Newbie 1973 | Mountain | Over

[PenguinPower]

I didn't ask why you didn't vote for ETL or Gyro. I asked you what your thoughts on them were.

[PenguinPower]

sorry plot

[Plotinus]

Mitillos replaces Gyro Zeppeli! Please welcome him!

[chazary]

I mean - we're at the point where the votes are starting to mean something and aren't completely random. The same question still extends to your hop, though. Why a vote on me? Do you think ETL and Gyro are both town?

You're right. But the way I understood things was that you were asking if I thought ETL and Gyro were town because I didn't vote for them. Which basically meant you were asking why I didn't vote for them.

[Mitillos]

Unvote

Hello, everyone. Catching up.

[Ph0enix]

Actually I'm pretty happy that Chazary is town based on his stream of thought posting style.

Could you elaborate?

Phoenix how's the scum chat going?

Great, actually, thanks for asking.

No, I'm waiting for him to post before explaining.

That's not how that works, considering I have nothing to explain.

As for Farren's question in a previous post about whether I have any townreads:

PP and Cheeky are fine, both are being responsive and give fair explanations of their actions (although I'm waiting for Cheeky to explain the townread on chazary). Same goes for Farren, although I'm not quite convinced about him, for some reason. If I had to choose I'd say he's Town as well, though. Cheeky's a little bit too pushy for my taste, but that's a difference in playstyle, I guess.

As far as the others go, it's up in the air.

Anyway, to Farren: same question you asked me: any townreads?

As for Arthur:

Chazary hasn't done anything to scummy so far.

Can you talk about the difference between your Ph0enix "?" read and your chazary townread - in light of what I've quoted above?

Same question.

[Ph0enix]

Also, welcome Mitillos!

[Plotinus]

Official Vote Count 1.07

Half Dome, Sierra Nevada, USA

---

Lynching

With 9 votes in play, it takes 5 to lynch.

EspeciallyTheLies

(2): ArthurConyl, CheekyTeeky

CheekyTeeky

(1): EspeciallyTheLies

Mitillos

(1): PenguinPower

Not Voting

(5): Nomanssky101, Ph0enix, chazary, Mitillos, Farren

Deadline:

(expired on 2019-12-21 08:00:00).

Mod notes:

Mitillos is the new Gyro Zeppeli

Nomanssky101 is being replaced.[/area]

[Mitillos]

Initial reactions/reads (part 1):

ArthurConyl

: Not thrilled with his pre-emptive "I'm likely going to be a lurker" thing, but I can understand feeling the need to say it. Generally started out a bit shaky, but it can all be attributed easily to newbie status. Subsequent interactions seem reasonable, but I'd like 1) reasons for his current reads, including an answer to Farren's question in 165 and 2) some more scumhunting (mainly asking for vote explanations) that isn't focused solely on people who are voting him.

Read - Provisionally leaning slightly town.

chazary

: What's wrong with controversial choices? Especially if you're trying to see how people will react to being voted (i.e. creating pressure). Also, how is an almost-naked vote on Arthur controversial, but a completely unexplained one on Penguin not? Why would you expect anyone (particularly an SE, who has probably played enough games to have been voted quite a bit) to react to one vote? Generally seems wishy-washy on many things, which can potentially be indicative of newbscum not knowing where and how to target effectively, dipping a toe here and there to see where it's safe to go.

Read - Leaning slightly scum.

CheekyTeeky

: Hello, person I have previously interacted with! Some really solid scumhunting here. Good pressure, good questions, good responses to answers given. Mostly. The one thing that gives me pause is that right in the middle of questioning my slot, she switched her vote to one that looked either like a jokey exchange with ETL or an OMGUS. On its own, this is not big enough to worry too much about, though.

Read - Town.

EspeciallyTheLies

: Hello, person I have previously interacted with and who likes the best character from a great series! Not much to say here, since there was only one post of substance and even then not much of it. I have the following questions: Is the Cheeky vote RVS? If not, could you explain? Also, could you explain your apparent townread on Farren?

Read - Null.

Part 2 coming soon.

[CheekyTeeky]

I look forward to part 2. I'm back to null on Phoenix will elaborate soon just buuusy for next couple of hours.

[chazary]

chazary

: What's wrong with controversial choices? Especially if you're trying to see how people will react to being voted (i.e. creating pressure). Also, how is an almost-naked vote on Arthur controversial, but a completely unexplained one on Penguin not? Why would you expect anyone (particularly an SE, who has probably played enough games to have been voted quite a bit) to react to one vote? Generally seems wishy-washy on many things, which can potentially be indicative of newbscum not knowing where and how to target effectively, dipping a toe here and there to see where it's safe to go.

Read - Leaning slightly scum.

Fair. I've been very passive so far. And I should've put more thought into my random votes when I started posting.

So, Cheeky, I'm assuming you know ETL? Their vote for you comes off to me like an inside joke. I can't imagine any other reason why they'd say you were scum in their very first post this early in D1.

[EspeciallyTheLies]

Farren feels far more genuine here than his tactically cool and composed scum game I witnessed. Post 33 reinforces this feeling for me.

Well it looks like Ph0enix voted Gyro back after Gyro voted him, but how come CheekyTeeky and PenguinPower voted for Gyro?

I

really

like this - shows a desire to understand people's motivations in order to figure them out.

Being quiet or afk can usually be an indicative for scum.

... not during the first 48 hours. Waiting for a game to start can cause all kinds of lag. If the game had more substantial content, then yes, not getting involved would be indicative of .. something. But not on page 3 with only 4 people posting.

I'm not sure if this is scum behavior, either that or he's really eager to vote. It's also odd that he is totally certain that Cheeky is scum when he hasn't done anything to indicate that. Remember this is his first post and he's certain someone is scum and votes him. I'm voting for him until he explains.
VOTE: EspeciallyTheLies

This is fine. To clarify, I'm not "totally certain". But I like to go with my gut early on as it rarely fails me. There's someting off with Cheeky's posts and votes (explained further below). The only thing I was confident of at the time of my first post was that I needed to probe that more, hence the vote. I think it was rather successful actually. Multiple people reacted to my post which will give me a lot of information as the game continues.

I think Cheeky is Town. I like the poking and prodding attitude so far.

I think this is not at all a reason to townread someone with Cheeky's experience. It's super easy to ask questions and poke at people's posts. The truth comes in the result of that poking and prodding. So far I don't see any action coming out of that.

VOTE: especiallytheliea

Providing no backup claims to his vote.

This is just.. silliness. I didn't even return to the thread until this morning. How am I expected to respond to things I haven't seen yet?

Gyro Zeppeli has been banned for a couple weeks, so you don't have to play with him anymore. I'll find someone else for the slot.

Yep. Saw that coming. Didn't I say he'd get handled one way or another? Cool.

She's making an effort to actually sort people through questioning (e.g. not empty questions).

I guess I'm not seeing the same things you are. I see a bunch of empty questions, a lot of IC-ing, and not much sorting. Not many substantiated conclusions, if any at all. The vote on me, without allowing me any opportunity to respond to questions, says a lot.

By the way - do you often defend your townreads? Is that a common thing you do? Does this mean that you are strongly townreading Cheeky?

What do you think of ETL and Gyro - or the slot that was previously occupied by Gyro?

Well I don't understand the votes on ETL. They've only posted once so far and don't seem like a new player so I can't imagine thats a sign of being scum and is probably just them being afk for real life reasons.

As for Gyro I think he's been suspicious from the start but thats just bc of his awkward introduction mistaking Phoenix for someone else which just snowballed. Now that he's banned I can't say I have a good read on his position in the game bc it was kind of all over the place. Will have to reassess that slot once its filled.

I... think I like this response? I'm trying to figure out if it's genuine or if it's scum-bias townreading everything.

A replacement doesn't change his alignment, so if you found his actions scummy - to a point you were willing to vote pending answer - I don't understand what has changed in the interim.

I feel like you were harrassing Phoenix to unvote, without directly telling him to, and now you're harrassing him about his unvote. wut

Most of his posts are empty without followup; unlike Cheeky

It's just post after post after post from you defending Cheeky and my initial gut read on you was that you were probably town but this, regardless of Cheeky's alignment, is suspicious AF. Especially considering there has been no such "followup". Actively posting means nothing at the moment, especially if they are always an active poster.

Still unsure of the wagon on ETL though. What did they do? or is it for memes

I did the thing I always do, and made a definitive statement to see how people react.

I'd be shocked if ETL *and* one of her voters were scum. I'd be similarly shocked if ETL is Town and *none* of her voters were scum.

This is beautiful, and I believe the same, as far as one of my voters being scum.

Hello, person I have previously interacted with and who likes the best character from a great series!

Hallo! Yes the best. We are re-watching it again in honor of Odo.

I have the following questions: Is the Cheeky vote RVS?

Yes and no, but more no.

If not, could you explain?

I tried to put all my relevant thoughts on Cheeky's posts below.

Also, could you explain your apparent townread on Farren?

Very much gut based on tone, compared to the last game I played with him where he was scum.

Spoiler: why I believe Cheeky is scum

Leaning either SvS or SvT

This comment at such an early stage just pings me so hard. It's clear to me Gyro is a trolly aggressive player. I don't see anything in the interactions he quoted that are at all alignment-indicative. It reads to me like he's trying to set up a distance from a buddy.

with Gyro being the townier of the two

Oh forgot...VOTE: Gyro

Hmmm. Leaning either SvS or SvT with PH0NEIX* being the townier of the two for OMGUSing if this is not early distancing.

EBWOP... Well this is a good start :/

This confirms that idea - a slip of the tongue. He went back and read it. I don't usually re-read my own posts unless I want to make sure they sound a certain way (i.e. when I'm scum...) If the reaction is genuine, and he genuinely decided that Gyro is the scum in the two, how do you make that mistake? It's unnatural.

I'm not sure if it indicates anything alignment-wise on gyro/phoenix.. thinking on that.

1. SvT - Gyro is scum and trying to lowkey RVS in a way that doesn't draw attention and Phoenix really doesn't know who Gyro is or what ToS is and so votes for pressure.
2. SvS - Gyro and Phoenix feel pressured to vote early and decide to vote each other as a means to distance themselves early game. Perhaps Gyro slipped and they have discussed ToS in pregame scum chat.

I don't really follow this logic, which indicates to me it may be made up.

Because this...

The way I figure - Gyro's vote looks like standard RVS - with Ph0enix's clarification making it look like a case of mistaken identity. Voting for someone you know (or think you know) is NAI. Mistaken identity would be less likely to happen in an SvS situation if there was any scumtalk going on. Reduces the chance that it's an SvS interaction.

I personally thought the situation was pretty clear and NAI at all.

now things are getting interesting.

VOTE: EspeciallyTheLies

Yeah...now what?

Then there's this. The great thing about forum mafia is that I don't have to be on the thread all day every day to be involved and engaged with the solve. This is purely and OMGUS vote as far as I can tell, which doesn't give anyone much information about his motives nor does it actually accomplish anything as far as figuring me out. Phoenix and Gyro asked directly, which makes sense to me.

I need more from Arthur and ETL.
Gyro slot probably town.
Farren probably town.
Pp hard to say but I'm going with town.

Norman still hasn't posted.
Phoenix is a current scumread.

This feels fabricated to me. He's voting me but "needs more"? Clearly not since he feels I'm worth of a vote over Phoenix. And then so easily reading everyone who has been posting the most as town... lazy lazy. WHY are they town?

VOTE: ArthurConyl

VOTE: ArthurConyl

Is there a reason you two randomly voted for me?

you may be playing the shy newbie card as scum which I've seen before.

lolwat... he's literally a newbie. I didn't get the "shy" bit at all. This is garbage, especially as it came directly after Farren gave you an opening to do so.

Excellent.

VOTE: ETL

Again, voting someone who isn't around to answer the non-questions you haven't asked...

Ok I'm all caught up. Here's where I'm at:

1) Mitillos/gyro
I did NOT like gyro, mostly for tone. Not at all AI unfortunately, and I haven't seen enough of Mitillos to say just yet. I do like the point of providing his initial impressions right off the bat, and it's surely a lot more nice looking than my catch-up.

2) Ph0enix
I should have more of a read on this person than I do. I just... don't. I've been mostly focusing on Penguin, Cheeky, and Farren. This is definitely a slot on my list to explore more deeply once I've got a handle on the more concerning slots.

3) ArthurConyl
I feel pretty strongly this slot is town, just based on how he's reacted to things happening in the game and his apparent drive to understand it. I feel like if he was scum he'd be getting a lot more coaching in the PT. He comes across as truly being solo here.

4) Farren
As I mentioned above, his game here looks and feels way more genuine than his last game, where right off the bat I felt he was "off". He seems far more comfortable here. I think that's a good sign.

5) Nomanssky101
Who?

6) chazary1
I think this could be prob-town.. another on my list to explore more.

8) CheekyTeeky (SE)
See my responses above. I think a lot of my read here, beyond the in-thread issues I've noted, also stems from the fact that I'm expecting a higher level of game play from this person, so I'm going to be scrutinizing it a lot more heavily, and in doing so am finding things that don't jive with what I would expect from someone genuinely interested in sorting people out. The OMGUS vote in particular rubs me the wrong way. There was no questioning of anything else in my first post at all. Of course I can see why other people are townreading the slot, but I would caution against taking things at face value. It's far too easy to ask questions and be active as scum and I don't believe that's alignment indicative at all. The tone has to be right and I need to see the person working things out in the thread and coming to conclusions that I'm able to follow, even if I don't agree.

9) PenguinPower (SE)
Initially thought she was town, I thought there was a lot of really good probing and putting people on the spot to get them thinking - this is different than Cheeky in that I see questions but not results. With Penguin, I could see the motivation behind the questions, there was a distinguishable purpose. The only issue I have here is the constant defense of Cheeky. That is very problematic for me, and pulls this townread deep into null territory.

TOWN:
farren, arthur

maybe town:
chaz, mit

penguin - i'm putting her here for the reasons above

dead null:
phoenix, nomans

scum:
cheeky

bleh. the truth is i don't feel great about this list and definitely need to engage more to get a better read on everyone else.

buuut... i'm v/la every weekend because I don't use the computer, so mobile only. I will try though, for sure. Please say things to me.

[CheekyTeeky]

Yeah...PP is a HE. Will dissect and respond when I have time later today. Glad to see you posting though even if you're a scumbutt.

[ArthurConyl]

Chazary hasn't done anything to scummy so far.

Can you talk about the difference between your Ph0enix "?" read and your chazary townread - in light of what I've quoted above?

Throughout the game, Ph0enix has been voting without reason and unvoting when it seems controversial. Two examples of this are when he voted back Gyro, then unvoted him because Gyro's voters were under pressure of being scum. Then he voted Chazary, got grilled again, then unvoted.
The first time, with Gyro, if he really did just want to vote him back, why would he withdraw his vote when the wagoners were pressured? I believe he didn't want to be seen as the guy who started the lynch wagon.
Second time with Chazary, he voted him, saying he wanted to hear from "one of the quieter guys". Thats not really a good reason for voting him, but thats ok. Then when Cheeky questions him: https://forum.mafiascum.net/viewtopic.p ... #p11438328
A bit later he withdraws his vote. Following that he is under pressure again.
Read pg 5 to get the context.

P.S. How do I quote really old posts?

[EspeciallyTheLies]

My bad PP - I’ve been away from the other queues for a while I guess!

[ArthurConyl]

HI PENGUIN!! ♥♥♥♥

I was lynched D1; my partner D2. I picked a fight with a Mason and didn't even realize he *was* a Mason.

Hey that was me!
hello again Farren! So glad you're town this game.

Join me in lynching scum on D1 again.
VOTE: Cheeky

I'd vote gyro just for the sheer principle of removing unpleasantness but I feel like.. that will probably sort itself out, much like chibiie

More shortly. Dealing with work BS at the moment.

I'm not sure if this is scum behavior, either that or he's really eager to vote. It's also odd that he is totally certain that Cheeky is scum when he hasn't done anything to indicate that. Remember this is his first post and he's certain someone is scum and votes him. I'm voting for him until he explains.
VOTE: EspeciallyTheLies

EspeciallyTheLies can you explain why you voted Cheeky and why you were so certain of her being scum?
In response to your previous post about Cheeky being scum, I followed the SvS and SvT logic. Her random vote was in the RVS. I agree it is dodgy that she randomly voted me like that, but I don't think it means she's scum.

[EspeciallyTheLies]

Arthur did you see my post above?

Btw for posts in locked threads I usually click the PM button and cut the text from there.

[PenguinPower]

By the way - do you often defend your townreads? Is that a common thing you do? Does this mean that you are strongly townreading Cheeky?

I'm not really defending Cheeky...I'm explaining why I have a townread on her. I've stated my opinion on Cheeky already.

I feel like you were harrassing Phoenix to unvote, without directly telling him to, and now you're harrassing him about his unvote. wut

Ph0enix wasn't voting anyone when I asked my questions...so, I'm not sure where you get this feeling.

It's just post after post after post from you defending Cheeky and my initial gut read on you was that you were probably town but this, regardless of Cheeky's alignment, is suspicious AF. Especially considering there has been no such "followup". Actively posting means nothing at the moment, especially if they are always an active poster.

You realize that the way you broke the quote from my post 130 creates a misrep since you put two separate statements together as one to further your "PP defends Cheeky" argument...right? I'm thinking that was intentional, but feel free to explain if it wasn't.

[EspeciallyTheLies]

It wasn’t. I’ll have to look again when I get to my computer. I’m fine with your clarification at the moment.

[EspeciallyTheLies]

I quoted relevant sections I was responding to, and the whole thing is my impression of your posts. It truly felt a bit OTT otherwise I wouldn’t have mentioned it.

[ArthurConyl]

Arthur did you see my post above?

Btw for posts in locked threads I usually click the PM button and cut the text from there.

Yes I did. Quoting myself:
"In response to your previous post about Cheeky being scum, I followed the SvS and SvT logic. Her random vote was in the RVS. I agree it is dodgy that she randomly voted me like that, but I don't think it means she's scum."
Besides when you voted for her it was your first vote and she hadn't voted for me yet. Even back then, you were absolutely certain she was scum. Any reason for this?

[PenguinPower]

It wasn’t. I’ll have to look again when I get to my computer. I’m fine with your clarification at the moment.

It was. You quoted the below:

Yes. A few, actually. Most of his posts are empty without followup; unlike Cheeky

and said I was defending Cheeky. This makes it seem like I was saying that Cheeky's posts were different than Gyro's because they had follow up.

The actual post was:

Yes. A few, actually. Most of his posts are empty without followup;

unlike Cheeky, I didn't like his response to having three votes

; and, I like the wagon dynamics right now.

In which I stated that I disagreed with Cheeky's assessment of Gyro's response to the three votes on his wagon.

[Mitillos]

I look forward to part 2.

I have good news, then.

Initial reactions/reads (part 2):

Farren

: The towniest and scumhuntingest person in the game, so far. Consistently asks for justifications and explanations for what people say, claim, and vote for.

Read - Town.

PenguinPower

: Starts out problematic. Third on a wagon, throws some shade on Farren (Farren actually interacted a lot with many different players despite his lack of a random vote, so he wasn't denying anyone the opportunity to analyse Farren's interactions). Afterwards gets a lot better, both in terms of the types of questions he asks and the responses he gives. When I hadn't yet joined the game, I skimmed a bit and had a slight scumread on Penguin, but now I'm happy with the following:

Read - Leaning town.

Ph0enix

: There was a bit of quoting posts and saying "same" at the start that would have made me very suspicious had it continued, but then he switched it up to some good questions and (more importantly) good counter-arguments to some bad attacks on others. This is a slot I wish to see a lot more from, because I think it has potential to be solidly sorted early.

Read - Leaning town.

Nomanssky101

: Literally nothing

Read - Null.

Also, an update on a previous read.

Spoiler: Unrelated to the game

Hallo! Yes the best. We are re-watching it again in honor of Odo.

This made me sad.

I was reading ETL's post 186 and for most of it I was thinking "plus points for ETL", even where I disagreed with her conclusions. And then, I saw this:

3) ArthurConyl
I feel pretty strongly this slot is town, just based on how he's reacted to things happening in the game and his apparent drive to understand it. I feel like if he was scum he'd be getting a lot more coaching in the PT. He comes across as truly being solo here.

This came after accusing Cheeky (her main scumread) of IC-ing in favour of scumhunting. Note that Cheeky has been giving answers that could be thought of as "coaching" to Arthur. For that matter, Farren could also be seen as "coaching" Arthur (see post 41). Obviously, I don't think this was happening, as I'm townreading all three players involved here, but ETL's reasoning above seems to contradict the situation, in light of the Cheeky scumread. In short, @ETL: IGMEOY.

At any rate, this is not enough to put ETL below chazary.

VOTE: chazary

p-edit: @Penguin: I think ETL was saying it wasn't intentional.

[Mitillos]

To summarise, my current scumread order is chazary > ETL > nomanssky > Arthur > Penguin ~ Phoenix > Cheeky > Farren.

[Farren]

It might be self-explanatory but just to be sure, what do you mean by naked voting? My vocabulary is lacking. Voting with no reasoning? Also who exactly are you accusing of naked voting?

A naked vote is a post that contains a vote and nothing else (other than maybe an unvote, for those like me who prefer to unvote before voting). My post 152 would be an example.

Trying to process a tonal ping here - what did you think naked voting meant?