Mini 578 - Mistery at Montescuro - Game Over!

[Near]

Wow, this game is going at quite a pace.

Near's FOS on VampanezeHunter for not OMGUSing me is weird and I don't agree with it. Other people have said this, and now I'm saying it too. I also don't like Near saying "it was a joke" - didn't seem like a joke at the time.

Explain. How can anyone think that my post was serious unless you were trying to look for a victim for your a bandwagon.

[Dasquian]

Well,

I

thought it was serious, because you actually did FOS him and gave a reason, and gave no signs of it being a hilarious gag. Saying it was a joke seems like a cop-out afterthought.

[Evilgorrilaz]

Well, I thought it was serious, because you actually did FOS him and gave a reason, and gave no signs of it being a hilarious gag.

Exactly what I thought.

[Near]

Well, I thought it was serious, because you actually did FOS him and gave a reason, and gave no signs of it being a hilarious gag.

Exactly what I thought.

Wow. The reasons were complete jokes. FOSing someone for not OMGUSing the person who is voting for him? Watch for post restriction after the person has made like one post?

And

if i wasn't joking

, why does it make me suspicious? I am trying to start a wagon on three people at once?

[Evilgorrilaz]

And if i wasn't joking, why does it make me suspicious? I am trying to start a wagon on three people at once?

Because your reasons sucked?

[Near]

And if i wasn't joking, why does it make me suspicious? I am trying to start a wagon on three people at once?

Because your reasons sucked?

so you think it was more likely than not that i didn't know that my reasons sucked?

[Yosarian2]

Uh, if you attack someone for a bad reason, it looks scummy, yeah.

[Guardian]

I see what you are classifying as WIFOM, but I don't really see it as being WIFOM. No, I don't think that that level of WIFOM is meritorious of my vote this early in the game. I find my lack of a vote (and FOS of you) a more useful state of affairs, yes. The lack of a vote because there's nobody I have any desire to lynch right now based on what we've seen, and the FOS because while what you're doing could be considered scum hunting (by pointing a lot of fingers and raising a lot of often-moot or frivilous points and gaging the reaction people have), I don't like your methods, at least not at this point in the game. The way you're doing things puts people on edge which makes them watch what they're saying much more closely. A better method, in my opinion, is to let the conversation flow early on, and start grinding down on folks once they've had a chance to incriminate themselves, not try to get them to incriminate themselves by grinding down on them.

I find that your method leads to scum being on edge and townies being careless, whereas mine leads to only scum being logically inconsistent.

Now this, this is WIFOM. He says so himself, actually. However, I still don't think this is meritorious of my vote. It's too early to be band wagoning on anyone.

It is never to early.

"Useful Content" might have been poor wording - "contentful content" might be more accurate. What I meant was, you can easily have a 20-page day 1 if everyone's posting little 1- and 2-liners. Or you can have a 3 page day 1 with the same amount of content if everyone posts thought-out, multi-paragraph posts as the norm. Granted, there's some posts that are flat out useless - my image macro response to the joke vote on me, for example - that's an entirely useless post that does nothing to further the game. I believe it was you who was moderating a game I replaced into recently where the first 6 pages consisted of about 15 useful posts and a lot of stupid bullshit. This is an extreme example, but that's more or less what I'm talking about. My point is, post count is not a good indicator of whether or not it's a good time to lynch. Evidence is. We don't have enough evidence to warrant considering a lynch right now. Would you disagree? Do you honestly want to lynch Phox right now? How about Near? You certainly appear to be pushing for it.

I appear to be pushing for Near's lynch?

If we don't bandwagon now and think seriously about lynching, we'll wind up on page 20 and wonder how the hell we got there, and I'll point back to this post in intense frustration.

As for the whole 'everyone voting different folks during the jokevote stage' ongoing discussion, in all honesty, I don't see this as being particularly scummy. Chances of anyone getting lynched because of one of those jokevotes are so slim it's not even worth mentioning. It could be a matter of someone not wanting to draw attention to themselves by ganging up, sure - but town or scum, who wants to draw attention to themselves? No one. Sure, scum would be more conscious of it, but this early in the game? This is a null tell.

No.

[Guardian]

Evil, you haven't answered this.

Yes I have.

I believe that Near's logic was more faulty than JtP's.

Thats my answer.

So Near's logic being more faulty than JtP's makes Near's FOS be more than 'one small instance', while JtP's WIFOM still fits into the category 'one small instance'?

[Evilgorrilaz]

So it appeared.

[Macavenger]

Apologies in advance for the incoming text-wall; this game has been moving very quickly.

Would it have been more worthy of bandwagoning if I wrote a full paragraph?

Depends entirely on the content of the paragraph. In this case, most likely not, because I don't think there's enough of a case on Phox to fill a paragraph right now.

Hypocrisy and WIFOM aren't worth bandwagoning?

Depends on the severity. I'd say Vampaneze is every bit as guilty as Phox, if not more so (same end of the random phase 'offense,' moving his vote when a bandwagon built off it). In light of that, why would you be trying to bandwagon Phox over VH?

Vague insinuations? The only insinuation I see that I've made is that Phox should get more votes.

Partially, this is a tone thing, but:

I think it's mildly weaker than my case on Vampaneze; worth a few questions and your own vote, but not exactly something worthy of trying to rally a full bandwagon over.

Peculiar...

what is worth rallying a full bandwagon over?

(Italics mine)

This was the best concrete example I could find. You are questioning ordinary statements about reasons for actions in a way that seems to imply that they are scummy, when there's nothing scummy about them. It feels like you're trying to plant an impression of scumminess over ordinary statements, which I think qualifies as making insinuations.

Asking lots of questions can be good scum hunting, but right now I feel like you're doing more twisting/distracting than looking for reactions.

Justify this.

1. See above.
   
2. I get the distraction point from the fact that you are barraging so many questions at everyone right now that it seems people are having a difficult time fitting their own scumhunting in around reacting to your questions. You are dominating the thread. The majority of posts I see are either you or people reacting to you. This theory debate you started doesn't seem to be progressing the game at all. You appear to be trying to force people to react to you more than think about the game for themselves.
   

3. FoS: Near

   
   Failing to OMGUS is not scummy.

   Why doesn't Near's FOS count as 'one small instance'? Why is Near worthy of a bandwagon for one small instance, but Phox isn't?

   A great example of the twisting I'm talking about. He's not even voting Near, let alone asking for a bandwagon on him. You're either not paying attention here (which I find
   highly
   unlikely almost to the point of absurdity based on your other questions), or you're trying to twist his argument into something it isn't.

I'm not sure why what I'm doing looks

that

crazy; I'm trying to garner responses and reactions from players, and I'm trying to get people to justify their actions and opinions.

Based on my points about twisting and such, I feel you're fishing for certain types of reactions that benefit you, not honest reactions. This doesn't look like scumhunting, it looks like witchhunting, in the Salem Witch Trials style.

Happy with my vote on Guardian right now.

Explain. How can anyone think that my post was serious unless you were trying to look for a victim for your a bandwagon.

Well, I thought it was serious, because you actually did FOS him and gave a reason, and gave no signs of it being a hilarious gag. Saying it was a joke seems like a cop-out afterthought.

This. We had pretty well exited the random voting phase by the time you posted that. Since you gave no indication at the time that it was a joke, why would you expect anyone to assume that?

Furthermore, this wasn't posted until late on page 3. There was nothing more relevant you could have done then other than make joke FoS's? You still haven't contributed anything this game other than mocking people who took your post seriously, despite 4+ pages of content with some very interesting stuff from Guardian, as well as reactions to the same. Why don't you post about a couple players you find suspicious and why?

I see what you are classifying as WIFOM, but I don't really see it as being WIFOM. No, I don't think that that level of WIFOM is meritorious of my vote this early in the game. I find my lack of a vote (and FOS of you) a more useful state of affairs, yes. The lack of a vote because there's nobody I have any desire to lynch right now based on what we've seen, and the FOS because while what you're doing could be considered scum hunting (by pointing a lot of fingers and raising a lot of often-moot or frivilous points and gaging the reaction people have),

I don't like your methods, at least not at this point in the game. The way you're doing things puts people on edge

which makes them watch what they're saying much more closely. A better method, in my opinion, is to let the conversation flow early on, and start grinding down on folks once they've had a chance to incriminate themselves, not try to get them to incriminate themselves by grinding down on them.

(Italics mine for emphasis) I endorse this product or service.

As for the whole 'everyone voting different folks during the jokevote stage' ongoing discussion, in all honesty, I don't see this as being particularly scummy. Chances of anyone getting lynched because of one of those jokevotes are so slim it's not even worth mentioning. It could be a matter of someone not wanting to draw attention to themselves by ganging up, sure - but town or scum, who wants to draw attention to themselves? No one. Sure, scum would be more conscious of it, but this early in the game? This is a null tell.

I think it's a very mild scumtell. As you say, scum would be more concious of it. I pursued the issue with Vamp mainly because it was the biggest thing I had to go on at the time. Obviously I'm much more interested in the weird stuff Guardian has been doing now, as I'm getting much bigger scumvibes from that.



What do people think of the idea of a Guardian/Near/VampanezeHunter scumgroup? Vamp acts like he's trying to avoid attention, then disappears when he gets some anyway. (Bit early to accuse him of outright lurking yet.) Near has been acting oddly and not contributing. Guardian has, well, reread the first half of my post if you missed it for my thoughts on him. Guardian has also been slinging questions wildly, but has asked only one light question of Vamp, and none that I've seen of Near. Some of his questions could almost be interpreted as defending them, in fact. (Why is Vamp more vote worthy than Phox, and similar.)

Also, since I know some people like to make a big deal over this, no, I don't

know

there are 3 scum in the game. I'm making an educated guess based on the fact that this is a 12 player mini normal. Without introducing odd mechanics that require a theme game it seems most balanced; unless this is a mountainous game, which I doubt from the way people are acting.

[PyroDwarf]

I agree with Macavenger on his scum list, but I'm not sure about Near. I'm more suspicious of Guardian and VH than I am of near.

[Singing Librarian]

Near, there's no way I'm changing my vote - your post had no indication that it was a joke, and from many games I've read here, coming up with spurious reasons for suspecting people is a tactic scum are forced to use (since they know exactly who is and is not scum), hence it leaping out at me. With a smiley or some such indicating the non-serious nature, it would have been an obvious joke, without it looks like reaching.

I think Near and VampanezeHunter are more likely scum than Guardian at this point. They'd be my top two most likely, but I have yet to detect a third to go with them.

[Dasquian]

I would agree with that. The case against VH is a weak early game case, I know, but it's still valid and he's yet to respond to it. The case against Phox is similar, but I prefer VH's and I don't really understand why Guardian favours it.

Near's case is a good one too, and one I may lend my support to after deciding what I'm doing with my VH vote.

I think the logical extension of concluding that they're scum together is possible, but assumes too much for this stage of the game.

[JamesThePhox]

Wow, this game is moving along really fast. Sorry for a very delayed response, it's been a busy week so far for me.

Looking over the posts, it seems like the only question directed towards me was the one Pyro and Guardian asked (I'll use Pyro's post as an example):

Waiting for phox's response to Guardian's allegations before I move my vote. I want him to elaborate on this:

I think that's a fair assumption. Not that bandwagoning is a major accusation these days. It seems to me that as long as the votes are spread out evenly, then the reasons for voting don't have to be held by strong opinion. It allows for wishy washy votes.

This was in response to the "fair and balanced" vote count, after he voted next to last.

I responded to this because, although I didn't agree with Macavenger, I thought it was something to give my opinion on. I feel like the second part of my response to Macavenger was elaborated on by Joudas here:

[quote="Joudas]It could be a matter of someone not wanting to draw attention to themselves by ganging up, sure - but town or scum, who wants to draw attention to themselves? No one. Sure, scum would be more conscious of it, but this early in the game? This is a null tell.[/quote]

Although I thought what Macavenger had to say about how the votes were spread out was interesting, I don't feel that anyone was particularly scummy because of the even distribution of votes in the "random stage voting". Seems like a null-tell to me as well.

Initially my random vote was also to spark discussion and it seems to have done so, in an interesting way. At least the town is talking.

With that said, there are a couple things that stuck out when perusing the post:

Near's strange opening post with his equally strange justification. Although it seems like he plays the same way in all of his other games, the FoS reasonings made no sense. I can see the lighthearted joke post, if it were still in the random voting stage at that point. But he came in halfway into page 3 with that post, when there were more important issues that required some dealing with. Whether his disregard for the VH posting issue or Guardian's case on me is an attempt to keep himself from standing out, I don't know, but his lack of opinion on what everyone else is talking about is making him stand out even more, which would not be something a townie would do.

I don't think he's done anything too scummy, but his posts seem like they're distracting town rather than help town find mafia.

FoS: Near

@Near: Why are you ignoring the discussion about VH or about Guardian's case? Do you have any suspicions of your own?

Regarding Guardian, I can see how my post seemed to be a bit hypocritical, so I don't find his accusation against me to be without legitimate reason. I mostly believe that his questions are more, like he said, to get reactions from the other players, which he has successfully done. Although some of his questioning is a bit strange like here:

How do you decide what is useful content and what isn't? Which player in this game would you say has the most useful content in proportion to their total number of posts? Which player would you say has the least?

I don't understand how this question is helping the town find mafia. How would this information help develop a case against someone or add to your own case? Could you elaborate more on what you were trying to get at?

I would also like Guardian's opinion on Near since he

FoS'd

Near without a reason. What makes you suspicious of Near?

As for VH, I can't say much about him, since his activity only seems to be a tiny notch up above mine. I don't believe his random voting was scummy, however, I do find his quick unvote a bit eyebrow raising (even though he unvoted off of me ). His reasoning would have made more sense if he provided it along with the unvote, but it seems like his reasoning was forced and hard to believe (especially with so many people talking). But until he starts posting a bit more, I don't have a very strong opinion on him, yet. I definitely have my eye on him, though. (As well as SensFan)

As for everyone else, I'm reading neutral on most. Joudas is leaning towards pro-town for me. I agree with Joudas' responses to the "shorter days hurt town" theories. And the rest of his posts I'm getting good vibes from.

I'll

Unvote

for now, since Macavenger isn't high on my suspect list at the moment. Not leaving him off the hook though.

[Joudas]

As for the Guardian / VH / Near scumgroup, I'm not sure I'd classify Guardian as scum quite yet, but I'm leaning towards thinking Near is. VH, we don't really have a lot to go on besides inactivity, which while certainly not helpful to town, isn't necessarily indicative of scum either. Out of the three of them, I think I'd be most comfortable with Near. I'm not really getting much in the way of bad vibes from anyone else, honestly. At least not in a magnitude warranting a vote. As I said, I'm going to be gone for 2 days starting just about now, so I'm going to hold off on voting until I get back. A lot can happen in 2 days, and I don't like having a vote sitting somewhere when I can't reasonably remove it if the situation changes.

[Guardian]

Would it have been more worthy of bandwagoning if I wrote a full paragraph?

Depends entirely on the content of the paragraph. In this case, most likely not, because I don't think there's enough of a case on Phox to fill a paragraph right now.

Interesting.

Hypocrisy and WIFOM aren't worth bandwagoning?

Depends on the severity. I'd say Vampaneze is every bit as guilty as Phox, if not more so (same end of the random phase 'offense,' moving his vote when a bandwagon built off it). In light of that, why would you be trying to bandwagon Phox over VH?

VH also merits bandwagoning. I'm more interested in Phox because I see him as about equally guilty, but there is much more resistance.

Vague insinuations? The only insinuation I see that I've made is that Phox should get more votes.

Partially, this is a tone thing, but:

I think it's mildly weaker than my case on Vampaneze; worth a few questions and your own vote, but not exactly something worthy of trying to rally a full bandwagon over.

Peculiar...

what is worth rallying a full bandwagon over?

(Italics mine)

This was the best concrete example I could find.

Me finding your logic peculiar is a vague insinuation of your scumminess? This is a reason to find me suspicious?

You are questioning ordinary statements about reasons for actions in a way that seems to imply that they are scummy, when there's nothing scummy about them. It feels like you're trying to plant an impression of scumminess over ordinary statements, which I think qualifies as making insinuations.

Positing this is true, why is this bad? Is being suspicious of everyone and trying to interpret everyone's actions in a scummy way indicative of me being scum?

Asking lots of questions can be good scum hunting, but right now I feel like you're doing more twisting/distracting than looking for reactions.

Justify this.

1. I get the distraction point from the fact that you are barraging so many questions at everyone right now that it seems people are having a difficult time fitting their own scumhunting in around reacting to your questions. You are dominating the thread. The majority of posts I see are either you or people reacting to you. This theory debate you started doesn't seem to be progressing the game at all.

I disagree strongly with the assertion that all, or even the majority, of what I've been talking about is theory. I also disagree strongly that my 'dominating the game' is at all indicative of me having anti-town motives.

You appear to be trying to force people to react to you more than think about the game for themselves.

If people don't make time to respond to me and think about the game themselves, how does that become my problem? How is it my problem when a good portion of my questions are asking people to scum hunt and think critically about the game? How is at all indicative of me having scum motives?

FoS: Near

Failing to OMGUS is not scummy.

Why doesn't Near's FOS count as 'one small instance'? Why is Near worthy of a bandwagon for one small instance, but Phox isn't?

A great example of the twisting I'm talking about. He's not even voting Near, let alone asking for a bandwagon on him. You're either not paying attention here (which I find

highly

unlikely almost to the point of absurdity based on your other questions), or you're trying to twist his argument into something it isn't.

I'm trying to get him to respond to me, and see if he notices and defends what I'm claiming he said. He pretty much agreed that Near was worthy of bandwagoning. That's noteworthy to me, and I'm happy I asked that question.

I'm not sure why what I'm doing looks

that

crazy; I'm trying to garner responses and reactions from players, and I'm trying to get people to justify their actions and opinions.

Based on my points about twisting and such, I feel you're fishing for certain types of reactions that benefit you, not honest reactions.

What sort of reactions would benefit me that aren't honest reactions? Why would townies react in a non-honest way to my questions?

This doesn't look like scumhunting, it looks like witchhunting, in the Salem Witch Trials style.

You haven't convinced me that this is a justified view, in the slightest.

Happy with my vote on Guardian right now.

I assume you're serious now, as there is no smiley face?

Some of [Guardian']s questions could almost be interpreted as defending [VH and Near], in fact. (Why is Vamp more vote worthy than Phox, and similar.)

The color blue could also be seen as orange if you're wearing funny glasses.

Have you considered the possibility that I'm trying to get reactions out of suspicious people that I

don't

see anyone else focusing on?

[VampanezeHunter]

Sorry guys was sleeping reading through now...

[Guardian]

Phox, I found Near suspicious because he first posted after being prodded: almost immediately after Yos2 called him out for lurking, he OMGUS'd Yos. His entrance was completely unhelpful, and he hasn't been very helpful since.

I wanted Joudas to back up what he asserted. People having logical consistency is indicative of their being town. I wanted to see if he does.

Phox, what do you have to say about my case against you?

I just re-read; I find many people suspicious. Near, Phox, Pyro, VH, Mac, all have an elevated chance of being scum, in my opinion, roughly in that order. Accordingly:

unvote, vote: Near

Mac and Pyro are the only ones that hasn't been explained:

Mac: I don't see any reasonable justification from him for me being suspicious of me. He sees obscure play, points "ooh, bad!", and is attempting to back it up with reasons... but I'm really not buying any of it.

Pyro: I'm suspicious of him because his play has largely been "me too" -- e.g. he's doing a lot of agreeing and not much original thought.

[PyroDwarf]

Pyro: I'm suspicious of him because his play has largely been "me too" -- e.g. he's doing a lot of agreeing and not much original thought.

Well, I will agree with this. But, it's probably because I generally agree with what has been said so far. But, I will try to add more of my own thought in too. That being said, what do you guys think about Sensfan? I initially thought him suspicious because of his voting, but I became distracted by other, more frequent posters. I don't think Phox is scum, I'm still not sure about guardian. Right now, I'm thinking VH is closer to scum than Guardian. I'd like to hear from near(heh) now that he's got another vote and FoS. I think near has the best case against him right now, with VH next. My main issue with guardian was how he had sunk his teeth into a small comment and tried to run with it. I know that he just recently changed his vote to near, so now my suspicion has lessened. so I guess my scum list looks like: VH,Guardian, Near, sensfan ... idk, who else is lurking?
I'll keep my vote on guardian 'till we hear from VH and near at least, hopefully sensfan, too.

[Macavenger]

I'll respond to Guardian's comments a bit later tonight when I have more time (going golfing with some friends in a few minutes here). A couple quick notes I do have time to make right now, though:

I think Phox's latest post is pretty townish. I do agree that 38 was a little bit off, but honestly that is so minor compared to what I'm seeing out of several other people right now that I'm pretty surprised Guardian is still pushing that angle (see his scum list 2 posts above mine, Phox is number 2). While his behavior has been worht commenting on, the case is so weak compared to what several other players have done I just don't see the point right now.

I'd also like to note in advance that, while I'm still very suspicious of Guardian, I am considering moving my vote to Near soon. Near has been posting

extensively

in several games over the last 19 hours, but hasn't posted in this one at all, despite a lot of content and several people asking him to. Honestly given his level of activity elsewhere on the site right now, I think an accusation of lurking is justified, on top of the previously mentioned odd entrance and lack of content. If Near doesn't post something useful very soon, I will likely be voting him.

Interested in seeing what Vamp has to say once he catches up.

[Guardian]

Hm. Reading over this page, I see I missed a sentence of Phox's. So if he has anything additional to say I'd welcome it, but he has responded about my case on him.

[Yosarian2]

Near's strange opening post with his equally strange justification. Although it seems like he plays the same way in all of his other games, the FoS reasonings made no sense. I can see the lighthearted joke post, if it were still in the random voting stage at that point. But he came in halfway into page 3 with that post, when there were more important issues that required some dealing with. Whether his disregard for the VH posting issue or Guardian's case on me is an attempt to keep himself from standing out, I don't know, but his lack of opinion on what everyone else is talking about is making him stand out even more, which would not be something a townie would do.

I don't think he's done anything too scummy, but his posts seem like they're distracting town rather than help town find mafia.

FoS: Near

This feels...wierd. Like James is both attacking Near and defending him at the same time. "Near is strange, but he always plays like this, but his FOS's make no sense, but he ignored more important issues, but I don't know, he dosn't seem to have opinions, but he hasn't done anything to scummy, but FOS him anyway".

Not really sure what to think about James, but this post could be scum trying to distance from scum, or scum trying to attack a townie without looking bad, or...who knows. It just feels kind of odd.

fos:James

[Evilgorrilaz]

Why would you find that suspicious if all you had was a gut feeling that the post was weird?

[Yosarian2]

It's wierd in a way that looks kind of scummy, and I thought I just explained why it's scummy.