Trial User Solution

I am a very patient person, but some of the trial users are finally beginning to get to me. I was angered and saddened that I had to make my first negative rating and report annoying behavior as abuse this morning.

I know that some of the trial users are making life difficult for many paying residents. Hosting events in the Welcome Area is becoming rather difficult with the distractions.

I been thinking about this and propose a solution. It is difficult for me because I lobbied so hard to allow the trial users to explore the world freely.

But, I suggest a seperate world for the trial users. It would be like Prelude Island, except maybe four sims in size. Allow the trial players a little more freedom to interact with the world, buying land, building objects, etc. Wipe the trial world once a week (like the sandbox is wiped nightly). Make an elborate area for preview of the actual world, with routinely changing screenshots of things to see, etc.

Regular residents could be allowed to and be paid (L$) to visit the trial world. Details would need to be worked out, but this would promote interaction with the trial users and provide some income for use back home in the real world.

I know this is similar to the previous trial restrictions, but I think it is necessary in order to keep the paying players that are already here. I have spoke to a lot of people that are ready to call it quits and I hate to see that happen.

I know that regular residents want their friends to visit them, and a seperate world would prevent that. But, it is a trial period. I would rather see players in world that have a vested interest in being there. Keep the trial players seperated.

If a trial user decides to subscribe and enter the real world, all their trial experience is wiped clean. New ratings at zero, new money balance, no looking back at trial days.

Anyway, I am starting to ramble. Any other thoughts or suggestions?

The Ahern area is getting to be a lot less attractive to visit than it was. The lack of civility shown by a some trials is somewhat surprising, certainly, but I've met quite a few nice ones, too. I think that bad behaviour has scared off some people, but it would still be a lot easier to go back to credit cards, emphasizing the request for them is for age verification, rather than a scammy AOL style bill them till the card gets cancelled type of marketting.

I have to disagree. I think that letting the trial users out into the world is important. Walking around on Prelude or even a similar, off-grid evironment isn't the way to go. What sells SL is SL, not a cut-down version of that that hints at the possibility of creativity. New users have to be able to see what they're missing.

That said, I agree that SOMETHING needs to be done. The number of pathetic swearing griefers has gone up recently.

What I think is needed is 24-hour Liason presence. It's expensive, and annoying, but the potential for lost subscribers is very high during the off-peak hours, when there isn't anyone around who can give griefers the boot. I know that my initial perception of SL as a place where people were friendly and not trying to just get a rise out of people by trapping them in boxes and swearing for 3 hours.

With any community, you're going to get people who try to abuse it. Some , because they get something out of it. For others, just because they can. Anonymity -- even SL's apparent anonymity -- makes concequences to actions meaningless for many people. Why worry about having your account deleted when you can just start another one instantly?

The solution isn't to restrict ALL new users because of the actions of a very small minority. Keep in mind that many of the griefers you see wearing 2m plywood penises and swearing for absolutely no reason other than to flaunt the ToS are very likely to be THE SAME PERSON.

Let's just have someone around all the time who can deal with this. If not ALL the time, then let's see about extending Liason hours.

Catherine

While my experience with trial users has mostly been a good one -- I also muted and neg rated someone the other day for disrupting a class to the point of serious annoyance and I hated to do it. I'm much more inclined to *help* people rise in the leaderboards than not -- basically because I'm inclined to help people in general -- my two in-world projects can attest to that -- a park and a museum for which I make no money other than votes and donations. Just like in RL I tend to get startled when I encounter someone who is simply rude for no apparent reason -- I met someone at a party last night who insulted the look of my AV as if we were in junior high school and he was going to rile me by telling me I'm ugly or something. Well hell yes my Av is funny looking! I made her that way!

That being said, I don't think a seperate newbie world is the answer. I do think that LL is going to have to up their staff time online and do it soon -- there's no way around it if they want to keep their current customers happy. I don't think they can realistically expect their paying customers to police other users at 2:00 a.m. Especially when there is no clear way to "report" an abuse other than to pick a Linden and send an offline IM or a way to log chat to prove the abuse (there may be a chat log other than ctrl-H that saves to the harddrive, I just haven't found it yet).

I'm sorry you had to deal with this Loki. I think it's a serious problem that the Lindens need to consider as the world grows. From my days in EQ, I know that you can't have a world like this without a police force, unfortunately. And having no Lindens around at 3:00 a.m. is like having no cops around at 3:00 a.m. If all the potential muggers and theives knew they could get away with stuff at 3:00 a.m. because there were no cops around at all and wouldn't be until 9:00 a.m., we would have much havoc in the RL. Unfortunately, it's the same in SL.

Zana

Good Morning Friends,
I just felt i had to add my 2 cents.Loki, i Know exactly the grief your going thru...i have tended to stay in certain, smaller areas where i know its safe.A seperate world might work,if it was set up right.... i dont even assume to know how much work this would take on the Lindens part..but i do agree something needs to be done.....when i first arrived to SL..i wasnt hesitant to approach someone that i didnt know..now i am..and half the time when i do stop and say hello<which i try to do to EVERYONE i see>, i am ignored..or called a Female dog midget <its not midget folks im a HOBBIT <grin> >.... this has happened more than once..more than 3 times..so i really dont think its the same person. As for the Lindens....the events ive been to the last two weeks ..EVERY event ive been to..a Linden has been present......When i played a similar platformed Game....they employed the use of a swear kicker..if the word was uttered..that person was booted......AUTOMATICALLY.....no abuse report needed, no log needed..just poof.........I AM NOT ADVOCATING CENSORSHIP HERE........we all know the words that are offensive to the standards of a community
I just want to beable to play and have fun without a 4 foot phallic symbol waved in my face....i cant help to add tho..none of these problems were present <to me anyway>BEFORE the CC# option was lifted...........

Hugs to all,

This bizarre tendancy to criticize the appearance of AVs is something I've noticed too. One of MY more tongue in cheek AVs looks like your typical homoeroticized Abercrombie & Fitch clones and never fails to be complemented, while others will be met with "Yuk, an old guy!" or Get away, fatty!" When you meet this kind of ridgid conformist appearance fascism, you gotta figure you are dealing with just another bored teenager.

Although most of the trial folks have been well behaved, it does not take too make jerks to spoil the proverbial broth. Yesterday I did meet one trial jerk who was very offensive too me and no amount of reason was going to work on this creature. So i just left the area quickly. I think though, that perhaps the Lindens can put into the trial version that as soon as you get 3 negative ratings while on trial (or some other small number) you are timed out or thrown out. I am not sure what one has to do to sign up a trial, but if they forced you to use a non free email account and they gave out the names and the passwords that should make it a little harder for people to just resign up. This way there would be consequences for acting like an jerk.
The power of diversity is whats draws us together but misdirected can also tear us apart.

Now those are some excellent suggestions.

Well, I tend to agree that a seperate world is rather drastic. My logic was that most demo games only provide a taste what what is in store.

I realize it is important to have many try SL in order to gain residents and have it grow, but something does need to be done about those that are determined to disrupt.

I disagree with limiting the trial world to a few sims. As Catherine pointed out, "SL sells SL".

I disagree with monetary (linden dollars) as incentive to "visit" noobies. This is simply just bribary (to be "friendly"), and also open to abuse to make a quick buck. Visits should be voluntary -- because you enjoy doing such a thing. Who wants paid representives (other than lobbists, heh)?

Lindens need 24 hour a day staffing. That's the only solution, imho. Lindens need to police, the players should have no say ("3 negative votes = time out", etc) -- other than petitioning the Lindens to investigate reports of offensive behavior.

Griefers will *never* go away, but a system needs to be created to keep them in check, as well as possible. And that requires a 24hr/day Linden presence. I play(ed) muds and mmorpgs (UO/EQ/AC/wwii/E&B/etc etc) with many times the online population of SL, and they have systems intact to help counter griefiers. Naturally some systems work better than others, regardless they do have a system and are staffed, even if invisibly (like AC & wwii are), 24hrs/day.

Boso

Guys I'm working on a general anti-newbie sheild right now, so I hope newbie greifing problems will be wrapped up soon enough.

go darwin.....go darwin~~~~

I say let the trials roam around the world, but let them be invisible and silent.
If their chat is blocked outside of welcome areas, and their av cant be seen, the only way left for them to harass old timers is IM, and then you can just mute them.
By invisible I also mean non-interacting... maybe have them forced to fly at a fixed height so they can see the cool stuff we made but cant normally be seen or heard?
If you just happen to be up in the air at the time you can just land and they wont be able to follow you.

Eggy, that just punishes everyone (well *all* the newbies) because of a tiny minority (griefiers). A better solution is needed that gives trial members as full of a feeling of SL as they can get. I sure as heck wouldn't visit SL for long if I'm limited in movement, can't interact, and have nasty restrictions on me. I'd quickly spend my time, and money, elsewhere.

My $0.02: Because SL is "free" (to download), it's open season for griefers. No CC is needed, which means more incentive for unsupervised children to pester the general populous.

I think the CC should be required, that'll reduce it some, but not totally. I also believe that there needs to be 24 hour staff around, even if invisible and a system of petitioning for help (with rules on what to ask for, as far as "help" goes). Mentors, or other voluntary *paying customers* can be used to help weed through the mundane petitions, such as UI help, etc, and forward more pressing matters on to the Linden staff. This is how a majority of mmogs work their assistance and policing.

There definitely needs to be staff around at all times, imho.

Boso

i think its a great idea loki! i'd love to make a few L$ whenever I wanted by meet/greeting a newbie.

OK folks, before we get carried away witht he newbie nerfing, let's try to look at this from a different perspective:

The whole point to the trial account (with or without CC requirements) is to try to get new people interested enough in SL to be willing to pay a subscription fee.

Now honestly, if you had been segregated or been a deaf/mute/leper when you first started SL (I realize many are beta users, but try to imagine you actually had a trial period to go through), do you honestly think any of these options would have enticed you to stay and pay?

I mean, you guys are talking about stuff that's of the magnitude of hazing! It's like you want to force noobs to have to "earn" the right to hang out with the "cool people."

Do you have any idea how easy it would be for someone, anyone, to get together a group of three people to "insta-ban" trial users on a whim?!

I think my idea is a little more case specific.
There are people that annoy the HELL out of me, and there are others that dont. Just as I am sure there are people I annoy!
[Hi Christopher & Grim! ]

One of the first things I noticed in SL was that I could not simply "ignore" someone with a "pie" selection.

Now think about it....
If you could right click on someone and select "Ignore" and not only did you no longer hear their chat, get their IMs, hear their sounds, have their physics interact with yours, their scripts had no effect on you, and you couldnt even SEE them... wouldnt Griefing Trials be a whole lot easier to deal with? For that matter wouldnt the people that ACT like morons be easier to deal with as well?

Especially when they clicked on you and were told,

"This user has chosen to ignore you. To them you are not even online! They can neither see or hear you. You cannot communicate or interact with this user. If you feel this is an error or would care to discuss this issue please contact a Mentor for mediation in this matter."
Or words to that effect.

This seems like a filter of sorts to me.
I can filter the trees when the lag gets bad. I can filter the ground when I am looking for something I dropped... why cant I filter the trial griefers or even people that are just jerks with their scripts and still be able to help the others that are not, and otherwise ENJOY SL?

There is this infant that shoots me everytime he sees me because he knows I dont like it and he is a PAYING member!
Why cant I just filter him?

I know that if you had all of the capabilities of SL and no one would know you were alive because you showed your butt and got ignored by the population at large, SL would completely suck, wouldnt it?

How long after someone had burned their bridges and were ignored by everyone would they create a new account and act more appropriately?

We dont need a special place for trials, we dont need 24 hour staffing... we just need to be able to add someone to our Ignore List and POOF! Life is Happy again!

Truly, nothing would make me happier than to just make them "go away". But that opinion and a buck might get you coffee and a doughnut.

Boso, you're forgetting about the 99% of people in the world who are not americans and thus are not infatuated with silly little plastic debt factories.
Removing the CC requirement is a good thing. Using some other age verification mechanism would be great.

If your reason for not providing a credit card is that you don't have one, then how, exactly, would you EVER become a paying member of a service that only accepts credit card payments?

And if it's known up front that you would never be a paying subscriber, what exactly is the point of letting you have a trial account in the first place?

You know... if I was into online worlds that cost money, I would get myself a credit card and only use it for that purpose. However, if I were unable to control my spending or referred to credit cards as "little plastic debt factories", I could see where I might have an issue with bringing back the CC requirement.

Then again, I am one of those unpopular Americans that forget about the rest of the friggin world because quite frankly they dont matter ONE iota to me.

Thanks for letting us know, Christopher.

Erm... grim, waaaay before you joined the game, the lindens were already willing to accept all sorts of alternative payment methods.
Just because its not immediately obvious doesnt mean its not there.
If I had to have a credit card to use SL I would never have been able to play it.

Never would I agree with any scheme to create a police state. I don’t log into SL in order to play cyber-cop. I won’t do it. Period. "Ignore" or buffer-zoning your own av is just a band-aid on a bullet wound.

I doubt that simply going back to credit cards will solve the entire problem. The cyber kiddies won’t have that much trouble talking mom or dad into lending some plastic for something that costs nothing. And I'm sure that plenty of griefers are old enough to have their own card.

Sure, I realize that allowing trialers to see all the cool stuff we’ve created and all the cool things we do makes it much more likely that they’ll ante up. But, Loki’s suggestion sounds correct and workable, if we just expand on it a bit. I would add the ability for real members to teleport into the trial sims, so that the trialers could get a taste of our society. Also, Beginner-level events could be held in the trial area. I would even allow them to “buy” a small parcel of land and do some building. And, of course, there needs to be plenty of excellent Linden-designed eye candy. Give ‘em the Boardwalk! Give ‘em Loki!!

Eggy’s invisible tourist idea is brilliant, so I would add that feature as well. Let them see our world, but only play in their own.

And Grim, it’s not about “earning” the right to play, it’s about buying the right.

Gunna have to agree with BlackAdder. Citizenship is something you earn. Just that you earn it in monthly payments of $14.95 (USD).

Agree??? Hope it didn't hurt too much, Dar.

But, yes, that's it exactly: SL...it's not just a world, it's a bill.

We've paid good money to be here in order to enjoy ourselves, not to waste our time roundin' up the cyberkiddies.




"Give Darwin a fish for a million years and he'll turn it into a man." - The Black Adder