can find? Does that mean everybody else is coming across as clear town to you?

I endorse this product and/or service.

You're essentially saying "this line of questioning is scummy", and then also saying "I agree with this line of questioning" here. What's up with that, Ythill?

I am undecided on whether this makes him scum or an idiot, but I am leaning scum. Like I said above.

But that's not what you said above. You said 'neutral', not 'scum'. Those are very different words. Why did you choose 'neutral' in the first instance?

Lowell’s vote on my was a OMGUS vote too, so why are you more comfy on me, than on him?

No, it wasn't. OMGUS means you are voting for someone purely because they voted for you. You weren't voting Lowell when he voted you, so it can't have been OMGUS. It might have been a totally unreasoned, obviously bandwagonning vote, but it wasn't OMGUS.

[iamausername]

neutral as in you have no read on him, or neutral as in 3rd party alignment?

When I read Darox's response I thought, if I was scum I would ask Darox what he meant by neutral. Don't know that this says anything about bionic's alignment, but the thought came up so I figured I'd mention it.

Your comment makes no sense to me. Is somebody who is 'neutral' to you right now the scummiest person you can find? Does that mean everybody else is coming across as clear town to you?

I endorse this product and/or service.

You're essentially saying "this line of questioning is scummy", and then also saying "I agree with this line of questioning" here. What's up with that, Ythill?

You are falsely lumping the questions. My interest was piqued by your first question which I found (mildly) suspicious due to my own thoughts about the “neutral” statement. However, I found the other two points valid: that a “neutral” player seems to be Darox’s best guess for who is scum and therefore, if he is town, his overall suspicions must be unreasonably weak. Which suggests that he isn’t town.

Hey, I'm actually not bionic.

I thought it was obvious, from the context, that he meant MotR. I also thought asking which he meant would be a good way for scum to appear helpful. I don't think this means you are mafia (it's too assumptive to be a reliable tell), but I mentioned it because it seemed relevant.

I didn't think it was immediately obvious that Darox meant neutral in that way, and I certainly don't think scum would be any more likely to ask about that than town, but this makes sense; I can see where the theory came from.

[iamausername]

I used the words neutral and scummy in my initial post. SEE ABOVE.

Yes, you said his

playstyle

comes off as scummy. That's still not the same as saying that you think he's been scummy in this game. And even if you meant to say his play in this game has been scummy, why did you use the word 'neutral' at all?

Regarding the Darox argument: I don't believe it's giving a tell on him either way, not for me at least. I think its just one comment being dragged out of proportion, probably due to a misunderstanding to his initial meaning.

I disagree. I think his original post was very clear in its meaning; there's no way you'd say "I think he is neutral with a disruptive playstyle, which comes off as scummy." when what you meant to say was "I think he is scummy."

Darox proposed a policy lynch to "correct" Lowell's behaviour in future games, and when people pointed out that this is a terrible idea if we want to win

this

game, he completely changed his story. It's backtracking, plain and simple. And I think that's a scummy reaction.

[iamausername]

I never meant to say "I think Lowell is scum guys, lynch please", stop putting words in my mouth.

But you were happy to keep your vote on him when crywolf put him to L-1? That sounds like you were happy with a lynch to me.

I am of the opinion that meta can't be used to defend poor behavior.

The idea is they eventually get broken out of the habit.

I'm starting to see the possibility that the 'neutral' bit was just poor word choice, and you WERE saying you found Lowell scummy. In that case, I'll go back to this one; if you think Lowell is scum, why do you want to break him out of the habit of acting scummy?

[iamausername]

If only I had a dayvig.

I FIND LOWELL SCUMMY, LIKE I HAVE SAID SEVERAL TIMES BEFORE. HOWEVER, I THINK THIS COULD JUST BE BECAUSE OF HIS PLAYING STYLE, WHICH I FIND IS ANTI TOWN. I USED THE WORD NEUTRAL INTENTIONALLY BECAUSE IT DISPLAYS MY MIXED FEELINGS ON LOWELL.

Yeah, I actually got that. That's not what I was asking. This post here:

I am of the opinion that meta can't be used to defend poor behavior.

The idea is they eventually get broken out of the habit.

I'd like some elaboration. What habit do you want to break Lowell out of? Why?

[iamausername]

Why should I have unvoted him?

Because when someone is at L-1, they are in imminent danger of being hammered. If you see that the person you are voting for is at L-1 and choose not to unvote, and then someone hammers, you are directly responsible for that lynch as much as the guy who placed the hammer vote. And if you're as uncertain about Lowell's alignment as you say, I wouldn't think you'd want to be in that position. Did the speed that the wagon on Lowell grew not give you any cause for concern?

Only if no one manages to

make themselves look scummier

and a deadline threatens, but I find this unlikely.

I find this phrasing interesting. Town are looking out for people who are actually acting scummy. Scum are looking out for townies who are making themselves look scummy.

---

Everyone else, what's your best guess about Darox's motives?

You've probably figured out where I stand on this by now, but:

The second possibility is that you wanted him dead but planned to wriggle out of carrying your share of the blame afterwards.

This.

[iamausername]

iamausername argues that lynching someone for anti-town behavior is not what we should be doing. Instead we should be lynching scum. I want to know what iamausername thinks the difference is in these two categories of lynch reasons.

I think you'll find I was actually arguing that we shouldn't be lynching someone because their play style is anti-town, which seemed to be what Darox was suggesting.

If iamausername thinks the speed of the wagon was a problem, then perhaps he should examine the reasons for voting Lowell and comment on how substantial they are in his opinion.

Fairly certain I've already done this.

You seem to believe that these two qualities don't overlap. Isn't it possible that someone "looks scummy" BECAUSE they are "acting scummy?"

You're missing half the quote. It's the fact that he said "

making themselves

look scummy" that stuck out to me. That just doesn't seem like a town-minded wording; it sounds more like he's trying to find someone to pin some guilt on rather than honestly trying to find scum.

[iamausername]

But I like arguing with myself!

[iamausername]

But I like arguing with myself!

No I don't!

[iamausername]

Okay, so now tell me what you think the difference between behavior and playstyle is in these circumstances.

Playstyle refers to the way they play Mafia in general, behaviour refers specifically to this game. At least, they have done in this conversation.

I request you give a thorough account of your opinions for the votes on Lowell starting with post 85, whether or not those votes are still in effect.

OK, sure.

fhqwhgads

voted Lowell in #85, placing him at one vote, to try to pressure an explanation for his "There are so many people I want dead" statement. Reasonable at that stage of the game. He unvotes shortly after (in #95) when Lowell does respond. Nothing scummy about this vote.

TonyMontana

voted Lowell in #87, placing him at two votes. It's very OMGUSy, but I think his point that Lowell's case against him was too vague for him to have anything to defend against is fair. Of course, the vote stayed on after Lowell explained his case more clearly.

Elias_the_thief

voted Lowell in #109, placing him at two votes (due to fhqwhgads' unvote), because he thinks Lowell's case against TonyMontana was "blatantly exaggerating points and misrepresenting". I agree that Lowell was exaggerating the strength of his case against Tony, but I think this was a deliberate tactic to make Tony feel more pressured to respond, and I don't think it's overly scummy. Still, I'll buy Elias thinking otherwise.

Tommy

voted Lowell in #125, placing him at three votes, for much the same reasons as Elias. Starting to look like bandwagonning now, but Tommy seems sincere to me.

Darox

voted Lowell in #129, placing him at four votes, with an extremely vague "Haven't liked his play at the start" which sets them alarm bells ringing, since this is the first time he'd said anything of the sort. He's clearly bandwagonning, but claiming that he'd felt that way all along, so it doesn't look like it. Damn, this one is scummy as hell.

Rashiminos

voted Lowell in #131, placing him at five votes. This came at the end of a very long post, which is about half about Lowell. A lot of detail, but it's still kind of parroting Elias/Tommy, and I don't think this is a strong enough reason for Lowell to go from one vote to five in the space of a single page.

crywolf

voted Lowell in #132, placing him at six votes AKA L-1. It's pure OMGUS, and she admits as much. Urgh. She's still a good lynch if we're not going to get Darox today.

Elias_the_thief

unvotes Lowell in #139, placing him at five votes, because he is a sane person who can spot a scum-led wagon when it goes from 0 to 6 in 2.5 seconds.

Oman

votes Lowell in #183, placing him at six votes. He wants a policy lynch because he thinks Lowell's playstyle is anti-town, and he thinks we'll gain a lot of info from Lowell's alignment reveal. I've seen enough Oman games to know that I always find him scummy, and this is no exception.
And, btw, I still don't get the "we're promised a lot more information in night than usual" statement. Yes, we're pretty likely to have a cop, but that doesn't mean the rest of us will be getting any great wealth of info tonight. I don't understand at all how "we probably have a cop" is a justification for lynching Lowell.

TonyMontana

unvotes Lowell in #190, to avoid an untimely hammer.

crywolf

unvotes Lowell in #195, placing him at four votes, admitting that her vote had no real basis besides OMGUS, and after apparently doing some meta-reading on Lowell. This still doesn't excuse her putting it there in the first place, but the attention had moved away from her at this point, and I think she could easily have maintained the vote without taking more heat than she already had. Interesting.

TonyMontana

votes Lowell in #196, placing him at five votes, because that was only an unvote nominally.

Darox

unvotes Lowell in #237, placing him at four votes, because he's not ready to see Lowell lynched. After just having argued that there was no danger of this when Lowell was at L-1. Very strange. What made you decide that Lowell suddenly was in danger of being hammered, Darox?

fhqwhgads

votes Lowell in #253, placing him at five votes. He thinks Lowell is "not interested in playing along" and "we're not getting anything more out of him while he's still alive". Lowell has been annoyingly quiet lately, but this vote still kind of came out of nowhere.

That thorough enough for you?

I'm curious... What's your reasoning/rationale for suggesting that a townie would not phrase someone's "scumminess" in that manner?

I don't think I could give any better explanation for this than I already have. Town are looking out for people who are actually acting scummy. Scum are looking out for townies who are making themselves look scummy.

---

##unvote; vote: Darox

Bad move.

I now fully endorse ##vote:Darox.

Also a bad move.

Don't I get a "bad move"?

2 crywolf voters have defected to the Darox wagon: iamausername, Ythill

1 Lowell voter has defected: fhqwhgads

Does this mean anything?

Well, in my case, it means I decided that Darox seemed more likely scum than crywolf. What do you think it means?

[iamausername]

Elias_the_thief

unvotes Lowell in #139, placing him at five votes, because he is a sane person who can spot a scum-led wagon when it goes from 0 to 6 in 2.5 seconds.

I'm interested in the word "scum-led" here. Who do you think is leading this wagon?

Yeah, I think it was the wrong word to use; 'scum-driven' would perhaps be better. I think the first few votes seemed to be well intentioned, but the sudden pile-on that followed was screamingly scummy.

In what ways am I parroting Elias/Tommy, in your opinion?

Well, in the sense that your original reasoning for voting Lowell was much the same as theirs; you felt that he was misrepresenting Tony. You might have gone into more detail as to exactly which points were misrepresentation, but the base argument remains the same.

Now tell me who you think is the scum leading the wagon? Then tell me what you think this says about Lowell's alignment?

Well, as I said above, "scum-led" was the wrong way to describe it, because generally I find those that led the wagon to be the least scummy players on it.

I think Lowell is probably town, because meta leads me to believe that most of the scumtells people are attributing him are null tells in his case, and I cannot believe that a wagon would form as fast as his did without some opportunistic scum in there. Now, it's possible that he's being bussed, but I think that's considerably less likely than him being town run up by scum.

Let me ask you a related question, how do you distinguish "acting scummy" from "making oneself look scummy"? (If I'm repeating myself, just type the post in which you answered this question).

I think it's very difficult; that's why towns frequently mislynch. The point is that I think Darox's wording was an unconscious slip, because he's not looking at it from a town point of view.

[iamausername]

Perhaps you ought to read a little more carefully. My reason for voting Lowell in post 131 references a FoS in post 70.

Yeah, when I did that vote analysis, I just skimmed through the thread looking for bold text, so I guess it's not surprising that I missed some fairly pertinent stuff along the way. I retract my 'parroting' comments.

Seems a bit of a stretch here. On the one hand you're assuming that townies can make themselves look scummy with the suggestion that hypothetical Daroxscum would take advantage of such townies. If this is the case, then we have this idea of townies who do "scummy" things, and probably do so unintentionally. In this case, how can we rule out hypothetical Daroxtown making himself look "scummy?" How can we get past this circular logic going on here?

Well, answering this question is pretty much the key to winning the game as town, so I hope you'll forgive me if I don't have a solid answer. It seems like you're still completely missing the point of why I found Darox's wording scummy, because these questions are very tangential to the original point, but I don't know how else I can explain it. Does anyone else see where I was coming from on that?

fhqwhgads' #269 concerns me; he's endorsing every one of the major wagons to have appeared so far today. Rather bet-hedging, I think.

Can someone try to summarize the case against me?

Besides the inconsistency in your attitude to unvoting, there's the whole "making themselves look scummy" thing that I've been discussing with Rash which I note that you've failed entirely to comment on, and more importantly, there's your initial Lowell vote, which was extremely poorly reasoned and bandwagonning as hell, and the whole reason I became suspicious of you in the first place.

My jump off was not because I recognized that the wagon was scum driven, but rather because Lowell got around to addressing my points, and I found his response satisfactory.

Well, that's a wildly different explanation than you gave at the time:

##unvote

this wagon went way to fast for my liking, and lowell hasnt even got around to answering my initial questions. Lets just slow it down a bit, and look more carefully at everyone voting lowell.

What's going on there, Elias?

[iamausername]

Let me help you by giving you somewhere to start... Why can't a town-aligned player say something equivalent to "that player is making himself/herself look scummy" and have it mean "acting scummy?"

Because "making themselves look scummy" implies the knowledge that said player is not

actually

scum, they're just making themself look like it.

I noticed Rash pretty much destroyed your 'making themselves look scummy' argument without needing my help, which wasn't hard considering the logical fallacies in it.

Seems a bit of a stretch here. On the one hand you're assuming that townies can make themselves look scummy with the suggestion that hypothetical Daroxscum would take advantage of such townies. If this is the case, then we have this idea of townies who do "scummy" things, and probably do so unintentionally. In this case, how can we rule out hypothetical Daroxtown making himself look "scummy?" How can we get past this circular logic going on here?

I can't see how this could possibly destroy any argument, since what Rash is basically saying here is "but Darox might be town!"

But really, the point of this is moot because Tony or whomever unvoted him before I had the chance to even contemplate not unvoting him.

I did briefly consider it, but I decided to wait it out a bit, but Tony rendered the point moot by doing it himself.

So, uh, is 'considering' a different thing to 'contemplating'?

My my, how about this?

EBWOP: Lowell has refused to claim.

I support a hammering.

Or maybe this?

There's still a week before the deadline, so if people need to discuss this further, that's fine by me.

But personally, I agree. Lowell remains the scummiest player, and I'd like to see him swing.

Crazy of me to think that there might be a risk of an imminent hammer, right?

Ok, now how about this:

L-1

Claim or die Lowell

.

That one didn't appear to give you any concern that a Lowell lynch was imminent. There's that inconsistency I mentioned before.

---

Elias is worrying me right now. Lynching someone "for information" is a horrible reason, and it's a great way for scum to get themselves on a mislynch while denying responsibility for it. "I was only doing it for the information!"

He says he'll only do this "as a last resort, assuming no better lynch candidate comes up prior to deadline", but he doesn't appear to be making any particular effort to

find

a better lynch candidate, which looks to me like he's happy to ride it out to deadline and then go ahead with lynching Lowell. 'For the information', of course.

[iamausername]

Claim or die is not the same as 'He hasn't claimed yet, kill him.'

I can possibly see a very slight semantic difference there. I can't see how that difference could mean the difference between you unvoting and not unvoting with your stated position. If you weren't ready to see Lowell lynched, why didn't you offer any resistance to Oman's "claim or die" sentiment?

I was contemplating my actions after I had decided not to unvote and whether it was a good pick, but then tony decided for me.

So you admit that this statement:

But really, the point of this is moot because Tony or whomever unvoted him before I had the chance to even contemplate not unvoting him.

was, in fact, a lie?

[iamausername]

Username, you have yet to take a solid stance on Lowell I believe. DO you find him scummy?

I think Lowell is probably town, because meta leads me to believe that most of the scumtells people are attributing him are null tells in his case, and I cannot believe that a wagon would form as fast as his did without some opportunistic scum in there. Now, it's possible that he's being bussed, but I think that's considerably less likely than him being town run up by scum.

Is this solid enough for you?

Do you think he is a good lynch in terms of info?

I think a Darox lynch will give us just as much info at this point, and is considerably more likely to hit scum. I'll agree that no other lynch is looking particularly feasible at this point, and that a Lowell lynch is preferable to no lynch, for the information it will bring.