Shoot on sight

You must not own any land, or haven't been griefed.

You can Ban the world, turn off scripts, turn off the ability to make objects (and since the OP ban Push), and turn off every option.

A griefer can STILL stand on land adjacent to yours and shoot, kill, trap or capture you if the land the griefer is standing on has permissions allowed.

Now where do you come up with your bonehead conclusions, judgements and recriminations, when you don't even know what the hell you are talking about? What experience do you have that formed the opinion you gave here?

If you know of some secret land settings that keep griefers from shooting someone from adjacent land, please share it.

Aside from buying an island and ejecting them, there are no "controls" unless the griefer stands on your land.

I've been having a problem with a Griefer.
I got my house set up and so every now and then he blasts me in my house.
I have a good Phaser Rifle and Pistol and a Lightsaber at my side, but befoere I can get outside, he's gone.

Before you even score a hit on the greifer I *MUST* insist you do the following:

1.) Politely ask them to stop. If they do not send them an IM telling them to stop. If they refuse go to #2.
2.) File an abuse report. Be as concise as possible. Include text from the Bumps Pushes & Hits window.
3.) Ban the greifer from your land. If he/she comes back as an alternate account ban them too.
4.) DO NOT SHOOT BACK. Shooting back is exactly what they want. Then they'll file an abuse report against you perhaps even getting you locked out from Second Life.
5.) DO NOT ENGAGE IN NAME CALLING/VERBAL ABUSE. This is also what they want. They can then use your anger against them to file an abuse report.
6.) If they IM you or spam you with shouting via chat or IM mute them.

Above all do not stoop to their level. And don't go and buy a security device or shield, as they often times cause issues with physics and the simulator you are in. If you get pushed or sent into orbit engage the No Push Restriction on your land, or ask the land owner to turn it on if you're renting space.

While it may take time for abuse reports to get filed and reviewed please keep in mind there are Lindens taking time to review your reports, and act on the information they receive. And often times Lindens are pre occupied with other things that need urgent attention. They're human too, just like you and me.

Are you sure of that? If you're standing on land with push and kill disabled, they can't push you or kill you no matter where they are.

They can rez an object around you (capture you) if your land is set build- and script- enabled. but otherwise, no.

And they can't hit you with a kinetic weapon if you're sitting on a prim.

They can flood your land with obscene particles, and there's nothing you can do about that.

There's lots of other things they can do, and I could probably think of some more... but your land settings do make some difference.

View -->Beacons--> Hide Particles

works well, and make them crazy when you go about your business just as though you didn't notice their spewing particles

As well-intentioned as you seem, Millie, you have obviously never run across a real griefer. What they're looking for is the turn-the-other-cheek sort of walking targets such as you describe. They're not really interested in anything you have to say, so long as they get their target practice.

Asking them to stop works about ten to fifteen percent of the time. The rest of the time they're not even reading what you write, so you're wasting your breath.

Filing an AR may take their alt out of the game eventually, but they'll just make another one, and griefers usually have about half a dozen that they use in rotation so they don't get too many AR's in any given month on any one account.

And unless you're getting a few dozen AR's filed against you per month, you're not very likely to get kicked off of SL for defending yourself. I've seen griefers get dozens upon dozens of AR's before anything at all happens to them, and even then they sometimes only get a suspension.

Finally most of your advice works only on your own land, which the vast majority of citizens haven't got, leaving them basically defenseless. Don't use a SHIELD?? Pray tell, what ELSE are they supposed to do?

While I agree that turning around and whacking them back often only gives the griefers the attention they crave (and it's sad to think that it's often the only attention they ever get, in SL or RL), I'm still sorry to say that I find your advice, while well intentioned, to be not terribly practical for the most part. Virtually nothing you've offered does anything to handle the immediate problem a person may be having with a griefer, while instead stressing some ill-defined, nebulous and largely ineffective countermeasures which help only after the fact, if at all.

Argent, I respect your in-SL experience, but I had all land permissions off, the world banned and I was still getting my firm, shapely ass knocked two Sims over when standing on my own land. The griefer was standing in a casino and firing over a Linden road and then across my land. (This was before Push could be disabled, but now I am being hit with physical objects whose inertia carry me off my land and then I "die".)

The only thing I could do was set my home to where I was standing when I arrived at this land. I would then shield up and sit. Sitting kept the toxic gases from finding me.

There comes a point where a person has the right to defend themselves. If goreans can role-play capture and enslavement on their land without getting AR, why can't I retaliate by role-playing "vigilante" from my own land?

Lately all my AR's have been "resolved" by telling me "This report appears to have no content".

The SL I envision DOES NOT include spending 20 minutes out of each hour filing AR reports which then are 'officially' ignored a week later.

What we have is a situation where LL/SL theory doesn't match actual in-game experiences.

I never shoot first, and I usually allow the first incident to go unanswered.

But I want to have land that is newbie friendly. A safe spot where they can build, script and have access to information without fear of being griefed or harassed.

We have "weapon" Sims, but what we need are designated "no weapon" Sims, where any 512sqm Sim land owner can ban an Avie with less than 30 days AND 30 hours in-world from the entire Sim.

The banned Avie would have to appeal or go 6 months without another incident. If an Avie gets banned from 3 "no weapon" Sims, then they are banned from ALL "no weapon" Sims.

If a Sim land owner abuses their banning privileges (as discovered through a banned Avie's appeal), then the land owner would lose their banning privileges.

I have had experience with more greifers than I'd like. Not only in Second Life but in other online games that I have played for years.

The advice I offer to everyone with greifer problems may take some time to rectify, but it is the safest and most effective way to resolve greifer issues.

There are those times that I too want to take out my biggest gun and go hog wild on someone who's trying to make my session as sour as possible. But I don't and go through the process of asking the greifer to stop, and if they don't go further by submitting an abuse report.

It works in Second Life, and has worked before in Ultima Online, Earth and Beyond, EVE Online, Star Wars Galaxies, and Ragnarok Online. While it takes time for the staff to review such reports it will take care of the greifer. Either a warning or locking them out is enough to make them realize that some people have had enough, and will do something about it.

Heh, my new GT SimSecure has just such a tagging gun. I swear I didn't see your post until just now too.

It may be enough in some small minority of cases, but in most cases it is certainly NOT enough. I'm not exactly certain what would be enough - obviously escalation is impractical, but filing AR's does nothing to help an immediate or emergent situation, and most griefers aren't really there to talk. Unless it's to shout racial or sexual slurs at you, or both.

The main differences between Second Life and these other services is the ease with which a griefer can make a new alt, and the relative lack of consequences of having an AR filed against you.

And even if your account is permanently frozen, there are few real consequences. Persons I know directly once witnessed a pair of griefers get perma-banned, and within three minutes each had an alt and was pleading their case with the Linden who just banned them. Those alts are still running around loose, carpet bombing and doing their best to crash sandbox sims about once a week, even though their original accounts are gone, and they have at least four more alts apiece.

I would wager that other online services do not weight abuse reports so lightly as Linden Labs does, and suggest that this may be a huge part of the problem.

Clearly, other more practical measures are needed. Exactly what those measures would be, of course, is a matter open to debate.

There is user run security groups who operate for free or maybe low fees. I think what fustrates griefers is people NOT shooting back at them but banning them constantly and sitting, not being able to be pushed.

I don't think Lindens are able to handle every little kiddy around, they have enough problems now, and probably only super-perma-ban the big ones that shut the grids down. But I do think users are capable of handling griefers. Form groups, create blacklists, ban together! Indivually it's also important to know how to handle them if you come across one.

Granted abuse reports take time to fill out, and once submitted the whole instant gratification thing where you want to see the greifer vanish once you submit the report. Those folks at Linden Lab who get the abuse reports must read the reports and investigate the reports.

Reviewing reports and taking action takes time. The Lindens are often times working on other things such as assisting stuck residents, checking out troublesome simulators, and attending in house or networked meetings. They are busy with their own workload and sometimes can't get to your AR as fast as you'd like. Like you and me they are human too.

Best thing to do is suggest new features, either here in the forum or through the voting system if you think an idea that would assist residents with greifer problems would benefit the grid.

And if you can't wait for a resolution contact Live Help, Lindens can be reached vial Live Help if you request immediate assistance. Often times Live Help is swamped with residents needing assistance with questions or problems. But its another tool to be used.

Millie,

My abuse reports are coming back as "Resolved", with the following text. "This transaction appears to have no content."

Now, maybe it is an unfortunate glitch and the person is actually getting spoken to and warned. But I promise you I am not sending in empty reports.

I have written back and informed them that my AR's are getting lost, but they probably never read replies.

So, now do I file a Bug report that probably won't get a response about my AR's not getting through?

It is so much less frustrating just to warn the griefer and if they won't listen, to orbit them and then ban them.

I "RP" vigilante on MY land. I'm not about to sit there and just be a victim. I have a 100% success rate, while LL hasn't done anything that I can see (about griefers I have reported).

I know individual Lindens care, but the system is broken.

If the system appears to be broken by all means contact support. Why complain about it here?