Mafiascum.net

I'm back on my PC. I no longer believe drealmerz is scum, but I can write up my old case for anyone interested in my thought process.

Does it take elements from copper's 145?

In post 175, Accountant wrote:I'm back on my PC. I no longer believe drealmerz is scum, but I can write up my old case for anyone interested in my thought process.

Sure I'd like to read your thoughts at the time and what made you change your mind.

VC 1.02

StaplerTowel (1):

Accountant

Accountant (2):

goodmorning, drealmerz7

drealmerz7 (1):

Astyanaxx

Astyanaxx (1):

StaplerTowel

oncilla (1):

copper223

Not Voting:

Kuroshira, JaeReed, oncilla

With

9

votes,

5

votes to lynch.

The deadline is in (expired on 2016-09-02 15:38:07).

In post #40, drealmerz votes me.

for continuing to go on about no-lynch even though it seems to have been established that there's no point in discussing it in relation to this game - trying to keep us from discussing something useful?

I replied with the following quote:

As an experienced player, I have a duty to help explain game theory and game concepts to newcomers. The concept of No Lynch, especially when it is and isn't viable, is an important part of game theory. Therefore, it's only natural that I'd explain it to everyone. This does not stymie proper discussion of the game like you implied in post #40("trying to keep us from discussing something useful"). That's because it's possible to have multiple threads of conversation in a single game - it's not as though if I'm talking about No Lynch, that means everyone else has to drop what they're doing and also talk about No Lynch. It would only stymie real discussion if it was long, spammy or obnoxious to the point where players find it hard to get to the bits where actual gameplay takes place.

Later on, drealmerz defended himself with the following:

I wasn't in the middle of it/partaking in that discussion at all, and even so, what about having multiple things going on at once? Harmless post is harmless post, no matter what is going on around it, as it shouldn't distract from real meaningful conversation unless scum try to make it do so, imo.

I don't like this, because it's almost the same as my response to his accusation - and if he had known this, then he would have known his accusation in 40 had no merit in the first place. It could be argued that he had understood my point in #41 and agreed, but then he would retract his earlier accusation of me trying to distract from the rest of the game with my talk of NL theory, and he did not. Notably, he did not correct GM when she did so, either, which you would expect if he genuinely believed that it's okay to talk about off-topic things as long as it's not obnoxiously spammy. In 158, he also mentioned that he thought my phone posting was distracting from the actual game as well, leading me to believe that he does not fully agree with the concept, which makes his utilization on it in his own defense pretty odd.

This is what I meant by his hypocrisy - he has inconsistent views on the topic, which leads me to believe he does not actually care about something distracting from the game and only wants to use it as a way to push his own agenda.

I think I've covered drealmerz's misreps fairly well, calling them out as I see them.

Another major point is his inconsistency regarding the point of #104.

132:

To me, it was the perfect time for a post like that. I like to make posts like that to stir things up, get some reactions from people, see if I can generate reads from it.

This is in reference to 104, and makes it fairly clear that drealmerz meant the post at least partially as a reaction test.

This isn't consistent with 107:

Definitely intending to be silly with #104, and I find your comment about it to me rather odd, Accountant. You did read that I've played mafia before, yes? You've got to know that I know the picture is just a picture and is not something to be analyzed. If I were a noob I could see you wanting to make sure I was clear, but, yeh, I find the way you did that very off/odd (so much so it makes me more comfortable in my vote for you. Of course it's not DAMNING OMG YOU'RE SCUM or anything, but, it's just a bit of something to go on at this point, more than anything else.)

Where he makes it clear that it's a pure joke. You could argue that drealmerz was being misleading about the nature of 104 in order to avoid "blowing" the reaction test, but note that at this point he had already received the reaction he wanted from me, so there's not much point in hiding it any more. Indeed, he could have pointed out the fact that the post was a reaction test as a defense against me saying the post is out of place, but declined to do so, leading me to believe that the whole reaction test thing was more or less something that he made up on the spot.

Again, the dual nature of his post leads me to believe that the nature of 104 is nothing more than something for him to manipulate according to what is most convenient for him - when he wants to slam me, he can claim I failed the reaction test; when he wants to defend against people claiming it's out of place, he can just say it's a mere joke and they're blowing things out of proportion.

-

The reason I changed my mind about drealmerz is twofold:

1) I was engaged in a protracted argument with him. I'm always suspicious of scumreads arising from stuff like that, because it's statistically unlikely for the person I hop into a game with and immediately get into a shouting match with to just coincidentally happen to be scum. It's far more likely to be confirmation bias - indeed, I found fewer instances of hypocrisy, misrepresentations and inconsistency than I thought existed when I went over both our ISOs in the writing up of the case above.

2) Marquis once said that since town are more likely to appear than scum, it's okay to throw away a body of scummy posts if you find a single post that you think is impossible to come from scum. I have not found such a post, but I have found something that is sufficiently unlikely to come from scum that it outweighs the evidence against drealmerz. Namely, this quote:

anyway, you've hit me so many times as scummy and that stuff between jae and GM seems silly too (not as silly as this, mind you), soo, yep, now I figure it is best to chill on it and allow others to make their assessments on us, I mean, feel free to do whatever you were going to do but, I'm pretty much done with this with you unless you have any questions for me that are necessary to clear up.

By pure content it's townish, but I really like the tone of this. It was on the strength of this that I decided to cease scumreading drealmerz. UNVOTE:

@Accountant
Why do you think that hypocrisy is a scum-tell? I like the depth of your case.

Because it's a sign that someone doesn't really believe in his previous statements and was just using them as an excuse to vote someone. Like, if you say X is scummy then do X, it's likely you're scum who doesn't care about X and is just using it as a piece of made-up reasoning to mislynch a townie.

Welcome Guilty!

In post 181, Accountant wrote:Because it's a sign that someone doesn't really believe in his previous statements and was just using them as an excuse to vote someone. Like, if you say X is scummy then do X, it's likely you're scum who doesn't care about X and is just using it as a piece of made-up reasoning to mislynch a townie.

I find it very unreliable as a scum-tell for a variety of reasons but the important part was to verify that you have a reason for believing it is and I buy your explanation.

Hi everyone!

I haven't read the game yet, I will post reads/thoughts tonight

Why is it unreliable as a scumtell?

Because of human nature, once you get into a discussion with someone else you want to prove you are right so you're often going to use the best argument you can come up with regardless of whether it can be applied to what you posted as well, also it's hard not to have a double standard when considering yourself (and knowing your alignment) and other people.

LION!

(I also find hypocrisy unreliable as a scumtell because everyone's a hypocrite sometimes. It often arises from confbias.)

(p-edit: that.)

In post 179, Accountant wrote:I'm always suspicious of scumreads arising from stuff like that, because it's statistically unlikely for the person I hop into a game with and immediately get into a shouting match with to just coincidentally happen to be scum.

Unless they're your buddy.

goodmorning wrote:

In post 168, JaeReed wrote:I kinda wanna continue to grill GM outta spite because Accountant told me to stop, lol. My concerns were all addressed, though. I'm still half convinced just based off my luck that the IC slot is scum. Every newbie I've been in for D1 has had a scum IC. That's 4/5 newbies (the 5th I specifically replaced in after the town IC died). That's...not really an argument, though. Has little bearing on this game, gambler's fallacy, and so on.

Things are making a lot more sense now.

goodmorning in donner party wrote:I was feeling really vague about Jae until their fight with Dunn. Then everything started feeling really familiar.

...I'd ask if you're doing this on purpose but I know I'm being on the silly side of paranoid and this is not how to correctly use meta because it's probably just how you type... I doubt you're doing it on purpose to play on my mind. Maybe. Q_Q

goodmorning wrote:

Accountant trying to put a stop to the noise is pro-town I think, as I can see scum!Accountant letting it pass without telling us to stop since it clutters up the thread. I still think it was early to try to call a stop to it since I was going to disengage anyway... but that's more my personality coming through than anything since I hate being told to do what I was already about to do.

Except, as I mentioned earlier this post, we were accomplishing some resolution. Accountant keeps making noise at dreal about how he's going to post a case when he gets to the computer, but in the meantime continues to bait dreal with non-issues.

Accountant trying to put a stop to productive noise while continuing with unproductive noise is not pro-Town at all.

I found it more likely that Accountant had a townread on both of us and as such deemed the noise as unproductive. I'll get back to you on this, since my gut is squirming a bit at it being handwaved as TvT so easily without pointing out it's TvT. I was lazy and didn't do my reread yesterday so I have to do it today

goodmorning wrote:

I disagree that it was some kind of obvious joke rather than trying to handwave potential scummy behaviour, but that's likely gonna be an agree to disagree point.

Worrying about looking Town is a Newb tell, not a scumtell. But we can certainly agree to disagree.

It can be, but that depends on the concern about looking town comes out.

Anyway, rereading. Hi Guilty!

In post 189, JaeReed wrote:

goodmorning wrote:

In post 168, JaeReed wrote:I kinda wanna continue to grill GM outta spite because Accountant told me to stop, lol. My concerns were all addressed, though. I'm still half convinced just based off my luck that the IC slot is scum. Every newbie I've been in for D1 has had a scum IC. That's 4/5 newbies (the 5th I specifically replaced in after the town IC died). That's...not really an argument, though. Has little bearing on this game, gambler's fallacy, and so on.

Things are making a lot more sense now.

goodmorning in donner party wrote:I was feeling really vague about Jae until their fight with Dunn. Then everything started feeling really familiar.

...I'd ask if you're doing this on purpose but I know I'm being on the silly side of paranoid and this is not how to correctly use meta because it's probably just how you type... I doubt you're doing it on purpose to play on my mind. Maybe. Q_Q

-As Scum, my strategy is to read people exactly the same way as I would read them if I were Town. As a result, people usually have to go deeper when meta-ing me, because I don't have ulterior motives for reading anyone X way (except partners as mentioned earlier, but if you haven't lynched a partner yet or if they look Town...)
-In that case, your fight with Dunn reminded me of some Town fights I've had in the past, I think. In this case, your paranoia made your push on me make sense even from a Town POV.

I don't know if any of that really answers the question(s) you didn't explicitly ask, but it's what I've got.

goodmorning wrote:

Accountant trying to put a stop to the noise is pro-town I think, as I can see scum!Accountant letting it pass without telling us to stop since it clutters up the thread. I still think it was early to try to call a stop to it since I was going to disengage anyway... but that's more my personality coming through than anything since I hate being told to do what I was already about to do.

Except, as I mentioned earlier this post, we were accomplishing some resolution. Accountant keeps making noise at dreal about how he's going to post a case when he gets to the computer, but in the meantime continues to bait dreal with non-issues.

Accountant trying to put a stop to productive noise while continuing with unproductive noise is not pro-Town at all.

I found it more likely that Accountant had a townread on both of us and as such deemed the noise as unproductive. I'll get back to you on this, since my gut is squirming a bit at it being handwaved as TvT so easily without pointing out

how

it's TvT. I was lazy and didn't do my reread yesterday so I have to do it today

Maybe, but if we weren't townreading , then as unproductive as it might have been to , it was still clearly productive ...

goodmorning wrote:

I disagree that it was some kind of obvious joke rather than trying to handwave potential scummy behaviour, but that's likely gonna be an agree to disagree point.

Worrying about looking Town is a Newb tell, not a scumtell. But we can certainly agree to disagree.

It can be, but that depends on

how

the concern about looking town comes out.

That's true. I take it we read this one differently.

--

It's DDD! Hi! It's been a REALLY LONG TIME.

okay I've read up on the game

VOTE: JaeReed
his case on GM was terrible. It seems like the reason behind his scumread was because GM didn't move her vote and because she ignored Asty's first post while commenting on dreamerlz.

The "you didn't move your vote when I would have expected you to" argument is pretty transparently bad, he's holding GM to some arbitrary standard of how a townie should play and scumreading her for not doing that. He's also way oversimplifying what reasons she could have for commenting/voting, especially with this post:

In post 131, JaeReed wrote:So, all the bolded stuff? GM didn't pick out Asty's stuff, but did throw shade at drealmer's thing (without a vote, which is an issue but ehhh ok we'll argue that GM doesn't change votes or didn't want to scare off the newbie so that's NAI).

My issue is, if you're not going to nitpick at wording, then you don't point out drealmer's thing. If you are going to nitpick at wording then you don't ignore Asty's thing.

I believe GM is deliberately not drawing attention to some things while focusing on others.

Like I doubt JaeReed seriously believed this was an alignment-indicative point for scum!gm, especially since tonally he's now backpedaled from "you're scum" to "well I still want to push you but lemme reread".

also I don't like his apparent belief in a GM/Asty team as it requires two massive assumptions that a) Asty must be scum for his RVS post and b) GM must be his partner intentionally not voting or drawing attention to him. And then while he was pushing it JaeReed didn't go after Asty himself at all, and he still hasn't.

I have a few other weaker scumreads: copper seems to be surfing the tides of the major 1v1s between other players (especially Accountant/dreamerlz which I see as a TvT) and mostly jumping in with non-advancing commentary or summary. StaplerTowel hasn't done anything of note and 119 pings me as he seems to be townreading drealmerz but went ahead to post a giant wall on why drealmerz's joke and subsequent argument about it isn't helpful.

Would be down to wagon either of those, but let's get some Jae votes first

VOTE: Lion
That catch-up is almost a scum claim.

Sorry; I don't see the scum claim. Can you please elaborate why it's a scum claim, copper?

In post 191, goodmorning wrote:It's DDD! Hi! It's been a REALLY LONG TIME.

I haven't played for something like 18 months; we'll see how much I've retained. Reading the game early tomorrow.

In post 192, GuiltyLion wrote:And then while he was pushing it JaeReed didn't go after Asty himself at all, and he still hasn't.

Not sure I really think Jae has to be Scum atm, but I hadn't noticed that. That's kind of a decent point, and I'd like to see Jae's response.

You do advance one scumread that I've begun scumreading more and more as the game progresses.

In post 195, Accountant wrote:Sorry; I don't see the scum claim. Can you please elaborate why it's a scum claim, copper?

I think I can see why he might dislike it but I'm not sure it makes sense, so I also want to see this question answered.

In post 196, Debonair Danny DiPietro wrote:

In post 191, goodmorning wrote:It's DDD! Hi! It's been a REALLY LONG TIME.

I haven't played for something like 18 months; we'll see how much I've retained. Reading the game early tomorrow.

I'm just back from a 3-month break; most of it came back OK for me though I have overreacted slightly to things at times. That's significantly shorter though, so... good luck?

There's a new abbreviation! NAI stands for "not alignment-indicative" and I include it here because I don't remember ever seeing it prior to ~5 months ago.

The "you didn't move your vote when I would have expected you to" argument is pretty transparently bad, he's holding GM to some arbitrary standard of how a townie should play and scumreading her for not doing that.

also I don't like his apparent belief in a GM/Asty team as it requires two massive assumptions that a) Asty must be scum for his RVS post and b) GM must be his partner intentionally not voting or drawing attention to him.

Why is this scummy? Do you think a town Jae would make less assumptions, hold GM to a lesser standard?

his case on GM was terrible. It seems like the reason behind his scumread was because GM didn't move her vote and because she ignored Asty's first post while commenting on dreamerlz.

Goes for this as well, actually. You've explained the weakness of the case, but not why it was more likely to come from scum than town.

In post 198, Accountant wrote: Why is this scummy? Do you think a town Jae would make less assumptions, hold GM to a lesser standard?

[~snip~]

Goes for this as well, actually. You've explained the weakness of the case, but not why it was more likely to come from scum than town.

It's scummy because Jae's argument is to take an imagined action that town!gm have taken, then push that she's scum on that basis of not doing that. Instead of explaining why her actions come from a place of scum motivation, he's saying she didn't meet some assumed expectation of town motivation, which is a much easier case for scum to make. It's logic that starts with a conclusion and works downward, instead of looking at the evidence and building upward.

Seriously, Jae's fundamental argument for GM being scum is that she's covering for her partner Asty by ignoring him. Go ISO him, that's the core of what he was pushing. It's not that the case is weak that makes him scum, it's that it's weak in a way that reads fake. It's the kind of case you make when you're looking to invent reasons to push on someone.