Open 566: Murder on the Oriental Express (Game Over)

[Amy Farrah Fowler]

Astinus, now that we're well out of RVS, how do you feel about the current farside situation and the people participating? Do you have any strong townreads or scumreads?

[acryon]

I get the impression Toby is not reading things in full.

I also feel that, since I talked in that same post about her not providing much real content outside of just questioning people, and her next post(76) is asking yet another question of others without providing other real content or even answering your question.

[Belisarius]

Why are you turning this into argumentum ad absurdum by changing the argument to involve all replacements, requested or not?

Because I'm not. Those links were two games where the mod specifically stated replacement was requested, and one where a pregame replacement occurred without sufficient delay to gamestart for it to be anything

but

a request.

"Active elsewhere" is not relevant; there is no cause and effect relationship between replace-out requests and activity elsewhere. What's next, are we going to limit the criteria to a specific moon phase, making it even more impossible to get a sufficient sample size to be meaningful? How about only looking at replacements who are dog owners?

[acryon]

Why are you turning this into argumentum ad absurdum by changing the argument to involve all replacements, requested or not?

Because I'm not. Those links were two games where the mod specifically stated replacement was requested, and one where a pregame replacement occurred without sufficient delay to gamestart for it to be anything

but

a request.

"Active elsewhere" is not relevant; there is no cause and effect relationship between replace-out requests and activity elsewhere. What's next, are we going to limit the criteria to a specific moon phase, making it even more impossible to get a sufficient sample size to be meaningful? How about only looking at replacements who are dog owners?

While I don't necessarily think Beli is going about it the perfect way, I think he is at least tunneling in a good direction. Offering essentially useless input can be both scum trying to appear helpful or newb town trying to be helpful with bad input. Given that farside is far from a newbie, I'm definitely suspicious of her offering such a bad argument. You have to admit: especially for a very experienced player, that argument really sucked.

[farside22]

Why are you turning this into argumentum ad absurdum by changing the argument to involve all replacements, requested or not?

Because I'm not. Those links were two games where the mod specifically stated replacement was requested, and one where a pregame replacement occurred without sufficient delay to gamestart for it to be anything

but

a request.

"Active elsewhere" is not relevant; there is no cause and effect relationship between replace-out requests and activity elsewhere. What's next, are we going to limit the criteria to a specific moon phase, making it even more impossible to get a sufficient sample size to be meaningful? How about only looking at replacements who are dog owners?

While I don't necessarily think Beli is going about it the perfect way, I think he is at least tunneling in a good direction. Offering essentially useless input can be both scum trying to appear helpful or newb town trying to be helpful with bad input. Given that farside is far from a newbie, I'm definitely suspicious of her offering such a bad argument. You have to admit: especially for a very experienced player, that argument really sucked.

One bel is far from newb.
Two the tell I stated is specific to two times it happened to me and even said it's rare.
He looks to be trying to make it as though I was yelling charge, telling people this is scum and expecting people to follow that.
All of that is far from factual.
Finally, rvs stage and having semi serious reason vs let me bw or vote myself because of cool kids does not = suck reasoning.

[farside22]

I feel bel is trying to say I'm making stuff up, shows things based on nothing I stated and now is ramrodding a point that it's even around any more.
Like how many times do I have to say I didn't expect people to agree. Or that I did not say this is a strong scum tell.
I voted in rvs for semi serious reason to get reaction from the person who replaced hir and see how he responses.

[Belisarius]

He looks to be trying to make it as though I was yelling charge, telling people this is scum and expecting people to follow that.
All of that is far from factual.

Add putting words in my mouth to the case against farside.

Additionally, your attack on Blondy was just suppressive fire for lack of a better target, but when I do the same thing but with

more

to go on, it's sinister and machiavellian? I think there's a word for that.

[Astinus]

Astinus, now that we're well out of RVS, how do you feel about the current farside situation and the people participating? Do you have any strong townreads or scumreads?

At this point, no. I'm still learning how to town-read and scum-read, to be honest. Before I came to this site, I had never known that mafia could involve such in-depth thinking and analysis. So this is new for me.

[Amy Farrah Fowler]

From your point of view, would would be your most likely vote right now?

The best way to learn to scumhunt is to play the game and see how things pan out. Look at posts, see if something jumps out at you. If you have a gut feeling about someone then try and find out what prompted it.

[TobyLoby]

Hello Farside,

What was your view of astinus self vote after asking if it was okay? Does it really help or do anything to switch rvs to oneself?

I made a response about Astinus in post 78. I don't know if we can take anything serious from their actions or read from it.

If you want an updated answer now that Astinus has posted again or that you don't care about my thoughts above but want an independent answer apart from my original thoughts, then my answers are:

1. I don't view it as anything telling by itself especially as it came up after another player doing it.
2. No.

@acyron: I figured she was but I was trying to understand why she focused on one part of the post and not the rest

I was in part responding to Amy's post 74 read of Acyron where I am addressing her read along with my own opinions. I start the second sentence of my vote on him in post 77 initially addressing the whole of his latest post and acknowledged that although he has made original analysis, it was only when he was asked and a good chunk of his contribution to the thread at the time was regurgitation of the wiki and a quote of himself in a past game (along with the stuff I already addressed), combined with my belief that he may be actively lurking.

Essentially, those things to me override any townie-ness that last post of his may have had.

If you don't like my reasoning, that's cool. You can debate it with me and tell me why you believe I am wrong. What I am not going to do is engage in some snark vs snark game with you.

Now then,

@Farside,

1. What of my posts are indicative of scum?
2. Maybe I missed it: What is your read on Mr_Blonde now?
3.

He looks to be trying to make it as though I was yelling charge, telling people this is scum and expecting people to follow that.

Can you quote where you believe he is doing this?

[SnugglyDuckling]

Unvote

and

Vote Mr Blonde

Something makes me think he is mafia.

Would you like to inform us of what that something is?
Or if it's gut feeling then are there any specific posts that provoked it?

Some examples of why he is town reading you would be sweet too.

Just feelings I got. No hard evidence obviously. Specific post would be 28 though in hindsight it doesn't look as bad as I thought. I guess it was just going off what had been posted so far though now that more things have been posted, that doesn't stick out as much to me any more.

Amy seems town just because I feel like I want to trust her for some reason. Do I

need

a reason? Haha because I don't have one.

Interesting that you both asked questions to me about each other.

[SnugglyDuckling]

Generally players that hand out reads for seemingly arbitrary reasons get the stink eye from me.

Fair enough but I rarely find reasons to suspect people other than arbitrary ones so prepare to give me a lot of stink eyes.

[acryon]

I was in part responding to Amy's post 74 read of Acyron where I am addressing her read along with my own opinions. I start the second sentence of my vote on him in post 77 initially addressing the whole of his latest post and acknowledged that although he has made original analysis, it was only when he was asked and a good chunk of his contribution to the thread at the time was regurgitation of the wiki and a quote of himself in a past game (along with the stuff I already addressed), combined with my belief that he may be actively lurking.

Essentially, those things to me override any townie-ness that last post of his may have had.

Not that I generally feel the need to respond to this type of thing, but it seems a little disingenuous to call quoting the wiki to be helpful and give a newbie an accurate definition "regurgitating" it. Additionally, 59 was a real post. So at that time, I had one post helping a newbie, one post adding onto someone's argument, and a third post detailing my reads with a blurb regarding my playstyle during RVS. Trying to say a "good chunk" of my contribution was from what you said it was seems likes a hard sell.

[farside22]

Hello Farside,

What was your view of astinus self vote after asking if it was okay? Does it really help or do anything to switch rvs to oneself?

I made a response about Astinus in post 78. I don't know if we can take anything serious from their actions or read from it.

If you want an updated answer now that Astinus has posted again or that you don't care about my thoughts above but want an independent answer apart from my original thoughts, then my answers are:

1. I don't view it as anything telling by itself especially as it came up after another player doing it.
2. No.

@acyron: I figured she was but I was trying to understand why she focused on one part of the post and not the rest

I was in part responding to Amy's post 74 read of Acyron where I am addressing her read along with my own opinions. I start the second sentence of my vote on him in post 77 initially addressing the whole of his latest post and acknowledged that although he has made original analysis, it was only when he was asked and a good chunk of his contribution to the thread at the time was regurgitation of the wiki and a quote of himself in a past game (along with the stuff I already addressed), combined with my belief that he may be actively lurking.

Essentially, those things to me override any townie-ness that last post of his may have had.

If you don't like my reasoning, that's cool. You can debate it with me and tell me why you believe I am wrong. What I am not going to do is engage in some snark vs snark game with you.

Now then,

@Farside,

1. What of my posts are indicative of scum?
2. Maybe I missed it: What is your read on Mr_Blonde now?
3.

He looks to be trying to make it as though I was yelling charge, telling people this is scum and expecting people to follow that.

Can you quote where you believe he is doing this?

I don't see how post 78 explains or even attempts to explain your thought on my question to you. As all you did was ask questions about my comment.

What was the point if your question to astinus?

As for blond, he seemed like he was like wtf and then pfft and in short he took it in stride and moved on. I'm leaning town.

The reason you seem to not be really reading the thread is your pointing out bits and pieces of a full story. It reads like cherry picking points.


As for bel, he keeps harping on the same point repeatedly and I don't get why this is a scum tell or how he interrupted as scum a big ta do unless he thinks I made the whole thing up, which one post were he linked all those replacement games indicated to me trying to discredit me.


Phone currently dying will be back later.

[acryon]

Generally players that hand out reads for seemingly arbitrary reasons get the stink eye from me.

Fair enough but I rarely find reasons to suspect people other than arbitrary ones so prepare to give me a lot of stink eyes.

I hope this isn't the case. It isn't that hard to find at least semi-legitimate reasons to suspect players.

[SnugglyDuckling]

Generally players that hand out reads for seemingly arbitrary reasons get the stink eye from me.

Fair enough but I rarely find reasons to suspect people other than arbitrary ones so prepare to give me a lot of stink eyes.

I hope this isn't the case. It isn't that hard to find at least semi-legitimate reasons to suspect players.

So far you guys spend more time arguing about game play mechanics and abstract theory than actual real life examples in this game so I'm finding it hard to follow. When in doubt throw a wrench into things.

[Amy Farrah Fowler]

Generally players that hand out reads for seemingly arbitrary reasons get the stink eye from me.

Fair enough but I rarely find reasons to suspect people other than arbitrary ones so prepare to give me a lot of stink eyes.

Townpoints for the above post.

While I partially agree with acryon and hope you find some legitimate reasons too, this post jumps out to me as towny, if only because I can't really see scum, especially newbie scum, replying in that way.

[TobyLoby]

I agree with Amy that I think farside really believes what they fought for regarding the Hiraki slot. I don't think there is plain scum motivation in that. The difficulty in reading farside is differentiating between what is indicative of alignment and what are personality/attitude tells. I've never played with her before so I don't know how much "snarky" factors into things. I need to see more of her. My gut based on previous similar experiences with players wants to say town.

Chaos' post,

Also, your case against Mr.Blonde has no real evidence against it and I do not understand why a wagon is building on him so early because of a post where he said "let's dance."

I do find scummy, but in the past I've found it to be a stronger associative tell than a flat out. A scum coming in to defend their buddy sort of way. Two votes on a buddy may look more dire than it is. I can especially see this with a newer player. I suppose it could be a scum Chaos busing a scum farside and overexagerrating a wagon but I find it less likely.

@acryon

,

While I don't necessarily think Beli is going about it the perfect way, I think he is at least tunneling in a good direction.

What about how Beli is going about do you think of as not perfect?

P-edit a bunch of people have posted while writing this. Oh well.

[TobyLoby]

Not that I generally feel the need to respond to this type of thing, but it seems a little disingenuous to call quoting the wiki to be helpful and give a newbie an accurate definition "regurgitating" it. Additionally, 59 was a real post. So at that time, I had one post helping a newbie, one post adding onto someone's argument, and a third post detailing my reads with a blurb regarding my playstyle during RVS. Trying to say a "good chunk" of my contribution was from what you said it was seems likes a hard sell.

You quoted. It doesn't matter why or for whom. How else would you define it? I suppose "quoting from the wiki" is the best way to put it. It is nothing more besides that. I'm looking at your posts on an ongoing contribution basis and that is what I see.

What was the point if your question to astinus?

I didn't ask a question to Astinus. I asked someone a question about Astinus and I think it is self-evident why.

[SnugglyDuckling]

These come across as mightily subjective for someone who apparently has never played before, iirc

What are you getting at here?

That I wouldn't expect commentary like that from a player who was supposedly new to Mafia.

Which led me to question if he was being completely forthcoming with his experience. Which led me to question why he'd feel the need to be dishonest about his experience level, etc. He's cleared it up since saying that he has experience playing IRL but is new to forum Mafia - which I think shows a bit with how he's posted earlier. With this information in mind, he strikes me as someone who is not overly conscious of their posting style, or what they're saying, as much as a salty MSer would be for instance.

so analysis. such penetrating. very confuse. much uncomfortable. wow

I must say I'm impressed with the level of thought you put into picking apart not only what I say but how I'm saying it though. I'm trying to decide whether this makes me think good or bad things about you. Probably good things because a mafia player wouldn't care too much whether I was lying about experience levels, they would just kill me.

What is the point of voting for oneself? Avoiding voting someone else?

Vote: Astinus

UNVOTE:
VOTE: SnuggkyDuckling

There were three people who self-voted up to this point. Why point out Astinus?

I don't sympathize with the point of this. Probably because there is no point and she's still voting him.

Seems kind of reactionary to me, I don't take offense to it. That is to say it doesn't feel very suspicious just more of a poking prodding type of thing.
Why do you think it's bad? And why don't you vote if you think it's bad?

VOTE: acryon

I'm going to disagree with some of Amy's thoughts on Acryon. Although he may be making original analysis, a lot of it is said when asked and a chunk of his posting has been quotes from the wiki or himself from another game. His rather quick response to Amy means he's following the thread but he's not actively contributing to it. We've also long past the RVS stage.

I'm impressed because I felt this exact same way.

Unvote

and

Vote acryon

truckload of salt.

I like you.

Do you think the bw on Amy caused much reaction?

Some. I have some ideas about it but I want to keep them to myself for now.

Why?

I have no clue where meta came into this conversation. Nor where I even expect mr. Blond to defend my comment.
This is pretty simple people. 2 games I was in a player asked for replacement and both times those players were scum.
For me this better then average experience. Does this mea 100% lmets lynch mr. Blond. No
Did I tell people this is something that needs to happen. No
I stated a fact I have experienced.

Oh, well 2 is certainly a scientifically rigorous sample size. Can't argue with science!

I'd still rather lynch you because the faeries told me to.

Let me ask you, because this is specific and rare.
How many games do you see people request replacement pregame and still active on site?
The reason my number is small is it very rarely happens.
Either you have some newb that requested replacement for a game do to some reason or mass replacement request.
This is a rare only seen it happen twice and both where scum events.

Now that you put it that way it seems pretty reasonable.

I admit I didn't really follow your argument up to this point; who are you saying this makes more likely to be scum? #toolazytorereaditall

Also, at some point, acryon says "if you look at my filter"... what's that mean?

Let me ask you, because this is specific and rare.

Rare? This game required

four

replacements pregame. In a mini. Wow, that's a lot of scum for a mini. Better lynch all of the pregame replacements. Let's start with you. If you flip town, I'll volunteer to go next.

I don't know whether you're an idiot or just scum trying to push something that's a 'good reason for a lynch'.

That's not what farside is saying. Farside said that typically requesting to be replaced while being active elsewhere on the site is a tell indicative of a scum slot. I haven't had enough direct experience with cases like that to push for either side of the argument myself, but I get the theory.

Why are you turning this into argumentum ad absurdum by changing the argument to involve all replacements, requested or not? Stop inflating something to a ridiculous level and then criticizing the outcome, because that's dumb and won't give you any towncred whatsoever.

#agreewiththis

Beli, it looks like you're trying to make farside look dumb, not like you're trying to find scum. Hey, that rhymes.

@anyone who is actually reading this: is it more usual to say "scum" or "mafia" and does it matter? (on a site called MafiaScum probably not)

Also, does anyone question why I think Amy is town, now?

Astinus, now that we're well out of RVS, how do you feel about the current farside situation and the people participating? Do you have any strong townreads or scumreads?

At this point, no. I'm still learning how to town-read and scum-read, to be honest. Before I came to this site, I had never known that mafia could involve such in-depth thinking and analysis. So this is new for me.

Saaaaame. lol

This is exciting. Haha

Chaos' post,

Also, your case against Mr.Blonde has no real evidence against it and I do not understand why a wagon is building on him so early because of a post where he said "let's dance."

I do find scummy, but in the past I've found it to be a stronger associative tell than a flat out. A scum coming in to defend their buddy sort of way.

Two votes on a buddy may look more dire than it is.

I can especially see this with a newer player. I suppose it could be a scum Chaos busing a scum farside and overexagerrating a wagon but I find it less likely.

This is actually really insightful.
Chaos looks bad here.

Sorry for the huge ass post I didn't plan on saying this much. Ha

[acryon]

While I partially agree with acryon and hope you find some legitimate reasons too, this post jumps out to me as towny, if only because I can't really see scum, especially newbie scum, replying in that way.

I do want to point out that I definitely don't think what he said read as scummy at all, just hoping he finds some.

@acryon

,

While I don't necessarily think Beli is going about it the perfect way, I think he is at least tunneling in a good direction.

What about how Beli is going about do you think of as not perfect?

I would say the general abrasive nature, because when you tunnel in that kind of way, it's easy for even town to write off the defendant's reactions as justifiably defensive.

[Dry-fit]

I also feel that, since I talked in that same post about her not providing much real content outside of just questioning people, and her next post(76) is asking yet another question of others without providing other real content or even answering your question.

What's the difference between asking questions and "real content?"

Do you think the bw on Amy caused much reaction?

Some. I have some ideas about it but I want to keep them to myself for now.

Why?

Because I don't think going into them now will help the town.

@anyone who is actually reading this: is it more usual to say "scum" or "mafia" and does it matter? (on a site called MafiaScum probably not)

Scum is probably more common. Scum is a more general term that includes any player or team opposed to the town. That can include serial killers, werewolves, cults, mafia etc.

[SnugglyDuckling]

Oh snap I remember playing with werewolves once. Thanks for the explanation.

Why don't you think going into your ideas will help the town?

[acryon]

I also feel that, since I talked in that same post about her not providing much real content outside of just questioning people, and her next post(76) is asking yet another question of others without providing other real content or even answering your question.

What's the difference between asking questions and "real content?"

Providing reads, commentary on the questions' answers, general suspicions of possible scum-teams, top town groups. Plenty of things. I already said in my initial comment about it that I didn't want to devalue questioning, because it is crucial to ask good questions, but following up and bringing your actual thoughts into the matter is very important as well.

[acryon]

Because I don't think going into them now will help the town.

Here's how I like to look at it. Each of us is working on the same puzzle, but some of us find different pieces at different points. By providing what pieces you have(as little as they may be), you could provide someone else with the missing piece they need to put together a more solid case.