Mini 905- Mafia in Sienna OVER

[Ellibereth]

Okkkkkk, my gut now pings town on Kit for some reason. Leaving vote on for now but I still think that a Budja wagon would be good.

[pman5595]

Okkkkkk, my gut now pings town on Kit for some reason. Leaving vote on for now but I still think that a Budja wagon would be good.

oh she's town, but I'll keep my vote on her anyway, because there's no other wagon to hop on.

You have been acting too weird, and too scummy for too long.

Unvote: Kitten4u, Vote: Ellibereth

[Ellibereth]

Nah, I'm planning to start screaming for a Budja wagon in a few posts, but I want to hear some other peoples reactions to the claim + Kitty's new writeup of the case on leafy.

[pman5595]

Nah, I'm planning to start screaming for a Budja wagon in a few posts, but I want to hear some other peoples reactions to the claim + Kitty's new writeup of the case on leafy.

To me that sounds like: "I'm would vote for Budja, but I'm going to wait until other people say if it's okay to unvote someone I think is pro-town"

[Ellibereth]

Nah, I'm planning to start screaming for a Budja wagon in a few posts, but I want to hear some other peoples reactions to the claim + Kitty's new writeup of the case on leafy.

To me that sounds like: "I'm would vote for Budja, but I'm going to wait until other people say if it's okay to unvote someone I think is pro-town"

Waiting to here reactions and a promised case is different from wanting approval from others.

[Ellibereth]

And yeah, my read on Kitten leans town, but I really don't mind leaving my vote on a claimed vanilla.

[pman5595]

Nah, I'm planning to start screaming for a Budja wagon in a few posts, but I want to hear some other peoples reactions to the claim + Kitty's new writeup of the case on leafy.

To me that sounds like: "I'm would vote for Budja, but I'm going to wait until other people say if it's okay to unvote someone I think is pro-town"

Waiting to here reactions and a promised case is different from wanting approval from others.

My main point is this. Why wait for those things if you think she is town?

[Ellibereth]

Nah, I'm planning to start screaming for a Budja wagon in a few posts, but I want to hear some other peoples reactions to the claim + Kitty's new writeup of the case on leafy.

To me that sounds like: "I'm would vote for Budja, but I'm going to wait until other people say if it's okay to unvote someone I think is pro-town"

Waiting to here reactions and a promised case is different from wanting approval from others.

My main point is this. Why wait for those things if you think she is town?

There wouldn't be any point if I told you why, would there?
Everything I do has a purpose and I'll choose to reveal those whenever I do so. You should also know by now continuing to question me will give you no dividends.

[Kitten4u]

So I started playing Umineko No Naku Koro Ni recently. It gave me new insight into how to approach both looking for scum and how to explain what I'm seeing. This is going to be somewhat long because this is

everything

I'm thinking; my entire throught process. This will include things I thought on page 4, this will include things I didn't notice until other people (such as Ythill) pointed them out, this will include things I only started to notice when I started to think too hard (thank you Umineko insight).

Before I get to Leafy, I just to say that yes, it is possible I'm thinking way too hard and that I'm reading way too much into things. That's why I'm not just putting the points on display, but my thought process as well. Tell me where my logic is faulty if it is.

Moving on, I still stand by this case I posted on page 7:

Basically, I'm voting for you for two reasons. The first is that you didn't take a stance on anyone until I called you out on it. I think scum is more likely to do this because they want to avoid connecting themselves to anyone; when someone flips town they don't want to have to take responsibility for being on the wagon (because it makes them look bad) and they don't want to connect themselves to their buddies for obvious reasons. Basically, I believe that not having a stance is a large part of what staying under the radar entails.

However, if scum just did that they would get caught pretty quickly. A nice, easy way to look productive without actually saying anything is to ask a bunch of questions without really doing anything with them. These questions may or may not be relevant, but most of the time they are pretty reactionary. That is the vibe I get from your questions.

That's going to be the closest thing you all get to a tl;dr explanation.

But since that is obviously a terrible explanation since so many people were voting for me because of it let me try to outline some of the things I was looking for when I said that. I will be keeping a tally of these three things:

1.)

Fluffy questions

: A fluffy question is a question that doesn't really do anything. It has a few forms.

• Theory-based (Is the RVS a good thing or a bad thing?)
  
• A question with an obvious answer (Kitten4u, do you like kittens?)
  
• Completely irrelevant (What are you having for dinner tonight?)
  
• Loaded (When did you stop beating your wife?)

I might have missed a couple of things, but those are the big ones.

2.)

Weak stance:

A stance that can be easily changed without looking too suspicious. CTD's stance on MME is an example of this.

3.)

Strong Stance:

A stance that you need a damn good reason to change or you'll end up looking really scummy. I think my stance on Leafy is a pretty good example.

---

So now getting to Leafy. The very first thing that bugged me about him was the questions he asked while the whole Elli/MME/pman/Anon thing was going on. There were a group of people that were blatantly bandwagoning in the RVS, and this is what he asked:

Why would that be, My Milked Eek? Do you regard a willingness to jump on such bandwagons as a towntell or a scumtell?

For what reason, ConfidAnon? Do you think that starting semirandom bandwagons early on is a good way to get discussion started?

So going back to my fluffy question list, those two questions seem to match A and B perfectly.

Counts

Fluffy questions:

2

Weak stances:

0

Strong stances:

0

So I started thinking, am I over reacting? Everyone seems to think that me voting him for this reason is the lamest thing ever, so maybe I am. So I thought, what would town do in this situation? Two things came to me:

1.) They would join a bandwagon.
2.) They would say someone is suspicious for bandwagoning.

But he asked a group of people bandwagoning each other if bandwagons were good or bad. I still cannot find town motivation in that. I don't see how asking a theory-based question with an obvious answer will help you get reads on people. However, I can see scum motivation for it. As I said before, scum do not want to connect themselves to other people if they can avoid it. Those two things I said townies would probably do connect people to other people. Asking a couple of fluffy questions is a great way to look active without actually doing anything. Perhaps he's cautious and/or passive? This post seems to suggest otherwise. A cuatious player wouldn't have risked getting accused of AtE and OMGUS imo and nothing about his play suggests that he's passive.

And because I know it'll come up, what about Thesp? Yeah, I still don't like his first post in the game. As of page 4, his questions simply didn't give me the same "vibe" as Leafy's did. Why? I didn't really know. So, I decided to think about it. What made them so different? At first, I thought the difference was that Thesp simply hadn't posted as much, but I don't think this is right anymore. Thesp hates RVS. From what I can tell he doesn't really think much info will come out of it (correct me if I'm wrong), and therefore everything in it was irrelevant and he needed to get people doing something else. I don't believe that Leafy thinks this way because he random voted and claimed that the questions he asked during RVS helped him develop reads. I'm not

completely

sure if this is where my gut read is coming from, but it certainly makes sense in my mind.

Then comes this quote.

Uh... actually, looking at the OP, rule 6 implies that even the mafia members cannot communicate with each other at all. Mod: Can the mafia members talk to each other? If so, how?

I didn't know what bugged me about it as of page 4, but I do now. Ythill summed it up nicely, so I'm just going to quote him.

Most people read the rules during the confirm phase, especially if they are bored and bit-chomping like Leaf was. If they have questions, they ask them then, either by PM or in-thread. Of course, a scum isn't going to read nighttalk rules very carefully at that point, because his role PM contains a more detailed version.

When a townie reads Thesp's question they're going to catch the context and realize that "can" means "could." They're either going to post a joke response or state something bland like "Sorry, I'm not scum." If one of the mafia reads this question, he is more likely to see "can" as "do you have the ability to" because he's being paranoid. If he's worthy of his pinstriped suit, he's going to check back and look at the rules again to remind himself what the public knows about such things, and answer accordingly.

In posting his answer, that scum is probably going to realize something along the lines of "if I show that I don't know this, it suggests I'm town" and a question to the mod is posted as a smokescreen. Later, he says that, if he were scum, he'd have PMed the mod but that begs several questions. Why not, instead, point out that the scum surely were told their powers in their role PMs, unless he thought that might bring unwanted questions about how he knows or why he asked an obvious question? Why PM the mod as scum but not as town? Why that second skim of the rules in reference to Thesp's question?

Potential town motivation in this one? Perhaps. I can see town!Leafy asking it because scum will act differently if they can talk (as he said). I think the above is more likely though for the reasons Ythill provided.

And in the same post we get more fluff.

Also, since I haven't played a game with you before, why do you dislike RVS? Do you fear a hammer vote could randomly be reached or do you just think it's childish?

Theory-based? I think so~

Counts

Fluffy questions:

3

Weak stances:

0

Strong stances:

0

And lo and behold, when I call him out for not having any stances he actually makes a few weak ones.

Counts

Fluffy questions:

3

Weak stances:

3

Strong stances:

0

I'm counting the ones on pman, Anon and Elli as weak stances. The other comments were just comments imo (IIoA). I consider everything about that post null. Town and scum would want to make themselves look less suspicious, and posting a few notes is a good way to try to do that regardless of alignment. It was too early to expect people to have any strong stances, so the fact that he only had weak ones is not suspicious at all. The fact that he only had three and just posted some IIoA and asked a few questions is also fine.

---

So I have to get up and do something. I'm not done yet, but I think this is a good start. Please wait warmly while I work on the rest.

[Oman]

I am so unhappy with every person that unvoted Kitten. I am so disappointed in everyone that doesn't have the guts to stay at L-1.

People like you are the reason mafia is becoming a stagnant festival of repeated words.

[Kitten4u]

Okay, so the rest of my wall is going to have to wait until tomorrow. Sorry. I'll adress quick stuff while I'm here.

I didn't say anything along those lines - that's a strawman.

Then I'm confused. You asked why I didn't ask more questions. I said I only ask questions that need to be asked. You said that answer was not satisfactory.

I get the feeling this is you not liking my playstyle, which isn't a problem.

The only other person I would be comfortable with lynching atm is Elli. I have mild suspicion of Thesp, Sotty and pman, but I'm not really comfortable with lynching them and I'm not convinced that they are scum yet.

I agree with pman about Elli's reaction to my claim.

I'll get to responding to CTD tomorrow.

[Oman]

Kitten, I'm voting you for:

1. using weak reasoning against Leaf and ignoring the scummy actions of other players
2. applying double standards
3. pushing a crap wagon
4. inconsistent behavior
5. using tunnelvision as an excuse for your scummy actions
6. not providing a convincing defense

Your claim makes you the only correct lynch for today.

Vote stays.

How much win is there in CTD right now?

[Budja]

I still really don't get this wagon.

..and Elli just dropped all of his town points. Seriously, the way he got a vanilla claim then suddenly changes his mind on gut is horrible.

[Ellibereth]

I still really don't get this wagon.

..and Elli just dropped all of his town points. Seriously, the way he got a vanilla claim then suddenly changes his mind on gut is horrible.

Did I say at some point that I had a gut scum read on Kitten? If I did I don't remember.

[Oman]

Well if you're jumping on just to see a claim on someone that you think is town, I'm calling that rolefishing.

Rock and a hard place, eh?

[Darkstrike_11]

Vote Count as of post 264

Kitten4u (4): [Leafsnail, CrashTextDummie, Oman, Ellibereth]
Leafsnail (3): [Budja, Kitten4u, Ythill]
Ellibereth (2): [My Milked Eek, pman5595]
Budja (1): [Thesp]
Pman5595 (1): [Sotty7]

Not Voting: [Wickedestjr]

With 12 Players, a majority of 7 is needed for a lynch.
Deadline is 10pm, 24th Jan 2010 (GMT)

[Ythill]

I've reread kitten in iso and there isn't much of a individual case on her. There are three things that bothered me, two of which can be accounted for by the "defensive playstyle" Oman mentioned. Meanwhile, I see an early towntell. I like the info that's come off of her wagon but I have no intention of lynching her at this point.

@Oman:

When you mentioned kitten's "defensive playstyle" were you only talking about this game or the one she played in that you modded?

I was getting pretty discouraged when no one seemed to be seeing what I was seeing and I wasn't quite sure how to explain a lot of it. Could that be what you were seeing?

I see that, but it's not exactly what I was talking about. You seem very serious and intent on explaining yourself but to those of us who understood you the first time, the case still doesn't add up to much. Anyway... explicitly yes or no, do you think shameless bandwagoning is a scumtell?

..which doesn't even seem relevant to the case, so I am curious as to why you brought it up.

I'm sorry, I'm really not sure what you're asking. I said that scum was more likley to skim over night-talk rules than town, because scum commonly have a more detailed ruleset for the night phase. So when asked about the night phase, a good scum player will go back and check the rules to see what a townie should know. Understand?

Ythill, can you give your opinion of Oman please?

There's not much of one to give. He's been jumping around a bit, clamoring about information, and playing the veteran card. Nothing out of the ordinary for him. The timing of his kitten jump was intriguing.

Anyway, recent developments have given us an opportunity for good information. I want competing wagons betwen kitten and Elli. Hence my

unvote; vote Ellibereth.

On a side note, CTD's latest push seems suspicious: premature and overblown. I think I'll include him in the next round of iso reads.

[Oman]

Just this one Ythill, and it's not defensive at all. It is far more offensive.

That is, when she is attacked, she doesn't defend herself so much as attack her attacker. It's this sense of "calling me scummy is a scumtell".

[Ellibereth]

Well if you're jumping on just to see a claim on someone that you think is town, I'm calling that rolefishing.

Rock and a hard place, eh?

Meh, I really don't mind wagoning someone that I had a mostly null read on.

[Leafsnail]

Ok - I really, REALLY don't like the way a claim was forced from Kitten and was then backed down from. I seriously fail to see how saying you're a vanilla townie suddenly means you cannot be in the mafia.

The only other person I would be comfortable with lynching atm is Elli. I have mild suspicion of Thesp, Sotty and pman, but I'm not really comfortable with lynching them and I'm not convinced that they are scum yet.

Is this what you call "Weak stances", by any chance? Because I don't think I've ever seen a stance weaker than this one. Add this to the fact that you're apparently agreeing with someone you think is scum (pman) and voting me over something you've said is "fine" (post 258), you're still by far the scummiest player here.

Before I get to Leafy, I just to say that yes, it is possible I'm thinking way too hard and that I'm reading way too much into things. That's why I'm not just putting the points on display, but my thought process as well. Tell me where my logic is faulty if it is.

Another caveat. I suppose this is insurance if I end up dying before you - "Oh, I wasn't

sure

he was scum". For someone who's accused me of having weak stances, you don't even seem committed to your vote. You keep putting in reasons why you might be wrong, and yet you're still voting me anyway. If you actually thought I was scum, you'd have nothing to fear from me dying.

I'm not completely sure if this is where my gut read is coming from, but it certainly makes sense in my mind.

Allows Kitten to avoid committing again...

I didn't know what bugged me about it as of page 4, but I do now. Ythill summed it up nicely, so I'm just going to quote him.

"I didn't think I could get away with attacking Leafsnail for this, but now that a good player has done it I have no problem buddying with him"

Potential town motivation in this one? Perhaps. I can see town!Leafy asking it because scum will act differently if they can talk (as he said). I think the above is more likely though for the reasons Ythill provided.

Christ, I'd forget who you were suspicious of if you didn't have your vote on me.

The only other person I would be comfortable with lynching atm is Elli. I have mild suspicion of Thesp, Sotty and pman, but I'm not really comfortable with lynching them and I'm not convinced that they are scum yet.

I thought I was scum? If I'm scum, why aren't you happy with lynching me? Perhaps it would make you look very bad when I flip town? And if you want Elli lynched, why don't you put your vote where your mouth is?

As far as I can tell, you have 5 stances.

The one on me is apparently so weak that you keep making possible excuses for me, and you don't even want me lynched.
The one on Ellibereth seems to be purely self defensive, as he seems like the only person other than yourself who may be lynched.
Your other three stances (Thesp, sotty, pman) are so ridiculously weak and vague that they might as well not be there at all.

Kitten, I'm not voting you because you have a different playstyle. I'm voting you because you are scum.

[Ellibereth]

I want competing wagons betwen kitten and Elli. Hence my unvote; vote Ellibereth.

Hai. Try again next time.

I'm still feeling Kittentown from that case post (not that I agree with the case itself).
Ythill, Oman, and Ctd are also town.

[Kitten4u]

You seem very serious and intent on explaining yourself but to those of us who understood you the first time, the case still doesn't add up to much.

This is what I get frustrated about. If I'm right this'll be the third game in a row where I was right, but no one listened to me. It's by far my biggest weakness in Mafia.

Anyway... explicitly yes or no, do you think shameless bandwagoning is a scumtell?

If it's truely shameless (like it is in Elli's case) yes. I see it as going with the flow and trying to get anyone but them and their buddy(s) lynched.

That is, when she is attacked, she doesn't defend herself so much as attack her attacker. It's this sense of "calling me scummy is a scumtell".

You don't believe Leafy does this too?

Is this what you call "Weak stances", by any chance? Because I don't think I've ever seen a stance weaker than this one. Add this to the fact that you're apparently agreeing with someone you think is scum (pman) and voting me over something you've said is "fine" (post 258), you're still by far the scummiest player here.

Yes, my staces on Thesp, Sotty and pman are weak. Two, did you read my wall at all? Because I said the content in one post was null, not that you were fine. And whether pman's comment was made by town or scum I would agree with it. It's a good comment.

Another caveat. I suppose this is insurance if I end up dying before you - "Oh, I wasn't sure he was scum". For someone who's accused me of having weak stances, you don't even seem committed to your vote. You keep putting in reasons why you might be wrong, and yet you're still voting me anyway. If you actually thought I was scum, you'd have nothing to fear from me dying.

No. Everyone keeps saying that I'm using bad logic and pushing a bad case, so I wanted them to point out where I used bad logic (you're welcome to do this too btw).

Allows Kitten to avoid committing again...

Gut reads are really hard to pinpoint. That's all I can really say on that.

"I didn't think I could get away with attacking Leafsnail for this, but now that a good player has done it I have no problem buddying with him"

Are you reading my posts? Because I had said that it struck me as disengenuous, but I didn't explan why. I didn't know why. It was just a vibe, but Ythill explained it fine. I didn't feel the need to repeat him.

Christ, I'd forget who you were suspicious of if you didn't have your vote on me.

Now this

is

an issue with my thought process at the very least. In my opinion you can't just look for scum tells. If that worked town would never get lynched. In my opinion you have to get into the other person's head and figure out

why

they're doing what they're doing. This means I look at people and I ask "what is the town motivation for doing this" and "what is the scum motivation for doing this." Once I figure that out I pick which one is more likely.

Once again, that wall wasn't jut a case; it was an explanation of how I think so people could point out where I'm using craplogic because I wasn't understanding how I was using craplogic at all.

I thought I was scum? If I'm scum, why aren't you happy with lynching me? Perhaps it would make you look very bad when I flip town?

Read the post again. Note the words "other person." I had already said you were scum and you told me to tell you who else I thought was scum, so I did.

And if you want Elli lynched, why don't you put your vote where your mouth is?

I've only got one vote dood.

The one on Ellibereth seems to be purely self defensive, as he seems like the only person other than yourself who may be lynched.

Nevermind the fact that he's the only other person I've been poking at all game. If only he would argue with me like you do.

Your other three stances (Thesp, sotty, pman) are so ridiculously weak and vague that they might as well not be there at all.

I only brought them up because you asked me to.

---

So, before I continue, Oman, are you sure he doesn't defend by attacking his attacker? Because he didn't point out a bit of craplogic in that post like I asked people to.

And continuing. Elli is terrible. What if I had been a town power role? You would have just outed me when you didn't even think I was scum! I'll agree with Oman that this looks like rolefishing. I still like my Leafy vote, but this is the closest I've come to wanting to switch to someone else.

using weak reasoning against Leaf

Can you point out exactly what's bad about what I'm saying about Leafy?

applying double standards

Can you point these out?

inconsistent behavior

Can you point this out too?

using tunnelvision as an excuse for your scummy actions

Actually, I said playstyle, but I guess it's the same idea. Let me attempt ot explain my playstyle. Maybe this will clear things up a bit.

I argue. That is how I scumhunt. I'm not the kind to poke, prod or ask quesetions. I simply latch onto something I consider scummy and I argue with that person until they convince me they are not scum or until something worse pops up (in which case I will either argue with that person only, or both people depending on the situation). This often makes me almost completley ignore everything else. I'm generally aware of what's going on (I can think of only one game where my tunnel vision was bad enough that I totally forgot about everyone else), but I prefer to just watch it. I'll ask questions if I have them, and if I find someone else I think is very scummy I'll normally state that they are in hopes of them asking "why am I scummy" so I can argue with them too. Any arguments I get into with people I think are nuetral or town is generally either me trying to prove my innocence or me trying to convince them that I'm right and they should vote for whoever I'm voting.

Sadly, Elli doesn't really comment on anything I say so it's extremely hard to argue with him. I'm glad Leafy is the argumentative type because I'd be at a loss of what to do if he wasn't.

Anyway, the other things I really can't argue with.

---

And with all that said, no one was really commenting on my wall like I was hoping they would. I also noticed I was doing a lot of repeating myself (only this time I included more thought process), so I have a question for everyone. Are you guys eagar to see the rest of it? I imagine it'll still have a lot of repeating myself. It took a lot of time, thought and effort for me to get that up, so if no one's really interested in seeing it I'd rather not waste my time and energy in putting it up.

[Leafsnail]

I only brought them up because you asked me to.

And this is the problem in a nutshell. As far as I can tell, you picked 3 other players pretty much at random in order to pretend not to be tunnelvisioned.

Are you reading my posts? Because I had said that it struck me as disengenuous, but I didn't explan why. I didn't know why. It was just a vibe, but Ythill explained it fine. I didn't feel the need to repeat him.

Exactly what I mean. You noticed it but didn't attack me because you didn't think you could get away with it.

[Kitten4u]

And this is the problem in a nutshell. As far as I can tell, you picked 3 other players pretty much at random in order to pretend not to be tunnelvisioned.

Nevermind the fact that I totally admit to being tunnelvisioned. It's how I roll. >_>b

Exactly what I mean. You noticed it but didn't attack me because you didn't think you could get away with it.

Did you read the post I linked? Because in that post I do use that as part of my attack.

[Leafsnail]

Nevermind the fact that I totally admit to being tunnelvisioned. It's how I roll. >_>b

In which case, why have you put out 4 other "suspects"?

Did you read the post I linked? Because in that post I do use that as part of my attack.

I'll be charitable and call this a mistake rather than a lie. You said literally nothing beyond "That post bothers me but I'm not going to say why and I'm not going to make any specific accusations over it"