Mini 1042 - Skillville - GAME OVER!

[Zachrulez]

Unvote: Vote Hito

[Zachrulez]

EBWOP

Vote: Hito

Just in case of vote not being counted due to formatting technicality.

[DemonHybrid]

Yeah, you know what, Unvote, Vote: hitogoroshi because Soc's slot has been prime suspect for days now, Reck is still scummy but has laid off and explained his peace with the shotty wagon (although it's unbelievable to me at the moment, but he at least explained), and hito's last post just screams of him trying to complete an easy lynch to go along with the consistency of Soc. He literally just posted a 3 or so paragraph post worth of misreps and nulltells.

EBWOP with spelling corrections.

[Zachrulez]

His post 101 is a power role suggestion/hint. If he claims a PR, this'll make it feel more legit. If he claims VT, this is a little scummy, because it's hinting at a PR for no reason.

The bottom paragraph of DH's iso 101 actually hints that he's going to claim vanilla if anything else.

I don't get where you see this as him softclaiming power at all.

[hitogoroshi]

It's clear from your attitudes that I'm not going to get through to you guys, so do what you want. I'll try to answer hito without having a brain aneurysm.

The fact that you're even mentioning how much I'm posting is fucking bullshit and a misrep. The amount someone posts

is

a

complete

NULL TELL.

Which I said in my ISO.

Extremely active early game. Too active. Now, to be clear, I don't mean too active as in "scummy", too active as in "anti-town." There's a subtle distinction, that being that

it's a null tell

(actually a weak town tell, in my experience.)

The point I was making was that it hurts the town, not that I think it's a scumtell.

Here's a tip as well: I was in 7 games earlier on, realizing that I posted messed up tags is not a big deal. I can't believe the amount of laziness that most players in mafia are subjected to. They ask for cases to be posted like 50 times because they don't read. They freak out when someone messes up a tag. I have more important stuff to do with my time than to sit here bent over backwards making sure every post is 100% readable.

Ten seconds to fix a post tag is not "bending over backwards". You put pants on before you leave the house, even if you're just walking to the mailbox. If this requirement is too onerous, then post half as much and make them twice as thought out. Either way, posting a lot of posts each with little effort is literally the worst of both words because town has to deal with a lot of posts (that's bad) and they aren't even readable/good posts (that's bad). Again, though, this is mostly "pointers I would have said to you if I had been here from the start". This isn't a scumtell, it's anti-town.

Horrordude, to my recollection, didn't ask me a thing.

Then why did you exclude yourself from this list? Did he have some sort of meaningful conversation with you outside the bounds of questioning?

Everything that I've said about Maemuki has been consistent. I've said everything that I've needed to say about that. Which I, of course, find completely legit. Again, look at the list of "best replacements" for the scummy noms. Yes, let's have this happen this fucking game.

Okay, I'll bite. Give me the scummiest things that Maemuki - as Maemuki, not any replacements - did. This obviously doesn't need to be a formal case, with the mason claim making Mae-scum unlikely. In fact, I'd prefer whatever you were thinking off the top of your head, but if you need to look at her in ISO as a refresher that's fine to.

Me wanting to start to lynch the lurkers (I.E: Your spot and others) has nothing to do, again, with the amount I post. Another complete misrep.

Nothing to do with the amount you post? I'm saying that LAL is an objective lynch mechanic (post count is a number) and it's an objective lynch mechanic that won't hit you. I'm not saying that only active scum bring up LAL, but I'm saying that every active scum

would like to

bring up LAL. This has everything to you with the amount you post and I'm kinda confused as to what you're calling a "misrep" here.

You not wanting to even pay attention to the fact that I claim shows that you don't care about information, or who gets lynched. Plus, another misrep, because I can't claim something that I'm not.

Okay you are not using the word "misrep" correctly (actually I think that word should just be stricken from the jargon and never used again, but that's a digression.) Misrepresentation is when I pretend you hold/have held a position you do not hold/have not held. It's a buzzword that's used way too much because far more misreps are caused by players of either alignment misreading poorly formatted posts than scum deliberately trying to incriminate someone.

I don't know what you mean by "You not wanting to even pay attention to the fact that I claim shows that you don't care about information, or who gets lynched." I did acknowledge your "subsequent vanilla claim" in my iso.

The thing I find scummy about your vanilla claim is that you've made posts like this one:

Ask for a claim if you seriously are considering putting me up for a lynch, I'm not going to give scum the leg-up on us this early in the game just for me to stick around and hinder the town later on due to whatever reason.

and this one:

I'm claiming tomorrow around 2 or 3 PM EST if I'm still in the lead with votes. This game's Day 2 is a stagnating pool of fail.

These posts scream "I am a PR." Vanilla players don't want to bring up claiming (keep scum guessing on the nk) and they don't generally think of claiming, because after all, they have nothing important to claim. Bringing up that you NEED to get a claim in on multiple occasions, and then claiming vanilla, is scummy because scum would love to not die by having the aura of "Psst, I'm a PR" around them, as well a boost in legitimacy to any fakeclaims they make. The idea scum scenario would be being able to hint at a PR every time for reduced lynch-ability, and then, when claim time actually comes, either fakeclaim a PR and have foreshadowed it or claim VT and have that lynch reluctance be consequence-free.

To clarify, I wrote this in response to you saying you're waiting for the horrordude ISO. If you had already cemented the fact that, from my ISO, you think it's a bus, then you waiting to see his ISO is just you saying "hey, look at me, I'm doing something town! give me points!". Hence my point.

I have not "cemented" the fact that it was a bus. I have said that it very strongly looks like a bus, but it's also a very tightly linked associative tell, and if Horror's actions towards you do not fit the idea of bussing scum, then it completely destroys the whole tell. That's why I made a prediction of what I would find. If that prediction fails to hold water, the single strongest scumtell I have on you is gone. You don't lynch off of an associative tell without seeing both sides - that's just common sense.

Also, I've only gotten two ISO's done, so yes, I'd like to get a couple more done before the day ends in case I'm NK'd.

The bottom paragraph of DH's iso 101 actually hints that he's going to claim vanilla if anything else.

I don't get where you see this as him softclaiming power at all.

I'm of the school that bringing up claims at all is to prime the idea of "PR" in everyone's mind. Vanilla townies shouldn't - and from my experience, don't - talk about claiming at all. They keep silent to make it harder for scum to shoot the right person, and they only claim when someone tells to. If you've had different experiences, I'm all ears.

Obviously, I can't answer for Socrates in any way, but I guess my question to you, Zach, is why is DH not a scum candidate of yours? And would you lynch him if it came down to no lynch or lynch DH?

[Zachrulez]

The bottom paragraph of DH's iso 101 actually hints that he's going to claim vanilla if anything else.

I don't get where you see this as him softclaiming power at all.

I'm of the school that bringing up claims at all is to prime the idea of "PR" in everyone's mind. Vanilla townies shouldn't - and from my experience, don't - talk about claiming at all. They keep silent to make it harder for scum to shoot the right person, and they only claim when someone tells to. If you've had different experiences, I'm all ears.

That's assuming optimal play. In practice, players make mistakes. Coloring that post as anything but a vanilla townie slip is ridiculous IMO. I don't find that post scummy.

Obviously, I can't answer for Socrates in any way, but I guess my question to you, Zach, is why is DH not a scum candidate of yours? And would you lynch him if it came down to no lynch or lynch DH?

Gut, and activity based meta. If it was between no lynch and lynch DH, I would lynch DH. In this game, that won't happen though. The player with the most votes will be lynched at the end of the day.

I also don't expect you to answer for Socrates, but on the same breath, you can't expect me to stop suspecting your slot just because you replaced in.

[Zachrulez]

I'm going to skip alphabetical order and do my horror iso next. If I find what I suspect I'll find – that is, horror completely ignoring DH – I'll vote DH right here and now.

If I don't, I'll be in a weird spot with a closing in deadline and very few iso's done.

I'll have to wing it from my impressions from the horror iso if I find they clear DH as town. Honestly, if horror iso gives a null impression on DH-scum I'll probably vote him anyway because a.) there are scumtells on DH beyond his connection with horror and b.) his playstyle of “post a lot, including insignificant back and forth reply wars, but without so much as taking the time to keep his tags working” is a detriment to town, so it's a decent lynch regardless of alignment.

Taking a break because I literally wrote that ISO instead of sleeping. Be back sometime today.

And the bolded is what bothers me about your play. (As opposed to Soc's)

I don't like the idea of you getting through the day with relatively few positions on everyone in the game.

[Zachrulez]

His ISO 10’s “Might vote Reckamonic, pending his answers to my questions” pings me as scummy. Scum tend to foreshadow their votes more than town.

Reading through your Ald case now. This point in particular interests me because of the quote in the post above, which it arguably you foreshadowing a DH vote.

[Zachrulez]

I’ve always used the hesitance to vote and the need to herald intentions before voting as scumtells. They’ve been useful but usually it’s hard to see when they are used. Aldus is, by far, the clearest example of this I’ve ever seen. It pops up over and over again. I won’t vote for him because this is the first ISO, but he’s probably getting my vote when I finish.

Aldus, if you’re town, a meta link where you show this same lynch-forecasting behavior as town would go a long way towards helping you out.

More foreshadowing.

[hitogoroshi]

That's assuming optimal play. In practice, players make mistakes. Coloring that post as anything but a vanilla townie slip is ridiculous IMO. I don't find that post scummy.

We'll have to agree to disagree on that point, then. It's not a keystone of the case like his interactions with horror, so feel free to ignore it.

I don't like the idea of you getting through the day with relatively few positions on everyone in the game.

Neither do I. But DH posted way too goddamn much and it took me quite a long time to parse his posts. You can look at my meta and see that my ISO style has nothing to do with me trying to obscure information. It's actually my attempt to provide as much information as possible. I should be posting content at a steadier clip with that roadblock out of the way.

Regarding the foreshadowing points, I think you've mis-understood what exactly scummy foreshadowing is. There are two big kinds.

First is objective foreshadowing. This is where someone either forwards an objective criterion for their vote (I'll vote for whoever has the least posts) or when they create an objective trigger to vote for a player (Demonhybrid's "I'm giving you until midnight EST to explain your vote, shotty, before I'll agree to policy lynching your spot" in ISO 92.) In both cases, the scummy thing is that they completely waive responsibility to their votes, and assuming no one attacks their criterion (which almost no one does, sadly) they have a perfect safe vote. Note that it isn't a scumtell if the objective criterion is perfectly valid - "I'm voting anyone the cop has a guilty on", for example.

The other one I don't have a snappy name for. Call it disproportionate-reaction-foreshadowing or something. It's when someone pings a target for a point that feels forced or out of place. Typically this'll be an FOS, or just a first "I find x scummy for minor point." Now, its also true that townies will very often find something scummy, point it out, and not want to vote for it right then. The difference is that scum foreshadowing is usually a forced, awkward point, with the scum rapidly trying to establish that they thought x was scum all along. The reason they make the forced point is mostly because they feel awkward snapping to a vote on someone they haven't said anything about. It's a scum personality tic, and like all tells of that nature, has to be taken with a grain of salt. I usually use it as weak justification, but Aldus did it so consistently and noticeably that I feel it has more power here.

A key hallmark of foreshadowing is that

it's clear they intend to vote that person soon, regardless of their response to the forced point.

For both Aldus and DemonHybrid, I did the exact opposite and explicitly defined what would destroy the keystones of my cases on them. (As an aside, this habit comes courtesy of me reading the fantastic book

The Black Swan

, which has made me paranoid about warding off confirmation bias.) In the case of Aldus, he has in fact provided a meta link (that I have yet to read - ISO's come first) that could potentially completely take down my case on him. In the case of Demonhybrid, anyone can look at the Horror iso (or my write-up of it, which I'll try to get to soon when there aren't so many questions for me to answer) and see whether or not it confirms my suspicions.

[Zachrulez]

Why not iso others and do DH last? Would have yielded more reads, and you could have even gotten some read of DH out if you couldn't have finished in time.

As for the foreshadowing, I don't see the difference between what you accused them of doing and what I saw you do.

I don't even think that foreshadowing your vote is scummy. The reason that this point of discussion is relevant to me is because you are arguing it is, and I see behavior from you that looks the same as what you're accusing them of.

[hitogoroshi]

Why not iso others and do DH last? Would have yielded more reads, and you could have even gotten some read of DH out if you couldn't have finished in time.

The blunt answer is just that I've never broken the order before. I like to go alphabetical by first person in the slot because then there's no question of me gaming the ISO order for any nefarious reasons. That being said, this distraction ended up making me skip around ANYWAY, and I think perhaps in the future I'll start "passing" on large ISO's for last. Hindsight is 20/20.

As for the foreshadowing, I don't see the difference between what you accused them of doing and what I saw you do.

Okay, here's the difference. Aldus has a post where he wrote “Might vote Reckamonic, pending his answers to my questions." He phrases it with an uncertain 'might', and we don't know what answers will 'clear' reck or not. His vote ends up being for the stated reason "maybe this will back up your reads", never really relating it to what answers he was looking for. Conversely, I said that I would certainty vote if my theory was true, but first I was going to look for the data - the data that anyone else can look for - that would prove me wrong. It's the difference between "I might vote for x or might not, what do you guys think" and "I think X is scum, but if Y is true, I'm much less certain."

Anyway:

Horrordude ISO

He does mention Demonhybrid in his post 1:

Demon, if he really IS reaction fishing, then surely you know that it becomes null when you bring it up, so why do it? Reactions can be a way to get a really good read on people sometimes.

It's just a conversational null-tell thing, though.

In his post three, he kinda chainsaw defends DH:

Well Volkann is town, so is Zach.
Unlike DemonHybrid.

Explanations would be lovely...

Of course, this is a very weak chainsaw defense, seeing as townies are also keen to have people explain their reasons.

Here's a bit from his ISO 15:

Espeonage, Zach, and Reckamonic are scum so far.

This isn't always true, but more often than not, a three person scum list from a confirmed scum will have two townies and one scumbuddy on it. Looking at his initial salvo on Zach, I highly doubt it's him. Espeon was replaced by shotty, who was town. So if the 2/1 trick is applicable here, I'd put my money on Reckamonic being the scumbuddy. This actually makes me a little less certain about Demon being scum because I severely, utterly doubt Reckamonic and DH are scumbuddies.

Not much else to glean from this ISO.

Horror managed to reference the most active player in the game only twice: once in a light conversational manner in the beginning, once by pointing out that Reck's suspicion on him was unfounded. It's exactly what I expected to find working off of the theory that horror and demonhybrid are scumbuddies.

Vote: DemonHybrid

(L-1)

I'll still be posting ISO's up until deadline.

[Skill006]

Eleventh Vote Count for Day 2:

DemonHybrid (4) – Reckamonic, Nikanor, Nobody Special, hitogoroshi

hitogoroshi (3) – Untrod Tripod, DemonHybrid, Zachrulez

Not Voting: vollkan, Alduskkel,

Deadline is Thursday, October 21, 10:00 pm CST.
With 9 alive, it takes 5 to lynch!

[vollkan]

I highly doubt the claim is fake because BOTH scum would have to survive through this day phase AND the next 2 in order to win, and a single one of them dying at any time and flipping scum damns the other instantly.

Right. But if they are scum, we can reasonably expect that they won't die other than by lynching. This makes it a kind of "Burn the person suspected of being a witch to see if they are a witch" situation. Masons aren't a threatening role for scum and the fact that the mason play has been scummy creates a ripe environment for scum to adopt the "Keep them away and play the WIFOM game" strategy.

I disagree, masons are in fact very threatening to scum, and that threat grows the longer masons are allowed to live. (They control a larger pro-town bloc of the voting the smaller the game gets.)

It depends on the ultimate LYLO formulation that arises. If we hit 3:2, it will be problematic. But if they are masons at it reaches 2:1, then we win.

This whole game is a misrep fest.

I'd echo what Hito said about 'misrep'. It's horribly overused.

Horrordude, to my recollection, didn't ask me a thing.

Then why did you exclude yourself from this list? Did he have some sort of meaningful conversation with you outside the bounds of questioning?

DH+2

, removal contingent on answer.

Nothing to do with the amount you post? I'm saying that LAL is an objective lynch mechanic (post count is a number) and it's an objective lynch mechanic that won't hit you. I'm not saying that only active scum bring up LAL, but I'm saying that every active scum would like to bring up LAL. This has everything to you with the amount you post and I'm kinda confused as to what you're calling a "misrep" here.

Do you think LAL is scummy?

I'm of the school that bringing up claims at all is to prime the idea of "PR" in everyone's mind. Vanilla townies shouldn't - and from my experience, don't - talk about claiming at all. They keep silent to make it harder for scum to shoot the right person, and they only claim when someone tells to. If you've had different experiences, I'm all ears.

But the post hinted at vanilla. I completely agree that threatening to claim, in the abstract, generally hints at PR, but when a player strongly implies that they are vanilla it's absurd to suggest that they are hinting that they are not vanilla.

Of course, this is a very weak chainsaw defense, seeing as townies are also keen to have people explain their reasons.

Repeat after me:

THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A CHAINSAW DEFENCE!

This isn't always true, but more often than not, a three person scum list from a confirmed scum will have two townies and one scumbuddy on it. Looking at his initial salvo on Zach, I highly doubt it's him. Espeon was replaced by shotty, who was town. So if the 2/1 trick is applicable here, I'd put my money on Reckamonic being the scumbuddy. This actually makes me a little less certain about Demon being scum because I severely, utterly doubt Reckamonic and DH are scumbuddies.

Reck+3

,

Zach-2

The Zach attacks from Horror have none of the telltale signs of bussing, and it also doesn't fit with the standard scum pattern of Vote: Townie, FoS: Buddy for Zach to be scum. So, this increases the likelihood of Reck being scum and reduces Zach's

Point tally coming in next post

[vollkan]

Scumdar
Alduskkel	50
DemonHybrid	60
Reckamonic	53
Nikanor	53
Hitogoroshi	57
Untrod Tripod	50
Nobody Special	58
Zachrulez	48

[Nikanor]

By the end of this game, everyone is going to be at 70.

[vollkan]

By the end of this game, everyone is going to be at 70.

1) I doubt it very much (I think this game is roughly on track with how my scores normally are, and I've never had a game with more than one or two people at 70+); and

2) What's your point anyway?

[Nikanor]

I don't understand how you think that most people are scummy when I have quite a few town reads.

[vollkan]

I don't understand how you think that most people are scummy when I have quite a few town reads.

I don't believe in towntells.

[DemonHybrid]

The point I was making was that it hurts the town, not that I think it's a scumtell.

Not even. When is trying to uncover as much information as possible a bad thing?

On the topic of my messed up tags:

This isn't a scumtell, it's anti-town.

Didn't say it was. Also, I don't agree that it's "anti-town". I messed up tags and thought that people with an elementary level of reading can put two and two together.

Then why did you exclude yourself from this list? Did he have some sort of meaningful conversation with you outside the bounds of questioning?

We've talked. He didn't ask me anything. Hence the misrep. And yes, I will be using "misrep" a lot, because that's what you're doing, buzzword or not.

Okay, I'll bite. Give me the scummiest things that Maemuki - as Maemuki, not any replacements - did. This obviously doesn't need to be a formal case, with the mason claim making Mae-scum unlikely. In fact, I'd prefer whatever you were thinking off the top of your head, but if you need to look at her in ISO as a refresher that's fine to.

When presented with a case, she just up and backed down without even posting a little bit of a defense.

Talked about how scummy horror was, but didn't vote.

I've posted all of this stuff before...why can't people read? It's not like my response is going to do anything, going to lynch me regardless, most likely.

Nothing to do with the amount you post? I'm saying that LAL is an objective lynch mechanic (post count is a number) and it's an objective lynch mechanic that won't hit you. I'm not saying that only active scum bring up LAL, but I'm saying that every active scum would like to bring up LAL. This has everything to you with the amount you post and I'm kinda confused as to what you're calling a "misrep" here.

I'm calling the fact that you think that because I post a lot, LAL takes the heat off of me. Hence the misrep. Again.

Okay you are not using the word "misrep" correctly (actually I think that word should just be stricken from the jargon and never used again, but that's a digression.) Misrepresentation is when I pretend you hold/have held a position you do not hold/have not held. It's a buzzword that's used way too much because far more misreps are caused by players of either alignment misreading poorly formatted posts than scum deliberately trying to incriminate someone.

I don't know what you mean by "You not wanting to even pay attention to the fact that I claim shows that you don't care about information, or who gets lynched."

I did acknowledge your "subsequent vanilla claim" in my iso.

Hardly. You blatantly said you didn't care.

The thing I find scummy about your vanilla claim[/quote]

There's the misrep.

Why is a vanilla claim scummy in the least? It's pure and simply null because town has just as much motivation to claim vanilla (I.E: They actually ARE vanilla) as mafia does.

Zach already shoved why my posts hinted towards a VT claim in your face already.

I have not "cemented" the fact that it was a bus.

Not by the way you were posting.

He gets scummier and scummier as the game goes on, particularly the connection between him and horror, which is textbook avoidance and busing

And yes, you really did post that.

Lynch hito after I'm gone. Of course, you guys are going to do nothing but tunnel me and see the "scumminess" in my post, when there's absolutely nothing. When I say you guys are misrepresenting me, you fucking are misrepresenting me, don't bullshit around and say "misrep" is a fucking "worthless buzzword" just to justify that you are misrepping me.

[DemonHybrid]

EBWOP:

The thing I find scummy about your vanilla claim

Messed up a tag.

Oh shit, I must be pro-town now. Look at me, fixing a tag. Total town tell

Oh shit, wait. Vollkan doesn't believe in town tells.

I've all but given up on this game. You could slice my wrist and be shot in the eye with boiling blood.

[Zachrulez]

If Vollkan votes based on his scores, DH is effectively hammered.

Reckamonic hasn't posted in 8 days.

Mod, Prod please?

[Skill006]

Reckamonic hasn't posted in 8 days.

Mod, Prod please?

You got it.

Prodding Reckamonic at this point in time.

[DemonHybrid]

I'm surprised Voll hasn't hammered me yet. I thought 58 was the cutoff?

[hitogoroshi]

Stars Aligned III has started and boy is it a timesink.

Espeonage/shotty

This ISO will probably be a little short, because when you're ISO'ing a dead player you're doing it to get a confirmed townies perspective, and...for christs sake, it's shotty.

Espeonage

Ah, the perpetual catching-up cycle. Never read the game enough to vote, so there's basicially nil content to speak of. FOS's DH, but I don't really count that as anything (even though I agree DH is scummy.) FoS's are cheap and worthless. 24 posts of nothing. Sweet.

shotty

A lot of spam and nothing, but really, who's surprised?

While I don't put that much stock into his scumhunting prowess, a confirmed townie is a confirmed townie, and so let me post his suspect list from the ashes:

@vulcan ok here I go I finally have time, and will for a long time )))))))))))))))))
I'll start with you- I think you are town sir, I thought you were scum at first glance, but when I reread I find you to be almost the one keeping this thread alive with a great deal of scum hunting.
Untrod Tripod- I find him on the border of town and anti-town, not scum, but really coming across as someone(like I used to be) floughting along and simply feed off of others Ideas.
Alduskkel- Grrrrr man I wish I like your style better, but from what I can tell you are town. Generaly nuetral, scum hunting and good play.
Scott- I find him town, don't ask why but he screams town at me
Reck- well I think he's obv town, but I really want to keep a close eye on him, because I know he is a really good player as scum and town.
Maemuki- ummmmmmm not sure, third on my scum list, well him tied with secrates, just because I can't tell
Zach- Scum, I just have this gut scum reading and I just can't explain why. He is good but scum.
DH- Scum, I think so, not sure, need more time to ISO him

That being said, I'm fairly certain Zach is town after his interactions with horror, and so that part of shottys suspicions I feel safe ignoring. I agree with his reads of DH-scum and volkan-town. His gut town read of Reckamonic is more surprising.

DH still thinkning about it, you have no idea how hard this is.

If you're referring to how hard it is to read DH's post...I do have an idea, man. I have a HELL of an idea.

His posts have a lot of yelling and not much substance. Overall, I can easily see his interactions with DH as being town on scum. There's not too much to be learned from this, though I will keep his reads in mind as a small respect to a confirmed townie.

I'll try to throw down my next ISO before the game ends here.