Jun05
I found this story at NetworkWorld’s Layer8 blog. Seems like even residents of virtual worlds (like Second Life) are subject to getting teased, abused, etc. Most people would call it bullying, but in the cyber world, it is called griefing.
Simple answer. Unplug, walk up the stairs that lead out of your mom’s basement, and get a first life. Sheesh…
Vet
Martin,
You are exactly right. And actually, the Second Life people did think about it, but they don’t want to do anything about it because they want this to emulate life as much as possible. A quote from the story:
And I don’t consider Second Life a game in the same terms of which you are speaking. I play my share of games to escape, but I don’t think you or I let them take over our lives like this seems to do.
Michael
Michael,
Why are people acting like this is something new? This is just part of human interaction, something that’s going to happen any time you have a social situation. The fact that people can hide behind pseudonyms and create new accounts easily just exacerbates the problem. It removes almost any possibility of negative repercussions for the bully. Some of the MMORPG games out there have been designed with ways of limiting the bullying built in. I guess the folks at Second Life didn’t think about the possibility too much.
And not everyone who plays those games live in their Mom’s basement. Some of us have offices in a back corner of the house where we don’t have to listen to the tv blaring and the kids bickering.
Martin