teens and under aged children on the main grid

A parent who allows access to their account is irresponsible in many ways including teaching their child that it is okay to ignore rules not to mention signed agreements. On the other hand, even a diligent parent may not know that their child is playing an adult game. Do you think most parents realize that by providing their child with a cell phone they have given them the means to enter an adults only site? A parent would have been alerted that their child had used their credit card to pay the nominal $10 fee which previously had been required to gain admittance but now nothing more than a cell phone number is needed. As children age, how much monitoring of their activities is appropriate? Do you allow no unsupervised contact with the world (and I don't just mean the internet) to keep them out of harm's way? Most of the world is pretty oblivious to SL. A parent looking over the shoulder of the young teen to see SL would not readily recognize a potential problem (and would probably think it's a Bratz game). For that matter, does the teen grid appear that differently than the adult grid? I hope that if someone sees my child at risk or making bad choces that they don't turn their head and mind their own business. It takes a village, maybe even a virtual one.

The OP posted as somewhat of a notice, asking that you give thought to whether you know if the person behind the avatar you are with is a child. LL and parents think on this a lot. Do you?

I can't spell avitar or comprimising..does that make me under age?

I agree, and what about people with dyslexia? (If I even spelled that right.)

Or folks with bad body odor? would those be considered undesirables, profiled, then sent to a n00b camp?

I was thinking the same thing. Glad you wrote it before I could. I think the original poster meant the avatars were in a compromising position, which would be much more alarming.

I duno how it works around the world but in the US your Drivers License and Social Security Card show everything about you. If a cop pulls you over for speeding, they ask for those to varify you. They match your face to the picture on the card, and If they find your driving under age, drunk, or wanted, you get in trouble. IRL if you sneak into a adult movie theater under 18, and get cought, your gona remember and probably learn from it.

If you're PeeWee Herman, you get caught & get publicity

No, it can't verify your age -- all it verifies is that you're legally registered with the Social Security Administration.

A friend of mine had to register his NEWBORN daughter for a SSN in order to put her on his health insurance.

yep and in my case it had to be done within a month of birth or i was screwed and had to pay it all out of pocket.

Or, we could make them spell 'somthing' (SIC) and then only you could play.

Sorry - HAD TO SAY SOMETHING about a spelling thread with a misspelling (sp??).

there is no real way to make sure there are not under aged players
no matter how many rings they make us jump through or things stating we are who we are

if an underage person wants it bad enough they will get it



and in all honesty your age doesnt effect if you should or should not be able view "adult" type things

its all about your maturity level

I know a 14yo whos much more mature then some 25yo people I know

18 is just a number, everyone develops at a different rate

I have strong views on this subject and I have posted about them on other areas of this forum. Children on the main grid is deffinately a reality, I have reported at least 3 so far.

The bottom line is it's the responsibility of the adults to monitor and temper their children's and supervised monor's internet habbits. The responsibilty lies on the shoulders of ALL of us adults.

So if an adult is having sex with a KNOWN child and they do nothing to educate teh child, report the child or even say NO to teh child,, they in fact are putting the child at risk and they alone are accountable. Think this through very carefully those of you who take lilght of this or those who think nothing can be done.

Parents who put computers in their childs bedroom where they have acess to the net unsupervised WILL get into teh wrong places no matter what teh places are. If the child happens upon a sexual situation or nasty content on the web it's not the childs faut or the web site creater or operators fault, it's the parent or guardian or baby sitter's fault. To much blame is palced where it shouldn't be and the sad thing is .. all of this IS preventable. If the adults don't have time to supervise teh kids on the net,, get teh net out fo the house period. it's like anything,, you wouldn't let them go bolting out onto the street with traffic I would hope, or leave them alone at a strip club?? places of danger??

Believe it or not the internet is a very dangerouse place especially for a child with no education on how to identify the good and bad places. What disturbs me is that adults give out their avitar details for logging in to the kids and then bingo kids have instant access any time they want. that's like saying to the kids.. it's ok if you play with fire even if you burn teh house down.

It all comes down to responsibility and taking action where action is due. That means parents and guardians and care givers need to take part in what the kids ae doing on the net, keep the computer in a public area of the house where you can easily keep an eye on them and when you are not home, have a lock set on the machine, litterally. That CAN be done And don't every think that nothing bad can or will ever happen to you or your kids via the internet, because that's when it WILL happen, Trust me.

I agree, which is why I encourage LL to raise the required age to 30.

In my RL job, some of the things we're constantly on the lookout for are under 18's accessing the site and people using other people's credit cards/accounts either with or without their consent.

We have very sophisticated checks we run and due to the nature of our business we can and invariably do demand both ID check answers and also documented proof of age and residence.

The difference is that we are dealing with the Gaming Act, not offering a virtual world in which the people who make things happen are the end users. We also state upfront that ID *WILL* be necessary.

All of this still doesn't stop the odd person slipping through the net. There's nothing at all we can do about it however when we become aware of it, rapid action is taken.

Same for LL. They do everything they can. Unless you're saying you want people's right to party (I appreciate that there is a small minority of people who would be delighted if SL was only catering to THEIR way of playing, but that's not a world I'd want to be in), then you have to accept that despite doing absolutely everything in their power, LL cannot stop people being bad parents or plain irresponsible.

*edit* The idea about everyone using Security numbers - that would only work if you had to enter it every time you logged in. What if you left your details lying about and your teenager got in there with them anyway? Or - let's be honest about this - the same people allowing kids on the main grid would just be going 'Here's my number'.

Sadly, even those are questionable sometimes.

... but what about the multitude of people who are the product of sub-par American public schooling? I'm sure for some it's just laziness coupled with the AOL/txting mentality, but there are an awful lot of Americans I deal with who seem to like inventing words even more than their President.

Your "spelling" test would cut SL's population by a significant portion.

A funny story that relates to this topic:

I encountered a very new Avatar at my shop. It was a female avatar. I tried to help her out...gave her a kewl box of freebies, we chatted for a brief time before the conversation took a weird turn....

She wanted to know if two female avatars could simulate sex in SL....me thinking she may be a lesbian and me not having a problem w/ giving noobs info about THAT aspect of SL I said yes. Her exact question was ...."will is show".

She then asked me if I would show her and have sex w/ her. I said no. At this point hubby bet me it was a guy behind the avatar

She asked me WHO with or WHERE she could have sex.....I told her there were escorts available but it would cost $L. She then asked to borrow some $L.

Finally she asked me if I would AT LEAST 'get naked' for her/him.

I then asked how old she/he was and the response was 17.

NOW I was pissed! I had given this poor noob some no copy shoes that I had loved but rarely wore...lol and they would get no use out of them after I AR'd her/him and sent the chat log to the Lindens.




On a side note:



Let me be a bragging parent for a sec, my daughter is in the GT program at her school and is 8 and one of the many difficult words on her last spelling test was 'Diagnostician' so shit if that would work

Then again she's probably more mature than the 17 yr old I encountered.

/me beems proud mommy smile

How do you know this is happening? How can you possibly know that the person "behind" an avatar is not the person that owns the avatar? You say you know this "for a fact", but how can you unless you see it happening in front of you. You, not your avatar. And if you have seen it happening in Real Life, have you reported the violation to LL? It is a violation of the TOS to share your avatar with somebody else. It is an even bigger violation to allow underagers on the main grid.

But I still want to know how you can possibly know that somebody else's avatar is being run by a teenager. This sounds like a dhrama-troll to me.

Do you have a shred of evidence that "theres a lot of children playing adults"?

This is the most ridiculous thing i ever heard, and I disagree! Intelligence and maturity should not be defined by age. I am 25 and very mature. I'm a asset to SL, because i create content. Legal age of adulthood starts at 18, so that is where LL should recognize it, and currently do, like it or not. Usually those who wish for the age restriction raised, are in fact under that age their selves, and are just trying to stir up trouble... But even if you are over that age you really don't have any rights to do this, or any ways to enforce it...

Hmm, I think your sarcasm detection module must be broke.