Question.
I do my best sorting through live interactions, does that mean you believe I have no place on ms?
By live interactions I mean speaking directly to people, real time, having back and forths, without giving them time to "think, compile thoughts, format". My logic is that it is much harder on scum to keep up to live debates than get a night or even a couple hours to think about a reply and possibly even confer with teammates. This is more true the less experienced a player is, but it is still true for all players to a degree. I also do it as scum, of course, because I need to match that part of what is sometimes my town meta sometimes, because I can keep up live, but the point is that it works. I keep up with site activity, so while I'll usually be one of the most active posters, I play on sites where people are very inactive and I keep pace, but honestly I believe more posts are better for town to a degree - eventually, there's too many and apathy plays a part and it becomes a net loss, but I think it is significantly easier to sort people over 90 pages than it is over 30. I also think I know why people disagree - a lot of people only focus on recent events, so if you had a strong scumread on me on page 28 but you town lean my content up to page 115, you'll leave me as a town lean, forgetting what made me a strong scumread in the first place. That's a major problem I see - people using scaling logic and weighting more recent interactions higher for no good reason.
Here's the thing: in this and that other thread (geriatric players club), I remember a discussion about taking time to reread your posts, make them more concise, etc. I remember the players being used as examples being luv, creature, and realeo. Luv only enjoys being scum and intentionally sabotages his town game to make his scum game better from what I've heard, so no comment on that, but I've never found his posting /volume/ to be a problem - note I can meta him anyways so I have no objection to his playstyle, no issues with him as a dude anyways, he used to basically policy scumread me but eh. Creature and realeo are the more interesting cases, because both are esl. I can agree, both have posting styles that can be very annoying, but I take issues with them being used as an example. Realeo likes to use BOLD and BIG FONTS and generally make walls that nobody wants to read, but I think that's a scum tactic and players' faults for not caring. Last time we played, I scumread him most of the game while not a single other player did, and back then I was much less experienced and didn't have the confidence to try and push someone I only mildly scumread that every other living player townread. I find his typing style annoying but posting frequency isn't an issue with him. Creature is a different case. Creature is extremely easy to meta and I don't mind playing with him, but yes, I can see how his playstyle can easily annoy people. 5-10 word posts, no expansion, no cases, nothing - plus 3+ posts in a row doing just that all the time. Again, I don't think that's posting frequency past a literal sense though, I think that's just his playstyle and you getting annoyed at it. Again, totally justified, but its not fair to call that site meta when I know he annoys a ton of high volume posters too.
So this post started about me not having a place on this site, and I'll expand on that. I can post in a post capped game, I can play with geriatric players, and I can also keep up with hyperposters and coming back from an 8 hour shift to 20 pages. I don't think your issue is posting frequency, I think its just a correlation between the current active playerbase and higher page count. Civ mafia was disgusting, sure, but that's not a regular occurrence, and I don't think mini normals (example) averaging 120 pages instead of 50 pages (guessed numbers, I'm probably off) is even necessarily a bad thing. Want to talk about what's wrong with the site in my opinion? The thought process that "wow! deadline is two weeks! gotta spend every last second of that until 24 hours before deadline sorting and anything sooner is quicklynching scum!", along with replacements. It is my belief deadline should NOT be a wincon, which is why I'm very happy deadline is long here as opposed to the other sites I play on (under a different identity) which are 48-72 hour days and 24-48 hour nights. I don't think scum lurking and town having busy irls among other things should be a wincon, I think there should be proper time for discourse and when you are ready you should be able to lynch. That does NOT mean days should go on for a year (love you firebringer <3), which I think is the balance a lot of people fail to grasp. Being ready to lynch after 72 hours is perfectly fine sometimes, that doesn't mean you're anti town or bad or scum for not wanting to wait a week and a half. People need to accept that. Tbh, if all players were active and you didn't have idle motherfuckers and chronic lurkers (hi yume sometimes and pere) stalling the game, I'd think that would be better. I don't want to call people out, but there's legitimately scum who intentionally prodge the entire game and let town self destruct because they CAN, because town lurks too and its become a meta where never posting is okay. The sad part? Games on here last months, and even individual day phases can last upwards of 2 weeks with replacements (next point) so committing time for that long can be tricky and I get that. Having long deadlines is a good thing, but even spending a week and then lynching is better than what I see so often now which is useless back and forth for another few days and sometimes a deadline lynch (which should NEVER happen in a game with two week long deadlines, civ mafia mafia just had a d1 no lynch due to deadline stall which is so pathetic). That's a major problem I have with ms.
Then the dreaded thing, replacements. Replacements are horrible. We have WAYYY too many replacements on this site. It's unfair to scum when town replaces, and realistically, its against the spirit of mafia. I can understand why they exist, emergencies happen, but I think that's what causes the issues you all seemingly have with the site nowadays, /not/ posting frequency. When there's a replacement, you need more time to engage with said replacement, games get extended both in time and posts. As scum its your job to manipulate the players in the game, not every person on site, so it is unfair for someone new to sub in on day 4. Every single replacement is another shot for a townie to get the game right, and as a replacement I'd argue you get objectively better reads because you can read the game BEFORE checking your role pm (helps a ton as scum subbing in more than town), and as town you get to read interactions with the person you replaced knowing they're 100% town which is basically like a free flip for you (helps a ton as town subbing in). I'd argue it is flat out against the spirit of mafia to have replacements, but of course they exist because people flake and having a literally dead slot is worse than boning a team a bit. People flaking so much, replacing, that's what's wrong with mafia. Yes, you could argue replacing is the effect of increased posting frequency, but I think that's bull.
Unrelated to a degree: I think mafia is a game where problems solve themselves if you let them. Guess what: you, collectively, as a playerlist, control close to virtually everything about the game. Random example: let's say close to everyone despises zoraster's play, but he hasn't done anything banworthy (against the rules). I introduce to you the magic of policy lynches! Is zoraster's posting style unbearable for the majority of the site and has zoraster refused to change it despite polite requests? Policy lynch him until he changes. Statistically for whatever reason, lynching mafia d1 apparently has a lower win rate than lynching town d1 (rb said that once, if its not true I apologize, cba to look), so it isn't even a huge disadvantage when zoraster happens to be town. Does creature's spamposting annoy 90% of players? PL him til he stops. Does most of the site consider me unbearable? PL me until I fix myself or get pissed and leave the site (still a net gain in this world). Does gerry or mulch or boon fake claiming piss off every player? PL them til they stop. Mafia is a game in YOUR hands, and policy lynches can help a ton. I don't think any person mentioned is even near PL worthy, other than momo I can't think of anyone who I personally think is, but I know I'm in the minority of lots of things so I'm sure lots of you disagree. My point is that this is a problem that can correct itself if you let it. Policy lynches aren't anti town if removing the player in exchange for a lynch is a net gain. That's also why I find arguments like this stupid. If there's a problem, you can fix it if enough people agree, that's the beauty of mafia.
I'm on a little break from mafia right now because I don't like the current playerbase, but that's not because of posting frequency. RB is a player I liked, though I think that's a minority opinion, as he was probably the only /active/ tone reader beside myself I consider competent. RC leaving, again, same thing. There's very few active normal players I consider good, call it my raging ego if you want and I'm aware themes are usually where the "better" people play, but honestly if this site wants to drift in a direction you can easily do that, just do it. If you don't think there's a place for high volume posters and live sorters, that's fine, but don't kid yourselves.
Who are you saying is self selecting themselves out of games?
