Second Life Has a Nooby Insta-Boot Problem. Would a VRChat-Style Trust System Fix It?

At right: A bestselling SL security system (on the Marketplace here) 

Last week's media event with Linden Lab was mainly about the Second Life mobile app officially launching, and the company's strategy to bring back lapsed SLers with it, and grow the overall user base. But before those details were announced, another challenge to growing the Second Life user base came up:

• To entice new users, they need to see great content and communities in Second Life.   
• But many of the best Second Life hangouts and locations have orbiters banning new users (to prevent trolling, non-members, etc), i.e. typically accounts under 30 days old.
• So not only can new users not access these areas, they're unceremoniously booted for even trying. 

"My experience is having to explain this to new residents that get sent back to the welcome hub, completely clueless as to why, what they did, or the punishment being so harsh," as longtime blogger/event manager Sasy Scarborough explains. "Some have even thought it will mean they are banned for life, that is also a really bad outcome... one guy I was helping at the hub the other day left and got ejected from three places in a row within minutes."  

Sasy brought this up during the media event, but it's really an ongoing paradox of metaverse platforms: User-generated content is what makes them so powerful and unique, but that doesn't necessarily mean specific users want to make their content available to anyone who shows up. 

"More people are joining Second Life now with money to spend, because they have come from YouTube etc, and know where they are guided to go, to only be ejected from those locations." Of course, location owners are well within their right to ban anyone for any reason, even if that ultimately hurts overall user growth. "If a person with no real connection in-world is repeatedly ejected from experiences, they will be frustrated, and could just log out permanently."  

On the Zoom call, Linden Lab CTO Philip Rosedale acknowledged the problem, but also pointed out how difficult it is to solve on the software/UX side. Saying: "If someone has a precise and complete change order to address the problem, we could address that."  In other words, it's a complex fix with no easy solution that'll satisfy everyone.

I do see one solution which turns the 30 day/nooby limit into an aspirational goal: Implement a system similar to that of VRChat's trust ranking system. I.E:

"A user’s Trust feeds into something we’ve called a 'Trust Rank', which is an indicator of how much time a user has spent in VRChat, how much content they’ve contributed, the friends they’ve made, and many other factors."

In this system, spending more time and interacting in the virtual world becomes a goal in itself, since doing that while positively engaging other users gives a nooby access to more content and experiences. It could even become part of the game mechanics being added to the SL mobile experience. If the nooby is booted from one place, it becomes a goal to find another place where they're able to get in. And as I wrote in the book, there's also a positive effect of making "trust" part of the game, so to speak:

Where most game systems mainly reward repeated (if not mechanical activity) the implicit challenge of VRChat’s Trust System “game” is to prove oneself to be a consistently positive person and a valuable member of the community.

“Letting people spend some time hanging around VRChat (and learning all the unspoken social rules that are present here) lets them understand the platform a bit better,” [VRChat's] founders explain, “which means that they could be thinking a bit more of the community when uploading content.”

The system also confers a sense of status to established VRChat community members that first-time visitors can quickly notice.

“[New users] would look out for people that had a little bit more experience that relates to User and above, because it was a good sign that you kind of knew the social customs and VRChat," as Strasz puts it.

The Trust System was an important function for VRChat gaining escape velocity in terms of organic growth. Now that it has, the system has become a kind of leveling mechanism for new players. Where traditional MMOs might have noobies level up by killing various numbers of rodents and such, VRChat rewards new users for spending time exploring the virtual world, expressing themselves, and connecting with others.

Then again, I fully admit that a short book excerpt is not the kind of "precise and complete change order" Philip is asking for, and there's barriers to implementing one. Readers should definitely raise any objections in Comments!

Update, November 20: Nadir Taov, lead developer of the popular mini-MMO Crack Den, has interesting thoughts on X: 

As a community builder, our security measures are 100% due to griefing - I’m talking about the handful of persistent trolls that take advantage of archaic reg API portals to create accounts, spoof IPs, and incessantly grief thriving spaces. @philiprosedale and team can address by creating actual crowd sourced auto banning features via abuse reports (if enough people report a fairly new account, should insta ban the IP). It’s a real problem. I don’t mind new players - in fact, we have our own onboarding features in place to help support new players.

— Nadir Taov (@Taov) November 21, 2024

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Comments

[Gayngel]

It has nothing to do with trolling and scamming or being a non-member, or even trusting and everything to do with griefing which is different. Griefing typically involves
a user using worn or rezzed scripted items that cause havoc on the land or to a person's viewer, like rezzing out so many items that it uses up the parcel allowance and nothing else can be rezzed, or using items that are so heavily scripted they cause massive lag spikes on the land, or items that are so graphically complex they crash people's viewers.

Combined with the fact that land owners don't always own the entire region so they can't prevent items being rezzed if their neighbours allow rezzing on their parcels, as well as SL allowing mass account creation (where the griefer just passes these griefing items to each account they create), land owners are forced to implement measures like banning profiles that are not older than 30 days to curb the griefing.

If LL wants to grow the SL userbase they need to address measures that can be taken to prevent griefing and then land owners wont have implement 30 day bans. It needs to be LLs responsibility and not leave the SL community to come up with their own solutions.

[Glizzy_rizzler]

Inviting new users to the platform is increasingly difficult because of security systems like this, however I have one security system that I absolutely have to keep.

My region is rated (M) because I sell skin and will often have customers who need to strip down and demo products, tint and match things together without having to leave the store to do it. Child avatars are not welcome on my sim because of this, but do not seem to self regulate themselves. I have a security system that detects child avatar mesh bodies and sends them home with a message telling them that it is inappropriate for a child avatar to be there.

Why are they not allowed? Because no one wants to be stripped down without clothes while demoing a skin to match their mesh genitals or other parts with a child avatar near by. It was such a problem with child avatars entering my sim during hunts and other events that I participate in that bring users to my store that I had to impliment the security system, in fact I had it custom made for me.

I wish LL would tackle the child avatars in adult spaces problem and I feel it is actually really doable server side without the use of the system I had comissioned.
LL could address child avatars showing up in regions they are not allowed in, by making child body and head users register these bodies and heads with an asset tag, that could be selected as a unwelcome/welcomed asset at parcel and region level.

The same could be said for adult content too - do you have a region or parcel that you want to stay absolutely PG and child avatar friendly? Adult content should be registered as adult, and that adult tag could be selected parcel/region side as unwelcome. This would make it so that you absolutely could not place down or wear adult assets where they are not allowed.

No one respects the rating system on regions anymore, and no one is enforcing them except for fringe cases like my child detection security system.

[Haridsam]

I believe Gayngel's right about griefing being a very real concern and a major reason for the wait period. I do like the idea of a trust system, and it might promote added engagement. As for precise and complete change orders...I got nothing. Pretty much *any* change LL makes is going to upset some of our more volatile residents, and in that regard SL is no different than other virtual worlds. Most of them will get over it, but anything which can be done to promote retention is going to be a positive.

[Martin K.]

What about putting new users in their own private instance of a world instead of banning them? In this way, new users could at least visit and explore a world on their own. Visiting private instances of a world has the added benefit of protecting new users from the toxicity of other users in many worlds.

[Luther Weymann]

Usually, security systems are used for three primary reasons. 1. Mainland and people who occupy mainland homes that are not theirs as a login landing point, or like to land when someone is having virtual sex in bed and stand there and make everyone uncomfortable, or a griefer. 2. Private regions where both men and women get stalked by exes who like to enter the room while the ex is having virtual sex. Private region residents would rarely enter another private region resident's house during sex; it's usually a weirdo stalker or ex. 3. Some people don't want any visitors at all. For the past ten years, I've had it in my About Land description that anyone is allowed to hang out in my pool or living room, and I don't care. I get many visitors, and my visitor tracking software says no one stays for more than a minute or two. However, I did meet a lovely brunette lounging in my swimming pool. That was fun.

[Keaton]

New User experience for SL has always been bad but not a huge concern because "What new users? Who is joining Second Life in 2024?"

But try it on an alt. It's bad. Many places will just kick you because your account is too new.

What are you supposed to do in that first month?

[OldPeopleRuinSL]

How about we abolish all banning and boundary lines on all mainland and public areas instead?
Why start some Social Credit type of bs based only on time or how many friends someone has when the issue is more about being banned and kicked without any griefing or ill intent whatsoever!
If people want privacy so much, then encourage them to pay for private parcels and regions, and leave the mainland and public areas open to actual exploration, socialization and sharing!
SL'ers got it all backwards. They want more tools to ban griefers, when in almost every case, it was THEM who created the griefers in the firs
Chicken or egg I say!
I guarantee you, the people who complain about being griefed or harassed are the same who are absolute jerks to people especially new, because they are paranoid, excessively private due to strange activities in areas they don't belong, etc or expect privacy where there should be none.
Open up SL again, return to the fun it used to be, but it probably wouldn't work anyway because the regulars have no skin or patience left so have become toxic and selfish in their own right and keep people away just with their bad attitude.
No SL doesn't need any more moderation, rules and gatekeeping. There's more than enough, it's just that SL has geriatrics that want to keep it all to themselves and won't let anyone new in to play.