My general scum hunting theory goes something like this: Players are always trying to improve the strength of their vote. Mafia have to fabricate their vote in some way. So I want to analyse why players voted (or didn't vote) in the expectation that we should see players improving the quality of their vote. If they don't behave in ways that make sense, then I have to consider if they have some kind of ulterior motive for their action. I always want to apply 'Because they are mafia' as the reason why.
We expect terrible votes to happen in RVS. The reason I was driving attention at Serene was because they had made a
great
vote and then changed it to a RVS wagon vote. That decreased the strength of their vote, and that provokes the question of 'Why would you willingly move to a weaker position?' -> because you are scum. We should always ask this question and failing to do so, failing to hold people accountable for their votes, is how scum wins games. You all know this, we are all experienced players. That is why it was, frankly, bizarre that Rylai/Kilga/Pie were voting me for challenging Serene, and argued semantics over reckless-or-not-reckless. It was always about "Why did you change your vote?" which Serene said "I have some secret reason that I don't want to share right now" and later eventuated to "I wanted to apply pressure to Shadoweh". But Shadoweh had not posted, so there was no reason to 'apply pressure', and equally this reason could have been said at the time, and not postponed. It increasingly weakened Serene's position. 'Why would you willingly move to a weaker position' -> because you are scum.
I can accept that Serene might have thought "Oh, I screwed up, my case on SB is bad" and unvoted. But the sudden flip on to a new wagon screams
player is desperate to vote somewhere/anywhere rather than be caught with their hand in the cookie jar.
"What is your motivation?" -> because you are scum.
So I don't like Serene, I don't like their defenders (SB/Kilga/Rylai/Pie), and I don't like that we have players who haven't voted at all yet.
In depth:
24
SB votes for Pie: Joke about bussing.
30
Serene's vote for SB over his bussing joke because
the joke is out of place in a non-native forum
. On it's own that is a pretty weak reason but hey, RVS, let it fly.
32
Serene follows up with "Can you link games outside SF where you brought up the joke as town?" SB has played a lot of games on MotK, and with a join date of July 2012 at MS, presumably here too.
This should have been an easy request to meet.
"Sure, here is my last game as town...(link)"
Instead, the response is:
44
"idk i've played like 2 games on MS and most of my recent games on motk were scumgames before mafia kind of died there."
So let's go look at the Shrine Maiden games. SB modded our most recent one, so the one before that:
NOTV2 - Town, first page,
joke about not
being scum.
AOC - Town, no jokes.
NSP - Town, no jokes.
Containment - Scum, first post is a
bus joke.
Dr Wars - Town, no jokes.
MB - Town,
self votes and claims bussing self (...)
UF - Scum, no jokes.
AUS - town, no jokes.
In summary, for games dating back to the start of 2014:
As town, SB has
once joked about bussing or being scum
.
SB has
once joked about being scum
while scum (50% of scum games).
Overall, SB making a joke about bussibg or scumming is
more likely
to come from scum!SB, but not conclusively.
However, this does fly in the face of SB's claim that 'most of my recent games on motk were scumgames' when most of his recent games were town. He lied.
"Why did you lie about your action?" I posit that it was, in fact, a serious mistake. My feeling is that SB joking about bussing probably correlates with him actually being scum. It was actually the second time he downplayed the seriousness of Serene's question; the first time when he misread it and said "i joked about it in cyou're twice after a skim" in
40.
So this is a fairly serious point raised by Serene, and after further investigation, if they'd stayed voting SB I would probably be sheeping them instead of voting them.
Let's see what else SB has done today.
The main thing was his vote for me. Let's look at the post.
In post 80, SB wrote:I'm more inclined to think Serene is town because I don't see him going this tryhard as scum on an RVS push when it was more likely to backfire in his face than get some actual suspicion on me.
UNVOTE: pieguyn
VOTE: Sky Paladin
He feels like he's just staying on the sidelines I guess? I'm not really sure how to describe it.
So there's two things SB is saying here.
1 - Serene is town because 'scum wouldn't be this tryhard' when 'it was more likely to backfire'.
2 - Sky is scum because 'staying on the sidelines/not really sure why."
Point 1 - There's no way that Serene could know in advance that it would 'be more likely to backfire'. So this point doesn't stand. There's no reason for saying it except to defend/buddy Serene.
Point 2 - 'Staying on the sidelines' appears to be in response to
post where I asked Serene to explain their vote on Shadoweh. So this is in, itself, also defending Serene.
In other words, this vote and post was all about suppressing attention on Serene, and highlighting attention on a player who was threatening (but not yet voting) Serene.
SB acknowledges that he screwed up in
86 when he states:
"Sky looked like he's making an attempt to look useful but wasn't really sticking his neck out and doing much. The post that cut me while I was writing this is kind of a counterexample though so meh."
SB's post acknowledges that he has a poor vote but doesn't strengthen it.
"Why would you willingly move to a weaker position?" -> You are scum.
SB addresses his vote in
266 and restates his 'sticking his neck out' comment. We can see that his point is, again, mostly interested in downplaying Serene, and highlighting Sky.
408 - A return to the vote for Pie.
Reason for voting Pie:
I also think Pie saying that he'd rather form reads from play than rolespec (somewhere around 170 iirc) and then not really doing much is sort of weird? It sort of looks like posturing. I also feel like when he got his Rylai suspicion the defense of GIF was really over the top considering that others had been saying that GIF hadn't done much seemed to get a free pass?
Having re-read from 150 to 250, I didn't see anything that lined up with what SB said. There was a discussion between zMuffin and Pie about reads based on meta.
There was, however, this post at
199 from Pie, wherein Pie supports another player (Relentless) push on SB during his conversation with zMuffin. In fact, Pie mentions SB a lot from 200+. Except then there is an inexplicable shift in attitude from Pie, who suddenly sheeps Kilga's vote on Sky, which is in direct opposition to everything Pie had been saying about SB, and in disagreement with her own later point in
267 when she agrees with Relentless that she didn't like Serene abandoning their vote. On the surface, I'm not sure what to make of it, except to note that Pie ends up voting for Rylai, which is the second half of why SB voted for Pie.
Pie and Muffin keep on talking. Pie:
277
the only scum read I have is Sky_Paladin but at this point the only reasoning behind it is I still don't see how he gets "reckless" from Serenes' initial reasoning.
Pie has also clarified that she has some issues with Serene but doesn't see Serene's actions as scummy at this point. She's confused her story here; originally she was saying my vote was bad because I said SB was reckless.
"Why are you confused about why you voted?" -> Because you are scum.
Rylai appears in
282. We care about Rylai because SB votes Pie because Pie suspects Rylai. OK.
What does Rylai have to say (Rylai is currently voting Sky for 'being on the backburner')
People I don't feel fond of:
GiF: Definitely hasn't contributed
Sky Paladin: His reasoning for voting SF is based entire of a misconception of SF's posts, and he's trying to push that as a kind of a gotcha kind of thing. He's also accusing SB of being scum for saying SF is town, and he's pushing only this and pretty much just sitting around on everything else.
AD: No
There are plenty of people who haven't contributed, so it's odd that GiF would be singled out. It's additionally relevant because SB mentions Pie's defense of GiF and suspicion of Rylai as the basis for his vote.
I dismissed Rylai's point against me in
284 as "You're contradicting yourself", Rylai apparently agrees and shifts their vote a little later.
And randomly picks out AD. For what?
In 291, Pie empty votes Rylai. We can assume it's in direct response to Rylai's scummy 282, because she clarifies in
294.
This is the first time I can see that Pie singles out GiF for anything, and it's specifically to say what I said just now -> There are plenty of people who haven't contributed, so it's odd that GiF would be singled out.
It's relevant because SB stated, in his vote for Pie, "I also feel like when he got his Rylai suspicion the defense of GIF was really over the top considering that others had been saying that GIF hadn't done much seemed to get a free pass?".
Pie argues with Sakura a bit over emotions from 300+.
Pie, quite justifiably in my opinion, asks Dan why he is townclearing Rylai in
359.
Pie mentions GiF in the context of
improving her opinion of Rylai
in
382, when she says:
"now that he explained it's more that GIF is being here but doing absolutely nothing while he is here, it looks better."
And finally we catch up to SB's vote and post in
408.
I also think Pie saying that he'd rather form reads from play than rolespec (somewhere around 170 iirc) and then not really doing much is sort of weird? It sort of looks like posturing. I also feel like when he got his Rylai suspicion the defense of GIF was really over the top considering that others had been saying that GIF hadn't done much seemed to get a free pass?
IMO Pie had said a lot of things, but one thing she had not done was an 'over the top defense of GiF'. She had mounted a basic case on Rylai, and she had mentioned approval of pressure on SB. She had mentioned her opinions on several players, including me. So I don't think it's posturing. I don't agree with many of the things she says because she seems to contradict herself at times, and these are points SB should have picked up and made in his vote if he was serious about it. Serious as Bananas.
SB will later address this 'seriousness' when interrogated by zMuffin, "Over the top was bad wording in hindsight, it was more about how I felt it was weird how he jumped at Rylai for saying that GIF was weird when there were other people like Relentless who did it for similar reasons but I don't remember pie finding them questionable for it."
It was not weird. It was weird for Rylai to pluck GiF out of thin air.
I think the motivation for SB's vote is purely because she is pressuring somebody SB doesn't want her to pressure, and that's probably Rylai. In any case, the reason behind the vote is shallow and looks fake.
I think SB and Rylai are probably both scum, and it's probably no coincidence they both changed their vote at around the same time.
I think Serene is bad, but SB is worse.
I think there is a better-than-average chance that SB's bus joke is because he is scum. I also think that the basis for his vote on me, and later vote switch to Pie, is fabricated. I feel that his contribution to the game so far is mostly clarifying things he said previously, which is a polite way of saying changing your story.
I don't really trust Pie because she does flip around a lot. I think there's something rotten amongst the group of Serene/SB/Pie/Kilga/Rylai, and I think SB is probably the best flip for today. I also think Kilga has five votes and all of them are awful and I'll get to that later.
UNVOTE: Serene Forest
VOTE: SB
I have a lot of work remaining but this will do for now.
((@TODO evaluate Serene ISO))
((@TODO respond to Pie #
242))
((@TODO ISO Relentless In post 352, The_Relentless wrote:idk dude I just strung some random silly sounding words together as a joke. if that's his actual username then that's pretty funny -> nope.))
((@TODO Kilga))
