Ok, so here goes. I tried to keep it relatively organized for easy reading. If anybody wants me to elaborate on my reads or anything then I will, because I know that by the end of this I was a little dazed. Also, since this post was made over the course of two days, the later reads will be ever so slightly more up to date than the earlier ones.
_Sherlock_
Replaced JasonWazza in
post 173, and admitted to being new to online Mafia. As with several players thusfar, he made a list of reads in
176, but didn't explain them. This is a pet peeve of mine, because it doesn't contribute to the town, but I'll let it slide since it's all over the place and therefore not necessarily indicative of alignment. However, Sherlock also voted for Radelle without giving any kind of explanation other than gut. This is scummy, but since he admitted to being new to online Mafia I'm going to let it slide for now. Then in
post 211 he explains his thoughts on the whole game. It's basically the same sort of thing I'm doing now, examining everyone else's play. He continues this in
262. His arguments for how people are playing match his reads in 176, so at least he's consistent.
A lot of his playstyle seems to be based on feeling. For example, his gut reads, and his talk about Sable's 57 and Tommy's 115 feeling genuine. I'm going to assume this playstyle is a holdover from playing mafia in real life. This is also why he claims to have a town read on Trollie, saying that Trollie seems to be genuine about what he's saying, but is making weak arguments (see
post 262). All in all I get a town feel from Sherlock, since he does seem to be trying to contribute, and the only slips that I can see (his gut reads) are easily explained as playstyle. Not a playstyle I like, but legitimate.
Null/Leaning Town
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Abaddon
Makes some one-word statements and reasonless votes until
29. Or at least that's where I'm going to say RVS is over for him, because I still can't tell where RVS stopped. There should be an announcement or something. Anyway, that is when he in his argument against CD about whether CD is scum or an idiot. His arguments with CD are very short posts that are based largely on assumptions ("I'm assuming CD is new town because of his play", when he could have just glanced at CD's wiki to see how many games CD's played) and game theory. In
62 he rightly calls out toxictaipan for fishing for explanations for why Sable is scum instead of just doing it himself. This is toxic's so-called reaction test, which I'll look at more when I do my read on toxic. In
86 Abaddon says he doesn't buy toxic's explanation for the test, but doesn't push him. This confuses me. He had is vote on Radelle ever since the RVS, but didn't put it on toxic, even though he had a much stronger reason to vote for toxic (or at least, Abaddon hadn't explained his post
19 vote on Radelle beyond saying that Radelle's post
15 was fake and overdoing it). This is unusual behavior, especially considering the fact that he also left his RVS vote on toxic while arguing against Radelle.
In
121 he does the "post your reads on everyone" thing, and while he gives some sort of explanation for some of his reads, they're all weak (for example, his read on me, which he says is "positive behavior." What does that mean?). Fortunately his scumreads are explained more fully, but I'd prefer to see specific examples. He goes on to argue against Tommy's case on Parama and arguing with pretty much everyone over the next few days. After November 2nd his activity takes a nosedive.
Abaddon's play is mostly laconic. He doesn't go into long arguments about things, and seems to be poking his head here, there, everywhere, making short statements about everything. He also talks a lot about playstyle and game theory, which is nice, but shouldn't get in the way of analysis. He does seem to have a slight relation to Parama. He defends Parama against Tommy in
post 123 by arguing against Tommy's case. His actions in conjunction with Parama during the RVS also seem cooperative, but that's mostly a feeling, and I feel hypocritical even mentioning it.
Null/Leaning Scum
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absta101
(note that because I am currently pissed at absta this will probably be harsher than it would have been under normal circumstances)
Replaced Parama in
post 127. His
post 157 consists mostly of agree/don't agree statements, and isn't very useful. As with several other players, he has a problem of not explaining his reads until questioned, and frankly you shouldn't have to be asked. In
post 200 he argues that Abbadon is faking
82. I don't necessarily buy that, because it may have just been bad phrasing on Abbadon's part. Then absta does very little of note until
post 294, where he votes Cheery but doesn't give an explanation, instead asking Cheery to answer two questions. Asking questions isn't an explanation for a vote. It's scumhunting, sure, but I want reasons for votes.
Absta asks a lot of questions but gives very, very little substance. Also, in post 200, he also acts like townie players shouldn't call out bad play if said bad play was in line with one of their own statements (player A and player B agree that player C is scummy, but B's argument is crap. Even so, A can't call B out for crap arguments). This is retarded, and absta should be flogged for saying it. BAD PLAY IS BAD PLAY, and should be called out whenever it happens. This makes me think that absta is new (plus his blank wiki and join date), so it may just be newbishness talking, but still.
Scum
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Cheery Dog
Opted not to join in the RVS, then voted for Abaddon for not voting Radelle while seeing her as scum, as noted above. He says that Abaddon was likely intentionally leaving his vote off of Radelle for appearance's sake, but then doesn't really develop it any further and then drops it in
post 110. Then he votes for Parama for lurking (
post 119) after Parama already replaced out. He has also repeatedly suggested that people lynch him for his playstyle (for example,
post 167). In all honesty, after that, I don't even pretend to follow what he's doing.
CD is incredibly hard to read. There is an entire circle of Hell where sinners are forced to figure out CD's alignment. He's been hedging a bit (examples include his
post 30), and has expressed that he is a largely reactive player, using that as an excuse to forego scumhunting (such as his
post 182). I suppose if I had to make a read on CD, it would be
Scum
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Deltabacon
Didn't post until
post 77. In
post 92, saying Sable Tip was being wishy washy in his arguments against Abaddon and Parama in
post 57. Then he votes Sable Tip, also calling him out for improperly attacking inactives. His next post,
post 161, attacks CD for coasting and not being very useful (this is something I also noted, see above), and votes for him. He also complains about Sable "chainsawing" him in
post 109. Deltabacon then argues back and forth for a bit with CD and his gallant defender Trollie. In
post 203 his attention shifts over to Trollie for defending CD. Deltabacon argues that Trollie has been shifting his view on CD back and forth between town (defending him) and building a half-assed case against him. Deltabacon later discounts the meta-defense for CD, saying that in previous games CD was more coherent in his posts, and continues to call Trollie out for defending CD with insufficient evidence. He keeps hammering Trollie from then on. In
post 275 he again calls Trollie out for being inconsistent, citing his constant defense of CD while having him as a scumread. In
post 280 he makes what seems to me the most damning argument against Trollie.
Deltabacon has certainly been less active than some, but his posts are invariably substantive. He accurately calls CD out for coasting, then consistently blasts Trollie for defending CD for crappy reasons. I have to say Deltabacon looks incredibly
Town
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Idiotking
Me, obviously.
S'up to you.
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JacobSavage
Does practically nothing of note except prod dodge until
post 138, where he links to his spreadsheet and explains how it works. His biggest scumreads at this point are CD and Trollie, though he does not explain why until later, and then it's mostly just feeling. Then in
post 202 he posts an update on his spreadsheet and gives full explanations for his reads. In
post 218 he votes Trollie. Then in
post 263 he unvotes, saying he buys Trollie's more recent statements as being town. He latersays we should hold off on attacking CD until later, and says he doesn't really endorse any lynches at the moment.
I have mixed feelings about Jacob, mostly because his posts were largely insubstantial until 202 (even his 138 post with the spreadsheet was lacking, because it was essentially no different from listing reads without reasons). Then post 202 happens, and he swings hard over to the townie side. Unfortunately all of his posts are based around his spreadsheets and contain remarkably little analysis. I would have a more positive read on Jacob if he gave more posts like 202. Then again, he currently does not want to lynch anyone, which is strange, given he's repeatedly expressed scumreads on CD and Trollie, and didn't explain in detail why they changed. I'm going to have to wait and see more before I make a decision.
Null
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JasonWazza
Didn't come in until
post 52, where he votes for Radelle, saying that she was implying CD's anti-RVS attitude was scummy, and saying that Radelle was trying to distract the town. He then proceeds to do nothing else until getting replaced by Sherlock.
He didn't really stick around long enough for me to form an opinion, so my read on the slot is entirely based on Sherlock. For Sherlock, see above.
Null
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kwll
Replaced Sable Tip in
post 258, and has done nothing since. It's been five days.
Null
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Parama
Voted for Radelle in
post 16, then said CD was scum, neither of which he explained. What followed thereafter was a series of extremely sarcastic and utterly worthless posts. He replaced out in
post 117 after being active in all of his other games but lurking in this one. His replacement is absta.
Parama didn't explain diddly when he was here, always acting like whatever he thought was obvious to everyone and generally acting like a jerk. Normally I would go after him for not explaining any of his posts, but I'm going to assume he was just a terrible player. For my read on his replacement, see above.
Null
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Radelle
Voted for toxic in
post 15, saying he didn't make a serious vote on CD even though he was questioning him. She continues working on toxic through to
post 68, also questioning toxic's reaction test, and getting into a big semantic argument with a lot of players over either/or and game theory. In
post 80 she gets into a pointless fight with toxic over who gets credit for ending RVS, and says toxic is overthinking where his vote goes, and says Jason is town. Later Radelle calls out Parama for being active in other threads but not this one, and argues with Abaddon over whether the town is justified in arguing against bad arguments, even if said bad argument is against someone you find scummy. Then in
post 97 she votes for Abaddon, arguing that he is somehow not being aggressive enough in going after her (?) while attacking other players. This is what Abaddon calls a strawman argument. In
post 131 she lays down her case against Abaddon while responding to Abaddon's argument against her. Her argument mostly rests on Abaddon being entirely reactionary in his responses and not seriously pursuing his argument against Radelle. In
post 135 she defends her argument against Abaddon (which as toxic points out only used posts prior to 97 and ignored all subsequent posts). This defense continues in
post 142 and
post 184 and
post 259. This defense is also a sort of passive attack against toxic, who was her biggest critic. She has been MIA since November 7th.
Radelle has been on the defense ever since 97, going over the same stupid points about the timing over her argument and whether toxic is scummy for his reasoning concerning Radelle's argument being scummy. While I agree with toxic that Radelle should have been quicker in explaining her argument and should have used more recent information in it, this entire argument makes my head hurt, so instead I'm going to focus on the fact that Radelle hasn't posted anything original (repeating old points doesn't count) since 97, and therefore has stalled scumhunting. Thus I'm going to say that Radelle is
Null/Leaning Scum
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Sable Tip
Comes in at
post 57, saying that Abaddon's defense for not immediately voting for Radelle was overstating that there is no reason for scum to do so. Sable argues that while it was most likely just a mistake, scum might have still done it. Sable then calls Parama out for arrogantly acting like what he meant in
post 47 was obvious, when it wasn't. Sable then voted for Parama.
Post 109 is a massive defense of 57, and votes for Deltabacon, saying that his entire argument against Sable was crap. Sable didn't really do anything more until replacing out.
As with other people who only posted a few times before being replaced out, I don't really have any strong read on Sable.
Null
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Slandaar
Votes for Abaddon in
post 39, saying that there was no scum motivation for arguing against Radelle without laying down a vote, but still seeing it as scummy somehow. Then in
post 45 he asks CD why scum would want to do what Abaddon did (all the while still having his vote on Abaddon). Strangely he continues to side with Abaddon, saying that Abaddon responded to toxic's reaction test appropriately and that Abaddon's response to Tommy's case on Parama was correct. Admittedly, Slandaar also made points against Abaddon during this time period (posts
130 and
220 are examples), but in general he doesn't make any strong stands. After that Slandaar is all over the place.
Slandaar's play has been incredibly non-committal. He hasn't made any determined arguments against anything at all, a prime example being his scum-have-no-reason-to-do-it-but-its-still-scummy-anyway first vote on Abaddon. His play is extremely weak because he isn't making strong stands on anything, and just seems to be coasting, though less obviously than CD.
Scum
------
TheTrollie
Doesn't really post anything game-related until
post 140, where he lists a bunch of completely unexplained reads. In
post 160 he quotes
post 119 as CD's scummiest post, saying that CD is illogical and lacking good judgment, but then makes a big deal about how players like that always turn out to be town. His
very next post
,
post 162, says that there is no good case on CD, exclusively using assumptions on CD's playstyle and meta as a defense.
Post 166 basically says that it's OK for townies to forego scumhunting. In
post 196, he votes for Radelle, having never made a single argument ever against Radelle, and saying that he's explained the reads he felt were important (when he obviously hadn't, given his vote).
Post 229 did a fantastic job of not answering my question about what his reads meant, all the while saying that he thought CD was scum, but that there was no reason to see CD as scum. Once I finished picking up the pieces of my shattered psyche and went on, I hit
post 233, which basically reiterates that the case against CD is bad. After that he gets in a brief discussion with Jacob over how Jacob's spreadsheet worked, until
post 266, when he digs back into his meta defense of CD, again insisting that there is no good argument against CD, and claiming that it is his personal crusade against all of MafiaScum's “faulty logic.” Note that in all this time Trollie has never even mentioned Radelle. Then, finally, in
post 291, he lists a few words that he mistakes for being a case against Radelle. Later he says that he has a null read on CD (without giving a reason).
Trollie is by far the scummiest player thusfar, doing his best to both buddy and distance CD, and failing miserably at both. His defense of CD is entirely based on meta, acting like it gives CD free reign to be as scummy as he damn well pleases, because all of MafiaScum must be wrong and that meta must be an invariably solid defense for everything anyone ever does. But in my mind even this pales in comparison to his utterly unexplained vote on Radelle, when he insisted that he had explained all of his important reads. I absolutely refuse to believe that he didn't think his read on Radelle wasn't important
when his vote was on Radelle
. Trollie is completely, obviously, blatantly
Scum
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Tommy
Voted for Parama in
post 37, in response to Parama's unexplained read on Radelle and misinterpretation of CD's case against Abaddon.
Post 50 continues this case against Parama, and includes Parama's unwillingness to defend his votes. Tommy also says he has a town read on CD because CD admitted to maybe being mistaken (this isn't a towntell, it's just someone being waffly).
Post 75 is another rejection of toxic's reaction test. Tommy afterwards puts out a few feelers against Jason, Jacob, and Sable, and calls out Deltabacon for being inactive, though retracts that after a while. Then in
post 115 Tommy lays out his full case against Parama (the one Abaddon dismissed). The arguments are based mostly on the fact that Parama didn't do anything at all useful throughout his entire stay, but as I mentioned above, I see them as mostly just Parama being bad at the game. In
post 169 Tommy calls Trollie town without giving an explanation, and sides with Deltabacon's case against CD. In
post 219 Tommy calls absta out for supposedly making a bad case against Abaddon, then assumes that absta has ulterior motives. He doesn't explain why the case against Abaddon is bad, he just says it is. He does this again in
post 242, saying absta's argument was made up, but not presenting any evidence for it. In
post 252 he unvotes absta (he had never voted for absta), even though absta was his strongest scumread, and switches over to Radelle.
Tommy makes broad statements, like “this is good, this is bad, this is bad because {assumption}”, none of which are very useful. Admittedly Tommy's been active, but activity isn't a good measure of someone's alignment. I am annoyed by his lack of explanation for why he thinks the way he does about things (why is Trollie town, for example). I am also annoyed by how in 252 he dropped his biggest scumread (absta) in favor of Radelle, saying that Radelle was one of the only three lynch choices. That's blatantly retarded. As of this post we're still about 6 days away from the deadline, there's still plenty of time to make cases for people that we think are scummiest. Why then does Tommy want to begrudgingly hop on a wagon so early? This is just bad. Tommy is
Scum
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toxictaipan
Voted for me in
post 32, saying that I should have noticed that RVS was over by then. In
post 53 he sides with Abaddon in the CD vs Abaddon argument, saying that scum wouldn't argue against someone without voting for them since there is no motivation to do so. Toxic also points out that his earlier statements, which Parama quoted in
post 47, didn't contradict, and continues his argument that I should have been more useful and not made a random vote so late. In
post 61 toxic makes his famous reaction test. Apparently the point of the reaction test was to see who would jump on him for making such a post, implying that those people were cautious town. Starting in
post 73 he gets into his stupid argument with Radelle about who gets credit for getting us out of RVS, or in what way RVS should end, or some other nonsense that is essentially a game theory discussion. In
post 85 toxic explains his reaction test, saying that smart or cautious townies would act like Abaddon did (calling out toxic's bluff). He also calls out Sable for having Radelle as a null read when Sable's three scumreads all listed Radelle as scum. Later he states town reads on Abaddon and Tommy, thanks to their reactions to his test. In
post 133 toxic says that the alignment of players responding to his reaction test is irrelevant, it's the reactions themselves that are important. In
post 134 he points out that Radelle's case against Abaddon exclusively relies on posts before 97 and ignores all subsequent posts, in addition to waiting to post a reason for the vote. In
post 139 he elaborates on this reasoning and votes for Radelle. For the next little while he continues his back and forth with Radelle. In
post 154 he argues against Tommy's case on Parama, while continuing his argument with Radelle. In
post 317 he says he doesn't like the wagon on Trollie, claiming that he read Trollie's ISO and found his reaction to CD reasonable (he didn't respond to the argument against Trollie's unexplained vote on Radelle).
While I absolutely love the fact that toxic is talkative and explains most of his thoughts when appropriate, I can't say that I have a town read on him. I don't like toxic's argument that Sable should have seen Radelle as town in post 85. I'm assuming what he's going for is “the enemy of my enemy is my friend”, and that Radelle should have been a town read, but that's just bad, because it requires you to ignore your own read and base your reads on what your suspects think. I'm guessing that this is also why he didn't mention the argument against Trollie's vote on Radelle. I also don't think his reaction test is useful at all, since he says both that alignment doesn't matter and that the test helps you figure out who is town. That's idiotic, but it's not a scumtell, since I can't imagine scum coming up with such an elaborate ruse for doing post 61. Then again, I agree with him that Radelle should have been more forthcoming in her reasons for voting for Abaddon and should have used more recent evidence when she finally did explain it. Overall I don't really have any strong feelings about toxic's alignment.
Null
