In post 25, Val89 wrote:All,
I am so sorry I am so late to the thread - you've all given me so much to think about, so it has taken me a little while to gather my thoughts and process it all.
One advantage of waiting until there has been a bit of back and forth is that one can start to get a sense of how the game is going to go, and start to make some initial reads. Lots to unpack here, so I'll get straight to it.
I don't like this post. Clearly, post 6 is not post 1, and lying to us straight out of the bad is not a good look. In fact, I propose that we should make it a sort of agreement between us that if any of us are caught lying - about anything - we should give strong consideration to eliminating said person as a result. In addition, the whole post - the content, the tone, the context in which it was posted just gives me a general sense of unease. It was a gut read initially, but I think it's clear I was considering
MiniMegabyte
as at least a slight leanscum here already. Hence far, I have to say the rest of the players are null reads, which considering how advanced the game state is we can start to stop chucking random votes around, this took me a surprise - I was about to say we have some very good mafia players here, but then it occurred to me that if you were truly that skilled you would have convinced me to give you at least a slight townread by now.
Ahh, and here is it; the smoking gun that grants some confidence to that earlier gut read. I am aware of the existence of confirmation bias, so I have gone through all the contributions
MiniMegabyte
has made very carefully several times to try and guard against that, but no -
MiniMegabyte
is a strong scum read at this point. Let me explain.
MiniMegabyte
is clearly trying to insinuate that she has no personal knowledge of
VFP
, particularly as this comes of the back of
VFPs
explicit (and as it turned out - also false) statement that they don't know
anyone
in the game. Also of interest is the actual emoji chosen here - a handshake. Between two persons. To the exclusion of the rest of the group. See where I am going with this? She also specifically and pointedly says "Nice to meet
ya
!" instead of "nice to meet
you
". We all know English is one of those languages where 'you' can refer to a singular or an individual. Using it here would be natural, avoid the wavy red line most modern day browsers would assign to the word, and give her the benefit of the ambiguity if anyone paying attention catches it. Instead, we get the informal 'ya', standing in contrast to 'y'all', which to me is a further indication the introduction is addressed specifically to
VFP
and she wants us to know it.
The question now becomes why? In my view, the only explanation that makes any sort of sense is she wants us to think, even if only subconsciously, that this over the top, public performance is the first time these two have ever came in to contact, and they most definitely have
NOT
already said hi to each other in the scum thread. No sir, definitely not! Nothing to see here folks! Shake my hand and smile!
You might think that this makes
VFP
her scum partner then, and the game is solved. Putting aside my feelings towards how I would feel if my first ever game of Mafia was solved and ended on the first IRL day, I don't actually think this is the case. I think
MiniMegabyte
knew that someone might pick up on the vibes between the two here and our first thought would be that they are scum partners. But equally, perhaps that what they just want us to think? I wish there was some term to describe this, but I've checked the wiki inside out and can't find one, so I have invented one, both to refer to this situation and the approach I think we should take to try and come to some sort of conclusion as to how to deal with it. I call it Written Information Follows Overt Meta (WIFOM) - in other words, when what you see written down is in line with what would be expected from your experience you should assume that it is true. No sane scum player wants to associate themselves so strongly with their scum partner so obviously and early, so when we see it happening, we should assume that ISN'T what is happening, that makes no sense. Thus, this is all a big play, and we can actually rule out
VFP
as the other scum. As an aside, feel free to use that acronym in your future posts, but do try to remember who invented it and give credit every now and again.
There is the open question as to why
VFP
also lied about their association with other players, but I am going to assume for the moment that was a legitimate mistake - I know what I said about eliminating proven liars, but I don't think they would be so fast to walk it back. In contrast, I think
MiniMegabyte
fully expected that "First!" lie to slip under the radar.
So;
townread,
scumread,b]
everyone else
[/b]null. I think it's pretty clear given that set of reads where my vote should go. I'm going to put my vote where it obviously belongs, and strongly feel that we should make them the elimination for the day. Obviously there is quite a bit of time left before deadline, and I would like to see some more discussion, but I will put my vote on them and see what happens with the rest of the votes. Being the first, I won't be able to hammer, but I want to make it clear that I would be prepared to hammer, and it will take a lot now to convince me to switch my vote.
With all that said:
VOTE: T3 
)
-