Talk:Griefer

This article was nominated for deletion on 18/1/2007. The result of the discussion was keep.

MMO Griefing

added a caveat re griefing and PvP in MMO's, as there is much misconception on this topic. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 120.156.5.103 (talk) 10:02, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

Cheese with that whine?

This article just stinks of the "IM FUCKING PRO SO GET OUT N00B, YOU SUCK" mentality. Seriously, in the Halo 3 section it is calling grenade jumping "illegal". I fail to see how you argue that this is unbiased.

Microsoft's Griefing Definition

Microsoft has a good definition of this (no link, sorry!), which covers more about verbal abuse rather than the team killing and techincal aspect of Griefing Borgs8472 17:37, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

I'd concider any gamer who initiates nonconcentual PvP to be a griefer. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.160.77.255 (talk) 23:29, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

Weasel words

Having read the article today and made some minor edits for the sake of clarity I have removed the weasel tag as the offending passages seem to have been removed. 13:53, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

NPOV

"The typical stereotype is of a teenaged male who escapes a life of social ostracism and perhaps even parental abuse by lashing out at others in the only realm where he has power - the net." This statement seems pretty biased to me, so I slapped the section with an NPOV tag. --Antoshi~! ^{T | C} 21:54, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

Biased? I'd probably write something like "the typical griefer is a psychopath and may share character traits with rapists, wifebeaters and other violent criminals." I don't think that would be POV at all.

Dude who wrote the above, who the hell do you think you are, calling people who play an online game a bit differently violent criminals? If I had enough time to waste on a game like WOW I would certainly "grief" rather than just waste my life pretending to be an elf or orc and playing exactly like everyone else. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 142.179.73.188 (talk) 21:51, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Reading skills? The section goes on to state that the stereotype is false. What's NPOV about exploding popular myths? -Kasreyn 17:36, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

It simply is not neutral. It's as if to say that any abused or troubled teenager only had power taking it out on people over the internet, that's simply unacceptable. And furthermore, if it goes on to prove that it's false, why have it there in the first place? --Antoshi~! ^{T | C} 17:33, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

So it's unencyclopedic to state "In contrast to Myth B, Fact A is the case"? You have to always state "Fact A is the case" and nothing more? I have a hard time believing that, especially when it's a widespread myth or misperception that many readers might have an interest in learning the truth of.

My point is that I think it's our duty not only to report on what griefers are, but what people think of them. I'll admit that it's a hard thing to source, though. -Kasreyn 12:44, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

Oh wow, you really made me laugh. "My point is that I think it's our duty not only to report on what griefers are, but what people think of them." Yeah, that's rich. Let's re-write Wikipedia, and, instead of puttting FACTS into articles, let's just put in OPINIONS. Your last comment is making me itch to just delete that entire part of the article, because apparently you're more biased in editing pages than anything else. What about the people who don't play online games and therefore have no idea what a Griefer is? So, are people who don't know immediately supposed to believe this drivel about them? And yeah, it is unencyclopedic to state "In contrast to Myth B, Fact A is the case", because instead of giving people straight facts, you first lie to them, THEN set them straight. Try reading WP:NPOV before you decide to add anymore OPINIONS to articles. --Antoshi~! ^{T | C} 18:53, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

Have you ever tried to find reputable sources on the topic of "griefing"? Good luck with that. There aren't any. Therefore it's not really possible to source or prove anything we're talking about on this entire article. I'd delete it but someone would just re-create it.

I don't know exactly why you're going off on me like this, or becoming so angry. I'm not defending a piece of the article (that would violate WP:OWN), I'm simply trying to engage you in debate on whether wikipedia should report on public opinion. I already made my main point, which is the difficulty of sourcing information on "griefing". And for your information, I happen to spend almost all my wikipedia time reverting vandals and NPOV edits, so I really don't need or deserve your condescension. You've made your point, and I don't disagree. So how about you calm down and stop thinking of me as the enemy? -Kasreyn 01:16, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

P.S. I think this quote from WP founder Jim Wales might be informative: "Perhaps the easiest way to make your writing more encyclopedic, is to write about what people believe, rather than what is so." [1] This would seem to support my point, though as I've pointed out, the entire article suffers from a sourcing problem which might be insurmountable. -Kasreyn 04:11, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

I'm not so sure there is much of a sourcing problem. Why not use the quotes from article linked from the article specifically the part Dissecting griefer dysfunction to write/source that section? Google comes up with plenty of sources for other things as well. kotepho 05:09, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

If there's no sources on Griefing, that's fine and good. If Jimbo Wales says what he wants about encyclopedic writing, that's also fine and good. What's not fine and good is using either of those as excuses to be non-neutral or biased. Furthermore, the only reason I appear "angry", is because I don't much appreciate there being non-NPOV in this article and then having you defend them. And no, I don't believe I own this article. I didn't create this article, neither did I make any real edits to it other than posting the two tags that are there now. If you go ahead, and delete said text in the article, and then someone reverts or re-creates it, and then you remove it again, then you either direct them to this area of the Discussion page, or file for WP:RFM. However, if an article suffers from sourcing problems, then it either remains as a Stub until more information is available. However, I have gone ahead and listed this article as a WP:PNA, so perhaps someone else can help out. --Antoshi~! ^{T | C} 05:23, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

I don't think it would be POV to say that griefers are psychopaths or otherwise mentally deranged, like rapists, wifebeaters and other violent criminals. It would simply be factual. Of course, some sort of source would be required.

Thats not a fact, thats an opinion. "Griefers" and criminals are not even comparable.

no opinions? quick, we need to delete every "Criticism" section in wikipedia! after all, it's people's opinions. NPOV means you can't include your own opinions. you can include popular ones in order to explain the truth or falsehood of them. --Makuta 18:21, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

Helpful

I found this article helpful, even if it is overly filled with jargon. I support its inclusion as a standalone article on the English-language Wikipedia. I would like to see it improved, however I lack the technical knowledge to do so. But I did come across a recent newspaper article that could point to recent trends in the use of this term and could be used as a reference: Davies, Martin (June 15, 2006) "Gamers don't want any more grief", The Guardian. - Wisekwai 11:01, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

abuse of features

Griefing isnt just about scamming or harrassing people, the abuse of features in ways not intended is a major part of it too. Non griefers also do this yeah, but similarly not all scammers or team killers are griefers.

No, I'm certain that is a misapprehension. Griefing is the act of abusing other players online. It's true that griefers typically make use of exploits - in fact, most of them do, and it's worth mentioning. But we must make it clear that not all griefers exploit, and it's not required for the definition of what griefing is. Kasreyn 22:56, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Ah yeah I see what you mean, its more a means to an end. 82.21.150.24 15:39, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Groups

It seems to me that this particular section lacks hardly any verifiable sources. In fact, it seems to be mostly made up of the sheer opinion of whoever wrote it. Does anyone else have reason on why this section should exist? Also, is there any credible proof that any of the groups listed are "griefing groups"? DarkWolves was the only group listed in which evidence was actually supplied. 66.56.44.90 23:40, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Major Edit

I majorly rearranged the format of this article and added some information. Hopefully it works. I also removed the tone tag because I believe I fixed that - Arathwindmere

Origin of the Slang Term

Based on Google searches it appears that this term "Griefer" was coined by one of the online game manufacturers (WoW?) sometime on or before 2003. If someone could determine who coined the slang term this should be added to the article. This term was certianly not in use back in the Quake/Doom timeframe. We tended to just call them "campers". Cshay 23:14, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

After doing some Google Groups searches, it seems that this term showed up in the year 2000 with Ultima Online. Cshay 10:29, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Camping is not griefing! Possibly laming in a Free For All game. I couldn't stand when people would cry "camper" in an objective based game like capture the flag...in an objective based game camping is called "tactics". - AbstractClass 17:16, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Didn't mean to step into any religious war, I don't even play games anymore. I was just saying that "camping" was the closest word we had for it back then since at least *some* people were seriously annoyed with campers. There didn't seem to be any general term for troublemaking back in the Quake days. I still think this term was invented by an Ultima Online documentation writer :) I never saw it before then. Cshay 17:46, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

The terms Griefing/Griefer were coined in Ultima Online on the Sonoma Server for the actions of a group of people that would constantly disrupt the "Fight Night" event in Oasis. This term was actually ridiculed by the EA/OSI Management at first, but later accepted and eventually used Universally as it is today. While I can't be exactly sure as to WHO coined the term first in the Oasis Group, I can say it was without a doubt the first time these terms were used. Since I cannot remember all the Team Members of the Oasis Group, I won't speculate WHO was the first to say it, but I can say that Bob Bowrest was the first to use these terms when dealing directly with EA/OSI Management personnel. - Bob Bowrest —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.2.10.66 (talk) 16:33, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Griefers of Scale

I think perhaps something should be said about this concept mostly relevant to FPSes. A talented griefer may aim to not just target individual players but have the goal of causing chaos on an entire server causing it to degenerate into an orgy of team killing, kick votes, fear and loathing.

The griefer might operate more covertly attempting to have a target think another player had caused the offense, leading him to take retribution on the innocent player causing him to think that his attacker is a griefer so he attacks back. Instigate this trouble enough to reach a critical mass and the server degenerates.

Also throw in random griefs in the interim such as kick votes (which has the additional benefit of keeping people from running a kick vote against you). Team griefing (having a partner in crime) is very usefull when trying to cause widespread chaos. - AbstractClass 16:53, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

This kind of comment is not useful if it is Original Research. Please cite your sources or don't bother with it. Cshay 17:56, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

We need to de-weasel this article

See WP:WEASEL. This article contains too many instances of phrases like "In some people's opinion", "Other people feel that", "These players will often consider", "A number of gaming groups are believed to exist for the sole purpose of griefing" (better to rephrase this one by stating who believes this). -- 201.50.253.154 14:57, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Consider rewriting the following: "In some people's opinion, a player must meet several if not all points listed for a player to be considered griefing. Other people feel that curbing any of their enjoyment of the game to be a form of griefing whether it meets any of the listed criteria or not. These players will often consider the following actions to constitute griefing: kill stealing, player killing, spamming, team killing (or team wounding), door or path blocking, ninja looting, spawn camping, and corpse camping. These actions often meet one of the criteria but may fail to meet others."

To: "Other accepted griefing behaviours are: kill stealing, player killing, spamming, team killing (or team wounding), door or path blocking, ninja looting, spawn camping, and corpse camping." Much shorter and with fewer weasels?--64.141.104.2 17:25, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Bullies ref?

Several parts of the "Overview" section have a reference tag which appears to be broken. Right now it's reference [3], it has a name of "bullies" but no description or URL or anything. Should this reference be removed?

Too much jargon

I can't make heads or tails of this article, and I'm a pretty old hand with video games. Could someone go through the piece with an eye to making it understandable to someone who has never played an online multiplayer game before? — Brian (talk) 06:42, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Great article, guys. Nice job :)

Why does article glorify griefing?

This article, while lacking any citation to the effect, appears to glorify griefing as some kind of exciting new sport. "Griefing is a malignant form of emergent gameplay." -- while it may be malignant and emergent, it is certainly not a form of gameplay.

Article suggests that Griefing is some sort of specialized form of harassment, where flaws in game design must be employed. I argue that while exploiting game flaws may be quite popular for griefers, it's certainly not required. All that is required is intent to diminish gameplay for others.

Casual griefing should also be mentioned. As any person who is bored and begins misbehaving (teamkilling, cursing/screaming into the vox, etc) essentially becomes a griefer.

I am hesitant to try to push any of these objectives in the article however, as griefers (malignant, evolved versions of trolls) exist here as well and are likely to try to derail Wikipedia's own production process in order to cause grief to the readers and maintainers of this encyclopedia. I don't feel any urge to jump headlong into the cesspool of drama that shall inevitably result. Jesset77 (talk) 02:58, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

You're wrong—it *is* a form of gameplay; just one you don't happen to like. All the worse for you. All the better for the griefer. You're exactly the type griefers pray to come across, sport. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 138.163.0.42 (talk) 16:34, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

In that case, please add the appropriate emergent gameplay attributes to the article on gang warfare. That is, after all, the real-world equivilant to griefing. Jesset77 (talk) 08:51, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

That's absolutely ridiculous. There is no real-world equivalent to griefing because there are things you are unable to do in real life that games allow you to do. This is ultimately what is exploited by griefers: capabilities of the game itself. To insist that griefers are the same as street gangs is nonsensical. It sounds more like you have a personal grudge against griefers that you wish to express on Wikipedia. Please leave your personal biases and grudges somewhere else. --LordZimmer (talk) 14:03, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

No real world equivalent to griefing?!?! Apparently you've never heard of Osama Bin Laden. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.86.230.202 (talk) 15:55, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Team Roomba

This article is woefully out of date without any mention of TF2's Team Roomba griefers. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 138.163.0.42 (talk) 16:39, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

This isn't meant to be a list of every single group, just the ones that are the most unique and well-known. --LordZimmer (talk) 13:54, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

They are,just look them up on youtube.They actually legendary.

You'll need to find a credible source with journalistic overview, like peer review or an editor... This article has practically no sources, but my personal bias prevents me for nominating it :p 92.0.150.111 (talk) 14:32, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

needs cleanup

too much text, few examples, fuzzy categorization/generalization. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.191.175.243 (talk) 22:39, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

Article still lacks consistency, as stated years ago. While it makes somewhat clear that the definition of what constitutes a griefer is subjective and often specific to a particular game, it goes on (notably in the "Combating Griefers" section) to say things like "since all griefing involves exploiting..."

As someone who griefs regularly on games such as Battlefield 2, I can attest that the aformentioned quote is false. In fact, much of my griefing fun comes simply from instigating arguments in global chat. Often, when I play on a server that obviously has an inordinate amount of ultra-conservative ex-military failure types, I'll say things like "me and my gay boyfriend love this game!" While immature and utterly unoriginal, such statements almost never fail to incite a riot, with the morons on the server letting their insecurities run rampant to the point of getting themselves a ban for hurling epithets.

That said, I have never cheated. I'm too paranoid to download hacks from some script kiddie, and get more of a cheap thrill from seeing others built up into an uncomfortable rage a la Borat. So please, future editors to this article, come up with a concise definition, preferably one that doesn't include arbitrary criteria and focuses more on the subjectiveness and even self-labeling nature of griefing. 129.115.224.23 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 16:24, 13 October 2009 (UTC).

Explanation of Large Edits

The entire article was written in a broken, stream-of-consciousness fashion. I deleted a great deal of redundant material. It does not seem useful or informative to mention specific games, since griefers are found in all of them. There was approximately a full page of text devoted entirely to Warcraft III and Second Life that seemed unnecessary.

The "social aspects of griefing" section was entirely redundant, so I deleted it.

Some of the malicious activity mentioned here, such as the epilepsy forum bright-light attack, seemed better described as internet trolling instead of video game griefing.

I also reorganized the article somewhat, since some of the talking points were fragmented, or entirely misplaced.

Hope these edits were helpful,

Bradridder (talk) 06:57, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

You changed a lot, and I think we need to look at it carefully. I suspect that cleaning up some of the stream-of-consciousness and excess game information was probably good. On the other hand, I think that it very important to bring back some of the social aspects, and not to interpret the subject too narrowly as just video gaming-related. Trolling is usually an individual behavior, whereas griefing is increasingly being used to describe coordinated multi-person disruption online, not limited to game sites. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:49, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

It is perfectly OK to add things. If the primary argument is that trolling is individual behavior, whereas griefing is a coordinated effort, then I think the definition at the top should reflect that. However, I disagree with that statement, based on what I have seen in the games I play. I have played several FPS's, and disruptive teammates were commonly referred to as "griefers", whether they acted alone or with others. In RPG's, such as Diablo 2, games are commonly griefed by a single person. I do not play MMORPGs though, so I cannot comment on the group-griefing practices that occur in them. A good remedy might be to add a section titled "Organized Griefing", to describe this type of behavior. Bradridder (talk) 02:01, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, I will, in the near future. I think this, the chapter starting on page 9, is a good reference on the subject. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:41, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

Why is this page in the Anonymous section?

Game griefing is not completely related to Anonymous. Anonymous is more known for "trolls" or "flaming", not griefing. This should be moved to a video game section.

Also, I added another crucial part of griefing, intentionally being useless. Do you think I should explain feeding? In short, feeding is getting killed on purpose to give the opposing team more experience points or other game elements. I'm looking at griefing with a little tf2 bias though. In tf2, the main ways to grief are useless teleporters, blocking visions of snipers, stalling, healing enemy spies, taking medkits and metal from engies that need it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.248.199.196 (talk) 01:52, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

I've made some edits per the above, explaining "feeding", and selectively adding back a little of the deleted material, mainly showing the variety of usages of the term. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:02, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: Not moved Mike Cline (talk) 14:41, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

---

Griefer → Griefing – The article is about the activity itself, not the people who do the activity. Hill Crest's WikiLaser! (BOOM!) 21:49, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

• Weird choice of words, or word, actually. The primary use of grief and griefing (correctly spelled as grieving - by the recipient, not the cause of that grief), is grief. Apteva (talk) 22:20, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

Apteva, I can see that you are "barking up the wrong tree". (not to be rude, though) Hill Crest's WikiLaser! (BOOM!) 17:18, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

• I'm leaning against the rename, because it's not the same thing as, for example, List of famous griefers. There's a lot of discussion about the motivations for the behavior, which makes it partially about the people as well as about the activity. (Yes, it's an idiosyncratic use of the word, but that's the way it has come to be used in this context.) I reverted a rewrite of the lead sentence before I saw this discussion, sorry, but I think we should keep the existing wording so long as the title has not yet been changed. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:27, 1 December 2012 (UTC)
• Against merge This is about griefers, that what they called in the game industry, their actions, what defines them, the consequences, and the actions taken by the gaming industry to stop them. I guess we could call it List of activities that define a griefer if we wanted a pointlessly long title. Dream Focus 00:00, 2 December 2012 (UTC)
• Comment Now I'm seeing that the article is about both griefers and the activities they do. Well, but consensus needs to materialize if the activity or its practitioners are the scope of the article. Hill Crest's WikiLaser! (BOOM!) 17:18, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

  Thanks for that helpful comment. I think that it's reasonable to regard consensus, for the purposes of this requested move, as currently reflected in what the article now covers, and that is, indeed, both griefers and what they do. A proposal to rewrite the page by, in effect, deleting the parts about griefers and their motivations (something I would certainly oppose), is really a separate discussion from this rename proposal. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:41, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose per common usage. The term for the activity "griefing" is far less common than the characterization of certain people as "griefers". As far as the scope is concerned: "Griefing" is simply the activity of a "griefer", and conversely a "griefer" is someone who engages in "griefing", so I don't believe this title choice matters much for the scope of the article. --87.79.208.25 (talk) 18:43, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Can someone please help me clarify on the kiting part of griefing?

I tried to explain how kiting could cause problems, and how people drag monsters from other zones into newbie/starting-zones, but it keeps getting undone, because I guess the language is not sufficient. That is fine, but can someone else take a whack at it then? I tried and it kept getting rejected.

It would be helpful if the _why_ portion of why-is-kiting-griefing is added. Those less familiar with gaming might not understand from the few words currently there, as to why kiting is even a problem. Aggroing raid bosses, kiting mobs from other zones, etc.

Thank you very much. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.33.240.95 (talk • contribs)

It used to have something in there about that, we formerly called it trains, some people doing it on purpose to grief others. Dream Focus 20:07, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

Dubious

The definition of "kill stealing" is currently too narrow. It seems to imply that you can only kill steal for items or experience, and not for scoring or some other rewards. And kill stealing is not just possible with NPCs, it also happens in head-to-head games like deathmatch. In fact, it can even happen in team games where there is no personal reward in the game, only an emotional reward for getting the kill. CodeCat (talk) 16:54, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

That's not what the dubious tag is for. Do you doubt kill stealing can be used as a form of griefing? Dream Focus 17:05, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

No, what I doubt is the definition of kill stealing that is given here. And why wouldn't it be for this? Its documentation doesn't say anything. CodeCat (talk) 17:07, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

Template:Dubious says "Add Dubious after a specific statement or alleged fact which is sourced but which nevertheless seems dubious or unlikely." You don't tag something because you think it should be rewritten. Dream Focus 17:14, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

What should I tag it with, then? CodeCat (talk) 17:30, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

No tag exist. Just discuss it on the talk page. Not everything needs a tag. Dream Focus 17:33, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

• I changed it

Kill stealing, denying other players the items or experience from killing a non-player character (NPC) enemy.

Kill stealing, denying another player their pleasure or gain of killing a target that should've been theirs, for the purpose of griefing.

• How's that? The blue link to kill stealing will give more detailed information and examples. Dream Focus 17:35, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

What was wrong with how I originally worded it? CodeCat (talk) 19:22, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

• As a general comment, we need to be writing for general readers, not just for people familiar with online jargon, and that's more important than arguing over a tag – although I suspect that may have been more to the point. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:34, 5 May 2013 (UTC)