Dealing with voice griefers?

A public meeting place I maintain has developed a big voice following, however recently there have been reports of voice griefing. The island is no-build (which I hate, but autoreturn is no match against self-replicating screamers), so instead of rezzing garbage, griefers have resorted to finding out-of-the-way places to hide their avatars while they create disturbance in the voice channel.

If you can SEE a person who's speaking in voice you can tell that they're using voice, but they have been hiding in sneaky places, and in a crowded location the greendots don't always reveal where to look.

I'd like to hear from folks who run or visit public places where voice is (or was) common, and learn how griefing is handled. Right now I have a few 'deputies' who have banning privileges, but they still need to be able to track down the offenders, which isn't always easy.

Thank you.

Such a shame you have to deal with this.. I could have sworn we were on the adult side of SL.. As a rule.. I NEVER use voice.. there is a product avail that you can click and scan each avatar in the sim you are in and then tp to them.. That might be a solution you can try.

Doesn't "Freedom of Speech" apply in sl then?

Pep (Not an expert on the Constitution)

Hi Wilde...sorry you're having this problem.

If you know who is speaking can't you just ban them directly?

And aren't there two windows that list the active speakers, so you should be able to tell who is causing the problem.

I just found this in the KB for "how to mute them"
There are two ways to mute Voice chat inworld:

Using the Active Speakers window

1. Click the button with the little white word balloons next to the Talk button at the bottom of the Second Life window.
   The Active Speakers window opens.
   
2. Select the name of the avatar you want to mute and click the Mute button.
   

Note: If you IM with; Pay L$ to; or Give inventory to someone you've muted, they'll be unmuted, and chat history will inform you what's happened.


Using the Communicate window

1. Click the Communicate button at the bottom of the Second Life window.
   The Communicate window opens.
   
2. Click the Near Me tab at the bottom of the Communicate window.
   
3. Click the << button to open the active speakers list.
   
4. Select the name of the avatar you want to mute and select the Mute: Voice checkbox at the bottom of the active speakers list.
   

I think either one would give you the griefer's name...and you can go from there.

I keep my ACTIVE SPEAKERS list open and wait to see the green volume control to move. Another way is to mute everyone one at a time until you find the person. Both methods are not quick fixes.

Speaking of white noise...

Thank you, Jerboa and Lias. I'm thinking I might put up a little voice tutorial at the welcome area to help people who aren't as familiar with the tools.

I'm also curious about voice policies. I've heard rumors that some areas have turned off public voice chat due to griefing, but I haven't spoken directly to anyone who supposedly did this. Voice grief is hard to report since there's no chatlog and no visual spam, so I can see why griefers are doing it.

That was going to be my suggestion, why not simply turn it off? If it's bad enough to be useless due to their immature behavior, then what is the loss?

I've heard those rumors too, but none of my peers use voice, or if they do, they use Skype so I'm afraid I don't have examples.

No. "Freedom of Speech" in the U.S. Constitution is specific to government, FWIW.

There's no way an avatar can really hide in SL. Just turn off rendering of objects and land, and all that's left on your screen will be the avatars. From there, it should be pretty easy to find the offender. He'll be the one who wasn't visible before. Do a little observation to confirm, and then ban the sucker.


Oh, and Pserendipity, as Marianne was getting at, the US Constitution is merely a listing of what the government can and cannot do. It's not what grants individual people their rights. The First Amendment prohibits the government from drafting laws that could infringe upon freedom of speech (among other things). It does not state that an individual cannot silence another individual, nor could it.

That's a good way to do it. I will mention it to the regulars.

Someone in SLU also mentioned the possibility of disabling public group chat, and then having a public group that people could use to voice when on the island. We might give this a try, as it would give our officers the ability to both identify the offenders and kick them off the channel for the whole group, instead of each individual using voice having to mute the person themselves.