Is Anonymity Really Necessary?

Ditto!

Colette, I hope your name isn't really Michael, and you didn't grow up in NJ otherwise...

LOL no


I live in Ohio, my name sure as heck isnt Michael , and it happened about 2 miles and 20 years from here.

Lol too Mine was 30 years ago

It is impossible to measure how many newbies were permanently turned off SL by griefers they met when they were early arrivals, but I'm sure it is considerable.

Consider my own experience as a newbie: I arrived at Isabel, and the first thing I met was a little pack of F---U teenagers headed by one Sweetballs ____ (who is still around BTW). I wasn't bothered by his display of getting a blow job inside a protective cage, but I can see where a lot of people would be. Their decision to repeatedly orbit me as soon as I rezzed was a lot more annoying - and I think treatment like that might cause a lot of people to move on from SL. Fortunately, I found The Shelter once when they didn't happen to be online.

Fortunately, nowadays Isabel is no-build, no-script, and these idiots have moved on. But they and their pals can be found at lots of other logical early places for newbies to go to.

If you must have statistics before you believe this cuts down on SL's accretion rate, you will never be satisfied. I don't see how LL could gather the stats, and if they did, they sure as hell won't tell us.

But put it this way: How many cancer cells do you need to find before you do something about the cancer?

Har, buddy, I hate to break it to you. But most people feel the urge to orbit you as soon as you rez. But we fight it, push the desire deep down and let you rez in peace.



JK Har.

100% agreed.

This is NOT to say that free (basic) accounts should be eliminated. Most people agree that basic accounts are very important to the SL economy. Unverified accounts, however, have no business being here. It's not very hard to enter in your basic RL info and should be required.

And yes, more Lindens inworld!

That's discouraging on so many levels, Har - but I totally understand.

The Isabel Infohub was originally built up by Shelter folks with the hope of making it a useful place for new residents. Since it was so close to the Shelter, and new people were rezzing there, it seemed to make sense to do so.

What we didn't count on - was Linden leaving all the parcel restrictions *unrestricted*, and seemed to just forget about it. As a result, despite all our nice looking 'decorations' - the place turned into a cesspool really quick. Often it didn't take more than 60 seconds for someone teleporting in to end up in a cage.

What was more frustrating than anything else - was that folks would come up to the Shelter from the Infohub, and 'demand we do something about it' (as if we owned/controlled that land). All we could do is sympathize with them, explain how to file an AR, and invite them to hang with us at the Shelter where it was a little safer.

This reminds me of a short period in the recent past when management thought to do something constructive about the rapid departure of students before completion of their course. They installed a Retention Officer. In a short while they had three people fill this post .. shortly before leaving college employment.
The problem; how *do* you find out why someone is running away when you are still coughing in the dust trail?
We no longer have a Retention Officer.

Okay you and Chip must see a lot more griefers than I do.

Ive never run into a griefer in SL that wasn't rather simple to deal with.

Usually its a simple matter of eject and ban. And if they have an Alt eject and ban again.

All the people Ive had problems with supposedly liked me and weren't griefers.

These specific griefers that Har's referring to are ones that hung out at the Isabel Infohub, which is owned by Governor Linden.

They *only* way to handle griefers on public land, is to file an abuse report or contact a Liason. Neither of which seemed to be very effective, in this specific case.

I'll say this though: I admit that my experiences surrounding griefing may be skewed compared to an average SL resident, becuase 99% of my time is spent around newbies. Others who tend to hang where new residents are may feel a similar experience.

I like having an alter ego. She's more ME than I am. LOL. There are just some things in this life that you can't portray, and in SL you can... Sometimes your rl friends can't understand you, but sl friends can.
Plus, I have been stalked before, online, and in person. I have not, however, been mugged and don't live in an area where it is likely, unless I'm going to get hijacked by a cow. LMAO I'm not so worried about anyone stealing my identity...
I dunno, I don't see why you would need to let people know the rl identity when you have a good sl one.

God, look at that monthly premium growth, from February 2005 to November 2007.

It makes you just wonder why, WHY, they don't want premium accounts?

coco

I have bigger problems with griefer objects than with avatars, and I often enjoy sending them packing, but it's impractical for the protection of people to be the responsibility of the land owner. Most people have jobs and can't babysit their land 24/7. And people don't have to drive all the way to mexico to escape your jurisdiction. It's more like "Haha! I taunt you from this foreign country, 50 meters away, you silly English kinigits!" at which point the animal carcasses start raining on you again.

Point taken.

Just as well. I learned to carry armaments equivalent to a Marine combat brigade with air support.

I think it's so far past too late that I don't see any solutions. LL has made one move after another which have made the problem with griefers exponentially worse.

I really don't think LL cares on anywhere near the level the residents do. In fact, they seem enamoured and impressed by a lot of griefy types. I could (but won't) literally name names of pals of Andrew's and other Lindens that have been involved in griefing. In the back of my mind, I have suspicions that at least some Lab employees had their day as griefers themselves. I have heard at least two openly admit this, one being Torley. So I think they see them as kindred of a sort - but kindred who haven't found "The (Tao?) Path" yet.

The environment the Lindens have created over the past couple of years is very enabling for griefers. They have stated openly that they do not wish to be the Police. Isn't it pretty clear that we are virtually (pun intended) on our own?

very interesting , if true

I reckon that a lot of people at LL will know that LL is to blame for the grid attacks. It was a problem just waiting to happen and LL weren't going to act on it until it became a problem.

You can't build a house out of matchsticks and expect it to stay up for long. and you can't go running to the police if some kid blows your fragile house over. The police will just tell you to pull your head out of your ass and build a proper house.

Griefers are humans too. They're just out to have fun. I hate the idea of Linden Lab playing judge and jury and deciding whether a kid with a penis gun should be banned from Second Life because somebody found him annoying. People being banned from Second Life is just pathetic. Nobody can die here!. Nobody can be physically hurt.

The biggest problem is thet Second Life is flawed. You can't create an open world like Second Life and expect everybody to happily get along. Linden Lab will realize this now, but they're stuck. The only way they're going to be unstuck is for people to stop giving them money and then they'll be able to justify redesigning Second Life so that everybody can afford to run their own sim.

But at the moment, why should LL change things?. They're making lots of money. Everything is just fine.

In RL:

Go into a cinema or theatre and turn on your ghetto-blaster at full volume - or sing, shout and shine a hand-torch into people's faces.

Throw litter about the place.

Run around squirting at people with a water-gun

Be a total pain the the ass

You're only human and having fun.

You're not actually killing or injuring anybody.

You might get the crap beaten out of you, and you'd take the beaters to court.

But I wouldn't be banned from 1st life. Just the cinema.

That's quite correct.
The cinema is a part of 1st life that you would be banned from.
SL is a part of 1st life that you would be banned from.

No. Too extreme.

/Me throws popcorn at you

Sometimes i feel my life would be so much simpler in RL if i could split all my actions on different RL identities :/

Well, some might think that the cinema was being heavy-handed.
No many, but maybe some.

Not at all. The theatre is a privately owned service, whose owners have the right to deny you access their their service. Second Life is a privately owned service whose owners have the right to deny you access to their service. But in either case, I believe the owner don't have a need to tell the other customers who you are and where you live.