activity level is not a reliable scumtell

[Firebringer]

i think overall scum might post as many words, but they post less frequently than town. Especially from the latest site meta.
Last 10 games, there has been maybe 4-5 active scum players total. And by active I mean they are in the top 30% of posters in the game they are in.

Not all scum lurk, but most people who play scum on this site do lurk as scum.

[Firebringer]

On a more serious note, very high activity is USUALLY a town-tell, especially if said person is doing a bunch of stuff in a non-wolfy way. Beyond that, town or scum can very easily be medium to essentially zero activity, and as someone who's gotten pressured repeatedly (as town!) for "why isn't smith obvtown yet" and "why isn't smith tryharding yet" I have some symphathy to this.

[Firebringer]

nah on average scum make about the same number of posts as town, and their posts have about as many words

I guess I should say "frequency"? Like maybe scum does a burst of posts to make it look like they are more active than they are, where as a town would be consistently posting around same each day more likely.

I feel like I am moving goal posts, but I really feel there is a difference.

[Firebringer]

I think psyches problem with his statistical analysis is that he is looking at game as a whole, where there's more Town than scum.
Like, yes there are going to be a lot of unengaged town. Which throws off the curve.
town having more players equals more variation, where as scum have less.


If you account for only the top posters for town.
Take out the people throwing off the curve. (In statistical analysis we call this cherry picking but w/e)
And then compare it to scum.

Then scum are lurk shits.

But I think this is pretty obvious too.
Scums objective is to just not get lynched.
You need to perform well enough so that Town doesn't put you in possible lynch pile, so you need to perform at least as good as average town player.

When average town player is lurking scum have more freedom.

Scum literally just don't have to be the most townread player in game. They just need to be as good as average and get Town to lynch all the below average lurk shits.

[Firebringer]

So yeah, activity is actually a reliable tell, but not in the "scum are lurking" because while that's true so is town so like you can't really find them easier that way.

Activity tells you who is more likely Town.
Scum are not going to be in the top 10% of posters in game (a few select players will be but it's a risky position to be in)
I'd say you can rule out the top 10% of posters as being scum in 90% of games and you'd show very high accuracy.

I am just making up some numbers out of my ass though.

[Firebringer]

So you're discrediting people who have done the research with numbers you pulled out of your ass?

Top 10% is like... One player in a 10 man or two players in a 20. So you're still saying the top poster won't be scum.

Then you clarify by pointing out that there are outliers


But uhhhhh the outliers are exactly why it's not a reliable tell.

No, I was just giving my opinion.
As shitty as that's worth.

Maybe I am wrong, idk. I think it's hard to quantify this stuff.

Like if you want me to get game specific I'd say in like 13 player game, the top three posters are almost always Town. Like I am sure if psyche analyzed that he would find similar results.

It's just your sample of town is bigger than your sample of scum so it's going to be distorted.
Scum try to mimick average town.
Average town is shit.

Therefore scum are shit.

[Firebringer]

And yeah it's still a reliable tell if it has outliers...
I mean it's not a universal tell where it is always right.

If 90+% of the time the tell is right, I'd say that is a good tell.
And I'd say it's more than 90% of the time tbh.

The only tells that have even close to 100% success rate are individual meta tells.
And even those aren't static. They will change over time.

[Firebringer]

why are we throwing out town outliers but not scum outliers

If you throw out scum outliers than the data would show 100% it being reliable, would it not?

[Firebringer]

I mean if your throwing out data left and right ur just going to reach whatever conclusion you want, so probably shouldn't?
I just think this would be easier to analyze if you had same proportion of scum and Town to look at it in games.

[Firebringer]

I'd be shocked if any stats anywhere backed up what firebringer is saying

You're assuming:
-everyone is scared of being scum
-nobody has a life outside of mafiascum
-everybody plays scum the same way

Like can you really tell me you haven't played games where the most active player gets shrugged off as obvtown by everyone and then turns out to be scum? I've seen it a ton of times. You need to look at the content of the posts. Not just the frequency or length

Ummmm most of this isn't what I am saying.....


And most people do play scum in same way, there isn't much variety for it on MS.

[Firebringer]

Which is why town overwhelmingly stomps scum on a reliable basis on this site


Oh


Shit no they don't



My bad

ummmmmm you alright man?

[Firebringer]

It's the logic behind what you are saying.

No.

everyone is scared of being scum

Lots of people don't like playing as scum and some hate rolling it, some are terrified it. I think everyone who has played scum know a time when they at least felt anxious to post when they were pressured, where they were like "What do I do, I am CAUGHT!" you might call this "fear" but I still experience it all the time, and I don't think I fear playing scum at all.

And its because of that anxiety that scum have hard time keeping up IMO. Also the fact they aren't required to post. I know for a fact there are moments I don't need to post as scum, but I would as town.

nobody has a life outside of mafiascum

Not sure the point of this. My thing was stating if your scum, your just going to not post at same times as you were as town and your probably going to post less. Has nothing to do with whats going in your life, but people might actually be more likely use RL to not post as scum, although you can say they might do same as town because some don't even like playing town.

everybody plays scum the same way

I keep going back and forth on this in my own mind. The strategy almost every scum uses is the same. The way they do it might vary, but its in no way as varied as I would see Town.

I think town are more wiling to experiment in the way they play the game.
Scum like to stick with the basics.

[Firebringer]

A lot of what I am talking about is really just a personal outlook of the game though, so your mileage will vary.
Like I said before, hard to actually quantify a lot of this shit, because mafia is a game of perception.

Two people will almost always have two different accounts of the same events.

[Firebringer]

I might do some research of my own to figure this out.
Probably not a huge sample, but I want to see how accurate this is in for games I have not played in or spectated.

At least then I can just stop talking out of my ass with anecdotal evidence.

[Firebringer]

No. If you've never seen a brilliant fakeclaim or scum controlling the game, you have a ton of mafia to play before you can even enter this debate

umm......Fuck you?

[Firebringer]

Spoiler: My Data Collection

Mini Normal 1874 Camping Trip Mafia, Top three posters all town
Mini Normal 1873 top three posters all town
Mini Normal 1888 Two Face Mafia, 1 of Top three posters was scum
Mini Normal 1883 Under the Sea, top three posters all town
Mini 1875 Pines Death Trap, top three posters all town
Mini Normal 1897, 1 of top three posters was scum
Mini Normal 1865, top three posters all town
Mini Normal 1871: 1 of top three posters was scum
Mini Normal 1854, top three posters all town
Mini Normal 1860, 1 of top three posters was scum

Spoiler: Analysis

Guess this shows, if you want to expand that into making broad assertions, this means in 60% of games, the town are the ones controlling the conversation completely. In 40% of games the scum are in the top posters. I think I could point out how no scum was ever the top poster, but I think that is just nitpicking. This just shows me the data didn't really back up my own thoughts.

Guess I was wrong. Or I got to collect a bigger sample.
Meh.

Guess I am full of shit.

[Firebringer]

If people can attack my arguments without telling me all my experiences in mafia are completely invalid, that would be great.

If anyone wants me to tell you how much I have played, its probably more than all of you. Does that mean I know the game more than you? Fuck no.

[Firebringer]

Spoiler: My Data Collection

Mini Normal 1874 Camping Trip Mafia, Top three posters all town
Mini Normal 1873 top three posters all town
Mini Normal 1888 Two Face Mafia, 1 of Top three posters was scum
Mini Normal 1883 Under the Sea, top three posters all town
Mini 1875 Pines Death Trap, top three posters all town
Mini Normal 1897, 1 of top three posters was scum
Mini Normal 1865, top three posters all town
Mini Normal 1871: 1 of top three posters was scum
Mini Normal 1854, top three posters all town
Mini Normal 1860, 1 of top three posters was scum

Spoiler: Analysis

Guess this shows, if you want to expand that into making broad assertions, this means in 60% of games, the town are the ones controlling the conversation completely. In 40% of games the scum are in the top posters. I think I could point out how no scum was ever the top poster, but I think that is just nitpicking. This just shows me the data didn't really back up my own thoughts.

Guess I was wrong. Or I got to collect a bigger sample.
Meh.

Guess I am full of shit.

60:40 on a small sample size doesn't mean much

Yeah, thats what I said.....

[Firebringer]

If anyone wants me to tell you how much I have played, its probably more than all of you. 

I seriously doubt that

more than 200 plus forum games, across four sites.
I play this game way too much.

[Firebringer]

nerds

ur a hipster.

[Firebringer]

Spoiler: My Data Collection

Mini Normal 1874 Camping Trip Mafia, Top three posters all town
Mini Normal 1873 top three posters all town
Mini Normal 1888 Two Face Mafia, 1 of Top three posters was scum
Mini Normal 1883 Under the Sea, top three posters all town
Mini 1875 Pines Death Trap, top three posters all town
Mini Normal 1897, 1 of top three posters was scum
Mini Normal 1865, top three posters all town
Mini Normal 1871: 1 of top three posters was scum
Mini Normal 1854, top three posters all town
Mini Normal 1860, 1 of top three posters was scum

Spoiler: Analysis

Guess this shows, if you want to expand that into making broad assertions, this means in 60% of games, the town are the ones controlling the conversation completely. In 40% of games the scum are in the top posters. I think I could point out how no scum was ever the top poster, but I think that is just nitpicking. This just shows me the data didn't really back up my own thoughts.

Guess I was wrong. Or I got to collect a bigger sample.
Meh.

Guess I am full of shit.

What if I told you that as the game goes on, the winning faction is more likely to have more posts because people can't post after they've died, and the losing faction has lost more people

My mind might shatter.

[Firebringer]

Then psyche analysis is the best.