Welcome Area: Block anyone with less than 4x as many pos porates given as negs given

This is simple.

To keep the welcome area a friendly experience for newcomers, and to stop the proliferation of alt accounts solely for the sake of neg rating people do this:

Anyone who has less that 4 times as many positives ratings given to their negative ratings given is blocked from entering any of the four welcome area sims.

For example, if you have 10 negatives given, you must have at least 40 positives given to enter the Welcome Area. (Maybe tweak the ratio even higher.)

This will help stop the hostile environment that currently exists in the Welcome Area being created by certain residents, and alt accounts used specifically for bullying newcomers.

What do ya think?

Regards,

-Flip

OMG Flip, you thinking again??? I thought I smelles something burning!

:: runs off to neg-rate Flip with his alts, jsut for shits n giggles

I think no systemic solution would work here.

One (1) Liason needs to watch the WA at all times, the teleport points need to be decentralized, or TOS violations from there need more priority. Pick any two.

Good idea Flip, something needs to be done.. Best idea I've seen

Jeffrey, while that would be ideal, they all require manpower. This formula isn't perfect, but also requires no manpower.

Also, please remember... this is looking at negs and positives GIVEN, not received. So the person being blocked is in complete control of what they're doing.

Regards,

-Flip

No way. I don't agree with this. I barely give out ratings any more and with all that have deteriorated away it would be unfair to me or anyone in a similar predicament.


Ratings, even bad ones, are given at the discretion of the avatar. They don't have anything to do with L$ anymore.

I would not want a rule like this curtailing me from giving out an opinion via ratings.

I'm all for it Flip. Something needs to be done.

Wonderful idea.....except...errrr....wouldn't that also block brand-new players that's never given out ratings?

And those who dont use the rating system? ( I generally dont, it's a generally useless feature to me).

And as for how does one tell which new player is an alt for griefing versus a newbie, until *after* they've given out the mass negrates?


- Newfie

ok so what about a newbie with 1 or no rates that has 3 or more neg rates from geifers?

I understand. I just feel it's putting a Band-Aid on a broken leg.

One of the things I suggested some time ago was a Linden "Panic Button" posted at the WA to send a message to any online Liasons. I think the general concensus was people would start pulling it for the hell of it, not unlike Highschool fire alarms.

I haven't been to the welcome areas in ages. What's been happening there?

Neither have I, but I've passed by and heard enough to know.

Apparently, people are abusing the Welcome Area as a privilege. Instead of using it to greet new players and show them interesting, vibrant stuff - it's become a flustercuck of advertising interests (COME TO MY KLUB IN SIM248!!11oneONE) and griefing habits that are of concern to us.

Since new residents are the lifeblood of Second Life, we feel that they should be treated with respect upon entering the world... but this is difficult to enforce when the first place you meet people is so potentially flammable. As such, this has become the subject of fierce debate.

More information here on what's been going on in the WA.


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Good points folks. Perhaps the proposal should be rewritter to say you must have given at least 5 total rates too before the block goes into effect.

Regards,

-Flip

The Welcome Area has become a griefing and neg rate fest for some people. I know LL have insufficient staff but there should be someone there 24/7. Mentors do a wonderful job but have no powers. I wonder if LL could give them extra powers to expel such people from the area? I also like Flip's idea. It would keep out the worst offenders.

Alexa

Yes i was one those mentors that got neg rated DOING MY JOB! GESH!!!!!!!!!!maybe LL might give SOME of us power to take care of problems....We need some sort of and fast!

Neg rating mentors is the new form of entertainment at the WA. (Edited) got me last night.

I feel like I have officially "arrived" in SL now.

Now all I need to do is get (edited) to neg me too, find the golden phallus token and level up so that I can apply for the FIC apprenticeship program.

sad and true

I placed all 10 of my votes AGAINST this proposal - raising it to a status ABOVE desiring curved edges for prims for me as far as importance to me goes.

I think that says it all.

Appears to me it just needs the Lindens to drop in unexpected once in awhile in uncover camoflauge and clean house.
If I was a newbie, I wouldnt mind merchants showing me their wares and handing out landmarks at a welcome center. Heck it happens every time I visit the Caribean. Get off the boat in St.Thomas and you get a bunch of people asking if you want t-shirts, hair braiding, horsecart rides through town, something nice to smoke, ect. Thats not a big deal. I may indeed want a horseride through town with a good smoke. But idiots harassing people, being offensive, causing trouble for the sake of their own amusement, this is unacceptable ANYWHERE. If its especially bad in the Welcome end of town, its time to send in the cops and cart off these miscreants. No need to get creative and start whipping up some kind of discrimenatory legislation just because you have some punks in the neighborhood.

Winter, thanks for the thoughtful comments.

I don't have a problem with people talking about their club or clothing they create at the welcome area at all - as long as its not blatant spamming. In my opinion, it should come up naturally in conversation... no inviting newcomers to groups without talking to them first, for example.

The Lindens have said repeatedly that they prefer solutions that are formulaic and don't require human intervention. For example, the traffic system. Its not perfect, but its also not subjective and doesn't require a panel of judges. This is a similar solution. Every resident controls their own destiny, however, it is a system that can be accomplished in code rather than having a Linden police force.

Also consider, every time any Linden logs in to Second Life, they're bombarded by instant messages. When you juggling 5 or 6 instant messages, its really hard to pay attention to what's going on in world. So while a Linden may be standing at the Welcome Area, this can actually make the situation worse, as newcomers think their problems are being ignored or even condoned by the Lindens while they're being griefed or neg rated.

I had gone 19 months in Second Life without never receiving a negative rating. I've been a Welcome Area hanger since I first joined, through old Ahern, Waterhead and now New Ahern. I now have been give nine negatives (3 times triple negatives) by this lovely new "Welcoming Committee." While I don't care, this is NOT the kind of environment I believe to be beneficial to Second Life as a whole. I want new and interesting people to join Second Life... its what keeps it so fresh!

Last Friday, one of this new crew logged in, and immediately said to another user, before even saying hello to anyone: "Is it my computer, or is your ass REALLY fat?!" It was then that I decided this would be a good policy, as when I checked the person's profile, she had +15 positive rates given, and close to -300 negatives given. I believe negs given tells you more about a person than any other rate.

There are 700 other sims where these people could go to be their miserable selves... yet they choose the Welcome Area. Why? The only reason I can come up with is that they have such personal mental issues, they get off on harassing and bullying new players who are just learning how Second Life works. I find this to be completely and totally pathetic, and believe action should be taken.

That being said, even they can have a second chance; they can easily create alternate accounts, and as long as they don't grief with those accounts... they'll be fine to hang in the Welcome Area.

Regards,

-Flip

Based on this statement don`t you think Rates should be done away with? We are losing the battle dealing with newbies and people that really need help.LL its time to step in and be heard..........WE ARE LOSING THE BATTLE! WE ARE LOSING MEMBERS! DO TO THE FACT OF THIS neg rate people only meaning harm to NEWBIES AND TRIAL MEMBERS. WAKE UP!!!!!!!!!!!! LL THE BALL IS ON YOU SIDE.

The current rating system is borked, but I do think some kind of reputation system is important, especially as SL grows. While that seems to be pretty far off, the last thing I want to see is a few bad apples ruining our entire reputation system. They should be dealt with, and they haven't been. This is unfortunate, and has really made quite a few people angry, and I can't even begin to think of how many new and potentially wonderful members they have pushed away.

If I started today and was greeted by the welcome area in its current state, chances are I would have never come back. How about you all?

-Flip

I went to the Welcome Area today as I have several times since joining, in the hope of finding playmates for innocent second-childhood fun. Each time the place is full of people getting off on being rude to anyone else, especially newbies. Are they so emotionally backward that they need to act as young as I look in the game? When I was really this age I knew how to behave. It's pathetic their need to hang around gleefully discussing body parts and 'warning' each other about a possible Linden visit and shouting at people to go away (newbies and Lindens).

Ideas I think would help clean up the WA:

1. Add option of 'Mute TARGET's Sounds'.... honestly we should not have to turn off ALL our sound to stop the one person waving badgers/six flags around or simply spamming their entire collection of filthy one-liners. The target could be an avvie, or an object.

2. Add an option for "Disable Collision with other avatars (and their attachments)"... to end the pushing people around thing. Of course, the enabling person would also be unable to push as well.

3. "Considered" nametags: Instead of everyone having orange names, I'd love to see green names for mentors/instructors, yellow names for Lindens, red tags for people you've muted, or such... so you can tell who's who in the grand hierarchy of things and easily point out things like "If you need help, look for a mentor, you'll recognize them easy with that big green nametag".

4. "Radar Blip": A feature idea shamelessly stolen from World of Warcraft and some other MMOs. If you're IMing someone, click a point on the mini-map and a target ping will appear on your recipient's minimap for a short time (say a minute). So when people ask where a sandbox is, you can show them with the ping where to go.