Dealing with Griefers Part 5:
Homeland Security

If you are on land which you own, or land which is set to a group of which you are a member and have the correct abilities enabled, Second Life provides you with powerful tools to enable you to prevent griefing attacks. You can control who is able to visit your land and what they can do there.

If you own the land, you will have the ability to do all of these things. If you are on group land the ability to use each land management option can be assigned to you through the "Allowed Abilities" for your Role in the group.

Right-click on the ground and select "About Land" from the pie menu, select "About Land..." from the World menu or click on the parcel name at the top of your screen to open the "About Land" window for the parcel of land on which you are currently located. The About Land window contains seven tabs which allow land owners/managers to set various land options. Four of these are of particular interest to the Avatar seeking to minimize griefing attacks on his/her land.

About Land - Objects

About Land - Objects


The third tab, Objects, allows individuals with the appropriate Parcel Content abilities to see who has objects on the land and to selectively return objects by owner or to return all objects owned by the parcel owner, all objects set to the parcel's group or all objects owned by others. If your land has been junked up by prims left by a large number of different people, you can quickly return all of them by hitting the Return... button on the Owned by others: line. If, however, you want to allow others to keep objects on your land and there is only one (or a few) individuals who have left litter, you can selectively return these Avatars' objects by selecting their names from the Object Owners list and using the Return objects... button immediately above this list.

About Land - Options

About Land - Options


The fourth tab, Options, allows land owners and managers to take a more pro-active role in determining what can and cannot happen on their land. Land owners and group land officers with the Parcel Settings: Toggle various About Land > Options settings ability can set land to be Safe (meaning that no game "damage" points can be incurred on the land) and can prevent the use of push weapons on the land by selecting Restrict Pushing. This tab also allows you to set whether or not other residents can Create Objects on the land, move objects already rezzed from another parcel onto yours (Object Entry) and/or Run Scripts on the land. On land set to group, these abilities can be assigned to group only, or to All Residents.

If your land parcel comes under attack by self-replicating prims, it is a good idea to immediately turn off Create Objects, Object Entry and Run Scripts options, file an Abuse Report and a Help Request.

About Land - Access

About Land - Access


If you want a quiet parcel of land to allow you to work in solitude or meet with a few close friends without interruptions from outsiders, you can limit access to your parcel, either to the group it is set to, or to a list of specifically designated avatars in the sixth tab, Access. Non-owner land officers managing group land require the Parcel Access: Manage parcel Access lists ability in order to control this feature.

About Land - Ban

About Land - Ban


If you want your land to be publicly accessible to the large majority of Second Life citizens but keep known troublemakers away, the seventh tab, Ban, is the place to control this.

Select the Ban these avatars: box, click the Add... button, type the name of the avatar you wish to ban in the text-entry field which pops up, click Find and then choose the avatar's name from the list which is returned and click Select. Non-owner land officers managing group land require the Parcel Access: Manage parcel Ban lists ability in order to use this feature.

If the griefing avatar is on your land, you can also Ban, Freeze and/or Eject him from your land by right-clicking on his avatar, choosing More from the first pie menu, then either Freeze or Eject from the second menu. This option is available to land owners and to group land officers with the Parcel Access: Eject and freeze Residents on parcels ability.

If you choose Freeze from the pie menu, a window will pop up enabling you to Freeze the avatar (rendering him unable to move, chat or interact with objects), Unfreeze an avatar who has been previously frozen, or Cancel the freeze request.

Freeze menu


If you choose Eject and also have land ban privileges, you will see a choice to simply eject the avatar from the parcel or to eject and simultaneously add him to the parcel's ban list.

Eject menu


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If you require more elaborate ban options than what Second Life provides through its land ban feature you might want to look into a scripted land access management system such as BanLink.
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If you make use of the tactics we have covered in this tutorial so far, you will be able to eliminate the vast majority of griefing attacks from your Second Life. If, however, you encounter someone who is obviously attempting to cause problems -- especially in ways which are likely to be disruptive to the SL grid and/or community at large -- it is a good idea to file an Abuse Report about the incident.

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