Day Two

[The Real FCOD]

Thank you, NAF, for being reasonable.

BM, I realize that it seems like I jumped back on the bandwagon, but I think I had voiced my opinions before the bandwagon formed. In any case, I think it's pretty clear that my opinion about capy is my own, lol.

--FCOD

[storyteller0910]

FCoD -

I disagree with NAF; your response has actually deepened my suspicion. In particular, this:

flyingcowofdoom said:

Storyteller and NAF, you are both starting to make me nervous. I can't ignore the feeling that you both have it out for me, especially since in my opinion the basis on which you're accusing me is flimsy.

coming so shortly on the heels as this:

If your gut is telling you that I'm a pirate then by all means vote for me, and we can continue our discussions. The more talk the better. We want someone to make a mistake that we can use to our advantage.

...suggests to me that you are being disingenuous in one quote or the other.

My vote stands. However, I would like to spend some time looking at other candidates; myopic approaches aren't going to help anything.

[Merestil Haye]

Malacandra

One question about Dick Deadeye's role has just become material to my thought.

In the role statement, you said the following.

malacandra said:

He must kill three people to be accepted as a pirate and share in a pirate win, using knives of a strange Oriental design. Any attempt has only a 50% chance to succeed. Dick Deadeye can only win by sharing in a pirate victory. Otherwise he will be found with an unused knife in his possession and either hanged or fed to the sharks.

This sort of implies to me that Dick is to leave the knife in the body as proof to Cap'n Flint that he's done the deed.

Am I right in thinking this, or am I making it up out of whole cloth?

[NAF1138]

storyteller0910 said:

FCoD -

I disagree with NAF; your response has actually deepened my suspicion. In particular, this:

flyingcowofdoom said:

Storyteller and NAF, you are both starting to make me nervous. I can't ignore the feeling that you both have it out for me, especially since in my opinion the basis on which you're accusing me is flimsy.

coming so shortly on the heels as this:

If your gut is telling you that I'm a pirate then by all means vote for me, and we can continue our discussions. The more talk the better. We want someone to make a mistake that we can use to our advantage.

...suggests to me that you are being disingenuous in one quote or the other.

My vote stands. However, I would like to spend some time looking at other candidates; myopic approaches aren't going to help anything.

Interestingly enough, one of those qutes seems super scummy to me (the second one), but the first quote is the type of thing I have never seen scum say, but I have seen townies say. Now this doesn't mean that FCoD isn't scum, just that I need to rethink things a bit and I can't have my vote contributing to a potential bandwagon when I am THAT unsure.

[Pleonast]

(Blaster Master on Google)
Now, NAF, you should know as well as I, as Pleonast also just pointed out, that disagreeing on strategy is not a scum tell. I see your point, I simply disagree.

(NAF1138 on Google)
Dammit, well both you and Pleonast have called me on it, I was just
trying to give you a little pressure as well. But that was a fairly
townie feeling response.

naf1138 said:

FCoD, wow. I really thought that if I turned up the pressure you would crack but...well you have made me doubt my judgment of you as scum.

NAF1138, I'm not liking your strategy. You could be a Crew with an Inquisitorial calling, but the sense I'm getting is more of a scum trying to start a bandwagon. Sure, you have reasons to vote someone, but when you back down and admit you're only trying to pressure them... That comes across as flaky.

I'm not going to vote someone over a strategy disagreement, and frankly this is more a distaste for your style. But fair's fair and I want to bring this to everyone's attention for their own deliberation.

[NAF1138]

I REALLY need to get into the habit of using spell check.
Sorry about that last post.

[Gadarene]

Pleonast:

Sure, you have reasons to vote someone, but when you back down and admit you're only trying to pressure them... That comes across as flaky.

I agree with this, and I've noticed it as well.

[NAF1138]

pleonast said:

(NAF1138 on Google)
Dammit, well both you and Pleonast have called me on it, I was just
trying to give you a little pressure as well. But that was a fairly
townie feeling response.

naf1138 said:

FCoD, wow. I really thought that if I turned up the pressure you would crack but...well you have made me doubt my judgment of you as scum.

NAF1138, I'm not liking your strategy. You could be a Crew with an Inquisitorial calling, but the sense I'm getting is more of a scum trying to start a bandwagon. Sure, you have reasons to vote someone, but when you back down and admit you're only trying to pressure them... That comes across as flaky.

I'm not going to vote someone over a strategy disagreement, and frankly this is more a distaste for your style. But fair's fair and I want to bring this to everyone's attention for their own deliberation.

I can see why you think it seems flaky. But frankly at this stage of the game it is one of the only reliable methods I can see of ferreting out scum. If I see something scummy I turn up the heat. This is a strategy I developed while moding M2 and watching the more traditional strategies being employed fail time and again.

This is the first time I have lived past day one, and I will admit that it is a work in progress and if it starts getting bad results I will abandon it. I also think it is only necessary to use until we catch our first pirate. After that different strategies need to be employed.

If you don't like it, or if you see any genuine flaws with the way I am using it let me know. The beauty of the system (as I see it) is that it doesn't matter if people know that this is what I am doing. If they are scum they will still make the same mistakes.

[Blaster Master]

naf1138 said:

pleonast said:

NAF1138, I'm not liking your strategy. You could be a Crew with an Inquisitorial calling, but the sense I'm getting is more of a scum trying to start a bandwagon. Sure, you have reasons to vote someone, but when you back down and admit you're only trying to pressure them... That comes across as flaky.

I'm not going to vote someone over a strategy disagreement, and frankly this is more a distaste for your style. But fair's fair and I want to bring this to everyone's attention for their own deliberation.

I can see why you think it seems flaky. But frankly at this stage of the game it is one of the only reliable methods I can see of ferreting out scum. If I see something scummy I turn up the heat. This is a strategy I developed while moding M2 and watching the more traditional strategies being employed fail time and again.

This is the first time I have lived past day one, and I will admit that it is a work in progress and if it starts getting bad results I will abandon it. I also think it is only necessary to use until we catch our first pirate. After that different strategies need to be employed.

If you don't like it, or if you see any genuine flaws with the way I am using it let me know. The beauty of the system (as I see it) is that it doesn't matter if people know that this is what I am doing. If they are scum they will still make the same mistakes.

Yes, but admitting you're just turning up the pressure, implies that you're not that serious about the vote. IOW, why should the town vote along with you if you're not even sold on the vote, and if the town won't go along, why should pirates defend themselves, knowing this is your strategy?

Voting is a way to put on pressure, but it shouldn't be the only way. And just because you see one response you like, doesn't mean you won't see two or three more you DON'T like if you keep the pressure on.

This is precisely the sort of thing that has me suspicious of you, but I can't really tell if it's just a difference in strategy, or a legitimate scum tell. AGH!

[Pleonast]

naf1138 said:

If you don't like it, or if you see any genuine flaws with the way I am using it let me know. The beauty of the system (as I see it) is that it doesn't matter if people know that this is what I am doing. If they are scum they will still make the same mistakes.

It's not the strategy so much as the style. The explicit "ok, I was only pressuring you" may encourage accusees to blow off future accusations by you with a "NAF is just trying to pressure me, he's not serious and will back off in a bit". Of course, now that I've spelled that out, I preemptively FOS anyone who tries to simply blow you off.

[NAF1138]

blastermaster said:

Yes, but admitting you're just turning up the pressure, implies that you're not that serious about the vote. IOW, why should the town vote along with you if you're not even sold on the vote, and if the town won't go along, why should pirates defend themselves, knowing this is your strategy?

Voting is a way to put on pressure, but it shouldn't be the only way. And just because you see one response you like, doesn't mean you won't see two or three more you DON'T like if you keep the pressure on.

This is precisely the sort of thing that has me suspicious of you, but I can't really tell if it's just a difference in strategy, or a legitimate scum tell. AGH!

Actually, I hadn't thought about it this way. I am serious about the votes when I place them though. I haven't even decided not to re vote FCoD, I just saw what I thought was reasonable doubt and decided to remove my vote from him while I looked over things. Like I said, I am not taking him off the hook.

The reason I mention the pressure is so everyone knows why I think a little thing like the quote I put up is valid. If he had said that while under no pressure, or if he had responded differently I would have reacted differently. But my feeling was that the pressure was an important componant and that it should be pointed out.

Like I said, I am a big believer in everyone giving very honest reasons for every move that they make. It didn't occur to me that my reason out loud might actually undercut my strategy.

[NAF1138]

and again with the not spell checking.

Crap, I am just embarrassing myself today.

[Hockey Monkey!]

naf1138 said:

flyingcowofdoom said:

What mistake would that be? I've been consistent with my opinion since the beginning of the game. Please tell me what I've said that doesn't make sense.

Also, I didn't claim beat cop in M2...I think it was Aguecheek. At least, he talked about doing so on the Mafia board. I didn't follow the game very closely after I was killed, so I don't know if he actually did it. But obviously you don't remember things correctly, and that scares me because you're forming opinions based upon shaky recollections.

--FCOD

Ok, so the beat cop thing was a joke and wasn't meant to be taken literally. I should have used a smilie or something.

I am, I suppose, a bit predisposed to find you scummy, but I am a bit predisposed to find storyteller scummy too and I am not having this problem with him.


Here is my thing.

I call you out for being scummy because you don't post enough on day one. And honestly you didn't post a lot on day on Day 1, and I still think your reasoning for not posting is weak. Then Gad puts together his list of townie tells. Which says that townies play a bit more aggressively and post a lot. Suddenly Day 2 roles around and you are posting a lot and aggressively going after cappy (although I will admit you went after her before) based on the fact that Fluid was the night kill choice.

Now you were scum. I think you know that this is a horrible plan for the scum, if anything they are going to go out of their way to pick someone who cast no suspicion on them at all. So the bit that doesn't make sense is your post about cappy that I (and apparently Storyteller) quoted, because I can't believe that the scum would actually be that stupid. Then your justification of said post, that it was the scum pulling and exceptionally brilliant double bluff felt like backpedaling to me, and was very WIFOM.

Then cowgirl and you have an exchange where first you seem to be questioning her status, and then say that you don't think she is scum. (I believe you actually said "I don't get a pirate vibe from you, Yarr.) And maybe this is weak but, this is exactly what Storyteller said he would do to gain the trust of people who were starting to twig him as scum.

As for the mistake you made, I was referring to pushing to hard too fast for Cappy's lynch on flimsy evidence. Everything you have posted since then seems designed to spin that initial post away from what it's original intention clearly (to me) was, an attempt to lynch cappy.

I admit, none of this is particularly strong on it's own. But taken together it makes you the scummiest person on this ship.

Sorry, but that's just how I feel.

Now if everyone else looks at you and says "NAF, your nuts" I will back down and look for someone else, because as I said, I seem to be more predisposed to find you scummy than most. And you can't be the only pirate on the ship. But for now, my vote stays with you.

NAF, I don't think you're nuts. You've just iterated how I've been feeling about FCOD recently. His exchange with cowgirl really twigged my radar.

Until and unless there is a better candidate that comes along: Vote FCOD

[Kyrie Eleison]

blastermaster said:

In fact, I'm going to have to look back and see who is deliberately trying to raise a lot of discussion about it, because I think it may be an attempt by the pirates to look helpful, while deliberately obfuscating the facts because ANY conclusions drawn from her death could very well be a wild goose chase.

If you really think that would be suspicious behavior, why would you post this? Why would you not instead wait until it happens, so that you can use it to ferret out pirates? Why are you, in essence, warning the pirates not to arouse your suspicions in this fashion?

[Blaster Master]

kyrie said:

blastermaster said:

In fact, I'm going to have to look back and see who is deliberately trying to raise a lot of discussion about it, because I think it may be an attempt by the pirates to look helpful, while deliberately obfuscating the facts because ANY conclusions drawn from her death could very well be a wild goose chase.

If you really think that would be suspicious behavior, why would you post this? Why would you not instead wait until it happens, so that you can use it to ferret out pirates? Why are you, in essence, warning the pirates not to arouse your suspicions in this fashion?

Several have already done it, and I don't expect to catch more than one. First, I can't imagine that every pirate is following the exact same strategy. They want to disperse themselves, and having three or four people doing the same suspicious behavior is just... silly. Second, how concerned are they about my arousing one person's suspicion? IMO, if one pirate can create a large amount of noise and provide tidbits that crewmen will ultimately use to convict other crewmen, then gaining the suspicion of a single crewman is probably worth the risk. Further, they can continue to discuss the idea and defend it, assuming it's defensible.

Regardless, I suspect when they realized it was drawing some heat (which it was, in my estimation, prior to me mentioning that), then I imagine that the scum would have either already considered dropping that line of reasoning or, if they were intending to use it, never would have. That is, I think any change in behavior with that regard has already occurred and thus, it will allow others to discuss my reasoning and independently determine their own results.

[Hockey Monkey!]

hockeymonkey said:

NAF, I don't think you're nuts. You've just iterated how I've been feeling about FCOD recently. His exchange with cowgirl really twigged my radar.

Until and unless there is a better candidate that comes along: Vote FCOD

Dammit, I posted this response when I came read the original quote and didn't realize there was another friggin page. Now that I have read the rest of the discussion up to this point, I'm still going to leave my vote where it is. Sigh there are a few more pings on the ole scumdar now from other people. Dammit you can't all be pirates! ;D

[Malacandra]

mhaye said:

Malacandra

One question about Dick Deadeye's role has just become material to my thought.

In the role statement, you said the following.

malacandra said:

He must kill three people to be accepted as a pirate and share in a pirate win, using knives of a strange Oriental design. Any attempt has only a 50% chance to succeed. Dick Deadeye can only win by sharing in a pirate victory. Otherwise he will be found with an unused knife in his possession and either hanged or fed to the sharks.

This sort of implies to me that Dick is to leave the knife in the body as proof to Cap'n Flint that he's done the deed.

Am I right in thinking this, or am I making it up out of whole cloth?

Reasonable assumption, but it's just meant as flavour text. I certainly never meant that a Dick kill should be distinguishable from anyone else's. Nor, although Ben stands to be a crazed paranoid killer, will his kills (if any) be recognisable as such. Wouldn't want to introduce too much certainty into the game, after all. ;D

[ArizonaTeach]

naf1138 said:

Interestingly enough, one of those qutes seems super scummy to me (the second one), but the first quote is the type of thing I have never seen scum say, but I have seen townies say. Now this doesn't mean that FCoD isn't scum, just that I need to rethink things a bit and I can't have my vote contributing to a potential bandwagon when I am THAT unsure.

In M@ I was dead certain that anyone who said anyhting along the lines of "go ahead and vote for me, you'll see" was scum. And then one by one the people who said it were lynched and turned out to be town. That's all I know about that.

And I might as well mention, since I was the one who suggested it in the first place, I want to reiterate that I think it's a good idea to suggest a target for Ben, but yes, he is under NO obligation to follow through...pretty much what Blaster said.

[ArizonaTeach]

naf1138 said:

I can see why you think it seems flaky. But frankly at this stage of the game it is one of the only reliable methods I can see of ferreting out scum. If I see something scummy I turn up the heat. This is a strategy I developed while moding M2 and watching the more traditional strategies being employed fail time and again.

Problem is, while you might know that you're "not serious" - you could end up severely harming an innocent, especially since nobody else is privy to your rules...without knowing your motivation it looks like desperate finger pointing, a continuation of the Random Voting strategy.

Screaming SCUM SCUM SCUM then "never mind" isn't cool.

[ArizonaTeach]

Jeez - I got to the end of the new posts there and read "M@" (meaning M2) and thought "what idiot didn't even check to see what he wrote?" Then I looked at the name.

Sigh. NAF, mind if I borrow a little of your spell-check humble pie there? MMmm. Tasty.

[NAF1138]

arizonateach said:

Problem is, while you might know that you're "not serious" - you could end up severely harming an innocent, especially since nobody else is privy to your rules...without knowing your motivation it looks like desperate finger pointing, a continuation of the Random Voting strategy.

Screaming SCUM SCUM SCUM then "never mind" isn't cool.

Well my pursuit of FCoD wasn't random. I built my case and I think the case is a good one...but in the post I quoted he gave off (what I think of as) as HUGE town tell.

One HUGE town tell in the face of a half a dozen small scum tells is enough to make me say "maybe I need to back off and take a second look."

FCoD is not off the hook, I am still suspicious, but I can't vote for him. Not now, not until I have finished taking a second look at the whole game. I may come back and put my vote on him again, I haven't had a chance to do a complete re read.

Maybe I am just second guessing myself but I need to rethink some things (including, it seems, my whole strategy) and come back fresh.

[diggitcamara]

arizonateach said:

In M@ I was dead certain that anyone who said anyhting along the lines of "go ahead and vote for me, you'll see" was scum. And then one by one the people who said it were lynched and turned out to be town. That's all I know about that.

(snip)

Yeah, in general you feel certain behavior is a clear indicative of scurvy... until someone shows you it isn't. There are some clear examples in MIII right now (fluiddruid's final defense comes to mind: it seemed impossible scum would defend themselves like that, and she turned out to be scum). In the end voting patterns clinched it for me.

The bad part about that is that you have to wait at least two days (3 for me) before you have enough data to use it efficiently.

[Gadarene]

Man...fall behind even a little bit, and it's hard to get back into the groove with pertinent analysis. I've been keeping up with the board all day, too busy to write, and now that I have a few minutes the prospect of analyzing the last few pages seems pretty daunting. So let me follow through on an earlier idea first. As Blaster Master mentioned in Post #134, my sense from previous games is that scum tend to try to disperse themselves (although maybe not as much in the earlier days as later on), posting in varying frequencies and with varying levels of analysis and engagement. So I thought I'd do a rough thumbnail of my impression of how active each poster has been, both in terms of how often and how much they've posted so far.

I'm going to group posters into six categories: (1a) High Volume/High Content, (1b) High Volume/Low Content, (2a) Medium Volume/High Content, (2b)Medium Volume/Low Content, (3a) Low Volume/High Content, and (3b) Low Volume/Low Content. The volume classification is going to be purely based on how often players have posted, while the content classification is much more subjective (and I welcome thoughts and comments). My rudimentary hypothesis is that you're not likely to find a lot of bunching amongst the scum when posters are grouped out like this. Not something that can be tested immediately, of course, but hopefully it'll be an interesting barometer that we can look back at later once we have more information.

To start with, let's look at the volume. I'm including our two dead, because I think their relative posting level might be instructive, and I'm simply splitting posters into top eight, middle eight, and bottom eight by number of posts. That number is in parentheses and is, of course, a snapshot of a completely moving target.

---

High Volume

capybara (97)
Idle Thoughts (95)
NAF1138 (81)
Gadarene (79)
Blaster Master (41)
Mad The Swine (34)
ArizonaTeach (34)
cowgirl (34)

Note the big disparity between the top four posters (including me) and the rest. If anyone wants me to rejigger these categories and designate only capy, Idle Thoughts, NAF, and myself as "high volume," let me know.

Medium Volume[/u]

FlyingCowOfDoom (30)
ComeToTheDarkSideWeHaveCookies (29)
KatiRoo (27) (deceased)
mhaye (27)
storyteller0910 (27)
Kyrie Eleison (25)
panamajack (22)
Pleonast (22)

Low Volume[/u]

fluiddruid (21) (deceased)
CaerieD (21)
auntbeast (19)
hockeymonkey (18)
diggitcamara (16)
Lakai (12)
zuma (9)
autolycus (5)

Again, the distinctions between high/medium and medium/low are in some cases kind of arbitrary, so don't read too much into them. This is a back-of-the-envelope grouping (which I've spent too much time doing already to give up on . (Also, these are based on number of posts in this forum overall, including test posts and rules questions. Which I didn't consider when I started. Dammit.)

---

Now here's my sense of each player's contributions, content-wise. I emphasize that this is largely subjective. Also keep in mind that it is, in my opinion, easier to be low content than high content. I would have added a "medium content" category as well, but that would have been far too much noise for the signal.

(1a) High Volume/High Content[/u]

capybara -- I know many people disagree, but I think her analysis and questions so far have been fairly valuable.

Blaster Master -- I don't expect to find much disagreement here.

cowgirl -- scummy vibe, but thinking back I've somehow got a positive impression of the content of her posts.

Gadarene -- how can I not include myself?

(1b) High Volume/Low Content[/u]

Idle Thoughts -- too scattershot for my tastes.

NAF1138 -- ditto.

Mad The Swine -- I agreed with him about Autolycus, but I can't recall him contributing anything else to the discussion thus far.

ArizonaTeach -- I'd place him in the "medium content" category, if there was one.

(2a) Medium Volume/High Content[/u]

mhaye -- same as with cowgirl: scummy vibe, but solid posts.

storyteller0910 -- extremely high content-to-post ratio

Kyrie Eleison -- ditto

(2b) Medium Volume/Low Content[/u]

FlyingCowOfDoom -- in my opinion, scummy vibe and unhelpful posts.

ComeToTheDarkSideWeHaveCookies -- completely unremarkable so far.

KatiRoo -- R.I.P.

panamajack -- effectively medium content.

Pleonast -- for some reason I feel like he's posted more than he actually probably has, because I'll be blowed if I can remember a single thing he's said.

(3a) Low Volume/High Content[/u]

fluiddruid -- R.I.P.

CaerieD -- this designation may be more out of respect for prior games.

diggitcamara -- ditto.

(3b) Low Volume/Low Content[/u]

auntbeast -- seems inexperienced, whether scum or crew.

hockeymonkey -- love the avatars, but I don't remember much analysis.

Lakai -- can't remember a single post.

zuma -- ditto.

autolycus -- 'nuff said.

---

Man oh man, I hope that was remotely helpful. If not, just skip over it...like I said, I'm going to use it as a private reference point later on to test my theory that scum are likely to be scattered throughout the categories rather than bunched in one or two.

Time to leave work now.

[The Real FCOD]

storyteller0910 said:

your response has actually deepened my suspicion. In particular, this:

flyingcowofdoom said:

Storyteller and NAF, you are both starting to make me nervous. I can't ignore the feeling that you both have it out for me, especially since in my opinion the basis on which you're accusing me is flimsy.

coming so shortly on the heels as this:

If your gut is telling you that I'm a pirate then by all means vote for me, and we can continue our discussions. The more talk the better. We want someone to make a mistake that we can use to our advantage.

...suggests to me that you are being disingenuous in one quote or the other.

These statements aren't mutually exclusive. If you put those together, I'm saying, "I respect your decision to vote for me, but it makes me nervous because I don't see your basis as logical." You're really grabbing at straws here. I may be basing my vote on a weak assumption, but I'm not fabricating suspicious activity.

Someone upthread mentioned that my exchange with cowgirl grabbed their attention. Would you mind telling me what was suspicious about it? I'm genuinely curious, and I think it'd be helpful to discuss it.

--FCOD

[capybara]

Thinking about what's been suggested in the last couple of hours. I've been re-reading the threads and trying to get myself out of 'tunnel vision' (which is hard since I've come up on so many people's radar either positively or negatively)-- I've been trying to think about players who have escaped my attention entirely, which corresponds to people whose attention I seem to have escaped, naturally. I have a nagging suspicion that the people in the middle of my vision are not the ones we should be worrying about-- I think "counterintuitive" is an important approach to keep in mind for occasional moments of clarity-- so I'mwithholding any fingers and votes until I have more of a sense of what's going on. We appear to be past the 'votes for pressure on lurkers' stage (as it doesn't really appear to work well, this time around anyway, and I think the most participatory crewmembers are working at devouring their own in a circle of destruction. Today, again, is turning out to be an internal struggle between the few players posting who are reacting primarily to one another in a tight circle, and I suspect that majority of the the problem might hanging back in the shadows. The crew and the pirates now have confirmation that saying anything can get one strung up or close to it, whether one's innocent or not (perhaps especially if one's innocent and not as careful-- maybe this is an epiphany only to me, actually (and 'Roo), which might explain a lot). The crewmembers only have a kind of philanthropic, good-of-the-community motivation to say anything, and then it's risky, while the pirates have little incentive whatsoever except to put up a crewlike facade which many might not dare attempt. Statistically few of the low post people will be pirates but those that are don't have to stick their necks out, do they? The low post pirates right now are the safest pirates.
Memorial Day is, of course, over. . . where is everyone?

[Blaster Master]

gadarene said:

(1a) High Volume/High Content

[/u]

capybara -- I know many people disagree, but I think her analysis and questions so far have been fairly valuable.

Blaster Master -- I don't expect to find much disagreement here.

cowgirl -- scummy vibe, but thinking back I've somehow got a positive impression of the content of her posts.

Gadarene -- how can I not include myself?

(1b) High Volume/Low Content[/u]

Idle Thoughts -- too scattershot for my tastes.

NAF1138 -- ditto.

Mad The Swine -- I agreed with him about Autolycus, but I can't recall him contributing anything else to the discussion thus far.

ArizonaTeach -- I'd place him in the "medium content" category, if there was one.

(2a) Medium Volume/High Content[/u]

mhaye -- same as with cowgirl: scummy vibe, but solid posts.

storyteller0910 -- extremely high content-to-post ratio

Kyrie Eleison -- ditto

(2b) Medium Volume/Low Content[/u]

FlyingCowOfDoom -- in my opinion, scummy vibe and unhelpful posts.

ComeToTheDarkSideWeHaveCookies -- completely unremarkable so far.

KatiRoo -- R.I.P.

panamajack -- effectively medium content.

Pleonast -- for some reason I feel like he's posted more than he actually probably has, because I'll be blowed if I can remember a single thing he's said.

(3a) Low Volume/High Content[/u]

fluiddruid -- R.I.P.

CaerieD -- this designation may be more out of respect for prior games.

diggitcamara -- ditto.

(3b) Low Volume/Low Content[/u]

auntbeast -- seems inexperienced, whether scum or crew.

hockeymonkey -- love the avatars, but I don't remember much analysis.

Lakai -- can't remember a single post.

zuma -- ditto.

autolycus -- 'nuff said. [/quote]

I think this has potential to be a valuable bit of analysis, but it will need some work. On the negative side, it's very subjective, that is, what one person says is a high content post another might think is less so. Similarly, without the benefit of a pirate with which to start, it's difficult to say where to begin.

On the plus side, I believe you're absolutely right, and let me try to put a bit of a theoretical spin on this. If you give a marker to a person and ask him to put dots randomly spaced out on a whiteboard, intuitively, you're going to expect them to be relatively uniform in distribution. However, if you ask a truly random machine to generate the coordinates, with a sufficiently large sample size, you'll see patterns (ie, clustering, and gaps) even though there are no patterns in the input. My point is that this is why crewmen, especially those with little or no information, will tend to cluster into groups; meanwhile, those with information (pirates specifically because they have much more than anyone else) will tend to be more uniformly distributed because they're attempting to approximate a truly random distribution, which is humanly counter-intuitive and, in my estimation, impossible without exquisite coordination (which is impossible without day communication). Hence, I expect we'll find that the scum is relatively uniformly distributed within your six categories, meanwhile the crew will be truly scattered.

Further, the pirates have incentive to be uniformly distributed. If they all lay back, we'll eventually figure out that they were, then we'll implement the "lynch all lurkers" and get them because they'll have no trust and no influence on the crew. If they all try to be too active, because we tend to lynch the more active players first, and they'll have more posts in which to incriminate themselves, they'll all get lynched quickly. If a few lay back, to keep their numbers up, and a few stay forward to try and "guide" the crew, then they get the benefits of both, with fewer of the drawbacks.

How do we take advantage of this? I think I saw someone in a previous game (M2, IIRC) mentioned something about keeping a spreadsheet where, as he read each post, he kept a running tally (+n for high content posts, +0 for fluff, -n for pro-scum posts, or something like that). I think once we hit a pirate or two, that sort of chart might be useful in

If I had the time (which I don't, because it would probably take dozens of hours to compile the data), I would perform this sort of analysis on the other games, and use it to build some EM clustering on the PDFs for particular role types and then extrapolate the data and use it to predict roles here. Nah... I doubt they'd let me change my topic to catching scum in mafia games. ;D

[Blaster Master]

capybara said:

Thinking about what's been suggested in the last couple of hours. I've been re-reading the threads and trying to get myself out of 'tunnel vision' (which is hard since I've come up on so many people's radar either positively or negatively)-- I've been trying to think about players who have escaped my attention entirely, which corresponds to people whose attention I seem to have escaped, naturally. I have a nagging suspicion that the people in the middle of my vision are not the ones we should be worrying about-- I think "counterintuitive" is an important approach to keep in mind for occasional moments of clarity-- so I'mwithholding any fingers and votes until I have more of a sense of what's going on.

One point to keep in mind, and I'm not sure how much it's been mentioned, I've noticed that, especially in the earlier part of the game, suspicion is most likely to fall on the most active players, simply because they have had the most opportunity to screw up and are at the fore-front of everyone's mind. You've got the highest post count (IIRC), so you're naturally going to draw a lot of attention (positively, or negatively) simply because of that. On the plus side, if you are pro-crew, if you make it through the first few days, you're generally going to have a slightly higher amount of trust and influence. On the negative side, if you're a pirate, you can use that slightly higher trust and influence to more effectively manipulate the crew.

I wish there was a way to get away from this paradigm, but how can we expect someone with 6 or 7 posts on the first day to draw enough attention to get lynched (even if they're acting suspiciously), when someone else has 40 or 50, and act only a little suspicious? As Gadarene pointed out, we really need to try to focus more on content, and the intention of the content and really try to force ourselves to pay less attention to someone's overall post count. Having a low post count, in and of itself, isn't enough reason to suspect someone IF those posts have had good pro-crew analysis... but if they're specifically designed to be forgettable, I'm going to think twice... even moreso if someone has been fairly active and is still forgettable.

[storyteller0910]

flyingcowofdoom said:

storyteller0910 said:

your response has actually deepened my suspicion. In particular, this:



coming so shortly on the heels as this:



...suggests to me that you are being disingenuous in one quote or the other.

These statements aren't mutually exclusive. If you put those together, I'm saying, "I respect your decision to vote for me, but it makes me nervous because I don't see your basis as logical." You're really grabbing at straws here. I may be basing my vote on a weak assumption, but I'm not fabricating suspicious activity.

--FCOD

So just to be clear, when you base your votes on your "gut," this is fine and dandy and shouldn't seem odd to anyone.

When someone else votes for you, based on gut reaction to the approach you are taking and the way you're going about your business, that "makes you nervous."

That right there is what we call a double standard.

For the record, the activity that I consider suspicious - none of which is fabricated - is:

1. Your propensity to move quickly in "easy" directions - the quiet poster, the newbie who asks questions, the player from a previous game - which allows you to vote for people from the snuggly safety of a bandwagon. And the fact that the profiles of the three people you have expressed some sort of suspicion of in this game so closely match the profiles of the players you pursued in M2, when you were scum.

2. Your behavior wrt to capybara today, in which you came out very strong with an "I think this is what happened last night" post and, when challenged, backpedaled like a six-year-old trying to cover Vince Carter.

3. Your mischaracterization of your play in the last game (I did NOT claim beat cop, but I won't mention that I did claim Miller because that will make NAF look worse).

4. The fact that you have used veiled implications against everyone who has directed suspicion against you; I, NAF, and cowgirl have all gotten variations on the same "I find it suspicious that you would even think of voting for me, clearly you're out to get me." Seriously, you've used a version of that line on three different players in this game day alone.

5. But you back off your retalitory suspicion once your questioner backs off. The minute cowgirl, for example, said she didn't think you were scum, you responded with a reciprocating "I don't think you're scum. Yarr." This seems like a scummy tactic, particularly because I used it myself to good effect in the last game.

And, most recently:

6. Your mischaracterization of my own actions on this Day. You keep saying that I'm fabricating or manufacturing reasons to doubt you. Well, everything on the list above I've said already, with the exception of #4/#5. Your attempting to handwave my reasons as "fabricated" is frankly dishonest; you don't have to agree that any one represents scummy behavior, but to claim they don't exist is out-and-out lying.

[Hockey Monkey!]

Gadarene, very nice analysis. I think it will come in handy. The one thing that struck me as I read it, is that Lakai has called me out twice and voted for me for my low posting/low content, but he seems to have landed squarely in the same category.

FCOD is still giving me a scummy vibe, but I am going to unvote him for the moment. There are some other candidates for the plank that have popped up in my mind that need evaluating. To answer your question about your exchange with cowgirl, I'm not sure if I can explain it to your satisfaction. The entire thing felt set up to me. It's nothing more than the feeling I got when I read it, and I commented on it. It just felt contrived. That's all.

I was hoping Cookies would have posted something relevant by now. Her posts have been fluff filled (at least to me).

mhaye's slip up reads like genuine, bona fide pirate error to me. A crew member would have/should have worded that sentence "for the pirates to win" in the first place.

People who are giving me a crew vibe right now are capybara, Gadarene, and Blaster Master. capy for her sheer volume of posts and enthusiasm for the game, and Gad and BM, for both the quantity and quality of their posts.

As far as other discussion goes, suggesting kills for the night roles could get us in a world of trouble. In M2, we had to give Blaster Master a target to confirm his role claim. I would have much preferred that never had to happen. I think the night killers should bear the responsibility for their kills on their own, and trying to guide them is only going to work to the advantage of the pirates.

I've got to go swab the deck now, then clean the bird poop out of the crow's nest. Bugger! ;D

[Mad The Swine]

At risk of facing her wrath again, I am having a hard time shaking my suspicions of Auntbeast. Along with this post, where I point out her pirateyness,
psychopathgame.proboards106.com/index.cgi?board=general&action=display&thread=1179788620&page=8#1179962295

This post is also scummy

psychopathgame.proboards106.com/index.cgi?board=general&action=display&thread=1179788620&page=14#1180073306

Pointing out that she has no real suspicions,which is another scum tell discussed at mafiascum.
According to the folks at mafiascum,she has made three scum tells in one day.Hard to ignore that.
*wiggles curly tail and votes Auntbeast*


One thing we should also look at are the voters who did not vote for Katiroo on day one,there where a lot of single votes cast for many different shipmates, IIRC.I really don't have time to do it right now but if someone wants to post a final vote count for day one it would help.If there was a late vote switch from Katiroo to someone else, that might be worth looking at also.