Griefers-+what+to+do


 * If you are being attacked:**
 * First choice: Teleport out or log off. If you have set a home location in another region, type: Ctrl+Shift+H (for PC), Cmd+Shift+H (for Mac)
 * If you don't want to teleport away or log off, then:
 * If you are being moved (by a cage gun or some other form of pushing), sit on something.
 * If you are being verbally harassed, mute the person. Right-click on their avatar and select Block (Viewer 2) or Mute (most other viewers). If it's too hard to right-click on the avatar: In Viewer 2 open the People section of the sidebar and go to Nearby. Right-click on the person's name and select Block/Unblock; In other viewers click on Mute List under the Edit menu and add the person's name to the list.
 * If the griefer has an object that emits particles (and the particles are the problem), tell the SL client to stop displaying particles by typing Ctrl+Shift+Alt+= (PC), Cmd+Shift+Opt+= (Mac)


 * Once you are in a safe location, contact one of the region's estate managers to have the person banned. This also applies if someone is violating the sim rules and will not stop. Here is the list of Estate Managers. If no estate manager is available for the region, send an email to** community@nonprofitcommons.org **containing the date, the name of the person, and a description of his behavior.**

“If one thing can be said about griefers, it is that they have always been with us, ever since someone with poor social skills realized they could act out and get all the attention they wanted without fear of getting punched in the nose.” - April Heaney, Omega Concern, 02/12/07

Griefer: n. 1. A participant in a game or activity who derives enjoyment primarily from making that activity less enjoyable for the other participants. 2. Behaviors that violate the Second Life Community Standards ([|http://secondlife.com/corporate/cs.php).]
 * Definition:**

Forms that Griefing Takes Seven Deadly Sins of Second Life Defenses Against Griefing Client Interface Tools Making Second Life Rules Work For You Scripted Defenses Transcript from Griefers 101 Meeting
 * Contents**

1) Most common. Residents who through ignorance or otherwise use any place to create objects as if they had the right to use other people’s space as their own private sandbox. Most often this is more a form of littering or graffiti than a deliberate attempt to cause damage or inconvenience. This also includes irresponsible use of animations or scripts that unnecessarily cause a degradation in the performance of a sim. 2) Most annoying. Wherein residents deliberately disregard the Terms of Service and Community Standards to play in Second Life according to their own rules. This includes the use of weapons in non-combat areas, sexual activity/exposure in PG areas, contravention of land covenants, and other actions that deprive other residents of their basic rights and materials. These actions also include general social harassment, sexual or otherwise. 3) Most dangerous. Where and aggrieved, or perceptively aggrieved individual or party creates alternate avatars (alts) with the expressed desire to use weapons or tactics in revenge attacks against a perceived aggressor. Often resulting from having the TOS, Community Standards, or a private covenant enforced against them at an earlier point. These individuals usually appear as one to three day-old avatars with weapons, transport, equipage, and knowledge that is arguably more advanced than many normal experienced residents. These individuals typically pinpoint a party, individual, business, area, or sim and proceed to either directly or indirectly attack their target. - Extracted from online interviews with River Ely and Femina Matahari, 02/12/07
 * Forms that griefing takes:**

The Seven Deadly Sins of Second Life… SLOTH: Unwelcomed Loitering and Littering WRATH: Unprovoked assault (verbal) and/or battery (physical) GREED: Selling freebies, begging/demanding L$, land swooping GLUTTONY: deliberately lagging folks by hogging resources with scripts, excessive prims, bling/particle spam, many physical objects, too many light sources, enormous textures, ... ENVY: annoying and inappropriate "Look at me!" stunts that interrupt events, parties, conversations or just people just trying to do their own thing PRIDE: drama factories, like self-centered types that threaten a storm of community retaliation if they don't get apologies for whatever imagined slight they were offended by. LUST: foisting mature objects, textures or animations on uninterested people - Jopsy Pendragon 10/16/06
 * An alternate description of the forms of griefing:**

Land tools- The best tools for defense against griefers are in the land tools. Options there include: 1) Turning off building/rezzing of objects for non-group avatars. This keeps people from rezzing, shooting, or moving things inside or into a parcel of land. This stops most weapons from functioning. However it may not be an option for many areas as people often have perfectly legitimate reasons for wanting to rez objects. A lesser version of this is setting autoreturn, this will prevent litter and graffiti but not weaponry. 2) Restrict pushes. This prevents pushing attacks, which include so-called orbiting or smashing attacks. There are attacks which will push in no-push zones but these require the rezzing of an object to make it work, thus see #1. 3) Turn off scripts. This prevents foreign scripts from running on property. However, this method does not endear one to visitors who will usually be running scripts for perfectly innocent reasons. 4) The best method of all is to have people available who have the ability to eject and ban avatars via the land tools. Current group setups allow avatars to be given this ability without being given full control over land. Simply quietly eject the troublemaker. Remember, a griefer is out to create a disturbance and get a reaction, swiftly and silently ejecting and banning them deprives them of this. 5) As an extension of #3, group members can be given the ability to return objects to their owners. This allows a trusted “litter patrol” to remove unwanted items from an area. Particularly important is the removal of unwanted scripted devices which annoy visitors and degrade sim operations. 6) Don’t be a target. Some public locations choose to “protect” themselves through the use of obviously armed security staff. This attracts griefers because they know they will get the attention they seek.
 * Defenses against griefing:**

Personal defense from a number of forms of griefing can be had through the individual user’s client software. 1) Simply simply muting the griefer can prevent most forms of social attack and verbal harassment. Simply go to the history function (via the button or ctrl+h) and use the drop down menu to choose which speaker to mute. 2) One common kind of griefing is the use of massive particle effects to obscure vision and cause client lag. This can be stopped by pressing ctrl+shift+alt+= to turn off the view of particle effects (the same combination can reactivate particle effects when trouble has passed). 3) A rare but annoying form of griefing is through notecard or texture spam. Going into busy mode can prevent this until the situation is resolved. By activating chat history while in this state you can still see what is said around you still speak to others. The only downside is that instant messages are no longer received while in this state.
 * Client interface tools:**

Griefers often take advantage of Second Life’s rules to do their dirty work, fortunately we can also take advantage of those same ruless to foil many attacks. 1) Sit down. When an avatar is sitting they cannot be pushed or moved unless the object they are sitting on is moved via editing or through having physics enabled. As long as what you are sitting on belongs to you or your group these should not be a problem. Thus most attacks can be foiled by simply rezzing a chair or a single prim and sitting down on it until the problem goes away. 2) Really, sit down. If you are caged or otherwise restrained you can often get out of it by sitting down on something. 3) Teleport away. Either using a landmark or ctrl+shift+h to teleport away will take you out of reach of the griefer. There are very few circumstances where this will not work. Just leave. 4) Log out. If nothing else works there is a sure fire way to escape. Just log off of second life. Make a cup of tea. Log back on when everything is calm again.
 * Making Second Life rules work for you:**

A popular line of defense among experienced residents is the use of scripted devices as a defense against griefing attacks. There are, however, some things to keep in mind with these. 1) Many of the functions of scripted defenses are offensive in nature and can and will be interpreted as griefing if used against unwilling parties. 2) Passive defenses such as shields, blockers, interceptors, non-physical modes, and suchlike prevent moving objects for contacting an avatar (with varying levels of success) and thus prevent a large number of griefing forms from functioning. This can be especially useful in those areas where the public is allowed to rez objects. 3) Scripted defenses often incorporate utilities, which are useful in everyday Second Life. We recommend that if you are seeking to purchase one of these devices you do it with everyday functions in mind first, and griefing defenses second.
 * Scripted defenses:**

Defense in short- 1) Sit in a chair (Objects with sit target scripts are easiest to sit on, even from a distance). 2) Disable particles (ctrl+shift+alt+=). 3) Contact the proper authorities. 4) Go into busy mode (world tab, then ‘set busy’). 5) Pull up history (control-H) and you can still see chat around you, but you cannot be spammed with notes or textures. 6) If necessary, teleport away (landmark or ctrl+shift+h) 7) If the situation is intolerable, log out.

- Extracted from online interview with April Heaney, 02/12/07.

[10:02] Hypatia Dejavu: Nice to see you all here today. [10:03] Hypatia Dejavu: Griefers are a sad fact of second life. [10:03] Hypatia Dejavu: But they are hardly a new fact of life online. [10:03] Hypatia Dejavu: They've been with us ever since usenet. [10:03] Hypatia Dejavu: Where they were called trolls, flamers, and a host of other names. [10:04] You decline Nonprofit Commons, Plush Nonprofit Commons (128, 178, 26) from A group member named Glitteractica Cookie. [10:04] Hypatia Dejavu: To make a long story short, they are simply people who derive their entertainment [10:04] Hypatia Dejavu: in such a manner that takes away materially from the enjoyment of others in the same activity. [10:05] Hypatia Dejavu: Their motivations vary. [10:05] Hypatia Dejavu: Often they are simple atention seekers who want others to see them [10:06] Hypatia Dejavu: and have discovered it's easy to get negative attention [10:06] Hypatia Dejavu: as no-one in second life can punch them in the nose. [10:06] Hypatia Dejavu: Other motivations can include revenge for real or percieved slights [10:06] Hypatia Dejavu: Or occassionally outright sadism. [10:07] Hypatia Dejavu: There are three major forms of griefing that one sees in second life. [10:07] Hypatia Dejavu: The first is the most common. [10:07] Hypatia Dejavu: We often refer to it as littering. [10:08] Hypatia Dejavu: This is the rezzing and leaving of objects in a sim [10:08] Hypatia Dejavu: in a way that makes the area less attractive and/or usable [10:09] Hypatia Dejavu: A subgenre of this is using scripts or particle effects in such a way as to degrade the performance of a sim or someone's client without good reason. [10:09] Hypatia Dejavu: There's no real way to combat littering for the common avatar, except not to do it. [10:10] Hypatia Dejavu: Or if the mess is really bad to contact the owner of the plot or sim so that they can clean it up. [10:10] You: is there an easy way to remember how to deal with an attack when it starts [10:10] Kali Idziak: shouldn't a sim simply have an auto return to deal with such issues? [10:10] Hypatia Dejavu: For land owners you can combat this by setting autoreturn or preventing rezzing. [10:11] You: we have auto rtn in this ampitheater [10:11] Hypatia Dejavu: This area is using that method. [10:11] You: but we still got attcked [10:11] Hypatia Dejavu: You can still get attacked. This simply reduces the effect. [10:11] Hypatia Dejavu: PArticle effects are a common attack form, and a simple one. [10:12] Hypatia Dejavu: There's a way to turn that off. [10:12] Hypatia Dejavu: press ctrl+alt+shift+= [10:12] Hypatia Dejavu: and your client will stop rendering particles until you hit it again [10:13] Hypatia Dejavu: and it can overwhealm a client and cause slowdowns [10:14] Hypatia Dejavu: So the next form of griefing is the most annoying [10:14] Hypatia Dejavu: This is behavioral issues [10:14] Hypatia Dejavu: Where people decide that they can operate in second life under their own special rules [10:14] Hypatia Dejavu: this involves extreme drama [10:14] Hypatia Dejavu: inappropriate dress [10:15] Hypatia Dejavu: pretenting to be an authority figure [10:15] Hypatia Dejavu: public sex in inappropriate areas [10:15] You: and ? [10:15] Hypatia Dejavu: and generally being an asshole [10:16] Hypatia Dejavu: Except for obscenity in PG areas and pretending to be an authority these are not TOC violations [10:16] Hypatia Dejavu: The only thing you can do is eject and/or ban the offender from the area [10:16] Hypatia Dejavu: Obscenity I recommend taking snapshots of and reporting [10:16] You: and they keep coming back [10:16] Kopilo Hallard: freeze? [10:17] Hypatia Dejavu: fre
 * here are the notes from the 2 griefer 101 classes:**

[9:25] You: thanks jani- next we have our own Master Quatro, of anshe chung studios! [9:25] You: Da Master himself! [9:25] Master Quatro: hello everyone [9:25] Coughran Mayo: MQ! [9:25] Master Quatro: almost didn't make it [9:25] Master Quatro: hehe [9:25] Ronnie Rhode: Hi there :) [9:26] Master Quatro: my main computer won't bring up SL .. I think because of a quick power outage this morning [9:26] Master Quatro: but this one seems to work so let's go with it [9:26] Master Quatro: great to be with all of you again [9:27] Master Quatro: many of you know that I'm also President of Bread & Jams a non-p[profit charity that provides services to the homeless in Cambridge MA [9:27] Master Quatro: so we are all in the same arena [9:27] Master Quatro: I volunteer all my time [9:27] Master Quatro: ok griefing [9:27] Master Quatro: fortunately it's not been as bad lately as a few months ago [9:28] Master Quatro: I'll start with some background [9:28] Master Quatro: About 15 months ago Linden Lab decided to allow free accounts without any information other then an Email address to be registered in Second Life. [9:28] Master Quatro: Before this time people had to provide credit card or other evidence of ID before being allowed into SL. [9:29] Master Quatro: That decision allowed the user base in SL to rise dramatically. This was the intended outcome. [9:29] Master Quatro: Unfortunately with the large influx also came the **griefers**. People could now registered hundreds of accounts to hundreds of Email address for one individual. [9:29] Master Quatro: Thus griefing became widespread and whole organizations are devoted to attack various groups in SL according to race, religion or sexual preference and many other more random attacks. [9:30] Master Quatro: Linden Lab has provided little assistance or guidelines on how to deal with **griefers**. They simply tell you to file an abuse report. [9:30] Coughran Mayo: just like RL [9:30] Master Quatro: guidelines [9:30] _: jacmacaire Humby: Hello everyone.. I am glad to see you all.. [9:30] Master Quatro: Unfortunately by the time you file an AR most of the damage has been done and a large cleanup ensues. Linden Lab has the power to return one avatar's objects and delete the avatar from the system, ban it. [9:30] You: yes, they are not the most helpful people [9:30] Master Quatro: So we have been left to ourselves until Linden Lab deems it necessary to respond effectively. [9:31] Master Quatro: Estate managers have the power to return only scripted objects. This is a long process when many sims are attacked at once. [9:31] Master Quatro: The clean up can take hours. One way to limit the damage is to have a good communication system that warns all Dreamland estate managers of an attack. [9:31] You: poor MQ worked off hours during our\r last griefer attack [9:31] Master Quatro: : ) [9:31] Master Quatro: We then proceed to set the affected regions with access to verified accounts only. This limits the damage and makes the clean up a much simpler proposition. [9:32] Master Quatro: Unfortunately accounts that have no info on file cannot access the sims while the attack is deemed to be still in progress. [9:32] Master Quatro: Of course we immediately ban any and all accounts that are associated with the griefing objects and scripts. [9:32] Master Quatro: when we deem the attack to be over we return the regions to full access [9:32] Master Quatro: 95 % of all griefing events are caused by avatars that have been created the same day since they expect to be soon deleted by Linden Lab. [9:33] Master Quatro: So limiting entry to avatars that are more then 1 day old would greatly diminish the attacks. [9:33] Master Quatro: The way to proceed in case of an attack is to 1.Contact one of your Estate Managers here at NPC and certainly one of the Dreamland Angels that can respond adequately. [9:33] Master Quatro: Carcinia Polano, Waster Skronski and myself are EM on every Dreamland sim. Of you contact one of us we will respond immediately. [9:33] Buteo Ruttan: is there a place where tech savvy newbies can learn about griefer defensive tactics? [9:34] Anika Pastorelli: Yes, and do Dreamland Angels help in NPC2 - I heard no. [9:34] Master Quatro: if I were a Linden I would tell you to search the knowledge base .. lol. [9:34] You: well anika, dreamland angels are helping this sim since anshe chung donated it to me/us [9:34] Master Quatro: personally I will help anyone anytime if I'm not sleeping [9:34] You: NPC2 is donated by taking IT global, but we are really on our own there [9:34] Master Quatro: but I have no powers outside of Dreamland's 600 sims [9:35] You: but luckily we have MQ and we him! [9:35] Master Quatro: I will be very happy to work with whoever is in charge of your other place [9:35] You: ok, so we will need to get someone (frank?) to work with you on that, MQ and thanks [9:35] Skeeboo Tammas: that would be helpful. someone hook MQ up [9:35] Master Quatro: let finish quickly then we do questions [9:35] Frank Foley: we're still working on getting estate privileges for the other sim [9:35] Master Quatro: There is usually someone available 24/4. I get all IMs in EMail so I can usually get here quickly if I'm not sleeping. [9:36] Master Quatro: 24/7* [9:36] Master Quatro: lol. [9:36] Frank Foley: ha. slacker [9:36] Master Quatro: 2.Immediately file an abuse report. The more abuse reports are filed the quicker the Linden Lab response. [9:36] Frank Foley: 24/4 [9:36] Master Quatro: hahaha [9:36] Master Quatro: So you have several people you can contact in case a **griefers** start to drop their trash on your sim. [9:36] Master Quatro: forgive the typos [9:36] Master Quatro: it's not bad grammar I assure you [9:36] Master Quatro: hehe [9:37] Master Quatro: we are all here to help each other [9:37] Master Quatro: in real .. virtual and any other worlds we create [9:37] You: thanks master [9:37] Master Quatro: so feel free to ask
 * Griefers** 101