Newbie 783 - Mongol Mafia - Game Over

[Iecerint]

The fact that you think they are town tells means that you could do the same thing as scum, since you'd be aware that it helped to make you look town. As soon as you call your own actions a town tell, it is no longer a town tell; it becomes a null tell.

You're missing that Michel had just replaced it. It was not at all unreasonable that he would have missed something important from prior to his having replaced in. Therefore, I think what I did was OK. I'm sympathetic to the substance of your second sentence, but dislike that it leaves me to hope that other players are paying attention specifically to my play.

Scum tells are how we should be hunting.

Town tells can be easily explained as "Scum can do that to because thet can help them achieve their win condition." Scum tells can't be explained as town being just as likely to want to do them.

I think this is the closest thing you've offered to a scumtell definition, so let's go with that.

What you have been doing is saying that your actions are likely town before you give anyone else a chance to respond or think about your responses. This is a slight scum tell because it makes it look like you are

trying to appear town

. Town doesn't need to TRY to appear town because town players ARE town and town's play should support that fact without asserting it to everyone else. Scum have to try to appear town, because otherwise they look like scum and get lynched and lose.

So maybe I'm "trying to be town" because I'm a town player under scrutiny trying to defend himself, especially in the context of the main questioner being a recent replacement? Ergo, this can be explained as town being just as likely to want to do it. So it isn't a scumtell, at least not by your implicit definition.

You could counter that scum is subjectively more likely on average to want to do this, but at that level your "scumtell" example is no different from my "towntell" defenses.

As it is, everyone except Michel has only disagreed with my personal defenses, which aren't related to his criticisms of my play except inasmuch as they are both (in my view) indicators of alignment.

This is also wrong as I disagree with much more.

Then what's stopping you from prattling on about it, Mr. Scumhunter?

4 posts are on the way.

[Iecerint]

SOG's gone so far as to say that all towntells are nulltells because scum could do them to look town. While vacuously accurate, the practical application of such a perspective is to ignore towntells, which leads to random lynches.

Please explain how ignoring town tells leads to random lynches when we are still using scum tells to determine who is to be lynched. This is a huge leap to make that ignoring town tells leads to random lynches. We aren't looking for town. We are looking for scum.

You'll notice that I go on IN THE SAME PARAGRAPH to answer your question by stating that you *may* have a yet-to-be-offered WIFOM-proof scumtell definition that would solve the problem. On the other hand, if your scumtells are just as vulnerable to WIFOM as my defense, your scumtells cease to be scumtells, become nulltells, and thus should be ignored by the spirit of your argument.

It is very suspect that you would miss this when it was provided in the very same paragraph you quoted. Either your reading is very cursory, or you are intentionally distorting what I said.

The closest thing to a scumtell either of them has mentioned is poor play, which they have elsewhere characterized as a null tell (always in the context of disagreeing with me ).

My scum tells I have brought up against you do not consist of poor play as reasoning for the scum tell. I don't have to twist them or anything. I'll go find what I have said and you can explain to me from the direct quote how my scum tell on you is only poor play.[/quote]

[Iecerint]

EBWOP: Quote fail. Just ignore the second quote; I thought I'd deleted it. Happy to hear what he comes up with, though.

[semioldguy]

My posts prior to today where I mention a reason for suspicions of you and things that I find scummy.

You leave a bit of wishy-washiness and a back door to disconnect you from most of you suspicions if need be; using a lot of wishy-washy and non-committal language. A lot of your suspicions are accompanied with an explanation against those suspicions.

I also find it suspicious that iecerint doesn't vote for me until he can follow someone else in doing so, especially since in the same post (Post 222) he says that he thinks tracker is scum yet removes his vote from him.

Because you have been twisting what others have said into an interpretation that benefits your own desires rather than its actual meaning, which is not pro-town. My point is that you are saying things that are clearly not true, but stating them as if they were fact.

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).

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.

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.

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.

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.

[semioldguy]

On the other hand, if your scumtells are just as vulnerable to WIFOM as my defense, your scumtells cease to be scumtells, become nulltells, and thus should be ignored by the spirit of your argument.

What turns the town tell into a null tell is when the players points a towntell onto himself. I am not pointing to tells on myself, I am pointing to them on other people.

Scum can benefit from doing things to help the town. Town does not benefit by doing things that help the scum. If a town players exhibits a scum tell, it can't be explained simply by "it is helping the town win condition," because it is not helping that. The town player doing that creates suspicion on him, which doesn't help the town. The town player would need to explain his motivations for he/she did something scummy. Everyone wants to appear town, that's why it can often be a null tell. Noone wants to appear scummy, thats why scum tells are more helpful as it can point to where a player slipped up.

[semioldguy]

So maybe I'm "trying to be town" because I'm a town player under scrutiny trying to defend himself, especially in the context of the main questioner being a recent replacement? Ergo, this can be explained as town being just as likely to want to do it. So it isn't a scumtell, at least not by your implicit definition.

The point is that town doesn't need to try to be town because they already are town. The only players that actually need to try to be town are the scum players.

[Iecerint]

Town does not benefit by doing things that help the scum.

That's true, but it has nothing to do with what your argument as I understand it. Town doesn't know who scum is, so they could simply be wrong (as DDD has pointed out); ergo, this only practically applies in some bizarre circumstance where a player defends an outed scum. I think this is craplogic.

Moving onto your "scumtells" on me -- I'll show how they're not WIFOM-proof by demonstrating that townIec benefits (or thought he would benefit) from doing them (I'll try to take Katy and Michel's criticisms into account):

You leave a bit of wishy-washiness and a back door to disconnect you from most of you suspicions if need be; using a lot of wishy-washy and non-committal language. A lot of your suspicions are accompanied with an explanation against those suspicions.

Regarding the second sentence -- why aren't any of the other players who post arguments of the form "It could be X, or it could be Y" considered to be scummy. Namely, I've noticed that ekiM and Michel do this from time to time, but I don't believe you've made this criticism of them. It sounds like you're only applying this where you want it to apply. I think town benefits from hearing alternate explanations because it makes one's conclusions more transparent -- whether you list them or not, they're there.

I don't think my language itself is wishy-washy, so I'm going to assume that that part of the quote is just another allusion to how I tend to frame my arguments, especially in my earlier posts.

That was an argument originally borrowed from ekiM, if I remember correctly?

I also find it suspicious that iecerint doesn't vote for me until he can follow someone else in doing so, especially since in the same post (Post 222) he says that he thinks tracker is scum yet removes his vote from him.

If I can recall, I voted for you to put you back at L-2; tracker was L-1 and you were L-3. The result was that both you and tracker were at L-2. This just reflected genuine ambivalence (but not indifference) with regard to which of you was scum.

Because you have been twisting what others have said into an interpretation that benefits your own desires rather than its actual meaning, which is not pro-town. My point is that you are saying things that are clearly not true, but stating them as if they were fact.

It'd be easier for me to explain this if you'd actually post evidence of it happening. I think you posted this after DDD made a similar accusation? If so, reread the start of that Day 1 discussion. You'll notice that I ask for clarificataion from DDD before casting doubt on his statistical methods. That wasn't me "twist"ing anything; it was me first responsibly confirming that I understood DDD's argument, and then attacking it. I don't think even DDD would claim that I was "twisting" his statistics (but I do think he'd probably still maintain that I was wrong on the issue, which I continue to contest).

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).

As I have made clear since then (and as I think (hope) was clear to everyone watching at home), the point was that I was mocking how you expected us to automatically differentiate commonly-synonymous terms. You

can

fairly call this one a "twist," but I think it was pro-town because I was calling attention back to your dislike/scummy distinction at a time when people'd given you what I saw as too much of the benefit of the doubt.

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.

I've already responded to this in what was probably an absurdly mammoth post; will not do so again. I remember that you never responded to said defense, though, as I still have no idea what you mean by calling it "backtracking."

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.

I've posted literally like 4 times that this is BS (the common acronym, not the player) because it was never my actions alone, but my actions viewed from player X's perspective due to one fewer interpretations from said player's perspective. This is a conclusion that anyone can reach, so you don't have to be scum to reach it. The problem with it is that it assumes that the prior probability of the action being scum-helping-scum was relatively high, which Michel took issue with. As that prior probability becomes low, townMichel's perspective becomes similar to everyone else's perspective, and it's no longer a convincing argument for him.

You make it sound like I argued that I can wave my scumwand and transform players into scum or something. It's a clear distortion on your part.

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.

First, I was NEVER intending the BS business to convince other players. It was intended only for Michel, as I thought he'd missed something and would revise his perspective of me upon noticing it. The only thing other players should get out of it is that assuming that the problem I listed above doesn't exist (it apparently did), Michel should have found it persuasive, and he didn't.

If you're defining any defense of another player as "buddying," then I also take issue with your assertion that buddying is scummy. Town players can certainly have reasons to defend others -- they may believe they've discovered something that other players haven't noticed (as was the case in my BS defense).

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.

I never did anything with the motive of thinking I would look town for doing it. I don't know where this is coming from. I do think that my actions demonstrate that I am town, but I doubt that that is what you are taking issue with.

As I have demonstrated (except perhaps for in the case of your particularly vague posts), your "scumtells" are vulnerable to the very same kind of WIFOM as my defenses. We have yet to establish the categorical distinction you seem to draw between the two with regard to which is impervious to WIFOM. I suppose you're now going to see the light and argue that we should ignore your scumtells, as there are town explanations for them.

NB: So that you don't hilariously "call me out" on that last sentence, that was sarcasm

[Iecerint]

Here are the 4 posts I was alluding to in an earlier post. It comes out as 6 posts in isolation because I responded to SOG's posts in a doublepost. I've listed the chronological order of these posts in the quoteline, but I've organized them so that it's clear what all the numbered lists correspond to (2 goes with 4 and 3 goes with 5). I've added a little context after each quote. My first post was originally directed at Michel. (Take care if you go back to check over my post -- I mistakenly attributed the quote to SOG)

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).

Explains for the umpteenth time why BS defense was only meant for Michel.

(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. SOG makes a true statement and then an unrelated question. 2. SOG confuses my pointing out what he was accusing me of doing with my accusing him of endorsing what I said (which I obviously would never 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 and 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.

I give SOG the benefit of the doubt and clarify my positions in keeping with what I pointed out in the prior summary.

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. SOG misses that the reads come from Michel's response to my defense, not my defense itself. At the time, I didn't really understand this point, though.
2. Refer to my last post; still don't really know where this was coming from.

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 more information from it.

1. I probably could have come up with something better. I confess I didn't understand the corresponding #1. Hopefully he prefers the one in the above summary.
2. A defense of the concept of making a defense.

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

U SUCK. Keep in mind that this was just after I'd literally written a page to try to explain my perspective to him (as 4th Iec and 5th Iec were back-to-back).

[semioldguy]

Do any of the other players agree with Iecerint's responses or perspectives on this page?

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

Moreover, I think (and have stated) that a great scum tactic would be tell the town to ignore all tells, as they can trivially all be explained away. Doing as much leads to random lynches and a scum win on average, unless town has power roles to save the day. Incidentally, you and DDD have done this, and I think it's scummy.

You know as much as I already thought you were scum this takes the cake. This statement is just egregiously untrue. You've somehow taken the fact that I don't believe in universal tells and somehow have decided to spin that into me suggesting we ignore all tells.

The even more ironic thing is that here you're quite willing to accept and use "my" statistics against me, but in your 434/435 you continue to try and use "my" statistics to damn and that's even after you acknowledge that I'm merely using the established site method of calculations.

You want scumtells, here they are. Twisting someones words and actions beyond recognition and selectively using and dismissing an argument as you deem it convenient to do so. Sure, there's a chance a townie might do these things, but they overwhelmingly fall on the scum side of the ledger and that's exactly what you've done in these cases.

~

Summary on other players coming up next.

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

I think both eKim and Katy are playing this game on cruise control and it worries me that there's not enough interaction between those two and everyone else to get a real good read. I have no idea what eKim thinks of any other player besides Iecerint and it appears to me that Katy thinks everyone is a townie. coincidentally, I have no such problem with ivanavich. of course I could be mistaken, but I get the feeling he's just an overwhelmed townie whereas I've seen enough to expect more of the other two. problem is it's hard to get engaged when players start directing wall posts back and forth and back and forth and I think that's probably the big reason we haven't seen more out of him. That's why I've tried to avoid doing that since the Iec/statistics argument. SOG has been been real solid chasing down Iecerint's myriad of issues. I'm not a fan of his style and his "Can you believe this guy?" posts are obnoxious if not true. Michel has been real solid since stepping into this game and I'm hoping that he's got some real insights (and that he can keep them concise to keep everyone engaged) from his re-read of the thread.

Most pressing concerns from that paragraph:

@eKim, analysis of players other than Iecerint, plz.

@Katy, if Iecerint is not scum, then who is?

[Iecerint]

You know as much as I already thought you were scum this takes the cake. This statement is just egregiously untrue. You've somehow taken the fact that I don't believe in universal tells and somehow have decided to spin that into me suggesting we ignore all tells.

Just because you say it's untrue (or even think it's untrue) doesn't mean your actions don't reflect such an intent. Your argument against all my defenses has been a lazy, blanket (vacuous) "town could do that" with only minimal consideration of the actual arguments I'm making. Even SOG tries harder. If there's really some mental town-scum scalebar you put people's actions on, I see no evidence of it apart from an allusion to "scumtails" and so forth in a Day 2 post.

The even more ironic thing is that here you're quite willing to accept and use "my" statistics against me,

lolwat? I have never accepted your statistics. The closest I've come is admitting upon reasonable evidence from you (which came about a hundred posts late, I might add) that big names on these forums use the same statistics as you. I still think they're inappropriate for real play, and I think you know that, too -- you even acknowledged your own statistics were "unrealistic" in one post! Your defense was snooty at best and scummy at worst -- tracker himself never complained about the statistics, so you had no reason to use realistic statistics.

Twisting someones words and actions beyond recognition and selectively using and dismissing an argument as you deem it convenient to do so.

If your words and actions don't match up, something's gotta go somewhere. However:

I think both eKim and Katy are playing this game on cruise control and it worries me that there's not enough interaction between those two and everyone else to get a real good read. I have no idea what eKim thinks of any other player besides Iecerint and it appears to me that Katy thinks everyone is a townie.

As much as I'd hate to admit it, I do agree with this. One of Katy's big posts Day 1 was expressing a belief in one of the replacements being scum, but she seems to have abandoned that now. She's also encouraged me to throw around the hate wand a little, and I've done as much, even though I'm not sure it was very productive. All I've done is make more transparent my suspicion of DDD and SOG, which I don't think is news to anyone. (There's another possibility I've considered, but I'm not sure I should mention it.)

That said, if Katy is scum, she's not my friend anymore.

coincidentally, I have no such problem with ivanavich. of course I could be mistaken, but I get the feeling he's just an overwhelmed townie whereas I've seen enough to expect more of the other two.

That's just because he's BFF with you. It's kinda like how Katy is BFF with me, so I don't really suspect her. I wish she'd throw the hate wand around a little, though. I guess by process of elimination she must suspect ivan (I think she's said nice things about everyone else recently), but it might be nice for her to go on record.

problem is it's hard to get engaged when players start directing wall posts back and forth and back and forth and I think that's probably the big reason we haven't seen more out of him. That's why I've tried to avoid doing that since the Iec/statistics argument.

Oh yeah, we should all lurk to find scum. Great strategy.

SOG has been been real solid chasing down Iecerint's myriad of issues. I'm not a fan of his style and his "Can you believe this guy?" posts are obnoxious if not true. Michel has been real solid since stepping into this game and I'm hoping that he's got some real insights (and that he can keep them concise to keep everyone engaged) from his re-read of the thread.

I agree that SOG's style is obnoxious, and I'm glad he compiled his arguments for me. I also agree with your assessment of Michel.

[Iecerint]

You know as much as I already thought you were scum this takes the cake. This statement is just egregiously untrue. You've somehow taken the fact that I don't believe in universal tells and somehow have decided to spin that into me suggesting we ignore all tells.

Just because you say it's untrue (or even think it's untrue) doesn't mean your actions don't reflect such an intent. Your argument against all my defenses has been a lazy, blanket (vacuous) "town could do that" with only minimal consideration of the actual arguments I'm making. Even SOG tries harder. If there's really some mental town-scum scalebar you put people's actions on, I see no evidence of it apart from an allusion to "scumtails" and so forth in a Day 2 post.

The even more ironic thing is that here you're quite willing to accept and use "my" statistics against me,

lolwat? I have never accepted your statistics. The closest I've come is admitting upon reasonable evidence from you (which came about a hundred posts late, I might add) that big names on these forums use the same statistics as you. I still think they're inappropriate for real play, and I think you know that, too -- you even acknowledged your own statistics were "unrealistic" in one post! Your defense was snooty at best and scummy at worst -- tracker himself never complained about the statistics, so you had no reason to use realistic statistics.

Twisting someones words and actions beyond recognition and selectively using and dismissing an argument as you deem it convenient to do so.

If your words and actions don't match up, something's gotta go somewhere. However:

I think both eKim and Katy are playing this game on cruise control and it worries me that there's not enough interaction between those two and everyone else to get a real good read. I have no idea what eKim thinks of any other player besides Iecerint and it appears to me that Katy thinks everyone is a townie.

As much as I'd hate to admit it, I do agree with this. One of Katy's big posts Day 1 was expressing a belief in one of the replacements being scum, but she seems to have abandoned that now. She's also encouraged me to throw around the hate wand a little, and I've done as much, even though I'm not sure it was very productive. All I've done is make more transparent my suspicion of DDD and SOG, which I don't think is news to anyone. (There's another possibility I've considered, but I'm not sure I should mention it.) I might add that she's certainly been more active than you, but her post implies that you may have a lot of irons in the fire.

That said, if Katy is scum, she's not my friend anymore.

coincidentally, I have no such problem with ivanavich. of course I could be mistaken, but I get the feeling he's just an overwhelmed townie whereas I've seen enough to expect more of the other two.

That's just because he's BFF with you. It's kinda like how Katy is BFF with me, so I don't really suspect her. I wish she'd throw the hate wand around a little, though. I guess by process of elimination she must suspect ivan (I think she's said nice things about everyone else recently), but it might be nice for her to go on record.

problem is it's hard to get engaged when players start directing wall posts back and forth and back and forth and I think that's probably the big reason we haven't seen more out of him. That's why I've tried to avoid doing that since the Iec/statistics argument.

Oh yeah, we should all lurk to find scum. Great strategy.

SOG has been been real solid chasing down Iecerint's myriad of issues. I'm not a fan of his style and his "Can you believe this guy?" posts are obnoxious if not true. Michel has been real solid since stepping into this game and I'm hoping that he's got some real insights (and that he can keep them concise to keep everyone engaged) from his re-read of the thread.

I agree that SOG's style is obnoxious, and I'm glad he compiled his arguments for me. I also agree with your assessment of Michel.

[Iecerint]

Fail. Oh well. Note that I have one extra sentence in the second one.

[MichelSableheart]

Some comments on recent discussion. It is possible that I missed something in the amount of text that has been generated overnight.

I agree with SOG that scumtells are far more reliable then town tells. Of course, pro-town players do sometimes exibit scummy behaviour, but never on purpose. Scum do exibit scummy (as in, advantegeous to the scum) behaviour on purpose. On the other hand, both scum and town do exibit townie behaviour on purpose. So when someone exibits a town tell, it could be both scum or town doing so on purpose. But when someone exibits a scumtell, it's either scum doing so on purpose or town mistakenly believing that what they are doing is advantegeous to the town. Because a player being mistaken about what's advantegeous to them is less likely then a player being correct about what's advantegeous to them, a scumtell is more likely exibited by scum then by town.

I must agree with Iecerint that during the BS defense debate, it seemed that SOG did not fully understand what Iecerint was trying to argue.

---

problem is it's hard to get engaged when players start directing wall posts back and forth and back and forth and I think that's probably the big reason we haven't seen more out of him. That's why I've tried to avoid doing that since the Iec/statistics argument.

Oh yeah, we should all lurk to find scum. Great strategy.

Probably not completely fair coming from me, but have you ever tried being concise? Since I went to bed yesterday evening, you made 7 lengthy posts, versus 6 from all other players together (most of which are a result of SOG arguing with you). When doing my reread, there were 6 players I had to read. The other 5 players in this game together made (including replacements) made about 200 posts (roughly 40 each). You made 110, most of them of considerable length. I post daily, and spent at least an hour before each post simply catching up with everything you wrote. Ivan has admitted he is short on time, and has posted about once every 2 or 3 days. So every time he logs on for this game, he has about 3 hours of reading to do before he can even post. And then you reply to him missing three words from one of your many posts with this:

I've already claimed. You should try reading my posts. Then you'll probably be better prepared to make judgments about my nutshell'd "opinions."

I'm not saying you should lurk, but posting a little less would be greatly appreciated.

[Katy]

I think both eKim and Katy are playing this game on cruise control and it worries me that there's not enough interaction between those two and everyone else to get a real good read. I have no idea what eKim thinks of any other player besides Iecerint and it appears to me that Katy thinks everyone is a townie.

As much as I'd hate to admit it, I do agree with this. One of Katy's big posts Day 1 was expressing a belief in one of the replacements being scum, but she seems to have abandoned that now. She's also encouraged me to throw around the hate wand a little, and I've done as much, even though I'm not sure it was very productive. All I've done is make more transparent my suspicion of DDD and SOG, which I don't think is news to anyone. (There's another possibility I've considered, but I'm not sure I should mention it.)

That said, if Katy is scum, she's not my friend anymore.

Awwwww Not to worry.

I actually agree with this and I'm aware of how bad it looks for me to be so wishy washy. My problem is that I had started the day pretty set on SOG, with F_T as a close second.

I've seen a lot more of SOG today, however, than I did yesterday and he's addressed the points I had against him and gone on to be outspoken today as well as communicate a bit better.

F_T was replaced out by Michel who is completely different as far as play goes. So far Michel has been playing well and making persuasive arguments, on the other hand, I peg him on my read of today as a savvy mafia player and therefore I would expect him to be a very clever scum.

It is 1:45 am here and I cannot reread and commit to providing a decisive answer right now, so tomorrow I will either state my willingness to vote for Iecerint if town is ready or I will place a vote elsewhere if I decide I don't think he's the right lynch.

Earlier I stated that I thought at least one of Michel, SOG or Iecerint is scum. At the moment I think it's most likely to be Michel or Iec. I have to say the same about Iec being scum as he said about me (not my friend anymore!) but his defense has been more convoluted than convincing and what once appeared earnest is now starting to appear as major WIFOM to me.

On the other hand, I think Michel's play evidences a cleverness that suggests he is just slick enough to be able to pick out an easy mark. SOG was initially suspicious of F_T but also had been going after Iecerint on the previous day. If Michel picked up on that quickly the best way to get SOG off his back initially would be to team up with him against Iecerint.

Tomorrow I will read both of those two in isolation and try to at least skim over everyone else. With a week until deadline, there's no reason for me to wring my hands over this decision any longer.

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

Just because you say it's untrue (or even think it's untrue) doesn't mean your actions don't reflect such an intent. Your argument against all my defenses has been a lazy, blanket (vacuous) "town could do that" with only minimal consideration of the actual arguments I'm making. Even SOG tries harder. If there's really some mental town-scum scalebar you put people's actions on, I see no evidence of it apart from an allusion to "scumtails" and so forth in a Day 2 post.

Actually it would be "scum could do that" and considering your arguments I feel it's generally appropriate. You're actively presenting things as towntells that are in truth nulltells because they're plausible actions of both town and scum (True towntells are exceedingly rare). Conversely you've done nothing to dissuade me that the scummy actions I and others have pointed out are likely the actions of a pro-town player.

The even more ironic thing is that here you're quite willing to accept and use "my" statistics against me,

lolwat? I have never accepted your statistics. The closest I've come is admitting upon reasonable evidence from you (which came about a hundred posts late, I might add) that big names on these forums use the same statistics as you. I still think they're inappropriate for real play, and I think you know that, too -- you even acknowledged your own statistics were "unrealistic" in one post! Your defense was snooty at best and scummy at worst -- tracker himself never complained about the statistics, so you had no reason to use realistic statistics.

See, there you go again. You've already acknowledged that my statistics are site standard, but continue to try and twist them into something sinister.

~

And thanks for agreeing with me, but you don't need to quote the entire thing back at me to do so. On the ivanavich point, I agree he should contribute more, but I don't believe I should hound a player I believe to be an under-participating townie.

[Iecerint]

Because a player being mistaken about what's advantegeous to them is less likely then a player being correct about what's advantegeous to them, a scumtell is more likely exibited by scum then by town.

I buy that in the general case, but I don't think SOG's scumtells qualify. Half of them are allusions to hypothetical behavior on my part, and the other half could plausibly be done by town.

You've already acknowledged that my statistics are site standard, but continue to try and twist them into something sinister.

They're site standard for comparing otherwise-equivalent hypothetical circumstances. For example, they're useful for comparing win probabilities for X players and Y scum for different Xs and Ys. But the absolute numbers are biased almost certainly in favor of scum. When you used the statistics, you used the absolute numbers to demonstrate something without trying to account for said bias. You later even admitted that your use of the statistics was unrealistic, which renders laughable your assertion that I'm "twisting" your statistics. Those statistics are great for informing the town that one course of action is better than another, but they can't comment on the absolute utility of an isolated action -- the bias for scum will make every isolated action look disproportionately bad. This is useful for scum because they can paralyze the town, and the use of numbers to do it gives the illusion that the argument is full-proof if people don't judge the math critically.

@ Michel - From my perspective, failing to post cedes the floor to my detractors, one of whom is likely scum; it doesn't help that I often have a lot to respond to, and I find that I'm sometimes not understood if I don't explain in detail. On the other hand, I can see how the ramifications of that perspective could be frustrating. I'll try to reduce the length of my posts.

[Iecerint]

He [DDD] shut down the idea of a policy lynch on my predecessor for not participating and I found enough posts where he offered real game commentary on people's behavior that I was satisfied. At this moment he falls into a category of "undecided, leaning town."

I don't think FT and I were advocating a policy lynch on penguana, if that's what you're referring to here. A bunch of players were voting PP, prompting her to play victim and leave. Then nothing happened for awhile. When FT replaced in, he suggested that we put pressure on penguana, as the PP votes clearly weren't doing anything and PP had been trying to get penguana to participate while we were interrogating her. I agreed with him, and Jarmo had FoS'd penguana, anyway, so I went along with it. The object was to encourage hypothetical active-lurker penguana to participate. Ultimately, as both PP AND penguana had by then become totally absent rather than active-lurkers, it didn't work.

Or, at least, I personally wasn't yet up for a penguana lynch, and certainly not on the basis of his lurking. He did make that one weird distortion/misunderstanding post, though.

I will be

V/LA this coming Thursday until the following Sunday

due to a family vacation. I may have access to the internet, but it will be significantly reduced. Maybe Michel and DDD will get their wish, after all.

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

You've already acknowledged that my statistics are site standard, but continue to try and twist them into something sinister.

They're site standard for comparing otherwise-equivalent hypothetical circumstances. For example, they're useful for comparing win probabilities for X players and Y scum for different Xs and Ys. But the absolute numbers are biased almost certainly in favor of scum. When you used the statistics, you used the absolute numbers to demonstrate something without trying to account for said bias. You later even admitted that your use of the statistics was unrealistic, which renders laughable your assertion that I'm "twisting" your statistics. Those statistics are great for informing the town that one course of action is better than another, but they can't comment on the absolute utility of an isolated action -- the bias for scum will make every isolated action look disproportionately bad. This is useful for scum because they can paralyze the town, and the use of numbers to do it gives the illusion that the argument is full-proof if people don't judge the math critically.

and I still find his lurkerlynchstats to've been a little suspect.

And you keep saying things like this, but you've been completely unable to show where my math is wrong. If you want, I'll pull out the hypergeometric distribution and run a full probability tree for you to show once and for all that I'm right.

Your math assumed that players will base their lynches ONLY on the lurker/non-lurker dichotomy. This strikes me as unrealistic.

As I understand it, your defense of that built-in assumption was that tracker hadn't explicitly named any additional criteria by which to further narrow-down scum. While I agree that tracker didn't come out and list other tools for the town (voting patterns, poor mafia play, miscellaneous scumtells), I think a reasonable mathematical model needs to take into account that the mafia will screw up enough to give the town some of these tools. From this perspective, your math looks like an (unnecessary, because there was plenty of other stuff to criticize) attempt to intimidate/condemn tracker.

For that matter, unless I'm mistaken, if mafia plays perfectly, all lynches will be random and the town will lose on average.

A) Sure it’s unrealistic, but that’s all the logic tracker had provided so that’s what I was countering. It only makes sense to address the arguments that someone makes and not imply, infer, or assume anything else. And if someone is touting unsound logic as tracker did, then I’m going to counter that.

B) If we use other tools and use them well then a scumtell that isn’t a scumtell will be irrelevant anyways.

C) Your reasonable mathematical model is all well and good, but it again ignores the other half of the equation that scum can and will turn those same tools against the town. Hence we assume random lynches when calculating probabilities because we assume that long-run town and scum play will balance each other out. Given that, tracker’s proposal was at best no help to the town and at worst slightly detrimental.

And now you've taken to taking my words out of context to try and smear me.

[ekiM]

A great wailing and gnashing of teeth. Sorry, I am in crunch mode at work and am having trouble finding the time. I've spent a couple of hours reading and putting together this (still woefully inadequate) post. I hope I will have more time to give to this in a few days and I'm sorry for letting you all down with my current level of participation.

I don't follow this; maybe you misunderstood/I was unclear about Argument H? If the recent post doesn't clarify/change matters, please clarify the above for me.

No, I just think it's a bad argument.

Like 4 times up til now that I've noticed you've kind of hinted that something someone has done was scummy without really explaining it, and then you add an ellipsis afterwards. I can recall offhand that you did this in response to BS-defense (you were implying, I think, that I was scum-protecting-scum, but you were vague) and when I attacked penguana for making shit up (you were implying, tautologically, that I could be correct or not, but you were again vague). I think you'd also done it again at someone just before I asked ivan about it. If you always do it, then it's just a stylistic thing, but if you don't and it's some kind of tool for letting people take what they will out of your posts, then it could be a scumtell based on meta. So I've asked ivan about his prior experience with you, as he has it and I don't.

This is a serious complaint? If you're not sure what I'm saying, ask for clarification.

What, you think it'd be pro-town to follow tracker's intuitions to you and DDD (and me as the "neutraler" read)? I think Pablo seemed somewhat more competent than tracker, and I don't think I'm alone in that opinion.

I don't think it's pro-town to treat dead townies reads as somehow privileged. Yes, we know they were made in good faith, but they were also Day 1 reads that were based on little.

Most of my "theoretical discussion" has been an attack on DDD's theoretical discussion, which is as reasonable a form of scumhunting as any, and I didn't even wait for Michel to do it for me.

No, it's pointless masturbation that makes the thread fat and bloated with ephemera and nearly impossible for me to follow closely enough in any reasonable timeframe. It's a distraction. Distractions are anti-town.

3. I didn't make a dichotomy; I listed all 4 possible conditions and assigned subjective probabilities to each. Reread Argument H.

4. I've listed over and over and over my reasons for suspecting SOG. You are choosing to ignore/disregard them

Uh, no. I just think they're bad reasons. How about you do a summary post where you don't waffle for a dozen sentences where one would do and sum up the top five points in you view against SOG.

After all, Argument H was based largely around your own requirements for a towntell, and I couldn't have delivered it to you if you hadn't told me them. I've been pretty active this game, so I have a lot of material to draw from (and I'm town, so I know I can give a town explanation for all of it).

Are you really unaware of how obnoxious and unpersuasive this is?

I would love if the people who are actually voting for Iecerint would give me a summary of their cases against him. All of this "Argument H" and "Shadetrack vs. PPSOG" is bogging me down and if I can get some nutshells then I can look again at relevant posts in context and try to think about it for myself.

• First of all he was on tracker's wagon and that is where I am looking for scum first off. He's the worst looking player on there by a long way (actually, worst in the game).
  
• His argument are generally poor, shifting, and disposable. He doesn't seem sincere in them. When scumhunting is severely lacking, it is sometimes because the player is scum. I could write volumes of complaints about his attempts at scumhunting in this point but others have done that and I don't want to bog down the thread even more.
  
• He's spending a lot of time pointing back at his past words and explaining how they are towntells. That's a raging scumtell, in my view.
  
• His waffly waffles make the thread inscrutable without adding any value. Possibly just incompetence, possibly scummy.

I know this isn't directed at me, but I can probably nutshell Argument H for you:

1. Scum that want to double mislynch players X and Y won't argue that lynching X will reduce Y's action's scumminess.
2. Iec did that.
3. Therefore, he was not scum that wanted to double mislynch players X and Y."

Just because you weren't planning on that originally doesn't mean that's not what you're doing today. Argument H has zero value.

I've been as active as can be trying to provide the town with as much evidence as I can of my townhood.

Seems like you're missing the fucking point by a very wide margin, son.

At the very beginning of Day 1, that did seem to be true of eKim but soon after the initial random voting stage, eKim's thinking in his posts seemed spot on to me. It was basically in agreement with my own thoughts about the events as I read through them and so I shrugged it off at the time as not seeing anything particularly suspicious. I did feel, and still do, that I'd like to hear more from him in general, but so far I feel that he's the person I would put at the top of my town list.

Yes sorry sorry.

3. Specific to my Argument H, DDD would almost have to be in on it for it to have been malicious on my part. The alternative is that I feigned misinterpreting PP's vote the entire game, was lucky enough to have no one correct me until I planned to use that fact, and then got DDD to correct me JUST as I had had the opportunity (which I could have made pages earlier) to post my reasons for tracker > SOG to free me up for suspecting you Day 2. If you don't think that is remote, I don't know what to say to you, other than that I hope you're not town.

Wow, or you could just say "Oh wait, I was wrong about that making it less likely he's scum, maybe he is after all"?? And who has been suggesting you had a fiendish plan all along? Nobody. Strawman.

Moreover, I think (and have stated) that a great scum tactic would be tell the town to ignore all tells, as they can trivially all be explained away. Doing as much leads to random lynches and a scum win on average, unless town has power roles to save the day. Incidentally, you and DDD have done this, and I think it's scummy.

Wow, please quote me where anyone said "ignore all tells". If not, please chalk up another scummy mark against you. Don't misrepresent people, ever. It's obvious, and, ding ding ding, SCUMMY.

Do any of the other players agree with Iecerint's responses or perspectives on this page?

I barely agree with a thing he says. And the vast majority of today has been him arguing with various people. It's infuriating. I don't understand how anyone can constantly make terrible arguments in good faith.

I think both eKim and Katy are playing this game on cruise control and it worries me that there's not enough interaction between those two and everyone else to get a real good read. I have no idea what eKim thinks of any other player besides Iecerint

I'm trying to rectify this, sorry.

---

• DDD - Hmmmmmm, I think he definitely has the upper hand when he grapples with Iecerint. I was feeling quite uneasy about DDD throught yesterday and some of today, after a while of thinking about it though I think it's more of a posting style thing though, it just unsettles me a little.
  
• Ivan - This way this guy is playing feels very much the same as it did when I played with him in a previous newbie game as town. He's not contributing as much as a lot of people, but he's putting his thoughts out there. I am concerned that if he's scum, we won't really have a lot of clues, but he feels townie to me.
  
• Michel - A competent player obviously and he's making fair arguments everywhere. Called for a delay on the Iecerint claiming business which is pretty pro-town I think (unless he's scum with Iece.....). I'm looking forwards to his completed analysis.
  
• Katy - KAty... obviously knows what she's doing. I feel like I haven't seen too much in the way of firm opinions from her. No way to compare meta, so I don't know what to read into this. I feel she could get a bit more involved (yes, I'm a hypocrite). edit: she has a recent post which makes me feel a bit better about knowing where she's coming from and says she will post more soon.
  
• SOG - Generally feel his scumhunting and analysis is good and fairly to the point. Some of the diversions with Iece are boggilingly pointless but oh well. Wasn't going after tracker yesterday, even as he was second biggest wagon, which I'm going to count in his favor. Doggedly stuck to Iece yesterday and today. Tunnelling? Maybe a bit, what does he think of everyone else?
  
• Iecerint - Scum? I think so. I fucking hope so. I'm boggled a lot if not.

Scum: Iece. Possible partners? Tricky, thinking Michel or Katy. They've both left themselves room to find him not scummy after their re-reads and argue for lynching someone else. DDD on an outside chance.

---

Probably not completely fair coming from me, but have you ever tried being concise? Since I went to bed yesterday evening, you made 7 lengthy posts, versus 6 from all other players together (most of which are a result of SOG arguing with you). When doing my reread, there were 6 players I had to read. The other 5 players in this game together made (including replacements) made about 200 posts (roughly 40 each). You made 110, most of them of considerable length. I post daily, and spent at least an hour before each post simply catching up with everything you wrote. Ivan has admitted he is short on time, and has posted about once every 2 or 3 days. So every time he logs on for this game, he has about 3 hours of reading to do before he can even post.

Agree about 237%. You don't need to write 1000000 words if your argument is clear in your mind. If it isn't clear, why not?

---

What would be awesome from everyone would be a SHORT summary of your thoughts on the game. You don't have to do every player but your top suspects and possible partners at least would be good. If you want to break out the walls of text to evaluate everything, do that too I guess.

[semioldguy]

My three suspects today are currently the same ones I had when I replaced in to this game.

If Iecerint flips scum, my first guess at a scum partner is MichelSableheart. Replacing into a scummy position, it would look like an attempt at distancing if Iecerint were to flip scum (similarly about distancing, but less strongly, for Katy). I also don't like how MichelSabelheart hasn't been voicing many suspicions or taken a solid stance on any player. The questions he's asked haven't gone much of anywhere. I think he should have a few suspicions after reading all of the game. He doesn't have to have enough to know who should be the lynch; but waiting like he is doing is a good way for scum to sit back and tag along with the suspicions other players bring up. If Iecerint doesn't flip scum, I'd evaluate how the day ended and the circumstances of a hammer.

[Iecerint]

@ DDD -- I don't see any twisting there whatsoever. Please make your case clearer, as it's evident that you, at least, find it self-evident.

@ ekiM

This [ekiM's use of ellipses] is a serious complaint? If you're not sure what I'm saying, ask for clarification.

I'll use short sentences so that this is minimally "complex," OK? It's not a complaint. It's a question for ivan. He has played with you before. I haven't. He knows your style. I don't. You have often used ellipses in conjunction with vague posts. This helps ekiMscum because he can lead people to wrong conclusions while appearing relatively blameless. I suspect you find this concern legitimate because you accused me of the same thing Day 1.

ivan, please answer the question. does ekiM always use ellipses as he has been doing? if not, is there reason to believe he uses them when scum?

When scumhunting is severely lacking, it is sometimes because the player is scum.

lolekiM

"I could write volumes of complaints about his attempts at scumhunting in this point but others have done that and I don't want to bog down the thread even more."

Argument H has zero value.

You're missing that Michel specifically accused me of trying to double-mislynch tracker and SOG. Argument H was intended specifically for that. I'm not saying that Argument H is some kind of ULTRATELL that blocks all scum attacks against me or something. But I do think it debunks Michel's main gripe with me as well as can be hoped without any scum caught.

3. Specific to my Argument H, DDD would almost have to be in on it for it to have been malicious on my part. The alternative is that I feigned misinterpreting PP's vote the entire game, was lucky enough to have no one correct me until I planned to use that fact, and then got DDD to correct me JUST as I had had the opportunity (which I could have made pages earlier) to post my reasons for tracker > SOG to free me up for suspecting you Day 2. If you don't think that is remote, I don't know what to say to you, other than that I hope you're not town.

Wow, or you could just say "Oh wait, I was wrong about that making it less likely he's scum, maybe he is after all"?? And who has been suggesting you had a fiendish plan all along? Nobody. Strawman.

ekiM, you fail at at least one of reading, thinking, and expressing your views. Does anyone else see some connection he's attempting to make here?

[*]Iecerint - Scum? I think so. I fucking hope so. I'm boggled a lot if not.

Prepare to be boggled, then.

Hope any town players who've been suckered into attacking me (and, let's face it, there are necessarily several) have thought of what to do when I turn up town. Mafia's already had plenty of time to work it out.

You don't need to write 1000000 words if your argument is clear in your mind. If it isn't clear, why not?

The greater portion of my long posts are responses to the 8-10 things I have to respond to whenever I check-in, coupled with, you know, actually needing to do something other than answer attacks on occasion. But since I have so much respect for your wisdom, I've taken your advice in this post and ignored most of your garbage. If I ignored it, please cross-supply either ":roll:" or "lol" to it, and it'll pretty accurately convey my views. And hell, this is STILL a mammoth post.

I think ivan is town. Probably Michel, too, since I don't think he has a scum motive to go to all this trouble AND the rest of you have made it clear that crappier arguments will suffice. Maybe Katy. I'm thinking bad thoughts about the rest of you (SOG, DDD, ekiM). Then again, it should be evident after a few pages of interrogation that I hardly have a neutral perspective.

[Kublai Khan]

Monday Evening, June 15th Votecount

Iecerint - 3 - semioldguy, ivanavich, Debonair Danny DiPietro

semioldguy
MichelSableheart
Debonair Danny DiPietro
Katy
ekiM
ivanavich
Iecerint

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

7 Alive means 4 to Lynch

Note: Iecerint's upcoming V/LA (6/18 to 6/21) noted. Deadline is in less than 1 week.

[Iecerint]

ekiM -- Why did you specifically (sarcastically, if not ironically) ask me to make a post reiterating why I find SOG scummy? Why didn't you ask me to do the same for DDD, for example?