Why is PIOF for parcel/region entry a thing?

[Orwar]

   This isn't intended as an attempt to rouse an angry mob to demand change kind of thread, I'm merely curious about what the purpose for this option is as I've yet to find any kind of arguments for it.

   Plenty of people have alts which they don't bother attaching a payment method to as they can purchase their L$ on their main, and plenty more people still make their L$ through various in-world activities. Surely, as far as any land owner might be concerned, a person's ability to pay with L$ is all that matters in the end (I seem to recall the TOS mentioning something about using off-world payments for in-world goods a no-no)? If my alt can't go to a store to browse demos because the store owner somehow believes that the only way an avatar could have money to spend is through buying it, all that does is make me think they're thick and that I'd rather take my business elsewhere than setting up PIOF on yet another account. It also frequently comes up in various driving, flying, and sailing groups that someone can't go through an area because of it (and, unlike ban lines which only go so far off the ground, not having PIOF seemingly 'bans' you from a parcel no matter what altitude you're at).

   I got no trouble coming up with reasons people shouldn't use that option, but I've yet to think up any reasons anyone should. Except a lame argument that 'alts = griefers' which is both untrue and a bit like banning women from libraries because a few of them are bibliophiles. Also totally ineffective seeing as on the rare occasion someone might start churning out alts to grief with, adding PIOF is merely a minor inconvenience that can easily be circumvented with a false beard- I mean, a virtual credit card (but then there's no option to ban people by their payment info details which LL obviously won't give out anyway, so you wouldn't even 'need' to use those).

   Am I missing something?

[Aethelwine]

The only use I can think of for it is as a measure to implement if you are suffering a wave of griefing from someone's alt army.  I would use it as part of a combination of measures to try to control that situation, but I would take the restriction off again as soon as it was over, because as you say it is just a road bump, not something that effective.

Edited February 23, 2023 by Aethelwine

[Scylla Rhiadra]

It's stupid, rude, ineffective, and, in SL terms, classist.

[steeljane42]

1 hour ago, Orwar said:

Am I missing something?

Yes, the amount of efforts needed to setup a throwaway griefer avatar. It doesn't really matter if we're talking about one or a few of them, can easily add that virtual credit card as you've mentioned. But when we are talking about hundreds (sadly it's the case in some situations) of them daily, then adding a payment info onto each one is a lot of extra wasted time and efforts.

I have yet to see any store using this option, however. Then again I'm sure some do, I've seen some stores used that voodoo system as well for no reason whatsoever, with an extra pop-up warning how "everyone should be aware it's used".

1 hour ago, Orwar said:

It also frequently comes up in various driving, flying, and sailing groups that someone can't go through an area because of it (and, unlike ban lines which only go so far off the ground, not having PIOF seemingly 'bans' you from a parcel no matter what altitude you're at).

Does it really matter in this case? Instant eject orb will be even worse for those groups.

[Randy Pole]

Payment info on file restrictions were greatly needed in the early days when the majority of them were (in my experience) griefers (and we are talking about the really early days here).

It is of course the land owners right to restrict entry to whomever they wish but like many I agree that restricting entry on such an arbitrary thing is akin to orbs teleporting home avatars under the age of 30 days from stores (loss of sales) or upon height.

Removing a landowners control over who can (or cannot) access their land is never going to go down well with said landowners and they are the ones who pay the big $$$ 

[Qie Niangao]

It's not supposed to be that easy to add a "virtual credit card" acceptable as Payment Info. At least it used to be damned near impossible to use a debit card without an honest to god bank account attached to it, although I haven't tried anything like that in years, so maybe they've gotten more lax.

As I understand the intent, PIOF was to give some assurance that LL had (minimal) RL identity information about the account holder, not about availability of money, for which there's a whole other level, Payment Info Used, available to scripts (but not a built-in parcel access criterion). That's not to deny PIOF has some "classist" effect, but I think its intent was to provide some assurance that if the account engaged in some egregious TOS violation with RL consequences, the Lab might be able to do something about it, compared to random griefers for which the Lab's only recourse is to delete a disposable account.

We see many posts from folks complaining that their parcels' block lists can't accommodate all the throw-away alts they want to exclude. PIOF may not really help anymore—maybe never helped at all—but I think it was all they could come up with to even try to respond to a widely perceived problem.

[Orwar]

11 minutes ago, Qie Niangao said:

It's not supposed to be that easy to add a "virtual credit card" acceptable as Payment Info. At least it used to be damned near impossible to use a debit card without an honest to god bank account attached to it, although I haven't tried anything like that in years, so maybe they've gotten more lax.

   Haven't tried them for SL, but from what I've seen and heard people are using them for all sorts of services including major gaming and streaming platforms, as well as those types of websites you aren't sure you want to entrust with your real details. I'd be surprised if SL was somehow an exception.

17 minutes ago, Qie Niangao said:

That's not to deny PIOF has some "classist" effect, but I think its intent was to provide some assurance that if the account engaged in some egregious TOS violation with RL consequences, the Lab might be able to do something about it, compared to random griefers for which the Lab's only recourse is to delete a disposable account.

   The feature feels rather outdated though, it might have worked in the past, but over the past couple of years online anonymity has become very easily accessible for anyone who knows how to do a Google search. And at the same time next to non-existent thanks to, well, the aforementioned engine, among others. Unfortunately I can't claim to have a 'better' idea for a fool-proof method, but it feels as if this particular measure isn't fool-proof itself, and I'm wondering whether the intent in this case is worth the effect. 

1 hour ago, Randy Pole said:

Removing a landowners control over who can (or cannot) access their land is never going to go down well with said landowners and they are the ones who pay the big $$$ 

   True, but if you want to keep out people who are too short you at least have to make a conscious effort to find, purchase, and put such an orb on your land - PIOF restricted access appears across the grid seemingly at random; I reckon in at least a somewhat substantial part of the parcels which has it activated, it's only there because of a miss-click on the parcel access control, or the parcel owner not understanding what exactly it entails. Unless of course private home owners are happy to have visitors, as long as they have proven to have the ability to order a pizza online? 

[Rowan Amore]

I saw a few people mentioning this option to keep the dreaded bots off your property.

[EliseAnne85]

2 hours ago, Rowan Amore said:

I saw a few people mentioning this option to keep the dreaded bots off your property.

I was just going to say the same.  It could help with the bot problem.  However, in getting rid of one problem, it creates another.  But, couldn't putting PIOF also get rid of dead abandoned alts as well?  If this option could get rid of abandoned alts, it could be turned on as a clean up and then off again.  

[Maitimo]

It's always seemed a bit pointless to me, though I suppose its a hang-over from 2006, the year when basic/free accounts were brand new, and it was used as an anti-griefer tool.

I guess it could help a little if you're being plagued by a stalker who keep setting up loads of new alts to stalk you; there's a limit (5 I think) to the number of accounts that can share a payment method.

[Ceka Cianci]

Ways to get payment info has changed over the years as well as other things that would have to do with accounts.. It's probably more something left over from how things were done earlier that was more useful back then..

[Silent Mistwalker]

9 hours ago, Randy Pole said:

Payment info on file restrictions were greatly needed in the early days when the majority of them were (in my experience) griefers (and we are talking about the really early days here).

It is of course the land owners right to restrict entry to whomever they wish but like many I agree that restricting entry on such an arbitrary thing is akin to orbs teleporting home avatars under the age of 30 days from stores (loss of sales) or upon height.

Removing a landowners control over who can (or cannot) access their land is never going to go down well with said landowners and they are the ones who pay the big $$$ 

As I recall, it was the landowners who made the initial request, mainly because, as you said, at the time too many new accounts were alts used for griefing. Those alts would be brand spanking new to a few hours to a few days old and none of them would have PIOF.

It worked then and it still works. It has nothing to do with "class in SL".

[Scylla Rhiadra]

1 hour ago, Silent Mistwalker said:

It worked then and it still works. It has nothing to do with "class in SL"

It is, by definition, classist.

This approach doesn't actually target "griefers": it targets a class of account that, rightly or wrongly, is associated with griefers.

And in the process it also victimizes a wide swathe of people who are not griefers, and who for whatever reason -- financial exigencies, worries about their data, lack of an acceptable credit card, etc. -- are not PIOF. And I'm willing to bet that's a far larger number than that of actual, legitimate griefers. In terms of mechanics, this is no different from banning people of a particular ethnicity, sexual orientation, etc. from your store because you once had a bad experience with someone from that community.

For most of my first four years in SL I was not PIOF. I didn't need to be: I earned enough from donations to my small business (and before that, from playing trivia) that I didn't need to bring money into the system. And yet I was still a contributing member of my communities.

The last guy who griefed my parcels -- FIVE times? He is an 11 year old account with a legacy name and PIOF.

Punish people for what they do, not for the fact that they belong to the same class as people you don't trust.

Edited February 23, 2023 by Scylla Rhiadra
Missing words and wrong word

[Love Zhaoying]

16 minutes ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

It is, by definition, classicist.

This approach doesn't actually target "griefers": it targets a class of account that, rightly or wrongly, is associated with griefers.

And in the process it also victimizes a wide swathe of people who are not griefers, and for whatever reason -- financial exigencies, worries about their data, lack of an acceptable credit card, etc. -- are not PIOF. And I'm willing to bet that's a far larger number than that of actual, legitimate griefers. In terms of mechanics, this is no different from banning people of a particular ethnicity, sexual orientation, etc. from your store because you once had a bad experience with someone from that community.

For most of my first four years in SL I was not PIOF. I didn't need to be: I earned enough from donations to my small business (and before that, from playing trivia) that I didn't need to bring money into the system. And yet I was still a contributing member of my communities.

The last guy who griefed my parcels -- FIVE times? He is an 11 year old account with a legacy name and PIOF.

Punish people for what they do, not for the fact that they belong to the same class as people you don't trust.

What do you suggest?

We could theoretically add more filters by: Account age, Premium/non-Premium, etc.  Wouldn't those all have the same issue?

[Scylla Rhiadra]

1 minute ago, Love Zhaoying said:

What do you suggest?

We could theoretically add more filters by: Account age, Premium/non-Premium, etc.  Wouldn't those all have the same issue?

They would all have exactly the same issue. And most of them, including PIOF, tend to discriminate against new residents, which is something that we, collectively, should not want happening.

I don't have a simple solution because I don't think there is one -- anymore than there is a simple click of a button that will prevent you from having to experience nasty people, having your data scraped, being gossiped about or defamed, etc. We necessarily deal with these after the fact because any net we spread to anticipate them is going to catch an awful lot of innocent and harmless people.

It's actually one of the prices we pay for a relatively tolerant and open society (and that includes SL): we don't judge and punish people for things we think they might do. A world where people are screened out from full participation because of who they are, rather than what they have done, is a pretty nasty and dystopian one.

[Love Zhaoying]

1 minute ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

They would all have exactly the same issue. And most of them, including PIOF, tend to discriminate against new residents, which is something that we, collectively, should not want happening.

I don't have a simple solution because I don't think there is one -- anymore than there is a simple click of a button that will prevent you from having to experience nasty people, having your data scraped, being gossiped about or defamed, etc. We necessarily deal with these after the fact because any net we spread to anticipate them is going to catch an awful lot of innocent and harmless people.

It's actually one of the prices we pay for a relatively tolerant and open society (and that includes SL): we don't judge and punish people for things we think they might do. A world where people are screened out from full participation because of who they are, rather than what they have done, is a pretty nasty and dystopian one.

There's also the "opposite" - discrimination against avatars who may create lag due to their mesh complexity, their scripts, etc.  (Those may in many cases be avatars who are "older", with more resources since they had to buy / find / get the mesh, scripts, etc.).

 

[Love Zhaoying]

28 minutes ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

It is, by definition, classicist.

 

11 hours ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

It's stupid, rude, ineffective, and, in SL terms, classist.

Wait, which is it? "Classicist", or "classist"?

[Scylla Rhiadra]

5 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

There's also the "opposite" - discrimination against avatars who may create lag due to their mesh complexity, their scripts, etc.  (Those may in many cases be avatars who are "older", with more resources since they had to buy / find / get the mesh, scripts, etc.).

 

That's true, although I have somewhat less sympathy for those who create lag because they have made a conscious decision to wear something that is overly complex.

People who are non--PIOF on the other hand frequently have no choice in the matter, for reasons I've noted above.

Bottom line: yes, landowners pay good money for the right to be jerks or apply stupid, nonsensical rules to their land. That right doesn't make them any less jerk-ish, or the rules any less nonsensical.

(And yes, it's "classist"; that was a slip of the keyboard. A "classicist" would be replying to you now in ancient Greek or Latin.)

[EliseAnne85]

56 minutes ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

1 hour ago, Silent Mistwalker said:

It worked then and it still works. It has nothing to do with "class in SL"

It is, by definition, classist.

This approach doesn't actually target "griefers": it targets a class of account that, rightly or wrongly, is associated with griefers.

That's not the way I thought Silent meant for the "tool" to work.  I thought she means the tools is there as a way to prevent griefing for a short term duration, such as Aethelwine above is saying "a wave of griefers" coming in or as some people say "an army of alts" coming in.  It's a temporary and sometimes necessary tool to help end that situation, and it's need is for the short term.  Once the drama settles down, it can be switched off again to no payment info on file.  It's a tool but does not, in any way, need to be a permanent one.  I've seen certain sims have to use it for a few hours or perhaps a day.  The sim usually opens again by the next day.  I was in no way agreeing it should be on permanently.  I hope you understand what I am trying to express/say here.  

If people are unsure why someone has PIOF when they used to be open to all, they should ask the landowner.  I'm afraid some may have it on now for bot protection because of a recent incident with bots.  

There needs to be a better way to prevent bots.  That much is obvious.  

[Scylla Rhiadra]

8 minutes ago, EliseAnne85 said:

That's not the way I thought Silent meant for the "tool" to work.  I thought she means the tools is there as a way to prevent griefing for a short term duration, such as Aethelwine above is saying "a wave of griefers" coming in or as some people say "an army of alts" coming in.  It's a temporary and sometimes necessary tool to help end that situation, and it's need is for the short term.  Once the drama settles down, it can be switched off again to no payment info on file.  It's a tool but does not, in any way, need to be a permanent one.  I've seen certain sims have to use it for a few hours or perhaps a day.  The sim usually opens again by the next day.  I was in no way agreeing it should be on permanently.  I hope you understand what I am trying to express/say here.  

If people are unsure why someone has PIOF when they used to be open to all, they should ask the landowner.  I'm afraid some may have it on now for bot protection because of a recent incident with bots.  

There needs to be a better way to prevent bots.  That much is obvious.  

It's possible that you are right, although I don't get that from what she says. In any case, I was responding to the bit I quoted: "It has nothing to do with 'class in SL'." I think that's incorrect, for reasons I've suggested.

Short term solutions are short term. I've blocked all entry into a public parcel, temporarily, while I sorted out the mess left by a griefer and reconfigured permissions -- but that was a matter of maybe an hour or so.

I'm not convinced that restricting access to PIOF accounts does any good anyway -- as I've noted, my last persistent griefer was PIOF. And a really determined griefer will soon find a way around that. But if it is actually short term, and merely one of a number of tools being use, it's certainly and obviously less objectionable.

As I say, there's no easy or really effective solution to this -- in SL, any more than in RL. And as I noted in the thread on blocking accounts, anyone who thinks that "code" or "software" can provide an adequate "one-click-fixes-all" solution to complex human problems is deluding themselves.

[EliseAnne85]

15 minutes ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

I'm not convinced that restricting access to PIOF accounts does any good anyway -- as I've noted, my last persistent griefer was PIOF. And a really determined griefer will soon find a way around that. But if it is actually short term, and merely one of a number of tools being use, it's certainly and obviously less objectionable.

One griefer with PIOF isn't an army of alts though, so it does do good in certain situations, but like I said it's short term, but it's not fool-proof.  It happens; some people have armies of alts and there isn't much else to do until it settles down.  That's one of the tools to prevent an army of alts who are griefing, anyhow.  What else may be available, I don't know.  Close the sim for a bit...?

As far as classist, I think mostly those with private clubs would have PIOF and try to use PIOF as a way to have only a "certain clientele" and there are some who are using it for snobby reasons.  But, most of SL has been open to me but I've mostly been PIOF inworld so I don't know how many people who are non-payment info on file there actually are who are turned away from clubs/events/whatever because they are non-PIOF; because, like I said, my inworld avi's are PIOF so I wouldn't know what discrimination is actually occurring inworld.  

Edited February 23, 2023 by EliseAnne85

[Rowan Amore]

Kind of a non issue really.  I created an alt about a year ago to try out the Linden viewer and new user experience.  Never put payment info on her.  I've had her at dozens of places and not once has she been unable to enter.   So claims of discrimination against new residents seems pretty baseless.  Just my experience.

[Love Zhaoying]

Another use-case in general for checking "POIF" is so that you can try to identify new people who may need help.

Too bad the "POIF" Parcel restriction does the opposite!

[Love Zhaoying]

2 minutes ago, Rowan Amore said:

  I've had her at dozens of places and not once has she been unable to enter. 

Possibly because she's..smoking hot?

[Rowan Amore]

3 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

Possibly because she's..smoking hot?

She's actually in a starter avatar.