New Home for Griefing Tools

In Nburg we have power over ourselves and it is decidedly an experiment.

In real life self government is really smoke and mirrors. Technically your vote for president means nothing as the Electoral college decides the president and while they generally go with the flow any states Electorates can vote as they choose instead of voting the peoples choice. And this has happened in the past.

As in real life when someone holds a position of power they usually share it with friends and family....in a world such as Sl this would be abused and people would start getting people they don't like banned. In the real world I don't have to like my government and I can speak out against it without fear of being thrown out of the country ....I don't think I would enjoy that same freedom in SL if it were self governed.

Sorry, loaded wording on my part. You were right to call me on it. (I fall into the "it's a game camp" myself.)


I think your conclusion assumes a police state of some kind. Why do you think this would happen?


Do you think a representative body of the type you are proposing would solve the issue at hand, i.e. the sale and proliferation of objects used for griefing?

First, you are assuming an SL government will be an American-style representative democracy; this may not be the case. And certainly, while I have my frustrations with the U.S. government, there are real decisions being made that can affect things as small, but as important, as the repaving of the street in front of my house. So I would personally disagree with your overly broad "smoke and mirrors" statement.


There are some who would maintain that this is already happening in SL, with the "Feted Inner Core" having undue influence in Linden decision-making. And whereas in the first paragraph you were assuming an American-style government would arise, now you are assuming a police state. Why?

NP - It was a fair enough question IMO



I think the type of people that would volunteer to be the police force would be all to eager to do so. They would implement their individual tastes, morals, and ideals onto the rest of the grid. Why else would anyone want to be a SL Gustapo?




I think they could certainly present it to LL if they determined that that is what the majority of SL wanted. Personally I would lobby against any such change, as I do not beleive the objects themselves do any damage. I think it is the people who use them in such a way that offends other people, that need to be addressed. Unfortunately that means addressing each individual abuse report, I see no other way.

I should also mention that I sell guns and hand grenades. Both IW and on the ecommerce sites. My views stated here are not to encourage sales of my products as the amount of $L I make from these sales is negligable.

Sorry, I'm a lil jaded after working the past year with the state of maryland and baltimore city governments.....you see things that the average person doesn't get to see.

I never assumed an American government...I think all Governments are borked...I just used the American system as an example.

Many times people have eluded to the fact that the elite inner core have undue influence in SL policy making and I don't believe it. I think LL does get with players and ask questions but from what I've seen of this it is usually a broad spectrum not just oldbies.

I've been playing online games for a while now and I have seen self government come to fruition in some of them and the same story unfolds time and again....those in power do for those they are friends with and find ways to dispatch enemies.

Gestapo? Okay, now you're using some loaded wording. Where would the power of a Second Life police force derive from? Are there no checks and balances in your scenario? And would policing ourselves necessarily mean the formation of a traditional "police force?"


Certainly, a representative body of Second Life citizens could just as easily share your point of view as Shiryu's. Would you be surprised if you ended up agreeing with the majority of the decisions made by such a group?

I understand. Heck, the DMV alone is enough to kill any wide-eyed optimist's warm 'n' fuzzy feelings for the guv'mint.


How does this reconcile with your being involved with the Neualtenburghschlitzenhoafen (or whatever the hell it's called) project? Do you feel government is a necessary evil?


Agreed, I think it's BS myself, but you can see how this kind of resentment and recrimination can develop even without a government.


Let's, just for the sake of argument, assume that SL is the first baby step towards a developing metaverse. Are you more comfortable with a corporate-owned metaverse, or a self-governed metaverse?

Land Tools are the best answer to preserve the freedom of scripters and deal with griefers using fun scripts with bad intentions. You are having an event or whatever and you have alot of visitors, having better land tools to prevent 'pushing' and other popular grief methods is the best answer. Remember I said best answer and not THE answer. The beautiful (and ugliest) aspect of SL is our wide range of freedoms. We dont need policing or a watering down of LSL to solve these problems.

I think better land tools are a great idea. How do we make them happen?

I think the best way to make land tools a reality, is for the community at large to ask loudly enough for them, and repeatedly.

The squeaky wheel gets the grease

Travis

The community at large asks for a whole lot of things loudly and repeatedly. How are the Lindens to know which is most important?

The loudest and most repeated are the most important

Ugh.

Agreed. But that's the system we have now, at least here in the forums.

Yep. Case in point - public land being displayed on the secondlife.com webpage.

IMHO - this wouldn't have happened nearly as quickly if it weren't for all the attention the subject has received over the past few days.

Multiple postings to the Hotline to Linden forums are also another way to add a little more noise to this squeaky wheel. I've already posted one thread on the subject, and received a general reply that these features are being looked at for post-1.6.

Possibly if someone else felt it was important enough, and pleaded a compelling enough case for the idea in the Hotline forum, this idea will get some more attention as well.

(Or not - but you never know till ya try)

Travis

And to add one more point...

I don't think the community was divided on whether to display public land on the SL webpage. It appeared that we spoke with a common voice on that one. If there was significant dissent, I think SL would have left the issue alone for more discussion.

Assuming (and it's a big assumption) that the community at large is equally in favor of having better land tools...... *and* assuming (another big assumption) the introduction of such land tools is technically feasable in a timely manner, I see no reason why this issue couldn't also get equal and prompt attention.

Trav

I'd like to add to what Travis Lambert has been trying to say. Whether the Lindens ever want to step into this or not (and I doubt it. sets a sticky precedent) the practical view would be that there's very little one can do (including the Lindens) to stop people from creating or distributing grief-oriented scripts without restricting the creation of legitimate objects. It's the same reason we're still plagued by viruses and worms on the internet today. The viruses are written using the same tools used to program useful applications. What is needed is a "virus scanner" for parcels. It would need to have permission to examine the code of all objects attempting to be rezzed on the land. The parcel owner could be given the choice to deny the rezzing or entrance of all objects whose script matches a DB of grief-oriented script signatures. That DB would, of course, need to be updated regularly just like a virus scanner, but ultimately this is the only way to curb this kind of thing in my opinion. This way people who really actually WANT to set off a C4 bomb on their own land or to create such things are still allowed to do so. Those who don't want to be griefed can go to scanner-protected areas. Hell, it might even be a good advertising feature for clubs and public venues: "We are a griefer-free zone!"

Persig

It's a good point you make. So Travis, in your opinion, does the current system work satisfactorily?

That is definitely one way to do it. Combat fire with fire and create anti-scanner scanners. That's what is done in regards to virii and spyware on the 'net. A new virus comes out, anti-virus software makers distribute a new set of virus definitions, hackers change the virus to avoid the new defs, software makers react, etc. Sounds like a great SL business opportunity. In fact, if I were the enterprising type, I would do both...send out the rezzing scanner virus AND sell the cure. $L$L$L$L$!

The only thing is, the 'net is an uncontrolled environment, millions of servers everywhere, no real laws, no TOS that everyone follows, and anti-virus software is a necessity to combat the bad guys. In the meantime, SL is controlled. SL has TOS. At any time, if the Lindens decided to, they could stop the rezzing scanners. So anti-virus software is not a necessity. And if the Lindens make us go through this Rube Goldberg process of setting up scanners on our land to zap this new breed of faux virus, they deserve all of the outrage and disdain that they will receive.

Shit like this is exactly why linden should have a "ghosted" ie: physics disabled option for avatars. It would completely end all the crap on this and to boot you could even keep in the damage portion making things like Jessie and other kill sims viable

Only time it would affect people with this method if if they sat on a physical objcet.

Which system are you referring to, Pol?

If you're referring to the system or tools we currently have in place to combat grief?
Absolutely not - those tools are unsatisfactory. The tools we have at our disposal today are weak at best, and at worst - could even be construed as grief themselves (Ejection, TP Home, etc).

The tools that Linden Labs reccomends for us today all seem to take a reactive approach..... wait for the grief to happen, then take action. Land ejection, relying on object beacons, and abuse reporting are examples of this strategy. I think this is a poor way of dealing with conflict, and would prefer to be proactive about it if possible first -- prevent the grief before it happens, so that it never needs to come to abuse reporting, and (hopefully) security systems and land banning become nearly irrelevant and unneccesary.

If you're referring to the system we have to report feedback and feature requests to Linden Labs?
That's a tougher one. I think it would be wrong of me to say its completely flawed, as I think any system like this is a perpetual work in progress, and can always be improved no matter what state it's in. In this case, I'm just trying my best to work within the framework we have. I have no ideal in mind that would both work better and be practical - not to say someone else couldn't come up with a more elegant solution.

Travis

I was referring to the feedback system. I was curious if you wished for something better.

I think pretty much everyone acknowledges that the tools to combat grief are inadequate...the Lindens have armed the griefers much better than they've protected the law-abiding citizens.

What if anti-griefer/anti-virus scanners were just a built-in part of the land tools and residents could choose to run it or not on their parcels? I agree people would be outraged if there was a perceived necessity for these and they were charged for them to boot. If scanning were a tool available to all landowners, my guess is the VAST majority of them would enable it so that scanner-protected areas would be the rule- not the exception. I disagree, however, that Lindens exert absolute control in their so-called controlled environment. Yes, they could easily go in and delete the CURRENT batch of scanners floating around. Then, people will just create new variants and distribute them again. The Lindens would be left with the huge and thankless job of having to determine what's grief and what isn't and then have to continully and actively delete things from the grid. Threatening disciplinary action via TOS is also a proven failure throughout the history of online communities because those who really want to always find ways to make alt accounts, steal identities and grief anyways. Ultimately, the decision to scan for or allow griefing should be left to the land owners and the Lindens can stay out of a situation where they're constantly having to step in as the police, court and jury on every new little variant.

Persig

HHEEYYY!!! Watch what you say please!! My AV is an Amish man with a pitchfork (non-scripted, don't worry) that i made!!

No! Misused pitchforks are bad, but prevention is still good.