Abuse Reporting Begins Overhaul
Friday, December 8th, 2006 at 9:30 AM by: daniellindenAccording to my notes, Linden Lab received a grand total of 43 Abuse Reports during my first week of work in 2003. Jumping forward to the end of 2006, the number is closer to 2,000 per day.
On a purely clerical level, this kind of volume is not readily sustainable; to give each report five minutes of investigation and attention would add up to more than 160 hours day.
It could be done of course, but the bigger issue lies in the content of the Reports; the vast majority are either: problems Linden Lab cannot resolve (we can’t force anyone to see eye to eye with anyone else), situations Linden Lab should not resolve (neighborly property line disputes or transactional issues), and reports that aren’t Abuse Reports at all – they don’t have anything to do with the Community Standards and belong in other communications channels.
With so many spurious reports, our ability to find and act on the reports that truly affect the health of the Second Life community is severely inhibited. It can take days just to get to a specific Report or problem – and that’s not acceptable. If you’ve file an Abuse Report and think that nothing’s happened, it probably just took longer than you expect. The solution, then, is either to vastly expand the numbers of hands sorting through the Abuse Report queue or to dramatically overhaul the way in which we solicit and handle reports. We’ve chosen the later.
The main thrust of this project is to move our process away from the current one report/one resolution model and towards a system that with will quickly and accurately identity and manage those individuals and behavior that make Second Life feel unwelcoming or unsafe. The revised system will focus also on moving problems towards more useful paths for resolution – specifically by enabling and encouraging the development of inter-Resident mediation and dispute resolution options for those issues Linden Lab isn’t equipped to resolve. A further emphasis will be placed on self-resolution — by improivng existing tools like mute and parcel-based access restrictions.
Stay tuned to this space for details and progress updates on this project.
December 8th, 2006 at 9:49 AM
I always assumed, rightly or wrongly, that with the sheer volume, only those people who had multiple reports would be acted upon. The occasional bump or orbit is so common; there is no practical way to deal with it.
One suggestion I’ve made, is allowing mentors/greeters or certain residents to be able to “freeze’ an account. This would be much like the liaisons do where the account is put on hold till they call in to Customer Service and explain what happened. It is easy to enough to spot a “griefer alt” and mentors could be instructed to only use in cases of obvious griefing, not simply for being naked or disagreeable.
Another suggestion is to give mentors/greeters or others the ability to ban people from help island Public and Welcome areas. It should be up land owners in a lot of cases to address behavioral issues on their land.
Finally I ecourage anyone who owns a large club or popular place to check out BanLink slbanlink.com Travis Lambert at the shelter has created a great for folks to share their ban list.
December 8th, 2006 at 9:49 AM
Sounds great, I guess letting NON verfied in here wasnt help either *shrugs*
December 8th, 2006 at 9:54 AM
I was wondering about that. I filed my first ever of abuse report Wed night after my avatar was physical assaulted, caged, and launched into the air ending up 6 sims over from where I was. I talked to someone else who saw the 2 that did this to me at another location, but managed to eject them before they did any damage. I want them to pay.
December 8th, 2006 at 9:57 AM
Well, we can all arm ourselves and resort to vigilante justice. We’ll turn SL into the Old West.
December 8th, 2006 at 10:04 AM
Speaking of “neighborly disputes” - I ran into an interesting situation last week. My neighbor put up some trees that sway in the breeze. While swaying, they would extend over the property line (across a sim boundary, even!) and right through the walls of my building!
This did not turn onto a dispute for us - I asked him nicely to move the trees slightly, and he graciously and quickly moved them (thank you, Kit!). But for those who are not on such friendly terms with their neighbors, what would be the proper channel to resolve something like this? Is there any way to prevent objects from extending across property lines like this?
December 8th, 2006 at 10:07 AM
I’m looking forward to seeing the solution to this issue. Because as I see it, correct resolution has to involve tracking AR’s per account (akin to eBay’s feedback system), and onwards to penalizing an account. And in order to be able to do that reliably, you will have to be able to associate a person to an account. Ergo, you will need to be able to VERIFY who the account belongs to in order to reliably tracks ARs against it.
And once you can verify a person to an acocunt, a HUGE number of other issues become solvable.
December 8th, 2006 at 10:07 AM
I question how you’ll punish someone who can just make another alt in about 3 minutes. Perhaps, reports have partially jumped due to the No-IDers? Well, you know that. You just don’t care. Numbers bring in business. The only time I’ve had trouble with griefing in the entire year and a couple months I’ve been on SL has been new users without ID. I never had trouble prior.
December 8th, 2006 at 10:09 AM
This sounds horribly like “player run government” which is something that will never work.
Don’t even think about it any more. Please.
The greatest tool against griefing that Linden Lab could *ever* provide to residents is to remove the unverified unlimited access. I am definitely not alone in believing this to be the solution to many of your current problems.
Broccoli
December 8th, 2006 at 10:11 AM
I have to say that I stongly agree with CP.
What do you think? You opened the door for griefers, spammers, maleficient people.
So at first there are more people to be reported and second there are people who report everything just to grief you.
So don’t be surprised, it was your decision to let them all in.
Hell there was even a guy who told me he is 9 years old.
December 8th, 2006 at 10:11 AM
All of the abuse I have reported has ALWAYS been about AVs with No Payment Info On File. Now this might be a series of random coincidences that only happened to me, so don’t flame me for being a Non-Verified bigot.
Any other dispute/problem I’ve been involved in was easily handled through IMs and face-to-face meetings. Whether it was about one of my trees hanging over another’s property line, ugly yard sale signs looming over my pool, or naked members of my private club falling from the sky and into my neighbor’s office, we got it fixed—fast. Faster than you can say “No payment info on file.”
December 8th, 2006 at 10:17 AM
This sounds a lot like the old negative ratings are coming back which will work okay provided that the system recognizes the number of reports individuals file.
If I file fifty abuse reports a day, I’m griefing Linden Lab employees and deserve to be disciplined as much as someone flying through the grid randomly caging people.
The system should also suspect a long-term stream of reports. If I’m truly griefing, the reports are going to flood in quickly from all fronts. If I’m being reported systematically a few times a day for two weeks, that registers as a campaign against me and should be initially flagged as such.
December 8th, 2006 at 10:18 AM
I understand where you’re coming from, but I’m concerned about your comment on:
“situations Linden Lab should not resolve (neighborly property line disputes…”
A very typical issue is when a neighbor builds something that overlaps another’s land with the root prim on his land. The overlapped plot can’t return it, and in many cases, the offender did it deliberately and won’t remove it.
I hope you don’t consider this something LL shouldn’t get involved in.
Also, your comment:
“The revised system will focus also on moving problems towards more useful paths for resolution – specifically by enabling and encouraging the development of inter-Resident mediation and dispute resolution options for those issues Linden Lab isn’t equipped to resolve”
Sounds interesting, but since there is no mechanism at all for enforcing any resident reached resolution, this is really just voluntary and will only work for willing participants.
Phillip talked about some sort of system involving banning agreements among groups to ostrasize malfactors. But without any mechanism for distributing ban lists, I don’t see how this would be effective. It also has a lot of other issues, for example, it would be necessary to always ban all unverifieds, if not all non-payment used AVs since alts are free and unlimited.
December 8th, 2006 at 10:21 AM
Sedalia Kavka’s suggestion is BRILLIANT.
The (proven) eBay system of rating its members could be adapted here and bring abuse to its knees. First, because the eBay system works. Second, it hits people in the wallet, so it works.
I’m going in-world right this second to make Sedalia my friend and give her molto rating points!
Sedalia, you rock!
December 8th, 2006 at 10:21 AM
Great…
Start by giving me the ability to stop peaople from peeping at me in my bedroom, from taking screen shots. From pasting the shots on a 10×10 prim on the neighbouring property.
December 8th, 2006 at 10:22 AM
Yes it is very sad that others seem to get pleasure from abusing people in secondlife but the fact is they do. There is however a police department or 2 on secondlife and maybe somethings can be dealt with by them as they do seem to like to sought out troublemakers. Then maybe the serious issues can then be passed onto the Lindens when it is necessary. Just a thought to reduce some of the mentioned problems, The Lindens do have enough on their plate trying to keep secondlife running so we can enjoy a better world here, Ie fixing the constant bugs etc.
December 8th, 2006 at 10:22 AM
I was against the idea of restricting unverified and/or free account access, but the recent uptick in griefing and some of the well-reasoned arguments on this blog (regarding Verified/Contributing/Subscribing users being forced to ’support’ the negative activities of others) have changed my mind.
Yes, a free account is a great way to get people interested and involved, but there seems little reason /not/ to put some restrictions on those accounts as SL explodes in both popularity and problems.
December 8th, 2006 at 10:23 AM
I wonder why a sim doesn’t calculate that a prim is overhanging someone’s property line? The server does know the midpoint and size and orientation of the prim so it’s a straightforward calc. Doh, I should post this in the Cory thread amongst all the raunchy ravenous rants.
December 8th, 2006 at 10:24 AM
Two words: hall monitors
December 8th, 2006 at 10:25 AM
WOW! 2000 per day is a LOT of abuse reports.
However IMHO ‘finding the bad guys and removing them’ isn’t and shouldn’t be the whole strategy. WoW does this and the process isn’t very transparent.
I think the first problem is weeding out the useless, non-abuse reports. I don’t know the exact details of the liasons and volunteer programs but I think they could be put to work here.
My suggestion- recruit a group of helpers. When an abuse report comes in, it is assigned to one of those helpers. They will read the report and use judgement to decide what to do about it. If it’s something the Res can colve themself, they will reply with the appropriate instruction. If it’s incorrectly filed, they will reply explaining why and where it should be correctly reported (livehelp, bugreport, etc). They could also possibly IM the Res to get additional info if needed. And if it’s an actual abuse report that has enough info to act on, they will forward it along to the REAL abuse queue (that goes to the Lindens), possibly with a short version or recommendation attached.
In addition- each completed ticket will also be sent to another member of this support queue where they can grade the initial response. If they feel the ticket was handled badly, they can indicate this and possibly either handle it themself or escalate it to a Linden.
And, if someone has an issue they want to go straight to a Linden, this will be available too- with a L$50-200 deposit and a strongly worded warning that if it’s not a legit abuse issue you won’t get your deposit back.
To authenticate these guys to the Resi’s, perhaps when they are on duty their name will temporarily change to Firstname Lastname-Help.
Assuming that there are enough volunteers- it should result in most Abuse tickets being helped pretty quickly. The useless ones will be screened out before they get to Lindens, who will be free to resolve the real ones faster. The rating system makes each helper accountable (and will be anonymous). As an added incentive, possibly the top 10% of all the volunteers would get a small stipend as a reward. This would encourage quality responses more than lots of short ones.
As a note- the volunteers would NOT have access to the Linden database or any account details, just the ticket as reported.
December 8th, 2006 at 10:37 AM
Your business model must include an effective level of support for these issues; if you are going to grow SL, and do so by allowing free anonymous access to all, you need to figure the cost of doing that. It could cost you your best customers if you don’t. Having in-world dispute resolution sounds great in practice, but will not help with the types who revel in causing problems for others. So there has to be some kind of consequence that mediators can use if needed. A rating system? Sounds like part of the solution, but not the whole solution.
December 8th, 2006 at 10:39 AM
Chris’ idea isn’t too shabby…why trying and work towards that LL?
December 8th, 2006 at 10:39 AM
Rocky,
I couldn’t agree more. I own a casino and have sent in many abuse reports. I also have like 150 people banned. 98% (at least) have no info on file.
Maybe give free accounts 30 day trial period before they have to pay. They do any griefing in those 30 days ban them from SL for good.
I really don’t see what the big deal about paying 10.00. It is less then a movie in my area. About the cost of 1 meal at a fast food joint.
This is my problem…I have a money tree on my property, have free slots, etc. I would like to NOT allow access for players with no payment info on file, but i want to be fair to the players with legit accounts. I don’t know the solution.
As far as expecting the Lindens to solve anything, it aint going to happen. I know from personal experience that their whole system makes no sense. Of course if I would write about this it would not get past the censures.
Let’s see…I have stuff vanish when I try to rezz them, there is no search, there is no about land, classifieds are messed up, animations don’t work on my land. Every time I am around water I have to go through this opening estate thing or I cant see it, no one answers live help and support does not respond to emails. Any one who thinks they will solve this abuse report thing is insane or if they do work on it, God only knows what bugs it will cause. BTW, why are they worried about this today with all the problems they have. Could it be misdirection?
December 8th, 2006 at 10:40 AM
On one occasion I reported somebody for something, only to have him say scornfully a few minutes later “I don’t care, I was permanantly banned by Linden Labs, and I’m back. There’s nothing you or they can do that will stop me doing whatever I want.” So I reported him again for admitting to being permanantly banned.
I couldn’t help thinking, though, of the inherent logistical problems of dealing with this. It crossed my mind that what he said had a point - ban him, and he’d simply create a new account and come straight back on again. That is the downside of free accounts. I happen to think that free accounts are a good idea, and, indeed, was on one myself for a time. Getting rid of them is not a real solution to the problem, because you’ll alienate a section of the user base you really want to keep.
So, what to do? Well, Sedalia Kavka’s suggestion is indeed one with merit, but I would go further. I would add a system similar to the one that AOL used for a time.
Here’s the brief summary of what I would do:
* Add a “warn resident” button to the pie chart that appears when you right click another resident
* A resident may “warn” another resident once per period of time (say 12 hours) - this would prevent griefers abusing the system by sending warning after warning against one resident.
* When a resident “warns” another resident, both residents names and locations are logged by the system, together with date and time. The warning resident is asked for a brief, one line summary.
* Residents who are “warned” more than a set number of times in a given period start losing priviledges, starting with shout, then proceding to say, whisper, rez objects or a variety of other options, but they GAIN an “appeal” button on their pie chart, and they can see the number of warnings logged against them (though not by whom, just a count of the number) - Appealing asks them for a brief, one line summary of their appeal and opens a Linden-only “ticket” style IM box which duty Lindens can set themselves able to receive or ignore. This will stop groups of greifers ganging together to abuse the system, since their names will be visible to Lindens and a pattern will quickly emerge if a group is going around using this system against individuals.
* In the event of a set number of warnings being given, the system will open a “ticket” automatically, for Linden review in the same way. This would deal with the problem quicker, by bringing to light genuine griefing behaviour far faster and more reliably.
This is a way I can see of reducing the number of “tickets” Lindens have to deal with, while at the same time providing an immediate grief relief and allowing patterns of behaviour to be identified. It will reduce the number of meaningless reports (since one resident warning another effectively won’t do anything, and will require a manual “abuse report” to be filed in the normal way), it will deter people getting free accounts to continue griefing, since their behaviour if continued will swiftly get their new account to reduced functionality too, and I commend this procedure to the House!
December 8th, 2006 at 10:42 AM
Paying L$ to make an Abuse Report now thats a great idea!!!!! make it along the lines as 500$L and no return on the money they just spent. then your flow of phony AR`s are history!!!!! either that LL, or continue to waiste your time
December 8th, 2006 at 10:50 AM
Whatever system gets implemented there must be clarity and transparency.
1. If I am accused of abuse, I have he right to know why - what actions of mine caused me to be accused. Furthermore, I should have the right to challenge the claim. After all the last thing we want is AR’s becoming a tool for petty vengeance (”He did/said something I don’t like, so I will AR him”
2. Once “convicted” of abuse, there must be clear punishment, and that punishment should be noted publicly. “Daaneth Kivioq was fined L$100 for inappropriate remarks about Llamas on 08-December-2006 at the Cordova Sandbox.” This will I think require changes to the TOS, because names SHOULD be named at this point.
3. There needs to be some form of appeals process.
4. Torley Linden for SL Supreme Court Justice!
December 8th, 2006 at 10:54 AM
I was a Guide for EQ for a while and I agree with most of what Chris says. A guide type system in SL would work to lessen Linden’s workload reguarding grief complaints, or any complaints for that matter. Just a few words of advice.
Guides have alts that in no way can reveal their main characters. This keeps down on power abuse and also prevents off duty harrassment.
Guides should be trained on how to deal with each type of situation, and after a brief period of watchful education by Linden, be given the tools to resolve said situations without having to bother Linden.
Guides should be required to keep a log of all conversations and submit them to Linden at the end of their shift for random review and to investigate abuse accusations.
Guides should be rewarded with weekly L$ salaries for their work.
In short, the Guide should be an independant troubleshooting claims handler who can work to lighten Linden payloads and speed response times. You could do it all indepth like EQ did with account info available to Guides and the ability to tag accounts for habitual griefers. You could even make the Guides have super hero avatars and super abilities which would be a fun RP for everyone (Who wouldnt want SL Girl to swoop out of the sky and blast a griefer to the griefer dungeon for a preset amount of time?).
Anyway, enough rambling. I’m willing to help Linden if they want my imput to set up an EQ like Guide system. Just email me or speak to me in game.
Nisi Volare
December 8th, 2006 at 10:57 AM
I know… let’s make them go around wearing a shirt with a letter representing the crime they commited…. The Scarlet “G” for Griefer
December 8th, 2006 at 10:58 AM
I agree that whatever is done, it needs to be done carefully. I second everything Daaneth said, because no matter what I do in sl, there will be someone that doesn’t like me for some reason. That’s just the way people are. I would hate someone who doesn’t like me for some stupid petty reason to have to much “abuse reporting” power to use against me.
December 8th, 2006 at 11:00 AM
um, all these ideas seem fine, i think that persons that cant have at least a veryfied account, talk with their guardian, or someone in particular, that can validate the account, however i dont see it nice that it is not unlimited, if paying a fee involves that, because not everyone is free of other fees…i just think that veryfied is good enough
December 8th, 2006 at 11:01 AM
‘Warn’ isn’t a bad idea but even with an appeal I can see that getting abused a LOT. You can warn somebody for something like ‘he pushgunned me’ appeal ‘no i didn’t’ (this sounds like from 2nd grade
) and the only way to tell whos right is for a Linden to go thru the server logs which is a waste of their time. The barrier to entry has to be a bit higher.
Also for the record- when putting down a deposit to file an AR direct to the lindens, I had intended that if it was a legit report and not a waste of time the Resi would get their deposit back. Also LL can either keep the extra deposits or use them to pay the volunteers
I agree that we should give Resi’s tools to deal with their own problems such as ban/mute/etc but I think that any sort of active punishment requries a neutral 3rd party, otherwise it will be abused by griefers.
As for banned Resi’s getting free accounts and coming back- this is a problem. Philip has said LL has ways of associating accounts to people, but these can only be so reliable. If a guy makes another acct on a different computer with a different realname and a different ISP it is very hard to tell them apart.
However most griefers won’t do that- they just make a new account. I think part of the key (and this goes with the main blog post) might be to better associate accounts with each other using whatever means they do. If one acct causes problems and is banned and another associated one (same IP, same computer, whatever) starts causing trouble, it will be judged more harshly and with a higher likelihood of suspension/ban.
Also, if not already available, whatever Linden gets a filtered abuse report should also immediately see or be able to bring up that resi’s abuse report history. That can help establish patterns…
December 8th, 2006 at 11:02 AM
That’s why I suggest an appeal button which can immediately “upgrade” the situation to a livehelp to Linden situation. Naturally someone warned should be told they’d been warned, perhaps even with the line of text the warning resident was asked for. Besides, as I say, there would have to be a threshold - stopping a resident from reporting another resident more than once in a given period would force time for tempers to cool before sanctions got imposed. I’m thinking that one person reporting another would do nothing more than give the reported person one “point” towards a cumulative total, which after a set period would lapse anyway - so in effect, no sanctions, plus you get informed what you were warned for, plus if you keep your nose clean the points vanish after a set period.
December 8th, 2006 at 11:04 AM
All sounds good, no actual suggestions in there though. I’ll wait to hear more. Meanwhile:
“specifically by enabling and encouraging the development of inter-Resident mediation and dispute resolution options…”
Good. I take it that means we can police ourselves and nuke the griefing b*st*rds without fear of reprisal. It’s always been my theory (not yet put to the test) that griefers can get away with murder, but a normal resident, who is much more readily identified, could be AR’ed back when trying to deal with an abuser, and would end up suffering from Linden wrath instead of the original aggressor. Which effectively ties people’s hands.
Personally, I’m sick of tp’ing away from a place or sitting down to wait for an officer or Linden to come and deal with it, because they never do this effectively and frankly I have my own weapons. I hate a society which has to be run by civilians toting firearms, but sadly, that seems to be the way Second Life is going.
December 8th, 2006 at 11:04 AM
At some point you guys are going to have to determine whether being essentially passive, and leaving so much up to the SL population is really practical in the long term. Or maybe more importantly will such a stance add or subtract from the SL experience.
In the beginning I would say that being passive was a good policy. But now that SL has reached a kind of critical mass population wise, it has become like any other society, and requires an elevated level of management to remain healthy and enjoyable.
I know people have mentioned this before, but you could really save yourselves and us users a lot of anguish by simply doing away with the unverified accounts and alts. Yes, you will take a cut to your user base, but you will also be gaining a more genuine and civil society.
December 8th, 2006 at 11:05 AM
There’s a number of problems that would eliminate huge swatches of abuse reports if they could be tackled properly
A big problem I’m seeing right now is pyramid scheme objects littering every parcel that they can be wedged into. I’ve been AR-ing them when I find them, and contact Live help when I find a big batch. I’ve had some Lindens claim they’re against the TOS and can be deleted on sight, and others say they can’t be touched unless they’re on Linden land.
We had this same problem on Usenet, and the only solution that worked was to make them auto-delete on sight. Not only were “make money fast” and similar posts cancelled, but scripts were set up to auto-cancel any message that matched any currently operating pyramid scheme.
Right now, a pass through the inventory and all sims auto-deleting any object with the same creator as the current crop of Pyramid Scheme Objects (D— H—
would eliminate dozens of abuse reports a day. You should be able to take care of them using the same tools you’ve already implemented to eliminate things like the griefornament.
December 8th, 2006 at 11:06 AM
also I fully agree with Daaneth. In the volunteer system this would come after a Linden assigns a punishment. There has to be an appeal channel.
I’m not sure if I agree with naming names, but it would certainly help many things. The problem is that people can just go and make another account to avoid the few days of embarassment (and no i am NOT complaining about the free reg. policy).
December 8th, 2006 at 11:10 AM
One of the problems with an eBay-type system is people who deliberately rate you negatively back when you complain about them, and EBay ratings work for commerce, yes, but I’m not sure about using it to rate individual behaviour …… except I suppose you could, say, have to have so many positive points before being allowed to make purchases or you could ban access if you wanted to, to people with fewer than x number of points??
Free accounts are good to get people in, but perhaps there should be some limit on their usage, say, x months, or otherwise in terms of what you can do.
Re mediation to deal with disputes, I contacted Linden Lab after Copybot concerning looking at a better IP dispute resolution system, and am still awaiting a response - there is a precedent in how ICANN deal with domain name cybersquatting. (We are IP lawyers and have been talking about this to another firm here.)
December 8th, 2006 at 11:13 AM
Fledhyris Proudhon: I don’t see weapons as a solution to griefing. There literally nothing you can do to an avatar that can do more than inconvenience the player for half a minute or so. Griefers operate by inconveniencing the same static targets over and over, but they themselves can change their location and identity, and they’re there to cause chaos so it doesn’t bother them to sit on a prim in a cloud of “tubgirl” particles while you whack at them over and over again. Even if you razor them you’ll just knock them away, and they’ll be back before you finish cleaning up from their first attack.
The only solution to griefing is to make sanctions from Linden Labs stick (which means eliminating unverified accounts), or to give EVERYONE the same levels of privacy as a private estate with something like “parcel basements” or a “phantom zone”.
December 8th, 2006 at 11:13 AM
I’d like to kick off the new abuse system with a report of my own: Against Linden Labs for banning Prokofy Neva from the blog.
It has now come to the point where Linden Labs, in absence of actual answers to resident’s questions, will simply ban them. In other words, don’t eliminate the problem, eliminate the people who complain about it the most. This is disgraceful behavior, and a complete abuse of power.
In fact, your own blog guidelines/rules do not make a provision for banning members based on their comments. Straight from the guidelines page: “Comments will be edited or deleted if they meet the following definitions of flaming, trolling, or personal attacks…” Nowhere on that page does it say that someone will be banned from the blog, only that comments will be edited or deleted.
Linden Labs gives us fewer channels for communication at a time of massive change. Town Halls are laughable due to the number of residents, the forums get paired down, and now blog comments can get you banned. Certainly you can see where Prokofy’s frustration originates from. You have opened up Second Life to a whole new wave of jack-assery by not implementing the most rudimentary means of verification, and when someone dares stand up and point out in a dissenting voice how your poor decisions are causing this world to be ripped apart at it’s seams, you simply remove them from the equation. How convenient for you.
The fact is, you NEED residents like Prokofy to be actively participating in EVERY discussion channel you have. Residents like Prokofy will save you from yourselves, Lindens, because regardless of what you think of his opinions, Prokofy Neva genuinely cares about Second Life. Without more residents like Prokofy, this world will be left to the alts and griefers, and what a shame that will be.
December 8th, 2006 at 11:19 AM
I wish to add my voice STRONGLY to landlside opinion of getting rid of unverified (Nopey) accounts. In the six weeks I have been in SL, the population has doubled from 0.9 to 1.8 million. In six short weeks I have seen the character of SL degenerate as the Nopeys run around blasting everything in sight. I have twice been solicited by beggars asking for money, twice shot at and twice had a cage dumped on my head. All that BEFORE I restricted my land. I watch helplessly as my absent neighbor’s place is slowly trashed by Nopeys with nothing better to do.
Now, against the spirit of SL, I have banned Nopeys from all my land (30km2), effectively blocking off half a sim. Soon, many residents will do the same and then what use is a Nopey account?
Please, please, please, get rid of the unverified accounts before SL turns into a slum.
December 8th, 2006 at 11:19 AM
A big sign in the welcome areas saying “You are on a COMPUTER network - EVERYTHING you do and say is logged somewhere for at least some time. DUH!!” might help ;-P
I have encountered a few griefers, all of whom are flabbergasted to learn that ‘bumps and pushes’ are logged - both by the Grid itself and by various user-created anti-griefing tools. %-?
December 8th, 2006 at 11:20 AM
I see many valuable points here however I am at this moment a “no payment info on file” resident of SL. I do not intend to stay that way and I am not giving grief to anyone. I can see where yes, many of the free accounts would run around like idiots since they are trying this for the first time, I tried to pole dance, fly others planes and drive cars my first day because it was there, not out of disrespect or to cause trouble. I hope you do not stop the free accounts, at this time, I just switched jobs and money is very tight, however that will change and I will pay ( I just love to shop)!
I have seen full accounts in arguements and yes they do settle with conversation mostly from what I have seen. Maybe there is more fear of loss in that capacity.
I am leary of the point/warning system based on the fact that these so called people will be adding points to innocent people they are harrassing. It will become their tool as well.
I would volunteer as a Mentor in an area, as long as i can still shop or dance! I am sure others would as well. Maybe that is the best answer. Volunteers?
Someone just being there to watch and possibly log interactions would be best.
Just my opinion, and if you do go to pay only…. PLEASE save my dresses!!
Thanks
December 8th, 2006 at 11:21 AM
May I suggest using people with RL expereince in Criminal Justice and Law to be a Linden Lab official mediators. I have a background in Criminal Justice and love to resolve problems diplomatically.
December 8th, 2006 at 11:21 AM
Possibly limit unverified (not “free”, just unnacountable anonymous) accounts to a “demo area”. Like, say, after a certain date (Mar 1?) unverified accounts can only leave the “demo islands” if they’re invited (teleport offer from a landowner or an officer of a landowning group, or an estate manager) by someone who’s prepared to take responsibility for them - they’d lose the ability to offer if they’re abusing it) or if they’re going to a private estate that explicitly allows them (as I’m sure the corporate advertising sims will want to).
Existing accounts can be grandfathered in, but eventually it’ll get to the point where losing a “griefer alt” will mean something.
December 8th, 2006 at 11:21 AM
100% of all the griefers, out of control behavior, kids playing i adult area who do very abusive language or manners are those here under the free accounts and I can see that isnt going to change or it would have already.
How about even if they do get a free account they still have to have a credit card or something like that I am sure a few would get their mums and dads credit card out but the vast majority cant or wont
There is so many reasons that I can point out as many others have that would be resolved and a better and much more fun place to be again if you would do something about it.
That is the main complaint almost 100% of the time from other residence and a major topic of conversation all the time in SL amoung everyone. If you can resolve that complaint you will have far less problems and complaints saving you tons of time and making it a more enjoyable place for all of us.
It use to be so fun and peaceful and sure a few here and there but was so enjoyable now when i venture around SL many locations i see or hear abusive language or actions going on by I assume kids sneaking in SL and making it much less fun for us adults who want it have it as a nicer place than RL. The abusive behavor by many are worse than RL day to day living.
Secondlife should be a place where we once enjoyed the thought it if being a place we would be if we had a second life utopia of sorts of our own creation.
Please make even the free accounts give some form of credit card, paypal etc type of varificatoin
I beg
December 8th, 2006 at 11:23 AM
@Argent
You’re right, of course, but as I understood this post to read, Lindens are looking at more ways for US to police the griefers, not them. I do actually have a system that can seriously inconvenience even a seated griefer, and track them across the sim, and continue to harass them eye-for-eye. It’s not ideal, no - I am a peaceful resident and I don’t want to have to get into griefing battles - but sitting and turning the other cheek doesn’t seem to do any good either. What we really need is an active patrolling police force, like any civilised society IRL.
@Boss Melnitz
OMG are you serious? LL did you really ban Prokofy? I don’t read all comments, of course, but I’ve never known him to post against the rules, however scathing he may be of your policies. Heck, *I’m* scathing of your policies. So if that’s true, and that’s the only reason you had for banning him, then you may as well ban me too. After all, I can’t go inworld anymore, the system is so screwed up, so if you ban me from the blog, I won’t be able to interact with SL at all - and then you’ll be *stealing my money* by taking my account sub for a non-existant service, and then maybe I could actually entertain some kind of legal action. Yes, I really am that P’ed off right now. I honestly don’t think I care anymore and I wish I’d joined WoW with my husband instead of this - only now I’ve got a *lot* of friends here who I’d miss if I left.
December 8th, 2006 at 11:27 AM
I want to say I agree with most of the folks who have posted in that a Warn button, and appeals process, etc should be included.
The intent of my first post was that since people with warnings (or outright bans) can create a new account and come right back at a moment’s notice - that the only way to REALLY solve the AR problem would have to include a system of verification. And once a person/account is verified (in whatever manner LL decides to do it), then not only does it go a long way in solving the AR issues, but also a multitude of others.
In my opinion, “re-accounting” (to make up a term), is either the cause of many of the issues of late, or serves to bring those issues to light.
December 8th, 2006 at 11:30 AM
Before anybody else suggesting banning the noobs account, please do an economic impact study on SL. I am not a paying resident, but I have probably spend close to 15000L in about a month through SLEXCHANGE and I am also a merchant there. Don’t do something that might harm the economy.
A RL situation would be to deport all illegal immigrants in the country. Some of these people offer valuable services and are good citizens. Please do not label us as a whole. We are a part of SL and nobody is not going to make us return to the RL (well not unless we have to physically eat and poop).
December 8th, 2006 at 11:34 AM
Fledyhris… correct, Prokofy has had “blog posting privileges” revoked - it can be read about on some third party forums which I shall not link for fear of being hit myself.
I say “no” to negative rating, especially with free unverified accounts. Having seen many people suffer “the black glove” on Sims Online as a griefer tool, the last thing that many good upstanding innocent residents need is a heap of negative ratings to make them look like they actually are a bad egg.
We do not need “player run justice”, unless specifically restricted to self-governing sims, and even then any action must only be limited to when a user is within those particular sims. What we need is a fair, effective justice system maintained and overseen by Linden Lab.
In real life, when sentences are handed out, they ‘expire’ after a certain time. Apart from the most serious of crimes (intentional grid crashing, account hijacking, theft etc) all minor infractions should be wiped after a set time, ie 6 weeks. This would also keep the database smaller and more manageable.
But then again, so would stopping the unabated flow of freeloaders putting more and more strain on our systems. It’s a pity that the most obvious solution is often the last to be considered.
Broccoli
December 8th, 2006 at 11:34 AM
As much as I hate to say this… I think freebie accounts should be stopped or at least restricted. I believe that most griefers are folks on freebie accounts who, for the most part, are a bunch of RL punk kids just looking to take their punkishness out on others.
I had to restrict the land I own because of punks. At the rate things are going I’m sure the land owners have have not done so already will do the same.
$9.00 a month is not asking a lot considering how great SL is when it’s working and will go a long way to cutting back on griefers if made manditory.
December 8th, 2006 at 11:34 AM
the problem with requiring verification is that many people have none to give. Right now the ‘verification’ you can give is a standard visa/mastercard/amex card which gets authenticated but not charged, and you get free 250L for your trouble. (I did this when I signed up and I found that 250L quite useful…
The problem is when you go to europe, or asia, or wherever else the people DON’T HAVE visa/mc/amex so they are unable to verify.
Plus which you can always get one of those amex gift card things with relative anonymity and that will nicely bypass the ID check.
So by removing the ID check requirement you open up SL to a whole new range of users. That’s part of why the population has skyrocketed so quickly. As I recall, Philip mentioned in the last TH that since they removed the requirement they were getting many many more european users than ever before.
December 8th, 2006 at 11:36 AM
I have sent one AR in my Second (albeit short) Lifetime. I was caged and shot in Reuters by a bunch of unverifieds. I now have banned all unverifieds from our land…despite not wanting anyone to endure those horrible ban lines.
Come to think of it, if you can make those damn ban lines invisible, SL might look a little better
even if you still get booted out of your airplane as you try to fly over.
December 8th, 2006 at 11:37 AM
Sakura Hilra Says: “A RL situation would be to deport all illegal immigrants in the country. Some of these people offer valuable services and are good citizens. Please do not label us as a whole.”
Actually, regardless of what they may contribute - they are illegal, and as such still have no place in that country. Just because an illegal immigrant might be a doctor, or a teacher, or some other “upstanding member of the community”, does not override the fact that the laws mean they should not be there.
Broccoli
December 8th, 2006 at 11:37 AM
@ Chris - how do they know that any of the new crop of unverifieds are from anywhere if they’re not, you know, verified?
December 8th, 2006 at 11:43 AM
presumably with IP geolocation. They look at the IP address the SL client is connecting from and look it up. This will tell you about where the ISP is located, within 1-3 cities usually.
Either that or they just look @ the registration data, which of course can be faked. I’d say its safe to assume that most people sign up honestly…
December 8th, 2006 at 11:43 AM
“neighborly property line disputes”
thanks for confirming why it was a good idea to not hold too much mainland property
There’s no dispute about where property lines are - all you have to do is toggle the property lines switch in the software and there you are - you see them and there’s no confusion about their existence at all - for anyone. If someone builds over it onto an adjacent property, its pretty clear that its being violated.
I suspect this is really a badly worded sentence though - at least i hope it is. If you mean building to the property line, having a tall build to annoy neighbors, spinny signs visible over a whole sim, shouting objects, etc - well yeah, ok. But that’s not what’s written. I’ve taken the law into my own hands in such cases before. But after a while, having to constantly patrol for when someone is griefbuilding near my mainland parcels got to be a huge drag - hence why I sold most of my mainland and moved my business and pleasure to a private island rental - where such covenants are strictly enforced, making a far more pleasant business and recreational environment. And that can only be done when a sim is privately administrated.
Boy, I was a libertarian and a defender of private property before entering this world, SL has confirmed my convictions in spades by watching it play out in practice.
I think in a way I can be grateful… there’s probably someone’s economic thesis lurking in these issues as well. 
December 8th, 2006 at 11:43 AM
Well the thing that scares me about LL’s system is that The reports can be filed on false pretenses, For example… On the game “Runescape” people have gotten others banned just by filiing a lot of false reports, they arent looked into properley. If i were LL i would charge a fee (Like the others said) Then once the report is filed i would have a system that records all chat in IM’s and In world. Then i also would have the hits and bumps logged into a file. Then either a Linden lab employee or a voulenteer group can Decide weather the abuse report was filed on the right terms. And if it isnt they can dismiss the issue.
If the situation is found that the person was abusing or griefing the person that was the abuser will have the case put on his my acocunt profile. Then once he gets so many he gets suspened or banned (Like runescape) The person can also try to ammend the report and thats when a LL employee can decide and make it all final….
This system might work good for what LL needs, If the reports were reviewed properly and false ones couldnt go against innocent people then all might work out allfright?
If LL says theyres over 2000 reports a day and not even 1% of the peopole voulenteerd a hour it might help overall..
December 8th, 2006 at 11:48 AM
I am deeply concerned about your remarks about property lines. As said above, some people do indeed put their prims over the line just enough to where you cannot remove them with-out Linden Intervention.
What are we suppose to do… Take them to a real court and sue???
December 8th, 2006 at 11:49 AM
The problem with requiring verification is that LL has said that they’re not going to do it. Posting reasons why unverifieds should be eliminated doesn’t really matter that much - LL understands the problems they cause and they’re not getting rid of them. Let’s please not turn this blog entry into yet another discussion on unverifieds.
Daniel, there will be a bunch of people - bad people - are going to try to abuse *any* plan you come up with to manage ARs. It’d be great if you could post more details on your plans before putting them into practice and encourage residents to try and poke holes in it.
December 8th, 2006 at 11:50 AM
I used to play an online game called RuneScape,way before i found SL,They also had Free and Paid accounts.I also think thye had a very good way of keeping the two seperate at times.
There was a Free area on the grid which allowed paid payers entry to keep up the economy as far as trading and selling of items,but the free players were confined to this area of play.Once a player changed their payment status,they were allowed to cross this barrier.
Maybe something similar can be applied here,in SL?
I agree most griefing is done by players with no payment history,so why not keep them from being able to grief anyone but themselves?
Maybe even make a whole new server for non paying players,this would give the newer people a chance to see what SL is like,while aleviating all th headaches and trouble the griefing causes players who actually pay to play.
Now there is only one problem i see with my idea, and thats having a whole server of griefers just wrecking havoc on all the other legit players who are trying out SL seriously for the first time,and may cause them to turn away from SL entirely.
Perhaps there can be a happy medium somewhre in these ideas tht can work for SL,without causing them extra pains.I personally tend to lean towards creating a few sims for free players to use until becoming a paid account and having no access to paid player sims until then.But allowing Paid players to set up shops on the free sims or etter yet have LL shops created,for the free players to purchase items.
December 8th, 2006 at 11:51 AM
lol…. LL isnt abuse reports the least of your worries? Lets see my buisness is still loosing money because search is STILL down. I still cant rez properly half the time, Tping? well i have learned to not hold my breath while waiting for it to maybe possibly think about going through. LOL.
I have 2 accounts here, one is paid, the other verified. It took 2 mins to verify, 3 mins to pay. I own land, in turn land fees. I pay my share. And you know what? Im just about done paying. I was shopping lastnight, and a little punk comes in harrassing me and my friend, i didnt bother with a abuse report, it doesnt do any good. And guess what? No payment info on file. Gee imagine that!
Now i mean no offence to the non verified users who are no problem, and i mean to not insult you. But if anyone enjoys second life enough, there are ways to become verified. Most dont simply because they dont have too. Most in turn have the freedom to create 100s of alts a day.. i know it happens.
2 great things can come from having to verify who you are.
1. The griefing would go down, hense so would your precious abuse reports you are stressing over.
2. amount of folks on grid would go down,, most know very well how to sign on atleast 2 alts at once.
Think about LL…. really what do you have to loose? not money. THEY DONT PAY LOL
Again i mean no offence, im just annoyed like the rest of us.
December 8th, 2006 at 11:52 AM
I have to admit, while there was a learning curve, My past life (call it 1.5) in FuncOM’s world of AO, had a reather detailed classification system for reports. It left more of a burden on the player, but also made the sorting and ordering of such MUCH easier. It was so detailed that even “cheating” by picking a category you thought would move you to the top of the list, would put you back at the back of the queue. I won’t even guess at how many staff they had, but I know it made things for the CSC a lot easier. It refernced the forums too, but never turned any report away with a “Sorry, go to the forums.” Just a thought, but from a player perspective (and having worked as a CS manager), I LIKED it.
December 8th, 2006 at 11:54 AM
@Gillian Waldman
OOOH yes! Make the ban lines invisible to everyone but those who are banned. Then we can all stick up fences against the unverified accounts and continue to enjoy SL, both the premium members AND the verified free account users alike.
I’m truly sorry to those who wish to, but find it difficult to verify their status. I know this is an unfair restriction. But presently, I suspect there are more unverified annoyances than unverified upright citizens.
I’d love to know how things stand on the teen grid. I assume it’s even harder to verify a teen account, so what’s the griefing situation like there? I’m not one of those people who believe that all griefers are teenagers. I’ve met plenty of disaffected adults and the RL prison services would back me up on that
December 8th, 2006 at 11:56 AM
I’m FOR: Paying L$50 to AR. Refundable only if the AR is both accurately filed AND something LL can do something about.
I’m FOR: Better easement violation tools. if any part of that object is over my land, I want the right to return it… or at least… the ability to push it back off my land.
I’m FOR: unVERified accounts. I think the open doors bring many good people into our world.
I’m FOR: spelling ‘verified’ correctly, and fining everyone who spells it with an ‘a’ L$1 automatically.
I’m FOR: Having a a READ-ONLY version of “grant rights”, so that residents can empower other residents to HELP them … without granting them the ability to alter/damage/destroy property.
I’m FOR: stating things postiively.
December 8th, 2006 at 11:56 AM
Having read all the above suggestions it seems that a lot of abusers have non-payment accounts. I can understand this as anyone deliberately setting out to abuse others wont want to pay for the privelage.
Therefore why not change the gameplay rules for non-payers, for example weapons cannot be used unless you are a payed up member. Or even non-pay accounts can only spend a limited time logged in during each 24hr period, once the preset time expires they are automatically logged out. Anyone that is serious about SL will be willing to pay in order to spend longer in-grid, anyone that is only serious about causing abuse wont want to pay every time they get banned
December 8th, 2006 at 11:57 AM
@ Chris
“I’d say its safe to assume that most people sign up honestly…”
Really? I wouldn’t.
December 8th, 2006 at 11:57 AM
@Meade Paravane:
‘The problem with requiring verification is that LL has said that they’re not going to do it.’
Lindens also said they won’t be selling L$’s.
Then they said they won’t be selling more than a few (10 000 USD worth).
Now they’re selling L$’s about 170 000 USD/month worth.
So go, figure. Just because Lindens promise something, doesn’t mean they’ll hold up to it.
December 8th, 2006 at 12:00 PM
This is on topic as far as most of these replies are about it. Free accounts are good. Lindens give the people with paid account to stop your problems with free accounts. Only go to places that don’t allow them. Really simple. If you want to avoid the majority of crime you don’t walk down dark alley’s or stay in seedy motels. No it won’t stop it all but it will stop most of it just as in the real world policing can’t stop everything some of it is personal responsibility.
Yes i have a paid account, but I was unverified for awhile before I joined so I think that there is not a problem with unpaid accounts. It isn’t a Linden problem all of the land owners could block them if they wanted, but most big businesses know that unpaid doesn’t always equal poor or griefer. Even if it that is the case some of the time.
December 8th, 2006 at 12:00 PM
I don’t think 2000 abuse reports/day (out of LL-touted 2 million people) is much. It’s not unexpected, either.
LL governing Second Life is ‘part of the package’, there is no other power (police, judicial, etc). More players should mean the income also scales with expenses, so it shouldn’t be hard to pay more people to process abuse reports.
On top of that, a deposit idea of L$ 300 or so sounds good. If the abuse is fake, don’t refund the deposit.
December 8th, 2006 at 12:03 PM
Lindens you once monitored the welcome areas. What happened? Were you chased off by the constant flow of griefers in unverified accounts? Please come back! The Linden areas should either be set up to accept crude behavior and speech or someone should be posted there to keep order. Period.
As far as property lines go it IS Linden responsibility to help when situations between neighbors occur-you may need to rethink how the property line set up is structured.
STOP THE FREE ACCOUNTS PLEASE!!
‘Nuff said thank you…….
December 8th, 2006 at 12:03 PM
Some people over react. Giving the new light of another day to an issue can make an enormous difference to anyone’s perception of a problem. Another point I would make is that it is very difficult if not impossible to bar an individual from an on-line community unless you take extreme measures involving the Police or relevant legal authorities, and even that does not always work.
Respect other peoples views even if you don’t agree with them is my own motto, (I try to keep to it) and most important of all “Don’t Feed The Troll”
I think the only time I would get aggravated is financial fraud or sexual aggression and on these points I think Linden Labs need to take a very proactive role.
Just my own views
Regards
John
December 8th, 2006 at 12:04 PM
best idea ever is to just get rid of all push type weapons along with cages. If people want to fight come up with a combat system alot like the goreans use with the percent of health above your head and weapons that dont push they just do damage to the health meter.. I mean really whats the point in shooting someon and orbiting them doesnt make up for a good fight.
December 8th, 2006 at 12:04 PM
@AMD64
Nobody is talking about unpaid accounts, hon. We’re talking about *unverifieds*. There is a huge difference, even though I do acknowledge, there are some folks - particularly those without a regular income or willing friends/relatives - who can’t manage to get verified.
So I think some kind of minimal verification system - confirmed email and postal address to back up IP maybe - would be useful.
December 8th, 2006 at 12:05 PM
I believe that have some user intervention or ‘user government’ over some disputes may be a very good thing. I also used to agree with many others about the non-verified thing, that is until I found a friend who isn’t verified, now is it fair to her to be kicked out of places just because of the wrongs of others?
Some say that ‘user government’ is horrible. But if these people ended up having a more direct line to the Lindens and could be used as an agent just to ‘verify’ what is happening or in some cases put a quick end to a griefer who could really just be doing a ‘dumb’ newbie thing and set them right, it could help out alot.
Why knock something before its even tried.
December 8th, 2006 at 12:07 PM
And can I just say this to all you idiots suggesting a deposit with abuse reports:
GET REAL.
People can’t afford that. Most of the time I don’t have more than $10 in my wallet, as I spend as soon as I get my money, and I don’t get much of that.
What you are suggesting is that the griefers have free reign to terrorise the population, except the rich island owners. Well thanks a bunch.
I don’t pay to make calls to the police in my country, do you?
December 8th, 2006 at 12:08 PM
And can I just say this to all of you suggesting a deposit with abuse reports:
GET REAL.
People can’t afford that. Most of the time I don’t have more than $10 in my wallet, as I spend as soon as I get my money, and I don’t get much of that.
What you are suggesting is that the griefers have free reign to terrorise the population, except the rich island owners. Well thanks a bunch.
I don’t pay to make calls to the police in my country, do you?
December 8th, 2006 at 12:10 PM
One feature I’ve not seen requested here yet is a rolling log of nearby avs. On the occasions when I’ve had to whip my cager out, in all the excitement I can seldom remember the name of the cartoon-drawn little chimps who are causing the trouble. Many know not to speak, so they don’t appear in chat histories; a proximity history in the client would be much more helpful.
I vote for the ebay feedback system. When people are jerking your chain and leaving negative feedback, they invariably show their hand with poor written english or juvenile responses to rational questions.
December 8th, 2006 at 12:10 PM