Policy Lynching

[MonkeyMan576]

The thing to always remember is that the control group isn't lynching scum, it's lynching randomly. Town rarely lynches that much better than random early on anyway. What tends to happen if excuses are made for the REALLY bad player is that the slightly better player who is trying but just looks 'illogical' or 'opportunist' or 'sheepy' when trying to make arguments and can't really explain their way out of them. Think how many times you've voted for someone because their argument looked like a disingenuous attempt to get a mislynch. It's still weaker players who get targeted by these kinds of lynches, my friends. Town doesn't benefit when the truly terrible players get excuses made for them and the somewhat poor players don't.

There's a difference when you are lynching someone for their in game behavior or their "reputation". The issue with lynching someone on reputation is that you can gain a lot of information on day one if it is used properly. If most of the day is used as to weather or not to policy lynch someone, it limits the towns ability to use day appropriately. Policy lynching tends to promote quick lynching, which is always bad day one. Also, scum tend to use policy lynching as an excuse for a mislynch. As far as I am concerned, if someone is acting anti-town, then by all means lynch them for it, but don't lynch them because they signed up and before they have a chance to show their value to the town.

[kuribo]

Is policy lynching a good idea? IMHO policy lynching is generally an excuse for lazy town to get through day 1 without having to scum hunt or take positions. It makes it incredibly easy for scum to blend into the town and generally hurts the town in the long run. IMHO policy lynching should only be done in very severe cases, not as a rule of thumb.

Of course, I have been a policy lynch target before, but I have also have had people defend me, so I am a little biased.

Says the.Guy who policy lynched me in LYLO because you found me annoying.

[MonkeyMan576]

I'm not sure which game you are talking about but it couldn't have been recently. And I'm sure it wasn't a policy lynch more than I didn't find your play pro-town.

Edit: If you're talking about Buffy mafia(from 2010, mind you), I had a choice between you, who was pretty much antagonistic the whole game, and GreyICE, who was pretty much the opposite. I didn't really have any concrete evidence on either one of you, so I pretty much had to go with gut. It turned out being the wrong choice, but we all make mistakes. The truth is I haven't had that much lylo experience, and you don't gain experience by being policy lynched. i definately did not policy lynch you.

[kuribo]

It was Buffy the.Vampire Slayer. You said I was so annoying that you didn't care if I was town.

Then when scum piled on for the Lynch, you asked why we were acting like the game was over because you didn't know it was LYLO.

And yet you let GreyICE scum get away with claiming Miller AFTER a cop investigated him and even after another person flipped Miller. Even when I explained repeatedly why he was scum.


For Christ's sake, and people wonder why I'm so pissy all the time

[kuribo]

Hey monkey here's a policy worth lynching over:

If someone is investigated guilty, and claims Miller after the.fact? KILL HIM.

[kuribo]

In fact, weren't you yourself the cop in that?

I will never forget that MoI talked me into joining that game. I still owe him for that

[MonkeyMan576]

Did anyone ever tell you that you are really petty?

Mafia is played very differently here than at the site I am used to playing it at. ArcAngel is right that certain people are a bit to demanding when it comes to playstyle conformity. I actively try to improve as a player, I can't speak for ArcAngel or anyone else who has been policy lynch targets.

But at the end of the day, it's a game, and people should respect the people they are playing with and treat people in a respectful manner, even if you disagree with them.

[The Fonz]

There's a difference when you are lynching someone for their in game behavior or their "reputation". The issue with lynching someone on reputation is that you can gain a lot of information on day one if it is used properly.

OK fine, I don't tend to lynch people on rep, but I reserve the right to when I know someone's going to be completely unreadable going forward. You're right that there's information to be gained on day one that is probably lost in a rep-lynch situation (though the rep-lynch proposal on Furcolow in my last game was quite informative) but the thing is, if you don't lynch them, people are going to spend a load of characters and emotional energy fretting about what to do with that blasted VI in later days. If you are sure you won't be able to read someone because of their non-engagement with the game, then it's better to get it out of the way.

If most of the day is used as to weather or not to policy lynch someone, it limits the towns ability to use day appropriately. Policy lynching tends to promote quick lynching, which is always bad day one.

Disagree with the link between policy and quicklynching - policy lynching is usually hugely controversial, and a great way to kick off a massive argument. And see the above: you have to lynch them sometime, use power roles on them, or let them live to endgame.

Those are the options. There are no others.

What do you propose? Leaving them be and gambling on them being town, vigging them which still leaves them dead and doesn't give them the chance to claim, or wasting an investigation which could eliminate as a suspect someone who has actual interactions to analyse? There's no good solution here.

Also, scum tend to use policy lynching as an excuse for a mislynch. As far as I am concerned, if someone is acting anti-town, then by all means lynch them for it, but don't lynch them because they signed up and before they have a chance to show their value to the town.

[/quote]

Like, really? Most of those I've seen pushed are by town. I won't deny that, since they're essentially random lynches, they end up hitting town more often than not. But again, there are a large number of people on site who hate policy lynching. Trying to push one is usually an act of bravery, sticking your neck out when you know it'll get you attacked, and far more often than not they're pushed by town. What scum generally do, if the VI is not their partner, is to kinda weakly attack the policy lynch so that they don't actually stop it, but have a nice scapegoat (the townie who pushed the policy lynch) to go after the next day.

[kuribo]

Yea they have, monkey. But you HAD A GUILTY ON HIM and said to yourself, whelps one Miller already flipped, better Lynch some other jerk

[Oversoul]

Hey monkey here's a policy worth lynching over:

If someone is investigated guilty, and claims Miller after the.fact? KILL HIM.

Somehow in Flame Warriors Scumhunter got away with that.

[MonkeyMan576]

Yea they have, monkey. But you HAD A GUILTY ON HIM and said to yourself, whelps one Miller already flipped, better Lynch some other jerk

Stop trolling the thread please.

[kuribo]

I'm not trolling the thread, I'm pointing out to you, the thread Creator, a perfectly valid reason to policy Lynch..

And frankly in general, anyone claiming Miller or vengeful should be lynched before LYLO anyway. Even if the Miller claims early likethey should, he needs to be killed eventually.

[MonkeyMan576]

And I'm pointing out that 1) it wasn't a policy lynch and 2) That was 3 years ago, so give it up already.

[kuribo]

THREE YEARS?

it hasn't even been ONE year!

http://forum.mafiascum.net/viewtopic.php?f=54&t=21433

[MonkeyMan576]

Sorry, was looking at the wrong date.

But it sounds like you are trying to discredit me more than have a policy lynch discussion, so if you have an issue with me personally I'd rather you pm me.

[Timeater]

Hey monkey here's a policy worth lynching over:

If someone is investigated guilty, and claims Miller after the.fact? KILL HIM.

Somehow in Flame Warriors Scumhunter got away with that.

lol

[Oversoul]

Although I will admit I did sort of deserve it by Paranoia/Burden of Proficiency Policy lynch Regfan.

[The Fonz]

If you're lynching him for those reasons, how is it a policy lynch? Unless you're lynching all good players.

I mean shit, if we're going to redefine policy lynching as lynching someone because you've got a creeping paranoia he's scum, then everything's a policy lynch.

(FWIW: Burden of proficiency is somewhat valid. It gets a bad rep because it's really, really annoying for good players, but there's a grain of truth there if it's day five and the doc's dead and a guy EVERYONE thinks is town is still alive).

[Oversoul]

I basically did it because Reg couldn't be that scummy, but it turns out he had a bad game. :/

[DrippingGoofball]

You can slyly mark a lousy player for the NK by calling them conf-town. If they're scum, they'll live on, if they're town, they'll be NK'd.

[Oversoul]

You can slyly mark a lousy player for the NK by calling them conf-town. If they're scum, they'll live on, if they're town, they'll be NK'd.

I try to do that a lot but the scum never kills them until later.

[quadz08]

You can slyly mark a lousy player for the NK by calling them conf-town. If they're scum, they'll live on, if they're town, they'll be NK'd.

This is not really true if you have intelligent scum. I'd love to let a confirmed town idiot live as long as possible, because he'll be a detriment to the town AND they won't ever get rid of him!

[quadz08]

That said, I am not the bestest scum player in the world, so I could also be completely off-base.

[Faraday]

Yeah, leaving "confirmed town" alive if they're not a threat is fine. If they're on your side keep them sweet.

[mastin2]

Disagree with the link between policy and quicklynching - policy lynching is usually hugely controversial, and a great way to kick off a massive argument.

Building off of this, suggesting a policy lynch is a great way to kick off an RVS. It's very rarely going to actually go through (see also: site meta of being EXTREMELY reluctant to do so), but it'll give a bundle-load of information. It accomplishes quite a few things.

-It forces the player who would-be-policy-lynched to step up their game. They comply? Great, they're no longer policy-lynch-worthy. They refuse? The policy lynch might actually go through.
-It forces the player who would-be-policy-lynched onto the defensive, pressuring them. They may not get lynched (in fact, probably won't), but they'll have plenty of pressure on them. Enough to gain a good solid read on them and determine if they're scum or town.
-It forces other players to react, both to you for having suggested it, and gives you a ton of info on how they interact with the would-be-policy-lynched player. When you have a few flips, this will be INCREDIBLY useful.

Soyeah, I can actually see value in suggesting a policy-lynch early-on.

Butyeah. I still prefer WotC. If a single player would be the cause of a significant portion of your playerlist to out, request replacement, and other similar things...well, then, that player is best off not in the game. Players don't have to like each other, but they should never absolutely be at each other's throats off of their respective playstyles and actively despite one another--at that point, they're not playing as players; they're playing as people.

When a game has people playing as people, they're not playing with roles. They're playing purely from their emotions and viewpoints, not from their alignment and their game knowledge. So as a mod, it should be your duty to do everything possible to make sure that doesn't happen.