I was participating in a large event that was violently disrupted by griefers. What should I do in a situation like that?

[Ayana Auer]

Any tips on how to handle disruptions at large events?

[Lexie Linden]

If you own or manage an Estate (which consists of one or more Regions), several powerful tools help you prevent griefing (malicious behavior which is against our Community Standards)  during an event. These tools can also be useful for hosting private  events, where you want to limit attendance and know who's attending.  They're also useful for everyday land management.

First, go to World menu > Region/Estate to open  the Region/Estate controls. These are the primary tools you use to  restrict who can come to your event. Here are several situations you may  run into, and what to do in each.

If you own an Estate, or even if you don't, there are parcel  tools in About Land described below, which can help you control the  experience at a more finely-tuned level.

 

General tips on dealing with griefers

Search "Guide to Filing an Abuse Report" for self-governance best practices.

What's key to understand is that the following About Land settings are set per-parcel, not across an entire Region or Estate. If you have several parcels in a  Region, you'll need to move your avatar to each one and set them  accordingly.

 

Set options

These settings are a good starting point.

1. Go to World > About Land.
2. Click Options tab. This contains fine controls to specify what can occur on your land. Generally, unless you specifically know you want it, these should be OFF: 
   • Edit Terrain - You almost never want this on. It means  any stranger can come by and terraform your land, ruining the way it  looks and possibly burying or causing objects to be returned.
   • Create Objects for All Residents - This can usually be turned off for exhibition areas and wherever it's unnecessary for visitors to create and edit their own objects. You should be  well-prepared, since lots of griefing involves objects designed to annoy  others, such as a spinning cube that plays screaming sounds while  spewing particles that cloud your sight. (Like a smoke bomb.)
   • Object Entry for All Residents - By extension, this  means someone can't slide an object over from a parcel where creating  objects is allowed. Enabling this can also block stray bullet fire if a  griefer is persistent about causing a long-range nuisance.
   • Run Scripts for All Residents - Also by extension,  scripted objects can be used for griefing, whether it's emitting  particle spam or self-replicating (an object makes multiple copies of  itself, which in turn make more copies, quickly clogging an area). 
     • Turning this off also disables benign scripts like animation overriders, and doesn't fully disable scripts: if you fly 50 m above terrain, scripts will reactivate, and stay active when you fly  down. It functions this way to prevent breaking content like passing  vehicles, which are rare at at events.
3. And unless you're otherwise certain, these should be ON: 
   • Safe (no damage) - Should always be used on land you don't want combat on.
   • No Pushing - Enabling this prevents the effects of push  scripts — such as in guns and other weapons — from being used. A good  thing to leave on during events.

If the group the land is set to allows anyone to join, you may want to also disable Create Objects, Object Entry, and Run Scripts for Group too. (Or disallow people from joining the group to begin with — they'll  need to be invited.) While it's rarer, on occasion, a griefer will join  a group to cause its members mayhem. Be cautioned disabling group  scripts may disable needed gadgets such as a presentation screeen; you should always weigh your needs beforehand and test to make sure everything works smoothly well in advance of the event.

 

Set parcel autoreturn time

If you're sure you want people to be able to create objects on your  land but don't want them cluttering, change each appropriate parcel's  autoreturn time.

"0" means objects can stay indefinitely, which is problematic for  not just deliberate troublemakers, but incidental litter cluttering up  your space. For instance, someone might rez a bunch of junk from their  inventory and leave it blocking a stage before a presentation, confusing  the audience.

1. Again, go to World > About Land.
2. Click Objects tab. You can use the Show and Refresh List buttons to make sure all desired objects are set to group or owned by the landowner.  Otherwise, they'll be returned, disappearing off the land in the blink  of an eye.
3. Click in the Autoreturn other residents' objects field,  enter a number, and press Enter. A reasonable period is 5 minutes, but  if you have prior experience, use what works best.

While it's not possible to foresee everything that might happen  during an event, doing the above greatly reduces the chances of griefing  spoiling your event.

Also, there's an old Second Life joke which doubles as a useful tip: "SIT DOWN!" In other words, to prevent movement, right-click and sit on an object.  (Specifically, a non-physical object like most chairs and seats are.) A  sitting avatar will be tethered to their "sit target", and even if  someone tries to launch the virtual equivalent of a nuclear bomb at you,  you'll remain seated.