I'm going to post a full analysis of OB's reads.

Damn WJ, calm down and take a breath. You clearly missed where I town read you. Saying something may be true is not saying something is true. Also, the context in which the statement you find so offensive occurs isn't even about you. It's about SS thinking you're scum because he thinks your play is bad. Like I said, bad play is not necessarily alignment-indicative.

I'd hate to see what your reaction would be if I actually were unkind to you. Trust me, I am more than capable of unkindness.

i try to have an open mind. Maniac is accurate in identifying my town-self as myopic with tunneling, and I've been actively working to improve on that since I've actually had a string of games where i've been town. but while having an open mind i try to be opinionated and have strong, maybe even exaggerated opinions, especially early on, as a means primarily to get conversation going. these seemingly strong opinions though are incredibly amenable to the circumstances of the game, as i think i've shown.

@OB: I'm not offended by you suggesting I may be playing poorly. I'm happy with my play and contribution. This was not what I meant by unkindness.

You're being unkind and deceitful to call me obnoxious. I'm slightly offended by it, but not that much. But it is an unkindness. And you're trying to malign me all through your reads list, my name appears in the majority of your reads on other people.

Now you're telling me to "calm down". I didn't miss where you conveniently read me as town along with ghug and DO, reading me as town was clearly important to you because you're saying that I'm a townie that shouldn't be listened to (because my contributions are either poor or obnoxious, which I disagree with, and I think you're only using this tack because you're threatened by my reads, most likely because DO indeed messed up her starting attack as a scum teammate in this game), and I'll be commenting on that shortly.

lol dance y2 :D

HAH, got a point to make Toemato? welcome back to the game, i missed you!

Still need to go back and look at DO and guak. I'm also less sure about my town read of y2k than I was last night. But I'll try and explain why I think he's town.

Finally I'll go over what I think is the case against Balki, why I voted for him last night, and why I'm ##unvote (ing) now.

Y2K: Its not much to go on, but I think Y2K is town for two reasons.
1) Lots of posts which have been quite helpful, in particular pointing out the problems with many of Balki's arguments. I agree that his arguments have been problematic, and some even have the potential to hurt the town (encouraging VT fake PR claims for example)
2) Yes he has been bulldogish in his pursuit of DO, and Balki. His opinions have changed over time. I was particularly surprised when he reread the thread and did an about turn on his position on DO. It didn't feel mafiaish to me.

Balki
To my understanding y2ks case against Balki is based on three things.
1.) Balki has presented arguments for ideas that have hurt that town. (While I agree with y2k here) Bad arguments are not necessarily indicative of alignment. And in most cases us having these arguments has not hurt the town.
2.) Balki has been unwilling to present strong opinions about players. Balki has now provided a list of scum. I do also dislike what Balki was doing early on. (I'm waiting for more information before posting my opinions). Balki your opinions are information, the town can use them, and changes in your opinions can be useful to read. He's picked up his socks here though.

3.) Buddying. While I still think nominating MVP candidates could be a subtle way of buddying. I'm just not sure about this argument.

In any event I think Balki has been a relatively useful player to have around and would not be my first choice for someone we should lose day 1.

Last night I voted Balki, since than, no wagon has really formed. I figured by making it the leading wagon, it might attract people and we could see who it attracted and why.
It hasn't. Meaning either the argument against Balki is weak, and both town and mafia don't want to go for it. Or that the town isn't convinced and the mafia don't want to jump on a wagon for one of their own.

Updated reads to follow.

@y2 @OB I personally don't see a choreography between y2 and balki if you could explain that to me as well OB please.

woops refreshed page and nothing popped disregard last one as I was being impatient waiting for answer.

@OB you make a interesting case for balki. but wouldn't you think mafia would vote for their own guys to try to throw people off? or is that thinking it through to much? also I think it was a strong case against balki last night but I think your spot on in saying that town could not be convinced and mafia doesn't want to jump on a wagon of one of their own. interesting ideas and ones I will pay much more attention to in the future.

"I'm going to note that Deathllama lied about checking the D1 of my recent games, because that's obviously not true. Did you not expect me to check for myself?" -Yoyo, pg15

"I reread all of Yoyo's day one posts in M11 and M12, and here is the one pro-policy post that he made." -DL, pg11

Learn to read please.

Also, why did you include a quote from M12, in which you were a power role, but ignore M11 because you were a power role?

i sense many vocalizing distrust of balki, but hesitation to vote him because he's "useful". can i ask how? what has he done that's useful? the primary way someone is useful is by being transparent with their opinions in order to evaluate them even more carefully if and when they die and flip. town obviously want to be helpful in that sense, mafia obviously don't. balki has failed here for mostly all of the thread. is he actually promoting people to be talking and being helpful? he certainly keeps posting about wanting to do that and get people talking. but does he bother asking direct questions to his scum-reads, besides me and i think guak a little? no, he doesn't. no questions for Toemato, none for espi, none for SaladinSmith. what gives? is he being helpful, or trying to look helpful?

I feel that if Balki is town, there are definitely some scum on his vote train. Scum would love to get a potential threat lynched, and probably noted Balki's strong play last game. Damian in particular sticks out right now.

I'm not convinced that Balki is town though so IDK

ANALYSIS OF OB'S first major posts in the game.

Note that he breaks his contribution into two posts -- some observations followed by a read on every player.

His first post boils down to this quote: "I really like ghug's notion of the vig day shot taking out the lead vote-getter late in the day. Can't wait to watch the mafia scramble after that happens."

Two things are happening here: he's putting ghug in a positive light; AND he's contrasting ghug's contribution against a "mafia scramble"; a clever structuring that makes it seem like the mafia scramble will be caused by ghug's townie play. Ghug is of course one of OB's top town reads, as he goes on to express.

"1. y2kjbk - a bit bull-doggish on DO early on. also makes a lot of reads based on some really thin information (e.g.uclabb). something feels off with this guy. His fight with Balki seems choreographed. Getting a strong scum smell off this one."

Look at the way OB refers to y2 in animalistic language, calling him both "bull-doggish" and that he "smells". I think this is intentional manipulation of language to malign y2 in a subtle way, using negative connotations but offering us very little actual substance or argument, i.e., all OB can actually say is "something feels off with this guy". This is meaningless.

"2. ghug - feels like town guhg to me. interesting idea of vig killing leading vote getter with 60 min left. Didn’t vote for uclabb immediately - scum buddies fer sher. Rethinking, I fucking love the vig day shot idea. It’s better if fewer people are online when it happens, because scum will intensify their activity to try to get town lynched. Scum will almost certainly put forth the greatest effort to be online at EOD. They have more to lose if they are not."

OB refers to ghug again, quite emphatically, as town and references again the "interesting idea" and supposedly positive contribution to town, and this is apparently the only reason ghug is town read. There is a large bulk of text for the read on ghug, but when you read through it's surprisingly low on content that's actually about ghug; so on first appearance OB's paragraph seems like a substantial town read but it equates to nothing more than fluff and discussion of the day vig shot.

"3. Hellenic Riot - I don’t like protecting new players just b/c they’re new like HR does for toemato. I’ve never been able to get a read on HR (mostly cuz he dies so damn fast)"

There's really nothing here. It's simply an admission of inability to read.

"4. Yoyoyozo - policy lynching lurkers is a great idea if you are scum and know lurker alignment."

Is this OB positioning himself to bus Yoyo if needed?

"5. ND - I am SO glad he decided to make less verbose posts this game O_o"

This read is also meaningless. Why is OB "SO glad" that ND is being less substantial? What actual 'read' of ND's post can you offer? Have you even read ND's posts? Are you just happy because ND isn't on the right lines yet?
"6. Saladinsmith - Bad play is not alignment indicative and bad play sometimes can improve over time. wj may be playing poorly, but that doesn’t make him scum. Getting a player lynched for “bad play” when you’re mafia and know that player is town is “good play”."

It's nice to see OB offer advice to new players, although it's funny that he subtly uses this opportunity to rubbish the analysis I've provided to the game so far, in reading damian/DO and Yoyo. It would have been nice if OB could have actually offered some questions or analysis of SS.

"7. OB_Gyn_Kenobi - where the F has this guy been?"

Making light of his absence. Smooth.

"8. DeathLlama9 - I’m confused as to why that TrPrado incident didn’t result in more fecal hurling than it did. Then again, I can’t figure out if it was such a colossal boner that it’s indicative of town or scum."

This is just nonsense. If anyone finds OB's read of DL useful please let me know.

"9. Balki Bartokomous - VT should fake claim? BAH! lynch all liars! Fucking scum trying to get our players to fake claim so they can out the real PR for the mafia to NK. Die scum!! See reference to y2k fight above. Buddies up to wjessop, which I think is a good buddy target if you’re mafia given how opinionated and vocal s/he is."

Reading Balki becomes just another opportunity for OB to rubbish my reads of the game so far. He's exploiting the y2-Balki fight here as well, without any explanation.

"10. bo_sox48 - sigh, really bo, policy lynch discussion? IT. NEVER. HAPPENS."

Another meaningless read -- why did he bother posting this at all? Unless to make himself appear more useful than he actually is?
"11. captainmeme - I think town right now. lurkish,of course, but helpful when intermittently not lurking."

It's hard to make something of this -- I'm surprised that meme gets one of the few unequivocal reads in this entire list of fluff. This has me concerned.
"12. wjessop - maybe he’s just that obnoxious. As scum he was always turning accusations around on his accusers and then asking for explanations from them. Here he’s only defending himself."

This is just a character assault and an inaccurate portrayal of my contribution to the game, similar to the way he attacked and debased y2k. Further, I haven't "only defended myself" in this game, I've just been extremely busy, so my involvement so far has been 1) joke posts enjoying the start of the game (a game is supposed to be fun, after all), 2) responses to damian, and then DO, who have criticised and scumread me for my joke posts in the first hour of the game as unhelpful to town (which you yourself call 'tunneling hard'), 3) a full and clear reads lists with questions for players.
"13. Maniac - entertaining to the end. Was the sdrawkcab post meant to get someone to out themselves as a power role? Seems an incautious mafia play. Also seems ineffectual play as there are myriad reasons why someone would or wouldn’t post in a certain time frame after his."
"14. Espi - not sure why he got attention as potential scum. nothing stands out to me either way."
"15. Damian - if he’s scum, he deserves to win. But then again, ah hell, I don’t know. Now he’s tunnelling hard on WJ. Tunnelling =/= wrong, just narrow minded, or scum."

This makes me think that damian is either open to being bussed by the mafia, or he is actually not scum -- unlike DO and ghug, who are being fiercely protected within this reads list.
"16. guak -"
"17. Toemato no one likes a noob lynch more than me, but this guy’s posts seem genuine. an OMGUS vote on ghug would be an odd move for someone 1. who read prior game(s) and 2. is trying to hide being mafia."
"18. DemonOverlord - townslip “bus” - mafia would never make that mistake. But then she uses a WIFOM argument to justify it’s use."

This is one of the few unequivocal reads of the list -- we are being told in no uncertain terms that "mafia would never make" the mistake that DO did in relation to the bus comment. He doesn't even address her joke posts and then quick vote on me to try and flash up a wagon after damian's scum read on me in the 2nd hour of the game. This is very odd. There's no doubt that DO has been controversial so far in her contributions; and she's promised more input after "catching up with the thread" and this has not manifested. I think DO is being told to keep a low profile by her mafia teammates, while they iron over her scumreads, and I think this is because DO may be the encryptor.
"19. uclabb - "

Uclabb has posted some substantial contributions to the game so far -- why couldn't OB provide a read on him? Are you simply not reading the thread?

Something is very odd about OB's reads list above. OB's reads oscillate between the personal and the meaningless, in a way that OB just isn't normally; in every game he's been thoughtful and meaningful (that's why he was such a tough cookie and needed lynching in M9). But here, in M13, he's trying to malign people's characters, referring to y2k in animalistic language and that he smells is a very strange and unhelpful way of assessing players. Aside from that, he hardly makes any actual commitment on players in the game and this is reflected in his tl;dr version of his reads:
Quote: "In short, my strongest scum candidates are BB & y2k, followed by SS and Yoyo. The only town-leans I have are ghug, wjessop and DO."

My bottom line read on OB's terrible arrival in to the game is that this was a pre-planned production. I think ghug and DO are more than likely scum and he's lumping them with me to mollify others' reads on them, he's hedging his bets by calling Yoyo scum lean, and either Balki or Damian are the 5th scum, one of whom is the top bus candidate, and so he needs to be seen to be on the winning side if any of those 2 (Yoyo, and Balki/Damian) get lynched. To reiterate, I think DO is being told to keep a low profile by her mafia teammates, while they iron over her scumreads, and I think this is because DO may be the encryptor.

QUESTIONS FOR OB

1. Why, other than his day vig shot ideas, is ghug a top town read for you?
2. Why didn't you provide reads for guak and uclabb?
3. What do you make of DO's overall contribution to the game so far?
4. Why is DO a top town read for you? You give no clear reasons to mark her explicitly as town.

Right now, I'm thinking we should lynch any of the following:

DO, Yoyo, or OB. I think the damian/Balki should wait until Day 2.

I'd like to hear what others think about this development.

I agree that OB's read post was atrocious, but you seem to be arbitrarily painting a picture of the full scumteam based on information that's kind of WIFOM, especially in this paragraph:

" I think ghug and DO are more than likely scum and he's lumping them with me to mollify others' reads on them, he's hedging his bets by calling Yoyo scum lean, and either Balki or Damian are the 5th scum, one of whom is the top bus candidate, and so he needs to be seen to be on the winning side if any of those 2 (Yoyo, and Balki/Damian) get lynched."

@Bo, are you saying that Balki and I are Mafia?
If I was mafia and trying to bus him, why wouldn't I come onto the wagon hard? After all if I was mafia I would know I was right?

I'm not going to post a full reads list. Since I'm not so sure it would be helpful.
But I am going to steal an idea from mafia 2 and post my top candidates to be town, and my top candidates to be mafia.

Town:
1. Maniac
I'm still not quite sure what to make of Maniac. One the one hand his who backwards thing drives my crazy. But when he shows up with real content he makes good points. And I just have a general feeling that he might be town.
2. Y2K
Case in above post.
3. Wjessop
I didn't see it when it was aimed at me. But Wjessop definitely has an aggressive/active questioning style that would be very dangerous for a mafia player. I'm inclined to agree with earlier claims that he is town.

Mafia - I don't really have much more than a slight read on anyone right now.
1. NULL I don't have a top scum candidate right now.
2. Balki
I explained above the case against him, and why I'm not sure about it. And I really am not sure about it. In any event I think he's worth keeping around. But he might be scum.
3. bo
I didn't really have a read on him before. But I think his recent contribution to the thread doesn't make sense. (See my comment at the top of this post). When he explains more maybe he'll drop off the list.

You could easily say (this is just an example)

"I think OB is trying to buddy up to one of Ghug or DO by reading them as town with poor reasoning, his absent read on Damian means that he likely is hedging his bets, scumreading Yoyo for supporting a policy lynch while not doing the same for Bo means he is protecting Bo, and a strong scumread on Balki seems to be just going after a townie threat."

##VOTE OB, though. I strongly dislike the read on bo (as he scumreads yoyo for policy lynching but then doesn't give a read on bo despite explicitly stating he does the exact same thing) and that reads list is extremely lazy.

@DL: I'm glad you agree with me on that. Do you find OB's reads atrocious only, or scummy as well? For me, it's clearly an intentional obfuscation -- this is scummy -- because why would an honest townie intentionally waste our time with fluff, bluster, and nonsense like that?

As for my scumteam suggestion, that's just how I'm seeing it, I don't mind if you disagree with the broader picture, but many people were making similar early reads on this in M12 and it turned out to be quite productive for town.

i definitely think wjessop is jumping too quickly to conclusions about the alignment of others besides OB in his interpretation of OB's reads. all they strongly say to me is that OB isn't trying to legitimately read people, it's much tougher to deduce the scum identity of others from them. i think wjessop is just trying to fit his already scummy reads into OB's post.

I agree. I think for Day 1, considering we have no clear candidates and votes have been placed on around 7-8 of the player group so far, OB's given enough of a reason for a *day 1* lynch right now, and he hasn't stayed on to discuss his contribution, even though I made it clear I was going to post an analysis.

I don't think a decision should be made yet on Balki/damian -- because their game is proving to be fluid, and I want to reserve judgement on the two of them.

We have 5-6 hours remaining and some have already said they may not be on for EOD. I hope more people get involved in the last 5-6 hours of discussion.


##VOTE OB


DO or Yoyo would be my other choices, in that order, for lynch today.

On my phone so I could be wrong, but didn't OBGyn hop on my train after Damian did? At the least, he set himself up to vote me as one of his leading two candidates. I'll bet we've got two scum among Y2K, Guak, Demon, Damian, and OB_Gyn.

My position on Y2K is softening a bit. I think scum is more likely to join my train following an intractable townie than to start it. I'd like Sayid to scan Y2K, as I don't think he'd be this vocal and aggressive as the godfather. I'm focused on the cars and the caboose, not the engine.

##vote Demon

"I'd like Sayid to scan Y2K"

^why Balki why

@OB - For the record, I don't think that wjessop is scum. I've never once said that he is scum. I've even said (p10) that I will never scumread anyone until after somebody has died.

Balki suggests (p15) that my desire for my D1 vote to mean something is inconsistent with my previous play. Balki, in M12 everyone was on Maniac except for five people. I suggested that we look at that group of five, and two of the five were mafia.

That experience suggested to me the importance of the information we get from a naturally-formed wagon -- information we would not have gotten from random lynch.

I realized that I hadn't been on a major wagon all game, and when I was voting for scum, I hedged my vote, and all of that was costing the town information, and also making me useless. If your vote isn't on a major wagon, it's like voting for a third-party canidate in a US presidental election. (For non-Americans, let me tell you that no third party canidate has won an election in the entire 226-year history of the US presidency, and third-party candidates are seen as drawing votes away from someone who might actually win.)

Balki suggests that my tone has changed and I'm now more confrontational. In M11, I was different enough that everyone attacked me. In M12, I was trying to get other people on board with my idea. In both of those situations, it does not make sense to be confrontational. But now I find myself agreeing with established players a lot more, and I don't have some radical idea that's likely to be rejected by them.

All I'm bringing to this game is my core philosophy: we know nothing until somebody dies, and lurkers are bad. I don't expect people to agree with that, but I'm not changing it either.

@wjessop

I'm interested that you think uclabb has contributed substantially so far; could you tell me what you think he's contributed? In my eyes, he's done pretty much fuck all - 90% of his posts have been about what the PR's should do and mechanics that aren't even going to affect today; with almost nothing on actual reads and scumhunting. So unless I've missed a big post from him somewhere, I disagree strongly that he's been a major contributer.

I also find SaladianSmith to be more and more full of excuses. He gets called out for lurking; so he posts and apologises for it and starts being more 'active' without adding anything. Next he gets called out for not having crazy ideas by Bo (IIRC); which he instantly throws off as well, still without adding anything original. His play is totally reactive; and he's done nothing but justify his presence and poo-poo scumhunting.

##Vote SaladinSmith

I'd feel comfortable lynching balki, OB, or yoyo. can we get a vote count?