The definition of a griefer

Folks, I am a graduate student working on my dissertation. As a part of my dissertation, I am looking at griefing, and I realized that there is no official definition of griefing out there. Hacking, yes, cracking, yes, but no griefing. I mean we all know it and experience it everyday, but is there a definition out there that I might have missed? Even if there is no definite definition, please post your ideas on how you would define griefing. Is it absolutely the same thing as cracking?

Many thanks.

Corwin Snyder

The definition of a 'Griefer' can be quite subjective. But still, here's something that might help your research: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Griefer

Additionally, BanLink has ban reasons public. You can browse the public ban listing and view the (subjective) reasons folks are banned from certain private locations that subscribe to it.

Wow that was quick. I always wondered how quickly these forums worked. thanks a bunch Travis, I will check the links out. Though I'd also like to hear from others as well, if not too much trouble.

I think a good working definition of "griefer" would be:

Griefer: n. A participant in a game or activity who derives enjoyment primarily from making that activity less enjoyable for the other participants.

Just my two bits.

Not at all. One doesn't have to be a cracker to be a griefer.

I look at it as the online-specific form of being a spoilsport. Griefing is any time you do anything (sometimes it involves cracking the system, but often it is activites that are perfectly possible within the parameters of the system) to spoil the experience for others. For example, shoving people around against their wishes is griefing. Spamming chat is griefing. Putting up ugly displays to annoy your neighbors is griefing.

That's true. In fact griefers often act in technical compliance with the EULA and terms of service while completely disregarding the spirit of them.

This part of the wikipedia entry is important:

In most cases, "it takes two to grief". Sometimes a player intends grief through player-killing, but the victim simply sees it as an expected consequence of gameplay in a PvP area and does not feel griefed. Conversely, sometimes a player is simply making a smart choice by attacking his opponent at an opportune moment with no grief intended, but the victim nevertheless feels griefed. Griefing can basically be summed up as poor sportsmanship -- either on the part of the griefer for cheating, or on the part of the victim for throwing a fuss over a defeat, even though no rules were broken and no cheating took place.

In short, griefing is a subjective thing. There aren't absolutes in terms of what does and does not constitute griefing. There are many things that we can pretty much all agree is griefing, but there are plenty of cases where it's a grey area: the hurt party considers it griefing, while the accused griefer doesn't see anything wrong with what they did. And of course, intentionality matters. If someone does a griefing activity without realizing the damage they are causing, they aren't really a griefer, just ignorant.

Thanks guys, knew I could count on you all for enlightening me. So I take it you don't need to have coding or scripting skills to grief, but for cracking you probably do.

Now here is a follow up question. Can we come up with a list of griefing? Or would that be too much to ask. We all know about Grey goo, which does involve scripting/coding, I assume. Any others that you know of or that you have experienced?

Many tnx.

Hard to come up with a list of torments... but I suppose halloween is the right month for it.

I think the cornerstone for griefing is "disrespect" in any of it's many manifestations. Just for fun, here's a stab at the 7 deadly sins of SL =)

SLOTH: Unwelcomed Loitering and Littering

WRATH: Unprovoked assault (verbal) and/or battery (physical)

GREED: Selling freebies, begging/demanding L$, land swooping

GLUTTONY: deliberately lagging folks by hogging resources with scripts, excessive prims, bling/particle spam, many physical objects, too many light sources, enormous textures, ...

ENVY: annoying and inappropriate "Look at me!" stunts that interrupt events, parties, conversations or just people just trying to do their own thing

PRIDE: drama factories, like self-centered types that threaten a storm of community retaliation if they don't get apologies for whatever imagined slight they were offended by

LUST: foisting mature objects, textures or animations on uninterested people

My god that's a great list!

I <3 Jopsy!

I love this list... Thanks a bunch.

Should be obviously tagged as a permanent sticky

Great list Jopsy and thank you very much. But can I request more information on the items you mention under Gluttony, Envy, and Pride. Some items there were unclear to me and i tried to e-mail you privately to ask so I didn't bore everyone needlessly with obvious information, but I couldn't. So I am requesting that you indulge me once more. My questions are as follows:

1) Lagging ppl with too many light sources and enourmous textures. Not sure how this works. I guess I get the texture part, but light, does it lag the sim that much?
2) What are the "look at me stunts" that you refer to? Have you seen this in action and how does it happen? Can you give me examples?
3) Drama factories: are ppl that jsut verbally threaten crowds? Does this result in an actual grievance?

Any examples would be super or anything that made it to the blogs and SL newspapers would be great.
Tnx.

succint and to the point. can i have it?

The original definition of a Griefer was the one already posted - someone whose primary goal was to cause grief and trouble for other players.

I believe it was coined around the times of the earlier online games, to demonstrate why the strategy of penalising players in-game for causing problems for other players failed (ie, because griefers had no care about anything in-game other than ability to cause people problems). I think the best context example I saw was in TSO where an early press release about the game mentioned that "If someone ruins your garden party the game is designed to penalise them." A well known newsblog replied that "If they're a griefer, they don't care, because they played just to disrupt your garden party."

my simple defination: someone with little to lose who intentionally annoys people

Heh, the list was made up on the spot... and anyone that wants to use it more than welcome =)



I'm drawing from experience in SL and other realms... I've seen so much griefing of different kinds it's hard to pick specific examples.

1) Everything computer simulated requires resources of some sort, memory, bandwidth, processing power, disk space, rendering power. Moderation is key. Pointless excess is gluttony. It's hard to define what is "too much" and what isn't... it depends on the surroundings and situation. Hundreds of complex prims for hair used to be a serious prolbem, now we have level of detail controls. Light sources used to be a huge lagger, now they've been re-done more efficiently. Lag can still easily be created, the question is... is the lag generated by an excess of something tolerable? The answer is probably subjective.

2) stunts include everything from repeatedly issuing annoying sound clips, (howls, quotes, explicatives...) to inappropriate conduct. Any gathering has a set of protocols and roles which folks are 'expected' to adhere to, host, guest, game show contestent, whatever. If someone comes along and refuses to participate within the scope of the gathering... and instead asks utterly unrelated questions, or starts making snide comments about the event in progress it can be incredibly disruptive. These are "party crashers" that haven't come to party... they've come as wet blankets, either deliberately or not.

3) drama factories.... ah, the long term griefer. I find these the most insidious and intolerable of griefers. They SEEM nice and charming at first, they can be very social. These magnetic types create micro-communities around them and then start meddling with peoples emotions and minds, turning minor miscommunications into epic life or death feuds of great emotional angst. Quite often they portray the role of victim and may genuinely feel innocent of any wrong-doing as their social circle goes atomic around them. These kinds thrive on creating an "us vs. them" and sometimes goes so far as to playing both sides.

I'm not comfortable providing specific examples of people from #3... they tend to be very persuasive and are good at starting witch hunts. I'm too busy tinkering these days to want to waste time fending off bad gossip.

Awesome examples Jopsy. Many thanks...

Just my opinion, but I think to be a griefer, it really has to be intentional.... and has tones of harassment.

For example I wouldn't consider someone a griefer if their parcel of land drains the sims resources. I wouldn't consider a griefer someone who sells freebees. I wouldn't consider a griefer someone who sets up their land with camping chairs. I wouldn't really even consider someone who's running a racket or scam a griefer. ...I mainly associate griefer with intentional harassment.

I agree... I just got carried away with mapping SL annoyances to the 7 deadly sins. Awareness and intent definitely factor into the definition.

I suppose there is a fine line between malice and apathy.

Is that newbie deliberately harassing you... or are they just not aware of the rules of fair engagement and they misguidedly think they're engaged in fair play?

Will we, by confronting them with the etiquette of gun-play, make them want to participate according to our protocols... or, are we going to be rude and give them reason to attack further?

And can we get a combative newbie's attention long enough to explain that as cool as their new guns are... it's considered bad form to shoot at anyone unless they're pointing a weapon at you.


--
A: "Hey! You moron, everyone knows you're not supposed to do *THAT* ! Besides it's bugging everyone, especially me!"
G: "huh, it bugs you when I do... *THIS* ? Really? *THIS* really? what about *THIS*... that bugs you too? hee hee! Okay I won't do *THIS* anymore. I'll go tell everyone not to do *THIS* around you. *THIS* *THIS* THIS*. Hahaha. Sorry. I'll stop... *THIS*. *THIS* is my last time. Honest. Heheh. ... * ... t ... h ... i ... heheheh"

"I'm not a griefer, I'm just an newbie that accidentally attached a prim penis and cannot figure out how to stop spouting obsenities and farting sounds on your land."

All those in Favor of making Jopsy's List the OFFICIAL definition of griefing, Raise your Hands.
Well done Chere.

And Doubledown added the One Critical detail that Makes a Griefer.

INTENT!!

Anyone can Unintentionally Lag a Sim by wearing too many of the shiney new toys they have obtained, Unaware that it would have such an effect. Anyone can say something Unknowingly that someone else might take Offence to. These things in and of themselves do Not make a Person a Griefer. If however a person is told their Conduct is inappropriate, and the person Persists, then it becomes obvious their Intent is to cause trouble. They are now Officially a Griefer.

Angel.

anyone who causes you or a party greif

defined as

I like the "intent" part of it, though Jopsy's list is quite interesting. Yeah, I don't believe that griefing is in the eye of the beholder. Like you don't mean to do it, but it is perceived that way sort of thing. Now i did hear about ppl buying very slim land, almost worthless and making it sooo ugly, that other residents will have to buy the worthless land for a boatload of money. Is that griefing? Can the owner of this worthless land do anything that disrupts the neighboring resident's land, any kind of real damage apart from the visual ugliness? Anyone got some insight???

Yours trully.

I don't think that's griefing. In the scenario you paint the actual motive is profit, and the infliction of grief is incidental to that goal.

Don't misunderstand me, the person you describe is certainly not nice and is banking an awful lot of bad karma. I just don't think it fits the in the griefing realm.