A fine day - Shopping, helping strangers, getting caged by an As**ole

Spent part of this morning shopping. Was having a nice day, and was helping a stranger learn to use a scripted collar that she was having troubles with. As we were standing in the entry of the store, some juvenile griefer started shooting cages at everyone...

*Cage appears around me. I back off out of Mouselook, and see that I have been caged, and so has the person I was helping.*

Me: "Very funny. Remove the cage please."
Helpful stranger: "Just sit on the cage to get out of it."
Me: "Thanks."

*Sits on a nearby sign, then stands and activates personal security HUD defenses. Notes the land is no-push, thankfully.*

*Enters edit mode. Captures name of griefer from his cage objects. Issues an AR for assault. Watches avatar detector on my HUD for range to griefer.*

Me: "The griefer's name is *********. Everyone should abuse report him for assault. I just did."
Helpful stranger: "I just found him and orbited him."
Me: "Please abuse report him."
Someone else: "What was his name?"
Me: "The cages belong to **********. Abuse report him for assault."

Aside from the person who orbited the griefer, the rest of us flatly ignored the little SOB, and went about our business. After filing AR repports for assault, of course.

*sigh* Stupid idiots...

still not as bad as catching people RPing pirates on your yachts. When questioned the individuals in question claimed to own the yachts and for me to stop interferring with their game. I don't mind people hanging out at my place, just don't take credit for my work.

Another day in Second Life.

I warned a guy last night about this very thing after he spent half an hour calling other people "punks" and "bitches", then for no other reason than his own entertainment he threw a cage on an unsuspecting resident right in front of the door -- thus blocking a major traffic stream into our club.

I edited, made sure it was his, returned the cage and then in open chat informed him that if he did that again he would be banned (I was feeling generous). His response? "Bitch".

/Ban

It's so common any more I don't even bother to AR unless they are repeat offenders and interfere with the enjoyment of enough members to make it an issue. Most of the new class of griefer are weak pretenders -- with the new push restrictions there isn't much they can do to hardcore grief. Nothing can stop them from being assholes, of course. I think it's genetic.

There's a jackass who was hanging around the GNUbie store doing this, but he's been taken care of. Caging 3 live helpers hanging out together at once isn't the brighest thing I've ever seen a griefer do.

Regards,

-Flip

Well, here's the deal.

If you are reluctant to police your own game/platformshoes/okra, you're going to get a lot of griefers. If you let the entire world in for free, you're going to get a lot of griefers.

A disproportional amount of griefers.

If you tell everyone you're "not the police," you give griefers the go-ahead.

Take away all "game" structures that give any form or purpose to the environment, along with stipends, and you get even more griefing.

So - there you go. Griefer heaven.

LL wants it that way, so it's what LL gets.

coco

It was really such a pathetic attempt a griefing. I was about to log off and start work, or I might have hung around and told the griefer what a pathetic loser he was. Clearly the cage gun he was using was a low-quality freebie. The graphics on the cage were piss poor, and it was very easy to get out of. I have no idea how old his account was. I opened his profile to get his name, but didn't bother to look at the account birthdate. Didn't care.

Incidentally, he came right back after the other person orbited him, and it was still raining cages outside the store. W eall just ignored the loser.

Coco, I think you're right. Linden Labs refusal to act decisively on this kind of crap has made SL a mecca for griefers.

Flipper? I'm not in-world right now, so I can't check. Is the GNUbie store yours? I want to ask the owners of the store to post a sign there, reminding newbies that it's impolite to just go to the nearest open space and start rezzing their new toys. Maybe something that will give them a notecard listing good sabdbox sites? The land near the GNUbie store is mostly businesses or private homes, and a lot of day old newbies are appearing there and treating nearby resident owned land as a public sandbox. My household, which has land in the sim next to the GNUbie store, recently had to lock down our parcel because of the flood of newbies abusing our land and leaving their trash all over it. I believe it is simply that they don't know any better, but it's still rude behavior. A simple sign and notecard giver might solve a lot of problems before they happen.

Neither is shooting a Linden, but I've seen that happen repeatedly. And in one instance, it was the same person shooting the Linden, repeatedly.

Ah, well. Ignorance is curable.. stupidity is removable.

I still like the idiot threatening me on my own land because I didn't need a bodyguard. Brilliant, fun and I was in a much better mood for the rest of the day. See, laughter is the best medicine!

I've seen Lindens get shot with cage guns and orbiters and ignore it while investigating an AR about the griefer in question.

It made me boggle.

Griefers are like forum trolls. They get their kicks largely from getting a reaction from other people. If you ignore them and file abuse reports to quietly get them kicked out, or just ban them, you take away their fun. If you rant at them or fight back, you're playing their game, and making them enjoy what they are doing.

Yes yes...very easy to ignore when you're floating up in space or bouncing around in a cage. Normally I just talk polietly to them for a few moments as I get ahold of a Linden. If I can't get a Linden in time...I handle the situation myself.

Laughter is always better than pills for what ails ya!

For the most part, sitting on something prevents most of their push effects, and if you rez a cube outside the cage and sit on that, you can easily get out of the cage.

True, if they orbit you before you know they were there, you can't do much just then. That is why I own a shield with a move-locker function. That is also why I tend to avoid sims that haven't activated the no-push defense rules.

These cage guns have been in world for a long time. I have one from a freebie pack I got at Yadni's and I saw it again in a sandbox. In fact it seems the popular thing to do is hang out in a "newbie" area and shoot everyone. I got caged there at least once when I forgot to have my personal defense stuff on. Yadni does have a anti-griefer hud available. I don't think it protects you, but does log who hit you for ease of reporting.

I use two "personal defense" scripts that don't block everything, but have worked so far of recent. Last night walking around Yadni's to check out the new stuff and such my shield was stopping the bullets from affecting me.

Auto-Shield

Anti-Grief/Movement Script

I've been wanting to put together a hud device with these in it and then give them out as a freebie to give people some form of protection. Also the Ivory Tower has a free non-physics movement "vehicle" available.

Well ofcourse. My first few days in SL were the hardest. Especially when I had to deal with griefers. But now I'm armed to the teeth to protect myself. ^.^ Makes me feel all fuzzy inside.

I take offense at your lumping my people in with griefers.

Very true

I agree with both those statements.

The goal is to take away the griefer's fun. Not cage them, not shoot them - your greatest weapon isn't nuking them, it's BOREDOM. The second they realize nobody cares what the fsck they do, they leave. They're the 3D equivalent of forum trolls. And they're usually kids as well, very few adults are out there griefing.

And for the record, filing AR's DOES WORK - it just works very slowly. You have to pile up a great many AR's on a single individual before they get perma-banned. So keep filing those AR's, folks, and don't get discouraged if your AR doesn't result in a kick right away. Eventually it will.

And to the person who replied, complaining about being lumped in with the griefers, I applaud you for speaking up. It's very easy to simplify your world view by painting everyone who disagrees with your tactics and opinions with the same brush, but it's also a refusal to deal with the world as it is, a denial that each situation has its own context.

Heck, even the Lindens themselves disagree on what and what is not considered griefing, depending on the situation. I remember one time where I was at a welcome area, and asked somebody to shoot me with a push gun so I could see what it did. Yes, the guy was shooting in an area where you're not supposed to, but neither of us knew that at the time. We learned. Was there a victim? No. Was it griefing? Wasn't that for me to decide? In my case, I had already decided that it wasn't. Despite getting pushed two sims away.

So who are you, or I, or anyone, to make the decision as to what's griefing and what isn't? It's a personal decision, and each person's idea of what constitutes a griefer is a little different. If you're being abused and you don't like it, then it's griefing, whatever form that takes. But insisting that your definition is the only correct one is short-sighted and disrespectful of the opinions of others at best.