Mafia Universe Sub Policy: [Discussion Wanted]

[Amrock]

[Moderator @Hally ] approved thread

---

Over the past five years, I've had many discussions with both moderators and normal members of MU around substitution problems. Almost everyone agrees that flaking and substitutes really ruin games, and that they should be avoided as much as possible. I don't really want to get into more detail on this but I will enclose in a spoiler some of the main hit points for those that haven't thought about the issue much.

1. FAIRNESS: Substitutions have huge equity concerns. Whether a good sub or bad sub comes into the game can be the difference between a team winning and losing. More importantly, substitutes can come into a game and result in a team winning or losing in a way that was impossible for them to avoid. Specifically, this is unfair for wolves who have a sub come midway through a game with no possibility to kill them beforehand.

2. SOLVABILITY: 0 posting results in games that are fundamentally unsolvable. Low posting (like, really low posting) results in games where you basically have to kill these posters in case they are mafia, resulting in warped game balance.

3. GAME INTEGRITY: Substitutions result in severe game integrity issues. The most obvious of these is that substitutions are often read into as alignment indicative, whether spoken or not, and whether warranted or not (editing in to see p#872 with the knowledge that wolves sub out at a greater rate than villagers). However, there are more subtle ways substitutions impact game integrity. For example, it is completely valid for players in a game to alter their playstyle in a game for the possibility of a substitute to come in (something that should be completely outside the game). If someone you know can read you well is on the sub list, maybe you alter your playstle if you're mafia in case they sub in! Maybe, if you're town, you'll be less likely to kill 0 posters because you want them to sub in.

4. HOST BIAS: Substitutions result in almost mandatory implicit host bias, unless the host has already designed a systematic way to process substitutions in their game. There is no way for a host to be 100% objective in deciding who they ask to be a sub. It's very likely that a host's unconscious thoughts about how a game is going influence how, when, and who they ask to sub, whether they realize this or not.

For these reasons stated above, I've personally struggled greatly with how to treat substitutions in my games. It's made me want to adopt a no-substitution, modkill-only policy after day 1, which may be harmful but at least avoids these massive game integrity concerns. More importantly, if I do allow subs, it's made me come across a huge dilemma when people request subs in my games:

1) Do I ask people for a reason, and then deny the sub if the reason isn't good enough? For example, "I'm not having fun" "I can't post as much as I would like" or "This person is upsetting me" would not be valid reasons. "I have to go the hospital" would be a valid reason.

2) Or do I just automatically grant any sub?

My concern with these choices is that I don't want to have to dig deep into people's personal lives to determine whether someone's sub reason is "good enough," and I don't think they should have an obligation to do so. But at the same time, I don't want to accept a substitution request from someone that is heated in the moment or is just not feeling the game. And, whether we want to admit it, this is a huge problem on MU- people who sub out because they got slightly busier, who aren't feeling it, who take on another commitment, who got into a conflict, who got into an argument- ie people on MU REALLY don't take requesting a sub as seriously as they should.

I wouldn't care that much, but, again, subs ruin games. I feel like I am put in a really toxic situation, where I either have to choose between asking people for personal details and letting my game suffer, which also isn't fair to everyone else in the game.

Which brings me to my main point: In an ideal world, I would be able to accept all substitution requests with the knowledge that bad reasons will result in punishment from MU mods. But, unfortunately, this is not the case.

1) If a person subs out of a game, they are free to sub in or join a game immediately. This makes absolutely no sense to me- if you need to substitute out of a game, there are very few situations where you should be able to play another game that starts soon. I would propose that there is a 2-4 week automatic signup ban for those that substitute out of games. This will give people the time to get less busy, recover their mental health, etc. And it will at least make people think before subbing out of a game and ruining it. This would obviously be able to be appealed on a case by case basis (like- if you had to go the hospital because a family member was there- you could get removed from this signup list). This policy has worked successfully on other forums and I would heavily be in favor of a trial system of this here.

2) More importantly, flake moderation should be harsher. I'm sorry, but MU is one of the most lenient sites I've seen with flake moderation- even though I'm sure the flake moderators do a good job. Only the most severe transgressions are ever penalized, and then only for a small amount of time. I see only a handful of flake bans per year, which is super non-proportional to the issue at hand: that subs really, really ruin games And they are mostly for 1 month at a time. I think that signup bans need to be much more immediate, much more harsh, and much longer, especially with those that show a pattern. And that flake moderators really need to put up guidelines for what are legitimate reasons to sub out of a game.

--

Thoughts welcome.

[Visorslash]

tldr

i agree that flake moderation should be harsher

i have theorised similar ideas in the past:

eg

first one free
second one signup ban for 2-4 weeks
third, ban for 6 months

refresh every year jan 1.

if only to lower the overhead for the mods for the first sub out (im not against a sign up ban for two weeks as suggested just an alternative)

my hope is that the amount of frivolous sub requests (and make no mistake, this is an actual thing on mu (from various sites too, not just 'mu elite')) goes down once they realise hey if i want to play a game on mu, i have to commit, i cant quit because im having a not great time, or some jerk in teh thread is annoying me

if you are playing a game with friends and midgame you say nah i don't want to do this anymore and leave, people stop inviting you to play pretty quick if you make a habit of it

so yes, i am pro harsher flake moderation

re declining sub outs: i have declined sub outs if the reason someone gives is 'im not having fun or i dont want to play' but sometimes you just get a sub request on MU and no reason why

i guess i may amend my policy to asking why someone wants to sub out in the first place, though i have considered simply never accepting subs and making that known upfront that if you sign up you are there the entire time. (though that hurts genuine emergencies)

most sub outs on mu are not emergencies, probably close to 90-95%

[insomnia]

first one free
second one signup ban for 2-4 weeks
third, ban for 6 months

i like this on first impression

[notblackorwhite]

Regarding handling substitutions I tend to do the following:

If someone asked to be replaced, replace them. Tell the player they will be replaced, and to stop posting immediately.. If you can't find a sub right away this kind of gets weird but I find it's better than the alternatives. Just process the request, and let mods sort it out later.

Regarding who you get to sub in, have a list of subs standing by and either message the first player on the list giving some arbitrary grace period for a reply or several at once processing the substitution for the first player that responds. I don't have good numbers here like how long you should wait or whatever, but if it's still the middle of a game day you want to process the sub immediately and prioritize speed. If it's the night then you can give a bit more respect towards the sub list order as long as you get a replacement before day start.

Regarding flake moderation harshness, I don't feel strongly about it. I think a defined consequence/escalation schedule could maybe be useful but I don't feel strongly about numbers rn.

[lute]

Old lady perspective here so my finger's not at all on the pulse, but in my tenure serial flakers were basically non-existent. You'd have people flake and then just vanish from the site, or you'd have somebody who subs once a year or so, and that was pretty much it. Since I don't keep up with these things I don't know how that has changed, if there's a dedicated group of subbies now that leave the moment things get too spicy. I want to establish this from the outset because it's my understanding that the problem isn't the frequency of individuals subbing out but rather the frequency of substitutions occurring, period. These are two separate issues that can be incorrectly framed as one (and in fairness, the former would lead to the latter anyway) and that can muddy discussion on how to resolve things.

As a result of this belief, I've always been unconvinced by punishments (call them another word if it pleasures you) as a corrective measure, because if the pattern isn't individual behavior then I don't expect an individual punishment to correct it. Besides, that's not preventative, unless you buy into the idea the risk of reprisal incentivizes adherence. The damage is applied at the moment of substitution, no? Now I do partially buy into the idea that having a clear consequence to frivolous flaking would help bring the numbers down a bit, but I'm unsatisfied with partial solutions and skeptical of its potential impact. Not to say trial runs shouldn't be had; the advantage of cynicism is it's good to be proven wrong.

My biggest gripe with substitution discourse is that modkills are sometimes seen as a preferable alternative and frankly I find them loathsome. Holding a hammer and everything starts looking like nails. Mafia's such a battle of numbers that the host interfering with that always felt to me like a greater disruption of the game's integrity than a substitution (on average at least; variance exists). You don't always have a choice and that's understandable; if this whole matter was clear cut it would have been handled ages ago and we'd be holding hands and skipping through the valley of the shadow of death.

I know that at some point the flake log kept track of every substitution and having the numbers in front of us made it evident when problems were cropping up. If it isn't being meticulously maintained or the presentation of the dataset leans too heavily on displaying individuals' statistics rather than overall trends, this could account for problems falling through the cracks and widening them into fissures on the way down.

On paper I support an automatic signup ban following a substitution, lifted upon request, but thinking on it led me to considering a hypothetical scenario that needs an address. Let's say some good for nothing scumbag is playing two games at once. To avoid picking on anybody let's give them a fake name, something lame like Pawnshop Dragon. So Pawnshop Dragon is playing two games and wants to sub out of only one. Reasonably, we can find this unseemly. If circumstances require your substitution, clearly they shouldn't just apply to one game. From the perspective of (let's get melodramatic) justice, they should have to sub out of both. From the perspective of logic, they should have to sub out of both. If they're also about to be signup banned, it's odd that they'd be playing a game whilst banned. So there's no issue, right? The right action is to just sub them out of both, apply consequences, move on? Well there's another angle to look at it from: If they're flaking from one game to focus on another, that is bad, absolutely, but if our actual concern is game integrity, then wouldn't the best option be to agree to the request? Sub them out (or even modkill them, just resolve the slot) of the one game and let them play the other. Wouldn't that cause the fewest issues? But it feels bad, right? Feels like you're letting them get away with something, even if you're going to deliver some sort of punishment for the first sub? Optics are weird too. So what's the answer? These are the sorts of scenarios that, while fringe, you have to be ready to account for when you start fantasizing about rigid rules and A follows B moderation.

I've rambled enough, lost the plot. Hope something in there added to or inspired value in this discussion.

P.S reading into substitutions is for the weakest of villagers

[Vulgard]

Some loose thoughts:

• I like Amrock's idea of automatic signup bans for replacing out. It's a very common thing that people replace out due to things that can be explained by "irresponsibility." Sounds harsh, I know, but it's the truth. Besides, if somebody replaces out for a more serious reason, it's very likely they won't have the capacity to play mafia for a while, so a signup ban shouldn't hurt them. Also, RWSTFO exists, etc. (The fact RWSTFO exists is why I think subouts should be allowed to be discussed in-game, but I believe that's outside the scope of this thread.)
  
• I think modkills instead of replacements are a bad solution, because they create too great of an equity swing. Modkilling a slot can turn the game from odd to even numbers, remove a misyeet, etc. I suppose it works as a preventative measure (to dissuade people from replacing out), but if somebody does replace out regardless, it shakes up the game quite a lot.
  
• Subs undeniably affect the game in major ways. I've just finished a wolfgame where I replaced in on day 1, and... subs made that game completely different from what could have been. It could be argued that me replacing into a wolf slot directly led to wolves winning (sounds boastful, but I think it's just true). Hally replacing into a village slot led to us killing it on night 2. Another sub on the wolfteam led to the sub-in claiming something that entirely changed the game dynamic. Etc. I'm sure many more examples can be listed. Subouts should definitely be minimized, and I think that one of the main reasons subouts are so frequent is that people feel like they can sub out with little to no consequences.
  
• Subouts shouldn't be treated like a crime. Ultimately, we're all here to have fun. People subbing out shouldn't be outright vindicated, and I fear that implementing extremely harsh subout policies would cause that to be the case. I do think a harsher policy is in demand, but it cannot go too far.
  
• There are a few specific things I am for and against. Specifically, I'm against long-time signup bans outside of repeat 'offenses' (constant subouts, like 2 or 3+ in a very short time). I'm against modkills (largely because of the equity swing), and I'm against being overly inquisitive in regards to asking for subout reasons. I don't think a reason needs to be given for a subout, since ultimately, why does it matter? The person wants to sub out regardless. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if people outright lied about those reasons to get the host/mod to leave them alone. And no, this isn't a callout or anything, it's just what I think constitutes reality. I don't even think of that as a bad thing, it's natural. I think it's fine not to ask for subout reasons if a punishment of sorts (signup bans are great here) is consistently applied regardless of the reason.
  
• I don't think a consistent punishment for replaceouts (regardless of reason) is bad. When you really think about it, replacing out is motivated by being unable to play, and if you're supposedly unable to play, then a signup ban should not hurt you - regardless of the reason why you subbed out. Therefore, against the general "not all crimes are equal" principle and whatnot, I think treating all subs equally is not a bad thing in this case. It might get dicier if someone is to receive a permanent signup ban, but I don't think these types of bans should be all that common if new policies get implemented.
  

[Arete]

disclaimer

I am by MU standards fairly hardline anti-sub. I personally have never subbed out of a game, with the arguable exception of one time when I was force-replaced for an integrity issue beyond my control and the game was immediately canned due to the same integrity issue. This ... definitely includes some games when my IRL circumstances really probably should have led to me subbing out, or when staying in the game was pretty directly harmful to me. I am not saying people should do that, and more broadly, nothing I say here should be construed as an attack on a specific player.

when should subs be acceptable?

This isn't really controversial per se, generally speaking most people will say if you ask that people should be allowed to sub out for genuine IRL emergencies, and not because the game isn't going well for them or because they don't like playing scum. I do think it's important to note is that the logical corollary of this is that sometimes, people will end up playing games and not enjoying them. I think this is kind of unavoidable regardless but it's especially unavoidable if you care at all about enforcing a substitution policy.

The other issue, that's harder to handle, is that a lot of the time, subs are made for a ~valid IRL reason, but the person who subbed out wouldn't have subbed out if the game had been going better/if they had been the other alignment/etc. Sometimes this is really obvious -- there was a game recently that I saw, where a player subbed out claiming genuinely serious IRL circumstances, but only subbed out of the game where they were being pushed and not out of any of the other games they were in where they weren't being pushed. Most of the time it is not quite this obvious, and there's not really a good way to handle this since you don't know for sure what they'd have done as another alignment/in different circumstances.

A final point, which doesn't really fit into this section but I don't have a better place to put it, that I'm editing in after seeing other people talking, is that any form of rule based around x number of subs in y period needs to account for the fact that multitabling exists and that most legitimate sub reasons are going to take someone out of every game they're playing in.

overall moderation policy

Before I get into what I think MU's policy should be, I'm going to talk about a couple things we've tried on FoL that haven't really worked (obviously without any nonpublic details).

When I first became a mod on FoL subbing out repeatedly for bad reasons was theoretically against the rules but not really enforced unless you did it a lot, and sometimes not even then. I think this was generally not a great policy -- we didn't really get actual RWSTFOs very often, but we got lots of people subbing out when the game wasn't going perfectly, one player who subbed out of all his wolfgames with a reason just barely plausible enough to get by, etc.

At some point I was like 'wow, this seems bad, let's do something about this' and wrote up a policy the short version of which was that you got 1 free sub per 2-month period, and if you subbed out a second time you'd be automatically blacklisted for 2 months, but you could appeal if you had a good reason for both of them, and if you were regularly using your free sub we could theoretically blacklist you as well. This ... also caused a lot of problems. On one hand, we had people just sub out for bad reasons on the theory that you get one for free. On the other hand, we had people who had actually good reasons to sub out and really should have, who didn't feel like they could, because they were in two games and weren't sure if their appeal would be accepted (we also did a really bad job of explaining how the process actually worked). On the third hand, lots of people who for whatever reason didn't feel like they could sub out handled this by just slanking in their games.

These days we just automatically check in with anyone who subs out once the game ends, and decide how to handle it on the spectrum from 'don't do anything' to 'tell them that's not really what subs are for and blacklist if they do it again' to 'immediately blacklist them' depending on what the reason is.

As for what MU's policy should be, some things I would generally say are clearly good ideas would include:

• Actually, for real, check in on everyone who subs out after the game to find out why. I vaguely remember hearing that this is theoretically already policy, but in practice it doesn't seem to happen (or if it does, mods don't do anything with this information)
• Crack down hard on subs that are blatantly strategic/alignment-related/solely game-circumstance related. I realize that this is sometimes kind of subjective and hard to determine, but just to list a few recent examples ... in a game I recently played, a player extremely blatantly RWSTFO'd, made public comments that arguably spewed his alignment, then asked to be perma'd, and I observe that this has not even resulted in a temporary signup blacklist. (I said earlier that I wasn't trying to attack anyone but I guess that wasn't 100% true, I am totally attacking him for doing this.) In less extreme cases, situations where someone subs out of exactly one game out of several, and it somehow mysteriously happens to be the game where someone is trying to get them executed while they continue to play the other games they're in, also seem to mostly be pretty clear-cut, unless they have a really good explanation.
• Generally do more to discourage players who sub out for reasons that aren't allowed under the rules. Probably at some point this should include blacklisting them, although I'm not necessarily advocating to instantly blacklist everyone who subs out for a vaguely sketchy reason. I do actually think that if MU decided it was going to only be a place where subbing out was only acceptable for actual emergencies, and just told people that when they subbed out for bad reasons, a non-negligible fraction of them would stop doing that.
• Re: consequence level: I don't think instantly escalating to a super long ban would be helpful. I think the basic issue right now is that people pretty much expect that they can sub out with zero consequences, and most people experience the situation 'technically I could get a 1 month blacklist but probably nothing will happen' and 'technically I could get a 6 month blacklist but probably nothing will happen' as pretty similar. The thing that's an issue isn't the length that people are blacklisted for, it's the fact that they don't expect they'll actually be blacklisted. (Obviously if someone gets blacklisted for excessive subbing and then does it again, it makes sense to escalate.)
• I am against any policy that includes actual-for-real-automatic consequences without even talking to the player. In my last game, a player got subbed out because the host forgot to remove them from a spoiled chat. This is pretty clearly not their fault and not something they should be automatically blacklisted for.

I'm kind of concerned that some sort of 'sub out x times, get banned for y months' policy would run into the same issues it did on FoL, although the old FoL policy was a pretty terrible implementation of that theory (this is a self-own not an attack on anyone else on FoL).

individual host decisions

I agree that ideally hosts would be able to trust that if someone subbed out for bad reasons, this would be handled by the moderators. I am also aware that in practice, this is not a thing that hosts can count on.

I think the modkill solution is not great. Subs are an integrity issue, but it's not like modkills aren't, particularly in smallish vanillaish setups. I do think that if a host wants to preannounce in signups that no subs will be allowed and anyone who tries to sub out will be modkilled that's their call, but I personally would be really worried about the possibility of e.g. joining the game and having two scum partners flake and get modkilled.

Generally speaking I expect policies of the form 'people can't sub out' or 'people can't sub out unless they have a good reason to result in players trying to sub out, being told they can't, and responding by giving the absolute minimum effort the rest of the game, or actively trying to sabotage it. I think this is also a bad outcome.

One thing that I think would be good would be for more hosts to adopt a policy of host-blacklisting persistent or known flakers. I think this draws some flak because people think of it as a "Zork thing" but the problem with Zork's substitution policies wasn't the host-blacklisting it was the thing where he would sub people out for not posting in the first 6 hours of a 37/11 while Australian, or whatever.

[Wisdom]

Toughts incoming, this is a topic I have more feelings and less well formulated thoughts about.

To start with, I come from a long history of IRL playing this game. We can't replace people. We still have a way to make people get out of the game if needed, and this is made through players signaling to the host that they have to go during the night and then they get modkilled. That way the players won't know who wolves killed and who peaced out (we play flipless so there's no alignment flips involved). It works for us, the games doesn't really break and if they do the games doesn't last for more than 2-3 hours so it's not too much pain. I've thought about whether or not it would work here to something similar. And, of course, it wouldn't. Anyway.

So how can we fix this issue in forum? I think there are two relevant points to make a community with less replacements in games: Mindset and penalties.

Mindset

Why are people subbing out? A few are doing it because they're new and have no idea what they just got into, a few have a life crisis starting and has to leave. Both of these are kind of unavoidable and unpreventable. Maybe there could be a check-in with new players to make sure they're ready to play the kind of game they've signed up to, but other than that I don't think there's much that can be done.

It's the other types of mindsets that I think people needs to work with: lacking a feeling of responsibility and having too much of a feeling of responsibility.

Let's start with lacking responsibility.

These people don't really care about the games, they don't have very much respect for the games. They tend slank and/or multitable a lot and sign in to more or less all the games available. They don't really care about the results of the game, they mainly just want to keep themselves busy playing. So, if they get bored they sub out, or they just 0-post because they forgot that they signed up for a game. I don't think anything but penalties are going to prevent games to have too much of these players in them. Of course there are people that have these attitudes that manages to play the games and make them fair, but those are not part of the subbing-out problem.

Then we have the too much responsibility. Or maybe they just don't like getting pushed I dunno.

These are the players who subs out because they aren't feeling like they're at the top of their game. Like, maybe they're only able to play for 1-2 hours per day instead of their standard 5-10. So, they feel disrespectful to their teammates and therefore sub out if they are getting pushed, in hopes that their replacement will fix the situation. this needs to stop. Subbing out is always going to make the games worse than if you have a bad game. It's always okay to not be at one's best.

Penalties

I think Amrock's and others suggestion of having an automated sign up ban if a sub-out happens is good. I also think that if someone's multitabling and asking for a sub-out they should be subbed out of all of their games and automatically get sign-up bans. I might be harsh, but I want players to feel like there are consequences for subbing out, and if the reasons are valid then a 2 week sign up ban shouldn't be too hard to deal with.

I also think they should be checked with, talked to. Why did they sub out? Because if the reason isn't really valid, and they immidiately sub out of the first game they start playing after their two weeks sign up ban, give them a 6 month sign up ban. Or at least it shows that someone cares about why they subbed out, which in itself can have positive effect.

If people don't feel anything after subbing out, they won't change their behaviour, or maybe even understand that what they're doing is causing a mess for others. In general I don't think punishments are a good way of dealing with behaviour problems, but maybe it at least can rise some awareness for those who lack that.

Then there's the other side of the coin, me and Arete and whoever else that is playing through despite being a mess, and maybe should have asked for a sub out once or twice by now But that's another discussion.

TLDR; Automated sign-up bans after sub out good

[Wisdom]

One thing that I think would be good would be for more hosts to adopt a policy of host-blacklisting persistent or known flakers. I think this draws some flak because people think of it as a "Zork thing" but the problem with Zork's substitution policies wasn't the host-blacklisting it was the thing where he would sub people out for not posting in the first 6 hours of a 37/11 while Australian, or whatever.

I don't hate this. The problem with Zork wasn't that he had a blacklist (I mean, invitationals are quite similar in comparison and in my experience they rarely have a sub-out problem), the problem was that he meddled with the games too much.

[JohnCarter]

Should sub-requests be allowed by default?: Yes

Should a reason be provided for subbing out?: Yes

If the reason is not acceptable ("i'm not having fun"): Disallowed, exceptions potentially being a new player who has signed up for something out of their depth and has potential to cause game integrity issues.

If the player doesn't give a reason when requesting to sub out: Sub them, tier 2 of timeouts (see second bottom paragraph below). Apply common sense if hear later RE: genuine reasons.

If the reason is acceptable (the rare case of irl emergencies/likewise): Sub the player. If a pattern of 'emergencies' occurs where it indicates a player may be lying, that is a problem. Punishment.

What punishments for serial flakers?: I'm sure mods already have an existing serial flaker punishment policy so that's outside of my scope.

Should a blanket policy of never considering subs be used: I think hosts should be allowed to apply this policy to their games, but as a blanket MU policy - no.

Should MU be harsher on not allowing subs for reasons that are weak? Yes. If the reason is lacking, there needs to be more declining request to sub. If it is not lacking, that's fine, follow the timeout policies.

What timeouts for sub-outs that may not be serial flaking?:
Instance 1: immediate sub out of all current games, 14 day signup ban.
Instance 2: immediate sub out of all current games, one month signup ban.
Instance 3: immediate sub out of all current games, six month signup ban.

What about multiple genuine emergencies?: Moderators are people and will be compassionate if necessary.

[Visorslash]

Subouts for front page completed games for automated

Dessert Mafia: Vulgard subbed in for Sec Rev, Hally subbed in for Pony, Illwei subbed in for Srfanboy (alt?), Artsy subbed in for Ana
Chosen Mafia: Sohjik subbed in for SamPalmer
Mafia Prom: Phigther subbed in for peter the mafia boy, Wesmaster subbed in for Poisonedsquid
Guillos Tactics: Batman subbed in for myc (wouldnt shock me if this was a legit rwso), rasputin subbed in for oliwaz
Mafia Champs practice game 1: WindwardAway subbed in for Amanuensis, inawordyes subbed in for eqsylootz
Epicmafia Invitational: No subs
SwagCity Invitational: Batman subbed in for holyflare
Backup6: No subs
Poisoner21: No subs
Basic Game v2: Naomi subbed in for spf, radishes subbed in for enzique, wisdom subbed in for ultra, guillo subbed in for sun tzu
Valentines Day vig10: Alexa subbed in for schizo (mightve had to do with ban), cape90 subbed in for potato
Ice cream team mafia: theeternalskies subbed out from their team
Best Flavour 13er: Psycho666 subbed in for katze
Geoguessr Mafia: Mischief subbed in for redline, syzgyseraph subbed in for Breshke
Game with longer deadlines: cape90 subbed in for hollowkatt, bad reads subbed in for cemetaries, catbae subbed in for bnavis, illwei subbed in for esooa, laurentus subbed in for dolby, vorros subbed in for rose disco, radishes subbed in for ciderhead, jogiza subbed in for grapefruit
Mafia Hosts revenge: Trust Liberal subbed in for zee, quiche subbed in for triplehaven
grandpas first game: 112 subbed in for vandyfan
Mentors: Vroendal subbed in for poison
Character limited vig: spf subbed in for psychokang, minimum subbed in for dum,
Flipless mountainous: no subs
Anon themed mountainous: alexa subbed in for raskolnikov and triplehaven modkilled
16/8 10er: no subs
Champs but different: radishes subbed in for mendeshotter
an unconventional setup: variance subbed in for andre3000, croggers subbed in from im from ohio, my anime girl alt subbed in subbed in for sayonari, crimsonfox subbed in for palm puree

okay i aint doing the manual ones i lied

thats 24 games and 43 subs, if i can do the counting right

so just under 2 subs per game on average

most of those names dont repeat, so i guess its more, the average random game is filled up with a variety of random people, some of whom are likely to sub out

[Wisdom]

JC coming here bragging with his posting skills

(I agree with everything)

[Vulgard]

Game with longer deadlines: cape90 subbed in for hollowkatt, bad reads subbed in for cemetaries, catbae subbed in for bnavis, illwei subbed in for esooa, laurentus subbed in for dolby, vorros subbed in for rose disco, radishes subbed in for ciderhead, jogiza subbed in for grapefruit

This one is a yikes. Admittedly, I say that without any context.

[Visorslash]

okay i double lied i will do some manual games

RPG mafia: no subs
Witch Hunt: Guillo subbed in for marry, Batman subbed in for Enzique, Trust Liberal subbed in for Dum, Grant subbed in for Dolby, doczeus subbed in for kaiveran,
restless comms 3: no subs
13p mini normal: i think no subs
cracking the cryptic: no subs
didney 3: scheweppes subbed in for vorros, bad reads subbed in for kataniss (er and then back in so i guess this doesnt count),
A magical christmas: anime girl alt subbed in for hydreigon, mentalist subbed in for gray, acemarvel subbed in for yellowgreninja, schweppes subbed in for venti
didney 2: twice shrunk in for nanook, aldo in for venti, schweppes in for crimsonfox (though it seems this was because of hosting delays?) doczeus subbed in for luxy, dolby subbed in for min
among us mafia 2.1: no idea if i should count this, crimson subbed in for wiggles, zeus subbed in for blooming, garden gnome subbed in for yeezys
the covens revenge: neopest subbed in for 01x, bear subbed in for cemetaries, lost monkey in for nitowl, marry in for vcyturi, logic in for roee, bunnelby in for eqsylootz, abraxas in for msp, lol in for tiltedcomedian,
deck mafia 6: (theres a pregame missed confirm after a rerand of storm in for psychokang), alison in for storm,
godfathers and millers: awesome in for dolby, crimsonfox in for zintle
spookyscary: knightsofcydonai in for voltaireism, duskheimmer in for marry, omnioire in for knightscydonia, marting99 for travis
deck mafia 5: lag in for kirby, sett in for totallynotalice, kylem for bluekang, chelsea for ezrakadezra
deck mafia 4: logic in for memory, happy in for macdougall, gikkle in for schweppes, kajot in for ivy, megumin in for totallynotalice
anime world 2: dolby in for riruka,pretender in for ringo, esooa in for silviu, terminator in for thefloyd, , dkkoba in for terminator, shellyc in for gikkle,
shakespear 3 hour: esooa in for krazy, alexa in for insidious lemons, hornet in for coffee cup, bluekang in for poison, logic in for gghana, schweppes in for ciderhead

er i think thats 17 games, roughly 51 subs? so thats about 3 subs per game

my eyes are super tired, calcs could be wrong

41 games, 94 subs, roughly 2.3 per game

more repeat names when considering both lists

takeaways: do not host manual games, (manual game hosts arent hosting good games? - people think they want them and dont?), run invitationals instead

randoms suck $%#!

[Allundberg]

Just ban ppl who wants a sub out or dont post.
1 month ban first time
Longer after depending on circumstances

[Viggorous]

I endorse the death penalty. Or alternative a lottery where at the end of each year, someone's sub % is the chance that they get perma banned.

Interesting ideas/jokes aside, I agree with Amrock and Visor (and have not really read most other posts thoroughly - but that shan't stop me from posting my own opinion!).

Subs and flaking ruin games, it's that simple. I have not played a small game for almost two years, largely due to how insufferable it is to play in games with constant sub outs or no post or both. The last small game I played was so $%#!ing depressing with no/low posters and subs I told myself I won't waste my time on such a game ever again. I've talked with mods about this issue a couple of times, and it's been suggested I just don't play games where I don't know every player, but that ignores what is a major problem of total indifference and lack of responsibility.


I am completely in favor of far stricter rules about subbing and flaking. Of course, real life can happen, and force majeure (any OOG situation that must be dealt with which makes it impossible for you to make the minimum requirement) should always be an acceptable reason for subbing out, but other than that, it should not happen.

Being tired or bored is not a reason to sub out, if you expect you might want to sub out or won't meet posting requirements before the game begins, don't sign up in the first place.
I sometimes get the feeling that some people play WW exclusively for their own enjoyment and couldn't care less about whether others have fun. THAT is more toxic than all the things that are usually deemed toxic, in my opinion, because a dozen other people are dedicating their time to this game to try and have fun. That would be like if I flaked every wolf game just because I don't enjoy wolfing. That is super toxic. You have an obligation to every other player and the host to play the game when you sign up, period. Obviously, I'm not saying you need to thread camp for 12 hours every day, but if you sign up and don't meet the minimum requirements or you sub out because you're not having fun, you're a toxic game ruiner.

There are several "regular" low/no posters who I very much like and enjoy the company of, and it is not my wish that they shouldn't be able to play.
Perhaps there should be different categories of games, not "competitive" vs "casual", but something along those lines, maybe. I don't want to play a game where people aren't there to play to win, where people want to dedicate time and effort. Some people don't want that, many don't particularly care about the game, about playing to win, they just want to $%#! post and chill with friends, and that's fine. But it's a problem when people from both these groups are in the same game (I'm talking small games, it's less of a problem in huge games where low posters are more easily exterminated).


TL;DR: viggo, Amrock, Visor villa core takes

[NANOOKTHECONQUEROR]

I think a site wide discouragement of subs and reaching out to people after they sub out to check in and see what's going on would go a long ways.

Not allowing selective subouts probably a good idea too (some exceptions for edge cases allowed--for example games like amrock 14er or one of the didney worl games, where people had to be subbed out for host errors), ie if you sub out of one game on mu you have to sub out of all your mu games.


My personal experience is that telling people you won't use any subs past pregame or after d1 lowers the amount of subouts, ime a lot of people are less likely to sub out for frivolous or "people are pushing me" reasons when they know it means their slot being modkilled vs someone else replacing it. This is anecdotal obviously, ymmv

[c4e5g3d5]

Batman subbed in for myc (wouldnt shock me if this was a legit rwso), rasputin subbed in for oliwaz

Ftr what happened here was that Guillo had an unconventional "confirm your role before the game starts" rule and these two didn't do it

[Visorslash]

Batman subbed in for myc (wouldnt shock me if this was a legit rwso), rasputin subbed in for oliwaz

Ftr what happened here was that Guillo had an unconventional "confirm your role before the game starts" rule and these two didn't do it

ah, apologies to myc then

that rule might account for a bunch of the pregame subs in guillo games then

[Vorros]

Game with longer deadlines: cape90 subbed in for hollowkatt, bad reads subbed in for cemetaries, catbae subbed in for bnavis, illwei subbed in for esooa, laurentus subbed in for dolby, vorros subbed in for rose disco, radishes subbed in for ciderhead, jogiza subbed in for grapefruit

This one is a yikes. Admittedly, I say that without any context.

I think this had like 14 day cycles or smth. But yeah it was a loong game.

[Absinthe.]

Game with longer deadlines: cape90 subbed in for hollowkatt, bad reads subbed in for cemetaries, catbae subbed in for bnavis, illwei subbed in for esooa, laurentus subbed in for dolby, vorros subbed in for rose disco, radishes subbed in for ciderhead, jogiza subbed in for grapefruit

This one is a yikes. Admittedly, I say that without any context.

I think this had like 14 day cycles or smth. But yeah it was a loong game.

Everyone just got bored of playing this game and subbed out
it was a terrible experience especially to wolf in

[alexa]

should calculate the number of wolf sub-outs in ratio to village sub outs (compared to the number of wolves vs. villagers in a standard game ratio) because i feel like the ratio of wolves subbing out with "excuses" is proportionally so much higher



or maybe i am just salty about all my wolf sub-ins

[LordQuas]

yeah I am very staunchly anti increased sub moderation both because of what lute said, flake subbers arent as much of a thing as people think

but also because everyone acknowledges here that you have to take things into account and the hosts dont want to be the ones prying

and I don't really want to create a dynamic of "lie and create drama inyour personal life or get banned"

That sounds far far far far more toxic to site health to me

[LordQuas]

I also pretty much exclusively play mashes these days though and sub don't really matter in those so bias from that angle maybe

[Alison]

Agree broadly with Arete's post and with the idea that if you sub out of one game you have to sub out of all of them.

Please do remember, whatever you end up doing, that if someone really wants to get out of the game they can just 0 post, or failing that, post the bare minimum with zero content, just counting posts or repeating the same read 20 times. Your sub policy needs to account for that, because you don't want people going "damn, I hate this game but I don't want to get a two month ban... guess it's time to just minimum post every day and slank the rest of the time".

My personal suggestion is to encourage host blacklists more.

[Alison]

should calculate the number of wolf sub-outs in ratio to village sub outs (compared to the number of wolves vs. villagers in a standard game ratio) because i feel like the ratio of wolves subbing out with "excuses" is proportionally so much higher



or maybe i am just salty about all my wolf sub-ins

Definitely agree with this. There was a point in time where I randed town a billion times in a row, and I wanted to rand wolf for a bit. So I decided to look to see if any games were asking for subs, and replace into an MU game, and lo and behold, I was a wolf.

When people are using subbing in as a way to get a free wolf rand, that is a problem.

[Mistyx]

i disagree with uh

a lot of the points made in this thread

i'll type up extended thoughts soon but i think blanket signup bans for subs are an awful idea and agree with the idea that there should be more hands on moderation

i also think subbing out and flaking out are two entirely separate issues that should be handled separately

[notblackorwhite]

should calculate the number of wolf sub-outs in ratio to village sub outs (compared to the number of wolves vs. villagers in a standard game ratio) because i feel like the ratio of wolves subbing out with "excuses" is proportionally so much higher



or maybe i am just salty about all my wolf sub-ins

Lissa did this years ago, and it was at the same rate as rand within like 5% over a big pretty sample size. Subbing really isn't AI.

[Arete]

(ftr I am currently adding up subs in the games Visor mentioned so if you're curious about it don't feel the need to go do a bunch of math, I am already doing the math, only 1 person needs to do the math)

[notblackorwhite]

yeah I am very staunchly anti increased sub moderation both because of what lute said, flake subbers arent as much of a thing as people think

but also because everyone acknowledges here that you have to take things into account and the hosts dont want to be the ones prying

and I don't really want to create a dynamic of "lie and create drama inyour personal life or get banned"

That sounds far far far far more toxic to site health to me

Yeah I just want to reemphasize that I really don't think hosts should have to deal with a player providing an excuse. A potential problem with handling subs is host bias, and giving some kind of value judgement to the reasoning behind a substitution request is about as subjective as it gets.

If a player asks to be replaced, tell them to stop posting (hell, maybe literally mute them both ITT and in private chats) and replace them at the earliest opportunity. The alternatives really are just not as good to me.

[Chloe]

Agree w/ bear n quas

[katze]

i forgot we have flake mods tbh

imo most of the suggestions here are too harsh - from what i read of aretes wall i think it's a step in the right direction (figure out why people are subbing out instead of blanket punishing all replacements) altho obv repeat flakers/replacers can and should be looked at more sternly

[KnightsofCydonia]

Yeah I just want to reemphasize that I really don't think hosts should have to deal with a player providing an excuse. A potential problem with handling subs is host bias, and giving some kind of value judgement to the reasoning behind a substitution request is about as subjective as it gets.

Seconding this point for one very specific reason: it puts an onus on hosts to try and determine if someone's subjectively weak excuse is them not wanting to discuss a personal issue that made them to want to sub out. Someone's reasoning for subbing out could be a polite translation of "my mental health just spiraled" or something that they don't want to open up about on the internet. Hosts shouldn't be expected to read between the lines or push against someone else's boundaries.

[Mistyx]

tried doing a well formatted wall but i got stuck so i'm just gonna kinda stream of consciousness this

i think flaking and subbing are entirely separate things and should be treated as such, the former being more of an actual issue than the latter because it indicates that the player isn't going to be responsible for themselves while playing the game, and i'm actively in favor of harsher moderation on that front

i think subbing out shouldn't be demonized at all or treated like a moral failure on the part of the players doing it, regardless of the reason for doing so, and this is probably a stretch of the arguments happening in the thread but it's the vibe i get from them

i think subbing out for mental health reasons is entirely okay and there just needs to be a distinction drawn between "i am not having fun" and "this game is actively detrimental to my health", on a related note i would like to bring up the syndicate's concept of a mod on duty and suggest something like that be implemented, which i think would reduce sub outs for both of these reasons

i'm strongly against the idea of an automatic ban, there's a lot of reasons for subbing out of specific games that wouldn't prevent you from playing in others, i actually think a lot of subs down to "this game introduced something that i did not agree to when signing up and it is impacting my ability to continue playing", which i think can partially be remedied by more hands-on hosting, with stuff like the aforementioned mod on duty

i also think that most players on mu actually are capable of knowing when they shouldn't be playing, and will be able to self-moderate without needing a signup ban for it

i think what most of my argument comes down to is that this is a game and the priority should be to ensure the players are enjoying themselves and not needlessly damaging their health because they're worried about the consequence if they say they have to step out

i think that about covers it? i might add to this later on but that's my thoughts

[notblackorwhite]

I more or less agree with lute's posts as I most often do, and the part that I specifically am going to ramble about here because it loosely ties into my own stupid bull$%#! is that players who frequently sub out of games in a short period of time are uncommon and are dealt with by mods as soon as a clear pattern emerges relatively quickly. I think it's important to keep that in mind when looking at the substitution problem because punishments for repeatedly subbing aren't really going to solve the problems: we're actually trying to solve here: fewer substitutions overall, minimal game impact when they occur.

Decreasing the rate of substitutions in general is not a problem I have good answers for. In our mashes Ara got it down to an insanely low rate (like less than 5 in our last 3 or something) and she did that by curating the player list, poking players 24 hours before game start to reconfirm they were still ready and willing, and poking players who weren't posting during the day. While this is an effective strategy, the "curating the player list" element is probably the most significant one. That also solves the whole SuccDragon problem by not letting new, unproven players play, but effectively barring new players from most games is also not a healthy strategy for sustaining a community.

Minimizing game impact is I think the thing here that is best suited to be scripted out. Specifically how to time substitutions is something that's come up before but there wasn't a strong consensus on. I think doing it during the Night phase as early into it as possible for the sake of actions is best, and during EOD is not ideal, but beyond that things get less clear. Is 2 hours before EOD okay? 3 hours? Do phase lengths matter here? Beyond that, a player afking day 1 sucks a whole lot, and I've seen aggressive midday 1 subbing lead a player who was ready and willing to play just waiting for school to be over or whatever get unexpectedly sidelined halfway into day 1. I don't have answers here really, and am probably not going to think about it too hard either. I just think this is
probably a better thing to be spending energy on than some hypothetical "ban the flakers" model that likely doesn't make the in-game experience for everyone else any better.

[Rokon]

proposed sub policy: im gay

[orangeandblack5]

Here's our rule on flaking/subs:

Do not strategically replace out or flake. Replacing out should only be done in the instance of an emergency or unforeseen event that renders you unable to continue playing.

Here's our explainer regarding how this is enforced:

After the end of a game in which a player replaced out, a moderator will contact that player to discuss the circumstances that led to the replacement. This does not mean that players will be instantly banned for a questionable replacement, as long as it was not egregiously strategic, but if this forms a pattern of behavior action may be taken.

This prevents putting the burden on the host, and instead allows the moderation team to make moderation decisions regarding players who flake or sub in ways harmful to a given game.

It doesn't prevent every harmful sub ever, but it should do a decent job of catching people for whom it is a continual problem while minimizing the host's need to act as a pseudo-mod. It's also infinitely better than modkills, which imo hurt game integrity far more than substitutions do.

[orangeandblack5]

Yes I'm at work and didn't read the entire thread so it's possible somebody may have already said that idk

[NANOOKTHECONQUEROR]

I would like to add my support to putting the onus of enforcement on the site rather than the host.

[Zack]

I think the discussed auto bans of 2-4 weeks or 2 months are too long and probably countrr-productive

just do an automatic 1 week sign up ban after someone subs out, if your reason is legit the 1 week likely won't matter anyway. Maybe 2 weeks, idk. Something to ensure people aren't frivolously subbing out then immediately joining more games.

[Mistyx]

Something to ensure people aren't frivolously subbing out then immediately joining more games.

does this actually happen

i feel like people keep citing this but this isn't something that i've noticed at all?

[Ranmilia]

I'm going to spoilerquote Viggorous' entire post in agreement.

I endorse the death penalty. Or alternative a lottery where at the end of each year, someone's sub % is the chance that they get perma banned.

Interesting ideas/jokes aside, I agree with Amrock and Visor (and have not really read most other posts thoroughly - but that shan't stop me from posting my own opinion!).

Subs and flaking ruin games, it's that simple. I have not played a small game for almost two years, largely due to how insufferable it is to play in games with constant sub outs or no post or both. The last small game I played was so $%#!ing depressing with no/low posters and subs I told myself I won't waste my time on such a game ever again. I've talked with mods about this issue a couple of times, and it's been suggested I just don't play games where I don't know every player, but that ignores what is a major problem of total indifference and lack of responsibility.


I am completely in favor of far stricter rules about subbing and flaking. Of course, real life can happen, and force majeure (any OOG situation that must be dealt with which makes it impossible for you to make the minimum requirement) should always be an acceptable reason for subbing out, but other than that, it should not happen.

Being tired or bored is not a reason to sub out, if you expect you might want to sub out or won't meet posting requirements before the game begins, don't sign up in the first place.
I sometimes get the feeling that some people play WW exclusively for their own enjoyment and couldn't care less about whether others have fun. THAT is more toxic than all the things that are usually deemed toxic, in my opinion, because a dozen other people are dedicating their time to this game to try and have fun. That would be like if I flaked every wolf game just because I don't enjoy wolfing. That is super toxic. You have an obligation to every other player and the host to play the game when you sign up, period. Obviously, I'm not saying you need to thread camp for 12 hours every day, but if you sign up and don't meet the minimum requirements or you sub out because you're not having fun, you're a toxic game ruiner.

There are several "regular" low/no posters who I very much like and enjoy the company of, and it is not my wish that they shouldn't be able to play.
Perhaps there should be different categories of games, not "competitive" vs "casual", but something along those lines, maybe. I don't want to play a game where people aren't there to play to win, where people want to dedicate time and effort. Some people don't want that, many don't particularly care about the game, about playing to win, they just want to $%#! post and chill with friends, and that's fine. But it's a problem when people from both these groups are in the same game (I'm talking small games, it's less of a problem in huge games where low posters are more easily exterminated).


TL;DR: viggo, Amrock, Visor villa core takes

I think I've personally spoken about the issue at length in discord and my AMA and elsewhere, so no real need to rehash at length, but briefly I concur with the take that subs ruin games and flake subs are FAR too frequent on MU. It is one of the reasons I am currently declining playing most games here.

Seeing mods and staff post that "it isn't that common" is... mindblowing to me; are we living in the same reality? It very much IS common, it happens almost every standard game, it's an epidemic, visor has already been in here posting the numbers. I can only think of a couple of games across two years on this site that have gone without major game affecting subs.

(We may not be living in the same reality: I am getting the impression a lot of staff posting are mostly involved with and pay attention to mashes, and not to "standard" mafia games. But I think Amrock would concur that this topic and policy are not about mashes or mash-style games. Different game types require different policies, of course.)

I do agree that players should not be required to provide reasons for subout requests. I think it is okay to lightly ask "are you sure?" but players should not be required to respond. And of course subs for reasons that are no fault of the player should not carry any further consequences. But I do support semi-auto "if no reason can be provided" signup breaks for people subbing out, and I very much do think this site would do better with stricter and more frequent staff action.

[UncleDynamite]

My suggestions for admins and forum mods

I think the following steps need to be taken:

1. If a player subs out, they should be subbed out from any game they are playing at the moment.
2. If a player subs out, they should be automatically sign-up banned from any werewolf game for the remainder of that week (if applicable) and the entire following week.
3. Players should not be allowed to multitable games with 12/12 cycles.
4. Forum mods should mete out harsher punishments for players that exhibit a pattern of subbing out of games. I think there should be a minimum of 3 months for the first instances of subbing out patterns that forum mods deem punishable (frankly, I actually think the number should be 6 months, not 3, but I am trying to be realistic about the steps that could be actually entertained).
5. Forum mods should be more aggressive in chasing down regular sub-outers than they actually are.

My suggestions for game hosts

1. It is obvious to me that Amrock’s “mk after d1” proposal will not be enforced site-wide, so I’d like to discuss it here. I disagree with this idea. Amrock correctly points out that host bias is inevitable when handling subs, and he is also correct that a sub can have a huge, game-changing impact on the game, but in the vast majority of cases, a modkill produces a greater impact than a sub, and I am saying this as one of the most “modkill-happy” hosts out there.
2. To expand on my previous point, I am strongly against modkilling players who did nothing wrong unless their presence in the game leads to severe game integrity issues. For example, DoctorZeus subbed out on d1 of my last game because of a family emergency. This could have easily happened on d2, and, knowing his reputation, I would have no reason to believe that he was lying to me. Sure, this is an example of host bias, but if players sign up for our games, they should trust us to make this kind of calls.
3. This has never happened to me personally, but since others are reporting on this: game hosts should always ask for a reason to sub someone out, in case one is not provided outright. Sure, the player might lie, but we should still get their words on record, because it might be useful to point this out while reporting issues to the forum mods later.
4. When a repeated sub-outer strikes again, this is a failing not only from the forum mods, but from game hosts as well. Game hosts should always report potentially suspcious sub-outers to the forum mods at the end of the game.
5. More importantly, game hosts should be more proactive in contacting other game hosts about player they consider to be suspicious sub-outers. My blacklist is available to most MU host (please PM me if you want to receive it). This, by the way, goes for players as well.
6. Hosts should be more proactive in blacklisting people they suspect of be suspicious sub-outers (and sign-up flakers, though this is slightly off-topic) even if forum mods have not taken action yet. The problem is that many of the game hosts and admins are too nice for their own good (this, by the way, is not a compliment) and would rather avoid possible unpleasant conflicts. While I understand that it can be awkward to tell someone they are no longer welcome in our games, we should remember that when we host a game, we need to do everything we can in order to make the game fun. People who sub-out at will ruin this fun.

[NANOOKTHECONQUEROR]

Fwiw, I dont think more stringent sub out policy has to be antagonistic by necessity. If someone is consistently subbing out of games because they aren't having fun, it probably isn't great for them to continue playing without taking a break either! There's absolutely room to be compassionate and also cut down on the frequency of subbing out.

This doesn't have to be a "GET TOUGH ON CRIME" kind of thing, imo there is absolutely a middle space where subs are cut down on AND people are treated with compassion and care and not villainized.

[Arete]

please feel free to double-check any of my math, I welcome corrections

Even in cases where I knew why someone subbed out and it wasn't AI I didn't take that into account because cases where I know the sub reason might be alignment-skewed or something

automatic games

Dessert Mafia: Vulgard subbed in for Sec Rev, Hally subbed in for Pony, Illwei subbed in for Srfanboy (alt?), Artsy subbed in for Ana

2 villagers and 2 wolves out of 13 villagers and 4 wolves

Chosen Mafia: Sohjik subbed in for SamPalmer

1 villager and 0 wolves out of 7 villagers and 2 wolves

Mafia Prom: Phigther subbed in for peter the mafia boy, Wesmaster subbed in for Poisonedsquid

lol at this game from 2019 being included because someone necro'd it. Anyways, 2 villagers and 0 wolves out of 13 villagers and 4 wolves

Guillos Tactics: Batman subbed in for myc (wouldnt shock me if this was a legit rwso), rasputin subbed in for oliwaz

1 villager and 1 wolf out of 12 villagers and 3 wolves

Mafia Champs practice game 1: WindwardAway subbed in for Amanuensis, inawordyes subbed in for eqsylootz

2 villagers and 0 wolves out of 12 villagers and 3 wolves

Epicmafia Invitational: No subs

0 villagers and 0 wolves out of 8 villagers and 2 wolves

SwagCity Invitational: Batman subbed in for holyflare

1 villager and 0 wolves out of 13 villagers and 4 wolves

Backup6: No subs

0 villagers and 0 wolves out of 7 villagers and 2 wolves

Poisoner21: No subs

0 villagers and 0 wolves out of 16 villagers and 5 wolves (1 wolf actually did try to sub out and wasn't because the host couldn't find one but I'm not going to count that because that might have also happened for villagers in other games)

Basic Game v2: Naomi subbed in for spf, radishes subbed in for enzique, wisdom subbed in for ultra, guillo subbed in for sun tzu

3 villagers and 1 wolf out of 13 villagers and 4 wolves

Valentines Day vig10: Alexa subbed in for schizo (mightve had to do with ban), cape90 subbed in for potato

I think you missed a sub -- potato also subbed in for alexa (yes, this means the same slot subbed out three times). (I did hear that alexa had tried to withdraw the sub offer before it was processed and the host didn't see, but I'm not taking into account if I know a reason because there might be alignment-correlated patterns in whether I hear about the reason)

The upshot of this is that there were 0 village subs and 3 wolf subs out of 8 villagers and 2 wolves

Ice cream team mafia: theeternalskies subbed out from their team

yeah I'm not going to count this one because counting the total number of villagers and wolves in the game sounds like a nightmare lol

Best Flavour 13er: Psycho666 subbed in for katze

1 villager and 0 wolves out of 10 villagers and 3 wolves

Geoguessr Mafia: Mischief subbed in for redline, syzgyseraph subbed in for Breshke

1 villager and 1 wolf out of 13 villagers and 4 wolves

Game with longer deadlines: cape90 subbed in for hollowkatt, bad reads subbed in for cemetaries, catbae subbed in for bnavis, illwei subbed in for esooa, laurentus subbed in for dolby, vorros subbed in for rose disco, radishes subbed in for ciderhead, jogiza subbed in for grapefruit

5 villagers and 3 wolves out of 12 villagers and 3 wolves

Mafia Hosts revenge: Trust Liberal subbed in for zee, quiche subbed in for triplehaven

0 villagers, 2 wolves, and 0 3ps out of 12 villagers, 4 wolves, and 1 3p

grandpas first game: 112 subbed in for vandyfan

1 villager and 0 wolves out of 14 villagers and 3 wolves

Mentors: Vroendal subbed in for poison

1 villager and 0 wolves out of 12 villagers and 3 wolves

Character limited vig: spf subbed in for psychokang, minimum subbed in for dum

1 villager and 1 wolf out of 11 villagers and 3 wolves

Flipless mountainous: no subs

0 villagers and 0 wolves out of 12 villagers and 3 wolves

Anon themed mountainous: alexa subbed in for raskolnikov and triplehaven modkilled

1 villager and 1 wolf out of 12 villagers and 3 wolves. Unsure if I should actually count Triple here but sure.

16/8 10er: no subs

0 villagers and 0 wolves out of 8 villagers and 2 wolves

Champs but different: radishes subbed in for mendeshotter

1 villager and 0 wolves out of 11 villagers and 3 wolves

an unconventional setup: variance subbed in for andre3000, croggers subbed in from im from ohio, my anime girl alt subbed in subbed in for sayonari, crimsonfox subbed in for palm puree

4 villagers and 0 wolves out of 10 villagers and 3 wolves

manual games

RPG mafia: no subs

0 villagers and 0 wolves out of 12 villagers and 3 wolves

Witch Hunt: Guillo subbed in for marry, Batman subbed in for Enzique, Trust Liberal subbed in for Dum, Grant subbed in for Dolby, doczeus subbed in for kaiveran,

4 villagers and 1 wolf out of 13 villagers and 4 wolves

restless comms 3: no subs

0 villagers and 0 wolves out of 13 villagers and 4 wolves

13p mini normal: i think no subs

0 villagers and 0 wolves out of 10 villagers and 3 wolves

cracking the cryptic: no subs

0 villagers and 0 wolves out of 13 villagers and 4 wolves

didney 3: scheweppes subbed in for vorros, bad reads subbed in for kataniss (er and then back in so i guess this doesnt count),

1 villager and 1 wolf out of 12 villagers and 3 wolves

A magical christmas: anime girl alt subbed in for hydreigon, mentalist subbed in for gray, acemarvel subbed in for yellowgreninja, schweppes subbed in for venti

this didn't list Hydre pregame subbing in for PK Starstorm which imo should count since it happened explicitly postrand so I'm counting it

3 villagers and 2 wolves out of 16 villagers, 6 wolves, and 3 3ps

didney 2: twice shrunk in for nanook, aldo in for venti, schweppes in for crimsonfox (though it seems this was because of hosting delays?) doczeus subbed in for luxy, dolby subbed in for min

2 villagers, 1 wolf, and 2 3ps out of 10 villagers, 4 wolves, and 3 3ps

(the factions in the game are sort of weird this game so I'm doing my best to cluster based on win conditions, the 3ps were pretty townsided so this isn't as unbalanced as it looks but I think they were still not town? open to recategorizing if someone who followed the game makes a compelling argument)

among us mafia 2.1: no idea if i should count this, crimson subbed in for wiggles, zeus subbed in for blooming, garden gnome subbed in for yeezys

2 villagers and 1 wolf out of 14 villagers and 3 wolves

the covens revenge: neopest subbed in for 01x, bear subbed in for cemetaries, lost monkey in for nitowl, marry in for vcyturi, logic in for roee, bunnelby in for eqsylootz, abraxas in for msp, lol in for tiltedcomedian

5 villagers, 3 wolves, and 0 3ps out of 15 villagers, 5 wolves, and 4 3ps

deck mafia 6: (theres a pregame missed confirm after a rerand of storm in for psychokang), alison in for storm

0 villagers, 2 wolves, and 0 3ps out of 14 villagers, 4 wolves, and 1 3p. I think, I'm not 100% sure.

(fwiw PK was not a missed confirm, also not done for AI reasons but I'm not tracking reasons I'm tracking subs)

godfathers and millers: awesome in for dolby, crimsonfox in for zintle

1 villager and 1 wolf out of 10 villagers and 3 wolves

spookyscary: knightsofcydonai in for voltaireism, duskheimmer in for marry, omnioire in for knightscydonia, marting99 for travis

2 villagers, 2 wolves, and 0 3ps out of 14 villagers, 4 wolves, and 1 3p

deck mafia 5: lag in for kirby, sett in for totallynotalice, kylem for bluekang, chelsea for ezrakadezra

4 villagers and 0 wolves out of 13 villagers and 4 wolves

deck mafia 4: logic in for memory, happy in for macdougall, gikkle in for schweppes, kajot in for ivy, megumin in for totallynotalice

3 villagers and 2 wolves out of 15 villagers and 4 wolves

anime world 2: dolby in for riruka,pretender in for ringo, esooa in for silviu, terminator in for thefloyd, , dkkoba in for terminator, shellyc in for gikkle

4 villagers and 2 wolves out of 20 villagers and 10 wolves (I think? I might be misreading the endgame posts, it was mulitball, would appreciate someone spot-checking this)

shakespear 3 hour: esooa in for krazy, alexa in for insidious lemons, hornet in for coffee cup, bluekang in for poison, logic in for gghana, schweppes in for ciderhead

4 villagers and 2 wolves out of 12 villagers and 4 wolves

conclusions

Village subs: 62/467 (13.3% of villagers)
Wolf subs: 37/139 (26.6% of wolves)
3p subs: 2/13 (15.4% of 3ps)

(the next couple breakdowns are probably less meaningful because of sample sizes)

Village subs in automated games: 27/241 (11.2 % of villagers in automated games)
Wolf subs in automated games: 17/67 (25.3% of wolves in automated games)
3p subs in automated games: 0/1 (0% of 3ps in automated games)

Village subs in manual games: 35/226 (15.5% of villagers in manual games)
Wolf subs in manual games: 20/72 (27.8% of wolves in manual games)
3p subs in manual games: 2/12 (16.7% of 3ps in manual games)

(this part gets a little mathy)

I used a two-tailed two-proportion z-test to compare the proportion of village subs to the proportion of wolf subs (I had decided in advance to use this statistical test before I counted the data so that I couldn't subconsciously bias myself into using a test that would give a specific result, I decided not to include 3ps at all because 3ps are weird) and got a p-value of .00018, which in normal person terms means that if villagers and wolves are equally likely to sub out, we would expect a 0.018% percent chance of seeing a difference this extreme. (to be clear, that's 18 in 100,000)

From looking at this I'm reasonably comfortable saying that subouts are not really alignment-neutral on MU, assuming I didn't mess up any of my counting, which I might have. Also, just from looking at the raw numbers here ... this is a lot of subs, roughly a 17.8% sub rate across all alignments. (for comparison when I ran a similar analysis on FoL last July we had about a 13.5% overall sub rate, with much less alignment difference, and we were like 'this is kinda high' and it has since fallen with policy changes)

[orangeandblack5]

jumping back in to say that if people sub out for mental health reasons or whatever that's fine but also we can't just pretend that doesn't harm the experience for everybody else and we therefore should absolutely take action on that party's behalf to prevent them from putting themselves in a spot where it could be an issue again

[Apogee]

please feel free to double-check any of my math, I welcome corrections

Even in cases where I knew why someone subbed out and it wasn't AI I didn't take that into account because cases where I know the sub reason might be alignment-skewed or something

automatic games

Dessert Mafia: Vulgard subbed in for Sec Rev, Hally subbed in for Pony, Illwei subbed in for Srfanboy (alt?), Artsy subbed in for Ana

2 villagers and 2 wolves out of 13 villagers and 4 wolves

Chosen Mafia: Sohjik subbed in for SamPalmer

1 villager and 0 wolves out of 7 villagers and 2 wolves

Mafia Prom: Phigther subbed in for peter the mafia boy, Wesmaster subbed in for Poisonedsquid

lol at this game from 2019 being included because someone necro'd it. Anyways, 2 villagers and 0 wolves out of 13 villagers and 4 wolves

Guillos Tactics: Batman subbed in for myc (wouldnt shock me if this was a legit rwso), rasputin subbed in for oliwaz

1 villager and 1 wolf out of 12 villagers and 3 wolves

Mafia Champs practice game 1: WindwardAway subbed in for Amanuensis, inawordyes subbed in for eqsylootz

2 villagers and 0 wolves out of 12 villagers and 3 wolves

Epicmafia Invitational: No subs

0 villagers and 0 wolves out of 8 villagers and 2 wolves

SwagCity Invitational: Batman subbed in for holyflare

1 villager and 0 wolves out of 13 villagers and 4 wolves

Backup6: No subs

0 villagers and 0 wolves out of 7 villagers and 2 wolves

Poisoner21: No subs

0 villagers and 0 wolves out of 16 villagers and 5 wolves (1 wolf actually did try to sub out and wasn't because the host couldn't find one but I'm not going to count that because that might have also happened for villagers in other games)

Basic Game v2: Naomi subbed in for spf, radishes subbed in for enzique, wisdom subbed in for ultra, guillo subbed in for sun tzu

3 villagers and 1 wolf out of 13 villagers and 4 wolves

Valentines Day vig10: Alexa subbed in for schizo (mightve had to do with ban), cape90 subbed in for potato

I think you missed a sub -- potato also subbed in for alexa (yes, this means the same slot subbed out three times). (I did hear that alexa had tried to withdraw the sub offer before it was processed and the host didn't see, but I'm not taking into account if I know a reason because there might be alignment-correlated patterns in whether I hear about the reason)

The upshot of this is that there were 0 village subs and 3 wolf subs out of 8 villagers and 2 wolves

Ice cream team mafia: theeternalskies subbed out from their team

yeah I'm not going to count this one because counting the total number of villagers and wolves in the game sounds like a nightmare lol

Best Flavour 13er: Psycho666 subbed in for katze

1 villager and 0 wolves out of 10 villagers and 3 wolves

Geoguessr Mafia: Mischief subbed in for redline, syzgyseraph subbed in for Breshke

1 villager and 1 wolf out of 13 villagers and 4 wolves

Game with longer deadlines: cape90 subbed in for hollowkatt, bad reads subbed in for cemetaries, catbae subbed in for bnavis, illwei subbed in for esooa, laurentus subbed in for dolby, vorros subbed in for rose disco, radishes subbed in for ciderhead, jogiza subbed in for grapefruit

5 villagers and 3 wolves out of 12 villagers and 3 wolves

Mafia Hosts revenge: Trust Liberal subbed in for zee, quiche subbed in for triplehaven

0 villagers, 2 wolves, and 0 3ps out of 12 villagers, 4 wolves, and 1 3p

grandpas first game: 112 subbed in for vandyfan

1 villager and 0 wolves out of 14 villagers and 3 wolves

Mentors: Vroendal subbed in for poison

1 villager and 0 wolves out of 12 villagers and 3 wolves

Character limited vig: spf subbed in for psychokang, minimum subbed in for dum

1 villager and 1 wolf out of 11 villagers and 3 wolves

Flipless mountainous: no subs

0 villagers and 0 wolves out of 12 villagers and 3 wolves

Anon themed mountainous: alexa subbed in for raskolnikov and triplehaven modkilled

1 villager and 1 wolf out of 12 villagers and 3 wolves. Unsure if I should actually count Triple here but sure.

16/8 10er: no subs

0 villagers and 0 wolves out of 8 villagers and 2 wolves

Champs but different: radishes subbed in for mendeshotter

1 villager and 0 wolves out of 11 villagers and 3 wolves

an unconventional setup: variance subbed in for andre3000, croggers subbed in from im from ohio, my anime girl alt subbed in subbed in for sayonari, crimsonfox subbed in for palm puree

4 villagers and 0 wolves out of 10 villagers and 3 wolves

manual games

RPG mafia: no subs

0 villagers and 0 wolves out of 12 villagers and 3 wolves

Witch Hunt: Guillo subbed in for marry, Batman subbed in for Enzique, Trust Liberal subbed in for Dum, Grant subbed in for Dolby, doczeus subbed in for kaiveran,

4 villagers and 1 wolf out of 13 villagers and 4 wolves

restless comms 3: no subs

0 villagers and 0 wolves out of 13 villagers and 4 wolves

13p mini normal: i think no subs

0 villagers and 0 wolves out of 10 villagers and 3 wolves

cracking the cryptic: no subs

0 villagers and 0 wolves out of 13 villagers and 4 wolves

didney 3: scheweppes subbed in for vorros, bad reads subbed in for kataniss (er and then back in so i guess this doesnt count),

1 villager and 1 wolf out of 12 villagers and 3 wolves

A magical christmas: anime girl alt subbed in for hydreigon, mentalist subbed in for gray, acemarvel subbed in for yellowgreninja, schweppes subbed in for venti

this didn't list Hydre pregame subbing in for PK Starstorm which imo should count since it happened explicitly postrand so I'm counting it

3 villagers and 2 wolves out of 16 villagers, 6 wolves, and 3 3ps

didney 2: twice shrunk in for nanook, aldo in for venti, schweppes in for crimsonfox (though it seems this was because of hosting delays?) doczeus subbed in for luxy, dolby subbed in for min

2 villagers, 1 wolf, and 2 3ps out of 10 villagers, 4 wolves, and 3 3ps

(the factions in the game are sort of weird this game so I'm doing my best to cluster based on win conditions, the 3ps were pretty townsided so this isn't as unbalanced as it looks but I think they were still not town? open to recategorizing if someone who followed the game makes a compelling argument)

among us mafia 2.1: no idea if i should count this, crimson subbed in for wiggles, zeus subbed in for blooming, garden gnome subbed in for yeezys

2 villagers and 1 wolf out of 14 villagers and 3 wolves

the covens revenge: neopest subbed in for 01x, bear subbed in for cemetaries, lost monkey in for nitowl, marry in for vcyturi, logic in for roee, bunnelby in for eqsylootz, abraxas in for msp, lol in for tiltedcomedian

5 villagers, 3 wolves, and 0 3ps out of 15 villagers, 5 wolves, and 4 3ps

deck mafia 6: (theres a pregame missed confirm after a rerand of storm in for psychokang), alison in for storm

0 villagers, 2 wolves, and 0 3ps out of 14 villagers, 4 wolves, and 1 3p. I think, I'm not 100% sure.

(fwiw PK was not a missed confirm, also not done for AI reasons but I'm not tracking reasons I'm tracking subs)

godfathers and millers: awesome in for dolby, crimsonfox in for zintle

1 villager and 1 wolf out of 10 villagers and 3 wolves

spookyscary: knightsofcydonai in for voltaireism, duskheimmer in for marry, omnioire in for knightscydonia, marting99 for travis

2 villagers, 2 wolves, and 0 3ps out of 14 villagers, 4 wolves, and 1 3p

deck mafia 5: lag in for kirby, sett in for totallynotalice, kylem for bluekang, chelsea for ezrakadezra

4 villagers and 0 wolves out of 13 villagers and 4 wolves

deck mafia 4: logic in for memory, happy in for macdougall, gikkle in for schweppes, kajot in for ivy, megumin in for totallynotalice

3 villagers and 2 wolves out of 15 villagers and 4 wolves

anime world 2: dolby in for riruka,pretender in for ringo, esooa in for silviu, terminator in for thefloyd, , dkkoba in for terminator, shellyc in for gikkle

4 villagers and 2 wolves out of 20 villagers and 10 wolves (I think? I might be misreading the endgame posts, it was mulitball, would appreciate someone spot-checking this)

shakespear 3 hour: esooa in for krazy, alexa in for insidious lemons, hornet in for coffee cup, bluekang in for poison, logic in for gghana, schweppes in for ciderhead

4 villagers and 2 wolves out of 12 villagers and 4 wolves

conclusions

Village subs: 62/467 (13.3% of villagers)
Wolf subs: 37/139 (26.6% of wolves)
3p subs: 2/13 (15.4% of 3ps)

(the next couple breakdowns are probably less meaningful because of sample sizes)

Village subs in automated games: 27/241 (11.2 % of villagers in automated games)
Wolf subs in automated games: 17/67 (25.3% of wolves in automated games)
3p subs in automated games: 0/1 (0% of 3ps in automated games)

Village subs in manual games: 35/226 (15.5% of villagers in manual games)
Wolf subs in manual games: 20/72 (27.8% of wolves in manual games)
3p subs in manual games: 2/12 (16.7% of 3ps in manual games)

(this part gets a little mathy)

I used a two-tailed two-proportion z-test to compare the proportion of village subs to the proportion of wolf subs (I had decided in advance to use this statistical test before I counted the data so that I couldn't subconsciously bias myself into using a test that would give a specific result, I decided not to include 3ps at all because 3ps are weird) and got a p-value of .00018, which in normal person terms means that if villagers and wolves are equally likely to sub out, we would expect a 0.018% percent chance of seeing a difference this extreme. (to be clear, that's 18 in 100,000)

From looking at this I'm reasonably comfortable saying that subouts are not really alignment-neutral on MU, assuming I didn't mess up any of my counting, which I might have. Also, just from looking at the raw numbers here ... this is a lot of subs, roughly a 17.8% sub rate across all alignments. (for comparison when I ran a similar analysis on FoL last July we had about a 13.5% overall sub rate, with much less alignment difference, and we were like 'this is kinda high' and it has since fallen with policy changes)

Pretty condemning numbers imo

And the kind of thing that 100% should be prompting reform both on the examinations of why people sub as a wolf and the rate of subbing in general and how the site responds

(I have more thoughts I'm typing up on this and other bits but. yeah. this really speaks for itself.)

Also thanks Arete!

[katze]

math

(thank you for doing the effort)

[notblackorwhite]

Seeing mods and staff post that "it isn't that common" is... mindblowing to me; are we living in the same reality? It very much IS common, it happens almost every standard game, it's an epidemic, visor has already been in here posting the numbers. I can only think of a couple of games across two years on this site that have gone without major game affecting subs.

I don't think anyone was arguing that subs don't happen frequently, but rather that it isn't a small subset of players responsible for most of the substitutions. Most substitutions are players that don't sub out very often. I looked at the examples listed by Visorslash and counted I think 6 names that subbed out more than once across all of them, and then checked the mod log and literally 4 of them are banned.

I really don't think harsher punishments for players who really don't sub out with any regularity is going to get us to a better place as a community.

[NANOOKTHECONQUEROR]

please feel free to double-check any of my math, I welcome corrections

Even in cases where I knew why someone subbed out and it wasn't AI I didn't take that into account because cases where I know the sub reason might be alignment-skewed or something

automatic games

Dessert Mafia: Vulgard subbed in for Sec Rev, Hally subbed in for Pony, Illwei subbed in for Srfanboy (alt?), Artsy subbed in for Ana

2 villagers and 2 wolves out of 13 villagers and 4 wolves

Chosen Mafia: Sohjik subbed in for SamPalmer

1 villager and 0 wolves out of 7 villagers and 2 wolves

Mafia Prom: Phigther subbed in for peter the mafia boy, Wesmaster subbed in for Poisonedsquid

lol at this game from 2019 being included because someone necro'd it. Anyways, 2 villagers and 0 wolves out of 13 villagers and 4 wolves

Guillos Tactics: Batman subbed in for myc (wouldnt shock me if this was a legit rwso), rasputin subbed in for oliwaz

1 villager and 1 wolf out of 12 villagers and 3 wolves

Mafia Champs practice game 1: WindwardAway subbed in for Amanuensis, inawordyes subbed in for eqsylootz

2 villagers and 0 wolves out of 12 villagers and 3 wolves

Epicmafia Invitational: No subs

0 villagers and 0 wolves out of 8 villagers and 2 wolves

SwagCity Invitational: Batman subbed in for holyflare

1 villager and 0 wolves out of 13 villagers and 4 wolves

Backup6: No subs

0 villagers and 0 wolves out of 7 villagers and 2 wolves

Poisoner21: No subs

0 villagers and 0 wolves out of 16 villagers and 5 wolves (1 wolf actually did try to sub out and wasn't because the host couldn't find one but I'm not going to count that because that might have also happened for villagers in other games)

Basic Game v2: Naomi subbed in for spf, radishes subbed in for enzique, wisdom subbed in for ultra, guillo subbed in for sun tzu

3 villagers and 1 wolf out of 13 villagers and 4 wolves

Valentines Day vig10: Alexa subbed in for schizo (mightve had to do with ban), cape90 subbed in for potato

I think you missed a sub -- potato also subbed in for alexa (yes, this means the same slot subbed out three times). (I did hear that alexa had tried to withdraw the sub offer before it was processed and the host didn't see, but I'm not taking into account if I know a reason because there might be alignment-correlated patterns in whether I hear about the reason)

The upshot of this is that there were 0 village subs and 3 wolf subs out of 8 villagers and 2 wolves

Ice cream team mafia: theeternalskies subbed out from their team

yeah I'm not going to count this one because counting the total number of villagers and wolves in the game sounds like a nightmare lol

Best Flavour 13er: Psycho666 subbed in for katze

1 villager and 0 wolves out of 10 villagers and 3 wolves

Geoguessr Mafia: Mischief subbed in for redline, syzgyseraph subbed in for Breshke

1 villager and 1 wolf out of 13 villagers and 4 wolves

Game with longer deadlines: cape90 subbed in for hollowkatt, bad reads subbed in for cemetaries, catbae subbed in for bnavis, illwei subbed in for esooa, laurentus subbed in for dolby, vorros subbed in for rose disco, radishes subbed in for ciderhead, jogiza subbed in for grapefruit

5 villagers and 3 wolves out of 12 villagers and 3 wolves

Mafia Hosts revenge: Trust Liberal subbed in for zee, quiche subbed in for triplehaven

0 villagers, 2 wolves, and 0 3ps out of 12 villagers, 4 wolves, and 1 3p

grandpas first game: 112 subbed in for vandyfan

1 villager and 0 wolves out of 14 villagers and 3 wolves

Mentors: Vroendal subbed in for poison

1 villager and 0 wolves out of 12 villagers and 3 wolves

Character limited vig: spf subbed in for psychokang, minimum subbed in for dum

1 villager and 1 wolf out of 11 villagers and 3 wolves

Flipless mountainous: no subs

0 villagers and 0 wolves out of 12 villagers and 3 wolves

Anon themed mountainous: alexa subbed in for raskolnikov and triplehaven modkilled

1 villager and 1 wolf out of 12 villagers and 3 wolves. Unsure if I should actually count Triple here but sure.

16/8 10er: no subs

0 villagers and 0 wolves out of 8 villagers and 2 wolves

Champs but different: radishes subbed in for mendeshotter

1 villager and 0 wolves out of 11 villagers and 3 wolves

an unconventional setup: variance subbed in for andre3000, croggers subbed in from im from ohio, my anime girl alt subbed in subbed in for sayonari, crimsonfox subbed in for palm puree

4 villagers and 0 wolves out of 10 villagers and 3 wolves

manual games

RPG mafia: no subs

0 villagers and 0 wolves out of 12 villagers and 3 wolves

Witch Hunt: Guillo subbed in for marry, Batman subbed in for Enzique, Trust Liberal subbed in for Dum, Grant subbed in for Dolby, doczeus subbed in for kaiveran,

4 villagers and 1 wolf out of 13 villagers and 4 wolves

restless comms 3: no subs

0 villagers and 0 wolves out of 13 villagers and 4 wolves

13p mini normal: i think no subs

0 villagers and 0 wolves out of 10 villagers and 3 wolves

cracking the cryptic: no subs

0 villagers and 0 wolves out of 13 villagers and 4 wolves

didney 3: scheweppes subbed in for vorros, bad reads subbed in for kataniss (er and then back in so i guess this doesnt count),

1 villager and 1 wolf out of 12 villagers and 3 wolves

A magical christmas: anime girl alt subbed in for hydreigon, mentalist subbed in for gray, acemarvel subbed in for yellowgreninja, schweppes subbed in for venti

this didn't list Hydre pregame subbing in for PK Starstorm which imo should count since it happened explicitly postrand so I'm counting it

3 villagers and 2 wolves out of 16 villagers, 6 wolves, and 3 3ps

didney 2: twice shrunk in for nanook, aldo in for venti, schweppes in for crimsonfox (though it seems this was because of hosting delays?) doczeus subbed in for luxy, dolby subbed in for min

2 villagers, 1 wolf, and 2 3ps out of 10 villagers, 4 wolves, and 3 3ps

(the factions in the game are sort of weird this game so I'm doing my best to cluster based on win conditions, the 3ps were pretty townsided so this isn't as unbalanced as it looks but I think they were still not town? open to recategorizing if someone who followed the game makes a compelling argument)

among us mafia 2.1: no idea if i should count this, crimson subbed in for wiggles, zeus subbed in for blooming, garden gnome subbed in for yeezys

2 villagers and 1 wolf out of 14 villagers and 3 wolves

the covens revenge: neopest subbed in for 01x, bear subbed in for cemetaries, lost monkey in for nitowl, marry in for vcyturi, logic in for roee, bunnelby in for eqsylootz, abraxas in for msp, lol in for tiltedcomedian

5 villagers, 3 wolves, and 0 3ps out of 15 villagers, 5 wolves, and 4 3ps

deck mafia 6: (theres a pregame missed confirm after a rerand of storm in for psychokang), alison in for storm

0 villagers, 2 wolves, and 0 3ps out of 14 villagers, 4 wolves, and 1 3p. I think, I'm not 100% sure.

(fwiw PK was not a missed confirm, also not done for AI reasons but I'm not tracking reasons I'm tracking subs)

godfathers and millers: awesome in for dolby, crimsonfox in for zintle

1 villager and 1 wolf out of 10 villagers and 3 wolves

spookyscary: knightsofcydonai in for voltaireism, duskheimmer in for marry, omnioire in for knightscydonia, marting99 for travis

2 villagers, 2 wolves, and 0 3ps out of 14 villagers, 4 wolves, and 1 3p

deck mafia 5: lag in for kirby, sett in for totallynotalice, kylem for bluekang, chelsea for ezrakadezra

4 villagers and 0 wolves out of 13 villagers and 4 wolves

deck mafia 4: logic in for memory, happy in for macdougall, gikkle in for schweppes, kajot in for ivy, megumin in for totallynotalice

3 villagers and 2 wolves out of 15 villagers and 4 wolves

anime world 2: dolby in for riruka,pretender in for ringo, esooa in for silviu, terminator in for thefloyd, , dkkoba in for terminator, shellyc in for gikkle

4 villagers and 2 wolves out of 20 villagers and 10 wolves (I think? I might be misreading the endgame posts, it was mulitball, would appreciate someone spot-checking this)

shakespear 3 hour: esooa in for krazy, alexa in for insidious lemons, hornet in for coffee cup, bluekang in for poison, logic in for gghana, schweppes in for ciderhead

4 villagers and 2 wolves out of 12 villagers and 4 wolves

conclusions

Village subs: 62/467 (13.3% of villagers)
Wolf subs: 37/139 (26.6% of wolves)
3p subs: 2/13 (15.4% of 3ps)

(the next couple breakdowns are probably less meaningful because of sample sizes)

Village subs in automated games: 27/241 (11.2 % of villagers in automated games)
Wolf subs in automated games: 17/67 (25.3% of wolves in automated games)
3p subs in automated games: 0/1 (0% of 3ps in automated games)

Village subs in manual games: 35/226 (15.5% of villagers in manual games)
Wolf subs in manual games: 20/72 (27.8% of wolves in manual games)
3p subs in manual games: 2/12 (16.7% of 3ps in manual games)

(this part gets a little mathy)

I used a two-tailed two-proportion z-test to compare the proportion of village subs to the proportion of wolf subs (I had decided in advance to use this statistical test before I counted the data so that I couldn't subconsciously bias myself into using a test that would give a specific result, I decided not to include 3ps at all because 3ps are weird) and got a p-value of .00018, which in normal person terms means that if villagers and wolves are equally likely to sub out, we would expect a 0.018% percent chance of seeing a difference this extreme. (to be clear, that's 18 in 100,000)

From looking at this I'm reasonably comfortable saying that subouts are not really alignment-neutral on MU, assuming I didn't mess up any of my counting, which I might have. Also, just from looking at the raw numbers here ... this is a lot of subs, roughly a 17.8% sub rate across all alignments. (for comparison when I ran a similar analysis on FoL last July we had about a 13.5% overall sub rate, with much less alignment difference, and we were like 'this is kinda high' and it has since fallen with policy changes)

Didney 2 had several pregame subouts due to host error, fwiw. I was one, idr who the others were