Griefer elimination measures: Ending unvarified access to Second Life

We all know them and the damage they cause. Griefers, the plague on Second Life. People who either for kicks or for profit cause disruptions of or completely disable portions of the grid. This phenomenon has to stop. It is way passed time.

Unlimited anonymous enrollment has only enabled those looking to grief to do so with complete anonymity. Encouraging a culture of open crime to run rampant.

In the last few years, I've heard stories of mercenary griefers hired by SL businesses to obstruct the operations of competitors. Doing such things in real life, would get the responsible parties put up on racketeering charges. Oh, that's right, SL commerce is real commerce. The L$ maps directly tp real world currency. So griefing for that purpose is racketeering, by United States legal standards.

Then there are those who deliberately crash sims for their own kicks. I'll point out one particular habitual case who kept several sandboxes constantly down because4 of his assaults on the system. His most well known name is Nightmare Dench. He also reputedly puts his griefing "talents" up for sale to the highest bidder. The downtime of any sim costs Linden Labs money. And most of the attacks used are classified by Linden Labs itself, as Denial OF Service Attacks. Which also happen to be a Federal Felony in the United States.

Requiring Payment Info to be on file, gives Linden Labs a real person to go after when they grief. It effectively ends the anonymous attacks for good.

This does not mean Linden Labs would need to give up free accounts. But would simply require an acceptable form of payment to be on record for identifacation purposes before that person is allowed access to the grid. This protects the residents, and it protects Linden Labs from these criminals.

Next, I believe it would be within the interest of Linden Labs to go after somethingawful.com legally. They were the distribution point for the worst security breach in Second Life history. A hacked viewer which was posted on that website's foums was teh cause. It was distributed far and wide.

Somethingawful.com is a griefer magnet. It attracts and has a community that surrounds it that griefs virtually everything. From forms, to IRC, to virtual worlds like Second Life, to MMOs, and whatever else that emerges. They also run a regular feature of pictures taken from within Second Life as subjects for them and their community to mock. Effectively breaking Linden Labs' official privacy policy in the process. They are a public menace.

That's my piece on this phenomenon. Linden Labs has the tools to drive griefing in Second Life from the grid for good. Will they use it? Some pessimistically in world have told me it won't happen. But it's my belief that if enough residents scream enough, Linden Labs will finally listen.

LL will allow unverified accounts as long as it is important to them to keep the numbers of in-world avatars as high as possible, for competitive, marketing, or investor-seeking reasons.

If and when they stop caring about inflating those numbers, they'll stop allowing unverified accounts.

End of story.

Otherwise, what you are saying is true and your policy suggestion would be perfectly valid. But sorry, true and valid are necessary, not sufficient, conditions in this case.

Quality of service also is important to outside investors. And as long as the anonymous griefer phenomenon persists, the overall quality of SL as a product is marginal. As any in world presence by such companies can be undermined or utterly neutralized simply at the will of an anonymous griefer.

So simple inflation of membership in SL is utterly meaningless. Especially when that inflation is largely due to griefers making literally hundreds of anonymous alts to engage in criminal activities.

So I stick by my suggestions above. Because it is actually in Linden Labs' best interests to eliminate the anonymous griefer problem. Because it would immediately cause a massive improvement in overall product quality. Which would definitely make the service much more attractive to potential investors.

The ability to register users without payment info on file was deemed to be essential to enable Second Life to work as a platform. The argument is that users who don't really care about Second Life but who just want to go and see Dell (or Ben'n'Jerry's, or similar) probably wouldn't be prepared to enter payment info into SL. (Investors can, after all, simply set their islands to no build, no script, no anything.)

What about those anon griefers that turn premium after half a year? (o.o)

=^-^=

The W-Hat group in Second Life is composed exclusively of Something Awful forum members, and comprises some of the most creative (and funny) minds in SL. Anonymous has been far more of a problem, grief-wise, than SA ever was- and even many /b/tards are valuable, constructive contributors to the community.

Simple group affiliation should not be misconstrued as complicity with the few bad apples that any diverse community such as SA or Anonymous inevitably attract.

LOL WUT?

=^-^=

Absolutely I was reading the post and kind of did a double-take when I got to the part about somethingawful.com.

On the topic of "griefing," I think the problem went away and I wish we could please start easing up on on the bans. It pains me to think we're helping build a new world where people can be thrown out for things like say, verbal abuse.

I wouldn't say that... It's more like... A lack of subtlety. Sure, it takes more effort, but it's all about the challenge. =^-^=

I've said it before, and I'll say it again. If we've got to keep unverified/no-payment info accounts then we need some way of restricting the potential damage they can do. As usual I mean no offence to those who aren't on the grid to cause harm, but we can't just allow griefers free-reign! At the very least we need a way to restrict the destructive capabilities of residents on private estates, by blocking access to scripts to rez objects, or perform other disruptive functions.

I don't want to block people entirely, but accounts which have no information to hold them responsible for their actions shouldn't be left unrestricted. It should be possible to strike a balance between allowing everyone a chance to enjoy Second Life, and giving land-owners and other residents the ability to do so as well without being griefed!

I think much more powerful restrictions over scripts on an estate level, with options to limit by payment info/verification would be a good step forward. Furnation for example has griefers frequently, and it would be good to be able to stop them while allowing harmless residents to build or socialise in peace.

Or what they say in a Forum or Blog.............

I too believe that unregistered, unlimited free accounts have to end. The reward of the fake numbers is not worth the damage it is causing. LL needs to stop being so damned shortsided in regards to SL.

What about the premium accounts that grief away w/o hesitation

I am sick - sick, I tell you - of being griefed by people posting stupid threads in these forums, positing stupid measures to deal with a non-existent threat. Ooh, I am so cross now, I could shake my fist in an angry fashion.

And stamp your feet, maybe?

I will hold my breath until I turn blue.

Unfortunately until we have ForumModeration.com operating here, nothing will happen, so I suppose I will just have to suffocate until they can delete this thread.

I don't see griefers of any kind as having any sort of rights at all. They are vermin simply needing to be exterminated. And they most certainly are not in Second Life for any legitimate purpose in the first place. They only exist to cause grief.

I have years of experience with the activities of the "goons". Both inside and outside of Second Life. They have proven themselves to be a malignancy to the internet in general.

Diverse? There is no diversity. The only people attracted to Something Awful are those who gain humor from grief being caused, or causing grief themselves. The whole site is dedicated to the furthering of abuse humor. Nothing more. There is no diversity in that. There are only the equivilent of a gang of schoolyard bullies who torture other kids for fun.

The bans need to increase. And the doors need to close so that those have been banned are not allowed to return. Those who are banned have proven themselves to be a malignancy and unfit to participate in Second Life.

Li9den Labs needs to start standing up for the honest users of Second Life. Doing what is necessary to protect the whole experience from people who simply are looking to get a cheap thrill at the expense of others.

This is such bad trolling.

Mind you, it doesn't take a lot around here.

This doesn't help in regards to public sandboxes. Which are constantly, unceasingly beseiged by griefers every single day. General public areas like that need serious protection too. And all more in-world restrictions does is take functionality away from legitimate Second Life users. It doesn't even come close to addressing the real problem.

Nightmare Dench has kept combat (sandbox) rausch in a state of being unuseable by others for over a year. His attacks on that sandbox and its neighboring sandboxes are unceasing and daily. Each time he launches an attack on those sandboxes, it is with a different anonymous alt. And Linden Labs has only really been able to clean up after the fact, Which is a losing battle from the outset. Because he always comes back with just another anonymous alt.

Ending anonymous account access is the only real solution that has any substantial effect.

If you don't like the subject of a thread, then ignore it and be on your way. Otherwise you are just griefing.

Personal attacks are not appropriate in the forums. Flaming (posting a message that is intended to incite anger or directly attack a person or persons), ...[is] strongly discouraged."


- Katt Linden