Problem Children

I feel fortunate, most days, that I am on a mainland sim. Why? Well mostly because we're too small and too much bother for most of your malicious griefers. In the ten months that I've owned the Bluffs I've had to ban only a very very few people; all of them for behavior problems rather than scripted or programmed destruction or disruption.

Each of the venues welcome guests and offer a rules note card. Now, if you're like me you immediately click IGNORE and keep going. If I kept every note card handed me when I landed some place, my inventory would implode. Still, the rules card for the Bluffs is very lean and very simple. MY RULES are very lean and very simple:

1. Be NICE
2. Don't be disruptive during a live event
3. No child avatars (I have made some rare exceptions--this is at my discretion)
4. No hunting/biting, weapons or combat huds.
5. HAVE FUN!

Gosh, you wouldn't think most folks would have a problem with that. You can be a child avatar and wander all over the meadow and galleries if you'd like, I don't care.  You can be a vampire or a lycan and enjoy an event, just don't send bite invites (or bite uninvited).  Scripted weapons and active RPG huds really add to the lag problem and frankly there's no one in the audience to shoot. So... you know--no brainer! You don't need it; take it off. BE NICE and HAVE FUN should be self evident...but really that seems to be the two rules that folks have the most problem with.

Case in point: this morning a child avatar arrived for Russell Eponym's event. This wasn't a Lolita who maaaaybe could pass visually for 16, 17 or 18 years old. This was a child avatar who was at MOST age 8. I messaged her privately and restated the rule and asked her to change avatars or relog as an adult alt.  After three minutes, I got not a single response in public or private chat. Per my own rule then, I ejected her and restated that if she changed shape/age she could return.

What happened instead was she IM'd Russ' manager and asked to be added to his group. THEN she proceeded to paste my private IMs to her into group chat for the express purpose of causing an incident. This, my friends, fits my definition of a griefer. A child avi, and now NOT nice, and disrupting other people's enjoyment of a fantastic event. Yup...3-strikes and she was banned from the lodge.  I thought her retaliation was very immature and passive-aggressive. I wish I could say I was surprised, but I'm not. I've seen this sort of thing time and time again, the sense of entitlement, the sense of being an exception to the rules, ANY rules, simply because they don't like them or its a rule they didn't make.

Hey, I'm a rebel too. I despise rules for the sake of rules. Authority which exists only to feed that person's ego. Sure, I have an ego, but it doesn't mean I beat people over the head with it. I have better self-esteem then that. I learn the rules in order to understand how to skirt under them, I will touch the spirit of the law, while I do what I do in the gray areas around it. I KNOW this about myself and perhaps that's why I'm not surprised when someone else takes issue with a rule. Still, as proprietrix, it is my job to enforce what few rules we have to provide the majority of the audience a pleasant experience and to honor the performer's time and efforts while they're on stage.

It reminded me once again of something a co-worker and I used to say to each other often: In online community we have to have rules and standards for conduct--exactly because of people like us :D