Will you still file ARs?

I had an experience last night that left me feeling a bit puzzled. Our club (which gets more than its share of griefers) jumped all over the push-toggle feature in Wednesday's update. We've been looking forward to it gleefully - finally, about half of the griefers' favorite weapons are no longer going to work.

So late last night, I'm having a fun discussion with a bunch of folks when this guy walks in with all the warning signs of a typical griefer -- "xxX" embedded repeatedly in his name, full body armor, no face visible, packing bombs and rockets. He hardly even lands before he's turning loose firebombs, choking the club with particle spam as he walks toward the center of the crowd.

That's when it turned humorous. I froze him and while I was clicking on the menu to ban him, the members were "wtf?", laughing at him, wondering what he was trying to do because none of his bombs were having their normal effect. The moment he was booted, they turned back to the conversation -- crisis averted, our group didn't break up like it would have otherwise.

So he got ejected, but my second normal step at this point would be to file an AR on him for script attacks.

Except there's no push-report now since push is toggled off. In a very technical sense, he didn't violate any TOS standards since he didn't abuse anyone with scripts (other than the particle spam). The best I could do was AR the particle spam and hope LL has other reports on this guy.

So there's an ethical question here, I think: Is it still a crime if someone throws a bomb into a crowd even if the bomb no longer works? Will the Lindens still enforce TOS even though 30 people weren't sent flying 200m in the air?

If not, I may stop filing ARs except if there's orbiting/caging. And that doesn't make me feel good either, since I've always felt that the bomber and shooter griefers really don't belong in SL. They're sociopaths but that's just my opinion. If they were really interested in shooting games they'd have found Jessie by now, but I guess that'd be too fair for them.

I'm just curious as to what other people's feelings are and how you think LL should handle these things now. I'm sure Mr. "xxX" went to other clubs to test their land tool usage after we got done with him.

Intent, intent, intent.

Plus, particle spam = poo.

If the bombs don't work no real need to file ARs.

Give the lowlife some time for the changes to sink in. When it does, which might be maybe three months from now (knowing how thier intelligence is inversely proportional to their hair trigger speed) then you won't even have to worry about dud bombs because they will finally(?) know it doesn't work anymore.

You can have your guest temporarily turn off particles, which will kill the bling but will also make the particle bomb useless.

Step One: Orbit/Flick/Offline offending person
Step Two: File an AR when they're no longer under fire.

That's my take on it too, Phedre. I'm just not confident that LL will judge purely on intent if there were no real damages. I hope so, but I've had my hopes crushed before.


Yep, but it felt like I was giving someone a seat belt violation after they drove their SUV through the playground at 120mph.

Even if it doesn't orbit me, if anyone is being an ass in my vicinity then I will report them without hesitation.

If LL decide to ignore it, that's up to them... but the number of reports coming in about push bombs will show them that further work is still needed such as making it an avatar instead of land-based toggle, as many of us have stated.

Lewis

If particle spam is a crime, then wouldn't it make every single bling/poofer addict a griefer worth AR as well, since result-wise they are technically the very same thing -- particle overload?

Since everyone has control to adjust amount of particles SL client draws, to match ability of their computer. Or to even disable them entirely with single menu switch... don't think it's really something worth 'abuse report'. And it's certainly not act on level of 'driving SUV at 120 mph through playground' either.

He still intentionally tried to grief your event. He still disrupted things.

If someone walks into an airport and starts waving a gun around, he gets arested, weather he shoots someone, or weather the airport security successfully tackles him and takes his toy away.

Report every last case.

Bling is merely annoying, though, it doesn't occlude vision like a huge cloud of fire particles. I couldn't even see anyone when this twit let loose his firebomb.


No you're right, but I was trying to draw an analogy. Firebombing a club (when push worked) and bouncing 30 people into the air was a dire grievance. I thank LL for giving us the power to mute that grievance, but my concern is that this nitwit is still going to grieve other people in SL and needs to have a come-to-Jesus with a Linden.

I never really AR'd to begin with unless it was a stalking style privacy issue. Want to orbit me? Go ahead mr. freebie, odds are mines stronger, I'll be down momentarily. If we're in our club I just ban them (simple. yellow. different.). I don't see the point of an AR since the inception of the throw away account.

On the other hand AR's are useful if your dealing with an established entity i.e. someone who plans on being in game a while. Anyone remember the mentor abuse thread where a mentor shot up an area and orbited folks? He ain't a mentor anymore teehee.

By the way, to derail myself, Cindy whats the name of your club, I want to drop by this weekend to see what all the hub bub is about if its being blown to hell ^.~

Guess depends on the amount of bling, saw a few where you couldn't even spot the owner from under all the white starfish things ^^;

and well, that still leaves the poofers... they can come with as many particles as a bomb, does it mean users should be AR'ed for obstructing your view? If not, why not? ^^;;


Not sure about it; that is, i can see the point about delivering wanna-be griefer a wake up call *but* ... am not sure if it wouldn't be more beneficial for SL on the whole if Lindens were able to use their time to deal with more serious issues, instead (like less numerous but more "advanced" and more determined griefers) While the wanna-be particle griefer will sooner or later wise up on their own this particular trick isn't really doing much to people. And either give up or find 'better' ways to grief, but at which point they could be swiftly dealt with by aforementioned less-overworked Lindens. o.O;

It's not being blown up any more

zomg way to dodge the question =P

Is it morally wrong? Yes, intent alone, even without action, is enough for it to be a moral wrong.

Is it verifiably detectable? Yes, in some cases. E.g. shooting you with a bullet generates a bumps/pushes/hits report, though a minor one.... as something hit you. Rezzing a bomb in a club though, does not, simply because nothing actually hits you when it 'goes off'.

Is it useful to file ARs? Definately if the person you're filing the ARs on has an established good record in the game. If they're just a throwaway alt...it's less useful because all it does is give the Lindens an idea of the general Griefing that happens, without being able to (AFAIK) effectively ban the person doing it.

Is this satisfactory state for SL? Personally, I think the push limits are a big improvement, given that the majority of griefers are unverified alts which cannot be banned effectively. Instead of reacting to them and banning them, we need to be proactive and limit the ways they can potentially grief other people by allowing landowners (or maybe avs) to limit what can be done to them without their permission. Push limits do this, and so are good step in the right direction. We should still file ARs, but over time I'd like to see the emphasis shift from ARs to resident-run ways to beat griefing.

When someone uses llPushObject on you in a Push Restricted area it still triggers the Push, Bump & Hits log. You can still AR them.. hell now that you don't get sent flying you can freese them and take a picture too for the AR. I still AR the f*ckers for even trying. Giving it time to set into their little brains that they can't grief won't always work, they'll just take that time to go through their inventory of freebies for a cagegun or something that works.

In that case, I did the right thing by ARing his particle spam.

We noted something in the Angry ANt when someone dropped a briefcase nuke, small pushes apparently still work. The nuke was set to do a lot of small pushes with one LARGE push (to add a rattle effect? dunno). Net result, I was knocked out of line while dancing on my chimera, much better than what used to happen ^.~

If the object uses physical bullets, the speed + mass of the bullet will give you a small push. Weapons with damage bullets in a non-damage area have teh same affect, you'll get knocked around a little bit but not like an orbiter.

And these can be blocked by any shield. A non-physical dome or box over the briefcase or in the line of fire would help.

This is incorrect.

It is griefing to harass another player or players and against the TOS just for that.

Any one repeatedly bothering you when they are told you don't welcome it, anyone who does anything like interrupting a meeting, any kind of C4 attack, gun attack etc. is all "harassment" and is against the TOS and can and should be reported.

It is against the TOS to nuke someone even if the nuke doesn't go off or cause any actual damage for instance.

Particle "spam" is actually not really against the TOS unless by it's nature it is harassing or continuous and annoying. You can't report or AR someone for a particle poof "arrival" for instance, you can only AR it if is is continually bothering you or offensive in nature, like poofs of flying turds or C4 bombs.

Great story, Cindy, and very interesting question.

My feeling would be yes, it's still a crime. In RL, attempted murder, attempted robbery, attempted breaking & entering, etc., are all crimes even though the perpetrator wasn't successful at getting past "attempted". It's all about intent. If the person intended to cause harm, then he or she committed a crime, regardless of whether or not he or she actually was able to pull it off.



I can't speak for them, but I'd imagine they'll be monitoring the patterns of abuse reports since there's no clear cut record. Eventually, I'm sure they'll have to come up with other automated record keeping methods other than just who pushed whom. In the mean time, my experience with LL's abuse team has been that, although they're far from infallable, they're generally pretty good at getting to the bottom of things, and their efforts usually seem to go far beyond just reading the push reports. That part of the policing procedures won't change.

Time honored tradition: Squeaky wheel gets the grease!

Keep 'squeaking' to the Lindens! AR reports should continue imo.

Char

Chosen, thank you. I need to hear stories like this now and then. My few direct dealings with Lindens have all been very good ones that left me feeling as though they genuinely do care, but it just doesn't happen often enough.