P2P and Griefing

Its no secret I'm not a big fan of P2P. But that question is moot - its here, time to adapt.

My question is in regards to griefing.

Many of us use llTeleportAgentHome (yes, highly controversial) for griefer-control purposes. I'm not talking TeleportHome for purposes of privacy - I'm talking sending an individual griefer home, manually - because they're being abusive.

llTeleportAgentHome was effective, because 9 times out of 10 (in my experience) - the griefer was acting out randomly. They weren't interested in flying all the way back to grief again.

P2P will make it so a Griefer can near instantly get back to the spot their banned from. Even if P2P respects ban lists, one could still teleport easily & quickly to the edge of a parcel and continue to harrass.

I'm thinking that the advent of P2P makes the need for better land parcel tools to prevent grief even more important than ever on the mainland (Such as what's discussed in Prop 244).

Do you feel this is a valid concern? Thoughts?

Well, let's assume that LL isn't going to implement this in a brain-dead manner. (big assumption, perhaps, you never know.) Meaning you could disable P2P on a parcel, set the landing point for a specific parcel, respects ban lists, etc.

The fact that a griefer can get back more quickly is a concern (although, I'd think, kind of moot for a place like the Shelter in your particular case...) but on the other hand, that seems like the main change; heftier parcel tools would still be useful either way.

SO. Let's just make p2p a per-parcel option.

Well, actually - now that I think about it, that introduces another issue - respecting ban lists.

For folks that don't have their mainland parcel group owned (like me) - there is no way to delegate parcel security permissions without the use of a script.

Since I can't be around 24/7 - its important that I give volunteers the ability to eject a griefer if it becomes neccesary.

For this reason, we don't use the built-in parcel ban list (many dont). We instead use an LSL script to maintain the ban list. Because there is no LSL Function to add to the parcel ban list automatically - this presents an issue.

Unless P2P can read into my script's ban list (not plausable) - I'd think at bear minimum we need an llAddToParcelBanList function.

I'm sure they will introduce new tools to combat such abuse --- for private estate owners.

They would be! And LL says they're working on this! --- for private estate owners.

That would be an excellent idea! Too bad it will only be entertained for private estate owners.

I'm sure LL is hard at work making this available for private estate owners!

Ok. So I was trying to make a point.

I think it was *ridiculous* that the recent concierge townhall absolutely and patently IGNORED high-tier parcel holders who weren't private estate owners.

Note that this is NOT only a multi-sim owner mainland issue, its an anyone-who-owns-a-parcel-on-the-mainland issue! What, are we obsolete?

Sometimes I feel like the Mainland was a 'failed experiment' that LL has since abandoned and let go to waste, since the real concentration is, well, anybody who's anybody has a "Private Estate" these days.

The enhancement of land tools have ONLY been discussed in relation to private estate owners. They continue to only be considered in regard to private estate owners. The mainland folks have ONLY had discussions of having their scant tools taken away, not added to. (Remember the fight to -save- llTeleportAgentHome?)

I've always wondered about this: LL says they want the mainland to be a contiguous experience -- but why are we worried about the "contiguosity" of the "experience" of griefers? Furthermore, the reasoning for the absurdly low ban height is supposedly to keep flying vehicles from running into trouble.

COME ON! Flights at 40m!? And if they are, and are banned, they're probably doing so to harrass. I don't see a lot of "random uninvolved griefer traffic" at 40m.

Chris Linden stated that they can't make special rules for "estates in the sky". That's insulting -- this is not an issue of "estates in the sky."

To give an idea of how ridiculous the whole thing is, I submit this, which I used to -try- to convince LL to keep llTeleportAgentHome.

MAINLAND PARCEL OWNERS NEED BETTER TOOLS. WE ARE STILL HERE, AND WE COUNT TOO.

LL seems to think that the only landowners worth helping these days are PI/Estate owners. in Luskwood we got the invite to the concierge level meeting - but I was later told it was a mistake because we only own two mainland sims (which we pay just as much for as someone who owned two Private Estates) so therefore, our concerns weren't going to be discussed in that meeting. (Or in any subsequent meeting for that matter.)

I could, however, drop a few lines and they might be considered! Maybe! Kinda! Sorta!

This isn't only concierge-level folks. Mainland parcels IN GENERAL really REALLY need better tools to deal with people who are intent on making our lives hell.

LL, you may have forgotten the mainland (though you seem to still be intent on making it a 'contiguous experience' -- how about 'not a trashy/grief-ridden experience') but we have not. Some of us still take a lot of pride in this "obsolete" center of SL.

Thanks for your support.

I think the possibilities of griefing do not outweight the benefits that P2PT would bring. As it is now, does the distance between a telehub and land REALLY make a difference to a griefer? I highly doubt it. Everything can be greifed, even the grid, should we shut that down?

But I totaly agree with Michi, we need better tools for LAND, ALL LAND. Stop giving us the shaft plz, kthnx.

Oz was able to keep griefing me even when he had to keep taking the telehub from Clyde. I think your point is moot.

Hay you know guys there's that error that says



or something... whelp if you put someone on the land ban list, that message could come up.

We do not know that this will occur.

Not for sure, but it's a possibility!

And it it's possible, it's worth being passionate for what you believe in, right?

Sorry if I didn't make myself more clear. I'm not debating the value of P2P in this thread. Its here, and P2P will bring some awesome new capabilities for us.

But I think the challenges this creates to combat griefing on the mainland are genuine. I'm not suggesting for a nanosecond that P2P shouldn't be implemented because of griefing concerns.

What I am suggesting, is the need for better mainland land tools is even more important now that P2P is coming. That's all.

Oz - I didn't mean to imply 'Dont Implement P2P' because of griefing concerns. I guess my disclaimer at the top wasn't strong enough.

Mainland land tools haven't, and aren't getting enough attention. Its high time they did, IMHO.

Torely - that makes perfect sense. I'm sure they'll implement it that way.

But, the problem is - there is no LSL Function call for llAddToParcelBanList.

When one of our volunteers uses our Security script to eject a griefer - there's no way to automatically add the individual to the parcel ban list.

This means, that on my mainland parcel that's not group owned - the only person that can add a griefer to the parcel ban list, and preventing Teleport - Is me alone.

That really sucks for a place like the Shelter, with many volunteers that need the power to keep the peace from time to time when I'm not there.

Exactly. I have no particular love for the telehub model. But mainland parcel owners need to be thrown a bone. The management tools literally haven't really changed since v1.0 and before!

The world, however, has changed plenty of times over. 2003-era-SL concepts like "we can't have a ban over 40m because then people won't be able to fly to where they want to go" just doesn't really sell me anymore. MOST people WOULD be able to fly to exactly where they want to go with even an increased ban height. I still don't see why someone who has caused severe trouble on your land should be able to float over it, drop C4 onto it, harrass its occupants, etc. Tie ban height in with abuse reports if you want! Something! Anything!

Allow them to fly over but make the land invisible to them. If you're banned, you see water. Something like that. SL can do HUDs and capes, we have to be able to think of some method to give mainland parcel owners some additional control besides calling a Linden, seeing as "ban" has, and always will be (since I've been told that raising the ban height 'is not a possibility') a complete joke, and is almost like nothing but a symbolic move on the landowner's part.

Banning *does not* do *anything* to impede anyone from being on your land, realistically. It just means they have to hit the 'fly' button -- which if anything gives them a better vantage point to pushgun you from.

Perhaps it is because you have been so quiet on this message . This is the first I've heard of it - you should really go with it though, I agree. I own close to 2 sims of mainland land, and yeah, the land tools for mainland sims are teh suck. In the most recent update, they made a feature more unusable - now that is progress! Now, when you list whose stuff is on your land, and you highlight a user to remove their items, once you remove them, you get two dialog boxes that you have to click on, and then the list disappears and you have to do it all over again. Previously, the list would stay open so you could quickly remove excess items from your land. Ah, progress.

I apologize for my misinterpretation.

I like (and always have liked) the idea of having more script access to land controls. IMO everything you can do through the UI should have a parallel script function to perform the same task. That may seem like alot of functions, but you can cut them down by having functions similar to llSetPrimitiveParams (I always want to type llSetPrimParams, do we REALLY need the full "Primitive" in there?) where needed.

It might be more work, but I'd be very very happy if with P2PT came a flurry of new script and land controls and improvements for security.

Privacy is weird in SL, we remove things like "wireframe" mode in the name of privacey, yet don't have better land controls to help improve it, I suppose rewriting code to remove a function from public view is easier than to write in code for some of the things we want, but still, it seems weird to take, and not give.

I'm sure someone could dig up tons of threads that have awsome ideas on how to improve security for land.

Another possibility to make it so that people can fly over ban-lines, is to have it so that you have x ammount of seconds to leave a properties "fly zone" before you get kicked out, where x could be determined by landsize. Say a full sim could give you 15 seconds to leave, or a 512sqm could give you 5 seconds to leave. Of course the hole of this is that someone could exit and enter the parcel quickly, right? Maybe not, if the land had a short memory span of when a person entered and left it could prevent that, say I step on a property, it tells me I have 5 seconds to leave, I step off it, then step right back on again, now I have 4 seconds.... just an idea. This would only work if ban lines went as high as infinity.

Someone please bring up these issues at the townhall on p2pt.

Eh. Way I see it, banned users from a parcel should have their objects automatically returned/deleted if they aren't attached to the person (read: vehicles and clothing are okay, bullets are not).

Of course, if they grief with the plane you could take action against the avatar. QED.



That, and give us llReturnObject already.

I had an idea while getting ready for bed and had to come back and post it.

Michi's idea got me thinking... what if instead of silly ban lines and all that crap we had a different system.

Imagine this:

Avatar C is banned from the parcel, suddenly everything on the parcel dissapears, only the land remains, all people and objects are gone (except for those outside the land). C can not interact or talk to people or objects on that land. C can not build and scripts become disabled (not sure about scripts since it may impact vehicles). Any of C's objects that stray onto the land are auto-returned immedietly as if they went "off world" (bullets, physical objects, roaming script prims, etc.).

Now, people on the land, can not see C either, they can not see any of C's objects on the land (really there shouldn't be any, but vehicles etc.). They can't hear C chatting or any of C's scripts or anything.

Neither party exists to the other on the land, the land to C would appear blank, desolate, and no one there even when viewing it from outside the boundries. C would appear to be invisible and phantomed and ignored to anyone on the land, untill C left the parcel, then they would become visible and maybe their chat would carry over (I'd actualy say no it shouldn't spill into the land, because then you'd get "C Shouts: I KNOW UR THERE". Anyone who left the parcel would instantly become visible and able to interact with C.

This would make further griefing pointless, if theres no one there to grief, why hang around? The greifer would have to resort to using IMs, which can be ignored (I hope/think). And the people on the land wouldn't have to worry about the griefer, because they can't see/hear/interact with them. "Out of sight, out of mind." for both!

Perhaps on the world map, the objects and people-dots would also become invisible, with only the land underneath visible.

How would this effect vehicles? I imagine it wouldn't effect them adversely at all (unless scripts suddenly stop running, but really there isn't a reason for this if the people on the land can't hear/interact with the persons scripts anyway).

The only thing I can think of is if someone tries to get banned from every parcel in attempt to make SL a quiet desolate "one man land"... but that would take ALOT of work since there are tons of parcels.

I'm not sure how technicly feasable this is, but I personaly would prefer it over anything else.

Also while I'm thinking about it, also being able to limit my chat to my own parcel would be nice (and not hearing chat outside my parcel) *slides that in there*.

I reported this bug (the list disappearing after you clear objects) 5+ times in Preview, from 1.7.0(26) to 1.7.0(51).

I assume the reason it was not changed is that this is, somehow, 'new functionality'.

well, I went right to the Lindens after the Concierge meeting. I'd love to see mainland tools revisited, and with the world expanding how it is, I think LL should look at balancing management with an idealistic utopian experience -- the ability of a griefer to fly unabated from shore to shore sure is a nice idea, but in reality I think they should have to fly around certain areas if they have recently urinated in the owner's flowerpots.

We already have ban limited to individuals (versus groups) and a max of 50 avatars for this reason -- it seems that LL thinks that arbitrary bans would happen and people would be unjustly impeded in their experience. (still don't get it, they're afraid of someone's flight being impeded by a ban, but for 2+ years they weren't worried about a newbie's experience being impeded by a random negative rate or ten! The Wonder of Flight and Soaring >> social climate? I don't get it!)

Ban needs to have some teeth, rather than being completely symbolic. Making 'todays griefers' float just above your head is about the equivalent of catching a serial killer, telling him to go stand in the corner for 15 minutes, and then setting him free.

EDIT: okay, so I was a bit off on that unjust comparison. Having the ban height at what it is, is more like catching a serial killer, telling him to go stand in the corner for 15 minutes, and telling him to go stand in the corner for 15 minutes again every time you see him. We indeed do not set banned griefers free, but put them in the "bad-bad zone" (similar to the E and F layers of the ionosphere) which resides right above our heads.(Revised.)

Michi, I agrre with Cris, your point deserves it's own thread.