The first rule of Fight Club

by | Feb 6, 2013 | Taking Care of Your People

The first rule of Fight Club?

You do not talk about Fight Club.

The second rule of Fight Club?

You do not talk about Fight Club!

The last rule of Fight Club?

If it is your first night, you must fight!

Why is this on my mind?

Because I’ve been dealing with griefers lately!

And it seems that in Second Life the first rule of dealing with griefers is –

You do not talk about griefers!

The last rule would be –

If you are getting griefed, you must fight!

Griefing can be frustrating, but even in the worst case you are unlikely to break your nose or lose any teeth.  Unless of course it’s from banging your head against the monitor. So don’t do that.

Griefers, for the most part, operate by rezzing things on your sim that you don’t want on your sim.  They have objects that can make a sim crash, they have zombies, they have penises, they can rezz all kinds of things that aren’t suitable for work.  All for the purpose of causing you a hassle.

Well, maybe it isn’t you who is the target of the attack.  When you own 100s of sims chances are some day, some way, one of your customers is going to piss someone off.  And chances are some day, some way, one of those pissed off people will retaliate with a grief attack.

As the Estate Owner or Manager you get the fun job of cleaning up the mess!

 

Follow these simple steps you can prevent or eliminate most grief attacks:

  • Ban the griefers
  • File an Abuse Report
  • IM the griefer
  • Disable Open Rez
  • Restrict Access
  • Increase the Land Price
  • Keep Calm

Make sure you ban the griefers from all your sims, and also file an Abuse Report with Linden Lab.  That will slow the griefers down a bit, but it is unlikely to stop them entirely.

Do take the time to IM the griefer.  Ask them do they know you?  Why are they griefing your sim?  Most of the time they won’t respond, sometimes they will.  By communicating with them you demonstrate to them you aren’t intimidated by them.  Annoyed maybe, but not intimidated.  You don’t want to antagonize them, so keep the conversation professional and polite.

The best way to stop griefers entirely is to make sure that none of the lands on any of your sims are set to “open” rez!  Not an easy task, but if you only have one or two sims being targeted you should be able to get this under control.  If you don’t get this under control, you are basically inviting the griefers to attack you.

Restrict access to the land or sim.  You can make it so people who are not Age Verified can’t get in.  Or even better, set it so that only people who have provided Payment Information can get to your land.  That will keep griefers out because griefers want to remain anonymous.

Also, increase the purchase price of your land.  Land that is set for sale for 1L offers griefers an easy target.  Try setting the price higher – 1000L to 5000L – and include the first week of tier.  Few griefers will bother coming out of pocket 1000L – 5000L just to rez some evil clowns.

Keep calm, and remain patient. Most griefers get bored fairly quickly. Once you have proven that you aren’t an easy target, they will go bother someone else.

Good luck!