Treat new users with kid gloves

Just a minor rule that I think all businesses in SL should obey is that new users (say users under 30 days) should be treated with kid gloves.

I think it's OK to inundate them with your own particular philosophy, I suppose, but taking advantage of them in any way should be a bannable offense.

As much as I avoid joining blaze in anything, I'm going to agree that the problem needs to be addressed. Individuals who try to sucker money out of new residents using deceitful business practices are some of the lowest scoundrels we have. I've heard a few stories of poor newbies getting suckered for the little cash they have.

It's hard to determine what qualifies as an offense in this sort of category. A ponzi scheme is pretty easy to identify as a scam (just an example), but what about the other ways people can part new residents with their money? Are they fleecing newbies by buying that chunk of land for so cheap, or are they providing quick turnaround for otherwise less-than-liquid assets? You could make a case against a bunch of different sorts of "businesses" from the crooked gambling joints to the "yard sales" where people sell off Linden tuxedos and other freebies.

Ultimately, I think it's up to the community to watch out for these sorts of nasty happenings and bring them to discussion. Many scams can be made to wilt with the simple application of daylight.

Are you being serious here?

I see someone else replied seriously, so I guess so hehe. This could probably be a bit too broad. It could be applied to almost anything in any circumstances. Perhaps what we need to do is clearly define "fraud" and "taking advantage", and then I think this is ok.

Yes, a clear definition of fraudulent activity is critical to this sort of official protection being effective. Otherwise you have witch hunts against EVERY sort of questionable business practice.

"So-and-so charged me L$2500 just to hang out with me for an hour and take off her top. But I found out you can get girls to do that for free if you're polite and considerate! Fraud!"

(to use a particularly absurd example )

hehe exactly

Why new users only? If there is fraudulent behaviour going on, it needs to be stopped, regardless of the intended audience (even if it is primarily geared up towards those who dont know better.)

What about asking LL to work on this from two angles:
1- Provide a popup whenever you want to first buy land (since most of these scams are relating to land) linking to a page which has some rough information outlined in it, what is an obscene price (ie L$30sqm/+ for normal land [prehaps outline the exemptions for when something can be worth more), additionally let them know they should buy a minimum of 512sqm to fill their tier properly, and finally point out the existance of first land.
2- Provide an information notecard in the library listing the most common sorts of schemes.

-Adam

Sounds great for land but a lot of scams are related to content as well. I was once robbed for L$25,000 when I was new(ish) by someone representing an item to be a different version of an item. I had no good way to know without first taking delivery of it. There turned out to be a very cryptic way to find out but I needed to already know a lot about the item to know that.

Adam brings up an excellent point. The crux of this issue is an abuse of information. The scammer has it, the newbie doesn't. By equalizing the balance of information, the scammer loses most of his ability to take advantage of the new user. Once the balance is achieved, the problem sorts itself out.

Still, though, a good con man can make up something good to fit the situation. When I worked retail, hearing stories of cashiers being swindled by slick talkers showed me that even the most well-knowledged of people can be taken in by a quick-witted scumbag.

Definitely a great start to combatting the problem, in any case.

Probably not as absurd as you may think.

While I think this is a great and noble effort, a pragmatic question arises:

Where is the manpower to enforce such statutes to come from?

At the current time, I do not think LL has the time or staff to investigate incidents of potential fraud.

I'll help.

This all comes back to the long running argum... discussions about self regulation and/or self governance. I think we all accept that LL staff time is better spent on bug fixes and new features than slapping the wrists of minor wrong doers. But none of us want mob rule either. There has to be a middle ground somewhere, but where?

I think punishment should be more severe if bad behaviour is directed at new users.

Where I'd give a warning for griefing or <crime>ing an older user, I'd ban someone if they did it towards a new user.

New users are like children, and they don't know better. After awhile though, they should become adults and be able to fend for themselves.

The ONLY way is to establish [regulated] self-government that actually has teeth.

But that is also a very unpopular suggestion.

So we remain in limbo.

Nah, just threaten people with banishment and advertise to everyone whenever you banish someone (no need to name names though).

People will get the message.

I disagree that people will get the message.

Only like 5% of the population uses the forums.

Where will the other 95% get the news?

I think that the issue could be resolved without the formation of a government. (Sorry, I'm an anarchist at heart).

Sometime back, a group of vendors started something called RATE, whereby, people who made products could present their products and business practices and if they fit within RATE's parameters, they could join RATE.

Perhaps one of the reasons that the idea drifted away into obscurity, is that there was not a good "in world" way to distribute the list of RATE merchants or what they stood for. In other words, who cares if someone selling something belongs to a group if the person buying the product does not know what the group stands for or who is a member?

A different idea, but one along the same lines, would be for a group of concerned land owners and merchants to collect and publish a list of those who have been caught, warned and regardless, choose to continue shady business practices.

Again, the idea is only valid where there is some channel available to get the information new people. However, I think that the scamming problem would tend to resolve it's self to a large degree - just by virtue of warning them that they will be put on a distributed list announcing their particularly shady practice.

(It won't eliminate it completely, because there will always be a small percentage people out there who's enjoyment of the game is dependent on limiting someone else's enjoyment of the game).

Just a thought.

Well I think we have now indentified two critical questions here: wher eis the police power vested in Second Life, and how should that police power be best used to police the issues of "fraud." One might also suggest that new pplayers seem to be treated differently under our online "morality" than more expereineced players, but really where is the cut off for a new player.

Part of this discussion belongs in the government form, but really what player based rememdies are there. Assume that Linden Lab does not want to play cops to all the server, what then?

I think that anyone that tries to take money from a newbie should be banned, just my thought. Scamming newbies is nothing new in sl, it has always gone on here. I do think that if anyone ever hears of a newbie being scammed they should tell the newbie how to AR them, rating are not really going to do anything we all know that. I also think that with more in sl now the scamming will get worse, so lets all help out and try to give newbies information to play smart

You too? I bought US$100 worth of chocolate coated cotton from Milo Minderbinder when I was new. That stuff was inedible. The worst part was he then suckered me into buying shares in M & M Enterprises. I can't believe how stupid I am.

OMGWTFBBQ!!!1eleventyone

how about protecting me from the newbies!

i've had this wave of new members lately deciding I'm a good begging target for some reason. Did someone tape "sucka" to my back or something?

few things i find more distasteful than begging... go back to the teen grid if you're so used to mommy giving you everything, you can't be a little self-sufficient. RAWR

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(but your basic premise of "don't take advantage of newbies" is right on, just like "don't let the WA turn into a hell hole"

I bought a poker table, which turned out to be a different (and much less valuable) version of that poker table than the person represented it as.



I guess the lesson to be learned here is that you should investigate investment opportunities very carefully, and fully understand what you're buying into, if you feel that you were suckered. What does M&M enterprises do?