Griefers cannot change?

There are a list of reasons I will automatically ignore someone's ban appeal for. They include :
1) Demanding to be unbanned.
The reason for this is simple : no normal person has a right to enter private property in SL. People who think they have a right to enter the private property of other persons need to fix their attitude.
2) Lying to me.
I'm a pretty open minded guy, but if someone lies to me, their word means nothing to me in future, and so I won't listen to anything they have to say.
3) Evading the ban.
If someone evades a ban, say, using alts.... then *when* I catch them, I will not only ban all their alts but also tag their ban as 'lifetime', so it never expires. The reason for this is simple - by ban evading, they have shown they have no respect for the rights of the landowner, and thus, warrant being banned forever with no possibility of appeal.
4) Retaining old patterns of bad behaviour.
For example, if a griefer says that they are sorry for griefing, yet is still a member of the groups they used to go grief with, you can bet your ass I will ignore their appeal.
5) Threatening behaviour.
I've had a few people who think that "unban me or I will do ______ to you" is a good strategy. It isn't. I mute these people and put them and any associated griefers on lifetime bans, to remind them them that threats are not the way to go.
6) Being disrespectful to me personally.
There are many types of this behaviour. It includes things such as trying to go around me by talking to another admin (won't work, I own the sims) or bring my personal life into the discussion. A favourite trick amongst griefers is to say "plz unban me, I'm a furry too!", to which my reply is "Firstly, I am not a furry. Secondly, an appeal like that is a guilt trip - it is emotional manipulation. It does not in any way demonstrate that you have reformed, all it demonstrates is that you know how to manipulate people. Goodbye."
There are other forms of bring personal life into it... but those two (trying to go around me, and trying to guilt trip me) are the most common. Both warrant an immediate mute and a much longer ban.

There are 3 things I look for when considering a request to be unbanned :
1) The person must have changed, and it must be obvious they have changed. This means that they have stopped associating with their old griefer friends, left those groups, stopped talking to those people, and started a new life. Time must have passed so that it can be seen they have stayed reformed and not relapsed at all. Finally, they must now be a positive, contributing member of the SL community.
2) The person must have a good attitude, by which I mean being polite, respectful and undemanding. They must ask, politely.
3) The person must be able to give ane explanation of what they did in the first place, why they did it and *why* they won't do it again. They must also have other people I know and trust who are able and willing to back up the explanation they give.

My ruleset for unbans goes roughly like this :
1) Do they meet any of the 'no' criteria above? If they do, don't reply to their request, simply mute them and move on.
2) Do they meet *all* of the 'yes' criteria above? If they do, unban them and move on.
3) Otherwise, ask other admins who have banned them. If the other admins give them a good rating, unban them. Otherwise, leave them banned, but don't ignore them in case they improve enough in future that they could make a working appeal.


Creating a new account is one of the worst things they can possibly do. It's classed as ban evasion and in many places that alone is enough to get a *permanent* ban which lasts for the lifetime of the *user*, and to which the user can *never* appeal. Using land via an alt when your main is banned is also a very good trigger for ARs being sent to the Lindens.

The reason for this is that, usually, griefers are people who do not value their reputations, whereas normal SL users do value their reputations. Creating new accounts to evade bans is a VERY disrespectful action which also shows one does not care for one's reputation. Thus, it is one of the major signs of grieferdom. It isn't even that effective, and usually causes logs being sent to the Lindens so that they can take action on *all* the person's accounts.


DoB and CC info are relavant, as they indicate that someone has invested into their account. People who have investment in their account are considered to be more trustworthy then people who don't.

There are some people who attach the word "griefer" to people that have merely done something mildly annoying. I've seen it talked about on these message boards before about what people consider griefing behavior. There is one person in particular who occasionally posts on these forums that thinks that anyone who comes even remotely close to his land (even just flying over it) just "has" to be a griefer, why would they dare come close to his land otherwise. If one widens the definition of griefer to those levels, the phrase "once a griefer, always a griefer" would definitely hold true.

Nothing wrong with banning people for being annoying, but to call them "griefers" for just being mildly annoying I think is not being very realistic.

The only time a person will ever change their behavior is when an event occurs that either threatens their survival or places them drastically outside of their "comfort zone". People will never change themselves, it's a fact of life you can always rely on..... even in Second Life.

I'm not all that familiar with bans because I haven't ever found the need to use them, but does Second Life's bans allow for an expiration? If so, that would make things easier and indeed effective. If not, then I again must ask the question of maintenance. In six months, would you remember to be open and unban someone?

I think I may have mentioned this earlier in the thread, but some of the best help and mod scripts I've learned from when the SL wiki failed me was from "troublemakers."

I've always been torn about allowing free accounts. It does allow for anonymity, which is a double-edged sword. It means bad people and good people can get in. Artists and other broke types as well as annoyances. *shrug* Out of curiousity, why the hardline stance? Do you feel that people don't mature?

I've personally never been a fan of the, in my opinion, overly-broad ToS. Namely, the section on harassment: "Given the myriad capabilities of Second Life, harassment can take many forms. Communicating or behaving in a manner which is offensively coarse, intimidating or threatening, constitutes unwelcome sexual advances or requests for sexual favors, or is otherwise likely to cause annoyance or alarm is Harassment."

This can -- and in my experience, often is -- interpreted to include many forms of legitimate criticism and expression. I've witnessed and indeed been involved in many situations where the ToS was wielded as a sort of weapon against criticism. For example, I once hopped into a discussion about God and homosexuality because someone was horribly mis-quoting the bible, and when I attempted to clear things up, was basically accused of trolling. I believe a good ToS is a must, but a vague one is in my opinion just as bad as one that is too permissive.

I guess my point is, take care in what you criminalize, because real-life ethics are different than in-game ethics. Much of what would be called griefing in-game is perfectly legal in First Life.

I had meant to be illustrative, but maybe that is being a bit defensive of griefing there... wasn't my intention.

Fines! Goodness, that's a very interesting idea. I wonder why Linden Labs hasn't implemented that? It could be done without credit card verification, too, because all accounts have currency (L$). Perhaps accounts that get enough fines at $0 would be suspended? It would obviously work even better with accounts that have payment information attached, because then said accounts would actually be charged. The only downside I can see is how they would determine the amount of the fine; incident, damage (how measured?)...

Object removal sounds more tricky, though, like you'd have to address it on a case-by-case basis. More administrative overhead, and the like. Plus, I'm not sure it'd be effective for mod/copy objects that could just be recreated.

Blacklists may be controversial, but they're not necessarily a bad thing. Blacklists always work best if they'res an appeal process. Heck, a virtual court could do the trick quite nicely.

True, newbies that are expecting a violent game are in for a surprise -- this is one reason why I encourage second changes and more careful banning for not-so-obvious griefing, i.e., warnings first. I agree with your stance on maturity because griefers and trolls have notoriously short attention spans. When the next WoW comes around, you can be sure they'll flock there.

This might be a logical contradiction.

It's obviously your choice, and I think LL should further enable such choices with more powerful tools, but before you are firm on such choices, I'd like you to consider the prison system for a moment. In most civilized societies, once time is served in prison, their record is wiped clean. The logic being the criminal has paid back their debt to society, and I would urge you to perhaps look at Second Life that way. Actions do and should have consequences, but without compassion, what kind of people are we? Are people not permitted to learn from their childish mistakes? And what of accidental or spiteful bans? If someone added to the list for irrational personal reasons, is there an approval process, or do they just lose access to a block of popular sims?

I notice that definition isn't up to Wikipedia standards and uses blanket statements to label groups of online users as griefers.

Another reason alt. accounts aren't a good option, yes. So if one is muted and posting on the forum is generally met with ridicule, then what other options are available? Those little IM mailboxes?

Exactly.

I wholeheartedly agree... unless you're a part of this mysterious ban network. Then everyone bans you.

I think that factors out maturity and conscience and the levels of development all people go through. I generally agree that it usually takes drastic events to trigger change, but people adapt themselves to situations, and when they find that their old ways no longer work, they switch to new ways. Take a look at Kohlberg's stages of moral development sometime, a fascinating read.

I urge you to reread my post, which answers a lot of the questions you're asking here already.

As I said in my post, this is not RL, where banning could cost someone a job, or something vitally important. Also, the people who grief do so already knowing what the rules and expectations are for them here in SL. If they chose to grief, they can take the concequences. They chose to make my or the lives of people I trust miserable for the fun of it. I don't see why they should *ever* be allowed back on my land to have the chance to do so again.

Nor do I feel that after doing so, they have the right to ask me to take up my time in deciding which ones to trust to have *reformed*, or to take the risk that some of them may not have. If they want to have access to my land, they can ensure that they do by never griefing in the first place.

Regarding mistakes, as I said elsewhere in my post, I exchange names with my trusted friends and neighbors, usually coming in the form of, "Gus Griefer and his buddies just shot up my store last night, here are thier names." If I didn't trust these people, I won't be accepting names from them. I fact, I trust these people enough that they also have the ability to add names to my security orb when I'm not present, in order to prevent people from standing on my land while griefing my neighbors.

In this case, no, I 'm not about to set up any sort of appeals process. Indeed, what sort of process could there be?

Gus Griefer aka Some Guy I've Never Met: No, I didn't shoot up anything.
Jack's Neighbor aka A person I've known and gotten along with for the last six months: Yes he did. He stood on your land and fired guns and partical bombs into my store for half an hour.

Sorry, but there's really not any room for any sort of "appeal" there, nor can I see any good reason to waste my time even pretending that there might be.

As to the places the griefers are banned from, again if you read my post, you would see that my influence, even including friends and neighbors, extends over less that one sime worth of land total.

Finally, with your prison anology, I'd like to point out tht at least in the US, when someone goes to prison, that fact *stays* on their record, and there are some jobs that they are inelgible for forever after. My land is for me and my friends, and potential friends. There's no reason I should need to open it to griefers under any circumstances, and I don't intend to.

For all who are interested the idea of fining people who break the ToS by griefing has already got quite a lot of support amongst residents! It only needs about 80 more votes to get it into Linden consideration. Considering that each person can allocate up to 10 votes, that is not a lot. Please put votes on this proposal if you like this idea. Remember that it takes over 600/700 votes before the Lindens will give it a speedy response.

I'll take that as a "no reform is possible." Sounds like you've had some bad experiences with griefers.

It's good that you record a bit of context and that gives me an interesting idea; I think I'll submit an idea for a ban reason field.

Exactly, though your example sounds more like a throwaway account designed to grief, which an appeal wouldn't be typically applicable to.

I was speaking generally when I wrote: "And what of accidental or spiteful bans? If someone added to the list for irrational personal reasons, is there an approval process, or do they just lose access to a block of popular sims?" Losing accidental access to one sim is probably not going to be a big deal.

You are incorrect here. All convictions except for the most heinous of crimes (which don't fit the analogy anyway) can be expunged form your record, given time and the proper procedure. Certificates of Rehabilitation, Pardons of Clemency, et cetera. Some felonies are just harder to get rid of than others, and RL crime to griefing comparison would map to mostly low-end felonies.

I criminalize "griefing". Not annoance, not stupid things people attest to the ToS and CC (which I agree needs much work, imo). Just griefing. If someone comes on and shoots randomly in a peaceful sim, shooting shoppers in a shopping area, for example, that is a criminal. They are disrupting those persons enjoyment

If someone in real life went into a shopping plaza and started shoving and pushing, they would be arrested for Disorderly Conduct if not Assult. Translating RL to SL doesn't work well as even the most minor RL crimes are more offensive then the worst SL crimes (to my knowledge at least. I don't follow all that happens in SL). The penalties in SL are far lower, however. Permban (about the worst that can happen in SL) is hardly even close to monetary fines or actual jail time.

So yes, I still classify them as criminals. Second Life criminals, but criminals none the less. Some even go into RL crime as fraud or outright theft, but that is a matter for the law and LL through the law to handle. For SL crimes, they should be prepared to pay the price, or better yet, they should just not do it and spare themselves the price if they don't want to pay it.

Personally, if anyone gets banned off my lands, save your fingers typing a plea to be unbanned. I hold a grudge, have it stuffed and mounted and placed on my mantle for all eternity.

~Jessy

At some point, I accidentally blew all my votes on some minor proposal. When do votes refresh, out of curiousity? This is a very interesting proposal, and I will definitely try to push support for it.

EDIT: nevermind!

That, and *many* other security suggestions have already been proposed in Prop. 1632.

After looking at it and the accompanying thread, I'm torn. I like a good deal of them, but some of the proposals are, in my opinion, a bit much. Example: If LL implemented shared banlists, I'd be willing to bet that they'd fudge it by not recording much context. Travis' BanLink sounds like a much better solution for that part of it. I think maybe going after these one at a time would be more productive.

I suppose it doesn't matter much, now...

On several occasions i have unbanned griefers from my property after they wrote, apologized, promised, cajolled, got all weepy and sheepish etc etc.

And 100% of the time, i kicked myself because they did not fail to disappoint by causing trouble again.

Can people change? of course they can- but as said earlier in this thread, it does not happen overnight. And as we all know too well, things happen in SL in a fraction of RL time.

The sort of mentality and maturity level that accompanies griefing requires much more time for the person behind the AV to come to terms with and change. If it is a kid doing it, they will likely outgrow it- in a few years. If it is an adult, well, that is too sad and spooky to entertain here and i suspect it will last the rest of their lives.

So for me, you grief, you gone- FOREVER. no more tolerance for griefers. I simply don't have the time, need, desire or training to be a shrink for malcontents and kiddies. And i sure as shit am no ones punching bag.

It pains me to say this but, Back when Anshe Kicked all the furries out of the forest, all i saw on the forums in replies was "if she owns the land she can do whatever she wants to it". Now it seems like Everyones saying the oposit here... So i must bring that little quote into this topic. It is a fact that you can do whatever you want to your own land. If you ban someone it's up to you to determin how long that ban wil last if not forever. You have full rights to keep them banned perminently if you wish.

Where did anyone say anything to the contrary? There is a marked difference between generally encouraging flexibility and telling people what they can and cannot do on their own land.

I was trying to be polite, but thanks for proving my earlier point about stubbornness.

If someone you don't know walks up and punches you in the nose, you're being stubborn for not giving them another chance?

That's not a very good analogy ... while I can think of many reasons this could happen in RL where another chance would be warranted, I can't think of one reason in SL.

You mean this one?




I disagree strongly that my position is in anyway dangerouns, or represents the sort of "stubborness" to which you refer.

The griefers in question, they knew what the rules were when they came into the game. You have to state that you agree to the TOS before they'll let you into SL. Knowing that, they went ahead and shot me for saying "Hello," or invaded my space and threw out partical bombs, or walked onto my land naked and sporting an erection...

Why on earth *should* care if they're a better person *now*? And why should I take any time or expend any effort what-so-ever to try to work out if that's the case or not?

That fat that *you* feel that banning a griefer is only an apropriate reaction for so long as that person continues to behave as a griefer is not one that I agree with.

There are three major reasons why I will never unban a griefer.

1) Griefing is wrong in my eyes. They are destroying, they are taking pleasure in harming others, they are making the world a worse place for everyone, and I feel that this is wrong. If it were up to me, they would be permanantly expelled from SL for this. It' isn't, but this is as close as I can come. It may be that they're sorry *later*, but it doesn't make up for the harm that they've already done.

2) Prevention. If people who might be tempted to grief discover that there are parts of SL that they will *never* again have access too under any circumstances if they once grief, maybe they'll think twice.

3) It asks me to do something on behalf of someone who has already taken from me. A griefer has taken my time, and dampened my enjoyment, and everyone elses, of SL. Not just by their particular act of greifing me, but from the threat of griefing in general. Asking me to take my time and effort to determine if this person has "reformed" is asking even more from me, after they've *already* taken from me. It's also asking me to take a risk that they may not have reformed, and that they'll grief me again, taking even more. I refuse to go out of my way even one inch for a griefer.

I'm sorry, but esentially the griefers have made their own bed, and they can lay in it. It may be stuborn, but it is certainly not *bad* or *unreasonable*, that I'm refusing to go out of my way for them.

Your equivocation would hold true if a griefer was causing actual damage in-game. A punch in the nose is a lot more serious than being annoyed, pushed, subjected to loud noises, or being logged off. That's actual physical harm, comparable to theivery, or sabotage -- which isn't what I would call griefing.

Yes; stubbornness is generally not a positive character trait. Few want to deal with the stubborn, the damage to themselves being their own reputation.

Compassion?

I've suggested that atonement should eventually be taken into account, but I still think timed bans are a good thing... just that permabans generally aren't, especially for annoyances like walking around nude.

And how permanent is the harm they've done? Part of my point is, a permanent ban for a crime that consists generally of being offensive, if scaled to First Life, would be completely unjust. "Let the punishment fit the crime?"

I don't deny that private land owners have the right to do as they wish, but if there are global banlists being developed, you can be sure people like me are going to stand up for fairness and an appeals process.

Maybe, but there's also a chance "global" permabans will cause more retaliation spite attacks. For some odd reason, the death penalty and harsh prison sentences aren't good deterrants in RL.

So what the heck do we have prisons for? Let's just execute everyone because they're obviously never going to change. Personal growth doesn't exist, nor does rehabilitation. No one really finds God in jail. Yeah, I think the negative/unreasonable argument could indeed be made.

With all the griefing going on, mostly by people who use half a dozen disposable alts in rotation to skirt potential punishments or banning, I'm actually a bit more upbeat than I was on the griefer situation than I was.

O_o!!

Now that I've seen the full spectrum of bad behavior, I can see that most griefers seem to be kids on the adult grid who think they're playing Unreal Tournament, and probably playing in SL instead of doing their homework. I can't tell you how many have admitted to me that their underage and on the wrong grid.

The real problem are the ones who learned so little from their parents that they assault people because of their race or sexual orientation, or who crash sims for sport. I know of at least three who take delight in sim crashing, and they're in violation of the federal computer crime statute - this "the FBI would like an intense conversation with you" sort of griefing.

By comparison, the bored nimrods with Hand of God orbiters tossing people around aren't so bad. People with those little pushguns don't do so much damage as the real thugs do.

Of course, they're all still griefers. And since they're all basically acting out to get cheap attention, we should all make sure they get it - from the Lindens, their parents and the FBI on an as-needed basis.

This makes me wonder... is it possible to programmatically obtain IP addresses?

You seem to think an excess of compassion is a survival-positive trait ... it's not. A level of empathy and compassion is necessary in each individual for society to work, but taken to extremes it just makes you easy meat for someone who doesn't share your outlook.

People are going to have different interpratations of what they consider "griefing" and what they consider "annoying" .... look at some of the other threads here and it becomes glaringly obvious.

There almost certainly will never be a "global ban list" outside of LL's own. There are many ban lists shared by users of SL, and there are more in the works. This is a good thing, and they should not be easy to get off of.

You're delving off-topic into social Darwinism. An excess of compassion is no better than a lack of it. I am endorsing a moderate view, where an extreme one in my opinion seems to currently dominate.

Personalizing the comparison doesn't make a real-life punch to the face any more comparable to SL griefing. If you want to draw a comparison to the two, please be fair about it, because otherwise you're lumping griefers in with more dangerous classes of criminals.

You should see this thread: /108/32/131273/1.html

why the hardline? Years of experience with griefers/abusers (yes you bastards are abusers, you will hate the term because of the sinister natures attached to it these days, tough - piss off, you can not harm me no matter what you claim), in a number of MMO's, forums, IRC channels and seeing repeatedly evidence of repeat offenders. As a forum mod both now and the past, as well as former channel op in a numer of IRC channels I have seen it happen too much. Give them a chance and they return to wreck havoc - these are not the people that we want anywhere near the grid (forums, IRC etc), they cross that line, get rid of them and never allow them back - I do not give a damn if they do genuinely reform, the message must be zero tolerance and no 2nd chance if there is ever to be an effective way to tell these bastards that sooner or later they will be the ones to lose out.

"Zero-tolerance" rules don't actually change behaviors, by the way. Think back to high school, and their blossoming policies against drugs.