Do You Think LL Is Too Easy On Griefers?

You drank the kool-aid, you get it!

Your offer letter from LL should arrive shortly.

We do.

Oh, for all the people who pointed out that it was a cautionary tale... I know that. But, don't forget, there's a lot of stuff SL deliberately borrowed from Snow Crash, and some of it should have been treated the same way. I don't know that the idea of building Telehubs to create artificially "high valued" property was deliberately based on the "high value" land in the Metaverse, for example, but I wish they'd really paid attention to the description of the "high value" land in Snow Crash before going ahead with them.

And they REALLY need non-linear space, at least the ability to specify arbitrary links between sims and to run sims at different scales, with "city" sims maybe 64x64 or less, and "ocean" or "wilderness" sims 1024x1024 or larger, and sim boundaries anywhere in the sim.

Snow Crash is a decent story, but True Names described a better model for Second Life.

On the other hand: kudos to Abramelin Wolfe for Reason (though I wish he'd included the cooling system), and if someone makes a Tiny based on the Rat Thing I'll be first in line to buy one.

That's a great point. Inconveniencing people in a virtual world is totally comparable to psychologically scarring kids or recklessly endangering innocent lives.

It was actually a bloke named Richard Sexton who came up with it, and it should be called Sexton's Law.

Your own logic defeats you.

If it's 'just a virtual world' (and by extension, not comperably to what goes on in the real world), then punishments can be fittingly different because it's 'just a virtual world'.

OK, let me see if I have this straight: Snowcrash was a "cautionary tale" in which people were branded with facial tatoos to set them apart from others, so they can be more easily shunned, as a sort of lesser caste?

I haven't read it, but I know it is sort of the Bible for SLin an odd way, while yet being a "cautionary tale?" In other words, this sort of tattooing was presented in Snowcrash as something NOT to do?

So apparently I am too close in my metaphor. I should be one degree off, as Snowcrash, all hail Snowcrash was. Doubtful that many missed the implications of the tattoo bit there, and the connection to the previous incidents of tattooing and branding in history, but it was one degree removed.

So that was okay in Snowcrash as a cautionary tale, right? But when I skip the fictional book and go right to the source of the real reason for caution, I am villified by certain individuals on this thread?

So the whole crime is that I didn't soften the same message by making it one degree removed, as the author of Snowcrash apparently did. And I have seen Snowcrash lauded on these forums. I guess I should read it and learn Snowcrash-speak so as to be able to say the very same things without causing any stir at all.

coco

I can to some extent understand the Lindens not wanting to publish the names of AVs with their punishment and infraction details to the whole of SL. I may not 100% agree with it but I can see the point.

THAT SAID

I find it ridiculous that the person that filed the abuse report is only told the issue is resolved. I think that one person is entitled to know that x person that nuked him/her into oblivion is visiting the cornfield.

The standard answer is watch the blotter. Unfortunately the blotter is so short that things move off it very quickly at times and frequently the reporter misses any reference to thier case.

I would like to take a moment to ensure we do not merge two completely separate debates happening in this thread.

Debate 1: Is color coding the names above our heads according to our diciplinary points a good idea?

The majority of posters in this thread have welcomed the idea. However some people have expressed some very well thought-out arguments against the idea. I cite Yumi Murakami, Travis Lambert, and Aldo Stern. Their opposing views bring a valuable balance to the discussion and can only serve to ensure the best ideas eventually bubble to the Linden's TODO list.

/108/5b/83375/3.html#post854161
/108/5b/83375/3.html#post854134
/108/5b/83375/4.html#post854282

I, for my part, am not passionate either way about the color coding scheme. I threw the idea out there and welcome constructive feedback.



This should NOT be confused with the second debate going on here:

Debate 2: Was the comparison of color coding our names to the tattooing of Jews by the Nazis an appropriate one?

Well I guess we all have to decide for ourselves. I thought it was repugnant. Jauani Wu thought it was an "astute observation." We learn new things about people all the time I guess. I, for one, won't hesitate to mention the inappropriateness of using examples of unfathomable human suffering to bolster one's argument in this game.

Nobody accused of being FIC is even remotely Bolshevik.

Griefers bombing a tringo event is NOTHING like Nagasaki.

And providing a public warning if a user has chronic diciplinary problems is nothing AT ALL like the Nazis tattooing the Jews during World War II.

Here's a couple of suggestions, actually.

1. Virtual suspension. Don't suspend people from the game, suspend them from the economy. They can still walk around and talk to people and there's nothing really obvious about them, they just can't spend, give, or recieve Lindens, or transfer objects into our out of their inventory.

That would not only act as a deterrent, it would largely prevent them from griefing anyone since they have no way to run scripts. Perhaps they could be allowed to rez stuff in their own land or group-owned land where they were an officer, but only if every other parcel was set on immediate auto-return, even for attachments.

2. House arrest. Don't suspend people from the game, restrict their movement for some period. Like, house arrest... they can rez into their home parcel (if they don't own land, that'd be an infohub), but they can't travel outside that parcel while they're suspended.

In either of these cases, it's not immediately obvious when you just look at them, talk to them, or check their profile, that they're being punished. If they're careful they could get through the whole period without anyone knowing.

Finally, to give the suspension teeth, it would be for in-game hours. If you get a 3 day suspension, you're under sanction for the next 72 hours of in-game time you spend logged in. And under either of these rules you wouldn't be able to use the time "profitably" by sitting on a camping chair. I suspect an initial suspension would have to be fairly short, maybe only a few hours, but it could be extended for recidivists.

"Resolved" is the standard form letter that sometimes goes out even if the resolution was "we threw out your report without even looking at it". It certainly helps reduce the number of open support tickets though which must look good on someone's weekly status report (presuming that LL requires status reports from their staff which I suspect may be a little too "authoritarian" and "disciplined" for them).

This is absolutely true.

First, the fact that SL is a virtual world is irrelevant... someone who C4s you has only inconvenienced you even in SL, and only for a few minutes. Yes, they should be punished for the action, but extreme punishment like branding should be restricted to crimes that are actually comparable to child abuse.

Second, publishing someone's identity is only "just a virtual punishment" if the character involved is completely anonymous. If they're known in real life (which isn't that rare), it's not virtual any more.

This is a very good point - ideally, you'd also want more-green and super-green coloured ratings for people who were especially honest, so that you could achieve distinction by being good as well as by being bad.

The problem is, there's no way of reporting that other than the ratings system, and we know what the problem with that was.

Snow Crash was a science fiction story that covered a whole lot of ground. Some aspects of Snow Crash were obviously intended as cautionary tales, some were actually good ideas, and some of THOSE have yet to show up in SL.

I'm not sure I understand the rest of your message, but it doesn't sound like it's directed at me, so I'll leave off here.

I would have to say "Not only no, but hell no", and that goes for publishing people's names in other ways. There are all kinds of ways to keep griefers on probation without making it that obvious. I've suggested a couple, another would be to add a "ban griefers on probation" checkmark to the Ban section of the land tools, so that you could designate your land as a griefer-free zone without actually having to know who the people involved are.

I think this is abusable though:

- Joe Griefer signs up for a job while suspended (such as hosting an event), does the job properly, then when the host tries to pay them the game says they can't and they complain at the host or LL.

- Joe Griefer signs up initially, sets up a casino game with slow return (such as a long-term raffle or similar) then gets himself suspended in time for the payout date so that the payout is cancelled because Joe can't give out money at the time, then shifts the blame to LL.

- A bunch of griefers get together, file a bunch of ARs against Jane Merchant, one of them goes through by mistake, and the griefers then all get together and grab huge numbers of her products from her vendors for free, since Jane can't take the money while she's suspended.

- You'd also have to team up with SLExchange to stop sales there, since they maintain a seperate L$ account.



This is basically what they do with the corn field now, isn't it?



You could still leave the computer on overnight, though. But, really, suspensions on traditional MMORPGs hurt gamers/griefers because during that time you're not gaining XP and others are, so effectively the penalty is having your comparitive level reduced. There's nothing like that on SL.

The Central Committee takes issue with this statement, Comrade.

You guys are making a lot of assumptions, the number one incorrect one is that people actually care about these throw away accounts. Color coding people, branding them with Scarlet Letters, and possibly throwing them in Linden jail will not work. People grief other people all over the internet. Do you really think a Griefer cares if they are suspended or banned? No, they will just make a new account. Which is now even easier thanks to the idiotic idea of free accounts. The number two incorrect assumption is that people actually want to be in SL bad enough that they will tolerate punishment. If 100 people try SL and only 10 actually convert and out of that 10, only 3 are logging in a month later, SL can't really be all that compelling. SL has 100,000 members and has finally had 5,000 people logged in at one time. Wow. *golf clap*

You can't stop Griefers any more than you can stop criminals. Punishment is not a real deterrent to crime. The solution is better protection. What Residents need are better land management tools, privacy options (if Lindens can appear offline when they are on the grid, why can't they give that technology to the rest of us?), and some good common sense coding from LL.

Frankly at this point, SL is a griefers haven, and LL is solely to blame for it. Every grid attack and the resulting fall out rests on the shoulders of LL and their inability to protect their product and their customers. They have basically abandoned the Main Grid and left if open to griefing and made it a cluster fuck free for all. The lack of action in the Impeach Bush signs (and really every other jerk that has pulled the same stunt, this isn't a new game with the small plots just a more annoying one), has been a pointed sign that LL doesn't give a rats ass about the main grid which they have let just wither and die on the vine, while private islands have flourished. It is apparent that many people want rules and zoning looking at the immense popularity of private islands

OK, withdrawn, Comrade. But my overall point still stands.

Only one free account per credit card number. And if they're into credit card fraud..



If they're griefers, it's a good thing for them to be leaving. Redeeming them might be nice, but getting rid of them's a close second.



Private islands are popular because they're the best value way to get a large land area; on the mainland you'd have to win an auction or pay a middleman, and then get less control for your money. I really think they'd be popular even if it wasn't for the sign griefers, especially with P2P.

Where I live, DUI offenders have to get special license plates that are bright yellow with red letters.

Umm you can get a throw away credit card number in a few minutes, a legal one. So Credit Card authorization is hardly some fantastic safety measure.

Renting on private islands which is new in the past 6-9 months and has really taken off, is not just beacuse it is cheap, because in some cases it is not cheaper than owning mainland, but hecause there are rules that are enforced by the Sim owners usually with prompt response, unlike dealing with LL who will toss their hands up and let the main grid be the Wild Wild West.

Do you really mean to say that renting on a private island is not cheaper than owning mainland? Ie, the rental for an island area is more than the land price divided + tier + Premium?

Hi Eboni. I haven't seen you much in the forums lately so I'm guessing you didn't catch a recent post from a newbie about her referral fees. She maintained that no credit card was provided to establish her account and that it was only related to her cell phone. Apparently something new since the $10 one time fee was dropped.

Here's the link: /108/70/81080/1.html

Not sure what orifice you pulled that from, J, but I'm disappointed with your lack of reading comprehension. I thought you were smarter than that, but I know how much you love playing your 'forum persona' to be contrary so I won't bother engaging you. Let me know when the real Jauani decides he wants to discuss the issue.