Mini 836: Commie Mafia (Game Over)

[charter]

If this means anything about the setup speculation, I have the EXACT same role and flavor as I had game one.

Cyberbob, you keep talking about how great a Coco vote is, but can you point me to your posts where you explain it? I'm not really seeing your fascination with it.

We should totally pick up activity, a deadline would suck. We can definitely hammer this out and lynch scum today.

[Cyberbob]

Cyberbob, you keep talking about how great a Coco vote is, but can you point me to your posts where you explain it? I'm not really seeing your fascination with it.

I've been pointing out scummy things he's been doing for pretty much the entire game thus far. I don't really want to have to link the majority of the posts I've made, so I'll pick out the more relevant ones from today (as I really only began to see him as a "most" viable target today.

If you're interested in the full story you are welcome to read my earlier posts in isolation.

- In Post 897 I call him out on his stupid claim and also his dodging of a question put to him by Hoopla about it
- In Posts 930 and 932 I talk about the timing and manner of his jumping off the Peabody wagon
- In Posts 937 and 939 I post the results of a reread of Peabody's behaviour towards CoCo in Day 1 after SC pointed out that he had been voting CoCo for pretty much the entire day. This turned out not to be the case, but if it had been that would have made CoCoscum a lot less likely. As it turned out, I actually found things that

reinforced

my confidence in my vote.
- In Post 946 I sort of summarise my position on a few people, including CoCo (this is, I think, the point at which I start assuming that I've voted for him when in fact I was still voting Vaya).
- And finally (at this stage), in Post 973 I agree with a point Hoopla made about CoCo's activity pattern being pretty dodgy (when he isn't under the limelight he seems to post in a manner designed to keep it that way as much as possible).

We should totally pick up activity, a deadline would suck. We can definitely hammer this out and lynch scum today.

I agree. I would be willing to settle for an SC lynch if nobody joins me on CoCo.

[charter]

Ok, went back to day two to look for breadcrumbs from Sens. The ONLY time he mentions someone other than Vaya/Cathart (outside of passing or whatever) is his last post, saying le Chat needs to grow a pair. Possible breadcrumb, though obviously not conclusive or anything.

However, I will

unvote

SC after rereading day two, and I think I'm probably going to move to le Chat. Going to dig up some reasons first.

[Cyberbob]

If you have already decided that you're likely to be voting le Chat next, wouldn't you need to have at least

some

form of reasoning in your mind?

[charter]

If you have already decided that you're likely to be voting le Chat next, wouldn't you need to have at least

some

form of reasoning in your mind?

Yes, I have reasons in the back of my mind, I need to go get specific examples and post numbers, which takes a little bit more time.

[Cyberbob]

Fair enough.

[mathcam]

Okay, all caught up. I have a lot written down, so I've only posted a small number of coherent thoughts.

Currently pro-town in my book: Hoopla, CyberBob, Vaya.

Charter actually came off very strongly pro-town to me ever since day 1. His posts around his "NOT ENOUGH NOOSES" explosion in particular seems very genuine. Because of day 1, he doesn't go in my pro-town book, but he goes off my favorite lynch targets for today list.

That leaves CoCo, le chat, and SC:

CoCo did not fare well in a re-read. I think in the re-read, he came off less crazy to me than inconsistent, so whereas I was willing to attribute oddities to craziness before, now I think they might be scummy. CoCo, I'd like you to specifically address why you claimed at the start of the day. Another thing that caught my eye is the rampant accusations of just about every player in the game...with the exception of me, who was probably his strongest attacker day 1. An attempt to mollify perhaps?

I still have a hard time with SC and le chat.

SC: One meta-thing I've been pondering is how likely it is that Haru was going to go through with his translation party idea if he were scum with a partner. If you're going to pull a crazy gambit, you're more likely to do it if you don't have a partner at stake. On the other hand, presumably the account had been created before the game began, rendering this argument somewhat moot. Nonetheless, we could go back and see who was least surprised by the translation party hypothesis -- note in particular that Hoopla was the one who suggested it when it seemed not to have even dawned on anyone else that this was anything but a non-native speaker. If SC turns up scum, this might be an interesting finger to point toward Hoopla.

As for his own merits, I think charter had a nice post in 940. That SC though Bob was "gut scum" in 338 is weird to me, and he continued being pretty anti-Bob all day. And while I can sympathize with starting the Tallywagon on day 1, it sure doesn't look good in hindsight when it took a Peabody unvote to get it started. Finally, SC's quote in 708 "I'm surprised I haven't copped more attacks" feels non-genuine (as if "Hey, look at me, no scum in the right mind would suggest they aren't being attacked enough! I must be town!").

Le chat: I have even less of a read on as a player. But:

One point I'd like to make is that I've made two specific lists of suspects in this game: One to see who Peabody acted somewhat neutral towards, with the idea that a n00b scum would want to shy away from creating a strong link to their partner. This led me to the list {Hoopla, Vaya, SensFan, CyberBob, le Chat}. The second list was the people who Sens would plausibly have hid with, under the idea that the reason there was only the Sens kill was that Sens hid with a mafia: While I didn't write down the list, I'm pretty happy postulating that Hoopla and CyberBob appeared pro-town enough that they'd be at risk for being nightkilled, and Vaya was scummy enough to be too risky. This leaves the innocuous-looking le Chat as the only member of the above list.

I'm not sure this vote is going to stay until a lynch, but I at least like my argument behind a

Vote: Le Chat.

SC and CoCo are close behind.

Cam

[Cyberbob]

Do you mind if I ask why you see Vaya as being protown? I would put him at neutral at best.

[SerialClergyman]

Cam - normally I don't like that 'I'm surprised noone has attacked me yet' stuff either, but I was making a specific point about Sens. I thought Sens had it in for me D1 (attacking me pretty strongly for posting style and very little else I could see) and so when Tally turned up dead, I totally expected him to come after me hard. When he didn't, I thought that meant Sens was likely to be town and said so.

On CyberBob - I have a habit of the very occasional 'left field' gut scum read, but so it goes. It's a little different - I actually coined a phrase for it recently - the real estate agent read. It's like when you think they're on your side and they act like they're on your side but you can't shake the feeling they're ready to sell your house for whatever they can get, grab the commission and run. I'm less convinced now because he's been driving the game during low activity, but in D1 it was pinging pretty strongly.

On Haruchi - can't help you. It's possible he was just some Japanese guy who used it to genuinely read the game, I don't know.

[mathcam]

Do you mind if I ask why you see Vaya as being protown? I would put him at neutral at best.

I'm pretty happy with my read on Peabody's gambit. There's also the fact that he was blocked and the kill went through anyway. In fact, Vaya's the only one I feel like we have objective evidence in favor of. Also, in the reread, Vaya came off pretty well when combatting with CoCo. The only niggling worry I have is the self-vote, but Vaya seemed pretty genuine (eve if misguidedly so) when discussing his own lynch.

SC - Okay, maybe. And lol @ real estate read -- very fitting. I have to admit I have a voice in my head arguing (similar to Hoopla) that there's no way that Bob could've been

that

sure that Peabody was scum that he wouldn't change his vote all day.

Cam

[SerialClergyman]

Who wants to join the le chat wagon and get some pressure happening before his return? All the cool kids are doing it..

[Kublai Khan]

Official Vote Count

Players needed to lynch: 5

charter

- 1 - CoCo - (L-4)

CoCo

- 1 - Cyberbob - (L-4)

le Chat

- 3 - SerialClergyman, Hoopla, mathcam - (L-2)

Vaya

- 1 - le Chat - (L-4)

Players not voting: charter, Vaya

Okay.. My plea for activity was met with quite a bit of indifference.

Prodding CoCo, Hoopla, & le Chat
In my ruleset I state that if I have to prod 4 or more time, I reserve the right to replace a player. I've prodding Vaya 5 times during this game and warned her that I would replace her rather than prod her a sixth time. So I'm actively looking for a replacement for Vaya.

I'm going to give a 2 week deadline. So if you don't have a majority lynch by Nov 1 (11:59 pm EST), then whomever reached a plurality first.

Also remember that this weekend is moving day. So the site may be up and down.

[Hoopla]

Appologies everyone, I've become lazy with this game. I intend to rectify this problem immediately. Expect more from me shortly.

[Cyberbob]

I disagree with a le Chat lynch. I don't really get how he has managed to pick up so many votes when as far as I can tell the only points that have been raised against him heve been based around either speculating on SensFan's choice of hiding target or criticising his activity pattern. I don't place a whole lot of stock in the former for similar reasons to those behind my stance on guessing the number of scum in the game, and the latter is hardly unique to le Chat. Vaya has been inactive for the vast majority of the game with only a few people holding it against him for only a small amount of time before letting it drop, SC has done almost exactly the same thing as le Chat and even mathcam has had his dry spells.

CoCo has been working a scummy activity pattern too. He has slacked off a

lot

recently compared to his early frenzy, which I would place this as being a probable attempt to fly under the radar for as late into the game as he possibly can. When you take this into account as well as all the other points against him that I summarised in Post 976... yeah, I can't condone a le Chat lynch. I've said this a few times before today, but the only other lynches I can realistically see myself supporting at the moment would be SC and charter with a preference for SC.

[Hoopla]

Firstly, I don't think my vote belongs on le Chat at the moment. It is hypocritical of me to have my vote on him for activity-related reasons, so this will be my first act today.

Unvote

--

Next, I'd like to articulate some of my reads, which I feel people are a bit fuzzy about. I generally think I am better at town-hunting and using process of elimination to find scum - this game is no exception.

I'm confident enough with Vaya being town, despite his low activity. I've recently played in another game with him, and seen a couple of his others. He has a tendancy to lurk regardless of alignment, so I don't think his lack of scumhunting is incriminating.

With Cathart blocking Vaya, there is enough reason to believe Vaya would have made the kill in most scumteams, even though it's looking like there is 3. After Peabody's gambit it went straight to night - scum would not know how the town would react to it. It's possible they could have thought Vaya would be a likely lynch the next day, and wouldn't want to risk a tracker/watcher role catching the other member. It is wifom, but there is enough reason to believe Vaya is town.

--

I'm satisfied with my town read on Cyberbob too - as SC mentioned, he was the one driving the game through it's low activity and sifting through his posts, I cannot find much that bothers me, outside his one vote D1 on scum, which is not signifigant enough on it's own.

--

These two players are town enough in my mind to decrease the possible scum pool to SC, charter, mathcam, le Chat and CoCo, who I deem as more scummy than average by contrast. CoCo I deem slightly more suspicious than the collective pool average, while mathcam is slightly less. I will elaborate some more of my thoughts soon - I just want to get some content down in the mean time in case anyone wants to interact with me.

[mathcam]

My vote on Le Chat is not based on inactivity. In fact, none of my comments were based on inactivity, I don't think.

While I understand your objections, CyberBob, it's also just not true that anyone who's scum automatically does something scummy in the first couple of days (especially if there is a decent amount of inactivity on that player's part). Thus process of elimination has to be considered as an alternative technique. The paragraph before my vote explains how I narrowed in on specifically on Le Chat. I'm not trying to oversell this case as airtight, but it's less...air-loose... than just randomly picking someone that satisfied a particular criteria (responding to your "hardly unique to le Chat' comment).

Cam

[Cyberbob]

My vote on Le Chat is not based on inactivity. In fact, none of my comments were based on inactivity, I don't think.

While I understand your objections, CyberBob, it's also just not true that anyone who's scum automatically does something scummy in the first couple of days (especially if there is a decent amount of inactivity on that player's part). Thus process of elimination has to be considered as an alternative technique. The paragraph before my vote explains how I narrowed in on specifically on Le Chat. I'm not trying to oversell this case as airtight, but it's less...air-loose... than just randomly picking someone that satisfied a particular criteria (responding to your "hardly unique to le Chat' comment).

I don't really get how he has managed to pick up so many votes when as far as I can tell the only points that have been raised against him heve been based around

either speculating on SensFan's choice of hiding target

or criticising his activity pattern.

I don't place a whole lot of stock in the former for similar reasons to those behind my stance on guessing the number of scum in the game

, and the latter is hardly unique to le Chat.

[Cyberbob]

Bugger, screwed up mathcam's quote. Pretend there's a [/quote] tag at the end of that second paragraph.

[charter]

Antiprod. Sorry.

[mathcam]

Yeah, I got your post, Cyber. I was responding to "the latter" argument, since we had already discussed "the former" argument when we discussed the number of scum. But now that you bring it up again...

I'm saying that we should consider all possible situations, and that we should come up with a plan of action that minimises the risk of causing too much damage to the town in case we get it wrong.

You said this in response to my complaint that it was silly to dismiss pieces of information relevant to the game, even if they aren't slam dunks, 100% guarantees of finding scum. But it doesn't sound like "not putting much stock in" is really any better than dismissing them outright. Is it that you don't think wondering about Sens is worthwhile since his actions are inherently unpredictable, or that you disagree with my conclusions? I'm certainly open to the latter, but can't really see the former as a tenable stance.

Cam

[Cyberbob]

Yeah, I got your post, Cyber. I was responding to "the latter" argument, since we had already discussed "the former" argument when we discussed the number of scum.

Ah, cool.

You said this in response to my complaint that it was silly to dismiss pieces of information relevant to the game, even if they aren't slam dunks, 100% guarantees of finding scum. But it doesn't sound like "not putting much stock in" is really any better than dismissing them outright.

"Not putting much stock in", to me, means that I would only ever use whatever it is that I'm "not putting much stock in" as sort of a secondary point to bring up against someone; the point exists, to be sure, but I don't have enough faith in it to use it as a lynchpin in a case - let alone using it as virtually the

whole

of a case. If you could find something else on le Chat, or a slightly more solid indicator from Sens about his target, then I would be more open to a le Chat lynch. With players like CoCo and SC running around, though... not right now, sorry.

Is it that you don't think wondering about Sens is worthwhile since his actions are inherently unpredictable, or that you disagree with my conclusions? I'm certainly open to the latter, but can't really see the former as a tenable stance.

I certainly think that wondering about Sens is worthwhile, and I do (somewhat) agree with your conclusion; it's just that in the absence of anything substantive (such as a breadcrumb) it's all just guesswork and supposition.

Wondering

is worthwhile, but without anything more than said wondering we should be careful to

act

.

[mathcam]

I'd argue that

all

tools at our disposal are more or less guesswork and supposition, barring extraordinary revelations. You think CoCo is scummy, for example, because you guess/suppose that a scum CoCo is more likely to make the posts he's made in this game than a town CoCo. Reading CoCo myself, I certainly have my concerns, probably for the same reasons you do, but I usually put my own scumreads on the back burner when I can get something a little more objective to come along. I think the process of eliminating people that Sens wouldn't have hid with is more objective than my attempting to delve into CoCo's psychology (though I'll grant you that my Peabody pairing argument is a little less so, which was important in singling out Le Chat).

In the end, I guess maybe it just comes down to how much faith you're willing to place in a scum read you get off of someone. For me, not a lot. For you, a lot.

Cam

[Cyberbob]

In the end, I guess maybe it just comes down to how much faith you're willing to place in a scum read you get off of someone. For me, not a lot. For you, a lot.

Yeah, I guess. I just don't really like thought experiments as a primary generator of suspicion unless they are able to be backed up with something more solid.

[mathcam]

And I think of the thought experiment as the "more solid" option of figuring out what's going on, leaving more subjective things like active lurking and psychological analysis as the thing you do until you have actual information you can process. But regardless, I think we see where each other is coming from.

On a different note -- what do you think about the argument that, inactivity aside, Le Chat's stances in this game have been rather mellow? Would you agree that it's easier for scum to hide behind such a playstyle?

Cam

[charter]

Ok, read up on our good friend, le Chat. Mostly pointing out how he doesn't take many solid stances on things.

I do not yet know what to think about Vaya v CoCo. I can absolutely understand now that the bandwagon didn't really threaten Hoopla (at first I saw 5 votes and immediately kneejerked "scum is on there!") once I think that if people would have made the last two votes they would have been extremely suspect so i bet nobody would hammer and that, yes, the wagon did bring about a lot of discussion more effectively than I had expected. However, CoCo is pushing very hard against Vaya and does not seem to come to the same understanding as I am. Right now though I feel like choosing between the two is just a false dilemma.

Comments on both sides, but doesn't actually say anything. Doesn't tell us what he thinks about either one.

pertaining to Peabody, I understand that pb was late with the RVS vote and could have simply remarked on the game's goings-on instead but i dont see how that is a scumtell.

Pretty sure I never saw this before, because this is similar to what SC said about Peabody, and I thought that made him scummy, so same deal with le Chat.

i think that its hard to feel comfortable with a read on coco because i feel like his aggression is naturally matched with his inability to recognize the fact that 'early reports' was just a phrase, he bit very hard on one piece of discussion and didnt let go for a very long time, and he felt the need to spend his time making a giant writeup that doesnt seem to prove any point. i feel like it is just who he is.

i dont find peabody's first post of a late rvs suspicious but i understand that that isnt the only thing pb has done. peabody your point in post 145 about mafia knowing if the wagon is full of townies is similar to what i said earlier towards vaya.

Once again, goes out of his way to talk about Coco but not say what le Chat thinks about him. I can't believe I also missed a second time that Chat defends Peabody. Also talks about Peabody but doesn't say what he thinks about him.

I kind of just stopped picking out all the specific examples, because all you have to do is look at his posts. I don't think I'm needed to point every one out. However, le Chat's vote was sitting quite uselessly on Vaya day one. Day two, he really didn't have anything.

i dont really think we should spend too much effort trying to outguess the nightkill. that seems like chasing ghosts. we can definitely remember what talitha said now that we know she wasn't scum, but i think more important is that peabody *was* scum, and we can work with that.

i think that peabody's wifom garbage doesn't matter and it doesn't make me any more or less suspicious of vaya. i sort of have to force myself to think that way, purposefully. I had my vote on vaya when Day 1 ended, and the peabody wagon finalized when I was away with the semester's first exams, but I'm not going to revote vaya. i think my vote is better off of him.

i reread Day 1 after I saw peabody was dead scum and I tried to find connections to his possible partner(s). a lot of people seemed to accept the fact that he was scum near the end, and pointed blame towards each other. the end of the wagon was confusing, mainly including talitha, sensfan, and serialclergyman. though talitha turned up vanilla townie, a patriot, god rest her soul, and it makes me rethink the Day 1 end scramble.

Peabody went after CoCo a fair amount. He also focused on Talitha.

His first real post day two. All he says is he isn't going to revote Vaya. He doesn't give us a suspect, even though there's a scum dead and he just reread!

No vote day two at all!

First vote of Day three is back on to Vaya, then an unvote. Today he's highlighted the argument against me, but he seems to be clinging to that but he's not looking for anything else. Also didn't look at Peabody's stance towards me day one.

I am going to

vote le chat

.