If You Don't Want More Second Life Griefers, Stop Publicly Discussing Second Life Griefers

SLers have been passing around a blog post about a recent Second Life griefer attack, which I'm not going to directly link to or even cite, for a very obvious reason: A core motivation of Second Life griefers is to get Second Life users talking about them - on blogs, on social media, on bulletin boards, on Second Life itself. The attention is their reward. (Hence the classic rule of Internet social interaction: "Don't feed the troll.")

To be clear, I'm not criticizing the blogger who did post about the griefing attack, because it's likely they don't recall or weren't around during the times when Second Life was barraged by griefers on a near daily basis:

During Second Life's hype wave between 2006-2008, when media coverage was incessant -- and much of that coverage mentioned griefers. (Who'd triumphantly discuss the coverage on their own message boards.) When most of the media attention went away, so did most of the griefers. (I'm not counting the in-world trolls who hang out in populated places like the Welcome Area, because the reaction they crave is what they get right there. YouTube trolls are another variety, for a discussion in another post.)

Don't like Second Life griefers and wish they'd go away? Don't discuss them publicly, keep the conversation to IM and other backchannels, and liberally use the ban/block/report tools at your disposal. It's not the perfect solution, but it's the one least likely to make the problem worse.

Image/post credit.

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Comments

[Ajax Manatiso]

It's a good thing, then, that you are not talking about griefers.

[Rose Mackie]

Whoa ... harsh and uncharacteristically small-minded of you.

The original post offers excellent advice on what to do without sensationalizing the incident itself. Those who "don't recall or weren't around during the times when Second Life was barraged by griefers on a near daily basis" tend to get freaked out by not knowing what to do. They may not be aware of the "ban/block/report tools" at their disposal, unless of course, they read informational blogs.

The original blogger is hardly inexperienced in handling issues like this.

[Gordon]

The articles of which you speak, do not "talking about" griefers, but about action against them. The griefers will not receive any "reward".

And btw:
http://nwn.blogs.com/nwn/2011/08/sl-meeroos-griefed.html

[Ciaran Laval]

The advice to not talk about griefers is correct. The same advice exists for people who are threatened on social media.

The problem is, how do you raise the very negative issues of griefing if nobody ever talks about it. Ignoring it, does not make it go away.

[Adeon Writer]

The assumption is that some people don't want more griefers. Some would rather blog about griefers for years, knowing it makes things worse, just because they love the griefers giving them attention, and love the attention it gives their blog and their name.

[irihapeti]

@ajax

lol jejejeje (:

[Bixyl Shuftan]

I seldom report on griefing incidents. It has to stand out in some way such as the scale of the incident, or if it interfered with an important event, or if the event turned from vicious prank to outright criminal activity punishable by prison. In the case of the middle, it's a small part of a larger article.

[Jo Yardley]

I'm the blogger who wrote the article and I don't regret it.
Of course griefers only want attention, but sim owners only want help.
My blog was written DURING the attack, not days afterwards.
It was happening right there and then, we didn't know exactly what was happening but there was a risk that it could spread to other sims.
People were panicking and asking each other what to do.
I care more about helping the sim owners than if griefers are happy or not about getting attention.

I am a sim owner, I was worried about a possible attack as some claimed it was attacking the majority of the grid and I wanted help and tips, couldn't find them quickly, so I wrote some.
This was not just another griefer attack, this was something special, something everyone was already talking about, it was huge.

I wrote about griefers to help those under threat of griefers, just like you write about griefers now to tell people... not to write about griefers?

In general griefers these days don't care much about a little blog mentioning them, they just sit back and enjoy the group chat or make a little youtube video and get hundreds of hits.

[Desmond Shang]

It's totally fine to write about it Jo, Caledon gets hit like that with regularity.

This is what happens every time.

a) People notice and immediately send in abuse reports. The Lindens get this, and by and by, clean up. Governance6 Linden (if I spelled that right) came by this time.

b) The estate managers and I were cleaning it up some prior to that, as well. We could have done precisely nothing if we just let the Lindens handle it, but we were there. This is the actual reason why griefing isn't 24/7; it takes more effort for the griefers to do it than for us to wait for cleanup.

I have no fear of talking about it whatsoever; the subject is a bit boring, though. I've got far, far bigger fish to fry these days.

What it reminds me of, are the 'taggers' (people who spray graffiti for street purposes) which is common around here if I drive a bit closer to Los Angeles. The sad part here though, is that this isn't some immature high school kid defacing a freeway sign. It's an adult man, and in that context, I feel sad for him.

[His Rgt. Honourable Lord Griefage]

I AM HIS RIGHT HONORABLE LOURD GRIEFAGE! LOOK UPON MY MIGHTY ARMY OF HOVERING COCKS AND DESPAIRZ!

[His Rgt. Honourable Lord Griefage]

I SHALL CLOBBER THEE SHANG WITH MY MIGHTEE WANGS!!!!

[Desmond Shang]

Griefer or not, he's referencing Shelley's Ozymandias; at the very least he's literate.

In life, the measure of a man can often be judged by his adversaries. I'm honoured, sir.