In the effort going here the question came up for me of; what place does player to player action have?
In general this section is about how we each handle situations and respond to problems. A /kick command takes direct action on another player. In SL even bumping another AV is a reportable offense. Only SIM owners can eject and/or ban an AV from their SIM and only Linden Lab can ban a player from SL. Their idea is players do not take vigilante action. In society people rely on law enforcement and only take direct action when life or health is at risk.
This section I see as providing the frame work and knowledge for how people respond to issues, debates, disagreements, and habitual poor behavior. Hopefully providing knowledge for better responses. Also coming up with philosophies on when problems move to moderator intervention and actions.
The /kick command seems to move from where society as developed to, back to an earlier time. I'm not sure whether that is good or bad on the large stage of life. I do see it as counter productive and violating the theme of Uru.
Nalates wrote:I like the idea of a /me kicks - to the moon...
However, I think /kick allows griefers the ability to target 'helpers' makes for significant change to the Uru environment. On the other hand that tactic is in use now. I see it as more broadly targeted now. I think a /kick would narrow the focus of the gimmick. Trying to solve a problem by creating a bigger problem for a class of player want to help seems counter productive.
While I'm not overly opposed to adding a /kick-eject I don't see it as a solution. I also see it as outside the basic nature of the Uru environment, non-violent. Taking physical action against another AV in game has been avoided. I see it as a basic philosophy that /kick would violate.
Until we have someone that has 'game eject' ability we have a problem with repeat offenders.
In the interim I don't see a good solution. The addition of /kick might be a fun, satisfying interim solution. The problem is that it is likely going to be fun and satisfying and those two rewards feed right into the griefers mentality and mental/emotional needs. I see that as encouraging its misuse and a big red flag.
But all that is opinion and speculation. Until we try it, we won't know, but we can see how it will feed griefers needs and a probable result.
For an immediate solution, it does not work. We can't add it until we can change the game. A /kick command is going to need some server side cooperation.
Until we can have ResEng with eject authority or a /kick or some other tool (like Whilyam pointed out /ignore making AV silent and invisible) we have to handle problems. Going armed with knowledge is about our only real tool, which is actually the only real tool we need.
While I think using tools to solve these problems is overly simplistic... the expansion of /ignore to include making the problem AV invisible comes the closest to handling the underlaying problem of griefers typically wanting attention and control, an ability to effect his/her environment and see it validated in another's reactions. It very effectively removes most of the griefers incentives and rewards.
It also is more in line with what I think is the Uru ideal of non-violence. It does not really do anything to THEM. It just affects what we see. It also does not offer a fun activity or an emotionally satisfying action. It does get the annoyed relief.
I also think expanding the /ignore function could be done with only changes on the client side, which means it could be implemented sooner.
The only part of the solution that it does not address is leaving the griefers in game to pray on those that have yet to /ignore them. That tends to be a lot of new players, or so I think. That could be a problem. But, I can't see a way to factually evaluate the benefit to disadvantage ratio without trying it.