Self-Voting: Why, barring setup, you should never do it

[Thor665]

I'd like to discuss self-voting. I've been having this thought brewing in me for a while now, and a while back I even put it up on my wiki, and now I really think I'd like to try to sell it to the community at large. My thesis is as follows;

Barring *very specific setup or role interactions* there is literally NEVER a time when a town player should self vote.

A self vote as a joke is a dumb joke.
A self vote as a rage quit shows poor play and whiny inability to deal with the situation you're in or to simply request replacement.
A self vote as a strategy...well, that requires very specific role/setup interactions, but doing it as a "test" of how people react to it is only likely to "test" who finds it a dumb move. Whoop-dee-doo.

As scum there are plenty of reasons to self vote.
Denies town planning time in a self hammer situation.
Hurts VCA.
Induces wifom due to AtE gak. (how many times have you seen someone town read someone else for a self vote? I know I see it a fair shake)

Oh, wow, look at that, it's almost like self-voting aids scum and hurts town. Shock.
So why the hell do any town players EVER allow themselves to self-vote? You're voting a confirmed town at that stage - that is playing against your wincon, quite frankly. Honestly, if I think i could get away with it I'd petition the board to make that a universally accepted rule that, as town, a self vote is playing against wincon and is thus bannable. That's about how much I'm offended by it when any town player does it.

And the benefits for scum? Literally half of them are only there because derp town chooses to self vote as a rage quit type option or as their only answer to a wagon/case.

I used self-voting as scum early in my career to get town read or to dismantle wagons on me. Recently, as an alt account, I used it again, and it worked beautifully. Everyone was all like 'oh dear, look at that poor frustrated town, unvote!' and I skunked a win for my scum team. Why should I be allowed to get away with that? Why should town need to try to sort out whether someone is a derp town or a vile scum just due to a single vote?

I am really making this as a rallying cry.
I want self-votes to become the purview of only scum - and thus crush them as a scum tool barring self-hammers.
All it takes is for people to stop self-voting and also to stop treating a self vote as anything but null, and eventually as a scum tell as we weed it out.
The only reason I can personally think of for people to keep self voting as town is to defend the tool for their scum game - and I don't need you bolstering your weak scum play by tanking your town games. Just leave the crutch behind, you'll become a stronger player as both alignments.

I'd love to hear praise for my brilliance
Or, reasoning for why a self-vote is a valid town tool *outside* of specific setup/role interactions.

Example posts of good/bad uses of self-voting might also be useful, to show how you have experienced/practiced them.
All of mine would be me as scum using them to avoid a lynch...which supports my thesis as far as I can tell.

[SleepyKrew]

Only thing I can think of is a townie self-hammering to avoid a no lynch.

[kanyeknowsbest]

dont self vote

[TierShift]

Kanye is good at extracting the essence from a post.

[Thor665]

Almost like a thesis statement...oh, wait

[Bicephalous Bob]

self-voting is often not null in context and it's dumb to treat it that way because of principles

[Thor665]

I do not disagree that it is possible to attempt to read a self vote.
I disagree that I should be obligated to because there is no valid reason for town to ever ask me to have to scumhunt the emotional state of the act.

[Bicephalous Bob]

yeah but that is not what the OP is about at all

[Bicephalous Bob]

oh I see what you mean

I'm not saying you in particular have to get your reads from self-votes, but you are asking other people to stop townreading townish self-votes because of your principles, which is dumb

[TierShift]

As a serious response to this, I consider self-voting a trait of bad players. They do a shitton of dumb stuff and stopping to self-vote wouldn't elevate their play to bearable levels.

Good players don't rage-selfvote at least and that seems to be the kind of selfvote you are rampaging against.

So, self-voting is dumb, but not much is going to improve with self-votes gone, honestly.

[BROseidon]

Vengeful self-hammering to take shot?

[reinoe]

Self hammer for town cred.

[kanyeknowsbest]

being a live vengeful is superior 2 being a dead vengeful. nk is not a likely concern if youre @ the point where you could self hammer

[kanyeknowsbest]

if you cant push the wagon off you 2 continue being a live vengeful then you didnt need 2 self hammer anyways

[Nachomamma8]

Only time I can think of self-voting serving as a pro-town move is through specific role interactions: self-voting is objectively bad when you're thinking logically. The problem with it is I think most townies self-voting are reacting emotionally to things that pissed them off/upset them and it's hard to eradicate that by telling them self-voting is bad or ignoring a meltdown when it's happening.

[Thor665]

I'm not saying you in particular have to get your reads from self-votes, but you are asking other people to stop townreading townish self-votes because of your principles, which is dumb

Honestly, I don't care if people want to get reads off it anyway - but I think we should be able to relegate it to a point where the only read is a scum one. As said, there is no town benefit for it. At that point, town should just not do it - and that should then clear the way to only see it as a scumtell (which means scum would stop doing it too). It should be able to be seen as only a scumtell, i understand that it's not, and I don't see it that way myself right now - but it boggles me that you need to bother 'reading' something that is blatantly a pro-scum move.

As a serious response to this, I consider self-voting a trait of bad players. They do a Smurfton of dumb stuff and stopping to self-vote wouldn't elevate their play to bearable levels.

I personally think there is a difference between a player who chooses to be bad, and a player who doesn't realize he is being bad.
I see a lot of Newbies bandying about the idea of self-voting to "help" the town. I always explain to them why it doesn't.
If players were at least aware that what they were doing was a bad play I do think it would clean up a substantial percentage of the self-votes. Also, i have had conversations with players who have multiple years of experience on site who argue that a self-vote has purpose. I do think a greater site awareness of how bad the move is might help them re-examine the stance. Or at least come up with a valid justification.

Vengeful self-hammering to take shot?

Kanye kind of stole my thunder on this - but, yes, if you're vengeful you should probably still allow your lynch to go through normally to allow better VCA. If you're going to be lynched you will be without a self-hammer, and will still get your shot.

I might buy it for a Supersaint who is convinced a town is about to hammer him - that might be a valid call as a time to self-hammer.
But, frankly, the best option at that point is to claim and try to convince town to at least force a scummy player to place the hammer. Or, to prevent your lynch altogether, since you're town.

Self hammer for town cred.

I've seen this often enough that the joke pains my soul

The problem with it is I think most townies self-voting are reacting emotionally to things that pissed them off/upset them and it's hard to eradicate that by telling them self-voting is bad or ignoring a meltdown when it's happening.

I can somewhat agree with this - my counter is this;

'Grow up and use replace out'

Because if you're emotional to the point you can't deal with the game anymore - you should probably stop playing the game.
And the only reason to choose a self-vote over a replace out is if;
1. You have ulterior motives (are scum).
2. You're intentionally trying to ruin other people's fun as 'punishment' for ruining yours (are a jerk)

I don't find either option too wonderful, but I have seen emotional replace outs, so I know people are capable of that. When they self vote they're basically trying to ruin other people's fun, and while, yeah, that might be a thing, I don't see it as a roadblock to be aware that it is still bad play and bad sportsmanship at that point - at least that's how I take it. I would like to think we can train people to have rage replace outs as opposed to rage self-votes. It should be healthier for people's sanity *and* for the quality of the game.

[Bicephalous Bob]

in my experience, unless it's a self-hammer, self-votes are mostly symbolic and rarely truly an attempt to get oneself lynched

also, ragequitting isn't fair to the other players (there's a recent md thread about this)

[Thor665]

Symbolic self-votes should still be shunned unless the intended symbolism is 'I think i am the scummiest player in the game' in which case I hope that player is playing scum, or they are really bad at the game.

Ragequitting is more fair to others than rage self-hammering though, I would think. Rage self-hammering is a rage-quit paired with denying town time and info.

[reinoe]

There are only two legitimate self votes...

During RVS and self hammer/rage quit.


I see no purpose otherwise and generally I ignore it.

[N]

There are only two legitimate self votes...

During RVS and self hammer/rage quit.


I see no purpose otherwise and generally I ignore it.

If it's legitimate self-votes, the body has a way to get rid of that.

[Thor665]

There are only two legitimate self votes...

During RVS and self hammer/rage quit.

I oppose it in RVS.
What are you doing? Trying to provoke a reaction from yourself? Or are you testing who dislikes self-votes...because that's somehow alignment indicative?
I also oppose the self-hammer/rage thing, though I suppose at least there the argument is 'I was blinded by rage and didn't care how bad and pro-scum my vote was'.
In RVS I don't think you have that excuse.

[kanyeknowsbest]

rvs self votes are dumb. i dont care if its your meta 2 always self vote (im looking @ you nati) its still a willful denial of information in the rvs stage and 1 of these days im going to make good on my promise 2 policy lynch a stupid motherfyucker who does this shit

[SleepyKrew]

There are only two legitimate self votes...

During RVS and self hammer/rage quit.


I see no purpose otherwise and generally I ignore it.

If it's legitimate self-votes, the body has a way to get rid of that.

shut that whole thing down*

[N]

There are only two legitimate self votes...

During RVS and self hammer/rage quit.


I see no purpose otherwise and generally I ignore it.

If it's legitimate self-votes, the body has a way to get rid of that.

shut that whole thing down*

that makes more sense, ty

[Cheery Dog]

Only thing I can think of is a townie self-hammering to avoid a no lynch.

Still dumb, the no lynch is actually better than killing a confirmed town.
I will even push the no lynch in favor of hammering one of my strong town reads, who aren't confirmed.

If you're afraid tomorrow is just going to result in your lynch, then you shouldn't need to self-vote.