# Glasnost Mafia **URL:** \ **Category:** The Game Room\ **Created:** [February 17, 2011, 11:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/glasnost-mafia/571757 "2011-02-17T23:58:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 16
**Author:** ![Idle\_Thoughts](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/838e76/32.png) [@Idle\_Thoughts](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Idle_Thoughts)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2011, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/glasnost-mafia/571757/301 "2011-02-24T17:39:37Z")
> [@Zeriel](#): > > This is a damn fine point and I’d love to hear Idle have something to say about it. 1. I’ve been busier these days, so sorry if I don’t make as many posts in a game thread as I usually do. I haven’t posted as much in recent past games either. 2. Not much to say. I’m voting for who I think is most suspicious and gave the reasons why. ---
**Author:** ![Mahaloth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mahaloth/32/1079_2.png) [@Mahaloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahaloth)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2011, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/glasnost-mafia/571757/302 "2011-02-24T17:47:59Z")
> [@Idle\_Thoughts](#): > > 1. I’ve been busier these days, so sorry if I don’t make as many posts in a game thread as I usually do. I haven’t posted as much in recent past games either. > 2. Not much to say. I’m voting for who I think is most suspicious and gave the reasons why. But it’s a lazy, drop-in drop-out vote. I think you are scum who is just trying to slide by quietly on Day One with a quick vote and duck-out. ---
**Author:** ![storyteller0910](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecae2f/32.png) [@storyteller0910](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/storyteller0910)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2011, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/glasnost-mafia/571757/303 "2011-02-24T17:58:44Z")
This **Pleonast** thing is just incredibly exhausting. I’ve tried twice to go through the whole thread but there’s so much back and forth about Pleo and from Pleo and surrounding Pleo that it’s hard to tease out anything not related to him. Disagreements on substance aside, Pleonast is hugely wrong on one key point. Pleonast, your _are_ responsible for the play of others, in a game sense. You may not think it’s good or reasonable that you keep getting lynched (usually mislynched) over issues like this, but it keeps happening and at some point, I would think, you would adjust your strategy accordingly. Your approach has _never_ worked to the advantage of your team. Not ever. Part of good play of a Townie is _not_ getting mislynched. Mislynches are how the Scum win. Townies should want to prevent mislynches, _including their own_. Obviously, Scum don’t want to be lynched. By continually taking an approach that guarantees your lynch within the first two Days, you hurt your team whatever it turns out to be. And of course, I disagree entirely on substance. But how do we handle this? If we ignore it, it gives Pleonast a free pass to do nearly anything. But the whole thing is a null tell. > [@sachertorte](#): > > (2) In the continuum of games it makes a statement. Part of me wants to lynch Pleonast EVERY time he pulls stuff like this (yes, I’m feeling vindictive today, why do you ask?) in the hope that he will eventually stop. In otherwords, it might be tactically wrong for this game, but for the sanity of future games, it might be worth it. Honestly, **sach** it should be clear by now that it’s not going to stop, ever. This is how Pleonast will play forever, and nothing will change it. So while I sympathize with your sentiment here, it’s not going to help. It looks like Pleonast is going to be our Day One lynch. I’m going to try, one more time, to extract something useful from the rest of the Day. But this is frustrating. ---
**Author:** ![storyteller0910](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecae2f/32.png) [@storyteller0910](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/storyteller0910)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2011, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/glasnost-mafia/571757/304 "2011-02-24T18:16:25Z")
> [@Mahaloth](#): > > You are way off. Wolverine seemed to think that if someone claims that they received the “arise chicken” message, we can assume they are town. His weak and confusing explanation did not satisfy me, so my vote remains. > > I did NOT make a me too vote at all. At all. I explained my vote. > > You are way off here. Your vote bothers me, too, honestly. I acknowledge that Wolverine failed to properly understand the implications of the mechanic. I agree that his explanation was oddly worded. But - it’s the same thing as when people were on me during Hotel of Heroes - I have to ask: why is that Scummy? A player misunderstands a game mechanic and gives a badly worded follow-up explanation - what about that represents an underlying Scum motivation, mindset, or information? ---
**Author:** ![Zeriel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/58956e/32.png) [@Zeriel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeriel)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2011, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/glasnost-mafia/571757/305 "2011-02-24T18:30:45Z")
> [@Mahaloth](#): > > Gosh, that’d be wonderful, but we are heading towards the end of the Day and it’d be a better scum move to just keep his trap shut at this point. I can not believe he has not collected votes for his play style so far. He’ll get his Tomorrow, especially after the lackadasical way he (non-)responded to you and I. Personally, I’m seeing adequate anti-town-ness in Pleo’s insistence that we let him play his silly counter-productive games to be comfortable with the lynch. ---
**Author:** ![storyteller0910](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecae2f/32.png) [@storyteller0910](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/storyteller0910)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2011, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/glasnost-mafia/571757/306 "2011-02-24T18:32:27Z")
> [@GuiriEnEspana](#): > > “1 talks about how scummy Pleo seems” - I dislike and disagree with his opinions but explicitly said I wouldn’t vote a player based on a disagreement Hrm. You said this, explicitly: > [@](#): > > On Pleonast, I dislike unforced claims but usually consider them a null-tell. In this particular game, due to the recruitment mechanism, I consider the claim anti-town. I also dislike the policy vote for anyone who makes a self-defense vote, it is also anti-town, leaning scummy, as I can see a scum motivation for making an easily defensible policy vote however Pleo has a different point of view: he sees the self-defense vote as scummy and I’m not going to vote someone based on a difference of opinion. FWIW I also disagree with his policy of lynching whoever hammers - fortunately there’s only 1 Pleo and 20 others. …I think, that in some ways, this passaage is indeed talking about “how Scummy Pleo seems.” That you eventually settled on “not Scummy enough to warrant a vote” doesn’t change the fact that the substance of your post was reflecting on the relative Scumminess of his actions. In fact, this whole passage raises my eyebrow quite a bit. You don’t just disagree with Pleo’s actions/positions, you go so far as to call (one of) them “leaning scummy.” But then you wave it away via a thought process that I don’t really understand. So if you think Action X is Scummy but the player who commits Action X just says, “I disagree, it’s not Scummy,” that’s sufficient to make the whole thing qualify as “just as a difference of opinion?” The whole thing seems like a having-cake-eating-cake thing: well, Pleo’s wrong about everything, and leaning Scummy about certain things, but I won’t vote for him, because he disagrees with me so that makes “leaning Scummy” not matter anymore? For the moment, I am going to **vote GuiriEnEspana**. I want to look a fourth time at the Mahaloth-Wolverine thing and see how it played out, and I will consider switching my vote to Mahaloth dependong on the outcome. ---
**Author:** ![sachertorte](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sachertorte/32/3727_2.png) [@sachertorte](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sachertorte)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2011, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/glasnost-mafia/571757/307 "2011-02-24T18:35:01Z")
The only other thing that I noticed was what Guiri pointed out (I have #152 in my notes, but Guiri says 151. Close enough for government work). To expand: I bring this up as a continuation on the likelihood of someone bringing up knowledge they shouldn’t have as a scum tell (commonly referred to as Perfect Information Syndrome or PIS). Anyway… Ha. It is #152 > [@Astral\_Rejection](#): > > Your point is well-taken. But my question to you is, how are you so sure this is “town-style” foolishness? At this point in the game, you have no idea who or what I am. Here Astral asks Zeriel how he knows the statement comes from a Townie, as he should not know Astral’s alignment. When last we visited this theory, I think it was still working. Obviously, as the theory becomes more known it should become less effective, but I’m especially curious about what happened after… Zeriel responds: > [@Zeriel](#): > > Because it gets advanced in almost every game I play, usually by a townie who thinks they have a new angle on it. 😉 As far as I can tell, Astral did not respond on this point. **Astral Rejection** , are you satisfied with Zeriel’s response? ---
**Author:** ![Astral\_Rejection](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/258eb7/32.png) [@Astral\_Rejection](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Astral_Rejection)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2011, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/glasnost-mafia/571757/308 "2011-02-24T18:53:56Z")
> [@sachertorte](#): > > As far as I can tell, Astral did not respond on this point. > **Astral Rejection** , are you satisfied with Zeriel’s response? I am reasonably satisfied with the response, for now. In the absence of anything else to build a case upon, I’m not willing to cast a vote. Zeriel’s explanation seems fine. Fundamentally, she (he?) was saying that what I did was town-style foolishness, not that she (he?) truly believed I was town. I just floated my question out to gauge her (his?) response. ---
**Author:** ![Tom\_Scud](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f08c70/32.png) [@Tom\_Scud](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Scud)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2011, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/glasnost-mafia/571757/309 "2011-02-24T18:56:46Z")
Sach, could you explain your theory again? Is it that “PIS is a Scum Tell” or that “Scum are more likely to try to build a case on PIS” (which I think is one of Drain’s pet theories)? Are you indicating that you’re suspicious of Astral (for bringing up PIS) or Zeriel (for possible PIS)? ---
**Author:** ![special\_ed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5ac83/32.png) [@special\_ed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/special_ed)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2011, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/glasnost-mafia/571757/310 "2011-02-24T18:59:52Z")
Catching up, and I stand corrected. Still, why point out just guiri? > [@Astral\_Rejection](#): > > Psst, Ed! I’m not voting for Guiri, I’m voting for Tom Scud. Unless I’m mistaken, he really did imply that nothing had changed between Septimus’ two posts. Therefore, I neither made the case up nor does it apply to “many many” people. > > I have no case on Guiri, I just remarked that her posts struck me as laying low. On day 1, how can I possibly do better than a gut feeling? Perhaps by voting for someone who’s actually done something suspicious? ---
**Author:** ![Tom\_Scud](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f08c70/32.png) [@Tom\_Scud](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Scud)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2011, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/glasnost-mafia/571757/311 "2011-02-24T19:00:06Z")
> [@Tom\_Scud](#): > > Pleo, could you please comment on the game actions that are not directly related to the various debates sparked by your first post? (Astral/me/Septimus/Guiri/Mental Guy; Mahaloth/Wolverine/Zeriel/Idle)? If you do end up flipping Town it would be nice to have that information. (Ditto if you flip Scum, of course). > [@Pleonast](#): > > I haven’t seen scum motivation or anything particularly anti-town in those discussions. Other than some votes on me that are blatantly anti-town, I haven’t seen anything worthy of a vote. So no opinion whatsoever? None of the cases seem forced; no one’s overreacting or stretching a point; no opinion or observations on any of it? ---
**Author:** ![sachertorte](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sachertorte/32/3727_2.png) [@sachertorte](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sachertorte)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2011, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/glasnost-mafia/571757/312 "2011-02-24T19:05:45Z")
> [@Pleonast](#): > > I’m not responsible for other players’ bad play. But you are responsible for your own. Even under the assumption that you are Town, I absolutely hate the statement that lynching you is ‘bad play.’ On a non-game level I also find it condescending. Frankly, that attitude makes me want to lynch Pleonast more. He is essentially saying that because we can’t tell WTF is going on in his head that we are bad players. In my opinion the number one job of Town is to not give reasons to get lynched. We typically say that our job is to find scum, but really, avoiding lynch and not confusing the town by jumping up and down waving your arms screaming “Lynch Me!” should be on every town player’s mind. If any one of us acts in a bizarre and unexplainable way, then that’s an easy mislynch for scum. Or you know, what storyteller said. I’ve reformulated my decision on whether or not we should lynch Pleonast as a question of whether or not I want to push for another claim from the unclaimed pool. Lynching Pleonast has the nice little side-effect of entering Night with no extant claims. On the other hand, lynching someone else will lead to at least one more claim, possibly more, which I view as a negative. Obviously, if Pleonast is Town, we’d prefer to not lynch him, but since we have no clue what Pleonast is, and frankly, the low signal to irrationality ratio makes an assessment of him in the future unlikely… I’m running out of downsides to killing him. Here’s one: the major downside to killing Pleonast if he is Town is that the lynch will be largely uncontested, which hurts Town. You’ll notice that I’m not actually voting for Pleonast yet. Since there is some last minute analyses going on, I’d rather not make for a runaway bandwagon. Holy Crap! the Day ends today? as in in 5 hours? How did that happen? That can’t be right: > [@Red\_Skeezix](#): > > # Days will start out at 4 day length, decreasing to 3 day length over the course of the game. cut and paste for timestamps: " #91 02-21-2011, 03:03 PM Red Skeezix Member Join Date: Dec 2007 Location: Clifton Park, NY Posts: 928 Oh, it’s time! Day 1 begins now and ends 7pm ET on Febuary 24. [http://timeanddate.com/counters/cust...&sec=00&p0=179](http://timeanddate.com/counters/cust...&sec=00&p0=179) Let the game begin!" Uh, 21 + 4 = 25 not 24. If the Day really is ending in 5 hours, I’ll put my vote on Pleonast now and be done with it. Otherwise, I’d like to see what else can be dug up. ---
**Author:** ![special\_ed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5ac83/32.png) [@special\_ed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/special_ed)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2011, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/glasnost-mafia/571757/313 "2011-02-24T19:13:06Z")
Guiri’s post commenting on Astral > [@GuiriEnEspana](#): > > The comment on **Special Ed** ’s “insightful early game mechanics talk/strategy” greatly contrasts with your statement that my play “strikes [you] as scummy” and also contrasts with your comment that **story** and you “start slow, so this is a null tell for me” - both players eminently stronger and more experienced than I am. What’s also puzzling is that I feel as if I haven’t really been contributing much. I did not participate in the game mechanics talk. I made no comment on the sleeper claiming issue at all. I’ve only commented on the motivation behind Pleo’s claim, a very little on the self-preservation thing, and made observations on Zeriel, septimus, and Astral. ---
**Author:** ![sachertorte](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sachertorte/32/3727_2.png) [@sachertorte](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sachertorte)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2011, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/glasnost-mafia/571757/314 "2011-02-24T19:14:09Z")
> [@Tom\_Scud](#): > > Sach, could you explain your theory again? Is it that “PIS is a Scum Tell” or that “Scum are more likely to try to build a case on PIS” (which I think is one of Drain’s pet theories)? Are you indicating that you’re suspicious of Astral (for bringing up PIS) or Zeriel (for possible PIS)? It’s not my theory. It’s Drain Bead’s. It has worked well in the past, though I think its utility is dated now. The theory is scum are more likely to point to a misstatement that implies knowledge about a player’s alignment that he doesn’t actually know. This kind of suspicion/voting is very attractive to scum as it is ‘solid’ and easily defensible when that player turns up Town. On Astral-Zeriel, I am suspicious of Astral because she was essentially accusing Zeriel of being scum without coming right out and saying it. I find this suspicious. We used to call this ‘smudging’ but I don’t like the word as smuding others is kind of the point of the game. What I do find interesting is the passive-aggressive way Astra went about it. Along with the fact that it is wrapped in a PIS situation I thought I might as well pursue it and see what happened. I’m not particularly impressed with Astral’s response. ---
**Author:** ![Astral\_Rejection](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/258eb7/32.png) [@Astral\_Rejection](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Astral_Rejection)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2011, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/glasnost-mafia/571757/315 "2011-02-24T19:23:27Z")
> [@special\_ed](#): > > Catching up, and I stand corrected. > > Still, why point out just guiri? I pointed out every single player among the subset of players who had not yet voted as of Red’s last vote count. Guiri was not singled out. I did decide that, of that group, Guiri struck me as second-scummiest… what exactly is your objection to that? It’s a gut feeling I got from her posts, coupled with my belief that she was laying low. It’s also pretty much what everybody is doing right now. I read her posts, and they seemed a bit off to me. So I posted my suspicions. ---
**Author:** ![sachertorte](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sachertorte/32/3727_2.png) [@sachertorte](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sachertorte)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2011, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/glasnost-mafia/571757/316 "2011-02-24T19:24:10Z")
> [@Astral\_Rejection](#): > > I am reasonably satisfied with the response, for now. In the absence of anything else to build a case upon, I’m not willing to cast a vote. Zeriel’s explanation seems fine. Fundamentally, she (he?) was saying that what I did was town-style foolishness, not that she (he?) truly believed I was town. I just floated my question out to gauge her (his?) response. The main problem I have with this response is if you recognized that Zeriel was saying ‘town-style’ instead of ‘town’ why make your passive aggressive accusation at all? Why would it even occur to you to do so? ---
**Author:** ![sachertorte](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sachertorte/32/3727_2.png) [@sachertorte](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sachertorte)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2011, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/glasnost-mafia/571757/317 "2011-02-24T19:25:15Z")
oh yeah **vote Astral** ---
**Author:** ![Pleonast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pleonast/32/1183_2.png) [@Pleonast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pleonast)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2011, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/glasnost-mafia/571757/318 "2011-02-24T19:30:33Z")
> [@storyteller0910](#): > > But how do we handle this? If we ignore it, it gives Pleonast a free pass to do nearly anything. But the whole thing is a null tell. I’ll not bother commenting on the other parts of your post other than to say I disagree. But this quoted part has a false dichotomy. There are middle grounds between lynching **Pleo** and letting **Pleo** do whatever they want. For example, looking to see if I do what I say. Or, if you want to meta-game, looking to see if my tactics are consistent across games. Or, the old stand-by of looking at my cases and votes. You know, what players typically do to make judgements about other players. > [@Tom\_Scud](#): > > > [@Pleonast](#): > > > > I haven’t seen scum motivation or anything particularly anti-town in those discussions. Other than some votes on me that are blatantly anti-town, I haven’t seen anything worthy of a vote. > > So no opinion whatsoever? None of the cases seem forced; no one’s overreacting or stretching a point; no opinion or observations on any of it? You’re quoting my opinion. > [@sachertorte](#): > > But you are responsible for your own. > Even under the assumption that you are Town, I absolutely hate the statement that lynching you is ‘bad play.’ On a non-game level I also find it condescending. Frankly, that attitude makes me want to lynch Pleonast more. He is essentially saying that because we can’t tell WTF is going on in his head that we are bad players. In my opinion the number one job of Town is to not give reasons to get lynched. We typically say that our job is to find scum, but really, avoiding lynch and not confusing the town by jumping up and down waving your arms screaming “Lynch Me!” should be on every town player’s mind. If any one of us acts in a bizarre and unexplainable way, then that’s an easy mislynch for scum. I find it condescending that you keep complaining you “can’t tell WTF is going on in his head” when the mass of my posts this is game is me explaining what I’m thinking. If you think I’m lying, lynch me for that. If you think my reasons are stupid, lynch me for that if you must. But stop saying I’m not telling you when that’s exactly what I’ve been doing. If you want to play the game trying to avoid being lynched, that’s your prerogative. I’m playing the game to find scum. ---
**Author:** ![Astral\_Rejection](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/258eb7/32.png) [@Astral\_Rejection](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Astral_Rejection)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2011, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/glasnost-mafia/571757/319 "2011-02-24T19:32:45Z")
> [@sachertorte](#): > > The main problem I have with this response is if you recognized that Zeriel was saying ‘town-style’ instead of ‘town’ why make your passive aggressive accusation at all? Why would it even occur to you to do so? This is not passive-aggressive. I asked a direct question of Zeriel. I asked to gauge her response, because it could indeed have been a slip. However, I was satisfied with the response (and here I’m noting its tone, content, and delivery). If she had posted something overly defensive, it might have been worth following up on. For instance, exactly how I’ve called out Guiri for her overly-defensive response. If I had posted and said “that’s just townie Sachertorte making a mistake,” you wouldn’t be curious about how I was so sure? P.S. This seems to come up every game. I’m still a dude. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![storyteller0910](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecae2f/32.png) [@storyteller0910](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/storyteller0910)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2011, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/glasnost-mafia/571757/320 "2011-02-24T19:35:19Z")
> [@Pleonast](#): > > But this quoted part has a false dichotomy. There are middle grounds between lynching **Pleo** and letting **Pleo** do whatever they want. For example, looking to see if I do what I say. It doesn’t matter if you do what you say. What you say you are going to do is anti-Town. > [@](#): > > Or, if you want to meta-game, looking to see if my tactics are consistent across games. It doesn’t matter that you’ve played anti-Town before, as Town. I cannot distinguish between the way you play as Town and the way you play as Scum, because the two approaches are equally bad for Town and helpful to Scum. > [@](#): > > Or, the old stand-by of looking at my cases and votes. You know, what players typically do to make judgements about other players. Well, that’d be great. You going to make any of those at any point? > [@](#): > > If you want to play the game trying to avoid being lynched, that’s your prerogative. I’m playing the game to find scum. Just as soon as you demonstrate why these two things are mutually exclusive - or how your approach toDay has done _anything_ to “find Scum” - then I will accept this as a valid comment on the playstyles of others. One can avoid getting lynched _while_ looking for Scum. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/glasnost-mafia/571757.md?page=15) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/glasnost-mafia/571757.md?page=17)