i had a good question pop up in my head with this recent excerpt "But proven means different things to different people. We don't enforce a standard regarding it." Why are players allowed to assume some scenarios (usually involving the social aspects of the game in chat/text) can lead to a player being proven despite it not being 100% certainty. The easiest and most recent example of this exists in https://www.seriousgmod.com/threads/report-against-ted.55207/ . I want to focus on the "traitor kosed him" portion of his reasoning, since his POV proved he technically didn't see Alex murder him and would need more backing to justify his reasoning. A traitor kosed another player, and died in this scenario, and the assumption was made that the kosed player must be innocent. There's possibilities that a traitor could of intentionally done this to a t buddy to deceive the other team and trick them into killing each other or could of been crossfired kosed for a kos the player was never able to properly complete. There's no framework on what means a player is proven, like Jabba said above. However, to kill a player for being a traitor based off the mathematics provided and not a traitorous act, there should be 100% certainty like the common sense guidelines lay out. This scenario only leans to 95% certainty because of that, making it an invalid kill since 5% of this could of played out differently. Are traitor koses/any abstract reasoning based off chat other than koses just considered to be part of the game and a tricky proponent of common sense that could lead to a few less than 100% kills? Should "proven" be limited to things that can physically be seen or measured either using your eyes or a dna scanner?
This is mostly my understanding, but "proven" is somewhat of an abstract concept. Since RDM is a thing, no untested individual can be truly proven. Especially considering a traitor could easily say that their T-buddy is proven. Because of this, killing someone because they're the last "unproven" player is sort of a gray area. Its ambiguous in the same way that a common sense kill would be. As for your second question, that has a more opinion-based answer rather than a concrete one.
I feel like there different types of being proven. You can be 100% proven innocent, where there is no other way your role is not innocent. There's very few ways that this happens, but it can. To name a few: you identified a traitor body, and a detective was then later able to get credits off that body. you are proven by tester (on nuclearpower you were painted green and immune to t acts) you press e on a deathstation and it explodes There's probably more, but most of those ways only make you 100% proven to the people who witnessed them (except for being painted green). The other way is just more of how the game plays out. If someone shoots and kills a traitor, it can be reasonably concluded that they were an innocent. Obviously, it could still just have been a traitor buddy rdming, but when it comes down to it at the end of the round and there are 3 people left, the guy who killed the traitor before, you, and an unproven innocent, you would most likely shoot and kill the unproven guy. Common sense, right? The other guy could've easily just RDMed by traitor buddy, but we're assuming that people are following the rules. Same goes for the traitor KOSing someone. It would be common sense to conclude that traitor would not KOS a traitor buddy, however, that wouldn't make them 100% proven though, as stated above. Based on the rules, we would still assume that he is innocent and it could be treated as such. I think a better term for what Ted used would be deductive reasoning. Through the circumstances provided, Ted was able to reasonably conclude who the traitor was. Alex was not a traitor as he was KOSed by a traitor, which means he is an innocent based off of common sense. Sure, it could've been a crossfire kos, or it could've been a consensual KOS (which is against the rules according to Jabba), but the way it is rationalized does not factor those mistakes or rule breaking in, i.e. Alex was an innocent because he couldn't have been KOSed by a traitor as that is against the rules and it was most likely not a crossfire KOS. Could you be 100% certain that the player who killed a traitor is an innocent? No. It could've been RDM. Or a traitor killing his buddy for a valid reason (self defense, blocking them in an area where they will take damage). As far as I've seen, situations like that aren't considered. tldr Ted's reasoning for Alex being proven is proper, and whether or not he was 100% proven innocent or proven innocent isn't factored into his decision to KOS the last unproven player., which is allowed according to conclusion of the report.
there shouldn’t be any ambiguity with common sense kills at all though; they should be held to the same 100% certainty factor. That recent daddy nexus report was a good example of that and how so many factors pitch into what makes something 100%. Why aren’t “he’s proven scenarios” and kills related to them treated with the same level of required attention to detail to actually say someone is 100% proven?
The reason there is no standard is because it would be incredibly inflexible if we did establish one. It would basically be like this: You RDM your T buddy, I see it, I have to confirm you are proven. Even if you turn around and start killing people, I have to ignore that because I know you are "proven." If you did want to push for this, I would set the standard at traitor testers, and only mark people proven who get tested. Yet, this would essentially break the game in a few distinct ways: 1. We would need to remove the grace period, as killing traitors no longer gives you proven status, and thus you can be killed for killing a traitor (as that is a traitorous act). 2. Proven players would need to be 100% free to engage in any traitorous act they want, which means they can kill people and flaunt their t weapons openly and they can never be killed. 3. We would also need some way of enforcing this. Do we go based only on sight? Do you have to physically SEE someone be proven? Can you not take it on someone else's word? If the last question is false, then KOSes need to abolished as well, as you didn't see the T act You see the can of worms we are opening here? Even my changes have huge contradictions. We'd just be creating another "you can't help the detective kill people" meme.
The reason there is flexibility in what it means to be proven is because it would make game-play horribly convoluted if we treated it differently, Pacifist gives a few good examples above. It would disrupt the flow of the game significantly, and it's not something our players would thank us for.