Lurking : Strategy & Mistakes

[Marshmallow Marshall]

Hello everyone, I'd like to know your thoughts on a commonly seen behavior : lurking.

Do you believe it is good, bad, or situational? Why?
How do you think it can be used, as a strategy?
How do you think it should be read?


Waiting on your thoughts!

[Cryptonic]

it's weak play imo. if you're able to participate, you should! alignment doesn't matter.

[Auckmid]

I don't think lurking is a stratagy that anyone really actively employs. It's more of a symptom of players either having a lack of time or a lack of interest.

[Tauntshaman]

Password Protected:

i can't tell ya cuz im lurking right now

[DJarJar]

Some people get away with using it as a strategy to avoid dealing with pressure, but just as many people are legit unable to play or uninterested in playing. I don't really see any way to properly separate these people from each other. Even if you disable incognito mode, people will just say they left the thread open on their computer in response to accusations that they were actively playing but ignoring questions. And people assuming you are lying about being afk when u were legitimately afk would really suck and ruin the game.

I think it's just something that you have to do the "honor rule" on. Like crypt said, if you lurk on purpose then you suck.

[Damus_Graves]

The hate on lurking is absolutely ridiculous. This is 100% a strategy and has literally no ties to the actual issue that people have, which is inactivity.

Knowing When NOT to speak is just as important as pointing out inconsistencies or prodding others to talk. Nobody has to be absolutely active very time they have the ability to post.

There was a game I played back in the day that had a hidden graveyard. I was scum at the time and this was my literal third ever game and the first time I was scum. I was active and active and somehow managed to circumvent my way to the endgame in the midst of so many old school players. (CMG, Clementine, Muso, etc.)

The host straight up told me he wanted to give me MVP, but he refused to do so if I lurked on the last day. This last day there was only a few people alive and if I had Lurked on that day I would have been able to skate by unnoticed and kill the last few folks and win.

Instead I felt forced to be active and fake claim , having no experience or knowledge of how to properly fake claim, and was immediately caught. I claimed Veteran and the players had host meta that the host Hated the Veteran role. Simultaneously Clementine has used Lurking as a strategy to play as if she had died and revealed herself and her feedback to clear Herself, CMG, and successfully reveal my partner to secure the game for Town.


Lurking is a strategy. Lurking is completely valid. Lurking is absolutely fine.
Lurking =\= Inacitivty.

[Auckmid]

@Damus_Graves Which FM was this?

[Damus_Graves]

@Auckmid
Haven’t the foggiest.
It was on the site tht Muso created after some incident happened here.

[Arsonist]

Password Protected:

i can't tell ya cuz im lurking right now

Password is ff0000.
Enjoy.

[Auckmid]

@Auckmid
Haven’t the foggiest.
It was on the site tht Muso created after some incident happened here.

Ah, you must be talking about PlayMaf.

[Ganelon]

Honestly. Fuck lurkers.

[Ganelon]

The hate on lurking is absolutely ridiculous. This is 100% a strategy and has literally no ties to the actual issue that people have, which is inactivity.

Knowing When NOT to speak is just as important as pointing out inconsistencies or prodding others to talk. Nobody has to be absolutely active very time they have the ability to post.

There was a game I played back in the day that had a hidden graveyard. I was scum at the time and this was my literal third ever game and the first time I was scum. I was active and active and somehow managed to circumvent my way to the endgame in the midst of so many old school players. (CMG, Clementine, Muso, etc.)

The host straight up told me he wanted to give me MVP, but he refused to do so if I lurked on the last day. This last day there was only a few people alive and if I had Lurked on that day I would have been able to skate by unnoticed and kill the last few folks and win.

Instead I felt forced to be active and fake claim , having no experience or knowledge of how to properly fake claim, and was immediately caught. I claimed Veteran and the players had host meta that the host Hated the Veteran role. Simultaneously Clementine has used Lurking as a strategy to play as if she had died and revealed herself and her feedback to clear Herself, CMG, and successfully reveal my partner to secure the game for Town.


Lurking is a strategy. Lurking is completely valid. Lurking is absolutely fine.
Lurking =\= Inacitivty.

No, lurking isn't a valid strategy. What good is it if you win if you had absolutely no impact in the game's narrative? This game is a social game, primarily. If you don't partake in the discussion you might as well not be in the game.

Also, if you're constantly lurking, you're never gonna learn how to properly fake-claim and manipulate the narrative. Lurking is never valid because unless the townies have their heads up their arses (which unfortunately is often the case), your not controlling the narrative means that the town is. There have actually been games where inactive scum lost the game to active town.

Lurking requires little skill. No wonder people hate it.

[Damus_Graves]

You have completely confused Lurking with Inactivity @Ganelon
They are not the same.

Lurking is a strategic tool that absolutely has a place in the game as it currently stands. Once again;
There are moments where choose to refrain from posting has greater impact vs Posting in the thread.

I detailed an exact scenario where lurking would have been a strategical sound gameplay. Lurking would have won that game whereas fumbling through the daychat wouldn’t have. The circumstances within that moment in time heavily favored lurking as a strategy.


You referenced this game being a social game. Well, social games derive their major points through conversation. There are plenty of moments within conversation where you should choose to remain silent rather than speak. Psychologically speaking; When you are engaged with other person and you push them for information it is absolutely valid to remain silent after your partner has made a point that you found lacking in substance. This silence prompts them to continue speaking. Whereas if you interject they would not be as prompted to continue speaking. This prompt is mostly derived from the average persons uncomfortability with silence in the confines of conversation. The average person seeks to fill the void that silence leaves.


The majority of players here all have a disdain for inactivity and they misconstrue lurking as inactivity. That is a mistake. Because they are not the same.

Alfredo Noddle is not the same as Maceroni and Cheese.

[Efekannn02]

Password is ff0000.
Enjoy.

how in the hell did you guys do that?

[blinkskater]

A wins a win and 20$ is 20$ i agree with Damus.

[Marshmallow Marshall]

I think that you are all stating things as FACTS too much

Here's my opinion, the opinion of an human being who has no absolute knowledge, just like you all... even if it looks like some of you forget it sometimes. Game theory is not always clear, obvious, and clean-cut.


There is a very grey line between inactivity and strategic lurking, and the use of "lurking" to talk about "being inactive" doesn't help. Being inactive without having given anything substantial, and without any plan that will get put in place, and that will actually involve work is a mistake, and the people who do that continually should just not sign for games, as they don't enjoy them, and ruin other players' experience.

HOWEVER, not posting to create a demand (as Damus previously stated) is a thing. Waiting for things to go further, not discussing a topic, these are all forms of lurking, to different extents. Being LHF on purpose, and creating discussion by lurking, THEN getting in the game and uncovering scum with high activity and accuracy is also a strategy that can be viable IMO.

Obviously, lurking is also misused and can create a very strange and sad meta, where nobody posts because everyone is either an inactive or a lurker. I think that lurkers are clever enough to realize that, and to create discussion, as either alignment (as town, to find scum, and as scum, to control day chat).

Inactivity favors scums. Lurking can favor both sides, depending on how it is executed and how it is used.
I am personally a "lurker pusher", since I like to know players' thoughts. However, if someone lurks as a strategy that is honestly trying to help their alignment, and actually involves gameplay at some point, I'm perfectly ok with it.

[Damus_Graves]

I think that you are all stating things as FACTS too much

Here's my opinion, the opinion of an human being who has no absolute knowledge, just like you all... even if it looks like some of you forget it sometimes. Game theory is not always clear, obvious, and clean-cut.


There is a very grey line between inactivity and strategic lurking, and the use of "lurking" to talk about "being inactive" doesn't help. Being inactive without having given anything substantial, and without any plan that will get put in place, and that will actually involve work is a mistake, and the people who do that continually should just not sign for games, as they don't enjoy them, and ruin other players' experience.

HOWEVER, not posting to create a demand (as Damus previously stated) is a thing. Waiting for things to go further, not discussing a topic, these are all forms of lurking, to different extents. Being LHF on purpose, and creating discussion by lurking, THEN getting in the game and uncovering scum with high activity and accuracy is also a strategy that can be viable IMO.

Obviously, lurking is also misused and can create a very strange and sad meta, where nobody posts because everyone is either an inactive or a lurker. I think that lurkers are clever enough to realize that, and to create discussion, as either alignment (as town, to find scum, and as scum, to control day chat).

Inactivity favors scums. Lurking can favor both sides, depending on how it is executed and how it is used.
I am personally a "lurker pusher", since I like to know players' thoughts. However, if someone lurks as a strategy that is honestly trying to help their alignment, and actually involves gameplay at some point, I'm perfectly ok with it.

So what is your opinion exactly? This feels like a "both sides" argument .

[Cryptonic]

A wins a win and 20$ is 20$ i agree with Damus.

R u playing to win, or r u playing 4 fun u lil shit

[Ganelon]

yes, but consistently lurking when town is fighting each other doesn't make you a good/skilled player lol. any fool could win in that situation

[Marshmallow Marshall]

So what is your opinion exactly? This feels like a "both sides" argument .

Because it is one! I think both "sides" are right. Being inactive favors scum, lurking can favor any alignment, it CAN be useful, although I doubt it is optimal, usually. It is also dangerous if the site meta turns into "everyone lurks"; that's up to the community to stop lurking for the sake of playable games (playing for win, but also for fun).

[Marshmallow Marshall]

yes, but consistently lurking when town is fighting each other doesn't make you a good/skilled player lol. any fool could win in that situation

Not necessarily. "Wagonomics" are pretty useful, and a big TvT chaos can eventually lead to a game solved status, where everyone is confirmed town or close to it, or a "mechanically locked status", where the number of lynch candidates, by PoE confirmation of other towns, is < the number of kills scum could get.

There ARE times where it can be beneficial to be underground, and to let town destroy itself a bit. However, I believe it should not last more than a day.
Plus, I personally never use lurking as a strategy, as I prefer to have an influence on the game directly, to debate, etc., because it's why I love this game lol.

My point is that lurking CAN be used and has benefits. Used = Can be good, ABused = bad.
Of course, inactivity is a no-no, and should NEVER be used as a strategy, because it is not one; it only hurts your team.


Note that this point of view applies only to "standard" roles, which means that jesters/ghosts/executioners/survivors could want to lurk and it could lead to interesting things. These roles are however not usually fun to play with, and the fact that lurking is interesting for them is part of the problem.

[Damus_Graves]

I haven’t seen an argument strong enough to take away from my viewpoint. So I’m considering it a case closed for me. Lurking is a tool that can be utilized by high skill players.

[Cryptonic]

yes, but consistently lurking when town is fighting each other doesn't make you a good/skilled player lol. any fool could win in that situation

I agree. What is the point of playing Mafia if you're going to pretend to be inactive (or actually be inactive). Active lurking should be modkilled or replaced, sucks the fun out of games. Doesnt matter if you can win by doing it if everyone else suffers.

Only time lurking should be tolerated is if the player is not confident enough to speak in day chat as their role.

[Damus_Graves]

I agree. What is the point of playing Mafia if you're going to pretend to be inactive (or actually be inactive). Active lurking should be modkilled or replaced, sucks the fun out of games. Doesnt matter if you can win by doing it if everyone else suffers.

Only time lurking should be tolerated is if the player is not confident enough to speak in day chat as their role.

That is a strong opinion. Please tell me why I have to be active at every opportunity of the game to satisfy other peoples overall enjoyment?

[Forum Mafia GM]

That is a strong opinion. Please tell me why I have to be active at every opportunity of the game to satisfy other peoples overall enjoyment?

He didn't say you must be active 'at every opportunity of the game' though

[Damus_Graves]

He didn't say you must be active 'at every opportunity of the game' though

If you do not post when you have the opportunity to look through the thread it is Lurking.
Lurking is modkillable offense.
Thus my question stand s


Unless I am misunderstanding. Because that could be an issue

[Cryptonic]

That is a strong opinion. Please tell me why I have to be active at every opportunity of the game to satisfy other peoples overall enjoyment?

Because Mafia is a social game. The more everyone participates, the more fun it is.
Ok if you were playing in a Mafia tournament, or someone was gonna murder you if you lose.... and lurking woild get you the win... yes, go ahead and lurk. But majority of us play Mafia to have fun! So, why kill the fun part of the game solely so you can win??? When it's still 100% possible to be active AND win?? I dont see the purpose tbh.

[Damus_Graves]

Because Mafia is a social game. The more everyone participates, the more fun it is.
Ok if you were playing in a Mafia tournament, or someone was gonna murder you if you lose.... and lurking woild get you the win... yes, go ahead and lurk. But majority of us play Mafia to have fun! So, why kill the fun part of the game solely so you can win??? When it's still 100% possible to be active AND win?? I dont see the purpose tbh.

Clutching out a game through the utilization of each tool in your kit is a method of fun. Using your skill set to manipulate a player into revealing their secrets is a method of fun. Having an array of styles that each have differing levels of activity is a method of fun.

It feels like you are saying that lurking is anti fun and abborhant to the game due to its social nature. But I disagree because part of the nature of this game is the subterfuge and that alone demands you be silent at the appropriate times of the game. Being silent translates directly into lurking.

Yayap utilizes Lurking in his own fashion and still has fun; and for me is fun to play against him even though in the proper games he is one of the more inactive Individuals in those games. An individual who lurks. He doesn’t have to be as active as I am to be having fun and I don’t need his activity levels to collaborate with mine to have fun either.

Inactivity is the true cancer here. That kills the fun wouldn’t you agree? I’m putting forth the disposition that lurking is not the same as inactivity. Do you disagree with that statement or do you believe that lurking is causation of inacitivty? Or do you just hate notion of lurking on the principle?

[Cryptonic]

Idk maybe I am biased. I have only actively lurked once, and I was disguiser who was waiting for a window to post in so I could match timezones. I hated every minute of it lol. And then I got lynched before I could even get to that window, leaves a bad taste.

I just dont ever see the benefit to actively lurk. The best position to be in any game is Town Leader. No one risks lynching or NKing the town leader without good reason. I dont think you can get into the position of town leader while lurking.

Plus why would you subject yourself to meta like that? When someone sees you lurking, they try to figure out why you're doing so in that game. Especially players here who have stated they would lurk if it was the proper strategy. I'd rather try to play every game the same regardless of my role or alignment, which is Citizen mindset.

Idk I think if you active lurk, you are probably just afraid. Stop hiding and start fighting lmao

[Marshmallow Marshall]

That is a strong opinion. Please tell me why I have to be active at every opportunity of the game to satisfy other peoples overall enjoyment?

Twisting crypt's words

-vote Damus_Graves

Seriously... Noone is saying you should be active as soon as you can be. But leaving for more than a day intentionally shouldn't be tolerated. Freedom of play must not encroach on freedom of other's play. Inactive games are not fun, and it is each player's right to have a fun game.

[Marshmallow Marshall]

There's something that wasn't mentioned, though. Inactivity favors lurking, and vice versa. That causes the meta's corruption, and it makes games less fun. Yes, using everything you can in order to win is a way to have fun, but not for everyone, and not at the cost of the greatest majority of other players.

[Yayap]

I'll wait till Auckmids FM is over before sharing my thoughts.

[Kenny]

Imo there's active lurking with a demand and some form of pressure towards others preceding, and there's passive lurking where the lurker is the one being (or just feeling) pressured and uses it as a way of escape. First one is good, second one is bad.

[Kenny]

This also means that at all times a minimum of half the players in a game can not be in a position where lurking is the right way to move forward for them.

[Kenny]

Tho that's basically what Damus and MM already said I guess

[yzb25]

I assume the distinction between lurking and inactivity is that lurking is an exceptional choice made not to post during a fixed interval while inactivity refers to a general approach of not talking. Grey areas between the two aside, I'm sure we all agree inactivity is very bad.

That said, outside of specific early-day 1 strategies, lurking is something I also rarely see executed well in practice, even if I can see the theoretical justifications on paper. For the record, giving a particular player the silent treatment, posting slowly and carefully or keeping quiet for an hour to watch an argument play out does not fall under lurking in my eyes, it falls under "repressing the urge to talk about everything to everyone at all times". Real lurking, where someone intentionally goes quiet for almost 24 hours, say, or intentionally goes quiet during a critical moment like a chinese fire drill, is not something I see executed well.

I've seen people lurk "defensively" - lurk through part of LYLO / MYLO, try to lurk their train to death, exc. Obviously, it almost never works out. People are stubborn and if you start lurking at that critical moment they'll assume they've "caught you" and come down even harder. I've heard people give a range of explanations, some of them really fancy sounding, but in the end they almost always still get lynched in practice lol. If you're on the block, being as real as possible is always the best idea imo.

I think a lot of people who do that sort of thing suffer from a sort of stage fright where, under high-stakes situations, their mind goes totally blank and they lose the ability to produce profound thoughts, and they don't ever fully own up to it because they're scared they're revealing a big weakness to be exploited in future games. Making people like that feel bad is dumb and what the community used to do. But letting them think their play is fine is also not right imo.

I'm not convinced someone can successfully lurk aggressively, even theoretically. Obviously not responding to someone while you continue to talk to others can be very effective, but just generally lurking outside of some early-game WIFOM strategy seems like it can only diminish your credibility. Making yourself LHF in the early-game is already playing with fire, and I've seen good players destroy themselves doing so. So indulging in that kind of risk by lurking on later days without a very good reward is absurdly reckless.

The closest thing I saw to this working was when a player refused to talk about nothing but a certain player, then made a point of going silent when people didn't want to talk about that player... it did sort of force people to continue talking about it, but then he got lynched because his strategy "felt manipulative" :P.

[Damus_Graves]

I fundamentally disagree that the common player is responsible for the overall satisfaction of the entirety of those playing the same game. Each player should be in charge of ensuring they are following a previously set upon rules that govern the overall expectation of conduct and manage their own toolkit accordingly to ensure they enjoy the game as it unfolds. There shouldn’t be unwritten rules that are expected to be followed such as being active or being friendly or refraining from angleshooting.

In terms of lurking the host needs to set forth an expectation of their players that are reasonably attainable. In my own mind; a 48 hour dayphase is plenty enough time for players to make 20 relevant posts and to be considered active as such. If that player chooses to lurk after meeting the base requirement then I believe it is that players right to do so

[Helz]

I absolutely hate lurking. Calling not playing a 'strategy' is offensive to me.
It should be read as a very disrespectful move to the other players in the game. In essence its a way to avoid interactions which is all playing is.

R u playing to win, or r u playing 4 fun u lil shit

I feel like this sums up the discussion in a few words. It can help you win but you cant take pride in that win and it ruins the fun for other players.

To Damus' contention I do agree that low posting/interaction can be a positive play for an experienced player but I would not call it lurking. I particularly remember playing a FM with Yayap where he was a PR and did very strong scum hunting while not drawing any attention to himself. Whenever I poked him for inactivity he had strong original thoughts to contribute and pegged a player for their dissociated speech as scum.
-But-
In that situation he was playing really hard. He was not kicking his feet up to float to the late game or using other players lack of good play and calling it a good play on his part.

[Damus_Graves]

You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to Helz again.

I don’t have anything I can immeditely think of to counteract that. It seems to establish lurking as a separate definition from the method I had been arguing for it

[DJarJar]

Ah the classic resolution to a mafia argument -
Both sides realize they fundamentally agree but were simply misunderstanding what the other was talking about

[Yayap]

Ok so is Lurking a viable strategy? The answer is more complex than it sounds.

First, we need to differentiate being legit afk from lurking and what it does.

Being afk for rl reasons - means you have no idea what is actually going on while away, and usually need time to "catch up" when you do come on and then need a bit more time to absorb and sort everything out before posting any coherent thoughts. I add " " to catch up because if there hasn't been any posting while you were afk then there is no time needed to catch up as was the case in Convergence fm having less than 5 posts in 12 hours or all the posts being related to a single subject as in the case of Yayap vs Mike.

When someone is afk, I've noticed that person either
A- make 1 mega post with lots of quotes to address all his thoughts in one go (what I usually do) since he went offline
or
B- make lots of individual posts to comment on posts he feels needs talking about (thus why some people make 5-10 posts in a row all relating to different topics).
or
C- that person ignores most of what is said since he left off and just continues in game when he gets back online (more common when there is hundreds if not thousands of posts to read and one cannot be bothered)

In both cases A and B, that person gives off ideas related to those topics and his leave of absence doesn't affect the game information wise. Whereas, C can still catch up when other people re-post ideas, quote or even sum up what he has missed.

The biggest impact this has is when someone replaces in mid-game. Because he has so much to catch up on, it is hard to evaluate his comprehension of what has transpired, for example, Glip in Convergence.


Lurking on the other hand is knowing what is going on and actively choosing not to participate in the discussion. Some people think this is a viable strategy since you can't slip when you are scum if you don't post. While this is true, the very act of lurking is detrimental to town and is scummy. The only reason it works is because bad town players lurk too and they blend in.
If everyone lurked the entire game and every day was decided on a CFD with no other information, scum would win almost all the time because town would never form a town read on anyone nor a scum read.
If you are town, it is almost imperative that you participate to give a chance for others not to have a blanket null read on you. Even in the middle of a mislynch, if your reasoning is sound, it will show that you are trying to solve the game instead of not caring what so ever.
If every town player didn't lurk, scum lurkers would be forced to start posting more or be deemed a lurking scum - which in turn increases the chance that they slip something that they shouldn't know or show faulty reasoning for pushing someone - it can expose them much more.
Now back in the day when no one cared about if they were shown to be online and didn't have that little box checked to hide their online activity, it was much easier for me to track down lurkers and identify those that were afk, (thus my reads on lurkers was more accurate back then). Now, its much harder - as I have to find out there online activity meta and guess if there are actually afk or lurking.
If there is a heated debate on a scum and people are pitching in ideas that are actually true - scum do not like to highlight where their scum buddies slipped, thus scum tend to post less or post stuff not related to the current discussion.
Lurking can also be someone posting off-topic posts to distract from the discussion. In convergence, scum hardly did this at all - but town did it a lot with their spam or RP related trolling. Just because you are posting a lot does not mean you are not lurking. If you aren't contributing to the discussion, then you are just a guy in the back of the room not paying attention making noise - noise that we then have to sift through and decide if you intentionally tried to distract people from the topic at hand for scum purposes.

This however doesn't mean you should say everything you think, there is a fine line of giving good thoughts and giving away ideas that scum haven't thought about yet. This is the case of TPR identification, if you have a strong lead on who is a TPR that other people don't know about - either from night feedback/coded signaling, then it is not always in towns best interests in sharing that info due to limited protection resources. It should however be factored into your secret reads and help you narrow down who you can trust. Sometimes giving a blanket scum read on someone you know is town is in their best interests - you only need to expose your secret read if that person becomes a topic for lynch - and I would add, that if there are enough votes to make him a possible lynch. As long as there is no risk of that person being lynched or night killed by a town killing role, then keeping him out of the spotlight is better.

Then there is the issue of pressure voting.. how do you pressure someone to contribute to give you are read if they are just lurking - it is a futile experience as you'll most likely make it to eod with no extra posts from him to give you the necessary info to make the right decision, and you'll be left with the choice of lynching the lurker or voting someone else. While this sounds great if you are scum, if town aren't lurking, then a policy lynch on the lurker isn't that bad of an idea.... but when 50%+ of the players are lurking then you might as well flip a coin on who you are going to lynch.


In short:

Is lurking a good strategy?
As Town - HELL NO!
As Scum - only when there are enough town lurking that you don't stick out. Which brings me back to town shouldn't be lurking so you shouldn't either.



The only things worst than lurking for town is town players spamming and trolling. Which you might as well just policy lynch these players since you'll never get a good read on them. A game with a town full of lurkers, spammers and trolls is an easy game for scum to win. Don't be the guy who makes it easy for them.

[DJarJar]

Ok so is Lurking a viable strategy? The answer is more complex than it sounds.

First, we need to differentiate being legit afk from lurking and what it does.

Being afk for rl reasons - means you have no idea what is actually going on while away, and usually need time to "catch up" when you do come on and then need a bit more time to absorb and sort everything out before posting any coherent thoughts. I add " " to catch up because if there hasn't been any posting while you were afk then there is no time needed to catch up as was the case in Convergence fm having less than 5 posts in 12 hours or all the posts being related to a single subject as in the case of Yayap vs Mike.

When someone is afk, I've noticed that person either
A- make 1 mega post with lots of quotes to address all his thoughts in one go (what I usually do) since he went offline
or
B- make lots of individual posts to comment on posts he feels needs talking about (thus why some people make 5-10 posts in a row all relating to different topics).
or
C- that person ignores most of what is said since he left off and just continues in game when he gets back online (more common when there is hundreds if not thousands of posts to read and one cannot be bothered)

In both cases A and B, that person gives off ideas related to those topics and his leave of absence doesn't affect the game information wise. Whereas, C can still catch up when other people re-post ideas, quote or even sum up what he has missed.

The biggest impact this has is when someone replaces in mid-game. Because he has so much to catch up on, it is hard to evaluate his comprehension of what has transpired, for example, Glip in Convergence.


Lurking on the other hand is knowing what is going on and actively choosing not to participate in the discussion. Some people think this is a viable strategy since you can't slip when you are scum if you don't post. While this is true, the very act of lurking is detrimental to town and is scummy. The only reason it works is because bad town players lurk too and they blend in.
If everyone lurked the entire game and every day was decided on a CFD with no other information, scum would win almost all the time because town would never form a town read on anyone nor a scum read.
If you are town, it is almost imperative that you participate to give a chance for others not to have a blanket null read on you. Even in the middle of a mislynch, if your reasoning is sound, it will show that you are trying to solve the game instead of not caring what so ever.
If every town player didn't lurk, scum lurkers would be forced to start posting more or be deemed a lurking scum - which in turn increases the chance that they slip something that they shouldn't know or show faulty reasoning for pushing someone - it can expose them much more.
Now back in the day when no one cared about if they were shown to be online and didn't have that little box checked to hide their online activity, it was much easier for me to track down lurkers and identify those that were afk, (thus my reads on lurkers was more accurate back then). Now, its much harder - as I have to find out there online activity meta and guess if there are actually afk or lurking.
If there is a heated debate on a scum and people are pitching in ideas that are actually true - scum do not like to highlight where their scum buddies slipped, thus scum tend to post less or post stuff not related to the current discussion.
Lurking can also be someone posting off-topic posts to distract from the discussion. In convergence, scum hardly did this at all - but town did it a lot with their spam or RP related trolling. Just because you are posting a lot does not mean you are not lurking. If you aren't contributing to the discussion, then you are just a guy in the back of the room not paying attention making noise - noise that we then have to sift through and decide if you intentionally tried to distract people from the topic at hand for scum purposes.

This however doesn't mean you should say everything you think, there is a fine line of giving good thoughts and giving away ideas that scum haven't thought about yet. This is the case of TPR identification, if you have a strong lead on who is a TPR that other people don't know about - either from night feedback/coded signaling, then it is not always in towns best interests in sharing that info due to limited protection resources. It should however be factored into your secret reads and help you narrow down who you can trust. Sometimes giving a blanket scum read on someone you know is town is in their best interests - you only need to expose your secret read if that person becomes a topic for lynch - and I would add, that if there are enough votes to make him a possible lynch. As long as there is no risk of that person being lynched or night killed by a town killing role, then keeping him out of the spotlight is better.

Then there is the issue of pressure voting.. how do you pressure someone to contribute to give you are read if they are just lurking - it is a futile experience as you'll most likely make it to eod with no extra posts from him to give you the necessary info to make the right decision, and you'll be left with the choice of lynching the lurker or voting someone else. While this sounds great if you are scum, if town aren't lurking, then a policy lynch on the lurker isn't that bad of an idea.... but when 50%+ of the players are lurking then you might as well flip a coin on who you are going to lynch.


In short:

Is lurking a good strategy?
As Town - HELL NO!
As Scum - only when there are enough town lurking that you don't stick out. Which brings me back to town shouldn't be lurking so you shouldn't either.



The only things worst than lurking for town is town players spamming and trolling. Which you might as well just policy lynch these players since you'll never get a good read on them. A game with a town full of lurkers, spammers and trolls is an easy game for scum to win. Don't be the guy who makes it easy for them.

Mmm, but if enough players are simply legit afk, then an intentional “lurker” can just blend in with them. So the real issue then is the number of people who sign up and then either find themselves unable to play or choose not to out of disinterest. I mean, it’s fine if something unexpectedly comes up.... but it seems to be at least 2-3 people who fall under this category per game

[Yayap]

The trick is identifying the real afks, usually they catch up enough that they share their thoughts on the daily issues whereas lurkers will avoid commenting. An afk person with only 5 posts can contribute more than a lurker with 20 non contribute posts.

[Marshmallow Marshall]

I think Yayap's post explains why lurking is detrimental to games in general, beyond the site meta degradation. And usually, seeing who's actually trying to play but has a hard time doing so and who's actively lurking isn't too hard. This will actually change my way of playing FM, I believe. Death to lurkers!

[Arsonist]

Ok so is Lurking a viable strategy? The answer is more complex than it sounds.

First, we need to differentiate being legit afk from lurking and what it does.

Being afk for rl reasons - means you have no idea what is actually going on while away, and usually need time to "catch up" when you do come on and then need a bit more time to absorb and sort everything out before posting any coherent thoughts. I add " " to catch up because if there hasn't been any posting while you were afk then there is no time needed to catch up as was the case in Convergence fm having less than 5 posts in 12 hours or all the posts being related to a single subject as in the case of Yayap vs Mike.

When someone is afk, I've noticed that person either
A- make 1 mega post with lots of quotes to address all his thoughts in one go (what I usually do) since he went offline
or
B- make lots of individual posts to comment on posts he feels needs talking about (thus why some people make 5-10 posts in a row all relating to different topics).
or
C- that person ignores most of what is said since he left off and just continues in game when he gets back online (more common when there is hundreds if not thousands of posts to read and one cannot be bothered)

In both cases A and B, that person gives off ideas related to those topics and his leave of absence doesn't affect the game information wise. Whereas, C can still catch up when other people re-post ideas, quote or even sum up what he has missed.

The biggest impact this has is when someone replaces in mid-game. Because he has so much to catch up on, it is hard to evaluate his comprehension of what has transpired, for example, Glip in Convergence.


Lurking on the other hand is knowing what is going on and actively choosing not to participate in the discussion. Some people think this is a viable strategy since you can't slip when you are scum if you don't post. While this is true, the very act of lurking is detrimental to town and is scummy. The only reason it works is because bad town players lurk too and they blend in.
If everyone lurked the entire game and every day was decided on a CFD with no other information, scum would win almost all the time because town would never form a town read on anyone nor a scum read.
If you are town, it is almost imperative that you participate to give a chance for others not to have a blanket null read on you. Even in the middle of a mislynch, if your reasoning is sound, it will show that you are trying to solve the game instead of not caring what so ever.
If every town player didn't lurk, scum lurkers would be forced to start posting more or be deemed a lurking scum - which in turn increases the chance that they slip something that they shouldn't know or show faulty reasoning for pushing someone - it can expose them much more.
Now back in the day when no one cared about if they were shown to be online and didn't have that little box checked to hide their online activity, it was much easier for me to track down lurkers and identify those that were afk, (thus my reads on lurkers was more accurate back then). Now, its much harder - as I have to find out there online activity meta and guess if there are actually afk or lurking.
If there is a heated debate on a scum and people are pitching in ideas that are actually true - scum do not like to highlight where their scum buddies slipped, thus scum tend to post less or post stuff not related to the current discussion.
Lurking can also be someone posting off-topic posts to distract from the discussion. In convergence, scum hardly did this at all - but town did it a lot with their spam or RP related trolling. Just because you are posting a lot does not mean you are not lurking. If you aren't contributing to the discussion, then you are just a guy in the back of the room not paying attention making noise - noise that we then have to sift through and decide if you intentionally tried to distract people from the topic at hand for scum purposes.

This however doesn't mean you should say everything you think, there is a fine line of giving good thoughts and giving away ideas that scum haven't thought about yet. This is the case of TPR identification, if you have a strong lead on who is a TPR that other people don't know about - either from night feedback/coded signaling, then it is not always in towns best interests in sharing that info due to limited protection resources. It should however be factored into your secret reads and help you narrow down who you can trust. Sometimes giving a blanket scum read on someone you know is town is in their best interests - you only need to expose your secret read if that person becomes a topic for lynch - and I would add, that if there are enough votes to make him a possible lynch. As long as there is no risk of that person being lynched or night killed by a town killing role, then keeping him out of the spotlight is better.

Then there is the issue of pressure voting.. how do you pressure someone to contribute to give you are read if they are just lurking - it is a futile experience as you'll most likely make it to eod with no extra posts from him to give you the necessary info to make the right decision, and you'll be left with the choice of lynching the lurker or voting someone else. While this sounds great if you are scum, if town aren't lurking, then a policy lynch on the lurker isn't that bad of an idea.... but when 50%+ of the players are lurking then you might as well flip a coin on who you are going to lynch.


In short:

Is lurking a good strategy?
As Town - HELL NO!
As Scum - only when there are enough town lurking that you don't stick out. Which brings me back to town shouldn't be lurking so you shouldn't either.



The only things worst than lurking for town is town players spamming and trolling. Which you might as well just policy lynch these players since you'll never get a good read on them. A game with a town full of lurkers, spammers and trolls is an easy game for scum to win. Don't be the guy who makes it easy for them.

B = Me
Also AFK =/= Lurking (i think). I think lurking is posting lack of posts while reading the game and AFKing is when you don't read the game (but most of pepole will read it when they stop AFKing.)

And don't forget - pepole will lynch lurkers if there's no any better lynch, so i guess it could be a nice strategy.

But since 1 big post is easier to read, than lots of quotes. I think it could be a good strategy for town too. It lurks until catches up many scummy posts and post them in a 1 big multiquote which gives him +666 town points. (i'll never be a good player like this)