Negative Coordinates: Griefing in the Unverified Age
by Alphaville Herald on 23/08/06 at 11:06 am
by Fiend Ludwig
“There were two; flying around and shooting each other, but they wandered closer to where I was building. So I said hello and gave them tea. They started pushing me and shot me once.” So a friend wrote me recently after a particularly unfortunate incident of griefing. I reproduce her correspondence below in full:
“By the time I got back they had been mucking about with what I was working on. They shot me again this time into negative coordinates. It was only -5 on the x-axis, but I felt adrift, lost, confused. I could see the world but not interact. I flailed and sputtered, but remained -5. I TP’ed back. They got very crude verbally. I ended up reporting them the second time they shot me. I got an email saying the case is closed now.”
“They were, as far as I could tell, brand-spanking-new, unverified; within 5 hours of implementation of the Open Registration policy.”
“I went to another location after the griefers finally left, looking for a building tool. Someone very far away responded as though I’d been speaking with her, urgently saying, ‘Where are you?’ ‘Can’t see you?’ She came up and asked me for advice on where to find hair that matches her clothes. Once we’d met face-to-face, she actually took the time to type ‘Ah, good, you are a member.’ After a little while explaining to her that I’m not really into hair and such, she asked me if I own land. She then asked me twice more if I own land. And that’s all she said, once she got to asking it. Once I said no, she asked if I had a shop. I said no again, and then TP’ed out of there.”
“She is no big deal. I imagine there’s a ton of that happening all the time anyway. The sequence of events and, Ah, good, you are a member, hit me wrong on that day, though.”
“So I went home, and there I was, changing my clothes, and a fellow barged into the house and asks me if I want ‘to buy’. I asked him why he had not knocked. I think I was a bit cranky. He started changing hats and asked if I wanted to buy one. I said no thank you.”
“Then he started dropping inventory on me. And he began to demand money and attached a gun to himself. Well, I know he can’t hurt me, but I’m thinking do I really want to be blown into the negative numbers AGAIN today? He starts dropping inventory into the house. I had already taken the habit of trying to max the prim count so people would not do that exact thing, but since I was sorting/building there were about 7 prims available.”
“I asked him to please remove his objects, which he did, to my surprise. Then, after telling me I would die if I didn’t give him money, he began shooting me. Only I didn’t go anywhere and the bullets were bouncing off the walls. So I informed him I was about to file an abuse report against him and he left.”
“Once all the bullets had died, I went to max the prims again but could not touch anything in the house. I could not walk across the room. I seemed to be stopped. Everything I touched had the name cage wall. I logged off in disgust. All this inside 12 hours.”
My friend obviously experienced a very bad session of griefing coincident with the introduction of the Open Registration policy. Her story made me curious about how much griefing affects the everyday residents of Second Life. I talked to a few friends and other residents to find out, in this third installment of First Person: Second Life.
Is griefing more prevalent since the Open Registration policy was introduced? Anecdotally, yes. Residents on the mainland reported regular incidents of griefing. Residents of private sims I spoke to say that the level of griefing in their sims hasn’t yet caught up to the mainland increase, however, all reported hearing of more griefing incidents from acquaintances.
As an experiment (and, really, because I have no land), I set my home to the Waterhead Welcome Area – on the roof of the shelter there. Every time I rez into SL, I hang out for a bit to watch what is going on. Regularly there is griefing of one sort or another. In addition to the constant shouts of obscene language, I once observed a nuclear bomb detonated in the bus loop.
More nukes at Waterhead Welcome Area bus loop
Another time I watched as an armoured avatar slashed away at newly arrived residents with a light saber, causing them to disappear into orbit, or into the next sim, or perhaps even into negative coordinates; I don’t know, but surely not the place a new resident wants to find him or herself on Day One in SL.
I too was mildly griefed on a different chunk of Linden Land. There was no harm done, just a naked avatar accosting me for money. Still, it violated the PG rating of the sim, so I duly filed an AR. Here is an excerpt of what I received from Linden Lab:
Dear Second Life Resident,
Your Abuse Report has been investigated and resolved. In accordance with our Privacy Policy, Linden Lab will not disclose the resolution of abuse/community standards violations with Second Life residents, except when necessary to introduce a new or amended policy. Linden Lab will not disclose incident details including (but not limited to): identity of the reporter, details of chat logs, resolution of incidents, and suspensions or banning of Second Life Residents.
The Police Blotter, located on the Second Life website, keeps a running record of abuse resolutions. Although specific information about incidents is not revealed, basic information about the most current disciplinary actions can be found there.
My friend received the same Abuse Report email from Linden Lab after her incident. I checked repeatedly, but there was never any mention of my friend’s AR on the Police Blotter.
Again, there was never any mention of my Abuse Report on the Blotter. Nor, incidentally, was there any mention of the AR that I filed for the much more annoying and disruptive grief I describe in my SL Herald article A Tempest In A Sandbox.
So, is griefing really up, or is it just more complaining – a convenient proxy for disenchantment with the Open Registration policy? To help draw some useful conclusions, I asked Linden Lab for the stats on Abuse Reports they had fielded over the last six months. I did not ask for specifics, simply overall numbers, although I did also request any non-confidential details that might be interesting. After initially indicating that a Linden was preparing some figures for me, I was informed, after I emailed a polite reminder a couple of weeks later, that they were now too busy to complete the request. I would not be getting any numbers after all.
So I am left to speculate with hearsay: Griefing is up. Residents are sick of it. The Abuse Reporting system needs overhauling. And don’t offer the griefers tea.
Crissa
Aug 23rd, 2006
Well, reports and incidents are up since open registration – but so are paid accounts. I know the information is public, but Linden has been a bit busy of late with ‘maintainence’ (aka bug fixing) and SLCC. Especially the latter for the public rep people.
Now, in my work at http://MMOGCHART.com/ I come across this information, I’ll see if I can get this info for you.
Heck, someone came into my SL house and shot me yesterday. The best advice is to: