Newbie 952 - Murder on Newbie Street! (GAME OVER)

[xRECKONERx]

With 9 alive, it takes 5 votes to lynch.

D1 Vote Count #4

Tactical Tomato (1):

smashbro

smashbro (1):

Llamarble

SilentoBoborachi (3):

Haylen, Parama, ManfredvonKarma

Haylen (1):

Tactical Tomato

Llamarble (1):

Sworddancer9034

Not voting (1): Exemption, SilentoBoborachi

[SilentoBoborachi]

It's mostly joke, but there was a deeper meaning as I also explained. If damon_gant was lurking as an SE, it got my attention as a possible suspect. Did I mean for it to almost lead to a lynch? For the most part, no, I liked the idea of using it only as pressure.

What purpose would it have really served though? Even if Damon_Gant was intentionally lurking, he would have only needed to post something like "Sorry guys, I've been really busy with school/work/family stuff lately" and everyone would have unvoted.

what purpose would what have served? He didn't post it, is it because he really was busy (and since he has been replaced that has to have been it), or something more nefarious? If he posted something like sorry I havn't been here etc, that's an explanation that would/should result in him giving a timeframe of when he will be back, or something which would hold him to, and tada he's in the game, I can remove my vote, yes, but now he's got to contribute and can't swoop in to a L-1 or whatever else purposeful lurkers aim for in mafia.

However, in the end, I still hold on to the idea of lynching lurkers, though I am now editing it to just "lynch lurkers who should know better than lurk".

Everyone

should know better than to lurk. It seems that you're trying to throw reframe your actions in an attempt to help yourself.

I'm still developing my policy on lurking. I think its bad, but some points made here are somewhat valid.

And the fact that I mention he might be busy is the fact that I understand people can be busy and miss things, which is why I mention if damon gets in and starts talking (and seems innocent) I'll remove my vote.

This is the part that really confuses me. If you knew that he could have just been busy, why did you feel it necessary to vote for him in the first place? The first post of the game was made Thu May 06, 2010 9:00 pm. You called out Damon_Gant for lurking on Fri May 07, 2010 6:07 pm. It wasn't even one full day since the game had started, and you were worried about potential lurkers?

Because I had just entered the game, I wanted my first joke vote to be on something that wouldn't require this huge drawn out analysis of, mainly because there wasn't much to analyze yet. I reasoned on Damon_Gant because at the time I thought there was a bandwagon on me at L-3, so I was going to go vote for Damon_Gant for the lurking. The bandwagon is the

reason

I decided to voted, the lurking was

evidence

behind the vote. I wasn't that concerned that he was purposely lurking until it got much later. I liked the idea of getting his attention. And removing my vote if he posted.

Implying he's mafia by saying "It would be fun to be town" in his first post

Sorry for giving a generalized answer to a generalized question?

Voting for Damon with sketchy reasoning and then updating/expanding his reasoning (though claiming that the things he's adding are the original reasons)

Sketchy? I said its a bandwagon and im jumping on. The only evidence (lurking) I thought was obvious, since that's what sword voted for him in the post right above mine. In terms of rockhard suspicions of scumminess, there was none.

Being the L-2 vote on the suspicious Damon wagon

I'll concede this, in retrospect, putting him to L-2 was a bad idea even for a jokevote, because of the easy lynch. I'll check my jokevote next time to avoid that.

Making a weakly reasoned FoS at Sworddancer after saying it seemed like both of them were just confused.

I was confused, I have no idea whether Sword really was or not. And I still havn't gotten a clear answer on why he somehow forgot he voted for me in the first place.


tl/dr version:

MY VOTE FOR DAMON_GANT: rvs on bandwagon because of lurking

MY CONFUSION WITH SWORD:

unvote vote Damon_Gant

I didn't know the unvote was for me, so I jumped on a bandwagon when I thought I was being bandwagoned as well.

Just going to reset the confusion to 0. Sword, I throw in my hankerchief.

Removing my FoS with sword.

It's not nice to point anyway.

[ManfredvonKarma]

What purpose would it have really served though? Even if Damon_Gant was intentionally lurking, he would have only needed to post something like "Sorry guys, I've been really busy with school/work/family stuff lately" and everyone would have unvoted.

what purpose would what have served? He didn't post it, is it because he really was busy (and since he has been replaced that has to have been it), or something more nefarious? If he posted something like sorry I havn't been here etc, that's an explanation that would/should result in him giving a timeframe of when he will be back, or something which would hold him to, and tada he's in the game, I can remove my vote, yes, but now he's got to contribute and can't swoop in to a L-1 or whatever else purposeful lurkers aim for in mafia.

The point is that your vote absolutely failed to serve the purpose that you seem to have assigned to it. If he was intentionally lurking, he could have easily gotten out of it. If he was just out for being busy, you were helping to insight a bandwagon on someone on whom we had no information.

Even if Damon_Gant was intentionally lurking at the start of the day, he would have been forced to post by the eventual prod by xRECKONERx. Also, swooping in to hammer a lynch on L-1, as you seemed to be extremely worried about) is a terrible idea for a scumlurker (at least on day 1) because it gets them lynched the next day (leaving the game at 4-1 going into day 3). Depending on who gets lynched/killed, it can wind up being an automatic win for the town with something as simple as a massclaim.

Because I had just entered the game,

I wanted my first joke vote

to be on something that wouldn't require this huge drawn out analysis of, mainly because there wasn't much to analyze yet. I reasoned on Damon_Gant because at the time I thought there was a bandwagon on me at L-3, so

I was going to go vote for Damon_Gant for the lurking

. The bandwagon is the reason I decided to voted, the lurking was evidence behind the vote. I wasn't that concerned that he was purposely lurking until it got much later. I liked the idea of getting his attention. And removing my vote if he posted.

Contradict yourself much? If you had a goal in that vote, than calling it a joke in hindsight seems like an obvious attempt to cover your ass.

[Parama]

The way Llama is trying to go about disproving my logic is amusing. I love how he says so much about how I could be scum and then never actually acts upon it.

[Llamarble]

The way Parama is trying to go about disproving my logic is amusing. I love how he implies (with the word "trying") that nothing he's said has been challenged instead of actually addressing the points I've made.

[Parama]

Your last post was pointless arguing about statistics. There are no points to address because posts like that are a waste of time.
I love how you contradict yourself with the comment on "trying" (which implies that you are failing do what you wanted to do), and then the outright lie that I haven't been addressing your points.

Guys, I've found our scumteam.

[xRECKONERx]

smashbro and Tactical Tomato prodded.

[Llamarble]

I seem to have struck a nerve by giving you a taste of your own medicine. You made a post in (what I saw as) an attempt to mock/provoke me (while insinuating without mentioning evidence of any kind that I am not effectively challenging your logic), which I replied to with a mocking post of my own stating that your mocking post was yet another example of using wording instead of logic to get people to believe your side of a point. Your most recent post sounds like an angry overreaction:

Your last post was pointless arguing about statistics. There are no points to address because posts like that are a waste of time.

I love how you contradict yourself by saying that arguing about statistics is worthless after you yourself tried to use statistics in the post I used statistics in response to. Also there's not even an attempt at an explanation of _why_ arguing about statistics would be a waste of time; we're as usual expected to believe what you say simply because you state it as if it's fact.

I love how you contradict yourself with the comment on "trying" (which implies that you are failing do what you wanted to do), and then the outright lie that I haven't been addressing your points.

Here he claims he has not failed to disprove my logic and that I am lying when I say he is not addressing my points.

It is a fact (when I say fact, I mean actual truth, as opposed to whatever it is you mean when you say things like "I guarantee there's scum on that wagon" when the only way you can be certain about that is if you're scum) that you have been failing to disprove my logic and that you have not been addressing my points.

My points are:
1. You are using wording and content free statements like "I'm really liking my vote" to sway people's opinions, which is anti-town because it discourages us from coming to the most logical conclusion based on the information available.
2. You say things like "I guarantee there is scum on that wagon" and "you can't say there's not scum on that wagon" where it would be appropriate to say "There's probably scum on that wagon." Stating opinion as if it's fact is anti-town because if we believe you we'll discount important possibilities, discouraging us from coming to the most logical conclusion based on the information available.

I did _not_ argue that it is unlikely any scum were on Damon's wagon, which is what your statistics post was about. In fact, when I first saw we had reached L-1 I said I'd be very surprised (that's a bit stronger than my feelings now as it was a reaction to the town being at L-1 so early, but I still agree there's probably scum there if you're town) if there wasn't scum on the wagon. Your statistics post would have been a good response to somebody saying they doubted any scum were on the wagon, but what I was saying was that your "guarantee" that there were scum on the wagon was stating an opinion (which I actually happen to agree with) as fact. To prove my statement wrong, you would have had to either prove scum were on the wagon (which you could only know as a scum yourself) or state that your "guarantee" was only an opinion, which you have not done. Thus that post did _not_ address either of my points.

My statistics post was explaining that your attempt to use statistics did not "guarantee" a scum was on the wagon. I don't dispute that if you're town it's likely there was scum. I do, as I keep saying, dispute that it's helpful to make statements like "you can't say there wasn't scum on that wagon."

The only place you mention my concerns about your playstyle is here:

Also, I think the second half here is you describing how I build a good case. If nobody is agreeing with me when I've caught scum then obviously I've failed at making a good case - I make sure those situations never happen by making sure the case is good enough that any sane townie should be able to understand my argument.
...blah I think I forgot where I was going with that.

Here you claim that you are making sure the case is good enough that any sane townie can "understand" your argument. I absolutely agree that making one's arguments understandable is helpful. What I believe you are doing toward your goal of getting everybody to agree with you that is not helpful is dressing up or adding statements (such as "I'm liking my Silento vote") to be more convincing without adding content. Again you have not addressed my point or disproved my logic.


Being fair, in our first couple back/forth posts, you did adequately explain your observation of MvK and you asked me about not calling out silent, which I responded to by explaining that when I made the posts you referred to Silent had only made one post with content. Those matters were resolved, and not the subject of our current argument, but if those are the points you claim to have addressed then perhaps we simply misunderstand each other.

MvK attributed the points I've made about you to playstyle, in which case I would say you have an anti-town playstyle. That doesn't necessarily make you scum, though it did make me suspicious of you because anti-town play makes me suspicious. Your last two posts are the ones I find scummy since they are riddled with overreaction, unsupported statements, and even some contradiction (on the matter of stats).

[ManfredvonKarma]

What I believe you are doing toward your goal of getting everybody to agree with you that is not helpful is dressing up or adding statements (such as "I'm liking my Silento vote") to be more convincing without adding content.

After doing an iso on Parama, I have a very important observation to make. Llamarble keeps focusing on the fact that Parama said, "Yeah I really like my Silento vote." However, when you actually look at that post, you'll see that statement came at the end of a long explanation of scum tells that he's seen from Silento, and explanation of overall game theory. It seems absolutely absurd to accuse him of simply interjecting that statement to convince us without content, when the post it appears in had more content than any other post in the game prior to that point.

I'm not sure if that in and of itself is solid enough for a FoS, but I'd definitely like some sort of explanation.

[Parama]

Your last post was pointless arguing about statistics. There are no points to address because posts like that are a waste of time.

I love how you contradict yourself by saying that arguing about statistics is worthless after you yourself tried to use statistics in the post I used statistics in response to. Also there's not even an attempt at an explanation of _why_ arguing about statistics would be a waste of time; we're as usual expected to believe what you say simply because you state it as if it's fact.

Wrong. I simply gave basic statistics, you took a whole post arguing my statistics which led to no scumhunting at all. No contradiction to be found here. Why is it a waste of time? Your post had no scumhunting in it whatsoever.

I love how you contradict yourself with the comment on "trying" (which implies that you are failing do what you wanted to do), and then the outright lie that I haven't been addressing your points.

Here he claims he has not failed to disprove my logic and that I am lying when I say he is not addressing my points.

It is a fact (when I say fact, I mean actual truth, as opposed to whatever it is you mean when you say things like "I guarantee there's scum on that wagon" when the only way you can be certain about that is if you're scum) that you have been failing to disprove my logic and that you have not been addressing my points.

Oh geez, because townies shouldn't be certain in their reads? If townies didn't have any sort of certainty then we'd never lynch right as the scum would always be the ones leading. And yes it is an outright lie because every point you try to make against me I have disproved.

My points are:
1. You are using wording and content free statements like "I'm really liking my vote" to sway people's opinions, which is anti-town because it discourages us from coming to the most logical conclusion based on the information available.

Let's ignore the fact I built a case on Silento for a moment.

2. You say things like "I guarantee there is scum on that wagon" and "you can't say there's not scum on that wagon" where it would be appropriate to say "There's probably scum on that wagon." Stating opinion as if it's fact is anti-town because if we believe you we'll discount important possibilities, discouraging us from coming to the most logical conclusion based on the information available.

Words like "probably" and "maybe" give scum a chance to cop out on their reads and opinions later. I'm sticking to everything I say because I believe what I say to be correct.

The only place you mention my concerns about your playstyle is here:

Also, I think the second half here is you describing how I build a good case. If nobody is agreeing with me when I've caught scum then obviously I've failed at making a good case - I make sure those situations never happen by making sure the case is good enough that any sane townie should be able to understand my argument.
...blah I think I forgot where I was going with that.

Here you claim that you are making sure the case is good enough that any sane townie can "understand" your argument. I absolutely agree that making one's arguments understandable is helpful. What I believe you are doing toward your goal of getting everybody to agree with you that is not helpful is dressing up or adding statements (such as "I'm liking my Silento vote") to be more convincing without adding content. Again you have not addressed my point or disproved my logic.

FFS, I built a goddamn case on the guy, and all you can talk about is the language I used?

Llamarble:

Your stance on Silento. Next post. Otherwise you die.

Sorry that your buddy is making himself so obvious, Silento. Don't worry, we all have to start somewhere.

[Haylen]

Llamamarble is screaming newb town at me. I am, however, a bit concerned that his opinions do not tally with his votes. Obviously, he finds Parama scummy, but he is currently voting for SSS.

Parama needs to remember that the mods of his games are people too!

I dont like MvK at the moment, his posts have a scummy tone to them (which is difficult to prove). In his last post he says that llamamarble is focusing on one part of his case. However, this is something that a lot of players frequently do so it isn't something that would bother me much.

Btw, newbies dont have a defined playstyle yet. That's why it's difficult metaing them.

Parama stop hunting for a scumteam on Day One of a game. It's better to focus on individual players at the moment, and move on to trying to find out who is a scumteam later on in the game. Yes, if you are correct it does save a lot of time. However, if you are wrong then it could have devastating affects on the town.

[Parama]

Parama stop hunting for a scumteam on Day One of a game. It's better to focus on individual players at the moment, and move on to trying to find out who is a scumteam later on in the game. Yes, if you are correct it does save a lot of time. However, if you are wrong then it could have devastating affects on the town.

If Silento was posting more I could point out more reasons to lynch him, but he's not, therefore I must assume he is scum and preemptively hunt for his buddy. Sorry if it offends you

[ManfredvonKarma]

I dont like MvK at the moment, his posts have a scummy tone to them (which is difficult to prove). In his last post he says that llamamarble is focusing on one part of his case. However, this is something that a lot of players frequently do so it isn't something that would bother me much.

The reason it bothers me is that he isolated one line of a long post, and is making a point based on that one line that is easily contradicted by the rest of the post he took it from. Overall, focusing on one point is fine by me, as long as the point your focusing on isn't contradictory to the rest of the evidence. When someone is making an argument in isolation that ignores facts, they jump out as being scummy, because they are trying to reframe the evidence.

[Sworddancer9034]

Whoa it looks like we finally got some real action here.

For the most part, I'm kinda on the same boat as Haylen (kinda being a key word here). I'm picking up newbie town vibes from Llamrble and slightly scummy vibes from MVK. I don't like how MVK has defended Parama via meta throughout this thread. I don't like meta, it just gives people an excuse to act scummy in a certain way and not be called out on it. I feel MVK is either buddying up Parama or flat out defending him. I'm definitely leaning towards the former, though, as I don't feel scum buddies would make just a strong connection to each other, but you never know.

If either one of them ever flips scum, We all should definitely look into the other.

As for Llamble, I don't like like how his cases are so fluffy, even this early in the game. He does seem to focus a lot on some pretty insignificant stuff (like, what does it matter if Parama guaranteed there was scum on Damon's wagon as opposed to different wording?) but by God he's trying. What I have to disagree with Haylen, though, is that he only seems newbie town. I'm also open to the possibility that he could be newbie scum. Which leads me to Tomato and Silent.

I actually have a semi-decent feeling that one of these two (or maybe even both) are newbie scum. The way they quickly jumped on Damon's bandwagon is just slimy to me. Yeah yeah yeah, they have the newbie card and all, but I just don't want to let them off the hook so easily. Right now they are my two main leads for scum, and I really wish they would post more. I hope that they both relieze the longer they take to post more and get into this game, the scummier I find them. They have seemed to really only have been sitting on the sidelines in this game after they pulled that stunt with the bandwagon on Damon, and I just don't like that, not at all. Because of this I'm going to be doing an ISO of both of them.

I would vote for Tomato, but he has been prodded, so for now I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt that he's busy with something.

Also Smashbros this goes for you to, get into the game plox.

[Llamarble]

Regarding Parama's 109:

Wrong. I simply gave basic statistics, you took a whole post arguing my statistics which led to no scumhunting at all. No contradiction to be found here. Why is it a waste of time? Your post had no scumhunting in it whatsoever.

Your statistics didn't refute my point when that was what they seemed to be intended to do, so I argued them. If giving statistics is useful to help prove something, then arguing them because they don't prove what you say they prove is useful.

Oh geez, because townies shouldn't be certain in their reads? If townies didn't have any sort of certainty then we'd never lynch right as the scum would always be the ones leading. And yes it is an outright lie because every point you try to make against me I have disproved.

You certainly haven't disproved that you state opinions as fact and that you use language to make your arguments sound better than they are, so the "it is an outright lie" part of this is just wrong. Here you admit to stating opinions as fact, and this is your first attempt to justify it, which I appreciate (finally addressing my points rather than misinterpreting them). The point that scum would easily be able to push suspicion onto townies if townies didn't make a read and stick to it is a good one. That being said, I think that would be accomplished better by simply sticking to that accusation and stating "I think X is scum, and I'm ready to lynch him/her" rather than "I know X is scum," which carries with it the danger of misleading fellow town players. It also makes it difficult to tell what you believe you have proven from what you simply believe. Since I don't do this, I have the freedom to say "such and such is true" and have people understand that I believe I have proven that statement.

Let's ignore the fact I built a case on Silento for a moment.

This is essentially what MvK was saying; I address that when I reply to him later in this post. Basically I don't dispute that your post was a useful investigation, I just took issue with some aspects of your playstyle that I feel are anti-town and I've ended up having to explain them multiple times to get you to respond. I don't consider the points I have been making to clear Silento, or anything like that, if that's your concern. I just want people to read your posts for scumhunting content (which I don't dispute is there) as opposed to how convincing they sound and form their own opinions. The first time I mentioned this it was because I noticed myself being swayed by your wording, and I was worried others might be. I mentioned it again because I wanted more than MvK's "that's just his playstyle" comment.

Words like "probably" and "maybe" give scum a chance to cop out on their reads and opinions later. I'm sticking to everything I say because I believe what I say to be correct.

I like this too, as more actual attention to my points. I agree that scum are more likely to make very lukewarm reads they'll be able to back off on later, I've seen a lot of this from Exemption/Smashbro, which is why they're near the top of my list of suspects. You can still make a strong statement of your opinion without claiming your opinion is fact though. The day is less than half over. Locking yourself into a read this early doesn't seem productive when there will be much more information to judge on later. Also, as I mentioned before, when you make every statement with certainty as if you've proven it you don't give yourself scope to distinguish between facts you believe you've proven and statements you believe.

FFS, I built a goddamn case on the guy, and all you can talk about is the language I used?

I want everyone to judge cases on their logical merits as opposed to how they are presented, so I am explicitly mentioning what I feel is an obstacle to that. Also I have talked about Silento, though for the most part I've discussed his posts rather than arguments others have made against him because I want to see if he contradicts himself or otherwise gives himself away as scum while trying to do so. If you/others want me to I can read through the arguments that have been placed against him and give my opinion of each one.

Llamarble: Your stance on Silento. Next post. Otherwise you die.

Another statement that you can only guarantee is true if you're mafia (or if I were at L-1 or something like that, but I'm not)... When you say things like this it almost makes me want to lynch you just in case, since I'd prefer not to listen to "I implied I was mafia several times and everyone ignored it" brag posts after the game ends. It's perfectly reasonable to ask about my attitude toward silento though, so even though you toss around unnecessary and unenforceable threats:
On Silento-
My gut read is town, some of the arguments leveled at him are good, some are quite weak. If people want me to I'll go through them explicitly. Certainly I'm going to do so for my own information, but I'll refrain from posting them unless it's requested since I do want to let Silento defend himself for awhile. I'm not prepared to lynch him yet and I'd be uncomfortable with someone else doing it soon as well (Exemption mentioned page 6 as getting toward an acceptable place to lynch, but there's useful talk going on now so I'd be very disappointed if we cut our day that short). I looked through his posts for scumminess myself and found a few things which I mentioned in post 91 (which was originally a larger post but I lost it and didn't bother redoing everything). I think the town has been tunneling on him for awhile, but I suppose this is okay since we'll have time to tunnel someone else afterward as long as we don't lynch him early and tunneling promotes deeper discussion. I've been spending most of my analysis time on players I've felt are escaping under the radar, so I do want to spend more time reading over and reconsidering the arguments made against Silento and Silento's posts. Even if we do decide we probably want to go after him, we should examine everyone's arguments for most of the way until our deadline. Longer days only benefit the town (by providing more reading material).

@MvK:
Your post suggests you haven't been reading mine very carefully because you are misrepresenting my argument. I have never argued that Parama was _solely_ trying to convince us with wording (at least in that post; in the "Llamalogic is amusing" post that was all that was there). My point was that he was adding things such as "I really like this vote" and "I'm liking this theory" that made his case feel a lot stronger to me on the first read through than if he had just presented all of his points clearly without embellishment. I said I felt this was anti town because we should be considering evidence based on its strength rather than how it is presented. Thus the fact that the rest of his post was in fact quite useful does not contradict my point. I believe I already made this clear in my last post, wherein I stated that my points were that Parama has been stating opinions as fact and using wording to make us agree with him.

MvK seems to be extremely pro-Parama for some reason. He has followed Parama's lead on both Silento and me, both times adding flimsy (I felt) additional reasons. If he agrees with the merits of the case Parama presented, and is voting for that reason, then he should just say so. Don't add reasons unless you really believe them. Adding flimsy reasoning as justification for following someone's lead looks bad to me. Simply summarizing the other person's case in your own words and stating you agree to increase pressure is okay, and adding something genuine to discussion is good. By the way, since you say you've done an ISO of Parama, I'd like to hear what things you came up with other than the fact that the post of Parama's in which we first see wording used to make an argument more convincing than it would be on its own logical merit also (and more importantly) had significant scumhunting content.

Haylen said:

Obviously, he finds Parama scummy, but he is currently voting for SSS.

I feel reluctant to allow someone to earn my vote leaving them by simply not posting very much. Also as I've mentioned the two points I've been arguing with Parama suggest that his playstyle is antitown, but MvK says he does that every game, so that's not a basis to vote. The post that this post responds to actually sounds quite good to me; he seems to understand what it was I was saying and is now responding. He's stubborn and insulting, and doesn't seem like the type to change his mind easily in the face of a good argument, but I appreciate that we're at least now talking about the same things and that he's not ignoring my points. Parama's only posts that really jumped out as scummy are his mocking post and his overreaction to my response since neither of them contain any evidence; they just make statements and don't back them up. In retrospect I believe he may just have been confused as to what I was arguing. He seems to have thought it was my claim that his evidence against Silent was moot because of phrasing whereas all I was doing was asking for people to read for merit of arguments. I do find his making statements that he can only know to be true if he is mafia alarming, though in both cases I've seen it can be lumped into stating opinions as fact.

[Tactical Tomato]

May we have a renewed votecount please?

[smashbro_of_the_SSS]

prod post, sorry, but it's 10:50 here, and I need some sleep. Will have a content post tomorrow afternoon around 3:00 to 4:00 (EST) or feel free to vote me to your heart's content (or ask for a replacement, whichever).

Also, it would be helpful to know everyone's time zones, so if everyone could post that in their next post or two, that'd be great.

[ManfredvonKarma]

For the most part, I'm kinda on the same boat as Haylen (kinda being a key word here). I'm picking up newbie town vibes from Llamrble and slightly scummy vibes from MVK. I don't like how MVK has defended Parama via meta throughout this thread. I don't like meta, it just gives people an excuse to act scummy in a certain way and not be called out on it. I feel MVK is either buddying up Parama or flat out defending him. I'm definitely leaning towards the former, though, as I don't feel scum buddies would make just a strong connection to each other, but you never know.

How exactly am I defending him via meta? When I made the comment about his playstyle, he wasn't even under fire. It was just a quick response to something I saw while responding to several different things. Even then, if you look, I've never once so much as passively mentioned what side I thought he was. Actually, if you look, I've never defended him in

any

manner. If you think I'm defending him against Llamarble, you're mistaken. Not following a case you don't believe in, or pointing out the flaws you see in a case for scumhunting purposes is not buddying/defending.

Your post suggests you haven't been reading mine very carefully because you are misrepresenting my argument. I have never argued that Parama was _solely_ trying to convince us with wording (at least in that post; in the "Llamalogic is amusing" post that was all that was there). My point was that he was adding things such as "I really like this vote" and "I'm liking this theory" that made his case feel a lot stronger to me on the first read through than if he had just presented all of his points clearly without embellishment.

Either I'm completely missing what point you were going for, or you're misunderstanding what I was trying to say about you. The way I understand it, your accusation was that Parama was trying to persuade us to his point of view with his language. I was attempting to say that he's also doing it with game content. I do grant that he's interjecting opinion statements, but I still fail to see the implications of that. Quite frankly, if people are going to be swayed by those kinds of statements (as you seem to imply), we're already doomed.

MvK seems to be extremely pro-Parama for some reason. He has followed Parama's lead on both Silento and me, both times adding flimsy (I felt) additional reasons. If he agrees with the merits of the case Parama presented, and is voting for that reason, then he should just say so. Don't add reasons unless you really believe them. Adding flimsy reasoning as justification for following someone's lead looks bad to me. Simply summarizing the other person's case in your own words and stating you agree to increase pressure is okay, and adding something genuine to discussion is good.

See, here's the thing... I'm not actually all that pro-Parama. I "followed Parama's lead on... Silento" simply because he wound up beating me there. If you look at post #8 in my ISO, I did imply that I was seeing signs of scumminess. After that post, Silento happened to post again and there was a definite scum-vibe emanating from it. That made Silento 2/2 on scummy posts (ignoring his two posts that added no content). When I saw Silento's 4th overall post, my immediate thought was "Boy, that's scummy." I then scrolled down and saw that Parama had replaced in and already posted a pretty in-depth analysis of what was wrong with Silento's posting. I didn't think it was worth it to re-hash everything he said, so I just added a couple new things I felt weren't already said. Again this has all actually been said by me before.

And if you think I'm following his lead on you, you're mistaken yet again. When cases are made, you need to look at the validity of them. I didn't see the point in your case, and in fact, the way I understood what you were saying, you came off as scummy. Once again, if you look at what I posted, I even directly said "I'm not sure if that in and of itself is solid enough for a FoS, but I'd definitely like some sort of explanation." That's it. You came off as scummy in that instance, so I just wanted to see how you'd respond to being called out.

By the way, since you say you've done an ISO of Parama, I'd like to hear what things you came up with other than the fact that the post of Parama's in which we first see wording used to make an argument more convincing than it would be on its own logical merit also (and more importantly) had significant scumhunting content.

The entire point of the ISO that I did was to see if Parama did what I thought you were implying that he did (i.e. pulling quotes and spinning them without true reasoning). When I didn't see that, I didn't really bother with anything else. If you want me to go back and analyze his posts, I will, but I definitely don't remember seeing anything too out-of-place (and before I get accused of buddying again, that same statement goes for most of the players in this game).

He's stubborn and insulting, and doesn't seem like the type to change his mind easily in the face of a good argument....

You literally do not know the half of that. In the game I co-modded he outright declared that he didn't feel like defending himself against what people were saying about him, and then voted for himself, forcing a modkill. He was town.

Also, it would be helpful to know everyone's time zones, so if everyone could post that in their next post or two, that'd be great.

Eastern Daylight Time.

[Llamarble]

@MvK:

Either I'm completely missing what point you were going for, or you're misunderstanding what I was trying to say about you. The way I understand it, your accusation was that Parama was trying to persuade us to his point of view with his language. I was attempting to say that he's also doing it with game content. I do grant that he's interjecting opinion statements, but I still fail to see the implications of that. Quite frankly, if people are going to be swayed by those kinds of statements (as you seem to imply), we're already doomed.

I absolutely agree that he was also using game content. I wasn't claiming that stating opinions as fact and so on will convince somebody by itself, but rather that it makes it harder for us to weigh the real points presented fairly. I pointed it out so that others reading his posts would be able to be more objective about his points.

I think we've pretty much talked the matter to death, and it wasn't that important in the first place. I've only said so much about it because people were accusing me of contradicting myself and so on so I had to explain what I meant in very explicit wall-of-text form. As long as people are aware of what Parama's doing in his posts, they'll be able to keep that in mind and focus on the useful things he says, which is all I wanted.

And now out of defense/explanation mode and back to scumhunting mode:

Exemption asked:

@Llamarble: why do you think I am scum?

I just reread all your posts and you don't come off too bad. There are a couple of things worth mentioning though, so I'm about neutral on you right now. I think I may have been predisposed to suspect you because you were scum in the other game of yours I read and you didn't play it much differently than this one, but I'd assume in forum mafia most people sound similar as scum and as town or they'd make terrible scum.

I don't approve of you saying it might be okay to lynch someone on page 6; I think that's still too early. That might be a mere disagreement, or it could be you hoping for a fast lynch of silento.

The additional reason you gave for explaining your joining (though without adding your vote and making L-1, which seems reasonable) the bandwagon on Silento was pretty weak, I felt. Saying he was causing confusion by leaving his vote on a player who had just replaced in because the new player wouldn't know whether suspicion was on him or his predecessor didn't make much sense to me (if that's not what you meant then say so). If you're suspicious of a player you're suspicious of their predecessor because they have the same alignment. If the new player wants to know which one of them caused the suspicion, they can just ask, so I don't see how there's much potential for confusion. As I've mentioned, I think joining a bandwagon with a weak reason looks like you're hunting for an excuse to bring the person closer to a lynch.

I'm on California time, but I sleep at rather widely varied hours.

[Sworddancer9034]

For the most part, I'm kinda on the same boat as Haylen (kinda being a key word here). I'm picking up newbie town vibes from Llamrble and slightly scummy vibes from MVK. I don't like how MVK has defended Parama via meta throughout this thread. I don't like meta, it just gives people an excuse to act scummy in a certain way and not be called out on it. I feel MVK is either buddying up Parama or flat out defending him. I'm definitely leaning towards the former, though, as I don't feel scum buddies would make just a strong connection to each other, but you never know.

How exactly am I defending him via meta? When I made the comment about his playstyle, he wasn't even under fire. It was just a quick response to something I saw while responding to several different things. Even then, if you look, I've never once so much as passively mentioned what side I thought he was. Actually, if you look, I've never defended him in

any

manner. If you think I'm defending him against Llamarble, you're mistaken. Not following a case you don't believe in, or pointing out the flaws you see in a case for scumhunting purposes is not buddying/defending.

Okay, so let me get this straight. You were pointing out a flaw of Llamarble's case against Parama? What is the difference between that and defending Parama? I mean, he did make an accusation against Parama, and you did step in. Your reason was because Parama usually plays like this, which, unless I'm mistaken, is meta gaming. I really don't like that. Even If Llamarble really wasn't who you were concerned with, then you could of still made that comment about Parama's playstyle to have a defense pre set up for him in the future of the game. Also, on top of that, Parama sig states that meta sucks, so, if he's town, then I'm sure he'll agree with me that you defending him just because "he always plays like this" is something that he wouldn't like.

@Parama: How do you feel about MVK so far in this game? What about him defending you?

[Sworddancer9034]

Oops, sorry for the posting error, ignore my last post please.

For the most part, I'm kinda on the same boat as Haylen (kinda being a key word here). I'm picking up newbie town vibes from Llamrble and slightly scummy vibes from MVK. I don't like how MVK has defended Parama via meta throughout this thread. I don't like meta, it just gives people an excuse to act scummy in a certain way and not be called out on it. I feel MVK is either buddying up Parama or flat out defending him. I'm definitely leaning towards the former, though, as I don't feel scum buddies would make just a strong connection to each other, but you never know.

How exactly am I defending him via meta? When I made the comment about his playstyle, he wasn't even under fire. It was just a quick response to something I saw while responding to several different things. Even then, if you look, I've never once so much as passively mentioned what side I thought he was. Actually, if you look, I've never defended him in

any

manner. If you think I'm defending him against Llamarble, you're mistaken. Not following a case you don't believe in, or pointing out the flaws you see in a case for scumhunting purposes is not buddying/defending.

Okay, so let me get this straight. You were pointing out a flaw of Llamarble's case against Parama? What is the difference between that and defending Parama? I mean, he did make an accusation against Parama, and you did step in. Your reason was because Parama usually plays like this, which, unless I'm mistaken, is meta gaming. I really don't like that. Even If Llamarble really wasn't who you were concerned with, then you could of still made that comment about Parama's playstyle to have a defense pre set up for him in the future of the game. Also, on top of that, Parama sig states that meta sucks, so, if he's town, then I'm sure he'll agree with me that you defending him just because "he always plays like this" is something that he wouldn't like.

@Parama: How do you feel about MVK so far in this game? What about him defending you?

[Exemption]

Exemption asked:

@Llamarble: why do you think I am scum?

I just reread all your posts and you don't come off too bad. There are a couple of things worth mentioning though, so I'm about neutral on you right now. I think I may have been predisposed to suspect you because you were scum in the other game of yours I read and you didn't play it much differently than this one, but I'd assume in forum mafia most people sound similar as scum and as town or they'd make terrible scum.

I don't approve of you saying it might be okay to lynch someone on page 6; I think that's still too early. That might be a mere disagreement, or it could be you hoping for a fast lynch of silento.

The additional reason you gave for explaining your joining (though without adding your vote and making L-1, which seems reasonable) the bandwagon on Silento was pretty weak, I felt. Saying he was causing confusion by leaving his vote on a player who had just replaced in because the new player wouldn't know whether suspicion was on him or his predecessor didn't make much sense to me (if that's not what you meant then say so). If you're suspicious of a player you're suspicious of their predecessor because they have the same alignment. If the new player wants to know which one of them caused the suspicion, they can just ask, so I don't see how there's much potential for confusion. As I've mentioned, I think joining a bandwagon with a weak reason looks like you're hunting for an excuse to bring the person closer to a lynch.

I'm on California time, but I sleep at rather widely varied hours.

Yer I guessed you read that one because of the references to the 2 quick hammers and then us getting him lynched. I find it easier to play as scum in just the same way I would play as town, just pretending I am looking for a second Mafia not my one. Yer it is probably the way most people play scum. Think about it now maybe page 6 is too early. It just seemed to me at the time that a lynch was coming up quite quickly and I just wanted to stall that as long as possible. Opps I just reread the tread and noticed that he said that comment before a replacement was announced. My bad. However that statement:

On one hand, if damon starts posting and seems innocent enough, I'll remove my vote. On the other, if he doesn't, I'm keeping it on. I think it is better to lynch a person you know nothing about. If he's scum, then you get the best outcome, but even if he's town, the people voting for him (and not voting) can be analyzed

still does not sit well with me. Yes if the person is scum you get the best but if the player is town how can you analyse votes that are just left on a person because they were lurking first. You shouldn't really put votes on someone unless you are pressuring them to do something (stop lurking, defend themselves ect) or you think they are scum. Leaving a vote on someone after they have replied to your pressure does not make sense.

Tomato, How much lurking? just respond to your prod by asking for a vote count. Please, please say more than that.

I will look at MVK after college as people are suspicious of him. His buddying/defending is clear though.

[Exemption]

oh i'm GMT btw

[ManfredvonKarma]

Okay, so let me get this straight. You were pointing out a flaw of Llamarble's case against Parama? What is the difference between that and defending Parama? I mean, he did make an accusation against Parama, and you did step in.

The difference is the motive.

Your reason was because Parama usually plays like this, which, unless I'm mistaken, is meta gaming. I really don't like that. Even If Llamarble really wasn't who you were concerned with, then you could of still made that comment about Parama's playstyle to have a defense pre set up for him in the future of the game. Also, on top of that, Parama sig states that meta sucks, so, if he's town, then I'm sure he'll agree with me that you defending him just because "he always plays like this" is something that he wouldn't like.

Let me summarize how everything happened:

1. I make one comment about Parama's playstyle
2. As per Llamarble's request, I expand upon that comment.
3. I attack Llamarble's case, never once mentioning meta.
4. Further explanation of my case
5.I back down from the case

My reasoning against Llamarble was that his case (as I was reading) wasn't well founded. It wasn't "this is how Parama always plays, that case sucks." It was "you're mischaracterizing posts to serve an argument." Either way though, the matter has been dropped.

[smashbro_of_the_SSS]

Alright, read things over, I'm here for my post. Sorry for not typing much, but when I'm not addressed with questions, I tend to sit back and wait until I have enough to build a case around, which is hardly ever the case on Day 1, for me at least.

looking back, I still stand behind my vote on Tactical Tomato, and his posts lately haven't helped.

Sorry for lurking, I was busy with school for a while and I'm a bit tired to play fully.
Therefore, I'll get on the wagon.

vote: Damon_Gant

Note that Tomato's (I believe) anti-town play of putting Damon to L-1 so early happened after my post about being happy nobody got themselves into trouble yet. I certainly agree that that was a questionable move, as he may have been hoping a townie would hammer early (particularly given he didn't announce L-1) so we'd have one mislynch under our belts and the hammering townie for a likely mislynch next round.
@Tomato I want to hear you defend your actions.

Dear god how am I not being band-wagoned at this point. Thank god for the Noob Card.

But yeah, the damon wagon i assumed was more of a policy lynch, which is really a bad idea in hindsight.

unvote

Yeah, I know it's scummish to simply adhere to others' voting opinions on a whim...

Who voted for damon again?

These posts aren't exactly lately, but I dislike his comment on the noob card, and his repeated admissions that his posts are scummy. The arguement he posed on Day 1 could be just as easily by scum or town, but I'm leaning toward scum, based off of his other posts.

As for Silento, I'm not sure of my view on him. It wavers between scum, for the reasons before mentioned, and newb town, who is not yet good at defending himself, and so is making the contradictions. I'm still deciding how I feel about him.

@ Silento

who is your biggest suspect now?

Planning on reading Llamarble and Haylen. Even if Haylen has posted more often than me, I'm not seeing too much new content.