doll, the "group therapy" behaviour you despise is Mafia as serious business.
I don't despise it. It's not ideal for me, obviously, but that's just a mismatch between my priorities and those of the community.
It may be worth noting that 'serious business' was used as an inherently ironic, somewhat empty label. I have been treating mafia as a game much more than the community, which treats it more like a kind of optional work.
A few loose, messy thoughts:
Mafia is, to a certain extent, a giant pile of principal-agent problems. Each faction has interests to pursue, but can only pursue them through its members, who have their own separate and oft-competing interests. We are not automatons translating our factions' interests into actions. We are people, complicated and flawed as we all are. We see the effects of this all the time, most notably in the way almost every player wants to survive more than their faction wants them to.
While your analysis is of course correct if you include the wider context of the players-as-people within the scope of what is called 'The Game of Mafia', within the alternate interpretation of 'The Game of Mafia' (my view) where a narrower scope of variables is included and deviance amongst players from their presumed position in this set (i.e. elements outside of core competencies and availability to play) is a deviance from the game known as 'Mafia'.
Your position dictates that the best avenue of play is a constant flood of third party bullying and disinformation, aimed at reducing the competency of players such that the perpetrator is left in an advantageous position. This of course has no limit on the use of multiple accounts etc. to achieve one's aims, and indeed mandates the use thereof through their being an advantageous utility in managing [sic] people.
However, as an independent actor myself, my aim is in developing a robust set of transferable skills, which is less possible in an unfocused and incompetent playerbase. This is, after all, a game.
Hence, my teleological position in approaching mafia is incompatible, as it were, with this interpretation of mafia.
For this reason I have developed the closed view of mafia wherein individual actors are presumed to attempt merely to succeed and not to exist outside of that role. Of course, this is a more restricted model than the open view you espouse.
TBF tries his best (he can only post by phone, he's pretty much young, and he's on the autism spectrum yet is pretty awesome like everyone else); so using whatever you've seen in him (but not mentioned about it at all to him or in public), shouldn't be used as a basis.
Y'know, Tiruin, I've always assumed you were aware, but maybe you actually aren't. I've got something to tell you, if that's the case:
You're not a nice person.
This is a game about managing people, among other things.
Yes, and when I manage people at work, I am able to achieve discrete, actionable objectives. You could say that doing so is no different from manging people in a game of mafia. The difference is, of course, that one is work and the importance to me of the objectives achieved and the quality of the atmosphere and the individuals contributing thereto within that work context is far greater, while the other is ostensibly play yet revolves around literally asking autistic children not to intentionally lose easy games.
And yes, Bay 12 Mafia behaviour is influenced by local social norms. Mafia is greatly shaped by any community's social norms, shared ideas, and social structures. To horribly paraphrase Alexander Wendt, Mafia is what players make of it. To have certain tactics be taboo is quite normal, and hardly a sign of non-seriousness. The norm you note, though, is not as strongly town-leaning as you seem to think: while faking that sort of appeal is taboo, the underlying issues are hardly exclusive to town. Scum can be as thrown off as town is by the same forces, and can express it as much as town can.
Within the context in which it was expressed, there can be no doubt that Flabort's outburst was a towntell. Of course, if you attempt to construct and stretch a general case wide enough, you will notice errors in your model. In this case, however, the specific case of Flabort was extraordinarily polarized and direct.
Yes, scum can be thrown off, which is why breaking the taboos and abusing the positions of strength they give is useful in any role, so long as the cows chosen are correct.
You will note, of course, the nature of my post after P25 and in breaking out of the BM, both cases much the same as this.
EBWOP:
Letting players like TBF or (doll) back into games after disrupting them is how you kill communities. It's not a good idea in my opinion.
True, but you're kind of a dick about it. Nobody really understands your points because you make a point and then disprove it through your own actions.
I make a lot of points. You gotta keep up!
Like: How did the thinking even get to 'coddle group' than anything actually therapeutic? That's how I sensed out your idea of support group or otherwise--not really like a support group.
It really is like a support group - players come and play, and except when an issue weighs heavy on their mind, in which case they share it and other members of the community literally offer support. The issue is, of course, that this gets in the way of the play. It's a perfectly reasonable position from the point of view of the one asking for support, since the support is likely to have more value for them than the game itself. The other players keep the institution in place presumably in order to benefit from it themselves at a later date. The whole process lies against the interest of causal actors such as myself who don't benefit from the system, and so we seek to take preliminary action against it. Of course, a wider range of activity in response to this system requires much more work than the benefit is worth.
You're a lot better than how bitter you were, here. And you're always welcome into this community (sockpuppet or not...but preferably as 'not a sockpuppet' :v because why anyway); it's moreso the bitter attitude that's not that welcome x.x
It is instructive that you think I'm bitter, because in this case I am merely acting out of narcissistic and self aggrandizing motives to carry on a conversation about myself. Similarly, where I do not write for a specific objective, it should be presumed (as in the general case) that I am writing for the benefit of myself, and so do not intend to communicate anything in great detail excepting in that case.