US Election 08 Mafia(Someone has won, has America lost?)

[EmpTyger]

Vote: Natirasha

Here are the arguments for appeasing Natirasha, with rebuttals:

1) It’s just a little bit of harmless fun.

It would only be harmless if he followed it up with helpfulness. He is not. He habitually does not. I have given him a period of time (only 24 hours, given that we are in a deadline situation and Natirasha deserves no benefit of the doubt given his history) to see if he will be helpful. Instead, he’s persisting with unhelpful behavior.

2) IS (or whatever other precedent anyone wants to bring up) played badly and they were respected for it.

IS, albeit unconventionally, tried to find mafia. This helps the town and allowed evaluation of IS. Natirasha is not trying to find mafia. Natirasha is not helping the town. IS tried to win. Natirasha isn’t.

3) It’s only page X/it’s only the random vote stage.

Natirasha has made it quite clear, in this game and in prior ones, that he will and he expects to carry on this behavior much longer than that.

4) We can leave him alone until later. He might improve.

An “I’ll be better later” has no value- his word is rubbish and it’s contradicted by precedent. Appeasing him only allows him to continue this behavior, and encourages other antitown players. Waiting only brings us closer to lynch-or-lose.

5) Natirasha always plays like this, so there’s no reason to think he’s mafia. And we should lynch someone we think is mafia.

First of all, there’s no reason to think he *isn’t* mafia. Second of all, there are plenty of reasons to think he’s mafia. He’s stating that he won’t provide any reason why he might be protown until late in the game- he’s going to hindering the town’s ability to find mafia with the expectation that he’ll be able to get away with it.

That’s what mafia do.

And, short of an outright confession, how could another player top that today in terms of lynchworthiness?

6) Okay, let’s kill him, but vigkill is better than lynch.

If we’re killing someone now and someone tonight, then the vigilante will be able to make a more informed decision for their kill if Natirasha is lynched first. If the town lynches a secondary target first and then the vigilante kills Natirasha, the kills are based on less information. (And, that’s not taking into account that Natirasha could be an unnightkillable Godfather, or SK, or some other antitown powerrole. Or that there might not be a vigilante, or multiple vigilantes, or the vigilante is only 1-shot.)

---

Spambot:
If you still somehow haven’t yet figured it out:
This is not the first time Natirasha has done this. This is with a long precedent. My experience consists of only 1 completed game (Mini 678), in which as town, he started d1 voting himself, and started d2 saying “I think I should be lynched”. He lurked, posting only exactly so often to avoid replacement (which he explicitly admitted). His only contributions were feeble defenses of his action.

He never tried to find mafia.

At the end of d2 the mod forcibly replaced him.) Skimming his other games, I have discovered this appears to be a constant pattern, to the point where he apparently has been warned by a sitemod about violating “play to win” rules.

---

Kairyuu:

I suppose that is just one of my firmly held convictions, but I won't support a lynch that I see as wasted.

It’s only a wasted lynch if Natirasha is innocent. Why do you believe that?

<snip>
It is acceptable to lynch an SK, but suboptimal.
<snip>
lynching a neutral is always less than optimal play, especially when the claimed neutral is openly anti-town.
<snip>

Explain? Lynching a SK is a suboptimal play?

---

Vi:

<snip>
Nonetheless, I'm willing to give Nati enough time to show us his alignment without telling us.
<snip>

Specifically, how much time is enough time?

[Spambot]

Vote Spambot

I hate spam and the fact that you have no avatar bothers me.

*hopes joke voting is still acceptable*

The avatar size limits here are BS. If somebody supplies an avatar, I will use it.

[Spambot]

*Is Spamking scummy for suggesting a massclaim?

Depends. Not necessarally, but I still want to hear why he decided to bring it up.

That's funny, I'm pretty sure I already said why I brought it up. Are you reading the thread?

Vote: Yosarian2

[Spambot]

Spambot:
If you still somehow haven’t yet figured it out:
This is not the first time Natirasha has done this. This is with a long precedent. My experience consists of only 1 completed game (Mini 678), in which as town, he started d1 voting himself, and started d2 saying “I think I should be lynched”. He lurked, posting only exactly so often to avoid replacement (which he explicitly admitted). His only contributions were feeble defenses of his action.

He never tried to find mafia.

At the end of d2 the mod forcibly replaced him.) Skimming his other games, I have discovered this appears to be a constant pattern, to the point where he apparently has been warned by a sitemod about violating “play to win” rules.

Fair enough, you are among a good number of people who are advocating this. However, while I can see where you are coming from, I'd think that if he's going to act like that it would be much better if he was just replaced. Like, if he's that disruptive to playing the game, don't you guys have a blacklist or something?

Mod:

Is it possible that, should a majority of players vote for it, we could get a player replaced?

[ortolan]

This is unnecessary. You haven't given him a chance to play properly and he has attempted to justify his play style and original self-vote- see Posts 81 85, 88.

Sure, vote for him, but asking for him to be replaced is over-the-top.

[Vi]

Hiya Vi!

*waves*

That's unfortunate, but easily proveable. If there is a vig then Nat will die tonight. If not, he won't, and we decide what to do with him tomorrow.

That seems a bit simplistic, but whatever.

Specifically, how much time is enough time?

Half of today.
I'm somewhat of a Nati sympathizer because I knew him before coming to this site, and I'm against an immediate policy lynch D1 of anyone; but your argument is grounded in "past performance influences present expectations" - which as a statistician I'm not about to argue against.

@Spambot: Don't you think a majority of players voting for someone takes care of whether that person should be replaced?
It's not like people couldn't opt /out as soon as he said /in, you know.
Also, about that avatar. What are you thinking?

[Spambot]

@Spambot: Don't you think a majority of players voting for someone takes care of whether that person should be replaced?
It's not like people couldn't opt /out as soon as he said /in, you know.
Also, about that avatar. What are you thinking?

That's missing the point. If a majority of players are voting for somebody for some meta reason instead of them thinking they are actually scum in this game, then we might as well be randomly lynching day 1. If a player is that bad that people want to just lynch him day 1 every game, it would save us a potential mislynch by getting him replaced instead.

Also, I like surprises.

[charter]

vote Kairyuu

I wanted to get my random vote in but was Rushed with the Holidays so I'll just have to settle for a serious one.

First point I see to comment on, a mod including a jester in a game without telling people is terrible and I don't want to play in that game or any game that mod hosts again. I'm fine assuming there is no jester.

Second, anyone voting Nat is just looking for a place to put their vote.

Third, 71 is a gross overreaction.

Fourth, I am for a mass nameclaim, but am fine if it doesn't happen. Last game I was in with a mass nameclaim day one, I caught a scum very fast because he made asinine assumptions about the setup. I don't see that happening here, but I don't see any harm that can come.

[Max]

Yos, do you think that Vi is scum?

[EmpTyger]

Natirasha should not be lynched for metareasons, or as a policy lynch. (At least, I’m not arguing that.)

He should be lynched for his actions within this game.

Which are 100% antitown, and which he stated explicitly and implicitly that he has no intention of trying to alter.

---

Vi:

<snip>
I'm somewhat of a Nati sympathizer because I knew him before coming to this site, and I'm against an immediate policy lynch D1 of anyone; but your argument is grounded in "past performance influences present expectations" - which as a statistician I'm not about to argue against.

Past performance is only relevant in that it shows that Natirasha is well cognizant of what he is doing, and therefore deserves no second chances, no patience. This is not a policy lynch.

<snip>
It's not like people couldn't opt /out as soon as he said /in, you know.
<snip>

Think about that for a second. Are you trying to say that, because he won’t play by the rules, other people, will would be, should not play?

---

charter:

<snip>
Second, anyone voting Nat is just looking for a place to put their vote.

On the contrary. I’m voting Natirasha because he’s behaved the most suspiciously.

<snip>
Fourth, I am for a mass nameclaim, but am fine if it doesn't happen. Last game I was in with a mass nameclaim day one, I caught a scum very fast because he made asinine assumptions about the setup. I don't see that happening here, but I don't see any harm that can come.

Why don’t you see that happening here?

[EmpTyger]

Not that further proof should be needed, but in case this helps convince anyone that it's not just a randomvote gimmick:

<snip>
We already have a RV bandwagon, so we have left the RVS.

According to Natirasha, we're out of the randomvote stage, and he is still voting himself and arguing that he is entitled to.

[Stephen Colbert]

Mod:

Is it possible that, should a majority of players vote for it, we could get a player replaced?

If a majority of players send me PMs saying they want someone replaced, I will replace them. I'm not going to have the thread clogged by votes for replacing when there is other voting you should be doing. That is, however, a bit of a waste of time.

Also, since I had a couple questions about it and it's pretty important, I'll be shortly editing the rules to say that if you haven't made a decision by deadline, it's a no-lynch. I thought that was there before, but apparently not

[Vi]

He should be lynched for his actions within this game. Which are 100% antitown, and which he stated explicitly and implicitly that he has no intention of trying to alter.

Well when you spritz it like

that

--
#0 - confirm
#1 - irrelevant
#2 - irrelevant
#3 - Randoms himself, calls self an SK.
#4 - Elaborates to call himself a bunch of things. Because on occasion my logic ventures outside my claustrophobically rigid axioms, I'm inclined to call this a "joke".
#5 - Adds "Jester" to his title and explains that he's messing with you. (And it's working.)
#6 - Asks why he's being bandwagoned for joking around on Page 2. (Granted, it's all people have to go on.)
#7 - Explains that he wants to always claim SK, and forewarns that we shouldn't expect much from him today.
#8 - Gripes that he can't find anyone because it's Page 3.
#9 - Explains history of claiming SK.
#10 - Tells Badguy that random voting's over.
#11 - I agree with the first part of this post, that the discussion of Natirasha's meta isn't helping this at all. I'm less inclined to agree with the second part, where he basically says that he's being taken for granted, but he has a point.

100% anti-Town is a stretch for generalizing his posts, although I wouldn't characterize it as pro-Town; if nothing else, he's playing exactly the way I'd expect him to as either alignment. So lemme ask this - after Natirasha #5, what

could

he have done to improve himself?

Past performance is only relevant in that it shows that Natirasha is well cognizant of what he is doing, and therefore deserves no second chances, no patience. This is not a policy lynch.

This is a record for the most brazen contradiction I've encountered. This is precisely a policy lynch, because what he's doing is up to this point a null-tell. This is beyond Natirasha's meta, this is

common sense

. If someone else claimed SK on Page 2 in any other game, would you take it seriously?
Granted, it could be the truth. But those times are the exceptions, and I wouldn't use a random-vote joke to make the divination.

Think about that for a second. Are you trying to say that, because he won’t play by the rules, other people, will would be, should not play?

What

rules

?
And yes, there exist players that I would not willingly play with and would /out from a game if I saw them join. Though they usually sign up before me, and I just silently give the game a skip... Anyway.

According to Natirasha, we're out of the randomvote stage, and he is still voting himself and arguing that he is entitled to.

Isn't legalism endearing?
However, I would like to see Nati vote someone else at this point.

[Natirasha]

The problem with the precendent you have with me EmpTyger is that the games we are in--and have been in--are different from my normal type of game. If you, ya know, looked at the interesting games I've been in.
(Most specifically, Mind Screw 2, Abyss layer 21, and Realistic) My play is dramatically different. I join games that look interesting and, face it, any game can be fun(Carbon-14 taught me that), if the player base is fun.

The thing is, we think differently, ET(and Yaw). I think more along the lines of "gut" you think more along the lines of "strategem". You guys worry about the day game which, I am willing to admit, I fail at. I excel in use of power roles or mafiaing. In fact, and I openly admit this, I have only been lynched as scum twice, both times on a counter-claim basis(that's not even to mention I've only lost as mafia twice, and one was because of a skewed setup). I lurk more in games where I am not scum(or a power role). And you've only seen me as a vanilla(Yaw hasn't seen me at all). So, face it, your meta on me is a strictly-vanilla meta. Maybe doing a little research could help you. More specifically, the three game I mentioned above are prime examples of how I act as an SK, Mafia, and Power Role.

And, before you say anything ET, I am a defensive-minded player. I respond to attacks on me, but I'm not good at attacking others.

One thing I take offense to is that I "Don't try to find mafia". Although I don't write novels or use fancy bars or, heck, I've never even taken a formal debate class, I do try to find mafia. I draw opinions on players and I do, believe it or not, have a secret code that has helped me many times in the past. Why, I believe right now I can pin at least two power roles and 4 townies. But that information is best kept secret for now. Heck, in fact, I have my feeling my greatest defender is actually scum...

unvote

[EmpTyger]

Natirasha:

<snip>
Heck, in fact, I have my feeling my greatest defender is actually scum...
<snip>

I don’t know whether you think you’re being oh-so-clever or merely just blatantly lying. I could see you thinking that since you are your “greatest defender”, this lets you be stupidly clever.

But I just think you are still blatantly lying. If you honestly thought that you had discerned at least 4+2 roles this early, you wouldn’t have been using the fact that it was page 2 or 3 or whatever as your sole defense for why the attacks on you were invalid. Either way, vote stays. The fact that you supposedly suspect someone is guilty and are doing nothing about it is icing on the cake.

Although, let’s make this interesting. List us your alleged 6 innocents, and your alleged guilty, and give us something to sift through after your death.

(I am not going to otherwise respond to your ridiculous implication that “being vanilla townsperson” is an acceptable reason to not try to win.)

---

Vi:
Let me try something. How will you be deciding who to lynch today?

<snip>
100% anti-Town is a stretch for generalizing his posts, although I wouldn't characterize it as pro-Town; if nothing else, he's playing exactly the way I'd expect him to as either alignment.

So is your winning strategy “hoping Natirasha isn’t antitown”? Do you have any way to deal with the possibility of Natirasha being mafia?

So lemme ask this - after Natirasha #5, what

could

he have done to improve himself?

Change his behavior. Try to help the town. Try to find mafia. Not vow to play like this indefinitely.

<snip>
If someone else claimed SK on Page 2 in any other game, would you take it seriously?
Granted, it could be the truth. But those times are the exceptions, and I wouldn't use a random-vote joke to make the divination.

I’m not voting him because he claimed SK. I’m concluding that he’s being as unhelpful as he can get away with.

That’s what mafia do.

That’s why I’m voting him.

(And, yes. If another acted as Natirasha did, I’d act the same. If someone is persistently not trying to help the town, they are more likely to be mafia. I might have slightly more patience if they didn’t have such an outrageous track record that I knew that any patience I exhibited would be futile, but otherwise, yes.)

<snip>
What

rules

?

I was referring to “play to win”.

<snip>
However, I would like to see Nati vote someone else at this point.
<snip>

So would I. He’s not. I’m voting him because of it. You’re excusing him. What are you expecting to happen based on your argument?

[Natirasha]

Pro-Town
EmpTyger
Natirasha
Yaw
Spambot
Nikelaos
Kairyuu

Anti-Town
Vi(sorry, bud)

[Vi]

The fact that you supposedly suspect someone is guilty and are doing nothing about it is icing on the cake.

This concerns me as well.

@the rest of EmpTyger's post: I mentioned earlier that I would give him some time before making a decision, but I didn't realize that this is still giving him preferential treatment. Reconsidering my stance, I'm still willing to let the SK bit go but will not give him nearly so much of the benefit of the doubt.

-----

Anti-Town
Vi(sorry, bud)

Why.
Incidentally, your list of Pro-Town people looks like everyone who's posted. Ingenious.

[Yaw]

I feel like I'm repeating people here, but whatever.

And you've only seen me as a vanilla(Yaw hasn't seen me at all).

This is actually false. We were both in Read Your Role Mafia, in which you decided to lurk through the first day as long as you could, then when called on it by the other players stated that the game wasn't interesting enough to be worth your time. When significant numbers of players rightfully got irate over this behaviour, and the fact you weren't actually trying to post to make things more interesting, you requested replacement.

Though I will say your last two posts showed a definite improvement. That said, if you believe Vi to be scum, why aren't you voting for him? Pressuring him? Trying to build up a bandwagon on him? Even if you're bad at it, it's rather bizarre not to be making the attempt.

Second, anyone voting Nat is just looking for a place to put their vote.

Well, yes and no. Yes, to the extent that the first bandwagon I try to start is going to be the least reliable because there's less information to go on at that point. But no, because it is a vote with some backing to it. Notably, someone who claims SK and then indicates a desire to lurk through the first two game days has done more than enough to merit a bandwagon. At that point, they are either scum, because they are behaving in a way that is advantageous to scum (that is, giving as little info as possible through lurking, while setting up a meta in which anything they say can be discounted through WIFOM logic), or they are not scum but acting in a very anti-town manner, in which case they should be bandwagoned to send a message that such behaviour is inappropriate. I do not think it is effective to send the message without voting, in the latter case.

[charter]

charter:

<snip>
Second, anyone voting Nat is just looking for a place to put their vote.

On the contrary. I’m voting Natirasha because he’s behaved the most suspiciously.

While Nat has acted suspiciously, I don't see his actions so far as any indicator of alignment. I also believe that a day one lynch of a useless player isn't very good, because I don't see much information gotten from the lynch as everyone can say their play is bad and vote them.
What do you think of Kairyuu and post 71?

<snip>
Fourth, I am for a mass nameclaim, but am fine if it doesn't happen. Last game I was in with a mass nameclaim day one, I caught a scum very fast because he made asinine assumptions about the setup. I don't see that happening here, but I don't see any harm that can come.

Why don’t you see that happening here?

The other game was batman mafia, and the guy I caught put forth this ridiculous theory that only one 'hero' was scum, and the rest were 'bad guys'. I don't see the same thing happening in this game (especially now) because who are the 'bad guys' and 'heroes' in politics?

[ortolan]

I was wrong about Natirasha. In fact he made the exact same SK claim in another game I am in currently.

I am all for the mass-name-claim idea, at least it will provide activity other than wagoning Natirasha.

[Yosarian2]

*Is Spamking scummy for suggesting a massclaim?

Depends. Not necessarally, but I still want to hear why he decided to bring it up.

That's funny, I'm pretty sure I already said why I brought it up. Are you reading the thread?

Vote: Yosarian2

No, you really didn't give any reasons for why you thought a massclaim'd be a good idea in this game, or for why you wanted to bring it up. The closest you came was your assersion that a name claim is "harmless", which isn't actually a good reason to do one, and isn't always true anyway.

[Kairyuu]

@EmpTyger:

It’s only a wasted lynch if Natirasha is innocent. Why do you believe that?

It is a wasted lynch regardless of alignment based on the fact that there is little to no actual information that can be gleaned from an essentially random lynch.

Explain? Lynching a SK is a suboptimal play?

Lynching SK < Lynching scum. Sure, in a game with no vig then you

do

eventually have to lynch the SK if you don't get lucky and have the scum kill it. However, as a D1 play where we do not know if there is a vig in existence, an SK lynch should be put on the back burner in favor of a scum lynch.

Essentially, scum lynch is optimal play each day. SK lynch is suboptimal but still useful.

@Vi:

That seems a bit simplistic, but whatever.

I like simple. I try to reduce the game to a mathematical formula and then try to simplify it down as much as possible(I'm going into advanced mathematics/physics in college). That formula then becomes an optimal strategy that each side should follow to win. Based on what little information I know (my own role, setup size, SK claim) I believe that leaving a potential SK alive in order to test for the existence of a vig is the optimal strategic move that town can make today.

@charter: Hmm. So your voting me, claiming serious vote, for what exactly? Post 71, where I took my own interpretation of Spambot's post and called him on it? Please explain your reasoning, because I'm not seeing anything scummy.

@Nat: Thank you for deciding to participate.

[Yosarian2]

Lynching SK < Lynching scum. Sure, in a game with no vig then you

do

eventually have to lynch the SK if you don't get lucky and have the scum kill it. However, as a D1 play where we do not know if there is a vig in existence, an SK lynch should be put on the back burner in favor of a scum lynch.

I disagree. You get rid of a SK, that's one less kill a night, every night. That means town gets more lynches, and it's especally useful since SK's often kill off power roles, confirmed townies, and other things that are useful to the town. It's probably even better to lynch a SK day 1 and a scum day 2 then the other way around would be.

Besides, SK's do sometimes win these games, you know; get rid of the SK, town's odds of winning automatically go up just because it now means the SK won't win.

All that being said, that only matters if we actually think Nat is SK.

By they way, this argument:

1) It’s just a little bit of harmless fun.
It would only be harmless if he followed it up with helpfulness. He is not. He habitually does not. I have given him a period of time (only 24 hours, given that we are in a deadline situation and Natirasha deserves no benefit of the doubt given his history) to see if he will be helpful. Instead, he’s persisting with unhelpful behavior.

Makes perfect sense if Nat is really being less useful then the average player in the game right now. At the moment, considering most people haven't done any real scumhunting yet, I'm not convinced that that's true.

[Nikelaos]

Lynching SK < Lynching scum. Sure, in a game with no vig then you

do

eventually have to lynch the SK if you don't get lucky and have the scum kill it. However, as a D1 play where we do not know if there is a vig in existence, an SK lynch should be put on the back burner in favor of a scum lynch.

Essentially, scum lynch is optimal play each day. SK lynch is suboptimal but still useful.

If we knew for sure that we would be lynching scum, then yes, it would be preferable to lynch scum over the SK, but this would only be valid if we knew each player's alignment. In this case, we have no evidence that Nat is the SK aside from what's probably a joke claim; he could just as easily be town or scum. More likely, actually, when you consider the fact that there is generally only one SK and multiple scum and town. Add this to the rather obvious fact that we have no evidence that whoever else we lynch will be scum, especially D1. This argument is kind of invalid.

However, I still cannot support a Nat lynch right now with this little evidence. If we are unlucky and he flips town we will not get any information regarding the alignments of the players who voted (or did not vote) for him. Lynching him on principle is a simple, effective argument for scum who voted for him. Lynching someone else will give us information regarding alignments of those who did or did not vote for him, whether or not he is scum. In addition, putting pressure on Nat is seemingly useless. He does not take the pressure votes too seriously and any mistakes he makes can be chalked up to his erratic behavior. If we focus our pressure elsewhere we can gain more information from other players who have gotten a free ride so far thanks to Nat's poor play.

At least for now, we should direct our attention to those who we want to hear more from. I'm going to

vote: Badguy

right now. Unless I've missed something, he's only posted once since the day began and it was a joke vote on page four, when serious discussion had begun to take place. In any case I'd like to hear more from him.

[Max]

Yos, are you going to answer my question? Do you think Vi is scum?