Crackers! Mafia -- Game Over. See page 50

[vollkan]

This game looks set to be great. The list of players is absolutely brilliant.

Doesn't yield the same sort of information, and from my experience the discussion it creates revolves strictly around theory and meta and doesn't have much to do with the game. I'm not letting this deteriorate into a Twito discussion, you can keep crying your eyes out as far as I'm concerned. Also, you're buddying up to midgets.

Vote: Vollkan

Four questions:
1) What "sort of information" does a non-self random vote yield?
2) Can you see any inherent game value in having a theory debate early on?
3) Based on your answers to 1) and 2), do you think self-voting in the random stage can be a reasonable course of conduct?
4) Was your post that I quote above at all influenced by meta actions of myself?

[vollkan]

He needs to BUTTER UP EVERYBODY. Not just townies, not just mafiates, but every player in the game.

The hypothesis of SK-vollkan buttering up everybody is perfectly valid, but as is the hypothesis of vollkan (alignment independent) simply expressing enthusiasm for this game.

The self-vote is a symptom of vollkan's solitary proclivities, proclivities that include killing players at night without benefit of team discussions.

I must have missed the logical links between self-vote and being solitary, and between solitariness and solo murdering.

Also, it's self-bus'ing. I mean, he can only bus himself. He's doing it to get town cred in case he goes down in flames.

I'd strongly encourage any SK/s to adopt this excellent strategy.

Question is, do we lynch the SK or do we lynch the mafia? This game is like shooting fish in a barrel.

Barrel of what?

vollkan, who do you think is most likely town?

Me.

again,

gut

...not a case.

Unvote, Vote: CKD

Obv scum.

I didnt like these questions on page 3..who thinks anyone is town on Page 3 of Day 1...I thought maybe he was trying to get conversation started..but just seemed too forced to me.

What do you mean by "forced"?

sometime just doesnt

feel

right.

*vomit*

to me, just seems like someone who is trying to look like they are scum hunting

Reaching. I don't see how you can say that such questions are indicative of an attempt to appear scumhunting, rather than just early an effort to scum hunt or at least spur discussion.

[vollkan]

the vote is on page 5...it is gut..there is nothing more to go on this early in the game...

of course I am fucking reaching..it is early in the game..i am trying to scum hunt. lynch me if you need to for my gut vote on page 5...essentially you are voting me for the exact same reason, vollkan..you think i am reaching and your gut says that is scummy....I think he is trying to earn friends..it was a gut reaction..which is why I said in my vote "lets see where this goes" and didnt present a case with it. Vollkan you have seen me vote on my gut NUMEROUS times as town in the passed...funny you seem to be forgetting that now..why is that? Out of everyone in the game YOU should know I vote gut frequently..we have even discussed it before...noted.

You don't know a joke vote when you see one.

CKD, since when have I been the type to vote seriously based on the use of "gut" alone? Since when have I been the type to preface my votes with "obv scum"? You know better than most how much I tend to vacillate and obsess about different possibilities.

Let me state without qualification that, whilst I generally take issue with unreasoned votes, I know CKD's meta and know that, in his case, gut is (albeit to my disdain) normal. Not that this is a warrant for CKD to give no reasons or anything, but I've learned to give up trying to make my case against gut for him

also vollkan, those questions seemed out of place..it didnt set right with me...this OF COURSE is reaching...I stated several times it wasnt a case...I am not trying to parade it as anything else..it seemed force because they didnt make any sense..."vollkan, who do you think is town" (or something of the like) on page 3-4 IS forced. it looks like someone trying to LOOK like they are doing something without really doing anything.

This point is serious though, lest my gut humour confuse you. CKD, I find it something of a double standard that when you go after something in a manner which, by your own admission is "reaching", then it is acceptable as early game scumhunting. But, when somebody else asks stupid questions, it is "forced" and an attempt to "appear" to be scumhunting. What say you?

Whether this is what's happening here or not, if you swap bussing with distancing, what DGB says has merit. A Mafiate can die and still win. SKs need to stay alive, so implying that you're willing to be lynched is alluding to not having survival in your win condition.

Good point.

Vollkan, do you have a problem with rofl's gut read of me?

My impression was that he was just being jokey early game. My loathing of gut will only ever take the form of actual suspicion where it is used to justify something serious. In the early game phase, of course, tolerance is needed because I know many people do like throwing around random accusations and so on in order to tobuild a sufficient foundation for later (serious)discussion.

on a related note, vollkan's answer was legitimate, but not what i had been looking for. too late now though.

Now you know to phrase your questions more carefully

This whole discussion is pretty lame, though. I don't even know if 'gut' means the same thing to everyone. I think of gut as the impression I get when I pick up on recurring nuances over a number of posts that I can't always point at immediately. Why shouldn't this get me leaning town, as opposed to scum, on someone?

The page number thing is also a fallacy. The post count and content of the player(s) in question are more meaningful.

Well, for me, I am strictly targetting where, at the point in time where people are starting to make proper cases, people are voting because of things like:

Vote: X

Because your last vote feels scummy to me

or

I think X is suspicious because after my reread, my gut tells me that that X seems scummy

Basically, if I could reduce my position to a single statement, the litmus test for unacceptable gut would be:

Are the reasons given for a vote/declaration of suspicion/etc. such that they are incapable of being rebutted?

If somebody says something feels scummy, for example, nothing is capable of refuting that statement. Thus, it is gut.

Finally. I'm included this time (I hope )

Oh gee. Do I be really rude, or do I run the risk of DGB tearing my eyes out again for buttering up?

vollkan...

but he always looks town to me.

That's funny. In my experience, he is always the GF.

BM

Only when you are modding, BM.

(For the uninformed: I think I have played in about four games modded by BM (profuse apologies if I am wrong here!) and was GF in every one of them)

this page has suddenly experienced an explosion of noise from battle mage with very little signal

If there was signal coming from BM, he would have my vote by now.

This game looks set to be great. The list of players is absolutely brilliant.

Doesn't yield the same sort of information, and from my experience the discussion it creates revolves strictly around theory and meta and doesn't have much to do with the game. I'm not letting this deteriorate into a Twito discussion, you can keep crying your eyes out as far as I'm concerned. Also, you're buddying up to midgets.

Vote: Vollkan

Four questions:
1) What "sort of information" does a non-self random vote yield?
2) Can you see any inherent game value in having a theory debate early on?
3) Based on your answers to 1) and 2), do you think self-voting in the random stage can be a reasonable course of conduct?
4) Was your post that I quote above at all influenced by meta actions of myself?

1. I'm not exactly a fan of random votes, but they do form a sort of connection that can be analayzed later.
2. It's something to talk about and could lead to more game-related talk, other than that not really.
3. A better course of action which I sometimes use would be to just not vote and wait for something at least somewhat substantial; but I can't say selfvoting is that unreasonable, and clearly it's not a scumtell or any kind of a tell at all once it becomes a person's meta.
4. Nope. You always selfvote, I take it?

Good answers.

And I don't

always

self-vote, but I have done it a few times. The reason I asked you that question four was because when you said this:

Doesn't yield the same sort of information, and from my experience the discussion it creates revolves strictly around theory and meta and doesn't have much to do with the game. I'm not letting this deteriorate into a Twito discussion, you can keep crying your eyes out as far as I'm concerned. Also, you're buddying up to midgets.

I thought you may have been alluding to the fact that my self-votes tend to generate theory debates, and I thought you may have been attacking the utility of such debates as an early alignment-determining device.

Self voting is scummy -- it robs town of information. I am disappointed in vollkan especially for this -- I've always looked at his play as logical and very helpful to town. I find his choice to self vote and rob the town of information suspicious and out of character, especially considering I think that others self-voting probably impacted his decision to do so.

I'm disappointed that you would think I had fallen into the trap of stupid play

I actually did some thinking a while back (and I acknowledge my debt to Adel and JDodge for opening my eyes on this: see Open 59) and decided self-voting can, logically, be protown in the early game. My reasoning was basically like this:

• Non-self random votes have two main benefits: discussion springboards and as later-game tools for scum linkages
  
• The former need not necessarily arise only from a non-self vote
  
• The latter has (speaking from my experiences) never been useful
  
• Self-voting is a controversial action. That means that any self-vote will be likely to generate some degree, potentially a significant one, of debate.
  
• Such debate will likely revolve around the scumminess or otherwise of self-voting. Thus, despite the debate being "manufactured", in a sense, there are good prospects of people making actual accusations against me - which, I believe and have seen in practice, that my argument is reasonable enough to overcome.
  
• Since early game self-voting carries little risk and can generate at least as much useful information as non-self random voting, I believe it is a justified course of action for town.
  
• I also believe it can be acceptable at other points of time as a "stir the pot" sort of device, provided the risks are sufficiently minimal that a risk v reward analysis would hold it reasonable.

[vollkan]

. This is why self voting is BAD. It can at best only generate debate about self-voting. It gets people sidetracked from discussing who is scummy into talking about whether something that will never come up again in the game is suspicious. It wastes time and space and thought and energy.

That's not how it works in practice, actually. See, the line between pure theory and relevant discussion is, I think, blurred in many areas. The response to a self-vote is an attack on the self-vote but, almost inevitably, it is framed as an attack upon myself. The debate about self-voting which, I accept would be pure theory, becomes a debate which, indirectly at least and not uncommonly directly, concerns the scumminess of my own actions. In that sense, the debate, whilst entirely contrived by me, is a genuine debate which can be as useful as standard random stage fare.

Also, if the conclusion is that self voting is scummy, it guarantees that it brings the focus on to you! And that is never good if you are town -- you want the focus on the scum, not on you having to defend yourself because of your self-vote that sidetracked the town. Please stop this. It is making me cry.

Again, my position differs from yours. Fact is that, because self-voting is genuinely controversial (smart, reasonable players disagree on it), it is almost impossible for a self-vote to be taken as a serious basis for suspicion. If people find my justification unconvincing, there is the prospect of me coming under some degree of suspicion for it. However, I cannot envisage any scenario where self-voting could actually be held as a lynch justification.

The effect of that is that it is possible for self-voting to make people more suspicious of me without prompting any imminent increase in my odds of being the lynchee. What it may do is make people attack me more than they otherwise would. Since I have always scum-hunted through argument, this is something that, in fact, I welcome. Think of it almost as a sort of baiting for scum. I, for one, don't necessarily like being in a position of being taken as "confirmed town", because it effectively deprives me of one very important source of information: the logic behind attacks against me. I am sure I have said this somewhere else on site, but my basic view is that there is an optimum and non-zero level of suspicion - not enough that could feasibly carry a lynch, but enough that debate against you will still be open. Basically, I have no problem taking a bit of heat if it lets me set scum on fire.

I disagree. Mafia has an implicit social contract where we all put our thoughts about other people to be analyzed. When you don't self vote, you don't do that. It is like lurking. It robs the town of discussion and moves the discussion in a bad direction. At worst it can bring suspicion to yourself -- because it IS unhelpful to the town.

The analysis comes after people respond to a self-vote. It doesn't rob anybody of discussion; it just forestalls it by one post.

I've done it for you and for vollkan. For the players that I have declared to be town, I must decline to comment as it should remain a secret formula. Otherwise there is a strong risk of it being exploited by you and your buddies.

And the rest of us have no way of knowing whether or not your "secret formula" is simply DGB-scum pulling everybody else's strings. It's a double standard to expect yourself to be able to pass judgment on everybody else's actions whilst you yourself can freely post as you please with no accountability.

a few extremely pro town des quotes

Korts, do you think asking someone who they this is town is a scumtell?

Is anything interesting you besides rofl's question?

How about ckd unvoting you?

directed at korts, shows a keen eye for korts getting hung up on my questions and a depth of curiosity consistent with a solid pro town scumhunter. his questions are relevant and get straight to the heart of the matter, and offer a great opportunity to examine both korts and ckd's possible alignments as well as the relation between their alignments.

I don't have a problem with your play (the whole "so-and-so is protown) as such, but I would like to pick at your reasoning a bit more. How are the quotes you give above any more consistent with town-Des than scum-Des? I think you exaggerate the incisiveness of those questions and, frankly, I cannot see how you could possibly treat them as anything other than a null-tell.

(I'm coming from a perspective which is very skeptical of "town tells" in general. Basically, scum has every motivation to appear protown, such that it shouldn't be at all surprising that scum do a good job at "scumhunting". Town, in contrast, has no motivation to appear scummy (subject to my "optimum, non-zero point above"), which makes scumtells (however much we may debate what is a scumtell and what is not) on more solid a footing.)

in closing, des shows the curiosity and determination of true scumhunting, something that is very close to impossible to fake so convincingly, and he's casting his net wide enough that he isn't ignoring other things that go on. scum don't scumhunt - scum try to look like they're scumhunting. des is actually scumhunting, and a read of him is peppered with other very pro town odds and ends, therefore des is not scum.

How on earth can you state with such conclusiveness that des is genuinely scum-hunting. His posts were good and definitely not scummy. But, at the same time, I see no basis for saying that they are protown at all, yet alone to a degree that would justify your drooling over them.

He's so town that it's blindingly obvious, yet it's also unexplainable because it's a gut read?

Unvote
Vote: roflcoptor

I see what my beef with this is. a) rofl's "blindingly obvious" comment was a very clear hyperbole, and b) "blindingly obvious" doesn't even come close to contradicting the statement that it was a gut read on des. This is pure, unadulterated BS.

a) Probably true.
b) Not true. If something is obvious"it means that it is readily apparent. If something is based on gut then, by definition, the player cannot point to a basis for their assertion. Thus, it isn't obvious.

After trying to discredit CKD case, and a reply from rofl, he quickly retreats and basically allows rofl to follow the lead on CKD. I think he's trying too hard to stay uncommitted to any particular side.

unvote, vote: Guardian

That's not correct. Guardian begins to defend CKD, and then stops (not "retreats") because he has an objection to defending (which I suspect I disagree with, but now is not the place for that argument). He doesn't say anything which could be construed as expressing a neutral opinion - he just refuses to involve himself in CKD's defence. The implicit point here is that he disagrees with the case (is committed to disagreement, you might say) but doesn't want to involve himself in the debate.

@Elmo: Deliberate lurking is totally unacceptable. If, after I finish reading up to date, you haven't posted something substantial, presume that I demand that you do so or, otherwise, finish this sentence: "Lurking is protown because <your reasoning>"

Disagree. When you're willing to clear someone and make statements like this, you should be damn well capable of figuring out why you have such a strong town read on that individual. My stance on 'gut' is closer to Vollkan's hardcore disapproval of them; it's an easy cop out for not backing your reads on an individual. Something causes your 'gut' to tell you one thing or another; you simply have to find out what it is. (and it looks like he finally did)

Wow! Somebody who largely agrees with me on gut.

No, actually, I liked your post a lot. But more importantly, I took the time to look at some of your completed games and found that you have done this before as Town(the best example I found was Open 81). That basically gets rid of anything I had going on you

Ugh...it's still poor play, but this would mean it isn't scummy for him.

Vollkan, I saw a lot of theory discussion in your last post but not an actual explanation of why CKD's gut call is scummy despite him always using gut reads. I see you accusing him of double standards, anything else behind your vote on him?

Due diligence please.

I said this on the gut:

CKD, since when have I been the type to vote seriously based on the use of "gut" alone? Since when have I been the type to preface my votes with "obv scum"? You know better than most how much I tend to vacillate and obsess about different possibilities.

Let me state without qualification that, whilst I generally take issue with unreasoned votes, I know CKD's meta and know that, in his case, gut is (albeit to my disdain) normal. Not that this is a warrant for CKD to give no reasons or anything, but I've learned to give up trying to make my case against gut for him

I'll even reduce it to a single sentence: "The gut attack was a joke, I know it isn't scummy for you - but I still hate it."

i agree with most of what dgb has been saying

aside from the vollkan bit, which i hope she's just joking about

scum list:
ckd
guardian
elmo
bm?
kison?
korts?

in that order

Please explain why each is scummy, and why that order. Otherwise, cease and desist from this sort of posting because it is completely useless.

oh, also add

sensfan?

to the bottom of that list. i almost forgot he was even in the game he's added so little

I thought you didnt want to go on a lurkerhunt?

BM

i don't, and i'm not, but what he

has

added has been scummy. but well done defending him by trying to undermine the validity of my calling him scummy. thats pretty damn scummy in itself on your part.

bmscum exponentially increases the chances of sensfanscum, and vice versa

1) How has what Sensfan has said thus far been scummy?
2) How is BM criticising an attack scummy?

[vollkan]

Please explain why each is scummy, and why that order. Otherwise, cease and desist from this sort of posting because it is completely useless.

well, i believe i commented on the scummy things they were doing in situ, and the order is just my own personal weighting, but i disagree with you whole heartedly that this sort of posting is completely useless. the more transparent we all are with our current opinions on other players, the easier it becomes to track possible connections and spot inconsistencies. but i don't want to drag you into yet another theory debate, this game already has far too many of those going on.

1) You said that your top scum are:
ckd
guardian
elmo
bm?
kison?
korts?

It needn't be enormously detailed, but I would like a statement on each of these players as to why you find them scummy. If you are basing your suspicions on anything more than the most wild rumblings of your gut, this shouldn't be an unreasonably onerous task.

2) Saying that the order is your own "personal weighting" doesn't answer my question at all. I am not an idiot and I can see quite clearly that it is your "personal weighting". I want to know why you have personally weighted them in the way that you have.

3) I am delighted to see you also appreciate the importance of transparency. The benefits of transparency are only realised in full, however, if full reasoning is mandated from every and all players. Simply saying "I think X is scum" is absolutely useless. I don't very much care care at all about

who

you suspect, but I care very deeply about

why

you suspect them.

How has what Sensfan has said thus far been scummy?

see the bottom of page six/top of page seven

I asked you a "how" question, not a "where" question. I want to know your reasons.

That said, I had a look at the posts you identify and I cannot see anything by Sens which could possibly be construed as scummy. He disagrees with you on a minor theory point. So what?

How is BM criticising an attack scummy?

because he wasn't just criticising it, he was mischaracterizing it as a lurkerhunt, which makes it sound like it doesn't have any basis in sens' actions. but if you'll do as i suggested with the quote right above this you'll see that it does in fact have a basis in sens' actions, and i was on his case when they were happening.
[/quote]

Calling it "mischaracterising" is a bit rich.

You said:

oh, also add

sensfan?

to the bottom of that list. i almost forgot he was even in the game he's added so little

Nothing you say there at all exlpains why you suspect Sens, other than your mention of inactivity (which is not a legitimiate basis for suspicion)

And, as I have said, I did as you suggested and see nothing at all which is scummy.

[vollkan]

Quote tags messed up in the above. the penultimate quote which appears to be by rofl was by me, and the following text (up to the [/quote] tag) is by rofl.

[vollkan]

Ok, let me elaborate on that gut feel after all. DGBscum doesn't have any motive to be elbows deep in shit while she mimes scumhunting. DGB's actions so far have been pro-town, therefore I have no reason to suspect her. Why are you trying to dig any deeper when what we're discussing is a town read on someone? I'm thinking rofl has a point here; you are either trying to dissuade me from my read on DGB because you don't like town eliminating other town as suspects, or the other possibility, you are trying to figure out how to appear more pro-town in my eyes (although this second possibility assumes that you give a shit about my opinion).

This is the reason I hate people calling something a "town-tell". Nothing she has done is so manifestly pro-town that it would be significantly unreasonable to suppose that it could come from DGB-scum. As I said, scum has every motivation to appear protown. Town has (outside stirring the pot and generating discussion) no motivation to appear scummy. The danger here if you are town is that you are giving people townie brownies undeservingly.

[quote="Korts"}
Do you agree that there are certain actions that inherently are inherently pro-town in the sense that they further the game towards the town win condition? If you do agree with this, don't you agree that people who consecutively perform these actions are less likely than average to be scum?
[/quote]

Well, I think that consistently good, rational arguments can be a mild towntell. But I know from experience that it is not all difficult to appear really protown as scum. I've found in past games that the easiest way to get people on side as scum is just to appear really calm and logical - because people intuitively think that such play is "protown" simply because it doesn't appear manifestly scummy at first glance.

That's why I have little tolerance for roflcopter's "OMG DES IS LIEK SO PROTOWN!!". Nothing Des or anybody has said is at all incompatible with them being scum, and I think it is anti-town at best (scummy at worst) to go about falsely clearing people of suspicion.

If a) is probably true, as you concede, and des being "blindingly obvious" town is a hyperbole that, in fact, probably means that "I think that des is town", then I don't see how there is a contradiction. The gut feel cannot be proven, but since "obvious" was presumably a hyperbole, your point to b) is, for practical matters, invalid.

Well, no, b) is perfectly valid. Ultimately, at best, rofl's point is nothing more well-reasoned than "Des's play gives me a warm feeling in my tummy". There is nothing obviously protown about what Des has done. The fact it is well-reasoned gives rise to an intuitive level of comfort, but that doesn't make it protown. There's nothing obviously protown about it.

Yes. I concede the point that he's not fence-sitting as I first saw it. But if he disagrees with the CKD-case, he obviously has a problem with the points against him, and if that's the case I don't see why he doesn't raise these problems with the case. The conflict of projected motives is evident.

This shouldn't be taken to give endorsement to the view that people should not defend others, but I do think that one can legitimately refuse to defend somebody if one thinks that their will be an information-gain from requiring them to respond personally.

This makes me sad. rofl had explained what scummy thing SensFan did when he did it. Considering rofl's posting, why did you expect it any other way?

Rofl explained absolutely nothing!

I'll quote the entire exchange between them that rofl directed me to ("bottom of page six/top of page seven") if I have to:

The Exchange between Sens and rofl

I actually agree with ckd on all of this. Having a gut scum read on page 4-5 is not the same at alll of claiming to have a gut town read on page 3.

I actually agree with ckd on all of this. Having a gut scum read on page 4-5 is not the same at alll of claiming to have a gut town read on page 3.

whats the difference, exactly?

See something scummy and you can get a gut scum read.
Seeing something 'townie' can hardly lead to a gut town read.

i don't see why not

See something scummy and you can get a gut scum read.
Seeing something 'townie' can hardly lead to a gut town read.

and why does townie need quotation marks but scummy doesn't?

There is nothing there at all which explains why Sens could be seen as suspicious by rofl. Rofl expresses theory disagreement. That's it.

Rofl's position is (basically) that some townish things are impossible to fake, therefore towntells exist, therefore Des is (probably) town. CKD's position appears to be the opposite. Okay, theory disagreement.

It's theory, but it is important. It is horrifically anti-town to have people playing under the delusion that certain things can be, based on nothing more than gut instinct, manifestly "protown".

This debate is silly, but: it doesn't work like that. The fact one cannot point to anything specific does not make it more or less obvious, merely less able to be pinned down to some number of specific things. I think it would be reasonable to say if you had a very strong gut read on someone from their posting that it was 'obvious' to you they were town; that's how I interpreted it.

And I normally don't say this, but I agree. Des pretty much has a huge neon "I AM TOWN" sign glued to him at the moment. I can't point to any one specific thing, but it does seem fairly obvious, especially when I played with his town self recently. I literally flipped through the thread, read a post or two of his and went "oh, good, Des is town". Currently, either he's town here, or he's absolutely godly as scum. I don't think that's contradictory at all.

This is just proof of my point. People keep saying "DES IS TOWN" but nobody can explain why. However, if you approach him with even a modicum of sobriety you will appreciate that nothing he has said or done is incompatible, or even reasonably unlikely, to come from scum. I don't think Des is at all scummy, but I also don't think he appears protown either. If you cannot find facts to justify a feeling about a player, than you need to abandon the feeling. Smart scum can manipulate town instincts very easily, which is one of the reasons why I have such a strong opposition to gut play (or, more specifically, "subjective assertion without objective evidence"). Of course, it's completely possible that there might be good reasons why you think Des is protown, but you just aren't consciously aware of them. The trouble with that approach is that your emotions are more often than not going to be giving you a set of false positives - so it is better on precuationary terms to seek objective bases, rather than relying on your gut instinct. Gut can be a good reason for reading a player more closely, but it CANNOT form the basis for a read itself.

[vollkan]

If you cannot find facts to justify a feeling about a player, than you need to abandon the feeling. Smart scum can manipulate town instincts very easily, which is one of the reasons why I have such a strong opposition to gut play (or, more specifically, "subjective assertion without objective evidence").

Meh...I can't agree with this. I tend to think my "townie-dar" is very reliable, personally. It's only been actually fooled twice, I think. When I have a strong gut feeling a player is town, I'm almost always right, and it's worthwhile for people to pay attention to gut feelings.

I don't think it's any easier for scum to "manipulate" gut felings then it is for them to manipulate, well, anything else.

The key thing is to listen to gut feelings, pay attention to them, but don't trust them 100% and be willing to change your mind. Do that, and you're usuallly in good shape.

ALso, "town tell" might not be a good phrase to use (since no one is trying to "hide" that they are town), but I do think that there are actions that are more likely to come from town then from scum.

We are getting into theory here...but I suppose this is directly relevant to my comments on rofl and others, so it needs elaborating.

Yos, I have absolutely no doubt that your townie-dar and your scum-dar for that matter are of a very high standard. But from what I've seen of your play here and elsewhere, you aren't a "gut" sort of player. Even I don't have a problem with listening to gut feelings; I do that myself (if I get a bad feeling on somebody, I will reread them and try to work out why). What I do have a problem with, and I'll expand on this in a minute, is where people take their gut as evidence for somebody's scumminess or towniness.

Not to suggest a dichotomy, but gut is easier to manipulate than objectively-grounded (ie. rebuttable) arguments. We see it repeated here, and it's a pattern I've seen in a number of games that people just intuitively associate "nice sounding posts" (calmness, rationality, clarity, consistency, etc.) with towniness. To a large extent, without significant pressure of suspicion and so on these aren't at all hard to emulate as scum.

The flip side of this is that demanding a high level of justification for things sets the field up better for town. Legitimising gut simply gives scum an out for avoiding to post reasoning. The more town is prepared to tolerate incomplete justification, the easier things become for scum. It's good for debate and its good exposing cracks in reasoning if people aren't allowed to slide by simply justifying things by reference to their feelings.


And I am not saying there is no such thing as a towntell - though I cannot see any basis for concluding that a few posts which show a reasonable level of reasoning should merit plaudits.

If you cannot find facts to justify a feeling about a player, than you need to abandon the feeling. Smart scum can manipulate town instincts very easily, which is one of the reasons why I have such a strong opposition to gut play (or, more specifically, "subjective assertion without objective evidence").

You know (probably) nothing about me, yet you immediately assert that my gut instincts can be easily manipulated. I literally cannot ever remember having a strong town gut read on someone who turned out to be scum. Some people can be manipulated easily, but certainly not everyone who relies on gut. I mean, Glork is basically the canonical gut-based player - how easy is he to manipulate? Not terribly, to say the least. I seem to remember you objecting to his gut when you played with him in mith's second California game, where he destroyed all the scum and was nominated for a scummie, yes? Why wasn't he manipulated by the scum there?

Elmo, I am not suggesting that you, Glork, Yos or anybody in particular is easy to manipulate/cannot instinctively get reliable reads. I did have this debate with Glork in California #2, but I don't think his success there at all affects the point I am making

The trouble with that approach is that your emotions are more often than not going to be giving you a set of false positives - so it is better on precuationary terms to seek objective bases, rather than relying on your gut instinct.

This may be true for you. In fact, this probably is true for you, which is why you play as you do. But it's not true for me. And you're asserting this without giving any argument as to why it's true in general, or for me specifically, when my experiences are directly contrary to this. So I respectfully disagree.

Your fundamental problem is that you seem to have generalised about everyone, all together. What you've said may well be true for some subset of people, probably including you, but it cannot trivially be extended to everyone. Your playstyle (I would hope) is designed to fit you, with your individual strengths and weaknesses. If you find your gut is frequently wrong or misleading, then your playstyle should definitely cover that weakness by seeking refuge primarily in logic, and I approve of that. But that is

you

, and your experiences are not extendible to everyone else, because they are not clones of you, and indeed a large number are not remotely similar to you. I am honestly surprised that someone who claims to be logical would seriously try and generalise about literally everyone without a stronger basis. You are basically asserting that gut is typically inaccurate, but as far as I know, there has been no statistical data gathered on the typical accuracy of gut reads, in general or per-player. On that basis, I would assume you're saying "in my experience, gut is innaccurate". Okay; but in my experience, gut is accurate. Moreover, in my experience,

my

gut is accurate, which is somewhat more important in deciding whether I listen to my gut or not. So I don't know what kind of objective basis you're arguing on.

I really do not mind how you choose to play, but I find your attitude that essentially I am terrible at mafia and need instruction as to how to play in the Vollkan-approved manner patronising at best. This is entirely aside from my belief that you're wrong.

I don't really know why I bother writing this. But for now, there it is.

Well, yeah, its almost a truism to say this, but my style of play works for me. I don't believe my gut is inaccurate. In fact, it came VERY handy in Mini 542 - where one lynch looked set in and I backflipped at the last minute because I had a bad feeling. I then reread the player concerned, and found out why I had that feeling. They turned out to be scum.

So, I'm not asserting any empirical inaccuracy in gut suspicions. I don't have the statistics either way on that question. What I am saying, however, (see my response to Yos), is that given the possibility of gut being misled and given the policy advantages in being strict on reasons, it's better for town if gut is only tolerated as a means to finding reasons for suspicion (or towniness), rather than a basis for suspicion (or towniness)

I'd point to the roflcopter-sensfan thing here a good example. Rofl has made so many posts now loaded with hyperbole and assertion that his sneaky declaration of suspicion for Sensfan went unnoticed and, when I called him out on it, he pointed me to a set of meaningless (in terms of reflecting alignment) posts

And please don't think I meant to at all comment on your own play ability or anything like that. I'm not trying to coach anybody in how to play mafia. I'm just giving you my views on a theory point which has bearing on this particular game

[vollkan]

Eh...still, if a person has a gut read on someone, but can't explain why, I'd usually rather they say so then not say so. And I'm not really sure it does make it easier for the scum; I personally find it very interesting to note who's gut feelings match mine, and take that to be a sign that they might be looking at the game in the same way I am.

I'm not against people declaring their gut feelings. I'm simply against gut being used as a basis for actions. There's a difference between:
"X is suspicious"/"Vote: X"
"Why?"
"My gut just tells me so"
and:
"I have an odd feeling about X"

vote, unvote CKD

Uhh...I'm pretty sure that doesn't count as a self-vote. You vote "nobody" and then unvote yourself. In any event, I'd like to know what your thinking in doing this was. Why self-vote or give the appearance of self-voting in the current situation? It's a completely different situation to early game self-voting for discussion-starting, so I feel justified in asking you this.

Vollkan and Yos, if not ckd, who would you be voting for? Why?

Rofl. Reason: Ignoring my questions about his declaration of suspicion on SensFan.

[vollkan]

Your vote was on ckd for gut

No it wasn't. I've already explicitly said that I take gut as a null-tell for CKD. I jokingly voted CKD over the gut thing, but the point I was addressing seriously was his mimicry of

Yes Minister

through the use of an irregular verb: "I scumhunt early game-style", "You reach and attempt to appear scumhunting"

I'm finding it hard to believe that this is the next most suspicious thing you've seen in all 15 pages of this game

Well I have to disagree with you here. He makes a statement, I request he backs it up, with no explanation he points me to some completely meaningless posts, and then he ignores me (I know he has responded now, and I will get to that).

What are you thinking about Korts?

Scummier-than-average (about 55 on my scale)

As I said at the time, I didn't like his Guardian vote. Accusing Guardian of being "non-committal" when it clearly wasn't the case that Guardian was shirking from having an opinion - he was simply letting CKD fight his own battles. "Non-committal" is just like "WIFOM" - it carries powerful implications, but is open to abuse. Later on, when I pointed this out, he then changed tact and argued that Guardian should be arguing in CKD's defence - leaving a silence as to what was scummy about this

His accusation that Rofl was buddying up by asking why Yos was on a list also seems a bit of a stretch.

I disagree with him on towntells - but that's a theory dispute to be separated from actual in-game scumminess.

SensFan?

Hasn't posted enough, and has mainly engaged in minor theory points more than anything else. I don't have a read here yet, but he needs to post more clearly.

Yos?

I don't like his vote for CKD, the only justification supplied for it being "Based on some weird feelings I got from them earlier, I'm currently trying to decide between a CKD vote and a Guardian vote." Gut, in other words, and not at a very early stage of the game. He also hasn't been doing very much pushing or questioning. Again, needs to post more.

Elmo?

Pretty much neutral. Major theory dispute, obviously. I largely agree with the reasons he gives for the Korts vote.

vollkan, i thought it went without saying that what i wrote in response to sens in the passage i directed you to made it obvious that i found his actions there scummy. you characterized it as a theory debate, i disagree with you.

Rofl, I've stated several times now that I see no basis for finding scumminess in that exchange. Rather than simply repeating that it is "obvious" (because, frankly, it ISN'T), how about explaining to me what was scummy there?

I'll quote the exchange again:

The Exchange between Sens and rofl

I actually agree with ckd on all of this. Having a gut scum read on page 4-5 is not the same at alll of claiming to have a gut town read on page 3.

I actually agree with ckd on all of this. Having a gut scum read on page 4-5 is not the same at alll of claiming to have a gut town read on page 3.

whats the difference, exactly?

See something scummy and you can get a gut scum read.
Seeing something 'townie' can hardly lead to a gut town read.

i don't see why not

See something scummy and you can get a gut scum read.
Seeing something 'townie' can hardly lead to a gut town read.

and why does townie need quotation marks but scummy doesn't?

Please explain to me what there merits suspicion.

voting someone, or threatening to vote someone, for "not answering questions" is still stupid, as kison discovered when i answered his questions and he had no good reason to keep his vote on me.

It isn't stupid at all. Pointing out that Kison had no reasons after you explained yourself doesn't at all affect the validity of voting somebody before they provide reasons. It's incumbent upon you to justify yourself and, right now, your repeated practice of pointing me to a set of passages which give no indication of basis for suspicion is failing that responsibility dismally.

[vollkan]

More to the point, I still find it inconsistent that you're saying one thing of all of rofl's play makes him second most worthy of your vote. By the standards you've explained to us, isn't Yos' gut vote on ckd worse? rofl made a perceptibly casual mention of Sens as a suspect but Yos voted for a player without an explanation that went further than gut, saying he was happy to leave him at L-1. Why aren't you asking Yos to quantify his read of ckd as you're asking rofl to do of Sens?

Yos made no pretences about having anything other than gut. As I said, I don't like Yos's vote, but there is a difference between casting a vote and stating it is based on gut (bad enough, imo) and casting a vote which is apparently based on something non-gut but then seemingly avoiding actually explaining what that 'something' is and why it is actually scummier.

And are either of these scummier than Korts? Where do they rate on your scale?

The scale is not as meaningful at this stage of the game, but my basic thinking would have Korts 55, Yos 55 and Rofl at 60.

[vollkan]

is it easier for you if i just say its a gut feeling that i can't quantify based on those posts in particular which i pointed out?

It would save me having to ask, but would constitute a black mark against you for leading me down this stupid path of pointing me to posts that you seem to be admitting contain nothing.

i'm unclear on why this is such a big deal, sens is one of many people who caught my eye, but i'm obviously not trying to lynch him right now, and its hardly the most important aspect of my overall play in this game. it seems like nitpicking to be taking issue with that.

It's not nitpicking. The impression I have held from the beginning was that everything you were saying might as well be pure BS for all I know - given the dismal lack of any explanation. So, I tried my luck at testing how you'd react if pressed for reasons.

You pointed me to a set of posts that meant nothing and then danced around the fact whilst I repeatedly asked you. And now you try and back out by dismissing it all as "gut". I'm unimpressed, to say the least.

Vollkan, aren't "solidly based" suspicions just as affected by people acting rationally and calmly as pure gut reads, if not moreso? I believe it's easier for experienced/talented scum to look pro town from the rational analyst's point of view than from the gut player's. It's very hard to tell what a solid player's gut read is based on, but there is a form of behavior that's sort of universally considered pro town upon a rational analysis, which is hard to fake, but possible especially early in the game. For example rofl is ranked highest on your scale mostly, it seems to me, because he isn't as good at rationally explaining himself as most of the others are. (That's not to say a rational look at things isn't helpful, or that an empty gut feeling is sustance enough for a lynch, but I believe you're best off intially relaying on your gut for all reads.)

No. Every argument in this game about what nature of tell something is depends on a set of assumptions about what is a reasonable explanation. I don't consider calm or logical play as a towntell. I consider things to be towntells where the assumptions underpinning logic are reasonable (as an example: I found CKD's hypocrisy scummy. In doing so, I make an assumption that it is more reaosnable to say his action was scummy than that it was just a mistake. That's largely because it's hard to read error into the post, given how clear he was. There is also a policy dimension to it - if we are prepared to shrug our shoulders at everything which could possibly be a mistake, we'd never find scum).

Gut play avoids both the logic and the assumption. It's unknowable. I cannot now subject Rofl's SensFan reasons to analysis, or determine the reasonableness of his assumptions - because he has completely internalised them by redudincg them to gut

But Yos left ckd at L-1! rofl didn't even vote for Sens! How is rofl's action more significant than Yos'?

Damn, that's an excellent point. I was focussing exclusively on their reasoning, without any connection between them and what was actually happening in game. The fact of the vote being L-1 just didn't connect in my head. I mean, my natural tendency is to treat a vote not any differently from a declaration of suspicion, because the way I scumhunt is reasoning analysis. But the fact of it being L-1 changes this enormously. @ Yos - How is a gut vote acceptable at L-1 stage?

Post 215, vollkan says it was a joke vote. Did you give me any indication that your vote was a joke?

As I said before:

CKD, since when have I been the type to vote seriously based on the use of "gut" alone? Since when have I been the type to preface my votes with "obv scum"? You know better than most how much I tend to vacillate and obsess about different possibilities.

Not sure why vollkan vote is still on me at this point…it was a joke vote, then you talk about a double standard..do you feel I am now scummy because you perceive me as a hypocrite?

I'll quote the relevant passages:

I didnt like these questions on page 3..who thinks anyone is town on Page 3 of Day 1...I thought maybe he was trying to get conversation started..but just seemed too forced to me.

What do you mean by "forced"?

to me, just seems like someone who is trying to look like they are scum hunting

Reaching. I don't see how you can say that such questions are indicative of an attempt to appear scumhunting, rather than just early an effort to scum hunt or at least spur discussion.

the vote is on page 5...it is gut..there is nothing more to go on this early in the game...

of course I am fucking reaching..it is early in the game..i am trying to scum hunt. lynch me if you need to for my gut vote on page 5...essentially you are voting me for the exact same reason, vollkan..you think i am reaching and your gut says that is scummy....I think he is trying to earn friends..it was a gut reaction..which is why I said in my vote "lets see where this goes" and didnt present a case with it. Vollkan you have seen me vote on my gut NUMEROUS times as town in the passed...funny you seem to be forgetting that now..why is that? Out of everyone in the game YOU should know I vote gut frequently..we have even discussed it before...noted.

You don't know a joke vote when you see one.

CKD, since when have I been the type to vote seriously based on the use of "gut" alone? Since when have I been the type to preface my votes with "obv scum"? You know better than most how much I tend to vacillate and obsess about different possibilities.

Let me state without qualification that, whilst I generally take issue with unreasoned votes, I know CKD's meta and know that, in his case, gut is (albeit to my disdain) normal. Not that this is a warrant for CKD to give no reasons or anything, but I've learned to give up trying to make my case against gut for him

also vollkan, those questions seemed out of place..it didnt set right with me...this OF COURSE is reaching...I stated several times it wasnt a case...I am not trying to parade it as anything else..it seemed force because they didnt make any sense..."vollkan, who do you think is town" (or something of the like) on page 3-4 IS forced. it looks like someone trying to LOOK like they are doing something without really doing anything.

This point is serious though, lest my gut humour confuse you. CKD, I find it something of a double standard that when you go after something in a manner which, by your own admission is "reaching", then it is acceptable as early game scumhunting. But, when somebody else asks stupid questions, it is "forced" and an attempt to "appear" to be scumhunting. What say you?

[vollkan]

Also, I find it odd that Korts, Volkan, and Destuctor are all all attacking for my vote on CKD and yet not one has shown the slightest bit of curiosity for why I am voting him.

As Des says, when people attack a vote because it lacks justification, it's implicit at the very least that they want to know why you cast the vote.

I suppose it won't come as a surprise that I don't have a problem with rofl's play. I think the big thing is that I find it (his stance on Sens) informative, indeed somewhat moreso than some people who have posted their reasoning. Does that seem bizarre to you?

Depends on what you are looking for. Would it be a fair characterisation to say that you seem to want to know what rofl's opinion is, whereas I want to know why he holds that opinion?

Do you frequently find that shaky logic indicates scum? I've thought that approach tends to end in the lynch of whoever is least skilled in the use of logic. In the worst case, can scum not simply say "oh, I was wrong"? I am genuinely intrigued by people who are smart but significantly disagree with me.

Not logic per se. As you say, that would simply mean that poor debaters end up being lynched. What I look for mostly are the reasons why people identify certain things as scummy. As I just said, the set of assumptions underpinning their attacks/declarations of towniness.

The way I see it, people can always put anything onto mistake. Rofl can simply say "Maybe my gut was mistaken", so this is by no means a problem restricted to logical playstyles. Ultimately, I think you always have to allow for human error in this game, but an unreasonable error shouldn't relieve people of culpability.

I would like people speculate as to why Guardian was killed. No, really.

He wasn't looking noticeably scummy at the time, so it would surprise me if it was a vig-kill. That also probably serves as a rationale for a scum kill of him.

[vollkan]

You talked about how my vote was based on gut (which, by the way, I never said), but then, rather then ask me why I was suspicious of CKD, you tried to get me to make a case on someone else.

Firstly, let me quote your vote post:

Ok. I'm not actually going to have any real logic behind most of this, so don't expect it, but based on my readthrough:

People I won't vote for right now:

3. DrippingGoofball
13. Battle Mage
10. Elmo

The first two seem to be really trying hard to do scumhunting, and I like that. Elmo hasn't done that much yet, but I totally expect him to nail the scum godfather given another 48 hours or so, so I'll give him some breathing room.

Based on some weird feelings I got from them earlier, I'm currently trying to decide between a CKD vote and a Guardian vote.

(shrug)

vote:curiouskarmadog

Please accept my apologies. Your vote was based on "some weird feelings" rather than gut. That changes

everything

Secondly, as has already been pointed out by Des and I it was implicit in the attacks on your vote that people wanted to know your reasoning. Thus, it's just sneaky of you to accuse Des of trying to get you to make a case on somebody else in lieu of CKD - when I know you are smart enough to ascertain that he would have wanted your thoughts on CKD

and

the others.

And then we get to your reasons for suspecting CKD:

Anyway, CKD's behavior this game has seemed really unusual; both in general, and compared to when I have played with him before. (I don't have much of a meta on him, having not played with him all that many times I think, but his behavior in this game really seems different).

This is entirely vague and doesn't even suggest he is scummy - unless changes in people's playstyle are inherently scummy.

He then turned and vote rofl, claiming his reason was "gut", even though at that point I thought rofl looked pretty town.

So the fact that his "gut" goes against yours makes him scummy?

After that, he posted a lot, but didn't scumhunt at all; pretty much just argued semantics with rofl, ironically enough about you, with rofl saying you were "being" pro-town and him saying you might just be "acting" pro-town. But he never actually attacked you, or actually gave any real reasons for why he was voting rofl...meh.

When you voted CKD, you had just 2 previous posts. The first was an "I need to read up". The second was theory debating. I'm not saying this reason is invalid or anything, but it is a bit rich that one player who actually posts nothing can criticise another player for posting effectively nothing.

I am having some trouble explaining this, which is probably why I first just said I was voting him for "weirdness" and was waiting for him to ask me for more details. In the early part of the game, he just wasn't playing, well, like town; he didn't really seem to be trying to find scum, he seemed like he was trying to do...I donno...something else, but not that.

You're better than this.

Unvote, Vote: Yosarian2

[vollkan]

Well, I was certanly willing to explain why I had some weird feelings on him, what part of his behavior seemed weird to me.

Ex post facto justification for a vote is besides the point. Certainly, it helps your credibility somewhat, but it doesn't remove the problems with your initial vote.

Note he was only asking this from people who were voting CKD; he wasn't asking anyone else to make cases on people. SO, again, I come back to the conclusion that either he suddenly had a problem with the CKD wagon, or else that he was trying to defend CKD for some other reason.

I think you're conflating two different things. There were posts when Des questioned your for your reasoning on other people - that's understandable, as a means of preventing scum from avoiding suspicion through tunneling , or as preventing townies from doing the same by accident.

He also made comments specifically identifying your vote as a "gut" vote and the lack of contribution to game discussion you had made. He never explicitly asks "Why did you vote CKD?" - but it's pretty clear that when somebody attacks a vote for being "gut", their problem is the lack of reasons.

It is, to use a legalistic term, a "necessary implication".

And then we get to your reasons for suspecting CKD:

Anyway, CKD's behavior this game has seemed really unusual; both in general, and compared to when I have played with him before. (I don't have much of a meta on him, having not played with him all that many times I think, but his behavior in this game really seems different).

This is entirely vague and doesn't even suggest he is scummy - unless changes in people's playstyle are inherently scummy.

I'm doing my best to explain my impressions here. Whatver the page count says, we're still pretty early in day 1 here. Besides, yes, a radical departure from someone's normal playstyle can be a scumtell.

Yeah, this is early D1. The first few pages were filled with what really appears to be just noise. That said, we aren't so early that you can really argue for the legitimacy of serious votes (remember, we are talking about a L-1 vote here) based on weak arguments.

And you didn't really answer my point about changes in playstyle being scummy. I asked as to whether changes are "inherently scummy" and you reply with that they "can be". Nobody could reasonably dispute that some shifts can be a scumtell, but that says nothing about CKD's playstyle here vs elsewhere.

So the fact that his "gut" goes against yours makes him scummy?

Usually, when a pro-town person says "I have a gut feeling X is scum", I can kind of understand why they might think that, based on the thread. In this case, I don't, at all. So yes, that does make him a little scummy.

I am not disputing that, when people see eye-to-eye with you, that can be a mild towntell (though, I have reservations about this).

In any event, that point needn't be contested here, because it's a huge leap in logic to say that, just because some gut agreement can be a towntell that some gut disagreement is a scumtell. Smart, reasonable people do disagree as town. OMGUS is a logical fallacy for this very reason - townies can disagree about what is scummy, so the fact that somebody finds your actions scummy doesn't necessarily make them scum.

Not the same thing.

There were a few days when I didn't realize the game had started. If you really want to try to make a case that that somehow makes me scummy, be my guest.

Meanwhile, he was posting, he was just posting in a way the makes me think he was not a pro-town person trying to find scum. Read his early posts, see what you think about that.

Your early game inactivity is completely understandable (I am pretty sure I have made the same mistake myself somewhere...).

I've already criticised CKD's earlier posts - chiefly the very fact that he was doing weak scumhunting and thought it legit, but he found fault for the same in others. But CKD is by no means alone in this, nor does it necessarily make him scummy, given the nature of early game.

Maybe I am misunderstanding you here, but to simply say that " was just posting in a way the makes me think he was not a pro-town person trying to find scum" is pretty much meaningless. You might as well say "he was posting like scum".

This is exactally why some people just say "gut", you know. Because whenever you try to explain exactally why you have a bad, scummy feeling about someone's posts, you get attacked for it.

I'm not trying to constuct a "logical case" here, really. I think CKD is scum, and I'm trying to explain what gave me that impression. You can either agree or disagree.

Don't play the victim card, which you appear to be doing in your first sentence here. If you meant "gut", you should have stuck with "gut" and defended such a vote, rather than trying to justify yourself in a weak way. What you are doing here is effectively making yourself immune to attack - If it is a gut vote, you protest that gut is fine because it's early game. If it is not a gut vote, you protest that your weak reasons are fine because it's

my fault

for pressuring you to give them.

You cast a L-1 vote for vague unexplained reasons. I frankly cannot see how that can possibly be defensible. If it's early game, fine, then throw an FoS or something. In a game where so many people have been throwing around assertions of alignment, it's reckless at best to cast such a vote without justification - you're just paving the way for disaster.

Let's suppose CKD is lynched. No matter which way he flips, on the explanation you've provided, we have no means of discerning any details about your alignment from your vote.

Being able to "agree or disagree" is not the point - townies can disagree with each other. What I need is to be able to

assess

your vote to find out whether or not it is scummy, and to what degree. And, by definition, a gut vote makes that impossible.

And what the hell do you mean, I'm better then this? It's early on day 1 and I've already caught a scum and figured out who one of his scum partners is. What more do you want?

I meant that I know you to be an intelligent person and an excellent player and, as such, I expected more than a digestive meandering in defense of your vote.

I'm not sure what to make of vollkan's semi-defence of me or his delayed reaction to Yos' vote. It's not sitting well with me.

I'm not really "semi-defending" you. I just agreed with the point you brought to my attention about Yos's vote, which is also the reason for my delayed reaction.

dear vollkan,

here is my concrete reason for suspecting sensfan

he has done nothing but make jokes and get involved in theory debates. zero scum hunting. even his bm vote, here:

Vote: BM

for a self-vote followed by a No Lynch vote.

which he's stuck to since the beginning, is for theoretical points, not actual scumtells.

this is scummy in and of itself, but it is coupled with the fact that his stances in all of the debates he's gotten into have directly worked to benefit ckd.

finally, he is active elsewhere on the site, but he's very noticeably absent here.

satisfied?

lots of love,
roflcopter

ps, in light of sussing this out for myself, you can safely switch bm and sensfans' places on the updated list i just posted.

Satisfied? Not really - given how long it took. Placated? For now.

dgb gives me a warm fuzzy feeling. that has no bearing on her alignment at all, i just like her.

i also find her townish in this game.

Well, if your "warm fuzzy feeling" has no bearing on her alignment, what does?

Asked too soon:

more like intuition. that sounds better than gut, maybe vollkan won't have to go on another tirade because of it.

"Intuition" is gut in a cheap tuxedo. Nice try.

You misunderstand me. When I said "elbows deep in shit" I was saying that she's not afraid to stir up shit with her bare hands, as in fishing for emotions, reactions etc.

Right...but if that is what you meant, why is DGB pro-town for it?

I mean, stirring up reactions is something that scum has an enormous motivation to do - it serves as a means of triggering town errors. Town can do it also, of course, so it's ultimately a nulltell.

Shouting WIFOM at every hint of it is idiocy and a way to be acting like you're scumhunting. Again, looking at the motivations for her actions, I have the impression that she has slightly more motivation to be stirring up shit the way she's doing as town than as scum. Ignoring the motivations and running around screaming WIFOM isn't exactly a logical reply.

This isn't WIFOM, so much as the fact that stirring up reactions is something which benefits any alignment and, thus, it is neither a towntell nor a scumtell.

@Korts: In a few brief sentences, why are you voting RR? I ask because it wasn't clear from your last post

[vollkan]

Satisfied? Not really - given how long it took. Placated? For now.

do you agree/disagree with my assessment? did you really care either way what i said about sensfan or were you more concerned with attacking me for not saying anything?

I do agree with your assessment of Sens. Having said that, the fact you didn't raise it at all initially (even implicitly), given it seems totally divorced from anything apparent in the pp 6-7 discussion, it doesn't really, as I said, outweigh the delay. Though any reasons are a plus.

I did care what you had to say about him - obviously I wanted to see whether you had decent reasons, but likewise I was also concerned with getting you to say

something

to explain yourself. The two really go hand-in-hand.

"Intuition" is gut in a cheap tuxedo. Nice try.

but doesn't it look good? tuxedos make everything look awesome.[/quote]

If you put a tuxedo on a pig, it's still a pig.

[vollkan]

Right...but if that is what you meant, why is DGB pro-town for it?

I mean, stirring up reactions is something that scum has an enormous motivation to do - it serves as a means of triggering town errors.

Triggering TOWN errors??? Ugh? Townies don't have to make things up, they are far far less likely to trip on their own shoelaces than scumbags.

Speaking of trying to confuse people.

You're scum.

It doesn't logically follow from the fact that townies are "less likely to trip up on their own shoelaces" (I agree with you on this, btw) that scum don't have a motivation for trying. Scum win by mislynches, and mislynches can be achieved by causing town to trip up.

That's a stance that I can understand. I still hold that town is slightly more motivated to provoke reactions. I guess it comes down to a difference in ideology.

Right, but:

Ok, let me elaborate on that gut feel after all.

DGBscum doesn't have any motive to be elbows deep in shit

while she mimes scumhunting. DGB's actions so far have been pro-town, therefore I have no reason to suspect her. Why are you trying to dig any deeper when what we're discussing is a town read on someone? I'm thinking rofl has a point here; you are either trying to dissuade me from my read on DGB because you don't like town eliminating other town as suspects, or the other possibility, you are trying to figure out how to appear more pro-town in my eyes (although this second possibility assumes that you give a shit about my opinion).

Then RR asks:

Where are you seeing DGB elbows deep in shit? Are we even reading the same game? She's under no pressure at all...

You reply:

You misunderstand me. When I said "elbows deep in shit" I was saying that she's not afraid to stir up shit with her bare hands, as in fishing for emotions, reactions etc.

Me:

Right...but if that is what you meant, why is DGB pro-town for it?

I mean, stirring up reactions is something that scum has an enormous motivation to do - it serves as a means of triggering town errors. Town can do it also, of course, so it's ultimately a nulltell.

And then your post quoted at top.

What's my point? We go from the very strong point of "DGBscum doesn't have any motive to be elbows deep in shit" to "Town is slightly more motivated to provoke reactions". When I pressed you to explain yourself, you directly contradicted your earlier point.

What problems with my initial vote?

It being a gut L-1 vote.

Do you really have a problem with me voting for someone and not explaining all the reason why I did so right away? Because that's a common tactic I use to get the most useful reactions. Usually, I wait for the person I voted for to respond to the initial vote, and then I go into more details. And as of the time of your attack on me, he had not yet responded to my initial vote. (Unless you count "voting for himself" as a response.)

I don't have a problem with delaying for sake of generating reactions in principle, but you should see the difficulty here - if we take it at face value that people can justify a non-reasoned vote by simply saying "Oh, I was waiting to see", then that would be bad from a policy perspective.

In light of this, let me try a different tact: What did you hope to achieve by not explaining your vote?

Go back and show me the post where you think Destructor was in some way trying to put pressure on me to get me to explain my CKD post, or where he was putting pressure on me for "gut voting" in order to get me to explain my vote, or whatever, and quote it. Because as far as I can see, there wasn't one.

The first time was here:

More to the point, I still find it inconsistent that you're saying one thing of all of rofl's play makes him second most worthy of your vote. By the standards you've explained to us, isn't Yos' gut vote on ckd worse? rofl made a perceptibly casual mention of Sens as a suspect but Yos voted for a player without an explanation that went further than gut, saying he was happy to leave him at L-1. Why aren't you asking Yos to quantify his read of ckd as you're asking rofl to do of Sens?

That was addressed to me, but his perspective on your vote becomes clear. That said, it's an odd way to broach the subject - Des doesn't directly challenge your CKD vote, instead he almost challenges me to challenge your vote.

Why do you keep bringing up the lynch -1 thing here?

There seems to be a running theme here that people are insisting that if someone gets to lynch -1, everyone should suddenly unvote him and abandon the bandwagon. If my vote was legitimate when I cast it (and you didn't have any problem with it then, and neither did destuctor; in fact, you both agreed with me at the time that he looked scummy and were both voting for him), then I'm not going to unvote while he's lurking, and I'm not going to unvote while he's voting himself.

Are you really buying into this whole "if someone gets to lynch -1 you should unvote him" garbage Destructor is pushing here? I was voting CKD because I thought he was more likely to be scum then anyone else, and I expect to keep voting him until he or someone else changes my mind about him, until someone else looks scummier, or unless he dies. Him being at lynch -1 changes nothing.

I certainly don't think wagons should be necessarily abandoned at L-1. My problem with L-1 here is basically that you cast a vote which wasn't apparently based on anything at all other than gut. By your precedent, there is nothing then stopping a hammer occurring with the same lack of detailed explanation.

[quote"V"] In any event, that point needn't be contested here, because it's a huge leap in logic to say that, just because some gut agreement can be a towntell that some gut disagreement is a scumtell. Smart, reasonable people do disagree as town. OMGUS is a logical fallacy for this very reason - townies can disagree about what is scummy, so the fact that somebody finds your actions scummy doesn't necessarily make them scum.

Oh, I often disagree with people about who looks scummy, but that's not what I said. I said that when a pro-town person says they find someone scummy, I can usually at least UNDERSTAND why they might think that, no matter if I agree with it or not. So, yes; the "gut" vote he made there on ROFL at a time when he looked very pro-town to me was a big part of the reason I had a weird feeling about him.
[/quote]

I still don't see how that makes CKD scummy. In essence, you had a gut disagreement with him on ROFL. Different players; different perspectives. From your position, it might well have looked "weird" that you two would disagree so much but, again, without knowing the reasons why CKD disagreed I find it difficult to see how you can then presume that CKD is disagreeing with you because he is scum.

You can attack me for my reasons if you want. But you haven't, in any way that makes sense. You seem to understand why a change in playstyle can be a scumtell; you seem to understand how I would think he wasn't really scumhunting. All you're really attacking me for is that you seem to think my reasons are "too weak" to constitue a vote, which is an absurd argument unless you can present a logically stronger case on someone else. (Hint: you haven't.)

I'm not attacking you for any quantitative weakness in your reasons.

Disagreement on ROFL and a change in playstyle both "could" be reasons to justify suspicion. The problem I have with your case is that the logic is basically:
1) Player X does Y
2) Y can sometimes be scummy
3) Thus, Player X is scummy

(As an example, consider the application of this logic to OMGUS:
1) Player X does Y, where Y = "Attacks me"
2) People who "attack me" can sometimes be scummy
3) Thus, Player X is scummy)

You've pointed to "Ys" (the ROFL disagreement and the style shift), but nothing you've presented really explains how either is scummy.

Well, the biggest difference between a pro-town person and a scum at the early stage of the game is that a pro-town person is really looking for scum, and a scum is not. And fundimentally, CKD's posts there made me think he was not. It even sounds like you agree with my conclusion there, that it didn't look like he was actually scumhunting in any real way (although I'm not sure why you think he "thought it was legit"). So, I'm not sure how you can agree with that but then not understand how that is a scumtell.

I agree with the conclusion that CKD was doing weak scumhunting, but as I said, that seemed to be the norm at that stage. When I voted CKD, it was because he drew a double-standard by saying that he could hunt weakly, but others couldn't.

(And the reason I say he "thought it was legit" was his rebuttal post to me, where he argued that he was simply making an early game case)

I "cast" a L-1 vote? Um, no, I did not. When I cast my vote, it was not lynch -1. And I'm sure as hell never ever under any circumstances going to unvote someone just because he self voted.

Again, this is the thing you keep coming back to, and it makes zero sense. How does him putting himself at lynch -1 change anything? Are we now required to strech day 1 out to make it last a full month these days no matter what happens, or what?

Sorry, I completely misworded there. What I meant was that you had your vote on CKD when he was at L-1.

Him putting himself at L-1 changes things because it opens the way for a hammer (see my precedent point above). At that point, there should have either been unvote or elaboration from you.

"No means of discerning my alignment"? Really? Just because I didn't go into detail about all the reasons for my vote the instant I voted?

Yeah. Townies can disagree about people being scummy, so reasons become the lynchpin of determining alignment. If no reasons are provided, your alignment is shrouded.

[vollkan]

I don't think him putting himself at lynch -1 does either of those things. If he puts himself in range of being hammered, why should that make me want to unvote him? You and destuctor keep saying that, but I still don't accept that as a legitimate reason to unvote someone in basically any circumstances.

You can choose not to "accept" my reason, but I have explained myself already on this point. Casting a L-1 vote without immediate justification sets a precedent that can allow others to do the same. That's the "risk" concerned. As such, an unvote would be the right thing to do.

He voted himself in response to pressure, while giving absolutly no other defense at all. Do I really need any more reason then that to keep my vote on him?

I accept that his behaviour was voteworthy; I haven't disputed that. But you cannot point to the rightness of your vote simply by the fact that he acted poorly, when your intiial vote wasn't backed up.

vollkan is also trying way, way, way too hard to stop the ckd wagon. so yeah, you're right, vollkan is scum.

Heaven forbid somebody shouldn't agree with you

[vollkan]

Can you please provide us with a list of who is scum and who is town? Just a list. No verb.

I'll give the list without verb and then the list with verb.

Town (<50)

1) Destructor - 45
2) Raging Rabbit - 47

Scum (>50)

1) Yos - 70
2) CKD - 65
3) Korts, Rofl - 60

Ambiguous (=50)

DGB
Sens
Elmo
RR
Tajo
BM

3. DrippingGoofball - Frankly, I find DGB's play utterly opaque. Anybody who has been following this game should see that our styles just don't match up at all. All I really see here is a list of "X is scum" "Y is town". I know this is how she plays (*grinds teeth*), which leaves me utterly devoid of any insight into her alignment. As such, DGB has to get a

50

.

4. SensFan - Very little content to go on.

50

5. curiouskarmadog - The early game irregular verb usage of CKD is my first problem with CKD. I am not sure what to make of his self-voting to L-1, but I don't think it inherently scummy. Somewhat ironic that he should label DGB as "useless" when, in that same post, his reads on Des, Korts and Yos are also gut- based (In preemption: I am not saying your gut reads are scummy; I am saying that it is hypocritical to lambast DGB as useless when she is really only taking gut-based play to its logical extent of "nothing matters so anything goes"). I was going to address this later, but seeing as I am talking about CKD now, these are the reasons he gives for suspecting me:

even though vollkan's vote is off of me (atm)...getting huge scum vibes off him...was on my wagon when it was hot..called him on his shitty (unmeta like) vote...jumps off then attacks someone who is on my wagon...though his points at the time (against Yos) have some merit..still not liking the way he is manuvering.

1) I'm not sure why it is necessary to insert the phrase "even though vollkan's vote is off me (atm)". Unless you are incorporating some kind of OMGUS craplogic
2) "huge scum vibes". You all know my views on this; I don't think I need to repeat myself.
3) "on my wagon when it was hot". So what? There's nothing innately scummy about being on a wagon. It are the reasons for a vote which are important. I know you go on to criticise my reasons (I will get to that in the next point), but I single out this phrase because it adds nothing meaningful other than an emotional punch.
4) "shitty (unmeta like) vote". Okay, CKD has several times treated my vote as a "joke vote". Initially, I accept some blame here because I gave serious reasons and jokey reasons combined. But I have since explained that my vote was not for CKD's use of gut (which I presume is what he means by "unmeta"), but for his use of an irregular verb (hypocritical attack that other people doing weak hunting was "reaching", but him doing it was "early game scumhunting")
5) "jumps off then attacks someone who is on my wagon...though his points at the time (against Yos) have some merit". So I changed my vote for reasons which you acknowledge have merit? How the heck can you construe that as scummy? If I had presented my reasons against Yos without changing my vote, I daresay you would be criticising me for keeping a vote on you when there were more compelling reasons to vote Yos. This just makes no sense at all.
6) "still not liking the way he is manuvering". Could you be any vaguer?

All in all, I'd go about a

65

on CKD at this stage

6. Korts - His attacks on Guardian for being "non-committal" presented a very skewed interpretation of Guardian's play. Defended rofl's attack on Sensfan as having been justified by reasons, which I have already showed was complete crap. Also went to pains to argue that DGB's "actions" were pro-town; him eventually finessing all disagreement by putting it down to an ideological divide between us over whether scum want to generate reactions. Subjectivising disagreement is an old trick, and is basically just a cop-out.

60

7. roflcopter - Basically DGB writ large (or maybe that should be other way around...). Shouldn't come as any surprise that my biggest issue here is the tap-dancing about the SensFan scumminess. He kept pointing to the same set of posts for quite a while until he eventually backflipped and gave an explanation completely divorced from those posts. As I have said, the concern I have held for some time is that ROFL's playstyle allows him to get away with posting absolute BS and avoiding any accountability for it, whilst others get pulled down for the content of their posts - so the fact that he squirmed so much when forced to explain himself really underscores this.

60

8. destructor - Without canonising him as Saint Des the Most Protown, I've found nothing in Des's play thus far that warrants suspicion and his posts and reasoning are of a high standard. He's also asking the right questions. At this stage, Des breaks below 50 and scores a

45

.

9. Yosarian2 - I don't mean to engage in a pbp review of our entire debate. For now, L-2 vote for CKD had no justification provided with it; attack on Des for trying to divert attention from CKD (which was fairly clearly not what Des was doing, as Des's posts made it clear that he didn't think Yos had justified his vote); and a very poor ex post facto justification for the vote (again: 1) Playstyle change (not inherently scummy); 2) Disagreement with CKD's gut; 3) Singling out CKD for poor early game play; 4) Subjectivising disagreement by telling me the vote was just gut and I could either "agree or disagree").

70

overall.

10. Elmo - Little to go on. I haven't found anything said by him scummy, though.

50

11. Raging Rabbit - I haven't found anything scummy about him thus far, he's been decent as far as content and s:n goes, and he had good reasons to back up his Korts vote.

47

12. populartajo - Not enough to get a solid read.

50

13. Battle Mage - I really get nothing from his posts, and I haven't noticed any compelling arguments for BM either way.

50

14. Kison - Mild pro-town read here - his reasoning on Rofl, Yos and Korts seems to be similar to my own. Doesn't clear him by any means in my eyes, but without any scumtells it is in his favour.

48

.

Unvote, Vote: Vollkan

Why?

I dont think CKD scum would claim vanilla at this point.

Why?

I dont think Korts scum would be so blatant in his self-interest.

Why?

[vollkan]

vollkan.

destructor - Without canonising him as Saint Des the Most Protown, I've found nothing in Des's play thus far that warrants suspicion and his posts and reasoning are of a high standard. He's also asking the right questions. At this stage, Des breaks below 50 and scores a 45.

After this, I have to question your motives in attacking my pro-town read on DGB for

very

similar grounds.

I anticipated as much. It's all a matter of degree.

Aggregated and apparently good scumhunting suggests a greater likelihood somebody is town. I'd be stupid to deny that. There's no inconsistency in recognising that fact, on one hand, whilst also rejecting the idea that, say, a few sharp questions, some reaction-stirring, or gut agreement can render a person pro-town.

Also, I really must stress that Des only got a ranking of 45. Not only is that hardly a ringing endorsement, but it's relative to everybody else. When you look at the people that get 50s, Des has to be lower given the level and quality of content.

Without canonising him as Saint Des the Most Protown

LOL

Wow...Des found something

I

said funny. That's got to be two miracles right there.

@ everyone - When you read my play, do you see what Yos is saying about me?

No. As my previous

essays

posts have made clear, I don't like Yos's take on your stance to his CKD vote, the case on CKD by Yos, or the whole "Does a self-vote warrant an unvote?" question. I do think the questions he is asking about your stance on CKD are legitimate, though.

I also think BM absolutely needs to be held accountable for everything he's said today and hasn't answered for yet.

His play is just very "insubstantial" (for want of a better word). It's not even that it is gut-based or anything (eg. unlike ROFL or DGB).

[vollkan]

I mean, at first, he seems to be fine with me having what he assumed to be a gut vote on CKD; in fact, he supported it by keeping his vote on CKD.

You're making the ridiculous assumption that two people cannot be voting for the same person unless they both endorse each other's votes.

Then, suddenly, CKD votes himself and puts himself at -2, and he acts like I was doing something wrong for keeping my vote there, when letting someone bluff everyone into unvoting them by voting themselves clearly seems a sub-part toiwn straragy.

Nice strawman. It's absolutely wrong to suggest that I was saying people should have been bluffed into unvoting CKD. Need I remind you that I continued voting CKD after the self-vote? My problem is wholly and solely the lack of reasons supplied with your vote.

which isn't even true, since my vote wasn't a L-2 vote

That should have read L-1, firstly. And, as I have explained previously, what I mean is the continued holding of a gut vote on CKD whilst he is at L-1.

And even though he was fine with me doing a "gut vote", he's now attacking me for explaining the initial reasons for my CKD vote, even though they were pretty clearly stronger then HIS initial reasons for voting CKD.

How the heck do you justify saying I was fine with your vote? I didn't attack it at the time because I hadn't joined the dots between it and the size of the wagon. By no means did I endorse it (that almost goes without saying for me).

And your "reasons" (If I might blaspheme the term) were not at all stronger than mine. I relied on a direct contradiction in CKD's play. You relied on "some weird feelings". There is absolutely not even an equivalence between the two.

[vollkan]

voll's argument about yos leaving his vote on ckd when he was at L-1 or -2 or whatever is a load of crap and he knows it because ckd was only at that stage due to a SELF VOTE. stop trying to argue that anyone should have unvoted ckd for self voting.

The fact it was a self-vote is completely irrelevant. The material facts are that CKD was at L-1 and that Yos held an unjustified vote.

You keeping your vote on implies you were happy with CKD having the number of votes he did after I voted him. How is that not an "endorsement" of my vote?

Number, yes. Reasons, no. I thought CKD deserved to be at L-1, but I never thought that gut votes were acceptable.

But you didn't have a problem with that when I voted, and the only thing that changed was the self vote.

I've already answered this point. I didn't connect your vote to the fact of the wagon being at L-1. What changed was me recognising those two facts together, when Des pointed it out to me.

And your "reasons" (If I might blaspheme the term) were not at all stronger than mine. I relied on a direct contradiction in CKD's play. You relied on "some weird feelings". There is absolutely not even an equivalence between the two.

Um...this was the reason for why you first voted for CKD:

again, gut...not a case.

Unvote, Vote: CKD Obv scum.

Which you later tried to claim was a "joke vote", even though you basically kept it on him from then on. The reasons I had for first voting him were much stronger then that, certanly.

You then, in an "Ex post facto" justification for your own vote (which is fine when you do it but not when I do it?), brought up the silly "irregular verbs" thing, which is also much weaker then the case I made against him. [/quote]

Cherry-picking. This was my voting post:

He needs to BUTTER UP EVERYBODY. Not just townies, not just mafiates, but every player in the game.

The hypothesis of SK-vollkan buttering up everybody is perfectly valid, but as is the hypothesis of vollkan (alignment independent) simply expressing enthusiasm for this game.

The self-vote is a symptom of vollkan's solitary proclivities, proclivities that include killing players at night without benefit of team discussions.

I must have missed the logical links between self-vote and being solitary, and between solitariness and solo murdering.

Also, it's self-bus'ing. I mean, he can only bus himself. He's doing it to get town cred in case he goes down in flames.

I'd strongly encourage any SK/s to adopt this excellent strategy.

Question is, do we lynch the SK or do we lynch the mafia? This game is like shooting fish in a barrel.

Barrel of what?

vollkan, who do you think is most likely town?

Me.

again,

gut

...not a case.

Unvote, Vote: CKD

Obv scum.

I didnt like these questions on page 3..who thinks anyone is town on Page 3 of Day 1...I thought maybe he was trying to get conversation started..but just seemed too forced to me.

What do you mean by "forced"?

sometime just doesnt

feel

right.

*vomit*

to me, just seems like someone who is trying to look like they are scum hunting

Reaching. I don't see how you can say that such questions are indicative of an attempt to appear scumhunting, rather than just early an effort to scum hunt or at least spur discussion.

With the exception of "*vomit*", the two questions which follow go to the hypocritical play I voted CKD for. His answers affirmed this:

the vote is on page 5...it is gut..there is nothing more to go on this early in the game...

of course I am fucking reaching..it is early in the game..i am trying to scum hunt. lynch me if you need to for my gut vote on page 5...essentially you are voting me for the exact same reason, vollkan..you think i am reaching and your gut says that is scummy....I think he is trying to earn friends..it was a gut reaction..which is why I said in my vote "lets see where this goes" and didnt present a case with it. Vollkan you have seen me vote on my gut NUMEROUS times as town in the passed...funny you seem to be forgetting that now..why is that? Out of everyone in the game YOU should know I vote gut frequently..we have even discussed it before...noted.

You don't know a joke vote when you see one.

CKD, since when have I been the type to vote seriously based on the use of "gut" alone? Since when have I been the type to preface my votes with "obv scum"? You know better than most how much I tend to vacillate and obsess about different possibilities.

Let me state without qualification that, whilst I generally take issue with unreasoned votes, I know CKD's meta and know that, in his case, gut is (albeit to my disdain) normal. Not that this is a warrant for CKD to give no reasons or anything, but I've learned to give up trying to make my case against gut for him

also vollkan, those questions seemed out of place..it didnt set right with me...this OF COURSE is reaching...I stated several times it wasnt a case...I am not trying to parade it as anything else..it seemed force because they didnt make any sense..."vollkan, who do you think is town" (or something of the like) on page 3-4 IS forced. it looks like someone trying to LOOK like they are doing something without really doing anything.

This point is serious though, lest my gut humour confuse you. CKD, I find it something of a double standard that when you go after something in a manner which, by your own admission is "reaching", then it is acceptable as early game scumhunting. But, when somebody else asks stupid questions, it is "forced" and an attempt to "appear" to be scumhunting. What say you?

How is a playstyle change not an inherent scumtell? It's not something that only scum do, but I certanly think a change of playstyle increases the chance of a change in alignment, dosn't it?

There are numerous reasons why a person's style might change (new meta experiences, mood, power role, etc.). It's only scummy if you can pinpoint the change and explain what's scummy about it.

Saying that my second point was "disagreement with CKD's gut" is a complete misrepresentation of what I said, as I have already explained at least twice. It's that i don't at all understand where his gut vote might have been coming from, and that IS a scum tell.

I called it "gut disagreement" in our debate on this point, and I stand by that label. What it is basically is saying "I don't know CKD's reasons, but I can't imagine he has any good ones". The solution is not to suspect him; the solution is to inquire after the reasons for his suspicion.

The "poor early game play" thing is a fine reason to vote someone especally in the early point of the game when I voted him

Yes, my argument was just that this was by no means restricted to CKD and probably just due to the nature of this game's early stage

and I never said #4 at all.

You did actually:

You're better than this.

Unvote, Vote: Yosarian2

This is exactally why some people just say "gut", you know. Because whenever you try to explain exactally why you have a bad, scummy feeling about someone's posts, you get attacked for it.

I'm not trying to constuct a "logical case" here, really. I think CKD is scum, and I'm trying to explain what gave me that impression. You can either agree or disagree.

And what the hell do you mean, I'm better then this? It's early on day 1 and I've already caught a scum and figured out who one of his scum partners is. What more do you want?

I'd like vollkanscum to park his vote in a more productive place. You're not going to be a chicken with your vote, are you, vollkan?

No. I know that my Yos suspicion is unlikely to carry through, since it has convinced nobody. As my rankings indicate, my next biggest suspect is CKD, followed by Korts and Rofl (who I know is even less viable a lynch than yos).

In light of the approaching deadline,

Unvote, Vote: CKD

[vollkan]

There are numerous reasons why a person's style might change (new meta experiences, mood, power role, etc.). It's only scummy if you can pinpoint the change and explain what's scummy about it.

There are numerous reasons, yes. Some reasons are scummy, some are unrelated to alignment. Which, I think, does make it a (weak) net scumtell.

But you haven't even been able to pinpoint what it is that has changed or even whether anything

actually

has.

I mean, your argument is effectively: "Something about CKD's play seems different. I don't know whether or not that's scummy, but because changes are either null or scum, changes generally are a net weak scumtell."

I called it "gut disagreement" in our debate on this point, and I stand by that label. What it is basically is saying "I don't know CKD's reasons, but I can't imagine he has any good ones". The solution is not to suspect him; the solution is to inquire after the reasons for his suspicion.

Except inquires into his reasons, made by several people, went nowhere. And the game was quite short at that point; it's not like there could have been much that I missed before he made that vote.

Bingo.

Because CKD's vote was gut based

. Hence, "gut disagreement"

Yes, I said that. Note that nowhere in there did I say that it was "just gut". I was just pointing out that you were trying to treat my post as if it was something different from what it was. And since none of my reasons are actually flawed, as can be pretty clearly seen in this post, it's really scummy that you were trying to construct a case against me based on my reasons for suspecting CKD, especally if you also suspect him. It just dosn't make sense.

But the post didn't give

any

reasons:

This is exactally why some people just say "gut", you know. Because whenever you try to explain exactally why you have a bad, scummy feeling about someone's posts, you get attacked for it.

I'm not trying to constuct a "logical case" here, really. I think CKD is scum, and I'm trying to explain what gave me that impression. You can either agree or disagree.

And what the hell do you mean, I'm better then this? It's early on day 1 and I've already caught a scum and figured out who one of his scum partners is. What more do you want?

You refer to a "bad, scummy feeling" and even say that this is the reason some people just say "gut".

Let me phrase that another way.

If CKD was your buddy, you wouldn't have hesitated to make yourself the hero and hammer him for town cred. If you were town, you wouldn't have hesitated to make yourself the hero and hammer such a scummy player.

Thus you are scum, BM, and CKD is town.

You really think that town-BM would have hammered so quickly?

I have CKD pulling really hard at my heartstrings (I told you I'll never let you play me like a violin ever again, put down that bow), and BM screaming "I'm scum! I'm scum!"

There is no way in hell that BM wouldn't think CKD is scummy, if he were town. The only way a player can see something townie in CKD is to be scum, KNOWING that CKD is town, despite evidence to the contrary.

CKD has more flashing scum marquees than Vegas has casinos. Only scum would defend him.

Evidently not. It's called adapting to a meta. Meta indication of his townieness also helps.

BM

"Meta" is very vague. What specifically makes you think CKD is town?

DGB, why did you decide to start a wagon from scratch on BM one single day from deadline? Are you perhaps trying suddenly to disassociate yourself from the CKD wagon now that you've pushed it almost to the finish line?

The thought crossed my mind, but it seems much too obvious. That's wifom thinking, though.

Korts, you're on my scumlist to begin with. And you've just set my scumdar on fire.

OK.

Let's make this interesting.

unvote, vote: Korts

Now Korts and CKD are head to head.

We have one day left for one of these two players to collect a couple more votes for the lynch.

*blink* What happened to:

Do I think BM's last post was scummy?...meh..if he is scum, it was a safe post...it was like hey, just checking in to let everyone know I could hammer if I wanted too..but I am not....could be an attempt to buy creds once a flip town....it is safe because most likely I will hang today with his vote or not.......or it could be BM being BM..he likes to talk..it is for you guys to decide now..

Grow some. Either you are scum or BM is scum.

?

[vollkan]

Back to where I was yesterday -

Vote: Yosarian2

a counterpoint to the theory that sens is lurking everywhere (though i too feel his absence from his modded games), i present the recently concluded open 102 where town sens was incredibly active. it ran concurrently with his inability to post anything meaningful in this thread whatsoever.

IIRC, Sens is generally low on content. Picking one game where he was active as town hardly justifies meta-based suspicion.

not a utility lynch, sens is obvscum. having him replaced would be cruel to the replacement.

Is this based on anything beyond your "meta" of sensfan?

also if you truly think sens is just a utility lynch, it should be done today because utility lynches becomes exponentially more damaging for town the later in the game they must be performed.

You've said you don't want a replacement because Sens is "obvscum". I cannot see how a person, who does not see Sens as obvscum, could justify advocating a utility lynch when replacement is an option (policy lynch is also an option - it's not a utility or suspicion dichotomy). You've precluded replacement as an option for yourself, but your thinking here ignores it as an option for others.

ANd yeah, Sensfan is lurking.

Vote:Sensfan

Is this suspicion, policy or utility?

I looked into people's activity on site at the time of guardians death. Not everyone, just a few people i thought were scummy, and/or had motives for wanting him dead. DGB had not posted on site within the time frame available for the kill (in excess of 3 hours i think). When i asked her where she was, in an attempt to give her an opportunity to confirm herself, she claimed that she'd been at a computer-something which i find very unlikely given her normal posting rate when she has computer access. Motive for the lie? i'm not sure. But chronic lying when scum isnt uncommon.

First off, what post by DGB are you referring to?

Secondly, I don't follow your logic at all. I post often, but I am often on my computer - even on the internet - and not posting on MS

[vollkan]

If that is the response BM was referring to, two points stand out:

1) She doesn't even mention a "computer-something", contrary to what BM said. Obviously, it is more likely that a person will be on MS If they are on a computer than if they are merely at home.

2) Beyond that, as I just said, being on computer =/= being on MS

[vollkan]

Lol, its a combination of that and the fact that she was one of few people with both the motive, and (if part of a scumgroup) the clout to be able to put through a Guardian kill.

BM

The whole "motive" argument is also very weak. Guardian's a good player; it's not as though DGB was by any means in a position where she was uniquely positioned to desire a Guardian death, especially given the power role hinting. Not to mention the horrible wifom involved in interpreting motive based on tunneling.

Also, saying it's a "combination" of reasons just dodges the question about whether your "DGB was at her computer" argument is a load of bollocks.

Again, I stress:

If that is the response BM was referring to, two points stand out:

1) She doesn't even mention a "computer-something", contrary to what BM said. Obviously, it is more likely that a person will be on MS If they are on a computer than if they are merely at home.

2) Beyond that, as I just said, being on computer =/= being on MS

The "at computer" argument is invalid as a reason for suspicion, and the motive argument is very weak and riddled with wifom AT BEST.

[vollkan]

I agree with DGB, Kison is a bad vig candidate and since vigs also have no motive to kill early in the day it was very likely a scum kill as well.

Agreed. Kison wasn't scummy in the least, yet alone to the degree which would warrant such an early kill.

A big show? All I did was note (accuratly and correctly, mind you) the behavior you did that I thought was strange, speculate about one possible cause of it, and then try to pin you down to taking a postion on CKD. You were the one who made "a big show" out of it, fighting me in a borderline OMGUS way for about 10 pages while refusing to answer simple questions, and spending the whole time acting like I was making stuff up when I pretty clearly was just stating clear and obvious facts.

You keep accusing me of trying to "create a big show", but you have yet to explain exactally why you think anything about what I did in questioning you yesterday was scummy (keeping in mind that "scummy" means "more likely to come from scum then from town").

This isn't true at all.

As I said before, Des questioning you on other people is completely reasonable. And, it's a necessary implication from his identifying your vote as "gut" and noting the lack of input from you that he wanted to know more of your thinking.

Hardly "clear and obvious facts"

[vollkan]

As I said before, Des questioning you on other people is completely reasonable.

Did I ever say he was scummy because he questioned me? Of course not. I was looking for a possible pattern in behavior, which was why it was at all worthy of note.

Me questioning DES about the reasons behind his actions, and about his opinion on CKD, was also completly reasonable.

No, you didn't say he was scummy for questioning you simpliciter, but it was a fundamental component of the narrative of Des's play that you were trying to spin:

Note he was only asking this from people who were voting CKD; he wasn't asking anyone else to make cases on people. SO, again, I come back to the conclusion that either he suddenly had a problem with the CKD wagon, or else that he was trying to defend CKD for some other reason.

You are effectively setting up a false dichotomy - either he had a problem with the wagon, or he had other reasons for defending CKD. I mean, Des questioned you and I together asking:

Vollkan and Yos, if not ckd, who would you be voting for? Why?

It's a leap to read into that a desire to subvert the CKD wagon. Up to that point, I hadn't been clear in my broader views, and nor had you, so the narrative you weave is dodgy.

As for the BM debacle, I do think a wagon was justified, having myself criticised the stupid attacks BM was making against DGB. That said, it's particularly unhelpful that Rofl's vote was, in its entirety:

unvote, vote: battle mage

Precisely the same deal as with Yos. A L-1 vote without objective explanation is unacceptable. Why did you vote BM?

The other thing I take issue with is this:

Just for the record, BM also used this tactic in Adel's Nice Shot. Want to take a guess about his alignment?

I assume you meant the replacement request thing here. In any event, my problem is the idea that a meta can be established by a small sample space (in this case, one game) - a person's actions are impacted upon by more than just their alignment and can occur on different occasions for different reasons, so it's extremely tenuous to say that because BM does this in one scum game, he is therefore scummy to a significant degree in this one. The other question that merits consideration is whether you bothered making inquiries as to whether BM had done something like this as town in the past?

Your case is basically this, correct me if I'm wrong: I made a case on Guardian (which was justified, just not based on the tell I thought it was); I made a case on BM based on a BS point of view in an argument, which I later retract on account of it being weak, but leave my vote because I can't find another place for it; "OMGUS" case on you, based on the fact that you seem to be pushing a weak case very hard; self-preservation vote on CKD (how's that even a point against me?); "bad logic" on the gut read on DGB.

You voted Guardian for being "non-committal". That argument was rubbish, as I have said already. How was that justified?

That's the main point against you, but I'd also add the following lesser reasons of my own to the ones you identify:
1) You defended Rofl as having justified himself when, as I showed, he'd done absolutely nothing of the worst
2) Subjectivising disagreement over your argument about DGB's actions being towntells

I'd like to lynch vollkan today. All the while he stays on the sidelines. He's very off.

This simply isn't true. I've voiced my opinions and suspicions very clearly and have been in a number of arguments.

(I do have my own pet theory about this, and its one I formed in the wake of games that have gone badly for me as town, like California Trilogy: Going to San Francisco and House Mafia (where at endgame I was in the awful situation of being both dead in the water as far as scumhunting went and confirmed protown), in contrast to successful games for me as town (ie. where I catch scum) like Mini 495 or Mini 636 which went well. My style of play only really "works" if I am able to have debates with people, because that's how I tease out reasoning and separate scum from town. In other words, it fails completely in dealing with people like yourself or Rofl, who have a very different style of play to me. Proof in point of this is the way that I have been able to have pursue my suspicion of Yosarian, because, despite our disagreement on gut, he has a style that I can work with. I don't know whether that

is

the reason I find difficulties sometimes, but it makes intuitive sense that if I rely on debate, I need material to debate about - and it is consistent with the experiences I have had)

guh, really bm, that was ridiculous

vote: vollkan

Why?

=/

I'm pretty sure we should lynch Yos today.

Vote: Yosarian2

(and welcome to the game FL.)

I'm assuming this is for the stuff that we've been debating with Yos for some time now?

I also very interested in seeing who else is willing to lynch you.

Me.

[vollkan]

Eh....well, it was a bit of a "leap", sure. But as part of the larger narriatve, it seemed like a

possible explination

for his actions; using that kind of subtle subject change that

can

be an effective scum tactic to protect a buddy without been seen tying yourself to him too closely.

I wouldn't dispute that for a second. But I would draw attention to the bolded.

[vollkan]

Eh....well, it was a bit of a "leap", sure. But as part of the larger narriatve, it seemed like a

possible explination

for his actions; using that kind of subtle subject change that

can

be an effective scum tactic to protect a buddy without been seen tying yourself to him too closely.

I wouldn't dispute that for a second. But I would draw attention to the bolded.

Right. Which is why I speculated about it as a possible explination for his actions, and questioned him about it, but never voted him for it.

The mere fact that you didn't vote means nothing, and I don't like the fact that you are now relying on the fact that your case was hedged as "speculation". I've explained already why your narrative about Des was not at all persuasive as an argument for him being scummy.

You voted Guardian for being "non-committal". That argument was rubbish, as I have said already. How was that justified?

He was saying that he didn't agree with the CKD case. The logical conclusion from that is that the points didn't make sense. And a point doesn't make sense, it is every pro-town player's duty to show how it's faulty. But he refused to give his contribution to the CKD wagon for or against it, basically saying that he would "allow" it to be pursued even though he thought it was invalid. How's that not justified taken the circumstances of that phase in the game?
[/quote]

You're setting up a false dichotomy here. As I said, one can quite plausibly be against a wagon, but also wish to leave it to the individual to explain themselves. Now, if Guardian had let the wagon go to lynch without intervening, there would be a problem, but there's nothing anti-town about not intervening in a wagon one disagrees with.

I seemed to remember him giving a more extensive explanation for the suspicion of SF. The fact that I understood his point made me believe that he had explained it more thoroughly. I concede that I was wrong.

I do hold this against you as a scumtell, but its potency is very much reduced because you've conceded your error.

Well, that's because our disagreement is subjective. You draw the line a bit further in the case of towntells than me. This is nothing more than a nulltell and I think you know it.

If I knew it, I wouldn't be arguing it.

And, no, our disagreement is not subjective.

Right...but if that is what you meant, why is DGB pro-town for it?

I mean, stirring up reactions is something that scum has an enormous motivation to do - it serves as a means of triggering town errors.

Triggering TOWN errors??? Ugh? Townies don't have to make things up, they are far far less likely to trip on their own shoelaces than scumbags.

Speaking of trying to confuse people.

You're scum.

It doesn't logically follow from the fact that townies are "less likely to trip up on their own shoelaces" (I agree with you on this, btw) that scum don't have a motivation for trying. Scum win by mislynches, and mislynches can be achieved by causing town to trip up.

That's a stance that I can understand. I still hold that town is slightly more motivated to provoke reactions. I guess it comes down to a difference in ideology.

Right, but:

Ok, let me elaborate on that gut feel after all.

DGBscum doesn't have any motive to be elbows deep in shit

while she mimes scumhunting. DGB's actions so far have been pro-town, therefore I have no reason to suspect her. Why are you trying to dig any deeper when what we're discussing is a town read on someone? I'm thinking rofl has a point here; you are either trying to dissuade me from my read on DGB because you don't like town eliminating other town as suspects, or the other possibility, you are trying to figure out how to appear more pro-town in my eyes (although this second possibility assumes that you give a shit about my opinion).

Then RR asks:

Where are you seeing DGB elbows deep in shit? Are we even reading the same game? She's under no pressure at all...

You reply:

You misunderstand me. When I said "elbows deep in shit" I was saying that she's not afraid to stir up shit with her bare hands, as in fishing for emotions, reactions etc.

Me:

Right...but if that is what you meant, why is DGB pro-town for it?

I mean, stirring up reactions is something that scum has an enormous motivation to do - it serves as a means of triggering town errors. Town can do it also, of course, so it's ultimately a nulltell.

And then your post quoted at top.

What's my point? We go from the very strong point of "DGBscum doesn't have any motive to be elbows deep in shit" to "Town is slightly more motivated to provoke reactions". When I pressed you to explain yourself, you directly contradicted your earlier point.

The contradiction point is a separate matter, and one I forgot to raise before.

But the point is that you made the simple assertion that it's an ideological disagreement over the alignment implications of a person triggering reactions. You're subjectivising it. In contrast, if you had explained your view (ie. by explaining yourself over my point about scum having a motivation to provoke town errors) I would have no objection. It's the fact that you guillotine all debate by simply making it a personal difference between us. Now, it might well be a personal disagreement at some level, but you didn't respond to the point I had made.

You have a bit of a point there. I don't recall many stances from him at all.

(Welcome to the game.)

That isn't true. I've given my opinion on everybody, and I've been involved in both offensive and defensive debates.

BM is scum, he must die. I don't know what he's up to, I don't know what impression he's trying to give, but he's a lying scumbag. This much I know.

I'm all for SensFan to die. But with this post, BM has shown me beyond the shadow of a doubt that he can only be scum.

unvote, vote: BattleMage

Blatent OMGUS anyone?

No, it isn't OMGUS. OMGUS is the fallacy of arguing along the lines of "I know I am town. Person X is attacking me. Since Person X is attacking me, who I know to be town, Person X must be scum". BM had presented incredibly dodgy attacks on DGB and, whilst her reasoning is ambiguous (as we've come to expect <grumble>), it isn't an OMGUS.

[vollkan]

Okay, there may be some pro-town motive to not intervening, but I consider it a mild scumtell. Scum are

more likely

to do so, either because the case they're trying to subtly discredit is against a partner or because they are aiming for brownie points after the eventual lynch.

Where's this "more likely" coming from? I'm not going to facetiously ask "Have you got numbers to prove it?". What I would like to know, though, is what makes the pro-town motive I gave any less reasonable than the pro-scum motives you've given. It's just like Yos's narrative thing.

(As a point of contrast, contradicting onself is a scumtell, because town playing genuinely shouldn't violate the law of non-contradiction. Same with a quick-hammer. )

And the point you raised, that scum have a motivation to provoke town errors, was fair, but town do have a greater motive to scumhunt, since the main goal of scum during the day is not to get lynched, and not to lynch someone specific.

Yes, and the best defence for scum is a strong offence. That works in two ways: 1) It lynches town, thus preventing their lynch and; 2) They avoid being accused of being inactive. Consistent good logic is a mild towntell, as I have said, but simply trying to stir things up doesn't in any way show consistently genuine thought.

I'd already addressed the contradiction point when it was raised. Adjusting my point of view from "scum don't have motive" to "town have more motive" is, I would think, pretty natural when you had just pointed out how scum would have motive.

Right. That would explain why I didn't raise it at first instance or in my summaries.

forb, there is no such thing as OMGUS. Seriously. Believe me. There is always an underlying reason to what you call "OMGUS", and that underlying reason makes the accusation of "OMGUS" invalid. Even if that underlying reason is only "that player's vote on me is weakly justified".

QFT

Unless somebody votes for the specific reason that "You voted me", it isn't OMGUS. It might be a crappy vote, sure, but it isn't OMGUS.

[vollkan]

Well, whether I accept your argument that OMGUS exists or not is a rather moot point, is it not? How does this help us hunt scum?

Not at all a moot point. And it can help us find scum.

1) "OMGUS" is an emotive label
2) You are potentially scum
3) Therefore, debating your use of the label "OMGUS" is scum-hunting

The way DGB handled BM was scummy, whether you call it OMGUS or not.

How was it scummy? The only point you made was that DGB committed "OMGUS", a claim which Korts and I have shown to be patently false.

[vollkan]

I never accepted it was false. And if you actually read my posts, you'd know my claim went beyond her committing OMGUS. I said she didn't provide reasoning for her BM vote and seemed far too assured of his scumness.

If you looked at what she was saying in the context of BM's actions, her reasons were fairly obvious (he was making very bad posts, as you yourself have acknowledged). I'm extremely strict about reasons, and even I can see that.

And I can't see where you argued she seemed too "assured".

1) "OMGUS" is an emotive label
2) You are potentially scum
3) Therefore, debating your use of the label "OMGUS" is scum-hunting

Um...no?

1 and 2 are true...but 3 doesn't really follow. And you gain +5 to scumminess for that false progression. -2 modifier on bluff and diplomacy checks with me.

It isn't a false progression. As with analysis of any argument, analysing use of "OMGUS" is a method of scum-hunting.

If not scum-hunting, what is it?

[vollkan]

It isn't a false progression. As with analysis of any argument, analysing use of "OMGUS" is a method of scum-hunting.

Ah, but you never said that. And that's NOT what you are doing.

You are basically arguing the semantics of OMGUS. You are NOT analyzing the use of it. And that's why it was a false progression.

I initially said:

1) "OMGUS" is an emotive label
2) You are potentially scum
3) Therefore, debating your use of the label "OMGUS" is scum-hunting

I directly referred to "the use of it". And that is what I have been analysing (ie. by pointing out that you did not actually identify OMGUS. All you really attacked with that was the fact that DGB voted BM who was voting her, which isn't the least bit scummy.

If you looked at what she was saying in the context of BM's actions, her reasons were fairly obvious (he was making very bad posts, as you yourself have acknowledged). I'm extremely strict about reasons, and even I can see that.

And I can't see where you argued she seemed too "assured".

Just because you can see it does not absolve explanation

I may not have argued it. I was in a hurry to get that post done. I know I felt it, and I apologize if I failed to point it out.[/quote]

[vollkan]

I directly referred to "the use of it". And that is what I have been analysing (ie. by pointing out that you did not actually identify OMGUS. All you really attacked with that was the fact that DGB voted BM who was voting her, which isn't the least bit scummy.

Except...it was. BM was a scapegoat, quite obviously. It's just too suspicious how things played out.

"scapegoat" for what? And what was suspect about the way it "played out"?

And the use of it can mean anything. So far we've been in a semantics debate about the use of OMGUS.

You started this by saying that I had committed a false progression, which was rot because analysing your use of the label in argument is scum-hunting. There's no semantics involved.

[vollkan]

Let's see, this whole OMGUS argument started with you or Korts arguing my use of it and saying it doesn't exist. this is totally semantics

It isn't semantics. You accused DGB of committing OMGUS, which she didn't do. The definition of OMGUS isn't a semantic issue at all - it goes to the fact that you can sling it around as an emotively-loaded label when, in reality, it is wrongly used. You also tried re-defining it yourself as "You are attacking me. Oh My God U Suck, I'm going to vote you" and relied on the apparent silence in DGB's post as to her reasons when, in context, the reasons for voting BM were manifestly obvious.

I've explained why it was suspect how it played out.

Well, no, actually you haven't. The only points you initially raised on DGB was the (wrong) OMGUS point, and the (context-ignorant) point about her not having explanations. You then later added a point about her seeming "too assured" (which is really just DGB's style of writing)

as for scapegoat, BM was obviously the scapegoat for the scum to get a mislynch. (I misused the word, to be honest )

More misuse of an emotional label. Hmm.

[vollkan]

I can't explain it much better than this: to me, as town, it makes sense to either take a BS case apart when I first see it, or if I want the pressured player to defend himself first, I don't even mention it. As scum, however, it would make sense to ever so slightly discredit said BS case without actually refuting it regardless of the pressured player's alignment. I guess my "proof" is my own hypothetical play in the situation.

But why would it not make sense, as town, to let the person self-defend? Nothing you say in the above has any relation to that. You've said what you think town would do, and you explain why there could be a scum motivation for not intervening, but you're leaving a silence on the town motivation.

And making it about what "you" would do in the situation is really beside the point. Obviously, we all have to judge things, to a degree, based on our own ideas about what we would do. But that's no justification for simply standing adamant on your own conception of what

you

would do when a reasonable alternative is presented.

the killing of a mafia member proves beyond a doubt that there have been kills missing these past two days. something to keep in mind.

Yeah, we now have confirmation that there is either a SK or a vig in the game

Mmm. Yosarian's reach on des might have been a distancing attempt, especially since he kept reiterating that he wasn't attacking des for the points he raised, merely questioning him. On the other hand, I seem to remember having read an accusation of Yos defending DGB (forb I think it was). Anyway, I'll read Yos' posts in isolation and see if I can find something.

How does Yos's hedging of himself suggest he was distancing with Des?

I mean, his attacks were crappy - but that doesn't tell us whether he was distancing, or just failing as scum. Des was under no threat from any of his arguments, so the fact he hedged himself only really indicates that he was aware that he had dug himself into a hole, and was trying to avoid accountability for it.

And the flip side of that is that the rebuttal coming from Des was very damning of Yos.

I dont know, rolf. Yos messed twice with Korts' name. I mean, if they were scumpartners he would think twice before confusing him with Kison, right?

Possibly, but I don't think that's really an assumption we can rely on.

He was a bit too obvious, though. Buddying up, incriminating me, red herring for the town, I don't have much else I can reply with.

That same logic would defeat your point about Yos's hedging his case - why make his distancing so obvious? (as I have said, though, I don't think he was hedging to protect Des-scum but, rather, was hedging to cover himself)

[vollkan]

First, since when does OMGUS NOT stand for Oh My God U Suck? I am not redefining it. You are. Further, this IS a semantic debate. it is manifestly obvious why I am voting DGB. I don't think the reasons are so manifestly obvious, since she voted him BEFORE he started in with the whole she lied thing (I think?)

Firstly, it is not at all manifestly clear why you are voting DGB; not giving reasons was not scummy in the context, and being self-assured is by no means a scumtell and, for DGB, is perfectly in character.

As for OMGUS, tt does stand for "Oh My God yoU Suck", but that's neither here nor there. You accused DGB of "OMGUS" but, by the tenor of your argument, it is unclear what the hell you are meaning by "OMGUS". If you meant a generic "She voted somebody voting her", then that's a complete non-scumtell and you shouldn't have even said anything (buttressing my point about it being an emotional label). You couldn't have meant OMGUS in its proper sense, and here the wiki is my friend:

OMGUS stands for "Oh My God, You Suck (for voting for me)!". it is sometimes used as a shorthand to indicate that you are voting for someone primarily because they voted for you.

As I have already said, though, this definition has no operation in relation to what DGB said.

As for your point about her reasons not being manifest, that's absolute crap. Thankyou kindly for raising it, though, because you have drawn my attention to another deception of your cherry-pick quoting.

You quoted DGB as saying:

BM is scum, he must die. I don't know what he's up to, I don't know what impression he's trying to give, but he's a lying scumbag. This much I know.

I'm all for SensFan to die. But with this post, BM has shown me beyond the shadow of a doubt that he can only be scum.

unvote, vote: BattleMage

Fine. That

is

what she said. But have a look at the entire post:

Maybe i'd be more lenient towards you if you hadn't lied about your whereabouts on the day of Guardian's death.

BM is scum, he must die. I don't know what he's up to, I don't know what impression he's trying to give, but he's a lying scumbag. This much I know.

I'm all for SensFan to die. But with this post, BM has shown me beyond the shadow of a doubt that he can only be scum.

unvote, vote: BattleMage

So, clearly, she voted him after he started the whole "she lied" thing.

More fundamentally, though, the bit you omitted was the part by BM which showed, if it wasn't obvious just from the context, that she was voting him for a crappy accusation and not on the spurious grounds that you have raised.

Vote: forbiddanlight

I grant this, mostly because I got jumbled. I still think that BM was a planned mislynch.

You probably didn't mean "scapegoat"; it certainly makes no sense. But, that's really not the point. It's that you felt the need to ratchet things up by incorporating such a word. Saying BM is a "planned mislynch" is still an unfalsifiable assertion.

Well, no, actually you haven't. The only points you initially raised on DGB was the (wrong) OMGUS point, and the (context-ignorant) point about her not having explanations. You then later added a point about her seeming "too assured" (which is really just DGB's style of writing)

Then you haven't read my posts. And I have no need to debate you if you won't do that.

Ctrl+F DGB, viewing you in isolation.

vote: Korts for failure to claim. Scum hates having to claim.

I mostly agree, assumably another D1 event?

Nothing scummy here.

We should get 2 to 3 daykills per day. One from the compulsive vig, and another from the mafia - and perhaps one from the SK, should there be one.

You do understand the concept of "COULD be" in the game, right?

She's misguided about the role distribution. Meh.

Actually... Guardian was most likely a scum kill. So that the vig kill was foiled. Ah well. Forget what I said about the doctor. The dummy probably protected a scumbag.

You also forget the possibility of a mafia doc or mafia roleblocker. Both potential roles.

But, either way, how does speculating about killing roles help us? Beginning to get an IIoA vibe.

Again, wrong on roles. Not scummy.

rofl's and DGB's day 2 posts before this are all rather IIoA and somewhat scummy.

Okay, so you do find this scummy. In which case, what is "IIoA"?

BM is scum, he must die. I don't know what he's up to, I don't know what impression he's trying to give, but he's a lying scumbag. This much I know.

I'm all for SensFan to die. But with this post, BM has shown me beyond the shadow of a doubt that he can only be scum.

unvote, vote: BattleMage

Blatent OMGUS anyone?

No.

It's a most excellent wagon, regardless. BM is up to no good. He's not working for the town.

My future sight says that you were wrong. Care to explain?

Nothing scummy pointed to. The mere fact that BM was town is not a scumtell for DGB.

Well...that catches me up. I think I probably missed a lot in D1, and if anyone would like to breif me, it'd be happy making. Anyway...I think a Vote DGB is appropriate here. No matter how weird her meta is, the way she handled the BM wagon was really scummy in my eyes. She gets a slight reprieve for BM being a dumbass, but you didn't do much better. At least he had (very thinly justified) reasons. Also think Yos 2 should be looked at closer, especially if DGB flips scum.

The only evidence you point to here is the lack of reasons, which is crap anyway because the reasons were implicit.

Also, OMGUS is such a fictive scumtell. It doesn't exist in practice.

As far as DGB's vote goes, it certainly exists.

No.

OMGUS isnt a scumtell, full stop. Not when so many stupid townies fall into the trap. I fail to see the case on me however, and feel you fall into 1 of the above categories.

Most votes for attackers aren't OMGUS. They actually have some weak case. DGB is just...wow, and using force of will to push a lynch rather than logic feels scummy.
[/quote]

And she did have a case, you just ignored it because it wasn't expressly stated.

GOOD QUESTION. Razz

I looked into people's activity on site at the time of guardians death. Not everyone, just a few people i thought were scummy, and/or had motives for wanting him dead. DGB had not posted on site within the time frame available for the kill (in excess of 3 hours i think). When i asked her where she was, in an attempt to give her an opportunity to confirm herself, she claimed that she'd been at a computer-something which i find very unlikely given her normal posting rate when she has computer access. Motive for the lie? i'm not sure. But chronic lying when scum isnt uncommon.

BM

Of all the scumtells DGB dropped in attacking you...you clue in on THIS? Seriously BM, DGB now looks better since you were such a ridiculous arse here.

"Of all the scumtells". So far you've only named OMGUS, and you didn't even do that properly.

Kills are made in real time. Therefore we should be able to get some leads from who is online when the kill is submitted. Notice that you criticise my reasoning for voting DGB, perhaps justly, but then dont criticise her for having no reasoning whatsoever. Nice...

I actually agree with this. It makes Yos look a little worse, assuming DGB scum. And the reverse applies too.

Nothing's added to your case here.

I'd like to lynch vollkan today. All the while he stays on the sidelines. He's very off.

You have a bit of a point there. I don't recall many stances from him at all.

Ironic that despite finding crappy reasons for suspecting DGB, you still play along with crappy reasoning of DGB herself.

No, it isn't OMGUS. OMGUS is the fallacy of arguing along the lines of "I know I am town. Person X is attacking me. Since Person X is attacking me, who I know to be town, Person X must be scum". BM had presented incredibly dodgy attacks on DGB and, whilst her reasoning is ambiguous (as we've come to expect <grumble>), it isn't an OMGUS.

Her reasoning doesn't exist. And no, I see OMGUS as what it is. You are attacking me. Oh My God U Suck, I'm going to vote you. Your definition of OMGUS is...not.

See my remarks at the top.

Well, whether I accept your argument that OMGUS exists or not is a rather moot point, is it not? How does this help us hunt scum?

The way DGB handled BM was scummy, whether you call it OMGUS or not.

"was scummy". HOW?! So far you've only said it was OMGUS.

How was it scummy? The only point you made was that DGB committed "OMGUS", a claim which Korts and I have shown to be patently false.

I never accepted it was false. And if you actually read my posts, you'd know my claim went beyond her committing OMGUS. I said she didn't provide reasoning for her BM vote and seemed far too assured of his scumness. Also, Yos has been defending her like mad, as well as the fact BM's entire suspicion list jumped on him the minute a bandwagon was viable. She was on it, and I feel the most scum vibes from her.

Reasoning was implicit and you never said the self-assured thing, which wouldn't be scummy even if she was.

The other thing interesting here is that you raise Yos defending her as relevant. By that stage, Yos hadn't flipped as scum and you had barely anything to say about Yos that wasn't relational to DGB. Suggests the likelihood of you trying to set DGB up.

And it's hypocrisy for you to accuse DGB of lacking reasons when you talk about "scum vibes", which is basically a euphemism for "gut".

And then we get up to where we are now, so you didn't have other reasons. You had:
1) OMGUS
2) Assured
3) No reasons

All of which are crap.

Curious about Vollkan's relatively early move against Yos in 411/423. He seems like the type to be afflicted by Stoofer's Syndrome... it's kind of odd, in that I think a bunch of people had the typical YosScum reaction of thinking it was weird but not really going after him for it; he's the only one who pressed him early in the wake of Des. Maybe there's just something specific he looked for, I don't know, but it seems out-of-place. I'm not at all wild about accusations based purely on bussing, especially since I think it's entirely possible he would have found roughly the same stance as town. But it is an oddity, and if you told me for sure that exactly one person was actively bussing Yos, he'd probably be my pick. Which is annoying, because it's the kind of environment you'd figure scum'd be bus-happy, and I think (at least from my perspective) the degree to which he was going down in flames in his debate with Des would necessitate some bussing. I feel if he is scum, though, there should be more than that independantly, which does not spring to mind. Eh.

Well, 411 explains my initial move to focus on Yos. I'd missed the fact that Yos's vote had left CKD at L-1. His answer was not based on gut, which then prompted me to go back and take a closer look, with it flowing from there (given his poor explanation). I can see how you'd get the impression of bussing, because of the suddenness of my change in view, but that's really just a combination of Des pointing out the (what should have been) obvious and Yos giving a horrible explanation for his vote.

CKD makes an interesting point that in 338, Vollkan basically agrees with his stance. But his random (?) vote is still on CKD, at 5/8 to lynch. I missed why Why?

My vote on CKD was not a random vote. I was voting CKD for the hypocrisy of accusing one person of "reaching" when allowing himself to do the same thing under the auspices of "early game scumhunting".

I don't think that the fact that I agreed with one stance of CKD's should in any way void that.

Does anyone here have a meta on Vollkan?

In respect of anything specifically?

They weren't confirmed townies. I explicitly expressed suspicion on them. The cases wouldn't have stuck; you yourself say that they weren't even contenders for a lynch. I trust my own judgement. A 1 for 2 trade is pretty fair IMO.

It's not really a "trade" though...but anyway, the kills you claim are consistent with your stated positions

OH, I only just noticed that Yos is now dead, was a mafiate, and was a Godfather.

I laid back from the game for a while because I felt I was interfering with the scum's natural flow of bus'ing. And I had noticed that some players were bus'ing Yos, but Yos did not seem scummy to me.

Chief Yos bus'er: vollkan.

unvote, vote: vollkan

How do you distinguish bussing from genuine attacking?

[vollkan]

How do you distinguish bussing from genuine attacking?

Bus'ing occurs in a relative vacuum. Sometimes the specifics are tantamount to clairvoyance. Does that help, scumbag?

No, it doesn't. My reasons for suspecting Yos were clear, and I don't see where I could have appeared clairvoyant about him.

And what do you mean by a "relative vacuum"?

[vollkan]

The other thing interesting here is that you raise Yos defending her as relevant. By that stage, Yos hadn't flipped as scum and you had barely anything to say about Yos that wasn't relational to DGB.

This is an interesting point. o o

There were a few points where he addressed Yos in a negative light (most negative being where he agreed with Des's sentiments on Yos being a non-contributor), but there was no case formed or anything that would warrant Yos's defence of DGB being seen as a scumtell at that stage.

[vollkan]

Why do people think Korts is a Vig as opposed to an SK?

Hmm. As I said, his kills are consistent with expressed suspicion, but I guess that's very easily fabricated. Indeed, the Guardian reasons were trashy, and there was really nothing presented at all for Kison, other than (IIRC) a mention of a "gut feeling".

Something that I think is

very important

here is Korts' stated views and intentions relating to Kison. Day 2 started at Sun Dec 07, 2008 10:55 am (my time, obv)

I quote Korts in 718 (Mon Dec 08, 2008 2:17 am):

I have this vague feeling Kison is scum. I dunno why, but I'll definitely look into this gut read properly when I have normal access (I'm currently through a proxy site right now, my brother blocked MS and the searchword "proxy" because apparently I'm spending too much time on MS...)

The death of Kison was announced Mon Dec 08, 2008 8:50 am in 754. That's just six hours later. I find it very difficult to understand why a vig would so seriously rush a kill so early in the day based on "gut", which is only reinforced by the fact that Korts, had stated an intention to read up and "look into" his gut feeling. It just doesn't make sense.

Also, given that there have only be 3 kills this whole game, I guess that for a SK in as much strife as Korts a vig claim would be fairly safe move.

As I have already said, though, this definition has no operation in relation to what DGB said.

Quite simply, bullshit

O rly?

The definition I quoted (from the wiki) was: "OMGUS stands for "Oh My God, You Suck (for voting for me)!". it is sometimes used as a shorthand to indicate that you are voting for someone primarily because they voted for you."

Since you say that I am bullshitting that the definition had no operation in relation to DGB, then I insist that you give me a full explanation on how that definition is appropriate to apply to DGB.

More fundamentally, though, the bit you omitted was the part by BM which showed, if it wasn't obvious just from the context, that she was voting him for a crappy accusation and not on the spurious grounds that you have raised.

Wait...are you serious? Because I didn't do the whole quote tree, and I NEVER do the whole quote tree, you are voting me? Wow. +10 to scumminess.
I'm almost willing to give up DGB for that pile of shit right there.

Strawman. I am not attacking you for simply omitting to do a quote tree. My point is that the quote added context to what DGB had said, making it clear she was responding to a post of BM's. You attacked the post as if DGB had supplied no reasons when, from the post itself, her reasons were manifest.

You probably didn't mean "scapegoat"; it certainly makes no sense. But, that's really not the point. It's that you felt the need to ratchet things up by incorporating such a word. Saying BM is a "planned mislynch" is still an unfalsifiable assertion.

Ok. And?

It means this point is pure conjecture and thus not worthy of consideration without a weighing up against competing possibilities.

Again, wrong on roles. Not scummy.

nice try. I wasn't saying wrong on roles was scummy. I was saying the IIoA was. Learn to read.

Okay, now I see what IIoA means. DGB's posts have been very brusque, but I don't think that's scummy for her.

Once again, implicitness does NOT EXCUSE REASONING! It never has, and never will. What may be implicit to you may not be to someone else, and further, you might have reasons beyond the purportedly obvious. This whole argument is absolute bullshit.

You say this like it is incredibly obvious and that I am stupid for not thinking it, but I really do disagree with you. There's no need to always explicitly state things, provided your meaning is clear. In this case, DGB's reasons were obvious. Rather than focussing on potential circumstances where reasons might not be obvious, how about directing your attacks to the game at hand?

(Also, being implicit can be a good way to catch out players who are trying to score cheap points and not think subtly Not mentioning names of course)

Ironic that despite finding crappy reasons for suspecting DGB, you still play along with crappy reasoning of DGB herself.

Well, so far, your only stances have been OMGUS doesn't exist, I shall defend DGB to death, and FL must die. That really isn't much to work with.

Good to see you are completely ignoring my posting record here. You're only making me more comfortable with my vote.

The other thing interesting here is that you raise Yos defending her as relevant. By that stage, Yos hadn't flipped as scum and you had barely anything to say about Yos that wasn't relational to DGB. Suggests the likelihood of you trying to set DGB up.

nice try. I also rose the point you and Korts were defending her.

I never accepted it was false. And if you actually read my posts, you'd know my claim went beyond her committing OMGUS. I said she didn't provide reasoning for her BM vote and seemed far too assured of his scumness. Also, Yos has been defending her like mad, as well as the fact BM's entire suspicion list jumped on him the minute a bandwagon was viable. She was on it, and I feel the most scum vibes from her.

Do mine eyes deceive me?! I see no mention of Korts or myself there. The only time you raised Korts and my defence of her was in the first post you made

after

Yos's death.

Since the important thing here is that you found Yos's defence of DGB as a scumtell against DGB before Yos had flipped, the fact that you later picked on Korts and me is immaterial.

[vollkan]

EBWOP: Point of clarification. The last quote by FL is the reasons he gave for suspecting DGB before Yos's death. I quote it to show he never raised Korts and/or me before Yos's death.

[vollkan]

@Des:

Why do people think Korts is a Vig as opposed to an SK?

What stops him being mafia either? He's claimed the Yos kill, but I can't see what makes it necessarily the case that he commited it...

About the Kison kill, all I can say is, I had a strong gut feel, and while yes, I promised to explore it in detail, I realized that I won't have nearly enough time for it, so I decided to trust my gut. I'm sorry for that hurried decision.

Huh...What was the time pressure?

And,

...so I decided to trust my gut.

Those of you arguing that I'm an SK with those kills please take a moment to consider this: as a self-aligned role, my aim would be to survive the game; the sensible kills would've been RR or des both on Day 1 and 2, because they have kept the pressure on me constant. It's WIFOM, I guess, but the kills show that I wasn't driven by selfish motives.

It

is

WIFOM (and scum-Korts really has just as much selfish motivation to make kills which don't obviously benefit him as he does to make kills which do. The very fact you are making this argument now puts this into action).

And, also, what about you as group

[vollkan]

Firstly,

Claim: Townie.

I'll say now that I am somewhat bemused by the wagon on me. Des rightly takes fault with my failure to take note of Yos's vote being at L-1, but other than that I cannot work out what I am under suspicion for. For future accountability and to give me something to defend myself against, I'd like each person on my wagon to give an explanation of why they find me scummy.

@pop:

My crumbs:

Before the Guardian-kill, I made several points against Guardian. After the Guardian-kill, I posted this:

I would like people speculate as to why Guardian was killed. No, really.

Scumkill and vigkill are both likely possibilities. Scumkill because Guardian was basically uncovering a plan that could ensure a quicklynch, and vigkill because the same, which was a clear attempt to stop any more votes on CKD, implied a heavy connection between Guardian and CKD. Why do you think this question will help in any way?

Before the Kison kill:

I have this vague feeling Kison is scum. I dunno why, but I'll definitely look into this gut read properly when I have normal access (I'm currently through a proxy site right now, my brother blocked MS and the searchword "proxy" because apparently I'm spending too much time on MS...)

After the Kison kill:

Ok so I was wrong.

Also, I could've sworn I said how the Kison-kill could easily have been a vidgekill; can't seem to find it.

Before the Yos-kill:

Meanwhile, the debate between Yos and des doesn't seem to give proof of either one being scum. Yos seems to be slightly reaching, while des seems to be extrapolating Yos's scumminess from the fact that Yos is slightly reaching.

As much as I gathered, Yos starts out slightly reaching, but has a valid point in you apparently dropping much of the suspicion you had on CKD. He seems to be tunneling pretty much exclusively on you, though, and apart from an exchange with vollkan on the same topic, and the push on the obvious BM lynch, he hasn't really commented on anything else.

I agree that forb deserves suspicion. The Yosarian-suspicion I agree with to a lesser extent.

After the Yos-kill, the claim.

The deciding posts, approximately:

From Guardian:

ps: people unvote ckd, otherwise it seems that the scum could kill someone and change it from 8 to lynch to 7 to lynch. we don't want ckd lynched unless we want ckd lynched and have him hammered; if he is town and is at 7 votes, the scum can kill someone and get an instant lynch on ckd.

And this:

if ckd is town, lynch -1 basically means lynch, because mafia can kill someone, then there are 13 people alive, then it is 7 to lynch when it is now 8 to lynch.

so, realize that if you vote CKD now, and put him at lynch -1, you are effectively hammering him.

if you all are comfortable with that... then I'll find you suspicious for it.

CKD is under such suspicion and likely lynch that I would like to say some things in his defense, and I have a hell of a lot more I want to say today before ckd gets hammered. I prefer short days, but I prefer that we end days when we choose to, not because we didn't realize scum could kill someone and reduce the requirements to lynch.

From Kison, a general gut feel.

From Yos, basing a whole case on des on a reaching point.

RR, you're excluding the possibility that scum failed to send in a kill Day 2; BM was lynched pretty suddenly.

Also, I can live with it if you think I'm an SK and you want to keep me for vidging purposes.

I think that the breadcrumbs you made add credit to you being an individual killer - be it a vig or a SK. I don't think they are really evidence supporting you being a vig, though, seeing as it is an easy way for a SK to avoid suspicion. As in, having telegraphed your suspicions dodges the accusation that "the kills don't match your suspicions", but it doesn't really make it more likely you are a vig, if that makes sense.

[vollkan]

Eh. Statement of the obvious, Vollkan is pretty good if he's scum here. I would like to believe that I'd go metagame him by reading some previous games where he was scum, but I know deep down it'll never actually get done.

Most recent completed scum game is Mini 688. Good example of my scum play is Mini 500

I am curious to see his %-list, if that's appropriate.

I'll do one shortly.

Hey, Vollkan, when FL replaces in, she doesn't talk about Yos2 much. Why don't you push his lynch at that point, if you're trying to get him lynched at the time you're having a back-and-forth with her?

Pretty simple.

Yos posted in 831. I responded to him in 836, along with beginning my exchange with FL which continued for the next few posts by us. Yos didn't post again until 852, and that post was exclusively in response to Des. That was Yos's last post before dying.

I'd made my views on Yos clear, and there was nothing to add in the time that I was debating FL.

I find Vollkan's infatuation with "emotive phrases" or similar pretty odd. Yeah, you can sometimes manipulate people a bit by using loaded terms like OMGUS or whatever, but there needs to be some analysis of whether or not that's actually what they're doing. And he doesn't appear to go deeper than "she said it was OMGUS when it was not OMGUS and that is kind of scummy". The situations in which that kind of thing are useful are actually fairly specifc, in my view, so it'd make sense to look for them. I'm not (I hope) being critical, but I don't really get that.

I'll try and explain my stance more fully:

With most attacks on people, you have to (or, rather,

should

) 1) point to an action and 2) explain why it is scummy. Calling something "OMGUS", "WIFOM", "strawman", etc serves to skip the second stage. After all, there is a consensus that OMGUS, WIFOM and strawmanning are scummy.

Rather than looking at DGB's and evaluating whether or not they were actually scummy, FL chose to attack the merest semblance of OMGUS and, rather than explaining how it was OMGUS, contented herself with the simple label "OMGUS".

And, of course, then FL has the gall to accuse me of playing semantics. Let's suppose for just a moment that "OMGUS" has the very wide meaning that FL is trying to give it. The way FL's argument broadens the term "OMGUS" turns it into something which is a complete null-tell

There aren't a lot of places where Sens is mentioned; rofl's "obvscum" stance and switch away is really the only interesting thing apart from Yos' lurker vote. I don't think you can safely read anything into the latter. FL's set of long posts is the only real thing from the role - they seem fairly.. unfocussed, for want of a better word, pretty much like you'd expect someone trying to get a grip on the game anew. I find it odd that she narrows in on DGB's behaviour towards BM, it seems fairly arbitrary.. the lack of analysis of Des - Yos is kinda worrying. It just feels unnatural to go concentrate on the BM wagon instead of looking at that, it seems a more "immediate" issue than the day 2 lynch, especially when you're primarily rereading day 3; again, I'm biased, Yos was creeping me out slightly with his first couple of posts, heh. (Yay meta.)

If he had good reasons for attacking DGB's BM stance, this would almost be understandable. But he doesn't.

Wait 'till you hear everyone's opinion, then vig the majority choice. I think that's the obvious course of action if you're pro town.

Agreed. Letting Korts individually decide who he should kill is as absurd as letting Korts individually decide who we should lynch.

[vollkan]

Loosely, getting people lynched is persuading other people, and generally (imo) the best way to do that is to talk directly to potential voters. I would have thought that you would have taken that opportunity, conversing with FL, to try and get her vote on Yos2 instead of talking about BM. I don't currently take issue with you case on Yos, but it seems odd to me that you talked about something essentially tangental. If I were you, I think Yos2 would have been uppermost in my mind, and I would definitely have tried to persuade her to vote Yos, if you see what I mean. Do you follow roughly my train of thought? Basically, you don't seem to have actively sought a wagon on him, and you can contrast that with what Des did by e.g. asking people to comment on his case, and this is especially noticeable in the subject you chose to talk about with FL. I'm curious why you didn't do that.

You're over-complicating things. FL made a post which, in my view, was scummy (or, more accurately, needed to be examined very closely) for the way it attacked DGB. Yos was my priority, sure, but I wasn't going to let myself get blind-sided when FL was also potential scum. I don't see "attacking FL" and "building Yos's lynch" as mutually exclusive, and my assumption was that FL would be reading up and come to grips with the case on Yos anyway, but at that time I was interested in scratching the DGB attack.

Volk, assuming FL is scum, what's her motive for saying essentially "DGB OMGUSsed"? If there is a consensus on what OMGUS means, it seems silly to misrepresent what she was doing in an attempt to make a case on her. Offhand, I'd agree that her stance is probably incorrect, but I don't see the leap between "bad logic" and "scum". Yes, it's harder to present good logic as scum, but I really don't think bad logic alone is indicative of much. And I don't currently draw much more than that from what you referenced.

The start of this might sound repetitive, but I need it to explain my position clearly:

The word "OMGUS" refers to a specific action (attacking somebody because they are attacking you), which is scummy for a specific reason (it's an argument which totally ignores the prospect of town reasonably suspecting town and is also unfalsifiable). Outside of that specific action, the word "OMGUS" has no application - other than as an emotive label.

Now, what's scummy about FL's misuse of the term. Consider that FL only raised three discernible objections to DGB:
1) "OMGUS"
2) No reasons
3) Too certain

2) is false, as I have explained and faulted FL for already. 3) is consistent with DGB's meta and, more importantly, isn't scummy, as I have said already. I say this to make it clear that the OMGUS point is not the only reason I have for suspecting FL for her attack.

Dealing with 1) specifically, FL seems to have applied the label "OMGUS" for the simple reason that DGB voted BM who was voting her. FL actually said:

Blatent OMGUS anyone?

Imagine if she had said:

Blatant voting for the person voting for you

"Blatant OMGUS" sounds somewhat plausible as a reason for suspicion but, if FL had been honest and used the correct language, it should have been clear that what she was attacking was not at all scummy (ie. there's nothing wrong with voting for the person voting for you, provided you aren't committing OMGUS in the proper sense of the term).

If FL knew the actual meaning of "OMGUS" then this simply was a blatant strawman.

If FL did not know the actual meaning of the term, her actions are still scummy because the way she has applied the term is so broad that it doesn't cover scummy actions. It would mean that we would have to fathom town-FL attacking somebody for something which, if she gave a moment's thought to it, she would see was not at all scummy. In that sense, her actions aren't consistent with somebody genuinely trying to work out who is scum. In contrast, they are consistent with scum wanting to take an easy-street swipe on another player.

nope, can't put my finger on it right now, but elmo is definitely scum, and this vollkan wagon seems to have stopped short of the lynch i was hoping for

unvote, vote: elmo

Your reasons?

[vollkan]

3. DrippingGoofball - Massive headache. As I said earlier, I just find her completely opaque.

50

.

4. FL - Attacked DGB for OMGUS (wrongly), being assured (not scummy, nor inconsistent meta-wise) and lacking reasons (when they were obvious). Asserted BM was a "scapegoat", which was then reduced to the equally conspiratorial but less emotional charge of a "planned mislynch" (which is stupid as an argument for DGB being scummy, since it rests on a premise of DGB being scum). Voted me on an accusation of playing "semantics", which is simply untrue.

75

6. Korts - My main problems with Korts were all covered in my previous list. As I have said already, I have doubts about him being a vig, but he did say that he had time pressures which is plausible. Gets a

60

at this stage for play alone, but I am still trying to work out the vig v SK thing.

7. roflcopter - As I said before, rofl is a similar conundrum to DGB. Remains suspect to me for the sensfan-reasons issue

60

8. Des - Basically continued the good behaviour I identified in my last analysis. His reasoning on Yos and his current clarity make his ranking go further into the green.

40

10. Elmo - After initially lurking, I do find Elmo's current posting clear and understand his reasoning. I can't see the case on Elmo, and am awaiting on Korts to exlpain why he does think Elmo is scum. In the meanwhile,

50

.

11. RR - Similar to Des, continuing my observations from my last analysis. I've found nothing objectionable and reasoning is clear.

45

12. Pop - Similar to DGB. My big qualm is the lack of explanation of reasoning.

50

[vollkan]

With voting posts like:

nope, can't put my finger on it right now, but elmo is definitely scum, and this vollkan wagon seems to have stopped short of the lynch i was hoping for

unvote, vote: elmo

i think the most likely yosarian scumpartner is korts

unvote, vote: korts

OH, I only just noticed that Yos is now dead, was a mafiate, and was a Godfather.

I laid back from the game for a while because I felt I was interfering with the scum's natural flow of bus'ing. And I had noticed that some players were bus'ing Yos, but Yos did not seem scummy to me.

Chief Yos bus'er: vollkan.

unvote, vote: vollkan

unvote, vote: Elmo

Adel, I think RR isnt voting anymore.
I like Elmo's last post.
Unvote Vote : Vollkan. I think there is a big chance that either he or FL, if not both, are scum.
Claim, plz.

How the hell am I meant to get any read on you? I've asked for reasons and so on repeatedly, and have been ignored.

I scumhunt by analysing reasons. A precondition for my being able to get a read is that I have reasons to analyse. Ergo, it shouldn't surprise you at all that I find your play completely and utterly incomprehensible.

[vollkan]

Wow.

I really don't like that list, but I have no idea why.

I'll tell you why. vollkan is being a wimp sitting on every fence, and that's not the way he is as town.

*sigh*
Firstly, it's actually more common than not for me to have multiple people at 50, so it's absolute BS for you to suggest I am being meta-inconsistent here.

Secondly, I take umbrage with you claiming that I am fence-sitting. You should know full well by now that I play by logic analysis and argument. I've tried again and again to open that channel of discussion, and my requests have been ignored.

Rofl, for instance, I have disagreed with on almost everything in this game. As I explained in my vote with Yos, I just don't consider the fact that somebody's stances seem unreasonable to me as a reason to suspect them. I am not interested in the positions people take, but the reasons for those positions being taken/altered/dropped.

[vollkan]

Woot I hammered scum.
Why am I not confirmed?

Because scum can bus

Its like all are having a party of confirmed townies for suspecting FL and Im not invited when she was my top suspect (along with Vollkan) for a long time.

Yes, but it took until the chips were well and truly down on FL for you to change your vote.

Korts, do not vig anyone until we tell you to. We'll auto lynch you on principle. That's bad for you if you're the SK since you lose any chance of winning, and bad for you if you're town since you deny us information from your kill and cause your own lynch to top. Seriously, don't.

Agreed.

vote: vollkan

Maybe your wagon on me would have more success if you actually gave people good reasons to join it. Just a thought.

[vollkan]

Incidentally, vollkan, who do you currently suspect? You had everyone alive other than Korts ranked at 50 and below in that list of yours.

Proceeding backwards, I don't suspect Des or yourself. Korts' play I find suspect, but it seems most likely he is either vig or SK. As of now, my mafia suspects are between DGB, Pop, and Elmo, and I am going to have to reread them closely to get a better idea.

More importantly though,

I claim Cop. I got an innocent on BM Day 1, didn't manage to get anything in on Day 2, innocent on Raging Rabbit Day 3, and I just got a guilty on Vollkan. The crumbs are the X! on BM in my list, and my fairly obvious turnaround on Rabbit when I said I was sure he didn't bus Yos right after saying he was the 'odd one out' and not being very sure about him.

This is why I am 99% sure there's a mafia roleblocker, by the way; cop + doc in a game almost always means RB.

So, yeah. What I already said.

Well that's game. Vig me. Lynch Elmo. Lynch Korts.

[vollkan]

Like I'd ever make that kind of mistake. Pfft!

LOL.

Hmm.

Then there's not that much to argue about here.

Well that's game. Vig me. Lynch Elmo. Lynch Korts.

Sounds like the best plan, assuming the game doesn't end with vollkan's death.

Why does he want us to lynch Elmo if his investigation is correct?

Because his investigation

isn't

correct, but I've been in this situation often enough to know that the investigatee is always the best lynchee (or, in this case, viggee)

[vollkan]

Go town!

[vollkan]

Go town!!

[vollkan]

Really good game all. My bussing strategy failed completely Something I'd like to know, if anybody wants to explain is: What it was about my attacks on FL and Yos that reeked so much of bussing?

I'm going to check that "Most Enjoyable" scummy thing now and second it if need be. I thought the game was well balanced, and I agree with Adel that the Deep South mechanic of having unexpected kills really makes things more interesting and exciting.

[vollkan]

Generally, if a town player attacks a scum player, and someone unknown very quickly agrees with them, they're scum bussing. It's

extremely

rare for anyone to be persuaded quickly; if you think of the hassle and discussion you typically have to go through in order to convince people to vote your suspect, there's something definitely unnatural about the way you seemed to have a "eureka!" moment right after Des started wailing on him. That, and you seemed very keen to make a long, detailed case on why you thought he was scum without going out and persuading other people (e.g. FL) to vote for him; that's generally a sign of bussing, since being seen to suspect someone is more important than getting them lynched.

With FL, I just found your reasons really disproportionate to the level of suspicion, especially seeing as we had very little content from the role over the course of the game; I didn't consciously remember your quote earlier until afterwards, but I felt there was definitely something off about the whole thing. See, everyone else was lynching her on the basis of "everyone else is town", but you don't believe in towntells, and indeed you had most people at 50%.

Now, I don't think bussing FL in the way you did was a mistake, because generally the whole point is to look more pro-town at the expense of it being more obvious you knew what was going on, and it worked, but I think I would have spotted it as a neutral observer. I just don't think there's any happy medium there. But generally speaking, the ideal for bussing is not necessarily to be undetectable, in my view.

That's my 1p, anyway.

Thanks for that.

I'd guessed that my backflip on Yos probably was a big factor. I was pinioned pretty badly by Des pointing out that Yos's vote was a L-1 vote. Either I had to tolerate the vote, which I figured would would raise questions about why I, being the anti-gut obsessive that I am, would let Yos get away with it; or, alternatively, I had to attack Yos for it. In hindsight, I think the optimal thing to have done would just have been to treat it as a moderate scumtell against Yos, but not to go vigorously against him over it..

As for the FL thing, I again agree with you. Her play was scummy, but giving her a 75 overshot things enormously. At the time, I figured that time was up for either FL or myself, so I wanted to gain as much credit as possible, in the hope that being a driver of her lynch might just spare me.

It's ironic because when I look for bussing one of the first things I focus on is people making mountains out of molehills, which didn't prevent me making the exact same mistake here

Also, I'm curious about your view on towntells in the context of this game. Obviously the lack of kills helped, but that seemed the decisive factor, to me. Probably the only time I have felt completed screwed as scum is this one scumchat game where about 2/3 of the town were pretty sure each other were town within about the first 3 minutes of the game (Yos may remember this one). And it just seems like there's not a lot you can do then. I have no idea how the mafia would have scored a further mislynch (me aside, obv).

It isn't that I don't "believe" in towntells.

I realise the irony of me saying this after my failed bussing, but pro-town behaviour is not difficult to fake. You'll notice that, by a certain stage of this game, I started calling Des pro-town. That wasn't just me buddying or anything; it was what I thought objectively to be a correct judgment. I think sustained posting of good reasons and consistent behaviour makes a player more likely to be town.

What I don't agree with is where a person is labelled pro-town for either one post, or for a number of posts but not over a sustained period of time. I was being honest when I said in the early stages of the game that I couldn't see anything in Des's play that couldn't reasonably come from scum-Des.

[vollkan]

/in