How do you take notes?

[Equinox]

I kept a text file for each game regardless of my role PM with stream-of-consciousness notes, as well as a tiered player list with flips. I did not move players once they flipped; if a town read flipped scum, then I kept them in the town section so I could keep track of how accurate I was and if any chain reads were affected (e.g., based on interactions between popsofctown and Ranmaru, popsofctown is scum if Ranmaru flips town). What was most useful was the action of taking notes, as that meant I had to actively process the information instead of passively reading posts. After that, having my thoughts written down was helpful as sometimes I would notice something minor (e.g., this post that Ircher made sounds kind of weird but not sure why) but not have enough information to do much with it until later whenever I reviewed my notes. The tiered player lists were useful to produce on demand, but getting to that point meant I was doing poorly in the game. These notes were great to have in late game when re-reading the game thread was onerous.

In hindsight, maybe the most useful part of all was the ability to say absolutely unkind things about people in private to vent my frustrations before drafting something much more civil in the game. Good thing I don't play anymore.

[Equinox]

I’ve had games I’ve wanted to, but failed to, keep a spreadsheet of all the claims and stuff.

When I started, I used to keep spreadsheets of every vote in the game, thinking I would amass a treasure trove for vote count analysis. It was a pain in the ass, and I stopped eventually.