Do You Think LL Is Too Easy On Griefers?

Understood, Coco - I may have misread parts of your original post. A lot of times I see folks referring to Abuse Reports as if one needs to be extremely judicious about filing them - as if the mere act of filing a report is automatically going to cause someone undue harm. That's not what you meant... we're on the same page

I do respectfully disagree with the idea of not publishing the names of convicted offenders, however - I can't imagine an instance where posting someone's name in a police blotter would make a significant difference to folks, unless a pattern were to emerge.

Say you were able to pull up the Police blotter history, and see that on June 16, 2004 - I was convicted of Harrassment, and received a formal warning. Say also that after that point, no new entries on the blotter would have my name on them. (This didn't actually happen)

I'd think that any logical person would look at that, see that my birthdate was 2 weeks before that.... notice that in almost 2 years I've never done anything else, and shluff it off as a 'newbie mistake'. I can't imagine that it would actually affect my reputation unless you started to see a pattern.

And if you do see a pattern - boy, would that be useful information. Especially under the following sort of circumstance:

A resident that's 6 months old visits the Shelter with the sort of Avatar name that sets off my internal red flag that they might be a griefer. I'm cordial, but I watch.

Then, I start noticing that they're being argumenative with some of the other visitors. At this point I need to make a decision of whether to kindly ask them to cool down, or to eject them. Under the current state of affairs, I'm going to ask them to cool down.

But that doesn't work - after about 15 minutes, things spiral out of control, lots of drama happens, and I end up having to eject the individual - but not after several folks' feathers are ruffled.

What if, as soon as my internal red flag was first set off - I was able to consult the police blotter, and check to see if this person has ever been a problem elsewhere? And what if they did indeed have a long sorted history of griefing. I probably wouldn't have been as patient with them, and possibly could have saved myself (and my visitors) a bunch of hassle they shouldn't have had to go through.

I guess that's the use that I'd like to use the police blotter for The system like Aimee is proposing would be infinitely valueable to me in the above kind of circumstance.

I agree very much with Jon. Anyone with half a brain knows how to be considerate and how to be inconsiderate. Sure, an occasional lapse of judgement happens, or tempers flair, but overall, people know right from wrong.

LL has a tough job when it comes to "he said, she said" situations, but many times, abuse reports are filed with proof and plenty of witnesses are on hand, and the griefer still gets off with little to no punishement. Also, it seems like as the world gets larger, the task of getting a Linden to come and put a stop to active griefing is getting much harder. Now the typical response seems to be, "file an abuse report". This leaves the good citezen in a lurch on how to stop the griefing that continues, and also leaves them in the dark as to what, if anything, is eventually done.

At the very least, I would suggest that each individual that files an abuse report gets to know what is the end result of that abuse report. They should be able to see if anything was done, and if something was done, what it was.

Over time, most of us learn how to deal with the most common types of griefing, but I still hear horror stories of ongoing harrassment, event disruption and general bad behavior on the parts of Avatars that seem to never get suspended or banned.

It is a tough job to police this big virtual world I'm sure, and misunderstandings such as lag collisions and "all in good fun" situations happen often no doubt. But I, for one, would like to see a stronger spanking applied to repeat offenders, whether it is removal to seperate griefer grid, as Aimee suggests, or a banning of the account.

I don't really have much pity for people who get nailed for violating the CS/TOS. If you can't be bothered to understand what's expected of you, you should be shown the door for a sufficiently memorable period of time.

I'm also definitely supportive of making bad behavior, and its consequences, much more public. Again, we're all responsible for our own actions here and should feel more than comfortable dealing with their consequences. I don't really expect it to happen, though, because the Lindens are way too hung up on touchy-feely crap that basically only serves to insulate dirtbags from the consequences of their poor actions.

I say we ship all the griefers to a large, desolate continent in the South, near the Antipodes.




Desmond Shang's griefing profile history, May 2006:

- 8 counts, telling newbie fundamentalists about a 'bible study' in Glorious Ar

- 3 counts, giving the clinically depressed a link to the SL forums

- 5 counts, letting his real, live cat control an alt in a furry area

- 2 counts, tricking an officer into setting the music to 'Loony Toons' in a sex club

- 15 counts, instigating fake forum drama for personal entertainment

- 10 counts, approaching avatars saying "this is mom, go finish your homework!"

One of the things that bothers me personally is when you send in an AR and you get what I consider to be a "canned" response from LL. I for one would like to know if they did anything to the person in regards to discipline or not. I hadn't even been in SL for a month when I was griefed and rather rudely at that. It never appeared in the police blotter and I am only assuming nothing was ever done to the people that did it. Do I think they are too lax? Yes I sure do, or at least not as forthcoming about the actions taken against griefers to at least the victims.

Just to play devil's advocate here, this is all just the stuff that people always say when they don't want to take responsibility for their actions (which is likely a major cause of griefing anyway).

I mean if you take RL as an example:

- A person that committed a crime might want to "live it down" but they couldn't?

Well why should they? They committed a crime. People shouldn't have their criminal records deleted just cause they're sorry or because they dont "feel like that anymore" should they?

- People would be less likely to give a criminal a chance?

Well sure. Why should they? If you want to hire someone for a job and their criminal record says they have been a thief in the past, then it's totally fair IMO to have second thoughts about giving them that job.

- The person that committed the crime thought they had a good reason to do it?

Well sure, every criminal I ever heard of says that in their defence. That doesn't make the fact that they committed the crime any different. Watch Judge Judy sometimes and see if every single defendant doesn't think they had a "good reason" to lie, cheat, steal, etc.

I would agree that the little stuff should be treated differently, but wrong is wrong. You do the crime, your responsible, period.

My thinking on the griefing punishments is this.

Take a frog, put it in water, slowly turn up the heat. That's kinda like what these incrimented punishments are. They're basically building up the griefers ability to tolerate punishments. I think that we should up the ante, and crank the 3 day suspension up for griefing to a whole week as a first offense, and the second offense a 14 day suspension, and seizure of $L assets. Third offense would get you permabanned.

I think that the harsher the punishment, the colder the splash of water in the face. At least that way it'd be more of a deterrent for griefing. I'd like to see a griefer wear a badge of honour for being a notorious asswipe in SL when (s)he's not even allowed back in.

Methinks maybe this needs to be a new proposal for people to vote on?

Stats and explanations would be useful. Stats would be things like number of reports vs convictions and the type of behavior and level of severity. Explanations would be useful in terms of knowing exactly what is and what is not a reportable offense. Also, what was lacking in the report if it failed to be acted upon. Define reportable offenses; be specific. Develop a separate penalty path for light offenses. Crashing the sim is more severe than behavior innapropriate for a pg area.

I've seen someone C4 an area multiple times and what sounds like nothing more than a warning... no suspension... listed on the blotter.

That's nuts.

What hyperbole? You have already proposed tattooing numbers on their arms. Think about it.

coco

People in real life aren't forced to wear their police record in a sign attached to their heads.

coco

They were in Snow Crash.

Wow. Just...wow.

They were! I was wondering where people got ideas like this, while I was cooking dinner.

coco

Gotta dissagree with you aimee . There have been periods where they seem to go overboard and ban people wholesale. Most of them did deserve it. However it made me walk on eggs because I script a LOT and some of the things I make can pop up the report window. Until LL can actually define their policies in a much more precise way, and until they can afford the man power to consistantly and completely investigate every claim, and until a whole bunch of other things. I think that enforcement should be lax rather than strict.

I know that some things being griefing seems to be self evident. But the fact of an action, just isn't a fact to people hearing about it after the fact. This means that when the Lindens get a report while it may seem convincing, It's just about impossible to know for sure. It could be a mistake, it could be a grudge, a missunderstanding, real honest mean griefing, or I've even seen it done as a joke. If any of you have tried to mediate between two people you either didn't know well, or liked and trusted both, then you know that every story has two, or maybe many many more sides, and both sides can sound plausible and true. Or both sides can sound false and dramatic.

lol I KNOW exactly why you want it strict and if I thought they would make no or even few mistakes I'd agree with you, but I do not have that belief.

Well, Aimee, what do you call it when you propose to append to an individual a chart of his ills that he can't remove? So that everyone and anyone can see them?

That doesn't happen irl, and for sure shouldn't happen here. It would create a class of second-class citizens, or even just half-citizens. Or a third, since you have it divided up into three categories. It would brand those individuals.

coco

rofl

What you just witnessed was Hyperbole^3, Aimee.

Quite a sight. Like watching the fusion reactions of 128 suns take place on the head of a needle, only more syrupy.

Yeah. If we had a 'facial tatoo' layer.....

Not really a criminal per se, just an asshole

I wouldn't be too sure about that.

\Has several family members a step removed, and more than a couple friends, with rather colorful pasts

\\It's a lot more evident than you apparently believe

\\\Much to their annoyance

Well I would have to hear the details of the bannings, but I won't doubt your word (you have been very rational in the past.) Though I still maintain that if you take the sum of the Linden's diciplinary handling (harsh treatment and soft treatment) the result would be a history of excessive tolerance for bad behavior.

As for the need for precise defintion of policies, I couldn't agree more. This is a matter for debate at this very moment in other threads. Surprisingly, not everybody insists on the need for precise criteria for Linden intervention. The Impeach Bush fiasco is a prime example.

Of course it does. Paedophiles have to disclose their presence upon moving into new neighborhoods and have their names listed in newspapers and directories. A lawyer friend of mine told me about similar tactics being proposed for DUI perps.

I hope you're really proud of yourself for this one.

And, as I alluded to in my last post, it follows you anyways, even the other stuff. Employers *will* find out, for example, even if you lie on your application. So will, just at random (examples I can think of drawn from real life), parents of your kids friends, your children's teachers, and overly-nosey neighborhood assosiations. Even, as I say, for the non-kid-molesting type stuff.

Syrupy?

You don't see the connection even yet, either one of you? No one irl has to go around with their record attached to them for everyone to see. In fact, there is a concept of having "done the time" and being square with the world again (more or less). It would be cruel and unusual punishment to make a person go around with their record attached to them. And it does not happen irl. The only example that even comes close is tattooing numbers on arms. You don't mark one group - even criminals - to distinguish them as inferior to other groups.

coco

P.S. I didn't come up with this idea. I'm explaining why it's not a good one.