Poll: Is Grief Out of Control?

For some reason, the topic of grief is a hot issue with many residents. However, to suggest "grief is out of control" seems just silly to me.

To that end, I'd like to see how many residents of SL actually feel grief is out of control.

Make your voice heard!

I think there are, of course, alot more jerks in-world these days, but overall, per capita, I'd say the griefing remains pretty stable. Less than it was during the SA riots of '04, more than it was during the Age of Politeness back in late '03.

For some reason, maybe due to permenant suspensions, even the WWII'ers have been fairly mellow lately, or else I just don't get out enough.

I still get the occasional brainless, immature, moronic, idiot come through that can't resist being a dickweed, shooting people, bombing events, placing crap all over my land, and/or just being extremely rude, but I usually just sit down (so I don't get pushed), open the Abuse Report window, and start typing out a nice detailed description of events. I usually am not bothered by them again.

In close to 18 months, I have never experienced a single griefing attack. I think people like to create issues.

However, just because you haven't experienced one, doesn't mean they don't happen on a regular basis.

Do you run alot of events? Travel the world often? Run a club or social gathering spot? I've been griefed at least 4 times in the past month or two, and I don't get out alot either. I wouldn't call that alot, but it does let me know that the griefers are still out there.

I don't think the average person sitting on their property has to worry aboput griefing. However, I think whenever you get a crowd of people at an event, these people tend to be attracted to them because it gets them the attention they desire.

There is one exception...sandboxes. Everytime I go to a sandbox there is always jerks with their push weapons. Every single time i've been to a sandox I have been attacked by people.

Any place with crowds has a higher incidence of griefing.

Greifers want attention. Its more fun disrupting 10 people than it is 1. Clubs, Sandboxes, and the Welcome Area are examples of places where crowds gather.

If you never go where crowds are, your perspective on grief will be different from those who do.

If griefing doesn't affect you because of the way you play Second Life, bully for you. But to suggest that because it doesn't happen to you it must not be a problem for anyone else doesn't seem to make a whole lot of sense.

Travis,

How often is the Shelter actually griefed in a weekly time span?

Once again. Depends on who you are. We still get hit 2-3 times a week, from people we've never heard of.

Depends on how you define grief. Lately, things have been pretty good (/knocks wood)

Approxomately, this is what I get currently:

Monthly: 1 Major grief attack (C4 - shooting incident - complete event disruption)

Weekly: 1 Medium grief attack (Shout harassement, rezzing self-replicating prim eaters - event annoyance but not disrupted)

Daily: 1 Minor grief incident (Driving a van or plane around the dancefloor, playing fart-cans/bananna phones, verbal abuse).

The major stuff doesn't seem to happen too often. The Shelter's traffic is a lot lower now than it was in January - I do notice a direct correlation between the number of grief attacks, and the amount of traffic we get. It was nice having higher traffic, but its also nice having less lag and less grief

Back in January, the major grief attacks were weekly. But nowadays, with traffic 1/4th of what it was - its about monthly now... which tends to correlate, i guess.

I think its been a week since I actually had to call a Linden, which by my standards, that's doing pretty good

Each week I answer half dozen griefer attack calls from tenants. I don't think it is increasing, but as more numbers come into the game, it can.

What I find that in most cases, probably 90 percent, the griefer is making a random, one-time attack.

I wish the Lindens or others would study the actual patterns of griefing to give feedback to the community and also adjust their own policies.

A random griefer who has flown by with a giant dick that he pokes into your neighbourhood instantly gets AR'd by me and the tenant, with his abusive chat history, and probably by neighbours too. He's done that randomly, and done it to a dozen people usually, and the Lindens then have enough to ban him probably for 3 days.

I think one of the worst things the Lindens ever did was put the name "Pole" into the name list because it's provided an opening for a hundred asswipes to come in and make various ribald variations on the concept of "Pole" har har and then fly around griefing with said "Pole".

But I always tell tenants that just because they faced that one random attack doesn't mean it will repeat. Most times it doesn't. And for them to suit up then with the bounce script, and them bounce me and all their fellow tenants and neighbours home or out to the cornfield, is a permanent form of griefing we all live with that is far worse than the one time attack by the idiot.

I've also found those who fill lots up with prims, i.e. burning flame prims, genitals, etc. are usually of the kind of person that even by the time I discover their handiwork on a lot, their name isn't even on the list anymore. They've either canceled or the Lindens banned them or whatever. Trial accounts are used by griefers, and they end in 7 days.

So let's get a grip here people. We don't have to turn SL into a giant shooting range full of bounce scripts aggravating the hell out of everybody just flying around due to a couple of griefers each week here and there.

The Lindens' police blotter is filled up with shootings in sandboxes. They are obsessed on that point. In fact, you almost think, upon coming to SL, that this is a game called "Catch the Lindens in the Sandbox" or "Lindens Vs. Sandboxers: Final Fantasy XX". Lindens enjoy catching sandbox shooters, it's a sport for the war gaming type, and those war gaming types like to play hide and go seek. So they focus on those to the exclusion of the residential area griefing usually involving home intrusion or sexual harassment.

Another form of griefing is the long-term vindictive griefing of neighbours against hated other neighbours. The classic thing here, which I dealt with 3 times this week, is either trees deliberately waving into a neighbours' home put right at the property line (should be illegal because it's placing an object unlawfully on another's property), ugly stupid signs, terraforming, ugly boxes with spinning cubes, lag lights, and extortionist prices.

The solution for most of these is to just wait them out.

Yet another form of griefer is the event griefer. I get one or two of these a week at our events. A simple "freeze/eject" is all it takes to lose them. Sometimes you get the most sophisticated but idiotic heckler who interrupts and plays belligerent contrarian. Most people are too PC to eject someone of that nature. In those cases, I negrate and people attending classes or events negrate too.

Look at the police blotter, and you see where the Lindens' heads are at. It's skewed. They don't put every disclipline there, so they may pick and chose. The police blotter is supposed to be for deterrence. So put it right here on these forums, don't hide it under "support" where it is hidden now.

The Lindens should increase responses to:

o residential area griefing with sexual harassment and intrusion
o neighbourhood grievances griefing involving waving trees, signs, extortion -- they need better tools and responses for this
o bounce script griefing -- pushing people without warning and sending them home is a form of griefing and should be acknowledged as such -- it is common to find it as the tool of choice of various mafias trying to place their powers over others.