Newbie 1024 -- Minimalist Mafia (Game Over)

[Neruz]

/confirm

[Neruz]

VOTE: Beefster

Watcha hafta say about that eh?

[Neruz]

GMT +10
Multiple forum mafia games on bay12games as well as over a year of playing mafia on and off in the globalgamers.net #mafia IRC channel with Xylbot.
Multiple times per day, if i have something to say.
Probably male.

[Neruz]

Wait, i'm in +11 atm, not +10. Stupid daylight savings.

[Neruz]

The Internet; where Men are Men, Women are Men and Children are FBI Agents.

[Neruz]

I'm surprised, in my personal experience random votes never get any real discussion going. Everyone knows random votes are random, so no-one pays any attention to them.

Usually i've found the real discussion begins when someone breaks out of random voting and puts down a vote they actually mean, or look like they mean.

[Neruz]

*eyebrow* @ Beefster, i'm not seeing how alignment fishing in this game could be scummy, considering the scum know what alignment everyone is.

[Neruz]

Fishing for power roles is different than fishing for alignment though. I've always held that alignment fishing is primarily a third-party tell rather than a town or scum tell, on the other hand rolefishing tends to be a decent scum tell, although like all tells it depends on the circumstances.

[Neruz]

Seems to me that seeking alignments isn't any kind of tell. Town is trying to find alignments to lynch scum. 3rd party might depending on what their goal is. Scum are trying to pretend to scum hunt.

Scumhunting is different from alignment fishing though, when scumhunting you're trying to work out if someone is scum or not, when fishing for alignment you're trying to get people to imply what their alignment is either directly or indirectly. Scumhunting tends to be active and aggressive, while fishing is more passive. Alignment fishing thus tends to be a third party tell in experienced games as the only people who want to find out what other alignments are, but try to not draw attention to themselves while doing so are usually any third parties (Cult, SK, Survivors). Third parties want to find out what alignments other players are, but they want to avoid drawing attention to themselves, both from the town

and

the scum.

[Neruz]

That's also why rolefishing is scummy by the way. Fishing, being passive, is relatively easy to deny and thus is a tool the scum like to use.

[Neruz]

Heh, for a moment there i thought there were three votes on someone and was like "What, when did that happen?"

[Neruz]

I've been known to vote and reason pretty weirdly. (voting is much weirder)

*eyebrow*

That sounds a lot like an escape route.

[Neruz]

1: Where does this experience come from?

From my aforementioned time playing mafia on the Bay12 forums.

2: Why do you think this is true?

Because everyone knows that random votes are random and thus meaningless, there is no threat from a coin flip and if there is no threat then there is no pressure.

3: What do you see as the difference between a vote they mean and look like they mean?

There is no difference, perception is reality, although evidence that a vote was only placed to look like it was meant, when in fact it was not, is a pretty solid scumtell.

[Neruz]

Neruz

, Why'd you vote for Beefster, our IC? (Still GMEOY.)

His avatar caught my attention.


Beefster is giving me pause for thought at the moment; something about his play doesn't seem right for an IC. He's coming across as somewhat erratic and unsure of himself. It might just be the paranoia speaking but i'm really not liking his play at the moment.

Quick note: Hmm...I'm seeing a HEAVY link to Kayi and Neruz, in a LOT of their posts.

HoS: Kayi, Neruz

. Looking at my post above, they're agreeing with each other a lot, not to mention, supporting each other from attack, and--to top it all off--they're now voting together as well.
Current suspect order: Kayi/Neruz (almost enough for a vote), Beefster (individually, my largest suspect, however, I'm waiting for answers), Jay. (His defense is less than convincing.)

Hm, thanks for pointing that out, i missed that. A quick re-read shows that she is spending rather a lot of time agreeing with me. It

could

just be that we happen to have similar opinions, but looking at the rest of her play i'm thinking it probably isn't. She seems to be tunneling a bit much on Beefster, pausing only to address posts directed at her and this is way too early for that kind of attention on a single person.

Kayi, you've made it pretty clear that Beefster has your attention as scum suspect at the moment; have you got anything on anyone else? Any other suspects or things you find suspicious?

Given that it's 5 to lynch, i'm going to leave my vote on Beefster for the moment, but i'm really not liking either of you right now.


Also, as a side note; i'm pretty sure at this point that Jay's vote was just newbiness talking. Admittedly i've always been pretty crappy at telling newtells from scumtells, but that looks like a 'i'm new and not entirely sure what is going on' vote to me.

[Neruz]

@Neruz: When have I actually agreed with you? The only opinion we have in common is not liking the RVS, as far as I've seen, and that has nothing to do with the game itself. And as far as I know, your vote on Beef was a random one, and I've explained mine more than even you considered necessary. That's it. If that's a lot... well, I need my terms redefined. Also, go back and read my posts. I do not only address people who address me. I mostly do so, but when there's nothing new that strikes me as scummy/odd, I don't see why I shouldn't do this.

We've matched opinions on alignment fishing as well as the RVS, you also concured with me about Beef leaving himself an escape route and that was in fact one of the three reasons why you voted him.

I'm not seeing any real proactivity in any of your posts, the only thing i can see is when you asked the question about what alignment people prefer to play, ever since then all you've done is react to other people. That worries me.

"looking at the rest of her play..." do elaborate, please. I find this to be too vague of an argument.

Yes, it is vague, i have less than 4 pages worth of material to work with, and the first page is pretty much worthless to boot. There's not even remotely enough content in the game to have anything more than a few blips on the ole suspiciometer. If i had anything more concrete than this i'd have switched my vote to you instead of staying with Beef.

[Neruz]

Neruz has addressed others pretty much just as often as Kayi has--not very often, compared to his focus on Beefster. He shows doubt about Kayi, yet continues to think Beefster is his best vote.

Actually at the moment i'm about even on both Beefster and Kayi, although with each passing post Kayi is looking scummier and scummier. And i havn't really focused on Beefster, looking at an ISO of my posts, my first piece of actual content towards the mafia game itself is ISO 11, where i commented on Beefster leaving an escape route. My three posts following that have primarily consisted on noting that both Kayi and Beefster are my prime suspects and responding to your inquiries.

If you include the fishing discussion, less than half my posts have involved Beefster.

Neruz:

Do you honestly believe the scum would go after their buddy on day one? If so, why? If not, well, that's certainly the tone I'm getting from suspecting

both

Kayi and Beefster, so could you explain why it wouldn't be true?

I've seen (and once pulled off) a gambit where the scum night kills their buddy on n0 and then rides through the game on a redirector claim. Do i think scum would go after their buddy on day one? Absolutely, if they thought it would work.

However, i'm nothing like certain on either of them at the moment, i still remain open to the possibility that they're actually both town and have managed to look scummy by accident. It happens all the time.



In a related note; Mute and Mujex appear to be lurking at the moment. I'm only seeing a couple of posts from both of them, and Mute's last post was on Sunday.

RedCoyote

, can we get a prod for Mute? He's all AWOL.

Mujex, i know you're there (unlike Mute who might not be), want to actually get involved in the discussion instead of active lurking around the fringes?



I find it very interesting that Kayi picked up on Mute, Yen and Jay not being very active, but

completely

missed Mujex (one of the SE's no less) active lurking his heart out. She's done a relatively good job on picking up on all the other players who aren't participating much, but not Mujex.

[Neruz]

Och, Déjà vu.

[Neruz]

Also, since i noticed a point of contention between Mastin and Kayi is when my vote on Beefster stopped being random, there wasn't really any one point. It was random when i placed it, and not random when i left it on him on page 4, but there was no one post i can point to and say "Here is where i changed my mind and decided to vote Beefster properly." It was a gradual change over the course of several posts.

Mujex apparantly asked for a replacement, so i'm going to UNVOTE: Beefster until said replacement turns up.

[Neruz]

Neruz, again, what I said in my post is what I meant. I word things the way I word them for a reason. I don't know how your mind works, and I only know what shows up on the thread. You had expressed suspicion so far and I do see it as a gradual thing, but your vote was very much in the air until you declared that you were keeping it. That's where a line was visibly crossed. Only you know what you think; we can only see what you write.

I know, that's why i clarified it for you.

1: Why the unvote for a player completely unrelated to Beefster?

Because i was uncomfortable with 3 votes on Beefster at this stage and one player in limbo. In prior games (both my one prior game here and games on Bay12 in the past) i've had scum evade detection on d1 because of replacing in as a wagon forms. Mujex's lurking and Kayi's ignoring of said lurking strikes me as extremely suspicious, so i'd like to get a read on Lateralus22 before pushing for a lynch again.

2: Now that we have a Mujex replacement, will you be voting for Beefster, again?

Depends on how Lateralus, Beefster and Kayi act. If, after i've read a few solid posts from Lateralus, Beefster is still the scummiest person here then yes i will vote for him.

Also, Mastin, your walls are getting way out of hand, at the very least can you try and organise them a little better?

#64 (Neruz): Hi Neruz. Can you explain the last bit? He hardly placed it to look like it meant something. You are talking about Jay right?

I assume you mean this:

3: What do you see as the difference between a vote they mean and look like they mean?

There is no difference, perception is reality, although evidence that a vote was only placed to look like it was meant, when in fact it was not, is a pretty solid scumtell.

No, i was not talking about Jay, i was answering Mastin's question. Nothing more, nothing less.

[Neruz]

Ack, messed up my quote there, damn.

[Neruz]

Vote's going back on Beefster. I was waiting to see how he was going to react to L22's pushing, apparantly he's decided to not read L22's posts and not react at all.

VOTE: Beefster

FOS: Kayi

[Neruz]

...By the way what does HoS mean? I'm pretty sure FoS means finger of suspicion but I'm not sure of this one. [/stupid newbie question]

Means Hand of Suspicion, basically it means "If i had more than one vote i would vote you too."

[Neruz]

Also what, that wasn't the hammer. That's L-1

[Neruz]

To be fair, if Beefster is your main suspect then not voting him is entirely apropos, seeing as how he's at L-1 now.

[Neruz]

Kayi: On a note of you being against meta. Dismissing meta offhand is even worse than taking meta too far. Metagaming is an integral part of Mafia and scumhunting, the trick is to remember that it is not the be-all end-all of the game. Like everything, metagaming should be used in moderation and always in comparison to the rest of the game, never in isolation.

[Neruz]

Oh hey i miscounted, Beefster's at L-2. That makes his 'claim' post even

less

likely.

[Neruz]

Taking into account that my attack on his meta usage is about the "I don't trust anyone" line, well, I can find Meta to find town has used it as well. It leaves me wondering what L22 is trying to accomplish by using such a small comment to make a case. All his comments against me are along the lines of "I think town wouldn't have said that, but this this and that, this is why Kayi's arguments

sound

fake." I don't see how this makes Meta a reliable tool, specially in a Newbie game. Meta usage of this sort seems more like a last resort thing to me, when it should be something to maybe support a well-established argument. But basing your arguments on Meta (and one that doesn't even include the player in question) just seems dangerous, and even anti-town.

That's why i said using it requires moderation and always in comparison to other evidence.

[Neruz]

Oh hey i miscounted, Beefster's at L-2. That makes his 'claim' post even

less

likely.

Explain.

You honestly expect me to believe that you thought you were being hammered when you were put to L-2?

[Neruz]

You'll have to forgive me Beef; i don't believe a word of it.

[Neruz]

When people invoke WIFOM, they usually mean it as the kind of WIFOM Jay used; aka the person invoking it on themselves. "Scum wouldn't do X, therefore i'm not scum!" That is negative WIFOM.

Attempting to work out the decisions and reasons for those decisions that other players make is also technically WIFOM, but stays 'safe' so long as no-one invokes it on themselves. Once invoked, WIFOM becomes 'unsafe' as doing so immediately confuses the issue beyond possible understanding.

What's what people 'round these parts usually mean when they talk about WIFOM; they mean players invoking 'but that's what he wants me to think' loops on themselves or on other players. It all stays safeish and above-board so long as no-one draws attention to it, but the instant someone

does

the entire issue becomes opaque and at that point it's safer to just lynch the person in question.

[Neruz]

Typo, meant "That's", not "What's" on my third paragraph :\

[Neruz]

Beefster has blatantly cracked under the pressure, and as far as i can tell he has not cracked in a town fashion. That, plus the prior reasons i've already stated, is sufficient for me to be fine with seeing him as our D1 lynch.

[Neruz]

Actually when i said 'cracked' i meant his game face has cracked, rather than he has mentally or emotionally cracked...

[Neruz]

No, OMGUS is when you declare the person being suspicious of you as scum

because they are suspicious of you.

[Neruz]

Well it

can

be part of the reasoning, but only at either lylo or if you are confirmed town. Neither of those two qualifiers is in effect at the moment however.

[Neruz]

Beefster is

really

sucking at working out who is voting for him. It's getting kind of rediculous...

[Neruz]

@Trendall - I don't understand your reasoning. Town are as likely as scum to try to shake votes off at L-1 (cyber-survival instinct ftw.) Both parties are likely to keep acting in a way they think looks pro-town until they're lynched. What do you think on Beefster's barely paying any attention to the game at all?

Actually, this is somewhat meta, but in general town are

not

as likely as scum to try and avoid being lynched

unless

it is lylo. The reason being that if a town player is being lynched before lylo, that means at least one other town player thinks that player is scum, the lynching of that player will not lose the game for the town, so the town usually care less about being mislynched. The town also know that they are telling the truth (unlike the scum), thus there is no point trying to 'push' votes off themselves.

Being afraid of being mislynched as town before lylo is probably the single commonest newbie tell, it's also one of the most common

scum

tells. As you can imagine, this can cause all kinds of trouble, so it's a good idea to break yourself of the habit as early as possible.

[Neruz]

I havn't done much lately because i havn't seen any reason to do anything. My original points against Beefster still stand and nothing i have seen has dissuaded me from them, given how close we are to the deadline i see no reason to not lynch Beefster.

[Neruz]

A no lynch isn't

that

bad, but it is statistically a better idea to lynch at odd numbers than to not lynch.

[Neruz]

*sigh* I wish we had more time. The day might've been stagnating a little, but there was still a lot I feel we could've gained if we had that extra time. Ah, well.

I doubt it, everyone has pretty much made their final decisions for the day. I can't see any ovbious outstanding issues that need to be discussed or gone over

again

. I think we've pretty much exhausted all reasonable discussion at this point.

[Neruz]

Interesting.

[Neruz]

No-kill means either doc protected correctly, or scum chose not to kill. The former is

far

more likely than the latter, but the latter is still possible. It'll be something worth considering at a later date, hopefully MC, when we know who the doctor is, until then though no assumptions can or should be made.

Also, we should technically actually no lynch at this juncture; town statistically have a disadvantage when lynching at even numbers of players.

[Neruz]

There's no reason to rush to a no lynch, but there's no reason to lynch anyone today either.

[Neruz]

Huh? I'm not sure i understand that last post.

[Neruz]

Oh i see what you're getting at, fair enough.

There's a couple of possible reasons why mafia would no kill, which is why i said it's unlikely but still possible.

VOTE: No Lynch then.

[Neruz]

I'll do my best.

Lets take the game from here, 8p, assume worst case scenario and we are unable to lynch scum until lylo, so we lynch, it's 7p night, scum kill, it's 6p day. We're now at Mylo, so we no lynch, night kill and we're at 5p day, Lylo.

So at 8p, we lynched with 6 town, 2 scum. Assuming pure randomness, 2/8 chance of hitting scum.

But if we no lynch now, instead of waiting till Mylo, then scum kill tonight and it's 7p day instead of 8p, meaning we lynch at 5 town, 2 scum. 2/7 chance of hitting scum, which are slightly better odds than 2/8.


To put it simply; it will take exactly the same number of lynches (1 more) to reach Lylo or Mylo, regardless of if we choose to no lynch now or not, we will have to no lynch at some point. It's to our advantage to no lynch now when the scum have a wider range of people to choose from and to lynch later when there are less people and thus less possible scum candidates.

Or, to put it really simply, town have a statistical advantage when lynching at odd numbers of players and a statistical disadvantage when lynching at even numbers of players. In general, unless you have something pretty concrete like a cop inspect or a counterclaim with the town role flipped it's to the town's advantage to not lynch at even numbers of players.

[Neruz]

@Neruz: Can you explain what Mylo means? I understand Lylo means lynch or lose, but mylo escapes me (outside of the name of the character in the disney movie.) Also, with the games I've played on the other forum I frequented, there's not once been a time that the mafia forgoes an NK. Usually, at the conclusion of the game, the mod posts what each person's night actions were, and how everyone acted throughout the game. I will say that the no-kill should be credited to a doc block instead of a mafia no-kill scenario.

Mylo means Mislynch and lose. If you have 4 town and 2 scum, you mislynch a town player, it goes to 3 town, 2 scum night, town dies, 2 town, 2 scum, scum wins.

And while you may not have seen the mafia forego their NK on your other forum, i can

absolutely

assure it that it happens here. It doesn't happen often, but it

does

happen. Sometimes forgoing the NK can be a powerful tool.

That's not to say it happened here, given the newbiegameness of this game it is unlikely, but it cannot be discounted as a possibility.

[Neruz]

UNVOTE: No Lynch

Actually, Mastin has a point. With Mute and Kayi having a fairly high chance of being town, we

might

be better off lynching. Mute's doc claim throws the statistics off, and i think it throws them in favor of the town. At the very least it does not throw them in favor of the scum.

[Neruz]

While it is possible that Mute is scum claiming Doc, it's fairly unlikely so without any evidence to support that theory i think it's best to discount it for now. I doubt that the scum would want to pull a doc gambit this early in the game as it doesn't really benefit them. Plus, Mute was not recieving much heat at all, so it seems unlikely this is a gambit.

[Neruz]

Uh, if there are 4 players with 2 scum, scum win unless one of the 2 town has a kill.

[Neruz]

It would eventually be a draw, but i have to ask, why would that happen?

[Neruz]

Why would the scum no kill repeatedly though? And why would we no lynch repeatedly? Neither side wants a draw.

[Neruz]

The odds of that happening are pretty low.

[Neruz]

Yeah the game has kind of gone and died a bit hasn't it.

So, i see Mute is trying to lynch Lateralus, what does everyone else think about this?

[Neruz]

Sup Nacho.

He's got a vote on him, i would assume that means he would like to lynch him.

[Neruz]

Ignore previous post, i managed to misread Nacho as saying that he didn't think that Mute is lynching lat, rather than that he didn't like that mute is lynching lat. My bad.

[Neruz]

I'm still on holiday, so nyaa.

[Neruz]

Given that Mute's doc claim appears legit, it seems reasonable to lynch today.

[Neruz]

Uh, with Mute outed as Doc there's no reason to no lynch, as at the moment it is reasonable to assume Mute is town, thus we're technically only chosing from 7 players.

Your reasoning appears to be

exactly

wrong.

[Neruz]

7 players.

...and the doctor's protect during the night isn't confirmed as town alongside her?

... Whoops, forgot about that.

[Neruz]

The big dead period has really killed my train of thought, so at the moment i'm sort of floating loose. I might have to go back and re-read some prior stuff, but given my past experience that might actually make it worse.

[Neruz]

Different games Jay, and in my past experience once i've lost interest in a game like this, going back to re-read the game makes me even less interested.

[Neruz]

Nacho does seem to bring up a good point against Mastin, there have been a few instances where i've looked at the points he's brought to the table and thought they weren't really right, but it didn't really occur to me to consider that scummy.

Well it's not much, but at least it might get this game going for me again

[Neruz]

Nacho and Trendall do seem to make a reasonable case, and Mastin seems like he's flailing a bit at the moment,

especially

over the Mute vote.

Mastin; Jay randomvoting the doctor isn't even a valid gut read.

Jay had absolutely no way of knowing whatsoever that Mute was the doctor when he made the vote. None. Zip.

nadda.

So how can it be scummy, even from a gut read?

What you've basically just said is very similar to saying "I rolled a d6, it came up 3 and my gut says that means Jay is scummy." Not only was bringing that up irrelevant from a scumhunting standpoint but the gut read itself isn't even valid. Yes i am aware that gut reads do not follow logic, hence why they're called gut reads, but they do follow causation. A purely random coincidence cannot be a valid reason for a gut read under any circumstances and most definitely is not a valid reason to bring up anything.

However, that being said, i'm a little worried about the speed at which Trendall joined in here after Nacho started the assault and i showed tentative support. Something about Trendall's posts feels like buddying to me.

[Neruz]

Do elaborate, considering I have refuted their case quite well, in my opinion.

I'm not really seeing you as having refuted it all that well. Admittedly i am having extreme difficulty reading and comprehending your huge-ass posts due to my general disinterest with the game at the moment, but it did rather look like you were probing for a potential valid case on Jay and then dropped it like a hot coal when called out on it. Additionally i'm not really seeing anything from Jay between your last post about him being your top suspect to your change to Trendall that would justify dropping the points you brought up.


Mastin, i'm not sure whether you generally misunderstand what we're saying about the gut reading. We're not saying "You cannot have a gut reading on this because it is random." We're saying "Bringing up this gut reading which is based on something which cannot possibly be considered an alignment tell under any circumstances whatsoever is a complete waste of time."
It doesn't

matter

if the read is gut or not, the statement the read is based on is ironclad, it cannot be interpreted as anything other than a null tell under any circumstances. Bringing up that gut read is disingenuous as it allows you to

imply

having a scum read on Jay in a way that cannot be countered, because it's a 'gut read' and thus not subject to logic.

You are correct, gut reads are not subject to logic.

The conditions upon which you bring them up

are

, however. And your conditions do not seem to be town conditions.


Pointing out gut reads on something which can possibly be considered scummy but you can't see why as part of a larger case is fine. Pointing them out on something which cannot possibly be scummy under any circumstances as part of a probe is not fine. You did the latter, not the former.

[Neruz]

Heyy, look at that, i'm back.

[Neruz]

Jesus. Fucking. Christ.

[Neruz]

Aaagh.

You seriously need to control yourself dude, i can handle long posts, but i cannot handle huge blocks of text.

[Neruz]

You're doing it again you know. That response to the epicmafia thing could easily be about 1/4 as long and still communicate the same information.

[Neruz]

I'm also going to add that i don't really support a Mastin lynch at this point. While i am

severely

tempted to support it just to ensure i never have to look at another one of those wall posts, intellectually i'm pretty sure that isn't a scum tell >.>

[Neruz]

'Burden of Proficiency' is a somewhat mafia-specific form of the Argument from Authority. The thing is though that it's not actually a proper AfA.

What makes an AfA a logical fallacy is when the authoritive person comments about a subject that they have no authority for. If Albert Einstein made an authoritive statement about, say art, then assuming he is correct because he is Albert Einstein is an AfA. But if Mr. Einstein makes an authoritive statement about physics, then assuming he is correct is

not

an AfA.

Thus, whether or not the Burden of Proficiency is an AfA is on very shaky ground, as you could legitimately argue that experienced players -are- authoritive about catching scum, especially if there is prior evidence to indicate that the player in question does show a pattern of catching scum often as town. (For those of you in the know, Bayes' theorm technically applies here.)

[Neruz]

@Mastin: It's not so much the walling itself which i find unreadable as it is your particular style. I have no problem whatsoever with large posts if those posts are large because they contain a lot of content and are edited nicely so that paragraphs are seperate and different subjects are clear and concise.

From what i can tell, this is not the case in your posts; you seem to either reiterate the same point in different language multiple times or bring up multiple points in the same sentance with no rhyme or reason, this, combined with the fact that you don't blank lines between paragraphs, makes reading your posts extremely difficult.

[Neruz]

In a related note, your response to me, simply by adding empty lines between paragraphs, is about three times more readable than your prior posts.

[Neruz]

As for me bringing up points multiple times, this has been explained already; I'm really bad with words, and yet, I want to get my message across as clearly as I can. The two end up making me fairly repetitive.

This is actually kind of important, because i'm getting the impression that you're committing an Argument Ad Nauseam, and i can't tell if it's deliberate or not.

[Neruz]

Paragraph seperation varies pretty significantly from person to person, but i've found putting an empty line between major but related paragraphs, and 2 or more empty lines between major but unrelated paragraphs

really

helps reading comprehension.

It does allow people to skim more easily, since they can check each paragraph faster, but the alternitive is worse.

[Neruz]

Atm i'm about even on Trendall and Mastin. On the one hand i have serious concerns that Mastin may be trying to obfuscate poor arguments deliberately, on the other hand the speed at which Trendall picked up what looked like a possible Mastin wagon worries me.

Both are pretty light though, certainly i don't feel either is enough to justify a vote.

[Neruz]

That's not so bad. Like i said before, large posts are alright, it's just large posts + poor formatting which cripples legibility.

[Neruz]

I would put an empty line between each quote though, makes it easier to read again.

[Neruz]

"Hitler Built Autobahns. Hitler was evil. Therefore building Autobahns is evil." Is a subset of the Correlation Implies Causation fallacy, which basically goes as follows:

A did B.
A is bad.
Therefore doing B is bad.

Another example is:

A did X as scum in the last game.
A is doing X in this game.
Therefore A is scum.


The reason it is a fallacy is it does not look at the reasons behind the action, only the action itself. A may well have done X as scum, but that does not mean that X is a scumtell. To use a silly-extreme example; Scum post in threads in which they are scum. Therefore posting in threads is a scumtell.

The Correlation Implies Causation fallacy is one of the most common and insidious logical fallacies in the world because on the surface in a reasonable real-life situation away from clear and concise examples it can

seem

to be correct, even obviously so.

[Neruz]

Plus,

everyone

is often accused of buddying when it turns out to just be 2 town who agree (or sometimes 1 town who agrees with 1 scum). It happens all the time, in fact i can't think of a game where hasn't happened.

Admittedly, this is largely because people frequently confuse "agreeing with someone else" for "buddying" (they are very different people, look them up.)

[Neruz]

Ayup, i'm still fence sitting at the moment due to difficulty getting interested in the game. Voting me won't help, but i can understand it makes you feel better.

The problem i'm sitting on is that the two people who've caught my eye are Trendall and Mastin. While going over Trendall's stuff is easy enough, so many of his posts involve Mastin that in order to draw a proper conclusion i need to go over Mastin's stuff too. The thing is; reading most of Mastin's posts causes me mental pain.

So i can either vote without properly analysing the situation, or i can fence sit for awhile until i can either work up the strength to digest Mastin's walls of text or someone gives me something new. Unfortunately neither has occured.
Kayi's post is going to help a lot in the former problem, although i'm still going to have to read the relevant posts.

[Neruz]

Seriously? Your response to "I dislike the way this person posts." is "Lynch him!"?

[Neruz]

Alrighty, thanks to Kayi's post i've been able to single out the posts Mastin has made that are relevant and slog through them, which has allow me to codify my concerns about Mastin.

First: Severe lack of content. Mastin doesn't seem to actually be posting anything of worth until about page 14 - 15. His prior posts contain one or two points here and there, and the rest of the posts are primarily meaningless fluff.

Second: When he finally gets to content he keeps leaving himself an escape route with the 'gut' argument. I was wondering why that argument drew my attention the first time he brought it up and now that i've read through the posts where he references it i can see why. Mastin seems to be focusing hugely around his gut, repeatedly when confronted with counter-arguments he's fallen back to saying something along the lines of "It's my gut so logic doesn't apply" which smells a huge amount like an excuse for poor arguments. Gut should not be the foundation of your arguments under any circumstances, yet Mastin continually falls back on it. Gut is used to reinforce other arguments or to provide a reason as to why you went looking for more points, it is

not

used as an impenetrable fortress to fall back on when the logical parts of your argument are countered.

Third: Hypocrisy. I don't think i

really

need to enumerate exact examples here, since i'd just be repeating what Kayi has already said. I'm not entirely sure whether Hypocrisy is a 'real' scumtell, but it's very very close to contradiction. This, combined with his continual use of the argument from repetition sounds like a scum tell to me.

Finally: Escape routes. Mastin is constantly leaving himself escape routes. This kind of ties back into the 'gut' thing previously, but he's also been leaving himself escape routes as to regards to his meta.


Ultimately, there's still something about Trendall that worries me, but i can't seem to find anything solid, so i'm going to have to drop that for now with an eye to picking it up again later if something catches my eye.

FOS: Mastin

HOWEVER!

Nacho; i think you're taking a lot of my posts out of context there. For a start those posts have occured over a period of less than 2 days; not a very long time in a forum game, but a large amount of the discussion during that period was in fact related to logical fallacies and Mastin's posting style.

Furthermore, i find it a little concerning that you're apparantly willing to jump on me for fence sitting a bit and willingly admitting that i'm not hugely interested in the game right now, but havn't paid any attention at all to the rather large quantity of lurkers this game possesses. Jay has at least chimed in once during that period with some content, but Yenros posted

nothing at all

during that same period and as far as i can tell Mute hasn't posted anything of worth for an

entire week

. (Yes i know he claimed Doctor, but that doesn't give him a pass to just cease participation in the game) and in what is perhaps the perfect example of blatant hipocrasy, where's

your

content Nacho?

An ISO of you reveals that you initially supported a no lynch, then suddenly jumped on Mastin. And why did you jump on Mastin?

Vote: Mastin

Okay. I've read up.
It's harder to get a read on you for your long posting, and I've noticed you use it to hide some terribe arguments. For example, the case on Jay. What's the point of posting something like "you random voted the doctor"? What does that have to do with his alignment? All it shows is that he isn't the doctor, and I'm pretty sure all of us realized that by now.

One example. That's it? Blanket statement 'you use terrible arguments' and then

one

example? And that last sentance doesn't even make any sense inside or outside of context.

Next post you respond to Mastin, claiming that he is using weak attacks.
At yet,

once again

, no examples.

Next post, you bring up the Jay thing

again

, or should i say still? Since you were basically having a little fight with Mastin over whether or not he had made a case on Jay.

Then, you're dark for two days. No posts, not comments. Nothing. I guess you see engaging in discussion over 2 days as scummy, but lurking as not...


You're looking a

lot

like an opportunist here Nacho. Rather than poking the lurkers to try and get them to post more (and thus contribute to town discussion), you pull up a case on me, based on two days of discussion after i had already admitted i was losing interest in the game. This seems to be contrary to my prior experience with you, and is

definitely

contrary to any form of town logic.

You sir, are scum. You're not looking for scum, you're looking for targets.

VOTE: Nachomamma8

[Neruz]

From your point of view my case against Mastin might seem weaker Kayi, but from my point of view it's much stronger by virtue of the fact that i don't want to touch Mastin at the moment because i can't read most of his posts all that well.

I'd much rather avoid Mastin for now, simply because i really don't want to try and slog through his mess and try to work out which of him or Trendall is scum. Nacho has, fortuitously, slipped up and given me someone else to scumhunt instead.

[Neruz]

I will admit, the possibility does exist, but i feel that there is a good liklihood one of you is scum, based on your interactions.

[Neruz]

where he interestingly enough finds that one of them is probably scum, a statement I find scummy as hell because it's unfounded, and scum love to create fake connections in a group of two people where "at least one is scum" because then they get two mislynches and not just one.

I remain open to be convinced otherwise, but until you turned up the only people i had any sort of reasonable scumread on were Trendall and Mastin, 'one of them is probably scum' seems like a fairly logical conclusion.

And how, exactly, do you get two mislynches just from that? Obviously if i conclude that there is likely to be scum within a group i am going to analyse the group very carefully, work out which one is scum and attempt to lynch that one. You seem to be implying that if that person flips town the correct response is to go "Oh that means the other person must be scum!" But without having conflicting accounts that is not even remotely the logical choice. If you conclude that there is probably scum within a group, pick out the person within said group you believe to be scum, lynch them and find they flip town, the correct conclusion is that

you were probably wrong about there being scum in the group.

I will find active lurking scummier than lurking every single time. Everyone lurks, but it's usually in scum's best interest to post a lot and say a little.

Not really, it's been my experience that ISO's are so common on MS that active lurking is

far

more dangerous than normal lurking. I've repeatedly seen people get off lightly on normal lurking, but active lurking always draws attention. The fact that you think that my discussing things like logical fallacies and posting styles instead of directly scumhunting is a scumtell however proves that you either weren't paying attention to me in our last game or are deliberately trying to make me look scummy.

To help you out, i'll be clear and concise: I was disinterested in the game, combine this with the fact that i tend to reactively scumhunt instead of proactively and it should be pretty obvious why i wasn't really contributing all that much.

I also find it interesting that you're

implying

that i've been active lurking the entire game, instead of for less than two days. You're basing quite a lot on very little there Nacho.

He first tries to deflect blame of his lack of posting onto Mastin by saying that he wasn't interested in the game because he didn't want to read Mastin's long posts.

I'm sorry.

What?

Mastin's long posts put me off the game, this is true, but how in the hell is that

Mastin's

fault?! I provided a reason for my lack of content, i did not deflect blame on to Mastin. It's

my

fault that Mastin's posting style puts me off, i'm not incapable of reading his posts, i just don't want to. Mastin cannot be blamed for the fact that i dislike his posting style.

So, I offered him three alternatives if Mastin's posting was affecting him so thoroughly, one of which was lynching him. Neruz, of course, decides to ignore the rest of my post except for the part that said "Lynch him", and then tried to twist my post to make it appear that it was the ONLY thing I had said.

The

first

of which was lynching him. And it doesn't actually matter that you offered other alternitives,

you said that lynching someone was a viable reaction to disliking someone's posting style.

I don't give a wooden nickle if you provided

other

options as well, one of those options was "I dislike how X posts, i should lynch him because of that." which is quite possibly one of the most anti-town reasons to lynch someone i can think of. I cannot see

any

reason town would

ever

want to lynch someone for that under any circumstances.

Then, when deflection and misrepresentation don't work, he results to OMGUS. Of course, he still FoSes Mastin and makes sure that his transition onto the largest Mastin wagon is smooth if the whole Nacho thing doesn't work out.

This would seem to indicate that you don't actually know what OMGUS is. If you genuinely think my vote on you is OMGUS, then you seriously need to go read the wiki. Since you're a reasonably experienced player i find it highly unlikely that you actually believe this, so nice try. I'm hesitant to label this as a misrep, because in context it feels a whole lot more like a blatant lie.

In addition, after I post a response to his "case" against me, he ignores it and simply goes on his merry way.

If you're talking about #436, i didn't respond to it because i wasn't sure what points your post was directed at. Since rather than quote my points and respond to them you instead chose to just go "Point 1", i had difficulty trying to understand what exactly you were responding to, as i did not number my points. In addition, after i did a quick reread of my post i couldn't see how it actually applied to the points i'd brung up, so i decided to pass it over.

In this point, he basically calls me scum because I attacked him opposed to everyone else. He attacks me for not attacking Yenros, even though Yenros was on a V/LA at that time, and I already prodded him before.

I wasn't aware that Yenros was V\LA, so i'll drop that point. The rest still stands.

He also seems to expects me to be responsible for prodding lurkers.

No, i expect you to be responsible in scumhunting.

Or, is this the good point? He's criticizing me for not providing more examples than just one. Surprising, since I thought Mastin's ISO was so daunting and so terrible, I figured that everyone would understand if I didn't back my point up with 20 examples.

If you're going to use someone else's points to back up your own, you could at least pay us the respect of referring to them at some point instead of expecting everyone to just magically make the same connections you do.

The last sentence is a doozy, but let me give you a hand. If you aren't self-voting and you're random-voting the doctor, it means you aren't the doctor.

Yes, and i'm trying to work out why that is relevant, or even meaningful.

Next post, you bring up the Jay thing again, or should i say still? Since you were basically having a little fight with Mastin over whether or not he had made a case on Jay.

Erm, it was a valid mindset to attack Mastin to see whether the Jay thing actually WASN'T a Jay case, or he was just trying to squirm out of his weak case.

What? I think you're taking that line out of context. (You really seem to like doing that), this line was referencing the fact that you

still

hadn't brought up more than on example of 'Mastin's terrible arguments' which you apparantly based your vote on. You referred to multiple terrible arguments, but only ever referenced

one

argument,

repeatedly

.

This is a good example of what I mentioned earlier about him expecting me to get the lurker's to contribute. And I don't know what you admitting you've lost interest has to do with anything at all. If I say I've lost interest in the game, does that give me a free pass to active lurk my ass off?

Oh yes, lowered participation for

two days

is

definitely

active lurking my ass off. I mean, my god, that's just

so much

active lurking, i should be voting myself because i active lurked so much.[/sarcasm]

Again, you blow the fact that i didn't contribute much over two days way out of proportion and imply i active lurked

far

longer than i actually did. If i'd been active lurking all day this argument might hold water.

Now he brings up meta. The last game we played together, I lurked until LyLo as town, made a case on both scum, and defended myself adequately enough to give us the win. This meta should suggest that I don't really find lurking scummy, since I did it. It should also suggest that I'm probably not going to be the one who makes lurkers contribute, since I'm sometimes a lurker myself. In other words, his "meta" point doesn't actually make sense and is weak padding to his case. The "definitely contrary to any form of town logic" is crap rhetoric.

Actually after rechecking that game, i'll retract the point about your personal meta. I had you confused for someone else, for which i apologise.

The contrary to any form of town logic is most definitely not rhetoric however. Town are looking to find scum, you find scum by looking for scum tells,

you cannot find scum tells if a player is lurking.

[Neruz]

No. What making fake connections between townies does is set up for the mislynch; before the first mislynch, you say that one of the two is probably scum. Mislynch the first one. That sets you up to make a case against the other one the next day without people criticizing your position as much the next day. Thus, two mislynches. You wouldn't say that there's probably scum in a group if you were going to drop it the second one flips town.

If you come to a conclusion: A person in group X is scum, you then determine that person Y is the scum, you lynch person Y and he flips town, you've obviously made a mistake somewhere. It would seem to be that the logical conclusion is that your initial premise was in error. At the very least you would need to reanalyse your conclusion that there was scum in group X.

I just cannot fathom how any reasonable town could possibly let someone get away with that without pointing out the obvious and glaring hole in logic.

I also find it interesting that you're implying that i've been active lurking the entire game, instead of for less than two days. You're basing quite a lot on very little there Nacho.

Where did I do this? Last I remember, I said something exactly like this:

My original vote on Neruz was due to his active lurking

for the past couple of days

before I attacked him.

Obviously I'm talking about REAL LIFE days, since the game hasn't lasted more that a couple game days. So, where are you finding your little implications?

Right here Nacho:

You're killing me, man.
That was your ISO.

An ocean

of fluff with a short intermission of fencsitting in between. I can't live with that.

It felt like you were trying to blame Mastin for your inactivity since you had been complaining so much about him lately.

Well then all i can say is that you are mistaken. I was trying to get myself interested in the game again by engaging in discussion, unfortunately it wasn't working.

The first of which was lynching him. And it doesn't actually matter that you offered other alternitives, you said that lynching someone was a viable reaction to disliking someone's posting style. I don't give a wooden nickle if you provided other options as well, one of those options was "I dislike how X posts, i should lynch him because of that." which is quite possibly one of the most anti-town reasons to lynch someone i can think of. I cannot see any reason town would ever want to lynch someone for that under any circumstances.

Did you think ignoring was a viable option?

I wasn't sure what viable options there were. I knew i could replace out, lynching him was obviously not a viable option so i was searching for alternitives. I felt that in the grand scheme of the entire game, two days of low scum hunting wouldn't be all that relevant. People go AWOL entirely for longer than 2 days and it doesn't impact the game much.

This would seem to indicate that you don't actually know what OMGUS is. If you genuinely think my vote on you is OMGUS, then you seriously need to go read the wiki. Since you're a reasonably experienced player i find it highly unlikely that you actually believe this, so nice try. I'm hesitant to label this as a misrep, because in context it feels a whole lot more like a blatant lie.

Perhaps you should venture outside the wiki every once in a while. OMGUS doesn't have to be "you're voting for me, so I'm voting for you"; it can also be "you're voting me, so here's my case on you".

...
How is that a scum tell?

If you're talking about #436, i didn't respond to it because i wasn't sure what points your post was directed at. Since rather than quote my points and respond to them you instead chose to just go "Point 1", i had difficulty trying to understand what exactly you were responding to, as i did not number my points. In addition, after i did a quick reread of my post i couldn't see how it actually applied to the points i'd brung up, so i decided to pass it over.

Instead of asking me to explain my response to your case against me, you just ignored it? So are you really so confident about me being scum that you don't even give a shit about my defense?

The only point in there that seemed relevant at all to the case i'd brought against you was the first one. And you may notice that in my next post addressing you i retracted the Mastin point. The other two points seemed irrelevant (and still do), so yes, i ignored them.

No, i expect you to be responsible in scumhunting.

It's not my job to prod all the inactive people. It's EVERYONE'S job.

Which means it's still your job. Just because everyone has the same job doesn't lessen the fact that you have it too.

What? I think you're taking that line out of context. (You really seem to like doing that), this line was referencing the fact that you still hadn't brought up more than on example of 'Mastin's terrible arguments' which you apparantly based your vote on. You referred to multiple terrible arguments, but only ever referenced one argument, repeatedly.

No one needed another example. No one asked for another example. They FOUND the other examples. And I scumhunt by prodding first and making cases second, which means I don't come out with a bunch of examples at first. You know this. Remember, when I made small general points for why you were scum and asked you a few questions, then dropped the case completely?

So rather than just making your point clear and concise by taking a few moments to point out some examples, you just decided to fuck it and let everyone else do your work for you. Wow.

Oh yes, lowered participation for two days is definitely active lurking my ass off. I mean, my god, that's just so much active lurking, i should be voting myself because i active lurked so much.[/sarcasm]

Again, you blow the fact that i didn't contribute much over two days way out of proportion and imply i active lurked far longer than i actually did. If i'd been active lurking all day this argument might hold water.

It's called using hyperbole to demonstrate a point. Don't act like it's new to you.

Uh, i'm not acting ilke hyperbole is new to me, i'm acting like it's a scum tell, because it is. Hyperbole is used to create a stronger impression than would normally be gotten from simply referencing the facts, now tell me Nacho, in a Mafia game, who would want to create a stronger impression than normal towards something. Which side would want to exxagurate in order to manipulate people into seeing something as better or worse than it really is? Hmm...

The contrary to any form of town logic is most definitely not rhetoric however. Town are looking to find scum, you find scum by looking for scum tells, you cannot find scum tells if a player is lurking.

But. I did make an effort to convince some of the lurkers to participate; the only one I DIDN'T focus on was mute. I don't remember you prodding any lurkers; did you?

Nope, i was too busy trying to solve my own problems.

[Neruz]

Well now, that's interesting. I can't help but wonder if the mafia is deliberately no killing.

[Neruz]

Well, in light of the events in a game that just finished, i am reminded that letting someone get away with obfuscating posting styles is a really bad idea because it masks real scumtells (same concept as LaL). So with that in mind.

VOTE: Mastin

[Neruz]

Acting more confident than you really are is a great way to tunnel and end up lynching someone completely incorrectly.

We're into Day 3 Nacho, surely you can find something a little more solid to apply pressure with than mere confidence? That's Day 1 play.

[Neruz]

I also noticed this just now, purely by coincidence;

...Huh? Not Mute?!?

Now, correct me if i'm wrong, but i'm fairly sure that kind of 'surprise' type reaction after the night is a relatively basic scum tell. It's not much, but given the situation it is relevant.


Also, interesting vote there Nacho.

Also also, you spelled Yenros wrong.

[Neruz]

I said that, not Nacho

[Neruz]

Meta can be valuable, but like everything else it is a tool, one brick in the wall of a good case.

[Neruz]

Jesus.

Fucking.

Christ.

[Neruz]

I second Nacho, for the love of god Mastin, bullet points.

[Neruz]

I think Mastin's putting way too much on very limited meta examples, to be perfectly honest.

Meta can be useful, but you need a very large sample space.

[Neruz]

I'm pretty sure i've already stated my suspicions fairly clearly, but i can restate them easily enough;

Nacho is my primary scum suspect.
Mastin is a 'dead' read who is clouding up the game and making it difficult for me to be confident about my reads.
Trendall worries me a little.

[Neruz]

In what way, Neruz? As far as I can remember, this is the first time you've mentioned this.

No, i mentioned it ages back when i first noticed the big fight between you and Mastin.

[Neruz]

That doesn't answer my question.

Then you clearly weren't paying attention back on page 17:

Atm i'm about even on Trendall and Mastin. On the one hand i have serious concerns that Mastin may be trying to obfuscate poor arguments deliberately, on the other hand the speed at which Trendall picked up what looked like a possible Mastin wagon worries me.

Both are pretty light though, certainly i don't feel either is enough to justify a vote.

[Neruz]

@Neruz: If Nacho is your top suspect and Mastin is only a dead read, why aren't you voting for Nacho instead?

Good god, has no-one read any of my posts? I'll reiterate

again:

Because we're at free lynch. Mastin makes it impossible for me to be sure of my reads, so i'd rather lynch him now and then look again at Nacho without having to worry about him.
I

suspect

a Mastin\Nacho team, but Mastin has to go, sooner rather than later.

[Neruz]

It's actually a legitimate point. If you believe someone to be scummy, you should be voting them. Believing someone to be scummy but

not

voting them is opportunistic, which is a fairly hefty scumtell.

[Neruz]

Newbie 1027 reminded me that letting people off the hook because of idiocy or otherwise obfuscating posting styles is a bad move, doubly bad when i remember that we have a FL.

[Neruz]

Pretty much. I can't tell if his scumtells are scumtells or idiot tells, so it's safer to just lynch him.

[Neruz]

Actually, idiot tells isn't the right term there, but you probably get what i mean.

[Neruz]

Well now, with Mastin out of the game i feel far less like lynching him. So i shall:

UNVOTE: DLG

For now.

[Neruz]

What, really? In all that postage Mastin only had 3 points?

[Neruz]

Trendall's point on Mastin's lack of hammer being contradictory seems pertinent, and given the current state and whatnot;

VOTE: Nachomamma8

To be honest, assuming a Nacho\DLG scumteam, i'd rather start with Nacho, for reasons i have already elucidated.



To DLG:

This is supplemented in your specific case by your suspicions of the lack of hammer on Nachomamma8.

Here is the best I can offer in terms of defense of Mastin's play in general. He's a player who would be much better off writing his MD articles and maybe playing outside of the Newbie thread. He seems genuinely interested in teaching, but cannot reconcile playing and teaching at the same time. In other words, those who can, do; and those who can't, teach. My play will hopefully be much better.

I'm not

entirely

sure what you're trying to say here, but the implication i'm getting is that Mastin's posts were so obfuscating because he couldn't make himself teach legit town play and be scum at the same time (thus reducing his chances of winning.)
Now i'm pretty sure that's

not

what you're trying to say, because that would be really, really dumb, so care to clarify?

1. Why is everyone accepting Mute's claim so readily? Just because no one has seen scum make a gambit like claiming while not under pressure does rule the possibility out. If this is in fact a new scum gambit, it is remarkably effective. So effective, that probably within 6 months or a year, Mastin can start up a new MD thread on how doing this exact thing is a new scum tell.

The possibility has

never

been ruled out, but the claim was extremely uncharacteristic of scum. It was a

very

early unprompted claim with no prior claims made before it. If Mute is scum fakeclaiming Doc there was a 50% chance that he'd get counterclaimed and caught right then. That makes claiming doc that early a really poor play for the scum, it's a shitty play for the town too, but less shitty.
Does that rule Mute out? No, of course not. But it does decrease the probability that Mute is scum pretty substantially for now, especially while there are better scum candidates around.

2. When it was established that No-Lynch on Day 2 was not the best option given Mute's claim, why did no one go back to the one solid piece of evidence in existence? Beefster flipped town. I didn't see where anyone took a hard look at the wagon which lynched him. I intend to. If scum jumped on that wagon, it should be possible to find them by looking at who can't really explain why they were on that wagon.

I can't speak for others, but i didn't go back to the Beef wagon because he looked legitimately scummy. In my experience, 'legit' wagons tend to not be a whole lot of use in finding scum, because it's relatively easy to find a good reason to be on one.

3. There seems to be a deplorable acceptance of apathy/repetitive excuses for lurking/acceptance that bad play can be excused away by newbieness. Why? Does this town really not want to win?

This game is doing a pretty good zombie impersonation. It's one thing to leap on lurkers when there's only one or two, but when the majority of the game is lurking...

[Neruz]

Now i'm pretty sure that's not what you're trying to say, because that would be really, really dumb, so care to clarify?

Where did you get that from...?

That was the implication i got when i read it. I realised that i couldn't possibly be right and therefore must be misunderstanding the paragraph.

[Neruz]

I'm not entirely sure what you're trying to say here, but the implication i'm getting is that Mastin's posts were so obfuscating because he couldn't make himself teach legit town play and be scum at the same time (thus reducing his chances of winning.)
Now i'm pretty sure that's not what you're trying to say, because that would be really, really dumb, so care to clarify?

Obviously, that is not what I was saying. I was saying that Mastin put so much effort in to teaching, that his play was seriously hampered - resulting in bad judgements and mistaken plays. Similar to Beefster, but with at least some minor excuse.

I agree with your assessment that the Beefster wagon was driven by legitimate concerns/questions about his play. However, that does not preclude scum opportunistically jumping on a lynch of poor playing townie. I am trying to review who all voted/unvoted Beefster throughout Day 1, and look for any clues in those actions. I think that is a legitmate place to look for information.

Is there any particular reason you are trying to disuade this line of thinking?

I had the same idea back when it happened, a quick scan revealed nothing overt and that combined with the fact that i really did think Beefster was scummy led me to drop the line of thinking. If Beefster really did look like scum and there wasn't any obvious 'me too' votes, then there probably wasn't a whole lot to gain out of the wagon. I'm sure i could pick up a number of small scum tells on everyone involved, and i'm equally sure that most of them would probably be irrelevant.

The possibility has never been ruled out, but the claim was extremely uncharacteristic of scum. It was a very early unprompted claim with no prior claims made before it. If Mute is scum fakeclaiming Doc there was a 50% chance that he'd get counterclaimed and caught right then. That makes claiming doc that early a really poor play for the scum, it's a shitty play for the town too, but less shitty.

My point in asking this question is that I didn't see any intense scrutiny placed on Mute over the claim. On first read through, my impression was that the claim was so out of the blue that using the abnormality of it to establish towniness was an exercise in Wifomery. I believe that any thing which is obviously discordant deserves attention. Amongst other things, I will have specific question for Mute of my own to ask before making a judgement for myself.

You're somewhat correct, Mute's claim was highly abberant, but the consensus reached was that as the claim was a really terrible play by scum, while only a moderately terrible play by town, Mute was probably telling the truth. That sort of early town claim is also very, very indicitive of newbie play, and Mute is very new to the site, so everything lines up much more neatly if Mute is town than scum.

It doesn't mean Mute is confirmed of course, but while we're on FL i don't see any reason to persue that line.

[Neruz]

Neruz, could you summarize your case on me?

Opportunism, primarily. It's also kind of interesting that you were quite active when i was pushing you hard, but as soon as the pressure dropped off, your activity vanished.

If Mute is scum fakeclaiming Doc there was a 50% chance that he'd get counterclaimed and caught right then. That makes claiming doc that early a really poor play for the scum, it's a shitty play for the town too, but less shitty.

Town loses a PR in most games when it happens because scum doesn't allow doctors to live, or blocks them. Counterclaim is unlikely because anyone playing doctor wouldn't draw more attention to themselves, it's not like Doctor can confirm innocents and he can't protect innocents when he's dead.

Frankly i'd say trading a PR for a scum is absolutely worth it. PR's are useful, but finding scum wins the game.



DLG: In relation to your above post, you've completely misunderstood what i was saying. Try reading my post again properly instead of jumping to conclusions.

[Neruz]

You know, i'm really,

really

hating that algorithm DLG put down, it looks so very neat and clean, and it's so very very wrong.
[EDIT]
DLG: The logic is sound. Your algorithm is not. That is because the logic i stated and your algorithm are not the same thing.

DLG came out firing, which is good, but i'm not liking his choice of target, which is bad. While i see what he's getting at, lynching Mute now would seem to be a pretty bad play simply because there's a reasonable chance he

is

the Doc. The fact that Ghostlin has come out doing the same thing, but i'm noticing a few rather odd contradictions in his posts. I believe i may have to take a closer look at Ghostlin when i'm a little less tired.

[Neruz]

I'm not targetting Mute. My case and vote is on Jay. I'm pressuring Mute to determine if I believe his claim.

Oh, sorry, looks like i mixed you up with Ghostlin, my bad there.

You know, i'm really,

really

hating that algorithm DLG put down, it looks so very neat and clean, and it's so very very wrong.
[EDIT]
DLG: The logic is sound. Your algorithm is not. That is because the logic i stated and your algorithm are not the same thing.

Repetition of really and very do not make your argument true. Please clarify how my algorithm does not apply in this instance.

Because your algorithm fails to take into account that you lynch the person who is the scummiest, you don't just pick a person from the group at random and lynch that person. That preferential choice completely changes the way the logic works.

If you legitimately didn't see that, then you didn't read my post.

[Neruz]

Ghostlin; I don't think anyone ever suggested the Cop should counterclaim Mute's Doctor claim.

[Neruz]

I'm actually ok with lynching Mute at this juncture, purely because of that line. If Mute was

actually

the Doctor, he'd know that the Doctor cannot protect himself. I cannot see any possible way Mute could be a town Doctor and not know that.

[Neruz]

So explain that line about protecting yourself.

What, you're trying to suggest that the Mafia wouldn't know that you couldn't protect yourself? That's even more rediculous.

[Neruz]

Given the lack of response from Mute, i shall assume that he has none.

UNVOTE: Nachomamma8
VOTE: Mute

That's L-1.

[Neruz]

Mafia no-killing with a claimed doctor is a pretty standard gambit, that plus the fact that

I

was the supposed target of the protect, and i would absolutely not have expected myself to be the NK choice even under WIFOM creating circumstances leads me to believe that if Mute is the doctor (which, based on the evidence, i now doubt greatly), mafia probably nokilled.

If Mute hadn't scumslipped and started flailing badly, i'd be supporting the no-kill line of reasoning and i'd be fine with doing so, because while it is a gambit, it's not an uncommon one.

[Neruz]

Sort of, killing someone other than the doctor does risk that the doc will protect correctly, which can mess everything up, but at the same time if it's successful it incriminates the doctor, it's a less common gambit than nokilling after a claimed doc, but it's not that rare. It -is- risky, but sometimes the risk is worth it.

Killing the Doc is the safest play, but not

neccessarily

the best.

[Neruz]

...

Wow, Trendall, could that hammer be any scummier?

[Neruz]

I have to say, i feel the number of replacements in this game really crippled the town.

[Neruz]

The thing that immediately leaps to mind as a big thing was Trendalls' hammer on Mute; i commented about it at the time and had i not been NKed i would have absolutely pushed a Trendall lynch. I spent most of this game unable to find anything really solid to grab onto, but that hammer was just really, really scummy. Even so, Nacho had successfully managed to dispel any suspicions with some strategic lurking, letting others take the spotlight, so it's likely that it would have been a loss anyway.

I must add that DLG"s play was outstanding and should be held up as a shining example of how to play scum.

[Neruz]

The main trick to avoiding walls (i've found) is to read your post again after you're written it and carve off all the bits that aren't absolutely neccessary. This may be easier or harder depending on your background.
Another important thing is to be online and post often; the more frequently you post the less each post has to deal with and the less likely you are to end up with a wall. If you only post once per day then each post is going to have to reference a page or so worth of content, which is rapidly going to build great walls across asian continents.