Mini 692: Boost Mafia (Game Over!)

[sthar8]

sthar8, you're opinion on Eldarad after looking at his past few posts?

I don't see it. I think his attack based on your boost of electra over guardian is garbage, as I think it's clear what you were trying to accomplish. However, he has a really good point about your suspicions being backed by summary rather than reasoning. "Pushing one bad point, :. scum" is not a valid standalone reason for a lynch, as we have seen in the cases of RR, Incog, SL, Skillit, and yourself.

As you said earlier, the few poor points in his last couple of posts do not outweigh his protown contributions from earlier.

Eldarad: You seem to have undergone a quite radical shift of opinion on Incog. Is there any cause for this apart from your scumteam theory?

So it's scummy to mention that as many as five players had given me reason to look closer at them from a quick initial read? Considering there are likely to be around threeish scum I don't think five is excessive. Neither do I think that Incog's comments re: Guardian apply here.

It could be. As Incog pointed out, scum have more incentive to accuse a greater number of people: since they are looking for easy lynches, they want to be free to move their vote (or opinions) around without looking suspicious. Normally this argument is very weak when applied to a replacement, because a new perspective in the game may be at least a little more paranoid than others. Under such circumstances, the argument that you are simply vomiting forth any useful information might hold some water. However, in this game, we are required by a game mechanic to publicize our opinions on who is town as well. You failed to mention who had given you the most boostable impressions, leaving me to wonder why you chose to release one type of information without the other. I conclude that you were either very intent on helping us find scum, or you were trying to keep "avenues of suspicion" open for later exploitation. Given the information that has resulted from your "deeper look" I find it much more likely that you simply didn't want to commit to calling anyone protown.

I started with Electra because she was the first to catch my attention. I was doing my read on her and getting my thoughts together before she was boosted. What would have been the point of not posting it? I still had questions I wanted answered. Please don't forget that I'm still catching up and didn't have the opportunity to raise these points at the time they originally came up. Remember, there's also the possibility I might not be alive tomorrow. Would you rather my thoughts on her remained hidden?

I don't care about your questions and probing before the deadline, or before the boost. Once we had boosted electra, especially under a deadline, a townie would have evaluated how useful her information would be to the town. You might still have posted it, but I would expect at least some effort to

find lynchable scum

instead of what we got, which was, "I'm posting!"

Your statement about not being alive tomorrow is ridiculous. In fact, I'd be glad if scum killed someone who isn't contributing anything relevant to town discussion, and killing scummy townies would be a welcome assistance.

I still have a lingering doubt from the impression I had of him when I did my initial read of the whole thread.

In other words, "I don't want to call him scum, but I'd like to be on record against him in case his wagon becomes convenient." This further validates my suspicion of your list of suspects.

And his current scramble to divert attention from Elderad back to me combined with his desire to supress discussion of my other top suspect obviously doesn't help.

"But look at these other undesirable things he's doing, that should make his points less valid." And do we

really

need to discuss why electra should live until tomorrow?

The reason I haven't been saying much about others is that almost all of it has already been said,

Bull. This view is incompatible with your stated reasons for uselessly pushing electra.

Contrary to what you are saying, I haven't been spending my time on Electra; I've barely looked at her since writing post 458.

Apart from one or two of her more recent posts she seems to be just responding to questions, not asking them. The observing is a possible scum-tell but I would have to do a meta on Electra before deciding if it's actually scummy for her or not.

Elderad and Electra are my top suspects at the moment [...] I'm still waiting for Electra's response to my comments in post 458.

@ Electra: As I said above I'm still waiting for a response to post 458.

And, of course, the first 2/3 of your last post, which I'm sure everyone can find.

And the point isn't that you've ignored everyone else, it's that we don't have a solid or reasoned opinion on

anyone

else. The most specific you've gotten (aside from your recent ad hom against me) is:

iLord, Jahudo, sthar8, fuzzylightning/RandomGem and TDC are looking town-like so far.

Electra: Huntress's play reminds me a good deal of me in a certain mini normal. Can you confirm this impression?

Guardian's arguing against Electra's boost can also be seen as intensely scummy if Electra is actually who she says she is.

True, but I'd really prefer to base any cases on observations we can make

now

, or at least test the testable information before we jump to conclusions. Huntress's play is scummy if electra is scum and scummier if she is town, which is why I'm comfortable with killing her.

sth, to put it bluntly, how many of the people who consensus-boosted you in the past few pages do you think are likely to be scum?

To be blunt right back: At least one. What I was getting at: How do we know which are boosting me to be "safe," (scum) and who is attempting to reach consensus (town)?

I know that there is more for me to respond to, but due to a family emergency, I'm going to need to put it off. I'm also out of town this weekend (I think that makes every weekend since this game has started- I should probably just put that in my sig) so I may not get back to this before monday.

[Jahudo]

Yes, he was. So what about SL's points made you be able to get a better read of Incognito?

Simply that you get a different look at someone when they’ve got a spotlight shined on them. SL was pro-town for the effort, Incog was pro-town for the first constructed responses, then both started to look anti-town for ad-hom and other reasons but that all started because SL took a new path.

When you do attempt to fabricate an opinion, it's quickly proven to be invalid.

What? Are you saying the opinions I give are not likely or they’re not possible?

Do you think RR is focusing extensively on one person?

I snuck that answer at the end of post 524.

Also, I think that activity as I defined it in post 504 is indicative of acting pro-town and foremost searching for scum above unnecessary clutter and overextended setup talk. I think he provides some good counterpoints to your points so I don’t think it’s an extensive that hurting anything. I wonder how much some people are actually reading of it, but I don’t see that as a consequence of RR’s focus.

As long as the counter points deserve attention, which I think they typically did, then it’s not bad to focus as much as he did.

More craplogic. I mean I'd keep reading, but I am already convinced. Skillit was clarifying 21 in 27. eldarad was attacking a player who had a hard time expressing himself.

Back when this first happened I didn’t think much of it because Skillit and some other people still made it feel like random vote stage and he was half-joking and half-serious with that attack on Electra. Since it was early, I didn’t make much of someone justifying after attacking since that’s how early voting can start when you’re not waiting for someone to happen. But this is just one instance Guardian, so why stop reading? I’m not convinced yet that this is a recurring offense.

And Guardian can you address my post 525?

If you think that Guardian is a townie then it doesn't make sense to unboost him in favour of another person who you also think is a townie, unless you are deliberately trying to (over)emphasise how you are carefully boosting only the two people right at the top of your townie list.

I can see how this could be a legitimate question to ask iLord if he had not demonstrated his opinion to boost Electra more than Guardian throughout the game. Here’s one quote:

@Electra: Okay then - I'll boost you at the end of the day. I do see your reasoning for coming out now, though.

@iLord, was this sentiment accurate throughout the game?
@Eldarad, what other posts were you looking at to see if iLord was starting to favor Electra over Guardian or vice versa?

I'm your sure that you could list who you think is the most town, and who you think is the most scum, but it would be dificult for you to state who you think is the most neutral.

I agree with this and the categorization used, and I don’t think it needs more reasoning if the neutral areas are more subjective opinion. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with having it that way for organization.
@eldarad, do you think iLord’s organized suspect list in post 452 conflicts with the comparative levels of suspicion within the summaries on each player in that same post?
Do you think the tells he gives can be quantified as more severe than others?

huntress is either attempting to engineer electra's lynch today or preemptively discredit her information tomorrow.

Interesting take. I thought Huntress was more cautious not to exempt Electra from scrutiny just because she’s been boosted. I agree that the level of dedication to the case at this point, after she’s been boosted, does not help town at this point in the day because we’ve committed to keeping her alive today.

Please don't forget that I'm still catching up and didn't have the opportunity to raise these points at the time they originally came up.

That makes sense, but looking at Electra will not help as much in finding scum today since she is not a lynch choice. I think there’s a handful of people that are essential to the catch up reads when looking at a lynch choice IMO {Jahudo, Guardian, Incognito, iLord}.

eldarad - his first posts read pro-town to me, but his three-scum theory seems way too far-fetched. I don't think SL faked her anger to distance herself from scumbuddy Incognito…<snip>

What about the recent posts where he questions iLord’s re-boosting and order of suspicion list? Is he in the right to ask it? Is it crap logic?

A brief summary of my reasons for voting Elderad:
1) His too-quick boost of Electra.

Why do you think that’s scummy?

4) The fuss he made about iLord switching his boost to Electra.

Can you elaborate on why the fuss looks scummy?

@all: I said I was okay with boosting sthar after RR so unless there's any objections I can make it official.

[iLord]

asdfasdf

I don't see it. I think his attack based on your boost of electra over guardian is garbage, as I think it's clear what you were trying to accomplish. However, he has a really good point about your suspicions being backed by summary rather than reasoning. "Pushing one bad point, :. scum" is not a valid standalone reason for a lynch, as we have seen in the cases of RR, Incog, SL, Skillit, and yourself.

I'm getting a little tired of reiterating the explanation for my summaries. They are just a summary - an organizer. My reasoning follows after questions or cases.

Pushing one bad point may not even be a scumtell. But pushing for a bad point intentionally usually is a very strong scumtell. If you look back at Post 533, you'll see that I find several tells that make me think that his reasoning is scummy reaching. He's even trying to pull beaten points from before back. I'm positive now that he realizes how poor his reasoning is, but is afraid to pull back.

Simply that you get a different look at someone when they’ve got a spotlight shined on them. SL was pro-town for the effort, Incog was pro-town for the first constructed responses, then both started to look anti-town for ad-hom and other reasons but that all started because SL took a new path.

So is pushing another player on the spotlight townish?

What? Are you saying the opinions I give are not likely or they’re not possible?

I'm saying that they're not genuine.

As long as the counter points deserve attention, which I think they typically did, then it’s not bad to focus as much as he did.

But that directly contradicts your reasoning for boosting RR - You said that you were boosting him because he wasn't focusing on a person.

@iLord, was this sentiment accurate throughout the game?

After the beginning, yeah.

That makes sense, but looking at Electra will not help as much in finding scum today since she is not a lynch choice. I think there’s a handful of people that are essential to the catch up reads when looking at a lynch choice IMO {Jahudo, Guardian, Incognito, iLord}.

No Eldarad there is very interesting.

@all: I said I was okay with boosting sthar after RR so unless there's any objections I can make it official.

I'm fine.

[Jahudo]

So is pushing another player on the spotlight townish?

Not by definition because I would take into account how they go with the attention or lack thereof by the group, or if they are using that spotlight to scum-interpret everything someone says. I stand by my opinion that it helped get people talking and developed better reads, but the info on SL as an instigator is tough to decipher because she went negative, pressured by Incog or not.

I'm saying that they're not genuine.

Do you think my opinions are fake because of illogical inconsistencies? Is part of it a gut feeling?

But that directly contradicts your reasoning for boosting RR - You said that you were boosting him because he wasn't focusing on a person.

Where did I say that?

No Eldarad there is very interesting.

I was giving a suggestion for a catch-up read. Those four people, {Jahudo, Guardian, Incognito, iLord} have had suspicions throughout the day and still do. Eldarad has suspicions but nothing anyone has caught from the past except what Guardian said about eldarad’s post 32. I do advocate a closer look at eldarad’s past posts but I didn’t want to say that there was anything there yet because I need to look myself.

[Green Crayons]

Before I start, I just want to disown Skillit's weird "illogical" argument against Electra that occupied the first few pages of his posts. It was dumb (to be frank), flawed and pointless.

I read the first ten or so pages all the way through, skimmed the enormous spring/Incognito fiasco and then started reading the last few pages in more refined detail. I'll be going over the thread a few more times, skimming the places I read entirely the first time around and reading more carefully the places where I skimmed, but here are my current thoughts:

I really, really like Electra's post 10. I'm glad to see the majority of the town seems to have thought along the same lines and boosted her. While the general feel I get from the remainder of her posts are town, this opening post really cements her town status to me.

The spring/Incognito craziness looks like a two townies trying to rip each other's throats out. The arguments seemed to eventually come to the point where they weren't trying to figure out alignment, just merely show that they were right and the other person was not. Just because someone is wrong doesn't make them scum, so I think this argument was an unfortunate consequence of misguided intentions that became a bit overblown.

As for my general overview, it looks something like this.


--Super-Town--
Electra

--Strong Town--
sthar
TDC

--Leaning Town--
Guardian (springlullaby)
Incognito
iLord

--No Read--
fuzzylightning (RandomGem)
eldarad

--Leaning Scum--
Huntress (Crazy)
Rabbit
Jahudo


This is mostly just pure feeling from posts I've seen. I'll be using this template to base my further review of the thread, but I thought I would at least contribute my general sentiments towards what kind of vibes I'm getting from players.

I am, however, comfortable enough to

un-boost, boost: sthar

. His posts have struck me as solidly townish and I'm confident in putting him in a booster seat (if you will).

[TDC]

When a vote-wagon builds that quickly, usually there are scum on it. Should we assume that that does not apply to a boost wagon?

Vote wagons and boost wagons are fundamentally different in that a majority of vote wagon results are anti-town (lynching town), while a majority of boost wagon results are pro-town (boosting town), because there are more townies that scum - It's much harder to lynch scum, than it is to boost town. So I guess the analogue of a boost wagon of town (which we both think sthar is), would be a vote wagon on scum. With the motive for scum to jump on it being that they want to be part of it before it's too late.
Even then though, if you're not being part of "the scum lynch", there are (assuming 9 town 3 scum) only two other good vote wagons, whereas if you're not being part of "the town boost", there are 8 other good boost wagons. So basically, being on the wrong boost wagon is less wrong than being on the wrong lynch wagon, and hence there would be less incentive for scum to be "part of it"?
Also, a whopping 95% of possible wagons of size 7 have at least one scum on them (under the same assumptions), so this seems to be a moot argument anyway. (Fun fact: A wagon of size 3 already has about 60%)

--

I don't see the eldarad case, I still have him as likely town.

--

Green Crayons: Why do you lean scum on RR?

[Guardian]

GC: Why isn't it more logical to have "town with ability, town, scum with ability, scum"?

Why wasn't it illogical of electra to not have those categories?

[Guardian]

PS: I am free starting tomorrow, I intend to answer questions asked of me and read (or at least skim) every (every!?... at least some of the) player(s) individually.

[Guardian]

When a vote-wagon builds that quickly, usually there are scum on it. Should we assume that that does not apply to a boost wagon?

Vote wagons and boost wagons are fundamentally different in that a majority of vote wagon results are anti-town (lynching town), while a majority of boost wagon results are pro-town (boosting town), because there are more townies that scum - It's much harder to lynch scum, than it is to boost town. So I guess the analogue of a boost wagon of town (which we both think sthar is), would be a vote wagon on scum. With the motive for scum to jump on it being that they want to be part of it before it's too late.
Even then though, if you're not being part of "the scum lynch", there are (assuming 9 town 3 scum) only two other good vote wagons, whereas if you're not being part of "the town boost", there are 8 other good boost wagons. So basically, being on the wrong boost wagon is less wrong than being on the wrong lynch wagon, and hence there would be less incentive for scum to be "part of it"?
Also, a whopping 95% of possible wagons of size 7 have at least one scum on them (under the same assumptions), so this seems to be a moot argument anyway. (Fun fact: A wagon of size 3 already has about 60%)

Posit1: wagons that develop quickly have an above average scum percentage.

Posit2: Players who vote based on the end of day "consensus" have an above average chance of being scum.

Do those make sense to anyone but me?

[Green Crayons]

Green Crayons: Why do you lean scum on RR?

Pulling quotes from Rabbit's posts that strike me as odd in a reread:

What's more testable than information? It'll be very easy to find out if what she supplies us with is true or false as the game progresses. Definitely easier to test than the unknown effects of boosting anyone else,

Here he is putting forth bad logic. What's more testable than information? Here are two things right off the top of my head: role blockers and night kills. Also, mafia can give information that's more or less useless to the town until

maybe

endgame (e.g. "x number of people did a night action last night"), or information that's misleading but true to a certain extent (and blame it on bastard modding), etc. Bad reasoning to support an otherwise good choice (boosting Electra). Struck me as funny.

I'm not sure the info is as accurate as an investigation result, but if she does claim to have caught scum with this, lynching him is clearly the right move. If he turns town we'll just lynch her the next day.

Then he makes this nonsensical argument. Let's assume the hypothetical situation he's suggesting occurs: Electra

is

scum, the town

does

boost her and - regardless of whatever benefit she receives - she decides to feed the town a "result." Why would she, sans end-game scenario, ever tell the town an innocent as guilty when she would just be putting herself up on the chopping block come the following day? Or, if it

is

an end-game scenario, then his safety net (that she'll be lynched the following day because she's obvscum) is a moot point. Showcasing this as an example why Electra should have been boosted just didn't sit well with me.

I don't really buy you weren't noticing the stuff you wrote, this sorta panicky response looks like scum kicking himself for being suspected.

This starts a really crap-fest half-hearted attempt to slander sthar that snowballs into quite the sizable discussion. First, it struck me on a semi-personal level because I almost always comment freely upon other people's conversations. It's part and parcel of being town: you voice your opinions regarding everything that's on the table and when you see something you don't like I don't believe you should be required to hold your tongue. Granted, there may be points where keeping your own counsel may be beneficiary, but by and large simply hoping someone else brings up your points is a bad town policy. However, I'm more than willing to realize this is a personal preference and was going to let this Rabbit point really just go, but...

Going out of your way to answer questions directed at others isn't a sign of not paying attention. I figure by turning it into a mistake and apologizing you where hoping to make it not appear as a scumtell anymore.

Suddenly he makes responding to questions that weren't directly posed to him a scumtell. I suppose it can be a scumtell if Player X is obviously defending Player Y and not that Player X just has opinions/criticisms/etc of the questions being posed to Player Y. But Rabbit didn't qualify his statement that way; instead, he made what essential boils down to "speaking out of turn" into a scumtell. This stinks of trying to not-so-subtly put a lid on criticism from players who are not directly involved in an exchange. And then...

Maybe the right word is more guiltridden than panicky

He decides to shift his argument. There's a definitive difference than panicky and guilt-ridden (the former could be qualified as defensive, poorly written, incomplete/hasty thoughts while the latter could be identified as... well... filled with guilt and other similar sentiments). Rabbit puts up something resembling an example of why he thinks this way, but it's not made entirely clear as to how his initial accusation was confusion instead of, say, a plotted attack.

Yup, it's how he excuesed it. Answering instead of others isn't much of a tell

Further shifting of argument. First it was what he did that was scummish, now it's not what he did but his response to what he did that is scummish.

A less suspicious response would be "yeah, I guess in hindsight that wasn't the best play..." or "I did that in order to (whatever)". I think going all apologetic at the slightest pressure is a sign of guilt.

I fail to see how his first example of a less suspicious but not conciliatory response is, well... not conciliatory or apologetic. He seems to be blurring the lines of his (now entirely arbitrary?) standard of what constitutes this morphing scumtell.

Yup, scum make an active effort to appear pro town while town are more concerned with looking for scum, so obviously scum have a much stronger sense of guilt when they are called on an anti-town play. For them, it means their town-act failed, while town are more inclined to think it's the other guy's fault for not reading them correctly. ... In addition to what I already answered, turning it into a moral issue which sthar as a good townie felt he was compelled to apologize for takes the matter of him being scum out of the equation.

This quotation is two parts of two different posts addressing the same thing and so I'm putting them together. The first part of this quote is a legitimate theory of mafia/town mindset, but I don't see to what end the latter part of the quote ("In addition to what I already answered...") was even voiced. It looks like it completely disintegrates his previous shifted/modified argument against sthar, that his apology made him look scummy (but it takes the scumminess out of the equation). This just confused me and I couldn't help that it felt like back-peddling (especially after having just unvoted sthar). Rabbit makes some sort of derisive comment to iLord later on, who also seems genuinely confused about this seeming contradiction in philosophy being voiced from the same individual.

Raging Rabbit, would you please go into your reasoning?

Why is that so importatnt to you?

Defensive and attacking someone for requesting something that's beneficial for the town.

This post doesn't look pro town to me, it looks like you trying very hard to appear pro town.

I generally don't like accusations of "that just looks like you're trying to be pro-town" just because they can be so slippery. I usually take them with a grain of salt (and eye the accuser with a bit of suspicion) when they don't explain 1. why said action wouldn't be performed by a town person and 2. how said action makes that player appear town if they aren't. I didn't see Rabbit support his accusations in this way.


That said, there are very sensible points he makes throughout the entire game, so it's not like I'm super convinced he's scum. He has, however, put forth quite a bit of positions that I find highly suspect and so that's why I have him leaning scum.

GC: Why isn't it more logical to have "town with ability, town, scum with ability, scum"?

I never claimed that it wasn't more logical. But since you bring it up, I think we should reflect on the fact that while one is obviously right and the other wrong (though how long it will take to determine which is right and the other wrong may take quite some time), with the information we currently have I find them both to be on equal footing in terms of logic (as I explain further in my response to your second question).

Why wasn't it illogical of electra to not have those categories?

Electra has explained this herself, and her explanation shows that both skillit and Electra were making logical assumptions: Electra, that the mafia were treated as one lumped-together group; Skillit, that the mafia were treated as separated groups of "regular" scum and "power role" scum. Making either of these assumptions are necessary to come to a conclusion - they are reasonable leaps that uninformed players have to make in order to deduce what kind of scenario we are facing. Simply because one player makes one leap while a different player makes the other doesn't make either jump less logical. The players just simply chose to believe a different scenario is in play.

[Huntress]

Hi Green Crayons!

So it's scummy to mention that as many as five players had given me reason to look closer at them from a quick initial read? Considering there are likely to be around threeish scum I don't think five is excessive. Neither do I think that Incog's comments re: Guardian apply here.

It could be. As Incog pointed out, scum have more incentive to accuse a greater number of people: since they are looking for easy lynches, they want to be free to move their vote (or opinions) around without looking suspicious. Normally this argument is very weak when applied to a replacement, because a new perspective in the game may be at least a little more paranoid than others. Under such circumstances, the argument that you are simply vomiting forth any useful information might hold some water. However, in this game, we are required by a game mechanic to publicize our opinions on who is town as well. You failed to mention who had given you the most boostable impressions, leaving me to wonder why you chose to release one type of information without the other. I conclude that you were either very intent on helping us find scum, or you were trying to keep "avenues of suspicion" open for later exploitation. Given the information that has resulted from your "deeper look" I find it much more likely that you simply didn't want to commit to calling anyone protown.

When I did my initial read I wasn't thinking about who to boost, just looking for possible scum.

I started with Electra because she was the first to catch my attention. I was doing my read on her and getting my thoughts together before she was boosted. What would have been the point of not posting it? I still had questions I wanted answered. Please don't forget that I'm still catching up and didn't have the opportunity to raise these points at the time they originally came up. Remember, there's also the possibility I might not be alive tomorrow. Would you rather my thoughts on her remained hidden?

I don't care about your questions and probing before the deadline, or before the boost. Once we had boosted electra, especially under a deadline, a townie would have evaluated how useful her information would be to the town. You might still have posted it, but I would expect at least some effort to

find lynchable scum

instead of what we got, which was, "I'm posting!"

Your statement about not being alive tomorrow is ridiculous. In fact, I'd be glad if scum killed someone who isn't contributing anything relevant to town discussion, and killing scummy townies would be a welcome assistance.

You imply that I'm not making any effort to find lynchable scum and yet, in the same sentence, you quote a couple of words from a post that reports the progress of my continuing individual reads, my read on iLord to be precise.
I note that you address the second to last sentence of that quote but not the last one.

I still have a lingering doubt from the impression I had of him when I did my initial read of the whole thread.

In other words, "I don't want to call him scum, but I'd like to be on record against him in case his wagon becomes convenient." This further validates my suspicion of your list of suspects.

I'm perfectly happy to call you scum if you want me to, but I'd rather record accurately my current level of suspicion against you.

And his current scramble to divert attention from Elderad back to me combined with his desire to supress discussion of my other top suspect obviously doesn't help.

"But look at these other undesirable things he's doing, that should make his points less valid." And do we

really

need to discuss why electra should live until tomorrow?

No, we don't need to discuss why Electra should live until tomorrow. So why are you raising the subject? Was it to avoid commenting on the first part of that quote? Come to think of it, is that an admission that you

are

trying to divert attention from Elderad?

The reason I haven't been saying much about others is that almost all of it has already been said,

Bull. This view is incompatible with your stated reasons for uselessly pushing electra.

The points I was raising with Electra were things I couldn't find answers to in the thread. I had questions about others but all that I wanted to ask had already been asked and answered in the thread and I didn't see the point in repeating them. If I should want clarification on anything you can be sure I will raise it when I need to.

Contrary to what you are saying, I haven't been spending my time on Electra; I've barely looked at her since writing post 458.

Apart from one or two of her more recent posts she seems to be just responding to questions, not asking them. The observing is a possible scum-tell but I would have to do a meta on Electra before deciding if it's actually scummy for her or not.

Elderad and Electra are my top suspects at the moment [...] I'm still waiting for Electra's response to my comments in post 458.

@ Electra: As I said above I'm still waiting for a response to post 458.

And, of course, the first 2/3 of your last post, which I'm sure everyone can find.

Post 478 was a reply to Jahudo; 497 was an update of my current opinions on most of the other players, it mentioned Electra but gave no reason for you to assume I had spent any more time on her; the note to her in 521 only took a few seconds of my time; and 538 was just quick replies to her comments. None of them required any additional research. So what is your point here?

And the point isn't that you've ignored everyone else, it's that we don't have a solid or reasoned opinion on

anyone

else. The most specific you've gotten (aside from your recent ad hom against me) is:

iLord, Jahudo, sthar8, fuzzylightning/RandomGem and TDC are looking town-like so far.

I guess you must have completely overlooked post 545, which I posted nine hours before you posted this, and which contains my case against Eldarad. And what ad hom do you mean?


I've got to stop now to do some cooking. I'll reply to the rest of the posts later.

[Raging Rabbit]

I'm back from a trip and uber tried, will respond to that quote bracket and other recent events tommorow-ish.

For now I'm just wonderin' why isn't GC voting me.

[iLord]

asdfasdf

Not by definition because I would take into account how they go with the attention or lack thereof by the group, or if they are using that spotlight to scum-interpret everything someone says. I stand by my opinion that it helped get people talking and developed better reads, but the info on SL as an instigator is tough to decipher because she went negative, pressured by Incog or not.

There's a lot of words here and not a lot of statements. I'm going to try and break it down - Am I right when I think that you are trying to say: "SL was protown because she's allowed me to get a better read of Incognito"?

Do you think my opinions are fake because of illogical inconsistencies? Is part of it a gut feeling?

Mostly because of not likely to be genuine poor logic, and now contradictions.

Where did I say that?

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

--Strong Town--
sthar
TDC

Why TDC?

---------------------------------------

I'm going to look at the other arguments going on later.

[Green Crayons]

For now I'm just wonderin' why isn't GC voting me.

Because as of now you're the only person from my "leaning scummy" list that I've pulled direct examples of why I feel that you're scummy (the list being compiled based solely off of my feelings from an initial read-through). I don't want to vote prematurely if I find that, as a whole, one of the other two I have as scummish are a better place for my vote.

That said,

unvote

. I initially thought my previous spot-holder wasn't voting, but I double checked and apparently my/their vote had been cast.

Why TDC?

His posts have come across to me as logical, well reasoned, (seemingly genuinely) helpful and coming from a town viewpoint. I can pull direct examples (don't let me forget), but I want to post my issues with the other two I think are leaning scum first.

[Raging Rabbit]

Here he is putting forth bad logic. What's more testable than information? Here are two things right off the top of my head: role blockers and night kills. Also, mafia can give information that's more or less useless to the town until maybe endgame (e.g. "x number of people did a night action last night"), or information that's misleading but true to a certain extent (and blame it on bastard modding), etc. Bad reasoning to support an otherwise good choice (boosting Electra). Struck me as funny.

Roleblocking does little to clear you since you can easily be mafia RB, and kills can be manipulated as well. Info is testable regardless of this. Anyway, I don't see how this theory disagreement makes me scummy.

Then he makes this nonsensical argument. Let's assume the hypothetical situation he's suggesting occurs: Electra is scum, the town does boost her and - regardless of whatever benefit she receives - she decides to feed the town a "result." Why would she, sans end-game scenario, ever tell the town an innocent as guilty when she would just be putting herself up on the chopping block come the following day? Or, if it is an end-game scenario, then his safety net (that she'll be lynched the following day because she's obvscum) is a moot point. Showcasing this as an example why Electra should have been boosted just didn't sit well with me.

You have a point, but why isn't lynching him the right move? If she claims a guilty investigation result on scum she's either bussing or town.

This starts a really crap-fest half-hearted attempt to slander sthar that snowballs into quite the sizable discussion. First, it struck me on a semi-personal level because I almost always comment freely upon other people's conversations. It's part and parcel of being town: you voice your opinions regarding everything that's on the table and when you see something you don't like I don't believe you should be required to hold your tongue. Granted, there may be points where keeping your own counsel may be beneficiary, but by and large simply hoping someone else brings up your points is a bad town policy. However, I'm more than willing to realize this is a personal preference and was going to let this Rabbit point really just go, but...

It's bad town play if you prevent yourslef info by responding to questions directed at others instead of judging their response. Anyways...

Suddenly he makes responding to questions that weren't directly posed to him a scumtell. I suppose it can be a scumtell if Player X is obviously defending Player Y and not that Player X just has opinions/criticisms/etc of the questions being posed to Player Y. But Rabbit didn't qualify his statement that way; instead, he made what essential boils down to "speaking out of turn" into a scumtell. This stinks of trying to not-so-subtly put a lid on criticism from players who are not directly involved in an exchange. And then...

The phrasing is far from perfect here, but I never meant "speaking out of turn" was in itself a real scumtell. I saw sthar getting nervous on what

he

figured was a scumtell, and overreacting to show everyone how much of a townie he is.

He decides to shift his argument. There's a definitive difference than panicky and guilt-ridden (the former could be qualified as defensive, poorly written, incomplete/hasty thoughts while the latter could be identified as... well... filled with guilt and other similar sentiments). Rabbit puts up something resembling an example of why he thinks this way, but it's not made entirely clear as to how his initial accusation was confusion instead of, say, a plotted attack.

Not much of a difference, since in this case panic is a result of guilt. The line of thinking I felt sthar had was "damn, shouldn't have done that - got caught in a scumtell trying too hard to appear useful - I'll apologize real quick and maybe people will forget about it". I felt the manner of the apology was overkill, and that "I wasn't paying attention" isn't a likely explanation.

Further shifting of argument. First it was what he did that was scummish, now it's not what he did but his response to what he did that is scummish.

Nope, see above.

I fail to see how his first example of a less suspicious but not conciliatory response is, well... not conciliatory or apologetic. He seems to be blurring the lines of his (now entirely arbitrary?) standard of what constitutes this morphing scumtell.

It's less of an overkill.

This quotation is two parts of two different posts addressing the same thing and so I'm putting them together. The first part of this quote is a legitimate theory of mafia/town mindset, but I don't see to what end the latter part of the quote ("In addition to what I already answered...") was even voiced. It looks like it completely disintegrates his previous shifted/modified argument against sthar, that his apology made him look scummy (but it takes the scumminess out of the equation). This just confused me and I couldn't help that it felt like back-peddling (especially after having just unvoted sthar). Rabbit makes some sort of derisive comment to iLord later on, who also seems genuinely confused about this seeming contradiction in philosophy being voiced from the same individual

Again, it's

sthar

who felt he comitted a scumtell; my opinion is irrelevant. I felt that by apologizing he hoped to sidetrack the matter of it being indicative of scum (which he figured others would think) and present himself as a townie who made a mistake.


Now, I realize this point isn't the strongest. It was a gut matter of his apology giving me a contrived feeling, which is good enough for an early game vote. I tried to explain the logical source of that feeling, but what it really boils down to is the difference between what he wrote and the "oh, in hindsight that wasn't the best play..." example, which others apparantly don't see. The manner he chose to phrase it stroke a bad chord for me, and without seeing the overkill there the whole point collapses and gets confusing, which I guess is why I was questioned for it so very much. However, this was never a huge deal for me, the only reason I appeared to "pushing it" is because I was repeatedly asked questions, and sthar's massclaim speculation alone is much stronger a towntell than this ever was a scumtell. I get that it's hard to understand my logic here, but I dislike SC raising this matter from the dead as if it's the main thing I did all game. It's just an early game gut vote that got blown way out of proportion.

Defensive and attacking someone for requesting something that's beneficial for the town

I wanted to see if Incog will go with popular opinion (at the time) and attack Crazy as a second target, since I felt he was generally going too hard for pro town points. I didn't want to say so at the time because it would've put Incog on his toes and made him stop doing that, which would render me incapable of further judging how hard he's trying to appear pro town and how scummy that is.

I generally don't like accusations of "that just looks like you're trying to be pro-town" just because they can be so slippery. I usually take them with a grain of salt (and eye the accuser with a bit of suspicion) when they don't explain 1. why said action wouldn't be performed by a town person and 2. how said action makes that player appear town if they aren't. I didn't see Rabbit support his accusations in this way.

I figured it was self evident. The post I refered to as a general example of a lot of Incog's play is:

Eh? All of my questions have been very relevant to the game, and I certainly wouldn't classify them as "'soft' questions" either. Just because I don't immediately reveal my insights from the answers I get doesn't mean that I haven't formulated any opinions on them. When I'm ready to make a case against someone who I think is scum, I'll do so but certainly not this early in the game. Trust me, when I have a scum read on someone I'll make my opinion on the person blatantly obvious. Right now, this is purely the information-gathering stage for me. I've seen certain things from people that make me lean slightly town on them or slightly scum but not enough to come to a definitive answer with respect to their alignments.

Explaining how much of a good town player he is (and especially the link to his case from antoher game) has little to do with his actual alignment here, and just seems meant to paint him in a good color.

If you accept my view that scum actively try to appear town while town aren't as concerned with that since they know they

are

town, I don't see what there is not to understand here. It's a classic example.

[Huntress]

Why?

I'll be able to answer that better when I've finished my reads. I haven't consolidated my thoughts on them yet.

Please don't forget that I'm still catching up and didn't have the opportunity to raise these points at the time they originally came up.

That makes sense, but looking at Electra will not help as much in finding scum today since she is not a lynch choice. I think there’s a handful of people that are essential to the catch up reads when looking at a lynch choice IMO {Jahudo, Guardian, Incognito, iLord}.

No Eldarad there is very interesting.

I was giving a suggestion for a catch-up read. Those four people, {Jahudo, Guardian, Incognito, iLord} have had suspicions throughout the day and still do. Eldarad has suspicions but nothing anyone has caught from the past except what Guardian said about eldarad’s post 32. I do advocate a closer look at eldarad’s past posts but I didn’t want to say that there was anything there yet because I need to look myself.

But most of my reasons for voting Eldarad come from the past! And there has been suspicion on him right from the beginning so why are you suggesting there wasn't? As for your suggestions for a catch-up read, they're a bit late because, as you will have seen from my posts, I have finished my individual reads on all except Guardian and Incognito, who I am working on now.

A brief summary of my reasons for voting Eldarad:
1) His too-quick boost of Electra.

Why do you think that’s scummy?

Because it seemed too quick. He boosted her in his very first post for making an early move but in his next post he said, "But also note that I was trying to start a boostwagon too.", from which I infered that this was originally partly a gambit. In the same post he gives what is apparently his only reason for supporting Electra, "And, as Electra said, for a scum to make that leap of faith about the existence or otherwise of boostable vanilla townies, or whatever, is pause for thought." His only other comment on Electra is in post 234 where he says, "You have a point that Electra has kept a low profile since her initial entrance. Her last post where she says "early game is as boring for scum as it gets" is a bit worrying, isn't it, given her apparent boredom with the game...". But despite it being "a bit worrying", he is still content to leave his boost on her.

4) The fuss he made about iLord switching his boost to Electra.

Can you elaborate on why the fuss looks scummy?

The bit that, if anything, bothers me the most is how iLord unboosts someone he thinks is town in order to have the top two in his list as the ones he boosts.

Why on earth should it bother him so much that iLord wanted to boost the two he feels most certain about? That's what I found odd. It would have made more sense if he was bothered by iLord boosting Guardian instead of Electra in the first place. I couldn't think of any pro-town reason for him doing this so I assumed he must be doing it to make iLord look suspicious. After all, Eldarad called for someone to boost Electra, so why does he then jump on the one who does?

I don't see the eldarad case, I still have him as likely town.

What is your opinion of his reasons for his votes on Skillet and Crazy? I'd be interested to hear this from Jahudo too.

[Raging Rabbit]

iLord is totally winning his argument with eldarad, only I don't think eldarad's attack on iLord's boosting and list being crap is indicative of that much. A bad point in itself doesn't tell me too much, townies make them quite often as well. Still, iLord's recent posting feels less scummy and he's generating lots of discussion, so I think he's worth keeping around for now.

sthar makes some excellent points about Huntress, and her attack on eldarad feels comfortable for scum and is based on a few minor points in extenstion to iLord's one. I need to reread Crazy, but she's starting to look bad to me.

RG really needs to start posting.

[iLord]

iLord is totally winning his argument with eldarad, only I don't think eldarad's attack on iLord's boosting and list being crap is indicative of that much. A bad point in itself doesn't tell me too much, townies make them quite often as well. Still, iLord's recent posting feels less scummy and he's generating lots of discussion, so I think he's worth keeping around for now.

RR, you have to look at the nature of his poor points. He has continously attacked me for how my list looks contrived, and I have continously told him that it did not contain why, and that he should specify where he feels that my list is contrived so I can explain.

However, he has ignored this, and instead, continues to attack me for it!

In addition to that, he continues to push the first point - the one that it is least likely for him to not realize that it is a poor point. He's afraid of backing out!

You probably need to give RG more time - it's finals week and he's from AOPS.

[Raging Rabbit]

It's still odd for you to post all those thoughts as notes for yourself rather than a basis of susicion, and that summary post doens't look very good to me either. I can see why both Incog and eldarad dislike it, despite your version being plausible as well. I fail to see why eldarad pushed the boost order attack in the first place, but apparantly something in the structure of your town-scum colored list confused people. To me that doesn't mean all that much.

[Raging Rabbit]

And what's AOPS, by the way?

[iLord]

And what's AOPS, by the way?

Art of Problem Solving. It's a math site for students.

It's still odd for you to post all those thoughts as notes for yourself rather than a basis of susicion, and that summary post doens't look very good to me either. I can see why both Incog and eldarad dislike it, despite your version being plausible as well. I fail to see why eldarad pushed the boost order attack in the first place, but apparantly something in the structure of your town-scum colored list confused people. To me that doesn't mean all that much.

My point is independent of what anyone else thinks of my summary post - Eldarad has stated that he has felt it was contrived. I explained why it may seem so, and asked him to ask me about what he feels is contrived. Then, he does not ask me any questions, prefering instead to attack my summaries again. Do you see where I feel that he is scummy?

[eldarad]

I've read up to the end of the thread but I've only got as far as responding up to #549.

~~~

Why would the only the catagory be meaningful? You mean that I magically found people in only three degrees of scumminess?

I assumed you classifed people as one of {town, neutral, scum} so yes, I completely expected you to put people into one of 3 categories.
So you're saying that you can magically name the 3 most townie players, but you can't name the 4th?

I'm explained this multiple times already - if you read my blocks, they have stuff like what's in a post, and whether or not I found them scummy. No where did I explain why, and I said as much - I told you guys to ask me so I could elaborate on why on points that you are interested in. I even repeated this to Incognito, and then to your "contrived" post.

I can't remember who it was, but someone said that you could have arranged your list in any order you wished, as the narrative on each player gave no clue as to how scummy (or not) they were. That's completely true and I have a problem with that.
I don't want an in-depth analysis of all your reads, but I would expect that when you posted your scumdar that there would be

reasons

in there.
Why did you decide to post a scumdar without any reasons at all? What did you hope to achieve?

The benefit is that we know what your stated opinions are at a certain point of time and information. This information would be valuable to analyze when you claim, for example.

What factors made you disapply this principle when posting your scumdar? Or is the principle specific to discussing claims? Do you not think it would have value when applied to people's scumdars?

I've been supporting an Electra boost since before my Guardian boost. The only reason I didn't boost Electra, which you would know if you bothered to read the post where I boosted Guardian, was because I didn't want to put her at a position where she might be accidentally boosted.

This was the answer I was expecting when I first asked the question. Why did it take you so long to say this?
Given that you had been waiting to boost Electra for some time, why wait until posting your scumdar to change your boost vote? What made #452 a better time to boosthammer Electra than any other post?

Did I avoid confronatation with Incognito at all? I've already how explained how my case would just be redundant

Yes I am strongly of the opinion that you avoided confrontation with Incog for quite a while, preferring instead to allow SL to do all the running.
You have also explained how you preferred to "shape" SL's case rather than present your own points. Which I found - and still find - significant since you then went on to ask people their opinion on

springlullaby's case

.

~~~

Perhaps Guardian picked up where SL left off to make it seem like two supposedly like-minded "pro-town" people came to similar conclusions about a person's alignment to therefore try and add weight to an unsubstantial case?

Yeah, I do see the irony of Guardian saying "well, SL and myself both independently think your scummy" when Guardian has a very strong incentive to find SL townie.
So, it may be that Guardian did that to add weight to the pre-existing case as you say. Or it may be that you're both scum and Guardian could not back down from SL's attack without diminishing the impact of the discussion you had already had with SL.

Even if scum had planned this beforehand, SL came into the game late, and so I don't think she would have really been a part of this discussion. Furthermore, Guardian would definitely have not been part of this discussion, and so I don't really see how this could be.

Scum could have a Quicktopic thread where they discussed their plans pre-game. A replacement wouldn't be able to talk to their scumbuddies, but they would be able to read what was talked about.

~~~

And his [

Sthar's

] current scramble to divert attention from Elderad back to me combined with his desire to supress discussion of my other top suspect obviously doesn't help.

Let us assume for a moment that you are correct and sthar is trying to keep the focus on you rather than me. Do you think it is scummy for players to speak out against wagons that they disagree with, or to push other wagons that they think have a better chance of lynching scum?

So do you think that both of Today's boosts (Electra and Sthar) are poor choices?

A brief summary of my reasons for voting Elderad:

1) His too-quick boost of Electra.

How was my boost of Electra too quick? (Rather than just "quick"?) Do you disagree with my "leap of faith" logic regarding Electra?
Do you think my boosting of Electra harmed the town? If so, how? If not, how is my boost scummy?

2) His pushing of the Skillet wagon, which already had two random votes on it before he added his, for reasons which look like making a mountain out of a molehill, the molehill being Skillet's joke and theory discussion.

Why are the presence of random votes significant?
Crazy pushed the Skillit wagon too, for virtually the same reasons as me. Why do you think that is?

What "continued assumption"? The only thing Crazy ever said about this was "The problem is... the information Electra gives us is not testable.

What if she claims an innocent on Player X?

How would you test that?" (post 151).

Bolded part of your quote...
Contrast with:

I don't have a role, so I'm vanilla, however my role PM says that if I'm boosted, I'll gain information about the town (reworded, of course).

I don’t know what kind of information I get, but I do hope it’s something cop-ish

So Crazy focussed on "I hope I'm cop-ish" rather than "I don’t know what kind of information I get."

So his only reasons for voting Crazy were that Springlullaby ignored him and Crazy's "assumption" about Electra's possible information. Definately very flimsy reasons for a vote.

You missed the most important part - the fact that Crazy agreed with EVERYTHING I said consistently up until post 166 when I turned around and voted for the person who had been blatantly sheeping off of my opinions.
Can you think of a pro-town reason why Crazy would do that? Do you think it is scummy for me to react to that behaviour in the way I did?
Why did you totally ignore this when you summarised my reasons for voting Crazy?

In addition, there was also the possible double-standards from sl that suggested possible sl-crazy linkage.
Do you think possible linkage is a good basis for a vote? If not why not?

But most of my reasons for voting Eldarad come from the past! And there has been suspicion on him right from the beginning so why are you suggesting there wasn't?

What do you mean by this? Who was suspicious of me right from the start?

[Guardian]

Why?

I'll be able to answer that better when I've finished my reads. I haven't consolidated my thoughts on them yet.

I don't care what you think after you finish your reads (well I do, but that IS NOT what I am asking about here), I want to know why you made the comment earlier that Incog was more scummy than me -- why did he get more suspicious than me to you before you did your read?

[Huntress]

I want to know why you made the comment earlier that Incog was more scummy than me -- why did he get more suspicious than me to you before you did your read?

That came from impressions I got while re-reading others, and particularly while checking points for the case against Eldarad. But I need to look at the quotes that gave me those impressions in their proper context before drawing any more conclusions from them.

[iLord]

I assumed you classifed people as one of {town, neutral, scum} so yes, I completely expected you to put people into one of 3 categories.
So you're saying that you can magically name the 3 most townie players, but you can't name the 4th?

And within those categories, there would be no degrees?

I can easily name the top three most townie players, but after that, it understandably becomes more difficult. If I’d have to name a fourth, I’d say TDC.

I can't remember who it was, but someone said that you could have arranged your list in any order you wished, as the narrative on each player gave no clue as to how scummy (or not) they were. That's completely true and I have a problem with that.
I don't want an in-depth analysis of all your reads, but I would expect that when you posted your scumdar that there would be reasons in there.
Why did you decide to post a scumdar without any reasons at all? What did you hope to achieve?

Again, I find myself saying this:

Where do you feel that my scumlist was contrived? I’ll expand on what area you name. You have continuously ignored this statement.

My reasoning for my tactic was twofold – I wanted to state who I was suspicious of so that voice could be on record, and I wanted to see who I was suspicious of. It helped record stuff that I thought was scummy, and let me isolate people for contradictions and the such.

What factors made you disapply this principle when posting your scumdar? Or is the principle specific to discussing claims? Do you not think it would have value when applied to people's scumdars?

You’re sorely mistaken – this principle is why I posted my summaries – so that my opinions would be on record.

This was the answer I was expecting when I first asked the question. Why did it take you so long to say this?
Given that you had been waiting to boost Electra for some time, why wait until posting your scumdar to change your boost vote? What made #452 a better time to boosthammer Electra than any other post?

Oh, I get it now – you’re trying say the whole thing was a “trap” to see if I said that? :rolleyes:

At the time of #452, we had agreed that we were to start boosting now and that a deadline was imminent. It had little to do with posting my scumdar.

Yes I am strongly of the opinion that you avoided confrontation with Incog for quite a while, preferring instead to allow SL to do all the running.
You have also explained how you preferred to "shape" SL's case rather than present your own points. Which I found - and still find - significant since you then went on to ask people their opinion on springlullaby's case.

Are you kidding me – Incognito and I started arguing almost literally the second I stated I was suspicious of him? Did you even bother to check your facts?

There were a number of reasons for asking people about their opinions of springlullaby’s case. One, I had no case – it was selective points of SL’s that I was pushing. Second, SL had more points and people might not find what I think is scummy is scummy, but rather some other point that I found weak. Third, I wanted specific people’s opinions of SL’s case. I wanted to know what points they found weak and what points they agreed with.