BanLink

For the past month or so, Mera Pixel and I have been working on a distributed ban system called BanLink. BanLink is Free, and open source (with the exception of the database communication component that follows a scripter-friendly messagelink standard).

I've been hesitant to discuss it both because its still in Beta right now, and the subject of shared banlists in any form are controversial to say the least. We've been working hard to both make the system stable, and address the major concerns I think folks might have with such a system.

This is not a global ban list. What this is, is a way for similar communities to establish a one-way 'trust' with each others ban lists. The theory is, you only trust communities that ban folks for similar reasons that you would. If someone appears to be abusive with their bans, you can choose to no longer trust them, and ultimately not trusted by anyone.

If you are banned by a site that subscribes to BanLink, simply contact the owner of that site and ask to be removed from their ban list. If you are mature and reasonable about your request, most reasonable people respond in kind.

Right now, we have 5 sites online with BanLink, and are taking on additional sites *slowly* (Much to the frustration of those already involved.) If you are the owner of a popular griefing target, feel free to contact me if you're interested in participating. It may still be a couple more weeks before we can add additional sites, however.

EDIT: The 'BanLink Public Police Blotter' can be viewed by anyone here: http://www.slbanlink.com

And, if you have any questions - feel free to IM me - I just may be a bit slow to respond until I get back in world on Wednesday.

Hi Travis please don't send it to me as I really like griefers at my places. I just love freezing them and and putting female underthings on them before I send them to outer space.

Placeholder post, in case I want to write something here later.

Hey Travis watch out someone is about to sue you on the other thead.

Also a system like this already exists, for months, ask Prok.

It's called S.L.A.M, and it bans you from prok's stuff, anshe's stuff and jenna's stuff.

Hehe - a lawsuit in this regard is rather comical honestly - but if he wishes to waste his time and money on it, he can knock himself out.

I think its important to remember that when you visit non-Linden owned land, you are a guest on private property, and the landowner can ban anyone they choose for any reason they choose - even if its for something as silly as having green hair. (Although, I wouldn't expect a ban list like that to be trusted by too many folks).



Yes - I believe there is. However, there are some major differences. First off - the one Prok blogged about is a global ban list (if I'm not mistaken) - and something I'm not supportive of, for two big reasons:

-Different venues have different criteria for bannings. For this reason - a global - grid-wide ban list just isn't realistic.

-The idea of a central committee maintaining such a list just seems distasteful to me, as it affords a huge amount of power to a few people, and I don't think that's a good thing no matter how trustworthy those people are.

IMHO - if you're going to use a distributed ban list, it needs to be decentralized - and Free. Which is what we have here.

And now i quote it so you can't change it. Muahahahahaha ^.^

Serenity Woods gets it's share of griefers snce it's one of the Fur Valley sims. I will welcome banlink when i get mine.

I think a "web-of-trust" based banning system is a good idea. However, I'm weary of almost all RBLs, as I've had some nasty experiences with them IRL.

Nothing wrong with being weary of it - and honestly, no solution (including this one) is perfect.

One piece of this that's not in place yet - is some transparency. Before this thing comes out of Beta, Mera & I intend to have that in place.

What we're envisoning is some sort of publically-viewable website, where anyone can lookup who/where/why someone was banned. It could even serve as a resident-run police blotter of sorts. Since the reason for the ban is already logged in the database, this shouldn't be too tough. The only thing I think should probably stay private - is who trusts who. But the master list of all bans should be public information.

I'm not sure yet what form this will ultimately take - but if anyone has any feedback of what they'd like to see in something like that, suggestions are a good thing

EDIT: The 'BanLink Public Police Blotter' can be viewed by anyone here: http://www.slbanlink.com

Now if LL would impliment 2 more things this system would rule over all. XD
1.) Increased Estate Ban List to 300
2.) Allow LSL Commands to add/remove entries from Estate Ban (Exc: llAddToEstateBan(UUID)).

Untill then the best way to go is this way.

Being someone who's permanently banned from an entire continent in SL (and who cannot visit friends that live there) because of an un-related bad business deal (and not because of any kind of griefing), I have to say this is a very bad idea. If somebody doesn't like someone or gets into a personal fight with them, they can not only have them banned from their own land or group land, but they can get others in on the act as well.

I totally agree Hank, This is a bad idea and will not end well of that im sure, but i think we have to let the power hungry people do their thing and play the im in charge game, this land here is possibly the only land etc they will ever have the pleasure to own, i am wondering now wether these people are failed Military or police personel that didnt fit the Phsycological profiling due to mental instabilities & were rejected, as the general demeanour and thinking processes of the complainants is not what i see in my RL workplace and they therefore find this to be an ideal base with which to rule the world lol, well SL neways

Eventually we will have a lot of different Banlists run by various self serving and misguided people that cannot use the land ban tools that LLs have given us correctly and many innocent people im sure will end up on these lists due to people settling scores and grudges. Myself I find communication with the griefers helps a lot as a lot just dont understand the game nor its ideas, until u explain that is, i always remeber tho it may be annoying when u pick up a pet griefer, u cant be physically harmed or killed here so the only thing that gets dented is the persons ego, and ive seen an awful lot of overly inflated egos in SL

Whilst i agree we should be able to ban griefers etc. i dont think SL will be well served with these banlists, but thats just my humble opinion. Ive noticed to that the majority of the advocates of these lists are from the States and as we all know a lot of US people live in a constant state of terror due to the administration telling them they are not safe everyday, so perhaps they feel the War on Terror as Bush expounds has come to SL.

But if they cant afford a sim i think we will just have to let them live thier SL lives in their virtual prisons, but thats their choice, personally the real griefers i have come across are sad little individuals that make me laugh behind the keyboard, as i use the tools im given to report them etc. i never give them a reaction and deal with the problem thro the correct channels, many here dont do that so the griefer returns as they know they will illicit a response from avatar X or Y. But then in RL im as controlled as i am here, as the griefers in my RL work can do real damage to my RL avatar and im not ready to log this RL avatar out yet

Peace

i am developping a simmilar product, however it isn't exactly the same, networked ban system that will fuel on a list of the sl parasits, AKA, griefers, scammers and alikes

I've got a question.

What's to prevent griefers with money (and there are griefers that own sims, large plots, etc) from using this to cause trouble for people?

By default, bans set by other landowners are *NOT* treated as valid on your land. In order for your land to honour bans set by other landowners, you have to explicitly tell the BanLink system to trust bans issued by the other landowner's site.
This means that bans set by griefers won't be valid outside the land owned by those griefers, because their ban list won't be marked 'trusted' by other sites. The reason for this is simple : landowners in the BanLink system only trust those other landowners who they know and have confidence in. Because nobody has confidence in a griefer, their bans won't be trusted. Even if an existing landowner 'went bad', all the bans can be seen on the database, so after complains came in, other sites would probably just de-trust the bad guy's whole site, and presto... their bans cease to have any effect outside their own land.

So, put simply... abuse/griefing using the system is prevented by the fact that sharing arrangements are opt-in, based on trust between landowners, where this trust is hard to gain and easy to lose.

Thank you for that answer, it seems to make sense. I still feel it could be used for harm, but it does seem you have a vested interest in trying to prevent that.

Wouldn't it be easier to just ban EVERYBODY except me from SL so I can have the place all to myself?

It's a way to make griefers think twice before pissing off the wrong person. If they did something to get on this ban list, then they deserve it...

Nothing whatsoever if a landowner turns griefer, or even if he thinks he will do it to settle a score with someone thats pissed him off, ex partner, etc. etc.

Tho it can be reveresed we've been assured, thats not to say, that they wont submit to human nature and just do it to be spiteful or in revenge, and as the person will have already been labeled a griefer etc. by defianition of being submitted to the banlist its gonna cause a lot of problems and as we've seen in other threads, no one believes the griefer even if they apologise.

So for me i see this system as wide open to abuse now and in the future by disgruntled landowners, just some observations

Can you think of a specific way this could be used for harm? Voice some specifics, and see if they get addressed.

A couple thoughts I want to respond to:

Hank, and others have a really valid concern about this being used for griefing. If someone can add you to a global ban list just because they don't like you - that's a *big* issue, and defeats the purpose of some of the checks & balances we've tried to build in.

My response is that this isn't a global ban list. At least, that's the intention by establishing one-way trusts that default to 'untrusted', and decentralizing the list. My ban list is only populated with bans from sites that I trust. Not all sites can be trusted - because different sites have different criteria for banning.

Additionally, each of us still maintains full control over our individual ban lists. If a site I trusted banned Hank, for example - I still have the ability to remove Hank from my list. If that same site starts banning several people that I don't feel should be - I remove that site from my trust list alltogether.

Here's the big problem this is attempting to solve: After talking to Michi at Luskwood, or Carl at NCI - we've begun to realize that the same people are going around griefing in a single evening. They hit the Shelter, then get banned. Then move on to NCI and get banned, and then move on to get banned at Luskwood. By the time we're able to respond by adding the griefer to each of our ban lists, the damage has already been done, 3 times over.

Under this system, each of us only has power over our own ban list. We just now have the option to take a 'feed' of bans from other sites that have the same issues that we do, and only if we explicitly setup that trust.


Does anyone have a better or alternative solution for dealing with roaming griefers that would be more palatable? Because there's a built-in mechanism to prevent abuse of the shared ban system: the trusts.

If a site abuses their ban list: no one will put them on as a trusted site.

I have mixed feelings about this. The other thread that first brought up this topic was posted by a reformed (so he said) greifer, who wanted access again. The system has the potential to do more then just ban people, but it could also provide a way for case tracking and resolution.

My thoughts on how it should be designed:

Instead of perm banning people, it could be used to give shorter sentances, say two weeks. All the advantages of LL's system but much faster. Perminant records could be generated for people.

Types of sentances:
Ban
Restraining Order

Lengths of sentances:
1 Week
2 Weeks
4 Weeks
Perm

The differences between a restraining order and a ban, would be that restraining orders would not permiate across lists. This way a private dispute wouldn't keep a person from going out shopping.

Each case would receive an ID number, and the user effected could appeal the case if the location had appeal management enabled. Appeal management would be left upto a group of individuals trusted by the owner. Of course anyone could make a small buissness out of doing appeal management.

This is kinda funny: In TSO, I had the Game Show Channel in Alphaville. As a popular place, it also attracted griefers from time to time.

We had a boot and ban thing, and also ignore - so you could get them out of your lot, and unlike here, they couldn't even hover around outside causing trouble.

I did the boot and ban, but I never did ignore. I really don't believe in cutting off communication. (Though I might just decline to answer them.)

But what I had was Coco's Rehabilitation Plan, lol. Some griefers, it seems like, really did want to play the games, but just weren't in the habit of being anything but a griefer. So they would have to wait three shows, and then could come back on probabion. This actually worked out pretty well for those who did want to be in the games enough to behave.

coco

Rehabilitation is key in any system. I had been thinking about probation but forgot to put it in my post ^^;

I was thinking more along the lines of a "Purgatory System". Such a system, if implemented right, would have amazing rehabilitation possibilities.