Do You Think LL Is Too Easy On Griefers?

Recently I was at Furnation Vista, and some uterine-spewed genetic reject decided to nuke the sandbox. Granted, this may seem a bit of a situationally biased post, but I'm starting to notice there are a lot more griefers running about. The very fact that the guy was only given a 3 day suspension leaves me to thinking, do you think the punishment system is too laxed? Do you think a tougher system should be implemented to act as a deterrent?

A 3 day suspension to me is a slap on the wrist, if you've been on SL for more than a month, you'll realize that people don't take too kindly to griefing. A 3 day suspension seems like a joke to me.

I'm also not pleased that they had to roll back the sim and thusly something that a friend was working on for me was tanked. So... yeah, this time, I am not a happy cybernetic velociraptor.

Is Furnation Vista the next step on from Furnation XP?

I can't say I've noticed any particular laxity on griefing, though I've not been on SL for *all* that long. The advertising annoys me a lot more. I've been thrown around in all sorts of ways, but then if I will go into Rausch when drunk, that's what I should expect really.

I'm not sure if I have an opinion on whether Linden's policy on griefers is too lax. Primarily because Linden so tight-lipped about what the true sanction is, and what goes on behind the scenes in investigating Abuse Reports is such a mystery at times, I'm left feeling like any judgement I'd make is without all the facts.

I think the secrecy is part of the overall problem. I completely understand the need for privacy while something is under investigation. But once a punishment is meeted out by Linden, IMHO I think it would do the community a lot more good if more information was public knowledge.

I agree with everything Travis said. I also do have a general feeling that LL is too lax. They seem to have always held a rather naive (in my opinion) view that people who are given third and fourth chances will change their ways. Of course, like Travis said, it's hard to judge just how naive or not that view is since we generally don't know what the rates of recidivism are.

LL is WAY too lax. If you discuss this matter with them, they will say "Some people say we are too lax, some say we are too strict." I read this as "the victims say we are too lax, the perps say we are too strict." No mystery there. The perps also typically say they are innocent, and persecuted too.

Of course the Lindens need to balance dicipline with the desire to not turn away paying customers. To solve this, I was always in favor of a "prison grid" but NOT in the way it is currently implemented (or proposed.) I think a separate grid, just like the one we are currently on, could serve paying customers with sociopathic tendancies while still getting them out of our hair. The aim is not so much to "punish them" but to put them with others who share the same views about how strict the rules should be.

They would still be able to build, buy land (in their grid) and start businesses. But they would also be able to freely grief events, orbit people, harasss, run around naked, crash sims, whatever. But in the "prison grid" their victims would be other folks who are fond of doing the very same things. We would be spared.

I would also expect that because banishment to the griefer grid is far milder than account suspension, the Lindens would feel comfortable exercising this option for longer periods of time (Weeks and months would be great!)

I'd tend to agree too... if some of the bigger griefs (such as grid crashing) were made more public as to their outcome (perma-ban or whatever), it may deter some of the idiots from trying in case they can get away with it.

Of course, the hardcore l337 gr13f3r won't care what happens... but any reduction surely must be a benefit?

Lewis

One thing I know about griefers, from experience in dealing with some, is that many of them simply don't realize at first how what they're trying to do is damaging to other people. And for the most part, a "slap on the wrist" is a good icy shower to open their eyes.

People who have something invested in something typically don't risk that investment by shooting up a crowd of people attending a class.

To think that premeditated griefing is done by people who have either invested much effort in SL or who pay much money to Linden Lab is probably a wildly generous assumption.

But you really have to forgive the Lindens; they've only been here a few years and may not understand the implications of their actions. In time, perhaps they will rehabilitate themselves.

I also agree with most everyone here, especially about three days being way to short of a time even for a first offence, and about naming names on the police blotter. If that information was searchable or actually attatched to profiles, better still.

I find myself frequently in the situation of trying to assess whether some idiot on my property is actaully a griefer or just very weird. If you could click on their profile and see their "police blotter" tab, you could tell right away if they nuked someone's house yesterday or not.

Maybe the offences could drop off after a decent amount of time has elapsed and have the only permanent indicator be a positive one like "this avatar has never been AR'ed or punished in any way."

Oddly enough I think the greifers would like this too as it woudl give them street cred to have a long list of offences on their profiles. It's a win-win situation.

Trouble is this is similar to the utility that was provided by neg rates, and according to LL we are being "meanies" if we say or pass around "bad things" about other avatars so neg rates had to be taken away.

I mean we don't want to ruin JoeAverageGriefers day by letting people know the truth about him being an asshole do we? That would be sooo wrong.

OH! I agree, but this reminds me of another idea I had when we were discussing a replacement for neg ratings. Since diciplinary records are based on a point system, it would be nice if we could see these points in a user's profile. Better still, what if we had some indicator floating above our heads as to our diciplinary history. For example, our names could be color coded such that:

Green = clean record
Yellow = Some infractions
Red = History of poor behavior

The advantage of this system is that it allows the Lindens to keep the details of diciplinary action private (the who/what/where/when) while still allowing us to spot troublemakers from a mile away.

Also, just as Dianne suggested, our diciplinary points DO fade with time, so prolonged periods of good behavior would eventually wash the BAD color from our titles.

EDIT: An extra bonus feature would be a land security tool that would let us lock out users who have a "RED" diciplinary status.

Well, I was REAL glad when Philip said they were turning those grid-crashers into the FBI.

But I don't know about naming names on the police blotter. A person who might want to live it down maybe couldn't. And if we knew a person's background in that respect we would be less likely to give him a chance in the first place, which might make him worse in the long run. (Not necessarily likely; I'm just sayin'.) And considering it's sometimes hard to figure out who did what, it would be worse if a person's name appeared there who actually had a good reason for what he did. (Not that that's necessarily likely either; I'm just sayin'.)

About being too lax - I don't know about that either. I'm pretty easy-going, rule-wise, with my kids, I THINK, and it hasn't worked out too badly. There is stuff they know would send me ballistic - similar to grid-crashing. I know that messing up someone's work, like mentioned above, is serious - and if that happened, I'd be in favor of a stronger punishment. (Not that we necessarily know what punishment they get anyway.)

But for run-of-the-mill stuff that just gets on a person's nerves, no. In that case, it all really depends on the patience of the person it's being done to. Some people are real quick to abuse-report, while others, like me, almost never. (I did report that IB sign in Daltrey's bedroom window, so that is the exception for me.)

Also, with so many players - the Lindens can't know all of them, and bunches of them are new, and maybe testing the limits, or even don't know the rules. Maybe bunches of them settle down after one suspension. Course, only the Lindens know that.

I just wouldn't want something overly strict, you know? Probably because I'm not that way myself.

coco

I dunno if I buy this...

A lot of the "big names" in SL have warnings for stuff they have done on records. A few have even been suspended (Sometimes not for something they actually did, or are to blame for, but sometimes it's warented)... And it's no secret, as a rule. Most of them will admit it openly. It generally doesn't effect them.

If a person is a griefer, and has the griefer mindset, it's obvious, as a rule. Likewise, a person who doesn't have that mindset, it's generally obvious they don't.

Not enough people pay attention to the police blotter anyhow for it to matter, I don't think.

Fascinatingly complex topic.

So far, I have an impeccable record, but let's say (hypothetically) that I did 'nuke someone's sandbox'.

Would a 3 day suspension matter much to me, personally? Not really.

Barring the shame and dishonour factor (obviously missing as I was morally derelict in the first place) - I'd simply catch up on other activities and come back refreshed.



What *would* matter, would be this:

1) My items removed from sale during suspension / income otherwise curbed

2) Loss of Lindex market access

3) $L surcharge, loss of credit with the Company or such

4) Loss of inventory

5) Loss of land

6) Wipe of land

Beyond that - my 'homies' could 'keep it real' just fine without me.


What's to prevent a griefing spree by anyone about to go on a 2 week vacation?

Well, I guess I'm thinking of your average, small-time griefer, as well as your first-tim griefer, or your basically just-horsing-around griefer.

coco

I think the Lindens are way to lax on griefers. I base this on having been asked twice since I have been in SL to participate in pier review cases to determine if a resident should be permanently banned from SL. IN both cases the residents had 7 or 8 extreme cases of griefing on record, many in involving sexual harrasmant, and most where the perp was clearly intending to be offensive and grief the victims.

I was horrified to see how many times these individuals had commited seriously offensive griefing on others and were given minor bans before being let back into SL. If this many cases were reported, its safe to assume many went unreported. In both situation I felt that the residents should have been permabanned long ago.

I am generally a very tolerant individual. I think you should be able to do anything you desire in your second life as long as you are not harming or interfering with others rights to persue thier own happiness.

I'm basing a lot of my feelings in regards to Abuse Reports on a big assumption:

"The act of filing an abuse report does not automatically trigger a sanction - it simply flags an incident for review by Linden"

Its a big assumption, because - as I said in my original post, we just don't know exactly what goes on behind the scenes when an abuse report is filed. But, its one that seems to make sense to me.

Still, I'd think that if someone decided to file 10 abuse reports on me because my fur was white, they'd go nowhere. It'd just get reviewed against the TOS, no violation would be found, and on we'd all go with our lives.

Assuming that's true, however - would this make any difference to your feelings on the subject, Coco? I mean - the idea that its impossible for someone to damage another through frivolous abuse reports.

My view is that yes, LL is way too lax on griefing. Being a new user is rarely a good excuse. Just because someone is new to the game, does not mean they are new to life and coexisting with other human beings. We're all supposed to be adults, after all.

New drivers who deliberately plow their cars into other peoples' property are not let off with a warning because they're new drivers and didn't realize that would be rude, and new residents to SL shouldn't be let off with a warning either.

LL needs to decide which customers mean more to them; those who care about the 'community' and making SL a place where we're free to do our own thing while still respecting others, or those whose jollies come from the destruction of another's enjoyment. All of our money might spend the same, but I'm willing to make an uneducated guess that the former type is more willing to stick it out and pony up more cash in the long run, while also doing more to attract others of like mind.

Very cool idea, but I am old fashioned on this I guess.

I don't believe that someone who has committed a "crime" should have the right to hide it from the rest of the community or that we are breaking any privacy rights by making it public. If I hire someone for a job in RL or am thinking of going ito business with them, I can look up their police record or at least have a check done. I dont see why someone in SL should have any rights to privacy when it comes to any kind of serious infraction.

Maybe if they left out all the little stuff like name calling and forum abuse and just concentrated on serious offences?

I would still like to be able to see "Nuked five Tringo Games" or "Crashed the WA" in someones profile. It's so much more informative.

And negative doesn't have to be bad, it can be fun!
Some of these goofballs would wear their AR's like medals I think.

I do assume that's true, Travis. I'm certain nothing like that would ever happen.

I think (I'd have to go back to look) that we were talking about whether 3-day suspensions were suffiencient for a first offense, and I think they are, in most cases. I don't know if a person works himself up to a 7-day suspension, but I think not - I think in certain cases (blatant hate speech, for instance) they would get a stronger punishment right off the bat.

How a person's personal patience level figures into it, I'm not sure - I was just sort of thinking out loud. I think I meant to say, maybe, that the Lindens get so many reports, and so many of them you can't really figure out, because so many reporters aren't very patient, that it kind of makes for a whole lot of junk, to where you finally get to something meaningful, three days suspension seems sufficient. Or something like that!

I imagine also that they have to walk a sort of fine line between punishment that is adequate and that which causes people to feel like the feds are coming down on them, so they would probably err on the side of being rather lenient. But I'm glad they are toughening up about things like taking down the grid, and I'm glad they are very strict about intolerance.

coco

P.S. Any sort of visible labeling of offenders I would oppose. Too Scarlet Letter-y.

Yeah, I forgot about that.

You get this report that itemizes this long list of horrible offences and then words to the effect of "so, do you think we should punish this guy?"

ha-ha!

Snake Plisskin? I thought you were dead.

I think they are likely too hung up on naïve utopian ideals about rehabilitation to even abstract up to this level.

Did they not see A Clockwork Orange?

Aimee, that is an excellent idea. Doesn't give out any specific details, and yet serves as a warning. And to extend this thinking, how about apply this to accounts on the same credit card as well? With a simple traffic light system there's no way to match alts or give away too much info, yet prevents griefers from getting away with hiding behind their alts.

Make this a feature request and I'll SO vote on it!

Maybe we can shave their heads and have them parade down the streets naked while we're at it.

coco

Only if the crime is hyperbole.