Ok…I guess not logging back on to read this last night was a mistake, but anyway on to the point.
I still don't see the reasoning for a uclabb vote. Maniac just kind of tossed his name out at the beginning and people seem to have just kept his name in the running despite him not having a whole lot of interaction with the game since the second page or so.

I've skimmed through the thread twice now, and I keep coming back to either phil or Vashta. I agree that phil's defense of Vashta was somewhat suspicious, but I'm not sure if its enough to lynch him, but I think it's more to go on than Vashta. Plus it seems to me that Vashta has been putting forth a lot of discussion which is something that I think is valuable going forward, and killing him off early could weaken us as a group.

I would suggest that him not having interaction with the game since page two is one of the better reasons that he's being put forward. More specifically, the situation he left in - he provided no argumentation once quizzed. This early, a major factor in voting for someone is just getting them to talk - at least, that's what I'm trying to use my vote for.

Honestly, there isn't a single player now that I think *is* scum, there are players I'm less inclined to think that about, and players I want to hear more from.

I can understand that. I'm still trying to figure out the game personally, and it seems like this first lynch vote is really just a bunch of shoddy arguments in an effort to hopefully kill off an alien and hope we don't kill a townie. I agree that early discussion is important, but there is a part of me that still feels a no lynch vote hurts us less. If we randomly kill off one of our own then we're only furthering the Aliens chances of victory (yes, there is a chance we kill an Alien but the odds are not in our favor) yet if we wait for a night kill we can learn something about how the Aliens are interpreting the conversation.

"So I'm scummy because I voted for you? Tbh I have no idea what to think and bo gave a pretty insightful exposition of your suspected scummy-ness and I followed it in the thread. Hell, even if his accusations were pulled out of his ass, I got to hand it to him, he knows how to convince people. I fall back on my previous decision:
#VOTE Vashta"
@YoYo: First off, I said I was slightly suspicious of you, no "so scummy" as you remark, those are two different things. Second, it was not because you voted for me, it is because your reasoning was simply that I seemed scummy, no case at all, no even saying "OB is right", nothing. And then you showed a lack of conviction and backed off. And your latest vote is also very defensive:

"To communicate your current, but possibly changing, voting intentions. Ithink it would be easier to just look at all the fake votes leading up the the real votes than to have everyone doing "vote" "unvote" all day. Its also more convienent than having a certain number of people wait. Knowing which people certain people are suspicous of is helpful, no? Well it is more information that can be tabulated by you geniuses out there."
@Yoyo: Or we could use the much more effecient system of reads to follow suspicions. It's also a lot easier to look at each persons thoughts on everyone else than follow a trail of "fake votes".

@Capt: Well, at least you have some good reasoning to your case, though your conclusion is wrong. And your points are interesting. I'll probably come back to them later. I also think we need to here more from uclabb.

*hear

We can't actually have the early discussion unless we have something to discuss. Who to lynch is a big thing to discuss that draws a lot of attention, which gets more information than no-lynch. At the end of the day, I'm confident there will be someone we can lynch to gain a good amount of information or a dead scum.

Jeff Kuta's Mafia Reads So Far

ghug: Slight town, seems reasonable and probing, not too vocal. 100 isn't that horrible.
bo_sox48: Slight scum. I am voting for bo_sox48 because he jumped to VashtaNeurotic's defense when everyone else was trying to justify lynching him.
stupidfighter: Moderate town. Seems like vanilla's ought to encourage those with special abilities.
uclabb: Moderate town. I think he's a scapegoat.
tvrocks: Slight town. Just a couple posts.
VashtaNeurotic: Slight scum. Talks too much.
MintyBoy4: Null, probably vanilla.
Jeff Kuta: Null.
y2kjbk: No posts
Maniac: Slight scum. He's had a lot of interaction with bo_sox and Vashta. They're in league together!
Yoyoyozo: Slight town. And a goofball.
captainmeme: Slight town.
Fluminator: Slight town.
ALEXTREME333: Slight scum. I think he's the deep threat.
thdfrance: Slight town.
phil_a_s: Moderate town. He wants me dead. *sniff*
OB_Gyn_Kenobi: Slight town.
Sandgoose: Slight town.
guak: No posts

If I am dead in the night, you know my 4 slight scum inclinations were right!

I'm a newbie, so if my analysis is obviously wrong, please tell me. I can't improve without trying though, so I'll just go and put up my reads.

ghug - became active pretty early, pretty combative, on the whole, I read him as town-ish

bo_sox48 - pretty close to what ghug did, really, same read

stupidfighter - active town-ish (scum would probably avoid direct confrontation a bit more)

uclabb - not enough information so far, worth investigating

tvrocks - hasn't said much at all, worth investigating

VashtaNeurotic - has talked a lot, but I'm not sure how much he's said, for example the recent post is just a long reaction to yoyo, and some stuff on procedure, I'd like to hear a bit more

Mintyboy4 - got yoyo in, but didn't say anything relevant, any thoughts?

Jeff Kuta - I'd like to hear more from him, for reasons I've explained before

y2kjbk - hasn't made a single post yet

Maniac - sporadic posting, but he has an excuse, I have no major problems with content

Yoyoyozo - I disagree with him on some matters of procedure, he seems a bit impressionable. I wouldn't lynch him, but he isn't being exactly useful either.

captainmeme - made a well-thought out post, don't have much of an opinion on what he is, but doesn't need pressure

Fluminator - seems sort of towny, has been active. No need to pressure
ALEXEXTREME - wouldn't put him at high priority

thdfrance - reasonably active player, I disagree with him, but that doesn't really matter for reads at this point

phil_a_s - me

OB_Gyn_Kenobi - he's been active, and though I don't like the content, he doesn't seem to be scum

Sandgoose - his goal was obviously to confuse everyone, and he's succeeded, no comment

guak - hasn't said anything

Oh hey, Jeff

Since you're here and talking I'm going to
##UNVOTE for now

Lol I'm a newbie as well so excuse me if I'm not exactly useful at the moment. I pick things up pretty quickly so just give me a chance. Ill be posting my observations momentarily. By momentarily I mean after I eat breakfast.

hey all, sorry for the silence to start the game off. was out and about with the family last night and was trying not to be rude.

it's incredibly difficult to determine with any sort of reliability who is scum and who isn't on Day 1. having said that, it's very important that we all express our thoughts, vote on who we find the most suspicious, and learn from the results, i.e. no-lynch hurts the town's information. the whole WIFOM situation is in full swing on Day 1 but gets reduced with hard evidence come Day 2 once some people have flipped. for those unfamiliar with the term since i don't see it described in this game thus far, WIFOM = "wine in front of me" and implies that any argument for anyone's guilt or innocence could be a ploy with the intention for people to either believe it or not believe it, and there's really no way to be completely sure what the intention is. there's little point in getting hung up on it and ultimately i get very suspicious of people who bring it up as a way of eroding the collective thought process of determining who to lynch.

generally among the big talkers to start off the game, they are mostly not scum, given how reactionary the mafia/aliens/whatever tend to be. this would be vashta, bo_sox, and ghug so far in my mind. the silent ones likely have at least a couple scum among them, but we learn little from lynching someone silent who hasn't been involved at all in the Day 1 discussion; this changes on Day 2 once we have hard evidence. here are my thoughts on the low to mid talkers:

ob_gyn: sounds like town/crew with a bit of tunnel vision on vash and phil_a_s. I understand what it's like to feel like you've picked up on a connection and desperately feel the need to see that connection corroborated or dismantled with a lynch, but that can be dangerous and I was blasted by tunnel vision in Mafia II.

fluminator: jumped in to vote for yoyoyozo and jumped out. pretty scummy, but hasn't said enough to feel confident on that read.

yoyoyozo: acting new but trying. slight crew read. looking forward to hearing more.

phil_a_s: moderate to strong crew read. he's doing well to keep the discussion relevant and I follow his reasoning for defending vashta. i realize this is probably the most conflicting of my reads with general consensus so far.

Sandgoose: slight crew. making a fake claim to be the cop when you're mafia seems against what a mafia member would do, which is to hide from the spotlight. but maybe that's exactly what he determined. perfect example of WIFOM.

uclabb: has said very little to be garnering the suspicion he has. makes me think he's town being used as a scapegoat for votes.

alexextreme: slight scum based on how i don't understand coming to the uclabb vote so quickly.

Maniac: pretty null, not reading anything strong one way or the other on him for now.

stupidfighter: slight scum. i feel like his limited posts so far aren't giving insight into his actual thoughts on who is scum and who isn't, and are trying to show participation and crew-helping without actually doing so.

that's what i've got so far. will be as active as possible going forward here. not comfortable putting a vote down quite yet on anyone. i'm not feeling a lynch on uclabb as being the right move here.

WIFOM
http://wiki.mafiascum.net/index.php?title=WIFOM

Ah, thanks for explaining WIFOM y2k. I love Princess Bride, but I have to say, as a town in a deadly war with the mafia-

Aren't we going against Sicilians with death on the line?

@stupidfighter, if you don't want to throw out #whatever votes, do you at least have specific thoughts on individuals and who you think is crew vs. alien that you'd like to share?

SO I was on my phone before, so maybe I wasn't clear, but here is my exact point about the marine:

The marine is the same as a vig except that he has a third kamikazee kill. I am talking only about that kill. I also think it's obvious that the marine shouldn't just randomly kamikazee on someone- maybe there will be some point down the road where it is worth it, but in general it is not.

I was talking specifically when the marine is about to be lynched. What I was saying is that if for whatever reason the lynch is unavoidable, whether or not the marine decides to kamikazee on his accuser, we should all publicly agree that he should not. This is because we as the town want to incentivize talking as much as possible, and any incentive to shut up hurts the town. I don't know how to be more clear than that, and to say discussing roles is a waste of time is ridiculous given that we won M2 almost completely because we as a town figured out how to make the question asker OP.

I had just read about the marine and was posting my first thoughts. What I now realize is that the real power of the marine is that he can claim without any risk of counterclaim, as if someone counterclaims, the real marine has found mafia and can kill them. This means that once he gets in his two normal vig kills, we will have a confirmed townie.

Was there some other thing that you all wanted me to respond to? i don't have much time this weekend, but I will try to respond to it ASAP.

To fluminator's question, I was a camp counselor so I've probably played >100 games of mafia in my life (and many more games of Avalon/resistance) and I played in three mafia games on this site in which I was the detective (lynched night 2), vanilla town (shot by the mafia on night 1), and mafia (shot by SK night 1).

As far as reads, I hope to have time to go into greater depth later, but bo is the scummiest to me so far- he is doing this thing where he is pretending to shut down useless conversations, but is actually just perpetuating them. Notice that his first post about lynch.no lynch was meant to be a complete shut down of the tipic, but then he spends the next few hours essentially defending Vash's position, basically just trying to seem reasonable. I was mafia with bo last game, and it looks very similar to me.##vote bo

I also agree that phil_as is a little suspicious. It's hard to separate newbness from scumminess, but his list of reads screams scum to me (and I think it's somewhat reasonable to point out his defense of Vashta as well) They have no content and are just presenting facts without any color. They also use a lot of qualifying words like "reasonably," "probably," and "maybe" which seem designed to try not to ruffle any feathers.

Wait, the marine can kamikaze during the day?

I posted the vote against Vashta to gauge his reaction because of his anti-lynch platform (which I still feel hurts town and aids mafia). The immediate post by phil_a_s took me completely by surprise, so I did have a strong reaction to it. Believe it or not though, I am not suffering from tunnel vision. At the time it was the only tangible thing I had to go on. Phil didn't really react that strongly to being under suspicion, but Vashta did, so I tried to keep him talking (turns out, pretty easy to do, haha). Vashta seems defensive about everything people post that goes even slightly against his opinion. Maybe that just a personality trait, maybe he's hiding something.

I've had several questions on this, ALL non voting actions are Nighy actions.

I always liked Bill Nighy's actions.

"I am voting for bo_sox48 because he jumped to VashtaNeurotic's defense when everyone else was trying to justify lynching him."

I didn't try to defend him and I'm not trying to defend him. I'm trying to make sure we look at both sides of the arguments we have so far. I said that while his actions seem scummy, Vashta isn't stupid, and if he is mafia, he is making a huge mistake by continuing to bring up the same subjects over and over again and talking in circles. Phil is the only one who attempted to defend Vashta.

I am incredibly neutral on Vashta right now. I don't know what the hell "un-bo like" is supposed to mean - hell, none of you have ever seen me play town before except in M3, which was a train wreck. He's overreacting to everything and hasn't really tried to get a reaction out of anyone. I'm not impressed by his play, but if he's scum, he's fooling me just enough to stay afloat, for now.

I am a little bit confused as to why multiple players have now tried to tell the power roles how to do their jobs. First, it was uclabb, and now stupidfighter. The latter came to uclabb's defense, following that up with this line: "We should also voice our opinions on what our star players, the Marine, Engineer, and Security officer, should be doing." My question - why? What good does that do? They don't have any reason to listen to you, first of all, because you don't know who they are, so why are you trying to point them out? The only players that need that information are the SK and scum.

Another stupidfighter line - "I haven't heard a compelling reason to break our rule of thumb."

Whose rule of thumb? Town's? The town rule of thumb is to *not* discuss the actions of power roles until we can manipulate them, which isn't possible yet.

I view these as slips. Maybe they are novice mistakes - lord knows I made and still make plenty myself - but they're slips until I'm convinced otherwise.

##UNVOTE uclabb
##VOTE stupidfighter

I'm pretty sure Marine can't kamikaze when he's dead, and he's dead the moment he's been lynched.

One power of the Marine is, as you say, that only he can claim easily. But this is only useful when the Marine wants to claim, which he has very few reasons to do. Essentially, only when he's clearly being lynched, or at the very end. Those are also the only situations where mafia has a good reason to claim though - it allows them to at least take a townie with them as the backup lynch.

I would like to note that I am in favor of discussion of role powers themselves, and the uses they can have, because it can be useful. Ideas for general usage are fine, but a specific "who should vig kill, doctor save and cop investigate" discussion is going to take us away from more important things.

In the list of reads things, what you saw was newbie-ness. Essentially, I was going off of no information and no experience, and I wanted to stress that.

Lol, ironically enough I posted a rant about how we shouldn't talk about power roles in the middle of a discussion about the power roles.

We should be open about talking about what we might be able to do later on with the power roles, but we shouldn't be giving them instructions. That's what stupidfighter did. I'm somewhat comfortable with uclabb's explanation, but stupidfighter has some explaining to do of his own.

I don't see a problem with posting advice to people in power roles. I think it's important to consider how they can be used to advantage the ship as a whole.

Unless we can provide a logically flawless argument (leaving no option of what Mafia/SK could do unexamined) for why a power role should do a specific thing, or unless we are talking about how a power role can be used as a general strategy, I'm against discussions on who should get saved/investigated/shot.

@bo_sox: You didn't seem that far off of defending Vashta either, though. You went so far as to recommend we give him "the benefit of the doubt". You have plausible deniability in your "I'm just looking at all sides of the issue" explanation. But at its essence, your recommendation was we not lynch Vashta.

Y2k, I said my piece and cast my initial vote last night. Long lists o' reads are fine if that's what you prefer, but I don't have one. Now, if you've got something specific to ask, shoot. Otherwise keep those eyeballs moving right along.

Bo, I was talking to Phil when I mentioned that rule of thumb. The two of us both say more talk is better, and I see no reason that shouldn’t apply to talk about the officers. It’s YOU who has no basis for saying the TOWN has a rule of thumb on the issue. *spits on the ground* Saying we should discuss what the roles should do ---without naming any names---and condemning me for doing just that is pretty twisted. Up until that comment, you were on the list of thinkers I’d defend, in spite of the scummy readings you’ve been getting from some of the crew. You’ve disappointed me, Bo.

With respect to power roles:

It goes almost without saying that the Chief of Security and Engineer should use their powers every night. On whom is a matter of debate.

The real question is whether the Marine should start lobbing grenades right away. I think he should!

The Android benefits the most from the Marine being gone from the game because the Marine is the only other solo targeted attack. If the Android knocks the Marine out quickly, then it requires some work from the Crew or Aliens to expose and then eliminate him.

Plus, I agree that more deaths equals more info. Use it or lose it.