Mini 443 - Tapioca Mafia - Game over!!

[beanbagboy]

Sorry, school is going nuts lately, I promise I will get more soon. Three day weekend coming up, maybe I'll do a PBPA then. I would love to participate more, too much HW!!

[Khelvaster]

on at the same time, so we made several posts responding to each other. As for the second, I can see how it would open your eyes to the possibility of a mild attack between us, but if that was really the case, it probably wouldn't have been mentioned to prevent you from drawing just such a conclusion.

You're leading into a WIFOM argument here. The only retort to what you're saying is that if you were scum, you would say that to shunt suspicion away. Of course, your response to that would be that if you were scum, you wouldn't say that, because I would suspect you of being scum for saying that. Of course, my response...

However, that original quote of yours begs the question, if you really weren't scum, why would you have brought up an argument which people have specifically derided me for using? "If that was really the case, it probably wouldn't have been mentioned to prevent you from drawing just such a conclusion" is (besides saying "was" instead of were") probably the most poorly-done argument I've seen on this thread, in all of its 10 pages.

Speaking of 10 pages...

Mod, could you put up a deadline on this? I want to be able to move on to day 2 sometime before June.

Also, I need to announce that, from Saturday night to Monday night, I will be at the US chess open in Chicago, and as a result I will be away from mafiascum.

[kabenon007]

kab: "I'm old, I forget, how many scum are in this game?
This seemed kinda funny to me when I spotted it this time round, like he was playing innocent, but I couldn't really say why at first. Look at the wording, though. Does this mean, kabenon, that you'd been told how many scum were in the game? We weren't.

This was a simple question, phrased using a phrase that my high school physics teacher uses. I said it in that form to be funny, but while still asking a question that I wanted answered. If I were scum and truly forgot how many scum there were, wouldn't I just go check my PM? I just wanted to know how many people to watch out for, that's all.

[Ectomancer]

Speaking of 10 pages...

Mod, could you put up a deadline on this? I want to be able to move on to day 2 sometime before June.

A deadline could be set if I feel conversation to be lagging. 10 pages in 10 days does not seem slow enough to impose a deadline.

[pickemgenius]

Speaking of 10 pages...

Mod, could you put up a deadline on this? I want to be able to move on to day 2 sometime before June.

Are you serious?!?!?!?!
If you were town, you'd have no problem with this lasting a long time, because then we get more info from it.

A deadline could be set if I feel conversation to be lagging. 10 pages in 10 days does not seem slow enough to impose a deadline.

Thank you, 10 pages in 10 days IMO, is a crapload.

[Khelvaster]

This has been having more talk than any of the other deadlined mafias--it likely won't peter out for another month if we let it keep on going. I suggest a June 5 or 6 deadline--that still gives us plenty of time, but also puts in some sense of urgency. I've got the feeling a lot of people are just toying around with each other, instead of even trying to come to some sort of concensus. June 6 wouldn't rush anyone, since that's two weeks from now, but at the same time it would show that we need *some* amount of urgency

[Copp├â┬®lia]

I tried to say this before, but I wasn't very clear. This is not an inconsistency. In the second, earlier quote, Khel was pointing out that he was already on one bandwagon, and he wasn't looking for another. That, to me, is definitely not speaking out against bws.

I re-read the first four pages of our game, and that explanation satisifies me. As it was the main reason for my voting,

unvote: Khelvaster

One question: Khel, why didn't you point this out? Or did you, and I somehow missed it?

Because you've only been playing here since the 5th, am I right in assuming that you haven't played a deadlined game here? Because I'm telling you from personal experience that

we do not want to be deadlined.

. It is a bad, bad thing for the town. For one, the more substancial posts we have, the more we have to go on in D2. For another, having a deadline gives scum a chance to manipulate the lynch by hanging back, then hammering. Also, it forces townies to make decisions about lynches before they are ready. Make no mistake, a deadline is a punishment. I think this game is going too well to be deadlined.

If you feel we're missing a sense of urgency, my suggestion to you would be to make a case and try to convince some of us you're on the right track.

[Khelvaster]

there were three votes for shady, and now there are three votes for you. If you didn't notice, it wasn't like I suddenly changed my vote to you.

I already cast my vote--I'm not looking for a bandwagon.

That's where I said it. I think you just missed it.

[Khelvaster]

Of course, I retracted the statement about bandwagoning people on d1 on page 3 or 4, so that no longer applies. It was my justification at the time however; I wasn't contradicting myself.

[Aimee]

I disagree with the comments. As a town, we shouldn't be thinking about deadlines. We should be discussing, only really considering deadlines when discussion slows, and even then that is the mod's decision.

Also, I will be away on June 6, so that is a pretty bad deadline, from my perspective.

[shadyforce]

Just checking in to let you know I'm still alive, but very busy at the moment. I'll read back through the last few pages when I get a chance. Lots of discussion to catch up on, which is good.

[d8P]

I think we should try to beat Intrigue

Seriously, deadlines are not good for the town. They sometimes need to be tolerated for the good of the game, but only when the town isn't doing its job. If we haven't arrived at a consensus by June 6th but we're still discussing, there's no justification for a deadline. Coppélia summed it up nicely.

Cuban Smoker's Intrigue Mafia had 47 pages on day one, I think.

[d8P]

Part Two

Ripley says he interpreted it as “almost asking for permission to join the latest big thing.” Ripley also notes that basically everyone in the game with the exception of beanbagboy and shadyforce have mentioned negatively his actions, by vote, FoS or otherwise.

In post 84, MF chimed in to say "we should probably hear what Khelvaster has to say before we add any more votes". To remind you, in post 80 he said: "I think we've said more or less all we can about Khelvaster's inconsistancies, so I guess we have to wait for him to respond before taking further action."

Beanbagboy then says he finds Khelvaster’s actions more newbish than scummy, and actually finds the people who targetted him more suspicious, which I agree with. He says that people are “overreacting”, and targets Coppélia as one of the people who jumped on the bandwagon without major reasoning.

This I thought was just mad. Four people had voted for MF at this stage, yet Coppélia was the one to point out the inconsistency-which-wasn't . Targetting her for lack of content is definitely noteworthy.

But who else would you accuse of that, and why didn’t you give them FoSes, maybe? Why Coppélia in particular? And I believe that Coppélia did bring up a major inconsistency of Khelvaster. Other people would have been better targets.

She definitely brought something to the debate so his attack ("no new major points") was inaccurate.

Khelvaster comes on, but instead of defending himself, he merely decides to say he is unsure who to vote for. I’m very disappointed – I would expect a defence, but the fact there wasn’t one suggests... something. Meanwhile, his lack of a vote also shows indecisiveness, and also the fact he seems pretty unwilling to join in discussion. You understand, Khelvaster, that discussion is more important than voting (although voting is still crucial)?

After all the calls that had been made for him to explain his actions I found this to be mindboggling. The only possible justification that I could come up with was if he thought the issues had been resolved. Which they hadn't. Scum wouldn't be likely to do this, but then neither would town. [/wifom]

Shadyforce then votes for pickemgenius saying he is “getting scummy vibes... but I can’t quite put my finger on it.” To me, this sounds like a gut suspicion, although there is nothing wrong with that. But he says pickem hasn’t posted much in the way of analysis or thoughts, and has been more slyly voting. I have to say I agree with this, and pickem in the next post doesn’t really defend himself, but tries to shift suspicion towards Khelvaster.

My interpretation was slightly different - he clearly tried to defend his original attack on Khel, but effectively undermined it. He said it was "just a way to get out of the random voting stage".

Coppélia disagrees with BBB, and argues that she in fact did contribute to the wagon, but pointing out his inconsitency. As Coppélia argues “Inconsistency is the main reason I’m voting for Khelvaster...” I have to say I agree with Coppélia here.

I'd agree that she had contributed, but dispute *what* she contributed.

MightyFireBall, who hasn’t done much, says he is willing to remove his vote from Khelvaster if he explains himself, which sounds pretty reasonable to me. And Ripley announces that after Khelvaster didn’t explain himself, he has turned against him, so to speak. I agree with Ripley here too.

Here I need to jump forward to your analysis, rather than commenting on the points you analysed. There seems to be a bias - you seem more generous toward Ripley than pickem, though they effectively both reacted negatively to Khel's lack of defense. Wait, was this because you felt pickem hadn't defended himself adequately, so his going after Khel for not defending himself is hypocritical? If so, sure.

Work to do. To be continued...

[Ectomancer]

On the lynching block today:

voting: 9/12

Khelvaster (2) - pickemgenius, Shanba
MightyFireball (2) - d8P, Khelvaster
d8P (2) - beanbagboy, MightyFireball
Earwig

(3)

- Ripley, shadyforce, Aimee

not voting: 3/12

Coppélia
Earwig
kabenon007


With 12 alive, it's 7 to lynch.

[kabenon007]

you know, khelvaster, I wonder if you are pushing for a deadline because you are no longer the vote leader, and a deadline would most likely lynch Earwig? What say you?

[MightyFireball]

I'm thinking his deadline push isn't that suspicious. It's his first game on this site, and the deadline he proposed would give us plenty of time. I don't think the vote distribution has anything to do with it either. It was probably a suggestion of something that he has done in previous games elsewhere, and he didn't know that pushing for a deadline as town wasn't really supported much here.

[kabenon007]

Point taken.

[Khelvaster]

The spread is 2/2/2/3. I was asking for a deadline because it had reached a 10-day mark. I had no idea deadlines were bad for the town--I haven't ever played a forum game, let alone one which was deadlined. If I were scum and wanted a deadline to further my own means, there is no reason for me to have posted in this topic instead of PMing the mod. As I said in a previous post, I thought a deadline was neutral for the town, so I posted here to see y'all's opinion on it.

[beanbagboy]

Ok... a lot happened while I was gone. Earwig, I don't suspect him for lurking (yes, ripley, put your hand down, we all know that he is active elsewhere, blah, blah, blah, I'm pointing out that it might not be earwig's imminent evil.) but the scumtells he just posted... no, that didn't really occur to me.

Khelvaster is just sort of being wishy washy, jumping on lots of wagons besides his own.

I'm sort of switching now, d8p made a good post there, I agree with a lot of what he just said. That earlier hypocracy, was, IMO, much more noteworthy than Khel's initial WIFOM, but the game has further developed from these points and I'm now leaning towards Khel and Earwig.

Although, Earwig having ADD might explain some of his behavior, these things run in my family. I'm sorry for being vague, I'm rereading the game now.

[beanbagboy]

Gah, I missed an entire page!

BTW:

unvote: d8p for now.

On reading this page... Khel still looks suspicious to me, the deadlines and all. Earwig, meh, possibly.

[Khelvaster]

This has been having more talk than any of the other deadlined mafias--it likely won't peter out for another month if we let it keep on going. I suggest a June 5 or 6 deadline--that still gives us plenty of time, but also puts in some sense of urgency. I've got the feeling a lot of people are just toying around with each other, instead of even trying to come to some sort of concensus. June 6 wouldn't rush anyone, since that's two weeks from now, but at the same time it would show that we need *some* amount of urgency

First of all, I advocated a deadline 2 weeks from now, not a deadline 2 days from now. Second of all, I didn't know that deadlines did anything bad for the town. If I had known that you all would think I was scum, I would have PM'd the mod, instead of posting it in the open to see what everyone else thought about it.

[d8P]

Part three is on its way, but I had to comment on that first.

You'll be sure to let us know if you secretly discuss anything else with the mod that's bad for the town, won't you Khelvaster?

[beanbagboy]

Okey doke. Reread, at least up to page six, which still gave a lot of in sight. I still think the bandwagon talk by Khel really wasn't scummy at all, but then he made lots of other defensive posts, making excuses and WIFOMs that didn't make sense. Shad and Khel both voted Pickem, who, at that point hadn't really done anything scummy at all.
d8p's stuff makes more sense now. MF... meh, I still need to look more closely, but not yet.

Also, Shanba has been lurking in plain sight, IMO. He hasn't posted in two pages, and his last post, while long, was all quote except for one line by him. I don't think he contributed much of value through the first six pages.

So:

Vote: Khelvaster, FoS: Shanba

mostly so Shanba will post more original stuff. The more Khelvaster talks, the more I think he is scum. It's still possible that he's just a newbie making mistakes, but I'm starting to doubt that. I remember, in Newbie 356, I pulled the "whoops, I'm a newb!" card all the time. It worked very well, actually, but still, don't let him completely off your radar.

Bob has been acting consistently metagamingly wise with the only other game I've COMPLETED with her. I'm playing lots of games with her but we're both alive in all of them. Bob, despite being in like twelve games, is still a goon, which disturbs me.

(Also, Aimee, I got Garth Brooks and Enya off my iPod yesterday in favor of stuff like Cartoon Heroes and Sandstorm. Mmm! *dances*)

[d8P]

Part Three:

Beanbagbob says that Coppélia is over-reacting to his pressure vote. I strongly disagree here. Coppélia was merely defending herself, and genuinely seemed suspicious of Khelvaster. I feel that BBB was taking the “third bandwagon vote” too seriously here.

I don't think he was calling his vote on Coppélia a pressure vote. I made four notes about this post:
1. bbb seems to be new to the idea of bandwagonning: "Oh, OK, it's more of a pressure vote than anything else. I see, never mind then." Now that I look back, I see that it's unclear who this is addressed to and what he means. Were you paraphrasing/confirming what someone else (Coppélia) had said to you?
2. He misquoted the Wiki, I think: "third person on a bandwagon is very likely to be scum". I remember reading the article in question. Do you have a reference? I can't find it now but I'm sure anyway the figures didn't say anything like "very likely". "Marginally more likely", perhaps. And besides, once those figures were published that changed everything, since "the third person to vote on a bw" became a universally accepted tell, not because it meant a person was very likely to be scum by any stretch of the imagination, but
because it might indicate scuminess.
3. He voted Coppélia because she hadn't contributed anything new even though she had. She refuted this and restated what she'd contributed but didn't take any further action. BBB says

she

is
overreacting. That's so ironic it'd rust.
4. He says "we haven't seen Khelvaster in a while", but Khel had made post 87, bbb's was post 93.

Khelvaster then says he can only come on at certain times (definitely justified). He then says he was pointing out bandwagons, but won’t do it anymore, and also says that he is an “easy target” and brands the person who attacked him first to be scum. That is pickemgenius. Er, why the first person? Why not people who jumped on after? His next post accuses pickmegenius, Earwig or MightyFireBall. I don’t understand whi FireBall was picked. Also the reasoning for pickem sucks. He was actually the first on the bandwagon, yet he accuses him of following Ripley. ‘Cept Ripley voted for you as a random vote, so technically pickem did really start the bandwagon properly, which pickem says in his next vote. Khelvaster also accused pickem of vote hopping, something I hadn’t considered up to that point.

The way the first of his three posts in a row was constructed is what convinced me he was inexperienced. My notes: "looking at Earwig, pickem or fireball as scum", attack against pickem exaggerated and without substance (omgus?)

d8P considers Khelvater’s actions as newbish, and switches his suspicion to MightyFireBall, who he says has produced the least content, a point that is hard to argue with.

Forward to the analysis again. Did you mean that it's always hard to argue with that point?

Ripley also points out that pickem pointed out Khelvaster’s actions on the next post, wheread Ripley’s initial vote was random. I have to say, I agree with this.

Khelvaster’s case becomes blurry here. He says that it was pickem’s initial plan to target Khelvaster because he was an easy target. Yes, pickemgenius just decided pre-game that he would target someone who could maybe be an easy-target, despite the fact that no one had posted yet, and decided he would start a bandgwaon on this ‘easy target’ based on a hypothetical random vote that may or may not be made. Yup, logical.

My notes: Khelvaster went mad... pickem and Ripley both tried to tame the inaccuracies without embellishing or overreacting. More wildness follows from Khel -

Khelvaster also says the pickem could have bounced lots of votes against people in the random voting stage, so he could just go back to them if he wanted to. Except that vote hopping is a common mafia tactic, and can easily be identified. Khelvaster’s mistakes seem to be newbie orientated.

BBB stepped in here to say he thought Khel was being sincere, that there isn't much of a case. But he claims Coppélia hasn't answered his last question so he'll leave his vote on her. You'll be forgiven for not knowing what question that was. She responds later anyway.

Indeed, MightyFireBall agrees with what I said,

He also responded to one of Khelvaster's outlandish statements

Any reasonable townie would want to quick-lynch someone who he thought was mafia.

Not unless said townie was absolutely sure that said person was Mafia.

While that bit is fine, MF also makes some of the wateriest statements I've ever seen: "If it turned out the person was innocent, the townie would probably end up getting lynched, which would not be good for the town."

A bit inconsistent, beanbagboy mentioned a few posts previously he found Khelvaster to be “sincere”. Then, he says “weird”. He thinks that Khelvaster is scum trying to cover up his mistakes. “...the more he talks the more it seems like he slips up.” Why the sudden change of opinion?

Thought I should highlight this as it wasn't answered.
After kabenon challenges Khelevaster, bbb sides with the Khel-is-suspicious camp, and kabenon asks the quieter ones to come forward, naming Aimee and me! I naturally reread all of kabenon's posts to find evidence that he was scum. There was one thing that was kinda weak/biased so instead I resorted to sarcasm (see below)

Coppélia responds to beanbagboy’s points by pointing out that three votes is often scummy in a newbie game, but in a large game three votes is no-where near a lynch. I have to agree. Putting the third vote on doesn’t really have much of an impact in this game. She also argues that Khelvaster is being too defensive. She makes a good point – other than pickem, he hasn’t really explained what he thinks of people. He sounds at times confident and at times rushes to explain his newb status, making Coppélia unsure about him. I agree with this.

I have to say, I found some holes here. I really don't want to say what they are, because it means that I'm challenging Coppélia and defending Khel again, and considering the fact that he hasn't raised the points himself... I don't if I should. The holes are there, but if he's town shouldn't he be up in arms about every inaccurate claim laid against him?

d8P then says he doesn’t contribute much unless he has something valuable to say. Whilst I agree to an extent with this, I think the line between ‘valuable’ and ‘invaluable’ is difficult to draw.

It later becomes significant that the comment is in response to kabenon's call for the quieter ones to come forward. Incidentally, I would even go so far as to say it'd be impossible to draw a line between the two

He also accuses MightyFireBall as being the person who has contributed least and just agreed with others. I would agree, but Earwig has posted much less and been less helpful. MightyFireBall points back to a post where he analysed Khelvaster, and whilst this is true it isn’t an elaborate or particularly analytical post.

The crux for me was that MF had apparently been involved a lot, whereas Earwig was lurking. Noone could have said "MF is luking, scum lurk, therefore MF is scum". Looking at the posts he'd made though made me think (then as now) that he was lurking in the light.

Coppélia then agrees with me, and aks d8P how he would define valuable.

[d8P]

Sorry, forgot to mention that's it for today. More tomorrow. Can't help wondering whether I'm falling further behind or catching up. Damn compound interest.