Banning... Pointless?

I have some problems with the way SL handle major leage griefers, that is to say, its pointless.

I could tell the whole story but it seems a little pointless so i'll just list a few points.

1) A guy gets banned (not sure why, i missed what started it all)
2) He comes back with an alt account and continues as he left off.
- Texture spamming everyone in sight including those in the 'safe zone'
- Placing dozens of items for sale spead over 3 (Linden owned) sims (see pics, the green things follow you block your view for $200L, the signs spin nothing more - $100000L
3) Guys gets banned again
4) GOTO number 2)

As far as i'm aware rausch is for building (for those who want to risk it in a combat zone) and of course combat. Yet this guy, in one alt or another is in everyday filling the sims with junk in the hope that people buy it by mistake. He boasts about making 4K a day doing it. He does not build anything, he does not get involved in combat, his items are not combat related, the green monsters prevent people from seeing what they are building, the shear number of items cause lag for those who want to fight..

He's ruining people's fun, ripping people off, doing whatever he likes on Linden land and is getting away with it.

So anyhoo, cant more drastic action be taken to take care of people like this? Whats the point in banning in the first place when Mr and Mrs Linden know he'll be straight back in another account only for them have to sift through another dozen AR's and ban him again?

Yep, keep ARing him. Make sure everyone else he is greifing also ARs him. He will get what is due.

Couldn't hurt to send an email to [email]abuse@secondlife.com[/email] like the post you made.

You would have more room to make your point, you could, for example, takes pictures of the objects and show that the same objects keep getting made by different accounts.

Might not help but it can't hurt.

The sad fact is that there really is no way to perma-ban a determined griefer. IP bans can be easily worked around and rendered useless. LL probably is aware of this fact and that may account for its restraint in not trying to IP ban repeat offenders. Griefers are, have been, and most likely will be a constant nuisance in on-line worlds.

LL rather appears to have taken the better approach of limiting the ability of griefers to grief, to the extent practicable without interfering with legit activity. Over the past 9 months or so there have been such "innovations" as preventing object entry, no-push option, and the recently added ability to slow down texture renderings to limit spamming.

Look at the bright side: despite occcaisional instances, SL, when compared to most other on-line "games ," is relatively free of thieves, cheats and scammers and in the economy- driven world of SL that is much more important..

Griefers are to SL as the less harmful virus-writers are to the internet as a whole, and the thieves and crooks in SL are akin to the peeps on the internet who propagate the worms and trojans that steal your passwords, bank accounts, etc. We will never get rid of either. It's just the nature of the beast.

With that said, we should never stop ARng and LL should never stop the banning that it does. Hopefully at some point the drudgery of establishing a new account and setting up a fake email address on yahoo will outway the perverse thrill the griefer experiences from his pasttime and he/she will just give it up and move on.

By The Way: Have you read the crime statistics in your RL neighborhood/town/city recently?

Just drop an email to [email]abuse@secondlife.com[/email]

I know a guy in SL that's had over at least a hundred accounts since the day I met him. Realizing that I've only been playing for about a year and a half now, that's a lot of accounts. Even if he'd started when Second Life first opened, that's still a lot of accounts.

He's crafty too, he doesn't buy a lot of stuff, usually just makes his own stuff, and has his girlfriend hold onto copies of all of it on her account, because he knows he'll be banned. Then he blatantly griefs people, usually in Ahern, including Lindens. The last time I saw him, he called Vektor Linden some rather immature things, actually. It always amazes me though, because like clockwork, as soon as he's banned, he's back, with a new name. And he never hides who he is, everyone knows it's him.

And yet... What's the point? He's just going to keep coming back, and honestly unless they started banning his girlfriend too, it's at no cost to him, only a minor hinderance. And really, it just gives him the chance to be creative with his new names, which are always colorful and clearly intended to offend.

I guess in the end it's like they say, there's not a way to truly stop a determined griefer from coming back.

Can't LL ban using the hash not IP? This was used where I used to chat & was pretty effective, of course some got round it but most didn't. I dunno about technical things but would this be a way? I always get annoyed how we aren't supposed to orbit/cage/push people, if we do we can be banned, but it's ok for them to harass others, AR's don't get you anywhere

It sucks, because for them, they have nothing to lose, but for us, we put a lot more time and effort into our accounts.

This is another reason to try and sort things out amicably. In my experience, banning anyone from anything is simply an invitation to step up the trouble. I run (I think it's) 4 forums now and do not have one single user on the ban list. I have my share of troublemakers and usually manage to deal with the situation by talking to them - maybe with an emergency temporary suspension while the talks are going on, and I make it clear the suspension is temporary and will be lifted as soon as we have reached an understanding.

I think we're talking about Linden's banning a user off of the game, not banning someone off of land =)

That said, if you do ban someone off of your land, and they decide they don't like that, they could just make another account, and still get on your land, which is just as irritating.

Yes banning as it is now is next to pointless.

About only thing you can do now is hope they just get bored, banning them will guarantee they want revenge and are back on an alt within seconds, in effect banning actually makes the situation worse.

Some of the new land tools help, but I notice there are loads of weapon places advertising "gets around no-push", I still dont see how thats useful to anyone but griefers, if a place is set to no push, then its for a reason and using such a weapon there is obviously griefing.

It stands to reason if you ban a griefer you dont want his alt back in 20 seconds to carry on where he left off, IP ban and/or machine ban may not be perfect but is a lot better than things are right now.

Yup. The driving motivation behind most griefers' actions is to invoke some sort of reaction from their "victims".. I would think that for some, the abuse report itself is even a goal, considering that the crafty ones using disposable accounts know how ineffective it really is. Personally, I just teleport away from the scene for 5-10 minutes. When I return, the griefer is gone, and never to be seen again.

I don't really understand why there are free accounts at all. If everyone had to pay at least something, then all accounts would be validated by cardholder details and you could have really effective bans in place, based on RL identity.

I am not saying everyone should be on the $9.95 a month, they could have cheaper ones, but at least charge a little something just to identify people as individuals responsible in real life for their own behaviour online.

If everyone in rausch agrees to shoot on sight anyone doing this sort of thing, he'll be too inconvenienced by being tp'd home every 30 seconds to be able to do it, and will soon lose patience (since £8/$17 a day hardly seems worth the bother).

i certainly agreed to ban those users with ,mutliple-accounts out of SL forever,,, because they are waste of time, resources and always create problems to others

Same guy, two new accounts and yet again a totally unuasable sim full of his junk...

What does his sign mean exactly? o.O "You let them do this Dench." ????

The guy puts the signs everywhere in a attept to defend himself 'dont believe the hype' etc, yet he comes back in another accout and starts texture spamming!

A notecard is passed around when people arrive letting them know who's texture spamming then and which accounts to mute in order to stop it, obviously he's had a copy of this notecard and tries to convince people otherwise with the signs.

Even before the notecards though, he used to put loads of signs up saying "this is *******'s kill zone", again, each one for sale.

Sounds creepy as hell!! Do you know what set this dude off, or is he just out of his mind?

I will no longer file abuse reports as they are completely pointless. Someone can come on your land drop over 4,000 prims worth of toilets and Lindens do nothing. I go to police blotter and if the same thing was done on linden land they would have been given a warning or something, but for me not a darn thing.

oh well, because of a few I will have to set land probally again at no build out of frustration. I like keeping it at build so ppl can play with their items over in the sand.

ok done venting. LOL have a good one

Parcel off "the sand", and set auto return?