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

[Thor665]

Why do you need to self vote to get the town reads and survive?

[Marquis]

that was never the intention
the intention was/is to get my lynch over with because if I'm selfvoting, I've either broken enough or I'm being scumread enough that if I'm allowed to survive any longer it'll keep town inordinately focused on me as scum (when you're town and everyone starts making associative scum reads based off of you, it's time to go)- and the sooner I flip, the sooner people see my reads and gamestate analysis are from a town perspective
getting townreads off of it is kinda bittersweet because on one hand it's always a pleasant yet sad response to someone giving in, also I usually just want to get final reads out and leave at that point
also I never really think about replacing out that often because I usually feel like I owe it to the mod to stay after I personally requested to join

[Thor665]

Do you not feel that self-voting hurts town by advancing a lynch on a town player when otherwise you could force scum to do so or allow a town player to be part of a wagon for later potential analysis?

[reinoe]

I would advocate for my lynch as town if I thought enough people were tunneling/confbiasing their scumreads on me enough that the game's dragging
it's a common occurrence but I've only taken to self-voting relatively recently because I've realized that when I'm frustrated I can either get lynched quick and lurk the dead topic or get townreads, survive and things get easier

[reinoe]

Do you not feel that self-voting hurts town by advancing a lynch on a town player when otherwise you could force scum to do so or allow a town player to be part of a wagon for later potential analysis?

I know this wasn't directed at me but usually if a town is playing so badly that it's causing a player or players to self vote out of frustration then that's a town that's playing poorly in general. VC analysis and wagon analysis would rarely be done by the surviving players anyway.

[Thor665]

On the flip side, maybe the town is playing fine and the player in question is playing poorly.
And whether or not a town is playing badly doesn't excuse further poor play.

[Marquis]

I feel like you're ignoring the common problem of excess amounts of pages dragging on and players growing more apathetic as what looks like a guaranteed lynch is dragging along
I want to move the game forward
If the game, specifically my townreads, are going to be hung up on the topic of me being scum for long enough and intensely enough that it both detracts from all other conversation and reaches the point that my lynch is inevitable/people are starting to not listen at all to my defense and confbiasing, self voting as a sign of giving in and to help achieve my lynch more quickly is something I am fine with doing

[Marquis]

Ironically though giving up and self voting for some reason can get people to townread you and make the lynch take even longer so I see your point

[reinoe]

And whether or not a town is playing badly doesn't excuse further poor play.

When in Rome...

[Thor665]

I feel like you're ignoring the common problem of excess amounts of pages dragging on and players growing more apathetic as what looks like a guaranteed lynch is dragging along
I want to move the game forward
If the game, specifically my townreads, are going to be hung up on the topic of me being scum for long enough and intensely enough that it both detracts from all other conversation and reaches the point that my lynch is inevitable/people are starting to not listen at all to my defense and confbiasing, self voting as a sign of giving in and to help achieve my lynch more quickly is something I am fine with doing

I have never been in a situation where I was being lynched and this was the case.
I can also say that I, more often than chance dictates, have multiple scum voting me when I am mislynched as town.
I tend to kick and fight the whole way.

Isn't that a better plan?
Even if there is lethargy, then you ought to be able to expedite it without self-voting.
I'll agree people town read self-votes, but I find that pretty poisonous on multiple fronts.

[Marquis]

To be a bit blunt, Thor, have fun with that, but you're not everyone.
I've been in situations where town would have benefited much more had a guaranteed lynchee just given up and accepted the lynch.
http://forum.mafiascum.net/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=58466
You can say allowing others to jump on the wagon provides opportunities for wider analysis.
I say that's a pretty idealistic view of typical town post-Day 1 analysis.
And on the topic of selfvoting again, I can't think of a scenario where selfvoting made it harder to read someone.
Sure, I've become frustrated when a scumread selfvoted.
But when that happens I try to reevaluate the selfvote and situation, since so much of how I read people depends on apparent genuineness.
I agree that selfvoting is often bad, but I think your viewpoint on it is much too absolute.

[reinoe]

Sure, I've become frustrated when a scumread selfvoted.

Really? Hmm, I've never seen a self-vote where I've given more than zero fucks but I haven't been here too long.

[Sakura Hana]

To be a bit blunt, Thor, have fun with that, but you're not everyone.
I've been in situations where town would have benefited much more had a guaranteed lynchee just given up and accepted the lynch.
http://forum.mafiascum.net/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=58466
You can say allowing others to jump on the wagon provides opportunities for wider analysis.
I say that's a pretty idealistic view of typical town post-Day 1 analysis.
And on the topic of selfvoting again, I can't think of a scenario where selfvoting made it harder to read someone.
Sure, I've become frustrated when a scumread selfvoted.
But when that happens I try to reevaluate the selfvote and situation, since so much of how I read people depends on apparent genuineness.
I agree that selfvoting is often bad, but I think your viewpoint on it is much too absolute.

Meanwhile, scum can keep increasing their places to hide by being townread out of a self-vote...

[Marquis]

I don't think scum getting townread off of a selfvote is as common as you're making it seem.

[Sakura Hana]

But if people are getting townread off it, what's stopping scum from using that mechanism to get townread as well.

[Thor665]

To be a bit blunt, Thor, have fun with that, but you're not everyone.

I don't mind blunt, but usually I translate "to be blunt" as a "to be slightly rude" - now, let me first off say I got no rudeness from your comment here, but I'm unsure where the presumed fire came from. Did something I say come across as rude or ridiculous? I wasn't trying to be so, i was just offering my thoughts. If you disagree with them I am fine discussing it.

I've been in situations where town would have benefited much more had a guaranteed lynchee just given up and accepted the lynch.
http://forum.mafiascum.net/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=58466

Are we talking about Titus on Day 1?
COuld you expand on why a self-vote would have been a good move here? It's not like a no lynch happened.

You can say allowing others to jump on the wagon provides opportunities for wider analysis.
I say that's a pretty idealistic view of typical town post-Day 1 analysis.

I agree that my game theories tend to expect people to play well, yes But, I think you're being a bit harsh. I know a lot of players who analyze wagons. It's hardly an unheard of move.

And on the topic of selfvoting again, I can't think of a scenario where selfvoting made it harder to read someone.
Sure, I've become frustrated when a scumread selfvoted.
But when that happens I try to reevaluate the selfvote and situation, since so much of how I read people depends on apparent genuineness.
I agree that selfvoting is often bad, but I think your viewpoint on it is much too absolute.

Well, so you agree it's often bad - which means my view is often right - so we're really just disagreeing on a very specific set of instances then, yes? Is it mostly the "Day will bog down so self vote to speed it up" thing? Because I think you could speed up your own lynch without a self vote, personally. If it's something else then could you clarify?

I don't think scum getting townread off of a selfvote is as common as you're making it seem.

Well, I do know for a fact that 100% of the time I self voted that was the goal, and my success ratio...well, I actually can never remember it failing, so I think I'm 100% on that as well.
That said, certainly just my play is a pretty small sample size regardless as I think I only have an odd five or so self votes to my name or an alt's name combined.

However - I do think that I could state that about 50% of self-votes are done by scum with the intention of being town read (whether or not it works) and I don't think that is an unreasonable statement and would be certainly willing to participate in a contest of finding examples of self-voting to compare as far as that guess goes.

And, really, if the statistics are <33% or so - then it's clearly an issue.

Also, as mentioned even by yourself, there are very few reasons for town to even do it, and I argue that there are none, so there is a question of why it should *ever* work for scum. It really shouldn't. Which brings me back to my initial belief, it's a bad action, and the only reason scum get away with it is because people play pro-scum and self-vote as town.

[Blair]

Also, as mentioned even by yourself, there are very few reasons for town to even do it, and I argue that there are none, so there is a question of why it should *ever* work for scum. It really shouldn't. Which brings me back to my initial belief, it's a bad action, and the only reason scum get away with it is because people play pro-scum and self-vote as town.

I'm assuming by "work" for scum you mean "procure a townread?"

I would posit that the reason this ever "works" for scum (along with a whole host of other 100% anti-town behaviors) is because it tends to be read as "too obviously anti-town to actually be scum."

Which...

is a big load of WIFOM. But also, at times, a perfectly valid observation.

(This does not serve as a justification for townies to

ever

partake in this activity, by the way - it's counterintuitive to say the least)

[TierShift]

Well, so you agree it's often bad - which means my view is often right - so we're really just disagreeing on a very specific set of instances then, yes? Is it mostly the "Day will bog down so self vote to speed it up" thing? Because I think you could speed up your own lynch without a self vote, personally. If it's something else then could you clarify?

Thor, I believe no one is arguing that you should self-vote barring a very specific set of instances. People are just arguing that at very specific times, self-voting can be a good thing.

[kuribo]

I would posit that the reason this ever "works" for scum (along with a whole host of other 100% anti-town behaviors) is because it tends to be read as "too obviously anti-town to actually be scum."

wrong, it works because scum is generally seen as being in control of the situation, while emotional and suicidal outbursts are seen as frustrated town. this doesn't just apply to self-voting, it's part of a larger number of actions that people consider to be the result of irrational emotional response


this is why we have "scum flail" behavior and "town flail" behavior---- both sides flail but the way they do it and the motivation behind both is different

[kuribo]

Well, so you agree it's often bad - which means my view is often right - so we're really just disagreeing on a very specific set of instances then, yes? Is it mostly the "Day will bog down so self vote to speed it up" thing? Because I think you could speed up your own lynch without a self vote, personally. If it's something else then could you clarify?

Thor, I believe no one is arguing that you should self-vote barring a very specific set of instances. People are just arguing that at very specific times, self-voting can be a good thing.

I think it fails to point out that there's a HUGE difference both toward intent and result between the two actions of "self-voting" and "self-lynching"

[Thor665]

Well, so you agree it's often bad - which means my view is often right - so we're really just disagreeing on a very specific set of instances then, yes? Is it mostly the "Day will bog down so self vote to speed it up" thing? Because I think you could speed up your own lynch without a self vote, personally. If it's something else then could you clarify?

Thor, I believe no one is arguing that you should self-vote barring a very specific set of instances. People are just arguing that at very specific times, self-voting can be a good thing.

I understand this - my question was to ask what those specific instances were if they were not what I understood them to be.

[quadz08]

I think your perspective on this, Thor, comes down to the fact that I don't imagine you get mislynched too terribly often.

[Thor665]

I'm mislynched more nowadays than I used to be - though I think a lot of that is paranoia based as usually when I'm lynched the case literally doesn't exist, it's just 'he might be scum'.
But I suppose your argument is 'people who are often mislynched find the tool of self voting useful to oppose their mislynch'?

The only town energy from it is an emotional outburst.
Other than that it's wifom.

Why not just do an emotional outburst sans a self vote if that's the pro-town aspect? I've seen emotional outburts generate town reads without a vote being involved.

[ZZZX]

I want to ask something @thor

If you were town and were about to get lynched but you knew a self vote would actually get you town read and basically save you. Would you do it?

[Thor665]

Define 'basically save'.

If it is 'would get me town read for multiple days' then the answer is 'yes, I would do it'.
If the answer is 'would get me to the next day phase and an uncertain future' than I would try to save myself in other ways.