Mini 692: Boost Mafia (Game Over!)

[TDC]

Your point is that if it is town-town then an unbiased replacee would realize this because he is unbiased.

If that is true I would think that the unbiased townies around would notice that this chance is high -- this argument goes in circles.

That's not what I was trying to say. You are not unbiased, you know your own alignment.
If you're town the question you face "Is Incognito scum?" is less complicated than the question unbiased onlookers face: "Is one of them scum? If so, who?"
You did not enter with the ballast of "I've discussed with this guy for 10 pages, he must be scum", so yes, I see a difference between you noticing this is the case, and someone else noticing it.
Is that delusional?

This is why I am asking for ***YOUR*** reasons and reactions, independent of mine.

I thought this was clear enough, but apparently not:
I can not pull up a specific post (or a couple of them) and say "look, here, this is why they can't be both town." If I could, I wouldn't need to rely on the meta lean to decide between you, because these posts would probably give me much more to decide on.
It's just a general impression I got from reading the thing.

My role is not like that, and to me the notion of such boost-hungry roles is weird.

Do you think Electra would've garnered as much support as she did if everybody had a role like you?

This line of thought only helps me IF people think I am town.

There are probably other ways to make people think you're town. I don't see why both things would need to be achieved with one action.

You are putting the chicken before the egg -- what I am asking about is how me continuing to pursue Incog is supposed to make me look town-like in the first place.

I have never claimed it would.

[Raging Rabbit]

Just posting to say I'm back, will respond to Incog and iLord and comment on recent events when I'll have the time.

[Incognito]

Incog, why does it not make sense that in my 1-1.5 hour re-read I attacked what stuck out the most -- you being a complete jerk to springlullaby?

First, just to get this straight, I wasn't a jerk to her. I even

apologized to her

and kindly asked her not to replace for something I didn't even need to apologize for,

she conceded that it wasn't even my fault

and that it was instead her own fault, and we were ready to continue from there until she again flipped out after I brought more evidence against her to the table. Second, that's not what you were attacking me for. Your main attack against me was for supposedly being dismissive of her arguments. It doesn't make sense because now after you continued your barrage and gained everyone's opinions about me, you've suddenly come forward with your 384 where your opinion is suddenly wavering about me when those posts you quoted were in the thread for you to analyze all along.

It was obvious not everyone was going to agree with me immediately -- when does that happen in mafia??? You ask "what would have happened if everyone agreed?" as if that was a realistic option.

It takes a majority to lynch, does it not? It must happen frequently enough for so many games to have lynches, no?

I pointed out what stuck out to me the most and got comments on it, thought about those, and continued gathering data. I started playing mafia. Why are you trying to cast that as suspicious? You say I am backtracking -- what from?? I never said I liked how SL attacked you for not having concrete suspicions, and I never said that I didn't find you suspicious anymore. The most contrition I had is that there MIGHT be an alternative explanation and that makes you *slightly* less suspicious.

Because like I said above, it seems rather convenient for you to suddenly analyze things the way you have in 384. Did you

really

completely miss those posts you just analyzed when you did your first read-through?

Also, why are you trying to meta me based on two/three games when I've played over 30?

I'm not. I even said I don't feel comfortable making a judgment call about your alignment through meta. I

did

bring up certain situations that happened in 574 and 554 that I thought were worth mentioning because they directly relate to what I've seen here, but again, I'm not using this as my way to solidify my read of you.

[Incognito]

Also, might as well

Boost: Electra

already.

[eldarad]

@eldarad:

You feel somewhat lurkier to me than you felt in the last game we were in together. Is something wrong? What's going on?

Nothing wrong, just very busy this last few weeks. And very busy this weekend. And very busy next week...
C'est la vie. I'm trying to keep up.

[Jahudo]

@Jahudo:

You haven't really explained what it is that's scummy about these so-called ad-hom statements. If I recall correctly, you yourself classified her 8 out of 10 comment as a

baseless accusation

. If I responded to a baseless accusation using hyperbole like I did (calling her the Niels Bohr of Mafia, calling her superfluous question about my

own

alignment "cute"), is that really truly scummy?

I think that it chips away at the opponent's argument without addressing the content of the argument. I took your response to mean that you disagreed with her using numbers to make a point. I feel like you were weakening the original point, that scum are more likely to be dismissive, because a number was applied to it.

My response was to explain those numbers so they have some weight, otherwise I don't know what she is basing it on. That is why I called it baseless and asked for elaboration. It wasn't that I thought it was scummy.

[sthar8]

If Raging Rabbit is beginning to look more and more pro-town to you, why is he still number three in your order of suspicions?

Because he

was

number two and "more protown" than number two is number three? I'm not sure what you're getting at here.

I think Incog's attitude is nonindicative. I feel like the case against him boils down to "I don't like his method of attacking SL, :. scum." While I could see many of his behaviors coming from scum, I don't see anything that points definitively to him

being

scum.

I think that the case against SL/Guardian is exceptionally weak. I see that SL was overemotional. I see that her case was poor, but she kept pushing it. I also understand that some of you feel that the frustration was false, but I can't understand why SL-scum would take such a big risk so early in the game, nor how any of the other points make her scummy, as opposed to frustrated and wrong.

Anybody who expected an unbiased perspective from Guardian must have been suffering from some kind of delusion, and I fail to see how the intrusion of reality onto that dreamworld makes guardian scummy. (no offense, Guardian)

We need to hear more from RR, Electra, Mana, Gem, and Huntress.

I am

so

happy with my vote right now.

Boost: TDC

[sthar8]

EBWOP: Apparently, I was already boosting TDC. My bad.

[Guardian]

Everyone seems to be talking as if I have declared Incog to be pro-town. I have declared that I am going to continue re-reading and figure it out. I have to comb through 3/4 more of his posts.

The whole recent attack of Incog's has been:

Incog: "Guardian missed some (important?) details in reading the game in under 2 hours. This is very scummy."
My response: "Why?"
His response: "Because you attacked ME."

What am I leaving out?

[Incognito]

If Raging Rabbit is beginning to look more and more pro-town to you, why is he still number three in your order of suspicions?

Because he

was

number two and "more protown" than number two is number three? I'm not sure what you're getting at here.

It should be obvious as to what I was getting at. If he's looking more and more pro-town to you as of late, what is it exactly that's keeping him on your list of suspicions at all?

[sthar8]

If he's looking more and more pro-town to you as of late, what is it exactly that's keeping him on your list of suspicions at all?

This is a fallacious assumption. Why would RR's falling place on my scumlist necessitate his removal from my suspect list?

[Incognito]

Is something getting lost in translation here? Your mentioning that RR is looking more and more pro-town to you did not lead me to believe that he was merely moving a spot down along your list; it lead me to believe that you were beginning to think he was likely town, period. That's what I'm getting at.

[Huntress]

HI Huntress! Long time since NG 576

Hi! Good to play with you again

@Mana_Ku, Huntress, and Random Gem: How have you felt about this thread so far upon replacing in? Have you found it to be a difficult read?

It certainly took a lot of getting through, too much to take in at one go! I think I got the gist of it from my initial read-through but I will need to go through it again in conjunction with individual reads on each person before I'm really up to speed. Once I've done that, and posted the results, it will be easier to keep up with the current posts.

[sthar8]

Your mentioning that RR is looking more and more pro-town to you did not lead me to believe that he was merely moving a spot down along your list; it lead me to believe that you were beginning to think he was likely town, period.

Then you are attaching connotation to my words that wasn't intended. Whatever arbitrary "implied" meaning you choose to find is irrelevant. What I said makes no mention of RR actually being town, just that his more recent actions were seeming more like town than his previous ones.

Let's try a (heavily simplified) graphical approach:
Here's a continuum of scumminess, with confirmed scum at the beginning, and confirmed town at the end:
scum<----1--2---3---------4----------------------5--------------------------------------------->town

Persons at 1, 2, and 3 are clearly the scummiest, and would make up my suspect list. If Person 2 started to sound like town, he might drop to position 4. Assuming that no player falls on the line between positions 3 and 4, then the suspect list only changes by one place, even though the person at 4 is much less suspicious than the person at 3. That person is still far more suspicious than someone at position 5, and I wouldn't call them "likely town" unless they sat somewhere between 5 and the town end.

[Raging Rabbit]

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.

I've already explained my reasoning for finding that a scumtell more than once, others are free to disagree. There's no point in arguing this further, it's a difference in points of view.

What I'm saying is that you dropped that point because it wasn't convincing anyone - even those who completely disagree guilt can be a scumtell don't think it's very scummy for me to think otherwise - and then attacked me for distracting from it by means you can't even point to.

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?

There are actions that both hurt the town and make sense from a scum point a view. These actions are scumtells. Also, I find actions purely meant to make the writer look pro town (like Incog's) scummy. Then there's the issue of gut, which off course cannot really be defined.

What are you hoping to gain by arguing this?

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?

Yes, this argument is worthless and scummy when looked at in isolation.

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.

She has a point here. Not comitting yourself to an opinion on such a dramatic early move is a good scum tactic, since the town may have a different set of assumptions about the game or simply a different line of thought that may make you look bad if you take the less popular side. Also, it is always to scum's benefit to reserve judgment for as long as possible. That's not to say it's a completely unreasonable townie course of action, but it's more helpful for scum

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?

It wasn't a "too townie" attack. Too townie is attacking someone for being too helpful and in the right to be town, while SL attacked you for trying to hard to

look

like you're helpful and in the right, which is my main reason for suspecting you as well. That's not the same thing at all.

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.

I have a slight meta on sthar8 as I just finished moderating a game in which he was scum in. I thought he played fairly well in that game, and I do have respect for his scum play, so I wanted to place a bit of pressure on him to try and get a better read of him. I thought he kinda skated by a bit in that game particularly on Day 1 as nobody seemed to really place much pressure on him until later on in the game during Day 2.

Therefore, I figured that by placing a pressure vote on him early even for more minute reasons I would be able to draw more information out of him and not allow him to skate on by

. Plus his answering of posts directed at other people has the potential to lessen the information we can draw from their responses since they could just copy or formulate their response around his own response thereby making any response they do put forward a null tell. I wanted to nip that type of "answering posts directed at other people" thing in the bud immediately.

Explain this apparant contradiciton.

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?

I don't think it's very good pro town play, but SL's attack felt totally honest and likely comes from a town POV. I don't think scum would get annoyed with a fake conflict to the point of replacing out. Upon a partial reread of your argument, I feel even more strongly about this.

Unboost TDC, boost Guardian

.

You, however, have been much more calm about the whole thing and I believe did more to

look

like the bigger person than to actually stop the circle discussion and look for scum in other places.

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.

I don't believe you. If you really took attacks against you this positively, to the degree of not voting her for such a long time despite continually claiming to find her attack scummy, you'd have stronger examples of doing it in the past in your typical games. I think the whole self conflict of finding what she's saying scummy vs. giving her the benefit of the doubt was planned ahead to make you look pro town and give your vote more weight.

Unvote, vote Incogito, IGMEOY iLord

.

Incog, how does my attack on you effect your read on my alignment?

[Raging Rabbit]

Completely read up now, a bunch of comments:

The attack on Guardian is completely unconvincing, in addition to SL looking totally town Guardian is acting pro town as well IMO. 384 was definitely not retracting his case on Incog.

Both boosts on me feel a bit off. Jahudo's change of mind about myself and Incog isn't completely convincing, and Mana_Ku's just unexpalined. Mana, the only opinion you really expressed in your comments on me was not liking my boost on electra. Why in particurlar can you "see me as pro town" more than you can see other people?

Incog (and whoever it was that agreed with him) - you attacked Guardian for "dirty" reads. Aren't Mana_Ku's reads even dirtier? Why ignore them?

What about your boost on Electra?

I voted for electra's boost, I didn't "hammer" her.

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

Top suspects are Incog and iLord. Leaning a bit scummy on Jahudo, Crazy/Huntress and Skilit/Mana_Ku. Leaning town on Guardian, electra, eldarad and TDC.

And what's with the "raving"?

[Incognito]

It wasn't a "too townie" attack. Too townie is attacking someone for being too helpful and in the right to be town, while SL attacked you for trying to hard to

look

like you're helpful and in the right, which is my main reason for suspecting you as well. That's not the same thing at all.

No. "Too townie" is attacking someone for

looking like

they're being too helpful and in the right to someone else, which is the exact same thing she was attacking me for.

Either way, if you're suspecting me for the same reasons, I have an exercise for you: I'd like for you to comb through the thread during early game before springlullaby began attacking me for these reasons and provide

specific examples

where you felt like I was "trying too hard" to look like I was being helpful. Then I'd like for you to do the same in other areas of the thread as well. gogogo!

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.

I have a slight meta on sthar8 as I just finished moderating a game in which he was scum in. I thought he played fairly well in that game, and I do have respect for his scum play, so I wanted to place a bit of pressure on him to try and get a better read of him. I thought he kinda skated by a bit in that game particularly on Day 1 as nobody seemed to really place much pressure on him until later on in the game during Day 2.

Therefore, I figured that by placing a pressure vote on him early even for more minute reasons I would be able to draw more information out of him and not allow him to skate on by

. Plus his answering of posts directed at other people has the potential to lessen the information we can draw from their responses since they could just copy or formulate their response around his own response thereby making any response they do put forward a null tell. I wanted to nip that type of "answering posts directed at other people" thing in the bud immediately.

Explain this apparant contradiciton.

It's not a contradiction? I had multiple reasons for voting sthar8 in my mind at the time, and the one you bolded in the first paragraph was one of them also. I pretty much forgot to list that one. Obviously if I voted him for doing it, I must have thought it was at least somewhat scummy to begin with.

I don't think it's very good pro town play, but SL's attack felt totally honest and likely comes from a town POV. I don't think scum would get annoyed with a fake conflict to the point of replacing out. Upon a partial reread of your argument, I feel even more strongly about this.

Unboost TDC, boost Guardian

.

Here is what springlullaby mentioned after the first round of annoyance (bolding the relevant portions):

Oh my, this is embarrassing,

I actually wish I could invoke some game related excuse to justify my play in this game and specifically my last post

, but as it is there is no way for me to get out of this graciously.

The only thing I can say is that bad days and lack of sleep aren't propitious to keeping a clear head in mafia.

I have reread myself and am quite embarrassed:

1. My last post is overly dramatic without reason.

2. My accusing you, Incognito, for my getting angry is pretty much entirely irrational. I'm sorry. I should have kept myself in check and my personal foul mood out of the game, and that's it. I really do appreciate the fact that you actually offered apologies when you needn't have. Thank you.

Right now I can only offer my apologies to everyone for shitting up the thread and for needless drama.

It's just, you know, really bad days and a convergence of things.

So yeah, really really sorry. I promise it is the first time I have blown up like that in a game and am really embarrassed. In the interest of not ruining the game further, can we just, you know 'move along, nothing to see'.

Please?

To summarize, she pretty much said that she acted the way she did because of things that were happening in her personal life and that her behavior here had absolutely

nothing

to do with the game itself and that she was going to try and block those things out to try and play the game better.

I then brought out a past game where she played similarly and she again, flipped out and asked for replacement after I brought this other evidence to the table. Looking through her other games that are currently ongoing or ones where she's already died and are still ongoing, I see no evidence that suggests that her "foul mood" behavior goes across the board. Her town play certainly looks more composed to me than her scum play so I'm not going to ignore this as "oh she was annoyed so she's likely town" when she has acted annoyed as scum before. Have you looked through her past games to be able to make this assumption, RR?

You, however, have been much more calm about the whole thing and I believe did more to

look

like the bigger person than to actually stop the circle discussion and look for scum in other places.

I don't think this is true, and I've already explained why but hey, I can't stop you from your "Incog is scum" fixation that only sees my actions in a scummy light. Again, I'd like you to read through the thread and

try

and notice that my focus was not primarily on springlullaby and that I was looking for scum in other places, otherwise I can probably conclude that you're likely suffering from a bout of tunnel vision.

I think the whole self conflict of finding what she's saying scummy vs. giving her the benefit of the doubt was planned ahead to make you look pro town and give your vote more weight.

How could I possibly plan things ahead like this

and

control a person across the internet to have him or her continuously attack me for more and more weak points to be able to

plan my own future votes

against them also? Wouldn't this only work if you thought springlullaby and I were scum together attempting some sort of gambit we agreed upon during pre-game?

Incog, how does my attack on you effect your read on my alignment?

I thought you were pro-town before this attack, and I currently think you're probably misguided town. Your vote is probably the only one I can stand at the moment while Guardian's and Jahudo's votes make me cringe.

Incog (and whoever it was that agreed with him) - you attacked Guardian for "dirty" reads. Aren't Mana_Ku's reads even dirtier? Why ignore them?

How? In summary here were her thoughts:

eldarad - pro-town.
Electra - neutral.
fuzzylightning/RandomGem - scummy.
iLord - initially pro-town, lately scummy.
Incog - pro-town.
Jahudo - scummy.
Raging Rabbit - pro-town.
springlullaby/Guardian - pro-town.
sthar8 - neutral to pro-town.
TDC - neutral.

I'm seeing four to five pro-town listings and explanations for each one, two to three neutrals, and three scummy listings. Guardian had exactly one pro-town and the other person he thought was pro-town upon replacing in was suddenly iffy.

[Guardian]

My re-ordered list is as follows:

6) Respond to Incognito’s recent

post

continued line of argument about my list of players and demonstrate how it is unfair.
1) illustrate clearer my problem with Incog being dismissive (mana KU also asking for this makes it clear to me that I should do it, that's like the third player. and maybe as I do it I will make it clearer for myself whether that accusation is correct)
4) Respond to Huntress's entry
5) Respond to Electra’s post.
2) Re-read game with all players in mind, now that I have clear idea of how the game generally went.
3) Read individually: Crazy, iLord, TDC, Jahudo, iLord-sth combo, lurkers
7) Answer questions people have asked me to answer, especially ones that they repeat/reference after I make this post. (*I may do this as they come, since it is nice to get my questions answered fast and it is only fair to try and answer other people's)
8) Respond to recent events I haven't thought about yet.

[Incognito]

Yes, please. 6 is probably the one I'm most interested in.

[Guardian]

If I'm correct, Incog said something about him not liking Guardian's list. Can you explain why.

Yes, I mentioned that his list is awful. I feel like too many of his reads are dirty*. The only person he seems to come to a positive conclusion about is sthar8, which is interesting considering the fact that he entered into the game saying that both iLord and sthar8 were town-like. Let's have a look at his PBP analysis, shall we?

1) Electra:

Claim could easily come from scum. No huge read either way. Misguided thoughts about voting and boosting.

Everything mentioned here is completely negative. Surely Electra's had to say at least

some

things that seem pro-town, no? And he still has absolutely no read on her despite all the negative things he said?

2) Mana_Ku (replacing Skillit):

All over the place. Does not appear to have a logical playing style. Hard to get a read on, something about his jumpyness disturbs me.

Negative, negative, negative.

3) Raging Rabbit:

Seems townish early but then some of his later arguments seem stretching.

Positi-- oh wait, more negative.

4) iLord:

Seems to be approaching the game fairly/reasonably, I am unsure about how I feel about his treatment of sth.

(Note: This is his read of one of the two people he felt was town-like) Positive at first but then slightly negative.

5) TDC:

Makes insightful posts but I am not sure I see much scum hunting. Unsure.

Positive then negative leading to a neutral read.

6) Crazy:

Nothing really stuck out about this one.

Another nothing read.

7) Incognito:

Attack on SL seems very ill founded. Often dismissive of arguments against him, continues to change the topic and/or resort to ad-hom whenever he is attacked.

The only person he's completely negative about. Note: He's basically picked up where springlullaby's extremely scummy tunnel vision left off.

8) eldarad:

Nothing sticks out one way or the other, seems like might be linked to Incognito.

Another nothing read. Note: I was the

only

person who Guardian was completely negative about, he mentions that eldarad might be linked to me, but still comes to a neutral conclusion about him?

9) sthar8:

Far and above most townlike player in the game for various reasons. Should be boosted today, obviously.

The only person he's completely positive about.

11) Jahudo:

He makes me suspicious but I cannot get a finger on why.

Wow. That sure says a lot. More negative.

12) fuzzylightning:

I don't remember anything about him at all whatsoever.

And again, a nothing read.

this is more or less fair assessment of the content of my reads, although comments like "picks up where sl's scummy tunnel vision left off" are misrepresentations, rhetorical, and unnecessary. It also seems he deliberately is misunderstanding me in some places (or has very little inductive abilities in determining how my final reads came out). For example, Electra is neutral but I comment only negatively on her. This is because she has had some good things to say, some bad things, but I don't think she should be cleared as a near majority of the town seems to think. I comment negatively on her because I am arguing with the town about what I think/thought the correct position is, a position labeling her as more scummy than most people have.

*

Explanation of Dirty Reads

: Scum oftentimes have to keep their player by player analyses as negative or neutral as possible for a number of reasons (I'm listing two here):

1) If they are lynched or killed in some way, they don't want pro-town players going back to their lists to be able to determine who his or her most likely buddies are.

This point seems to be that scum don't want to make anyone pro-town since if they die those people would be likely their buddies.

But wait, if I am scum, it isn't at all likely that sth is my buddy? Or iLord, since I was pro-town on him then am thinking about changing my mind? If I am scum aren't I leaving an even clearer trail to my buddies than if I also cleared some townies?

Or if I died you would have no idea if sth or iLord would be my buddies? Does me having pro-town reads actually make no difference at all?

It seems to me however the above questions are answered, we result in either:
-me clearing fewer specific people is worse for me as scum, because it points clearer to my buddies
-me clearing people as scum actually doesn't tell you anything about who my buddies are.

2) Most players in a game are town, correct (uninformed majority)? A potential scum has a strong incentive to keep things as negative as possible concerning his or her reads of a large majority of players in order to allow himself or herself more wiggle room for future attacks on those town players who he or she happened to list either negatively or neutrally. Scum don't go out of their way to clear people as town -- if they can keep everyone as anti-town seeming as possible, they can keep the town in constant doubt about each other's alignments thus allowing for more future mislynch possibilities.

in terms of making it hard to lynch people later -- yeah I completely agree. It makes it harder for me to lynch people later if I clear them now. The thing you miss is I don't want it to be hard to lynch people later as town unless I am really really sure they are town. Which is why I have only very strongly cleared sth, because I am most sure about him. I didn't talk about iLord more strongly because my read was not as definitive, and people are making me reconsider it.

It seems that both main points brought up here, that I don't want to leave links or that I don't want to make it hard to lynch people fail.

I will also ask this to more clearly illustrate the second counterpoint: If this is all true, why is "buddying" a scum tell? Don't scum like to make friends and win people to their side?

When I am town especially I make sure I do not clear people unless I am very confident, because when I have been wrong about who to clear it has completely burned me in the past, losing the game. I would rather not clear anyone than clear someone wrongly. You can win the game without clearing anyone and just lynching suspicious players. When I label someone as pro-town I often get blinders about them and want to think they are town, and if they are scum I might let them slip by all game. Even if I change my mind, people will get suspicious of me cuz "wtf you cleared them, now you are suspicious of them?" So in general I try not to clear people as town unless I am very sure. I will sometimes comment on actions as pro-town, but not on players as a whole nearly as often.



Also, SL attacked you for this very same thing Incog, not clearing people. She attacked you I believe less than a week into the game -- and that was probably the weakest and wrongest part of her attack -- you rightly found it unreasonable for her to expect you to have a solid read just a week in.

Now you've said this is a hard game to read, and acknowledge that if I read in 1.5 hours I probably missed some details.

Putting the above commentary aside

, even if it is a reasonable expectation for me to eventually have strong pro-town reads, why is it reasonable to expect me to have definitive reads one week into my playing, but unreasonable to expect you to have definitive reads one week into your playing? (Your easy response here is that there is more content in the game now, but I don't want to presume that that is your answer unless you say it is..)

Also, Incog, could you make it explicit in one post, or refer to where you have and I missed: which players do you have strong pro-town reads on?

[Guardian]

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

That is one reasonable way to approach the situation of replacing in and realizing you didn't catch every detail in your first read.

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

Lots of suspicion :). Are these all about equal levels? Can you order them possibly? Who is most suspicious (Electra?)? Least? Can you say anything about why these players peaked your interest?

[Guardian]

@ 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?

Hm. My best guess (without re-reading SL) is that she didn't think that a player she didn't recognize would pull off this gambit as scum. I just think that if scum could talk pre-game (could they? did mod say? I tried to check and did not see one way or the other) a more experienced partner could have told you what to do.

@ 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'm very confused about what this is asking about, could you re-explain/clarify?

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

That's fair enough but, could you explain why you disagree with my other points about boosting? You might see something I missed and convince me that those points are wrong -- more discussion about the theory of boosting is definitely relevant in this game.

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.

Hm, that makes sense, but you could end up saying "Guys, I guess my role was unique!" I did not consider this point and it lends some more credence to how I said your claim would be more plausible IF there are other roles that explicitly say what happens when you boost them.

I do NOT want other peopl to reveal if they have such roles, or make it obvious... but if you do have such a role it is possible you have justification for boosting Electra that is unavailable to me.

@ 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.

Why wouldn't town want to get further in the game? Me being lynched as town is the single worst contribution I can make to the town.

" 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.

You are asserting that I made a mistake as scum in my second post that I took two hours to compose after replacing in. I make mistakes as scum, but not like that. I knew I was suggesting a link between them and boosting them, that was a conscious choice/thought process. I boosted them despite the possibility of them being linked.

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.

No before you right now asked me why I am boosting sth. I find him town for many reasons. He takes a very ubiased stance to the game, his suspicions seem largely untied to anyone else's with possible exception of iLord (I need to re-read/dig deeper) and also he suggested mass claim on page one in a way that made sense. I can try and go into more detail if that is necessary.

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.

I agree with you a lot there, as I've said. As soon as I finish reading Incognito and commenting, even if I still find him very suspicious, I intend to look closely at the less active players and develop opinions about them.

It is way too easy to punish players for being active and let lurker scum go by. The more active someone in the more chances they have to look scummy -- lurking is suspicious in and of itself.

Towns in general and we specifically have to realize that at the end of day one the best play might be to lynch a lurker explicitly

for

lurking. Lurking is in and of itself suspicious and possibly lynchworthy in each individual game.

[Guardian]

1) illustrate clearer my problem with Incog being dismissive (mana KU also asking for this makes it clear to me that I should do it, that's like the third player. and maybe as I do it I will make it clearer for myself whether that accusation is correct)
2) Re-read game with all players in mind, now that I have clear idea of how the game generally went.
3) Read individually: Crazy, iLord, TDC, Jahudo, iLord-sth combo, lurkers
4) Answer questions people have asked me to answer, especially ones that they repeat/reference after I make this post. (*I may do this as they come, since it is nice to get my questions answered fast and it is only fair to try and answer other people's)
5) Respond to recent events I haven't thought about yet.

Whew, now when I finish 1 I can finally do my full re-read and break this game open >:-).

[Incognito]

This point seems to be that scum don't want to make anyone pro-town since if they die those people would be likely their buddies.

Woah, no, that's not the point I was trying to make at all. When someone is lynched as scum, it sometimes helps to go back and look at any comments he or she might have made about certain players that he or she used to arrive at their reads of them that just don't seem to make sense or "fit in" correctly. Since you went ahead and just brought up negative comments galore, it would be extremely difficult for us (if you're scum and lynched) to go back to your list and determine who your most likely buddies are since practically everyone received the same sort of commentary. That should help answer the rest of what you mentioned below this point.

I will also ask this to more clearly illustrate the second counterpoint: If this is all true, why is "buddying" a scum tell? Don't scum like to make friends and win people to their side?

Yes, of course they do, but they'll likely only buddy up to people who they see have major influence over the town or who they may perceive to be a major threat to their agenda. They're obviously not going to buddy up to every single person within the game; they wouldn't get very far that way. So my second point within my explanation of dirty reads is still valid.

[...]even if it is a reasonable expectation for me to eventually have strong pro-town reads, why is it reasonable to expect me to have definitive reads one week into my playing, but unreasonable to expect you to have definitive reads one week into your playing? (Your easy response here is that there is more content in the game now, but I don't want to presume that that is your answer unless you say it is..)

Lol. Guardian, "easy response"? It's the obvious response. That's how the game of Mafia works, does it not? You begin knowing nothing, stuff happens, you begin formulating reads, and then you try and draw conclusions.

Also, Incog, could you make it explicit in one post, or refer to where you have and I missed: which players do you have strong pro-town reads on?

As of this moment, I have pro-town reads on eldarad, Electra, Raging Rabbit, TDC, and (probably) sthar8. I didn't have too much of a problem with Crazy but until Huntress gets more involved in the game, I really can't lean one way or another on her. fuzzylightning (now RandomGem) didn't do enough to make me lean any way on him. Jahudo felt very behind the scenes from an early point in the game, and his reasons used for both his recent boost of Raging Rabbit and vote on me give me a bad feeling about him. iLord still bothers me for coaching springlullaby and other points that I've raised against him. My feelings about your alignment are evident. Skillit's early posts made me leery of him, but I'm waiting for Mana_Ku to get more involved to get a better read of her.

And shit, I just did a list. x_x

[Incognito]

And actually, now that I've gone back and looked at fuzzylightning a bit, his FoS of springlullaby bothers me regardless of springlullaby's (Guardian's) alignment.