Who Are the People in Second Life?

Another problem with retention in Second Life is the cast of weirdos and oddballs that you are likely to encounter. These pathological misfits show up in a variety of forms. The most obvious instance is griefers. Griefers are people who come to Second Life for the sole purpose of diminishing the enjoyment of others. They have some fairly standard tricks. Perhaps the most common is a particle generator that floods a sim with pictures that range from annoying to deeply offensive. Another instance is trollers. Griefers generally do not mind get Abuse Reports. They are pretty flagrant. But, Trollers are more subtle. They like to annoy people but carefully stop short of getting reported. They may act like newbies and ask a lot of questions that may or may not be offensive depending on how you interpret them. They act confused and ask the same questions over and over. They just want to be annoying. Since a lot of people, especially in Welcome Areas, try to help others out, this can be not only annoying but frustrating and upsetting. Many a good mentor has been turned off by trollers.

The problem here, of course, is that Second Life allows anonymous free accounts. This is a HUGE mistake and I cannot imagine what was going through the heads of the people at Linden Labs who made this decision. I know why it initially seemed like a good idea. They wanted the press they would get from having millions of accounts. And, I suppose, that did work in the short run. But, in the longer run they have subsided a lot of non paying customers to come to Second Life and drive away potentially paying customers. There is no way to justify a strategy that pays people to drive away your business.

But, it isn't just griefers and trollers that create problems. Anonymity is a huge problem for other reasons. And I will turn to that next time.