How to read lurkers/VIs

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How to read lurkers/VIs

Post Post #0 (ISO) » Mon May 03, 2010 7:50 pm

Post by The Fonz »

It's the basic tenet of those who hate policy lynching that it's always possible to tell town lurkers and VIs from scum ones. I'd like to hear suggestions for methods that work. (I may, also, if I have time, draw up samples of three posts each from certain players' scum and town games, to see if people can spot which one is the scum game).
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Post Post #1 (ISO) » Mon May 03, 2010 7:51 pm

Post by charter »

Lynch them and then use what the mod tells you. Never fails.
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Post Post #2 (ISO) » Mon May 03, 2010 9:37 pm

Post by Fate »

Investigate them, Vig them, etc.

Deal with active players during the day, lurkers/idiots at night.

And don't sign up for a game with too many.
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Post Post #3 (ISO) » Mon May 03, 2010 9:59 pm

Post by ortolan »

The Fonz wrote:It's the basic tenet of those who hate policy lynching that it's always possible to tell town lurkers and VIs from scum ones.
No, it's not. It's the basic tenet that it is sometimes possible to tell town lurkers and VIs from scum ones. At other times they are not automatically the best lynch anyhow. You also don't need to be either firmly pro policy lynching or firmly anti policy lynching. You can default to them in certain situations or for certain reasons while not always advocating them.
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Post Post #4 (ISO) » Mon May 03, 2010 10:20 pm

Post by Super Awesome Mega Zord! »

The Fonz wrote:(I may, also, if I have time, draw up samples of three posts each from certain players' scum and town games, to see if people can spot which one is the scum game).
/in
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Post Post #5 (ISO) » Mon May 03, 2010 10:45 pm

Post by Yosarian2 »

Well, with a lot of lurkers, you can tell the difference between scum and town. You just have to consider the amount of their content; that is, if someone's only make 3 posts, and one of them looks kind of scummy, they're a better lynch then someone who's made 30 posts and 10 of them look scummy.

The frustrating thing is that even when I find a lurker who looks like scum, people are still overly reluctent to lynch a lurker even though his few posts look activly scummy. I never understood that; you should always be more willing to lynch a scummy lurker then a scummy active player, all esle being equal.
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Post Post #6 (ISO) » Mon May 03, 2010 10:58 pm

Post by Fate »

I never understood that; you should always be more willing to lynch a scummy lurker then a scummy active player, all esle being equal.
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Post Post #7 (ISO) » Tue May 04, 2010 1:02 am

Post by PokerFace »

I once had a talk with ether over aim about how to tell when lurkers like Killa seven, mafiassk and empking were town. Also talked about better ways to read xtoxm. Not sure how that got into the conversation since he don't lurk but meh it did happen after cowboy bebop mafia ended so maybe that's why. The tells I developed for them were mostly meta on any portrayal of inner emotions they had that would tell me if they were scum or town. I'll see if I can find a log on that.

Though i think most ways to find if a common lurker is town or scum takes experience with lurkers and looking at anything they say at the end of the game as most lurkers oddly enough do talk a bit when it all ends. So I don't think there is one tell that would work on all lurkers to tell if they were town or scum you would really have to examine each lurker individually on their own creditials and then you could apply that to current game. And who really wants to get that much data on each individual lurker?
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Post Post #8 (ISO) » Tue May 04, 2010 1:29 am

Post by Patrick »

Just try to evaluate their posts as you would others. There's still material there to try and read unless they're literally posting nothing. If you're playing with an intermediate/decent player who lurks alot or rarely gives reasoning, judge them more by the quality of their votes. If you're playing with a VI/inexperienced player, basic tells can work best (hint: the ones that claim prematurely are usually town :wink: ) Sometimes if you have multiple lurkers in a game, you can learn something by seeing how people treat them differently.

Since PokerFace just brought up MafiaSSK, I remember in Satin Doll Showdown a number of us managed to get a pretty decent read on him despite his minimal posting. It can be done!
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Post Post #9 (ISO) » Tue May 04, 2010 1:52 am

Post by PokerFace »

To be honest patrick the reads i got on mafiassk in that game weren't good. The reads other players got were much better. Not until after that game and reading a few others he was in did i start to get an understanding of mafiassk

also during that game i was straight up BSing as town about meta tells to get people off my wagon that was usually generasted by my own lurking. Ether is one of few people that helped expose to me that i used to get heavily bored as vanilla and that was why i lurked. lurking was once a town tell for me. Only after that game did I really start looking at metas so its kinda ironic that total bs eventually became useful and i think that happened only because Tarhalinder gave away a meta tell of his own after the game was over and also cause i realize evaluating a fake claim over and over again when its used to out scum can better improve the trick there to brand new situations. And the claim evaluation felt like a new type of meta on type of people that could exist in a town fake claim situation.

So i guess in some ways i was once a contradiction, as i sometimes lied as town and lurked more
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Post Post #10 (ISO) » Tue May 04, 2010 2:13 am

Post by Oman »

Meta. Best way without using PRs.
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Post Post #11 (ISO) » Tue May 04, 2010 2:25 am

Post by Patrick »

PokerFace wrote:To be honest patrick the reads i got on mafiassk in that game weren't good. The reads other players got were much better. Not until after that game and reading a few others he was in did i start to get an understanding of mafiassk
I was thinking more of how Ether and Incognito pegged him as town on day 2. Incognito was using meta as well, I'd agree that's useful.
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Post Post #12 (ISO) » Tue May 04, 2010 2:47 am

Post by The Fonz »

Yosarian2 wrote: The frustrating thing is that even when I find a lurker who looks like scum, people are still overly reluctent to lynch a lurker even though his few posts look activly scummy. I never understood that; you should always be more willing to lynch a scummy lurker then a scummy active player, all esle being equal.
Correct. This is Xyl's big thing, that people overlook scummy omission in favour of scummy commission all the time. A good example was in the interminable Egypt mafia. At a key point in the day, with deadline approaching, two players placed votes on a confirmed town player. They defended it by saying they were joking, which nonetheless was BSing around when town should have been even more inclined than usual to scumhunt. One of these was MoS, who we'd spent all day grilling without finding anything particularly scummy. The other was a lurker who'd created next to no other content. So I vote the lurker, and Zindy jumps on me and accuses me of applying a double standard to the two players. Of course, the lurker was scum and MoS was town. Go figure.
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Post Post #13 (ISO) » Tue May 04, 2010 3:00 am

Post by PokerFace »

Patrick wrote:
PokerFace wrote:To be honest patrick the reads i got on mafiassk in that game weren't good. The reads other players got were much better. Not until after that game and reading a few others he was in did i start to get an understanding of mafiassk
I was thinking more of how Ether and Incognito pegged him as town on day 2. Incognito was using meta as well, I'd agree that's useful.
yay i realized that's what you meant but I guess i was trying to say don't look at me in that game to other people reading this discussion thread as the only good thing i did in that game was fake claim as town and you normally aren't suppose to do that. Look at what ether and incog and probably some others said in that game and I'll later get an aim log of what i gathered later on lurker meta
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Post Post #14 (ISO) » Tue May 04, 2010 4:51 am

Post by SFG »

What to do if your resident VI has no meta and doesn't seem to understand the point of a game of mafia, and therefore among the few posts he does make, they are only tangentially related to the game at best?
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Post Post #15 (ISO) » Tue May 04, 2010 7:25 am

Post by hitogoroshi »

SFG wrote:What to do if your resident VI has no meta and doesn't seem to understand the point of a game of mafia, and therefore among the few posts he does make, they are only tangentially related to the game at best?
If you have reason to believe you will never be able to discern the players alignment this game, lynch them.
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Post Post #16 (ISO) » Tue May 04, 2010 7:38 am

Post by Glork »

If they exhibit any standard, obvious town tells, try to get them to post but largely leave them alone.

If they don't, ask them direct questions. Who are their top three suspects? IF X is lynched as scum, who is most likely to be their scumbuddy? Why did the scums kill Z? Evaluate them based on their answers. If they don't answer, or don't answer to your satisfaction, pressure them for more with your vote.

With VIs, you mostly want to see if they're genuine. If they're attempting to reason things out, even if their reasoning is garbage, then there's a decent chance that they're pretty genuine. One important thing about VIs is that if they're largely incoherent as town, then they're probably not savvy enough to fake subtle towntells when they're scum. Don't let "X is an idiot" or "X reasons on a very simplistic level" trick you into thinking they're scum.
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Post Post #17 (ISO) » Tue May 04, 2010 12:05 pm

Post by MafiaSSK »

Hi there. This is a silly thread and I will explain why. For one, lurkers should always be lynched or vigged. It doesn't matter if they're town or scum being killed in some fashion gives the lurker in question less self-esteem because they no longer get to post their thoughts in said game. Now while they should be lynched or vigged at every possible chance, this
does not
mean that it should be applied with harsh tones. This absolutely discourages the player from playing mafia at all and not improve.
This brings me to my next point which is while it may seems beneficial to you for them not to play in any sort of games it can be less beneficial to the site.. If they join games with the right people with the right motivation fromt he non-violent words then they can learn and become better. They could then become one of the best. Whereas if you treat them with harsher words then they will not join and you could potentially lose a really good player.
Now moving on to the real issue of the thread about the town and scumtells that lurkers and VIs supposedly have. As a VI and recalling my past games I have no found no real scum or town tell that I have possessed. Even with the following quote by Glork
ith VIs, you mostly want to see if they're genuine. If they're attempting to reason things out, even if their reasoning is garbage, then there's a decent chance that they're pretty genuine. One important thing about VIs is that if they're largely incoherent as town, then they're probably not savvy enough to fake subtle towntells when they're scum. Don't let "X is an idiot" or "X reasons on a very simplistic level" trick you into thinking they're scum.
. I've been ingenuine as town nearly as many times as I've been ingenuine as scum. I've also seen Empking and K7 do this. This means that it doesn't follow the definition of scumtell as seen in the wiki.

Now for clarifications from the thread:
If they don't, ask them direct questions. Who are their top three suspects? IF X is lynched as scum, who is most likely to be their scumbuddy? Why did the scums kill Z? Evaluate them based on their answers. If they don't answer, or don't answer to your satisfaction, pressure them for more with your vote.
This is done way too often. I've been starting to find it annoying and live with the pressure votes.

Which reminds me, pressure votes are entirely useless. Unless I get to L1 and even sometimes not even then, I don't feel pressured to post anything. I will go on without posting anything that has to do with what the town wants from me
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Another note about this post, is the fact that when I say not harshly I mean don't repeatedly call them a VI or lurker. I do not mean treat them like a baby. Treat them like a normal player and have trust in them.
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Post Post #18 (ISO) » Tue May 04, 2010 2:53 pm

Post by Vi »

I'm impressed to see SSK comment on this thread. I feel guilty for asking a question after it, but--
If you had to play a game with someone who played exactly like you did, what would you recommend people do with that player?
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Post Post #19 (ISO) » Tue May 04, 2010 3:15 pm

Post by MafiaSSK »

Vi wrote:I'm impressed to see SSK comment on this thread. I feel guilty for asking a question after it, but--
If you had to play a game with someone who played exactly like you did, what would you recommend people do with that player?
I mentioned this in my post. I would indeed policy lynch or vig them. But not do so roughly, not insult them for being a lurker/VI while doing it.
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Post Post #20 (ISO) » Tue May 04, 2010 3:45 pm

Post by Netopalis »

MafiaSSK wrote:
Vi wrote:I'm impressed to see SSK comment on this thread. I feel guilty for asking a question after it, but--
If you had to play a game with someone who played exactly like you did, what would you recommend people do with that player?
I mentioned this in my post. I would indeed policy lynch or vig them. But not do so roughly, not insult them for being a lurker/VI while doing it.
...If you realize this, why do you not play differently? Also, would your feelings not be changed if you had to do this repeatedly? If you recall, in Tech Tree, UK tried to treat you EXTREMELY politely, and you still refused to post content - how does that factor into your thesis?
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Post Post #21 (ISO) » Tue May 04, 2010 3:55 pm

Post by MafiaSSK »

Netopalis wrote:
MafiaSSK wrote:
Vi wrote:I'm impressed to see SSK comment on this thread. I feel guilty for asking a question after it, but--
If you had to play a game with someone who played exactly like you did, what would you recommend people do with that player?
I mentioned this in my post. I would indeed policy lynch or vig them. But not do so roughly, not insult them for being a lurker/VI while doing it.
...If you realize this, why do you not play differently? Also, would your feelings not be changed if you had to do this repeatedly? If you recall, in Tech Tree, UK tried to treat you EXTREMELY politely, and you still refused to post content - how does that factor into your thesis?
I have changed my playstyle, but I can not talk about it as it relates to an ongoing game. In fact that ongoing game lets me talk about none of that.
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Post Post #22 (ISO) » Tue May 04, 2010 4:23 pm

Post by Vi »

Next question for the SteakSauceKirby.

What are the advantages (personally or strategically) of playing like you do? (Come on, there have to be some)
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Post Post #23 (ISO) » Tue May 04, 2010 4:34 pm

Post by MafiaSSK »

Vi wrote:Next question for the SteakSauceKirby.

What are the advantages (personally or strategically) of playing like you do? (Come on, there have to be some)
1. Less work, I can portray the same thoughts with less words. This is less useful to town but it gives me time to do the things that I should be doing to succeed in life.
2.Allows for constant rereads. To let the other players know that I'm following the game, I reread and respond to posts that I've already read before. Not that the rereads really helped me much but I'm sure if I actually tried then they could.
3.No real logical case can be built against me. Lurking in and of itself is a nulltell. The only real reason to lynch me would be a policy lynch. Then there's lack of content in each post. This too was a meta nulltell for me as I personally did this as both scum and town near equally.
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Post Post #24 (ISO) » Tue May 04, 2010 4:48 pm

Post by Vi »

Last (probably) question, two parts.

We've established that you would policy lynch, well, yourself.
The personal advantages of how you play (self-preservation, having an RL) are worthwhile but the tactical advantages for yourself or anyone else are nil.
As such, we can conclude that your success in Mafia is directly dependent on whether people choose to policy lynch you.

Now consider that more often than not, you will draw Town.
For obvious reasons it's much easier to score a policy lynch on Town than scum.
Therefore, would it not be fair to say that you disadvantage your faction more often than not?
On those lines, why play at all?

There's an interesting tangent to this but I'd rather discuss that with you privately.
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