Mini 489: Short and Sweet Mafia - Game Over

[Sarcastro]

I think some people are going a bit overboard with the theme. Ibby didn't make this game as some weird experiment - she made it because games these days take way longer than they used to. Take a look at the mini archives - most games from as recently as a couple of years ago took under 20 pages. There's no need to do anything foolish like skip random voting and such - we just need to not take as long. If there's a good wagon, finish it rather than waiting around for pages and pages discussing inane things.

So anyway, who wants to see if we can lynch Guardian before we get to the second page?

Vote: Guardian

That second vote on Pooky was lame.

[Sarcastro]

Oh, come on. It’s been more than a week, and you guys still haven’t lynched CTD? He’s practically confessed to being scum. I admit that I could have pointed you in the right direction by voting him, but I didn’t see his post until I got back. Besides, do I have to spell everything out for you? This is just amateur.

So, Sarcastro.

So anyway, who wants to see if we can lynch Guardian before we get to the second page?

I take it you are joking, considering you just spent a whole paragraph explaining why there's no need to do "anything foolish".

On the other hand, it appears like your vote is

not

your usual, run-off-the-mill random vote.

That sends quite the conflicting message.

If LML were still alive, he'd say that "joking is scummy", and for once, I'm gonna subscribe to his newsletter:

Vote: Sarcastro

I’m sorry, what?

Okay, let’s start at the beginning. You understand that I’m joking. Good start. That’s a lot better than a lot of people get. After that it gets hazier. My vote is not the usual run-of-the-mill vote? Well, no, it isn’t, but why precisely is that a revelation? I think I made it pretty clear that I was voting Guardian because of his random vote on Pooky, which I didn’t like, considering the other random vote on Pooky, especially considering how he advocating skipping the random-voting stage. Oh, and because I like Pooky. Now, I don’t exactly consider this game-breaking evidence, but it was the scummiest thing I’d seen so far.

Now we get the real scummy bit: the dreaded conflicting message. Now, explain to me why it creates a “conflicting message” to make a joke about a non-random vote. Did I miss some memo about that? As I understood it, it was okay to make jokes about whatever I want. So yeah, that kind of falls apart. In fact, it makes you look kind of like scum trying to conjure a reason for voting for me based on a superficial but substance-lacking “conflicting message”. Funny, that.

Onwards! Now you apparently forget about what you just said and declare that I’m scummy simply for joking. Or is that joking about something partially-serious? You don’t seem to feel like clarifying. Putting words into the mouths of the dead is a nice touch, by the way. Regardless, though, you think that my joking was scummy. This is even despite the implication that you give that you wouldn’t normally support the view that joking is inherently scummy. So, if I’ve understood this correctly, you don’t think that joking is inherently scummy, you just think that

my

joke is scummy. Presumably, this is because of the other evidence presented in your case.

Except that I just explained why the other evidence makes no sense. In addition, even if it did, it actually seems to contradict your new evidence. In the one case you seem to imply that I’m secretly not joking, and in the other you say that I’m scummy for joking. Intriguing.

In conclusion, I think it’s pretty obvious that your entire case is based on incredibly superficial reasoning. Rather scummy superficial reasoning, to be honest.

I’m obviously not a huge fan of VitaminR’s or Albert’s votes, either, but VitaminR’s is similar to mine, I suppose. Albert’s is worse, but it’s kind of what I’ve started expecting.

Now, to quickly address a couple of things. First, the rather minor issue VitaminR and later Trumpezia mention about the two FoSes on Guardian when I voted for him. To be frank, I didn’t even notice them, but I probably wouldn’t have cared had I, and I don’t really see why it’s all that scummy.

More importantly, there’s the joke – the whole reason CTD voted for me in the first place. Honestly, I don’t know why I have to keep explaining this. Is it just that I haven’t gained the reputation for it that some people have? I like making facetious statements about how sure I am that someone is scum and how quickly we should lynch them. That’s it. It does have some roots in the fact that I tend to get bored early in the game and so like fast Day Ones, but seriously, I’m just being hyperbolic. Posts like this bug me:

So anyway, who wants to see if we can lynch Guardian before we get to the second page?

Vote: Guardian

That second vote on Pooky was lame.

How serious were you being here? If you were being at all serious, this was complete bullshit. How was the second vote on Pooky lame? What is with the Pooky defense...?

Honestly, why do you feel the need to ask me how serious I’m being? I try not to get angry about stuff like this, but you’re absolutely mind-bogglingly stupid if you think that I was actually being serious about trying to lynch you that fast, especially considering you’ve been in other games in which I’ve had to explain this to people.

Even if you want to read something into my jokes and exaggerations, at least do so in a logical way, pointing out exactly why they are scummy.

As for CTD, I said about Sarcastro's post was really too scummy to be scummy, and I think a town would have more reservations about Sarcastro than to throw a vote on that quickly.

Are you two scum together?

• First of all "too scummy to be scum" is a horribly fallacious argument (refer to this wiki article).
  
• Secondly, if you acknowledge that the post
  was
  indeed scummy, why do you question me voting him for it?
  
• Thirdly, I
  really
  don't like your assumption that a "town would have more reservations" in this context. My vote on Sarcastro was only the second, so hell no, there's nothing to be reserved about.
  
• Fourthly, we are on a tight schedule in this game due to the particular mechanics, and it is in the town's best interest to investigate leads swiftly. I find it
  highly
  uncharacteristic of a pro-town player to call for cautiousness in this set-up after only 3 votes have been accumulated out of the random voting stage.
  
• Fifthly, why the hell are you jumping to Sarcastro's defense so readily, before he himself has answered to the accusations?
  
• Sixthly, where is your belief that his post was "too scummy to be scummy" coming from when you haven't even heard his justification for it?

As for the LML kill:
Speculating on the reason behind his kill is utterly pointless, and a detriment to the town in my opinion. It amounts to pure WIFOM, and we won't know the answer until the scum tells us in post-game. Use our limited amount of posts doing something that will actually help us catch scum, kthxbai.

Hurrah, another CTD post to tear apart.

1. What Trumpezia said is not at all equivalent to the “Too Townie” fallacy, for multiple reasons. First of all, Trumpezia did not say “too scummy to be scum” but “too scummy to be scummy” – that is, while the statement being scummy if taken seriously (which it obviously shouldn’t be) is not indicative of my being scum, neither is it indicative of my being town. Trumpezia, as far as I can tell, was merely stating that that specific statement can’t really be construed as scummy, because it was obviously too scummy to be anything but a joke. In addition, there’s the fact that Trumpezia was only referring to one line, not to my play throughout a game. There’s no such thing as a “Too Townie Line” fallacy.
2. Though this is addressed to Trumpezia (and may have already been answered), I’d like to point out that Trumpezia is quite clearly saying that the post was

not

scummy, and simply looks superficially scummy.
3&4. Nothing really to say about these.
5. Maybe because Trumpezia actually realised that I wasn’t scummy and that you’re trying to pretend that I am?
6. This makes no sense. What does my justification have to do with anything?

You are entirely right about speculating about the LML kill, however. There’s really no good reason to try to analyse nightkills, especially Night One kills.

So once again, we see CTD putting words into other people’s mouths and somehow deciding that my post was very scummy without actually providing any reasoning to that effect.

Sarcastro also wins the vote because of reasons previously stated.

What reasons? You haven’t given any reasons. CTD’s “reasons” are absolute rubbish and VitaminR’s is rather weak (speaking of which, I don’t know why he’s kept his vote on me, despite obviously more concrete reasons coming along).

So anyway, to sum up, anyone attacking Sarc is obviously scum of the most scumtastic sort. Specifically CTD, who’s using absolutely crap reasoning to push an attack on someone who no doubt looked like an easy target at the time.

Unvote, Vote: CrashTextDummie

[Sarcastro]

Wow, Sarc, what a load of OMGUSy crap.

Oh, damn, I forgot that rule that said that you're not allowed to vote for anyone voting for you. How silly of me. Everyone knows that logic doesn't apply when someone's voted for you already - no matter what you say, no matter how reasonable or rational, is simply a mask, disguising the irrational OMGUS impulse that lurks beneath.

To be honest, I think that you're being a bit more OMGUS than I am. You attacked me, and I completely tore apart your argument until it lay on the ground, bloody and begging for the sweet release of death. You could have simply honoured that wish, but instead you thrust its broken body back into battle to take another beating, simply because I attacked you while defending myself.

Now, perhaps that's not necessarily true. But it's just as plausible as your off-hand comment that my entire argument was OMGUS.

Now we get the real scummy bit: the dreaded conflicting message. Now, explain to me why it creates a “conflicting message” to make a joke about a non-random vote. Did I miss some memo about that? As I understood it, it was okay to make jokes about whatever I want. So yeah, that kind of falls apart.

In general, I have no problem with jokes during the random voting stage. People make them because there is no basis for serious, insightful posts and votes yet. You on the other hand, seemed to have a basis for a serious vote, which makes joking already redundant.

As for the conflicting message:
Seeing as your vote had reasoning behind it, it is implied that you were actually suspicious of Guardian, and hence were interested in seeing some real pressure on him. Yet by suggesting to quicklynch him, even in jest, you seemed to be trying to achieve the exact opposite. Most people, when seeing such a suggestion, disregard it as entirely silly, and will look at a forming bandwagon with scrutiny.

By making this particular joke, you took whatever punch there was behind your vote away, which clearly can't be in the interest of a pro-town player. It's great for scum though.

Wow, I sure sound awfully clever. I had no idea I was thinking all of those things when I casually made a joke as I voted someone for a real, but admittedly small, reason.

You're using a rather large number of words to make the exact same substanceless argument you made before: that somehow making a joke about my perfectly normal vote is scummy. You seem to be willing to go to great lengths to invent reasons for this to be so, but none of them make sense.

People will disregard a serious suggestion if there is a joke attached to it? I can see why they would disregard the joke part, but why on earth would that extend to the actual vote? I certainly don't think that way, and I don't see why other people should. I suppose we could poll people, if you'd like.

In addition, even if you were correct, why exactly would scum do what you're suggesting? You're suggesting that it's in the scum's interest to find a real reason for a vote, and then to invalidate it using a magic joke. If scum don't want to seriously put votes on people, why wouldn't they just not make the serious vote in the first place? All this, of course, is accepting your ludicrous assertion that scum don't want "pressure" applied to the person they're voting. I just don't understand why you think scum would do any of this, consciously or unconsciously. Again, all your reasoning is superficial and has no real logic behind it.

So, if I’ve understood this correctly, you don’t think that joking is inherently scummy, you just think that

my

joke is scummy.

That is correct. By the way, LML's stance on joking is well documented, so the suggestion that I'm "putting words in his mouth" is quite preposterous.

I didn't say you were making it up. I was just making a joke about how it seemed a bit cheesy to quote the dead guy.

Except that I just explained why the other evidence makes no sense. In addition, even if it did, it actually seems to contradict your new evidence. In the one case you seem to imply that I’m secretly not joking, and in the other you say that I’m scummy for joking. Intriguing.

I am implying that you were purposefully ambiguous in your intentions, hence using a joke in a scummy manner. Bye the way, for someone who's accusing me of putting words into other people's mouths, you're doing an awful lot of it yourself.

When did I do that? I simply noted what it seemed to me that you were saying.

In conclusion, I think it’s pretty obvious that your entire case is based on incredibly superficial reasoning. Rather scummy superficial reasoning, to be honest.

Well, duh. When there's no material to base profound reasoning on, which is the case on page 1 of virtually every game, you have to go for something comparatively superficial. That's the nature of the game.

But seeing your hyper-defensive and OMGUSy reaction, I'm feeling pretty good about this early suspicion.

Um, no, when you're

scum

you go for something superficial. Superficial does not mean that it's just sort of weak, like VitaminR's reason for voting me or my reason for voting Guardian. It means that your argument has

no

real substance - you give no adequate explanation as to why scum would actually do what you say is scummy, you merely assert that it is.

Hyper-defensive and OMGUSy, eh? Well, I've already covered the OMGUSy, and I'm not sure how defending myself and pointing out that you're scum is hyper-defensive. To be honest, I find that sentence rather scummy in and of itself.

Moving on:

1. What Trumpezia said is not at all equivalent to the “Too Townie” fallacy, for multiple reasons. First of all, Trumpezia did not say “too scummy to be scum” but “too scummy to be scummy” – that is, while the statement being scummy if taken seriously (which it obviously shouldn’t be) is not indicative of my being scum, neither is it indicative of my being town. Trumpezia, as far as I can tell, was merely stating that that specific statement can’t really be construed as scummy, because it was obviously too scummy to be anything but a joke.

There seems to be some mind-reading going on here. Talk about putting words into people's mouths. I interpreted his post differently, but I sure appreciate another take on it (even though it differs from his own...).

Mind-reading? I was giving my interpretation based on the simple fact that the phrase you quoted Trumpezia as saying has a significantly different meaning than the one that was actually said. If this isn't what Trumpezia, meant, fine, but I'm not putting words in anybody's mouth. Again, I made it clear that it was my interpretation.

2. Though this is addressed to Trumpezia (and may have already been answered), I’d like to point out that Trumpezia is quite clearly saying that the post was

not

scummy, and simply looks superficially scummy.

You're really going out of your way to defend Trumpezia. Even more so than he did for you.

First of all, I'd like to clarify that pointing out when someone else is being illogical and scummy is not necessarily equivalent to defending anyone else. I'm simply responding because your arguments were relevant to your crap argument against me.

3&4. Nothing really to say about these.

That's a damn shame, because they're pretty damn important.

Oh, so when I respond, I'm answering for Trumpezia, but when I avoid answering questions that are relevant only to Trumpezia and not to me, it's a "damn shame"? You're pretty eager to try to turn anything into an argument against me, aren't you?

5. Maybe because Trumpezia actually realised that I wasn’t scummy and that you’re trying to pretend that I am?

I'll get back to this in a moment.

6. This makes no sense. What does my justification have to do with anything?

Everything. The single most efficient way to get a read on someone, in my opinion, is to analyze their reaction to being attacked. To torpedo an attack before the attacked person has reacted to it is therefore completely counter-productive, even if you don't agree with the attack.

If Trumpezia is town, he should have had an interest in seeing your own justification for your post. By sticking his neck out for you because he interpreted your one single post differently, he put quite a lot of blind faith into a player based on very little. Quite an unorthodox approach to a game where everyone is generally supposed to be suspicious of everyone.

Again, maybe he just, you know, realised that you were behaving in an incredibly scummy fashion. And it's not as if he removed the need for my response. To be honest, I didn't even pay attention to what Trumpezia said. Defending someone against a crap accusation has nothing to with "blind faith" - where does Trumpezia say that I'm definitely town? Again, stop putting ridiculous words into people's mouths.

So anyway, to sum up, anyone attacking Sarc is obviously scum of the most scumtastic sort. Specifically CTD, who’s using absolutely crap reasoning to push an attack on someone who no doubt looked like an easy target at the time.

You seem to operate under the mindset that everyone attacking you is scum, and everyone defending you is town, which is exceptionally and inexplicably naive for a player of your caliber. And the amount of word-twisting and spin-doctoring you've done on my posts is remarkable.

Happy with my vote.

I love the bit where you just repeat what I said, and say I "seem to operate under the mindset" of it. Of course, it's pretty clear that I was joking, and, therefore, that not everyone attacking me is scum. You are, quite frankly, a complete idiot if you think that's actually what I'm doing. I really hope that you don't actually think that, because I don't think that you're a complete idiot.

Word-twisting and spin-doctoring, eh? It would have been helpful if you'd pointed that out while actually responding to things that I said, rather than just tacking it on as a blanket statement at the end. It makes it rather more obviously that you're just making it up. I did neither of those things.

Well, I'm glad that you're happy, at least. It probably would have been smarter for you to just abandon ship - I wouldn't have really thought it all that scummy, to be honest, given that I had only made one post, and that it would be pretty easy to change your mind, but I'm fairly certain now that you are, indeed, scum.

[Sarcastro]

I liked Sarcastro's post a lot.

FOS: ABR

This makes no sense to me. Also Sarc's post are really empty of any good reasoning.

I don't have much to add besides that.

Yeah, thanks, that's incredibly helpful. Let's just assert that Sarc's posts don't have good reasoning, despite the fact that it is plentiful and right before our eyes, without actually giving

any

reasoning or arguments whatsoever for why this is so.

Stop being lazy, whether you're scum or town. If you don't like my posts, explain why, rather than just saying something idiotic.

[Sarcastro]

Given the nature of this game, I'm not really comfortable getting into a long exchange of short posts trying to get you to actually explain what you mean.

Could you just stop being a lazy ass and actually make an argument? Where did I make anything up? Why doesn't it make sense?

This is why people enjoy lynching you so much, Albert.

[Sarcastro]

Once again, Albert is apparently too lazy to even construct his own thoughts.

Sorry, CTD, but I don't see the point of your last post. Are you saying that my attack is OMGUS because I said it would have been less scummy to abandon your shoddy case than to keep attacking me without any discernable logic?

When did I say that your original attack on me wasn't scummy? It was incredibly scummy, and I certainly wouldn't have changed my mind about it had you backed off once it was made clear how bad your case was, but it would have at least made you look less scummy than you do now.

Also, I'd like to point out that I think it's a bit telling that the part of my posts you choose to criticise actually has very little to do with case against you. Both of the things you quote are relatively unimportant comments - simply me explaining why my vote wasn't OMGUS (since apparently the fact that my argument was completely rational was not enough) and me commenting that you should have abandoned ship when you had the chance.

[Sarcastro]

Hey everyone. I've been completely neglecting all of my games, and I've (probably temporarily) lost interest in playing mafia, so I've asked to be replaced. I notice that I'm at lynch-1, which is rather unfortunate, because CTD's case was completely nonsensical and incredibly scummy. I'm quite honestly surprised that he isn't the one being wagonned, but I suppose that's what happens when one of the players disappears. I haven't actually read anything in this game that came after my last post, so I don't know if I'm mostly being run up for lurking or what, but if so, I'd urge you all to check my recent posts - I haven't posted in any of my mafia games recently, just stuff in Mish Mash. Given the nature of this particular game, of course, and the fact that lynching me would save Ibby having to find a replacement, I realise that it's a likely outcome. If you do, however, I very strongly urge you to lynch CTD tomorrow. I am more sure that he's scum than I have ever been about anyone before based on anything less than complete proof.

[Sarcastro]

Ugh, I feel responsible for the scum loss. If I'd actually defended myself, there's no way I would have been lynched (no, seriously, I can prove it with science). Normally I'd be a little mad that I was basically lynched for lurking at a time when it would have been easy to see that I wasn't posting in

any

of my games, but I think it's a bit more defensible in this game, given the shorter timeframe. As for CTD's arguments against me - well, I think I made my feelings clear about those.

Kudos to CES for replacing into a bad position and actually making something of it by outing the cop. Congratulations to Rishi for awesome vigging (though you should have killed someone N0 as well, unless you weren't allowed to). Sorry to everyone, especially Coron and VitR, for my neglect of this game on D1.