Newbie 1973 | Mountain | Over

[Mitillos]

Unvote

Hello, everyone. Catching up.

[Mitillos]

Initial reactions/reads (part 1):

ArthurConyl

: Not thrilled with his pre-emptive "I'm likely going to be a lurker" thing, but I can understand feeling the need to say it. Generally started out a bit shaky, but it can all be attributed easily to newbie status. Subsequent interactions seem reasonable, but I'd like 1) reasons for his current reads, including an answer to Farren's question in 165 and 2) some more scumhunting (mainly asking for vote explanations) that isn't focused solely on people who are voting him.

Read - Provisionally leaning slightly town.

chazary

: What's wrong with controversial choices? Especially if you're trying to see how people will react to being voted (i.e. creating pressure). Also, how is an almost-naked vote on Arthur controversial, but a completely unexplained one on Penguin not? Why would you expect anyone (particularly an SE, who has probably played enough games to have been voted quite a bit) to react to one vote? Generally seems wishy-washy on many things, which can potentially be indicative of newbscum not knowing where and how to target effectively, dipping a toe here and there to see where it's safe to go.

Read - Leaning slightly scum.

CheekyTeeky

: Hello, person I have previously interacted with! Some really solid scumhunting here. Good pressure, good questions, good responses to answers given. Mostly. The one thing that gives me pause is that right in the middle of questioning my slot, she switched her vote to one that looked either like a jokey exchange with ETL or an OMGUS. On its own, this is not big enough to worry too much about, though.

Read - Town.

EspeciallyTheLies

: Hello, person I have previously interacted with and who likes the best character from a great series! Not much to say here, since there was only one post of substance and even then not much of it. I have the following questions: Is the Cheeky vote RVS? If not, could you explain? Also, could you explain your apparent townread on Farren?

Read - Null.

Part 2 coming soon.

[Mitillos]

I look forward to part 2.

I have good news, then.

Initial reactions/reads (part 2):

Farren

: The towniest and scumhuntingest person in the game, so far. Consistently asks for justifications and explanations for what people say, claim, and vote for.

Read - Town.

PenguinPower

: Starts out problematic. Third on a wagon, throws some shade on Farren (Farren actually interacted a lot with many different players despite his lack of a random vote, so he wasn't denying anyone the opportunity to analyse Farren's interactions). Afterwards gets a lot better, both in terms of the types of questions he asks and the responses he gives. When I hadn't yet joined the game, I skimmed a bit and had a slight scumread on Penguin, but now I'm happy with the following:

Read - Leaning town.

Ph0enix

: There was a bit of quoting posts and saying "same" at the start that would have made me very suspicious had it continued, but then he switched it up to some good questions and (more importantly) good counter-arguments to some bad attacks on others. This is a slot I wish to see a lot more from, because I think it has potential to be solidly sorted early.

Read - Leaning town.

Nomanssky101

: Literally nothing

Read - Null.

Also, an update on a previous read.

Spoiler: Unrelated to the game

Hallo! Yes the best. We are re-watching it again in honor of Odo.

This made me sad.

I was reading ETL's post 186 and for most of it I was thinking "plus points for ETL", even where I disagreed with her conclusions. And then, I saw this:

3) ArthurConyl
I feel pretty strongly this slot is town, just based on how he's reacted to things happening in the game and his apparent drive to understand it. I feel like if he was scum he'd be getting a lot more coaching in the PT. He comes across as truly being solo here.

This came after accusing Cheeky (her main scumread) of IC-ing in favour of scumhunting. Note that Cheeky has been giving answers that could be thought of as "coaching" to Arthur. For that matter, Farren could also be seen as "coaching" Arthur (see post 41). Obviously, I don't think this was happening, as I'm townreading all three players involved here, but ETL's reasoning above seems to contradict the situation, in light of the Cheeky scumread. In short, @ETL: IGMEOY.

At any rate, this is not enough to put ETL below chazary.

VOTE: chazary

p-edit: @Penguin: I think ETL was saying it wasn't intentional.

[Mitillos]

To summarise, my current scumread order is chazary > ETL > nomanssky > Arthur > Penguin ~ Phoenix > Cheeky > Farren.

[Mitillos]

Also, I just saw this.

Mod notes: Mitillos is the new Gyro Zeppeli

I sure hope not. I don't intend to make homophobic remarks, or make juvenile attacks against another player's manhood.

[Mitillos]

3) ArthurConyl
I feel pretty strongly this slot is town, just based on how he's reacted to things happening in the game and his apparent drive to understand it. I feel like if he was scum he'd be getting a lot more coaching in the PT. He comes across as truly being solo here.

This came after accusing Cheeky (her main scumread) of IC-ing in favour of scumhunting. Note that Cheeky has been giving answers that could be thought of as "coaching" to Arthur. For that matter, Farren could also be seen as "coaching" Arthur (see post 41). Obviously, I don't think this was happening, as I'm townreading all three players involved here, but ETL's reasoning above seems to contradict the situation, in light of the Cheeky scumread. In short, @ETL: IGMEOY.

I'm not seeing how ETL is contradicting herself here?

Other than this, I like what I've seen from you so far.

If Arthur was going to be coached, it would be by their partner. ETL is scumreading Cheeky, who did explain some things to Arthur (i.e. could be seen as coaching). Yet ETL said nothing about it. This is not so much a contradiction as a tension between two stated positions that are hard to reconcile. I'm not saying it's impossible to reconcile them, and this is why I'm not moving ETL even further up the scummy scale.

Also, I forgot to take into account the fact that Phoneix OMGUSed. I will have to re-evaluate him.

@Arthur: We have a full week until deadline. That's plenty of time to discuss more of our reads. Why the rush to consolidate to one person so quickly?

[Mitillos]

@ETL: Oh. I feel old now. But then that makes it even weirder that you'd bring up people being coached. By definition, you wouldn't be able to see this happening, unless you were in the mafia PT, so you wouldn't be able to tell if someone is or is not being coached. As such, determining that someone isn't being coached seems either spurious or suspicious.

Also, I'm starting to like Chazary more, from his recent posts. If he is scum, that daytalk is really great for coaching.

@Pine: Hello.

@Phoenix: So, are you down to two possible scumreads? If so, why are you not voting for one of them? If not, how else have your reads changed?

[Mitillos]

@ETL: Why would you think that off-the-cuff posts would be explicitly avoided? You are scumreading Teeky, who is clearly OK with making off-the-cuff posts (see posts 19, 40, 139, 187, 212, 253, and 274). Why would she explicitly coach anyone to not do this? For that matter, why would any player tell another player how to structure their posts? That could only lead to trouble, when the latter player unavoidably slips up.

[Mitillos]

@ETL: Those are not arguments. They are a blind assertion and an ad hominem. The reason I'm not voting you is that I considered chazary more scummy. So, tell me how this is scum-driven. Also, your reads are not so special that anyone who gives them anything less than immediate deference is being thickheaded. Like everyone else, you must be carefully evaluated by the other players.
As others have noted, you're being quite defensive for someone with just two votes on them. In your past games, did you have a tendency to react in a similar manner due to accusations and disagreement (as either alignment)? Do you have links to such situations?

[Mitillos]

Sorry, been a bit busy preparing/grading exams.
I also like seeing Farren and Ph0enix at work and don't want to interrupt.

[Mitillos]

Mmmm... I already indicated I townread you and slightly scumread ETL.

[Mitillos]

I have only been skimming mostly, tbh. When my reads change, I'll be sure to mention it, though.
At this time, I'm largely waiting for the other replacements to also weigh in and then I'll go back and reread everything.

[Mitillos]

@Penguin: Early on, you suggested that Ph0enix get an avatar. Is there a reason you didn't make the same suggestion to Arthur? Also, could you please try to avoid making multiple sequential posts and just collect everything into one post? You have nine posts in a row once and five posts in a row twice.

So, chaz's posts have been showing improvement. Now I'm beginning to wonder if my scumread should be modified to a newbread. He needs to be re-assessed more carefully, just like Ph0enix. Unfortunately, the next two people on my scumreads list are replace-ins, so I have to wait for them to say stuff, before I can re-evaluate their relative scumminess. Having said that:

@Cheeky: I've read your back-and-forth with ETL more carefully. Your case makes sense to me. ETL's response seems like flailing. Nothing changed for me there. Was there anything in particular you wanted me to address?

@Enter: Hello. I'm not sure what you mean when you mention Farren's post 137 there. Could you clarify? What, precisely is your objection there? Also, I'm not sure your dislike of post 99 makes any sense at all. The argument seems perfectly reasonable to me and I'm the slot it was attacking. Also, what do you think of your predecessor's reads, specifically ETL's reads on Cheeky and Ph0enix? Do you agree with them at all?

[Mitillos]

@Mod: Given the numerous recent replacements and the various rl obligations, would it be possible to extend D1, if the rest of the players agree?

[Mitillos]

They are certainly nitpicky and not really to do with the game. The first one was just curiosity, the second one is because my preferences are opposite of yours.

[Mitillos]

Nah, I'm still townreading Penguin.

[Mitillos]

@Cheeky: Explanation?

[Mitillos]

Don't you think being otherwise busy irl is a valid excuse?

[Mitillos]

@chazary. No, I can't think of anything right now and as I said I've been liking your recent posts (even if you seem a bit overeager to confirm that people are townreading you). I will reread what's been going on some time tomorrow and I'll decide then if you're still deserving rope and my vote (probably not, to be honest).

[Mitillos]

@Enter: Why Penguin? I don't think you've even mentioned him before.

[Mitillos]

UNVOTE:
Regardless of the answer to the above, both Pine and Enter's posts look scummy to me. Consider my vote as being on both of them at this time.

[Mitillos]

@Enter: This doesn't really explain why you picked Penguin over e.g. Arthur, whom you previously at least voiced some suspicions on, given that they both had two votes on them. You are right that voting Pine at this stage would not be helpful, but the point was for me to explicitly voice that I was pinged by Pine, so that everyone knows where I stand. Having said that, I think you are very likely mafia. I didn't much like what I saw from ETL and you haven't done anything to improve this.

VOTE: Enter

This is L-1.

[Mitillos]

1) Your predecessor was not a newbie. She's been on this site much longer than you.
2) Voting you isn't opportunistic, unless I'm scum and you're town, which is a huge presupposition.
3) I didn't say Arthur wasn't lynchbait. I'm simply pointing out a tension in your own words.
4) That is not the only reason I'm voting for you; claiming this is an egregious misrep.
5) I now see that you did voice a tentative scumread on Penguin, but you never explored it further, like you did with Farren. You simply left it at that and switched to him when deadline approached. Talk about opportunism.

Anyway, if you don't get lynched, I hope it will be because the town finds someone scummier to lynch. How about you tell us exactly why Penguin should be this person, given your vote? Note that the following quote is not an explanation:

Penguin's vote for this slot on Page 12 looks pretty opportunistic. I haven't seen anything from Penguin that makes me think he's not scum - his posting feels somewhat formulated, his resistance to the lack of momentum on my slot is worth a second look at later on in the game - and I think I'd be willing to lynch that slot as well, today.

[Mitillos]

422: You never said you were dropping the Farren line. You could have easily done so. One is not a mindreader, so one cannot just guess that you were conceding for the sake of the deadline.

423-425: Lovely. How is any of this relevant to the fact that ETL's sudden and extreme defensiveness was read as a scumtell? The whole point here is that you are throwing shade without substance on those who voted you, continuing ETL's extreme defensiveness.

426: You are definitely misrepping here. Rather than cherrypicking, how about you have a look at the next sentence which was meant to build on the one you quoted?

[Mitillos]

@Enter: Also, given chaz's latest post, I suggest you claim.

[Mitillos]

- Much better, because now it shows you're bullshitting.

- Dismissing arguments with bad reasons is definitely throwing shade. Dismissing them with good reasons wouldn't be.

- I'm not the only player. Also, I will not assume your motives, just to put them in the best light. It's your responsibility to explain your actions, for the benefit of the whole town, especially in a newbie game.

Keep flailing, though.

[Mitillos]

So many fallacies...

Moving on, the only time I saw someone at L-1 with a stated intention to hammer refuse to claim was my very first game on this site. That player was mafia. My only regret is that, unlike then, I won't be the one hammering.

[Mitillos]

@Cheeky: Look at chaz'2 428. That looks like intent to hammer (once more people talk, which is good) to me.

@Enter: In fact, I didn't list them because at the time I considered it a pointless exercise, given that you'll probably be eating rope by tomorrow. However I do have some time now and nothing significant to occupy it, so I'll throw out a few. This will not be a complete list, because I don't want to spend hours on this as I have to wake up early tomorrow:

Post 364 (and subsequent explanation in 368): You are claiming that Farren is attacking you indirectly with snark. This is an example of poisoning the well, since whether the attack was those things or not (it wasn't, he was addressing you directly, snark notwithstanding) has no bearing on the validity of his arguments against you.

Post 373: You say that unless someone agrees with you on this specific point, they aren't worth discussing with. This is an indirect ipse dixit.

Post 376: You assert (for the second time) that Farren is attempting to portray you as tonal, based on... nothing. You also claim that his Penguin read is settled and only based on tone, again without presenting evidence of either. These are both ad hominem attacks, coupled with blind assertions.

Posts 376, 381, 416: Repeatedly calling certain votes opportunistic. As I already said, this presupposes that the person voting is scum, otherwise there couldn't be any sort of opportunism involved. As such, your assertions beg the question. Also, to build on that, your vote close to the deadline on someone you merely mentioned as scumreading isn't opportunistic, but my vote that's also close to the deadline, on a slot I already scumread and gave reasons is both opportunistic and surface? That's utter bullshit.

Post 419 is very dismissive which makes it easy to miss the fact that it misrepresents at least two players' positions (the second and fourth one; the others may or may not be misreps for all I know), in an attempt to throw shade at their votes on you, without actually arguing why their arguments are invalid.

Post 426 cherrypicks part of my post, in order to misrepresent my intentions, as I mentioned before. You suggest that that's me trying to score town points, when reading the quoted text with the next sentence shows the whole thing to be an invitation to you to give clearer explanations for your reads: something you have repeatedly refused to do, incidentally. While I may not be "entitled" to an explanation, the town as a whole certainly deserves one; pretending otherwise is an anti-town position.

Post 436: You claim that the wagon on you was a reaction due to your Penguin vote. This ignores the two votes that were already on you at the time, and commits a post hoc fallacy on the other two. You also claim a chainsaw defense, which is another instance of presupposition. Finally you ask for those who think legitimately (another attempt at shade) you are scummy to give you an extra day to prove you are town - this is known as an argument to the future.

[Mitillos]

@Cheeky: I won't disagree about the scumminess trajectory there, but I'm not sure I get what your issue with the not voting is. Arthur claimed intent to hammer Enter. It wouldn't make sense for him to vote whilst doing that.

[Mitillos]

If Enter is lynched and flps red, I'm looking at Cheeky next. If he flips green, I'm looking at Arthur. Pine's absence is also something to worry about.

[Mitillos]

@Arthur: If everyone else is towny, that leaves you as mafia, you know.

Penguin's case on Arthur is very compelling. I would also like Pine's reads at this time, before I start voting, though. In the meantime, I'm going to reread Arthur's ISO.

[Mitillos]

Sorry, yes, messed up my ornithology there. :Þ

[Mitillos]

Welcome, new person.

[Mitillos]

When I joined this game, I said that I was putting Arthur on the townreads, provisionally. The provision was that if he really is town, one would expect to see some actual scumhunting from him. All I have seen from Arthur up to now is just defense. He generally just argues with people who are scumreading him and doesn't seem to be interested in looking for mafia at all. His post 509 names all but two players (chaz and Pine) as town or leaning town, yet he doesn't bother voting either of those two remaining, despite the fact that there are exactly two mafia players. As I mentioned before, Ph0enix's case is compelling.

VOTE: ArthurConyl

Note: I also think that Penguin has been coasting and active-lurking. His towniness has been reduced in my eyes.

[Mitillos]

@Alora: Well, I originally townread Arthur too, but changed my mind over time. That, in itself, is not an issue. The fact that he never made any other reference to Arthur in between is the sort of thing that makes me think he's been coasting and active-lurking, though. The thing is, by 515 Ph0enix had already voted Arthur and I indicated that I began scumreading him too. Furthermore, Farren was pushing Arthur (and had also voted him near the end of D1). It is not implausible that Penguin was simply going with the flow of expressed reads, to "fit in" in a sense. As you also said, he hasn't been sharing reads or analysis.

[Mitillos]

@Farren: Possibilities I can see:

Town-Arthur doesn't vote because he honestly doesn't know whom to vote, despite having called all but two players town or leaning town.

Scum-Arthur doesn't vote because he is worried that he will be further seen as opportunistic and prefers to wait for the momentum against him to die down instead.

Any-Arthur doesn't vote because he isn't engaged with the game, despite having given reads.

One of those seems far more likely to me than the other two.

[Mitillos]

Until now, I was ready to say "Arthur then Penguin might well be the solution". Now I'm no longer sure of this. Penguin's reads took a while to come and I didn't like the weird condition since it seems irrelevant to them, but now that they're here they look to me to be sincere and carefully done. I disagree with him on a few parts (e.g. scum could totally come out strong against Enter D1 if they gut-read him as a PR, Aloratom being null on Ph0enix is not the same as "there isn't enough to make a read" as it can also mean "some is good some is bad"), but I can at least understand his points and follow the reasoning.

I'm feeling better about Penguin, which is annoying because it means more work for me on D3, as I don't have a strong scumread on anyone other than Arthur, at this point.

As a side note, I'm really thankful that Ph0enix and Farren are in this game. They've been producing a lot of content, both by giving their own positions, as well as questioning other players a lot, which means I don't have to be as inquisitive as I used to be in past games. I offer this, along with the gamestate (and absence of Arthur during his time in the spotlight) as my excuses for being lackluster.

[Mitillos]

@Arthur: Actual scummy things you've done:

- You haven't voted anyone, even now that you gave clear scumreads.
- You are asking people to unvote you right at the deadline and not roleclaiming. The time to claim was post 601. As you said: Remember Enter. He also refused to claim and we mislynched the doc because of it. He could have easily claimed and given us the chance to lynch someone else instead. If he had, Cheeky would also still be alive, since Enter would have likely been the N1 kill.
(These two points together are basically you arguing for a no-lynch, which is one of the worst things we can do.)
- You are making fallacious appeals ("remember Enter"). There are seven players and every single one of them could say the same thing if they were being lynched. Since none of us can be a doctor (given that Enter was), there is absolutely no substance to the argument of "this could be a mislynch, so don't lynch me".
- Your weird shifts on Ph0enix, Farren, and Penguin, especially given that your later reads mostly reference D1 reasons for suspicion, despite the fact that your earlier reads came on D2. Waffling on one player happens. Waffling on half of them like this? Yeah, that's someone who's not even trying to scumhunt.

[Mitillos]

Why the hell would you not at least vote for chaz before now? You had him as your scummiest read in 509 and you didn't even bother voting him then, despite ostensibly knowing his alignment. That's incredibly anti-town. Why would you say he's had "fairly solid participation" since then, if you already knew he was mafia? I don't believe you, but I will unvote and wait for developments.

UNVOTE: Arthur

I will try to check here every couple of hours.

[Mitillos]

@Mod: Are you looking for a replacement for chazary?

[Mitillos]

@Mod: Huh, so he did. My bad. Also, important rules question: If a mafia member has a night action, can they perform both it and the kill on the same night, or does each mafia member get at most one action?

@Farren: We were never lynching outside the claim. It was a 1v1 the moment Arthur said he had a guilty. If we mislynched and got it wrong, we'd be in LyLo and still need to figure out what is happening between Arthur and chazary.

[Mitillos]

@Mod: Never mind, it's there on post 2.

[Mitillos]

Also, @Farren: I meant if we lynched outside the claim and got it wrong. Sorry for the confusion.

[Mitillos]

Yeah, Arthur has been too wishy-washy on chazary, for someone claiming a guilty.

VOTE: ArthurConyl

L-1

Alright Arthur. If you lied, great, have some rope. If you told the truth, then at least you know that chazary is tomorrow's lynch no matter what and you made a positive contribution to finding scum.

[Mitillos]

Your "logic" is completely flawed. If you're scum and are lynched, the only one left with any night action other than the tracker is your partner. At that point, a cop and a tracker are basically equivalent, unless mafia decides not to kill for some bizarre reason. Also, if whoever isn't lynched is telling the truth, he is confirmed town and is probably going to die overnight anyway. Finally, if you're the cop and are somehow left alive, there's still the chance of you being roleblocked, which would basically turn you into a VT, which is worse than a tracker (who doesn't have this problem).

[Mitillos]

@Arthur: Thank you for revealing your partner's identity.

[Mitillos]

VOTE: Chazary

[Mitillos]

I made most of my comments in the dead thread already.

Everything I said about Farren basically also goes for Ph0enix. Good play, all around.

@Penguin: I believe that you should have killed Ph0enix overnight, instead. I think I would have been a better choice for taking to LyLo, this game, as there would have been a higher chance of me making the wrong choice in the end. If you had done this and also not engaged in active lurking through most of the game, you likely would have given yourself a victory here.

Alora was unlucky enough to be put in a cursed slot that had been all lurk until he took it. He started doing a good job redeeming his slot; it's just unfortunate that he only had a short time to do this.

[Mitillos]

Fair enough.