ARs - Why Bother if No action is taken?

Hello:

On July 4th at a popular night spot in SL, a griefing attack occurred involving abusive language, behavior, and C4 Attacks.

I, among at least half a dozen patrons AR'ed the attacker.

That same evening, I received the automated response tagged [rt.lindenlab.com #342616].

That was two weeks ago.

I have received nothing further. And no, the follow up has NOT been eaten by my Spam Filter - I've been checking.

Furthermore, no mention of the incident has made the Police Blotter. Last but not least, the person responsible is still in game.

In short, the AR was a waste of time and effort. Nothing was done about it. No punishment was handed out.

Griefing continues to rise, and to ruin the experience for many citizens, new and old. Anti-Griefing tools are slowly trickling in, but it's not enough.

What is needed is tighter and FASTER response to ARs, with some follow up to the plaintiffs so that they know that the matter has been dealt with. I would appreciate a reply as to what actions will be taken in general to improve the utility of ARs, and what action, if any, was taken in this specific case.

Thank you.

In short, this is a FRUSTRATING issue for the Abuse Team too, and by extension, many Lindens and Residents.

Yes, it can take a long time currently (up to several weeks) to get an abuse report resolved. No bones about it, we have a fire under our asses and we want to make things better.

Not having better followup burns me too, it really does. I literally have a list of hundreds of Residents to personally get back to on all sorts of issues (from llTeleportAgent to adding a better way to partner inworld to setting objects for sale to a specific person), and that doesn't include SL Answers. But I'm only one person!

The world has grown so quickly and it's super-difficult to scale.

So what's going to be done?

Several things:


* Abuse Tools will be getting revamped, both in the client and on our side of things, to make for easier, more effective abuse reporting that manages expectations better. Today's 1.11 release will actually make this easier, because with an XML User Interface, it becomes easier to make tweaks and changes. For example, the "Include chat history" checkbox was removed because it didn't work. New elements can be added and changed to meet the needs of a rapidly-growing grid. And many Resis have noted how there's no "Underage" category to report admitted minors. Should there be? Yes!

* Supplementary ways to cut down on cruft. We get many useless abuse reports which don't have enough info. Like "he shot me". We want to focus on making it easier for someone with the sufficient details like yourself to have action taken accordingly. This improves focus.

* We're upping the ante on anti-griefing tools to give more control to YOU. While it seems "trickling", compared to how things were before, it's coming along really fast. For example, the ban heights, the boosted muting (true audio mute is up next folks!), and the push restrictions have all been added within the last few weeks. What abuse often comes to is a disruption of your enjoyment of Second Life. So if someone tries to C4 you, you don't get moved. Abusive language? Easily silenced. Here, now, today, if someone's banned from a parcel, their chat won't be heard when you're standing within it.

* We're considering allowing estate owners to manage their own abuse queues--consistent with empowering self-governance--and handle them how they see fit according to the law of their land. Still in the early stages, but I bet it'll be one of those things that, in hindsight, we'll wonder how we ever did without it.


[email]abuse-manager@secondlife.com[/email] would be the right address to ask for more info regarding this specific case.

You're most graciously welcome, Daaneth!