Abuse reporting & Police Blotter on Second Opinion

Abuse reporting and the police blotter has been given a decent feature on Second Opinion

http://secondlife.com/newsletter/2006_06/html/police_blotter.html


For me this doesn't change anything. Almost all abuse reports never get anywhere with only the most serious offences or most complained about individuals suffering any kind of repercussion. Which thanks to open registration is moot anyway.

I read the article, and noticed how they talk about how serious it is.

I also see that it's pretty hard to determine whether you're retaliating, defending yourself or defending somebody else, so all of these activities get automatically classified as griefing.

This has the effect of assuring griefers that good, rule-abiding people will just sit there and allow themselves to be shot at. Since griefers who do it for sport don't much care whether you AR or not - few people ever get caught, fewer still sanctioned for it - that pretty much makes SL into a big shooting gallery for these people.

The article tries very hard to make it clear to the reader that griefing is a Bad Thing, and what the consequences are, but it also tries to demonstrate that the abuse reporting system works well.

The fact that this is verifiably false undermines the message they're trying to set forth, both to the griefers who do it for sport and to the people who would otherwise defend themselves against griefers instead of just sitting there and taking it, or waiting for the griefers to leave and cleaning up the mess after they'd gone.

There are anti-griefing tools, but only for landowners, and only when they're on their own land. And even then, they work only moderately well at best. For the vast majority of citizens, none of these tools exist - save the abuse report, which does nothing to stop the griefing taking place at that moment, and rarely does anything to the greifers afterwards.

If abuse reports worked as well as the article implies, there would be no incentive to defend oneself from griefing.

As it should. Revenge griefing is still griefing. If you are caught shooting someone in a non combat area for any reason... ANY REASON... you deserve punishment. End of story.

Bleh. They lost me with this:

Let's ignore the fact that griefer kiddies don't stay in Help Island. Their object is to jump out as soon as they can, accept some inventory from their alts or friends, and go blow things up.

In fact, Help Island doesn't seem to be helping much overall. The new people I generally help every day typically don't know how to maneuver their camera, don't know how to use Find, don't have a clue how to take snapshots or interact with objects in world. Even something as simple as a door scripted to open on touch will stymie them.

A better Help Island will only help those who want to learn. It doesn't do a thing to curb griefing.

My point was that SL is not a complete simulation of the world - it's limited in several important ways. It's impossible for the Lindens' Abuse Team to determine from evidence alone why people shoot back, so lumping them all together like this is pretty much the only approach they can take. It's not necessarily inherently bad to defend yourself, but the system is built in such a way that it's impossible to differentiate between attack and defense. Therefore, we must fall back on a simpler, indiscriminate rule that matches the capability of the forensic tools: "shooting is bad".

This is not a moral judgement, weighing the attackers rights against the rights of those who would defend themselves. It's a technical limitation.

It is certainly true that escalating griefing into an all-out firefight serves the community in no clear way, especially when anybody can teleport anywhere they please. People lose their heads and forget that, in SL terms, they're immortal. You can't actually die. At worst you can be teleported home.

The opinions of citizens vary from one end of the spectrum to the other on this issue, but it's clear that one's own perceptions on the matter are the foundation for whatever opinion you hold. If you've never been griefed, or rarely been, you're much more likely to take a dim view of self-defense than if you're being shot at in safe areas or even on your own land every other day.

The management of perceptions, therefore, is where LL needs to concentrate its efforts. The AR system is possibly having some effect, but the way the system is built, it's very hard to tell that from a citizen's perspective. There are very few visible signs that it does any good. Until LL does something to make the effectiveness of the AR system verifiably obvious to everyone, griefing will likely continue unabated.

I'm reminded of most recent video games that include a tutorial level at the beginning where the player must move through a series of obsticals designed to familiarize them with the general control mechanics. Does Help Island do any of this?

It'd probably be a good idea to have something like this that new residents wade through before entering the grid. Making it required might be too harsh but perhaps there could be a reward for completing the obstical course. Say, a nifty free object or some Linden dollars to spend.

I agree there, Harris. The Help Island works if you use it, but nothing compels you to actually learn anything there.

The current Help Island (last I saw of it, anyway) teaches you how to adjust your appearance slider, maneuver your camera, move around and fly. In fact, you must fly to reach the exit portal.

The newbies I've encountered (warning: unscientific poll) know how to adjust appearance. But they apparently lost interest pushing the beach ball and maneuvering their camera.

OH *shudder* Judge Harris Hare... the bunny with a sledgehammer of justice!

Don't take things out of context. it was more to a point than just an expression unto itself. Of course if you are going to fire a gun you know what may happen to you no matter if your defending yourself. EVERYONE has been to school EVERYONE knows it's the second one commiting the crime that gets caught (i.e. the one defending themself).

*giggles*
Sav

This isn't a bad idea.

The Help island as I remember it just had several stations that piled on notecards into your inventory that explained how to do a given thing depending on the station you were at (whether it be move or fly or move a physical object around, etc.). A cool thing lindens might put into the game is a newbie obsticle course where they go through and use the skills needed to get on in second life and can practice, etc.


*huggles*
Sav

This needs to be made into a proposition. It might have as much influence on the future of Second Life as improving our anti-griefing tools.

Make it fun. Make it more of a game with rewards at the end. Make leaving H.I. impossible until the new character has completed certain tasks.

No, we won't be able to force people to actually absorb things and it might penalize 2nd and 3rd (etc) alts (so what?) but speaking as someone who has written training material for a living I can assure LL that the best training is that which is made interesting enough to hold the user's attention. The current Help Island doesn't do that very well.

One thing that might be helpful is to give newbies the opportunity to buy and unpack something on Help Island. Put 'em through the SL commercial transaction process, step-by-step.

Pol, that's a wonderful idea!

Oh wait, it might destroy the single best part of being new in Second Life -- having a box on your head!

Do we really want this long-standing tradition to be disrupted?

It would have to be something for 0L since they won't have the L to buy with. But even that is a good idea.

Actually thats Orientation Island which there are a lot of. There are 2 Help Islands, each of which has 4 O.I.s attached on eash side.

On help island we have a dance floor, an area with inspirational builds, a vehicle test track, a small freebie store, a sand box, a greeter hub, a Games location with sudoku, hangman and other toys.

Rather than the introductory interface basics that OI uses HI goes more into what features and tools exist for users to get aquianted with. Even building tutorials and some _really_ basic scripting tips. You should consider making an Alt and go through to see whats avialable.

Oh and there is a tutorial on commercial aspects and how to unpack stuff. The problem is that right at the beginning of Orientation Island is a "skip tutorial" sign they see BEFORE anything else. It needs to go away. People who know everything know how to use the map to teleport out. Its at the end of O.I. that they have two exit kiosks. One to enter the maingrid and one that offers further advice at H.I.

Please lets not confuse newbies with griefers.

Zero day griefers are all alts. Remember your first day? Could you have figured out the interface, how to fly well, found some clothes, found a decent weapon and set out onto the main grid to blast as many as you could?

I remember the beach ball. I couldn't get the beach ball and it's still a skill that I very seldom use.

Lol, I tried to lift the beach ball for 20 minutes!... and gave up in the end.