Offtopic

[Woelfy]

Am i to report every email, ooc message, forum letter, and facebook message i have gotten from people that uses foul and aggressive language towards me, based on my characters actions?

This is some serious bull!@#$.

 My increasing vitriol and rage is at the sheer amount of external inundations I have received over BM, a game I chose to play for fun. Not a job. Not something I need to be censored for, outside of it's proper channels.

Everyone seems to think I am foul tempered, and they are correct. The last 6 months of sheer OOC bull!@#$ that I have received over IG actions has made me bitter, and left an extremely foul taste in my mouth. In 9 years of playing BM, I have never encountered this, and never thought it possible. 

I have been apologetic to the people that I actually wronged, but I will not reconcile with people who harass me in social media over a !@#$ing game.

[Indirik]

Am i to report every email, ooc message, forum letter, and facebook message i have gotten from people that uses foul and aggressive language towards me, based on my characters actions?

If you are being legitimately harassed by other players, then yes, you should report it. Or flat out ignore it.

What you should not do is respond in kind. You can think of it as refusing to feed the trolls, if that's what it takes. But by responding to flames and assaults with more flames and assaults, all you are doing is escalating the conflict. And I can't help but think that you are perfectly aware of this.

My increasing vitriol and rage is at the sheer amount of external inundations I have received over BM, a game I chose to play for fun. Not a job. Not something I need to be censored for, outside of it's proper channels.

Every avenue of communication available to you with other players has some kind of Ignore feature/button/option. I suggest you learn how to use it.

[Woelfy]

Getting flame letters has become so constant that I no longer even use the email account associated with my game account.

Reporting it, when it is something so childish, seems a waste of the magistrates time. I have blocked the people I get the letters from, but that doesnt stop them from sending more from other accounts.

It may not help to feed in, but at this point, it is a miracle that i am not swearing every other word. I am livid, and am tired of constantly biting my tongue.

Anyone who is forced to bite their tongue will inevitably lash out with more force when they finally do.

[Anaris]

You know what? Reporting to the Magistrates has happened now.

If you want to be judged based on the entire context, rather than purely what the Magistrates can see right now, then show the context.

[Geronus]

Getting flame letters has become so constant that I no longer even use the email account associated with my game account.

Reporting it, when it is something so childish, seems a waste of the magistrates time. I have blocked the people I get the letters from, but that doesnt stop them from sending more from other accounts.

It may not help to feed in, but at this point, it is a miracle that i am not swearing every other word. I am livid, and am tired of constantly biting my tongue.

Anyone who is forced to bite their tongue will inevitably lash out with more force when they finally do.

If you are the focus of an ongoing campaign of OOC harassment, then please report it. If everything you are saying is true, then it is by no means a waste of our time; it's something very bad, and it needs to be stopped immediately.

[Madigan]

I just wanted to chime in here with what I think is useful testimony. I don't have material evidence - I never bothered to store it - but I do have my experience of what I have witnessed in regards to this case and in particular allegations made against Kyle.

For the last several months I have seen what could be tantamount to a driven, deliberate, and vindictive OOC campaign against Kyle. I would prefer to abstain from mentioning names or pointing fingers, but certainly the messages and behavior I have seen from certain players in Swordfell - on both the forum and in the game - seem startling in their directed intent against Kyle.

Kyle and I are well acquainted, but rather than this coloring my opinion, it has allowed me access to his side of the story and to long discussions of these OOC infractions.

I genuinely believe that there has been a trend of making Kyle out to be the bad guy OOC, to discredit him, to utilize methods outside of the game to provoke reactions. I see no other logical recourse for, say, the things Bowie has done. Or for this.

Did Kyle lash out? Yes - on Facebook. Outside of the purview of the game. I believe he reached a breaking point - understandably so. In this case in particular, I feel as though both sides had disproportionate reactions - particularly as I do not believe the Jaeger roleplays to be hurting anyone or written in anything less than a spirit of fun.

I have seen players make remarks towards Kyle and his character that would deeply offend anyone and I think it is a real shame that part of our community has made one of our players feel isolated, targeted, and angry.

[Lavigna]

For the last several months I have seen what could be tantamount to a driven, deliberate, and vindictive OOC campaign against Kyle. I would prefer to abstain from mentioning names or pointing fingers, but certainly the messages and behavior I have seen from certain players in Swordfell - on both the forum and in the game - seem startling in their directed intent against Kyle.

I have witnessed that myself as well and something i did say back to another complain for Swordfell that realm was full of crap (i apologize for using crap, but it was).

The OOC flames were on ALL sides, i found it laughable when the only side that ended up here was actually Kyle.

I played there for almost 5 months, people there didn't like his in game actions, flames ooc were actually on a daily basis in the beginning.

So Swordfell, don't even go there because seriously i could talk for hours about what is wrong in that realm and there is a lot.

I did read everything people comment here. I myself wouldn t like to let someone unpunished allowing him to repeat such behaviour but i INSIST when i say that punish someone over a post in facebook or even using it in order to punish previous actions that almost passed unpunished is wrong.

There is no new evidence to support reconsidering our previous judgements on the matter, if you consider this such then i am sorry you will find me on the other side.

Bring a matter to the magistrates KNOWING is not worth for punishment only in order to bring the person here to be judged all over again for previous matters and letters that NO ONE has at hand to show off is not enough for me.

OOC harassement is something that MUST be reported right away so the Magistrates can judge on it. Either that takes place in game or in the forum.
That also counts for you Woelfy, if you really have such letters to show ,as you claim ,do bring them here right now or stop mentioning them.

I will agree with something Geronus said though.Do consider this as a warning , your name pops up a lot here, that means that either you are fighting a war alone or you piss off a lot of people and actually harass them OOC.
This doesn't seem normal either but as the case stands so far it is still not enough (for me at least) to force a punishment.

Also for the BM group. Maybe some of you don't feel it needs to get clear but i do. Do make clear if it is considered an extension of the game and it's rules, if yoy don' t care fine but i want to know.

[Lavigna]

Kyle has been told in a very spectacular way, a Titan message, that OOC insults will not be tolerated. His vitriolic comment is not in isolation but is rather part of a long and growing pattern of bitterness and anger at other players which is now spilling over into increasingly more and more public areas. Kyle is totally unapologetic in virtually every instance. He has not, AFAIK (please correct me if I'm wrong), shown any interest or ability to reconcile with players he dislikes.

I m sorry but when that OOC warning should  have counted  for all Swordfell not just Kyle. He was receiving vitriol himself back then and i can state that because i witnessed some of the ooc harass-msgs .

I insist and will repeat it till the end. That realm was full of crap, i will repeat it as much as i have to.
In that particular case he was also harassed if no one noticed , in fact he is the complainer.

Do we really want to look into that complain? His complain was even called childish but suddenly this one is not?
And i repeat Swordfell is not worth mentioning here.Read my comment in that thread as well, that realm should have received a bomb back then  or renamed to Swordfail.

This is one sided in so many levels.

[Anaris]

I can testify that one of the early things Kyle did when he began receiving this absurd OOC harassment was to vent to me on IRC—which I had no problem with; I'm a veteran ventee.

I was frustrated that there didn't seem much that could be done about it, particularly because, at that point (gotta be at least a couple months ago now—right back around the foundation of Swordfell), while it was seriously aggravating, I didn't think it had risen to the level at which it was appropriate for Titans or Magistrates to get involved.

But it's been much more frustrating to see him get reported multiple times for the much rarer occasions when he strikes back, while it seemed clear to me, at least, that the worse offenders were those needling him constantly.

This strikes me as being very much like the classic playground game of "see how far we can taunt the weird kid until he hits one of us and gets sent to detention, while we all get off scott-free, sniggering behind our hands."

I will grant, for the sake of full disclosure, that I do not have the whole story, and have most of it only secondhand through Kyle himself, but given that it's been corroborated by multiple people here, I honestly don't see any reason to suppose that what I have heard is not representative of the whole story.

[skiarxon@gmail.com]

I feel Thalmarkin has become a breeding ground for poor RP, poor manners and a generally poor OOC attitude for a small number of players, though mainly from the Guile family. My main issue was with stuff I can't consider BM-appropriate, such as a Grand Wizard shooting fireballs, moving an Ice Tower with telekinesis and sexual innuendo ("I'll give her a pearl necklace").

You know this is perfectly ok since there are scrolls to support what he does right? He is APPOINTED as a Grand Wizard not a self proclaimed one, there are fireball scrolls and of course there never was a telekinesis of an Ice Tower. Also the sexual innuendo about the pearl necklace was not from Kyle.

Please next time get your facts straight.

[Shizzle]

I can testify that one of the early things Kyle did when he began receiving this absurd OOC harassment was to vent to me on IRC—which I had no problem with; I'm a veteran ventee.

I was frustrated that there didn't seem much that could be done about it, particularly because, at that point (gotta be at least a couple months ago now—right back around the foundation of Swordfell), while it was seriously aggravating, I didn't think it had risen to the level at which it was appropriate for Titans or Magistrates to get involved.

But it's been much more frustrating to see him get reported multiple times for the much rarer occasions when he strikes back, while it seemed clear to me, at least, that the worse offenders were those needling him constantly.

This strikes me as being very much like the classic playground game of "see how far we can taunt the weird kid until he hits one of us and gets sent to detention, while we all get off scott-free, sniggering behind our hands."

I will grant, for the sake of full disclosure, that I do not have the whole story, and have most of it only secondhand through Kyle himself, but given that it's been corroborated by multiple people here, I honestly don't see any reason to suppose that what I have heard is not representative of the whole story.

Anaris, I have always respected you, as a player in BM as well as part of the community. From your words, and those of others, I mean to gather that Kyle is not the real one to blame here. Though I still consider his messages to me to be inappropriate, I'm glad to have heard some context from his side of the story.

Kyle, if you believe I am part of some OOC scheme against you, I can assure you this is untrue. I have no information whatsoever on what is happening in Swordfell. I considered some of the rp you created to be unsuitable for BM, and I let you know - and I don't think I did so in an impolite way. If you are being harrassed continually I can understand you lashed out at me, though I cannot consider that an excuse either.

For the sake of all that is good in BM, let us leave this behind us. If you continue to be annoyed by other players, please step forward and make a public complaint. The kind of atmosphere this bickering creates is bad for all parties involved.

[Geronus]

But it's been much more frustrating to see him get reported multiple times for the much rarer occasions when he strikes back, while it seemed clear to me, at least, that the worse offenders were those needling him constantly.

Since we haven't been supplied with any evidence regarding what other people are doing, I only know what I've seen, which I haven't much cared for. There's really no excuse for getting that nasty with another player. Just because the other party may also be at fault doesn't absolve someone of taking responsibility for their own behavior.

This case will be dealt with on its own merits. If there is indeed an ongoing campaign of harassment against Kyle, he can (and absolutely should) report it, and we will deal with that case separately. Let me be clear though that so far as I can tell, there's no reason for that hypothetical case to have any bearing on this one. It doesn't change what happened, and it doesn't excuse anything. No player should be subject to harassment by other players, but that doesn't make responding in kind somehow OK.

[egamma]

Per the rules, I have removed a few offtopic posts.

Kyle:
Please file a report against the players that are harassing you. I will move any evidence posted in this thread to that Magistrate case.

If you want to provide emails as evidence--and I think it's pretty clear that sending insults OOC to a personal email account is against the social contract--I can help you post those. Send me a PM if you like.


I think this has gotten to the point where Tom should look at the message logs of everyone in Swordfell. Some 14-day account locks may help cool things off. Yes, Kyle may be deserving of one of those locks.

[Vita`]

Kyle deleted his dwilight character earlier today.

[Dishman]

Kyle deleted his dwilight character earlier today.

Woelfy did delete his Swordfell character, but I didn't find any explanation until I checked the forums. It would have been nice to have an RP explanation to those in Swordfell, as I think most of us took it as griefing. I tried to run with the 'Sevastian died of lung infection" that I found in the Luria thread, but am curious how many people received that IC. I would be more curious as to the OOC reason he deleted a fairly good character.

This strikes me as being very much like the classic playground game of "see how far we can taunt the weird kid until he hits one of us and gets sent to detention, while we all get off scott-free, sniggering behind our hands."

From what I saw of the interaction between Ironsides and Woelfy, this seems to be close. Ironsides has a kind of goading and mercurial nature to him (which is evident in Bowie), while Woelfy has a serious and aggressive nature (evident in Sevastian). Those two will never get along. They are both great players, but they seem to feed off of each others personality in a bad way.

I think this has gotten to the point where Tom should look at the message logs of everyone in Swordfell. Some 14-day account locks may help cool things off. Yes, Kyle may be deserving of one of those locks.

I'm not sure if the message logs of the 11 remaining characters in Swordfell would yield much OOC harrassment, but you never know. After the Titan warning, I've not seen any OOC chatter. This sounds more like it's about 3rd party OOC chatter, facebook/email/forum/etc. It might be worth looking at Sevastian's message log (if it shows incoming/outgoing), but even then I think Tom has more on his plate than managing arbitrary disputes.