I read that as being villagery but my statement was prompted by the flow of his posts in general. I've forgotten the specific details overnight but if it is necessary to defend him today I will go back and figure it out again. (Or to be more precise, I'm sure that I'll go back through the posts again at some point anyway, and I'll post about it if I feel that it's needed.)

btw I know that there have been several times where I screwed some things up yesterday so I just want to put this out there:

I suffered two nights of insomnia prior to yesterday and I was only really feeling alert for a few hours yesterday. I'm pretty content with most of my work but I know I wasn't at 100% for most of the day.

I slept fairly well last night and hope to do better today.

Anyone feel like this is an artificial attempt at making a dumbtell (particularly the bolded portion) or is this just confirmation bias on my part? Assuming that spruce at least went through the trouble of reading all the bios, I imagine he would have at least glanced at the Wolf Role PM, which was clear that the Wolves know each other and and can communicate only during the Night Phase.


Also, soah, good that you're feeling better. The game's important but try not to over-exert yourself; presuming you're Human, you can't find Wolves well when you're sick!

What things do you feel like you screwed up?

Yeah, the fact that the mafia knows who each other are is standard (and told to us on the first page). I can understand MAYBE missing the part about only talking at night, but not being unsure if the mafia knows each other. Now would scum pull a fake ignorance move like this?

So I've been mulling this over a bit.

You've brought up a few of the things he has said which have held me back from having a stronger wolf read on Gnawazan. I've felt that they've generally been overshadowed by general body of work, but you've approached that aspect from a different angle than I have.

That is, I took issue with Gnawazan retracting his initial suspicion on Phoenicks. It looked similar to what a wolf (mr capps) did in Game 3 at about exactly the same point in the game. I bring this up as anecdotal evidence for those who found it to be inherently villagery for him to backtrack.

I questioned him on the backtrack for two reasons. First, I find that wolves are more likely than villagers to give up on an attack when they receive strong resistance against it. Second, the given reason for the backtrack did not seem to make logical sense. He says, "You forced me to focus on the fact that I am approaching this game with a set of assumptions/memes from a single source; that of my home board. There, putting another player at L1 without explanation is considered scummy by default." I would expect each player to have their own opinions on how to form reads, yet it sounds like he is saying that he will change the way he makes reads to match that of the players that he is playing with. It's understandable that players should adjust their reads to account for differences in meta between sites, but what he is describing sounds like a completely backwards approach to it: changing his reads to match how other people make reads, rather than changing his reads to match how the players play. Am I explaining that clearly? Am I misunderstanding what he wrote?

I questioned him on it and got this response: "I withdrew my comment 'for now' because I realized that I made it as a snap judgement based upon the behavior of the people I regularly play with. I still don't like it and it places him atop my suspicious list."

This didn't really clarify the situation for me. I was suspicious in part because it seemed like potentially a strategic retreat on his part -- he makes an attack and gets resistance on it and backs down. But then later he comes back and is straddling the issue. This is not inconsistent with my initial theory.

There are issues with his wording and general approach which trouble me. His general attack line, paraphrased, is "What you did is scummy," which is somewhat of an indirect attack. There seems to be lacking a direct "You are scummy" element. Those types of subtle things ping me because liars feel more comfortable if they leave themselves that type of safety net.

You're content to conclude that it's villagery tunneling. Sure, villagers tunnel. Does that mean that we should read him as a villager for tunneling as he did? That's a lot less clear. He said upfront that he is prone to tunneling and then proceeds to do it. So I'm not especially inclined to give it a lot of credit just on that basis. And I'm not seeing a lot that would make his posts appear more like villagery tunneling than that of a wolf who is just focusing on making one case to ride on. When I think of examples of notable village tunneling, I'm thinking of dozens of posts over multiple game days. A half dozen posts on d1 could mean anything. And Phoenicks has received suspicion from a variety of people so it's not like he's fighting upstream to make this case. And villagers who are tunneling don't necessarily ignore everything else taking place in the thread the way that Gnawaza has.

And as for bringing in Jrdrylie into the mix, he was already a component to be analyzed as part of Phoenicks's vote. I would not feel comfortable clearing Gnawaza just for taking that step. It was merely an extension of the case that he was making.

It wouldn't be the first time I saw a Wolf pull a dumbtell, and I think it makes a lot more sense than spruce forgetting or trying to dumbtell as Town, especially considering that there's a fair number of Players that have expressed suspicion of him.

I commented on a spruce post which contained content, then a few minutes later had completely forgotten about that post and accused him of having posted absolutely nothing game-related.

I asked notquitethere if he had cast a vote by mistake when apparently in the same post he'd said it was a real vote.

When I'm making mistakes like these, it's likely that I'm missing other things as well. :S

I generally would not use something like that as a reason to suspect someone. It's too speculative, barring some sort of metagame knowledge that would shed more light on the issue.

spruce may or may not be a wolf. I've pretty much resigned myself to postponing a decision on him until I have more to work with. I started to elaborate on why, but deleted it upon realizing that my thoughts would probably benefit him more than anyone else who is reading them.

Nice of you to split the sentence of my statement in order to misconstrue what was actually said.

I can see how it would be easy for anyone to do, but it's interesting it was you (the vote on me) who did it.

Here's the whole sentence again, made as a response to No Lynches about his paranoia over a possible Scum tactic of 'mis-voting' so they votes can't be tracked:

And it was made in the context of my usually playing where, "Scum always talk together in private - all day, all night, everyday, unless some role-restriction prohibits it".

I've read the rules. We've been limited in what we can comment about elsewhere, but it's no secret that players may be participating in other games here or at other sites, and otherwise communicating by other means and under other names. All I'm saying is that I'd guess that the three Scum players would know who they are in these other venues, as I stated - how else would they follow the rules?

That aspect of play is somewhat strange to me, though not entirely. I'm more used to playing one game at a time and not using a multitude of venues where non-game specific communications take place among game players. We've had issues at my site with players breaking these rules through game comments outside the game.

Since I'm going through ashersky's posts anyway and we happen to be on the topic of spruce, I will note for the record that this remark at the time struck me as being the type of thing that a wolf would write about another wolf.

I suppose that a villager might write it. And I suppose a wolf might write it about a villager. But it's a rather frequent type of thing that wolves say about their partners as an attempt to deflect attention while avoiding actually taking any stance on the issue.

And I've previously highlighted how some of the rest of the reads aren't really saying anything, in addition to the lack of an explicit position on spruce.


Anyway, still reading.

Fair argument, soah.

I hadn't kept up with Game 3, so the anecdote is lost on me, unfortunately.

Regarding the quoted post; "You forced me to focus on the fact that I am approaching this game with a set of assumptions/memes from a single source; that of my home board. There, putting another player at L1 without explanation is considered scummy by default." It seems that we've interpreted it differently. What I thought Gnawazan was referring to was a comparison in cultures where putting a Player at L-1 was suspicious for him, but a means for discussion for Phoenicks; in particular, what he explains here:
I didn't notice the nuances in diction, but I've run into trouble scrutinising semantics in the past. Has your method of analysis in that regard provide fruitful results in the past?

You're right that he mentioned his proneness to tunnel and I should have thought more heavily on that. I seem to be using the term more loosely than you; I was meaning to refer to his being suspicious of primarily Phoenicks at the start of the Phase and having his opinion amplified later in the Phase. The post he scrutinised was near the beginning of the game. Though, now that I reread it, I find it less convincing than I had when I originally did, meh. You're right that adding the Jrdrylie component is just another step in the picture though; I can't view it as Human as I did before now that you bring it up. I disagree with you that tunneling Humans necessarily still focus on the remainder of the game; I think it's more potential that a tunneling Human ignores miscellaneous information in order to zone in on the Player, but perhaps we've just had different experiences. More particularly, if Gnawazan was a Wolf tunneling, I at least would have expected him to interact with his Partners a bit, especially given his post against Phoenicks, but unless I missed something, I didn't see anything noticeable.

That said, Gnawazan, it would be beneficial for you to post a few reads whenever you get here. Are you still suspicious of Phoenicks and Jrdrywhy?


soah's spread a bit of doubt in my mind, but I'm still feeling that Gnawazan seems Human.

ashersky - Aside from the thing about NL being overly self-aware scum, early posts are mostly fluff, not a problem, it's page one. The backflip thing, I'm not sure how notable that is. It looked like an offhand comment and he kinda second-guessed it in the same post. I could see him forgetting about it or simply not finding it relevant in his opinion of the wagon later. You can have a scumread on someone and dislike the wagon on them, and what he had page one can hardly be called a scumread.
On the contradicting stuff, his 382 read as accusatory to me. I definitely see the apparent contradiction in what he's saying but I feel like he could have just not thought to elaborate because he's used to how terms and theory are at his forum and everyone understanding/knowing that/defining them as he does. I think he has a little different of a definition of buddying than I do, I wouldn't automatically call defending someone buddying.
I think I was reading too much into his 403 when I mentioned it looking kind of discredity earlier.
I'm unsure about him. I feel like a lot of the stuff people find scummy from him could as easily have to do with basically culture clash.
Asher, you said Jrd looked like a frequent mislynch. Do you have a read on him now?

Gnawazan - His comment about temporarily withdrawing his assumption that l-1 was inherently very scummy, and the associated willingness to pause and reconsider an opinion that he was getting somewhat tunnely with, felt like something that came from a Town mindset. It feels like it reflected a genuine desire to determine Phoen's alignment. The somewhat reachy theory he presented about the whole thing later also felt like it came out of Town paranoia.
Leaning Town.

Jrdrylie - I didn't and still don't like his first post for reasons I think I've gone into a fair bit by now - to sum it up, it looks like he's trying to look like he's saying a lot without actually saying a lot, he picked something completely not alignment indicative to talk about (experience), and I felt like his response to being called out on it was overdefensive. The first part of 89 also feels overdefensive, looking at it again. I think his reason for keeping to his usual voting habit - that we could check his games and know if he didn't - is odd. I don't inherently have an issue with him following his usual patterns, but I don't like what seems to be his motivation. Though one thing is that I'm uncertain scum would be that transparent about wanting to look "usual".
Mashi just brought up his 33% thing, and that does give me a little pause. I have mixed feelings about it, though. Scum might be more aware of that because they know who their buddies are, but if you like to try to forget your buddies and can decently put them out of your mind you might not be all that aware. And if you're just out of it and not paying attention (which Town might be more likely to do, but if it's based on out of game stuff or something it is probably null), you can make that kind of error regardless of alignment. It also feels kind of fake-townslippy, but I feel like that's a stretch.
On his 116, I don't think having discussion singularly focused on one person for a bit is a bad thing, as long as it doesn't consume an entire Day or anything like that. I think it can be helpful for determining someone's alignment.
Leaning scum on him.

Kawamii - She doesn't offer a lot of explanation for reads, but her early tone/play feels natural and relaxed.
Her comment about not trusting Soah for trying to deflect suspicion is weird. Even if Soah actually had any pressure on him when she said this, which there wasn't really iirc (she says later she wasn't implying there was), I don't think putting pressure on someone is necessarily for that purpose and what Soah was doing didn't feel deflective.
Her vote hoppy stuff feels Town in a strange way. It feels uncautious. Apparently that's not a word. How do I put that, then? Dictionary says incautious. How weird. Anyway, tangent. It feels like she doesn't really care what people think of what she's doing.
Also, iirc she said in the master thread that where she plays Day phases are <an hour. I think there can be some value in naked voting like that for reactions with phases of that length. It feels like a legitimate attempt to find scum.
Overall, Town lean.

Mashiii - His 288 feels pretty Town. I like how he seems to thoroughly consider the interactions between Lemon and NL; I feel like it reflects a genuine attempt to discern their alignments. Same with what he says about ashersky there. Gnaw's post 92 that he brought up wasn't something that had popped out at me in my iso of Gnaw, but I agree with his assessment of it.
His reads list in 459 seems to reflect a Town mindset and thought processes.
Leaning Town.
Side note: is 13 players really that unusual? I've played a fair few games with around that number.

nolemonplease - Most of her first few posts seem pretty null, okay, page one. 49 seems kind of townish, I feel like that's a reasonable Town reaction to being called out on stepping away for a few minutes. Her further explanation for it in 244 seems fairly genuine as well. I like how she questioned Kawamii in 236, and a little later how she questioned Kawamii on her other scumread, her. Questioning someone else's read on you can have various motivations, but it felt well intentioned there. It felt like she was legitimately interested in determining her thoughts and alignment. She continues to interact and question people and that feels Townish.
Leaning Town.

No Lynches

notquitethere

Phoenicks

Riki

soah

spruce

I'm going to take a bit of a break and respond to stuff currently happening in the thread. I'll finish this a little later.

Side note: that iso addon is amazing once I figured out that I needed an older version of greasemonkey for my older version of firefox

I definitely see some patterns forming, of who appears to be working together and why, of who is likely not a wolf if another certain player is a wolf, and who seem to be avoiding direct interactions. Those patterns can be quite helpful in formulating a likely wolf team.

I don't understand what you're referring to. I quoted the entire sentence (in fact, you quoted less than me!), unless you're referring to the clause I bolded, in which case, I don't see how it would misconstrue the meaning. I bolded it to emphasise the part I found peculiar.


I don't follow what you mean. Are you saying that when you stated "know who are their team members," were you meaning 'know' as in the Team members were acquainted with each other and could discuss their general playstyles and the like?

They can also be helpful in solidifying a likely Town core, or Human core as some would have it.

As distinct from the rest. You made that clear, ignoring it's connection to the former.

Sorry, now that I think it over, I misspoke. My forum's eccentric to most in that our games begin with the Night Phase rather than the Day Phase, so I'm more accustomed to even number setups.

spruce, had I wanted to focus on the bolded clause only, I would have deleted the remainder of the post in addition to the reply to another Player you made in the original post. Regardless, I still don't understand what you meant to say by the clause and request you clarify.

I mean if they're playing together in other games, or fellowshipping / communication in other venues together, they very likely are aware they're in this game together under the names they're using here, even if they're using other names elsewhere.

Like both No Lynches and I agree, it's a side comment regarding paranoia over Scum strategies. I tend to believe, as you stated, that your failed No Lynch vote was an invalid joke vote - that perhaps you weren't completely used to the voting format here or maybe used red for voting on your home site. A couple of us thought the same of nicks italicised / bold differential - how it seemed to be a mistaken form of personalised address he was otherwise using, 'till he too clarified the matter.

Again, on the voting mistakes I think it's just folk getting used to the site. But I can see where Scum could try to 'hide' in, [b]player x[b/], or some such thing then after claim, "oh, I meant this or that, but did it wrong, and darn! a Townie died, huh?"

Yes. Though in this instance I feel like it's a pretty thin observation.

You misread me. Villagers don't necessarily ignore the rest of the game, though I don't preclude the possibility.

On average, though, wolves tend to maintain a narrower focus than villagers. Phoenicks has been talked about a lot by lots of different people, so a villager focused on Phoenicks has ample opportunity to develop supplementary reads. But a wolf pushing a mislynch is aware that all of his associative reads will collapse once Phoenicks is lynched. From personal experience I can attest that it's easy to just skip over doing that sort of work when you know it wouldn't be useful to you later on. So that is one example of how his narrow focus is more consistent with being a wolf than a villager.

I find this to be overly speculative. Without meta knowledge we can't even validate the premise, and even if we accept the premise we still have to consider that we're looking at posts from only the first half of day 1. Maybe the right opportunities just hadn't come up yet.

I've played Dominion a few times and it didn't really seem like that to me.

Votes from post 8 to post 496
Night in 5:16:52
---

Votes	Lynch	Voters
3	ashersky	nolemonplease (37), Kawamii (32), notquitethere (13)
2	Mashiii	No Lynches (59), spruce (67)
2	Phoenicks	Jrdrylie (29), Gnawazan (19)
2	Gnawazan	soah (58), Phoenicks (43)
1	spruce	Mashiii (16)
1	soah	ashersky (34)
1	Jrdrylie	Lissa2 (26)
1	Lissa2	Riki (48)

Lissa2

spruce,

In reviewing your posts, I have no idea why you voted Mashiii, really.

And when he comes in the thread and votes you and drops a massive wall of text, you don't even seem to react. You interact with him about some stuff yet I don't see any signs of suspicion from you nor signs that you're trying to refine your read on him. It seems like that wall of text ought to be a great springboard for you to probe him, especially considering that he had relatively few posts prior to you voting him and you never really seemed too enthused with him as a wolf read.

So, like, what's up with that?

My ash vote was more of a "hm, let's see how I feel about voting here" rather than a strong evil read. Also kind of where the tally was at the time. I didn't want to vote Phoenicks, and Jrdrylie had plenty of votes for pressure. So I poked around in my other reads. Since then, my read on ash hasn't improved.

At the moment, I'm interested in a lynch of: Jrdrylie or ashersky. Maybe Kawamii, also not leaning great there. I'll have to see what the tally is when I catch up.

Does that help?