The Importance of Transparency, Cooperation & Effort as Town
Imagine you're in a game, you're trying to figure out who's aligned with what faction and you come across the following player: somebody who has a sporadic voting pattern (or the opposite: a really stiff pattern), all reads are explained with buzzwords along the lines of "gut", "x-vibes", "LAMIST", "WIFOM" or "this post is scummy/townie". You ask them to explain themselves, and they quote a few posts if lucky and simply state that these posts are "awful"/"good". Not entirely happy with this explanation you probe further, but they refuse to work along with you, stating they "don't read walls" or use "ISO's". For that matter, they largely don't provide input on majority of posts. Alas, this kind of play is common to varying degrees right now, and worse more: it's being tolerated. This isn't right: the best play as town is to work as a collective whole and provide as much input as you can. People should not be allowed to get away with unexplained reads, never should a post containing theory go by without comment, and in almost every scenario people should be sharing their thoughts! Yet this is not happening!
Transparency
Players should be a lot more transparent with their thoughts than they are now, and transparency should become something expected from everyone. Mafia is a game built upon information, and ways of handling that information. The second you withhold information, you're taking away a piece of the full-picture and are thus negatively impacting the town. Before I go any further, I wish to state that transparency is not the same as full-disclosure: common sense is required (so don't claim abilities if there's no benefit in doing so etc.). Every read a player states in the game, should have an explanation paired to it. This seems obvious, but it's not happening. If you think somebody is aligned with the town or with some other faction you have to go ahead and provide examples of evidence, and then go ahead and explain why that evidence shows they're likelier to be of a certain alignment.
Each read should be structured like this to some extent:
Read:
-Evidence A (Post x): "If they are scum doing this would be odd as ..., however as town it makes sense because ..."
-Evidence B (Post x): "There seems to be a hint of x emotion in this post, as town considering the earlier events it makes sense because .... As scum this would probably be faked as ..., and thus this post seems indicative of ..."
And so on.
I mean, you don't have to format them exactly like this. The general gist is that every point should have evidence, and an explanation. Simply stating a post is scummy or townie is not enough! Anyone can make these statements, including scum. If this kind of play is tolerated the town is effectively handicapping themselves. It's when points have to be justified that you make scum's life significantly harder: they no longer can get away with coasting and have to actively forge reasons. The chances scum will slip-up (by contradicting themselves, etc.) is significantly higher like this. As town, you have no excuse not to be explaining yourself. Only in select situations is keeping your thoughts to yourself viable: such as with gambits which would be blown if information is handed out prior to execution. Even so, the second it's no longer an issue to explain the gambit you should do so, whilst also providing your findings.
There's no excuse to not do so.
Cooperation
Players are playing too much as individuals right now, and this is harming the quality of town play (and scum play as they don't need to play as well to win). Keeping in mind every player in a game should be explaining every point they raise, cooperation becomes key. The ideal town would be one where each point raised is discussed, and people change their views depending on conclusions drawn. This process repeats itself, and you end up with reads that are justifiable over the board if all the players are open-minded. Player's reads may not always align however, as behaviour can be interpreted in different ways and we are not dealing with objective evidence. Now, discussing everything raised is simply not possible due to the sheer amount of work and time it requires. However that doesn't mean we shouldn't strive to achieve this ideal. If you are town you should actively be investing effort into commenting on as many points raised by others as possible, stating why you agree or disagree and raising your own evidence to support your opinion. If you are town, but are rarely actually discussing other people's reads and their strengths you are playing this game wrongly. The more discussion and reflection is going on the likelier quality reads will be formed. It also places a huge burden on scum, who will now have to actively lie and forge constantly.
The fact we removed "Best town team" as a scummy shows something is wrong. The town is a team, we should start being team-players. Which brings me to my final issue...
Effort
Many people simply don't do the above as they can't be assed to do so. This is horrific! The amount of times I've seen someone state they don't read walls, won't go through ISO's, or won't look at someone else's posts is insane. And nobody says something about it! When you sign up for a game you have signed up knowing you should be investing time and effort, not doing so is technically playing against your win-condition and should as such not be tolerated at all. You should always be reading every posts, not just reading actually, but analysing! Multiple times preferably! If you are too lazy to do this replace out, you're a hindrance to the game.
There is also no justification for "gut" reads. A gut read is simply a read for which you have no explanation yet, and until you provide one it is worth literally nothing. It is way to easy to fake gut reads as scum, and as town you should be trying to find out why you think someone is aligned with whatever.
It's also not acceptable for you to tell someone to go and look at someone's posts for themselves. It's not them making a case for something, it's you, and as such you hold the burden of evidence.
How do we combat this?
There are a number of ways we can shift the meta to improve play globally. As players we can start being less tolerant of those not pulling their weight, actively pressuring them and lynching them if need be. Either they'll get the message eventually or they'll get so fed up they'll quit playing mafia. Good. We don't want people in games who don't actually play.
As moderators of games we need be stricter in upholding the rule of "don't play against your win-condition", penalising players somehow when they don't actually play the game properly. This needs to be carefully upheld however, lurking is a viable strategy in certain situations and is not the same as investing no effort.
