Advice on Bullying - How to make Lindens act on an Abuse Report?

Hi I am posting this on behalf of a girl I know who is dating one of my best friends. She is victim of a "hate campaign" from his ex girlfriend and her friends. The last IM was particularly nasty and I have told her she should report this to LL. However, I know from other friends who were in similar situations in the past, that nothing was ever done about it from LL and the H8rs continued to harass people. Is there a better way of approaching this and making LL act on it? Btw she is instantly muting all and declining notecards but they have 24830248 alts!! Very tedious and upsetting for this girl. Would love if anyone has time to give some advice. Cheers.

If they see they're having no effect, they'll eventually tire of it. These types usually have a very short attention span. Tell your friend to get on with her life and enjoy herself just to spite them.

I reckon so too but its horrible to think there are such nasty people getting away with bullying in SL - I don't think LL should tolerate it. Thanks for your reply.

If the number of alts is huge and they are being created only to abuse her she could try reporting alt abuse. Might get attention faster.

Its ironic but the main ringleader behind the hate campaign claims to be an in-world "Linden" although we have no proof except her word for it. She has 28 alts that we know of! Never heard of Alt abuse but will certainly look in to it - many thanks for the tip!

Impersonating a Linden? There's a no-no, if you reference the chat logs.

Well, if you have evidence (chat log) that someone claims to be a "Linden" then it is a strong reason for Linden Lab to react on an Abuse Report. The Lindens don't like if their name is abused.

Well no, there is no Linden behind the abuse. She should just continue to file abuse reports. Abuse reports do get acted on. File a report with each new incident.

Yes. Thats a permabann offence.

None of us have saved IMs regarding the admission of being a Linden but she has quoted that to about 3 of my friends and I. I have told this girl to keep logs on everyone who abuses her in IM and make a folder to submit with an abuse report. I just hate that we all know it won't be acted on. You get tired of hitting that Mute after so long - best invention ever by LL btw!

I loathe bullying in any form and always always report these type of incidents. Ive known them to be acted upon fairly quickly...

agree with one of the other posters, bullies do have a short attention span..and if you dont react, they get bored fast and move on, the only thing is by ignoring them and hoping they find a new target, is they never learn or are punished for this behaviour.

I believe SL saves IM chat logs by default, so unless your friend turned this function off, they may still be there.

Torley tells you how to find them here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O42SKhXesQo

Thanks Milla will definitely check that out

This reminds me of a time when I was shopping at one of my favorite freebie joints. For some reason this place seems to be almost constantly inundated with Bloodlines players--so I always go with my garlic necklace on.
However, on this occasion, I was accosted by someone (and had no idea who it was) who started booby-trapping my avi. I was NOT in the mood as I had some really serious RL stuff going on and had gone into SL to relax for a bit. So I said:
"Whoever the hell is messing around with my avatar, KNOCK IT THE F*** OFF *RIGHT NOW!*"
And what do you know? They did.
Bottom line was yes, at times being a doormat is exactly what they want you to do, and if you tell them to stuff it, this often takes them by surprise and they back off.
I'm not saying this is the situation your friend is in (as in my case it was a complete stranger harrassing me) but I tend to really not be terribly lenient on those who are interrupting my online experience with their idiocy.
Anyway good luck to your friend~
~Ras the vigilante.

How can you say for certain no Linden is behind the abuse? There has been a plethora of examples of Lindens abusing residents in the past. People seem to forget, Lindens are imperfect humans and capable of doing wrong, just as much as anyone else.

LL should be able to tell if the person is a Linden or not, and I would hope that if it proves true that they are, It moves them to act, if nothing else will.


Dismissing accusations of wrongdoing by people in positions of authority is abjectly wrong. There is nobody who is incapable of doing wrong, nobody who is above scrutiny or above the laws, rules, and morals of any society.

BS Darien. You are called out on this one. Show your proof and proof does not include a link to your friend Prok's blog. REAL proof!

Of course you sidestepped the whole point I was making.

It's not like LL posts blogs about all the employees they fire over matters. In fact they go to a lot of pains to erase Lindens once terminated. But I could ask the same of you, prove to me that LL has never disciplined or fired a Linden for improper behavior toward a resident.

In any case, it is far more common for people to pretend to be Lindens than to actually encounter a Linden alt. If this avatar is actually a Linden and is strutting around telling people that, then they have got to be the stupidest employee on the planet. So ask this moron what they do at LL, and if they give you an answer, post it here and we'll tell you what LL VP or supervisor you should contact.

And yes, impersonating a Linden is a bannable offense. Tho I believe most folks get more minor punishments.

Btw, I commend you on not naming names in this forum. But, if you do multiple ARs (include chat/IM logs, have your friends turn them on), and you get no action, then perhaps you may want to wander over to SLU (www.sluniverse.com) and innocently ask if so-and-so is a known Linden alt. Register with a made-up name, and do not mention anyone else's name. SLU is searchable from google.

Since you have posted this on the forums, you may also wish to remove any references to your friend's names in your own profile.
.

Occams razor says it's probably not a Linden. EVERY Linden knows that that kind of crap leads to immediate termination and for one to admit it, when EVERY Linden knows that the server keeps chat/IM logs, would be just plain stupid.

Stefan, just keep the ARs going. If you can get the date/time that this person claims to be a Linden, make sure to include that. Keep the ARs short and to-the-point; the gteam Lindens don't need (or want) the whole dramatic story - they're just looking for violations of the ToS.

If I heard a griefer claim to be a Linden, I would say "wait.. you're actually a Linden?" and "you mean you work for Linden Lab?" and such. With such a serious offense, it's a good idea to make sure that they can't claim to have been taken out of context or misunderstood. It makes the gteam's decisions easier to make, too.

Channeling Prok again I see. Sensationalist claims once more and then a failure to prove the allegations. Sindy pointed out the first thing that went through my mind, the first thing that should go through any reasonable person's brain. In today's economy, in any economy, it would be kind of stupid to drop down to the grid just to grief the mortals. I have not met every Linden but the ones I have met have been of more then reasonable intelligence and do what they can, within LL constraints, to help people, not cause grief.

Have you heard of "innocent until proven guilty"? It's the opposite of "guilty cause I made a wild accusation which I pulled out of my @ss and onto my blog."

yes, well you're all missing the point. A lot of child abuse vicitims went untreated, and a lot of sex offenders went unpunished, because when the child said "mommy, the priest did something to me", the mom said "oh be quiet, a priest would never do that!"

I am not claiming anyone did anything. But I am definetly saying, dismissing people's claims of abuse by people in authority without actually investigation those claims, is very, very wrong. If you dont' think a Linden would do that, that's fine. But I hope you're not in the position of investigating those claims, because that would be to the detriment of everyone.

And if enough people believed that way, the a Linden *could* get away with saying they were a Linden, and nobody believing the victim. This is a situation that must never come to pass.

I'm really starting to wonder why a select few seem so against the idea of victim's rights, and investigating the claims of abuses by people in power here. I'm beginning to wonder what these people do for a living.

Wow.. That's quite the parallel.. Er..


Do you really think LL doesn't take that sorta stuff seriously? Do you really think they don't look into reports of abuse of power?

The cards you're trying to play in this thread, in this context, are a bit over the top, Darien.

It's just an example of people ignoring the allegations and blaming the victim, same as we are seeing here.



If the people in this thread are any reflection of the attitudes of LL employees, then yes. But I hope that is not the case. However, we will never know, since LL is about as transparent as a brick wall in a fog bank.

It's not over the top, I'm just tired of seeing people act like LL is incapable of doing any wrong. It's a fallacy. LL employees are people, just like you and me. They suffer from the same faults, Ignorance, greed, corruption, envy, anger, desire, and even lust. They are not gods, they are not perfect, and they are not above scrutiny.

Uh.. You can go to forums.secondlife.com and see how lots of people feel about LL and whether they are incapable of doing any wrong.