Would an example help my dear?
Assume you are an investigative role, let's say a cop. During night 1, you investigate someone, and turn up a scum result. Powerful result, but only way to prove it is by claiming. So you do nothing during day 2, since sharing that information would (according to you) benefit scum more than town. During night 2, you die. The information you had gained during night 1 is lost.
Is that a boon to town or mafia, failing to deliver information due to time constraint?
If you knew you would be alive during day 3, and able to share said info (and any gained during night 2), withholding the information is the wise choice. If you know you won't be able to share it during day 3, will you share it during day 2 or sit on it?

And I think you are the only one who says "No, you shouldn't talk, it's bad", while the other 8 people are asking "Should we share?". It is quite possible that I'm not remembering things as I should though, seems my mind is elsewhere.
Now, where has that sherry hid itself? I'm off to find a glass.

Feeling a bit lonely, JMich since you're building yourself such a nice friend?
We are not, and have never been, talking about anything even remotely close to having a guilty cop inspection on anyone. And for the record, if I, as the hypothetical cop, wake up day two with a valid cop inspection you can be damn sure I'm not revealing it, unless I absolutely have to.
And, just to make sure I'm.being entirely clear, the scenario you suggested has nothing at all tons with why it would be a good or bad idea to reveal likes, dislikes or clues. Care to try again?

As for your second part, are you suggesting that we should be having a discussion on whether or not to reveal role info, where being against is disallowed? Difference of opinion != difference of alignment.

I thought we all had a restriction that we could only share likes, dislikes and clues during day 1. After that, we cannot share said information. So it's comparable to the hypothetical cop that doesn't share anything during day 2 and cannot do so during day 3. You did say you wouldn't be sharing though, which I do see as denying information (not withholding for later revealing).

I would like to see a discussion, where both sides are heard, and not assume that doing one thing or the other is more likely to help scum than town. So far you've said that info dumps are bad, even if you only have a limited time frame to reveal said info. I (and SPF) have said that since the time frame is limited, it is possible that a different mindset should apply to said info. 6 of us have thought it prudent to share likes and dislikes so far, and 4 have also shared clues. Feel free to keep them to yourself, but do ask, how would keeping such information hidden help town?

Off to finish the sherry and sleep then.

Just a word to introduce one nuance to the cop analogy. The holder of unshare-able hints is not dead, and still uses his hint (cops having reads sometimes use them without revealing them). The unshared hint is not "lost". What is lost (for other players) is its combination with other hints, in a system where they probably get their values by confrontation with each others. I'd say that a better analogy is a leecher in a peer-to-peer system.

Now, the reason to avoid it is the idea that the complete puzzle may help mafia as much, if not more, than town. Of course it can help them, at worst, to target and identify possible roles, which weights less than the identification and targetting of mafiosi, but I also expect the full puzzle to be more helpful for solving the petty mystery of role distributions than for directly revealing the scum gang (which would be more of a straightforward victory-defining puzzle, bypassing the bandwagon analysis gameplay, and this seems a bit unlikely to me). I imagine that what full puzzle analysis (data confrontation) would lead to would be first powers distributions and only secondly alignment distribution. That is : "first" a mafia bonus, and "next" a town bonus. I mean "first" and "next" both in a temporal sense, and in a sense of probability of efficiency.

If you take the mafia side, their night conversation will be a total sharing of infos, with no fear of its instrumentalisation by the other side. These shared infos might complement a "full puzzle", maybe even correct a "full puzzle with some fake pieces". There are two ways to look at this : We can aim at equal weapons by trying to make the "full puzzle" universal, but it may be a flawed puzzle (for town only) which benefits mafia "first". Or we can aim at equal weapons by trying to make it an "incomplete puzzle" for all, but the incomplete puzzle may be partly less incomplete for mafia (sharing their infos at night) and may render more difficult the "second" bonus (the one benefitting town, the one I assume to be less accessible but more powerful than the "first" bonus which benefits mafia).

As said, I lean more towards the "incomplete for all" strategy (which is neither "avoid info sharing" nor "share infos fully"), but this is based on a couple of gratuitous assumptions : the presence of power roles, their importance, their vulnerability to info sharing (an assumption itself partly based on my own possibly false, info-based, character deduction), the "sequence of clarification" that full puzzle would allow.

So, that's a lot of questionnable links in a chain of reasoning, but I would like every townie who's building up an opinion to at least consider them. And, in possible, to clarify which points determine their conclusions.

The expressed line of reasoning may become as important as the ensuing decisions.

I'm not understanding why Zchinque is so set against sharing the info at any point. I agree that the info dumping right at the start of the day without discussion was bad, but I don't see why we shouldn't necessarily share it after some discussion. Given that we can't even mention them after today, it seems like something that's worth proper debate (which at least JMich is attempting). I am cautiously in favour of sharing the info.

Zchinque, given that today is the only day we can share the info, saying that you're not going to reveal them today is saying that you're not going to reveal them at all, ever. Even if you think it's the right thing to do, it's undoubtedly denying information (to both the town and mafia).

It's worth bearing in mind that the mafia (or indeed any neutrals) might know more about the significance of the likes and dislikes. I already have a tentative neutral read on Zchinque so I wonder if that's the reason for his opposition to sharing?

Well I have no problem speaking about what I like.

I like men...well most men. I do not like my brother.

As a matter of fact I feel sad about that poor ski instructor and wish whomever killed him would have spared him and killed my brother instead. I'm certain this will come back to haunt me later but I really don't care. He's a horrible person. Almost as horrible as those English people....seriously can't they do anything about those teeth?? And who drinks warm beer, barbarians?!?!

I see more potential downsides than upsides. No one has so far provided me with what they expect to get out of this info sharing, other than the info being shared, which is a meaningless tautology. And no one has given a reason for why we should share it, other than because we can't do it tomorrow, which is a poor reason.

And since I know some of you will ask, the potential downsides I see is that it narrows down options for who might be whom. We have a player with inspector as a title - anyone who say they like or dislike the inspector are essentially saying they're not the inspector. That helps the scum as I'm guessing they'd love to off said inspector the first night. We have a married couple (or two? Sorry, it's a hassle to check this stuff while writing a post on my phone), and while they might not like each other, if we have a situation where someone says they like [husband] and some says they like [wife], there are good chances they are husband and wife, which narrows it down further. And the scumsters likely know who they.themselves.are, and their partners, making any such narrowing down much easier for them than for townies. Let's for a second assume that the scum would like to kill the.inspector, in a worst case.scenario two people say they like/dislike the inspector, and we have an implied married couple. Add me and Amok to that, since we've already said that we were not in the opening scene which, assuming we're truthful, means we're not the inspector tor. Let's further assume that none of the six of us are scum (as said, worst case scenario) - that would.mean that the scum have a 1/6 chance of 'randomly' hitting the inspector (1/5 if we for the sake of worst case scenario assume a mislynch on a townie not among the six previously mentioned). Which is a long way from the 1/12 or 1/11 they'd have had if.none of this has been revealed. And yes, I realise that this takes a lot.of assumptions and is very much a worst case scenario. But it is a possible scenario, and something we need to.take into account.

Also, while neither you or JMich as said so outright, I get the idea that you think I will outright refuse to share my information. I have not said so, and will not do so. I know how mafia works, it's a game of tyranny of majority. If you get the majority to go for the info plan, I will follow along. Until that time, I will continue to argue against it, unless I should be persuaded that it's actually a good idea.

Love the fact that if you change information with vote, your "argument" takes a lovely light. Add to this the fact that you wish to hammer, and I think I should be looking less at the sherry and more towards you. But nah, ignore me, voting and sharing information has nothing in common.

But if this is the case, shall we not just clarify the tyranny and see where we stand? lets all vote on whether we want to share likes and clues or not and just get this situation over with.

I vote:
Likes: Yes
Clues: Yes

Two kinds of people.

1) People who talk about doing something.

2) People who do something.

And which kind are you?

Person who talks about people?

And as for sharing likes/dislikes and clues, let's say I'm for it (if not already apparent).

NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!

What happened to the boobies?????? You horrible person!!!!!

unvote - vote flubbucket

Also a clarification, so things are not muddled.

Likes and clues are two different things, I think. and while - yes, it is possible for mafia to identify the inspector from the clues, there is very little chance to do so from the clues. At this stage, I do think that what is most important is to get all the clues out in the open, so we can see how valuable they are and if we can identify the killers from them, so it is reasonable to vote yes on clues and no on likes, for example. You do not need to vote the same for both clues and likes (though I think it is the best to have as much info to start with)

If we get all clues and figure out the killers, then we can work on the likes and figure out which player is what person.... if it makes any sense.