I figured my explanation was clear enough. I quote it here:
I then proceeded with four paragraphs of why I was suspicious of SCL. I had already posted many pages of why I thought you were suspicious (which, for the record, I don’t anymore – I think we were just defining “lurker” differently the whole time (and possibly still).) So, in four Days time when townies go looking at the paper trail, I want to make it easy for them to find who I did not trust and why I did not trust them. Votes surrounded by reasoning is what we’ll look for most. Why shouldn’t I provide multiple instances of that in a Day? Do you believe it will hurt or help town if many people switch their late-Day “Ralph Nader” votes? I’d gladly refrain from the activity if you can present a reason why it causes town harm or how it complicates later analysis, but people already knew my one-fold suspicion of you, so it seems that providing another block of analysis is good. Neither vote counted for anything except as a Hey, future townie, I don’t trust this person beacon. (I could not jump on the Mtgman bandwagon, of course, as I did not believe he was scum, for reasons I’ve stated, namely that I find fervent strategizing town-ish, if misguided.) I suppose, though, that as long as I’m on your scum-watch list, any non-standard play from me will look scummy to you, even if it would look towny to someone else.
More generally: It’s a enlightening exercise, actually, to read a post without looking at the author and see if it looks scummy or towny, and then to re-read knowing who the author is. Huge change, I find. There are always molehills to embiggen. Town: we should be careful of this. I’m centering my scum search on people who have never given me a town vibe rather than those who have occassionally given me a scum vibe. Everyone will do something at some point which can be interpreted as scummy. Only the experienced scum will be able to deliver good town vibes. Eventually, I won’t be able to enjoy this luxury once the “easy” fish are fried, but for now, …
Sorry, Queuing, I wasn’t directing that post at you. You did answer me before, and I agree that the matter is settled in regards to you and me. Kat is using my reasoning for voting for you as a reason to vote for me, so this is a side discussion that just happens to concern you.
Good question. And I don’t really have a good answer, other than since I’ve played with Queuing before that I’m a little less likely to FOS him over something that fits in with what I know (or think I know) about his playing style. Yes, it’s totally unfair to DiggitCamera. I’ll work on being more suspicious of Queuing in the future.
Yes, I did. I’m just not sure why that makes it non-scummy.
At this point, though, I’m starting to doubt my reasoning for the vote, so I’ll unvote sachertorte. You’ve still got an FOS, though.
Now I have to go find somebody else to vote for. Too bad Mad’s incommunicado, he’s my traditional backup vote.
I actually never joined the discussion around it; I just brought it up and waited to see what the consensus about it was.
The thing is (or was) that when I first thought it up I reasoned that it was a really easy idea (in as: any and everyone would be able to come up with it). When HazelNut prodded me to elucidate, I presented it, but by that time all the discussion around Oracle/Apprentice schemes made me wary as to its value.
And, since several people (among them sachertorte, I think) had pointed out flaws in its conception, I never bothered to argue in favor of it.
(btw: me and my penis have a mutual cooperation deal going on )
Damnation…too much fricking work to do, especially when I’ll be off for the next five days. Ah well, catch-up time:
Ok, ok…sorry, no offense intended. I didn’t mean to belittle your work – there was certainly quite a bit of research involved there.
However, the point I was making stands – it seemed to me like a way of saying “Hey, look at how suspicious all these other people are”, when you’ve got to know that we’d be very lucky to find even one Cultist in that list. There are just too many players right now, and your reasoning was plain weak. If I turn out to be wrong, and there were two or three scum in there (I know four is an impossibility), then I’ll happily praise you as the most insightful Mafia player I’ve ever seen.
I don’t recall any in M3, but I was personally subbed in twice in M4 – once as a scum-alligned semi-“Serial Killer” role, and once as straight scum. storyteller was subbed in as scum as well (the Pirates didn’t have good luck when it came to keeping players).
Although Queuing describes it as a “well known scum tell on mafiascum.net”, a key point is missing – it’s crap.
The theory is that voting third is the perfect place for scum to hide. You’re not establishing yourself as a lead attacker against someone, but you’re not throwing in a meaningless “me too!” vote. It’s a nice, snug place for scum to hide their vote. Trouble is, people on both sides of the game have long known this, and it doesn’t get much credence anymore. It’s a rookie scum tell, and has zero credibility once you’ve played a game or two.
And although the “bringing up the 3rd vote scum tell is a scum tell” idea worked well in M4, I unfortunately think Queuing is town. Damn…
With respect to the list of band wagoneers first mentioned by Scuba in #1071 I’d say that there might be a cultist in there, but at most one. I’d feel a lot stronger about it if one of the early band wagoneers had later pulled out to cover their tracks, but I guess that, in and of itself would be reason to stay in. Light FOS for DiggitCamera and Zeriel.
Ok, going to be a lot less content from me for the next few days. I post mostly while working, and I won’t be doing that again until next Wednesday.
Well, unless you consider completely redoing a bathroom “working”. Which I do. But not in the good, Monday-Friday, sit-in-front-of-the-computer type working.
Anyway, I’ll popping in when I can to catch up, vote, update the spreadsheet and defend myself against bogus charges. Nobody burn down the town while I’m gone, please…
And for Nairu’s sake, keep word on…errr…that one establishment quiet, wouldya??
We could try out “bringing up the fact that bringing up the 3rd vote scum tell is a scum tell is also a scum tell.” Er, on second thought, let’s not.
I had thought, although I can’t remember why I thought this, that the whole 3rd vote thing at mafiascum was based on actual voting analysis from past games. You’re telling me that the whole thing was just freaking speculation?
As far as I know it was based on analysis. But once it is known it no longer becomes any good. Like almost all scum tells. Once the scum know about them they can guard against them.
JSexton can tell us more if he ever does a vanity search and see’s this thread. He was the one who brought the idea up, and was the first to dismiss it’s usefullness as a tool beyond WW1.
Back from a little mini internet vacation. OK, not totally internet free, but I’ve tried to stay away from it for a couple of days. I did sneak a peek or two at the thread since the day started, but didn’t have a chance to analyze or post. One thing is for sure, I need to get in there and read read read. Just from my once over, no one is sticking out to me. Lots of conversations here and there, but I’m not picking out anything really strange. I’m not feeling the Mal thing, but maybe on re-read, I’ll see what the rest of ya’ll are seeing.
To quickly address why I voted for Mtgman: I wanted to compose a nice post of my suspicions, but literally ran out of time. I wanted my vote to go to someone who I really thought was scummy, and he was highest on my list. I certainly didn’t want to end the day with no vote, so my choice was either that or put my vote where I thought it would matter. To sum up my suspicions, it was based mainly on the “plan” he came up with where the town didn’t ever vote, and storyteller’s arguments.
Now I have some reading and notetaking to do.
And since we are all stating our state of penis: I own a few, but none of them are permanently attached to me.
Ok, so you don’t like the whole “3rd vote” thing as its crap, whether or not it was based on analysis. Personally I have no idea.
However I still have a problem with this post as well. You say my “reasoning was plain weak”, yet give no other evidence then that. You say so it must be true? You say the 3rd vote thing is crap as does mafiascum.net (never mind the fact that it was shown there first)? Hows about a why? It is very easy to make pronouncements about what is crap with no further discussion or explanation of what makes it crap.
Oh, one more thing, I was totally joking with the damn you thing :). Belittle all you want. Just do so with some proof.
Let us review:
-Hal Briston had made no mention of mtgman prior to his vote for him.
-In his vote post he gives no reasons.
-His vote was the 3rd vote. (I admit this is rather weak, but keep in mind things become a well known scum tell because they actually work, and have over and over)
-it is pointed out that he voted for no apparent reason in a post that also contained the reasons why everyone else voted
-defends himself by saying “I thought my reasoning was obvious…Its the same as that guy! Why do I need to say that?” said after the fact not even considering all the other reasons for a vote
-attacks the 3rd vote thing (which I think we all could possibly agree is a good place to start the attack) but does so by appealing to authority
-claims reasoning is crap but gives no proof
To be honest I have no idea if you are scum or not. What I do know is you voted for non-scum with no reasons, that your defense when questioned and a vote thrown your way is an appeal to authority combined with a dismissal. No proof or attempted proof. I don’t like that, and will vote for people who do things with no stated reason. This will not change.
I’ve been spending today going through people’s analyses, and I’m still trying to find my way around. (Plus I spent much of the day doing my day job, horrors!)
As best I can figure out, I don’t get a strong scum feeling on Malacandra – which, I fully acknowledge, may be because I’m still learning how to sniff out scum.
Queueing brought up my weak reasoning for my vote yesterDay on Mtgman; as I noted at the time, I didn’t have a strong reason for anybody; I went with what I had. I was tempted this afternoon to drop something on Queueing, but that would’ve been pure overkill retaliation, so I’m glad I didn’t. I take the whole post as an indicator that I need to better explain my votes, to myself at a minimum.
The only other thought I have at this time is that the vote count in #1191 lists 17 people among the voters and votees. Statistically, there’s probably 3 to 5 scum on that list, and 2 to 4 scum not on that list (with counts of 5 and 4 respectively being unlikely). Would it help to prod the shorter list of people?
OK, I do have yet another thought, as I was rereading this page:
This early in the game, that’s practically a meaningless statement, as only scum – or mutual monks – would have a definite idea of who’s scum. Regardless of who said it, should I worry when someone says this sort of thing?
Oops, I missed a logic goof on preview. Change that last paragraph to:
This early in the game, that’s practically a meaningless statement, as only scum would have a definite idea of who’s scum and who’s not; mutual monks know each other’s not scum, and that’s it. Regardless of who says “Honestly, I don’t know whose side you’re on,” should I worry when someone says this sort of thing?
Context is important. I said that in regards to a specific person who I had voted for right before saying what I did know about said person. Whether or not you should worry about it I don’t know. If something smells scummy to you then say why you think it is scummy. Don’t wait for someone else to validate your opinion.
Whee, out of town for a day and look what happens!
After re-reading the whole thread since last time I posted, the big thing that’s REALLY striking me as scummy is fluiddruid’s immediate jump on Malacandra for precious little reason, followed by his/her resuming her striking silence.
If s/he was posting more this would just be a FOS, but since s/he needs a good poke I have to vote fluiddruid
