When the Music Stops, Or When the Griefers Go Live
by prokofy on 15/07/07 at 11:06 pm
Gavin MacKay, Kim Seifert’s manager, at the Lily Pad
Prokofy Neva, Music Critic/Griefer Watch/Hey, when are we going to get a real music critic?
Now with open and moderated comments! –Uri and Prok
An ardent fan of Second Life’s popular singer Kim Seifert, IM’d me, hopping mad at the Lily Pad Lounge in Clyde. Or rather…several sims away, as the sim had crashed due to griefers wrecking a concert of this SL live performer, who describes herself as performing “a little soul, blues, and jazz thrown in for a full color spectrum.”
Once again — apparently this is getting to be a regular occurance for a number of SL live acts — a griefer came rolling on to the sim, released the usual Cosby Jello-wned textures all over the place, put out some screaming grief balls that self-replicated and then whoops, rocked the sim right offline for a good long while, because nobody could find any Lindens.
How could this happen, with all the tools given to residents to combat the increasing epidemic of disruptors like this, bent on denying everybody a second life? In this case, the problem was in part due to the venue owners not owning the entire sim — it’s a mainland sim — and therefore being unable to keep griefers completely at bay. The sim-crasher — as many do now — also seemed to have a curious shield, or to be using a hacked version of the open-sourced client, that prevented the owners from being able to eject him immediately. An island venue might be able to insist on a group or instantly globally ban a griefer from the sim. But many venues are on the mainland, where clubland is cheaper, and even island ampitheaters can be on rented parts of sim, not the entire sim.
The griefer used a throwaway day-old alt with the stunningly original name of “Reynoldsballz Burt”. In a new twist from the usual repertoire of the Patriotic Nigras, which includes the Jello-owned stuff, this bedroom-eyed bozo appeared to be making an attempt at blackmail, typing into chat before the sim crashed that the concert-organizers had to pay $10,000 to a well-known landowner each week, or face griefing. The landowner’s name was mispelled, and it was unlikely he had anything to do with the clumsy bid at extortion.
Not to be intimidated, Kim Seifert stopped her song and said, “Mr. Burt…you have just commited a crime…it is called extortion…better start hiding” — and then the sim went down.
Mr. Burt is indeed now hiding — the Lindens removed him from the People List. He’ll likely be back on another alt, and wreck another song before too long. It’s frustrating experiences like this that are increasingly making the Live Music community — like merchants in stores and couples in rentals; like partcipants in large panel discussion; like reporters at press conferences and entrepreneurs at business meetings — as mad as hell that the Lindens just aren’t doing enough to stop the antics of a few that are ruining the experiences of the many.
I caught up with Gavin MacKay, Kim Seifert’s manager, who took me on a tour of the Lily Pad, SL’s oldest live music venue, where Frogg Marlowe and Jaycatt Nino used to play. Frogg and Jaycatt still hold their Froggy Fridays at the Amphibian Lounge up in the sky in Lingell now.
With the economic slump in general and the summer slump specifically, I’ve noticed anecdotally, popping around to a few live music venues that I used to be unable even to get near, that attendance is way down there, too — filling a sim with 40 or 80 on an island was the norm; now I see 20 or 30. So it’s indeed aggravating to be discouraging by griefing, too, what many find the best part of Second Life: live music.
Gavin believes that the extortion threat was merely a distraction, not to be taken seriously, and that the griefer may not even have been related to the notorious griefing groups like the PNs. He might have been merely a wierd obsessive, for example — unfortunately, the more popular singers get, the more likely they are to acquire these nuts seeking attention by linking themselves to a prominent person.
Although only born that day, the “newbie” Burt was already a member of Kim’s 500-plus fangroup — something that just wasn’t likely — and didn’t even fit the usual organized griefer’s M.O. Perhaps the throw-away alt was paid to make the attack — but who knows? That’s why they’re anonymous — you can’t know.
Gavin says he has a couple of suspects now under investigation, but his real challenge is to the Lindens: stop this ability to make anonymous, unaccountable accounts, which he and Kim Seifert’s fans and many others believe are the chief factor in griefing in SL.
Gavin said he routinely gave a ban list to the venue owners, and they were controling the door, but because they don’t control the entire sim, even when “Burt” was ejected, he was able to use his sim-crashing gear from the next door neighbour’s parcel.
When asked if he abuse-reported the incident at the time, Gavin replied, ” LL wants you sit on your ass and fill out paperwork while your sim is being brought down by a bunch of jugheads.”
“This guy purposely brought down a sim that someone is paying LL to own, and their response was to suspend the av who did for 7 days,” he said. Burt seemed to be gone from the People list permanently, but it bears checking next week.
“Only LL can stop the sim-crashers,” he commented. “We avs can’t do that. They control what goes on in the world, and can make the sim-crashing tools inactive. We can’t do that.”
I have to wonder why the Lindens never deprecate things like the “Doomsday Script” or “Bang Bang Bang” used by griefers — but they never met a script they didn’t like. To deprecate a script like that might…prevent the working of SL’s 17-and-a-half elevators, or might put a crimp in the script-kiddies’ creativity. Can’t have that!
In desperation, Gavin finally said, “The real story here is that LL supports griefers, to the detriment of the people who want to live in this world, and pay them to do so.” Asked what LL is specifically doing to support griefers, Gavin said, “Because they allow the existence of the griefers and their tools, and the opening up of the free accounts is the biggest tool the griefers have. It makes them completely untouchable.”
“A free account is nothing more than a kamikaze bomb,” he added.
Gavin conceded that even concert-goers might have “No Payment Info On File” if they were Europeans, Latin Americans or even North Americans who couldn’t get Pay-Pal or credit cards to work (an increasing problem in SL), or didn’t have them. But he pointed out that griefers tend to have one thing in common: NPIOF.
“You know, we can almost deal with the bastards given the tools we have, IF they didn’t have the ability to crash a SIM… and the whole concept of LL allowing this continue is freakin’ ridiculous,” he said indignantly.
“If your neighbor came every day and kicked dents in your car, wouldn’t the police put a stop to it?”
Gavin, like many other event organizers, believes the Lindens could do more to negate the ability of people to crash sims. LL has done a lot in the last year to negate the ability to crash the entire grid, by limiting the self-replicating balls through the use of fire-lines. Now they need to take it down to the level of a sim.
Gavin noted that another avatar by the name Coon Yifu, a typical PN sort of racist and anti-furry name, was also in the area when the balls went flying and was still in the list — probably “innocent until proven guilty (you gotta wonder why the Lindens put in names like “Yifu” — it’s asking for trouble). Apparently in the chaos, people forgot to abuse-report him, and there he sits.
***
Note: as this is yet another Herald story reporting the news of Second Life about the criminal antics of griefers associated with, or copy-catting, the PNs, it’s likely to be targeted by that same group and its copy-cats here in the comments and spammed, and many are able to get through their spam and hateful remarks even if moderated. It’s also another story in which people obsessed with backlashing against me line up to take their hits. So I’m closing the comments. I’m truly tired of being overrun by griefers, spammers, haters, and really vicious obsessives. I don’t *fear* publishing them or their criticisms; in fact, unlike others, I’ve been letting their comments through. But in doing so, I feel entitled to fight back — then a number of people begin to complain that the comments are turning into flame-ridden blood-thirsty battlefields.
So you’re free to discuss this column — but it will have to be back on my blog under my rules at this link. There, you will not be able to use an anonymous name; you’ll have to post with your Second Life name, or a RL name or well-known bloggers’ name to take accountability for any nasty attacks you chose to make. If you don’t, you’ll be IP-banned again and again, as long as it takes. Nasty and critical remarks are tolerated; they must be tied to a name that can stand up and identity at least an SL avatar with them. My other rule for my blog is that if you incite or cause me RL or SL damages, i.e. stalk me at home in RL or crash my sim in SL or engage in RL disclosure or incitement of stalkers, you are not welcome, full stop.
urizenus
Jul 16th, 2007
This won’t do Prok. Even our advertisements have open comments. Hence, I’ve opened the comments for this story. Deal with it. Be a virtual man.
Khamon
Jul 16th, 2007
Sometimes experiments produce unexpected results.
Verbena pennyfeather
Jul 16th, 2007
Wow, I almost just earned abit of respect for you Uri. Way To Go.
Overcast
Jul 16th, 2007
Would it be so bad to just charge maybe $2.95 for an account – just to get a credit card on file?
Heck – would about a $9.95 deposit for the first 30 days – that you get back if you don’t get banned..
humanoid
Jul 16th, 2007
Ha! Pwn3d.
Cocoanut Koala
Jul 16th, 2007
He is dealing with it, over on his own blog.
I wasn’t crazy about his closing the comments either, but it at least did drag a bunch of the griefes’ crap usually in the comments over there (where there is less of it, due to the requirement to have a real SL name).
If you’re not grateful for at least that, I bet there are others who are! lol
Accuse him of what you want, but not of “not dealing with it.”
coco
Cocoanut Koala
Jul 16th, 2007
Oh, and another thing, while we’re at it. What is this deal where I make a post and it sticks in some queue for moderation for what seems like ages?
It’s not like you haven’t known me for years.
It’s irritating, because often I have to take this extra step, and copy and save my post, cause I can’t be quite sure it will go on here successfully or not.
Could you maybe come up with some other method? The captcha thing was better than this.
On Prok’s blog, at least when you post, it posts.
coco
Brennan
Jul 16th, 2007
I told Prok yesterday that she/he/it is making themselves a target because they keep on trying to fight back, if they didn’t, then they have no more reason to bother you, griefers love a challenge and won’t grief someone who isn’t going to be a challenge, aka not fighting back. If a Sim gets griefed, you leave the sim and come back later, they can’t grief an empty sim.
Gavin Mackay
Jul 16th, 2007
Prok, thanks for a great article. One thing I might add though… as we were speaking, the issue of griefing Live Music was something you werent as familiar with. Your article mentions that you notice attendance is down. Let me just say that over the last year or more, live music has grown amazingly through the general availability of audiences, the low cost entry fee and efficiency into performing through the SL medium, and through the stallwart efforts of people like Drift Monde, Circe Broom, Cryene Madonna, Lucius Templar, Ticious Trottier, the whole Prankster group, and many others who support and make music even more available to the general public. While some performances are small, many are huge. Circe and Ticious regularly have 80+ people in attendence at their shows, and they run multiple performers over many days every week. Performance attendance is more variable due to a number of issues; the overall number of performers has jumped (many who are pushing the boundaries of excellence to new levels), many more new venues are now available, advertising and promotion of shows is now different. The bottom line is that there are way more choices in terms of performers, music style, and venues than there ever has been. The music world in SL is evolving and growing, and just like the real world, its improving because the residents are always demanding better, and the performers are working hard to provide it to them. Also, real professionals are getting into the SL scene, and they bring new and exciting musical adventure with them.
This is also why the griefers are targetting live music, because the draws are huge, and the fans are… well fans. Griefers do what they do for 3 reasons: 1) They can, 2) They enjoy laughing at other peoples pain, 3) Linden Labs lets them.
Prok, get out and see some of the new performers, visit some new venues. This is a whole new world within SL. It’s much different and improved.
urizenus
Jul 16th, 2007
Coco, stuff only stays in the cue until someone logs on and approves the non-racist posts. One issue is that Pix and Prok can only moderate comments under their own posts, so, for example, a comment in one of my articles might not get approved as rapidly as those under a Prok post. That is, assuming he checks the blog more than I do (a very safe bet).
I think we need a better strategy for this. Working on it.
Razen Nefarious
Jul 16th, 2007
We’re also noticing a large uptick of griefing at our live music events on the Pontiac sims. What is it about music that seems to draw them out?
Plans on how to deal with it is still up in the air but it looks like we’re gonna our builders some expanded powers to help deal with it.
And shout out to Virtual Live Band, those guys constantly pack our sims to capacity when they play, they’re that damn good!
CorkOnTheFOrk
Jul 16th, 2007
I disagree.
shockwave yareach
Jul 16th, 2007
Huzzah for comments! If I wanted to read Prok’s private blog, I wouldn’t be here in the first place. Moderation to keep out bad language is a good idea – deletion of anything she considers DoubleplusUngood is not.
And if you don’t want to listen to the troublemakers in the comments, don’t read any. Not everyone is worth replying to. Standing up for ones self and telling the asshats of the world to “bring it, beeyotchs” is not the same thing. Some folks just aren’t worth the calories it takes to listen to, much less respond to. And the wise warrior knows how to choose his fights.
Anonymous
Jul 16th, 2007
Whats a guy gotta do to write for this blasted herald? I mean I have inquired about it several times and recieved no response. I know this is off topic but geez, besides writing (which I love to do, and for FREE. thats right you dont have to pay me jack) I would like to get some publicity for my group.
We aren’t griefers but I think that what we are doing is newsworthy. Consider what we have done since 6/22 when my avitar was ‘born’, or more accurately a week or so later when the organization was established. An SL noob founds an active group, owns 1/4th a sim in bellagio and 8k sqm in koozebane, has an active research and development team designing buildings and products being marketed throughout SL, I have several breathtaking screenshots of our activities, mansions and clubs and we are expanding rapidly. Damn right I’m proud of that.
I dont have any problems covering other materials that are of public interest, in fact, my associates and I have begun to attend events for the purpose of 1) recruiting and 2) finding some crazy shit to write about. I have a reference who is a high ranking member of a certain family that you have written about before that would vouch for me as being an honorable and capable guy. I have materials published on the web that you can view and critique, specifically part of a sci fi manuscript. Contact me by email or something.
urizenus
Jul 16th, 2007
If you want to write for the Herald what you have to do is this:
Write a story and submit it to Pixeleen Mistral.
If she publishes it you get paid.
It’s that simple.
mootykips
Jul 16th, 2007
sry we broke ur internet radio show
here’s 10 bux
Coincidental Avatar
Jul 16th, 2007
“also seemed to have a curious shield, or to be using a hacked version of the open-sourced client, that prevented the owners from being able to eject him”
The “shield” probably costs money
I’ve read diaries of griefers and they often buy weapons to grief. If everybody here is not completely lazy, somebody could take a tour to the weapon shops and identify the gadget. Isn’t there an island full of griefing toys?
Competitors have free accounts too. Usually LL is a feature follower, thus I assume that the competitors had free accounts first.
Many of the Lindens see themselves as reincarnation of Machiavelli but they are unable to deal with griefing. Maybe Rosedale should try to visit SL more often. If he dares.
What comes to crashing sims, who in LL told to make fragile sims? Do they employ former Microsoft programmers?
As Intblubber wrote here in Second Lie & Hearsay: “Griefers are good for the economy”. That’s the point of view of those who make money from it.
My opinion is that traditionally LL has seen griefers as part of SL entertainment and provided them a shelter, excluding those few who annoyed LL by crashing sims or attacking Lindens themselves. Avatars have been free prey until recently when RL business has started to enter SL.
SL has provided me much experience on mental cases and (archaic) social systems. I understand now much better how prehistorical people lived. Goreans and other organized perverts are genetically inherited mental adaptations to prehistoric societies where slavery was common. I’m very grateful of this educational aspect.
dick burns
Jul 16th, 2007
urizenus… utter hypocrisy on prokofy’s part in closing the comments… well done.
the truth of the matter is that PN is no longer in existence. N3X took a full-time job at PBS designing software for the hit show “Barney and friends”, and ironically Mudkips joined him working for the same show, only he is in the programming development team, hired as a representative for the black community.
These latest attacks are definitely the work of a copycat organization that has yet to reveal their true name. although my sources tell me that some of it’s leaders include some of the now homeless WU staff and PN hierarchy like “chikenluv” and “sho-nuff” and of course the legendary griefer “Wattamellunzgravyandcornbread” i have yet to confirm how large this group actually is, and whether or not prokofy is involved. Prokofy herself…um…himself… has never outright denied being a member of this new group and so the question remains.
look at the evidence:
1) there are 11 letters in the name “prokofy neva”
2) there are 11 letters in the name Peter Parker.
you know how peter parker always “just happens” to there when spider man is ejaculating webs from his body all over buildings?… well prokofy always happens to be around major griefing events…coincidence? or is prokofy mocking us with this blatent reference to the
deceptive journalist of lore?
and take a look at this:
1) the number eleven backwards is “Nevele”.
2) prokofy has cited several times that her favorite recording artist is aaron “neville”. pronounced exactly the way as “nevele”. no big deal right?
UNTIL you couple that with the fact that Aaron Neville has recorded many songs that insinuate a relationship to the african american community (not confirmed) and therefore an affiliation with PN!!!!
but perhaps the most damning evidence of all:
this photograph snapped a the PETA opening was in an email meant for dick cheney, but accidentally sent to me…the sender? prokofyparker@trolled.com
http://i209.photobucket.com/albums/bb106/frodo76/dickburnsatpetarally.jpg
you be the judge.
anon
Jul 16th, 2007
Hello,
Prokeva Neva, please list an email address that I can contact you at, and prove that it is your ISP internet address. I have something that I want to
talk to you about on the telephone. A case of fraud in SL that has bothered
me for months that Linden would do nothing about. I need to discuss the situation with you.
Thank you,
Anon.
SqueezeOne Pow
Jul 16th, 2007
Why would these sims with performances and the expectation of large groups attending allow scripts and object creation on the land? The only people that need to be able to do such things are the performers and staff.
Responsible event planners should know this.
KMeist Hax
Jul 16th, 2007
All I can say, is that the Lindens are being extremely lazy on fighting griefers, which do in fact hurt their bottom line. We need some (or a lot of) limits on these guys. I don’t think eliminating basics altogether is the solution. Some griefers are not NPIOF, and there are way more active NPIOFs going to these concerts anyway.
The solution involves the Lindens actually giving a shit about who’s running scripts, and which ones are running. While I would like them to fix the scripting engine, some temporary anti-griefing measures would be nice. Like, disable scripting on a per-sim basis if the Lindens detect griefing. This, of course, requires the Lindens to give a shit about griefing. Maybe a “Report Ongoing Multi-User Griefing Activity…” option under the Help Menu, which would summon a Linden from a newly created “Griefer Defense” team, who would then verify an onslaught of griefers, and turn off scripts for the entire sim.
Of course, that all revolves around the Lindens _giving a shit_ about their customers…
Prokofy Neva
Jul 16th, 2007
Upon second thought and further reflection I agree with Uri that yeah, the comments shouldn’t have been closed if *I’m* the one doing an Italian strike. That is, if I strike and refuse to answer comments, that’s my problem, but then people who wish to come up and spit and leave spittle should still be able to have that freedom of course!
Yes, it is a fine tradition in the Herald’s illustration history never to close comments. OH, well, there was that one time in 2004 when Uri closed comments on *me* — even on an alt dialing from a nearby computer! Yeesh! Was HE ever mad! that was back when I perpetrated the Seline Witch Hoax on him. Ah, those were the days. But by morning Uri had calmed down and opened up the comments again. У́тро ве́чера мудрене́е.
The wiser course would be just to say, if you want to discuss this piece, follow up on my blog, but there you’ll have to use your SL name, and if you are one of these stalkers and documented gridcrashers, then you won’t be welcome. Works pretty good.
OK, then, happy spitting!
mootykips
Jul 16th, 2007
Also, “Coincidental Avatar”, no smart “griefer” buys “griefing” weapons. It’s easier to copy-paste scripts from a repository (such as Gazov’s excellent GrieferWiki) than to spoof a name, email, etc etc and do Hippiepay surveys and hope you can find weapons.
Most if not all delivery mechanisms are in the Freebie Warehouse, etc (this means things like AK-47s and such) and if that doesn’t work you can use the library popgun or make your own.
Khamon
Jul 16th, 2007
“All I can say, is that the Lindens are being extremely lazy on fighting griefers, which do in fact hurt their bottom line.” – KMeist
While the former is true, I see no evidence that it’s hurting their bottom line. Linden Lab’s bottom line is tier and that figure has continued to grow since it was implemented in February 2004. Only, well by only I really just mean only, but if that seems too steep I can rephrase it and say ONLY when LL is collecting less monthly tier will their bottom line be affected. And that will only happen when people inworld get fed up enough to tier down and, and I do mean and, like at the same time AND new people are coming into the world, being wowed out of their socks, and picking up the bill.
That’s not going to happen any time soon unless The Grid All Hail The Central Grid just becomes nonfunctional.
Brennan
Jul 16th, 2007
Link to your blog?
Sn4x15
Jul 17th, 2007
In the event SLH closes the blog comments again, PN will proxy the news post at our own blog, http://poolsclosed.nexisonline.net/news/ . All comments are welcome except for spam.
Prokofy Neva
Jul 17th, 2007
The Second Life Herald does not close comments as a publication. That hasn’t been its policy.
What the SLH does is moderate comments now. I have repeatedly called on the publisher and editor to write an editorial about this policy and refer to it repeatedly so that readers understand: yes, comments are being moderated.
And that means that yes, comments are being deleted or unpublished when this or that editor finds griefing spam or seriously racist and obscene posts. Those *are* against the TOS of Typepad.com which is the host of this blog.
SO that leaves open the issue of whether, as I’ve been told, the editors will now follow a policy of asking each poster or author to delete or request deletion of posts they find objectionable. I don’t think that’s a defensible policy whatsoever. If you are going to moderate and remove content, you have to say either merely that you will do so merely in keeping with the Typepad TOS, or put forth some other rule. You can’t just delete posts “you don’t like”.
So how can I be for closing the comments on my column? Well, I did that as an experiment to try to see if some change couldn’t be effected or something somehow broken loose on this jag here of the Herald being under concerted attack. I didn’t silence criticism, I rerouted it. The link is hypertexted, so read the story rather than saying “where is the link” when it is stated in the story closing. This wasn’t to gain hits for my blog, which not only doesn’t need hits, and isn’t a competitor to the Herald. Indeed putting that link only ensured I had to peel off from my blog the thousands of spam pieces deliberately incited from the same PN site you see advertised in the comments here — the way the Herald does. The PN is trying to paralyze the Herald.
So ultimately, I think some policy will evolve, that will involve editors having to delete the racist, truly gross stuff that is spammed on to this site mainly by one small and determined group, and giving authors discretion to delete comments that they feel are simply too nasty. I’m not going to be deleting them, but I am really no longer willing to have a conversation with the two kinds of people that I have banned from my blogs: 1) those not posting under their own SL name and 2) those who are inciting actual attacks and damages against me in SL or RL.
Ian Betteridge
Jul 17th, 2007
Prokofy says: “or engage in RL disclosure…”
Given that the person who’s disclosed your real life name to the most people is you, are you going to ban yourself? Rolling Stone etc do have rather large readerships, you know.
Alyx Stoklitsky
Jul 17th, 2007
Dick Burn’s post was the best thing I’ve ever read on this site. Ever.
The Tax Man
Jul 17th, 2007
Is it true that the UK Authorities are looking to tax profits on Second Life?
Mark Benson
Jul 17th, 2007
Sorry, forgot to add the URL of the thread about taxing second Life profits :-
http://www.agentcities.net/?p=30
dick burns
Jul 17th, 2007
why thank you Alyx. It’s common knowledge that prokofy has a unique relationship with many griefer groups. We need to be brave enough to ask the tough questions, look at the evidence and begin to answer them. Is prokofy a memeber of the PN? Is her “war” on them merely just part of their propaganda machine? has she/he played the biggest part in their notoriety?
maybe we’ll never know…
Reality
Jul 17th, 2007
In short Prokofy dearie, you’re taking the easy road out simply because you are unable and unwilling to focus on the message instead of the messenger.
Oh and Dearie?
Nice try in attempting to put yourself across as ‘running an experiment’. What you were really doing was sending people to your Blog so you could control the conversation and remove opposing opinions.
Black Man
Jul 17th, 2007
The idea of LL getting rid of free accounts is a pipe dream.
if they did that, they would be surrendering their product as just an MMO for basement dwellers who already make up most of SL’s hardcore users.
It would completely kill any potential SL has as a marketing tool. Corperations would have to pull out because new users would slow to a trickle.
SL’s current userbase is made of people who are worthless as customers to corperations.
The only real world products you can sell to these people is fleshlights and compfy computer chairs
Csven Concord
Jul 17th, 2007
I suspect LL’s “grid of grids” effort will address some of this. For example, Anshe might take her sims off the main grid and require that anyone gaining access be sufficiently verified to minimize griefing. IBM would almost certainly set up their own independent grid within the broader framework. And I could see music label grids popping up all over and charging monthly membership fees for access.
And when/if such additional control becomes available, corporations will have something new to consider… or rather, stumble over (reference – http://blog.rebang.com/?p=1351 ).
DaveOner
Jul 17th, 2007
>I didn’t silence criticism, I rerouted it.
…to where you could more easily silence criticism.
I went to your site and WOW. It’s like going to Bill O’Reiley’s house! My virus program gave a warning of “Anger, Malaise and Contempt detected. If you do not agree with the author of this site then close this window while you still enjoy your life!”
Back to the “article”, though.
The answer to this problem is to disable scripts, objects and objects entering the area. Then you start a group for the people putting on the concert and set it up so only the group is allowed to use scripts and objects. People will still be able to dance and whatnot if the dance machines are set to the group.
These people didn’t know what they were doing and can only blame themselves. It’s no different than not knowing how to lock your car and then parking it in Compton.
Uri needs to write more. I dig his articles!!
Candy Lemmon
Jul 17th, 2007
So we want to ban free accounts?
Awesome, prejudice and class-hatred prevail.
Chocolate Rain
Jul 17th, 2007
The grid of grids system is pointless, if we can jump from our PN grid to the main grid already, i dont see why we’ll have any problem visiting Anshe’s or anybody else who decides to use a seperate grid.
People having to be filtered and join a group for every single concert isnt feasible, it will severly cut down on people visiting those shows.
1 PN attack out of every 100 live events in SL isnt really that bad….
Kim Seifert
Jul 17th, 2007
Thank you so much Prokofy for taking an interest in the plight of many SL residents. Kudos to you for having the guts to stand up against such unbelievable criticism. I am astounded at some of the advice given. When griefing begins, I tell people to turn their local sound down to 0 and to turn off particles. I just continue my shows. Sometimes the sims crash, sometimes they don’t. One thing I do believe is that griefers will do what they will, whether I sit on my hands or whether I fight back. I choose to fight back.
I would also like to make an observation about “Black Man.”
The person who came forward at the Lily Pad as I was being griefed did more than just shout “pay me 10,000L.” This person also said these things, and much more, in my fan club group chat as well as in personal IM to me. Of course, all these folks that were involved in the griefing were reported. Interestingly, 7 days later I get griefed again at a different venue (I own none of these venues, I just sing at them so have no control over the land). A new “av” IMs me and claims to be the same person who asked for me to pay $10,000L per week to another person. **For the record, I believe the request to pay $10,000L to Intlibber was just a ruse and I did not take it seriously.** This new “av” said things to me like…SL is made up of “basement dwellers” who are “shit consumers” and “corporations are pulling out.” Sound familiar “Black Man?” Usage of those terms draw you out as the same person but also say something about your real motivations. Care to open up and tell us so that we do not merely speculate? Before you say too much though, make sure of your facts before you state too much. I am not a basement dweller (whatever that term implies). Unless, of course, there is a tornado headed my way. Then the basement is a nice thing to have!
Kim Seifert
Jul 17th, 2007
@ Chocolate Rain
“1 PN attack out of every 100 live events in SL isnt really that bad….”
Hmmm…..do you know this to be true? Have you spoken to all venue owners and musicians who have been griefed and figured this out or are you just pulling a number out of your….?
Csven Concord
Jul 17th, 2007
@Chocolate Rain – is the “grid of grids” system in place? Last I heard, they’d not implemented it. So what can be done now may not be relevant.
I’d expect it has some built-in security that isn’t currently employed. Or it may be that getting *to* the Main Grid is unrestricted (which means they could keep the unverified registrations), but leaving the M.G. and going to a new externally-hosted sub-grid might require some additional effort; might even be tied into those new verification systems they intend to use (haven’t paid all the much/any attention to that, so apologies if that’s off-base).
Not that it’ll be impenetrable, of course. But then I’m not sure any system has to be. In my opinion, it just needs to be sufficiently inconvenient to make the objective not worth the effort for the majority of people who would otherwise cause trouble.
Cocoanut Koala
Jul 17th, 2007
This is way off topic, but I can’t help but respond:
——-
So we want to ban free accounts?
Awesome, prejudice and class-hatred prevail.
Posted by: Candy Lemmon | July 17, 2007
at 03:44 PM
——–
Class-hatred? Prejudice? Better go tell all those other places that charge admittance, then. Like the movies (tickets cost $9), newspapers, clothes at Macy’s, your broadband company, etc.
Charging or not charging for access to SL has zilch to do with class hatred or prejudice.
coco
Coincidental Avatar
Jul 17th, 2007
“the Lindens are being extremely lazy on fighting griefers, which do in fact hurt their bottom line”
Didn’t they think that fighting griefers is a loss center? Now when their money greedy eyes have turned to corporations, they have started to suspect that griefers disturbing corporations disturb the Lindens income. And at the moment Rosedale is probably scared to visit SL.
What comes to LL efficiency, a griefer (payment info on file) wrote in his blog that instead of being banned he received 6 warnings on his griefing. In the blog was a description how LL issues penalties. The chat logs of avatars being griefed and pictures on griefing were on the blog. [His reporting seemed to be more accurate than the average reporting of Second Lie & Hearsay or Reuters/SL. Why doesn't he write here?]
Slexchange etc. openly sell griefing stuff even if the product description describes them as anti-griefing weapons and shields. Is this commercialization of griefing some kind of tabu?
There are few griefer stars who know what a script is and can write them. Few more can follow their instructions. Majority of the griefers do not even know how to create a new script. Note how easy it was for LL to sabotage PN by stripping them from their scripts and dedicated weapons. Technically competent griefers would have recreated those fast, thus only few of them were technically competent. And I repeat that there are griefer blogs in the internet in which they list the weapons they have bought. I guess that creating a couple of alt accounts and transferring the weapons through them is enough to confuse LL.
mootykips
Jul 17th, 2007
Kim, sing Chocolate Rain or “Never gonna let you down” by Rick Astley and we’ll leave you alone forever.
I promise.
dick burns
Jul 17th, 2007
@coco
bad comparison. sl is nothing liek the ones you mentioned.
moar liek myspace, youtube and the california border. all free to enter.
join me in baku prok!
i’m out
Jorus Xi
Jul 17th, 2007
I tend to agree that the venue owners didn’t really allow for how obnoxious things could get and didn’t set their sim up accordingly.
But honestly? We’ve made the same mistake at Phreak, but really, why should anyone have to go to such extreme steps to stop this kind of thing?
Because the tools we are given are trash. Because griefing is not properly discouraged.
Fortunately we own an entire sim, estate tools make things a bit easier. TP home then ban from the estate.
Sucky.
Chocolate Rain
Jul 18th, 2007
For those of you who are wondering what it looks like when one of kim’s concerts gets Raided, here are some visuals for you
(i trust these images will be screened for goatse by SLH staff)
http://img111.imageshack.us/img111/9043/untitledvx4.jpg
http://img182.imageshack.us/img182/6193/lulzxb6.jpg
mootykips
Jul 18th, 2007
“Note how easy it was for LL to sabotage PN by stripping them from their scripts and dedicated weapons.”
lol wut? you can’t blacklist scripts silly man, all you have to do is make the scripts modular enough to assemble in 5 minutes like most modern PN weapons so that blacklisted objects are not an issue.
Coincidental Avatar
Jul 18th, 2007
Competitors provide free access too. Additionally, LL has that vision of 3D VR as the next generation of the internet. Most of the internet is based on free access like SLH (Prokofy Neva commie allergy attack warning!)
At the moment free concerts etc. are used as advertising tools for RL pay-for-access events. That’s one of those new business strategies which work on-line . I assume that in the future on-line concerts etc. will be more pay-for-access based.
Note that the picture providing griefers use IRC to communicate with each others. [Ironically SL is a descendant of IRC.] What’s IRC? The first internet chat system.
Griefing was a survival trait. During The Good Old Times the oldest son inherited the farm/land and the younger joined gangs (armies?) which robbed and harassed the neighboring tribes/villages. That way they got land and women (slaves/concubines) after killing the competing men. The army system core was probably maintained by gays. Even nowadays the elder sons tend to be more heterosexual than their younger brothers.
Chocolate Rain
Jul 18th, 2007
Coincidental Avatar: I dont think their 3d vision of the internet will see light, I see Entropia Universe taking over where SL leaves off. While I havent used Entropia yet, the Chinese government’s significant investments in to it, combined with Anshe’s purchase of virtual banking rights in that world for 50K lead be to believe Entropia’s developers will learn from LL’s mistakes