Bombed Again

Club La Vie en Rose was just bombed again and guess who had gun on his shoulder??? None other than "pearljam Ayoob" who paid us a visit last week.

Blue Linden did come immediately and it looks like pearljam might be gone for 3 more days and I am not allowed to do a thing about him. Something is not right!

How about turning off outside scripts? How about banning him from the land? How about asking neighbors to do the same so he can't get anywhere near the place?

wow you need some air cover or ground

He was banned for three days. What more do you want?

You can't ban someone indefinitely the first time out. There's a graduated system of punishment, just like any other mature legal system.

LF

turning off scripts only works up to 20 meters. same with bans.
if it's an estate sim, banning from the estate will work.

Good to hear that it was handled through the right channels. Unfortunately, this person sounds like they have it out for the club, so they'll probably be back. However, with each infraction, the suspension will get longer and longer and if they persist, it will be perma-ban time.

Why the hell not? Intent, premeditation, vengance, prior felonies, etc. are all taken in into account in our mature RL legal system.

Just based on what is posted here - lacking any other information - it sounds as if there was an event griefer who got a three day suspension and returned to exact vengance for it. Knowing LL's prediliction for educating before punishment, there is no doubt in my mind that the griefer knew what he was doing and what its costs were. If someone wants to play griefer's advocate you could conceivably argue that he lacked the capacity to judge between right and wrong, in which case I'd rebutt that he therefore doesn't belong in the community.

In RL society you have what we call "rights", in SL, everything is a revocable privilege.

not really
all greifers have proven that they dont need a reason to greif just the fact that they can and lack of authoritaive response is proof. unless that lindens actually create something to prvent this there is always ways around the current system.

They do, and it has been dealt with. They are on a 3-day ban and if they do it again, it will probably be a 7-day ban, as long as they follow the 'protocol' by calling a Linden in and not fighting back.

I sometimes wonder if part of the reason that people think that there is no resonse or an unfavorable response is that many times the victims don't follow protocol, i.e. call in a Linden, first.

Last night the weakness of Linden Labs’ ToS enforcement policies was never more evident than it was to the guests and management of La Vie En Rose at Rue d’Alliez. As many are aware La Vie en Rose was attacked last Wednesday night by a griefer who set off bombs in the club during an event. Guests were tossed throughout the sim until one guest took action to stop the assault by blasting the griefer from the club. That guest was in turn slapped with a suspension for his actions.

Last night during a party to welcome Blake back from the suspension the club was attacked again, by the same person! Once again guest were throw about the club and the sim, systems were frozen and the number of guests dropped by nearly 75% following the attack!

This entire episode reveals Linden Labs enforcement policy for what it is: an impotent, wrist slapping with no deterrence! The griefer, obviously using an ‘alt’ could care less about the fact he will again be suspended!

Look again at the facts:

• Griefer attacks a well known and popular club, disrupting a gathering and causing at least one guest’s system to freeze and require reinstallation of the program.

• Linden Response: 3 Day Suspension

• A guest uses a script weapon to Stop the griefer from continuing his assault.

• Linden Response: 3 Day Suspension

• Upon return from suspension the griefer returns and again “bombs” the club!

• Linden Response: Undetermined at this writing but most like another weak response!

It is becoming obvious that Linden Labs is unwilling to do more than collect our fees and allow malicious scripts to propagate and spoil the enjoyment of the vast majority of residents. It is time for Lindens to act with more stringent enforcement policies! Instead of banning ‘alt’ avatars ban the Credit Cards used by these griefers. Assess a reinstatement fee for repeat offenders! Last week I called Linden enforcement a “Toothless Tiger” I was wrong.. It is an Impotent Quadraplegic incapable (UNWILLING )of doing more than collecting the millions of dollars fees resident pay them each month!

We did all of the above, I personally did it. While I could not see anything last night because of all the smoke Blue Linden did respond immediately.

The only thing I did to was to freeze the culprit, then he must have logged. I sent in a report, with the converstaion and have a photo of him with his weapon.

As for removing outside scripts that is not possible because of our Market Place.

I do think that credit cards of known repeat offenders should be banned and then a heftly fee to come back into Second Life should be imposed if in fact they are allowed to return.

While I'm not a "clubber" I do know one thing, that Griefing anyone, for any reason, is absolutely wrong.

When I played Ultimate Online (UO) I was part of a group that constructed the very first player city known as Oasis (Sonoma). Now, Oasis became quite a popular place, and we had events, much like you see happening in SL. A particular group of people became quite jealous of our efforts and accomplishments, and took it upon themselves to start griefing the events, and kill anyone and anything that moved during the events. This started a very long and involved process between our group and the developers of UO. The TOS of UO had nothing about it covering this, because quite frankly they never expected something like this to occur. So, we had to petition over and over and over again until finally we caught the attention of Raph (Designer Dragon). Raph and Richard Vogel both began working on changes to the TOS to address what we had called "griefing" and "griefers". Unfortunately, it was during this time, that Raph and Rich were asked to leave OSI/EA, only to be replaced by Gordon Walton. We once again, started to petition Gordon with our problem and he promised to take care of the issue quickly. Gordon promised that our events would be "protected events" by the GMI and that anyone caught griefing the events not only in Oasis but other events people were putting on, would be severely punished. During our next event, the griefers once again appeared and began their griefing. When we called for help, we were told that Gordon had "changed his mind" about the situation and no help would be provided to any event, unless it was an OSI/EA event. You can imagine how upset and crazy this made me. It was at this time, after playing for 4 years, and successfully running a player city, seeing 150 people show up for events, and being one of the most respected players in UO, that I decided to quit. Can you imagine how different it would be today if Gordon had kept his promises and dealt with the issues, hell, I might still be playing there today.

So, why am I telling you this story? Well, let's think about this. Normal everyday players will easily get frustrated and quit the world of SL, if SL doesn't start taking pro-active steps in dealing with griefers, instead of taking "reactive" steps.

A griefer will cost a game company like LL LOST REVENUE, because it doesn't take long before people to start leaving and playing else where, instead of dealing with frustration caused by these few. LL needs to understand that history shows that gaming companies that do nothing, or little, about griefers wind up with diminished population and weary players that are very suspicious of not only the griefers, but of the representatives of the game company.

IF I were making decision of punishment concerning the griefers, I would ban these griefers (by the MAC address) for a period of 30 days for their first offense, a period of 90 days for their second offense, and a permanent ban for their third offence. When people grieding learn that LL won't put up with griefers, then they will either learn to play well with others, or will move on to another game, where they will continue their abhored behaviour.



Thanks!

"IF I were making decision of punishment concerning the griefers, I would ban these griefers (by the MAC address) for a period of 30 days for their first offense, a period of 90 days for their second offense, and a permanent ban for their third offence."

I would agree with this harsh punishment.

The reason is I know a little griefer myself - that is, he sometimes is a griefer and he's sometimes nice. I've known him a couple of years.

He can be an EXTREME pain in the butt with his tactics, using scripts that are clearly illegal, like this godawful spam script that fills your screen with dozens of notecards. I'm pretty patient with him, but recently he was annoying me with these scripts to the point where I was ready to report him. I WOULD have reported him immediately if he'd been disrupting an entire event and not just annoying me all to hell and back.

I KNOW he doesn't give a flip about being reported when there's just a 3-day suspension. I'm pretty certain that if it were 30 days for the first offense, as Bob suggested, that would give him considerable pause (particularly if he couldn't immediately get back in with an alt).

As for the UO story, well, EA sucks. Gordon Walton apparently decided so, too, close to a couple of years ago, I believe.

Lindens need to understand that if you can't hold events and social gatherings, like at the club, without being subject to attack, then you might as well not have a game.

And giving the same punishment to the griefer and to the guy who stopped him in self defense just adds insult to injury.

coco

I agree that longer ban periods would be more of a deterrent, maybe two weeks for a first offense, a month for a second, two months for a third and automatic expulsion on their fourth. A three-day suspension is a slap on the wrist and next to nothing to a lot of griefers. Some situations might call for lighter suspensions, but for many organized griefers who set out maliciously and intentionally to disrupt an event or aggravate other SL residents, LL needs to take a much harder line.

It's too bad LL couldn't also enforce some sort of SL restraining order which would dictate that people who have been found guilty of griefing a particular area (such as a private island) could automatically be notified that they cannot come within so many meters of that area... but that would probably be next to impossible to enact and enforce.

There is no such thing as a ban by MAC address. Unless you ask the SL client what the MAC address is (which would require adding this feature in it), but even then it can be changed.

Indeed, there are sites/proxies/places to download utilities that can change and/or spoof MAC addresses. And they number in the thousands.

Agreed. While it was intended to be a unique address on a network, the MAC address these days is easily spoofed in a whole bunch of ways. The only method I could see that would even come close would be to ban based on credit card and/or physical mailing address. There's no such thing as 100% effective, but credit card would be the most effective available.


- Newfie

While I understand your pain; interesting first post btw; This is completely out of line .

Impotent Quadraplegic.....nice analogy asshat.... If you feel this strongly about this ( strongly enough to belittle the handicapped ) then you should quit playing the game....

I have to agree that LL's lax policy can and will lead to people leaving the game. Griefers is exactly why I left Lineage 2.

Because LL is so laxed is why most people take matters into there own hands this was one time when a Griefer attack an event I was at I pulled out my battleship most of the people got in it for cover we manned the turrets and blasted him out of the sky and when he came back to we left the ship up there until the event was over it was vary effective it might be something you want to try

I would urge everyone to NOT take matters into your own hands. We have seen what happens when this is done, and it will only lead to more frustration.

Instead, I think it time we started a more vocal way of getting our voices heard concerning this issue. First, who is it that is in charge of handling TOS Violation Investigations? Second, once we have identified that person, let's see if we can't find their email address and everyone send the following email to him/her daily, until such time that they agree to a Town Hall Meeting concerning this subject:

To whom it may concern:

Recently, there have been more and more griefers entering the world of Second Life and they have begun to frustrate me while I try to enjoy my time in-world.

While I have seen many of these "griefers" get punished, I see these same people return after their punishment and continue to grief, as if nothing has happened. It would seem that these people are here for one reason only and that is to harrass and frustrate paying customers.

I do not believe that the current system of handling these "griefers" is going to stop these "griefers" from doing what they have always done, and with this in mind, I must advise you, that I am considering the possibility of leaving Second Life because of these "griefers".

Before I take such drastic measures though I would like to request a Town Hall Meeting with you and other players who have become frustrated with "griefers" so we can discuss our concerns and hear what steps the Second Life staff are taking to stop these "griefers" from ruining our time in-world and forcing us to leave.

I look forward to hearing a public announcement as to when this Town Hall Meeting will be and assure you, that I, and others who are at their wits end, will be there.



Thank You for taking the time to listen,

<Your Name>