It is very difficult, absent direct OOC attacks, to determine when IC harassment of a character (which is fine) turns into OOC harassment of a player (which is bad). Have other characters of the Silverfire family been harassed? Have other characters of the Elegant family taken part in the harassment?
No other characters of the Silverfire have been harassed, and no other characters of the Elegant family have taken part.
I'm not sure if the Magistrates can determine when things have gone too far without some kind of "smoking gun", when they can't have access to the entire message store to read the full scope of things and see what's been happening.
The "smoking gun" is the forum posts in the two threads which I have linked. On their own, the messages in game would just be the worst that I've ever seen for completely trying to destroy anyone that I've ever seen. However, it was in relation to these messages in-game combined with the forum posts which made it clear (to me at least) that Elegant's player had linked all of the actions of my character to myself as a player, and was thus using his in-game character's higher influence of ruler of the strongest realm to just completely barrage and abuse my character through multiple channels with repeated messages which all said pretty much the same thing. Most of them involved continue quotes straight from in-game letters sent to radically different characters, and pulling them completely out of context, while sending them over and over again. I don't consider that such treatment is how you'd play a board game between friends.
I couldn't try to even discuss them, as any attempt to was essentially "shouted down" by another message which said the same thing. Example: If I said it was a forgery in the letter that said Merlin was trying to "steal duchies from CE", he'd simply respond with another letter saying I couldn't be trusted because I planned to "steal duchies from CE." Of which was repeated on multiple occasions in the multiple channels.
I can provide the Magistrates with html downloads of my entire message cache from the past 30 days for both sent and received if that will accommodate a better determination. I can't copy/paste the entire conversation regarding this event because it involves literally hundreds of messages in a week.
I suspect, though Silverfire will have to clarify, that the character Jason Elegant was taking quoted messages of Merlin's out of context and sending them (with condemnation attached) to anyone who would listen. Ruler's channel, League of the Eagle, private individuals, etc. Same messages, multiple places, forcing Merlin to reply to all of those different places as well if he wanted to defend himself. I gather he was also sending a lot of these messages in general. Basically, it seems he's spent the last week devoting a lot of time to tearing down Merlin and trying to overwhelm him with a tide of so many accusations and damning misquotes spread to so many different people that Merlin couldn't possibly defend himself against all of them. Sort of the "If you repeat a lie enough times it becomes true" sort of strategy, though it wasn't exactly all lies. Many of the quotes used were true quotes, just taken out of context. Together they were used to construct a certain narrative about Merlin that Jason then kept hammering away at, repeating it as often as he could to as many people as he could. It worked rather well in combination with the resistance to Merlin inside Coria.
It seems to me that the "smoking gun" is the messages that Elegant has posted on the forum.
These two quotes pretty clearly articulate what I've been trying to say.
If you don't like my forum posts, then maybe you should tell me why did you post my message for elders only in forum? I did not like it when my highly secure message to elders was posted in forums. It was then I decided to be active on forums and see what else you were doing and reply suitably, if needed. You can't keep offending people and expect them to be silent. You brought IG things in OCC.
I didn't bring anything IG to OOC. I did post a single letter that you sent to the "elders" in the forum, but the letter wasn't addressed to the elders but to my character directly AND I didn't post it to show anything about you or your character. The letter was used only as a reference for what I was responding to. I wanted to post my response letter to the forum to clarify a point that I was trying to make regarding the current state of Atamara as a whole. (Note to Magistrates: This occurred on page 6 of the "Phoenix Empire" thread which I created in the Atamara forum. link:
http://forum.battlemaster.org/index.php/topic,3874.75.html) I would also like to note, that in no way did you ever state that you disliked the posting of that letter either in that thread or anywhere else I've seen before now. You never even posted in that thread after that posting. I'd have gladly removed it, if you felt it wasn't acceptable. But again, I only used your posted letter (which was directed only at me) to give a background for my personal response.
