Newbie 783 - Mongol Mafia - Game Over

[Katy]

(1) Your thinking earlier that me disliking something meant that I thought it was scummy or suspicious. [I have explained this, so hopefully there is no longer misunderstanding here]

Yes, I understand now that "dislike" != scum and you will say scummy if you think scummy, so this should be cleared up.

(2) When you thought I was changing the subject from Pablo Molinero's question. [hopefully here also you can see how my explanation shows me seeing my reply as being on topic]

Yes, and I think I referred to this when I first brought it up when I said that
maybe you were "responding by action" instead of by words. I just wasn't sure, and it stuck out to me that instead of directly addressing what he said you talked about something else, but I see what you were doing.

(3) You say that I didn't pick out players to focus on until after Pablo Molinero brought that point up. [I was set on which players i was going to focus on as of my post, regardless of player reaction. As I have given this point more thought, I also think Pablo Molinero went the wrong way about pointing this out. I think if he had a concern that I was waiting for reactions, then he should have just asked who I though were my 2 or three top suspects were, since apparently that wasn't as clear as I thought I was making it. That solves the problem of if I really had been waiting for reaction and keeps the misinterpretation from lasting so long. Of course hindsight, is 20/20.]

This goes hand in hand with number one. Realizing that you only had three players you were really pointing to instead of five answers this one as well.

Just for clarification: your scummy players then were/are: me, Iecerint, and F_T?

(4) You say that I pick about you for talking about replacements. [You talking about replacements was not what I had a problem with. I thought you were focusing too heavily on them and emphasizing them much more than needed to the point where it seemed you might have been ignoring the other players in the game. And also that you seemed to focus on only some replacements, when I thought the points you made against them were also applicable to other replacements that you did not bring up.]

Well, I explained that already, which was that the two people I had been most suspicious of just happened to replace out right in the middle of having pressure and attention focused on them, and that was part of my analysis. As I said, I wasn't ignoring the other players, just trying to narrow in on those I found most suspect so that I could clarify my lynch decision.

I would like to know:

SOG:

Have your suspicions changed at all on your three scummy players? If they haven't, or even if they have, which two players do you think are most likely to be scumbuddies out of the three?

Iecerint:

Your vote is on SOG. What is your number one reason for thinking he is scum?

[semioldguy]

@Katy
Furpants_Tom and iecerint are my top two scum candidates. Furpants_Tom is no longer with us, but I am going to be watching his replacement very closely. You are trailing in a distant third. So my three players have not changed, but my suspicion of Furpants_Tom has increased since my initial entry into the game and my suspicion of you has gone down slightly.

I don't really try to think of potential scum pairings until we have at least one flipped scum off which to base the pairings, as I don't like delving too far into speculation. Speculation can lead to too many "ifs" which could detract from actual scum hunting. Until the point when there is a dead scum to evaluate with certainty that at least one player in the potential pairing is scum, my top two candidates will suffice for the most likely potential scum pairing unless I see a specific reason that those two wouldn't be paired. I don't see anything that would point to iecerint and Furpants_Tom specifically not being paired, so they would be my most likely scum buddies.

[MichelSableheart]

Thanks DDD, that explains things. I don't have any questions anymore, might revisited the topic though.
---

Iecerint, I believe there is a difference between scummy play and poor play. Poor play is not a scumtell, scummy play is.

I consider it poor play if someone does something that doesn't benefit him, independently of him being scum or town. I consider PP's vote for PM an example of this. If PP is town, all her vote did was draw attention to herself. It wasn't helping her finding scum. And if she is scum, then all her vote did was draw attention to herself. It isn't helping her get a pro-town player lynched.

I consider it scummy play if someone does something that benefits scum much more then town. Pushing for a lynch of a pro-town player for bad reasons is the example that most springs to mind. Town doesn't gain anything if a pro-town player is lynched for bad reasons, scum on the other hand has survived another lynch.

So unless you can explain why scum is more likely to do something, I don't think it is a scumtell.
---

The first point also goes for your argument about replacing out. You completely fail to address why one being town makes the other more likely scum.

[SNIP]
I'm not sure I understand your second sentence. [SNIP]

The point I was trying to make was the following. You explain why you felt tracker was likely scum. You explain why you felt SOG was likely scum. However, I specifically asked why you believed either tracker, or SOG, or both had to be scum. The reason I asked, was that I felt that you were arguing "tracker was town, one out of tracker and SOG had to be scum, so SOG must be scum".

The only explanation you came with for saying that one of them had to be scum is P(tracker town) * P(SOG town) = very small. As I explained, these chances are independent, so P(SOG scum|tracker town) = P(SOG scum). So it didn't back up this perceived reasoning.

I was saying that both replacing out also didn't back up this perceived reasoning, for the exact same reason.

---

Given that I went so far as to use circumstantial evidence to claim that BS's NL was evidence of town behavior when the default interpretation of his action was that it is null tell, are you in a position to revise your perspective? I ask because I think it's probable that you missed details of the post in question during your re-read.

True, you argued that it was a town tell, and I must admit I missed that.

I'm not changing my position though. I still believe that scum has little to lose and a reasonable amount to gain by making that argument there. What you're pointing out is a weak towntell at best (newb scum still knows it's a good idea to act like town, and no lynching is in fact better for scum, as slightly experienced scum could know). Because of how weak the argument is, scum can still relatively easy push for a BS lynch later. I think the slightly smaller chance of a BS lynch is easily compensated by the read BS will get on you.

[Katy]

I consider it poor play if someone does something that doesn't benefit him, independently of him being scum or town. I consider PP's vote for PM an example of this. If PP is town, all her vote did was draw attention to herself. It wasn't helping her finding scum. And if she is scum, then all her vote did was draw attention to herself. It isn't helping her get a pro-town player lynched.

I consider it scummy play if someone does something that benefits scum much more then town. Pushing for a lynch of a pro-town player for bad reasons is the example that most springs to mind. Town doesn't gain anything if a pro-town player is lynched for bad reasons, scum on the other hand has survived another lynch.

I agree with this, but the only thing that makes me hesitate when it comes to PP's play is that this was her first game. That gives rise to the possibility of poor scum play. I have seen some very unfortunate scum plays from intelligent people on their first games, so if someone says it's their first game, that changes my analysis of "Would a scum person draw attention to themselves like this?"

[Iecerint]

Iecerint, aside from mathematically calculating scumtells and anti-town behavior do you have a gut feeling of someone being a possible scum. I don't mean for you to ignore facts only do you have a gut feeling other that you can't explain rationaly?

Not really. I find that if I rely on my intuition, I end up with a mental list like SOG's (prior to the "scummy" != "dislike" business). (For that matter, I've not really done any math, other than "1/4" on page 9 or 10. That was DDD.)

Because it would let you choose to ignore whatever you wanted from that post by your invalid reasoning.

I don't believe I've ignored anything about that post. If you think I have, please let me know. So far, your complaint sounds awfully vague and hypothetical.

For the record (I'll pull a bit of an SOG here), I did "agree with" your assessment of DDD in that post. Your vote against me using ekiM's reasoning was sufficient to keep me from "liking" any of it.

It looks like you are saying you didn't like my assessment of Debonair Danny DiPietro, but that you also agreed with it. Why would you agree with something you didn't like? This is not at all in line with my dislikes, because I don't agree with any of the things I disliked.

Here you are comparing liking/disliking to agreement/disagreement; while previously I was comparing liking/disliking to scummy/non-scummy. This has just been you twisting something else to your own liking (claiming you are doing the same thing I did, "pulling a bit of an SOG," but you aren't doing the same thing I did).

I'm comparing differentiating liking/agreeing to differentiating disliking/scummy. The point was that it's not very intuitive. It was topical because 1) you had similarly recently asked us to differentiate concepts which are not always differentiated in-game and 2) you had been arguing about my use of the word "like." It was mostly a joke.

Iecerint:

Your vote is on SOG. What is your number one reason for thinking he is scum?

It's more a lot of small reasons that add up to a big one than a single, number-one reason (PPragequit, PBPA, asking me to explain things and not really following up on his questions, claimgate, the relative purity of other players). The most salient (new!) thing at this time, I think, is his poor scumhunting. I'm presumably his top suspect, but he's not very aggressively damning me. He's said he's "watching" Michel, but I'd be surprised if anything came of that. Maybe he's hoping he can put someone else under the bus when I turn up town. The same could be said of DDD, but his top suspect is less clear as he hasn't yet voted, so I'm not sure the criticism applies in the same way.

My second suspect is becoming Michel rather than DDD, because I think it's a bit odd that BSFT would get a scumread from JarmoIec. My comments about BS (in my view) are best explained either by both of us being town, by both of us being scum. If only I were scum, I don't think I would bend over backwards and refer to BS's lack of an avatar and so forth to add credibility to a player who had already been damaged. My action makes "sense" if we are both scum, if neither of us are scum, or if only Michel is scum (as I'm blind to that if I'm town). The eventuality where only *I* am scum seems remote to me. (Additionally, it seems like his main argument against me is that I use arguments against people. He's correct that I've made some implicit mistakes, though.)

Alternatively, it could be, as he states, that he just missed that upon his first read, came to a conclusion without that fact, and is now sticking to his prior conclusion even though the facts (from his perspective) have changed. People do that sometimes.

My preferred lynch order is: SOG. If scum, DDD; else, Michel.

[Iecerint]

Iecerint, I believe there is a difference between scummy play and poor play. Poor play is not a scumtell, scummy play is.

This is an interesting distinction, but I highly suspect that poor play is actually indicative of scum more often than not. Town players just have to play the game free of pretenses. Scum have to lie, feign ignorance of information that have, and be consistent about it. I imagine that this leads to poorer play on the part of scum simply because there's more to consider. (I could be relying too much on my RL game experience, where staying active and consistent as a scum player is a big challenge.) This is similar to, but more general than, Katy's comment that the distinction breaks down a bit in newbie games.I know you've already explicitly disagreed with this point, but I wanted to put my reasoning out there in more detail.

In fact, I may go a step further and claim that because "scumtells" can be (fairly and often blamelessly) WIFOM'd into oblivion, poorer play is the surer tell.

The first point also goes for your argument about replacing out. You completely fail to address why one being town makes the other more likely scum.

I'm not sure I understand your second sentence.

The point I was trying to make was the following. You explain why you felt tracker was likely scum. You explain why you felt SOG was likely scum. However, I specifically asked why you believed either tracker, or SOG, or both had to be scum. The reason I asked, was that I felt that you were arguing "tracker was town, one out of tracker and SOG had to be scum, so SOG must be scum".

The only explanation you came with for saying that one of them had to be scum is P(tracker town) * P(SOG town) = very small. As I explained, these chances are independent, so P(SOG scum|tracker town) = P(SOG scum). So it didn't back up this perceived reasoning.

First, I've already admitted that I should have revised my "one of both is scum" theory after Shadetrack died to account for the chances being independent. I agree with you on that. Your quoting implies I ignored your point. I'm not sure whether this was intentional, but it could be that you're quoting selectively to make me appear evasive. I'd also add that I go on in the same passage to explain the difference between the circumstances surrounding the various replacements.

You're also pretending that some hypothetical house of cards will fall to the ground as soon as you reveal that I messed up the independence assumption. That seems a little silly to me. Using your notation, I just have to revise "P(tracker town) * P(SOG town) = very small" to "P(SOG town) = small." Crisis averted.

One additional comment about the independence of scumtells. Upon reflection, it seems to me that it's actually NOT true that scumtells are independent. This is because there are 2 scum, and the scum know who one another are. In fact, your own PBPA, which considers scum predominantly in pairs, seems to evidence understanding of this. I know that this doesn't apply to my tracker/SOG business (as we now know that tracker was town), but do I have that right? (Not going anywhere with that; I just want to make sure I'm not missing something.)

Because of how weak the argument is, scum can still relatively easy push for a BS lynch later. I think the slightly smaller chance of a BS lynch is easily compensated by the read BS will get on you.

Decent point, but you're neglecting that making such a bold claim is pretty attention-grabbing. BS might get a town read on me, but everyone else's impression would be much more challenging to predict. I also went out of my way to use really circumstantial, game-specific evidence (no avatar) to support my hypothesis, which I don't think I would have ever bothered with as scum. See my prior post for further thoughts on this.

[Iecerint]

EBWOP (to the first post):

My comments about BS (in my view) are best explained either by both of us being town, by both of us being scum.

Should list the possibilities:

a) both are town OR only BSFT is scum (as these are identical from my perspective)
b) both are scum

The point is that "only Iec is scum" is (IMO) the least intuitive interpretation. I think this was clear from the rest of the post, but I still wanted to fix this sentence. <_<

[Katy]

It's more a lot of small reasons that add up to a big one than a single, number-one reason (PPragequit, PBPA, asking me to explain things and not really following up on his questions, claimgate, the relative purity of other players). The most salient (new!) thing at this time, I think, is his poor scumhunting. I'm presumably his top suspect, but he's not very aggressively damning me. He's said he's "watching" Michel, but I'd be surprised if anything came of that. Maybe he's hoping he can put someone else under the bus when I turn up town.

I was tending to agree with you on that point, up until this day. I think he's responded to my questions pretty well today whereas previously I've had trouble following his logic. I also have no problem with him "watching" Michel for now, I think we all should be doing that, especially if we had suspicions on FT (which I did at the beginning of this day).

If nothing comes of it, as you predict, however, I'll definitely notice and want a reason why. But I'm happy to give it some time for us to all see more of Michel's play.

[semioldguy]

Iecerint's Post 379 is extremely scummy.

I'm comparing differentiating liking/agreeing to differentiating disliking/scummy. The point was that it's not very intuitive. It was topical because 1) you had similarly recently asked us to differentiate concepts which are not always differentiated in-game and 2) you had been arguing about my use of the word "like." It was mostly a joke.

(a) This is backtracking. (b) My point was it was not the same thing, meaning that if your point was that it wasn't intuitive, then that point failed because I noticed and pointed out the difference between liking and agreeing, not you. If it wasn't very intuitive, then why did I pick up on the discrepancy right away? (c) Dismissing something as having been a joke is a slight scum-tell.

My second suspect is becoming Michel rather than DDD, because I think it's a bit odd that BSFT would get a scumread from JarmoIec. My comments about BS (in my view) are best explained either by both of us being town, by both of us being scum.

Why do you think it would be odd for Firpants_Tom/MichelSabelheart to get a scum read on you? Are there other players you would find it odd to have suspicions of you? Why or why not? The only way I see your comment making sense is if you know Furpants_Tom/MichelSableheart's role, which can only be true if you are scum. How do your own comments and actions in any way determine whether or not someone else is scum? The only way you actions would be indicative of someone else's alignment is if you knew their alignment, which means you would have to be scum.

If only I were scum, I don't think I would bend over backwards and refer to BS's lack of an avatar and so forth to add credibility to a player who had already been damaged.

Why wouldn't scum do this? Scum are perfectly capable of adding credibility to other players for a variety of reasons. Scum can do it to help save a scumbuddy. Scum could do it to an innocent to help make themselves look better if that person dies and flips as town. Scum have more reasons to add credibility to other players than town members do.

My action makes "sense" if we are both scum, if neither of us are scum, or if only Michel is scum (as I'm blind to that if I'm town).

So you are essentially saying that it only makes sense if both of you are in this game (i.e. possible in every possible scenario)

The eventuality where only *I* am scum seems remote to me. (Additionally, it seems like his main argument against me is that I use arguments against people. He's correct that I've made some implicit mistakes, though.)

Town players don't remotely think that we might be scum, we are positive that we are not scum. We are the only ones who know for a fact that we are town aligned. Additionally you offer no actual explanation as to why scum wouldn't do what you did, you merely say that they wouldn't without stating any reason why only town could do what you are doing.

The parts where you think that the things you do any say make it more or less likely for another player to be town or scum are beyond ludicrous.

[Iecerint]

It's nice that SOG is finally responding to my criticism.

(a) This is backtracking. (b) My point was it was not the same thing, meaning that if your point was that it wasn't intuitive, then that point failed because I noticed and pointed out the difference between liking and agreeing, not you. If it wasn't very intuitive, then why did I pick up on the discrepancy right away? (c) Dismissing something as having been a joke is a slight scum-tell.

(a) I'm not sure what you mean by labeling it "backtracking;" please clarify. (b) That's not what you said here:

It looks like you are saying you didn't like my assessment of Debonair Danny DiPietro, but that you also agreed with it. Why would you agree with something you didn't like?

Your own discomfort with my intentionally-shoddy language mirrored our own discomfort with your dislike/scummy distinction, which was the point of my comment. (c) I think my use of quotation marks and of the phrase "pull an SOG" made it clear that the remark was intended to poke fun at you. If it had been only questionably a joke and then I had tried to dismiss it (defensively) as a joke, I'd agree with you.

My second suspect is becoming Michel rather than DDD, because I think it's a bit odd that BSFT would get a scumread from JarmoIec. My comments about BS (in my view) are best explained either by both of us being town, by both of us being scum.

Why do you think it would be odd for Firpants_Tom/MichelSabelheart to get a scum read on you? Are there other players you would find it odd to have suspicions of you? Why or why not?

Whether Michel is playing as scum or not, he has an interest in playing as if he is town. Given that he is town (or trying to look town), I think it would be odd for him to get a scum read on me because I used unconventional means to describe BS's behavior as town (said post was recently reposted). That is, I didn't just provide the general knowledge that BS's behavior was a null-tell; rather, I went above-and-beyond and used evidence specific to this game to conclude that it was a town-tell. This distinction is important because, as Michel has by now pointed out, providing the general knowledge is also good town play, and it helps the town less. That would have been the more obvious fake pro-town behavior.

The reason this only applies to Michel is that only he knows his own alignment. Players who aren't Michel might have thought, for example, that I was panicked scum overestimating how much I needed to save my teammate. TownMichel, on the other hand, would know that this was not the case, as he would know that he himself was town.

However, Michel found me scummy in spite of these circumstances. Why? We know that part of it is that he missed the post in question, which could happen to either a town or scum player. Why is he

still

supporting (implicitly, at least) my lynch? It could be that he's scum who sees me as the easier lynch (or the easier town lynch, whichever), or it could be that he's a town player who just got an impression based on incomplete data and is sticking with it in spite of data to the contrary. I'm a little surprised that he doesn't find my anecdote more persuasive, but it could just be that he's stubborn. I'm stubborn myself.

I'm fairly certain that I only have this kind of relationship with Michel; that is, if another player finds me scummy, there's no reason why third parties should find said player scummy. So if Katy (just because she hasn't yet) were to come out with a litany on me, third-party players shouldn't see her as scummy for doing so. Only in Michel's case should his suspicion toward me give third-party players pause. (As I've said in this post and elsewhere, one explanation for his suspicion is just that he misread part of the thread and is now sticking to his guns or whatever.)

Does that make sense? I think I have it worked out properly because Michel confirmed that it was a weak town-tell.

How do your own comments and actions in any way determine whether or not someone else is scum? The only way you actions would be indicative of someone else's alignment is if you knew their alignment, which means you would have to be scum.

You're missing that it's not just my actions. It's that his behavior given my action (assuming that he is town) was suspect.

Scum are perfectly capable of adding credibility to other players for a variety of reasons. Scum can do it to help save a scumbuddy. Scum could do it to an innocent to help make themselves look better if that person dies and flips as town. Scum have more reasons to add credibility to other players than town members do.

I mentioned that scum could do it to save a scumbuddy. One of the two high-probability interpretations of my post that I listed (to a third-party observer) was that iecscum was overshooting a need to prop up BSscum. So we agree there. The problem is that, if this is true, then Michel is scum. And if Michel is town, he knows that that can't be what happened.

Your other possibility, that scum could do something like what I did to look better when the player flips town, is still a possibility from townMichel's perspective, but I think a few details about this case suggest that that isn't what happened here. Namely, I used some pretty circumstantial logic to support a pro-town read of BS. I don't think scum would bother with this because (as Michel has noted) there are safer, more default ways to respond to the situation. For example, I could have done what ekiM and DDD did to respond to my post -- point out that NoLynch votes are a null-tell with regard to alignment.

My action makes "sense" if we are both scum, if neither of us are scum, or if only Michel is scum (as I'm blind to that if I'm town).

So you are essentially saying that it only makes sense if both of you are in this game (i.e. possible in every possible scenario)

No -- it doesn't make sense if ONLY I am scum. If we are both scum, I'm helping a scumbuddy. If only I'm scum, there were easier, much less dramatic ways of dealing with the situation (see above). If I'm town, then I'm just excited about the game and trying to contribute something new in my first post in an online game of mafia, and I don't know his alignment for certain, so either of those conditions are plausible.

To re-summarize my take on what makes sense (to a third-party):
Iec and BS are scumbuddies -- Yes
Iec is town and right -- Yes
Iec is town and wrong -- Yes
Iec is scum, but BS is not -- No

Additionally you offer no actual explanation as to why scum wouldn't do what you did, you merely say that they wouldn't without stating any reason why only town could do what you are doing.

I didn't want to give up too many details before Michel responded, and then he seemed to understand where I was coming from, so I didn't feel the need to elaborate too much. I hope this post makes my reasoning clearer to you, absurdly long as it has become. Please let me know if it makes no sense.

The parts where you think that the things you do any say make it more or less likely for another player to be town or scum are beyond ludicrous.

Not sure what's going on here, but it sounds like it's a repeat of the 4th thing I've quoted? The answer there reapplies here: it's not what I said, but his reaction to it.

[Kublai Khan]

Wednesday Early Morning, June 10th Votecount

Iecerint - 2 - semioldguy, ivanavich

semioldguy - 1 - Iecerint

MichelSableheart
Debonair Danny DiPietro
Katy
ekiM
ivanavich

Not Voting: Debonair Danny DiPietro, MichelSableheart, Katy, ekiM

7 Alive means 4 to Lynch

[semioldguy]

The reason this only applies to Michel is that only he knows his own alignment. Players who aren't Michel might have thought, for example, that I was panicked scum overestimating how much I needed to save my teammate. TownMichel, on the other hand, would know that this was not the case, as he would know that he himself was town.

Town-MichelSableheart could also see you as scum trying to buddy up to him in order to get on his good side. Like I already said, your actions don't determine his alignment. Other players can still see this a buddying, scum don't have to buddy up only to their scum buddy, they can buddy up to any player. Buddying is scummy.

[MichelSableheart]

Now that being said. I have been waiting for someone to point out the one thing you just did in your analasis of PP's vote and change in reasons. How indeed will that help the mafia? I can find no reason it would and have thought it more bad play than mafia. In the beggining bad play was enough to gain my vote. I aslo wanted to see if anyone jumped on a wagon with me hehehe.

ivan, I'm not sure I understand why you kept your vote on SOG for so long then. If you only thought it was bad play, why didn't you vote for someone who you thought was scum at the end of day 1? And why did you revote at the beginning of day 2?

---

You're also pretending that some hypothetical house of cards will fall to the ground as soon as you reveal that I messed up the independence assumption. That seems a little silly to me. Using your notation, I just have to revise "P(tracker town) * P(SOG town) = very small" to "P(SOG town) = small." Crisis averted.

Take a look at the reasons you give for voting SOG in post #278. 1. Is an appeal to authority on sketchy assumptions, 2. is based on a sketchy use of probability. Sure, you still have reasons to vote him, but I'm really don't like how you are trying to convince the town on faulty arguments.

One additional comment about the independence of scumtells. Upon reflection, it seems to me that it's actually NOT true that scumtells are independent. This is because there are 2 scum, and the scum know who one another are. In fact, your own PBPA, which considers scum predominantly in pairs, seems to evidence understanding of this. I know that this doesn't apply to my tracker/SOG business (as we now know that tracker was town), but do I have that right? (Not going anywhere with that; I just want to make sure I'm not missing something.)

You are correct that the scumtells made by scum are dependent. That's why I explicitly added "if he's town" to my claim that Shadeux' scumtells are independent to those of PP/SOG.

---
On to the argument about you defending BS. Let's take a look at what you said:

- I like FT because I doubt that a newbie mafia member would advocate NoLynch on Day 1. The intuitive thing to do as a mafia player is to do the opposite. (Granted, thinking about this from a "third person"'s perspective suggests that lynching is in the town's best interests.) Here's a summary of my thinking on this:

Newbie town = Don't lynch! We'll probably mess up! At best, follow others' conjecture!
Newbie scum = Lynch someone! But never one of us!
Expert town = Approaches default forum play.
Expert scum = Approaches default forum play.

The only category that fits FT's predecessor is newbie town. The possibility that FT's predecessor was secretly an expert player without an avatar (maybe on an alt? I don't know if that's part of the culture on these forums) who was banking on a lack of expert players to call him out and a lot of newbie players to jump on the NoLynch bandwagon seems remote to me.

The only contradiction here is that FT's predecessor both claimed to have only played 3 times total and to have played large games on debate.org. This seems a little sketchy. My guess is that he just got defensive and mentioned the other online play to save face.

I very strongly disagree with your assesment of this post. You claim that you 'bend over backwards ... to add credibility to a player who has already been damaged'. I believe all you are doing is making a very weak argument, that is unlikely to convince anyone, because of two major objections.

1. Newbie scum knows it's a good idea to act as town. Therefore, if newbie town is likely to do something, newbie scum is likely to do that too.
2. No-lynching is in fact in favour of scum, as it costs the town a lynch opportunity. Newbie scum who is aware of this will easily be happy trying to get a No-lynch.

---

Decent point, but you're neglecting that making such a bold claim is pretty attention-grabbing. BS might get a town read on me, but everyone else's impression would be much more challenging to predict. I also went out of my way to use really circumstantial, game-specific evidence (no avatar) to support my hypothesis, which I don't think I would have ever bothered with as scum. See my prior post for further thoughts on this.

Personally, I did not think much of you defending BS there. I could understand where you were coming from with the argument you made, but believed your conclusions were unfounded. Why would other players feel different? What is the risk scum take by making that argument there?

And why wouldn't scum use evidence for their arguments? Don't they want to look credible?

---
I have explained why I believe scum Iec has much to gain and little to lose by defending town BS. I really don't like how Iec claims that I'm sticking to my prior conclusion out of stubornness. The way he is arguing that I should believe he is town because of his defence of BS really strengthens my assesment of his defense being scum buddying up (defending a town player in the hope that town player will read you as town as a result).

---

Does that make sense? I think I have it worked out properly because Michel confirmed that it was a weak town-tell.

What I said was the following:

What you're pointing out is a weak towntell at best (newb scum still knows it's a good idea to act like town, and no lynching is in fact better for scum, as slightly experienced scum could know).

I was talking about BS voting No Lynch being a weak town tell

at best

, meaning that I don't necessarily agree that BS voting no lynch is a towntell, but if it is a towntell, it's a weak one. Where do you get that I'm confirming it was a weak towntell?

[ivanavich]

michel

ivan, I'm not sure I understand why you kept your vote on SOG for so long then. If you only thought it was bad play, why didn't you vote for someone who you thought was scum at the end of day 1? And why did you revote at the beginning of day 2?

I kept it because I had no reason to change. Even if I don't find him particularly scumy he was being antitown(PP). It was the next best thing after my random vote.
I kept the vote to day 2 because I still did not have a better vote to make and it moves the game along. I am hapy with the responses I got from SOG and they seem consistent with my last game with him. Leaving the vote also allowed me to see if anyone voted for SOG maybe to start a bandwaggon.
SOG is one of my least suspected mafia.

[Iecerint]

The reason this only applies to Michel is that only he knows his own alignment. Players who aren't Michel might have thought, for example, that I was panicked scum overestimating how much I needed to save my teammate. TownMichel, on the other hand, would know that this was not the case, as he would know that he himself was town.

Town-MichelSableheart could also see you as scum trying to buddy up to him in order to get on his good side. Like I already said, your actions don't determine his alignment. Other players can still see this a buddying, scum don't have to buddy up only to their scum buddy, they can buddy up to any player. Buddying is scummy.

That's true, but I see it as a comparatively remote possibility from Michel's perspective. If that doesn't convince you, I don't know what else I can say on the matter. You're still insisting that my action "determine[d] someone's alignment," which I've made very clear is not what I'm arguing.

[semioldguy]

The reason this only applies to Michel is that only he knows his own alignment. Players who aren't Michel might have thought, for example, that I was panicked scum overestimating how much I needed to save my teammate. TownMichel, on the other hand, would know that this was not the case, as he would know that he himself was town.

Town-MichelSableheart could also see you as scum trying to buddy up to him in order to get on his good side. Like I already said, your actions don't determine his alignment. Other players can still see this a buddying, scum don't have to buddy up only to their scum buddy, they can buddy up to any player. Buddying is scummy.

That's true, but I see it as a comparatively remote possibility from Michel's perspective. If that doesn't convince you, I don't know what else I can say on the matter. You're still insisting that my action "determine[d] someone's alignment," which I've made very clear is not what I'm arguing.

(1) You can't know MichelSabelheart's perspective because you are not him and you can't know his role unless you are scum. Why would you assume what MichelSabelheart's likely perspective would be? (2) I have never once said that you actions determine his alignment, I have specifically been saying that they don't. But you keep basing HIS likely alignment off of providing arguments of things that only YOU do.

[Iecerint]

You're also pretending that some hypothetical house of cards will fall to the ground as soon as you reveal that I messed up the independence assumption. That seems a little silly to me. Using your notation, I just have to revise "P(tracker town) * P(SOG town) = very small" to "P(SOG town) = small." Crisis averted.

Take a look at the reasons you give for voting SOG in post #278. 1. Is an appeal to authority on sketchy assumptions, 2. is based on a sketchy use of probability. Sure, you still have reasons to vote him, but I'm really don't like how you are trying to convince the town on faulty arguments.

1. I don't think the assumptions were really that sketchy; it's not as if Pablo was the lone voice that campaigned against SOGPP Day 1. There were and are lots of other players and reasons for voting him. 2. I have already said like 3 times that I forgot to incorporate that the scumtells were independent because of Shadetrack's town status. You can argue that I was being sneaky, I guess, but I'd like to think that I'm a better sneaker than that. I'm similarly assuming that your misread of my early-game post was just a mistake. You'll also notice that the same post forecasts another post soon-to-come (that came!) that gives my thoughts in more detail. (Granted, I got more on DDD than on SOGPP from looking through Pablo's posts.)

On to the argument about you defending BS. Let's take a look at what you said:

- I like FT because I doubt that a newbie mafia member would advocate NoLynch on Day 1. The intuitive thing to do as a mafia player is to do the opposite. (Granted, thinking about this from a "third person"'s perspective suggests that lynching is in the town's best interests.) Here's a summary of my thinking on this:

Newbie town = Don't lynch! We'll probably mess up! At best, follow others' conjecture!
Newbie scum = Lynch someone! But never one of us!
Expert town = Approaches default forum play.
Expert scum = Approaches default forum play.

The only category that fits FT's predecessor is newbie town.

The possibility that FT's predecessor was secretly an expert player without an avatar (maybe on an alt? I don't know if that's part of the culture on these forums) who was banking on a lack of expert players to call him out and a lot of newbie players to jump on the NoLynch bandwagon seems remote to me.

The only contradiction here is that FT's predecessor both claimed to have only played 3 times total and to have played large games on debate.org. This seems a little sketchy. My guess is that he just got defensive and mentioned the other online play to save face.

I very strongly disagree with your assesment of this post. You claim that you 'bend over backwards ... to add credibility to a player who has already been damaged'. I believe all you are doing is making a very weak argument, that is unlikely to convince anyone, because of two major objections.

1. Newbie scum knows it's a good idea to act as town. Therefore, if newbie town is likely to do something, newbie scum is likely to do that too.
2. No-lynching is in fact in favour of scum, as it costs the town a lynch opportunity. Newbie scum who is aware of this will easily be happy trying to get a No-lynch.

I've re-added the bold you removed, which highlights why the defense is unnecessarily extreme if I were a scum player. An extrapolation of your reason 1 reveals it to be garbage at this stage, because that can be lazily applied to pretty much any argument that anyone makes in this game; moreover, ignoring all scumtells/towntells ala DDD leads to random lynching and a loss for town, so I still think that it is unwise.

I agree with your reason 2 in principle, but I don't see what it has to do with whether my post is town or scum. If anything, it implicates your predecessor (and you) as scum. If anything, I think it makes my post look even more extreme for a scum player. At worst, it makes me look sort of dumb.

Decent point, but you're neglecting that making such a bold claim is pretty attention-grabbing. BS might get a town read on me, but everyone else's impression would be much more challenging to predict. I also went out of my way to use really circumstantial, game-specific evidence (no avatar) to support my hypothesis, which I don't think I would have ever bothered with as scum. See my prior post for further thoughts on this.

Personally, I did not think much of you defending BS there. I could understand where you were coming from with the argument you made, but believed your conclusions were unfounded. Why would other players feel different? What is the risk scum take by making that argument there?

And why wouldn't scum use evidence for their arguments? Don't they want to look credible?

Other players feel different because they don't know townMichel's alignment, so it can still look like scum protecting scum. Of course the conclusions aren't water-tight -- it's a Day 1 argument, and we aren't really talking about whether the Day 1 argument was water-tight (things have happened since then, etc). What we're talking about (right?) is how your reaction to said defense doesn't take into account your "knowledge" that you cannot be scum with me (different from everyone else's).

---

I was talking about BS voting No Lynch being a weak town tell

at best

, meaning that I don't necessarily agree that BS voting no lynch is a towntell, but if it is a towntell, it's a weak one. Where do you get that I'm confirming it was a weak towntell?

Since I clearly wasn't bringing up a post from Day 1 as evidence that you are town, I assumed you referred to the remaining thing for you to evaluate (my defense of BS). Hence, I thought you were acknowledging that my defense of BS was a weak towntell (from townBSFTMichel's perspective, but not other players'). I don't really care whether you agree with my assessment of BS's behavior; other stuff has accumulated since Day 1 that could affect a player's view of his alignment, anyway. What I care about is your reaction to it in spite of your (implicitly) alleged town status.

It might be nice if other players could comment on my argument. I'm going to have a hard time being convinced I'm wrong by my two favorite lynch suspects.

[semioldguy]

I didn't write those things you quoted in the above post.

[Iecerint]

I didn't write those things you quoted in the above post.

EBWOP: Sorry, those should all be Michel. Got used to typing SOG from the prior long post.

[semioldguy]

Decent point, but you're neglecting that making such a bold claim is pretty attention-grabbing. BS might get a town read on me, but everyone else's impression would be much more challenging to predict. I also went out of my way to use really circumstantial, game-specific evidence (no avatar) to support my hypothesis, which I don't think I would have ever bothered with as scum. See my prior post for further thoughts on this.

Personally, I did not think much of you defending BS there. I could understand where you were coming from with the argument you made, but believed your conclusions were unfounded. Why would other players feel different? What is the risk scum take by making that argument there?

And why wouldn't scum use evidence for their arguments? Don't they want to look credible?

Other players feel different because they don't know townMichel's alignment

, so it can still look like scum protecting scum....

And you do know townMichel's alignment? The argument of other players getting reads off

your

defense (aka YOUR ACTION) doesn't have to do with MichelSabelheart's alignment, it has to do with yours.

Not only that, your look back on this makes it look like from you were attempting to manipulate another player's view of you. Doing something with the motives of thinking that you will look town for doing it is scummy. Being town is not scummy,

trying

to be town is. Town players shouldn't prioritize appearing town to others, we should first be concerned with catching scum and helping the town, that should be our motivation.

[Iecerint]

The reason this only applies to Michel is that only he knows his own alignment. Players who aren't Michel might have thought, for example, that I was panicked scum overestimating how much I needed to save my teammate. TownMichel, on the other hand, would know that this was not the case, as he would know that he himself was town.

Town-MichelSableheart could also see you as scum trying to buddy up to him in order to get on his good side. Like I already said, your actions don't determine his alignment. Other players can still see this a buddying, scum don't have to buddy up only to their scum buddy, they can buddy up to any player. Buddying is scummy.

That's true, but I see it as a comparatively remote possibility from Michel's perspective. If that doesn't convince you, I don't know what else I can say on the matter. You're still insisting that my action "determine[d] someone's alignment," which I've made very clear is not what I'm arguing.

(1) You can't know MichelSabelheart's perspective because you are not him and you can't know his role unless you are scum. Why would you assume what MichelSabelheart's likely perspective would be? (2) I have never once said that you actions determine his alignment, I have specifically been saying that they don't. But you keep basing HIS likely alignment off of providing arguments of things that only YOU do.

1. Every player in this game knows that I am not scum with them. However, no player in this game knows whether I am scum with another player in this game. That's why we expect Michel's perspective on me to be different from another player. My action with him (IMO) has a strong chance of being interpreted as scum-helping-scum, but townMichel knows that cannot be true. Does that answer your question, or am I answering a different question or something? I can't tell whether you're getting it an discarding it, or if I'm not explaining myself very well.

2. You were saying that *I* was claiming that my actions determined his alignment. I was pointing out that I was *not* claiming that; rather, how third parties should view Michel's alignment is on account of things that he has done given things that I have done. They only make sense if he is scum, he made a mistake and is stubborn, and/or other stuff is sketchy enough to cancel out the effect of his mistake. I'm supposing the second one, regardless of his alignment; he's claiming the last.

[Iecerint]

Decent point, but you're neglecting that making such a bold claim is pretty attention-grabbing. BS might get a town read on me, but everyone else's impression would be much more challenging to predict. I also went out of my way to use really circumstantial, game-specific evidence (no avatar) to support my hypothesis, which I don't think I would have ever bothered with as scum. See my prior post for further thoughts on this.

Personally, I did not think much of you defending BS there. I could understand where you were coming from with the argument you made, but believed your conclusions were unfounded. Why would other players feel different? What is the risk scum take by making that argument there?

And why wouldn't scum use evidence for their arguments? Don't they want to look credible?

Other players feel different because they don't know townMichel's alignment

, so it can still look like scum protecting scum....

1. And you do know townMichel's alignment? The argument of other players getting reads off

your

defense (aka YOUR ACTION) doesn't have to do with MichelSabelheart's alignment, it has to do with yours.

2. Not only that, your look back on this makes it look like from you were attempting to manipulate another player's view of you. Doing something with the motives of thinking that you will look town for doing it is scummy. Being town is not scummy,

trying

to be town is. Town players shouldn't prioritize appearing town to others, we should first be concerned with catching scum and helping the town, that should be our motivation.

1. This is an argument about my alignment. I know my alignment 100%, so this debate doesn't apply to me; that is, I know 100% that I am not scum.
2. I remember most of my own actions better than other players do. Since I remembered a specific action I made that should be persuasive to someone who knows townMichel's alignment, I brought it up. I agree that trying too hard to look town can look bad, but I also think that given that I am under scrutiny, the best thing I can do is a) explain my perspective in full detail for analysis later and b) since I know 100% that I'm town, I should try to avoid the lynch unless I know that town will gain disproportionately much significant information from it.

Running errands, be back in a few.

[semioldguy]

Pretty much everything Iecerint has said on this page is a load of crap.

[Katy]

Wow. I feel like we're getting into a real WIFOM situation here. Right now I feel like one of the persons involved is taking advantage--either Iecerint by WIFOMing the town with his arguments or SOG or Michel by taking advantage of his need to keep an argument going and "be right" which was already demonstrated with DDD.

It might be nice if other players could comment on my argument. I'm going to have a hard time being convinced I'm wrong by my two favorite lynch suspects.

As I said before, I don't really like the argument of "If [X] result happens, then I am not scum." It's easy for a scum player to make this argument because they have the knowledge of whether any particular player will turn out innocent or guilty. It's also kind of a pointless argument. I am town, so everything I do is because I am town pursuing my win condition of lynching the scum. However, I also have my own strengths and weaknesses. I might pick up on something that turns out to be a good lead, but I am also capable of making incorrect reads.

It's more convincing to have good reasoning behind your actions than trying to ask for your actions to speak for themselves. As town, you should generally have good reasons for what you do, even if you're wrong. As scum, your reason is always the same: "make sure someone besides me is lynched and make sure I look like town." So, let me put it this way: saying that BECAUSE you did a particular thing you are not scum, is not convincing to me. Convincingly explaining your thought process or why you did something as a townie is convincing.

We haven't heard anything from DDD in the last day, and not a whole lot from eKim. I would like to hear from them at least to know who their number one suspect is and why. I am not liking Iecerint's latest argument, but I don't think it's bad enough yet to convince me that he is scum, given that I've been getting a town read off him for most of the game.

I was suspicious of F_T so I would like to clarify my position on Michel. He seems to be a solid player and that's great if he is town, but I'm wary of him taking advantage of the SOG vs. Iecerint battle.

Michel:

How suspect are you of Iecerint right now? If we were close to a deadline would you put your vote on him?

[MichelSableheart]

This argument is branching out rapidly. I apologize for the wall of text.

I'll respond to other players in my next post.
---

Iecerint, your current argument against me feels a lot like you saying "MichelSableheart believes I could be scum even though I took the trouble early in the game to buddy up to him! That's just not fair!"

You are telling me not why you are town, but why I should believe you are town. That's simply ridiculous. Given that I am town, I must carefully examine all other players. The fact that one of them defended my predecessor should NOT give that player a free pass.

You asked

me

how I explain your defense of BS if you are scum and I am town. This is the explanation I have given, combined with one very good explanation from someone else:

• 1. Attacking BS over voting No Lynch was unlikely to accomplish anything.
  2. Defending BS had little to no risks attached.
  • A. Your defense of BS was extremely weak and unlikely to convince anyone. A BS lynch would still be a good possibility.
    • a. Newbie scum knows it's a good idea to act as town. Therefore, if newbie town is likely to do something, newbie scum is likely to do that too.
      b. No-lynching is in fact in favour of scum, as it costs the town a lynch opportunity. Newbie scum who is aware of this will easily be happy trying to get a No-lynch.
    B. Other players are unlikely to become suspicious of Iec defending BS.
  3. Because Iec defends BS, BS will probably like Iec, and is therefore unlikely to vote for him.
  4. Should BS flip town, the other players will remember that Iec defended BS, and will like him for that. (argument brought up by semioldguy)

Considering all this, defending BS has a serious advantage, and no serious disadvantage for scum. Therefore, it is something that scum could do.

For clarity, I do not consider your defence of BS a scumtell. I also do not consider it a strong enough towntell to balance for the scumtells you made. I consider it a nulltell.

Now, let's walk through the counterarguments you've given. I'll summarize them in my own words. My apologies if I missed any, this discussion has become quite messy. Please be so kind to restate any arguments I may have missed. Along with each argument, I list what I consider it a reply to.

MSh is stubborn and does not want to change his opinion which is based on incorrect facts.

This is a very serious misrepresentation. After my mistake was pointed out to me, I have adjusted my theory accordingly (note that the participation argument has disappeared because of this). It is perfectly fine if you disagree with my explanation, but please do not act as if I am still explaining why you claimed BS no lynch vote was a null tell.

Iec has put more effort in the defense then he would have if he were scum.

I disagree with your claim that town puts more effort into their games then scum. If scum wants to make an argument, they want to be convincing, and will therefore take the time to put in the effort to support their argument with evidence.

There were safer ways for Iec to act if he were scum.

This argument is completely irrelevant. Your question wasn't "if Iec is scum, how would he have acted", your question was "how do you explain Iec's behaviour if he is scum?". The fact that there were other, perhaps better ways for scum to act does not change anything about the fact that scum could have acted as you did.

Of course the conclusions aren't watertight. But that's irrelevant for the discussion at hand.

It is extremely relevant. Because your argument wasn't watertight, as you call it, or very weak, as I call it, your argument wasn't likely to convince anyone. Because of this, you could make the argument without much risk as scum.

I don't really care whether you agree with my assessment of BS behaviour.

But once again, this disagreement with your assessment is a very important reason why I believe that you could safely make that argument as scum.

Any towntell can be explained away by scum trying to act like town.

Which is exactly the reason why I don't put as much stock in towntells as I do in scumtells. In order for something to be a valid towntell in my opinion, there has to be a very serious disadvantage for the scum to doing it, and a different option for scum that would be less disadvantageous while still not being suspicious.

This has two consequences. First, it leads me to disagree with your assessment of BS behaviour, which in turn leads me to believe you could safely make that argument as scum.

Secondly, it is also a reason for me to not put much stock in your "I must be town because I defended BS" argument.

This point has nothing to do with the argument in question

It does have to do with the argument. It explains why I believe your original defence of BS to be weak and unlikely to convince anyone, which in turn explains why scum could safely make that argument.

By defending BS, Iec would draw the attention to other players to himself.

But as long as you could make your argument sound convincing enough, they have no strong reasons to believe you are scum. Except perhaps the possibility that you are scum defending a scumbuddy. Which I'll get to below.

Other players could believe that Iec was defending a scumbuddy.

If you are scum and I am town, that is not necessarily a bad thing for you. The reasons for this belief would be pretty circumstancial, and are unlikely to lead to a lynch unless there is more evidence. If they do lead to a lynch, there is a 50% chance they lead to my lynch, disproving the argument. And even in the very worst scenario that your lynch happens, my lynch would probably be next because of the connection, giving your buddy at least one free pass.

Scum buddying up is a remote possibility from MSh's perspective

Nonsense. I have been arguing that I consider you buddying up a very likely explanation for your behaviour. None of the arguments you have given adress why buddying up specifically isn't a possibility.

Details contradict the explanation that Iec wants to look good if BS flips town

None of the details you list go directly against the explanation that Iec wants to look good if BS flips town. They only argue why you believe scum wouldn't act that way in general. I have adressed them above.