The Book of JD: Chapter II

[JDodge]

To start with, read the first damn thread. Same disclaimer applies, so pay attention, dumbass, and don't continue reading if you can't

ACCEPT IT

.

Now that I've gotten all my little clichés in, it's time for...

Chapter II - Exodus

Where I last left you off, I started you down the path to understanding the nature of playstyles. Now that I've established that playstyle stems from the personality, let's look at where the site meta (henceforth known simply as meta) itself comes from.

Naturally, any community itself is the sum total of all people living within the community; it follows then that the meta would be the sum total of all playstyles existing within it. This leads to the first point of this chapter; meta is in and of itself an illusion, and is really just an easy way of saying "the way everyone plays".

On a theoretical level, the meta most conducive to mafia play is one that contains the most diverse playstyles. On a more theoretical level, it follows that the more crowded the market, the less diverse things are as things sort of turn from black and white to a spectrum of gray. Therein is my main hangup with the meta on this site as it is now; nobody is

interesting

because everyone

feels like a mishmash of at least 2 other people I've played with before

.

So we can establish that any meta which squashes diversity is one that is fundamentally broken at the base level, which leads me to my number one hate in mafia games period and probably the main reason why I don't play on this site anymore.

Policy lynching is

bad

. Not just bad.

Toxic

. There is nothing worse for the site in the long run than squashing out so-called undesirable traits in the name of making everyone a robot. Not everyone will play the same. Chronic lurkers, though infuriating, should be left up to the mod, not the players. People should learn to

get over themselves

.

The number one driving force behind policy lynches is sheer and utter ego; anyone whose head is jammed so forcefully into their rectum that they can see the light at the end of the tunnel seems to be deemed some sort of savant in the game of mafia and given carte blanche to destroy the meta at their heart's content. What I really mean by that is that people with egos tend to be able to control people (which is a positive), and that people with egos on this site tend to have bad judgment skills and a poor understanding of how the game actually works (which is a travesty).

Anyone can quote numbers and say that policy lynches work X number of times, but the thing is, the second you start axing those traits, the people who are first going to stop trying to do them are probably scum. Then you start lynching the townspeople in a series of unfortunate events™. Then you get all annoyed that person X lead a policy lynch charge on townie Q. Then you lynch person X. Then person X turns up town, etc, etc, etc.

It is a vicious cycle, and one that could be avoided by people simply not making the mistake of having anything to do with policy lynches whatsoever.

Now that I've gotten that out of my system, time to get back on track.

I honestly feel like I'm the person screaming to save the manatees here. Sure, they don't do a damn thing, but why can't we try to save them? Is biodiversity not a good thing? Why are we hunting the idiots to extinction? Next time you consider a policy lynch, consider what the end result will be long and hard before you even try it.

This is JDodge for Protect our Moronities, signing off.

Yes this is just a rambling indictment more than any actual addition to the general theories, but I said I'd stretch this out to five chapters to keep up the old testament naming scheme, so I will.

[JDodge]

ADDENDUM: Apparently I forgot to mention why diversity is good, thinking it too obvious to be worth my time. Diversity is good for the same reason you wouldn't want to eat chicken kiev for every single meal for the rest of your life:

1. All that cholesterol has to be bad for you after a while

2. Most people don't know how to make it right

3. You'll be really sick of chicken kiev.

[Thestatusquo]

Interested to see thefonz respond to this. XYL too.

[Adel]

During Day 1 of my final game I produced this graphic:

Neopi, Plum, iamausername, ortolan, and Colbalt

were scum in this game. Benmage and I were off of the chart.

I identified the spammyness of Benmage and I, as well as the lack of contribution from people below the line of lurking as being detrimental to the signal:noise ratio.

The "line of lurking" was an arbitrary choice attempting to separate lurkers from non-lurkers.

Within this game the mechanic allowed us to lynch as many people as we wanted each day. I advocated for a policy lynch of lurkers, and attempted to use this graphic to help the policy lynches be based upon actual facts rather than (mis)perception and conjecture.

[Thestatusquo]

And your point is?

[Adel]

And your point is?

just trolling for TSQ snark. Carry on.

[Adel]

On a theoretical level, the meta most conducive to mafia play is one that contains the most diverse playstyles.

I felt that the obvious reason for the 100% success rate for towns in the player-year invitational series was a lack of playstyle diversity combined with players being familiar with each other. Players with similar game experiences are less likely to have playstyle conflicts, and players butting heads over differences in playstyle often corrupts the signal:noise ratio and disproportionately leads to townies lynching townies.

So we can establish that any meta which squashes diversity is one that is fundamentally broken at the base level, which leads me to my number one hate in mafia games period and probably the main reason why I don't play on this site anymore.

I continue to disagree. Imagine playing with 11 other people just like you. Do you think that the town would be more or less likely to win than the current average of the site?

[shaft.ed]

I'd argue our invitational year was a flawed setup. But I'm probably just bitter. Meta had very little to do with outing the last two scum, it was essentially a process of elimination due to a cop and confirmed masons.

[Thestatusquo]

Adel, it seems like you're defining a "healthy meta" as one where town wins as much as possible. Am I missreading you? If I'm not, how do you justify that? That seems pretty much to be as unhealthy a meta as humanly possible. You claim to be disagreeing but really you're just proving JDs point.

[Phate]

TSQ, are you advocating intentionally not playing your best in order to promote site diversity?

I'm completely fine with the argument that policy lynches are ineffective at changing behavior or that they're ineffective at finding scum. In fact, I would mostly agree with those two points. But I don't agree with playing to the win condition of "You win when your faction is the last alive and promote site diversity."

On a psychological level, JDodge mentioned that scum are the ones who change their meta to avoid policy lynches. This is true. But if a player has a meta for acting a certain way, and then stops, well, that's a point for them being scum. And you can glean information for who pushes or agrees to or refuses a policy lynch, too, of course.

Another thing about policy lynches is that they're rarely just policy lynches - they're usually a mix of people voting because Player A is scummy and people voting because Player A is antitown and some with a bit of both (and some scum). When I 'policy lynch', my reasoning is somewhere along the lines of "This guy is not giving me townvibes, AND he will [fuck the town over if he survives 'til endgame/nuke the signal:noise ratio into oblivion/selfvote if he gets pissed/whatever other antitown behavior] if he's town."

[Thestatusquo]

Phayte thats not even close to what I'm claiming. In fact, I didn't even make a claim. I guess my implicit claim was that the site meta that is healthiest is the one that promotes a normal mix of scum wins and town wins. I don't see at all how you could have gotten "are you advocating intentionally not playing your best in order to promote site diversity"
From that.

Are you fucking insane?

[Phate]

Are you fucking insane?

Also, I misunderstood your point. I equated

Adel, it seems like you're defining a "healthy meta" as one where town wins as much as possible. Am I missreading you? If I'm not, how do you justify that?

with "As town, winning is not my first priority."

What do you think of the other points in my post?

[Thestatusquo]

I think policy lynches are mainly ineffective and actively work against playing towards your win condition because they do not have at their core the goal of lynching scum. The goal of a policy lynch is to make an action less socially acceptable and indeed punishable by lynch. The problem with this? The policy lynch doesn't care at all about who is scum or who is town, or whether scum or town is more likely to take the action that they are policy lynching for, only who they think SHOULD take that action.

Practical example. I have been playing for four years now, I have seen absolutely no evidence that players who lurk are more likely to be scum. Zip. Zilch. Nada. In my experience lurking in 100% a complete non tell. Yet every game someone wants to lynch someone because "they're lurking" lol. Sometimes these lynches go through, and sometimes its a scum player, but way more often its some random townie who just found the game a little boring.

When we base actions off of what we think SHOULD be town action instead of what actually IS an action that is indicative of alignment, we are playing to influence future games, and not playing to win the one we are currently in. Furthermore, policy lynches don't WORK to change the meta, so there's that as well.

[JDodge]

On a theoretical level, the meta most conducive to mafia play is one that contains the most diverse playstyles.

I felt that the obvious reason for the 100% success rate for towns in the player-year invitational series was a lack of playstyle diversity combined with players being familiar with each other. Players with similar game experiences are less likely to have playstyle conflicts, and players butting heads over differences in playstyle often corrupts the signal:noise ratio and disproportionately leads to townies lynching townies.

So we can establish that any meta which squashes diversity is one that is fundamentally broken at the base level, which leads me to my number one hate in mafia games period and probably the main reason why I don't play on this site anymore.

I continue to disagree. Imagine playing with 11 other people just like you. Do you think that the town would be more or less likely to win than the current average of the site?

I don't care about win percentages. I feel that any win percentage for any one variable is flawed due to the lack of any consistent control sample to base it off of.

TSQ, are you advocating intentionally not playing your best in order to promote site diversity?

I'm completely fine with the argument that policy lynches are ineffective at changing behavior or that they're ineffective at finding scum. In fact, I would mostly agree with those two points. But I don't agree with playing to the win condition of "You win when your faction is the last alive and promote site diversity."

I don't see where the two are irreconcilable at all. Please, enlighten me.

On a psychological level, JDodge mentioned that scum are the ones who change their meta to avoid policy lynches. This is true. But if a player has a meta for acting a certain way, and then stops, well, that's a point for them being scum. And you can glean information for who pushes or agrees to or refuses a policy lynch, too, of course.

No, I'd think that everyone would start changing their play in order to avoid being lynched, more townies will get mixed in, and it won't be any better than random.

Another thing about policy lynches is that they're rarely just policy lynches - they're usually a mix of people voting because Player A is scummy and people voting because Player A is antitown and some with a bit of both (and some scum). When I 'policy lynch', my reasoning is somewhere along the lines of "This guy is not giving me townvibes, AND he will [fuck the town over if he survives 'til endgame/nuke the signal:noise ratio into oblivion/selfvote if he gets pissed/whatever other antitown behavior] if he's town."

I am not advocating not lynching someone if you have a legit reason. I am advocating not lynching someone just because they look at you funny.

[PokerFace]

I used to lurk more as town then as scum. As I found town, especially vanilla town, boring. I was never lynched soully for it as either alignment

When i realized my own meta there, i made it so i lurked equally as either alignment to avoid being called on it. A few players did realize my old meta. So I have also learned other techniques of manipulating that meta to my own advantage. It became easier to clear myself to those people regardless of what i really was. That has greatly helped my scum and town play. I still was not lynched soully for it as either alignment

I think what stopped me from getting lynched for it is fact I say alot when i do post so perhaps the quaility of the posts can often outweigh the quantity. I will admit to judging a players quality as being the way i usually look at lurkers and or anyone that is difficult to read without policy lynching them

[Phate]

I am not advocating not lynching someone if you have a legit reason. I am advocating not lynching someone just because they look at you funny.

Does this actually happen, though? I've seen it suggested, but never seen it happen (admittedly, I'm sitting at around 10-15 forum games). I don't really see this as a pervasive problem. I see it talked about a lot in MD, but a great deal of what people say in MD is bullshit that they wouldn't go through with in an actual game, or that they couldn't manage without X other townies agreeing.

[SpyreX]

I think I'm getting two types of "policy lynch" twined up in my head and I am not sure which (or both) is this really talking about.

Are we talking about a policy lynch based on an individual's "meta" in the classic "Lynch XXX D1 because he always plays like YYY" OR is it more of the "XXX is avoiding the game, lynch" mentality.

I guess what I'm aiming at is: what IS a policy lynch, really?

[Lord Gurgi]

Policy lynching is lynching someone because they fall into a specific category. That specific category is most often seen as detrimental to the town regardless of the alignment of the player.

[SpyreX]

And that's the rub. I don't think those things that are considered "policy" (Lurkers and Liars, respectively) are done

regardless of the alignment of the player

.

In the ultimate example of if it is a policy or not: do you have examples of someone getting policy lynched when they have been confirmed town?

I haven't ran into that (that I can remember at least). Which would mean that the policies are really methods of hunting for scum (or eliminating tactics scum can employ).

An individual getting lynched because of previous play is poor, poor policy.

An individual getting lynched for lying or for lurking through A game versus activity in others is, really, just scum hunting.

[Lord Gurgi]

Erm, that's a bad example. Policy Lynches would normally be done day one. Why on earth are you waiting until they are confirmed to policy lynch them?

[SpyreX]

If we're only looking at day 1 then would lurking or lying really be a -policy- versus -eliminating something scum are 'more likely' to be doing-?

[Adel]

I have seen absolutely no evidence that players who lurk are more likely to be scum. Zip. Zilch. Nada.

During Day 1 of my final game I produced this graphic:

Neopi, Plum, iamausername, ortolan, and Colbalt

were scum in this game. Benmage and I were off of the chart.

when measured towards the end of day 1, about 1/3 of a scum team being clearly active with 2/3 being inactive is a pattern I've seen over and over.

Examining quantitative evidence is necessary precursor for reaching conclusions that aren't simply based upon conjecture and speculation.

I don't care about win percentages. I feel that any win percentage for any one variable is flawed due to the lack of any consistent control sample to base it off of.

I respect your feelings.

[JDodge]

I am not advocating not lynching someone if you have a legit reason. I am advocating not lynching someone just because they look at you funny.

Does this actually happen, though? I've seen it suggested, but never seen it happen (admittedly, I'm sitting at around 10-15 forum games). I don't really see this as a pervasive problem. I see it talked about a lot in MD, but a great deal of what people say in MD is bullshit that they wouldn't go through with in an actual game, or that they couldn't manage without X other townies agreeing.

I don't have any specific examples; people need not necessarily be 100% honest in their intentions most of the time, so any examples would likely be flawed based on the premise that they come from something that lying is an integral part of.

And that's the rub. I don't think those things that are considered "policy" (Lurkers and Liars, respectively) are done

regardless of the alignment of the player

.

In the ultimate example of if it is a policy or not: do you have examples of someone getting policy lynched when they have been confirmed town?

I haven't ran into that (that I can remember at least). Which would mean that the policies are really methods of hunting for scum (or eliminating tactics scum can employ).

An individual getting lynched because of previous play is poor, poor policy.

An individual getting lynched for lying or for lurking through A game versus activity in others is, really, just scum hunting.

I'm going to go to say the one thing that I learned from my psychology class: show me the data. Show me empirical points against a control sample that states that a policy lynch is a good method for scumhunting. One of the main issues I have with policy lynching (and the numbers are gods school of theory) is that all of their empirical data is circumstantial; it doesn't isolate the variable. You can say that quality Q shows some tendencies, yes, but you can't show that quality Q is a direct result of X.

Why the hell would anyone policy lynch someone who's confirmed town?

Examining quantitative evidence is necessary precursor for reaching conclusions that aren't simply based upon conjecture and speculation.

Conjecture and speculation based on that quantitative evidence instead of solid conclusions is even more dangerous.

[Adel]

Conjecture and speculation based on that quantitative evidence instead of solid conclusions is even more dangerous.

k.

[SpyreX]

I'm going to go to say the one thing that I learned from my psychology class: show me the data. Show me empirical points against a control sample that states that a policy lynch is a good method for scumhunting. One of the main issues I have with policy lynching (and the numbers are gods school of theory) is that all of their empirical data is circumstantial; it doesn't isolate the variable. You can say that quality Q shows some tendencies, yes, but you can't show that quality Q is a direct result of X.

Why the hell would anyone policy lynch someone who's confirmed town?

We aren't even at a point where there is a solid foundation to show data - and that's what I'm trying to get to.

My experience shows two site-meta "policies" that I see actually get pushed through (especially on day 1):
* Lynch Lurkers
* Lynch Liars

I'm trying to say that they're not blind policies - they are attempts to with minimal information find scum. Are these the policies you're talking about?

The flipside is an individual-meta of "XXX is bad, lynch him". Those, yes, are garbage.

I guess what all this is getting at is I do agree that individual policy lynches are toxic - but is that what you're talking about in total?