LL and griefing

Frankly, the only time I call a Linden is after I've filed an AR and am on their lands. What I usually see is the Linden comes in, ejects the idiot and waits for a time before going on. Odd, though I've noticed that they usually just offer warnings now, instead of booting the idiot out of the area, even after being shot at themselves.

*shrugs* Maybe they are afraid of lawsuits?

I'm having a little trouble finding this rather enticing gem in the ToS or Community Standards. Can you quite the section that indicates this? Or are you interpreting the subtext?

That I have to ask for clarification does show that the ToS is written in such a way as to be open to flexible interpretation, but if it's in there in black and white, I think we'd all be happy to know precisely where.

Even if there is something like this in the TOS/CS, if you engage them back my trapping them, you are also consenting to combat play, and then they can no longer be considered a griefer.

Not every Linden is a Liason. Some are Content Team, who build things. Some are Developers, who test things in private areas. Just because a given Linden is logged in doesn't mean that they're available to deal with resident problems, but there almost always is at least one Linden logged in who is.

As for the person shooting the Linden, if they were able to shoot a Linden they were presumably using a popgun or some other object firing weapon, so probably they were treated nicely because a) it's a common newbie mistake and b) this type of weapon does relatively little damage. Lindens have a shield built into the SL code that makes them "invisible" to scripted objects, which means most scripted weapons can't even target them. (I believe they're unpushable and undamageable as well, but I'm not sure.)

I don't think that a Linden can ban or suspend a user from within the SL client - I suspect this has to be done at the database level and has to go through the upper levels. If the user was unverified the only effective sanction would be a hardware hash ban and that would probably require investigation just in case the hardware was in a cyber cafe or belonged to someone's friend or something like that. Probably the Linden who was being shot had the Client Recorder running and was logging what was happening, in which case they would have wanted to be shot because it provided more evidence.

Somehow... Second Life has this incredible cultural divide.


I've been in SL for about three years, and NEVER have I bought a shield, known how to work one, needed one, or any of that. I suppose if I was threatened, I'd sit on a prim. I've never been threatened.

I don't have any kewl weapons (ok, I bought Ordinal's Derringer as a prop for an upcoming 19th century murder mystery night, but that's different).



Yes, I recognise there is much potential to be harrassed at sandboxes, but... if I need to make something big, there are a lot of folks with lots of prims free, &c.

Isn't there a sort of educational sandbox at the Ivory Tower, too? Never a problem there.

I have to agree with this. I've yet to really ever have any issues. Maybe I know the system well enough that I don't get frazzled when people start to shoot at me.

If a weapon makes a lot of particle explosions, I know how to shut particles off. If it's laggy I can go into wireframe. I've never been much bothered.

I get that there are a bunch of people who run around making trouble, but it also strikes me that there's just as many people who are, unfortunately, big babies about it. I think there are things that are a LOT more grief-worthy than someone running around with push guns. Like the annoying security scripts, obnoxious ban lines and camping.

I fear this more than griefers.

Never really had too much pf a problem with Gfrs but a few times... I just tele out of the area. I am sure I am not living in the same area in SL as you are though so I have not experienced the amount of trouble you have. I am sorry you are even considering leaving if it comes to that, I hope not. I started with SL years ago but only just recently picked it up again, forgot my old account and confused it with other games like it. Now that I have been living in SL this past weekend, the whole weekend, I am well addicted to the SL style.

It's not reasonable to expect Lindens to suspend griefer accounts on the spot, for many reasons :
1) They might not be a Liaison or AT member with the power to suspend griefer accounts.
2) They might be off duty or working on something else more important.
3) They might *need* the evidence first before they can do anything.
4) They might need a certain delay in order to check a person's alts for crimes (thus deciding how much punishment the person deserves)... or at the very least to check that banning them will not harm other innocent users (who share their IP or hardware hash).

Put bluntly... there are unavoidable reasons why Lindens cannot give us the response that would feel most gratifying (suspending the griefer's account instantly) in many cases.
There's nothing we can do about that - the policy is probably made high up within LL and even if individual Lindens want to or feel it is justified, they have to follow the rules. Being a Linden doesn't suddenly mean you can do whaever you want - you have to uphold the law, rather like a policy or community officer.

There are however, proposals you can vote for which will help give us (SL residents) the power to combat griefing on private land, such as
Prop 1632 - enhance SL security tools to help combat griefing. For public land - we really need "true mute"... and immunity to scripted objects. In short, we need to learn that if we're in a sandbox and we get griefed, we should just rez and sit on a prim, then mute the griefers and carry on as normal.

I was about to suggest a team of 'rezmods' for public sandboxes - people who build there all the time and have the power to eject/ban griefers who are taking advantage of newbies. There will always be newbies in public sandboxes who can't be expected to know how to defend themselves as they're new... and they have to be protected - or they will get a bad first impression of SL. Lindens are too busy to camp the sandboxes... so maybe a 'resmod' program for sandbox banning? The main problem with this idea is that it'd create so much bitching on the forums and FUD. Oh well. Better education for new residents, then? Requiring them to pass through OI before they can get to the Mainland... and including an orientation station where they can practice defence against griefers? (aka: how to sit on a prim and mute an object'/avatar that is annoying them). Telling them isn't enough - you have to get them to practice it so they REMEMBER it when trouble comes.

Then you are enjoying amazingly rarified air, Desmond. Most of the people I know have to deal with at least one incident of griefing per day, and if they own a club or reasonably large shop, that can be several times per day.

And to the other poster, when you're losing business because the griefers are chasing off your customers, I'd hardly consider that being a cry-baby about things. That's real money flying out the door along with the customers. And now that the exchange rate doesn't suck anymore, it's about a 30% bigger problem than it was just a month ago.

Or maybe you're just not in the grief-magnet areas enough to see what some of us see. Simply because you don't notice it doesn't mean it doesn't exist, does it?

Sandboxes are a prime target. So are Welcome Areas and places like the Newbie Center and the Shelter. So, too, are furry sims and adult clubs. Or, really, any place that is near the top of the places & events menus and has lots of green dots on the map.

I, too, have a shield and I also have Burke's multi-orbiter. I have only ever orbited one person after he was banned and continued to come back repeatedly to shoot into the parcel from outside the borders. And even then, only after 30 minutes of appeals to Live Help without any response at all.

To do as Dominik suggests and turn the other cheek, or TP away, would mean that I abandon our club members to the abuses of this jerk. It would mean leaving our club open to additional grief. It would be a highly unacceptable solution to the problem.

The only real solution? Give every single SLer the ability to turn off push attacks on our avatars. Turn "mute" into a mega-mute that refuses to allow these childish twits the opportunity to ruin any one else's Second Life. Maybe after they realize they can no longer carry out their mayhem they'll go back to kiddie town or wherever they came from. Until that happens, I'm not backing down. The griefers will NOT win.

1) Though it may not affect everyone, the griefer scene is real.

2) Having Lindens be the law against griefers is not a sustainable solution at the rate of growth of the population. What you will probably see is more resident/community developed solutions to deal with griefers, whether that be community shared banned "Black Lists", Island owners giving trusted parties/people the ability to the access/ban lists, or more creative solutions.

Instead of getting upset at the Lindens, let's think about how we, as a community, can deal with this problem.

Exactly.


Completely agreed. http://slbanlink.com is the one of the anti-griefer tools I use, and it works great

The system looks very well thought out, and is the only one I've seen that isn't group-centric with respect to its administration. It also handles the differences in opinions as to what a banning offense is quite elegantly.

re: Sen's experience, I've seen lots of this sort of thing myself, and just trying to reason with the griefer in these cases just doesn't work. The Linden tried that, and all that happened was they shot the Linden.

Of course, shooting a Linden probably carries a hidden penalty worth a few dozen normal AR's, for all we know, so their accounts are probably not long for this world anyway, but still..

When I entered SL 5 months ago, the person who brought me in world was a big fan of the sandboxes. You name the chaos infested build area of your choice, that was where I first experienced SL.

Believe me, if I wanted to go fire weapons at anything moving, I already had 10 variations on a theme, times multiple platforms. Needless to say, I was beyond unimpressed.

I was, at the time, involved with an FPS group who, while being ultra laid back, put up with NOTHING. Backtalk an admin, gone. Use cheats, gone. Be a jerk in general, out. Under the age of 19? No dice. (Thank goodness for voice comms! Takes care of the age thing, for the most part, by itself!) All this, and NO forum bans! It was a great place to be, and, unlike other servers I had played, those who were banned were VERY bummed out about losing their chance to play on our servers. I think I only saw 2 players who DIDN'T contest their ban. Most wrote lengthy apologies, after which, some were given probation, others simply told their deeds were unforgivable. With GREAT admins on 24/7, it was 99.995% grief-free, every single time.

Fast forward to this mess...

By my second day in SL, I was so irritated by the general douchebaggery I was experiencing, I asked the guy who got me into this if it was some kind of joke. I had already been orbited more times than I could count, had my system crashed and all the other happy b.s. that comes from a griefer's barrel. "Oh, no problem!", he says. "We'll get you some shields an weapons." Great.

Fast forward again, 5 months later...

After much wandering and roaming about, I have found what works, as well as what is completely futile...

What works - Go check out Samurai Island. They have some of the most clearly stated rules I have seen, posted everywhere and handed to every visitor as a note card. Their rules are similar to those used today on my own land: If you come here, you are fair game. Any obvious harassment will result in a permanent ban, no questions asked. Treat others with respect, and you will be given the same.

What is futile - Going to any of the major sandboxes and expecting not to be harassed in one way or another. I have tried time and time again. One out of one hundred visits are peaceful. The other ninety-nine are spent engulfed in a sludge of laggy goodness, equipped with non-phys and watching the horizon like a hawk. I dare say I have linked no more than three prims while in a certain high traffic box.

We have our expectations of what SHOULD be, and then we have reality. In RL, we SHOULD be able to go to certain neighborhoods, day or night, as we have the promise of police protection to keep us safe. In reality, you are asking to get yourself shot, beaten or stabbed in certain areas, because the high crime rates spread protection so very thin it seems nonexistent.

I know this isn't RL, but my guess is that our "police force" is right around one "officer" for every 30,000 residents. RL or SL, this is a formula for riotous chaos. Until we have a "police academy" to train and certify select residents to patrol smaller areas or communities, those who own land will have to set their own rules, and police themselves. The sandboxes will continue to be a haven of noobs shooting newbies, and those residents in the know will have to point out to our friendly, well behaved new arrivals that there are certain neighborhoods where, simply put, you are putting your second life at risk.