When you first arrive in Second Life and you wander round learning how to walk, fly, pick things up and change your clothes, there is little preparation for a nasty element that inhabits the virtual world - Griefers!!

Griefing takes on many forms, I have been shopping, walking down the road and found myself 'caged' literally! someone puts a cage round you and you get bounced around, and this is without meeting, or even seeing the avatar responsible. In fact most attacks are carried out from a distance without any verbal exchange.

You may be trying to build at a sandbox area and find a spot where nobody else is building, I can guarantee that someone in that sandbox will want to try their weapon out on you, and I don't mean that they ask you before trying it! Some avs think it is a good idea to put a house or large object just in the spot you have picked to build. Some may think you are a prime target for their new gun, others throw scripted objects at you sending you into orbit.

Then of course there are the ones who want to make the place uncomfortable for everyone by releasing flying placards (particle storms) which usually have obscene pictures on, they fill your whole computer screen and are usually accompanied by incomprehensible noise, making a large part of the sim unusable.

You also have spiteful avs who pick on newbies, planting something on the ground like a pack of beer that they know the newbies will want to touch. Once touched of course, they are either sent into orbit or trashed (turned into a strange shape, usually resembling a stick insect) and they have to log off of second life to get back to normal.

I suppose I was lucky as a newbie, I had first landed in a place called Murray and this was my first home. I quickly became aware of the griefers as they thought they had ultimate control over Murray, trying out their weapons there, so it was a quick learning curve for me, I can go anywhere now in second life and not be worried because I am used to being griefed and know how to protect myself to a certain extent. If I find that I have been orbited or attacked and it was too late for me to put my shield on, I simply put in an abuse report to the Lindens as I see no reason why I should let someone attack me and get away with it.

It became so bad at Murray that the sim constantly crashed with all the battles going on there. In the end the sim drastically altered as the use of scripted objects was no longer permitted, thus making it impossible for weapons to be used, unless they were loaded in the next sim and carried over. However, this ruined the place, as we could no longer build or use any gadgets in the region. The old crowd who used to meet there drifted away. Eventually the Lindens reached a compromise and enabled part of the land for scripting, leaving the main part script free.

People started to come back and meet there again and we do have some fun using the friendly scripted objects and being able to build a little bit again. However, the griefers have also returned, and when I went there the other day the whole of Murray was under blocks and particle storms (see pictures above) making it impossible for people to stand anywhere.

I believe there are different types of griefers, someone at the CNN meeting last night said 'I'm not sure this "griefing" thing is anything more than a tool for people who don't want to hear others disagree or raise valid argument to anything', which is very true in some cases, but this may apply more to people who are arguing one to one. Most griefers do not even know their victims, they attack and run, never having said a word to anyone.

Some griefers are very juvenile in their behaviour anyway, like boys with toys (or girls in fact who can be just as bad). Some of these avs may have lied about their age anyway and should be on the teen grid. Others simply are the right age but are childish and mischievous, thinking it is fun to pick on other avs.

Some are downright malicious, nasty people, who want to spoil things for other avs' who are trying to conduct a business or run an event in second life. The humans behind the keyboards carrying their traits into second life, so if they think there is no recourse by attacking people in the virtual world, they can fulfil all their first life inadequacies by becoming a vandal in second life.

There are others who mingle with groups of avs, who set off clouds of smoke, or build brightly lit objects (looking so garish on the screen of your computer that you have to switch views), or start pushing and shoving the avs who are just trying to stand and have a conversation. You can't move away from these annoying avs as they just follow you, not leaving the group alone. These are different again, they want to be with the crowd, but have no social skills to stand and get on with the majority of people, so have to satisfy themselves by breaking the group up. These would seem the saddest people, as they are probably unable to make friends and the only way they can interact with others is by making mischief.

We will always have these griefers, as we have all different types of people controlling the keyboards, choosing which path they wish to follow in the virtual world, and yes sometimes some of the things they get up to can be amusing because life without them entirely would be a bit boring. However, it depends on the depth of the maliciousness and your feelings about being attacked which must decide which way you want to handle the situation. You can laugh of the mischievous ones as it is only a bit of fun, but the really nasty people who spoil second life for everyone else should be reported and banned, as they are not about to change their selfish behaviour or their real life traits just because they are in their second life.