Mafiascum.net

In post 62, callforjudgement wrote:(PEDIT: re #58)

Why do you care about whether we're cultured, as opposed to whether we're scum? This is a Mafia game, not a classics exam. (Also, #4 doesn't have a single correct answer; Assyria no longer exists and its capital changed over time.)

There's only one town-indicative reason I can think of to make a post like #44, and if it were the actual reason, I'd expect you to have mentioned it.

As for your previous comment: I know I post a lot of text sometimes, but I'm trying to convince people to play in a more town-sided way. In the current metagame, town wins quite easily when townies put in effort, scum win quite easily when they don't. There are a lot of players out there (some of them in this game; hi Not_Mafia!) who are good players when they put their minds to it, but more commonly just end up passively floating through the game and eventually making everyone impossible to read.

I therefore see trying to persuade people to get their brains into gear as important, as I'm unlikely to win otherwise.

PEDIT re #59: I believe we're out of RVS as soon as anyone posts anything that can be scumhunted from. We were out of RVS

before

my two posts, not

because of

them. That's why I didn't cast a random vote, and why I don't expect any more random voting in this game.

(added bold)

The bolded comment was intended to be a town slip (as was the post pretty much) but I'm here to make the case it's actually NAI.

If judgement is unable to persuade people to get their brains in gear he's unlikely to win as town or mafia, because he's unable to persuade people. He even said "...as unlikely to win otherwise", as though he's scum and the cognitive dissonance of saying "town is unlikely to win otherwise" was too great.

hmm
Alright, do you frog have anything else you have picked up through the thread?

In post 126, RCEnigma wrote:

In post 119, callforjudgement wrote:Because that sort of post is more scummy from someone who has a lower post count. It doesn't matter much if one individual post is being guarded/defensive if the rest of the ISO is giving away information. It does matter if the majority of a player's posts are being cagey and the rest of the ISO isn't there.

Don't bullshit a bullshitter. Which posts were SJR giving away information pre post 50? Much less by post 27.

#30? #32? #22? Even #13? These are the posts of someone who talks too much, not the posts of someone who doesn't talk enough.

In post 136, ItalianoVD wrote::D :lol: If your scum kudos, but I don’t think so. You’re a character for real, but I like it. I can’t feel my face when I’m with you.

I'm not sure I follow the reasoning here. Unfortunately, alignments are determined at random, they don't got to the most likeable players; Mafia would be a much easier game otherwise! (In particular, when likeable players draw scum, they often go for the strategy of relying on their likeability to steer votes off themself, because that's typically easier than producing town-indicative content as scum.)

In post 150, Frogsterking wrote:

In post 62, callforjudgement wrote:

I therefore see trying to persuade people to get their brains into gear as important, as I'm unlikely to win otherwise.

(added bold)

The bolded comment was intended to be a town slip (as was the post pretty much) but I'm here to make the case it's actually NAI.

If judgement is unable to persuade people to get their brains in gear he's unlikely to win as town or mafia, because he's unable to persuade people. He even said "...as

I'm

unlikely to win otherwise", as though he's scum and the cognitive dissonance of saying "town is unlikely to win otherwise" was too great.

The wording was intentional. I typically go for the strategy of wording things to suggest that I'm town regardless of my alignment, because there's very little cost to doing so and it often helps me win. (Actually, the better wording for subconsciously biasing people into thinking you're town in that context is "we're" rather than "I'm", but I was more concerned about accuracy than persuasion and was worried that I wasn't necessarily talking to a townie.) This is the first time I've been called on it, and I agree that it's incorrect to read me as town for the wording here.

I do not, however, think that promoting useful activity is generally a good strategy as scum. All I would have to do in that situation is to not speak up and wait for the game to collapse into apathy and spamposting and fluff. The only reason I might do it would be because I normally do it as town, so I might have to do it to avoid being caught on meta (but I don't expect many players to actually know my meta in this regard, especially as I haven't played much at all recently).

Likeable = scummy

Now I've heard it all

In post 152, callforjudgement wrote:#30? #32? #22? Even #13? These are the posts of someone who talks too much, not the posts of someone who doesn't talk enough.

Doesn't answer my question, but let's go deeper anyway.

Did you read these posts as alignment indicative one way or the other?

In post 148, ItalianoVD wrote:

In post 118, RCEnigma wrote:I'm with it VOTE: SJReaper

Surely it couldn’t have been this easy?

It was actually even easier than that tbh. As I'll explain in my tell all book later this day phase.

In post 156, GeorgeBailey wrote:

Votecount 1.3

Not_Mafia(3)

~ Not_Mafia(5), geraintm(6), Raya36(3)

RCEnigma(2)

~ Nosferatu(3), BananaCucho(31)

SJReaver(1)

~ RCEnigma(18)

ItalianoVD(1)

~ SJReaver(26)

Gamma Emerald(1)

~ WaltertheDunce10(20)

callforjudgement(2)

~ Frogsterking(2), Gamma Emerald(3)

BananaCucho(1)

~ callforjudgement(9)


Not Voting (2): ItalianoVD(18), sordros(6)

With 13 alive it takes 7 to eliminate.

Day 1 deadline is in (expired on 2020-09-06 11:18:30)

What do the numbers by peoples names mean?

and why are some in italics?

Number by names is post count as of the vote count.

In post 154, RCEnigma wrote:

In post 152, callforjudgement wrote:#30? #32? #22? Even #13? These are the posts of someone who talks too much, not the posts of someone who doesn't talk enough.

Doesn't answer my question, but let's go deeper anyway.

Did you read these posts as alignment indicative one way or the other?

In post 50, callforjudgement wrote:As usual, much of what's been posted so far isn't alignment-indicative, but there are a few people who are possible to get (weak) reads on, even this early.

The first player who caught my attention was SJReaver (newbie greeting tell in #13), but they've done it before as town (Newbie 2020). #13 still does seem a little off compared to SJReaver's usual first posts, but that might not be surprising for someone who usually replaces. #22 also strikes me as a bit strange, given that it's worded as a statement to nobody in particular. I can understand being angry with NM for quickhammering in a game in a past (he's historically done it quite a lot), but #13 isn't anger, and it isn't engaging with the person in question, or stating a read, or anything. It's just a statement, and I have no idea why it was made.

Then the long and short is you scumread multiple sjr posts but not 27 because it's not indicative if the slot has other scum indicative posts.

But it also is indicative if that same post is made by a slot that has other scum indicative posts...but less of them.

From your pov.

That post by frog seems really weird considering the fact that it was his second post all game. Something to keep an eye on.
N_m do you have any thoughts on the playerbase other than you are proud of the fact you caught scum D1.

(PEDIT: re #161)

Yes.

That's because it's wrong to read posts in isolation and say "this is scummy", "this is townish"; that's a good way to form reads but a bad way to work out whether they're reliable or not.

Instead, you look at what people post, and think "why is this person posting about X? why is this person posting about Y, when they apparently had the time to post about X?" Then you work out what reads a player must have in order for their actions to make sense, and if their apparent reads don't match their stated reads, perhaps there's scum there.

On that note: were your recent posts to me primarily an attempt to read me? An attempt to read SJReaver? Or an attempt to defend yourself?

In post 163, callforjudgement wrote:Instead, you look at what people post, and think "why is this person posting about X? why is this person not posting about Y, when they apparently had the time to post about X?" Then you work out what reads a player must have in order for their actions to make sense, and if their apparent reads don't match their stated reads, perhaps there's scum there.

Mostly to see if my I initial read on your slot was accurate.

I can agree on the above and this is ironically pretty close to what brought me to that read.

The interaction between Reaver and Walter at 31 felt weird or awkward maybe. Almost felt like maybe Walter was going for a push but then backed off when Reaver responded. I got the same feeling from 67.

callforjudgement's huge post 50 was a lot. I don't townread it but don't necessarily scum read it either. I just think it's something scum could do to try to take the credit of getting us out of rvs which is what seemed to be happening (55). After reading more it feels like he's either town tryharding or scum trying way too hard to be 'obvtown'. Time will tell.

I kinda like Banana for town. Just as an early gut read.


VOTE: callforjudgement

Was there something about banana's posts that seemed towny to you?

The little jabs and looseness/carelessness of his play really.

hmm
I see where you come from on that.
I think he is a town lean for me because of his more recent posts like 142 and 147.

I disagree that those are towny. The 'so I'll drop it' kinda ruined 142 for me and I'm just not seeing any reason to townread 147.

In post 119, callforjudgement wrote:The game isn't in the random voting stage as soon as there's something non-random to vote about. #31 appears to be the first post which contains a non-random (if weak) read, so it ended there.

Are you sure this is the post you meant to quote? This is not what you saying at all. A player is explaining something to another player. You wanna try again?

In post 119, callforjudgement wrote:VOTE: BananaCucho
This is a stronger read than the read I had on RCEnigma. #107 and #109 (I haven't checked #108 because I have images turned off) are the sort of content that's a) easy to post as either alignment, and b) doesn't help solve the game at all as town.

This wouldn't be particularly scummy if it were posted together with more townish posts, but in isolation, it's pretty suspicious.

So what are you saying? Can you elaborate on the bolded?

In post 119, callforjudgement wrote:(Also, I have a mild scum read on SJReaver from #115; people are way more likely to joke about being scum when they actually are scum.)

Really? How so?

Walter, do you have any scum reads?

oh,
Because I thought the memes and bruhs were not as helpful overall.
But asking qs is more helpful than nothing.
pedit
slight on sou
Very slight on sj but could just be her posting style.
Just a lot of nulls right now due to people like nm or people who have not been on.

Raya, what do you make of Rce?

In post 170, ItalianoVD wrote:

In post 119, callforjudgement wrote:The game isn't in the random voting stage as soon as there's something non-random to vote about. #31 appears to be the first post which contains a non-random (if weak) read, so it ended there.

Are you sure this is the post you meant to quote? This is not what you saying at all. A player is explaining something to another player. You wanna try again?

I did mean #31. "Bad post".

In post 119, callforjudgement wrote:VOTE: BananaCucho
This is a stronger read than the read I had on RCEnigma. #107 and #109 (I haven't checked #108 because I have images turned off) are the sort of content that's a) easy to post as either alignment, and b) doesn't help solve the game at all as town.

This wouldn't be particularly scummy if it were posted together with more townish posts, but in isolation, it's pretty suspicious.

So what are you saying? Can you elaborate on the bolded?

Optimal strategy for scum would generally be to lurk (and thus give nothing away), except that intentionally lurking tends to look scummy in its own right. So the next best option, and one that happens ridiculously often in practice, is making posts that don't do or mean anything to make it look like you aren't lurking; you get the benefits of lurking and dodge some of the disadvantages.

In post 119, callforjudgement wrote:(Also, I have a mild scum read on SJReaver from #115; people are way more likely to joke about being scum when they actually are scum.)

Really? How so?

I've been maintaining that this is a real tell for years (e.g. here). Actual results have been mixed; I've seen three joke scum claims, and one of them was from scum (from Firebringer here), but one of them was from Not_Mafia (for whom a scumclaim in the first post isn't alignment-indicative because he does it basically every game). So a 50% accuracy rate isn't that bad (given that only about a quarter of players are scum), although there isn't much data from my personal experience. (I can't remember where I first heard about the tell in question.)