The Syndicate

JaggedJimmyJay wrote: ↑Fri Apr 02, 2021 4:10 pm Nobody has to do anything they don’t want to do as a host.

Excellent. I hate sending out role PMs. I really do.

Angle shooting is legal by definition. If you don't want a specific behavior, outlaw it in your game.

Hally wrote: ↑Fri Dec 04, 2020 8:10 pm most of tutuu’s proposal has nothing to do with the word angleshooting

what about the other things?

what’s the issue with banning those things?

i don’t really understand

I have been speaking as Epignosis, and not as the admin team. I hoped that was understood, but if it was not, that is the capacity in which I have been speaking- as an individual. I thought that as a veteran host (and poker player!) I could give some thoughts into game design and angle shooting. Reacting to everything tutuu has said said now is not what I'm prepared to do.

I'm spending the rest of my time with my family.

Hally wrote: ↑Fri Dec 04, 2020 8:05 pm
Epignosis wrote: ↑Fri Dec 04, 2020 7:59 pm
Hally wrote: ↑Fri Dec 04, 2020 7:54 pm
Epignosis wrote: ↑Fri Dec 04, 2020 7:38 pm I'd like to offer some long-term perspective from someone who has been here from the beginning.

The vast majority of games here do not involve broken rules, angle shooting, or hosting errors. I understand that the most recent game has perhaps contributed to the notion that a massive overhaul should be considered, but I encourage everyone to take a deep breath and a broad view of The Syndicate's evolution. I also want to remind everyone that Martin's game had a lynch mistake AND two people violate a host rule. That is not normal. Some of the games listed above are by new or newer hosts. There's a learning curve to hosting.

I have hosted on this site for seven years and I have never had a problem with angle shooting that I can recall, nor do I remember anybody else having that problem prior to recently.

There shouldn't be a rule that mentions "angle shooting" because the very definition of angle shooting is doing something that is legal but generally viewed as underhanded. There is no list for that. There never will be. As technology changes, the ability to angle shoot will change. Poker encountered crazy new angle shooting tactics when online poker was a thing. The most notorious was ripping your Internet connection out of the wall to take advantage of Internet disconnection allowances sites had, so that you could bounce out of bad hands to move on to new ones. There was no rule against that, so people did it until there was one. Against the rules? No! Shitty? Underhanded? Yes! That's what angle shooting is.

I believe hosts should make the rules for their games beyond the universal Syndicate rules. And if hosts don't make the rules themselves, then what gives you any confidence they will enforce the rules we write?
it may be that angleshooting hasn’t been that big of a problem during most of your time here but the site is growing and many new people are now playing and hosting

and the more people you have from different places the more problems you’ll run into because everyone will come from different places where the rules are different or what have you

the syndicate appears to be changing and growing a lot as a community and i think the rules should also change to account for that, no?

and i feel like you’re playing a bit with semantics by saying angleshooting can’t be outlawed because it’s by definition not against the rules

okay then lets just call what we‘ve been referring to as angleshooting something else and then say it’s not allowed

even in the example you gave with people disconnecting their internet in poker, did the people in charge go “well that’s shitty and against the spirit of the game but we can’t ban it because it’s not already banned, it’s just angleshooting”?

no, they just banned it because they realized their rules needed to change as the community changed

and regarding the last point, if hosts don’t enforce the rules the mod team puts forth as a standard for the community they shouldn’t be allowed to host games here

i mean, it seems fairly straightforward that if we actually do implement community wide rules like tutuu is proposing it would have to be a requirement to host here that hosts enforce those site rules as part of their duty as a host

and if they repeatedly shirked that responsibility, they shouldn’t be allowed to host here anymore

while that may sound harsh, if it’s as you say that instances where such a rule would even need to be enforced are so rare, it shouldn’t be so imposing on hosts to enforce it in the once in a blue moon where they need to
The very definition of angle shooting is doing something that is not against the rules to gain an unfair advantage. Once the rules change (as they eventually did in Internet poker) it isn't angle shooting anymore. It's against the rules. Online poker changed.

I think you don't get what I'm trying to tell you angle shooting is, and I think most mafia players don't understand the concept.

You can't just say "ban angle shooting." That doesn't mean anything. You can't enforce that, because angle shooting is anything that doesn't break the rules that gives someone an unfair advantage.

What rules do you specifically want to see? would be the pertinent question.
i do understand what you’re saying

so let’s say that like the online poker communities, we want to ban things that are currently considered angleshooting but we think should actually be explicitly against the rules

is that okay and why or why not?

The host and his or her game is the poker community.

The Syndicate is not the poker community.

tutuu wrote: ↑Fri Dec 04, 2020 8:05 pm
Epignosis wrote: ↑Fri Dec 04, 2020 8:01 pm
tutuu wrote: ↑Fri Dec 04, 2020 7:58 pm
Epignosis wrote: ↑Fri Dec 04, 2020 7:55 pm
tutuu wrote: ↑Fri Dec 04, 2020 7:48 pm the definition of poker angleshooting is not the same as the mafia definition of angleshooting, the way most people use it. most people believe that angleshooting is against the rules, they use the phrase in that way (in mafia)
The way mafia players use "angle shooting" is however they want without regard to what it actually means. It's a specific thing, and if you want to call me a Prescriptivist, I don't care. Angle shooting is a very specific thing that the Mafia community didn't make up. If you can't define it, then you can't solve it. If you want to call whatever you want angle shooting and disrespect the poker community, then I'll accuse you of cultural appropriation.

tutuu wrote: ↑Fri Dec 04, 2020 7:48 pm i do not believe martin's game is the only game that had integrity issues

off top of my memory:

radiohead by sloonei - a person violated the "no infodumping rule" and the host gave compensation to the mafia team
simpsons by sloonei - a person violated the "dont claim your identity" rule and the host had to warn that he would start modkilling for it
escape from russia by g-man - a person violated the "no infodumping rule" and the host had to warn them and was considering modkilling them
philosophers mafia by tony - he had to modkill two people, one for violating an infodumping rule, another for going over the post count out of frustration
lion king by dunya - she had to modkill a person who contacted another person by discord and talked to them about the game
Pretend you were the host in each of these. What would you have done differently?
im listing these games that have had integrity issues in response to your claim that the syndicate has no problem with integrity in its games
I don't know what you want me to do with that information. I have been more or less retired as a player during this time. I swapped in in The Simpsons. You're not explaining what the integrity issues were in the games. Were they not resolved fairly or correctly?
i am arguing that those issues wouldn't have popped up in the first place if there was a standard set of rules that clearly defines what's ok and what's not ok

It sounds to me like the hosts gave rules and issued warnings or modkills based on those rules. I don't understand your grievance.

None of that is helpful to me, Hally, tutuu.

tutuu wrote: ↑Fri Dec 04, 2020 7:58 pm
Epignosis wrote: ↑Fri Dec 04, 2020 7:55 pm
tutuu wrote: ↑Fri Dec 04, 2020 7:48 pm the definition of poker angleshooting is not the same as the mafia definition of angleshooting, the way most people use it. most people believe that angleshooting is against the rules, they use the phrase in that way (in mafia)
The way mafia players use "angle shooting" is however they want without regard to what it actually means. It's a specific thing, and if you want to call me a Prescriptivist, I don't care. Angle shooting is a very specific thing that the Mafia community didn't make up. If you can't define it, then you can't solve it. If you want to call whatever you want angle shooting and disrespect the poker community, then I'll accuse you of cultural appropriation.

tutuu wrote: ↑Fri Dec 04, 2020 7:48 pm i do not believe martin's game is the only game that had integrity issues

off top of my memory:

radiohead by sloonei - a person violated the "no infodumping rule" and the host gave compensation to the mafia team
simpsons by sloonei - a person violated the "dont claim your identity" rule and the host had to warn that he would start modkilling for it
escape from russia by g-man - a person violated the "no infodumping rule" and the host had to warn them and was considering modkilling them
philosophers mafia by tony - he had to modkill two people, one for violating an infodumping rule, another for going over the post count out of frustration
lion king by dunya - she had to modkill a person who contacted another person by discord and talked to them about the game
Pretend you were the host in each of these. What would you have done differently?
im listing these games that have had integrity issues in response to your claim that the syndicate has no problem with integrity in its games

I don't know what you want me to do with that information. I have been more or less retired as a player during this time. I swapped in in The Simpsons. You're not explaining what the integrity issues were in the games. Were they not resolved fairly or correctly?

Hally wrote: ↑Fri Dec 04, 2020 7:54 pm
Epignosis wrote: ↑Fri Dec 04, 2020 7:38 pm I'd like to offer some long-term perspective from someone who has been here from the beginning.

The vast majority of games here do not involve broken rules, angle shooting, or hosting errors. I understand that the most recent game has perhaps contributed to the notion that a massive overhaul should be considered, but I encourage everyone to take a deep breath and a broad view of The Syndicate's evolution. I also want to remind everyone that Martin's game had a lynch mistake AND two people violate a host rule. That is not normal. Some of the games listed above are by new or newer hosts. There's a learning curve to hosting.

I have hosted on this site for seven years and I have never had a problem with angle shooting that I can recall, nor do I remember anybody else having that problem prior to recently.

There shouldn't be a rule that mentions "angle shooting" because the very definition of angle shooting is doing something that is legal but generally viewed as underhanded. There is no list for that. There never will be. As technology changes, the ability to angle shoot will change. Poker encountered crazy new angle shooting tactics when online poker was a thing. The most notorious was ripping your Internet connection out of the wall to take advantage of Internet disconnection allowances sites had, so that you could bounce out of bad hands to move on to new ones. There was no rule against that, so people did it until there was one. Against the rules? No! Shitty? Underhanded? Yes! That's what angle shooting is.

I believe hosts should make the rules for their games beyond the universal Syndicate rules. And if hosts don't make the rules themselves, then what gives you any confidence they will enforce the rules we write?
it may be that angleshooting hasn’t been that big of a problem during most of your time here but the site is growing and many new people are now playing and hosting

and the more people you have from different places the more problems you’ll run into because everyone will come from different places where the rules are different or what have you

the syndicate appears to be changing and growing a lot as a community and i think the rules should also change to account for that, no?

and i feel like you’re playing a bit with semantics by saying angleshooting can’t be outlawed because it’s by definition not against the rules

okay then lets just call what we‘ve been referring to as angleshooting something else and then say it’s not allowed

even in the example you gave with people disconnecting their internet in poker, did the people in charge go “well that’s shitty and against the spirit of the game but we can’t ban it because it’s not already banned, it’s just angleshooting”?

no, they just banned it because they realized their rules needed to change as the community changed

and regarding the last point, if hosts don’t enforce the rules the mod team puts forth as a standard for the community they shouldn’t be allowed to host games here

i mean, it seems fairly straightforward that if we actually do implement community wide rules like tutuu is proposing it would have to be a requirement to host here that hosts enforce those site rules as part of their duty as a host

and if they repeatedly shirked that responsibility, they shouldn’t be allowed to host here anymore

while that may sound harsh, if it’s as you say that instances where such a rule would even need to be enforced are so rare, it shouldn’t be so imposing on hosts to enforce it in the once in a blue moon where they need to

The very definition of angle shooting is doing something that is not against the rules to gain an unfair advantage. Once the rules change (as they eventually did in Internet poker) it isn't angle shooting anymore. It's against the rules. Online poker changed.

I think you don't get what I'm trying to tell you angle shooting is, and I think most mafia players don't understand the concept.

You can't just say "ban angle shooting." That doesn't mean anything. You can't enforce that, because angle shooting is anything that doesn't break the rules that gives someone an unfair advantage.

What rules do you specifically want to see? would be the pertinent question.

tutuu wrote: ↑Fri Dec 04, 2020 7:48 pm the definition of poker angleshooting is not the same as the mafia definition of angleshooting, the way most people use it. most people believe that angleshooting is against the rules, they use the phrase in that way (in mafia)

The way mafia players use "angle shooting" is however they want without regard to what it actually means. It's a specific thing, and if you want to call me a Prescriptivist, I don't care. Angle shooting is a very specific thing that the Mafia community didn't make up. If you can't define it, then you can't solve it. If you want to call whatever you want angle shooting and disrespect the poker community, then I'll accuse you of cultural appropriation.

tutuu wrote: ↑Fri Dec 04, 2020 7:48 pm i do not believe martin's game is the only game that had integrity issues

off top of my memory:

radiohead by sloonei - a person violated the "no infodumping rule" and the host gave compensation to the mafia team
simpsons by sloonei - a person violated the "dont claim your identity" rule and the host had to warn that he would start modkilling for it
escape from russia by g-man - a person violated the "no infodumping rule" and the host had to warn them and was considering modkilling them
philosophers mafia by tony - he had to modkill two people, one for violating an infodumping rule, another for going over the post count out of frustration
lion king by dunya - she had to modkill a person who contacted another person by discord and talked to them about the game

Pretend you were the host in each of these. What would you have done differently?

I'd like to offer some long-term perspective from someone who has been here from the beginning.

The vast majority of games here do not involve broken rules, angle shooting, or hosting errors. I understand that the most recent game has perhaps contributed to the notion that a massive overhaul should be considered, but I encourage everyone to take a deep breath and a broad view of The Syndicate's evolution. I also want to remind everyone that Martin's game had a lynch mistake AND two people violate a host rule. That is not normal. Some of the games listed above are by new or newer hosts. There's a learning curve to hosting.

I have hosted on this site for seven years and I have never had a problem with angle shooting that I can recall, nor do I remember anybody else having that problem prior to recently.

There shouldn't be a rule that mentions "angle shooting" because the very definition of angle shooting is doing something that is legal but generally viewed as underhanded. There is no list for that. There never will be. As technology changes, the ability to angle shoot will change. Poker encountered crazy new angle shooting tactics when online poker became a thing. The most notorious was ripping your Internet connection out of the wall to take advantage of Internet disconnection allowances sites had, so that you could bounce out of bad hands to move on to new ones. There was no rule against that, so people did it until there was one. Against the rules? No! Shitty? Underhanded? Yes! That's what angle shooting is.

I believe hosts should make the rules for their games beyond the universal Syndicate rules. And if hosts don't make the rules themselves, then what gives you any confidence they will enforce the rules we write?

tutuu wrote: ↑Fri Dec 04, 2020 6:28 pm
I have played mafia here for half a year and the majority of games have barely anything written in them about the rules

Could you elaborate on this for me?

tutuu wrote: ↑Fri Dec 04, 2020 5:12 pm I believe that the combination of

"We want to leave things to the host's discretion"

And

"The host needs to specify more stuff than simply "No angleshooting allowed". It falls on them to make it clear"

is a very unpleasant one.

You are basically asking the hosts to write a whole ruleset for themselves every game, or am I misunderstanding your posts?

I think you are.

Part of game design is making the rules of the game and enforcing them fairly. We have a few non-negotiables here at The Syndicate. Some of these stem from the ancient commandment, "Don't be an asshat." Many other rules follow from the basic rules of Mafia ("No unauthorized BTSC," "No editing or deleting of posts.") Outside of these principal...principles, it is the duty of the host to ensure the rules provide the framework for an equitable game.

Regarding the second statement you named, the very concept of angle shooting involves NOT breaking a rule, but doing something underhanded to gain an advantage. There are dozens and dozens of possibilities that could fall under that category, and I daresay that even seasoned poker players angle shoot from time to time (hell, stacking your chips a certain way can be perceived as angle shooting. For real.). Angle shooting is something to be discouraged and frowned upon. Poker players who frequently engage in such practices become regarded as seedy and unethical and eventually unwelcome. But if you break a rule, you aren't angle shooting. You're breaking a rule. Therefore "No angle shooting" is an empty rule.

My main point was that hosts should be as clear, straightforward, and unambiguous in crafting their rules as possible. It doesn't mean they need to imagine every single undesirable scenario and write it up. I think an admirable goal is to design a game (not just the rules of the game) in which angle shooting is damn near impossible.

That hosting guideline page is from the earliest days of the site, so while some of it still holds currency, other bits are remarkably outdated (see the section on info-dumping).

I will copy (and then modify) something I said in the moderators' discussion thread this afternoon:

Epignosis wrote:Angle shooting is a poker term (in case you didn't know), that often involves manipulating the dealer in order to get an advantage on your opponents. One example is making an ambiguous motion with your hand, the dealer claims you checked, you get a reaction from your opponents, and then quickly clarify that you were not in fact checking. It's one of those things that isn't explicitly against the rules, but violates the spirit of the game rather than the letter of the law.

Getting modkilled for breaking a rule isn't the same thing as angle shooting, since angle shooting doesn't involve breaking a rule.

I think the most sensible recommendation is for the host to specify what is and is not permitted in the rules. One duty of hosting is determining the unambiguous rules of your game and then enforcing them fairly. "No angle shooting" can never fit this criteria.

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