Is sharing the Names of a Griefer and the Many Alts They Use to Grief Others Okay?

[franklincoln]

Hello, everyone,

I would love to have Linden Lab's official position on this, but... *sigh*

I know of a griefer who has been harassing many, many Residents and many, many sims often repeatedly for at least a year now. Some of the things that have been done are extremely vicious.

They have used many alts, maybe near 20, to do so. A lot of these alts no longer exists. I know for a fact the Linden Lab banned 3 of them within 2 days.

However, a number of them do still exist and this person keeps creating new alts to grief with.

With regards to the Community Standards, it says this:

http://secondlife.com/corporate/cs.php

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4. Disclosure

Residents are entitled to a reasonable level of privacy with regard to their Second Life experience. Sharing personal information about your fellow Residents without their consent -- including gender, religion, age, marital status, race, sexual preference, alternate account names, and real-world location beyond what is provided by them in their Resident profile -- is not allowed. Remotely monitoring conversations in Second Life, posting conversation logs, or sharing conversation logs without the participants' consent are all prohibited.

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Further down in the Standards, there is this:

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Alternate Accounts

While Residents may choose to play Second Life with more than one account, specifically or consistently using an alternate account to harass other Residents or violate the Community Standards is not acceptable. Alternate accounts are generally treated as separate from a Resident's principal account, but misuse of alternate accounts can and will result in disciplinary action on the principal account.

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I have an acquaintance who claims sharing the names in-world of the main account and the alts they use to grief with with others who are being harassed and attacked and crashed is against the Community Standards because of the "Disclosure" section.

I think he is wrong in his claim. I think if a Resident is using alts for the purpose of griefing, they have -no- right to "a reasonable level of privacy" (as is stated in Disclosure) with regards to sharing their primary account's and alts' names with others who have been and are being attacked in order to protect themselves -- and so they can do full and accurate Abuse Reports on this person.

In fact, given what is stated in the "Alternate Accounts" section, I think the Community Standards actually supports doing this.

As I said, I would love to have Linden Lab's official position on this, but that isn't very likely to happen.

So what do people here think with regards to this matter?  Thanks.

             -- Frank Lincoln

 

 

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FOLLOW-UP:

 

Ah, well thanks, everyone.  It's nice to know all of you believe in the hypocritical "Don't do as I do, do as I say" policy of Linden Lab.  It's basically what I expected.

I'll be sure to tell the people who were harassed and attacked for months your opinions.

And, gees, some folks wonder why membership in Second Life is dropping! 

 

 

[Innula Zenovka]

First, I don't see how you can know if an avatar is the alt of another avatar unless they tell you, and then, of course, it's a question of whether you believe them.

Second, and possibly more important, the ToS are perfectly clear.  You shouldn't be telling people that X is Y's alt, whatever your motivation.   If  Avatar X is making a nuisance of himself, then by all means mute, ban and AR him.   If you have reason to believe that he's Y's alt, then mention that in the AR report and let LL look into it -- they are better placed to check than are you.

I'm an admin on a large estate, where we have several high-profile, high-traffic sims.   We have a strict rule that we don't speculate (or listen to speculation) about people's alts.   If we ban someone and he wants to come back as an alt, then fine.   So long as the alt behaves himself, then he's welcome to stay.   If he misbehaves, we ban him and AR him.   It works very well for us.

[Madelaine McMasters]

Hi Frank,

The "Disclosure" section of the Community Standards seems pretty clear to me. Disclosing alternate account names (which is not something you can do with certainty) is prohibited.

Your rationalization that griefers lose their "right" is groundless. There are no "rights" in SL. Linden Lab sets the rules, period. The Abuse Report is the only approved mechanism for redress of grievances. LL has some ability to determine alternate account owner identity and it's up to them to decide what to do when ARs are filed.

So, if you believe someone is creating alts for the purpose of griefing, AR the griefing behavior and air your suspicions about the actual account holder in the report.

And, as always, ignore the griefers. They feed off your attention. This may be difficult to do, but no other method has been shown to work as well.

Good luck!

[Lindal Kidd]

Your acquaintance is right, Frank.

For one thing, none of us have the ability to be absolutely sure that someone is an alt of someone else.  Spreading guesses about this can cause a tremendous amount of Drama and upset, as we found during the Red Zone debacle.  (Speaking of Red Zone, if you are using a device like this, an IP tracker, you can't trust its results.  The things throw both false positives and false negatives, and are no better at "detecting alts" than you are with your own feelings.)

Regardless of who is whose alt, just Abuse Report, Mute, and Ban any griefers.  If you suspect um, alt abuse, then include that in your AR, but don't spread your guesses about.

[Griffin Ceawlin]

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franklincoln wrote:

So what do people here think with regards to this matter?

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I think the one doesn't trump the other.