An Open Response to Robin's blog entry

What we need is for someone to build a grid that we can use for professional purposes on which we use our real life identities to work.

Then Second Life can retain the luxury of playground anonymity without the worry of accountability or the reputation of avatars.

Snapzilla is a series of images. You are not able to meet the residents, see the sights, experience the game client.

Limited a visitor to visitor status does not make them a "bad" person. It just makes them a visitor.

If I was a griefer I could find things to grief people with at freebie stores. I could go to combat zones and tell people there that you'd like to play but need a gun and they'd give you a free gun complete with push abilities. Many more things I could do without ever paying a dime to LL. And dont even get me started if you have a lick of programming experience what you could do. What about repeat griefers? They'll have friends with copies of scripts, guns, bombs, etc. Even a basic sound file could be used to grief. Sure they are working on better mutes, but I could hop from club to club annoying people and then make a new account in 1 minute and come back.


Very bad. You dont upload scripts. You copy/paste them into the UI. No use trying this. As long as I have the ability to type a piece of code, I'll have no need to upload anything. Removing copy/paste from the UI would hamper alot more than scripts. Trying to restrict scripts would basically not allow the new user to experience alot of what makes SL fun. Dont take away our freedoms in the name of trying to deal with a smaller number of griefers. Also a griefer typically will never use a CC unless they are an idiot.

The solution is to go back to requiring some form of verification even if not perfect and to spend time developing tools for users and land owners to make their experience more enjoyable while protecting the time and money they've put into their piece of SL.

Sure you do. Just that it's not specifically labelled as such doesn't mean that it doesn't happen. The script is compiled on your machine, then uploaded to the server, as they run on the SL servers, not on your computer. It'd simply mean that to save a script, you'd have to pay. Copy/paste is completely irrelevant here. But like I said I'm not sure it's a great idea, and would rather restrict scripts instead.


Not that much, see below...




And that's exactly the point. To make the unverified accounts unable to do anything that's more harmful than walking into people. Make it so that in order to grief effectively you have to give your credit card number.



If you agree with requiring identificaiton again, then you shouldn't be against script restrictions.

Old system was: Provide credit card or phone number for full access
My idea would be: Provide credit card for full access, OR get limited access with no verification.

With the original system, people not willing to provide a card number couldn't get in at all. Script restrictions is less restrictive than no access at all.

I would absolutely *love* to see this.

The only bright spot I can see with all of these unverrified accounts flooding in now, is that it may wind up helping something like this to happen.

Not at all. I am just talking about the Visitor accounts. The Free accounts that does not pay a single dime into the game. The accounts that get to poke around the system, kick the tires and see if they want to join us.

If they do, then they upgrade their Visitor account to a Resident account.

My proposal (mirroring that of others before me, apparently) simply adds another level betwen not being in the game and being a full resident. Being a resident in Second Life should be a privledge, not a right. That is most effectively demonstrated by the rash of griefing and throw away '666' accounts.

There is no other MMO on the planet that does not require some sort of payment. Whether it is through a one time sign-up fee, in-game advertising, etc. SL is literally giving away the game in the hopes that people will want to stay.

I understand the sentiment of wanting to share this experience with everyone, but at what cost?

The doors are wide open now. There is no accountability now. This is an extreme example, but what is going to happen to SL, to us, when a kid sneaks into the game, sneaks into a sex club, starts "interacting", and them Mom or Dad walk into their room and see whats going on.

Sure, they will get grounded (the least I would do to my child) but this being a litigious society, what if they sue.

SL would be screwed.

(slipping into lawyer mode)
You have a specifc grid set up for Teens. This means that you recognize that adult actions occur within the main grid. For that effort to keep our children away from such elements, I applaud you.

However, you now have removed all means of determining who is an Adult and who is a Child and have taken no actions to restrict or contain those adult activities. What, may I ask, will stop a 12 year old child from signing up with your services and go experience these adult elements?
(slipping out of lawyer mode)

Even is the lawsuit is bogus, imaging the reputation hit to Second Life. Do you think any corporation will want to be associated with the company that allows kids to have digi-sex with adults? That lovely BBC event we had would have never happened.

Since LL is determined, per Robin's Web Log, to keep registration wide open, then there needs to be a way to control all those unrestricted accounts.

Creating the Visitor account is the right solution for everybody.

One big flaw of the reputation system and any attempt to judge players by their rep ratings; What is to prevent griefers from simply running around giving everyone negative ratings, making everyone a "suspicious individual" and getting them penalized or auto-banned?

Griefers abuse everything they can. Running around neg rating everyone simply because they know the rep system was put in place to STOP griefers would give them no end to laughter and merriment...

Assuming that Abuse reports only result in a Warning or Sanction if Linden finds that actual abuse was committed...

Having something like a "Rapsheet Abuse Level" indicator in profiles could be relatively ungame-able. Even better if good behavior meant that level dropped back down over time.

Its still an imperfect reputation system, but better than nothing - and seems to me to be the least game-able option.

I think you're right, the negative ratings reputation system didn't work because it was in itself just another way of perpetuating a conflict between individuals.

How about a rating system based on numbers of mutes and land-bans held It would be both telling and require that people make a conscious decision to draw away from further conflict.

I'd welcome griefers muting me, or baning me from their land. Win-win?

A rating system is useless except to make obvious who isn't a griefer.

Griefer gets bad rating, goes and gets another alt with a clean slate. Rinse, wash, repeat...

Plus, we will end up with the situation we already had:

The Griefers giving neg-ratings to those people that actually have an attachment to their Avatar.

That is why negative ratings were removed previously.

And you don't even have to fit the common idea of a "griefer" to abuse a ratings system, which is why I always oppose them in any form, anywhere. (ie: person a is jealous of person b, gets all her friends to rate down person b, etc.)

The system I was thinking of didn't involve residents giving any sort of rating, good or bad to anyone. It involved the system checking to see if there was a clean rap sheet or not on an individual. That info would have been complied and investigated by the Lindens during their normal handling of the abuse report system. They already use that system to screen folks for some of the Mentor/Live Help programs, don't they? True, folks could submit abuse reports just to give someone a bad mark out of spite. But what if it was not possible to submit an abuse report unless one was verified? Or unless one had been here for a certain length of time. Wouldn't that make it less likely that it would be gamed by a casual griefer?

That is exactly what happened under the old rating system. Ask people who were around back then. It became this fun (for some asshats) little game to run around dropping negative ratings on whole rooms full of people. Others were even trading for positive ratings. "Pos rate me and I'll pos rate you."

Btw...on a side note.

Prop 1503 asking LL to bring back age and identity verification was basically shut down with an "acknowledgement" that was no real acknowledgement at all, but merely assurances that they will give us more anti-griefing toys instead.

So Prop 1523 was started instead as a way of stating to LL that it isn't just about possible griefers but that it is about verifying the ages of the people who register.

You can find more info at this thread:
/108/3e/115643/1.html

So if you voted for prop 1503 and you still care, let LL know that this issue still matters to you, go back and vote again for prop 1523... tell them we do not accept their non-answer.

Friday June 23rd at 2pm during the birthday celebration in world, some of us will be showing up wearing protest t-shirts and protest signs. We will not cause any problems, no shouting or heckling, but no applause and kudos to LL either. We will be a silent but hopefully very visible protest, letting LL know that we haven't stopped caring.

If you'd like to participate or can't but would like to help distribute the t-shirts and get the word out, you can IM me in world or if I'm not there just grab the box of info and shirts and stuff from my land called Hottie on the Sala sim. (easy to find) Tengu Yamabushi was kind enough to put the box together and I believe you can also find one on his land.
secondlife://patagonia/193/51/29

EDIT: After some thought and reading a response in another thread,
/140/be/115806/1.html
I'd like to add something.

It is VERY important that we do not cause any conflict while we are there. We need to be seen as respectful, quiet and nondisruptive. People who yell and scream get attention but they do not get listened to. We want to be respected and heard, so we MUST show respect as well. NO shouting, NO heckling, NO conflict.... just sitting quietly allowing the words on our shirts express our opinions.

There are signs in that package mentioned as well. I would ask that if you make use of the signs at all, you do so only when you are not in a crowd or sitting in the speech area. We do not want our signs waving around people's heads and annoying them.

Thank you, you may go back to your regularly scheduled debate now.

Yes, but I do miss the negative ratings. There was nothing quite as amusing as getting an offline message that said I had been triple neg rated by a banned member of these forums, with the message of "C*cksucker!" because I had argued with them in a forum post. I don't think anything has ever made me laugh harder in SL. Good times.

And severely limiting their ability to experience the game lowers the chances that they will.

You can't just point to other MMOs when SL isn't like your typical MMO. I don't know if there's any other MMO on the planet that requires you to make your own fun to the degree that SL does; nor, for that matter, do I think many of them attract the same numbers of non-gaming sorts, who may not be as willing to shell out money for this kind of thing. It's one thing to pay if you're used to paying for an online game, and know you'll have something to do once you give the company your money. It's another to simply pay LL when you're not sure if you'll enjoy what SL has to offer and are still iffy about this whole "paying real money for virtual goods" business. I give money to LL indirectly now, through renting -- had I been unable to freely experiment with clothing creation, however, I probably would have given up and left.

The problem with the open registration is it encourages "griefing" without penaly. Simply change your IP address and log in again. Some of us have built a reputation without a system in place. It's because people get to know us and then trust us over time. No "system" is going to change that.

Right now I have no idea who I am dealing with here. I used to love new players, but now I wonder if they are nothing other than a former stalker or even worse, a teen, which is a strict no no. They say they are going to "fix" in the next release, but at least the credit card system ensures most are adults.

This is not a kid's game, and yet they have chosen to open the floodgates.

LL, what the fuck were you thinking?

But that is how the gaming industry works. I bought WoW, CoH, CoV, and DDO *sight unseen* and I had fun in all of them. The *only* game I bought and returned withing 30 mintues of buying was Oblivion (stupid ugly game).



You are exactly right. It is another matter to pay LL when you're not sure you'll enjoy what SL has to offer. That is why we give them the Visitor account. They can build in the sandbox, try on clothes, heck, we'll even let them script inside the sandbox, but outside that sandbox, they are a visitor. They get to fly around the world, see the sights, touch and interact with things, but they are limited. Once they figure out they want more, they pay the one time fee of $9.95 for a Resident account. If they want land, the upgrade again. If they want to get concierge service, they can buy 1/2 a sim, and so on...

To use an old addage, "Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?"

We are giving away the milk for free in the hopes that they will like what they see and stay. I agree with that concept to a point, but as it stands, we are only seeeing an increase in griefing and throw-away accounts.

There is nothing wrong with allowing visitors limited access. Its is a taste of what they can get and it gets them wanting more by paying a measly $10.00.




Right, but you still have to pay money to LL directly so you could pay for the uploads / pay the $9.95 to get registered.

Right now, there is no such restrictions. I could go to the home page right now and create 50 accounts and not once have to give *any* valid information. Not my email addres, not my name, not my CC. Believe me, I am all for opening this up to more people, but it is *too* open this way. Keeping things they way they are now will only hurt is in the short and long run.

But when you buy a game, it's under the assumption that you will immediately have something to do. SL isn't like that. Nobody hands you entertainment; you have to find it yourself.


But they can't texture. And they can't make clothing. And the only clothing they can try on is stuff in the library, since you won't let them have an inventory. And they can't build anything that takes longer than one in-game session to work on or keep anything they make, again because you won't let them have an inventory. It's not a very good taste of what SL has to offer.


The recent increase in griefing came because people can have an unlimited number of free accounts, and there's no identity verification. Free first accounts have been around at least since I arrived, back in December.


Does it? How many newbies leave SL already because they can't find anything to do? Restricting newbies' ability to do things does, in fact, make it harder for them to find things to do. Which makes it more likely they'll leave, and never pay.


I paid nothing for my account and initial upload fees. LL has been offering first free accounts (which used to come with some money upon signup, and a small stipend) for some time now.

I know. I would love to go back to the way things were (prop 1523, see my signature) but they have stated quite clearly that they have no intention of doing that.

If that is the case, we need to make them come up with some alternative method of control.

I think the Visitor account concept might work.

If we lose the sense of trust and openness among Second Life Residents, we will similarly, and surely, feel the pain. It does us no good to bring in more Residents, only to lose those who have become valued residents, advocates and architects of all that the world has become so far.

I'm going to talk about this some more tomorrow at the Anniversary party, but here's a few more specifics about what we're planning in order to address the concerns raised in this thread.

1. There will be an icon on each Resident's profile which will show 3 states. The first state will equal Anonymous. This person has chosen not to give us any identifying information beyond the minimum required to create an account. The second state will indicate that we have some identifying information, but that it has not been verified. The third state will indicate that we have identifying information, and have verified it through a successful transaction.

A second phase of this effort will be the addition of LSL calls allowing you to access this information for your use so that a landowner, for example, could prohibit access to their parcel/estate based on level of identifying information available. Similarly, a merchant could make a decision about selling.

2. We will change the height limitation to apply to banned agents only, but the limit will be raised to the maximum so it includes sky boxes, tree houses, and other high altitude builds.

3. As mentioned earlier, we will extend the mute tools to allow you to not only ban someone from your land and ignore them, but also their objects and sounds. We're also exploring the feasibility of making YOU invisible to THEM, to eliminate stalking behavior.

4. There are a few script calls that are at the root of the majority of griefing. Landowners will be able to disable those scripts on their parcels, similar to checking 'no fly' or 'no build'. One key example: llPush, typically used for 'orbiting'.

These are our highest priorities. Beyond these are better controls for mainland parcels and estates, as well as the evaluation and implementation of tools that have been requested in the Feature Voting Tool, such as the following list:

**Ability to stop all sound effects
**Ability to stop objects from entering my parcel owned by a banned Avatar.
**Ability to stop shouts/says/whispers from entering my parcel from the immediate area.
**More granularity in blocking outside scripts... such as...
*****************blocking push scripts, from guns, bombs, etc.
*****************blocking physics from vehicles, etc.
*****************blocking outside particle systems
**More granularity in blocking "build"on an AV by AV level, instead of everyone.
**Ability to *move* any object that is on my parcel, regardless of owner without returning. (Case in point: ghosts. Would have been nice if i could have dragged the ghost of that 20m giant monkey into the ground after the creator logged.)
**Ability for landowner or delegator to right-click & TP home an avatar with warning
**Ability to better delegate these permissions to individuals without using groups
**Ability to determine "who did what" easily without having to search for object beacons.
**Ability to "silence" an AV while on my parcel (Temporarily to cool things down. 15 seconds is not enough.)
**Allow a ban list to include groups rather than just individual AV's, and don't limit the length of that list to just 50.
**Ability to define the range of effect of these tools in 3-dimensional bounding box

We don't need anti-griefing as much as we need assurance that the people we are dealing with are *adults*.

well I have been in second life for nearly 2 years and I would have to say you have surly lost my trust with regard to unrestricted access to any one including minors.

And as my father told me when i was a child when I did something that made him loose his trust in me. "Trust is something that is not given it is earned and you will have to earn my trust back."

So I say to you now you will need to earn my trust back

The above items you mention are a start to help with greafing but do nothing to Limit the admission of minors to the mature main grid or even worse the admission of adults to the teen grid. I realize you will ban any adult found on the teen grid and send any teen found on the main grid to the teen grid IF THEY ARE FOUND AND THAT IS A BIG IF. but even IF you do find them as it stands now there is nothing stopping them from getting another anonymous account and getting back in.