Recently, we’ve had a spat of “Griefing”, “near-Griefing”, and other annoying events. As annoying as they are to you, they’re a real problem for There because we (SamSyn, Bruce, and I) end up spending time on them.

There are lots of tools in world you can use to avoid Griefers, people you don’t like much, or just people in general:

You can ignore them, which not only makes it impossible for them to talk to you, it also hides their name (they become “Ignored”), and their clothing.

You can teleport away from them. Given that you have an entire Virtual World at your disposal, this is always a good option.

You can buy or rent a neighborhood or neighborhood lot, and exercise as little or as much privacy as you feel like today.

If someone is shooting you with a paint gun, you can use your Force Field to protect yourself.

You can turn on “Buddies Only Voice” to ensure you only hear the voices you want (including the ones in your head) (If they’re on your buddy list, that is).

By far, however, the best tools you have are your own maturity. Whatever tools we come up with, Griefers, who apparently have nothing better to do with their time, will come up with a way to get around them.

But what griefer’s can’t do is make you react.

Remember, “No One Can Make You Feel Inferior Without Your Consent“.

We know that when a Griefer (who has problem run of of flies to pull the wings off of) makes an Avatar with a name that disturbs you, it’s bothersome. Even if you can’t see it (since you cleverly ignored them), it bothers you that others can.

Well, first, remember that just about everyone else will recognize the name as having being created by a Cretin (that’s a fancy word for Griefer). It’s not like someone going to see an avatar name “MichaelWilsonKillsKittens”, and immediately call the SPCA. Seriously. Think about it.

Second, if you do react, all you’ve done is stimulated what is probably a pre-teen who’s been grounded for not cleaning their room into griefing you some more. Like a tick on the butt of a diseased rat chewing on the carcass of a hyena, as long as it gets blood, the griefer will keep sucking. As soon as you cut off it’s food, it dies.

So, don’t react. Of course, you can ask us to ban them, and we’ll be happy to do that, but all that does it get them all excited.

You can also have fun with them. If they make a shirt, say “MichaelWilson’s Drunk”, I’d make one that said “But a least tomorrow I’ll be sober, and you’ll still be a fool“.

We’re all adults here. Most Griefers, aren’t, at least mentally. If you act like an adult, then they’ll get bored, and go back to puzzling out how to tie their shoes.

We’ve had lots of suggestions, which were rejected for handling griefers. Here are a few:

SamSyn, Bruce, and I will take 8 hour shifts, 7 days a week, to stay in world and instantly pounce on any Griefers who appear. If we did this, we wouldn’t get anything else done.

Get rid of free trials. This is probably not a good solution.

“Free Trial” accounts will be restricted to standing silently in Zona until they become premium members. While this would cut down on griefing, and give us another nice statue gardern, it wouldn’t entice new members to join up.

I know this isn’t a pleasant subject, but I think it’s worth bringing up from time to time. With all the bad things going on in the world right now, it seems like people could focus on being nicer to each other, instead of finding new ways to torment ourselves.