How do YOU handle griefers (POLL)

Well, I certainly didn't know that, and I had been working on the assumption that shooting at people was simply against the ToS regardless of the situation. Since I don't shoot at griefers myself, not wanting to be lumped in with them in the eyes of public opinion, it wouldn't even have occurred to me to try something like that.



You've certainly added to the dialog, I'll give you that. Apart from various unfounded accusations, your poll does indicate frustration with the AR system, and your willingness to open fire on griefers to take care of the problem. But most importantly, you've found and pointed out a loophole in the system that lets you do that with impunity.

Pointing out that this is possible without worrying about ToS infractions does help the community at large, so you've performed a service. And in these conversations about the griefing problem, such revelations are extremely rare.

It looks very much like you don't own land. Otherwise you'd know that in the land options/estate tools there is a toggle for making the land safe or damage enabled. That is NOT a 'loophole'. It's an intentional feature of SL for land owners, put there for a reason.

It makes your land/sim effectively a combat area where 'anything goes'. AR's from damage enabled areas have no consequence.
The obvious danger is that now YOU can be killed too, but since would be griefers are rarely well armed, or shielded for that matter, and hopefully you have made sure you ARE, it's not a major consideration.

So, griefers show, switch damage on (if you are feeling generous you might warn them off) auto kill them (to limit their damage) while loading their names into an effective security system, then turn weapons off, unless/until they call friends, in which case rinse/repeat

The worst they can do to you is deliberately crash your sim - and that IS a TOS violation, one of the few LL bother about, because of the trouble it causes THEM.
Funny that, they do bugger all if a bunch of griefers wreck you sim, attack you and your friends/customers - but if someone (including you) deliberately knocks your sim over, all hell breaks loose...
In fact I've been threatened with kicking by a Linden who happened to be present when I had the misfortune to unintentionally crash a heavily overloaded Linden owned sim by rezing a lot of prims.

Here endeth the first lesson in griefer control for landowners...

I am a landowner, and I did know about the button, but I was unaware of the ramifications of using it, other than it signalled griefers that it was okay to shoot on your land. That's the main reason I leave mine turned off.

So it looks like, for you anyway, option a) turns out to be your favorite and most useful option. I doubt I'll be using it - nobody likes to be shot at, even griefers, but to each his own.

Me I just freeze them and forget.

I haven't tried that one - I'd heard it's only good for thirty seconds at a time - is that true, or can you just leave them frozen like that indefinitely?

well thirty seconds is enough for most people, but then if they are still there freeze um again

it's quite obvious that you haven't spent countless hours defending your land from a pack hooligans while Lindens and Live Help reps stood around telling you to AR while you land fills with prims, your retailer's vending machines begin to get returned to them and your floor prims begin to return to your lost and found folder. I'm not paying to be harassed or let my service company tell me I have to put up with such nonsense over and over again. Linden Lab needs to establish a REAL solution to this ever increasing problem. I'm sure the RL corporations that are buying islands and continent expect the same level of customer service and protection of their investment as we do. Since LL decided to allow anyone to enter SL, LL is very responsible for this problem.

I sympathise - having suffered the same kind of abuse while a Linden stood by and did nothing.

And LL did have a real solution - seeing flagrant breaches of the TOS, all they needed do was kick the offenders and delete their accounts.

Of course now, that's pointless. The griefers would be back within minutes. So landowners need, even more than ever before, an effective method of detering griefers.

IF LL had ever shown any stomach for enforcing the TOS (save in those rare cases where it suits them) I'd say that the recent decision to allow anyone, regardless of age or previous behaviour in SL to open an account was sheer insanity.

However, given LL's extreme reluctance in the past to enforce the TOS in any meaningful fashion, I'd say the decision has been made because it offers two massive advantages to LL - it allows them to abandon any pretence of TOS enforcement, and it is producing a HUGE increase in 'users' (mainly alts) which will help make good Cory Linden's foolish boast about future membership, and also, if they are dumb enough to accept the figures, keep the investors happy.

The long term results of this policy may not be to LL's liking though.

I am still waiting to see EZ Money or Grimmy Moonflower rear their ugly heads.

Now here's an idea for the anti griefer set. Its called llSetLandOpts - gives a script the ability to instantly change owner's land options (Such as damage.. such as bans.. *cough*)

Imagine this.. griefer comes onto your land, doing grieferish things. You fire a specially made cannon, which right before impact, switches your property to damage enabled, killing off the griefer, then resetting to damage off before anyone knows anything happened. For extra credit, lets automagically add them to the ban list as well.

LL? You reading this thread?

Perhaps Linden should ban by hardware Id, say for instance their computer configuration, particularly the motherboard, what this does is effectivly block them from creating alt accounts to ban dodge, to get around the ban they'd have to buy new mobo or a new computer, think greifing isn't going to cost you? THINK AGAIN!

I thought of something that people might find useful.

Three weeks ago I dealt with a griefer by eject/ban/AR, and when I got the resolution email, I checked the blotter. There had been a 14 day suspension, but not in the sim I'd reported it in.

Three days ago, I dealt with two more - again by eject/ban/AR, and again, there was a new item in the blotter, but again not in the sim I'd reported it in.

I suggest that griefers, when ejected, just move on to the next place and keep doing it. When LL takes an action, they'll take it on the last AR of the block of complaints against that individual, so it might happen very frequently that the incident you report never appears on the blotter at all.

This could contribute to the impression that AR's aren't working, because you would rarely see your incident in the police blotter.

Of course, when you find the same names you AR'ed online, that's kind of a tip-off too that your complaint resulted in no direct action, but I'm just pointing out that there's more than one possible explanation for the apparent lack of activity on the behalf of LL with respect to AR's.

I guess I'm mean...My land is left always with damage on...they get a warning if they read the land notecard. They get one warning from me...then out comes my big guns and shield...I shoot them and ban them and anyone they are partnered with...sometimes a whole group even. *smiles*

That's an interesting idea - though the hardware ID you're referring to would be the MAC address, the unique ID given to each individual networking device. They'd have to go buy a new network card, or perhaps swap one out from one of their other machines if they have one.

Network cards are $5 a piece now, so it wouldn't be much of a deterrent costwise. The labor involved in driving out to buy one and replacing it might have some effect, but the dedicated griefer won't care.