Mini 659: The Neighborhood- Game over on Day 6

[Rashiminos]

Asking for a claim while unvoting is barking without the threat of a bite.

[Tommy]

Compare Lowell: (1) his focus shifts when he feels the wind changing, but (2) it's always possible to say what he's trying to pull.

That’s pretty ridiculous, Tommy. (1) You cannot possibly know what Lowell is “feeling.” (2) Is the above “bait” an example of this? I fear you are projecting.

Well, if it comes to that, I can't possibly

know

very much at all. But that doesn't stop me from discussing my impressions of people. I shall rephrase:

my impression of Lowell is that

his focus shifts when he feels the wind changing, but it's always possible to say what

I think

he's trying to pull. If it would help you read my posts, please append IMHO to every sentence.

And yes, the end of post 47 is an example of Lowell trying to pull something. I wouldn't call it "bait" myself - that was Tony's word - I'd say it was more of a smear. Let's see it again:

##unvote, vote tony. His post is all over the map. He's trying to sow the seeds of doubt without having to take responsibility himself.

Now, you and I disagree about the truth of this statement, but I think we can say uncontroversially that it's vague. It doesn't cite examples or give Tony any concrete points to respond to. Is this vagueness intentional? To answer that, I think we need to look at Lowell's next post, after he'd been asked to elaborate. Does it substantiate the attack, or provide more detail? Well, here it is - the entire post:

There are so many people I want dead.

I don't think it's fair to say I'm projecting - Lowell was deliberately stonewalling. Or, if you prefer, Lowell was deliberately stonewalling IMHO.

He's more coherent than crywolf, and therefore more suspicious.

So a player who plays the VI well is more likely to be scum? I don’t agree with that. In fact, I’d say it makes it more likely to be a null-tell, since a coherent VI is more likely to play similarly regardless of alignment.

No, I'm not saying he's coherently playing like a village idiot. I'm saying he's coherently playing like scum. Rather unsubtle scum, but scum.

Now, Darox. He still sounds surprised that anyone could dream of suspecting him. He's asked again what the case against him is, and fhqwhgads has offered this:

I thought the case was that you seemed to think his play style is scummy, yet refused to remove your vote at L-1.

I think that could be phrased better: he posted during the critical period and could have removed his vote but didn't, despite his recent claim that at that time he didn't want Lowell dead. Oman is happy that Lowell only wanted "pressure", but that level of pressure carries the risk of a hammer, and Darox has said explicitly that he didn't want a hammer. As I say, all this pales into insignificance beside Lowell's behaviour, but Darox is definitely one to watch.

Talking of which:

He was not at L-1 again, he was on the same 5 votes he had been on since Tommy unvoted when he was at L-1 the first and only time.

Slander! Libel! Or maybe a Tommy/Tony mix-up! I would like to remind everyone that I've only voted once this game and have campaigned steadfastly for Lowell's death ever since.

[gorckat]

Vote Count

Lowell (4):

Tommy, Rashiminos, Oman, TonyMontana

Darox (3):

iamausername,Ythill, fhqwhgads

crywolf:

bionic

Rashiminos:

Lowell

Not voting (3):

Elias, crywolf, Darox


**bionicchop has been prodded**

[fhqwhgads]

##unvote; ##vote:Lowell

My vote on Darox was obviously because I miscounted (still, IGMEOY). Lowell's not interested in playing along, and we're not getting anything more out of him while he's still alive.

I suggest we lynch.

[Rashiminos]

##unvote; ##vote:Lowell

My vote on Darox was obviously because I miscounted (still, IGMEOY). Lowell's not interested in playing along, and we're not getting anything more out of him while he's still alive.

I suggest we lynch.

I don't see where you miscounting has a bearing on your reason for voting Darox.

Here's your reason:

Woah! You keep on arguing about why you haven't retracted your vote, and now you try to slip under the radar and remove it quietly?

What difference does the number of votes on Lowell make?

IGMEOY

[TonyMontana]

He was not at L-1 again, he was on the same 5 votes he had been on since Tommy unvoted when he was at L-1 the first and only time.

Assuming you meant when I unvoted, technically it's not the same 5 votes. Since crywolf took him to L-3 shortly thereafter, I re-placed my vote on Lowell.

nitpicking ftw

[bionicchop2]

If you don't back this one up, it is strike 2.

3 strikes and you vote? Or are these hollow?

Actually my vote has been on crywolf and the first time she promised an in-depth post without providing one is in my initial argument.

[fhqwhgads]

##unvote; ##vote:Lowell

My vote on Darox was obviously because I miscounted (still, IGMEOY). Lowell's not interested in playing along, and we're not getting anything more out of him while he's still alive.

I suggest we lynch.

I don't see where you miscounting has a bearing on your reason for voting Darox.

Here's your reason:

Woah! You keep on arguing about why you haven't retracted your vote, and now you try to slip under the radar and remove it quietly?

What difference does the number of votes on Lowell make?

IGMEOY

Elaboration: Yes, that reason is why I've got my eye on him. The vote was because a few posts before he claimed there was nothing wrong with being at L-1, and I thought he was now pulling out at L-1. Contradiction.

But it's a good catch, I should have been more elaborate. I hate doing walls of text, sometimes to my own detriment. You have full right to call me out on that.

[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?

[gorckat]

My apologies to anyone confused by Pooky's posts (now deleted). He had expressed interest in replacing into the game if it was needed, and we had a miscue leading him to believe he had a spot.

I do not believe his posts were game affecting (there were 3 plus an apology for the miscue in a span of 5 minutes) so I simply made their font size smaller with a note to ignore them, but a player has asked me to delete them because they were distracting, so I've done so.

[Tommy]

Thanks for the detailed analysis, iamausername. Here are my comments.

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.

When three people vote for similar reasons, it isn't necessarily just bandwagoning: they may be good reasons! When good people agree on good reasons, good things happen.

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?

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.

If a cop is more likely, then it's in turn more likely that the town will learn about a guilty investigation result in the morning.

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.

I think it's a sign that she's learning how to play the game - she's now taken the lesson on board about avoiding emotion-led play.

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?

Totally with you here. I've been interested in hearing his answer to this one since you first pointed it out. Intriguingly, he's squirmed and ranted rather than addressing it.

[Rashiminos]

A quick post at lunch today.

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.

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

That thorough enough for you?

That's a lot better, thank you. Now tell me who you think is the scum leading the wagon? Then tell me what you think this says about Lowell's alignment?

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.

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).

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?

For some reason it seems important, I'm just not sure what that reason is at the moment. I was wondering if anyone else had something that might provide a clue.

[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.

[Rashiminos]

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.

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

Post 70:

Lowell said he believed in iamausername's claim 100% percent, which seems to be an unreasonable lack of doubt at this point. In post 47 he tries to convince more people to believe the claim, and suggests multiple scumgroups as a possible reason to believe the claim. Speculation on unknowns seems scummy IMO.

Post 131:

Lowell seems bent on asserting iamausername's claim to the rest of us, and then asserting Tony's reasonable doubt is baiting us into a trap. Lowell, if town, would seem to be deluding himself into trusting iamausername too much. If Lowell is scum, than he can be confident in his knowledge about iamausername, ie 100%.

[Rashiminos]

EBWOP: Something else came to mind right after I posted.

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.

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?

Furthermore, on what basis would you give a "scummy-looking" townie a pass when it just might let a scum get away from some bad play?

[crywolf20084]

Just posting real quick because I'm supposed to be writing a paper for my english class...or at least starting it anyways.

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.

But if I decide to go vote Lowell again, inevitibly hammering him, and for some reason it ends up being a mislynch, all the heat gets placed right back on me. So yeah, I'm a hammerphobe as of right now. I want to do it, I just don't want to be blamed for the hammering of a townie, because we all should know, Lowell's play style means nothing to his allignment.

But, sheesh... I just don't like how he's

blatently

avoided many of the questions posed to him, and/or ignoring them completely.


Oh what the hell...

##Vote: Lowell

What comes of it comes.

[bionicchop2]

Just posting real quick because I'm supposed to be writing a paper for my english class...or at least starting it anyways.

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.

But if I decide to go vote Lowell again, inevitibly hammering him, and for some reason it ends up being a mislynch, all the heat gets placed right back on me. So yeah, I'm a hammerphobe as of right now. I want to do it, I just don't want to be blamed for the hammering of a townie, because we all should know, Lowell's play style means nothing to his allignment.

But, sheesh... I just don't like how he's

blatently

avoided many of the questions posed to him, and/or ignoring them completely.


Oh what the hell...

##Vote: Lowell

What comes of it comes.

At my count that is only 6 any way.

That was one heck of an odd post there wolf. Let me see if I have this all straight:

- you are in a hurry because you have a paper to write
- you are scared to hammer because we will call you scum if he comes up town
- despite being in a rush and fearing he will show up town making you look scummy, you go ahead and convince yourself to hammer (what you thought was hammering) in the span of 2 sentences.

That has my head spinning. Here are the faults I see:

- You shouldn't care what you will look like tomorrow. Either you think Lowell is scum or you don't. According to you in post 195, you had no basis for voting Lowell (hence no reason to truly believe he is scum)

##unvote

There’s nothing I can do about his erratic play style, and my vote had no other basis other than it was an OMGUS vote.

- You are already setting up a defense for an action you think looks scummy

- You have more important things to do, but you felt the need to come here and hammer (even though it isn't) someone. It looks like new scum seeing a nice little townie waiting to be lynched and several players saying they are ok with somebody hammering them.

- I have a thing against self-debating posts where somebody appears to act in opposition to what their words are saying.

[Ythill]

##unvote; vote: Darox

Bad move.

Really?

We're a week from deadline. I've got a little doubt about my choice for the lynch, and the rest of the town isn't putting any stake in the case I've brought against her. Instead, they are intent on lynching the VI. And there's three scummy votes on his wagon.

Then a few people post honest-sounding suspicions of one of those scummy voters and I agree with them. And Darox responds in a way that embroils him further. So I change wagons in the hopes that we can lynch scum rather than the VI.

Having said that, I've now gotten the chance to read #265 and I'm seriously considering a jump back to wolf. Waiting to see her response to bionic.

[Darox]

Can someone try to summarize the case against me?

So far all I have got is that not unvoting when someone is at L-1 is somehow morally wrong, and unvoting when someone starts calling for an immediate hammer is clearly the move of a dirty sleaze.

This is obviously a joke, so tell me. What is the real case against me?

[fhqwhgads]

So far all I have got is that not unvoting when someone is at L-1 is somehow morally wrong, and unvoting when someone starts calling for an immediate hammer is clearly the move of a dirty sleaze.

The mistake you are making is taking those two actions in isolation. The case against you is more related to the timing of above moves in relation to each other and the type of questions you were being asked at the time.

My partaking of the Lowell bandwagon is for 2 reasons:

1) I'm not fond of using meta to defend someone's actions. If he's looking scummy, he's looking scummy. Personally, I find using meta is unreliable. Also, (and this actually coincides with Darox's statement), if his playstyle makes him look more scummy, he's the one who needs to change the way he plays. It's not our job to interpret it for him. We've got scum to hunt, trying to figure out if townies acting like scum is really scum isn't helping.

2) I believe(d) that the Lowell bandwagon is the only one that's going to follow through to the upcoming deadline.

At this moment there's only two things that's going to lessen my suspicion on him:

1) He admits he's been doing it wrong, and starts being a good townie, or

2) He gets replaced. (He's been pretty quiet), and his replacement makes up for his playstyle so far.

Bandwagons I'll endorse is still Darox (he's been dismissing the case against him as a joke. Not a good defence in my book) and Crywolf. While I agree on the assessment that she seems like a newbie, I dislike using it as an excuse, for much the same reason as my meta argument above.

[Darox]

I fail to see how being asked about why I didn't unvote ASAP when Lowell was at L-1 then unvoting because someone started calling for a hammer is bad, when the reason I was voting was to pressure, not to reach a lynch.

I find your #2 reason for following the Lowell bandwagon to be dubious. Going with a lynch because 'its the only one with momentum' is a scummy action. Was there really no other people worth looking into at all? Or did you decide to ignore them because no one else was looking their way?

[fhqwhgads]

I see what you did there

My number 2 reason is there for the plain reason that I'd rather go for a lynch than no lynch come deadline. Apart from Lowell, there's two other people mentioned in my previous post. It seems the actions on them isn't going to follow through, not at the moment anyway.

So I ask you. Is it, by default, scummy to follow the majority, especially if you agree with the reasoning? How will we ever get someone lynched if that is the case? Do you believe that everyone needs to have his/her own mutual exclusive reason to vote for someone?

[Darox]

No, it is scummy to support a lynch because you think it's the only one that will be supported.

Thanks for twisting my statements with your question, by the way. I never said it was scummy to follow the majority nor join a wagon without bringing up your own unique point.

So why are my actions bad again? Everyone seems to have wandering trains of thought and can't answer this properly without a blanket statement of 'It just is, M'kay?'

[Tommy]

Damn. Just when I was boasting about my voting consistency.

##Unvote

It's painful to let Lowell off the hook again, even if only temporarily, but I need to work out whether I've been wrong about crywolf. I'll dedicate this post to that because it's more important than anything else, and then post separately with comments on some of the things other people have said recently.

Please could you answer the following questions about post 265, crywolf? The sooner, the better.

1) Your reason for voting Lowell is that he avoids and ignores questions. Is there anything else, or is that the sole basis for your suspicion?

2) When you say "Lowell's play style means nothing to his allignment", do you mean that it's actually impossible to find any evidence against him, and that a Lowell-lynch will always be a blind guess?

3) If the answer to question (2) is yes, how do you square that with the reason I mention in question (1)? If the answer is no, when did you start feeling there was evidence against Lowell? What was it that began to change your mind?

4) Given that you were in a hurry and that you were reluctant to be blamed for Lowell's death, you could have waited till you had more time to carefully construct a detailed post giving the reasoning behind your change of heart. Why, then, did you feel it was necessary to get your vote on the table right then rather than, say, a day later?

[fhqwhgads]

No, it is scummy to support a lynch because you think it's the only one that will be supported.

Nice piece of statement twisting there yourself. I believe I have made my point (by the way, my 'statement twisting' question was just a question. I never implied that is what you meant. I just asked it to illustrate why I made the point at all).