Warning: This post is HUGE! Read on at your own risk:Halfway through with my listed 8 that I wanted to reread (Dsell, TheMunch, Frisk, Shraeye, Cayvie, Voltaire, eHunt, Ashersky). There's sooooo much stuff to go through.
Here's what I have so far though:
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Dsell:
He has cast his vote 5 times so far this game, on (in order): Joth (#204) - Morgrim (#216) - Axxle (#746) - Galzria (#1249) - Morgrim (#1468).
Only 1 of his votes is cast on someone I know to be town (myself), but his last vote on Morgrim happened during a time when the Grujah wagon was starting to take off - thus notably was NOT on confirmed scum.
The first quote that stuck out to me from Dsell was #268:
Also it's really true that I was extremely calculating as scum (I was in my second and third games, MIV and RMM1, respectively), but in a game this size there's too much content to analyze everything. I'm going to have to trust reads a bit more and look at specifics rather than the whole big picture, at least on day 1 and 2.
It reads to me like he's saying "In the past I've been calculating as scum, but this game is so large I won't be able to be that polished" - Basically, it's not an argument for why he's town, but rather why he'll play scum differently here than he has in the past.
The next post that really jumped out at me was #539:
Guys, yuma scum is way more subtle than this.
I really think I agree with this. The wagon on yuma grew scarily fast.
Did it? This game is huge. He's at L-7 (I could have missed some changes since the last vote count, but point stands, he's nowhere near a lynch). There's probably at least one scum on his wagon but I doubt they all piled on.
But even 1 scum on his wagon on D1 means that he's (very likely) not scum.
Here, he's completely ignoring (intentionally?) the idea that there is a decent chance that we're dealing with two scum teams. "If X has scum on his wagon, then X must be town" just isn't a legitimate argument to be making D1. Yuma's wagon took off fast - absolutely. But with or without scum onboard speaks nothing to Yuma's alignment.
The next post is #750, where he directly responds to Watno asking about Grujah:
Also, Dsell, dont you think the behaviour your pointing out with Axxle is even more extreme with Grujah?
I'll have to reread everything he's written. Has he been active on the rest of the site?
Near as I can tell however, this re-read never occurred, so I can't really tell if Dsell was just appeasing the masses, or just never got around to it.
In post #1249, he makes his case against me, and places Ashersky as #2, Grujah as #3. This is despite never really making a case against Grujah up until this time - a relatively safe place to put a partner. In the very next post (#1250), he even says not to put much stock in the other two choices:
Also my second and third votes are really not that serious, so don't put much stock in them at this point.
While I'm willing to set aside the "making a case on a townie" (me) side of things, the lack of interest on a now confirmed scum is a little bit more suspicious.
Now is where it gets a little dicey for Dsell. Everything up until this point has been mild scumminess at most nothing major. But starting with post #1434, Dsell starts redirecting hard from Grujah:
Hmm.. vote: Glooble again, as I got no better.
Yuma is strangly mad at me for being inactive, but now it seems a sincere town mad more than faked scum mad, esp with this second to last post.
Read over recent events and give an opinion on them, please. You're here now -- you can contribute something.
I agree with this. We still have a little time, he's not our only option. I'm not sure Grujah is a great lynch today, guys.
#1468, right in the thick of things, falls back to Morgrim:
Vote: Morgrim because we need a reason to talk more before the soft deadline and because I think it's a bit more likely to hit scum. You'll note that this is a change from my 1st, 2nd, and 3rd scummiest list, where I had Grujah listed as 3rd. I just don't agree with that anymore. Grujah is seeming townier, and while he doesn't strike me as really, really obvtown, he does strike me as the completely usual Day 1 lynch...which nearly always winds up hitting a townie.
#1473:
Vote: Morgrim because we need a reason to talk more before the soft deadline and because I think it's a bit more likely to hit scum. You'll note that this is a change from my 1st, 2nd, and 3rd scummiest list, where I had Grujah listed as 3rd. I just don't agree with that anymore. Grujah is seeming townier, and while he doesn't strike me as really, really obvtown, he does strike me as the completely usual Day 1 lynch...which nearly always winds up hitting a townie.
What is your profile of the usual day 1 lynch? Grujah doesn't seem like that to me.
He fits the profile because he's done something that nobody likes. In some games, it's a scumslip or mistaken phrasing, in some games it's lying, in this game it's being almost totally silent. It's the kind of thing that scum isn't going to do day one because it's just a mistake they just don't need to make, and they'll monitor their posts more closely to make sure they don't.
He's done something that's really indefensible, which gives everyone on the wagon the excuse to say, "Well he did X, so lynching him seemed like the right choice!" And what do you say to that? It's the kind of thing scum just doesn't (or hasn't) done Day 1 precisely because it's the kind of thing that gets people lynched.
#1474:
You cannot seriously think this is good scumplay from Grujah. If he was scum shying away from conversation he would have come back here so fast when there was much heat on him. And there has been for quite a while now.
I didn't say it was good scumplay. Grujah did come back though, right when heat picked up on him. I'm pretty sure I mentioned that earlier. He didn't speak up until he had picked up several votes.
But my point is, don't you think scum Grujah would have responded sooner? Because it's way too dangerous to let a wagon form on you this late in the day as scum, and pretty much everyone has said something at some point about him lurking too much.
And #1480:
Vote: Morgrim because we need a reason to talk more before the soft deadline and because I think it's a bit more likely to hit scum. You'll note that this is a change from my 1st, 2nd, and 3rd scummiest list, where I had Grujah listed as 3rd. I just don't agree with that anymore. Grujah is seeming townier, and while he doesn't strike me as really, really obvtown, he does strike me as the completely usual Day 1 lynch...which nearly always winds up hitting a townie.
What is your profile of the usual day 1 lynch? Grujah doesn't seem like that to me.
He fits the profile because he's done something that nobody likes. In some games, it's a scumslip or mistaken phrasing, in some games it's lying, in this game it's being almost totally silent. It's the kind of thing that scum isn't going to do day one because it's just a mistake they just don't need to make, and they'll monitor their posts more closely to make sure they don't.
He's done something that's really indefensible, which gives everyone on the wagon the excuse to say, "Well he did X, so lynching him seemed like the right choice!" And what do you say to that? It's the kind of thing scum just doesn't (or hasn't) done Day 1 precisely because it's the kind of thing that gets people lynched.
So you're arguing that it's OK to be totally silent? That it's OK to lie?
If we don't lynch based on things that seem scummy, what do we lynch on? "Well he did X" is ALWAYS an available excuse. Should we never lynch then, since any valid reason for lynching also becomes an excuse if the lynchee flips town?
IMO, "he did X" is a good reason for people to vote for someone. It requires taking a stance. "Voting for him will give us info on others" is a way to avoid taking a stance, and a way to avoid any fallout if it's a mislynch, which is far better for scum. It's different from voting "because he did X".
My profile for "usual day 1 lynch" is "player who fudges some wording, which is subsequently exaggerated as a scumslip". Grujah hasn't done that.
PPE: I didn't realize that he had done that twice -- just saw it the most recent time. Looks even better to me now.
Well, it just comes down to whether we want to punish bad behavior or if we want to lynch the mafia. One is better for the meta, one is better for town in the current game. And actually, I'm not totally sure what the right answer is. Maybe it IS ok to use the Day 1 lynch to punish people for anti-town behavior. All I'm saying is that it hasn't worked in the past, which leads me to believe that he may not be our best choice for lynching scum today. I believe that our best chance for lynching scum requires an eye for much more subtle play. Still rereading though, those timings are indeed interesting to me.
Whew. That's a LOT of deflection. If Dsell ISN'T scum, then that is really quite rough for him. In post #1484, Joth votes for Grujah putting him to L-2. In the very next post, #1485, Dsell changes tunes a bit...:
Alright, after a reread of his posts, I'm warming up to a Grujah lynch. I'm going to leave my vote on Morgrim until tomorrow, though, to foster discussion and make sure that Grujah isn't hammered before we can discuss everything.
The question that really has to be asked, is whether or not Dsell was a scumbuddy trying to deflect up until the point in which it became clear that Grujah was going to go down - at which point he started seeing the light - or whether Dsell was simply a misguided townie who really felt like we were pursuing a lynch that followed the pattern of 10 other unsuccessful D1 lynches. There's no doubt that Dsell realized how bad this all looked, because he opened D2 straight up acknowledging it:
I'm just gonna look so scummy today because I tried to derail the Grujah wagon and pushed the Morgrim one some. All I can say is that I picked the wrong time to start questioning "the system" because the system finally worked for us.
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My overall verdict here is scummy. No doubt about it. However of the 4 people that I've read so far, he only ranks as scummy #2, not scummy #1, so I won't be putting my vote there. Still, I can't let his overall play slide by, so I am suspicious. The one thing Dsell has going for him, I won't mention at this time. It DOES lend him some town cred though - enough that I'm willing to consider the "misguided townie" rationale rather than the "redirecting scum" more than I might otherwise be willing to. Still, out of a scum rating of 100, he would land a solid 75.
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Captain Frisk:
Let's move on to a slightly easier person now. Take a break, if you will. Frisk has voted just 3 times this game, on (in order): TheMunch (#457) - Shraeye (#1053) - O (#1449)
Again, only one of his votes lands on somebody I know to be town (O), but again his last vote comes at a time when the Grujah wagon was taking off - so notably not only is on town, but it's not on scum.
To me, Frisk's first particularly scummy statement doesn't come until #922, when he sums up what's happened in the game up to that point by saying "Nothing at all":
Like c'mon now, I don't even have multiple pages of "Recent Unread Posts." I used to be able to get that up to three pages in less than 24 hours.
The rest of f.ds is totally silent. And then, ZM2 starts and ends while I am gone. And then MXII starts before I even have a chance to see the pre-game sign up.
Why is the only thing that is happening here Mafia? Dark Ages came out! Go play Dominion, sheesh. All of you.
I ask that for three days, no one posts, I won't ask robz to mod-prod anyone and then maybe we could be on equal footing. (Not a serious request.)
Just do what I did and skip it.
I think the summary is: nothing happened that you can't read later, and o may have been scummy.
Now you are caught up.
Now maybe there's some serious apathy going on, but c'mon. It's either really, really terrible town play to be ignoring the game for the first 1000 posts, or just scum not knowing that he doesn't need to really pay attention.
I recognize that bad does NOT equal scummy, but this caught my attention at the time, and did on the reread as well. This idea was just SO bad - it reminds me of Insomniac in BMV as his role of Jotheonah. In the Scum QT he said something like "I can't believe I got the whole town to take orders from scum - that was awesome" - Well, that's how I felt about CF's post #926:
Ok - so we all agree that no lynch is bad right - but plurality is hard.
How about this. We rank everyone from 1 to 20 whatever, in order of who you would be willing to give your vote to. Whoever gets the most points decides who lynch, and the rest of us go along with it?
After that however, nothing really jumped out until post #1449, where CF voted for O despite the growning wagon on Grujah and his (imo) growing and apparent scumminess:
Vote: O - for not voting this close to deadline.
O's a strange fellow, so I never feel confident in my reads.
Secondary: Voltaire - for pushing that we all push secondary / tertiary votes. This feels like scum trying to give themselves an out to steer away from town consensus.
Tertiary: Shraeye - reasons given during my initial vote.
And that's it. CF has had the fewest posts of everybody that I've looked at so far, and far too many of those posts have said... nothing. It's very, very hard to distinguish between this CF and scum CF of the last 1001 games, so I'm really, really wary on this front. However, his scumminess certainly isn't overwhelming, and he's probably #3 of my 4 reads so far. Out of 100, he's probably sitting at 60 (50 is neutral, fwiw). CF really, really needs to start participating more. I want to believe that he's town, and I want to believe he can be a real boon - but I just haven't seen it this game.
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Voltaire:
Voltaire is my towniest read so far out of the 4. He's voted 6 times this game, on (in order): O (#374) - igbtennis (#461) - Yuma (#504) - Captain_Frisk (#931) - Ashersky (#1097) - Jotheonah (#1175)
Once more, only 1 vote on a confirmed townie, however it was his very first post of the game, and was admittedly RVS. Here, his last vote is on Jotheonah, but was placed before NOT voting Grujah was a scummy action.
The most suspicious exchanges that Voltaire had - to me - was in the mid 400's, where he made things *really* confusing by saying Eevee multiple times when he meant Cayvie... and then I remember myself in M-VI, and I realize that those mistakes read really, really townie to me for some strange reason...
Post #491:
Hey, I was going to try to disguise this but then I decided not to.
It's particularly bad for me (not specifying further) to be voting on a townie lynch, so, until I'm absolutely sure, I'm probably going to duck out of a lot of wagons before lynch.
That's... weird...
really really weird.... vote: cayvie
Wug? And here I was writing a "cayvie is probably town" note!
Yuma, why do you think that looks scummy? Same to eHalc if that's what you meant.
Because it's bad town play if you're town and it's obvious so you must be scum...
...which I don't actually think makes sense, so no vote from me, but really, Fos: Eevee.
And Post #493:
for me: cayvie is normally so clear and specific in her writing... she has a focus and communicates it well. that is what she is known for by me. This is vague and confusing and is atypical for her. Really I have no idea what she is trying to communicate. If she can explain what it means in more depth I would consider removing my vote.
Mmmmm I don't like this one bit. Let's not compound a mistake. Eevee, shhhhhhh!
In both of these cases, he said "Eevee", but meant "Cayvie" - and in that perspective, what he said is a lot less scummy. He's basically telling Cayvie not to let people role-fish for more information. Cayvie obviously said something in relation to her role that she felt people should be aware of. If she wanted to say more, she would have. I haven't reread Cayvie yet, so I won't speak to how I feel about the Cayvie situation as a whole, but specifically relating to Voltaire, I find the mixup in the names (and the confusion it caused afterward) to be distinctly townie. Scum wouldn't be so careless.
The next quote that stood out to me was #538, which is actually embedded in a quote under my Dsell section. It's regarding the fact that Voltaire is currently (at that time) voting for Yuma, yet thinks that there is likely one scum on the wagon:
Guys, yuma scum is way more subtle than this.
I really think I agree with this. The wagon on yuma grew scarily fast.
Did it? This game is huge. He's at L-7 (I could have missed some changes since the last vote count, but point stands, he's nowhere near a lynch). There's probably at least one scum on his wagon but I doubt they all piled on.
At this time, we really hadn't talked about the idea that there might be multiple scum teams, so this statement either A) assumes that there are (it doesn't read that way to me), or B) doesn't make a lot of sense, because it means he's voting for somebody he thinks is town. Seeing has he shortly thereafter claims that he is happy with his vote on Yuma, B) is kinda out of the window. This means that Voltaire was banking on A) for this quote to make sense... and well, I don't think that he's WRONG, I just think that it's a little odd that he would naturally make this assumption without actually making this argument. Makes me slightly concerned that he may BE part of a second scum team. Still, it's a very light argument imo, and doesn't come close to putting a dent in the overall town read I have from Voltaire across all his posts.
The last post that stood out to me from Voltaire as a little bit scummy is #638:
OK, looks like Voltaire went offline before reading the question I just asked. But anyway, vote: Voltaire.
[snip]
PPE: voltaire is back but seems to confirm that what I read is what he meant by "just come out with it, man!" No, I wasn't describing you. But he says that someone else hinted (besides insom) that he was particularly scummy among the yuma-wagon. I don't remember that; if you find that it will justify your paranoia to me.
Insom jumps on me at 509, Axxle says he was going to find me scummy due to the cayvie/Eevee mixup in 517 (but doesn't after I explain). I read you today posting about this, then sure enough, Insom repeats his claim. It's just me liking to avoid being the D1 lynch, because what fun is that? But it's good for the town. No biggie.
As for another poster, looks like it was Axxle. What you're seeing is me supressing OMGUS (see: the whole "us" debacle in ZM1) after my scumhunting on Yuma starts to draw votes at me. Sometimes I fire off short, sarcastic posts and I've been trying to curb that as not helpful, to town (or, less importantly, my own odds of living). From your earlier comments on limited posting to more substantive areas, I'd take it you agree. Perhaps not with me, but the instinct.
In particular here, the second paragraph reads a little bit like scum admitting to bad behaviour, and that he's making a concerted effort to contain and change that before he costs himself and his team. I don't know, it just didn't read as very genuine to me. But it certainly isn't what I would consider to be a "case" for being scum.
All in all, there just wasn't much here that started flashing lights at me. The biggest knock I have against him is that he's been so completely absent. He missed the Grujah lynch, so I don't know how he really would've felt about it going in, and he hasn't been back since then. Most of his early game though really struck me as town. Certainly there were times where he wasn't clear in what he was saying, but it did look to be town searching for scum. Out of a scale of 100, he's probably sitting at 45 for me right now. It would probably be 40 (or lower) if he was actually around. Still, I DO read what he's done as town.
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This is already a fricken' BOOK. I really do apologize. I'm going to make my case on my biggest scum read in a new post so it doesn't get buried in this mammoth. It'll take me awhile to compile though, and I need to grab dinner first.