Scummies 2010 Nominations

[Shanba]

There should totally be a scummy for best GD thread.

Speaking unofficially, and not as a member of the scummies steering committee, I can see so many terrible ways for that to go wrong. Just... no.

[Shanba]

Nominate TheStatusQuo for Professor Mafia

for this

Nominate Jdodge for Professor Mafia

for viewtopic.php?t=13712this[/url]

both need to continue their series on mafia theory, though.

[Shanba]

Is that really what people have to do to get professor mafia write essays?

Wait, what? Are you saying this shouldn't be waht professor mafia award is about? Cause if so I fundamentally disagree with you.

For a long time, I admit, the award has tended to go to people who do stuff like writing out a whole bunch of role PMs, or other similar tasks which are about the game, but not about how to play the game. Very little of what is nominated for the prof mafia award seems to be about actual mafia theory, and perhaps that's part of the reason why contributions to mafia theory are pretty limited these days.

I want people to write essays like those, because it helps to get people involved in thinking about the game, and that can only improve the quality of play on site; agree or disagree with what they say, it forces you to challenge your preconceived notions and hence gives you greater insight into the game.

Do you really think writing out a whole bunch of standardised role pms, for example, is more worthy?

[Shanba]

Look, I accept we're going to have differences of opinion on things like these, and I can accept that she gets nommed for collecting the data - ultimately the judges will make the decision as to what they think is most important. But I don't see what hoopla is adding as that notable.

Don't get me wrong, I really appreciate it and I hope she continues to get data for analysis, but what does the data actually tell us? I mean, it's just a list of win percentages relating to different setup types. It's a great starting point for discussion about balance, and I hope people take up that opportunity (I'm going to make some comments in a bit). But this kind of thing has been done before: there are countless people who have run stats on newbie games win percentages, and I know that I myself have done something like this before, and a google search reveals that you have too, Adel. What makes this particularly noteworthy?

(As to why I think the things I nominated to are particularly noteworthy, as someone is inevitably going to throw this in my face: I think that both JD and shea are raising topics that aren't often discussed yet have relevance to the way that people play mafia. JD's is more self serving and shea's is more notable imo, but I'm interested in seeing what JD adds in the continuation of his series.)

This is intended to spark debate btw. If you disagree, please please please say why and don't just blow me off. Adel, I'm looking at you here.

[Shanba]

Look, I accept we're going to have differences of opinion on things like these, and I can accept that she gets nommed for collecting the data - ultimately the judges will make the decision as to what they think is most important. But I don't see what hoopla is adding as that notable.

Don't get me wrong, I really appreciate it and I hope she continues to get data for analysis, but what does the data actually tell us? I mean, it's just a list of win percentages relating to different setup types. It's a great starting point for discussion about balance, and I hope people take up that opportunity (I'm going to make some comments in a bit). But this kind of thing has been done before: there are countless people who have run stats on newbie games win percentages, and I know that I myself have done something like this before, and a google search reveals that you have too, Adel. What makes this particularly noteworthy?

(As to why I think the things I nominated to are particularly noteworthy, as someone is inevitably going to throw this in my face: I think that both JD and shea are raising topics that aren't often discussed yet have relevance to the way that people play mafia. JD's is more self serving and shea's is more notable imo, but I'm interested in seeing what JD adds in the continuation of his series.)

This is intended to spark debate btw. If you disagree, please please please say why and don't just blow me off. Adel, I'm looking at you here.

I certainly don't want to minimize the contribution of others writing essays and the like. But I think you're wrong to dismiss the contribution of data.

I think comparing Hoopla's data to newbie data is useful, but newbie data is more easily collectible as there's a limit to the number of setups possible and each gets reported and cataloged together, making compiling the data relatively simple if a little mind-numbing. Hoopla's, on the other hand, not only shows whether town or scum won but the actual setup. Having tried to do this on a limited number of games before, it is really tough stuff to do because mods aren't always great about including what the setup was on the front page. That can lead to a lot of hunting for information.

Obviously the data does not show anything in and of itself. But it gives the opportunity for analysis that did not exist before. It helps fight bad conventional wisdom. It helps people more rationally think about the balance of the games they're creating. 63% win rate for scum is HUGE. In the NFL, the owners were convinced to change playoff rules because the winner of the coin toss had gotten SUCH an advantage in recent years... and that was something like 59%.

I know all about how mind numbingly dull collecting data is, having collected data of my own for various reasons including updating the wiki on the results and setups of newbie games and collecting data for the thread I linked above, and I really, really respect the work hoopla has done here. However, in terms of what is a noteworthy contribution to mafia theory, I'm not sure entirely how relevant hoopla's post actually is.

63% winrate is not what the winrate actually was for scum; adding the data for all the setups together gave me a 56% scum winrate which I'm almost certain is not statistically significant (though it being midnight, I'm not about to try and run any kind of statistics on it - not that I'm actually very good at statistics anyway.) The data that most games tend to favour scum has been around for a long time anyway, tbqh.