Designing Worlds on Griefing

There has been on ongoing discussion on new developments in the nature of griefing.  In mid December I wrote: From #SL Griefing to Extortion. Also, we have seen the DMCA case between Curio/Hush resolved… sort of. No one is overly happy with that outcome. Rod Humble said the Lab would be doing something to make griefers very unhappy. As of now he certainly has not done anything about griefer to make legitimate users happy.

Guests on the show - left to right: Rails Bailey, Robert Galland, Frolic Mills, Dina Petty and Kiff Clutterbuck.

Guests on the show – left to right: Rails Bailey, Robert Galland, Frolic Mills, Dina Petty and Kiff Clutterbuck.

Several Second Life bloggers have been covering events. Designing Worlds recently did a show on the topic. It aired and is now on the site: Designing Worlds discovers when griefing turns into extortion. 1 hr 8 min.

Kiff Clutterbuck and Dina Petty, the owners of Junkyard Blues, are in the show. Robert Galland, the owner of Galland Homes, a Member of the Second Life Bar Association, and real life attorney, gives a legal perspective on what has been happening.

Be sure to see the video. Some of the interesting topics covered are:

The effect on creativity in SL – when under siege no one creates goods.

Copyright Laws are international. In my previous article I spoke about how to prepare to defend your ownership of your creations. If you didn’t read the article now would be a good time. See page 4.

Too hard to complain and get results. It may take 300 complaints to get a store taken down. The next day it can reappear via a new Alt.

New users are exploited. Some are sold their own avatar… and sold lots of free stuff. Plus loads of other scams are run on the new users. Obviously this hurts us all as it decreases the population.

Some Common Problems

While one can turn off scripts, it is still possible for an avatar to tp in with a massive number of large running scripts which brings a region to its knees. Keeping griefers out is the only real solution to this problem.

Some regions are using access limits to only allow in avatars with payment information. This eliminates most of the serious griefers.

Tools

Many griefing tools can be purchased from the Market Place. But, like classifying assault weapons it is difficult to classify what is a griefing tool and what is a common toy. Many items used in combat regions are griefing tools in other parts of Second Life. But, some are only used by griefers to grief.

Try a search on ‘crasher.’ There are a number of them (347 today). For instance: [Crasher-Lagger HUD] FULLPERM 3.0. I have no idea if it works or if it is just a scam. I’m not spending L$ to find out and have something I wouldn’t use, other than once to see what it does.

One has to wonder why they are allowed on the Market Place.

What To Do?

Lesson 1 – Don’t give in.

Lesson 2 – Let the community and the Lab know what is happening.

Lesson 3 – Talk to local law enforcement and ask their advice.

Form groups and work together. Region owners unite.

Complain, complain, and complain to the Lab. It does have an effect even if you can’t see it. Go up the ladder. Find new ways to complain. You’ll get tired of complaining. But, if you don’t, nothing gets done for certain.

Attend the Server related user groups. This is where the people that build software can be contacted. Your comments are not filtered through customer support. The more people that show up and the time over which they show up has an effect.

If you tell the Lab it is a griefing problem you probably won’t see much action. If you contact with a complaint about something being wrong  with the region, you will likely see a better response. So, report griefing that lags the region as region lag.

Share information on the problem avatar outside of Second Life. What can be shared in-world and on the forum is covered by ToS. What is shared via email is up to you.

4 thoughts on “Designing Worlds on Griefing

  1. The problem with filing an Abuse Report is you get no feedback of any kind to know if you’re going about it the right way or not – It would be useful to have some kind of user group to liaise with the Governance Team and have periodic meetings to get feedback. This user group could then report back and give advice to people, which might then in turn help LL to educate people.

  2. “If you tell the Lab it is a griefing problem you probably won’t see much action.”
    That is a shame, in my experience abuse reports for griefing got the fastest possible response (at least on the Mainland where LL is the estate manager).

  3. “Also, we have seen the DMCA case between Curio/Hush resolved… sort of. ”

    How that ended? I didnt heard anything about it lately.

    Also, I dont know why people complain so much. Of course, LL cant be on every SIM where someone is attacking you. But the few times I saw a sandbox filled with lag and attacks, someone from LL come and removed everything pretty fast. It depends also of the hours. But is true, whenever you say that the region is having issues, they usually comes.

    PS: Did you notice that the solve media text appears grey over the white background? Is a bit hard to know what Im typing. Not sure if you could fix that. Not too important anyway 😛

  4. Pingback: New Spaces | MetaReality Podcast

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