Mini 692: Boost Mafia (Game Over!)

[Incognito]

Vote: eldarad

Sup?

My last two opening votes in games have landed on scum. Do you feel lucky?

[Incognito]

vote: Raging Rabbit

Vote: eldarad

Sup?

My last two opening votes in games have landed on scum. Do you feel lucky?

I want proof for this before I mindlessly hop onto the wagon!

Here's the proof:

• A good, solid vote on Erg0-scum
  
• A very sXc vote on ZazieR-scum

Now join me on the path to salvation.

[Incognito]

eldarad pretty much covered what I thought as well -- I could imagine Patrick-mod placing a pretty good amount of thought into this set-up to prevent some sort of a game-breaking strategy from cracking it open by having something as simple as a mass claim. I can also think a number of other reasons for why an early mass claim might do more harm than good.

Electra = Mohinder Suresh lrofl

Why did you immediately accept Electra's claim?

I'm wary of Electra - what she's doing is way too easy of a scum gambit for me to trust.

Really? How so?

[Incognito]

Why did you immediately accept Electra's claim?

umm i was making a joke.

Mohinder Suresh is a character from the show Heroes who basically injected himself with a serum that was unsafe because he wanted a superpower so badly.

I was saying that Electra just wants to be special

Yes, I read the link that you linked to and was able to determine who the character was and what the specifics were with respect to the character. But that's precisely my point: if you're saying that you think Electra just wants to be special [by being altered in some way, (in this case through boosting)], then doesn't that imply that you believe her vanilla claim? If it was a joke like you say it was, then fine but if it wasn't, I'd like to know why you seemed to readily accept her claim.

[Incognito]

But are you implying that when i said "she just wants to be special" I meant that "she just wants some kind of power" and that that statement, when coupled with her flawed assumption* (see below) that only town would have no power but could potentially get one - this would imply that my thinking that her wanting a power implied that i believed her as town?

Damn, that question took a few read-throughs to understand what you were saying.

No, I thought that you believed her claim because you stated that she's Mohinder Serish from the show

Heroes

. I figured Mohinder Serish was a protagonist on the show (as opposed to an antagonist) who began with no special powers and eventually gained them over the course of a show or two or something. Therefore, I thought that by claiming that Electra is this person, this implied that you immediately believed her vanilla claim.

I kinda see what you're getting at with your "Electra's three subdivisions" thing, but I don't see it as that sinister as you're making it out to be. I would like to see her response to your accusation though.

Hi guys, missed the thread. Marking it by posting.

Hey. Any thoughts so far about anything that's happened?

[Incognito]

As far as any conclusions about her - i dont really feel like the 3 vs 4 issue is really any kind of definitive tell. I made a snarky comment at the end of one of my posts, something like "how could you know this??" or something (not really worth looking up). It was obviously poorly placed and implemented, and was a gigantic distraction from my point,

so i should point out that i was not trying to incriminate her or call out anything

, i just tend to joke around a lot during the first few pages.

I'm commenting on what I've bolded in orange here. If this is what you're considering to be a "snarky comment not meant to incriminate her":

you don't...have extra information about the specifics of the mafia members powers...

do you?

was the following also a snarky comment not meant to incriminate her as well?:

Its odd (heh get it? odd?? ehh??) to me that she omitted the category of scum w/ no power but the potential to gain one as it logically and mathematically seems as self evident as the town version.

If even this second comment wasn't meant to incriminate her, why exactly did you classify her omission of this fourth category as "odd"? What was odd about it then?

Boost electra

I think her post comes from a townie.

What skillet said seems superficial but on second thought I think it makes a good point, it's good to keep in mind that mafia may have abilities that are independent from boost to avoid reasonings based on wrong basis - ie: "X can't be responsible of action XXXX because X hasn't been boosted".

I don't like TDC's vote on him.

VOTE:TDC

Can you elaborate on this a bit more? Why do you think Electra's post comes from a townie? Also, can you explain in a bit more detail why you don't like TDC's vote on Skillit?

Also,

unvote; vote: sthar8.

I'm not liking your

35

and your

49

as they're two examples where you've responded on behalf of two separate people before they've been given the chance to respond to issues on their own. Is there any reason why you feel the need to do this?

[Incognito]

(heh get it? odd?? ehh??)

"She said 3 instead of 4, i find that odd" odd as in odd numbered. it was a pun. i thought it was kinda funny /shrug

I got the pun and thought it was funny too, but I thought you still meant it in both senses of the word.

[Incognito]

Mod:

Could we get a prod on fuzzylightning? He hasn't posted yet. Thanks.

[Incognito]

@Electra:

Are sthar8 and Skillit the only two people in this game who you have metas on?

FWIW, I didn't really think sthar8's response to my vote was very panicky at all, so I wouldn't mind Raging Rabbit explaining why he thought it was a panicky reaction a bit more.

Alright, I apologize for missing the beginning of this game. I forgot to look for the thread and was waiting for a PM saying the game has started, after confirming, which never came.

Have all of your previous games been modded by mods who send PM's out when the game begins?

[Incognito]

Glad to see you getting more involved now, springlullaby. I almost forgot you were even in this game. Addressing your points.

Btw, to answer your question Incognito, I think Electra's post comes from town because I read her as town and think the odds for a scum gambit are low. What do

you

think of Electra?

I didn't know what to think of Electra's page 1 claim at first. If it had come from a raw Newbie, I might have checked him or her off as obvtown for it. However, Electra has been on this site for quite some time now, and while I agree that the odds of scum making a gambit like that are low, I think it's still plausible for scum to do it, especially experienced scum. I thought eldarad's rather astute observation that he made

at the bottom of this post

was probably the best reason put forward by anyone to believe Electra might just be town here. I didn't think the assumption that scum probably wouldn't do such a thing on page 1 was powerful enough a reason to check her off as obvtown like everyone else seemed to do, so I preferred to reserve my opinion of her until I saw more content come from her. So to answer your question, as of right now, I'm leaning pro-town on Electra not based on the assumption that scum probably wouldn't do what she did but more based on what eldarad mentioned and her additional contribution to the game.

2. All of Incognito's posts has 'look I'm such a good little townie' written all over them, but has yet to produce anything meaningful.

Um, yeah, this is such weighted bombast. I've been

trying

to hunt scum. I didn't like the initial route the discussion took since it seemed to focus purely on the game mechanics which seems more theoretical to me. I think it's

extremely

easy for scum to hide in that type of discussion since it focuses more on information rather than analysis and leaves people reading completely neutral. I prefer asking questions directly to people and engaging in conversation by analyzing posts and eventually formulating gut reads. In my opinion, theory discussion is very unlikely to reveal much about a person's alignment, so the sooner we could move away from it, the better.

a. Ask 'soft' questions of doubtful relevance in about every post he makes, but doesn't seem to garner any insights from the answers he got.

Eh? All of my questions have been very relevant to the game, and I certainly wouldn't classify them as "'soft' questions" either. Just because I don't immediately reveal my insights from the answers I get doesn't mean that I haven't formulated any opinions on them. When I'm ready to make a case against someone who I think is scum, I'll do so but certainly not this early in the game. Trust me, when I have a scum read on someone I'll make my opinion on the person blatantly obvious. Right now, this is purely the information-gathering stage for me. I've seen certain things from people that make me lean slightly town on them or slightly scum but not enough to come to a definitive answer with respect to their alignments.

@Electra:

Are sthar8 and Skillit the only two people in this game who you have metas on?

What is the purpose of this question? How do you intend to garner insight from the recipient's answer if any?

It would be rather nice if I didn't have to answer your bolded questions until after Electra responded to my question but if you absolutely must know now, I asked the question because I couldn't entirely figure out why she chose to comment solely on sthar8 and Skillit with respect to the meta-game and why her meta leans town on them. I mean, yes, Skillit in particular seems to be receiving the majority of the attention as he has accumulated the most votes thus far, so I could understand why she might have taken the opportunity to vouch for him but then she also referred to sthar8's meta when I personally don't think he seems to be in any real danger as of right now. Her reference to sthar8's scum meta just seemed a bit premature to me, and I wanted to see if there were any underlying reasons for her to do so.

Alright, I apologize for missing the beginning of this game. I forgot to look for the thread and was waiting for a PM saying the game has started, after confirming, which never came.

Have all of your previous games been modded by mods who send PM's out when the game begins?

Same questions as above.

This was a more minor personal question for me that probably nobody else in the world would use to try and figure out someone's alignment, but I sometimes rely on little questions like this to formulate reads.

Scum can talk during pre-game, correct? Therefore his reference to not receiving a PM to know when the game had started could have been seen as weakly pro-town since, if he was scum, he and his scum buddies might have been going back and forth a bit in conversation before game and might have nudged one another about the game's opening. I wanted to see if his comment was sincere. Obviously I wouldn't base my read of fuzzylightning completely off of this, but I thought it was a small avenue worth probing a bit.

2. A weak vote on sthar, it doesn't convey a sense of suspicions, but rather annoyance at sthar answering in other's stead. When sthar answers, Incognito seems to be satisfied with sthar's response as indicated by post addressing Raggin Rabit, yet vote still on sthar.

Tell me Incognito, what do you think of sthar exactly? Was your vote meaningful in anyway in the first place?

I have a slight meta on sthar8 as I just finished moderating a game in which he was scum in. I thought he played fairly well in that game, and I do have respect for his scum play, so I wanted to place a bit of pressure on him to try and get a better read of him. I thought he kinda skated by a bit in that game particularly on Day 1 as nobody seemed to really place much pressure on him until later on in the game during Day 2. Therefore, I figured that by placing a pressure vote on him early even for more minute reasons I would be able to draw more information out of him and not allow him to skate on by. Plus his answering of posts directed at other people has the potential to lessen the information we can draw from their responses since they could just copy or formulate their response around his own response thereby making any response they do put forward a null tell. I wanted to nip that type of "answering posts directed at other people" thing in the bud immediately.

As for what I think of him: I thought his reaction to my vote was weakly pro-town as he admitted to doing something wrong and didn't try to make up some strange answer about why he was doing what I called him out on which is what I would expect scum to do, but other than that, a majority of his posts have seemed to mainly focus on game mechanics which results in a non-read for me. Having non-reads on people makes Incognito very, very unhappy.

3. A prod within the first 3 pages, wtf.

And that's wrong because...?

Incognito, I think you very much resemble scum trying to look busy, what do you think?

Cute. Very cute.

Some of your points seem like a bit of a stretch to me, which is a bit bothersome. I'll try and take it as a slight pro-town sign that you've called me of all people out on certain things when I've pretty much had absolutely nothing directed at me and have been finding myself trying to create my own content to get involved in. But yeah, there ya go.

[Incognito]

Oh and btw, Skillit has now reached L-2. I think sthar8, Electra, and to a lesser extent TDC should at least justify why they feel their votes are on the best wagon at this current time. I know Electra in particular mentioned that she doesn't think Skillit is scum, but she still hasn't removed her vote from him (hey,

springlullaby,

what do you think about that?) and sthar8 mentioned that he's liking the result of his random vote but hasn't really elaborated on his thoughts regarding the points that have been brought up against Skillit. TDC touched on a more minor point about Skillit's backtracking but hasn't engaged in conversation with him or commented on whether he thinks Skillit really was joking around or not.

[Incognito]

Quote blocks are a real pet peeve of mine, just so you know, and I apologize to everyone for these series of tl;dr's beforehand but... yeah.

Glad to see you getting more involved now, springlullaby. I almost forgot you were even in this game. Addressing your points.

I do not like the passive-aggressiveness of this, I post when I have something to say, and posting a lot doesn't make you town the same way as posting less doesn't make you scum. What matters is the content. Agree/disagree?

I don't think I was being passive-aggressive at all. A tad sarcastic maybe but not passive-aggressive. I agree that post number has no correlation with whether or not someone is pro-town or pro-scum but that wasn't the point I was getting at. The point of my comment was more in reference to how the content that you

did

put forward before you decided to come forward against me wasn't all that impressive, and I was eagerly anticipating your real entrance to the game. In fact, before you came in with your "case" against me, I was actually tempted to switch my vote to you for lurking.

By making the above bolded comment, you seem to be implying that the little you put forward within that first post of yours before my comment was good content. Do you really think your own post 52 really amounted to much? You pretty much regurgitated what everyone else said about Electra without really delving into why you felt this way (I even asked you to go into this further here) and then you voted for TDC for the vaguest of reasons. If you feel like post 52 amounted to a good amount, I'd like you to explain why.

Btw, to answer your question Incognito, I think Electra's post comes from town because I read her as town and think the odds for a scum gambit are low. What do

you

think of Electra?

I didn't know what to think of Electra's page 1 claim at first. If it had come from a raw Newbie, I might have checked him or her off as obvtown for it. However, Electra has been on this site for quite some time now, and while I agree that the odds of scum making a gambit like that are low, I think it's still plausible for scum to do it, especially experienced scum. I thought eldarad's rather astute observation that he made

at the bottom of this post

was probably the best reason put forward by anyone to believe Electra might just be town here. I didn't think the assumption that scum probably wouldn't do such a thing on page 1 was powerful enough a reason to check her off as obvtown like everyone else seemed to do, so I preferred to reserve my opinion of her until I saw more content come from her. So to answer your question, as of right now, I'm leaning pro-town on Electra not based on the assumption that scum probably wouldn't do what she did but more based on what eldarad mentioned and her additional contribution to the game.

I do not like this answer as I note here that you have to appeal to a reason provided by another person to form an opinion on Electra.

Not trying to get semantic but "appeal" is an interesting choice of words. I don't think I was appealing to anything. I read eldarad's thoughts about Electra's early claim, thought about it on my own, and decided to

agree

with what he had mentioned. And as far as I'm concerned, there's nothing wrong with thinking logically about something someone else has written and agreeing with it, especially when coupling those thoughts with additional in-thread evidence from the person you're analyzing and formulating your own thoughts about it. As I mentioned above, I didn't really like everyone else's reasons for suggesting that Electra was obvtown, and I was choosing to reserve judgment until she posted more, thereby allowing me to get a better read of her. I even mentioned in the above quote that you quoted that the other reason I thought Electra might be more likely pro-town as opposed to pro-scum was because of her additional contribution. Did you miss that part?

Um, yeah, this is such weighted bombast. I've been

trying

to hunt scum. I didn't like the initial route the discussion took since it seemed to focus purely on the game mechanics which seems more theoretical to me. I think it's

extremely

easy for scum to hide in that type of discussion since it focuses more on information rather than analysis and leaves people reading completely neutral. I prefer asking questions directly to people and engaging in conversation by analyzing posts and eventually formulating gut reads. In my opinion, theory discussion is very unlikely to reveal much about a person's alignment, so the sooner we could move away from it, the better.

You are saying here that you prefer reserving judment before commiting to anything, well let me tell you that I think 8 out of 10 persons who prefer to reserve judment are scum because 1)it is hader for them to form an opinion in the first place2)they want to keep all options open the longer possible, especially if they do not indicate their initail read at all, which is your case.

What do you think?

Where did I say anything about reserving judgment in that quote you posted? I was talking about scum hunting and how I felt a large portion of the conversation early on was purely theoretical, which allows for easy scum hiding and how I wanted to move away from exactly that type of discussion ASAP. I specifically mentioned that theory discussion states very little about a person's alignment and how I'd rather engage in conversation with people to figure out where they're coming from.

And who are you, the Neils Bohr of Mafia or something? Have you been running statistical analysis to come forward with these numbers, or are you just pulling them out of your ass to help add even more weighted bombast to an already weak case? Have you considered that it's usually a good idea to reserve judgment on people because it's, oh, I don't know, a bad thing when you find yourself running up on someone who ends up being innocent? Is it abnormal for someone to not know who exactly is scum on page fucking 4 of the thread and who is instead choosing to use this early time to try and figure people out?

Eh? All of my questions have been very relevant to the game, and I certainly wouldn't classify them as "'soft' questions" either. Just because I don't immediately reveal my insights from the answers I get doesn't mean that I haven't formulated any opinions on them. When I'm ready to make a case against someone who I think is scum, I'll do so but certainly not this early in the game. Trust me, when I have a scum read on someone I'll make my opinion on the person blatantly obvious. Right now, this is purely the information-gathering stage for me. I've seen certain things from people that make me lean slightly town on them or slightly scum but not enough to come to a definitive answer with respect to their alignments.

Does the post you linked have a relevance to the present game at all?

As for your 'info-gathering stage' see above.

I posted that link because I

think

one of the points of your "case" against me focused on how I didn't immediately reveal my own thoughts with respect to the answers I received to my own questions and how you supposedly perceived this as scummy because I wasn't revealing my own insight with respect to my position on the other players' alignments. I was using that link to show you that when I'm ready to make my thoughts clear on why I think a particular person is scum, I'll do it in typical Incog-fashion by posting a well-elaborated, thoughtful case against said person. I haven't garnered enough information from this game yet to do so though obviously.

1. 'Lean town on both of them' : this is not what I gathered from her post.

This is true. I actually misread her post and thought she mentioned that she was leaning town on Skillit as well as sthar8. It was only sthar8 who she mentioned she didn't have a problem with so far.

2. Surely if you had wanted to see if there were any underlying reason to her bringing forth the meta, the easiest way to do it would have been to verify her say by meta-ing her? Because if she is scum, wouldn't you expect her to lie?

In response to your first question: Um, no? How could I possibly determine if there were any underlying reasons for her citing meta in this particular game for two people in particular by... actually going forth and meta-ing her? Are you suggesting that people's alignments from previous games carry over or something?

In response to your second question: Yes, you would expect scum to lie about things, but by asking questions to people you can pick up on inconsistencies, check back on things to see if they jibe with what said person is saying, and determine if the person is being sincere or not. How exactly do you expect to find scum if you don't ask people questions? Do we twiddle our thumbs and hope that the scum come forward saying "HI I'M SCUM! LYNCH ME!"

And do you even realize how little sense you're making right now? You've adamantly stated that you think I'm scum, but yet, (DEEP BREATH), you're asking ME of all people questions! OMG! IMAGINE THAT! Aren't you afraid that I'm lying right now?

This was a more minor personal question for me that probably nobody else in the world would use to try and figure out someone's alignment, but I sometimes rely on little questions like this to formulate reads.

Scum can talk during pre-game, correct? Therefore his reference to not receiving a PM to know when the game had started could have been seen as weakly pro-town since, if he was scum, he and his scum buddies might have been going back and forth a bit in conversation before game and might have nudged one another about the game's opening. I wanted to see if his comment was sincere. Obviously I wouldn't base my read of fuzzylightning completely off of this, but I thought it was a small avenue worth probing a bit.

I don't see the connection between the question you asked and the answer you provided.

How can you determine if his comment was sincere by asking him about previous games? Again, if he is scum, don't you expect him to lie? And what is the connection between him possibly talking back and forth as scum before the gamestart and the question you asked?

springlullaby, how could he possibly know the intention of my question to be able to know whether or not to lie about his answer when I didn't even specifically mention why I asked him about it until you questioned me about my own question's intent? If you yourself have expressed this inability to understand the true point of my own question, do you think

he

would have been able to understand my reason for asking and would know which answer he should give as a hypothetical scum to deceive me? And again, you seem to be completely oblivious to the fact that you are completely contradicting your own points by repeatedly asking me questions when, if your suspicion of me is truly genuine, you probably think I would lie about my answers since you think I'm scum.

As for the connection between gamestart and the question I asked, think harder about that one and maybe it'll come to you.

I can accept your reason to want to pressure sthar, but I think your behavior is not very offensive at all and is in contradiction with your stated intentions which is to pressure him.

Really? Why's that? I think I've been aggressively trying to scum hunt so far actually.

Cute. Very cute.

What is the meaning of this? Do I detect dismissal?

Superfluous questions receive ridiculous answers from me. Your question was a superfluous question.

Some of your points seem like a bit of a stretch to me, which is a bit bothersome. I'll try and take it as a slight pro-town sign that you've called me of all people out on certain things when I've pretty much had absolutely nothing directed at me and have been finding myself trying to create my own content to get involved in. But yeah, there ya go.

Why 'try and take it'? I'm not asking you for any favor. If you think some of my point are stretching, please indicates which and why.

I did. I specifically referred to one of your points as "weighted bombast", I specifically mentioned that I am scum hunting and asking relevant questions rather than "asking 'soft' questions that are irrelevant to the game". If that's not pointing out that your points are a bit of a stretch, then I don't know what is.

And I'm trying to take it as a positive sign because I know that my immediate impression from your attack on me is that it's slightly scummy for stretching the truth the way you have. Instead of immediately jumping to conclusions about your alignment, I'll continue trying to engage in conversation with you to see if you genuinely believe the points you're raising against me or if they're merely contrived and created to paint me in a bad light. Usually when someone makes a case against me, I can sometimes see where the person is coming from and why the person might think something I mentioned gave them a bad vibe. But with you, I really can't see that, and I'm becoming more and more curious about what your alignment really could be.

[Incognito]

@ Incognito – I didn’t comment that I don’t think he’s scum. As for leaving my vote on, it’s because I’m deciding whether or not I think he’s scummy, and it would just be weird to take my random vote off now and revote him if I decide on it. :p

Yeah, sorry, I misread your comment on Skillit. Thanks for clearing that up.

I assume that by mentioning the L-2 you're trying to say that this is dangerous or whatever, but I don't think that skillit is in immediate danger of being lynched right now.

No, I don't think he's in any real danger right now either, but I suspect that the wagon that's formed on Skillit is not a random D1 wagon being put forward to figure things out from people -- it seems like a more serious wagon. Therefore, I mentioned that because I'd like for the people who are still on his wagon who haven't particularly elaborated further on what they thought about Skillit's more recent posts to own up to their own votes. I felt like some of the votes were still a bit wagony.

@Skillit:

I might have missed this, but I didn't see an answer to eldarad's questions in post 82. I, too, am curious to know who you're suspicious of at this time and why as you haven't really taken a serious stance on anyone so far with the exception of me. A lot of your posts have been in defense to accusations.

[Incognito]

Right now, I am not going to lie, I am completely confused on the springlullaby-incognito exchange, so I will have to re-read that to get some sort of read on whether that is town v. town squabbling or otherwise.

I'm glad to see that someone finally at least commented on this. I was a bit surprised to see a bunch of people post within the same time frame of our exchange but seem to completely ignore the massive blocks of text that made up the previous page. I know iLord and Crazy in particular at least mentioned that they are currently working on some sort of summary post up until now, so I can at least excuse them for not commenting on it but others like Jahudo in particular continued right on posting seemingly oblivious to the current happenings. Electra didn't seem to comment on it either. I'd actually be very interested in learning people's opinions about springlullaby's case against me and my responses to it.

Skillit, I'm glad to see you elaborating a little bit on your suspicions. I'm looking forward to part 2 of your post.

[Incognito]

Also, one other note, I think people mentioned something about all Boost choices being final. I'm pretty sure I've spoken to the mod about this through AIM, and I believe Boosts can be Unboosted just like regular votes can at least up until the point someone reaches a boost majority.

Mod:

Maybe you can clarify on this a bit. Can boosts be unboosted up until the point someone reaches a majority or are all boost choices final?

[Incognito]

How is it possible to formulate a gut read after engaging a conversation for a while. I believe that a gut read is similar to a first impression which is garnered almost immediately, so I would like some clarification on this please.

I don't think a gut read always necessarily has to be a first impression kind of thing. Oftentimes it can be for a lot of players in certain scenarios but it can also be something that forms over the course of a game and as I'm sure you know, games can span pages and pages long and can take months to complete.

For example, I just completed a game with eldarad (Mini 594 - Satin Doll Showdown) where we were in a LyLo situation, and I was the one making the final vote decision as both him and Elmo decided to vote for one another. If I had just relied on game analysis, I probably would have went ahead and voted for eldarad and cost the town the game. However, my gut instinct told me that eldarad was likely town and that Elmo was indeed the final scum, and I got it right by voting for Elmo. So yeah, while I agree that it's oftentimes a first impression type of thing, I do think that gut feelings can be developed about a person even after pages and pages of information have been brought forward.

While I'd like to keep the pressure on sthar8 a bit longer as I still feel like he could be contributing a bit more (yes, yes I know he's mentioned that he's sick), I really do find myself most troubled with springlullaby's attack against me and am having a hard time believing it could be coming from town. I've been attacked before in past games, and I feel like I can usually understand what the person who's attacking me for has a problem with and can usually tell when an attack against me is a bit misguided. I've reread the thread a number of times and did a focused read on myself to see if I can genuinely find myself agreeing with the points springlullaby raised against me, and I just can't. I felt like a lot of the points she raised against me were very strongly exaggerated. Examples include the following:

2. All of Incognito's posts has 'look I'm such a good little townie' written all over them, but has yet to produce anything meaningful.

I responded to this point by mentioning that I had been scum hunting - I feel like I've been asking appropriate questions and pointing out inconsistencies in people's play. She didn't address that point and instead pulled these figures out here which were also noticed by fuzzylightning and Jahudo:

You are saying here that you prefer reserving judment before commiting to anything, well let me tell you that I think 8 out of 10 persons who prefer to reserve judment are scum because 1)it is hader for them to form an opinion in the first place2)they want to keep all options open the longer possible, especially if they do not indicate their initail read at all, which is your case.

I've tried to think about reasons for why a hypothetical pro-town player might say something like this when she couldn't have possibly been tabulating this kind of data on her own and really the only conclusion I could come up with is if said pro-town player was suffering from a bout of tunnel vision. But tunnel vision on page 4 of the thread? I just can't convince myself that this was the reason for her to bring these numbers up and use them against me. Instead I really do feel like she has a high chance of being scum who brought up these numbers to try and exaggerate the case against me to make it seem stronger than it actually is.

Her other point about how I shouldn't ask the people who I'm suspicious of questions because I should expect scum to lie seems extremely off-base and is indeed contradictory to what she's even been doing here. I've actually been looking into a number of springlullaby's completed games to try and get a feel for what kind of a player she is as town, and I feel like she's more than competent to know better than to say something like that and actually believe it. Mini 682 is a good example of her town play where she seems to actively hunt for scum by asking questions and poking at people the way she's criticized me for here.

And now that I've responded to her points yet again and have been waiting for her response, she has yet to come back to the thread despite the fact that she's been actively posting elsewhere.

In short, I just can't see her attack on me as something that she genuinely believes and instead, I feel like she's greatly exaggerated a lot of points she's raised in her attack against me in an effort to paint me in as bad a light as possible to try and push for my lynch. Therefore I'm going with this:

Unvote
Vote: springlullaby

FoS: sthar8

[Incognito]

@Raging Rabbit:

I've actually looked back at sthar8's response a number of times, and I thought the fact that he admitted to doing something wrong was mildly pro-town. I feel like scum might have tried to concoct some response to try and explain away his or her actions.

Having said that, I do agree with you and think that the apologetic aspect of his post was slightly odd and could be seen as slightly scummy. To apologize to another player somewhat suggests that the player being apologized to has some kind of authority over the other player so the act of apologizing could be done as a way to appease said player.

[Incognito]

@sthar8:

Since it looked to me like you directed your apology directly at me instead of to the group as a whole, it looked more like you were asking pardon from me for some sort of offense. If it was indeed directed to everyone in the game, then I can see it the way you're explaining it here.

I need to read sthar8's 119 at a later time.

[Incognito]

Elmo-mod:

You've got me voting for sthar8 and Raging Rabbit voting for springlullaby. RR and I should be switched. Thanks.

[Incognito]

I'm gonna try to be brief here. This is getting ridiculous.

• Re: my posts sucked. I really don't see what's been so sucky about my posts. I'll note here that you're not even using rational analysis here to explain why it is they've been sucky. You've now pretty much resorted to personal insults which still say absolutely nothing and are actually quite scummy. Thanks for making me feel great about my vote on you.
  
  
• Re: "appealing" to someone else's opinion about Electra. How many times do I need to rehash this point?
  I didn't have to decide immediately about my opinion on her.
  I fail to see how this is scummy. And when I did eventually voice my opinion about her, I stated in as much detail as I could as to why I felt that way. I thought eldarad pointed something out about Electra's role claim that made sense, and I simply agreed with it. I read through Electra's posts on my own following her claim and began to like her contribution to the game. I was not going to check her off as town like everyone else did just because of a ridiculous assumption of "scum are unlikely to make a gambit like that on page 1". I've already explained why I was unwilling to accept that as a valid enough reason to feel like she's town because of it.
  
  
• Re: your 8 out of 10 thing. If the point that you were trying to make was that the majority of people who choose to reserve judgment about someone are scum like you claim, then that's all you had to say. I can't see myself believing that though. There must have been a significance to you referencing those numbers, and I think you pulled those numbers out the way you did to try and strengthen your already flimsy case against me. Either way, I'd like you to show me specific examples from your supposedly vast experience where you've seen scum reserve judgment about people more often than town. Gogogo!
  
  As to what I think? I obviously think you're incorrect. You might have a point here if I was just checking in every once in awhile with a one sentence or one word post here and there and not contributing anything at all and then out of nowhere, I jumped in and started attacking someone after I got a feel for how the game was going. But I haven't done that. I've been contributing where appropriate, and my suspicions have followed along with my thought process. For example, I questioned Skillit about a bunch of his early posts because I noticed a number of inconsistencies in what he was saying but never voted for him because I, for the most part, bought his explanation. Do I need to outright say this and make it completely public? No, I don't think I do. There are plenty of pro-town reasons to withhold information that, you guessed it, I won't go into.
  
  
• In point number 4, deliberate or not, you're strawmanning me. I never said that I won't make cases against people because I'm afraid I'll be wrong and ring up a townie. In fact, I can cite numerous examples from my experience where I've made large cases against people, gotten them lynched, and ended up being quite wrong. I was saying that during early game, there's absolutely nothing wrong with a pro-town player reserving judgment about a player until said pro-town player receives enough information to feel comfortable with his or her suspicions. In fact, reserving judgment and not jumping to conclusions is more likely to leave a pro-town player with a more satisfying result. I can even make an argument that many scum players oftentimes
  won't
  reserve judgment about players because they don't want to give these players the benefit of the doubt and want to get those players lynched ASAP. Do you agree with this or not?
  
  
• Re: bullshit questions. I've already explained the significance of those questions. I still stand by them being game-related and not bullshit. Simple as that. And you still ask the question of "don't you expect scum to lie?" but still seem completely oblivious to your own contradiction.
  
  
• Re: vote on sthar8. I didn't defend him.
  
  
• Reducing my case against you to OMGUS. I figured you'd end up doing that.

Still cool with my vote.

[Incognito]

What harm would it do to the town to speculate in thread

[about Electra]

?

Note:

I've added supplementary text in green to the above quote.

Probably no harm at all but to you I ask an opposite question. What harm would it do to the town to

not

speculate in thread when I still eventually shared my thoughts anyway? Is it wrong to store Electra's first post in your own mind as a null tell and to wait to see more coming from her to come to a final decision about her page 1 claim especially when practically everyone else was talking about her anyway? What's wrong with trying to expand the conversation away onto other things that are not Electra when the Electra stuff was already being covered by others?

Another thing:

fuzzylightning:

Late coming, but with a very logical post, with some unnecessary speculation. Good analysis on the skillit attack. Due to Incognito’s point, reading town. Thinks Incognito defended well.

You've used a question and point that I raised with respect to fuzzylightning to arrive at the conclusion that he's likely town but yet you've still got me second from the bottom on your towniest to scummiest list? How exactly does that work?

Also please explain why my vote on springlullaby "binged" your scumdar. I also don't understand the portion about politeness either and why you think practically all of the points springlullaby has raised against me are weak but yet you still read her as town and me as scum who's defended himself well.

You also seem to imply that there are some strong points out there against me that springlullaby could use against me to suggest that I'm scum but in your paragraph about me you say that you're leaning scum on me "due to gut". What exactly do you think are the strong points then?

[Incognito]

iLord, you missed a question:

What's wrong with trying to expand the conversation away onto other things that are not Electra when the Electra stuff was already being covered by others?

That particular action was protown and makes sense. The scummy vibes I'm getting from your argument with springlullaby is much stronger. Just because I think your scum doesn't mean I can't acknowledge good points that you make. Scum and make good, protown points to blend in as town.

That wasn't an action though. You're basing an entire

read

of a person off of the point that someone who you think might be scum brought up. That doesn't make any sense to me.

The benefit is that we know what your stated opinions are at a certain point of time and information.

The excessive amount of doubt you put up behind the springlullaby vote and how you sort of built up to it read really scummy.

I don't think this makes much sense either. One of your major points against me is how I didn't immediately share my thoughts about Electra's page 1 stuff. Your other major point essentially boils down to me

sharing

my thoughts about another player's attack against me in temporal order. So if I don't share my thoughts about someone immediately it's scummy and if I do share my thoughts about someone as those thoughts progress it's scummy too? You can't have it both ways.

---

@Electra:

I do agree with you that the exchange seems a bit too intense for early game, though I've seen a lot of exchanges that have been intense early on also (Pick Your Poison 2's Ether/Bookitty exchange comes to mind). That's pretty much the point that I was trying to get at when I said that normally I can understand the reasons for why someone is attacking me the way they are and why this attack against me just strikes me as so off. On page 4, I doubt there would be enough content within the thread to build such a full-on case against another person unless the person practically admitted to being scum but yet springlullaby has been pushing for my lynch based on very, very weak points that aren't even true.

I also disagree with both you and sthar8's mentioning that springlullaby's attack comes across as pro-town for pressuring me the way she has. The only time I've had a full-on attack against me this early in a game for just about the same level of ridiculous reasons as this one was in Pick Your Poison 3 and that was from Sarcastro who was scum. I think what matters is the context. Do you think springlullaby's points were valid? Did you think they were strong enough for her to actually be pushing for my lynch? I don't think this is just simple pressure coming from her like you're making it out to be.

And yeah, more people really need to start posting.

[Incognito]

Oh BLAH. I misread what you said. Nevermind then. :S

About that: Yeah, I do think it's mildly pro-town to maybe shift some attention onto someone who did not have the spotlight put on him or her. Those feelings changed when I saw the points that she was actually trying to use to push for my lynch and how incorrect they were. That's what I was trying to get at.

[Incognito]

It makes sense to me, so I don't see why I shouldn't use it. On the flipside, are you saying that if you make a good point, you're automatically town?

Nope, not saying that at all. Town and scum can both make good points like you said. My point is that if you were genuinely suspicious of me like you say you are, you'd take things that I say

especially

player read-related more with a grain of salt or you would scrutinize them a bit closer to make sure they hold some weight. You seemed to just accept my point about him fairly easily to base your town-read of him on, which really strikes me as counter-intuitive.

[Incognito]

@Crazy:

It's really quite labor-intensive sometimes, but I like the result, and I promised to get myself in the habit of doing it from this game on, heh. You do the following in the code:

Code: Select all

[quote="Insert-name-here, [url=that paper icon thing on the top left corner of the post you want to quote]in post #[/url],"]The content that it's in the quote.[/quote]

I need to read the rest of that post later.

[Incognito]

Oh.

So yeah.

In addition to the Crazy/Incog double standardization, I'd really like to know what springlullaby thinks of iLord's reads with special attention paid to his read of fuzzylightning. kthx.

[Incognito]

You answer everyone of my points first. Kthx.

Um, no.

[Incognito]

10.) Avoid excessive profanity,

flaming

etc.

Because I suspect either you or me is getting replaced from this game.

I'm here to play

Mafia

not

Flame Wars: The Boost Edition

.

And knowing my basic anatomy, I already know that if I whipped it out, mine would be bigger than yours so I'm not responding to the stuff you write anymore.

[Incognito]

I may have started the cursing ("page fucking 4" or whatever), but you started the personal insults. I never once tried to insult you.

Vote remains for now.

[Incognito]

[Incognito]

Incog - any suspicions other than SL? In particular, what's your read on Crazy?

Yes, actually. I should note that I don't normally do lists so don't expect one from me in this particular game either, but I've been questioning iLord about some of the points he's raised in his 138 because I can't shake the feeling that some of his reads look contrived. In particular, I can't see how he could freely admit that a lot of the points raised in springlullaby's case against me were weak and mention that I defended myself well against her case (which, keep in mind, consisted of what he freely admitted to being weak points) but how I could still come out looking scummier than her in our exchange. From my experience, scum have a tendency to try and push weak cases against people in an effort to get them lynched but yet for some reason, iLord sees this as something particularly pro-town coming from springlullaby.

In direct contrast, in his read of you, he mentions something about you "still pushing.. and pushing.. and pushing", which I'm assuming is referring to what he feels to be a weak point being pushed by you repeatedly, but somehow comes to the conclusion that you're the scummiest player in the game at this moment because of that? I don't understand the double standard that he's applying here; i.e. why is it scummy for one player (RagingRabbit) to push what iLord considers to be a weak point against a particular player but not scummy for another player (springlullaby) to push multiple weak points against another player? Why is that "tell" that he's using not being used consistently in his own analysis?

I've also covered a few other things about his read of fuzzylightning to which he and I had been going back and forth about, and I still happen to disagree with the point he's been trying to make about that as well.

The other thing that bothers me about his 138 is how clearly defined his ordering is from towniest to scummiest. I can state right now that there's at least 4 players in this game (RagingRabbit, TDC, Jahudo, and Crazy) who I still feel like I have absolutely no preliminary reads on. In fact, in his analysis of Crazy he mentions nothing positive about him at all (just a short one-liner) but somehow he's placed as number 6 on his list (and this was even before Crazy provided his large player by player analysis). I also don't really like how he seems to almost be coaching springlullaby on how to attack me.

As for Crazy, as I mentioned above, I don't really have a read on him yet. I'd need to see him become more involved during real time to get a more solid feel for his alignment.

Incognito and SL need to calm down. I don't mean this in a condescending way, but Incognito needs to stop goading SL, and SL needs to loosen his emotional attachment to this game.

Where have I goaded springlullaby?

[Incognito]

Oh and FTR, springlullaby is a girl. I should use Ether theory on this one, heh.

[Incognito]

You haven't as much goaded him as showing no apparent signs of pacifiying him. You're obviously a lot less emotionally involved, and so you must walk the higher ground.

It's really not my job to pacify her though (again, springlullaby is a girl so please stop calling her a "him" lol). All I can do is respond to the points that she's raised against me to the best of my ability and determine if her suspicion of me is really genuine in order to get a better read of her. And how could you say I'm less emotionally involved when springlullaby herself ended up unvoting me for taking offense to her flaming? What

do

you think of her unvote, btw?

Also, I'd really like for you to explain your whole thought process as thoroughly as you possibly can that caused you to go from "Electra's page 1 claim is way too easy of a scum gambit for you to trust" to you reading her as practically confirmed town.

@Raging Rabbit:

Was there any reason why you asked me about my read of Crazy in particular?

Hence lynching Crazy will also give us a decent steer on sl's alignment.

eldarad, I meant to ask you about this before, but is there any reason why you seem to have an order of lynching preference?

Hmm, I feel like I owe this game one huge reread to try and see if my current suspicions remain the same or change slightly.

[Incognito]

Bah. Double post.

Crazy, Incognito, scummyish.

I guess if anything, I'd read them both as ever so slightly town due to the level of anger in their exchange.

Electra, why the change? It's not like I was any less angry before you made your 6th post. Also, post++.

[Incognito]

Did she really unvote?

Uh huh.

It's actually really simple - someone brought up the point (I think it was Eldarad) that scumElectra would have to make quite the leap of faith in terms of set-up speculation. What benefit could the scum recieve when boosted to justify what would be a very gutsy and risky scum gambit.

Heh. Another comment that I really can't wait for springlullaby to see.

@sthar8:

I think I know which particular instances of mine you're talking about, but I still feel like my responses were different enough to not fall into at least two of those categories. I'm not really familiar with the term "horse laugh" to make my own judgment call about that one, but yeah, I don't think specific examples of mine need to be brought to my attention.

Still planning on getting a reread in as I've pretty much glossed over the argument against Crazy but yet he has a few votes on him already.

I'm also trying to ignore the mass claiming stuff. I had thought of a particularly useful case where mass claiming might have been extremely beneficial if certain things that have been said within thread are actually truthful but now that certain information has been exposed, I really don't think it would be as useful as it could have been if that information had been hidden better.

[Incognito]

Okay, so I read up on Crazy as promised, and I don't really see much about him that makes me lean towards thinking he's scum here. I think he should probably post more during real time, but I don't see too much wrong with the content he's provided so far. Probably the most substantial post against him was raised by sthar8 which, I think, actually misrepresented Crazy particularly here:

He then encourages us not to worry about boosting scum, expresses unsupported suspicions of two apparently unconnected players, and buddies up to eldarad before signing off.

sthar8, where exactly did Crazy encourage anyone not to worry about boosting scum? I'm assuming you're talking about here:

I'm now not seeing what possible great benefit Electra would get from getting boosted (presumably as scum) that would warrant a gambit like this. It's not like a boost is an automatic win, right? Which makes me think it's more likely that she's pro-town.

I don't really see how that's encouraging anyone about not worrying about boosting scum. To me, he just seems to use the above as his own reason to believe Electra's claim since he seems to assume a boost of scum shouldn't result in an automatic win -- it would presumably just provide the boosted scum with some type of (possibly additional) power. Thus he believes Electra wouldn't put her own neck out on the line the way she has just to get a boost if she were scum. Do you not see it that way?

Also the only way you could definitively say that Crazy "buddies up" to eldarad is if you know with great certainty that eldarad is town. You can say something like "this post from Crazy

looks like

he's buddying up to eldarad" but not say it with great certainty unless of course you're scum and you know eldarad is town.

I think the only thing I do want clarified from Crazy is the following:

*coughpressure* Scum vibes from TDC and RR. */pressurecough*

Crazy, in the above you mentioned that you're receiving scum vibes from RR and TDC but in your large player by player analysis post you were comparatively softer on TDC. What was it in particular then that gave you scum vibes from TDC in 79? What caused that to change in between your 79 and 151?

Also, I guess the other thing I didn't like that was

related

to Crazy but not directly written by him was springlullaby's double standardization with him that eldarad also pointed out. I'd really like springlullaby to respond to that too.

I have reread the game, I'm on Skillit scum with Incognito. I'll post why I think so when I work up the energy to do so.

I'm looking forward to this.

@fuzzylightning:

How's that computer situation coming along?

@Electra:

Could you go a bit further into Crazy's "textbook scumminess"?

[Incognito]

springlullaby, first, please don't ask for replacement. I don't know what I did exactly to upset you so much. At the risk of getting you upset again (x_x) could you maybe show me which remarks of mine in particular got you so angry? Because if I came off in a patronizing manner, that really wasn't my intention at all, and I apologize for that. Maybe it's my dry sense of humor that's getting you upset? That's more of a personality trait of mine that would be kinda difficult for me to change, but I can try to ummm, I dunno, alleviate your anger if I know what remarks of mine made you upset.

Ummm, off topic or maybe this is more on topic than I think, but where are you from? You were using French words before, and some of your language usage seems slightly different from mine even though we're both speaking English. I'll go first. I'm from New Jersey.

[Incognito]

springlullaby, I see your case against me, and I'll respond to it after you're done posting your thoughts on the other players like you mentioned you would.

Side note (not related to you, springlullaby): I'm getting really bored with this game. People keep promising to post but also keep failing to hold to their promise. And despite what I mentioned previously about thinking Electra might be town here, 1 post every 3 days or so that doesn't even make a strong effort to scum-hunt just isn't going to cut it. Electra, fuzzylightning, and Skillit

do stuff

.

[Incognito]

Unvote
Vote: iLord

I really, really,

really

like this wagon. See my previous points about iLord for my reasoning, and I pretty much agree with the points Raging Rabbit and eldarad have just mentioned as well. Yes, I still think springlullaby stands a strong chance of being scum, but I can certainly support this push.

---

Not sure when's the next time springlullaby will post so I figure I might as well respond to her points now also.

There is no perfect case, especially on day 1, and in mafia you could pretty much dismiss anything by virtue of giving the benefit of the doubt if you were thus inclined. But thing is, you've got to make the leap somewhere, somehow, if you want to move things along. That is why in essence the 'reserving judgement being protown' argument is in my view not a good defence.

Yes, of course a pro-town player has to make the leap somewhere, but I still fail to see what's wrong with not making that leap some time later in the game. You began attacking me since

page 4

of this thread for this very same point that you're raising now. I've adamantly stated that I don't think the information that I had gleaned up until that point was adequate enough for me to come to a solid enough conclusion about what I think about someone's alignment. Instead of attacking someone at random early in the game, I chose to ask probing, game-related questions to get a feel for the players and to try to get discussion moving away from the high level of theory discussion that was being had early on. There's nothing wrong with that. Since that point, I've given my own opinions about players and have been taking stances.

In addition, I think that wanting to reserve judgement hints heavily at self-preservation being a big motivation in one's play. In clear, I think Incognito has been sending up 'I may be blue' warning signs to town but you see, I do not think there is a role in this game that warrants such a strongly hinted at subtext beside scum.

I've responded to this point previously, so I will not respond to it again.

2. I do see a pattern of OMGUS in Incognito's play. When left 'unattended' you can see him going about what I see as asking an endless stream of questions with no perspective in sight. But he does comes alive when directly under fire, putting my case on him aside, see his reaction to iLord.

I've already explained the motivation for my earlier questions, but I guess you still think they were not game-related for whatever reason. Do you think my more recent questions still have no perspective? Do you not see the issues within the points that I've raised against iLord and other players, and can you not see how my questions towards him and others especially as of recent might be helpful in gauging whether or not someone's scum?

Also, I've probably been the most active player in this game and have been generating my own content through scum-hunting even while I've had to persistently defend myself. I think you're very much incorrect when you say I "only come alive when under fire", and I suspect the other players in the game can look through my posts fairly easily and see how false this is.

This combined with his inability to formulate an original view of anything, makes me think he is a pretty good picture of reactive scum play.

Anything at all?

Really?

I suspect you're talking about my agreeing with eldarad's point on Electra. That's probably the only area of the thread where I've been slightly unoriginal. In any case, I agreed with eldarad because what he said made sense. There's nothing wrong with that. I didn't blindly follow or anything along those lines; I pretty clearly stated why I agreed with his logic and explained in as much detail as I could why I felt the way I did. Aside from that agreement with him, I think I've done a fairly good job of bringing up original points and perspective. I can point to specific areas of the thread to demonstrate this fairly easily.

Later, there is a post from Incognito signalling that skillit is at L-2.

http://www.mafiascum.net/forum/viewtopi ... 85#1324185

This post is peculiar because what it does is asking for people to justify their vote on skillit, while he himself has made no commitment as to his thought on skillit's alignment - note here that this imo is in itself is a display of scumminess from Incognito, I will also further speculate that what happened there is that Incognito was been sly and he was defending skillit without seeming to, I acknowledge however that the last is a judgement call.

First, admittedly, when I pointed out that Skillit was at L-2, I forgot about the "nobody will be lynched before two people get boosted" mechanic.

Second, the fact that I was repeatedly questioning Skillit early on should pretty much indicate that I thought Skillit's early posts were fairly suspicious. I very rarely spend my time repeatedly questioning someone who I find to be seemingly pro-town - that would just be a huge waste of my time and effort since I'm (for the most part) trying to find scum, no?

Third, I called for people to explain their votes because of what I mentioned here:

No, I don't think he's in any real danger right now either, but I suspect that the wagon that's formed on Skillit is not a random D1 wagon being put forward to figure things out from people -- it seems like a more serious wagon. Therefore, I mentioned that because I'd like for the people who are still on his wagon who haven't particularly elaborated further on what they thought about Skillit's more recent posts to own up to their own votes. I felt like some of the votes were still a bit wagony.

While I did find Skillit's behavior early on suspicious, I'm not full of myself nor am I silly enough to think that I'm soo good of a player that I thought I found scum that early in the game

and

that the players who were voting Skillit were all pro-town players who were agreeing with the points being raised against him. I saw it as a win-win situation: if Skillit really is scum, then we could easily look back at that wagon that formed on him early-on, determine the reasons certain people jumped on that wagon, and figure out which votes (if any) were sincere and which ones were insincere. If Skillit is town, then the same thing applies, and we could figure more out about the possible alignments of the players involved.

---

I'm tempted to boost-hammer Electra since her last two posts have given me slightly better vibes even though I disagree with her conclusion about Crazy, but I suppose I could wait a little longer before doing that.

[Incognito]

@Raging Rabbit: Was there any reason why you asked me about my read of Crazy in particular?

Yes.

Raging Rabbit, would you please go into your reasoning?

[Incognito]

Raging Rabbit, would you please go into your reasoning?

Why is that so importatnt to you?

It's important because that type of question is usually the type of question a person asks when he or she is trying to draw connections between players. I'm generally leery of those types of questions in the cases where I can find no underlying basis for them, so I figured I'd ask you for your reasoning.

[Incognito]

springlullaby, I'd really like for you to comment on these two statements:

fuzzylightning:

Late coming, but with a very logical post, with some unnecessary speculation. Good analysis on the skillit attack. Due to Incognito’s point, reading town. Thinks Incognito defended well.

It's actually really simple - someone brought up the point (I think it was Eldarad) that scumElectra would have to make quite the leap of faith in terms of set-up speculation. What benefit could the scum recieve when boosted to justify what would be a very gutsy and risky scum gambit.

I've asked you to comment on these at least twice now, and you've ducked out of commenting on them both times.

Also, welcome to the game, Mana_Ku.

[Incognito]

Huh, I'm very tempted to respond flippantly but I'll be reasonable and simply note that what you are doing here is trying to reduce the entire case I have posted against you to one little puny point.

That's not what I'm trying to do at all.

A major point of contention between us was your whole "Incog is

appealing

to eldarad's Electra-read to form his own read of her", and I'm pointing out here that iLord did it twice, but you made no mention of it at all and have adamantly stated that you think iLord is town. In fact, I'd think you'd consider his to be even worse since he specifically "appealed" to someone who he had as his second scummiest read along his list (me) while I "appealed" to someone who I thought was town. Also, eldarad pointed out that Crazy was an even bigger offender of doing this than I was here:

Massive QFT to everything that eldarad has said so far.

...but again you made no mention of this. I'm just trying to figure out why you're being so inconsistent.

[Incognito]

Incognito, what do you think about SL's being really pissed off during you guy's first discussion? If you discussed this already, I must've missed it, but what bearing, if any at all, do you think such emotion (or feigned emotion if you think so) has on SL's alignment?

I think genuine

frustration

can certainly be a town-tell depending on the circumstances. To me, springlullaby didn't seem frustrated though. I mean, I can't even think of a reason

why

she'd be frustrated when she had no real pressure placed on her, and I don't think anyone was really provoking her to such a degree where she'd become frustrated. Instead, she began resorting to personal insults and flaming, which I actually think is more likely to come from scum than town.

Also, aside from that, I'd really like for you to read this comment from another game made by Battle Mage who was referencing his meta-experience with springlullaby: BM in Nice Shot! Mafia and here is the game he was referencing: Mini 561 - R-1000 Mafia. In Nice Shot! Mafia, BM specifically mentions that she came off as extremely aggressive towards him in Mini 561 where she was the Mafia GF pushing for his lynch (you can read through the game on your own if you'd like. BM was correct). BM ended up switching his vote to springlullaby in Nice Shot! and was 100% correct about her being scum in that game. So no, I think springlullaby's overly aggressive, pissed off behavior can certainly come from a scum her, and I still think she's scum in this game.

[Incognito]

Incognito, if you think I am scum, why aren't you voting for me?

You're kidding, right?

[Incognito]

Why are you requesting replacement?

[Incognito]

ban plz ^^^

[Incognito]

Jahudo, why do you think springlullaby was frustrated? What do you think she could have been frustrated about?

The second one I didn't even understand: Ether theory? huh?

That second was actually more in reference to iLord. Ether (the player on MS) made up this joking theory that a person who can't tell whether someone is a female or male based on the gender icon in the profile is probably scum. Since iLord kept calling springlullaby a "he", I jokingly said I should apply Ether's theory to iLord and label him as scum.

In other news, I think springlullaby's reaction still comes from scum. I think she was agitated that I found this meta against her, and she stormed off because of that. I did nothing to provoke her, so her reaction seems over the top. Also, I still think my case against her is valid.

Plus, Guardian is always scum in games I'm in. QED.

Unvote
Vote: Guardian

Major FoS: iLord

[Incognito]

I'm being waaaaaaaaaaay too wordy for a Day 1.

Eldarad's seems more solid

[compared to Incog's]

, but mostly I'm just happy to see you gathering votes.

Note: I've added supplementary text in orange.

This wasn't directed to me, but I still feel like I owe a response to this just so it's crystal clear as to why I voted for iLord.

1)

I still feel like iLord's reads in his 21st post look really contrived. Reasoning:

• a)
  I can't see how he can list me as his second scummiest read but then use a point I brought up with respect to fuzzylightning to determine he's third towniest. He's tried to explain this a number of times, but I really don't buy the explanation.
  
  b)
  Despite what me mentioned about his towniest to scummiest list not being as etched in stone as it looks, he still created one, and I still have a hard time determining how he was able to place people like fuzzylightning, Crazy, TDC, and Jahudo who had not really contributed much at the time in such a rigid order.
  
  c)
  His points are inconsistent. He didn't like Raging Rabbit because he mentioned that RR kept pushing the same weak point over and over again (Raging Rabbit responded to this well mentioning that he was repeatedly
  asked
  to clarify this point and that's why he kept mentioning it), but he listed springlullaby as one of his towniest despite the fact that iLord
  conceded
  that SL's points against me were mostly weak. There's a discrepancy there.

2)

I didn't like iLord's coaching of springlullaby, and his goading of our argument from the sidelines. I can think of no pro-town reason for a player who supposedly doesn't know another player's alignment to coach another player on how to attack someone. I look at coaching as a major scum tell because I think the only way you can coach someone in a game of Mafia is if you have inside knowledge about the coached player's alignment (whether it be town or scum).

3)

His initial opinion about Electra's claim (in which he even went so far as to vote eldarad for siding with Electra) dramatically changed from his current opinion (in which he mentions that he basically agreed with the points the person he

previously voted for

for accepting her claim so readily brought up).

The last point is probably a more minor one because I do realize that pro-town players can certainly change their opinions as a game progresses, but I think points 1 and 2 are pretty bad on their own, and I didn't like his defenses to them.

Really?

I'll look at that link later, but if SL is known to fake anger, then that would drastically make me reevaluate my read of her.

I would boost Electra and sthar8, but since Electra's refraining at B-1, I'll boost my next choice.

Boost: sthar8

Boost: springlullaby

Damn, that must have been a quick read. What did you think of those links?

---

Now, onto Guardian.

Incognito's whole attack on SL looks like a long drawn out OMGUS and much more like the latter (pretend scum hunting) rather than the former (real scum hunting).

This OMGUS argument isn't gonna cut it. I mentioned in my 117 that one of the main reasons I was voting for springlullaby was because something about her attack felt off. At the time, I couldn't quite articulate as well as I could have what it was that felt off about it but after looking through MD, I found the phrase that I was looking for. I really think springlullaby's attack against me was

preemptive OMGUS

, which I think is a very little known but highly potent scum tell. What do I mean by this? Let's look at how things happened in temporal order early in the game:

springlullaby began with this:

Boost electra

I think her post comes from a townie.

What skillet said seems superficial but on second thought I think it makes a good point, it's good to keep in mind that mafia may have abilities that are independent from boost to avoid reasonings based on wrong basis - ie: "X can't be responsible of action XXXX because X hasn't been boosted".

I don't like TDC's vote on him.

VOTE:TDC

I didn't like this post because her reasoning for boosting Electra seemed very vague and just seemed to be following the popular opinion about her, and her reasoning for voting TDC seemed equally as vague as well. So I questioned her on what it was I didn't like about this post:

Can you elaborate on this a bit more? Why do you think Electra's post comes from a townie? Also, can you explain in a bit more detail why you don't like TDC's vote on Skillit?

...to which she responded with her 81 in which she both answered my questions and then chose to unleash her attack against me for the remainder of her time in the game. So you see, I don't think your argument that my vote on her was "a long drawn out OMGUS" holds any weight because if you look at things in temporal order, you'd notice that my suspicion of her came

before

her suspicion of me ever came about. I feel like when a pro-scum player realizes or sees a pro-town player putting together some points about him or her, he or she uses preemptive OMGUS to make it seem like his or her attack came first and then the pro-town player's vote came next. Looking at things in the correct order shows how invalid your accusation of me actually is. Further, even if you were correct about my attack on her being OMGUS, I'm surprised that

you

of all people (the king of OMGUS regardless of your alignment) would actually use that as a point against me. Humorous really.

eldarad and incognito are linked.

sthar8 has already requested for this, but I too would like for you to elaborate on this please.

Also, I really don't understand how you could mention the following about sthar8/iLord:

iLord and sth are linked. I find both town-like, but if either showed up scum I would drastically reevaluate the other.

but then choose to boost the both of them at the same time. I mean, yes, you did mention that you found both to be town-like, but you also snuck in the possibility that if one comes up scum, you'd closely scrutinize the other, which indicates that you're at least partially worried about them being scum with one another. Why would you boost two people who you think could have a scum linkage with one another?

If you really want linkage, I think springlullaby (now Guardian) and iLord have a close linkage due to their reciprocal double standardization throughout the thread. I mentioned this previously here:

Huh, I'm very tempted to respond flippantly but I'll be reasonable and simply note that what you are doing here is trying to reduce the entire case I have posted against you to one little puny point.

That's not what I'm trying to do at all.

A major point of contention between us was your whole "Incog is

appealing

to eldarad's Electra-read to form his own read of her", and I'm pointing out here that iLord did it twice, but you made no mention of it at all and have adamantly stated that you think iLord is town. In fact, I'd think you'd consider his to be even worse since he specifically "appealed" to someone who he had as his second scummiest read along his list (me) while I "appealed" to someone who I thought was town. Also, eldarad pointed out that Crazy was an even bigger offender of doing this than I was here:

Massive QFT to everything that eldarad has said so far.

...but again you made no mention of this. I'm just trying to figure out why you're being so inconsistent.

and I feel like iLord's point that he used against Raging Rabbit to determine he's scum (about pushing the same weak point over and over again) that he didn't equally apply to springlullaby to determine she's town (pushing multiple weak points over and over again) is also a double standard that I find to be very suspect. And since I'm equally suspicious of both of you, your linkage and boosting of sthar8 and iLord almost looks like you know sthar8 is town and you're trying to sneak a boost in for your scum buddy by coupling it with the boost of a town player.

Just so it's clear as crystal, I'd be very cool with an iLord or Guardian lynch for today.

---

Incognito: I have sifted through the two games of sl you mentioned (and a few more of her). I can see the parallel with R-1000, but I don't really see it with Nice Shot. The other games (town and scum) where fairly clean (and lurky) from her. I would have a better feeling about this meta read if there was more data (or if I understood where you think Nice Shot is comparable with this game, could you elaborate?)

Good catch.

I didn't bring up the Nice Shot! to draw a comparison between her play here and her play there because I agree with what you say about her play seeming different there from her play here. If I wasn't clear, I referenced Nice Shot! purely for Battle Mage's comment about her since he claimed to have meta-experience with her. I think R-1000 like you mentioned draws a nicer parallel with her play in this game, yes, and that's why I linked that game.

As for her posting rate, I think her posting rate here better matched her posting rate in her scum games. She was posting here at a rate of about 1 post every 3 days, which, if you look at her past scum games seems about right for her. In her town games, she seems to post at least once per day excluding weekends where her posting does seem to decline regardless of her alignment.

Boost: TDC

His posts are sometimes far in between, but they're to the point and seem pro-town to me especially this most recent post where he's taken the time to meta-game, which I think is more likely to be done by town rather than scum.

[Incognito]

@TDC:

I mainly looked at this one: Mini 682. I realize it's still ongoing, but she was already lynched there as a Vanilla Townie. I liked this one though because that game's start date began roughly at the same time as Boost, which means that her real life situation and her playing style would have been about the same when compared to here. Those town games you linked to all began in March which doesn't really accommodate for any possible real life issues she may have been having at the time and also doesn't accommodate for any changes that may have happened to her pro-town playstyle from then until now.

[Incognito]

Incognito, why start acting dismissive again? My past meta character has nothing to do with the validity of my argument -- or are you arguing that it does??

That's the only portion of what I talked about that you respond to?

I referenced your meta because I think you of all people should know better than to use OMGUS as a scum tell because you know as well as I do that OMGUS isn't something that's a universal scum tell. You should know this because you have a tendency to be OMGUS-y regardless of your alignment, so I was a bit surprised when you used that as a point against me despite the fact that it wasn't even true to begin with.

Further, you make the case she was preemtively OMGUSing you... I am replacing into a situation where you have unfairly attacked my role to the point you got her so angry you left -- and when I replace in you vote me. I presume you expected I would be suspicious of you -- it seems to me that you were preemptively OMGUSing me with that vote.

Guardian, I was already suspicious of her before she ever reacted the way she did and had already had a vote on her for a large portion of Day 1. Her reaction made me think even worse of her, and I metagamed her even further, so I placed my vote back on her (you) because I think she (you) have a strong chance of being scum. How could you possibly claim that I was preemptively OMGUS-ing you when I could have had absolutely no clue what you would think about the game following your read? This argument is awful.

Before I respond to this, I want to know what you are implying -- do you find my actions suspicious, or misguided, or both? Do you want me to reply why me doing this should not been seen suspicious, or do you want me to consider whether i might be wrong, or both? If you think my action was suspicious, explain why. If you think it was wrong, explain why. I need clarification before I can answer.

I am implying that your boosting of those two at the same time makes absolutely no sense and yes, I find it suspicious. I said so as much later on in that post you just quoted and gave my reasons why. I can't understand how someone who suggests there could be a positive link between two players that could suggest a scum linkage between them could then

choose

to boost those two players who could be

positively

linked as scum at the exact same time. You seriously don't see anything wrong with this?

I am going to re-read sometime with a possible iLord--Incognito connection in mind. Incognito seems like he was going out of his way to paint a iLord--me picture. It benefits scum to tie townies to scum, and Incognito seemed to me to think that tying me to iLord was a strong point against me.

Are you kidding? I had repeatedly asked springlullaby to comment on this double standard a few times throughout the thread, and she repeatedly avoided it, which made me even more suspicious about it. Also, please note, that you were the first person to begin explicitly tying people together (you tied sthar8 with iLord and me with eldarad). And now it's wrong for me to suggest that I think a link might exist between you and iLord when you did the same just now and after I had repeatedly tried to get springlullaby to comment on her own double standardization? And I guess that sthar8<->iLord link (which included a town read of iLord) just gets thrown out the door now because I noticed a connection between you (springlullaby) and him that makes you want to suddenly look into me<->iLord?

I really don't want to get into a back and forth with you as I've done this back and forth stuff enough this game. I've already put my points out there so anyone who needs further clarification on them can ask. The game must be hard enough to read as it is for replacements and any further back and forths will just make the game even more difficult to read afresh and reread further down the line on subsequent days. I'd like responses to what I've mentioned above and if you have any additional, brand new points you'd like to bring up, I'll respond.

[Incognito]

Guardian, you keep on mentioning that you're going to reread the thread. I'm curious: how much and to what level of detail did you actually read when you first replaced in? I'd also like for you to do a player-by-player (a short blurb or two) when you get a chance.

[Incognito]

iLord, I think you mentioned you played Mafia previously on MTG. Can you link to some games where you were scum and those where you were town?

Mana_Ku, how's the read coming along?

[Incognito]

Incognito, any chance of you responding to the questions/arguments I bring up in my post? Many of them are new/original.

No problem.

If me replacing in had nothing to do with your vote why did you say that it did? Why vote for me only after I replaced in -- you posted between her last post and before I replace in, why not vote then?

I'm assuming you're talking about this:

Plus, Guardian is always scum in games I'm in. QED.

This was pretty clearly a joke. My real explanation for shifting my vote

back

to the player I had it on was directly above this QED stuff. You haven't lost your sense of humor, have you?

Further, I asked her a question after she requested replacement that I wanted a real answer about. After she said "FUCK YOU" to me, I responded with a "ban plz" and then voted for you after you were announced as the replacement. Either way, I don't see what's scummy about me voting for you when you replaced in when I already had been voting springlullaby throughout the day. What difference would it truly make as to when/if I shifted my vote back to you when even after I switched my vote to iLord I mentioned that I still thought springlullaby (you) were scum? You're arguing that my vote on you was preemptive OMGUS but like I mentioned before, how could I possibly know that you would read the game and come to the exact same conclusions as springlullaby did regarding my alignment to be able to preemptively OMGUS you? This argument is crap logic.

I find them possibly tied and then still vote for them. For me to be scum doing that, for it to be scummy, I would have to have forgotten I found them tied -- in the same post where I said I found them tied!! If I were scum I could just omit I found them tied, or not boost both or either them -- I boosted them because I find/found them both most likely to be town, regardless of the chance that they are tied! I find it extremely implausible to find me suspicious for this, because I would have to have less than half a brain to not realize what I was doing as scum. I don't find it suspicious at all.

Unwise? Possibly. I am going to reevaluate, especially iLord, whenever I re-read. Scummy? Definitely not.

You're missing the point that I've been making with my problem with your simultaneous boosting of iLord and sthar8.

I already mentioned a number of times within thread that I noticed a couple of double standards going on between iLord and springlullaby that made me think that if one is scum, then the other might be scum as well, though I never mentioned my thoughts about this linkage explicitly until

you

pretty explicitly connected sthar8 and iLord. Therefore I find it strange that you would suggest a link exists between sthar8 and iLord, the person I think might hold a link to you (springlullaby) due to the double standardization thing I pointed out between the both of them, while you simultaneously boosted the both of them. Like I mentioned before, it looks to me like you might know sthar8 is town, and you're coupling your boosting of your potential scum buddy (iLord) with your boosting of a potential sthar8-town so that the link between you and iLord could be less obvious and the link between sthar8 and iLord could be more prominent. It's sorta like a sleight of hand magic trick.

Now you say I am the first one trying to make ties?

I said that you're the first one to do it

explicitly

. When I was asking springlullaby about her double standard treatment of me and iLord, and I was asking iLord about his double standard treatment of Raging Rabbit and springlullaby, I never explicitly said that I think iLord and springlullaby could be scum with one another. I wanted an explanation from the both of them to see their reasoning for doing this, but I never wanted to explicitly say anything about it until I could get definitive answers from the both of them. iLord ended up answering on his own behalf and springlullaby kept dodging the issue. Therefore you can see why I thought your entrance to the game and direct suggestion that iLord and sthar8 could be linked without providing evidence for this might have caught my attention.

I really don't want to get into a back and forth with you as I've done this back and forth stuff enough this game.

I find that statement to be a mild scum tell. "This argument is bad for me. Let's avoid it."

I like the way you cut off the rest of what I said, btw. I specifically mentioned why I didn't want to do this back and forth stuff anymore. It has nothing to do with whether this argument is bad for me or not. I know what I am, and I find it pointless to continue a back and forth argument that's not going to accomplish much besides making the thread more unreadable than it already is.

[Incognito]

And just to get this question out in the open:

@sthar8:

What do

you

think of Guardian's linking of you to iLord?

[Incognito]

Bleh. There's no way to see posts in isolation on that forum? x_x

Hmm, sthar8, didn't realize you actually knew Skillit off MS.

[Incognito]

Just to complete the cycle, yes, eldarad and I just finished playing Mini 594 with one another. Yes, I have awesome meta on eldarad -- I didn't spend hours on end researching his games during end-game just to completely forget everything about his playing style overnight. Yes, eldarad looks fairly town to me so far. Yes, I do have a tendency to buddy up to people that I think are town even when I'm town (see Ether and me in that very same game). I haven't intentionally done this in this particular game, but I have found myself agreeing with a lot of points eldarad has made, and eldarad has made it a point to mention positive things about me in this game as well. Comprende? Bueno.

sthar8, you mentioned that you initially thought springlullaby and I could have been distancing scum buddies early on due to our back and forths. What do you think of the iLord <-> Raging Rabbit exchange? I see you still have both in your top three but do you think they could be scum with one another or is it an independent kind of thing?

Jahudo, whatcha thinking?

---

Hey, Huntress. Welcome to the game.

[Incognito]

Incog, do you often find yourself really agreeing with points made against you? Assuming you're town, how can an attack against you be anything but either scumdriven or misguided? I have a hard time believing you're always so soft on people attacking you.

In response to your first question, it depends. There have been certain examples from previous games where I could totally see where the person attacking me was coming from, I would realize they were just misguided, and I would do my best to try to dispel their doubts about my alignment. If you'd like specific examples, I could try and provide them. There have been other instances, like the Sarcastro example, where the attack felt scum-driven. At first, I thought springlullaby's attack against me may have been misguided but when she continued on and kept pushing more and more weak points, I began to see her attack as possibly scum-driven.

Not being full of myself here, but it's not very often that I'm full-fledged attacked by

anyone

when I'm town so when it does happen, it takes me awhile to determine the person's true motivations whether it be misguided or a scum-driven attack. People will sometimes question some of my actions when I'm town but usually not go all out the way springlullaby has. eldarad's attack against me from Mini 594 is another example. He attacked me during Day 3, I believe, and I felt like his attack was misguided, and I said as much within that game, and he eventually backed off. But yeah, I could probably count the number of times I've been full-fledged attacked by anyone as town on both of my hands; it's just a rarity.

Didn't you see these points before? Could you give some examples of games where you found points raised against you "correct" and continually considered attacking you a towntell?

I did see those points but after I responded to them, I thought I might have dispelled her doubts, and that she would have dropped the issue. That didn't happen though, and she continued pushing the same weak points over and over again.

Yes, I can give an example of a game where I found the points raised against me as correct. Here's a post that I made in that PYP3 game where I specifically mentioned that Ether's and Gorrad's attacks against me gave me a town vibe mainly because my play in that game was very atypical from my regular town play and them catching onto that made me think they were town. They continued their attacks against me, and I still thought they were town because of it.

I'm trying to think of others but none are coming to mind at the moment. If I do think of others, I'll try and link them.

In fact I haven't seen Incog do much scumhunting except for above trail on SL and making a case on iLord after I asked him to name a second subject. For the "most active player in the game", I don't think of that as much.

This isn't true. I feel like I most certainly have been scum-hunting in between defending myself from springlullaby and bringing up points against/questioning iLord. Those aren't the only two people I've been focusing on. Plus, keep in mind that at least three players have been MIA for quite some time now, and the only other person who's been at about the same activity level as me has been iLord. When others post, I have been giving them my attention as well.

[Incognito]

Also an addendum since I knew your facts were off, and I just went back and checked them: You make it seem like I began pursuing iLord only

after

you asked me to name a second suspect. I had begun pursuing iLord well before you asked me that and well before you and him entered your back and forths.

[Incognito]

So you see attacks against you in a pro town light, but full fledged ones are a scumtell?

...that's not what I said at all. I said the fact that she continued pushing

weak points

against me was a scum-tell. Would you like to revisit what it was in particular I was being attacked for?

1)

First, I was attacked by her for asking 'soft' questions. After I explained to her the significance of those questions that I was asking thereby disproving that they weren't soft at all, she

still

attacked me for asking questions to people I thought were scum, period, saying that I shouldn't ask people who I thought could be scum questions because I should expect scum to lie to me. Do you seriously not see a problem with this argument? She basically pigeon-holed me into a damned if I do, damned if I don't situation

and

contradicted herself as she continued to ask

me

(a person she thought was scum) questions. I don't think that's very pro-town. She's not a new player to Mafiascum, and she actually seemed like a pretty decent player in some of her town games that I looked into. I really don't think she truly believed in what she was attacking me for.

2)

She attacked me for not taking an immediate stance on Electra's page 1 claim. I explained that I didn't want to take an immediate stance as I preferred to look at her claim as a null-tell and chose to wait for Electra to get more involved in the game to

then

decide what to think about her claim and whether I thought she was town or not. There's nothing wrong with reserving opinions about someone until more information is obtained. Good town play allows for withholding information all the time.

3)

A big portion of her attack was based on a logical fallacy. Basically a "too townie" argument. Do you really think it's pro-town to attack someone based on something that's known to be a logical fallacy?

4)

She attacked me for voting sthar8 saying that it seemed more like an annoyance vote more than anything else. I voted for sthar8 because I do think that answering questions for other people can be a scum-tell as it makes it look like the person who's doing the answering is actually participating when in fact he or she is not. Also, I wanted to nip that kind of stuff in the bud early on since I think that when people answer questions or respond to things directed at others, their response basically nullifies any kind of information that could have been received from the response of the person who the question was directed to. Again, I felt like I backed up my vote well, explained my intention well, and she still decided to attack me for it even after my response.

5)

I was attacked for asking for an early prod. Last time I checked, there's nothing wrong with encouraging activity from others.

I thought that all of my responses to her attacks explained my intentions well and should have been enough to show why there was nothing wrong with my actions, but she still continued to tunnel on me using weak points thereby completely shutting herself out of everything and everyone else in the game. If you think

I've

been guilty of not scum-hunting outside of iLord and springlullaby, I'm curious to learn what you think about springlullaby's singular, tunnel-visioned attack on me. Do you think that's pro-town?

But you yourself admit your play there was atypical, and therefore your read of the attack was atypical well. Aren't you playing regularly here? If you are, could you give another more typical example of you treating attacks as towntell, preferably one where you end up changing your mind when the case isn't dropped, like you did here?

Yes, I feel like my play here is more regular. And no, I don't have an example like the one you're looking for. Like I said, it's not very often that I find myself being attacked when I'm town.

True, but you mostly just question his reads on you and never mention finding him scummy.

I didn't just ask about his reads on me; I remember saying that most of his reads look contrived, and I think you even agreed with me at one point. I consider contrived looking reads to be a scum-tell.

[Incognito]

I realize that, but I think she would push weak points against a person as scum. She pushed very weak points against Battle Mage in that R-1000 game that I linked to.

As for faking anger, I never saw her explode to the degree that she did here in this game. She was very, very, very aggressive as scum like she was here though. I think she was more rational as town according to the games I looked into.

[Incognito]

Ah, okay. Did she acknowledge her points as weak in that R-1000 game after the game was over?

Ummm, I haven't checked but why would that matter? I would think the Gold Standard to compare to here would be to look at her town play and determine if she's a capable player under that alignment who knows the difference between strong points and those not as strong, which I think she does.

[Incognito]

Huntress, so it looks like you think Incognito's town?

What do you think about his not commenting on Electra in the beginning?

Heh. I'm curious about

all

of Electra's opinions. A lot more has happened since then.

*YAWN*

This game is kinda lurky. Not really liking it too much at this point.

Also,

note to self:

Guardian's player by player analysis was awful.

[Incognito]

@Jahudo:

The second of those two quotes that you've considered "ad-hom" directly followed springlullaby's "8 out of 10" comment to which you had the following to say about:

I'm not sure what spring is trying to say with "8 out of 10 persons reserving judgment are scum...". If she said something like "I think people who reserve judgment are anti-town" it wouldn't sound like a baseless accusation.[...]At this early point in the game, I'm getting some town vibes from Incognito and I would from spring too if not for that 8 out of 10 thing which I think needs a further explanation.

Why have you suddenly changed your stance on this issue at this current time?

Also the meta point that I raised was that it was still early in the game when springlullaby began attacking me for not having strong opinions about anyone (it was page

4

), and I don't think that's something that's atypical from me or probably anyone else for that matter and that when I do have a strong opinion about someone, I'll make it obvious. I couldn't understand why she chose to attack me of all people for that when it's perfectly normal to be that way in early game.

[Incognito]

Jahudo's boost of Raving Rabbit is extremely strange to me and seems like a reach, especially since I look at his posts and am unable to follow his opinion at all.

I focused more on his vote from that post, but I do have to agree with this as well. His reason for boosting Raging Rabbit doesn't seem to ring true to me considering the fact that RR has spent most of his time focusing on iLord. I can't see how Jahudo can say that RR has

not

heavily focused on one person and that's his reason for boosting him.

It's also worth noting that RR was one of Jahudo's "leaning scum" reads a few pages earlier so this recent change to actually go forward and

boost

the guy is somewhat dramatic.

[Incognito]

If I'm correct, Incog said something about him not liking Guardian's list. Can you explain why.

Yes, I mentioned that his list is awful. I feel like too many of his reads are dirty*. The only person he seems to come to a positive conclusion about is sthar8, which is interesting considering the fact that he entered into the game saying that both iLord and sthar8 were town-like. Let's have a look at his PBP analysis, shall we?

1) Electra:

Claim could easily come from scum. No huge read either way. Misguided thoughts about voting and boosting.

Everything mentioned here is completely negative. Surely Electra's had to say at least

some

things that seem pro-town, no? And he still has absolutely no read on her despite all the negative things he said?

2) Mana_Ku (replacing Skillit):

All over the place. Does not appear to have a logical playing style. Hard to get a read on, something about his jumpyness disturbs me.

Negative, negative, negative.

3) Raging Rabbit:

Seems townish early but then some of his later arguments seem stretching.

Positi-- oh wait, more negative.

4) iLord:

Seems to be approaching the game fairly/reasonably, I am unsure about how I feel about his treatment of sth.

(Note: This is his read of one of the two people he felt was town-like) Positive at first but then slightly negative.

5) TDC:

Makes insightful posts but I am not sure I see much scum hunting. Unsure.

Positive then negative leading to a neutral read.

6) Crazy:

Nothing really stuck out about this one.

Another nothing read.

7) Incognito:

Attack on SL seems very ill founded. Often dismissive of arguments against him, continues to change the topic and/or resort to ad-hom whenever he is attacked.

The only person he's completely negative about. Note: He's basically picked up where springlullaby's extremely scummy tunnel vision left off.

8) eldarad:

Nothing sticks out one way or the other, seems like might be linked to Incognito.

Another nothing read. Note: I was the

only

person who Guardian was completely negative about, he mentions that eldarad might be linked to me, but still comes to a neutral conclusion about him?

9) sthar8:

Far and above most townlike player in the game for various reasons. Should be boosted today, obviously.

The only person he's completely positive about.

11) Jahudo:

He makes me suspicious but I cannot get a finger on why.

Wow. That sure says a lot. More negative.

12) fuzzylightning:

I don't remember anything about him at all whatsoever.

And again, a nothing read.

*

Explanation of Dirty Reads

: Scum oftentimes have to keep their player by player analyses as negative or neutral as possible for a number of reasons (I'm listing two here):

1) If they are lynched or killed in some way, they don't want pro-town players going back to their lists to be able to determine who his or her most likely buddies are.

2) Most players in a game are town, correct (uninformed majority)? A potential scum has a strong incentive to keep things as negative as possible concerning his or her reads of a large majority of players in order to allow himself or herself more wiggle room for future attacks on those town players who he or she happened to list either negatively or neutrally. Scum don't go out of their way to clear people as town -- if they can keep everyone as anti-town seeming as possible, they can keep the town in constant doubt about each other's alignments thus allowing for more future mislynch possibilities.

Still feel good about that boost, Mana_Ku?

[Incognito]

@Jahudo:

You haven't really explained what it is that's scummy about these so-called ad-hom statements. If I recall correctly, you yourself classified her 8 out of 10 comment as a

baseless accusation

. If I responded to a baseless accusation using hyperbole like I did (calling her the Niels Bohr of Mafia, calling her superfluous question about my

own

alignment "cute"), is that really truly scummy? I would think your argument would hold more weight against me if you actually

thought

the points springlullaby raised against me actually held some weight, and I

still

responded to them in the way I have. Considering the fact that you yourself thought her accusation was baseless when she first mentioned it, I can't see how you can come to the conclusion that my responses to her were actually scummy. Also, those quotes that you pulled out only tell part of the story. My additional responses to her accusations also surround those "ad-hom" statements.

---

Or I could be wrong about iLord and he might be dead on with RR,

though RR is starting to look more and more protown to me.

Top three are: Huntress, iLord,

RR in that order.

If Raging Rabbit is beginning to look more and more pro-town to you, why is he still number three in your order of suspicions?

---

Reading over the last page, I can't help but feel even more troubled about Guardian

(yeah, I know. How can that be possible?)

.

Here was Guardian's response to my question about how thoroughly he read the thread upon replacing:

Guardian, you keep on mentioning that you're going to reread the thread. I'm curious: how much and to what level of detail did you actually read when you first replaced in?

I read with normal detail...? I read every post once, and kept a few notes while doing so when a post caught my attention. I then went back and read some posts I made notes about. I did not go back and analyze each player individually which I often like to do; I wanted to "get into the game" first.

I asked him this question because if you look at the time stamps from when Guardian replaced in (3:01 P.M. my time) to when he made his first post of content (5:14 P.M. my time) that pretty much left him with roughly 2 hours of time to read through the thread and come to conclusions about it. His opening post was fairly lengthy too, which means that he would have had to spend at least a quarter of that time typing up that post as well. I'm pretty sure that this thread wasn't an easy read either. And upon his entrance, he pretty much picked up right where springlullaby left off with his attacks against me, which included pretty serious statements practically calling for my lynch that also called for comments from everyone about their opinions about his case against me. The only person so far who seems to have been persuaded to vote for me based on this is Jahudo while most others voiced their disapproval and mentioned why they disagreed with it.

My issue is this: If people had actually began agreeing with this case for whatever reason and actually began wagoning me, would Guardian have still come forward and produced a post like his

post 384

in which he seems to

just now

analyze my posts and "see the error in his ways"? Or would he have continued pushing his attack against me calling for my lynch? I really do think it's the latter, and I'm just baffled that a player who supposedly took notes and read with normal detail could have missed this content he just finished analyzing especially considering the fact that this content was a large part of the foundation of his case against me. His recent back-down really doesn't give me a good vibe because of this.

@Mana_Ku, Huntress, and Random Gem:

How have

you

felt about this thread so far upon replacing in? Have you found it to be a difficult read?

---

@eldarad:

You feel somewhat lurkier to me than you felt in the last game we were in together. Is something wrong? What's going on?

@Electra:

I've been in three completed games with Guardian. Mini 554 where he started as town and then replaced in later as scum, Mini 574 where he replaced in during late Day 2 as scum and I was town, and Open 59 where we were both scum. Despite being in these three games with him, I really don't feel comfortable making a judgment call on him based on a meta read of him; I don't think I understand the differences between his town play and scum play enough to be able to do so.

I will note however that in Mini 574 he pulled this "dirty read" kind of stuff during Day 3 where he eventually ended up voting me even though I was a claimed vig where he kept pushing the idea that I was an SK. He was also unwilling to accept two townies as confirmed innocents despite the fact that they were Gunsmith-investigated. In 554 when he was town early-on, I feel like he scum-hunted and still came to conclusions that led him to believe that certain players were pro-town, and he let his thoughts be known about this. You can see then why his play here certainly catches my attention and doesn't dissuade me from being suspicious of the person he replaced in for.

[Incognito]

I need to reduce my word count.

[Incognito]

Incog, why does it not make sense that in my 1-1.5 hour re-read I attacked what stuck out the most -- you being a complete jerk to springlullaby?

First, just to get this straight, I wasn't a jerk to her. I even

apologized to her

and kindly asked her not to replace for something I didn't even need to apologize for,

she conceded that it wasn't even my fault

and that it was instead her own fault, and we were ready to continue from there until she again flipped out after I brought more evidence against her to the table. Second, that's not what you were attacking me for. Your main attack against me was for supposedly being dismissive of her arguments. It doesn't make sense because now after you continued your barrage and gained everyone's opinions about me, you've suddenly come forward with your 384 where your opinion is suddenly wavering about me when those posts you quoted were in the thread for you to analyze all along.

It was obvious not everyone was going to agree with me immediately -- when does that happen in mafia??? You ask "what would have happened if everyone agreed?" as if that was a realistic option.

It takes a majority to lynch, does it not? It must happen frequently enough for so many games to have lynches, no?

I pointed out what stuck out to me the most and got comments on it, thought about those, and continued gathering data. I started playing mafia. Why are you trying to cast that as suspicious? You say I am backtracking -- what from?? I never said I liked how SL attacked you for not having concrete suspicions, and I never said that I didn't find you suspicious anymore. The most contrition I had is that there MIGHT be an alternative explanation and that makes you *slightly* less suspicious.

Because like I said above, it seems rather convenient for you to suddenly analyze things the way you have in 384. Did you

really

completely miss those posts you just analyzed when you did your first read-through?

Also, why are you trying to meta me based on two/three games when I've played over 30?

I'm not. I even said I don't feel comfortable making a judgment call about your alignment through meta. I

did

bring up certain situations that happened in 574 and 554 that I thought were worth mentioning because they directly relate to what I've seen here, but again, I'm not using this as my way to solidify my read of you.

[Incognito]

Also, might as well

Boost: Electra

already.

[Incognito]

If Raging Rabbit is beginning to look more and more pro-town to you, why is he still number three in your order of suspicions?

Because he

was

number two and "more protown" than number two is number three? I'm not sure what you're getting at here.

It should be obvious as to what I was getting at. If he's looking more and more pro-town to you as of late, what is it exactly that's keeping him on your list of suspicions at all?

[Incognito]

Is something getting lost in translation here? Your mentioning that RR is looking more and more pro-town to you did not lead me to believe that he was merely moving a spot down along your list; it lead me to believe that you were beginning to think he was likely town, period. That's what I'm getting at.

[Incognito]

It wasn't a "too townie" attack. Too townie is attacking someone for being too helpful and in the right to be town, while SL attacked you for trying to hard to

look

like you're helpful and in the right, which is my main reason for suspecting you as well. That's not the same thing at all.

No. "Too townie" is attacking someone for

looking like

they're being too helpful and in the right to someone else, which is the exact same thing she was attacking me for.

Either way, if you're suspecting me for the same reasons, I have an exercise for you: I'd like for you to comb through the thread during early game before springlullaby began attacking me for these reasons and provide

specific examples

where you felt like I was "trying too hard" to look like I was being helpful. Then I'd like for you to do the same in other areas of the thread as well. gogogo!

4) She attacked me for voting sthar8 saying that it seemed more like an annoyance vote more than anything else. I

voted for sthar8 because I do think that answering questions for other people can be a scum-tell

as it makes it look like the person who's doing the answering is actually participating when in fact he or she is not. Also, I wanted to nip that kind of stuff in the bud early on since I think that when people answer questions or respond to things directed at others, their response basically nullifies any kind of information that could have been received from the response of the person who the question was directed to. Again, I felt like I backed up my vote well, explained my intention well, and she still decided to attack me for it even after my response.

I have a slight meta on sthar8 as I just finished moderating a game in which he was scum in. I thought he played fairly well in that game, and I do have respect for his scum play, so I wanted to place a bit of pressure on him to try and get a better read of him. I thought he kinda skated by a bit in that game particularly on Day 1 as nobody seemed to really place much pressure on him until later on in the game during Day 2.

Therefore, I figured that by placing a pressure vote on him early even for more minute reasons I would be able to draw more information out of him and not allow him to skate on by

. Plus his answering of posts directed at other people has the potential to lessen the information we can draw from their responses since they could just copy or formulate their response around his own response thereby making any response they do put forward a null tell. I wanted to nip that type of "answering posts directed at other people" thing in the bud immediately.

Explain this apparant contradiciton.

It's not a contradiction? I had multiple reasons for voting sthar8 in my mind at the time, and the one you bolded in the first paragraph was one of them also. I pretty much forgot to list that one. Obviously if I voted him for doing it, I must have thought it was at least somewhat scummy to begin with.

I don't think it's very good pro town play, but SL's attack felt totally honest and likely comes from a town POV. I don't think scum would get annoyed with a fake conflict to the point of replacing out. Upon a partial reread of your argument, I feel even more strongly about this.

Unboost TDC, boost Guardian

.

Here is what springlullaby mentioned after the first round of annoyance (bolding the relevant portions):

Oh my, this is embarrassing,

I actually wish I could invoke some game related excuse to justify my play in this game and specifically my last post

, but as it is there is no way for me to get out of this graciously.

The only thing I can say is that bad days and lack of sleep aren't propitious to keeping a clear head in mafia.

I have reread myself and am quite embarrassed:

1. My last post is overly dramatic without reason.

2. My accusing you, Incognito, for my getting angry is pretty much entirely irrational. I'm sorry. I should have kept myself in check and my personal foul mood out of the game, and that's it. I really do appreciate the fact that you actually offered apologies when you needn't have. Thank you.

Right now I can only offer my apologies to everyone for shitting up the thread and for needless drama.

It's just, you know, really bad days and a convergence of things.

So yeah, really really sorry. I promise it is the first time I have blown up like that in a game and am really embarrassed. In the interest of not ruining the game further, can we just, you know 'move along, nothing to see'.

Please?

To summarize, she pretty much said that she acted the way she did because of things that were happening in her personal life and that her behavior here had absolutely

nothing

to do with the game itself and that she was going to try and block those things out to try and play the game better.

I then brought out a past game where she played similarly and she again, flipped out and asked for replacement after I brought this other evidence to the table. Looking through her other games that are currently ongoing or ones where she's already died and are still ongoing, I see no evidence that suggests that her "foul mood" behavior goes across the board. Her town play certainly looks more composed to me than her scum play so I'm not going to ignore this as "oh she was annoyed so she's likely town" when she has acted annoyed as scum before. Have you looked through her past games to be able to make this assumption, RR?

You, however, have been much more calm about the whole thing and I believe did more to

look

like the bigger person than to actually stop the circle discussion and look for scum in other places.

I don't think this is true, and I've already explained why but hey, I can't stop you from your "Incog is scum" fixation that only sees my actions in a scummy light. Again, I'd like you to read through the thread and

try

and notice that my focus was not primarily on springlullaby and that I was looking for scum in other places, otherwise I can probably conclude that you're likely suffering from a bout of tunnel vision.

I think the whole self conflict of finding what she's saying scummy vs. giving her the benefit of the doubt was planned ahead to make you look pro town and give your vote more weight.

How could I possibly plan things ahead like this

and

control a person across the internet to have him or her continuously attack me for more and more weak points to be able to

plan my own future votes

against them also? Wouldn't this only work if you thought springlullaby and I were scum together attempting some sort of gambit we agreed upon during pre-game?

Incog, how does my attack on you effect your read on my alignment?

I thought you were pro-town before this attack, and I currently think you're probably misguided town. Your vote is probably the only one I can stand at the moment while Guardian's and Jahudo's votes make me cringe.

Incog (and whoever it was that agreed with him) - you attacked Guardian for "dirty" reads. Aren't Mana_Ku's reads even dirtier? Why ignore them?

How? In summary here were her thoughts:

eldarad - pro-town.
Electra - neutral.
fuzzylightning/RandomGem - scummy.
iLord - initially pro-town, lately scummy.
Incog - pro-town.
Jahudo - scummy.
Raging Rabbit - pro-town.
springlullaby/Guardian - pro-town.
sthar8 - neutral to pro-town.
TDC - neutral.

I'm seeing four to five pro-town listings and explanations for each one, two to three neutrals, and three scummy listings. Guardian had exactly one pro-town and the other person he thought was pro-town upon replacing in was suddenly iffy.

[Incognito]

Yes, please. 6 is probably the one I'm most interested in.

[Incognito]

This point seems to be that scum don't want to make anyone pro-town since if they die those people would be likely their buddies.

Woah, no, that's not the point I was trying to make at all. When someone is lynched as scum, it sometimes helps to go back and look at any comments he or she might have made about certain players that he or she used to arrive at their reads of them that just don't seem to make sense or "fit in" correctly. Since you went ahead and just brought up negative comments galore, it would be extremely difficult for us (if you're scum and lynched) to go back to your list and determine who your most likely buddies are since practically everyone received the same sort of commentary. That should help answer the rest of what you mentioned below this point.

I will also ask this to more clearly illustrate the second counterpoint: If this is all true, why is "buddying" a scum tell? Don't scum like to make friends and win people to their side?

Yes, of course they do, but they'll likely only buddy up to people who they see have major influence over the town or who they may perceive to be a major threat to their agenda. They're obviously not going to buddy up to every single person within the game; they wouldn't get very far that way. So my second point within my explanation of dirty reads is still valid.

[...]even if it is a reasonable expectation for me to eventually have strong pro-town reads, why is it reasonable to expect me to have definitive reads one week into my playing, but unreasonable to expect you to have definitive reads one week into your playing? (Your easy response here is that there is more content in the game now, but I don't want to presume that that is your answer unless you say it is..)

Lol. Guardian, "easy response"? It's the obvious response. That's how the game of Mafia works, does it not? You begin knowing nothing, stuff happens, you begin formulating reads, and then you try and draw conclusions.

Also, Incog, could you make it explicit in one post, or refer to where you have and I missed: which players do you have strong pro-town reads on?

As of this moment, I have pro-town reads on eldarad, Electra, Raging Rabbit, TDC, and (probably) sthar8. I didn't have too much of a problem with Crazy but until Huntress gets more involved in the game, I really can't lean one way or another on her. fuzzylightning (now RandomGem) didn't do enough to make me lean any way on him. Jahudo felt very behind the scenes from an early point in the game, and his reasons used for both his recent boost of Raging Rabbit and vote on me give me a bad feeling about him. iLord still bothers me for coaching springlullaby and other points that I've raised against him. My feelings about your alignment are evident. Skillit's early posts made me leery of him, but I'm waiting for Mana_Ku to get more involved to get a better read of her.

And shit, I just did a list. x_x

[Incognito]

And actually, now that I've gone back and looked at fuzzylightning a bit, his FoS of springlullaby bothers me regardless of springlullaby's (Guardian's) alignment.

[Incognito]

This post doesn't look pro town to me, it looks like you

trying

very hard to appear pro town.

Right. I can't argue with that one.

To me the first quote totally look like you're saying it isn't an actual scumtell, just anti town and good cause for a pressure vote.

Oh, well it's not the best scum-tell around, but I figured it was better than nothing at the time.

It's the manner of her annoyance that makes her look town, scum aren't anywhere near as emotionally involved in the cases they present but don't really mean. I fully believe her emotions were sincere, and if she didn't act pissed off in other games that just goes to show your little jabs did a lot to send her over the edge. I need to read that other game you mentioned of her getting pissed off as scum, but I recall the circumstances were different there and it's unlikely to change my opinion.

I'll make it easier for you. Here are some posts she made in that game that look glaringly similar:

Wtf yourself. You say that you are 99% sure Rogueben is town, suggesting a powerole which can determine people's alignment. If you are genuine, the cat is already out of the bag and scums know it so whether you claim or not is totally irrelevant to them. There is absolutely no reason for you to hint at something then not want to claim if you are town.

See above and fuck you too, scum. What do you want me to believe you since you seem to think I'm scum anyway?

Appeal to emotion my ass. Reading comprehension my ass. Don't call me springy you shit.

She can dish it out, but she can't take it when someone dishes it right back in her face?

I don't like how everyone who isn't convinced by your defences is automatically diagnosed to be inflicted with a bad case of tunnel vision.

Everyone? I didn't say the same about Jahudo's vote/attack.

I think you're likely town. I know I'm town. Therefore, since you think I'm scum, and you're only seeing everything I say in a negative light, you must be suffering from tunnel vision. How can I defend myself against someone who says "your posts just look like you're trying too hard to appear pro-town"? Did it occur to you that maybe they appear that way because I actually am town and that it's not an act?

What makes my vote better?

Difference in vibe. I thought your catch about my "contradicting" sthar8 vote was pretty good and pro-town-seeming as I might have not clearly explained myself when I first placed it. I also like the fact that you're still

asking me questions

while voting for me rather than just leaving your vote there and not making an effort to figure me out. Jahudo's reason for voting me seems off, and I feel like he hasn't made a conscious effort to figure me out, and Guardian just seems more "all guns blazing".

These are more or less the reads if you make a summary, but since he had negative things to say about everyone but you, including his boosts, this post sets him up to attack anyone he wants to in the future should the need arise.

Hm. This is actually a good point. I didn't actually see it that way when I first read it and looked more at her final conclusions rather than the actual content about people to determine if it was a dirty read.

Mana_Ku - what makes your good feeling on Incog not as strong as your good feeling on myself/Guardian?

This is actually a good question, and I'd like to know the answer it as well. Looking back at her post, she doesn't seem to say anything wrong about me, concludes that I'm pro-town, but doesn't boost me while she did have some negative things to say about both you and Guardian (well, more springlullaby than him), but she still went ahead and boosted you two.

[Incognito]

It doesn't really help answer anything. If analyzing how I categorize people is what is important, why can't people go back and see if my classifications of people as negative or neutral don't "fit in" to those categories??

I just said why. You’ve categorized everyone in practically the exact same manner as everyone else and only listed one person as this shining beacon of towniness (sthar8). How could someone possibly extrapolate anything from that if you’re scum and lynched?

Oh no? I'm pretty sure that of the five or so games I've won as scum where I lived to the end are where I buddied heavily with lots of people, got one or two of them to accept it and clear me, and used them to mislynch townies the rest of the game. The premises you are asserting as the basis for your arguments are unjustified.

Sure they’re justified. In my experience, I’ve seen scum use the exact same method you’re using here of coming forward with this "smear campaign" against everyone else and buddying up to maybe one or two people. You yourself did this exact same thing in Mini 574 – Portal Mafia except you were even worse about it since you didn’t really buddy up to anyone at all; you just did the whole "smear campaign" portion. I’m not saying that I’m using that one game to come to the conclusion that you do this across the board as scum, but you’re not going to convince me that my points are invalid and this isn’t an actual scum tell when I’ve used this tell to pretty good success in past games. Tell me what’s wrong with my logic. You’ve cited a past game of yours where you were scum and where you’ve used a different technique of buddying to a large percentage of players rather than keeping your options open with a bunch of them, but you haven’t actually displayed why this logic of mine doesn’t make sense as a tell.

Maybe it does, but you haven't demonstrated this. You responded to my addendum/clarification, not to the main argument.

Your main argument was that you, as town, try not to go forward to clear people as town since it’s either burned you in the past or made people suspicious of you when you are presented with new information that leads you to believe the contrary to your original belief. If that’s the case, why have you gone forward and labeled sthar8 as this shining beacon of towniness who "should be boosted today obviously"? Shouldn’t this main argument of yours have applied across the board to every single one of your reads? Why does this one read of yours (sthar8) become the only exception to the rule and every single one of your other reads does not?

Anyway, it is the obvious response, but it does not work -- I do not have as firm a grasp of the game yet as someone who has been playing it all the way through.

So why didn’t you just say that when I asked you to produce those player-by-player analyses instead of producing them in the first place? By producing your analyses, I could only assume that you were completely caught up with everything that happened within the thread and that those analyses were how you felt about each person up until the point you produced them. After all, you made your feelings about me pretty obvious – would it be wrong for me to assume that you weren’t making your feelings about everyone else just as obvious as well? You’ve only come forward and said (and I’m paraphrasing here) "oh, you shouldn’t attack me for coming forward with those 'dirty reads' because I’m not completely caught up yet" only after I called you out about producing 'dirty reads' to begin with.

Furthermore, this whole argument is based on the premise that I eventually should have approximately 1/3 players cleared, 1/3 suspicious, 1/3 more or less neutral, a premise I fundamentally disagree with and have not adhered to in any game to my recollection.

No, it’s not actually. All I'm asking for is for more thorough reads from you. I don't want negative, negative, negative, neutral, neutral, neutral. Would you agree or disagree with me that the reads that you've produced in your PBP pretty much don’t say much of anything and don’t give me or anyone else a thorough enough look into what your possible alignment could be or feelings about everyone else actually are? If you’re pro-town, does this not concern you at all that you likely haven’t fully grasped the rest of the game? Wouldn’t you want to rectify this as soon as you possibly could instead of continuing this back and forth with me?

Hm. Do you mean to assert that I'm not still asking you questions? Do you mean to assert that I am just leaving my vote there ant not making an effort to figure you out? Do you mean to assert that putting most of your effort into going after one target at a time "all guns blazing" is scummy?

No, you are still asking questions. I don’t know if you’re making an effort to figure me out. To me, it doesn’t seem like it based on your overall tone and entrance to the game. And yes, I do think it’s scummy to go "all guns blazing" on one person when you now claim to not have a good grasp of the rest of the game, especially considering the fact that I had such a low opinion of your predecessor to begin with. I would think the pro-town, more responsible thing to do upon replacing in would be to read the thread thoroughly, produce coherent player-by-player analyses or at least partial player-by-player analyses, and then seeing if your suspicions matched your predecessors. Judging by your entrance and content you’ve produced thus far, I just get the sense that you mainly read what your predecessor had to say about everything and pretty much formulated your

main

thoughts around her frame of mind rather than reading through the thread on your own and seeing how you felt about it.

[Incognito]

With a little over a week to go, I think it's time that someone finalizes the Electra boost, so that we can work on the second boost.
I'm currently boosting eldarad, but would switch to sthar8 or RR if necessary.

I agree with this, and I too would be willing to boost eldarad, sthar8, Raging Rabbit, or leave my boost on TDC.

Jahudo, I'll respond to your post later.

[Incognito]

Or maybe I'll respond now.

@Jahudo:

In response to the first portion of your post, the way I saw the exchange from my perspective was something like as follows:

1)

springlullaby brings up her initial case against me.

2)

I respond to her case trying to show why I felt the case was wrong.

3)

She responded back saying I was wrong and added some weak points to her attack.

4)

I responded again.

5)

She responded again with more weak points.

6)

I responded again.

Finally in that post where I put the "Bla Bla Bla" emoticon in place of her words, I felt like she wasn't even pushing a case anymore. She just became insulting saying "fuck you", calling me a "wuss", saying "fuck you" again, etc. If I had responded to that post with a

real

response, believe you me it would NOT have been pretty. Tell me, why should I respond to a post like that? Was my response not the more responsible way of dealing with it? Sure, I could have gotten into a flaming war with her but that would have been counterproductive to what I'm or what anyone else is trying to achieve in this game.

What is the context of those quotes? Is it really a comparable instance?

The point that I'm getting at with those quotes is I think (and I obviously may be wrong on this) that springlullaby has a tendency to push weak points against people as scum. When her points aren't gaining support against a person from the town, she then resorts to personal insults in her attack instead of trying to form a more coherent case against a person. This is the way I perceived her attack on me in this game and the way I perceived her attack in that game too.

Have you seen instances of this in the boost count so far? How much does the timing, or this quick boosting, makes a difference as a read?

I don't know? Wouldn't it kinda be difficult to tell whether or not someone is actually buddying up to someone else unless an alignment between a potential buddy buddy relationship is revealed? I think Guardian is scum so I suppose it's possible that his insistence that sthar8 and only sthar8 is this "paragon of towniness" could possibly be buddying up, but I can't definitely say that until Guardian's alignment is revealed.

What about it bothers you? Is that the primary reason for you thinking he was scummy?

fuzzylightning's FoS bothers me because he seemed to create a well-thought out post about why he felt like springlullaby could be scum, springlullaby didn't have many votes on her at the time (she might have had mine and someone else's - I'm going from memory here), and instead of voting for her, he merely FoS-ed her. If he's scum and she's town, he might have been reluctant to jump on her bandwagon as he thought he might be seen as scummy. If he's scum and she's scum, he might have felt like it wasn't worth bussing her yet. It's also possible that he's town and just very cautious with his votes, but I'd need to look into some of his past town games before coming to that conclusion. I don't recall mentioning that I found him scummy; I just know that I have pretty much no read on him.

[Incognito]

Guardian, why do you keep on making it a point to say you'd be fine with boosting yourself?

[Incognito]

And yes, Jahudo, that's the contradiction.

[Incognito]

@eldarad:

That's not really the full extent of issues I have with Guardian/springlullaby but quite frankly if people can't be bothered to read the thread, I can't be bothered to rehash points that I've been repeatedly repeating and getting crap-wagoned for.

@iLord:

Again, I'm not re-answering stuff that I've already covered.

My comments on your reads: I still think they look very contrived. You seem to just be summarizing the thread and then arbitrarily allotting people into this towniest to scummiest order, and I still have absolutely no clue how or why you've arranged people in the order you have. For example, Raging Rabbit was your number one before. You still seem to have some issues with him but somehow he's moved up your list in towniness? And you didn't even really give an explanation for why that's the case? RandomGem is scummy but he's like 6th from the top? I could say more but meh, I've just become really apathetic about this game lately.

The main thing is that, except for one or two of her more recent posts, she seems to be observing rather than actually scumhunting. She almost seems to be using her case against Crazy as an excuse for not going after anyone else, yet when she details her case on him she's listing things that are anti-town, not necessarily scummy.

This is an issue I have with a

number

of people in this game, actually, and it includes people who I've even indicated that I think might be town. Apparently if you sit around and twiddle your fucking thumbs in this game and pick up your prods regularly you get checked off as obvtown and get boosted but when you make an effort and raise valid points continuously and actually do research on people, you get crap-wagoned.

[Incognito]

Sorry if I came off a bit snippy in that last post. I'm just a bit frustrated by a few things related to this game. iLord, maybe this will help answer your question too. I don't expect this to change anyone's mind since it hasn't done so yet but here are the points rehashed:

Points against springlullaby

• Consistently pushing weak or untrue points to the point of exhaustion after I repeatedly explained what it was I was trying to do during early game.
  
• When these points didn't stick, she then resorted to personal insults and (probable) manufactured anger to try and get her "points across".
  Note: I've been attacked for ad-hom so those people who are willing to allow this to slide really crack me up.
  
  
• Double standard treatment of me when compared to iLord in relation to his fuzzylightning read, and double standard treatment of me when compared to Crazy's "QFT everything eldarad said" and my "appealing to eldarad".
  
• Contradictory questioning ("why ask scum questions? don't you expect scum to lie?"<- this probably goes into the weak or untrue points section)
  
• My meta read of her suggests that her PPD rate, her pushing of weak or untrue points, and her anger/super aggressive tone matches her scum meta quite well when compared to her town meta.

Points against Guardian

• Dirty reads.
  
• Backtracking.
  
• (RR's gonna love this one): Trying too hard to appear pro-town. "OMG guys boost me! I'm town!" "I'm replacing springlullaby, and I got my role (pro-town obvobv)!"
  
• Lightning fast read that quickly adopted his predecessor's view and when his points didn't stick, he quite
  conveniently
  reviewed the thread and began to have a change of heart.
  
• There's other more intangible things I can't put into words here.

@iLord:

I'm assuming that your towniest to scummiest list has made no attempt to draw connections between people or suggest a possible scum team. Is this a far assumption?

[Incognito]

Your point here seems to be "I post a lot, therefore I'm town", which is totally fallacious.

Uh, no. That's not my point at all. Try harder.

What town meta do you have of her? How did you form it?

I've commented on this before. I formed it by reading her town games. Duh.

[Incognito]

First off, I said nothing about

attacking

people who aren't saying as much as I am. So again, try harder. I specifically mentioned that I think that these certain players who aren't really doing much are players who I think might even be town. Why would I want people to attack other people who I think might be town? I'd like these people who are being non-contributive to finally contribute.

Second, I didn't only focus on whether or not she got pissed off as town and whether or not that was only a characteristic of her scum play, and I didn't only focus on one game each. TDC linked to a bunch of other games where she was town that I also looked into. There were other characteristics of her play aside from her demeanor that I looked into also that I commented on previously.

[Incognito]

Oh and just to note: I might be V/LA from now until like Saturday due to Thanksgiving.

[Incognito]

Yay for late (or early, depending on how you look at it) posting.

eldarad:

Your 474 just seems flat-out weird to me. I don't recall you mentioning any great level of suspicion of me at any point during this game until now -- you've gone to some lengths to characterize my playstyle as "similar to yours" and mentioned that my play so far "seems town but not safe enough to boost" (I'm guessing because of some supposed buddying that you

thought

could have been present)". But now in your 474, you bring forward a hypothesis that suggests that not only could Guardian and I potentially be scum buddies but iLord could also be a possible third? How do you factor in the fact that I've mentioned that I'd be perfectly fine with an iLord or Guardian lynch for quite some time now? It's also somewhat interesting that you've even used the word "contrived" to describe iLord's reads, which is exactly the same word I've used to describe both his most recent reads and his first set of reads that he produced during early-game.

Another thing I'm curious about is a few times now, you've mentioned that you feel like springlullaby's anger seemed feigned since you think she's been taking on a different persona when compared to her real life personality. Do you know springlullaby from outside of mafiascum or something? What have you been trying to get at there?

---

In other news, I'll be sending a PM to the mod to request a deadline extension.

[Incognito]

I, too, agree that RandomGem's post says very little.

RandomGem, you pretty much only commented on the Guardian/springlullaby <-> me exchange. What are your thoughts on everyone else?

[Incognito]

unboost
boost: sthar8

more some other day.

[Incognito]

I do agree with the last paragraph brought forward by sthar8 - it does seem rather pointless for someone to focus so much attention on a person like Electra who was, at the time, almost assuredly going to be boosted and now

has

been boosted. I'd also like to note that Guardian was guilty of a similar offense; upon replacing in, he immediately began discrediting Electra's claim and attacking her for certain points and has only backed off of her recently now that she has actually attained boost status. Why Guardian hasn't been dog-piled yet is beyond me.

Now, the scum-strategy idea suddenly makes a lot of sense when you factor in how Guardian picked up almost exactly where sl left off. Which, in turn, gave you an avenue to attack Guardian back.
Lots of heat produced, very little progress made either way.

Perhaps Guardian picked up where SL left off to make it

seem

like two supposedly like-minded "pro-town" people came to similar conclusions about a person's alignment to therefore try and add weight to an unsubstantial case? I'm just appalled that you and a few others have continuously voiced some concern about springlullaby/Guardian throughout this game but to this point, I'm the only person who's actually voted for the dude. He's picked up a few FoS's and slaps of the wrist but nothing concrete like my vote and now I'm suddenly to blame for this too. Does this not say anything to anyone?

I wouldn't mind a Jahudo lynch. I don't see the case against eldarad. I'm eager for a wrap-up from Huntress and am wondering what the hell happened to Mana_Ku.

[Incognito]

Yeah, I read his last few posts. The first portion of his Post 507 wasn't phrased very well, but I understood the gist of it. He's basically trying to say that your listing of people from towniest to scummiest looks contrived because you seem to conveniently shift people around in such a way as to have your top two towniest people as the people you just so happen to be boosting. I've mentioned my feelings about your list also in the past about how I felt it looked contrived and yeah, this was one of the major issues I had with your list too. When I called you out about this weeks and weeks ago, you mentioned something about me mistaking the rigidity of your list, and you're doing the same thing here with eldarad. The fact that eldarad and I seemed to reach this conclusion about your lists independently of one another makes me think he's still likely to be town and thus, I don't see the case against him.

There's a difference between the way

you

organize people in your lists and the way I or anyone else does. While I say something like "I'd be okay with boosting any one of the following people", you seem to have some kind of a definitive order that seems definitive because of your color-coding and seeming rigidity with your "Town" label on the top and "Scum" label on the bottom. I have yet to determine if this is just a difference in playstyle or if this is in fact scummy since I haven't been able to look at those past games you linked to from that other site. But the way it's presented does look scummy to me also, and I don't see the so-called crap logic that you're calling eldarad out about.

The next portion of his 507 covers your Jahudo read. Again, this is something I've mentioned having a problem with also when I said your reads look contrived. You seem to summarize people's posts one by one by one in these towniest to scummiest list posts, but you don't really seem to indicate why, in your own words, it is you find this person scummier than that person and that person scummier than this person. You usually mention at the bottom of your posts that "if anyone wants clarification, please ask" but if you're town, shouldn't it be your job to try and push the case and try to demonstrate to everyone else why it is you feel this way about said "scummy person"? You did eventually do just that with your case against Jahudo in your 501 but again you don't really go into depth about why it is you feel this way about each post you've dissected. You comment on each post and say stuff like "didn't disclose his opinion" or "doesn't disclose his opinion, which is scummy" but you don't really explain why it's scummy in this case. It just looks to me more like you don't actually believe in what it is you're typing.

Following 507, you both go back and forth a bit reiterating the same points. Blah blah blah. This is probably my cue to say "OMG ELDARAD, GUARDIAN, AND ILORD SCUM TEAM LOL!!11".

[Incognito]

That post was in response to iLord.

[Incognito]

Not "was going to be boosted." When Huntress presented her case, electra had

already been boost-hammered

. This is a [i[huge[/i] difference. Where guardian was arguing against electra's boost (which may be intensely protown), huntress is either attempting to engineer electra's lynch today or preemptively discredit her information tomorrow.

Guardian's arguing against Electra's boost can also be seen as intensely scummy if Electra is actually who she says she is. I could certainly see a pro-scum player fighting tooth and nail trying to discredit someone like a pro-town Electra from getting boosted; Electra's claimed power could be extremely helpful down the road for town and could be extremely hurtful for scum. She's claimed to provide exactly the kind of information about the entire town that would make scum shudder.

[Incognito]

^^^ What he said.

---

You answered the bolded part yourself with the stuff about Jahudo. Could you explain what you mean there?

Ah nevermind. I could have sworn that somewhere in your posts following your 452, you had mentioned that you might not have the chance to get into your Jahudo case before deadline. I just saw it as a division of time and labor thing; instead of producing this huge post 452 that eventually results in some kind of listing that you've claimed doesn't even mean much especially in the middle, it would make more sense for you if you're town to just produce a case to try and get your top scummiest person lynched. But yeah, you said something else about your computer not working well and not that you'd never get a chance to go into your case so nevermind.

[Incognito]

I don't really have much to add at this time.

Just a hi to Green Crayons and just pointing out that sthar8 has been boost-hammered. We've got 24 pages for a Day 1, we've been in this game for longer than a month, and so we should probably kill someone soon lol.

[Incognito]

We've got 24 pages for a Day 1, we've been in this game for longer than a month, and so we should probably kill someone soon lol.

Seconded. I nominate Incognito.

Oh? What happened to this (bolded green):

This whole thing is confusing me now To me it seems like the case isn't going the way she hoped it would, maybe because you aren't responding the way she thinks you ought to or because not enough people are paying attention to her besides you. But at some point she stops building a better case as her first priority or at least starts to become insulting herself.

So yeah, I'm starting to have doubts about my vote.

[Incognito]

I rarely see townies this concerned with showing how each and every action they make is done for logical, pro town motives - see my post summarizing his course of liking SL for attacking him and then slowly changing his mind and voting him for a stronger example. Anyways, how does this game-theory disagreement make me scummy?

I don't remember ever really liking springlullaby for attacking me. Reposting for convenience:

Some of your points seem like a bit of a stretch to me, which is a bit bothersome. I'll try and take it as a slight pro-town sign that you've called me of all people out on certain things when I've pretty much had absolutely nothing directed at me and have been finding myself trying to create my own content to get involved in. But yeah, there ya go.

I said I was bothered by her attack because I felt like her points were a bit of a stretch. I also said I'm gonna

try

and take it as a

slight

pro-town that she called me out.

In summary: Clearly I felt like she was misrepresenting some of my early actions, and instead of immediately jumping to conclusions that her intent was absolutely, positively malicious and therefore scummy, I decided to see how she would react to my response and then my response after that... etc. Her reactions to my response(s) furthered my belief that her attack might have malicious intent and so I came to the conclusion that was scummy for this. That shouldn't be so hard to understand.

[Incognito]

EBWOP: "so I came to the conclusion that [she] was scummy for this"

[Incognito]

Jahudo: Uh huh. Right. Is there any reason why your suspicion decrease that I mentioned above seemed to coincide with Guardian's? Or am I just imagining things?

Now that you've conceded that one point I'll go ahead and help you out with the points against me summarizing thing that you plan on doing. Here ya go:

Vote: Incognito

I went over Guardian's considerations and agree that alot of what he said holds true. There were times when Incog was using an ad-hom attack on SL

I also think he's been trying to make this game about other games and this quote is trying to defend a point using meta:

when I have a scum read on someone I'll make my opinion on the person blatantly obvious.

I just think that sometimes a defense has to hold up in the game it's brought up in and meta's are only a manipulating factor in reading how a player is behaving for a particular event in another to explain away something in this one.

That must be ooooooooooone solid scum tell!

Incognito pointed out what I was going to point out .

Me and iLord thinking alike? No wai! o_O

[Incognito]

I approve of the deadline. I also sent a PM to the mod asking him to prod RandomGem as his last post on the site was on the first of this month.

Green Crayons:

Are you leaning scum on Huntress based off of her own actions, the actions of her predecessor, or both combined?

Updates on things:

• I still think Guardian is likely scum for the points I've previously provided against him and his predecessor. I'm amazed that he's now pretty much conceded that he probably has been misreading stuff and probably didn't read the thread closely enough and is now trying to ask forgiveness for this but had tried to defend himself against those points earlier when I pointed out how I found this to be scummy.
  
  
• I could easily find myself supporting a Jahudo lynch. I've always gotten the feeling that he's been playing a more spectator-y role in this game than anything else. Some of his recent defenses just seem strange to me too. This specific example was pointed out by both iLord and Guardian:
  

  <snip>
  A tendency that has been shown and is exhibited here is Jahudo’s opinionless posts

  I could say the same for Incognito. One of SL’s points against Incog in post 222 was that he asked for people’s reason for voting Skillit without Incog giving a stance himself. I did not think this was a scum tell at the time, post 224, but I agreed that Incog was not taking a stance.

  To me, it almost looks like he has implied knowledge that I'm town as he's using one of my earlier actions almost as a benchmark to display why his own action that iLord was calling him out for shouldn't be labeled as scummy.
  
  I still don't like his explanation for his shift in stance from "I'm not feeling as comfortable as I was about my Incog-vote" to "I nominate Incog for today's lynch". This shift in stances just doesn't feel natural. It's not like he's pointed out more
  recent
  actions of mine that he's found scummy from the point he made his "uncomfortable comment"; I'm assuming he'd still be basing his opinion on everything I've done in this game prior to this "uncomfortable comment".
  
  
• Still dislike the eldarad wagon. I don't find him particularly scummy.
  
  
• Still don't know what to think about Huntress. I mentioned previously that I didn't have much of a problem with Crazy but Huntress hasn't really done much to really base my read on. I do, however, almost get the impression from her posts that she's sorta succumbed to the idea that she might be the D1 lynch, so her seeming lack of urgency to finally update all of us on her thoughts is somewhat bothersome. I haven't looked into how many games she's in currently so I don't know what her division of time and labor is but yeah, just throwing that out there.
  
  
• My read of iLord is somewhat in flux -- I still do think his list-making and summary posts do look contrived, but I'm wondering if maybe he's just slightly weird town. I'm also still bothered by his early coaching of springlullaby as I think the only way a person can really coach someone on how to attack someone else is by knowing the coachee's alignment. I think I'd rather support Jahudo's lynch over iLord's lynch at this current time though.

And ta-da! Incog's slightly uninspired post is complete.

[Incognito]

How does that look like implied knowledge? I'm asking people to look at individual accusation and see how bad the actions really look. In that post I felt you asking-questions-before-giving-your-own-opinion about Skillit’s wagon looked scummier than what I did, which was withhold opinion about setup.

I didn't get the impression from the post that I quoted above that you thought my questions about the Skillit wagon looked scummier than what iLord called you out for. You even said in that very same quote that you "did not think this was a scum tell at the time". How does that equate into you thinking that my actions were scummier than yours? Like I mentioned in 613, it looks like you were using my earlier actions around the Skillit wagon as a benchmark to compare to and use to explain why your actions are not as scummy as iLord has made them out to seem. I didn't get the sense that you were comparing these two actions in levels of scumminess.

Incog, did you not read the part of my post where I said most of your points were flawed?

Yeah, I read it but clearly I disagree. I assume a motivation to your actions and accuse you of doing these things intentionally because I thought springlullaby was scum and still do. You replaced her, you received the same role PM as she did, and instead of dispelling my doubts about your particular character, you managed to highten them further by performing additional actions which I do deem as scummy. It's unfortunate that not enough people in this particular game seem to see it this way at this current time.

[Incognito]

Errr, Huntress, where do I even

suggest

that I'm going to attempt to push a lynch on you? I even linked to a post where I specifically mentioned that I had absolutely no problems with your predecessor and felt like sthar8's case on him misrepresented him in certain areas. I'm just saying that you replaced into the game on the 15th of November (that was a month ago) and you

still

haven't fully caught up to everything. If you actually wanted to make an impression on anyone to influence people's decisions or give people a chance to form an opinion on you, then I would expect you to take a stand sooner than you have and not wait until the weekend before the deadline to finally do so. In that very same post you just quoted me from, I mentioned who my preferable lynch candidates were. You were not one of those people.

I couldn't care less if you build up suspicion on me or not. I know what I am, and I'll respond to any points you bring up against me like I've done with all the others.

[Incognito]

Looking back at that post I don't remember exactly what I was going to comment on but Incog addressed alot in post 137 and I think I withheld comment until SL responded to that, then until Incog responded to her again, etc. This SL quote really stuck out to me though:

4. Wtf with the 'it's bad to run up on someone who ends up being innocent'. a) Are you suggesting that you won't make cases because of the off-risk that the people may be innocent?

It seemed like an inference she used just to strengthen her point but he might not have meant it that way originally and I don't think it looked like he did. Do you remember this Incog?

Yeah, I do remember that. What specifically do you want to know about it?

[Incognito]

Oh. By that point I was already voting her and at the very bottom of that post 137 I pretty much confirmed my vote on her. So deffo scummy.

[Incognito]

Hmm. There's a portion of the iLord/eldarad argument that concerns me. iLord, I think the point eldarad is trying to make is that he never got the impression that

you

ever came after

me

early on, and I, too, never got that impression as well. You maintained that you were suspicious of me because of the two "good points" that you felt springlullaby had against me, but I never got the impression that you forcefully came after me to push for my lynch. I think there's a distinct difference between the way springlullaby attacked me, the way Raging Rabbit attacked me, and the way you... mentioned suspicion of me. While RR and springlullaby came at me directly, you seemed to be hanging along the coattails of the argument almost like an instigator who was trying to mold springlullaby's argument into perfection without ever really lending your own distinct support.

The argument that ensued between me and you only came about when I came at

you

as I directly mentioned to you that I felt your reads looked contrived, and I couldn't understand how you could think I was scummy but still used one of the ideas I came up with to clear another player (fuzzylightning) as town in your mind. That never made much sense to me and that was the only argument that I felt came between us at that time.

---

Anyway, by my count, it looks like a Guardian-wagon simply will not have enough support by a Thursday deadline, which still completely boggles my mind. I'll concede this for now and move to my second choice as, judging by my count, this looks like more of a viable option at this current time:

Unvote
Vote: Jahudo

[Incognito]

Checking in, I still much prefer a Jahudo-lynch over a Huntress-lynch. I'm not sure why Huntress took such a long time to get into this game, but my read of Crazy at least was that of disinterested town. That said, now that Huntress is at L-2 and the deadline is right there, she should certainly be thinking about role claiming really, really soon.

[Incognito]

Huntress, I didn't want you claiming right at this very second either. I've just seen too many instances where a person (whether town or scum) waits until the very last minute to claim thereby throwing everyone into a clusterfuck. And with no lynch at no majority, I think it's extremely important that a claim gets in at the right time so that an appropriate decision could be made about the lynch.

[Incognito]

Summary:Everyone wagon eldarad please. PS: you're welcome.

PPS, Circle of suspicious people:
Eldarad, Incognito, Jahudo, iLord, TDC in rough order.

pps: eldarad is still scum, amirite?

Wagon on Jahudo is meh.
Wagon on eldarad is meh-.

I'm sorry but why aren't we lynching Guardian again?

[Incognito]

Huntress:

Up until this last page or two, your posting pattern in this game has been sporadic at best. I wrote my post suggesting you claim real, real soon at 2 days 2 hours before the deadline if I remember correctly. I actually didn't even expect you to respond to that within two hours time; taking your posting pattern into consideration, I thought you'd be more likely to return to the thread like a day before the deadline actually, which is about the time I would consider an L-2 claim in a 'No Lynch' at majority game to be acceptable.

[Incognito]

thx for straw-maning me by taking those posts out of context.

How are those posts being taken out of context? In the first quote you pretty much just finished outlining a case against eldarad mentioning that both his posts from the very beginning of the game and then as of recent against iLord were "crap logic". You stated in that very same post that you didn't even

need

to read the rest of the thread because you're pretty sure the pattern would continue:

More craplogic. I mean I'd keep reading, but I am already convinced.

And now you have the

nerve

to say I'm being unfair because I called you out about it? You're kidding right? I'm

stunned

that you haven't been dogpiled yet.

In the second quote you just finished analyzing the case against Crazy/Huntress, just finished commenting on Jahudo, and then closed it out with an attempt to gain confirmation that your top suspect (eldarad) is still scum. Again, how is that out of context?

And now you've yet done another lightning fast reread again and suddenly the wagons (at least one of which YOU had been pushing) are "meh"?

Seriously, if you really are town here (which I doubt), can you at least consider the possibility that you're playing really badly?

[Incognito]

I agree with Green Crayons about Jahudo's 675. That's just plain weird.

[Incognito]

Jahudo, why would "pearls of wisdom" be mason talk?

[Incognito]

Huntress' attitude towards Electra's claim is consistent with her role claim. There's so much I don't like about Huntress' play but...gah.

I wanted to ask this yesterday but unfortunately, Elmo-mod locked the thread too quickly. How so?

unvote - vote: Jahudo

Why did you switch your vote over so quickly after only hearing Huntress's claim? I'd also like for you to provide some sort of game summary and player by player.

Outside of that, if Electra was telling the truth about her role, I don't think she should immediately reveal the

actual

information she received. If Electra received the type of information I think she did, I'm kinda, sorta wondering if mass claiming might be a good strategy at this point. I think revealing the

type

of information she received might be a good start.

[Incognito]

Yes, I think she should definitely reveal the information at some point today, but I don't think she should do it immediately upon entering the thread. I think she should first say what kind of info it is and then we can proceed from there.

[Incognito]

I'll have some more stuff to say after Electra reveals her information.

GreenCrayons, I thought similarly to what you did about Electra's boost ability and it seems like TDC did also. He said the following, which is probably what you read and have attributed to being something that Electra mentioned when it was TDC who said it instead:

I'm not sure why ILord and RR are talking about guilties and innocents, when Electra's claim clearly said she'll get "information about the town", which I'd guess would be things like "There's X scum in the town" or "there are Y vanillas". Nothing she said suggested it's a cop investigation.

I was hoping it was this kind of information because I think a mass-claim might have been a strong strategy at this point if the above was the case.

[Incognito]

Huntress is still far and away the scummiest, even after her claim. What is the general consensus on her claim? Do we give her another chance to confirm it?

I need to reread obviously, but I think icemanE is scummier.

[Incognito]

sthar8, I'll explain later but first I've got a question for Huntress.

Huntress, before day's end you claimed that you had this case against me that was going to pretty much bring the wagon of death to me. Do you still think I'm scum? If yes, can you explain why in as much detail as you possibly could? If no, can you explain why in as much detail as you possibly could?

[Incognito]

Huntress, I exaggerated that deliberately. I really am quite interested in reading why you still believe I'm scum so I look forward to reading that very soon.

There's something about sthar8's role claim that I really don't like. I'm intentionally being non-specific here, and I'll likely explain why later.

sthar8, according to your sig you've completed 5 games of forum Mafia on here. How much forum experience do you have outside of MS? How many games have you read just for the heck of it? In how many of your games on here and outside of here have you seen Day 1's where exactly both of the competing lynch wagons happened to be on scum?

[Incognito]

Oh and

Boost: Raging Rabbit

because he's obvtown.

[Incognito]

All right. I was going to wait awhile longer before I did this but since people are asking questions now, I think I'm just going to claim. The reason why I'm claiming is because it should be glaringly obvious to the scum what my role is, and therefore I think it's best to just come forward with it so that the whole town and not just myself and the informed minority know about it.

I'm a vigilante. According to my role PM, I began the game with a single bullet. I have absolutely no clue what happens to me if I'm boosted but if I had to venture a guess, I would think I might gain an additional bullet. I killed Guardian (obviously) since I thought he was scum yesterday and after reading the thread and looking at Jahudo <-> springlullaby/him interactions I thought they stood a higher than average chance of being scum together. I also thought that there was no way Guardian would have a power role because of what he mentioned here:

If someone claimed a role that was vanilla but had a pretty obvious thing that should/would get improved upon boosting, I would be about the same likelihood of believing her. If someone claimed another role that explicitly stated the exact nature of what would happen if they were boosted, but it was no informational, I might be more likely to believe her.

I don't really understand the difference between these two. Can you clarifiy?

Like if someone was a vanilla but it says their job was a nurse, then if they get boosted it would be pretty obvious they would be a doctor.

It seemed to me like he had no clue how the boosting mechanics worked for power roles since I knew by my own role that I began as a vigilante and didn't have to be boosted to a vigilante level while he seemed to be suggesting that someone could begin at nursing level and be boosted to a doctor. I figured he either had to be scum or if he was town, he had to be vanilla which would be a loss, but not too great a loss as the loss of a power role is to the town. Now that his role has been revealed, it's clear the above quote was a breadcrumb to his role unfortunately.

I say Raging Rabbit is obvtown because of how he's approached this game from the start of Day 2 -- he seems genuinely suspicious of sthar8 in that he believes that sthar8 may have been responsible for the second kill. Also his speculation about this being a vig-less or SK-less set-up seems town to me since scum would pretty much be absolutely certain that I performed the Guardian kill since they were responsible for the iLord kill. Lastly, his switch from his vote of me to Jahudo just had a really town feel to it and he's continued that train of thought into today despite the fact that I was one of his top suspicions yesterday. His vote was a major turning point towards getting Jahudo-GF lynched.

Also, I might as well reveal why I'm suspicious of sthar8's claim. Judging by Guardian's reveal as Doctor and judging by my own role, I really don't think true town power roles need to be boosted in order to gain their abilities. I think they begin with the ability they would normally have but might possibly gain a perk if boosted (I guess this could be compared to Electra's claimed information). Therefore, I'm suspicious of the fact that sthar8 is claiming that he didn't

begin

with his second vote abilities and needed to be boosted to that level. If he really

does

have this ability, I get the feeling that by being boosted he's actually gained this ability a second time so that if he uses it today to "prove" himself, he might still have a spare copy available further along into end-game. There are other things that I disliked about sthar8's D1 play that make me suspicious of him as well that I will likely go into in the near future. But yeah, that's my problem with sthar8's claim.

If anyone has any questions about my claim, I'll gladly respond. I should have much more content later on after the holidays.

[Incognito]

Bump. Reread hasn't been completed yet, and I've been too exhausted to really put together an analytical post. I hope everyone had a nice holiday. =)

[Incognito]

I think they begin with the ability they would normally have but might possibly gain a perk if boosted (I guess this could be compared to Electra's claimed information).

Didn't Electra claim mimic this lack of an ability until boosted?

Yes, but there's a dramatic difference: Electra claimed to be

Vanilla

who happened to have this "clause" somewhere within her role PM that informed her of what would happen when she was boosted. sthar8 has claimed to be a

Power Role

whose power only works upon being boosted. There's a dramatic difference there and coupled with certain things that I noticed in his Day 1 play, which I plan on pointing out when I finally stop being lazy during the holidays, it makes me extremely suspicious of him.

[Incognito]

After that response, I can't see you as anything

but

scum.

Vote: sthar8

[Incognito]

I have played no forum mafia outside of MS. I have read

many

games for fun. I cannot recall any games where there were exactly two viable wagons on day 1 and both of them lead to scum. Do you have a logically valid point?

Right, so in your experience of both reading games and playing the five games you've played on here, you have never, not

once

, seen a situation where the two competing Day 1 wagons happened to be on scum. I've played in 18 games on here, moderated 4 games on here, played in a number of games off of here, moderated a number of games off of here, and read numerous games on here and elsewhere and guess how many instances I've seen where the two competing Day 1 wagons have been on scum. Exactly zero.

The point I'm getting at is judging by these raw numbers (you've just provided your numbers, and I've now provided my numbers), I think it's safe to say that the probability of two competing Day 1 wagons both being on scum is relatively low. I'm not saying that it's completely impossible for Huntress to be scum here, but I don't want to lynch her today because I think the probability of her being scum simply based off of these numbers is relatively low. Instead of analyzing the wagon that formed on Jahudo and seeing whose vote looks the most terrible, you've decided to just continue voting for Huntress thereby completely ignoring the wealth of information that could be buried in wagon analysis and thread/interaction analysis on

known scum

. Do you not think this is useful information?

You based your alleged NK on such speculation and killed a doctor. I based one of my suspicions yesterday on such speculation and he flipped townie. Does this not tell you something?

Nice strawman. No, I didn't base my NK completely on that speculation. You know better than that. It should be obvious judging by the length of time I spent trying to convince everyone that Guardian was scum that there was much more to my NK decision than that. I pointed out that particular speculation to let everyone know one of the many factors that went into my NK choice. Further, a lot more information has been drawn from the point that you were speculating on iLord's scumminess to this point now. We're not on Day 1 any longer where nothing is known; we've gathered some information from the dead now.

For the record, in my personal (irrelevant) opinion, proving that I am a double voter should increase the probability that I am town, as I believe that double voting is a very powerful scum ability that doesn't appear to fit well with what we know of the setup. In support of this, my second vote is anonymous, which means that the drawback of accountability is removed from any mislynch engineered using the vote. Without accountability, the ability is no longer restricted to only being useful in LYLO. As I have claimed my vote, the potential for abuse goes down significantly.

What if, by being boosted, you've actually gained a second double vote thereby allowing you to use this second double vote at a critical situation like LyLo? I think all power roles in this game begin with the ability that they were given from the start and have the potential to gain an additional ability upon being boosted. You've claimed to be a power role so why should we ignore the possibility that perhaps you

were

a one-shot double voter but now that you've been boosted, you've actually gained another double vote thereby making you a two-shot double voter?

Here's what I don't like about your explanation for why you should use your second vote today: apparently, you have the ability to

control

exactly when you want to use this second vote by shooting a PM to Elmo about when and where you want to use this ability. According to you, it's

not

a forced vote at all. You claim that you want to get rid of this ability now because you don't want the pressure of the swinginess it could bring in a LyLo situation. But according to your own explanation,

you don't even have to necessarily use it!

It's not a forced vote; it's a vote that YOU control by sending a PM to Elmo. What kind of pressure could you possibly have in LyLo given what you've just said about your own completely controllable vote?

Would it be viable to boost Incog in order to have him suicide before LYLO?

You've brought forward this ridiculous suspicion that I'm an SK and in the very same sentence, you want to actually produce a Boost-wagon on me so that I could suicide at some point during LyLo? For serious? If you genuinely believe that I'm an SK and you're really a pro-town player, why would you even want to waste an entire boost on me when you could direct that boost towards someone who you suspect is pro-town and simply lynch me?

[Incognito]

Green Crayons, read this please, which was in response to sthar8:

What if, by being boosted, you've actually gained a second double vote thereby allowing you to use this second double vote at a critical situation like LyLo? I think all power roles in this game begin with the ability that they were given from the start and have the potential to gain an additional ability upon being boosted. You've claimed to be a power role so why should we ignore the possibility that perhaps you were a one-shot double voter but now that you've been boosted, you've actually gained another double vote thereby making you a two-shot double voter?

Here's what I don't like about your explanation for why you should use your second vote today: apparently, you have the ability to control exactly when you want to use this second vote by shooting a PM to Elmo about when and where you want to use this ability. According to you, it's not a forced vote at all. You claim that you want to get rid of this ability now because you don't want the pressure of the swinginess it could bring in a LyLo situation. But according to your own explanation, you don't even have to necessarily use it! It's not a forced vote; it's a vote that YOU control by sending a PM to Elmo. What kind of pressure could you possibly have in LyLo given what you've just said about your own completely controllable vote?

This is just an extract of my post 761 above. It should answer your questions.

[Incognito]

You've brought forward this ridiculous suspicion that I'm an SK and in the very same sentence, you want to actually produce a Boost-wagon on me so that I could suicide at some point during LyLo?

EBWOP, btw, that should be

before

LyLo, not during. Sorry about that.

[Incognito]

As I said, there is a lot to think about Huntress' claim, not least because of the consequences of assuming Huntress is scum. There are a number of factors suggest that Huntress probably isn't mafia - for example:
- the existence of two wagons on scum at the end of Day 1 seems unlikely
- Huntress-scum would have had to boost and kill iLord; possible but wastes the key advantage of the Boost ability - ie being confirmable

I agree with the first example, but I strongly disagree with the second. In my experience, scum are more likely to choose a dead player as their "power role" target since the dead player will be unable to confirm or deny that the ability had any effect on them. There's another reason I disagree with the second example, but I'll refrain from going into that.

Also, I should note that I'd like to make a slight edit to my competing D1 wagons on scum theory that I proposed to sthar8; I have in fact seen

one

example where two competing D1 wagons did happen to be on scum

(Invitational 10)

. Either way, I think the comment still applies for the most part: the probability is still low. I'll look closer into Huntress interactions with Jahudo, but I think from my recollection of the game, icemanE and sthar8 are much more worthy targets for a D2 lynch.

---

Incognito: I would not put it beyond the mod to create functionally equivalent roles (vanilla with known boosts and power roles that only work upon being boosted) and call them differently.
Why would sthar8 not make his own life easier and claim to be "vanilla that gets a double vote when boosted"?

Yes, I wouldn't past the mod either, and I generally don't like lynching people based on role claims anyway. I've seen too many situations where people ended up lynching other people soley based on the fact that a claimed role doesn't make sense and the lynch victim ended up being town. This is why I keep making it a point to say that I

did

have issues with his D1 play; if I didn't have issues with his D1 play, I probably wouldn't pursue this issue this strongly since I'd think his claim, though weird, might still come from town.

I still think he owes a major explanation for why he thinks his completely controllable ability might be a bitch for him to deal with in LyLo.

As for your second question, he was the first person to propose the mass claim strategy pretty much from the opening gates of the game. Claiming vanilla who happens to get a double vote when boosted would seem extremely sketchy at this juncture - why would a vanilla player ever suggest mass claim? As scum, he'd be pretty much forced to insist that his role is a power role; there'd be pretty much no way around it.

As for your claim, I understand you right that you claim to have started out as one-shot vig, and every boost gives you another shot? (With, according to Electra, a maximum of three shots in total). As much as I'm aware that you thought Guardian was scum.. Why use your one (and unless you're boosted it could very well be your only) shot night 1? I doubt you feared to be nightkilled.

I'm only speculating about the "boosting giving me another shot" portion as I mentioned previously. It's not explicitly mentioned in my role PM as to what will happen if I'm boosted. The phrasing of the role PM leads me to believe that I may gain additional bullets upon being boosted because it makes it a point to mention that I

began

the game with a single bullet.

As for your second question, there were a few reasons for this:

1)

I strongly support the belief that a vig should try and shoot at every opportunity with the possible exception of Night 0 and of course, being careful around near-LyLo situations. I fully intended to claim today no matter what in the hopes of getting boosted and possibly gaining another bullet so that I could shoot again Night 2. I figured we could do some sort of a town-directed vig shooting for tonight so that we could potentially get two lynch opportunities out of today. I basically went into last night not under the mindset of a one-shot vig but rather under the mindset of a two-shot vig.

2)

Even if I'm wrong and I

don't

get an additional bullet, I figured using a boost on me that ends up having no effect and trying to boost someone else who seems town would be better than boosting two people who just

seem

town when one could potentially be scum. I really think there should be no question here about whether or not I'm town for various reasons. An SK suggestion is absurd given the circumstances and the timing of my claim.

3)

I actually

did

have a slight fear of being night-killed. I realize I was under a good deal of scrutiny yesterday, but I was the first vote on Jahudo and I pretty much kicked off the late D1 wagon on him while never wavering on my position on him. He, too, supported my lynch for a good portion of D1. I figured scum wouldn't target a boosted town player out of their fear of possible doc protection so they would target one of the more influential town players on the Jahudo-wagon. I thought that if iLord was town that would leave me or him since he was the one who created the case against him while I actually kicked off the wagon.

[Incognito]

Has it really been that long since I've posted here?

@TDC:

Yes.

I'm looking forward to seeing something,

anything

from icemanE.

[Incognito]

Sorry that I've been away from this game for a bit. I've kinda been waiting for some kind of response from sthar8 who's seemed to vanish from MS completely.

icemanE, can you write up some kind of player by player summary? I, too, am curious as to why you chose to boost Raging Rabbit when previously you seemed to make it seem like you were choosing between him and eldarad as far as who's town and who's scum. Also, I don't believe you answered this previous question from me:

unvote - vote: Jahudo

Why did you switch your vote over so quickly after only hearing Huntress's claim?

[Incognito]

icemanE, should I preemptively quote this post too? I'd really like a response to this already:

icemanE, can you write up some kind of player by player summary? I, too, am curious as to why you chose to boost Raging Rabbit when previously you seemed to make it seem like you were choosing between him and eldarad as far as who's town and who's scum. Also, I don't believe you answered this previous question from me:

unvote - vote: Jahudo

Why did you switch your vote over so quickly after only hearing Huntress's claim?

@RR - can you give me a reason I shouldn't boost you?

What is the purpose of this question?

Also, welcome to the game, vollkan.

[Incognito]

Hey, Xtoxm. Can we get a claim from you?

[Incognito]

Why not?

[Incognito]

Because. Can you claim now please?

[Incognito]

What effect did that little boost have on you last night?

[Incognito]

Or were you not boosted?

[Incognito]

Do you think I'm role-fishing?

[Incognito]

Look. sthar8 already claimed. He also claimed what happened after he got boosted. I'd like a full claim in less than five minutes actually.

[Incognito]

Why did you have to read his claim in order to claim?

[Incognito]

Did you think I was role-fishing then? Why didn't you vote me?

[Incognito]

How many double votes do you currently have? One pair or two?

[Incognito]

Did you begin this game with this double vote ability or did you only gain it after being boosted?

[Incognito]

No further questions, your honor... for now.

Have fun reading the thread.

[Incognito]

Why did you switch your vote over so quickly after only hearing Huntress's claim?

Because huntress was willing to claim instead of fighting it, which says something to me.

Um. Comparing Jahudo's "willingness to claim" with Huntress's reveals no real difference to me:

Incognito has asked me to claim. I'd rather avoid doing so unless absolutely necessary but if I will if I need to.

It's <48 hours before deadline. I don't see how you think waiting until you claim is going to help the town at all.

Because I'm still hoping it won't prove necessary. The only ones asking me to claim so far are my two top suspects. I'd rather wait until I hear what others have to say than give further information at the request of those I think most likely to be scum.

I'm not to fond of Jahudo asking the town's permission re: 675.

I would claim if I got to L-1 and someone not on my wagon said they'd vote for me, but I wouldn't normally claim before that time. The problem is I might not have internet access if that were to happen right before the deadline tomorrow.

Similarly I'm voting for Huntress because it's the only other viable lynch now.

In fact, Jahudo actually claimed

before

Huntress ever did. icemanE, is that really your final answer?

---

Xtoxm, have you completely finished your read of the thread? Do you mind giving us some sort of player by player?

[Incognito]

I'm a double voter. I have a second, secret vote that I PM to elmo in order to use. From the wording of my boost PM, I believe that once I use this vote, I will not retain the power into the following days. If there are no objections, I'd like to use this today in order to confirm myself. I'd also like to get it out of the way, because it could potentially be devastatingly swingy in a LYLO situation, and I don't want the pressure should it come to that.

Yeh what he said basically.

You haven't?

[Incognito]

Xtoxm, just continue reading. A lot of people didn't find sthar8 suspicious, so I don't see why you'd feel like you're on the brink of being lynched. I'd really like to see a Player Analysis from you, so I'd appreciate your continued read. Thanks.

[Incognito]

Unvote
Vote: icemanE

I still think sthar8/Xtoxm stands a strong chance of being scum, but I think an icemanE-lynch might be even more likely to hit scum than an Xtoxm-lynch. I should have more time to elaborate on my reads of everyone this coming weekend.

[Incognito]

OK, so I've read over Xtoxm's recent posts, and I'm actually beginning to second guess myself about his alignment. I have pretty good history with Xtoxm (we've played roughly 4 or 5 completed games with one another of varying alignments), and his play here is beginning to remind me more of his town play as opposed to his scum play. Xtoxm is one of those players who has a tendency to look scummy as town mainly because his playstyle is so unorthodox but when he's scum, he's generally much more lurky and a lot less aggressive in my opinion. I'm going to spend today rereading sthar8 to see if I get the same feeling about him -- the main thing that I disliked about his Day 1 play was the fact that from a very early time period, he pretty much set himself on three main targets (Crazy, iLord, and Raging Rabbit) and showed very little sign of adapting his stances to changing circumstances. Town can do this when they develop tunnel vision, yes, but I can think of reasons for scum to do this as well. I was also bothered by the fact that he didn't seem too open to looking at the new information we gathered from the lynch of scum to possibly garner additional information about other people's alignments.

---

I still like an icemanE lynch. I looked through his predecessors' play and while there wasn't much there since the two of them were generally lurky (for both of them, this looked somewhat real life related), I did notice two things that really caught my attention.

First with fuzzylightning, I mentioned previously that I really didn't like his FoS of springlullaby during the time that her and I were feuding:

Overall, I believe that spring's attack on incog is fairly weak and almost entirely dismissed because of the used of an unverified statistic. Incog also defends himself very well, and even points out the contradiction in the case by saying spring is asking questions of someone he thinks is scum, which he was criticizing incog of doing. Currently I am receiving a pro-town vibe from incog and a slight scum read from lullaby, but not enough for a vote, so

FoS: Springlullaby

, for a weak, contradictory case and that seemingly random statistic.

I believe it was Guardian who mentioned that he was receiving bad vibes from Jahudo because he felt like Jahudo might have been engaging in a sort of "hedging behavior" where he doesn't completely commit himself to the argument of two townies (me and springlullaby) -- he basically waits it out and offers side comments about the debate here and there waiting to see which of the two wagons gains some traction. fuzzylightning's FoS of springlullaby in the above post gives me a very similar feeling here; I think he may have been engaging in a similar type of "hedging" behavior. If he had actually placed a vote down, I might have not felt as bad about his behavior but the fact that he used an FoS gives me that feeling that he may have been tentatively waiting the feud out to see where it went.

Interestingly, RandomGem did something very similar to fuzzylightning in his single post of content:

I also agree with Incognito's description of springlullaby's angry meta, and I am leaning towards his side, so

FoS: Guardian, iLord

.

Again, we see a similar usage of an FoS, and he primarily focuses on the two of us instead of commenting on anyone else. Also, going from memory here, I think it was eldarad who mentioned that he didn't like RandomGem's FoS of iLord since it didn't make sense; RandomGem was claiming that iLord's play looked different from his play from the previous site they played on, but RandomGem mentioned that iLord was

scum

in those off-site games. Therefore to FoS someone for playing

differently

from how he or she typically plays as scum strikes me as very odd.

icemanE's "posts of content" (I place that in quotations because there's hardly anything there that resembles content) gives me a bad feeling about this role too.

Vig me instead.

This makes me suspect you either might have some sort of a scum power role (like a roleblocker) that might be able to protect you from a vig-bullet or if there's two scum left, your scum buddy might hold a more important role than you, and you're sacrificing yourself to allow him or her to survive. Why do you specifically request to be vigged as opposed to being lynched?

I'm going to spend my time reading the rest of the game today and trying to post my feelings about everyone either later today or within the week. With a little more than a week until deadline, we really need to get a move on this game.

[Incognito]

I agree and that's another thing that's giving me pause about Xtoxm. Xtoxm, can we get a full claim from you?

[Incognito]

Correct. I wasn't specifically called a vigilante in my role PM, but I was able to deduce from the rest of the wording the type of role I held. sthar8 claimed to be a pro-town power role in the form of a double voter. What is it about your role PM that makes you think you hold some other pro-town power in addition to the double voting?

[Incognito]

Cross posted. Reading.

[Incognito]

What do you think the leadership portion of your role PM means?

[Incognito]

Okay.

Why do you think sthar8 made the following comment to Electra?:

Electra: I'm not sure how any of the information you gave would catch me out if I were lying. Could you elaborate on this?

Here was Electra's claimed information (see bolded green):

Sorry, here's my information. I'm very busy as it is near Christmas, but don't want to stall the game, so what I was told was

1. There are some players in the game that boosts do nothing for.
2.

Boosts will only work for a player 2 times, after that, they will have no effect.

If sthar8 really had these two powers of charisma and leadership, wouldn't what Electra mentioned in part 2 be enough to catch him if he was lying since he'd in effect have two separate powers thereby leading all of us to believe that he could only be boosted a maximum of two times?

[Incognito]

What I'm trying to say is you seem to be making it seem like you could tell from your role PM that you had two separate abilities: 1) charisma and 2) leadership. Since Electra said that boosts can only work a maximum of two times on a player, I'd think the wording of sthar8's role PM would have helped him confirm what Electra was saying in part 2, and he wouldn't call her into question about how she might have been able to catch him in a lie.

As for my role PM, I have no qualities. Just a gun and a single bullet lol.

[Incognito]

And the _______ is related to enhancement of your leadership aspect? I'm not sure how close we are to getting modkilled. :s

[Incognito]

Or wait, are you talking about your boost PM?

[Incognito]

On re-examination of my PM, I am told specifically the extra vote is related to enchancement of my Charisma aspect.

sthar also specifically claimed to have not been told what boosting him does, but rather that he "narrowed it down". Your claim has more holes than swiss cheese.

He's talking about his boost PM though that I'm guessing he would have received during twilight.

[Incognito]

I'm going to reread the rest of the thread over the coming days and write up some sort of (hopefully) brief PBPA of the players outside of Xtoxm. Xtoxm's/sthar8's claim is weird, but I'm getting a town vibe from Xtoxm over these last few pages that doesn't make me very comfortable with thinking he's scum.

[Incognito]

435: @Incog, you say that "in your experience" scum do tend to push the smear campaign mode of play. About what proportion of the time do you find this to be the case? My problem here is that, whilst your logic is correct (scum stand to benefit from smearing), it ignores the obvious alternative explanation (town having multiple suspicions). Essentially, your argument is inherently unfalsifiable - you are simply claiming that you think a particular interpretation of an apparently innocuous play (there is nothing inherently wrong with having many suspects) is the most reasonable.

I don't know the exact proportions but from what I've seen in the games I've played, scum players certainly have much more of a tendency to find as many reasons as possible to

not

be able to clear or label players as town when compared to town players. In the case of Guardian, I just found it really unnatural for him to find only one person to be super townish and everyone else just "meh" or scummy. Upon replacing in, he even said he found iLord townish as well but for some reason he seemed to immediately retract that position and find him "meh" as well for reasons that don't seem clear to me. It just looked to me like he was trying to keep multiple options open.

[Incognito]

One thing I wanted to point out that makes icemanE even more obvscum is how he previously promised to provide some content here citing that it's been tough lately (real life issues):

unboost

boost: incog

5 to boost, eh? Well, I'm OK with an incog boost.

I know I haven't done a whole lot this game. It's just been tough lately. I will try.

and then immediately following eldarad's suggestion that something in his role PM might be preventing him from talking, he tried to adapt that suggestion to make it seem like he holds some kind of post restriction. I don't buy it in the least.

-- In other news, Xtoxm has pretty much settled into his completely readable town behavior and if we do go forward with an icemanE-lynch, and I get a second vig bullet upon being boosted during twilight, I'd like to request to the town that I choose a different target to vig tonight instead of Xtoxm. Seriously. He's town.

-- Huntress, have you finished preparing your case against eldarad?

-- I, too, can get behind a re-boost of vollkan. The fact that the boost seemed to work the first time by providing Electra with the information she received leads me to believe it should work again to perhaps provide more new information.

Unboost; Boost: vollkan

[Incognito]

Incog, vig targets should not be decided by town, just gives scum extra info, vig should just kill who they thinks scum.

Either one works for me. If there really are only two remaining scum left and if icemanE really is scum, then my hypo-kill could essentially be directed by a total of 7 pro-town players leading into Night 2. That's pretty impressive.

Just pointing out that vollkan has been boost-hammered, so a lynch will definitely happen at 5 votes.

[Incognito]

lol not yet. I really want to see Huntress's case against eldarad and vollkan's final thoughts up until now.

[Incognito]

Pretty impressive score there Incog.

I must be a scummy ass vig lol. Or maybe vollkan's rating system penalizes people who post a million times in a game.

[Incognito]

Raging Rabbit, in response to your questions, I think you need to go even further back from 726 to 722 when sthar8 first claimed today:

If you recall, yesterday I noted that I did not believe I was the best boost for the day.

This was because I had narrowed my potential powers down to two options

, and I didn't think either of them is particularly helpful to us in the early game, except as a way to potentially confirm me.

I agree that it's slightly odd that sthar8 only seemed to be claiming to be a double voter, but I think that judging from the above quote it seems like sthar8 might have also seen the second potential ability listed in his role PM as well and just figured that the second ability was null or non-existent or something else... it's hard to know what he was thinking at the time. I think the difference between sthar8 and Xtoxm though is Xtoxm went ahead and got further clarification from the mod while maybe sthar8 just didn't bother to probe further about it. The only thing I

don't

like about sthar8 now is how he wanted to confirm himself by using his second vote ability but never seemed too bothered to try and maybe push for a second boost for his potential second ability. Again though, this seems to go along well with the idea that maybe sthar8 for some weird reason just didn't think that second ability existed or something like that.

Like I said, anyone with a town PM knows the PM does not tell you what you are. I understand this is hard for you to comprehend, seeing as you are not town.

False. Incog was told he's a vig. Guardian was marked as "doc". The sample PM very clearly reads "townie".

This isn't entirely true either. My role PM doesn't explicitly call me anything. It just describes the items that I have and my win condition. From that, I gathered that I must be a vig. I'd imagine that Guardian's role PM didn't call him a doctor either -- it probably described a few things that he had along with him (maybe a medical bag or some kind of medications or a stethoscope or some other such thing) but probably never explicitly said he's a doctor. The sample Vanilla PM also just says "inhabitant of town" from which one would probably gather that he or she is just Vanilla.

icemanE:

You're at L-1. I think you should claim.

[Incognito]

Questions:

Why did you seem to hint at having a post restriction?
Why did you

not

use your claimed one-shot ability yet?
Why have you not made any effort to do any scum hunting all game?

[Incognito]

Xtoxm and icemanE, what do you think of Raging Rabbit's contribution towards helping getting a scum lynched? What do you think of his vote placement on the Jahudo-Godfather-Scum Power Role wagon?

[Incognito]

Here was the vote count as of Post 650:

Day 1, Vote Count #20

Huntress (5) <- sthar8, Electra, TDC, eldarad, Green Crayons
Jahudo (3) <- Incognito, iLord, Guardian
Incognito (2) <- Jahudo, Raging Rabbit
eldarad <- Huntress

Not voting: RandomGem.

With 12 alive, it's 7 to lynch. The

deadline

is Thursday, 18 December 2008, 06:00 UTC, which is 2 days, 12 hours, and 8 minutes from this post. sthar8 has been prodded. RandomGem's prod has not been picked up.

Notice that Huntress was at L-2 at that point with a bunch of people seemingly firmly making up their mind that they weren't going to be moving their votes from her. If Huntress is town and Raging Rabbit is scum, he could have easily made up some bullshit reason to join her wagon and get her lynched. Heck, even if Huntress is scum and Raging Rabbit is scum with her, he could have easily chosen her to bus over a Jahudo-GF scum. The only way I'd think a hypo-RR-scum wouldn't do this is if Huntress has a stronger scum power role than a GF.

So it essentialy boils down to a choice between Jahudo and Huntress. I'm leaning more towards Jahudo right now, but would rather do a more thorough recap on the cases against both before I vote, but the many tests I have this weak mean I'll have trouble finding time. And don't hammer Huntress yet, I think she's like at -1.

Raging Rabbit notices the aforementioned vote count and says he's leaning towards voting Jahudo OVER Huntress. Again, this is pretty ballsy if he's scum.

Post 661 he finally places the vote down and the way he did just strikes me as really townish - I had been his top suspect throughout Day 1, and he came to the conclusion that he didn't like Jahudo and figured that a Jahudo-alignment reveal might reveal more info about me, his top suspect. This just reeks town to me -- I'd think scum would want to keep me as an option open for a possible future mislynch.

In order for you to believe that RR is scum, you'd have to not only believe that he bussed his scum power role buddy but also believe that he did this in order to clear a me-town in the process.

Ha!

Prior to this, TDC placed the fourth vote on Jahudo (a big reason why I think TDC is town as well) and RR followed suit to tie the wagons at 5 apiece. In effect, RR and TDC were the swing votes to help getting a POWER ROLE scum lynched. Yes, some of this is subject to WIFOM, but I think this is much more likely to be done by town as opposed to scum UNLESS Huntress holds a stronger scum power role than a GF.

[Incognito]

I still think icemanE is scum. As for the other one, I'm still trying to figure that one out. It may surprise you that I've kinda sorta been doing a 180 on Huntress lately.

[Incognito]

In addition to these questions:

Questions:

Why did you seem to hint at having a post restriction?
Why did you

not

use your claimed one-shot ability yet?
Why have you not made any effort to do any scum hunting all game?

Why did you request to be vigged as opposed to lynched?

[Incognito]

YOU FORGOT YOU HAD A ONE-SHOT INVESTIGATIVE ABILITY??????? LOL DIE SCUM NAO PLZ

Confirm vote: icemanE

Xtoxm, I wasn't suspicious of Huntress before. In fact, I came to the conclusion she's town. That's what I mean by doing a 180.

[Incognito]

I'd like to know why THREE completely separate-minded individuals (fuzzylightning, RandomGem, and now icemanE) have all SUPPOSEDLY had this role and not ONE of them questioned the validity of Electra's early INFORMATION ROLE claim.

[Incognito]

Raging Rabbit, you'd really do a better job focusing your energy on someone other than Xtoxm. He's so obvtown it hurts.

Xtoxm-scum in Mini 602

And pick any Xtoxm-town game you want. Here's one where he was just lynched:

Newbie 694

Filter those posts. In his scum game, the guy only had like 20-something game-related posts and spent the majority of his time lurking with minimal to no scum hunting. In his town game, he had 100+ posts and made relevant game-related discussion. In this game he's already approaching the 100 post mark, and he hasn't even BEEN here the whole time.

icemanE, on the other hand, is still scum. I dislike how he couldn't be assed to make any kind of contribution pre-claim and now that he reached L-1 and was forced to claim, he's suddenly come alive acting like we should allow him to remain in the game just because he claimed an investigative role. Seriously, this is one of the laziest fakeclaims I've ever seen. I still really would like an answer to this:

I'd like to know why THREE completely separate-minded individuals (fuzzylightning, RandomGem, and now icemanE) have all SUPPOSEDLY had this role and not ONE of them questioned the validity of Electra's early INFORMATION ROLE claim.

icemanE?

[Incognito]

You can answer for yourself... Why did you never mention anything about it?

[Incognito]

P.S. That wasn't a self-hammer. You've just revoted yourself to L-1.

[Incognito]

Anyway, someone still needs to counter my logic. With a dead GF, we know there's a cop-style role somewhere. No one challenges Ice for this role. So Ice is the cop, no matter how scummy you think he is. Yes?

I don't think a GF automatically implies that we have a cop somewhere in the midst. I've seen plenty of games that have had GFs yet no cops. Maybe this game's GF was meant to counteract me in a way with some kind of NK immunity or something of that sort.

icemanE, please write up a list of suspicions. You owe to that game if you're going to stick around.

[Incognito]

Green Crayons and TDC: Yes, I realize that Electra only claimed to receive information about the town, but she did also mention at least two or three times that she was hoping it was some form of a cop investigation, which means she wasn't entirely sure herself:

@ iLord – I don’t know what kind of information I get,

but I do hope it’s something cop-ish

, and it certainly would be nice if I got scum out of it. :p And no, I don’t think I get some sort of benefit by being boosted earlier (unless I get the info as soon as I’m boosted? I assumed it would just be at night, but it would certainly be nice… I will ask the mod.)

Okay,

I don't get a cop investigation

, sad. I found out things related to game mechanics, but I want to see what sthar says he got, because there are some things I found that might make life easier for him if he's scum and has to fake what boost he got.

I'd think that kind of speculation would at least throw up a partial red flag from at least one of the three people who've shared this role (maybe some general leeriness about Electra's claim) but I see no sign of that. They all either didn't comment on it or really the purest reaction came from fuzzylightning who just seemed to lean town on her.

Alright, answers in, I don't get anything from a boost.

The mod seriously answered that question? I highly doubt this.

[Incognito]

Guys, our deadline is in two days and a few hours. Please place your votes to avoid a no lynch. Ftr, I'm willing to lynch icemanE or to follow Green Crayons's lead and vote for Huntress.

[Incognito]

Huntress, why did you never make your case on eldarad?

[Incognito]

What makes you think that?

[Incognito]

Unvote
Vote: Huntress

[Incognito]

icemanE, what do you think of Huntress?

[Incognito]

Clearly, no matter what happens, me and Ice are being lynched, and you being NKed tonight, and you're the only thing preventing a me-lynch.

Ice is scum though.

[Incognito]

Would you vote her? Do you think she's scum?

[Incognito]

Xtoxm, I want you to switch your vote to Huntress. Your Raging Rabbit vote isn't gonna get any traction right now.

[Incognito]

Incong, why on earth did you switch to Huntress?

Incog, what is the thought process behind your change of heart on Huntress?

I've seen enough of your posts this game to know you are a content-rich sort of guy. As such, I find it kind of baffling to fathom how hypotown Incognito could, simultaneously, be convinced of Hunt's scumminess by something to the point of changing his vote, but also not think it worthwhile to either explain himself or, if time was scarce, to post a "reasons shortly" or something to that effect.

I switched my vote to Huntress largely because I've been having a change of heart about her for very similar reasons to what Green Crayons listed in his 1077. I also just get the feeling that if Huntress was town, she'd have tried to push her case against eldarad a bit more rather than just voting him on the 13th of January and leaving it at that. She didn't once attempt to call for more votes on him or engage in conversation with him to try to figure out his motivations or anything along those lines, which is what I would

expect

town to do if he or she felt like a particular person in the game was scum. From the point that she placed that vote, she made 9 additional posts over about a half a month time span, which mostly seem like filler to me and were completely unrelated to her eldarad suspicions. Finally, now that we're approaching deadline, she switched her vote to Xtoxm and switched icemanE into her number two hole for her deadline lynch choice after mentioning that she could go for an icemanE lynch after making further comments about eldarad. These eldarad comments never came, and I really don't understand her icemanE change of heart.

Also, I just can't see Xtoxm as scum as I've repeatedly stated and really the only two remaining people who seem to make sense to me as scum are Huntress and icemanE. Since an icemanE lynch was beginning to seem less and less likely because of his claim, I figured Huntress was the only other option for today.

icemanE, you never answered these questions from before:

Would you vote her? Do you think she's scum?

Also, when did you first begin feeling like "[Huntress] lurks waiting to pounce like her avatar"? If you felt this way for awhile, why did you never have her listed in your LoS as opposed to Raging Rabbit and eldarad?

[Incognito]

Btw, vollkan, do you plan on voting anytime soon?

[Incognito]

Here's where we are currently:

Unofficial Vote Count

icemanE (3) <- eldarad, Raging Rabbit, Green Crayons
Xtoxm (1) <- TDC
Huntress (1) <- Incognito
eldarad (2) <- Xtoxm, Huntress

Not voting (2) <- vollkan, icemanE

icemanE and vollkan should really be voting someone right now. Please make a choice so we can figure out what to do from there.

[Incognito]

Good question. Let's do this then:

unvote
vote: icemanE

[Incognito]

So yeah, I killed Huntress last night. I was probably better off listening to my early D2 self that had me convinced she was town rather than my late D2 self that had me convinced she was scum. I need to reconsider my position on a few people in this game.

I'm contemplating whether or not we should mass claim at this point as we're at a near LyLo situation.

For the record, Xtoxm is still town.

[Incognito]

Why did you feel the need to ingore me, Incog?

Ignore you where? We cross-posted.

[Incognito]

I really thought icemanE was scum, and I thought Huntress was scum. I didn't think Huntress was scum earlier in the day but when she completely failed to really

push

a case against her top suspect eldarad despite having plenty of time to do so during Day 2 and when she eventually just switched to claiming that she could go for either an Xtoxm lynch or an icemanE lynch, I thought she was just stalling the whole day so she wouldn't have to make her case. It turns out that she really was busy like she claimed to be.

[Incognito]

We need 4 to lynch though, not 3. And just because your double voting ability might actually work doesn't really mean you'll be confirmed town. Double voting could easily be a scum ability. (Please note that I still firmly think you're town, but I'm just letting you know that that's what will be said about your ability.)

[Incognito]

Hmmm... I didn't think of it like that. That's a good point actually.

[Incognito]

Might as well get the other boost-wagon out there too.

Boost: Xtoxm

[Incognito]

TDC and anyone else questioning my Xtoxm read: Have you NEVER played with anyone so often that the person could literally post the word "Hi!" and from that moment onward, you'd know if he was town or scum just from that one post? (I'm exaggerating a bit but you get the idea.) There are at least 7 or 8 players on MS (Xtoxm included) that I feel like I've played with often enough that I could read them almost instantaneously. I actually find it kinda funny that Green Crayons claims that sthar8's play is what's sold him on Xtoxm's towniness but with me, it's actually

Xtoxm's

play that's sold me on his towniness. As long as I'm in this game, I will NOT be 1) voting Xtoxm or 2) vigging Xtoxm. So, to the scum, I know you were really, really hoping that Xtoxm would be a viable mislynch or misvig but that's not gonna happen as long as I'm around. kthx.

eldarad: You're seriously claiming that a vig is a more powerful role than an information role?

Further, I can think of plenty of reasons why a scum would keep me around. For example, if either TDC or Raging Rabbit is scum, they could have easily thought they could persuade me into lynching or vigging someone of their choosing since I

had

been so sold on them being town from the moment they joined the Jahudo-scum wagon. If

you're

scum, you could have left me alive to plant this seed of doubt that you're planting now. As you can see this is all WIFOM, so it's probably best if you leave this out of the conversation. If you really think I'm scum, then vote for me or make a case against me. Do you think my play here looks or feels dissimilar from my play in Satin Doll?

[Incognito]

Why would town ever go against their confirmed town vig?

Xtoxm, I'm only a vig. Not a cop. I can be wrong just like anyone else can be wrong (I've proven that twice already with my kill choices).

TDC, it's mainly a feeling, though there are a lot of other factors that I'm looking for also that I've seen here (for example his "I don't care if you lynch me" attitude that he's expressed a number of times, his 100+ posts in this game, his double, triple, and quadruple posts, his Golden scumdar [he was right about both icemanE

and

Huntress.]). I think Ripley in the first mini normal I modded very accurately described a player in that game, and I think the description he used to describe that particular player very much applies to Xtoxm as well:

[...]in general such open and unguarded play is much more typical of a keen newbie town who hasn't yet learned the dangers of being unguarded and who s way more interested in scumhunting than in watching their words too closely.

Mind you, Xtoxm obviously isn't a Newbie any longer, but I think the way he plays the game very much matches this description. He pretty much "blurts out" whatever's on his mind at the time without really thinking about the ramifications of what he might be saying. His attitude oftentimes costs him his life in games

(Xtoxm, just how many times

have

you been mislynched anyway?).

An Xtoxm-scum, on the other hand, is very much an IIoA scum. He'll comment on anything and everything except for the game itself and will very rarely express his thoughts on the players. In this game, he's (very concisely as per usual) let us all know who he's suspicious of and who he thinks is town and so far, he's been accurate with his town choices at least (Huntress and icemanE were both town like he thought). Obviously you don't have to take any of my word for this: you can go through his games on your own if you'd like too. And if you're still doubtful about my ability to tell the difference, here's a vote that I made in a past Newbie Game on page 3 of that thread with a completely serious vote on what ended up being an Xtoxm-D1-lynched-scum. From what I've seen, I really don't think his (scum) playstyle has changed all that dramatically from that point to now.

[Incognito]

Xtoxm, do you think Raging Rabbit's scum? Because if you don't, please unvote him. This argument is terrible:

Because if you are town, you will lose town the game anyway, by lynching me tomorrow, if we get there.

If we go by this logic, then technically we could lynch you today so that

you

won't make it to an end-game tomorrow, which would still prevent Raging Rabbit from doing what you've indicated in the above quote. You get?

Did it occur to you that buddying up and expressing a town read on the guy that screwed up so bad he's about to get lynched regardless might be a plausible scum tactic?

Yes, this occurred to me but the way Xtoxm arrived at his icemanE-town read just struck me as genuine. Besides, I actually felt like icemanE was the one buddying up to Xtoxm. In 1004, icemanE voted for Xtoxm saying "LAWL XTOXM IS SCUM" and then in 1010, he switched his vote to you saying that he "misread the conversation" (between RR and Xtoxm).

[Incognito]

eldarad, I never got the impression that Raging Rabbit ever tried to link anyone with anyone. I always felt like the cases he pushed against people were completely independent of one another (for example, when he came after me and iLord pretty hard during Day 1, I never felt like he thought the two of us were a scum team -- just that we were independently scummy). Please point to the specific instances where you felt like he's done this. I'll respond to the rest of your case later, but for now, I'm not sure I'm completely buying it.

Raging Rabbit, the last completed scum game I found of yours was Open 15. Have you recently completed any other game where you've been scum?

TDC, Raging Rabbit has pretty clearly stated a number of times that he thinks you're town. What are your thoughts on him?

Your recollection of events is wrong. I supported giving Ice a night to investigate while people were pushing for the Ice lynch. My vote change didn't occur until we came down to "lynch someone or no lynch." Your suggestion that I changed my vote to hop on the bandwagon simply because more people were warming up to the idea of an Ice lynch is misrepresenting what happened. I voted Ice because I thought

a

lynch was infinitely better than

no

lynch - and out of the two leading lynch candidates (ice and Eld), I thought iceman was the less believable of the two.

I don't entirely believe that your vote was placed as a last minute "preventing a 'No Lynch'" vote.

I used that fake softclaim about a post restriction as an excuse for not posting. That doesn't make me scum.

How am I supposed to not vote you after you yourself admitted to lying to the town about your lurking?

To me, this looks very much like you were warming up to the idea of icemanE being scum. Do you agree or disagree with this assessment?

What do people think about Green Crayons's post 649?

What do people think about eldarad's post 890? I'll give my thoughts about it after you give me yours.

~More later~

[Incognito]

I'm trying to go back through the thread to pick out other interesting things that I've noticed. My posts might be a bit disjointed in the coming days.

Here's an interesting vote count in retrospect:

Day 1, Vote Count #4 - Lynching

Skillet (Green Crayons) (5) <-

Electra (vollkan)

, sthar8 (Xtoxm), eldarad, TDC,

Crazy (Huntress)

sthar8 (2) <- Incognito, Raging Rabbit
fuzzylightning <- Jahudo
eldarad <- iLord
Crazy <- Skillit
Incognito <- springlullaby

I find this vote count interesting because the wagon on Skillit involved four (4) different players who are currently alive whose alignments are unknown. eldarad, you mentioned the following in response to a question from Mana_Ku (who preceded Green Crayons for Skillit's replacement spot):

Eldarad seems pro-town. Although, he immediatly boosts Electra, which should have been thought over in my opinion, he's trying to find scum. But I've got one question. You saw Skilit as scummy. Then he notes that there's probably one scum on his wagon. Hw come you agree with this as you saw him as scum?

Just because I boosted Electra early doesn't mean I didn't think it over...I just thought it over quickly
I'd also refer you back to my explanation that I gave to iLord way back in post 32:

Fair enough. But also note that I was trying to start a boostwagon too.

Skillit's wagon grew very quickly. My assessment was that,

even if Skillit is scum

it was very, very likely that at least one scum was on his wagon. Either:
1) Skillit was town and scum were on his wagon trying to push a townie mislynch, or
2) Skillit was scum and one of his scumbuddies had jumped on as bussing/distancing/going with the flow.

What are your current thoughts on this? More specifically, who do you think of the remaining three people (I'm not including you for obvious reasons) the scums are?

[Incognito]

Thanks for reminding me about that too lol.

This order's fine:

2) Green Crayons (replacing Mana_Ku who replaced Skillit)
3) Raging Rabbit
5) TDC
8) eldarad