Honestly, most people wouldn't know (or care) about the 'harem' if it wasn't brought up on the forums every-other week.

Oh definitely, it's impossible to make everyone strip all connotations from a word, or to use the same ones. But there does need to be some understanging somewhere.

My favourite example of a word with connotaions is a street name in my city here. It's called Shaganapi trail, after one of the native tribes or chieftains who was historically important around here. Of course, if you're not North American English, your head just exploded or you died laughing.

Right on the money.

QFT.

Well, here is my two cents. It's their choice to do it, but I'm getting tired of hearing about it. I think the best thing would be to just not bring it up OOC. This is something IC, so thsooe that need to should work through it there.

My thoughts on Harems? Well, honestly, they're personal, I've got a lot of mixed feelings on that sort of thing. Polygamy happens. Some people feel that if you remarry after a divorce you're practicing serial polgyamy.

I have to agree mostly with what Xenthos has said, but I still don't really understand why you can't supply a list of small incidents by certain characters, if it is actual harassment. Even small ooc infringements could be dealt a warning, which might achieve something.

By the way, look at your signature. How could any independent woman or other guy not find that either insulting, degrading or nauseous? I've spoken with Exarius -once- in game. You're notorious and controversial as a player, not so much as a character.

I don't see the problem with "alternate" sexualities, and I think it's pretty stupid for someone to be harassing Exarius or any of his women about it, in a world where we have demon lords promoting possibly-fatal levels of S&M. The keyword should always be consent; anyone who has an objection that doesn't hinge on the absence of consent is simply and unequivocally wrong, period.

What I don't understand though is how cross-alt harassment isn't unambiguously within the bounds of issues. Harassment is definitely issuable, and cross-alt harassment doubly so. But the first post suggests that that's been tried and didn't work. If so, my next step would be an email to support@lusternia.com, which is polite, concise, and unambiguous about who is committing harassment against whom. The administration will not stand for a pattern of harassment, particularly harassment about private matters of sexuality.

There's no way a forum thread is going to change anything, though.

Here are my two cents from what I've read so far

It sounds to me like so far, issuing hasn't done anything for you Exarius

What you could do though it'd make it a little hard (I think) is walk around with tellsoff. That way you could just get messages that you could just delete without reading.

Secondly, I don't think you should bring soo much attention to the subject OOCly when it's an IC problem.

As Dvyrus said, I don't think anyone would really care or know if you had a harem if you didn't bring it up OOC.

Just my two cents.

He doesn't bring it up, he just makes these things when things paticularly start to bother him.... or they get out of hand insulting him in other threads. Poor Exarius

..which would be...bringing it up.

Um... what, exactly, is this thread, if not "bringing it up"? Seriously, just about nobody would know about the harem if he didn't revel in sharing its existance (see his signature, see his posts, see his threads).

I don't really care about the fact that you have a harem... I honestly would care even less if I wasn't reminded of its existence so often. I see it in your signature, for instance (which would be cool except for the text) and the fact that you've brought it up as an example in many a thread. Maybe you like advertising it or you're proud of it (since you must have put in some hard work to make it happen), but either way I seriously care less about it than the fact that bananas are yellow. I do care, however, about having to run into threads (either new or derailed) about this which is why I am even bothering to reply to you. If anyone is thinking of telling me to shut up and go away if I don't care, I'd like you to ask you to shut up, sit down and listen to what I have to say since I listened to what he had to say (which was a lot in this thread alone). No, I can't just not read it (refer to previous paragraph).

===================================

From what I see here, people are either:

a) Annoyed by the existance of your harem
B) Annoyed by the way you act about it


===================================

It's like 3am for me now and I'm feeling interesting! Hmm... Let's try something! What if I switched "harem" to something harmless? Then I guess the situation would look something like this: (Note that I'm just rephrasing what people said in this thread, assuming the meanings of what they say. It's not person by person on purpose.)

Exarius: People are harrasing me because I have a candy store just because they hate candy! They also harrass the people who buy from/work in my store.

Others: Ignore them or ISSUE them if it's bad enough. You can't make people's opinions change just because you want them to. Not everyone likes candy, let alone a candy store.
Others2: Ignoring them won't work... But I have no other ideas to contribute at this time.

Exarius: But they hate candy OOCly! They just made their characters hate candy too (or just said they did) just to have a lame excuse to bug us. They can tell who they are because they wear bright pink uniforms and have red hair.

Others: Nothing much you can do there, some people are just like that (idiotic, mean, immature?).
Others2: Your own fault for making them so obvious... But I can't agree with the harrassment either.

Exarius: Everyone hates me! Noone respects that I have a candy store to provide a job to those who used to have sucky jobs. Nothing wrong with providing candy to those who want it too, no matter how few.

Others: Have you realised that sometimes you just assume that people who have red hair or wear bright pink have a high chance of liking candy or would want to join your store?
Others2: I've seen/heard of incidents where you go up to these people and invite them to join you. Quit it, man.

Exarius: I hate that people are mixing IC and OOC. I've had OOC talks with my employees/regulars to ensure they understand that I'll always be selling candy. I don't think I could ever sell health food instead because of a certain incident that left me pretty much affected my IC preferances. OOCly, I do support health food. I just want to sell candy for my RP. I don't understand why it's come to the point where my employees/regulars have to stop wearing bright pink outside of the store in order not to get recognised. Do you think this is enjoyable for them? It's not fair that they can't wear bright pink in public anymore, even if they're just trying to be like everyone else and have a normal life. I know how it feels like to be like them. They should be allowed to have some freedom!

Others: So what do you want us to do about it? We aren't even the ones harrassing them.
Others2: No, we don't think it's enjoyable for them. It's unfortunate it has to happen, you have to understand that not everyone is comfortable with the idea and people will react differently, some in ways you may not like.
Others3: The word "candy" makes people assume it's unhealthy and has loads of sugar. Even if you say you only have sugar-free sweets, some people are still going to have a negative impression about it. Just telling people that you hate sugar isn't going to convince them much. It just makes you look like you're contradicting yourself.
Others4: You shouldn't be letting your OOC discussions here stop you from dealing about it ICly. Why are you telling us answers to questions we didn't ask? The ones who need to hear it are IG, do it there.

Others: Why is having a candy store an issue IG? Other larger figures IG have chocolate factories and ice cream parlours.

Others1: It's not about the whole sugar or junk food thing. It's more about what Exarius is doing to solve it. It wouldn't be a big deal to us if he hadn't made it into such a big deal. Unrelated people are getting sucked into it, which is just sad. It's not that we have something against you or your candy store, we just wonder why you have to bring so much attention to it when we're not even interested in buying your candy, not to mention this isn't the only case where you've done that.
Others2: Perhaps you're making it too obvious? If they didn't know it existed, people wouldn't harrass you that much about it.
Others3: There's nothing wrong with candy. I don't see what the big deal is. It's not something I myself would eat, though.
Others4: ISSUE them, that's the most you can do about it AFAIK. Whether or not candy is good or bad, they shouldn't be harrassed like that. There's proof IG that it's okay to RP having a candy store, anyway.

Others: So basically... Stop talking about it if you don't want people to talk to you about it.

==============================

I wonder what it does to your signature:

It's not so much how sweet and tasty my candy is, it's how crappy health food is that drives them to my store.

Different subject, but still... Kind of egoistic. Oh well, it's your choice what you want to put there (besides the fact that you're saying that health food sucks, which most of the Basin prefer in this context).

==============================

So! It's 5am now! What was my point of my post?

a) Some people are idiots IG and should be ISSUED!
B) You're over-advertising said subject... Don't say that you're not. You have a banner with NAMES in there. How is it possible to NOT know who's involved?
c) The majority of people don't really care OOCly. It's just some people IG. Stop making it look like the whole world is against you about this.
d) We only ended up caring about this because you're asking us to by constantly bringing a large amount of attention to it. It'd be nice if you tried to listen to what we had to say instead of defending defending defending yourself. Then not doing anything about it. It makes us think that you're just doing this for a response, publicity or attention.
e) We can't help you much else. This should be dealt with IG or by issuing.

=============================

Final note: I spent a lot of time (2 hours) writing this, I'd like a reply from you, even if it's just to state that yes, you've read it. Ignoring works, you see. If you choose to completely ignore me (and the others here), especially when you've brought so much attention to it and asked for a response, don't be surprised to be completely ignored in turn.

(edited to turn off emoticons and minor grammar/spelling)

Wendy gets a cookie.

That was perfect!

rolling right along...



Shayle



Yes I read that, it is about the only thing I read after the first 2 pages and this one, I agree....

I also cannot stand the word harem, or people who think they can control women, even if they think/know thats what the woman wants... To me its just like a pedophile saying that they know what children want. But that is besides the point. I don't care for that cult or that wierd city Zolana or whatever it is called. I do try to avoid them when possible, and I warn every single aslaran girl who I see step from the portals to be careful of the lurker in the shadows... I guess it would boil down to knowing people like Felandi or Flarya who are in some way connected with this clan, I think of them as little sisters. I do not want my little sister basically whored out to some pimp... but I will not breate them for making their own life decisions...

Also not once have I attacked Exarius or anyone in his clans, but I have made it clear to my family if I find any of his recruiters in our manse they would either die, or on a case by case basis be brought back into the (my version of) th light... but I guess just like he calls it his RP, I call it mine....

Now this being said, if I hadn't heard so much about this clan OOC with all the whining "poor me" stuff, and the creepy story telling thread, I would have never asked members of this clan more about it, and thusly would have never developed an IG dislike for them....

Note: I am not one of his or any of his "girls" griefers. I steer clear of them, since they mainly seem to consist of 12-19 year olds... maturity level wise, but then again they could really be 40 yr old housewives who are trying to recapture their youth through acting as if they were still in high school.... I don't know for sure... Either way, he can do what he wants, and they can do what they want.

The only way I would end up involved is if I felt threatened by them trying to draw a fresh recruit from one of my inner circle of friends or if one of my friends who are IMO "unfortunately" in their clans told me something that I felt crossed the line. Then I would hire Shayle... Queen of Greif to handle this situation accordingly... You know its bad when you hire the most elite assassin in the basin, she charges close to 300k a kill and she makes it look like an accident....

Uh-oh I think I have said too much... I may be targetted next...

I just felt I should mention I logged on after months of inactivity just because Aiwendil's post is hilarious.

Well, my two cents.

I no longer play the game. I barely log in once ever blue moon because I want to check messages.

I have no problems with Harems. I have no problems with any mutually accepted thing that happens between any number of living beings. I just really don't care what other people do. I am not even american or from a puritan background. This is applicable both to RL activities as to Internet activities. Hope this serves as disclaimer before I am called puritan or this post is made into an "You don't like harems and mudsex your point is invalid". There's way more extreme tendencies than a frigging harem. I still don't see how you all get so angry about this. There was an slave club somewhere in Lusternia when I played, I didn't think an harem could make anybody even raise an eyebrown.

Now, for the point I was trying to make, once done with the disclaimers... I know NOTHING of any character sexual life but Exarius and his Harem. I think things would go better for him and all the ladies involved if he stopped making it such an OOC bussiness (OMG make alts to join but let me announce on all the boards that from now on my harem will be filled with alts created for OOC reasons so people can be pissed). Really, if a person who doesn't play and her only contact to the game is the forums, knows anything about an IC organization there's something wrong right?

Give it a try, just let it go for like a couple months or three, no comments on forums, no comments ooc, nothing. Just RP IC whatever you want to RP, or don't RP but keep it to yourselves and whoever wants to be involved. You bringing it up constantly in the forums and mixing IC with OOC in such a blatant and obvious way (announcing it on the forums) attracts the kind of people that harrass people cross-characters. They're wrong but you too are taking this wrong.

And I am talking to Exarius in particular because I don't recall any of his ladies making such a bit ruckus on the forums about anything, not even with newlie created alt forums to avoid being discovered. In my opinion, you're hurting your so loved ladies to fill your ego with the attention received in the forums. They should tell you to shutup and just issue happily. If after 50 issuess (documented) the Divines have done nothing then I will understand them feeling bad. But being harrassed cross-character is definitly crossing the line OOC/IC and won't be overlooked. And not issueing because somebody told you not to issue is just trusting that somebody too much. Issuess aren't dealt with by a single person, you know that right?. And that person might have misunderstood the way Exarius posted the question to him.

Issue Guidelines.


You should first read HELP ISSUES before filing one.


Second, you should understand the following. ISSUE yourself, if you have a problem that involves you and only you. If another person is involved in your problem, then you should ISSUE that person.

If you issue two people in the same issue, you are not doing it right. You are not giving both people a proper chance to respond to the issue.

If you issue one person with five thousand problems, you are not doing it right. Issues take time. The Administration has to handle them, if you want to issue, be specific on what is going on. If you're being harassed, and the same person is violating help multiplaying, please make two issues of it so that each concern is logged, addressed, and handled.

If you have a problem, please include examples, including IC resolutions. If you feel something is an OOC problem, explain why.


No one is told they can't issue. They are told they need to issue correctly. ~~ Tidbit from the Divine of Lusternia.

Personally, I think polygamy sounds great. If only my girlfriend would agree.

Oh to be the Marquis of Bath.