Abuse Levees Holding

Though you may not believe it, everyone here in the Lab spent a lot of time considering the likely implications of changing the 'verification' stage of registration system before a single line of code was altered.  We'd certainly see a rush of new alt accounts, but that would probably settle out once everyone had one (or two).  Concurrency should definitely increase, along with load on the asset servers.  And how would we handle the increased technical support load?  New accounts are twice as likely (six percent) to request help when compared to existing, active accounts (just three percent).

On the top of my list, however, was Abuse.  On first blush, it seemed that we were preparing to flood Second Life with hordes of anonymous accounts that would rampage across the world, free of the constraints of real-world identity.   Considering the issue more carefully, it wasn't so cut and dried.  Between SMS and pre-paid Visa gift cards, did our existing validation methods really provide much validation? Perhaps not.  Would the new registration cause Abuse Reports to skyrocket, or the would the accounts created without the validation step, in the end, behave more or less in the same manner as other Residents of Second Life?  I thought it could go either way.

A week later, of course, the first results are in.  On the average, the daily abuse reporting rate in Second Life is 1.2 percent – that means that just over one out of every 100 unique Residents logged in during that day is compelled to file an Abuse Report.  Over the course of an entire month, the number is about seven out of every 100. Interestingly, this level has remained largely unchanged in the three years that Second Life has existed. 

The validation-free version of Second Life registration started on June 6.  In the week leading up to the revisions, the reporting rate was 1.27 percent – dead  average.  In the first week following the change, the reporting rate has increased to 1.53.  That's a real increase, but certainly not the dramatic skyrocketing that some had feared and certainly close to our general statistical deviation.  More importantly, the daily rate grew each day from June 6 until it peaked on that first Friday – hitting 1.85 percent – but has since crept back down and is now approaching more average levels.  It would appear, perhaps, that the alt rush has come and gone, and that the Residents entering Second Life via the revised registration system are not so very different from those who came before.

We will continue to evaluate the pros (many, many more Second Life Residents and ever faster growth of our world) and cons (weakening of identity, ) of our new approach to registration.  Initial indications are that the new system is bringing into Second Life those who previously balked at providing a payment source for a what we billed as a free account.  It's a promising development, but one that will require continuing consideration.

-- Daniel Linden