I, too, think you have to distinguish between the sort of “off rules” pranking and goofing and such that people do in *games* — whether World of Warcraft of even Sims On Line (gloving), using in-game tools like weapons or ratings or banning — and the sort of really heavily creepy and nasty harassment and stalking that happens by the PNs, v/5s and such in Second Life. That’s simply very different. If it occurred in real life, it would be criminal mischief, vandalism or worse. It’s real. And that’s ok to say. You can make a distinction between the horrors of real-life terrorism, or a girl committing suicide for real, and the *similar dynamics and motivations* going on with *simulated virtual* incitement and terrorism.

I totally disagree with this “only a few bad apples” stuff that the Something Awful crowd constantly spouts as a mantra to get themselves and their milieu off the hook. Their website actively, knowingly, deliberately, gleefully, maliciously incites griefing and provides a substrate for recruitment, training, and implementation of griefing actions. You can see it on any number of SL-related threads. The cheerleaders and lurkers and hangers on may not pull the triggers, but they create the climate of celebration for the victory-dancers when they come back and tell their war stories. You never see these people who claim “there are only a few bad apples among us” *condemning* what goes on.

That was always my challenge to old-time W-hatters in SL, who sprang from Something Awful. I would say, if you are cheering, victory dancing, creating a climate for, you are part of it. If you can’t condemn this, then what’s up? What’s especially fake is that they’re all putting out stories now that they have “retired from griefing”. So much of this stuff is all about psy-war and Leninist-style propaganda tactics.

[...] [...]

I’m waiting for a system that allows me to be flat out oblivious to the very existence of people in my ignore list. Don’t even bother having the client render their character. Since that probably won’t ever happen (and would end up being abusable one way or another in any sort of PvP system), I’d like to see more user community space controls. I said this in a post a long time ago, just as I don’t have any right to go into someone else’s space and tell them what they should and shouldn’t be doing, I ought to expect a space where I can determine what is promoted and what is discouraged and be given the tools to enforce those preferences. When users have no tools for control of social spaces, then the burden falls on the moderators, and clearly that hasn’t been cutting it.

To quote Sanya:

Q: Why do you hate me personally?

A: We don’t hate you. This fifty page log of all the crap you spew in open chat channels, and the two thousand people who reported you, would suggest that a large number of the people on your server do in fact hate you. But we don’t personally care. We’ve seen worse. Amateur.

Q: Why do you hate my guild?

A: It’s not hate, it’s disgust. Your guild is not breaking any rules, but your spawn hogging, name calling, trashtalking, and general all around asshattery is actively driving away other customers, and there are more of them than there are of you. Although I admit I laughed at the log where you pretended to be Chinese gold farmers, I didn’t think the resulting uproar was all that funny. Don’t you see how much funnier it would have been if you’d posted the whole log, including your guild chat where it’s clear you were only pretending?

italics is the important part, I’m in that group that leaves when greifers are basically endorsed by the company through a refusal to enforce posted policies. When folks abuse LoS systems to kill you in neutral towns without getting killed by guards and the CSR tells you ‘we don’t consider that against the rules’, you start to wonder who the hell this game was made for. Really, abusing bugged pathing systems to avoid the aggro gain you should have received upon initiating hostilities isn’t against the rules? Isn’t that covered in the part where it says you can’t abuse game systems to avoid intended consequences? What about the person who has no internal hesitance to do the same, but was worried about what would happen to his account if he did so. After talking to that CSR, one more griefer just joined the fray!

Bottom line – In games you can’t punish people who you hold no real power over, unless they grant you that power through their belief. And griefers don’t.

On the other hand, you have to wonder how long the ‘internet is serious business’ line will remain true. With more attention being paid to online spaces and money passing through them – this can refer to micro transactions like SL deals with, or subscription fees for people who won’t play the game any longer, or even advertising revenue on other sites, etc… – just when will griefing be perceived as verging into more criminal areas more often?

I think everyone will agree that those who simply grief without any thought to anyone but themselves do exist, and are utterly foul. Sadly they often use the actions of dubious vigilantes as cover for committing worse acts still.

It is also worth stating for the record that, from what I know of the high-end EVE game, the actions of the goons was quite typical. Other guilds have also famously infiltrated their competitors to stage strategic character assassinations.

There really is not one kind of grief, but several of increasing severity:

Antisocial gameplay
Ethical stance reasoned attack (some difference in ethical and moral values and actions results in division)
Disagreement attack (“asked for it” but without a moral or ethical influence, often player-run event related)
Anonymous attack (Feeling safe to grief without cause due to not knowing the other side)
Spillover attack (where the grief is not limited to online, but occurs outside the internet also)
The first can be mitigated by game design. We have seen that the trend in PvP has been to prevent communication between opposing sides. By doing this, upset through smacktalk is prevented. The second aspect is something that games, as private forums (technical term rather than internet), can have some control over by the wording of their rules of conduct. This will probably not stop problems, but will allow them to be dealt with more easily. It is for the game administrators themselves to decide how they wish to side. In my experience, number 3, an attack based on disagreements between players or decisions seen as “asking for trouble”, a game can never totally avoid. However some measures can be done, such as encouraging players to consider their safety when designing events (most notably recently, not holding a memorial service in a PvP-allowed area). The problem with griefer type 4 is that they quickly become type 3, using the reaction to the first attack as justification. Perhaps a level of rapid and harsh customer service might be of use, encouraging players to remain calm as they know that any grief will be swiftly dealt with. Finally, the fifth and, in my opinion, the worst type of grief is something that we can do little to directly address. That is something that society as a whole needs to deal with.

I say nothing about the nature of the Something Awful community.

“Goon” and “Goon Squad” are terms specific to the Something Awful community. As an SA term, a “Goon” is simply a member of the SA community. A “Goon Squad” is simply a guild of players who are also members of the SA community.

In other terms, a “goon squad” is “[a]n emergency response detail of corrections officers within a penal institution; frequently called upon to put down inmate uprisings or to quell otherwise violent incidents.” Interestingly, the management and members of the SA community take immense pride in putting down trolls and quelling incidents of human stupidity.

They’re acting out impulses that they’d like to do in real space, but won’t because the consequences in real space are too damaging.

To effectively curb this behavior, which is based on meta-game or out of game impulses, you have to engage them out of game with real consequences like legal actions and restraining orders.

Is it worth it? I don’t know. Some people are always going to have that “I’m a jerk, I’m a bully, and I find it fun to cause other people distress” mentality.