Mini 692: Boost Mafia (Game Over!)

[Jahudo]

Jahudo -- why uboost me and not boost someone else? No one you find likely to be town?

The boost started out as random and although I began to think SL was town, I’d been growing more confused with her reactions and I’m still catching up with your recent posts although I will say that I disagree with the argument that you are suspecting Incog in the same manner as SL did or that it is scummy to pick up where SL left off. The suspicions brought up between SL and Incog should be answered and not dropped just because SL is gone.

And I’ll probably make a second boost after I do a finish a re-read of the last few pages.

I would like everyone to let the group know what they think about
* Incognito's dismissive-ness of arguments against him in general
* My recent points against Incognito
* Incognito in general

1. When SL first called Incog passive I read his reaction as townish and didn’t see how his posts could be called passive since then. I also think she called him out for it so early in the game that there were other reserved and cautious, or simply inactive, players that you could also prod into getting a better read. I also didn’t agree with her read on him as it progressed.
2. I don’t think that he’s entirely dismissive of arguments against him but his personality may account for how he was insulting to SL. Maybe I could find a little bit of ad-hom but I don’t see it as excessive. What examples do you have because I might be missing something. I also like RR’s summary in post 333 where he looks at Incog’s change in attitude towards SL and also the talk about Incog agreeing with points brought himself.
3. Unless I see a strong case on the ad-hom, I don’t see how the rest of Incog makes him scummy.

But you said that I was drawing poor conclusions.

I felt they were conclusions that are inaccurate or misguided based on the information available in the case of saying that RR had stated his wrongness and is something more to bring against him, when I don’t see that it is. As a whole I have to confess that I think you are reading the game fairly well and keeping active, and this is only one example of how I read your words as misguided.

The jury is still out on Incog. Overall, his posts seem like they are looking for the kind of information I want as town, but I've seen a few examples of fallacy or emotional and strategic manipulation that make good sense for scum.

I’m not sure I know which posts you are referring to with the “fallacy or emotional and strategic manipulation”? How does it look in context?

[iLord]

I need to reread the big Guardian/Rest of the Active Players posts.

How exactly have I done that?

I'm not quite sure - If I did, then we wouldn't be as distracted.

Well, I certainly don't usually take the time to look at things before they're responded to and make a list of how I would take each respone. The number of possible responses in a given scenario is usually huge, and such a tactic therefore becomes futile. I mostly scumhunt by looking back at things already said rather than specualting on what's gonna be.

Also, I already gave you some far fetched examples of stuff I would find scummy in such a situation. Interpertaion of other more common actions demends specific circumstance.

Persistent, aren't you?

How do you tell if something was scummy?

Someone said something about sthar's massclaim speculation, I don't quite recall the exact post but I thought I'd do a recap on it and see if I'm missing something.

Do you think I went back looking for reasons to unvote him because I was scared by your attack of me?

That's what I was trying to figure out.

[Raging Rabbit]

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.

So you see attacks against you in a pro town light, but full fledged ones are a scumtell?
What gets me here is how you claimed to consider her attack a towntell, but after she didn't have the grace to accept your explanation and drop it you basically started a gradual (I'd say it looks too gradual) process of slowly pushing her back more and more. It just seems like you were trying to downplay her case and after that the OMGUSy-ness of your attack as much as possible, and tried way harder than I would think necassary to establish your vote as reasonable and called for.

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.

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?

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.

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

I'm not quite sure - If I did, then we wouldn't be as distracted.

So again, attacking me for intentionally distracting from it when you don't actively do much to push it back and can't tell exactly what I did to distract seems very unconvincing and not particularly honest.

How do you tell if something was scummy?

Basically, I look back on it under all known circusmstaces and try to figure out how likely it is to come from town and if scum have any motive to say it. If it isn't and they do, it's scummy.

That's what I was trying to figure out.

Well, what's your conclusion?

[iLord]

adsfasdf

So again, attacking me for intentionally distracting from it when you don't actively do much to push it back and can't tell exactly what I did to distract seems very unconvincing and not particularly honest.

I'll admit it doesn't seem that convincing, but I've pushed it back, and the people in the town that answered have said that it is a null tell. Could you explain why their reasoning is incorrect?

Basically, I look back on it under all known circusmstaces and try to figure out how likely it is to come from town and if scum have any motive to say it. If it isn't and they do, it's scummy.

How do you figure out the difference between "how likely it is to come from town" and "if scum have any motive" since all scum have the motive to look town?

Well, what's your conclusion?

I'm going to go look back to see if someone did mention mass claim speculation, and if someone did, then I cannot draw the conclusion that you just made it up.

[Raging Rabbit]

I'll admit it doesn't seem that convincing, but I've pushed it back, and the people in the town that answered have said that it is a null tell. Could you explain why their reasoning is incorrect?

Don't like the appeal to majority here. Also, I don't get what you're asking. What do you mean by "it"? I would assume the "distracting" issue, but who said it was a null tell and where?[/quote]

How do you figure out the difference between "how likely it is to come from town" and "if scum have any motive" since all scum have the motive to look town?

This is where the difference between anti town and scummy comes in to play, some bad townie actions make no sense from a scum point of view as well and therefore are not a scumtell.

[iLord]

Don't like the appeal to majority here. Also, I don't get what you're asking. What do you mean by "it"? I would assume the "distracting" issue, but who said it was a null tell and where?

[/quote]

No, I mean the issue of whether or not guilt was a scumtell, which was my original point that I claimed you distracted from.

I've stated my reasoning for why it's not a scumtell. You've stated yours. Some of the town that answered my query has stated its. It's not just appeal to majority - if you feel that their reasoning is incorrect, you must state why.

This is where the difference between anti town and scummy comes in to play, some bad townie actions make no sense from a scum point of view as well and therefore are not a scumtell.

What does this have to do with how you tell if a situation is coming from a town or a scum that's trying to look as town?

[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.

[iLord]

Incognito, I can't really say anything, as you've probably had more success scumhunting then me, but I think you're scumhunting mindset is flawed.

You can't assume those that act irrationally anitown are scum.

Nor can you assume that all situations are the same for each person - just because something is an accepted "scumtell" does not mean that it is indicative of scum for specific players.

Yes, SL pushed a lot of weak points on you. But you have to look back and see if she would actually do so as scum.

BTW, in the links you listed, did SL actually fake anger? I don't really have time to read over the game right now.

[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.

[iLord]

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.

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

The degree to which she exploded only strengthens my belief. It's not something she usually does, and it's very townie.

[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.

[Elmo]

Today is a truly joyous occasion: RandomGem replaces fuzzylightning!

[RandomGem]

Today is a truly joyous occasion: RandomGem replaces fuzzylightning!

Not too joyous since I'm not the greatest player, but I'm sure I'm better than nothing!
Okay, time to read... I promise to do this soon, but not today soon. :/

[iLord]

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.

But maybe she believes the points she are pushing in this game are actually strong - she has expressed as much after her first anger outburst.

I don't think scum would intentionally push weak points, but I know some players that would.

[Huntress]

Unvote

for the moment.

I've finished my initial read-through but it's a lot to swallow at one gulp so I'll probably take some time to fully digest it all. My first impressions make me suspicious of Electra, iLord, eldarad, sthar8 and springlullaby/Guardian although this may change when I've delved deeper.

There is, however, one thing that stood out from right at the beginning (post 16) which I don't think was addressed.

Finally, we're going to want to know what the boost did to the best of the boostee's knowledge, so we can continue to use it effectively, so if we do boost a protown power role, then we would potentially have to out that role the next day.

What makes you think that the benefits of outing these power roles would be greater than the benefits of keeping the details of the roles secret?

[iLord]

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

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

[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.

[RandomGem]

Yeah, I'm still here but really busy... I'm on like page 2...
Probably not going to have anything to say for the next couple of days, and then after that probably won't either. (But I'll have read the 15 pages?)

[Raging Rabbit]

I'll have no access 'till Thursday, see you guys then.

[Jahudo]

Boost: Raging Rabbit

I like his recent posting. He's scumhunting but not focusing too heavily on one person or one point, but it looks like he's paying attention to alot of the dynamics going on.

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:

Um, yeah, this is such weighted bombast

And who are you, the Neils Bohr of Mafia or something?

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.

[Huntress]

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

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

I don't think he's scum with springlullaby/Guardian but I'm not ruling out the possibility that there might be more than one group, or that they may both be townies. It's just that of the two, I think SL/Guardian more likely to be scum. Bear in mind that this was from an initial read, some of which was quite heavy going, so I'm pretty sure I haven't caught every nuance yet.

As for his not commenting on Electra in the beginning, I note that he seemed more interested in other people's reactions to her and didn't comment on the claim itself but he explained this in post 85 which I found plausible. I haven't done an in-depth study of anyone yet so I might well change my mind after further investigation.

[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.

[sthar8]

I was mentioning my view - I didn't read her as scummy or town, but as a new player.

Why

? Not "how," not "what." I already know the answers to those questions.

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

When he first started playing here we had to clear it with Mr Flay, and we couldn't play in the same games until after he moved.

Do you happen to have a link to the one game where he's been town?

I'll dig it up, but I don't think it'll help much. If I recall correctly, he replaced in halfway through a day for a claimed doc, helped lynch the obvious scum and was nightkilled. Here's the link to Skillit's first post in that game.

(Because in themselves they are pretty similar to mine, so I guess your point here is the timing, right?)

Yeah. Although I did check you out when I decided to move my vote off Skillit's wagon. Your opinions seemed to contain genuine and original reasoning, where Crazy was just agreeing with the majority.

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?

It could go either way. If they are distancing, I think it's not likely to be the same kind of "safe" distancing I suspected you of, where you could create a heated but ultimately meaningless argument. If they are partners, I'd expect that iLord felt that RR was going to take more heat than he has for his vote on me, and decided to do some bussing while he didn't need to manufacture a reason. iLord could also be scum without RR, and be seeing an easy wagon. 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.

My first impressions make me suspicious of Electra, iLord, eldarad, sthar8 and springlullaby/Guardian although this may change when I've delved deeper.

I hope you're wrong, otherwise we're in LYLO

Seriously, though, if you had to vote/boost, who would it be for?

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.

QFT. Self-aware meta, and particularly self-presented meta, can only ever be a null tell and is often scummy. There is no reason for town to trust someone when they announce that they are behaving like they "always do." It's a simple matter to go mining for games that support your position, as town or scum.

Jahudo, you asked me about some of Incog's rhetorical tendencies. That turned into a rather lengthy post, so I'll put it up seperately as soon as it's finished.

Top three are: Huntress, iLord, RR in that order.

Welcome, gem!

Mana_Ku, Electra: Thoughts?

[iLord]

asdf

The two responses of Jahudo to Incognito is interesting:

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'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.

Jahudo needs to explain this apparent discrepancy.

Why? Not "how," not "what." I already know the answers to those questions.

So everyone would know my views towards her posts.

[Electra]

Sorry, I haven't really been following this game for a little while.

Finally, we're going to want to know what the boost did to the best of the boostee's knowledge, so we can continue to use it effectively, so if we do boost a protown power role, then we would potentially have to out that role the next day.

What makes you think that the benefits of outing these power roles would be greater than the benefits of keeping the details of the roles secret?

Uh... to determine if we want to boost the person again? Obviously the ideal boosts for the town are boosts on town that cause the best effects. I would consider things like extra cop investigations, roleblocks, etc, to be the best effects while things like night immunity or an extra vote or something like that (just theorizing) would be nice, but don't really give the town much information. So if someone only gets an extra vote the next day from boosting, I'd rather not boost them again.

Now going back through the posts I missed...

@ Guardian - You didn't address this, I don't think, but you agree with springlullaby's assessment of Incognito but not her assessment of me (in that she found my post to come from a town). Why do you think she felt this way?

@ Incognito and TDC - I'm reluctant to look at meta for ongoing games considering I was yelled at in other thread for using ongoing game meta sighsigh.

@ Guardian - I don't see why Incognito would think you'd be suspicious of him when you replaced. I don't think it was an OMGUS vote towards you specifically. I also think you should have responded about the double boost instead of asking whether you should respond about it being misguided or suspicious - that seems like you trying not to fall into a trap.

I disagree about your other points about boosting, but I do agree about the scum boost trail, which would be useful.

I also disagree about my claim being good for me if I am scum and there are no other similar roles - I find it very short term thinking. If I were scum, I would never do something so risky - the point is to survive for the entire game, not to survive until the town massclaims and then die instantly.

@ sthar - Up to this point, in general, people just sound too similar. Right now, I find Guardian suspicious, but I did not find springlullaby suspicious. I also find iLord suspicious for future posts and also his constant commenting on my noob tells (although I might just be finding that annoying xD). I still think Crazy-replacement is the best lynch - he asked to be replaced in this game, but not in another game, I believe.

@ iLord - my read of SL was town-ish, but Guardian is very scummy to me. What's your read of Guardian alone?

@ Guardian - "I feel like it might be fair that SL was OMGUSy," This comment sounds like Mafia to me. It's a concession about your previous player to ideally get you further in this game. Seems scummy.

" 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!"

This is also scummy, you didn't forget, you just made a mistake. Scum make mistakes.

Why do you encourage boosting of sthar over the other player? (I forgot who it was.) It seems like you commented on the two of them to have a unique thought but then you fall back to the general consensus that sthar is town-ish.

@ iLord - Why the hell is "quick boosts" a scumtell I'd be looking for? What other games have boosts?

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.

@ Raving Rabbit - can you just give me a quick summary of your views in the game?

By the way, I think that people are overlooking Crazy too much. It seems that in this game, people latch on to an active player to fight with and ignore inactives. I guess I have this feeling because I was inactive for a bit and I was expecting much more suspicion on me when I returned, but the vast majority of people have just continued to attack whoever they were attacking.