Griefing - too little, too late?

I’m very pleased to see that LL have – finally – decided to take action against at least some of the griefers who appear to be invading SL. However, taking the very obvious steps they have now taken, but much earlier, would possibly have avoided the current, escalating situation.

Furthermore there is an unwelcome upsurge in a more personalised form of griefing that LL seems completely unwilling to take action against.

I’m referring to griefing attacks upon individuals and/or their property. And these attacks are being carried out by the same groups who are also responsible for the grid-wide attacks.

How can I possibly know this?

Simple, I, and friends of mine have been victimised by groups of up to 20 individuals, the names of whom I won’t mention for two reasons, firstly to deny them the attention they so obviously crave, secondly to give no excuse for over-zealous application of forum rules. However I can state that those names include the names of the most recent grid attack griefers.

These attacks have included abusive behaviour, ‘peeping-tom activities’, discharging weapons at their victims, erecting ‘builds’ (I use the word in it’s loosest sense) on private property, damaging legitimate builds, removal of property from it’s original location (‘hiding’ underground or in foundations, dumping in protected land so it’s auto-returned, and breaking up ‘physical’ objects).

Linden reaction to these events has been pretty much what you’d expect – I’ve personally hung on for 15 minutes while a Linden watched as griefers destroyed structures on my property and discharged weapons at myself and one of my tenants (our shields visually and audibly confirming hits) and the final reaction, after some verbal prodding, was to ask the griefers to leave. And he wondered why I was angry…
Within 10 minutes of the Linden scooting off the griefers returned – predictably (unless of course you are a Linden) - sadly for them by this time I’d switched the entire sim to ‘damage enabled’ and after a hectic few minutes we persuaded them to leave us alone for a while.

Subsequently I was forced to switch the sim to access for tenant group members only, though I have now installed automated systems on all my land to ban the current ‘griefer list’ thus allowing normal people to visit once more.

I only discovered how widespread this problem was when people commented on recognising many of the names on my parcel ban lists (I actually tried using this SL tool to protect my land – until I found it all but useless as much of my land and several buildings are above it’s upper limit).
When we got together and compared notes it became obvious that the problem was not quite the random, isolated incidents you might expect. I wouldn’t like to speculate on the reasoning behind the targeting, but it seems that large and attractive land-holdings are especially popular targets.

Another interesting feature of these griefers is the number of them who have joined highly responsible, even civic minded sounding, groups. Doubtless as a form of camouflage (sorry, no group names, forum rules etc…). Obviously the groups concerned need to consider their options carefully, as one possible result of allowing people of ‘questionable’ provenance to join their group freely is the entire group being added to ban lists.

So, what can be done?

Well, if LL had the ability to learn from their mistakes they would realise that the connection between these ‘petty’ griefers (believe me, when you are subject to their attentions it doesn’t feel ‘petty’!) and the sim/grid crash griefers is real, and that you simply can’t give such people any leeway whatsoever.
However, LL doesn’t learn easily from their mistakes and the general feeling among victims is that they aren’t interested in, or capable of, taking action. One thing we are agreed on is that the problem has become acute since the policy of free basic accounts was adopted…

As the situation stands, it seems there is little choice for individuals other than to look to their own protection. One promising concept is to institute shared ‘ban lists’, in conjunction with private security systems, so that the threat of a continual stream of new accounts/AVs (the griefers obvious response) can be minimised.
It is hoped that over a period of time larger and larger areas of the grid can be denied these sociopaths, until, hopefully, SL becomes unattractive to them.
This, combined with a reduction in the extent of ‘safe’ areas and a robust approach to unacceptable behaviour by land owners seems the only way of preventing the piecemeal destruction of SL in the long term.

If anyone had constructive suggestions to offer they are welcome to do so.

Detailed discussion of the ‘ban lists’ scheme should not be entered into in this thread as that will only result in its premature closure. Please use PM or contact me inworld if you wish to discuss the subject in detail.

Dare I say it --- Resident Government?

...

No. The solution is not to give players power over other players. That would only lead to a whole other type of misery.

The solution is for the Lindens to aggressively pursue the griefers, remove them from the world, and develop methods to prevent them from returning.

-Ghoti

I have been griefing as much and as soon and as often as can and I don't appreciate having my griefing inadaquacy pointed out so prominently in public.

Oh guess I should have read more than the thread title. Nevermind.

Travis Lambert has a voting propostion about landowner's rights and powers that might have some bearing on your griefing problems.

It only took a few annoying neighbors to make me sell my last bit of land, nothing at all on the order of the problems you described.

This should never have happened, and it should not be "pretty much what you'd expect".

I know the Lindens have their plates full, but if people aren't given some form of protection even in the presence of one, then why bother having them inworld??

And I firmly agree with Jillian and Ghoti in reference to a resident government. As it is my RL government has never represented me, and a government in SL would be a mirror of that, consisting mostly of the most vociferous people who are looking out only for themselves under the guise of doing 'the common good'.

There's a few solutions to this issue, but they all lie in LL's lap. Enforcement of rules that are in place is a good start. Giving land owners better management tools is another. Extending these tools into LSL wouldn't be a bad thing either.

And as a more extreme measure, why can't (or don't) they use more sophisticated hardware bans to keep the griefers gone? It seems that some gaming platforms can do this with a high degree of success.

Part of the problem is our lackluster tools to prevent grief from happening before it starts in the first place.

Proposition 244 asks for better parcel tools to render security scripts unneccesary, and allow us to take proactive measure against grief.

Votes added. Great idea.

-Ghoti

booo!

My gooness, Pypo you gave me quite a start there.

I would not trust 90% of the SL residents with anything resembling power or responsibility

I agree that the Lindens have been exhaustively laxed in terms of dealing with griefers. My assumption on how griefers came to be was the result of parents reading "It Takes a Village" Unfortunately that village was populated by idiots, so hence the birth of Griefus Idioticus Maximus.

The Lindens need to start becoming more proactive as opposed to reactive (if they're even that!) The problem here is that griefers are given far too much liberty. I wouldn't go as far as initiating a zero-tolerance policy, or as I like to refer it as.. martial law, but if the concensus validates my opinion, then the Lindens need to start actively patrolling the grid for griefer complaints and deal with them swiftly.

Resident Government - LOL - a talking shop where nothing would actually get done!

Tools - agreed! Until last week I never had occasion to attempt to restrict access to any of my land, I assumed the ban tool did what it said on the tin, which nearly got me blown away by incoming griefers! The tools are worse than useless because they give the illusion of control without the substance. You wind up having to take drastic measures in the short term because researching, purchasing and setting up decent security systems all take time.

I would not trust 90% of the SL residents with anything resembling power or responsibility - fair point, also, I would not trust 90% of the Lindens with anything resembling power or responsibility...

So, thus far no brilliant suggestions... Oh well.

I too would welcome LL taking a far more serious view of even minor griefing (give 'em an inch...), there is some light at the end of the tunnel where they are at least beginning to talk about nailing the ones who kill, or try to kill the grid.

However it's beginning to look like SL needs a 'Linden Police Force' to deal with less than grid crashing griefing, with a bit more of the Judge Dredd attitude and a lot less of the Social Worker attitude currently favoured.
It seems strange to me that the Forums are policed more stringently than SL itself...

In fact you can probably get permabanned more easily here than inworld! Almost as though LL puts more weight on words than actions...

I got a "treat" from the "mafia" last night.. I hope to god Im the only person who laughs in their faces...