Not sure, but I can almost guarantee it is high. The only people that know for sure who are Scum are the Scum players, so the rest of players left grasping at anything in peoples posts that may seem Scum like. This is the main reason that I was never really for Day 1 lynches, but I don’t make the rules when I play, so I got to go with the program.
I do think that next time I run a game, I will change up the way a lynch is decided based on what Day it is.
It’s generally pretty high, but I don’t think that’s a flaw for D1 lynches. There are many more town than scum, and the information we gain with the first (and each subsequent) lynch is how town turns our numerical superiority into a win.
And every once in a while, we succeed in handing scum a nice D1 blow!
The odds of toDay’s lynch being a mislynch looks to be 100%.
Et tu, TexCat?
No, I don’t look for scum on the first day, because I realize how high the mislynch percentage is for the first day, and it’s so easy to say something unguarded that others take and run the wrong with it. I look to people lurking, to votes, and then, ultimately, apparently I make the wrong guess.
Baseball would be easier if we got rid of strikes, but that doesn’t mean it’s a good idea. 
Where you see a flaw, I see a necessary (and valuable) part of playing the game. Town can always voluntarily choose not to lynch anyone on D1 if we collectively decide we don’t want one. It’s easy, and perfectly within the rules: everybody just needs to agree not to vote for anybody else.
But good luck figuring out who’s town and who’s scum from that!
The thing is that even if you are determined to vote a lurker, I think you should still be looking for scum. You are a lurker IMHO, even though you are posting quite a bit. Actively lurking. You’re here, but not participating by looking for scum, examining and questioning posts.
A history of why I am in trouble, by Prof. P.
All posts are mine unless stated otherwise.
Patent Pending. Void where prohibited by law.
Sorry if some of this sounds cranky, but I’m allergic to rope burn.
(9) Lynch the lurkers! Unless, y’know, they have a good reason again.
(10) I wish Cygnus was here. Biotop, Tomba is a very good guesser; he can be the unofficial Third Mason this go-round.
–These were coming up right after the Sign-In Thread, and I shoulda but them there. I was merely enthusiastic about starting a game, and, since Biotop, Cygnus & I won the first game, and Tomba guessed well in the second game (and I didn’t), I was hoping for a repeat.
(32) So, is there any benefit to a no-lynch first day?
–Here I was just trying to start the conversation ball rolling. Little did I know it would roll over me.
Sario (38)
–He later said this was a joke vote.
(49) Okay, my “No Lynch” question was just a conversation starter. It seems we’re all agreed, so moving on: who to lynch? Lurkers, at least for the first couple of days. But it’s too early to really know who is lurking yet, so we can either sit around and wait until somebody goofs, or follow the sterling example of our own Ronan the Accuser, and have it.
…everybody knows the real question is: is Sario scum once more?
–[that should have read “have at it”.] And the Sario question was also a joke. I’m going to have to remember that paranoid Townies have no humor, they even lynch for cheese puns.
(51) Those currently at only one post are Mahaloth, PCM and IRConfused. Mahaloth, have you been able to fix your telecommunications issue?
–What I should have said and didn’t was that I was trying to set up a baseline of posters who were continuously lurkers. Granted, this is a now a late claim of intent on earlier posts, but it’s what I was doing.
(58) Dead Cat
(59) Might I ask the grounds of those suspicions? Sario’s been scum for the last two rounds. My comments were more joke asides than serious, at least at this point in the game.
–My questioning Dead Cat’s being pretty suspicious of me seems to me to be the whole reason for his gut-feeling, die-upon-this-hill vote.
(61) In 2 or 3 Days we’ll have actual evidence. Right now it’s all guesswork, except for tried and true formulae such as “lynch the lurker”. And even that isn’t 100% foolproof.
–We don’t have evidence now. Evidence comes from vote results, evidence comes from looking at posts and post counts. What we have now are paranoid suspicions and sometimes wild jumps at conclusions.
(62) TexCat
–Of course, your mileage may vary.
(63) I was teasing Sario about that back over on the Sign-In Thread. He’s playing because of that. I have no clue as to whether or not he’s town more than anybody else.
–Of course, now that he’s still lurking I have a clue.
(66)
Low-posters:
Astral Rejection 3
WF Tomba 3
Suburban Plankton 3
Octarine 2
Precambrianmollusc 1
Mahaloth 1
Going after the ones who are actively and frequently posting (as our Moderator requested we do) is called “Lynch The Loud”. That works a whole lot less well than “lynch the lurker”.
–Continuing what I started in 51. This drew complaints from IRC, PCM and Octarine.
(71) Uh, go on over to Mafiascum.org and read up. Lurking is one of the best known scum tells.
–Look! I’m telling people how to recognize scum!
(72) I wasn’t Loud for my first game (a couple of months ago). But after the Loud Townsfolk were lynched repeatedly those of us remaining had to speak up as well.
–Here I make the mistake of referring back to another game a number of us participated in. I’ll do it again and again, because it worked well for me last game.
(76) Precambrianmollusc
–and this is where things start to go downhill for me. PCM is attributing motives to me I didn’t have.
(78) Nice job with the cheese jokes.
If you will kindly go back and look at the Sign-Up Thread, you’ll see I was teasing Sario about his previous scum roles then. I’ve been doing the same here and now, it’s just more obvious since the game is on. I’ve stopped that, and, again, don’t know if Sario is or isn’t Town.
Regarding Post 11: when last I saw Biotop he was leading Town to a major victory. I coulda used his judgment last game. Tomba was right on the money in his early guesses in the last game.
“Lynch the lurker” works better in the early part of the game than anything else I’ve found in my brief run, and has been recommended by more seasoned players as well, not to mention Mafiascum. Yes, it’s too early (being the weekend) to seriously apply it, but as we get closer to the first lynch date, I have every reason to hope others will pick it up and run with it as well.
Yeah, I post a lot. It’s my style.
Oh, and kudos on typing more understandably this go-round!
–I return at once with some defense. Town seems to like attacks better than defense, with a few notable exceptions, such as:
(79) HookerChemical
(85) Precambrianmollusc
My vote really isn’t for the loud/lurker thing, that’s a valid discussion, the Prof is pushing it pretty hard though.
In this post ;
Quote:
Originally Posted by Prof. Pepperwinkle
I wish Cygnus was here. Biotop, Tomba is a very good guesser; he can be the unofficial Third Mason this go-round.
he is essentially calling Tomba confirmed town. Unless the Prof is a wolf , he cannot know what side Tomba is on, so there would be no basis for calling him the “unofficial third mason”, unless the prof knows for sure that Tomba is town.
He also should not know what alignment Bio is, yet seams to show no caution in giving helpful advice. Also indicative that he is pretty certain Bio is town.
I suppose that the Prof could be a mason, if we have them, and is handing out his fellow masons identities for all to see, but I can’t see anyone making that kind of error.
–Boy, I wish I could do a role claim. That might be the only thing that could save me. As I mentioned above, and commented since, I am not claiming any knowledge of Biotop, Tomba or anybody else.
(87) No, it’s just wishful thinking on my part.
–responding the above from PCM.
(100) Dead Cat
–So, Astral, having interrogated the witnesses thoroughly, voted for Dead Cat, causing him to need to appear more decisive and therefore voted for me on suspicions based on thin air? Or am I projecting?
If you’re keeping track, there are at this point three votes on me: Sario’s joke vote; PCM’s vote based on attributing motives I didn’t have, and Dead Cat’s vote based on ???
(102) I’d like to suggest you go and read over the last two games here to see why I’m so strong on “lynch the lurker”.
–This as a response to Dead Cat, above. I shouldn’t have done that, I should have summarized the fact as that 5 out of 6 scum in the first game, and 2 out of 3 in the second were lurkers.
(116) Biotop
(117) Well, Biotop, I haven’t much else to talk about if I can’t compare people’s past styles to the new game.
I will, however, wait until later in the week to see who actually has been lurking the past week, since the weekends are always light in number of posts.
–and, yes, that sounded cranky.
(119) I want to thank everyone who has voted for me. It’s an honor just to be nominated.
–Here the plucky Professor tries to keep his sense of humor.
(120) Sario
–Oh, look, momentum as a reason. Join The Bandwagon is a scum tell, right?
(121) Well, I figured you were joking. PCM’s vote comes from me posting a lot and crying “lynch the lurker” too early. Dead Cat voted on me because… I don’t really know. Dead Cat, why exactly are you voting to lynch me?
–and here I made the mistake of not going back and reading PCM’s whole post, and mis-attributing his motives about my misattributed motives.
(122) HookerChemical
(123) …and that’s from the guy I voted to lynch, wrongly.
(125) HookerChemical
(126)
Yeah, I got carried away. The first game I played there were three of us basically confirmed Town (Me, Biotop, Cygnus). The next game due to claims, there were three of us confirmed town (me, Mahaloth and Tomba). I was hoping to continue that run.
–The thing is: I think Dead Cat probably IS Town, and probably in a Power Role that’s gone to his head.
(143) Precambrianmollusc
–Again, not my motivations.
(144)
Quote:
Originally Posted by Suburban Plankton
So, Prof…you’ve done quite a bit of talking, and a fair amount of analysis…do you think you might be placing a vote of your own any time soon?
No, not until Wednesday. I don’t see anyone who strikes me as scum, and I’m not into revenge votes. On Wednesday I’ll vote among the lurkers unless I need to cast a cover-my-ass vote.
–If I’d any idea being patient and contemplative would have netted me another two votes, I’d have voted then.
…and the next couple of pages go on and on and on in the same vein, with people looking at my posts through jaundiced eyes and seeing motivations that simply aren’t there. I see no point in detailing each and every post here, as it’s pretty long as it is.
Let me sum up: I’m still Town. Don’t lynch me Friday. Sario is either scum, or doesn’t learn from past games.
As I alluded to, Biotop’s post is a good place to start.
My way of thinking isn’t too different. Assume four scum, so there’s a 29% chance of picking scum randomly. (I know I’m town. You don’t, but vanilla town and non-masons can make the same assumption.) Given that there will be a lynch, I need to be more than 29% confident it’s scum. If we have a scenario like the Prof P/Dead Cat scenario where I think one is scum but am not sure which is which, I’m still comfortable picking blindly given no inkling of which is which.
I’m doing a lot of quote slicing, so please forgive any errors.
No disagreement here. Post 80 is a solid analysis, backing up some of that Biotop says about experienced players. Post 86 adds context to Prof P’s comments that is consistent with my impression.
I’m comfortable with this analysis. I have it on good authority he’s town, but I get that you can’t be as certain.
UNVOTE DEAD CAT
Looking at my limited experience, I already have examples of townies proclaiming they’d die on a hill calling out the name of another player as scum, so I’m comfortable not taking that as a scum indicator. I’m dialing back my suspicions of Dead Cat a bit after more rereading and commentary. I’ve already pointed out Post 77, which is some good info for the newbie Octarine.
Post 69 about townies posting less is wrong but not really scummy. The edit is also hinky, but I can chalk it up as a newbie etiquette mistake. Owning up to the error in Post 83 is the right thing to do. Learning is part of the game. I’m getting the same weak townie vibes.
I’ll add Biotop. I’m getting good townie vibes. He offers a solid rebuttal to Tomba’s bad idea in Post 48 and explains how that analysis will change as the game goes on. (Starting with lynch the experienced players is a bad idea, but if they’re lingering around we should ask why scum aren’t killing them. While I disagree that we throw out all context of the two most recent games (mostly because they’re all I have to go on), Post 116 is solidly townie in its cautions against relying on those games too much.
Post 50 is a conversation starter and nothing to hold against a player. I’m marking Post 62 to come back to after we’ve hit a couple scum. The comments about experienced players not being killed by mid/late game needs to be considered, but the question needs to be asked. I also appreciate the attempts to draw commentary out of players (e.g. post 74). I’m putting TexCat in the weak town file for now.
I’m thin on substance to analyze here. No scummy vibes or anything, but the #2 lurker for when we get to a lynch the lurker scenario.
What we’ve got here is a failure to communicate. I think the “Dante’s vote” discussion is all fallout from failure to clearly define what the subject being discussed. Dante reads commentary about a bad vote and assumes he’s the implied subject, which leads to him assuming he actually cast the vote in question. The reading comprehension fail amuses me and Astral gets his new sig, but isn’t pinging my scumdar.
I don’t get the suspicions of Mahaloth, but I don’t see it as scummy either. I wish there were more meat than the “Dante’s vote” incident to work with.
And I’m going to take a break here. I’ll follow up with the rest later. It looks like Prof P has put up some light reading material as well. Yes, I’m leaving it unvoted. I’m not putting it on Prof P for two reasons: it’s feeling more and more like a town on town screwup, and he’s a dead man anyway. (I haven’t read his Post 226, which may change that analysis.)
Looking at our Mod’s tally in Post 212, I have to ask: Astral, didn’t you vote for Dead Cat, or am I wrong yet again?
Theoretically, if we tried that on subsequent Days, what would happen? It would be an all-way tie at zero, so would one player be lynched at random?
Oh, and as far as investigating finding evidence for scum on Day 1 or 2 (or even later)? Dante G, Plumpudding and TexCat have all been found guilty on such evidence, only to be proved to be Town later. It’s a chimera.
Obviously my opinion changed over the course of writing this. Prof P’s Post 226 has me leaning more to town on town fighting.
One thing I’ve noticed with some players is not necessarily the quantity of their posts as much as the quality.
Prof. P, Hooker, Astral, Dead Cat, Biotop and Texcat have all had 1 or more posts that are substantial and full of quotes from other players as well as their own detailed analysis of those posts. Now, to me, that seems like a very Town thing to do. It may or may not be these players usual styles, as I am not sure since I am new to this board.
My point is that if a player is Scum, it just seems like a lot of work to post these kind of posts so early in the game. I know Scum wants to appear Town and look all innocent, but still, I don’t see why they’d go through sooo much trouble.
Maybe its because I never really post that way myself that I feel like it is a lot of work. Could be wrong, Lord knows I’ve been wrong before.
I think it boils down to a player’s style. If they’ve established themselves as the type of townie who makes long and quote-full posts, it’s hard to move away from that without being called out on it. I don’t think it’s a strong tell, especially for posters who have a record of it. For posters without much of a record (in this case, limited to Dead Cat), I think it’s a stronger tell, but still to be taken with some doubt. (Please see Astral in the game you ran for scum posting a lot or meaty material.)
(I’m not sure where I fall in that spectrum, given my one game and my own disappointment that I didn’t post more than I did.)
That said, it’s townie to get things on the record, and put suspicions in the public domain in case you’re killed and flip town.
In case I’m killed tonight or tomorrow (in game days), I thought I’d just put on record my thoughts about other players so far.
You haven’t posted a whole lot since then despite the working week being well underway, so if I hadn’t already made up my mind I’d definitely have you high up my lynch list for lurking.
As has been mentioned by others, this seems a bit scummy to me - deflecting attention away from yourself on to me.
This also seems like deflecting attention away from you on to someone else on very little basis, possible scummy move?
This post gets a town lean from me as I share the suspicion.
Likewise, this leans town to me.
Town lean - it seems an odd thing for a wolf to admit to, somehow, and unlikely a wolf would invent the whole thing to make them seem town.
Your first clause is slightly denied by the second, gives me a scum lean on you, particularly if the Prof. is scum. Remember this post was made before there was a clear majority voting for the Prof.
Content-free - trying to look like not lurking, but actually lurking?
Yeah, maybe. I’m getting scum vibes off Sario as well right now, as above. On the other hand, if you are scum, then this would be a strange vote. We shall see.
He did vote for me initially, but I think he unvoted me in post 111. It looks like he is currently the only player not to actually cast a vote.
I now see this (referring to Astral Rejection) is incorrect, I had missed HookerChemical’s recent unvote.
I’ll have one up next morning for sure. I’ve only been through the top (least scummy) portion of Biotop’s list, so I haven’t dug into the scummier section to see where my vote falls. My gut says IRConfused, but I still need to talk myself into it.
I’ve said I’m moving more toward the idea that the Prof P lynch is a mis-lynch. However, I think we’ll get good information from it, so I’m at peace with it.
Prof. Pep, you’ve convinced me enough that my vote for you may be better spent somewhere else.
UNVOTE PROF PEPPERWINKLE
I’ve noticed this too. It seems like the perfect way to attempt to not lurk while lurking.
VOTE SARIO
Mind you this is only a very slight feeling that could easily be over-ridden. Also note, this has NOTHING to do with his past game wolfscumsihnesseseses.
Yay!
Don’t get overly yay’ed yet. I have to admit that I am very confused and paranoid and stumbling around in the dark for any evidence that even remotely seems wolf-like. I say we hang all the coyotes, foxes, hounds, puppies on this island as well…just to be sure.
And NOW I’m waiting for people to take this comment I made to indicate over-compesation as a scum tell…Man, my foot tastes gross.