Disable script creation/editing for unverified users

In the blog they have already said they are planning to limit scripting to trusted accounts.

http://blog.secondlife.com/2006/10/09/security-and-second-life/

The regular and continual attacks on SL and people in SL didn't start with the V5 banning. They were, rather, the motivation for the V5 banning.

They started when LL gave anyone who got their jollies off attacking systems a "get out of jail free" card. We had everything from C5 attacks down to mobs of free-account avatars harassing people in series... and they all started immediately when open enrollment was created.

Controlling scripts on your land won't solve the problem. Someone dropped a particle bomb on one of our neighbors and a quarter of the sim was covered with tubgirl images until the Lindens got in and located it... there's no scripts in an active particle emitter, and forcing people to turn off particles is itself an assault. Improving ban tools won't help, unless you treat unverifieds a "guilty until proven innocent" yourself by banning them from your land, or you go even further and restrict your land to group members only!

Even limiting scripts gridwide won't solve the problem, the folks who get off on system attacks treat technical limitations as a challenge. And griefing without using scripts isn't even much of a challenge. The very day that open enrollment started we had people using one alt after another to get around bans and harass people just by hanging around, blocking them, bumping into them, running sounds and making comments, and coming back again in another alt until THAT one was banned too.

Open enrollment has hit SL like AOL hit Usenet. We couldn't ban AOL from Usenet, but LL *can* do something about open enrollment.

I've already responded to this in the blog. I consider it damnfoolishness. See above for why.

I'm on the fence about the whole "trusted" issue because while I want free accounts to have access to everything (else, why go premium without tasting everything?), but if we look way back in the anals of multi-user online games, also known as MOOs, MUDs, MUCKs, and the like, there WAS a "trusted" "non-trusted" differentiation between users. There were in fact SEVERAL levels of this. New users could use anything, but couldn't create [scripts], the next set could use all the basic tools to create a wide variety of things, then next up was for the Truely Trusted who were allowed access to those functions that if used improperly would kill the MU* server (i.e. the application, not the machine).

I have been reading alot of these threads and I am seeing one constant... most of the people who are against the unverified being restricted are accounts that were created after the open door policy went into effect... and I see a vast majority of prior to june residents complaining about it... I have always been against the banning of non- verifieds, compairing it to Hitler Segregating all just because of religion not because of good or bad... I do agree that alot of the unverifieds are good people... but I also know that I was attacked by the same person on 8 alts in one hour... I also saw someone say that 1/3 of the population are unverified... thats quite possible... but lets just say that number of unverifieds are further cut... since you forgot to allow for multiple griefer accounts... I am betting that at least 1/2 to 3/4 of the total population are alts and that is based on the knowledge that prior to June I had 3 accounts and the average acciount holder in Sl has at least 2 accounts... there are as of today 926,089 accounts and I am willing to bet thats at best 463,044 actual residents... now using the 1/3 ratio leaves 154,348 now out of that number lets reduce it further factoring multiple griefer accounts... on average there are 5 to 10 griefer accounts per creator but lets use the lessor and take the number down to 1/5... that leaves us with most likely 30869 actual new residents... hardly seems right that a population of over 300,000 before June and the vast majority being verified, paying, and tier charged residents should recieve the amount of crap we have for 30,869 new residents.

Now you say that being a free account should have all the benefits of SL and I do agree partially... I think a verified free account should... but unverifieds should be limited severely.

If you wanna know why I feel this way, well thats simple.

SL is supported by its PAYING residents, not by advertisements, not by popups, its supported by premium accounts and land owners... and if you think that a few non paying non verified accounts should have the same rights in SL as we do... I think your wrong... because without the ones who pay for this game ... you would not be here... and if you think verification would limit people from other places around the world, then how does WOW, TSO ( when it was over 500k residents), and the other paying verified games out there getting world populations not US only populations... also alot of my friends prior to the open door policy were outside of the US... so find another excuse as to why this is a good thing.

I end this with a simple quote " If you dont like it you can kiss my furry little butt"

Yes, but (a) LSL is deliberately designed to be comparable to the least trusted environments in these MUDs... the advanced modes allowed you to do the equivalent of redrawing your land borders and editing other people's inventory, and (b) you could get "trusted" simply by having someone else who was trusted vouch for you.

Hear hear!



*Kisses your furry little butt anyway*
Hehe.

I'm against unverifieds being restricted. I'm for a mechanism that will let unverifieds *become* verified by sponsorship, because restricting them is the only alternative and it's a horrible one.

And I've been here over a year.

Wow. Less than fourty posts before the Hitler comparison

(a) While that might be the idea, MUD scripting on the least trusted level never let you push people around. El Oh El, llApplyImpulse().
I can't find (quickly) where I read the thing about various levels of scripting ability, but I do remember that the higher trusted stuff wasn't things like redrawing land boundaries and editing other's inventory esch things, but rather CPU intensive tasks or anything that was the focal point of essentially, a Grey Goo attack.

(b) That's how it worked in MUDs and that's something I would be OK with seeing.

But that doesn't solve anything, if you allow them to become verified, then you either have to do away with them, or restrict them. Else the problem of unverifieds being griefer heaven is still around.
Getting rid of them entirely is a much bigger restriction than simply forbidding their use of certain script functions! Especially since unverifieds provide the easiest mechanism for people to get in world so that your sponsorship idea can work in the first place. If you can't get in touch with someone willing to sponsor you, you can't get sponsored, rendering the idea almost entirely useless.

Trusted access on MU*s typically involved direct access to the database, and with that you could go around a lot of the restrictions in the game, including moving people around, changing the ownership of rooms, and accessing people's inventories. Even untrusted scripts could change properties on people... that would be like having an object able to reload your appearance settings just by clicking on them.

If you can get trusted by having someone vouch for you, then you could get access by having someone vouch for you the same way... and that's how it worked on a lot of MU*s as well... and how I've suggested that LL provide access to SL for people who can't get a card.

There's a number of options.

First, existing active accounts can be grandfathered in with no further restrictions than they have now. That's a reasonable option... the problem is not that there are X-hundred-thousand unverifieds, it's that a griefer can gen up a new alt whenever he wants. Just making *new* alts require some kind of verification is going to make a lot of people think twice about throwing that C4.

Second, existing unverifieds can be sponsored. Have some grace period to let them find a sponsor.

Third, verification through cellphone can be extended beyond the US.

And there's lots of solutions here, too.

The most obvious is that you signed up on SL through a web browser in the first place, you found out about it through something other than meeting people in-world. If sponsorship happens, there will quickly be lots of sites springing up for people looking to trade sponsorships or sell them.

Sponsorship then becomes a mechanism for "outsourcing verification". Let the market take care of it.

Anyone who thinks that unverified accounts don't support SL is in complete denial of the SL economy. I own a store, I'm unverified, and I buy things because I have a business. I am self supporting. I pay for SL in my own way, by renting land from a friend who does have a pay account. Many many unverifieds don't get so lucky, but they do make money from camping chairs or dancing pads. What do you think they do with this money? Stockpile? No! Of course not! They spend it. Any person who spends even 1L in SL, even though it is minute, is supporting the economy. If you look up on the SL page about transaction amounts spent in SL, 1L is the highest occuring one. That's a lot of lindens! I do not support getting rid of the "unverifieds" as someone grotesqely coined the term. It is a gateway. Yes, there have been some awesome ideas now thought up because of horrible tragedies. We live and learn, LL gives many control over who can access their land. And it will never dissappear. Humans posess the intellect or drive(lol not neccessarily both) to bypass any security measure you will put in place. If you can't deal with every day not being Perfect Life (TM) then you need to go to a therapist, stop logging on, and quit bitching, lol. I'm so sorry you lost your business for those days(so did I! maybe not my life's wages.. ) But look how it has drawn the community together to think of better and brighter things. I say "yea" for ideas and "nay" for censorship. And lastly, thank you LL for concieving a virtual reality that bunch of people can argue about and participate in, and maybe even make money in. We may whine but how many people have taken a break from the whining, stepped back and said, "Wow, look at that, they made that, I couldn't make that. I'm glad I'm part of that?"

I agree with blue fuhr's statement..... soo SHhh

Yes, I agree, free accounts are great. They instituted free accounts last year about a week after I paid $10 to sign up my first account, and despite missing out on that deal I was all for it. All your arguments were valid reasons for having free acocunts then, and they still are, but they have little to do with "unverified" accounts.

Most of the unverifieds I've spoken to have credit cards or cellphones, they just don't want to use a credit card online if they don't have to... even for a $0 "purchase". And I don't blame them, but I don't see why we need to put up with anonymous griefers or an ever-cheapened SL environment just for that.

But even if you don't have a card you have a friend with a pay account. You've got someone who could have sponsored you into second life under my scheme. Wouldn't that be better than finding yourself unable to use objects containing certain script calls, unable to script at all, unable to build, eventually, as SL becomes cheaper and shoddier while LL tries to come up with ways to keep griefers from abusing the privilege of SL anonymity?

Yes I could have been sponsored. That's what I meant when I said it was making us all come up with ideas.

Sorry, that's not the case I'm talking about, I was working with the assumption existing unverifieds would be allowed in without restriction, I should have said that. Could still end up with griefer accounts, but at least as they get banned their numbers would go down.


The problems with this:
People will do it, end up letting in a griefer and get punished for it because they were silly enough to allow free sponsorship, or even paid sponsorship. Griefers really can't have much else to do with themselves, so paying someone outside (so that their details can't be accountable) would defeat the purpose. Not to mention, if they can't pay/verify in SL, what makes you think they can pay/verify with a sponsor instead?
People will realise that offering sponsorships to people they don't know well beforehand is extremely risky for their account, and won't do it. I expect the majority of people will do this, the result being not enough sponsorships to allow the genuine new players into the game.
It will still take time to join the game, if you have to wait a week to join an online game, you might not be bothered anymore. It could put a lot of people off because the instant nature of the internet is lost.

I guess the main issue though is trust. How can you trust the person you're sponsoring? SELLING your sponsorship defeats the purpose, if the person can buy it then they should have no trouble verifying themselves anyway. Even so someone could buy a sponsorship from you then get you in serious trouble anyway.
It is much easier to trust someone if you know them first, what they want to do with their second life, their interests etc. And it is possible to do this if they can sign-up right away with limited features so that they can make friends, friends who can then sponsor that person because they seem okay.

I understand that you don't want "second class" users, but that's why we have unverifieds. Because people who can't verify themselves easily were made to be second class citizens, unable to join Second Life. However, removing unverified registrations entirely would return this problem, while sponsorship might make it easier (e.g if you signed up because of a friend who will vouch for you), it will create that same issue again, as it will be hard or impossible for people without a friend already in the game to get sponsored. However, if unverifieds are kept then they can make friends. Sure they're limited, but it's like a demo/trial period to MAKE friends, to find a sponsor and to explore the game you're trying to join.

Agreed.

I should quote this 3 holy-ideal words that has been used so many time to enforce right things do right things....

"Just Do It" - Nike

...please, no more excuses.

Indeed. The sanctions have to be limited to those necessary to keep griefer alts undesirable. I am currently thinking in terms of nothing more than the loss of sponsorship privileges during the period of suspension. That gives the griefer one bite with a griefer alt on his main account, but he'd need to spend the money on another premium account to do it a second time. The goal of making even "free" accounts something genuinely worth protecting is satisfied.

It took me a couple of months to join, because I had to wait until I had a computer good enough to play it. Then I had to give them my credit card #, then I had seven days to decide if I wanted to stay before I had to pay them $10.00. And I didn't think that unreasonable.

I don't think a credit card number or finding a sponsor is too great a hurdle. It's a lot lower a bar than just getting together a powerful enough computer to play the game!

They can do that in first life, too.

If you can't join you're not a citizen, first, second, or cabin class. Letting people in without verification still leaves most people in the world - even most people with computers - unable to join, simply because they don't have the hardware, so you can't solve the problem you're trying to solve that way... it's best to leave some small fraction (yes, really) of the potential citizens out than to wreck SL trying to cover "everyone who can afford a high-end gamer rig".

But then the griefer will move to someone else for sponsorship under a new identity, eating up the free sponsorships available, and taking down the grid or generallly causing trouble EVERY TIME. In the mean time they've also left a whole load of SL sponsors unable to sponsor genuine, non-griefer accounts, and most likely convincing them never to offer sponsorship again. The actions of a few griefers would quickly close all the doors to the people requiring a sponsor.
Not to mention, removing the ability of the sponsor to give out sponsorships isn't a punishment at all! It gives them no reason to be careful, it's a gamble where they can't lose anything of any real value! Meanwhile the griefer isn't affected unless all the sponsors run out, at which point genuine accounts who need sponsors can't get in. Griefer wins, sponsor doesn't really care that much, potential sponsored accounts are lost.


Hardware is a requirement that LL can't just change at the drop of a hat, all they can do is try to make it as accessible to as many machines as possible. Whatever got you interested enough that you'd get a new computer to join (or were you getting one anyway and just joined once you did?) must have been fairly significant. But a lot of gamers are going to be casual people who hear about SL in passing, in an article or something. If they have to wait to join, it's going to put a lot of people off. The kind of people who aren't comfortable trusting credit card details just to try a game are the kind of the people who aren't going to be impressed by having to wait just to find out what they'd be risking their payment info with!
Creating delays just to JOIN a game is completely flawed, if I had to wait hours, days, weeks to get a sponsor to join SL then I wouldn't have, plain and simple.
The fact is, people want to see the game NOW. That's why games companies release demos in the first place, but the thing is that SL can't easily be demoed, as you'd have to somehow represent the entire SL world in a single demo island lag-fest or something. Let them preview the world by seeing the whole thing, watching it work, and give them a taste of the things they can do with their avatar, but give them no destructive abilities. The perfect demo, with little change to the system to restrict new unverifieds into 'demo' accounts. Now in one fell swoop we have a way to safely allow people to "try before you buy" AND allow people who can't verify themselves to find sponsors.


My arse they can. How many people in SL are going to be interested in sponsoring random strangers? How many of those people are going to want to risk action against them if those sponsored accounts are griefers? How many people are going to want to interview potential accounts to sponsor on MSN? How many accounts that want sponsorship are going to want to be interviewed?
If you can join SL with restrictions, you can get right into the game, find things that interest you (e.g the furry community) and meet people there! Make friends, and if you want restrictions lifted, then your new friends might be willing to offer sponsorship, as they by now should know you enough to have some idea of whether they can trust you not to get them punished.


But SL is playable without a high end gamer-rig, sure you have to turn settings down, but it can be playable. I'm still also hopeful that we'll see more improvements in performance at some point.

No offence Argent, but it seems to me right now that you're determined to stick to your original plan purely because that's how you envisioned it. But if you do that your sponsorship idea will be almost completely worthless and you'll shut out a ton of people when you don't need to.
Your sponsorship idea is good, just not exactly as you're arguing it. The change is simple:

Account types
Unverified/Demo - ordinary account with certain script features disabled. Or with inventory transfers and pay/buy disabled, given a large selection of in-built library items, the latter is more secure but also more limited, but has the advantage of being easier to do and less confusing as to why some objects won't work. The purpose of this account is to try the game before verifying yourself, you can see all the cool things people are doing, and if you want in, you verify. Most interactive things are available to them in-world, except for avatar scripts or the ability to create their own scripted objects, they can however see other people's and get a feel for it that way.

Sponsored - ordinary account with no restrictions. Requires a sponsor. Actions taken against these accounts are applied in part to the sponsored account.

Verified - ordinary account, may sponsor unverified accounts. If you sponsor someone who gets banned, you get a temporary ban unless you can somehow convince LL you genuinely were fooled by the individual. A history of sponsoring griefer accounts could result in your verification details being used legally against you

Premium - as we already have, maybe can sponsor more accounts than ordinary verifieds?


So far you've not really come up with any argument against besides "second class citizens", but you are saying anyone not in SL isn't a citizen. Well face it, the people who would be "second class" in my system, are the people who simply won't be allowed in under yours. The reason we have unverifieds is to keep people who can run SL from being shut-out, your system mostly undoes that.
If LL receive a proposal for a sponsorship idea with demo unverifieds to make it feasible as a system for encouraging accessibility while simultaneously stamping down on griefers, then it might stand a chance of succeeding.
To be perfectly frank, if a modification of your sponsorship idea as I have it is to be submitted to LL I'd want you to be for it and maybe even submit it, it is after all your idea originally. But atm I'm really not convinced by your argument(s) against keep nerfect unverifieds, as they seem to me to be wholly in your favour if LL are to consider sponsorship.

providing more information for the ever more inevitable criminal case with each separate crime, spending more and more time on not actually getting to enjoy harassing people. At some point it becomes easier to pick another victim.
No, you miss the point. The sponsor doesn't lose the ability to give out new sponsorships, he loses the ability to be a sponsor at all, including for his existing clients.

Who do care.

Yes, some people will have to scramble after their sponsor gets shut down, but in the VERY WORST CASE they won't have to do as much as everyone in the game more than a few months has managed.
They don't have to wait to join. They just need to use a credit card and they can join immediately.

Then they don't join the game. So?

It wouldn't be any harder than setting up another preview grid. The demo SL wouldn't need to be that big, and it could be wiped every night. It'd only be for the very very few people who can afford several hundred dollars worth of computer but don't *have* a US credit card or a cellphone.

Not possible. If they can get into the world they can be destructive. Even if they have no ability to run scripts, can't use anything but the Linden inventory, and they're all called "Fred", "Joe", "Betty", or "Barney" last name "Guest"... unless they are physically restrained and restricted to a subset of the world.

People can grief without being able to do anything but follow people around.
Depends on what it's worth to them. The fewer there are, the more they can charge.

What interested me in SL was scripting. That's it. Period. Without that, it was nothing but a slower version of There.

Up until 1.9.1.16 that was true. I had to spend $200 on a new video card just to get back in the game after it was released as 1.10.

Untrue. I've suggested a number of other alternative schemes that have nothing to do with sponsorship. Farming out verification to third parties the way ISPs do. Extending the old cellphone scheme beyond the US. There's lots of other alternatives. I'm defending sponsorship now because THAT is the scheme you're attacking, you seem to completely ignore every other suggestion I make and respond only to that one.

But I will not accept that any further erosion of the egalitarian nature of SL as anything but a recipe for cheapening and coarsening the fabric of second life.

And I will not accept that any scheme that allows people to log out, create a new account, and come back in again with a new name and face and start harassing people and stalking people again, over and over again as often as they want, no matter how limited that account is, unless they are unable to get beyond a strictly circumscribed demo area.

Again, that's untrue.

* I've pointed out that there is no lower limit to the abilities of an unverified account that will prevent someone from using it for greifing.

* I've pointed out that there's a lot of people for whom the very abilities that you are wanting to remove are the things that attract them to SL... no scripting, no attraction, and so instead of locking out a randomly selected group yu're locking out some of the most creative and valuable potential members.

Why do you think this is supposed to surprise me? First, with one caveat, I have said exactly that in almost as many words. Second, that caveat: it's not strictly true. There are many people who *choose* to be second class who *could* be first class. I believe that of the people who stay in SL these are in fact the majority.

Anything that allows people into SL without verification just makes SL the premier griefer playing field, and brings a new form of "racism" into an SL that's already having enough trouble with clashing lifestyles.

I don't care whether LL implements sponsorship or any other scheme if they continue to flood SL with griefer alts. Sponsorship isn't the point. Sponsorship is merely a means to the goal. Any scheme that doesn't achieve that goal has no value to me whatsoever.

What information? They aren't providing any tangible information to their sponsors beyond "Hi I'm bob please sponsor me!" Arguably the sponsors need to be more careful, but that means more time wasted for them, and more time wasted for genuine accounts to join, which means more people are put off joining for no reason other than because that's how you want it to be!


What point have I missed? They lose the ability to be a sponsor, doesn't affect their own account in the slightest!


But the Sponsor still doesn't, meanwhile the griefer moves to another sponsor, and the accounts who were genuine people that needed verified are inconvenienced further, which is probably great fun to the griefer knowing they just caused that.


But they either can't or don't want to just to preview a game!


So new people who want to give the game a try are put off, and the influx of genuine new players declines to those with friends in the game already to sponsor them, or those who are perfectly happy to give out credit card details just to preview a game. In other words, a large number of genuine new players are discarded for no reason. Way to go!


I'm assuming you'll pay for this? And find a way to cram every unique piece of in-world content onto this smaller grid? And somehow represent every community that makes SL the world that it is? And what stops a griefer just crashing the demo grid all the time, putting off every single player who visits because they now think the main grid is a griefer heaven?
Or is LL supposed to do all this? Just to create a demo of their dynamic, constantly changing, user-created game?
Not to mention it doesn't help people get sponsors in the slightest, as sponsors would have to hang out on the demo grid to meet the people they're going to consider sponsoring. Instead of being able to just meet them like any other avatar in the main grid and sponsor them from there.
It also cuts down the number of sponsors, as only people who decide "I want to become a sponsor" will offer it. Meanwhile if you make a new friend of an unverified, you might offer them sponsorship to help them out. Thus the sponsor pool is now every single verified account in the game that socialises in SL.


By doing things I can happily mute at little inconvenience to myself? Bring it.
By trying to stalk me when I can happily teleport without them knowing where I went? Scary.


And thus the whole point of the idea as a solution to aid verification is gone! Wonderful. What if none of the sponsors out there accept payment I can easily give from my country? Oh, right, I still can't get verification.


Just because you can't script until verified, doesn't mean you can't see scripts in action. I didn't open up a script window and start plugging in values on the first day I arrived, I saw various cool things, and then decided it would be cool to be able to do that to, if I found out I had to verify in order to access scripting, then I would have done that.
However as you're describing, these people (who see scripting in action then want to do it themselves) won't even get in in the first place!


Both of which, while nice, would cost LL money, and still won't let every genuine new player in. Sponsorship is a change to the system that only requires some development time once the design is perfected, but is otherwise completely free to do. What I am attacking is the way you're cheapening a perfectly good suggestion that you had by remaining steadfast that unverifieds have to go, with almost no reason whatsoever, despite plenty of arguments against simply closing them again.
Unverifieds are a good idea in theory, LL has thought about it, and I see the reasons clearly:
- They allow people to join the world that can't verify
- They allow people to join the world without verification until they need to pay for something
The only problem is that LL didn't think the consequences through enough, or for some unknown reason thought that letting griefers in with no restrictions was worth it to let people demo the game.


So you'd rather SL be an exclusive club? Every member is equal, any non-member is filth undeserving of seeing what's inside? We're talking about the exact same stance that says "there are always casualties in war", so this "war"'s goal justifies all the innoccents who are cast aside?
Hell, if you're so up on equality, if it's so important that you cheapen and coarsen a perfectly good idea (sponsorship), then why isn't everyone entitled to the same ability to see the world of SL? Surely every member or potential member's basic right should be that they get to see the real thing before they have to commit to it?
If I want to preview SL I'm not allowed to the see the real thing, I have to go to a demo island? Which may not have things that interest me? Which may be empty of people to meet? Which may be a hell-hole that puts me off entirely? One of the things that makes the game for most people is just that, people. All the people in the game who like what you like, and can help you more personally than the volunteers at help island are on the main grid, not the demo one.


By following me around? I'm not even sure that's against the SL rules! Privacy is almost non-existant. I could choose to sit around and listen to people's conversations as a premium member, let alone a free one. Besides that, you'd need one griefer for every member of SL to make that a global problem, making it a much less serious issue, hell, it's a very weak one to be honest, being followed around in a virtual world where you can teleport, or go onto private land is, well, silly. I'm not even sure stopping these people is an issue at all, it's no worse than someone who insists on walking around in the scud because they're in a mature area. They're just asses, you get them now and then.
It's the people who join and drop a grey-goo bomb that need to be stopped. Because in that case it's just one person taking down the entire world for everyone. But the point is, you don't need to deny people the ability to preview the world, or access it at all in the first place in order to stop such attacks. That's like letting fear of terrorism control your real-life, and barricading yourself into a secret bunker where you know you'll be safe, not caring about the fact you'll be on your own unable to meet people.


If they are interested in scripting after seeing what can be done, then they're perfectly welcome to verify their limited demo account, either by the usual methods, or by sponsorship. If they had to verify to join the world in the first place then they might never get to even see what scripting is capable of, and won't bother taking it up at all. I think as a result you'll find it's you who is more likely to block out the creative members by your current trend in thinking.

As it is now:
- Sign up an account, no need to verify, great, I want to see what this place is like before trusting my credit card details to it
- See scripting, love it! Try my hand at it, awesome!

My system:
- Sign up an account, no need to verify, great, I want to see what this place is like before trusting my credit card details to it
- See scripting, love it! Want to try my hand at it
- Verify, can now script, awesome!
Worst case here is that the person doesn't want to verify for whatever, well at least they got to see the game before deciding this, and maybe something in world will still change their mind.

Your system:
- Can't sign up an account without credit card details. What am I getting myself into? I don't even know what this game is like! Pretty front-page pictures aren't enough, don't sign up. Goes off to play a game that doesn't want my credit card details so that I can play.


Racism? Aside from the woefully stupid payment info filter on land that we already have, I see no reason that people who remain unverified are going to be abused. That filter should never have been added, and combined with LL's not thinking of the consequences of open-registration made for two bad changes.
But what I'm suggesting isn't encouraging racism of any kind, unless you seriously think that people are going to be segregated because they have no scripting features? =/
You even said yourself:

They're welcome to verify if they feel their demo period has been long enough. And for those people who for some reason simply can't verify they can look for a sponsor. If they somehow can't get a sponsor then at least they can still be a part of the game. If I couldn't get verification, I'd be happy knowing I can at least play. Maybe I won't have all the features, but at least I wouldn't be shut out.

That's a good argument against letting people into the game where they can more effectively social-engineer themselves a sponsorship.

What information they provide is up to the sponsor. Most sponsorships are likely to be between people who already know each other in real life or through other social networks, just as recommendations are today.

No, more people may be put off joining because griefers have poisoned the well.


That depends on whether they value their relationships with the firends they have sponsored.

I have proposed a number of other schemes that would let people preview Second Life without that preview mechanism creating a permanent underclass and being an avenue for griefers to get around bans. Here's a selection:

* Making a preview grid. We can recycle the name now that LL has started calling Siva and Aditi the "beta" grids.

* Only letting verified players out of Help Island.

* Creating a family called "guest", the members of whom have no permanent inventory and can't leave the welcome area or infohubs.

And, yes, this limits anonymous accounts to a subset of the game. But they're already limited that way, and as time goes on they're going to be limited further simply out of self-defense. Crippling them by keeping them from using scripts won't make them any more welcome.

The alternative is that a large number of genuine existing players are driven out for no reason. Pick your poison.


No mor ethan you're paying for the extra servers and bandwidth for all the short-term throwaway accounts that are flooding the grid now.

I don't know of any game for which a "preview" is the whole of the game.

You're the one who wants to let people in anonymously. I'm suggesting less destructive ways to do that.

A demo grid can be an alternative to sponsors. I'm not hung up on the sponsorship idea, nor do I think that having people beg for sponsorship in-game is desirable.

Friend, people have already described being stalked obsessively. Unless you want to abandon your social network, abandon any land you own in publicly visible areas, and more or less abandon the "second life" aspect of second life, someone can track you down. YOU might not find that a problem. There's plenty of people who are not so thick skinned.

You can see what seem to be scripts in action in There: you get a free scripted hoverboard when you sign up. But you can't script in-game, and you can't script or build or do much of anything without actually committing to a paid account, downloading external software, and so on. The difference between SL and any other online game can not be understood without actually doing it.


Thirty years of experience watching various kinds of malicious users destroying one online service after another whenever it's possible for them to do so without risk. Thirty years of watching communities wrecked by infighting between "upper caste" and "lower caste" users.

And you for some unknown reason see that letting griefers in anonymously and unaccountably at all is worth it to let people demo the game.


No, I'd rather see every person on Earth who is willing to be a participant in SL in SL, presenting however they like, with no distinction made between prince and pauper, subject only to the condition that they be accountable for their actions.

Accountability is no less a requirement than a video card or internet connection.

If "Joe Schmo" starts following you around, I can ban Joe Schmo from my land and we can hang out there. If "Joe" can go away and come back as "Anne Onymous" and walk through the ban, then you get the same problem all over again, and then "Beatle Nailey" and "Happy Harry" have to be dealt with.

This already happens.

The only way to protect against this is to abandon the public areas of SL, and build and live in private estates or large private parcels. And that's happening to an increasing degree... I lost track of someone for several weeks recently and finally found out through a mutual friend that he was hanging out in a private estate... and had to wangle an invite.

Let's fast forward a few years, and watch the mainland become an increasingly cheapened "demo grid" and private estates where only the privileged can visit become the norm. Unverifieds will need sponsors to get into the *real* second life, and sponsors who give *anyone* invites will find themselves kicked out of the sponsorship role in the group... and the people they sponsored may get dumped as well. The very scenario that you're worried about will play itself out at a higher level. It's already started... every bit of it.

You don't need many griefers to make every publicly accessible place unpleasant to be in.

That's just an extreme case, it may take a hundred lesser "artists" to make the world as unpleasant as one grey goo creator... but with an endless supply of anonymous accounts there will be that many. I've watched it happen before. I fought it for years on Usenet, and lost.

Indeed, that's exactly the version of second life that anonymous accounts will produce.

That's exactly what I was faced with, PLUS I got charged $10.00 after a week if I didn't cancel. If I, who had never played an MMORPG of any kind... nor had any interest in playing it, was willing to take a flyer on that... how steep of a barrier is it?

And what other game is this that your hypothetical player is visiting that lets you sign up without credit card details and gives you full access to all the content and communities in the game?

There's more and more areas that require verified accounts all the time.

To make it effective they

* can't script.
* can't use scripted objects.
* can't give people scripted objects.

That means they can't sit on a chair in a bar, because the animation overrider in the chair is a scripted object. If you make an exception for that, they can "borrow" a scripted vehicle that hides inside their body (so you can't find out who owns it) and derezzes when they stand up, and run their weapons by proxy through that.

If they can't use scripted objects, they can't use any non-human avatars and they can't use any scripted attachments. They can't take part in any community that uses the scripts in SL as part of the community role play, either in avatars or in any other way. About all they can do is use SL as a fancy chat system.

It'd be like being a non-citizen in ActiveWorlds.

And what need does a griefer have that they need to PAY FOR SOMETHING?

Look for an alternative that is less destructive: that is, keeps people who aren't "verified" (by whatever definition you choose to use, for the moment I'll assume payment info) from being able to my the grid go 'splody and that keeps them from irritating the living daylights out of anyone (giant particle didos anyone?).

The only way to keep griefers from being able to use alts to harass people is to make anonymous alts so restricted that they might as well not be there.

* No scripting.
* No IM.
* No building.
* No rezzing content in-world.
* No physical interaction with avatars... they'd be phantomed.
* No interaction with scripts in other objects via "touch", etc.
* Chat on channel 0 only, and that chat is not heard by scripts.
* A "mute anonymous avatars" pulldown that hides all anonymous avatars from sight as well as chat.
* The same pulldown in land settings.

This parallels the tools that were necessary to block net-abusers in Usenet, and they're less than perfect even there.