Open 324 - Ninja Mafia (End. No Drama, please!)

[zMuffinMan]

I don't really care what your stance on PR hunting is, it's something I will always do, regardless of alignment.

If you always do it, regardless of alignment, then why was my question loaded?

I asked you to give examples of previous town games in which you've done something you

always do

, and you acted like it was an unfair thing to ask of you.

Here's the thing: clarifying claims or soft-claims is one thing, but actively

crumb

-hunting is a whole different matter, because only scum concern themselves with finding crumbs.

If you consider the premise that both scum and town can crumb something, then looking for crumbs only helps if you're scum. It's not a town mentality.

And the fact that you can't think of examples where you've made assumptions based on crumbs you picked up when you've been town in previous games is all the more intriguing.

[zMuffinMan]

OK, so I've finished reading through Link's ISO.

The hiplop stuff is almost damning in and of itself. The fact that he can recall that he thought hiplop crumbed watcher D1 and his weird and mostly unexplained changes in his reads on hiplop + the n1 kill makes so much sense from the perspective he's scum.

Most of his later posts (end of D2 onwards) I was fairly null on - I didn't feel the same effort towards scumhunting he displayed early D1. End of D2 there was a shitton of setup spec (could barely keep my eyes open reading through it) and after that he's just been pushing major town wagons that had support while barely pressuring anyone else.

I found his pf read particularly interesting; he called him 'obvious lurking scum' or something to that effect because pf didn't realise day had started (I think he was just mimicking VE here because he didn't seem to understand that the reason this was scummy is because pf had posted prior to that in that day phase and still said he didn't realise day had started) and because he hadn't caught up in a 100-page game he replaced into.



I need to reassess my reads.

[VisceraEyes]

Splendid...so we're in agreement.

Now, we need whisper up in here, Javert needs to weigh in, and I'd like PM's thoughts as well.

[CSL]

Scumhunter -[3]- [Hikari Link, whispersilk, Empking]
Hikari Link -[1]- [Scumhunter]

With 9 alive, 5 will lynch. Currently, Scumhunter will die at

11/12 at 7:00pm CST

If this is wrong, let me know.

---------

Just about three full days left.

[Hikari Link]

I don't really care what your stance on PR hunting is, it's something I will always do, regardless of alignment.

If you always do it, regardless of alignment, then why was my question loaded?

Because it's not the type of thing that's easy to prove. It's like asking me to prove that I forgot something or that I was busy and unable to post. It's the kind of action that can't be verified.

I asked you to give examples of previous town games in which you've done something you

always do

, and you acted like it was an unfair thing to ask of you.

See above.

Here's the thing: clarifying claims or soft-claims is one thing, but actively

crumb

-hunting is a whole different matter, because only scum concern themselves with finding crumbs.

Well that's simply not true.

If you consider the premise that both scum and town can crumb something, then looking for crumbs only helps if you're scum. It's not a town mentality.

I don't care if it is a town mentality, because it is my mentality.

And the fact that you can't think of examples where you've made assumptions based on crumbs you picked up when you've been town in previous games is all the more intriguing.

If by intruiging, you mean that it's "surprising that I've not been able to pick up more than one breadcrumb and two soft-claims over the course of maybe 8 games", then not really. The "breadcrumb" I saw here was in one post, while breadcurumbs are typically spread throughout several posts. On the other hand, most people soft-claim much more subtly than singersigner, so it's generally harder to pick up. Come to think of it, there was one more instance, but that's probably going to be thrown out too because I should've realized his slot had already claimed Doctor or because he didn't phrase it vaguely enough or something.

OK, so I've finished reading through Link's ISO.

The hiplop stuff is almost damning in and of itself. The fact that he can recall that he thought hiplop crumbed watcher D1 and his weird and mostly unexplained changes in his reads on hiplop + the n1 kill makes so much sense from the perspective he's scum.

If by "unexplained changes", you mean "explained completely", then I guess so.

Most of his later posts (end of D2 onwards) I was fairly null on - I didn't feel the same effort towards scumhunting he displayed early D1. End of D2 there was a shitton of setup spec (could barely keep my eyes open reading through it)

Something I have ridiculous amounts of precedent doing.

and after that he's just been pushing major town wagons that had support while barely pressuring anyone else.

As did a good amount of people. I can't be blamed because the people I thought were scum flipped town.

I found his pf read particularly interesting; he called him 'obvious lurking scum' or something to that effect because pf didn't realise day had started (I think he was just mimicking VE here because he didn't seem to understand that the reason this was scummy is because pf had posted prior to that in that day phase and still said he didn't realize day had started) and because he hadn't caught up in a 100-page game he replaced into.

So now I'm scum AND stupid? Please, sir. Even the greatest of idiots could tell he had already posted. I specifically cited that he had already posted earlier in the day and added that he was claiming he hadn't finished reading the game when his first post of the day was "rereads for me", implying that he had already finished a first time through, hence the prefix "re-".

I need to reassess my reads.

You need to reassess a great deal of things.

[VisceraEyes]

"I don't care if it's town mentality, it's my mentality" is too relativist for you Link. Come on.

"Cases are sturdier than I thought" doesn't explain anything. You went from a town read on hip to a scum read based on cases that A) you didn't reference and B) without your own reasoning backing it up. You were clearly just appealing to the majority with your sudden scum read on hiplop...ESPECIALLY since you thought he had dropped a PR crumb.

"Because that's not easy to prove" doesn't make zMM's question loaded. Also, it's NOT the same as asking you to prove that you were AFK or were busy IRL. You're discussing IN-GAME ACTIONS, which you should be able to provide. I'll concede that the new one you pointed out was slightly more akin to what I expect zMM was looking for, but you're accusing him of intentionally setting you up with an unanswerable question, which is simply not the case. A loaded question implies that he knew you wouldn't be able to find any instances of you doing as town what you're doing this game. I don't believe that is the case. The spirit of the question is good. A better answer than 'WTF LOADED' would have been 'Nope, I can't do that' or 'Well, there was THIS, but the circumstances were different'. Instead, you found something you thought was satisfactory and tried to pass it off as the same thing then accused the asker of setting you up. This is scummy behavior Link.

And for the record, you're not really building a case on anyone else you think might be scum here Link...I mean yeah, you've been pushing this SH wagon a long time...but you haven't built a case on him which is something you've accused him of all day today, and you seem to be more interested in defending yourself now than you are in finding scum...which is NOT a townie mindset.

You, me, gallows, 2 days hence.

[Hikari Link]

"I don't care if it's town mentality, it's my mentality" is too relativist for you Link. Come on.

I once more reference the fact that you really don't know me. I do as I please and it pleases me to hunt PRs, regardless of my alignment.

"Cases are sturdier than I thought" doesn't explain anything.

Can't just say "turns out he wasn't a PR like I thought" now, can I?

You went from a town read on hip to a scum read based on cases that A) you didn't reference and B) without your own reasoning backing it up. You were clearly just appealing to the majority with your sudden scum read on hiplop...ESPECIALLY since you thought he had dropped a PR crumb.

Untrue. My vote came AFTER he had proclaimed he had resigned himself to his fate. I had seen his case the entire time, but I was downplaying the importance of it until such time that it became necessary to pressure him i.e. a later Day, someone else claims Watcher, he claims Watcher, etc. Once I no longer thought he was a PR, there became no reason not to vote him.

"Because that's not easy to prove" doesn't make zMM's question loaded.

The only way for me to answer the question "correctly" is if in 8 games I had seen another player who was generally scummy, but I had reason to believe they were a PR and so I had an inexplicable town read on them. Do you see how that question is stacked against me? But I originally came at it thinking all I needed was to find an example of when I had spotted a PR pre-claim as town. It's certainly a tough question, but not out of the realm of possibility. The question was only "can you link to town games where you've looked for or pointed out PR (or VT) soft-claims?", not "can you link to a game where you've looked for and pointed out a soft-claim or breadcrmb from a person who wasn't at L-1?" I would hope you can see how I might not think that the two questions were equivalent.

Also, it's NOT the same as asking you to prove that you were AFK or were busy IRL. You're discussing IN-GAME ACTIONS, which you should be able to provide.

That's simply not true. I can't prove that I LOOKED for anything. That's not an in-game action, just as choosing not to post for a few days is impossible to differentiate from being too busy to post for a few days from the perspective of anyone playing the game.

I'll concede that the new one you pointed out was slightly more akin to what I expect zMM was looking for, but you're accusing him of intentionally setting you up with an unanswerable question, which is simply not the case. A loaded question implies that he knew you wouldn't be able to find any instances of you doing as town what you're doing this game. I don't believe that is the case. The spirit of the question is good. A better answer than 'WTF LOADED' would have been 'Nope, I can't do that' or 'Well, there was THIS, but the circumstances were different'. Instead, you found something you thought was satisfactory and tried to pass it off as the same thing then accused the asker of setting you up. This is scummy behavior Link.

Because the circumstances are obviously going to be different. The question is unanswerable to any sort of full satisfaction as even the example I recently gave was only "slightly more akin" to what was being asked for. I can't give examples of things I DID that don't show up in posts, can I? It's simply not possible. And why would I, as any alignment, upon finding a PR, just blurt it out to everyone in the game? Short answer is, I wouldn't. As town, it would be hindering the town, as scum, it would just make me look bad. There's no reason for it. It's a fucking retarded question if I can't use examples where it was contextually appropriate for me to out the PR.

And for the record, you're not really building a case on anyone else you think might be scum here Link...I mean yeah, you've been pushing this SH wagon a long time...but you haven't built a case on him which is something you've accused him of all day today,

Oh really? Even if that were true, which I've just shown it is not, there is already consensus that Scumhunter is scum. Why does it fall upon me specifically to prove a commonly held belief?[/quote]

and you seem to be more interested in defending yourself now than you are in finding scum...which is NOT a townie mindset.

I disagree and I've historically made it known that I fully support the act of townies defending themselves. I mention it regarding Whiskers and Substrike.

As an interesting side note, there was another incident regarding soft-claims. I'm chastised for talking about a soft-claim, to which [urlhttp://mafiascum.net/forum/viewtopic.php?p=3340621#p3340621]I respond[/url] that it's irrelevant because it is irrelevant because it had been mentioned several times. But of course, this isn't the same circumstance either, since I didn't originally point out the claim, as I hadn't replaced in yet or somebody beat me to the punch.

[VisceraEyes]

So Link, by your estimation, hiplop was town as long as he was a PR with a claim up his sleeve...but otherwise was scum and needed to die? That's what that sequence of events leads me to believe your thought-process was, correct me if I'm wrong. It reads like if he gave up, that meant that he wasn't a PR and was therefor scum. But because he had NOT in fact resigned to his fate, that it's possible that he was a town-aligned PR, NOT scum, which was what your vote indicated that you thought he was. Am I reading that wrong?

My problems with this thought-process are this:
1) First of all, whatever actions you saw that were indicative of his alignment being aligned with scum were still there, and the cases were still 'as sturdy' as they were when you voted for him. Now, I'm still not sure what 'case' you're referring to that was 'sturdier than you thought', but I very seriously doubt that it had anything to do with how he 'resigned to his fate'...because he 'resigned to his fate' based on peoples votes, which were based on a case which is 'sturdier than you thought.' So because he hadn't, in fact, given up, that made the case on him NOT 'as sturdy as you thought'? No. My guess is you unvoted him and started pushing BB because you then thought he was a PR with the intention of NKing him. Lo and behold, Maru got modkilled and hiplop was NK'd.

2) As a member of town, I'm more interested in lynching scum than I am in NOT lynching PRs. I get not wanting to force someone you suspect of being a PR to claim, but your actions indicated that you thought he was scum. Even your unvote wasn't convincing because it was based on whether he'd given up or not, NOT because you'd seen him 'town-tell' or because he was actually contributing, or any ACTUAL REASON...only because you thought he had given up, but you were mistaken.

Help me out here, I'm really having a hard time figuring out EXACTLY what your stance on hiplop was. Because you were so lax on your reads of him (by lax I meant lacking in reasoning, not that you didn't say one way or the other what you thought of him), I can't divine what you REALLY thought of him while he was still alive.

[Junpei]

Fun fact: Anti-town play is anti-town. You don't get out of it because 'that's just how you play'.

[VisceraEyes]

He doesn't care...it doesn't apply to him. He doesn't have enough to do looking for scum (in 5 pages a day game at the time), he's gotta ALSO look for breadcrumbs for some undisclosed town-aligned reason.

[Hikari Link]

So Link, by your estimation, hiplop was town as long as he was a PR with a claim up his sleeve...but otherwise was scum and needed to die? That's what that sequence of events leads me to believe your thought-process was, correct me if I'm wrong. It reads like if he gave up, that meant that he wasn't a PR and was therefor scum. But because he had NOT in fact resigned to his fate, that it's possible that he was a town-aligned PR, NOT scum, which was what your vote indicated that you thought he was. Am I reading that wrong?

My problems with this thought-process are this:
1) First of all, whatever actions you saw that were indicative of his alignment being aligned with scum were still there, and the cases were still 'as sturdy' as they were when you voted for him. Now, I'm still not sure what 'case' you're referring to that was 'sturdier than you thought', but I very seriously doubt that it had anything to do with how he 'resigned to his fate'...because he 'resigned to his fate' based on peoples votes, which were based on a case which is 'sturdier than you thought.' So because he hadn't, in fact, given up, that made the case on him NOT 'as sturdy as you thought'? No. My guess is you unvoted him and started pushing BB because you then thought he was a PR with the intention of NKing him. Lo and behold, Maru got modkilled and hiplop was NK'd.

2) As a member of town, I'm more interested in lynching scum than I am in NOT lynching PRs. I get not wanting to force someone you suspect of being a PR to claim, but your actions indicated that you thought he was scum. Even your unvote wasn't convincing because it was based on whether he'd given up or not, NOT because you'd seen him 'town-tell' or because he was actually contributing, or any ACTUAL REASON...only because you thought he had given up, but you were mistaken.

Help me out here, I'm really having a hard time figuring out EXACTLY what your stance on hiplop was. Because you were so lax on your reads of him (by lax I meant lacking in reasoning, not that you didn't say one way or the other what you thought of him), I can't divine what you REALLY thought of him while he was still alive.

You've pretty much nailed my thought process at the beginning.

1. I can't follow what you are saying here, but I'll try to break it down for you the way I was looking at it. The cases were never not sturdy, but I didn't want to say the cases were sturdy because I was trying to curtail his wagon. The "cases" I were referring to were the cases against him. There were plenty of things flying around about him. But while I believed he could've been a PR, I felt it best not to press him. But then when he gave up, I came to the conclusion that a PR would not give up and be resigned to death, so I voted him. Then, when he continued to fight after he claimed to give up, it got me questioning whether he had ever given up. If he had given up for a period of time, my vote would've remained, while if he said that he had never actually given up, I'd unvote him and give him a reprieve until a later date.

2. I generally agree with the sentiment of finding scum over protecting PRs, but only to a certain degree. If I see other possible scum, I'm willing to hold off on a potential PR.

My thoughts on him while he was alive? Bad PR player or scum. I felt it was worth the risk to wait a Day or two to try to determine which.

[Junpei]

When brought to L-1 day 1, Link do you think any scum will not claim PR?

[Hikari Link]

When brought to L-1 day 1, Link do you think any scum will not claim PR?

Seems likely. But unless he claimed Watcher and pointed to that post or claimed something else and showed something along the lines of a normal breadcrumb,I'd be less inclined to buy it. Though I'd still be opposed to the lynch regardless, as it's better to confirm a PR claim then potentially mislynch them just because their play was shit.

[Junpei]

So it is likely for scum to claim PR day 1. So when lynching day 1, we have to ignore the possibility of PR. Breadcrumbs are pure wifom, and your 'pr mentality' tell is marginal at best and is something that scum could do too.

[Hikari Link]

So it is likely for scum to claim PR day 1. So when lynching day 1, we have to ignore the possibility of PR. Breadcrumbs are pure wifom, and your 'pr mentality' tell is marginal at best and is something that scum could do too.

Did you just say that PRs who claim Day 1 should be lynched? That's a serious question, by the way. Breadcrumbs are WIFOM, but I'll still test a claim before I'll take the risk if it isn't LyLo. I also agree that what I'm saying is something that scum could say, but it's also something that town can say.

[Junpei]

Force the scum to commit to the claim.

[Hikari Link]

Force the scum to commit to the claim.

Huh? Again, serious question.

[VisceraEyes]

That's why I think his play stinks of preknowledge. If he REALLY didn't know hiplop's alignment, thought he was scum based on the cases put forth against him, then he would've kept his vote on him. He would NOT have unvoted, he would have kept his vote on him and forced a claim out of him.

[VisceraEyes]

While someone having a PR DOES automatically make them town, someone SOFT-CLAIMING a PR does not. And if Link thought hiplop was scum OR PR, the claim was necessary to determine which. Unvote does NOT work in the equation.

[Hikari Link]

That's why I think his play stinks of preknowledge. If he REALLY didn't know hiplop's alignment, thought he was scum based on the cases put forth against him, then he would've kept his vote on him. He would NOT have unvoted, he would have kept his vote on him and forced a claim out of him.

Incorrect. I would not press the claim out of himif I had reason to believe he was a PR. That's not how I operate.

While someone having a PR DOES automatically make them town, someone SOFT-CLAIMING a PR does not. And if Link thought hiplop was scum OR PR, the claim was necessary to determine which. Unvote does NOT work in the equation.

I wasn't trying to sort out which. As I stated, I felt it worth the risk to wait a Day or two before pressing the subject. Gives him some time to get results.

[VisceraEyes]

No, you can't think someone is scummy, has scum motivations behind their actions, that they're pushing a scum agenda (your vote) and also think they're PR (your unvote). It's contradictory.

[Javert]

I am currently extraordinarily busy (just got some contract work a few hours ago), but I do think I need to add a few thoughts to this conversation.

I do not think the attack on Hikari Link is fully justified here. Sometimes Townspeople notice breadcrumbs even when they are not looking for them.

As an example, in New York #116, when I (playing under my main account, petroleumjelly) replaced in, I heavily attacked Tazaro. It turned out Tazaro was the Mafia Godfather. However, in the middle of my attack I completely reversed directions, and without explanation I unvoted him. The reason I unvoted him (which I explained after the game) was that while rereading Tazaro in isolation, I found a few posts pointing to a potential Bodyguard breadcrumb. And after confirming to myself that Tazaro had dropped similar breadcrumbs as Town before, I was no longer comfortable with my attack on Tazaro. Although I was left at the junction of "power role or scum," I figured that if he was Town his role would ultimately cause his own demise, and if he was scum there was no way he would make it far into the game anyways given my (justified) attack on him.

I think the critical inquiries here are (i) Hikari Link’s intent and whether he was “looking” for breadcrumbs, and (ii) whether Hikari’s Link’s suggestion that hiplop was killed as a potential power role actually suggests that Hikari Link knew the answer.

On those subjects:

I am unsure if Hikari Link was actually "looking" for breadcrumbs. But to me, the fact that Hikari Link did not bring up hiplop’s potential “breadcrumb” on Day Two when he first

raised

the theory – when bringing it up would not have done any harm, since hiplop was already dead – is actually the most interesting fact here. This is because it suggests that Hikari Link did not, at the time, want it to be apparent that he

himself

had caught a potential breadcrumb. Instead, he simply acted like it was a

possibility

, without actual justification (despite the fact that he had reason to believe it to be the case, if he is Town). To me, this makes it slightly more likely that he was trying to dissociate himself from the reasoning behind the kill. (Dissociate isn’t quite the right word, but hopefully my meaning here is clear.)

So: Hikari Link, if you had reason to believe that hiplop had said something that might be construed as a "breadcrumb" on Day Two when you suggested the theory that scum killed hiplop on the belief of him being a power role, why didn't you bring up the potential "Watcher" claim at the time? Why have you waited until this far into the game before bringing it up?

[Hikari Link]

No, you can't think someone is scummy, has scum motivations behind their actions, that they're pushing a scum agenda (your vote) and also think they're PR (your unvote). It's contradictory.

No, it isn't. It's only contradictory to your philosophy.

I am currently extraordinarily busy (just got some contract work a few hours ago), but I do think I need to add a few thoughts to this conversation.

I do not think the attack on Hikari Link is fully justified here. Sometimes Townspeople notice breadcrumbs even when they are not looking for them.

As an example, in New York #116, when I (playing under my main account, petroleumjelly) replaced in, I heavily attacked Tazaro. It turned out Tazaro was the Mafia Godfather. However, in the middle of my attack I completely reversed directions, and without explanation I unvoted him. The reason I unvoted him (which I explained after the game) was that while rereading Tazaro in isolation, I found a few posts pointing to a potential Bodyguard breadcrumb. And after confirming to myself that Tazaro had dropped similar breadcrumbs as Town before, I was no longer comfortable with my attack on Tazaro. Although I was left at the junction of "power role or scum," I figured that if he was Town his role would ultimately cause his own demise, and if he was scum there was no way he would make it far into the game anyways given my (justified) attack on him.

I think the critical inquiries here are (i) Hikari Link’s intent and whether he was “looking” for breadcrumbs, and (ii) whether Hikari’s Link’s suggestion that hiplop was killed as a potential power role actually suggests that Hikari Link knew the answer.

On those subjects:

I am unsure if Hikari Link was actually "looking" for breadcrumbs. But to me, the fact that Hikari Link did not bring up hiplop’s potential “breadcrumb” on Day Two when he first

raised

the theory – when bringing it up would not have done any harm, since hiplop was already dead – is actually the most interesting fact here. This is because it suggests that Hikari Link did not, at the time, want it to be apparent that he

himself

had caught a potential breadcrumb. Instead, he simply acted like it was a

possibility

, without actual justification (despite the fact that he had reason to believe it to be the case, if he is Town). To me, this makes it slightly more likely that he was trying to dissociate himself from the reasoning behind the kill. (Dissociate isn’t quite the right word, but hopefully my meaning here is clear.)

So: Hikari Link, if you had reason to believe that hiplop had said something that might be construed as a "breadcrumb" on Day Two when you suggested the theory that scum killed hiplop on the belief of him being a power role, why didn't you bring up the potential "Watcher" claim at the time? Why have you waited until this far into the game before bringing it up?

First, let me start by saying that I do in fact look for breadcrumbs. I don't comb through every post with a fine-tooth comb or anything, but I will look out for little details here or there, maybe check their first few posts to see if I can glean anything from the first few letters, that kind of stuff.

As for why I didn't bring forward the breadcrumb after he was dead, it was simply because I felt there was no point. He was deads and I was wrong, I just added in that I had thoughthat he was a PR because that was people were talking about at the time, since it was a weird death. If anyone had asked why, I would have answered, but I took the fact that nobody asked why I thought he was a PR meant that nobody was interested in my theory, so it didn't seem important enough to warrant elaboration. The only reason I even brought it up now is because part of the case against me was going back and forth on hiplop, so it seemed relevant to fully explain how my opinion of him formed.

[VisceraEyes]

Link, you're saying a TownPR can push scum agenda and have scum motivation for their actions? Otherwise, your actions ARE contradictory. You either thought he was scum or you didn't. Since you voted for him, that indicates that you thought he was scum.

[Junpei]

So unless asked directly about a subject, you won't give input?

Tell me Link, to you apply this philosophy to giving out reads? Why didn't you notice my breadcrumb? If you were going to wait a day or two to give him results, you must have [ i) assumed that he was an investigation role => we were in a setup with an investigation role ii) there were no protective roles ] => assumed he was town. Yet you had a strong enough scum read on him. This is, by every sense of the word, illogical.