Mini 594 - Satin Doll Showdown - {GAME OVER}

[hasdgfas]

SSK: Analyzing anything will be useful in trying to find scum. Why is it a bad idea to analyze debates? And what do you consider debates? I'd consider the entire game of mafia to be a debate, so you should probably clarify.

[scotmany12]

Erg0, you didn't use Glork's behavior as a segue into voting someone who isn't Glork.

I guess I worded my post wrong. I view cow's vote on ssk to be complete bs; probably he was just trying to start an easy wagon. He votes the one person he can't remember that he was suspicious of, over glork, and even elmo, who were doing basically the same thing. (roland said he had town vibes from some people. Elmo was also clearly active around the site while not posting in this game.) I was not content with his reasoning for his vote on ssk; seemed to me he was just trying to start an easy wagon.

[OhGodMyLife]

10th vote count

hasdgfas - 3 (Ether, Glork, scotmany12)
Elmo - 1 (Tarhalindur)
Erg0 - 1 (MafiaSSK)
MafiaSSK - 1 (hasdgfas)
Patrick - 1 (Mizzy)
Glork - 1 (Incognito)

Not Voting - 4 (Elmo, PokerFace, Patrick, Erg0)

With 12 alive, it takes 7 to lynch,

or 4 at deadline

Current deadline: May 29th, 1:00 PM EST

Approximately 61 hours from this post.

[PokerFace]

Ok I read through day 1 of mini 562, MafiaSSK. My only response to that thing is "WTF!" I think The people in that game took alot of what you said way out of context. You didn't really come off as scummy to me there. The other players came off as super over critical to me there. I do note that you did indeed not really vote who you believed to be scum or voice an opinion on who you thought was scum in 562. I would still prefer you made some firm stance as deadline approaches. I'd like you to respond to Cow and ether's recent coments.

I read through elmo's post #246. And I have to say I reasonably agree with tarhalidur's assessment of it. A bunch of his stuff has already been said with not great own analysis. I also don't entirely get why he wants to vote hasdcow. Some of his opinions come off as reaching because most of the post numbers he mentions were really small posts. I don't see how elmo could get some of those opinions from posts like that.

Readin' through. Hmm. I seriously doubt Glork would try to fish like that with this crowd. I don't see why 'accusing just to accuse' in the random stage is a scumtell; might be unwise, but more than a few people will jump on literally anything to get out of random. I do figure Incog has a point, inthat his vote is probably actually weaker than Ether's,

but hasd doesn't jump on it anything like the same way. I'm also not sure how hasd can say 'we do need a start to the game, and this is a good one' and then say Ether was 'trying too hard'.

Can you try too hard to get the game off to a good start? @_@. I somewhat agree with Erg0 that Glork's stance here appears kinda.. standoffish? Passive? Post 67 even seems a lil' passive-aggressive, hum. Albeit I agree with the conclusion (obv, some players will wagon anything with a pulse - I believe that's consistent with Ether) Glork's comment doesn't appear to actually do anything other than prompt further comment from both sides. Mizzy appears to be dancing (heh) around the exchange. I don't agree with Tarhalindur's comment on Erg0, 68 seemed to take stances on people in a reasonable manner, although I see what he's getting at with Ether.

I'm mainly just sitting back with some popcorn and watching the whole Ether <--> Glork thing going on. Neither of one of them are acting out of character, I think, so as of yet, I have no opinions on who is scummy.

Um, hi?

I don't understand Incognito's vote in 85. I can see he'd be curious, but the natural thing to do is simply ask "Hey, Glork, why'd you miss me out?" - I really can't see any reason for a vote, there. IIRC, Mizzy has a tendency to assert that we can't know much early on - I disagree, but I don't think her qualifiers are significant here. I kinda agree with scotmany wrt Tar, hm. Oh, noes, we're not having this 'to be honest' debate, are we?

I don't like Hasd's 131, that looks very like 'hey, look, I'm doing stuff! Only not!' hrhrm.

It seems to me like Tar puts too much stock in the Standard Tells, here - although I have seen IIoA before, I don't think what Erg0's doing fits that pattern, although you could see it that way due to confirmation bias if you were specifically looking for it, hm. I figure it's a good tell, but generally limited.. Tar's play seems very by-the-numbers, I'm not sure if that's in character. Hm, I disagree with Patrick about Glork's nitpicking, that seems precisely the kinda thing he picks up on (thinking back to Open 54 here) most frequently.

hasdgfas's 153 strikes me as staying near the sidelines for some reason.. not sure I like that. My vague impression was he was like that in Pine Barrens, all tentative like.. I can't remember if I've seen him as town, yet.

I agree with PokerFace that I don't see a real basis for calling Mizzy pro-town yet - I can't remember who did that, maybe I'll go and look back in a bit, hm. Ether seems a little different than I recall from Big Love, but then I replaced in a loooong way from the start, so perhaps it's just different circumstances, like... I can see prodding and poking random details as a good way to get things going, but you'd switch away from that after a bit. Mmm. I do quite like a lot of PokerFace's 158. Incognito seems to be making a bunch of good points hereafter.

Glork: What underlying reason do you have for acting as you are, when making post 172?
Patrick/Ether: What does Tar feel like relative to Farscape? I don't think I've seen them in a game before.
Incog: What is '42%' in post 27? Why do you like your Mizzy vote in 175?
hasdgfas: Why don't you like unprompted lists of pro-town people on 'gut' (181)? Why haven't you criticised Glork for doing exactly that? How precisely has Glork been 'useful'?
Mizzy: Can you give an example or three of Patrick's questions, and explain how they are not designed to scumhunt?
MafiaSSK: Can you explain why you thought those bunch of people were townish?

Deadline vote probably goes to cow. Humma.

I think I'd prefer an elmo lynch over a hasdcow lynch at deadline. Not seeing Patrick as a lynch candidate at the momment and I'd really like to hear Glork's comment's based on what Incognito said and what I asked of him in #258. Tarhalindur do you have any comments on the other wagons that are out there?

In case anyone was wondering, its simply a policy opinion of mine that any player who is nearing a chance of being deadlined lynched should claim with enough time for the lynch to go elsewhere. I think I may have mentioned it in Mafia Discussion awhile ago. I see vanilla claims as null issues since town looses nothing big and scum can make that claim with ease since its usually on page1. Since I didn't consider hasdcow as scum before the claim, I pretty much don't consider him as scum after, null issue. One thing I will say is this though from reading the end comments of Weather Mafia and some things in MD
http://www.mafiascum.net/forum/viewtopi ... 48#1037848
I get the impression hasdcow might have trouble making a fake claim as scum. I dont know if that would be a reason for him to go for nilla claim as scum, but either way I'm still not inclined to vote him at this time.

[PokerFace]

Forgot to respond to this:

Pokerface: How heavily do you generally use metagaming? How do you feel it helps you? If I were to metagame you, would I find you placing an unusual emphasis on metagaming here, and why?

I usually don't use it this heavily. Most of the time I consider it as extra knowledge to keep in mind when analyzing a player that always lurks or has little content/involvement in the game. It can help me find drastic differences in their play. If you were to metagame me, i would say that YES, I am dwelling more on metagaming in this game. I mentioned earlier that I was doing this and why I was doing this in posts #239 and #250.

I may comment on #274 more later, I'm really tired and I want to go to bed now.

[Patrick]

Well, I have at least got a bit of a better view of the game overall after rereading it.

People who strike me as somewhat town: PokerFace, Ether, Erg0, Incognito

PokerFace is a player I was initially suspicious of for what I saw as active lurking, but he seems to have stepped up quite alot, and has convinced me that the metagaming is genuine rather than just something done to avoid taking stances on people for a while. His ignoring of Elmo completely in favour of SSK bothered me a little, but I agree with his recent comments about Elmo. Probably the weakest of my protown reads, but I have a good vibe from his recent posts; he seems to have stepped up closer to deadline in the way I'd expect a protown player to.

I had a weak kind of towntell on Incognito early on, in that he seemed excited and enthusiastic about the game, which I think would be less likely if he's scum, because he hates being scum and we're in a group where several of us know his play pretty well. Then there was a period where he went kind of blah, and didn't seem to do much. But following that, I think his questioning of hasdgfas looks like a genuine attempt to discern his alignment and that his post 264 seems unlikely to me to be made by scum, regardless of hasdgfas's alignment.

My opinions of Ether and Erg0 haven't really changed from earlier on, they just seem to be playing consistently with how they are as town. I'm more confident about Ether than Erg0. I can't say that I really like the notion that Glork is allowed to suck unwiped arse on day 1, but I've seen that kind of thinking thrown around before.


People I'm neutral on: MafiaSSK, Mizzy, scotmany12

MafiaSSK's latest posts have been weird and definitely need explaining better. He's probably the worst of my neutrals right now, but his play doesn't strike me as significantly different to what I expected, and I wouldn't support lynching him today.

Mizzy's attack on me is pretty dire, but something about it makes me not want to lynch her at this point. I suppose as scum I'd have just expected her to jump on one of the easier currents at the time, rather than a more experienced player with no votes. This could be explained by a connection to hasdgfas, and her comments on him would kind of fit, but I don't want to lynch her today either.

scot hasn't really stuck out to me in any way so far. Nothing he's done has really struck me as unreasonable, and I don't really see the problem with his hasdgfas vote that some people seem to be seeing, but there's nothing I can really label as protown either.


People I'm more suspicious of: hasdgfas, Elmo, Tarhalindur, Glork

I've explained my opinion of Glork already. Tarhalindur is here because of little content and because he doesn't really push the game forward much. I wouldn't mind lynching him today, although I do think Ether's comparison of postcount between Farscape Mafia and here is pretty misleading. I'm mostly stuck between Elmo and hasdgfas as my top two choices.

hasdgfas still hasn't answered the question that I asked him three times. hasdgfas, please do so. Whilst I can see the points about how he's voting SSK instead of Glork, I think those are less relevant than the issue of him apparently showing a double standard with metagaming. He just seemed to use this:

PF seems to be basing his thoughts completely off of meta-ing, which, while it can be sometimes useful, isn't necessarily the best way of searching for scum, since players should be attempting to not allow their metas to bring out their tells.

As a way to vaguely insert support against the player under the most pressure at the time. And he's ignored my question 3 times now as to why it's even scummy in the first place (and leaving his initially arbitrary vote on PokerFace, who wasn't his top suspect, when PokerFace had a wagon on him). I can't shake the feeling that his distinction between Poker's metagaming and Mizzy's metagaming was something he made up when called on it. Hasdgfas, is there any completed game (or MD thread) where you've voiced this kind of opinion before?

Erg0: Can you better explain why you think hasdgfas's claim makes him more likely to be town? I sometimes see premature claims as a protown tell, but this one didn't really strike me as premature.

My issue with Elmo is, I'll admit, more sketchy and gut based. One thing I would say is, if he's alive tomorrow and I'm not, don't let him get by with lurking for a week, making a big post like 246, lurking for a week etc. This is how alot of scum try to make it easier for themselves, and a trick I've seen him pull as scum. His posts so far just seem less purposeful and assertive than how I've seen him as town. His reasons for suspecting hasdgfas seem very minor, especially when there are actually some good reasons to suspect hasdgfas. Also, I think half of the questions he asked in that post had already been answered.

Elmo, what do you think of hasdgfas's vote for MafiaSSK? What do you think of his comment on PokerFace being scummy for metagaming, whilst Mizzy was also metagaming? I have to agree with PokerFace that the reasons you gave for suspecting hasdgfas seem pretty small. Like, for his post 131, you accuse him of posting to look like he's doing stuff around the "TBH" debate, but all you really did was summarise it and state that you disagree with me that Glork is unusually nitpicky. You didn't say what that might mean about me, or about Glork, or even about Incognito until prompted (validity of the tell). When I've seen you as town, you generally have seemed to comment more about people's alignments, even making lots of definitive statements at times, here your post reminds me of the more hedging kind of post style you had in mafia 70, since after reading it, the only thing I could really discern about your thoughts on alignments was that you'd probably end up voting hasdgfas. This bothers me, but I'd hate to string you up wrongly based on just a couple of posts and what could be just my imagination.

I wouldn't mind lynching any of the four in my lower group, but I'll probably vote Elmo or hasdgfas after a few responses.

[hasdgfas]

Hasdgfas, you still haven't responded to my question about why you think PokerFace's metegaming play is scummy instead of just bad play.

All right
When you're metagaming, you're not paying as much attention to the game you're in, and missing any scummy actions people are making in the game.

[hasdgfas]

hasdgfas: Why don't you like unprompted lists of pro-town people on 'gut' (181)? Why haven't you criticised Glork for doing exactly that? How precisely has Glork been 'useful'?

Hascow, ^ qwestions. And: why is 'reaching' in the random stage scummy? Why is 'being stupid' scummy? What's the best single reason that you're voting SSK?

The first two have already been answered previously in the game, I believe.
I don't think I ever said that Glork has been useful this game, I said I know he can be useful.
Reaching the the random stage is scummy because you're finding something innocent and unscummy and trying to make it scummy, with no reasoning. I felt Ether was making far too much out of Glork's comment, and thought it was suspicious. However, she's been very pro-town since then.
Being Stupid? Where did I call someone scummy for that?
He's being completely useless and evading questions. He also says he doesn't find anyone scummy, which is pretty ridiculous.

[Glork]

People I'm more suspicious of: hasdgfas, Elmo, Tarhalindur, Glork

I'd give you 25-50% on this one. Good effort, though.

PF: Mizzy is solidly neutral right now (I do remember from the one game we've played together that she is generally a commitophobe in terms of suspicions/voting); Patrick is still somewhat scummy. Hasdgfas is like my compromise lynch at this point... enough suspicion that I'm willing and able to go for it right now, but certainly not enough that I'd remove him if I were able.

My head's not really in this game. I'm going to be doing an extensive re-read of the game once we hit night, and I should be more organized from there on out.

[Patrick]

Patrick is still somewhat scummy.

I'd give you 0% on this one. Good effort, though.

[MafiaSSK]

SSK: Analyzing anything will be useful in trying to find scum. Why is it a bad idea to analyze debates? And what do you consider debates? I'd consider the entire game of mafia to be a debate, so you should probably clarify.

I was saying the whole Mizzy and Glork debate. I consider a debate, two or more people talking about a subject. Also, I don't think analyzing a whole debate will be able to find scum? Maybe if you analyze only a certain post, then you can.

[Patrick]

Who's scum?

[MafiaSSK]

Who's scum?

Is this directed at me?

[Patrick]

Yes. So far you've said four people are protown and you're curious about everyone else. Coming up to deadline, it needs narrowing down.

[Incognito]

Incog: What is the comparison being drawn for 'uncharacteristically useless'? I don't believe we've been in a completed game together.

This is correct; we haven't been in a completed game with one another, but I've read through at least one of your completed games in which you were town, and you were certainly more active in that game when compared to this one. I realize that you were a replacement in this game, but you replaced in way back on May 16th and produced your first "content-laden" post nine days later on the 25th, which happened to fall about four days before deadline. Prior to that, the only thing I knew about you was that you <3 Patrick. So yeah, that's what I mean by "uncharacteristically useless".

With the quality of the players in this game, I'd actually expect scum to be more nit-picky than town anyway.

Really? Why?

I would expect scum to be more nit-picky than town in a game with higher quality players because those players who actually are pro-town and experienced will generally look rather pro-town to the scum. I think it would be like Stoofer's Syndrome to the max which would pretty much force the scum to pick on very minor things in the hopes that those minor things blew up into things that were more major. Obviously picking on minor things is the way most games start but for Glork to do it on Page 6 of the thread when other things had developed at that time (including "highly suspicious behavior from Patrick"), his nit-picking of me for saying "tbh" seemed completely off.

[Erg0]

Life ate my re-read, so I'm going to have to vote based on a skim-through and my recollection of events.

Tarhalindur is lurky and the reasoning behind his votes is pretty thin. Unlike SSK, he seems to want to appear to be trying to hunt scum. My previous experience with him leads me think he's playing to his scum meta. He's my strongest suspect right now.

MafiaSSK is being pretty useless - lynching him is an acceptable alternative to a no-lynch.

hasdgfas is a little less likely to be scum than he was before he claimed, but I could also live with lynching him if the alternative was a no-lynch.

I don't really consider anyone else to be a good lynch for today.

Vote: Tarhalindur

I think I'll be asleep at the deadline time, but I'll keep an eye on things until then as best I'm able.

[Incognito]

I like how Glork has absolutely no comment about my vote on him or any comment about the fact that both Ether and me had come to somewhat similar conclusions to Patrick about our preferred lynches at this point.

[Erg0]

I'm a little concerned that I'm encouraging Glork's behaviour by tolerating it, but the free pass only lasts until the end of day 1.

[Tarhalindur]

Okay, I'm starting to move from apathy to being pissed.

I've been apathetic because a) I've been looking into some other interests for the last two weeks after finishing finals (leading to somewhat limited time for Mafia) and b) there has been almost NOTHING that I can use to scumhunt. No wagons, no clear scumhunting from other players, NOTHING.

I am TIRED of indecisive towns and deadline lynches. They are so amazing good for scum that it's not even funny. As evidence, I submit to you the scum victory in Mini 549.

I was hoping that another player would either take up the aggressive townie role or be willing to bandwagon. In all this time, NO ONE has done so.

So be it. If no one else will take up the aggressive townie role, I WILL.

First, some general comments.

Scumdar:

Elmo

- See below.

MafiaSSK

- HOW FRICKIN' HARD IS IT TO SAY THAT YOU FIND SOMEONE SCUMMY? SPEAKING OF THAT, WHO DO YOU THINK IS SCUMMY, ANYWAYS?

Incognito

- He's been under my radar for most of the game, and that's usually not a good sign. There's a few other points against him - in particular, his conduct towards the has wagon could easily be an attempt to push the has wagon without incriminating himself by joining it, then hop off and gain townie points when has claimed (hereby indicating that he was not a power role). There's also his pushing of a Glork lynch(who, if he's town, is probably THE player the scum want dead) on IMO mediocre reasoning.

Ergo

- I still have a weak scum read on him, mainly based on his apparent unwillingness to come out and outright say that another player is scum despite giving the clear impression of such.

scotmany12

- Another player under my radar, and his references to "best lynch candidate" instead of "I think you're scum" do not sit well with me.

Unreadable:

Glork

- Glork is like ABR, BM, and Rosso. I have extreme trouble getting a read on him without role-based information. He does, however, seem to be tied to Ether, and I suspect that they have the same alignment.

Neutral:

Ether

- She hasn't really called out many other players, but she did appear to accuse hasdgfas of being scum when she voted for him. She's also apparently V/LA, which makes me more inclined to excuse her lack of saying who she thinks is scum.

Towndar:

Patrick

- His post 280 is the most protown-looking post in the entire game, and the rest of his posts read somewhat more neutral than scummy

PokerFace

- He's *still* guilty of just talking about lynch preferences rather than actual scumminess, but his two big analysis posts both look pro-town to me.

Mizzy

- Mizzy would be scummy if not for my meta on her, especially I do not like her page summary post (I consider those a scumtell). However, her arguing with Patrick *does* look the brand of scumhunting she displayed in Final Stand and Tarhalindur Mostly Mountainous, and for that I consider her the most town-looking player in the game.

Now, let's show EXACTLY why Elmo needs to be lynched posthaste:

Okay I'm here, I just reread the topic and I think I have an okay understanding of what's gone on so far... Theres the random or not random vote thing with Glork and Ether, and something about Hascow suspecting Ether and a page or so on that issue. Is there something I missed in between? AP Exams are done for this week so I'd figure that I do some catching up.

Hey look, here's a player summarizing the game state and failing to give ANY of his opinions about what's going on.

Okay I'm here, I just reread the topic and I think I have an okay understanding of what's gone on so far... Theres the random or not random vote thing with Glork and Ether, and something about Hascow suspecting Ether and a page or so on that issue. Is there something I missed in between?

This is kind of a bizarre question when the thread is only 4 pages and you've just read it all. Importantly, do you have any opinions on the stuff that's happened so far?

Well I've read through the topic, but only with a rudimentary grasp of the current game so far. So far no one stands out as particularly scummy; Glork and Ether give off pro-town vibes and Hascow even though he reacted to the Ether situation I don't see much scumminess in looking for scum? But overall this viewpoint is just based on my rudimentary understanding so far.

I'll admit that roland isn't the only player to exhibit this reluctance to actually accuse anyone of being scum. I'll also note that there's a reason that so many of you are on my scumdar (and two to three more of you would be there as well if not for mitigating circumstances).

Readin' through. Hmm. I seriously doubt Glork would try to fish like that with this crowd. I don't see why 'accusing just to accuse' in the random stage is a scumtell; might be unwise, but more than a few people will jump on literally anything to get out of random. I do figure Incog has a point, inthat his vote is probably actually weaker than Ether's, but hasd doesn't jump on it anything like the same way. I'm also not sure how hasd can say 'we do need a start to the game, and this is a good one' and then say Ether was 'trying too hard'. Can you try too hard to get the game off to a good start? @_@. I somewhat agree with Erg0 that Glork's stance here appears kinda.. standoffish? Passive? Post 67 even seems a lil' passive-aggressive, hum. Albeit I agree with the conclusion (obv, some players will wagon anything with a pulse - I believe that's consistent with Ether) Glork's comment doesn't appear to actually do anything other than prompt further comment from both sides. Mizzy appears to be dancing (heh) around the exchange. I don't agree with Tarhalindur's comment on Erg0, 68 seemed to take stances on people in a reasonable manner, although I see what he's getting at with Ether.

I'm mainly just sitting back with some popcorn and watching the whole Ether <--> Glork thing going on. Neither of one of them are acting out of character, I think, so as of yet, I have no opinions on who is scummy.

Um, hi?

I don't understand Incognito's vote in 85. I can see he'd be curious, but the natural thing to do is simply ask "Hey, Glork, why'd you miss me out?" - I really can't see any reason for a vote, there. IIRC, Mizzy has a tendency to assert that we can't know much early on - I disagree, but I don't think her qualifiers are significant here. I kinda agree with scotmany wrt Tar, hm. Oh, noes, we're not having this 'to be honest' debate, are we? I don't like Hasd's 131, that looks very like 'hey, look, I'm doing stuff! Only not!' hrhrm. It seems to me like Tar puts too much stock in the Standard Tells, here - although I have seen IIoA before, I don't think what Erg0's doing fits that pattern, although you could see it that way due to confirmation bias if you were specifically looking for it, hm. I figure it's a good tell, but generally limited.. Tar's play seems very by-the-numbers, I'm not sure if that's in character. Hm, I disagree with Patrick about Glork's nitpicking, that seems precisely the kinda thing he picks up on (thinking back to Open 54 here) most frequently. hasdgfas's 153 strikes me as staying near the sidelines for some reason.. not sure I like that. My vague impression was he was like that in Pine Barrens, all tentative like.. I can't remember if I've seen him as town, yet. I agree with PokerFace that I don't see a real basis for calling Mizzy pro-town yet - I can't remember who did that, maybe I'll go and look back in a bit, hm. Ether seems a little different than I recall from Big Love, but then I replaced in a loooong way from the start, so perhaps it's just different circumstances, like... I can see prodding and poking random details as a good way to get things going, but you'd switch away from that after a bit. Mmm. I do quite like a lot of PokerFace's 158. Incognito seems to be making a bunch of good points hereafter.

Glork: What underlying reason do you have for acting as you are, when making post 172?
Patrick/Ether: What does Tar feel like relative to Farscape? I don't think I've seen them in a game before.
Incog: What is '42%' in post 27? Why do you like your Mizzy vote in 175?
hasdgfas: Why don't you like unprompted lists of pro-town people on 'gut' (181)? Why haven't you criticised Glork for doing exactly that? How precisely has Glork been 'useful'?
Mizzy: Can you give an example or three of Patrick's questions, and explain how they are not designed to scumhunt?
MafiaSSK: Can you explain why you thought those bunch of people were townish?

Deadline vote probably goes to cow. Humma.

Summary, questions, lots of analysis of individual posts and little analysis of players. Seriously, Elmo should have been dogpiled for this post. I've just been too busy/apathetic to point it out properly, and nobody else seems to care.

Patrick: What comes to mind is the way he called Sikario town, saying "there's something there that doesn't quite look made up" - there wasn't any analysis of his behaviour or anything, just based on the subtext of what he wrote. Now, I don't think 'to be honest' is a valid tell, and it actually seems markedly less sophisticated than I'd expect Glork to be, but it's the same 'class' of analysis that I saw from him, I think. So while I agree there's something weird about him here, I don't agree with your characterisation of him being as unusually nit-picky. I don't think it's a valid tell, no - I hate these kinds of accusation precisely because they rarely go anywhere. And that's really what seemed interesting to me, there's almost certainly very little play in it, but he's running with it anyway. In a vacuum, I'd be liable to think distancing. One thing I do remember thinking in O54 was that Glork was quite careful in selecting which questions to ask, and they were usually quite productive - I think he could be playing much better regardless of alignment, right now, and I don't know what to make of that. I'm simultaneously a little suspicious and a little bemused.

Incog: What is the comparison being drawn for 'uncharacteristically useless'? I don't believe we've been in a completed game together.
Tarhalindur: To what extent do you rely on your Standard Tells vs. thinking on-the-fly? How frequently do you get significant mileage out of them as town? How do you (ab)use them when scum?
Pokerface: How heavily do you generally use metagaming? How do you feel it helps you? If I were to metagame you, would I find you placing an unusual emphasis on metagaming here, and why?
Mizzy: Can you give 2-3 examples of

precisely

what you mean about Patrick's questions? I don't follow what you mean here, and I didn't notice him doing anything similar when I saw him as scum previously.

With the quality of the players in this game, I'd actually expect scum to be more nit-picky than town anyway.

Really? Why?

hasdgfas: Why don't you like unprompted lists of pro-town people on 'gut' (181)? Why haven't you criticised Glork for doing exactly that? How precisely has Glork been 'useful'?

Hascow, ^ qwestions. And: why is 'reaching' in the random stage scummy? Why is 'being stupid' scummy? What's the best single reason that you're voting SSK?

I'm unmoved by cow's claim; I'm just not going to drink the wine on that one. I'll prolly lay down a vote tomorrow, after staring at the playerlist some more.

Waffle waffle waffle, more questions, and he suddenly claims to be "unmoved" by has's claim despite never showing any strong feelings about has previously.

I mean, seriously, why doesn't this guy have about 5 to 7 votes on him right now?

[Erg0]

Erg0: Can you better explain why you think hasdgfas's claim makes him more likely to be town? I sometimes see premature claims as a protown tell, but this one didn't really strike me as premature.

I didn't particularly think that hasdgfas' claim was premature, we were nearing deadline and the pro-town play is to make the claim early so that there's time to build another wagon if the town accepts it. This is especially true given that his was the only strong wagon at the time. I think that scum would be more likely to hold out a little longer before claiming, and then claim a power role in order to force the town into a scramble for another lynch at deadline (see ChaosOmega in Mini 554).

Of course, it's also possible that hasdgfas did a good job of reading the flow of the game and deduced that he could kill the wagon with a townie claim. This player lineup is probably more likely than most to back off a claimed townie.

[Ether]

Games I've played or closely followed with Glork: Newbie 259 (August 2006), Newbie 297 (January 2007), Lights Out 2 (January ), Face-to-Face (February 2007), Open 54 (November 2007). He was town in all of them.

Games I've played or closely followed with Glork in which he was uselessish Day 1: Newbie 259, Face-to-Face (more flamboyant, but it's not like he isn't aware of the Glorkhate in this game). He got better in Face-to-Face. Newbie 259 ended a page after the Day 1 cop lynch.

She's also apparently V/LA, which makes me more inclined to excuse her lack of saying who she thinks is scum.

Meh. I'm more here than not, really; I'm just likely to vanish at the turn of a dime. (The 'Scummers with AIM here can vouch for when my disappearances are real, as can my sitewide post history.)

A part of me is sad that Patrick reads me as town; I don't feel quite myself, but I can easily believe that my scum play is just that distinctive.

Why is hasdgfas, of all people, not on your list?

I wouldn't mind an Elmolynch. But I like my vote where it is, too. That's it.

[Tarhalindur]

Why did I forget has? Because I failed to notice that I hadn't read him in isolation/written him up when I made the post. Oops.

Has started pro-town but has become increasingly scummy - he tried to jumpstart the game by his Ether attack (pro-town), but he waffled a lot when he did so (scummy). The MafiaSSK attack is pinging my scumdar, too, since he's attacking him more for being useless than for being a threat to the town (classic scumlogic, there, especially as it offers an easy out to a mislynch). I consider the claim a null tell, since it doesn't give us anything definite to say about the lynch.

I'd be willing to lynch him at deadline, but I find other players scummier (Elmo and MafiaSSK definitely; I haven't decided whether I find Incognito or has scummier yet).

[Tarhalindur]

EBWOP: Now can we please get back to lynching Elmoscum, plox?

[hasdgfas]

Tar - I'd get off of SSK if not for one thing, that you yourself have mentioned:

MafiaSSK

- HOW FRICKIN' HARD IS IT TO SAY THAT YOU FIND SOMEONE SCUMMY? SPEAKING OF THAT, WHO DO YOU THINK IS SCUMMY, ANYWAYS?

I want some kind of opinion of SOMETHING from him, because I don't want him to be scum who has skated by while not giving any opinions of who is scum. He finds people town. Great, except that scum have a better chance of being right when calling people town than townspeople do, and that's not playing mafia.
SSK. Find someone who you think is scum and go after them. Maybe then you wouldn't be on so many people's scumlists.

The MafiaSSK attack is pinging my scumdar, too, since he's attacking him more for being useless than for being a threat to the town (classic scumlogic, there, especially as it offers an easy out to a mislynch).

I feel that someone who is useless IS a threat to the town, because if they're alive on later days when someone more useful is dead, the town's chances go down.

[Mizzy]

I actually feel a little better about Patrick right now, mainly because his #280 was so chock-full of information from him that I've been wanting to see. Also, considering that I called him on his question-only-posts and then he posted another one suggests that such behavior is habit and not indicative of scum per say. Granted, I haven't had a chance to see if asking questions with nothing else in the post is something he does all the time or not, mainly due to lack of time, but I intend to at least try to as soon as I can. Until then,

Unvote

.

I am really, really surprised that Elmo has said so little in this game and I can't decide whether or not it's because he's boring vanilla or because he's scum. I'm leaning towards boring Vanilla.

SSK I get noobtown vibes from, due to his apparent lack of interest in the game. Useless is not something I equate with scum.

More from me tomorrow.