We’d have to consider software safety AND platform distribution standards for programs if we’re looking to make sure they’re reasonably publicly available.
Not necessarily a problem with allowing programs themselves, but a practical issue that can’t really be overlooked.
Resolving this issue case-by-case seems fine. Most programs (including the ones I’m writing) run regardless of OS.
1 Like
i think that chloe should figure out how to make timestamps better natively without funky workarounds but apparently this is actually difficult (sadly) – i kinda dont think its a problem if people do the thing but its not accessible and it really should be. hopefully thats something that can be fixed at some point
im not super convinced that there’s any… good reason to really be allowed to queue your own posts as a player, ngl. as a host im sure it would have incredible utility though
2 Likes
IDK if this is a big enough thing to put up a guide for but it’s pretty easy to go to the raw text pages and view the timestamps (without any programs).
Agreed on both here; I’d love to make daykills (or other day actions) actually resolve immediately through a bot
yeah i know it’s not actually all that hard to do, but for people who are not computer nerds it can be and if you’re on mobile it’s probably not even worth trying to do
either way it’s kinda janky and thus is an accessibility issue to some extent
no it’s geniunely just a different URL
I explained it here
i dunno about you but editing urls while on my phone is pretty annoying lol
on desktop idt its that hard to do but it’s still janky
1 Like
lots of good arguments here but daeron has convinced me tbh
mainly cuz of the people who play on mobile
but i’m also kinda just a mafia purist and i worry about games becoming a lot of automated analysis rather than human interaction
2 Likes
also this
2 Likes
I do think there’s a pretty big difference between “multi-iso and vote compilation bot” and “word choice analysis”* (or similar things).
It probably wouldn’t be that difficult for me to write word choice analysis, but I’ve not done so because I feel it’s a bit too far into automated analysis**, and it may be very difficult to adapt to as a wolf (I can’t say for sure as I haven’t tried it, but I’d have to imagine so. There’s a reason it’s angleshooting on MU, after all).
Whereas multi-iso and vote compilation are about analyzing** things that are normally analyzed, and it’s certainly possible to adapt one’s play as wolf if a pattern were to be revealed (ie, if compiling votes shows someone rarely votes their partners, then they can distance more).
Graphing post delays is somewhere in-between, as post delays at large are not normally analyzed, but I feel it’s still fairly reasonable, since analyzing post delays in individual interactions is pretty normal, and it’s again possible to adapt one’s play as wolf (ie post faster lol).
Overall though, I feel it makes sense to judge programs case-by-case, rather than allowing or banning them in one group.
*Word choice analysis is collecting data about the frequency words are used as each alignment, and using that data to draw conclusions about the current game.
**Technically yeah this both of these are just compilation, not analysis
1 Like
imo this shouldn’t be allowed (or done) mainly bc you will always have a chance of dying* so if you schedule a psot like that you could be outing that you knew you wouldn’t die or you could be setting yourself up to break the rules and share reads after you die, which would be a huge no-no
*unless the game doesn’t have elimination, such as Combinatorics Mafia, where something like this took place 
4 Likes
ok wait. you’re obviously correct but that would be really funny
7 Likes
oh I mean it’s possible to detect that stuff
scheduled post for [phase change] o’clock: “helo i am back”
8 Likes
(though I agree it shouldn’t be allowed)
I also agree that, like, multi-isos and vote count compilations are very different from detailed word choice analysis. I think the former should be allowed, and no program to do the latter currently exists because unfortunately Zugzwang has too many morals and hasn’t been corrupted by my dark whispering yet. Post delays are, like, on the line to me.
The tools to count votes and multi-iso already exist. They are here. They have been used in games with no significant issue of advantage over other players. No wolves are dying exclusively because somebody could find the list of votes placed in a game faster.
There are minor technical advantages provided by being able to do shit faster, but there are also advantages and disadvantage provided by… being on desktop versus mobile, being a hydra, being an established member of the site, access to previous games, refusing to share your tells publicly after games, refusing to tell other players how you read them, using the same opener every game, being at work (it’s kind of yikes to shade a dude who said he has a job pre-rand for being at work), etc etc et al.
These are all allowed because it is more trouble than it’s worth to disallow them! It makes the game less fun to try to Equalise Everything. Vote compilation and multi-isos are a convenience, and one that is available to everybody who can Use a Computer. Like, I don’t think we’d be having this conversation about Mafia’s Purity if… vote counts and multi-isos were just a Discourse feature that was only available on desktop. It’s literally fine.
It’s not easy to distinguish perfectly between “thing that just saves work that’s reasonable to do within the time of a day phase” (you can just ISO everybody individually, or count up all the votes, the program just saves you an inconvenience and gives you no major play advantage other than BEING LESS ANNOYED) versus “thing nobody could do manually within a mafia game’s time” (super in-depth word choice analysis, which gives an actual advantage to some players over others), but… just do it case by case lol.
I would be sad if “get votecounts fast” was banned because of slippery-slope arguments about The Purity Of Mafia. The two outcomes here are not “ban all programs forever” versus “mafia becomes a programming competition”. It is fine.
7 Likes
Imo just cuz you are on mobile doesn’t mean you can’t go on laptop and get access to laptop tools that are there for everyone if they are open to everyone like some of the suggestions
i don’t get how mobile exclusive for some people is w reason to ban it
Perhaps only tangentially relevant here, but
I am personally very skeptical about the validity of complicated, “sophisticated,” data-analytics-based FM reads.
Complicated multivariate FM models seem doomed to run aground to overfitting and over-parameterization due to the intractable issues of a tiny sample size and very noisy data.
Even for a truly prolific mafia player, you’re not going to have more than a couple to a few dozen wolf games from them. Add in all the noise with varying setups, sites, playerlists, wolfmates, life circumstances, and a literal moving target as the player adjusts their own wolf game…
I personally believe that given the tiny, noisy sample size, anything beyond univariate analysis of highly predictive metrics is going to be at best near useless thanks to over-parameterization. And at worst, actively detrimental as your misplaced confidence in the predictive power of your model makes you conf-biased and worse at reading the game. I think it’d take an AI that can actually semantically understand posts and the progression of the game before you start to see useful results, and like orange mentioned, by the time something like that even exists, it’s going to most likely take zero coding knowledge to abuse.
And as for the actually useful univariate analyses? There are already terms for them - they’re called things like “volume-tells” and being “RWSTFO” You don’t need coding skill to notice them, and if you’ve ever played FM, you’ve surely seen even those tells go wrong as well, lol.
But beyond those variables - I’m actually not personally aware of (but would love to hear about) any others that have held up to repeated scrutiny and weren’t just data-dredged, p-hacked, Baltimore Stockbroker findings.
So, given all that, banning or restricting tools that assist in data analysis in FM feels kind of silly.
…
Actually… maybe I support banning them because it saves future well-meaning, code-savvy, data-inclined FM players from themselves by sparing them from having to find all this out the hard way
But I don’t actually play here, I’m just here for Word Match
6 Likes
So, I agree with Lumi broadly that there’s very limited data crunching that can produce limited results. Buuuuuuuut I know I certainly have a word choice tell (my word variety is much, much lower as mafia), and if someone is going to use that in a game against me, that’s not a game I want to play. The problem here is not that someone might have reads that are more accurate for some players, the problem is the potential to make a case that appears to be objective and science-y, and arguing such a case becomes not about the game but fuckin statistics. Mafia is a game where we all agree to get into a game where we lie to each other and participate in mutual torture, and then lie to each other afterwards by saying we had fun doing so. I don’t care if the tools and data to accomplish such analysis are accessible to everyone, I absolutely think discussion of it should be banned in game. Obviously you can’t stop people from using it, but if they can’t say "I think Katze is a wolf because ", and they have to actually case the player based on what they did in the thread, the problem of using data analysis largely goes away because the wolf has more room to maneuver their way out of the noose.
Scheduling posts should just not be allowed by anyone, but hosts. Using it for a mechanical advantage is one of those things that just sucks the fun out of the whole thing to some extent. Scheduling a post to :00 an ITA shot is just kinda slimy lol. Hosts should be cognizant of different timezones and do what they can to make mechanics as accessible as possible with that in mind, but sometimes your wolf partner is not gonna be online to take the shot and then gets domed by the villager you wanted to yeet and thems the breaks. Just completely unjustifiable to explicitly allow post scheduling.
Tools that improve search and/or multi-ISO, and more transparent timestamps are things that are both fine to be surfaced, and should be as accessible as possible. Building it into the site itself via plugins or whatever is ideal, but making it easier to find/read posts is not problematic.
9 Likes
would browser addons technically come under this
scheduling posts is a no go thats for sure but other stuff exists to change the format of site data and stuff
data analytics is kind of against the spirit of forum mafia too imo. like in comparison to irl mafia at least. you dont have statistics with you other than what you can eyeball there