Sick of the KIDS!!!

There are so many kids on the adult grid since that thing in MTV...I dont want to have to watch what i say or how i play just cause there is some 16y.o next to me...No only that but they are getting guns and shooting random people...we NEED credit card verification back!!!!

solution: don't watch about what you say

How do you know positively that someone is 16? Plenty of grown people act 16 and younger, and in SL some people think it's a place where they no longer have to respect their neighbor, because that is the way they are in rl. People get a weapon, and they're like cool, let's blast someone, because it doesn't really hurt anyone.

You do not know who anyone in SL is really. People can be whatever and whoever they want to be there, men posing as female avatars, and vice versa. You can even dress up like a giant turd if you want. That could be a 55 yr. old CEO of a big company having a bad day

So really there is no way to know who you are ever dealing with in SL. That is why people should not take it so seriously.

People should not generalize and make blanket statements especially based on a payment type or lack thereof, because you really don't know who is on the other side of that monitor.

You shoudn't need to watch what you say because you fear someone isn't a adult. Everyone on the main grid has agreed to the TOS, If the juvinile has entered while ignoring that it isn't our duty to cater to them. If you can verify they are not 18 or older then you can report them.

Exactly, and underage players are just too stupid, they'll admit their age in chat! Then I report 'em. Anyway, they know they should not be there, when signing up, and they have to lie about their age, it should clue them in.

I know this will probably open a hotbed of debate, but my question is Where are their parents?!

Please don't throw rotten vegetables at me for this question

Everyone in SL (not teen sl) has represented that they are of the age of majority - 18 or more. They are representing to /you/ that they are 18 or more. It's not /your/ responsibility or fault if /they/ lie.

The major things you need to worry about, as far as your behaviour, are
A: Are you in a PG sim?
B: Are you violating the TOS?
C: Are you violating some other US law (besides contributing to the delinquency)?
D: Are you treating the other person morally, ethically, fairly, and with care?

Whether there are kids around, should be the least of your worries.

Why would anyone throw vegetables at you for asking this? As far as I can see it is a perfectly valid question. Too many parents have forgotten or refuse to see that it's THEIR job to educate their children.

I agree that things are getting out of hand. I met an avatar and the person behind it was 12 years old?!?! How do i know? He told me. He said he couldn't get on the teen grid because it asked for a credit card. Is that true?

I left The Sims Online because of the young players...now the same problem is abounding in a place that is supposed to be an adult environment. Seems crazy, we can send a man to the moon, but we cannot solve a problem such as this??

Maybe the teen grid should require parental consent? Or they should require a verified phone number? Address? (just thinking out loud here)

And if an underage player is found on the adult grid, maybe the parents of that underage player should be held accountable. Maybe these things are already in place, I don't know, I've never tried to go to the teen grid.

How can you turn someone in for what they say in-game? If it's against the rules to say you are under 18 on the main grid, how can there be child avies?

Are we supposed to believe that furries really are furry? And that they make good pilots?

Squirrels don't have an 18 year lifespan anyway, so shouldn't they be banned?

As an aside, I had my first credit card when I was 15, and I have seen even younger kids that had their daddy's card with their own name on it.

SL really does need accurate age verification.

Thought most credit cards had birth date info, no idea if its actually used tho

Yep bring back validation already, or is SL just after pretty numbers so show off latly?.

Yes it all about numbers Thili. They have to reach a certain growth or their investors will stop investing and SL will shut down. Last I heard SL is still not profitable as a company which means they will get more desperate as time goes by to please the people footing the bill which is their investors.

The problem with their current plan of letting anyone in is if they are not going to pay for membership then most likely they are not going to pay for anything at all. I worked at a club for the last 2 weeks and hardly anyone would actually tip or buy anything. Most where non verified users and looking to MAKE money not spend it on us or the products of the club.

I think it is something we will have to deal with though if we want SL to stay online. It is unfortunate it has to come to that though.

"Child" avies are where someone is playing as a younger age, the avatar was made to not go that small, but if you work at it you can get something remarkably child-like. These I don't mind, it's the "I'm not old enough" that I don't go for. Had someone who I'd say started coming onto me in IM (I don't mind) and as soon as I mentioned something a tad more explicit he went, "I don't understand, I'm not that old" and I reported him then and there.



Furry is a subculture.
When dealing with animals that don't get to the age of 18 as the number, you drop back to "sexualy mature for the animal" if you want to go that way. The other way is to go with the physical age of the player (be the player a furry fan or someone who believes that they are really part that animal (there is a difference, one is a fan of anthropomorphics, the other falls under the very broad (and not entirely agreed upon) definition of Otherkin)). In the latter case, they DO reach the age of 18 and it can be verified.

As for making good pilots? Well, I knew a dragon that was a damned good pilot. And couldn't fly with his own wings. Take it with a grain of salt, it may not make any sense, but they can still be good at it.

All that said I would like to see some Parental control device added to the SL interface makeing the Parents of said Family responsible for their own children.

We all know that, in the past Children have found their way into the Adult SL region.
Not sure if we will ever totaly be able to stop that.
But we can create ways to make it very very obvious that they broke all the rules to get in here.

I am Sure... there is nothing Madder then a parent that just busted their child online Cybering and Lord save us all if that other person happens to be an adult.

I said it before, and I'll say it again. There will never be a way to stop kids from getting into Second Life.
This day in age, kids have credit cards, kids have cell phones. I think the only way of knowing if its a kid or not, is having them physically call each household, and asking for a door to door examination.
I think Linden Labs should forget about a teen grid, and open the grid up to everyone, and those kids that actually say they are just that, kids, will be entitled to PG areas, and if they say they are older than 17, they are to be treated as an adult. If they get in any sort of Real Life trouble by doing this, it should be nobodys fault but theirs.

I have run into several under age kids in game from ages 11-18. It quite upset me since I was in a mature sim. Not only that but there was a link to a *picking a form that wont point out names* child care center they wanted to go to. They continued to hang out where I was at times, I have been known to turn them in every time. Last time it took 2 weeks for a kid to stop hanging around. It is not my job to make the lindens see this, and to fight by asking more then once to have someone removed. I gave names, it took forever and I am not sure they were removed or they just moved on to another place. My solution is this

I do believe a Free Trial period is in order for new players. That the newbie island should be set up as a residence and basic education center, so they can run around not get taken by others in the game, they can still explore all the differant places and possibilities SL holds. Learning a few skills at the newbie area can earn them "donated" cash to try the games, gambling, even buying an appearance. I have helped many in this game with $L and advice. You never know who your helping in the process. Could be someone you will end up cherishing for a long time. Furthermore, those that help should be made a Title and their names or business names in the newbie area. Great way to promote a business, or just a piece of SL heaven. There are enough hours in a month for all of us to help someone. Also, a growing concern of kids playing in game. this would eliminate more kids playing on the adult side. They would in effect be stopped at the gate.

heh you got next too greifer teens -.- man i hate those types of teens -.-

In RL kids interact with adults all the time. They also live in and go to adult owned and operated buisnesses.

The teen grid is like the "peter pan never-never land".

The only problem is that in SL, Adults can't tell how old someone is.

I saw a linden note earler that said that they were going to work on adding "Payment info" settings and then "Age verification". I am hopeing that eventualy the grids will be combined and there will be "Teen only" sims, "G" sims "PG" sims "M" sims. along with a "cornfield" sim where main grid people can go and talk to people that got banned from SL in general.

I am also hopeing that they will put some symbol before or after peoples names based on teen/Adult. Also don't forget that a Teen one day can be 18 years old the next day. So there are probably some 18 year old adults on the teen grid that don't want to stop chatting with there friends.

Unverifyed accounts could not go to either the "Teen only" or the "M" sims

Chat Example:
Adult name:A: Hello, can I help you.
Teen name:T: haha, you are ugly
Unknown name:U: guess who?

http://www.woodlanddunes.com/ripples.html
"The oldest known squirrel, a pet, died at twenty years of age."

This is him in happier days:
http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a249/BAST48/1Funny-Squirrel-Drinking-Beer-From-.jpg

Here's my own situation.

Every few months I'd get all this spam from Virgin, Mastercard etc etc on how great
their cards were and that I should own one.

Well, I always pay in cash, I am one of those old fashioned types who knows what
he's dealing with if he's holding the actual currency... plus I don't really like cards for
online use, I really don't think they're all that safe.

However, I thought to myself at once point that if I did get a card then, yeah ok,
I could get the occasional thing from places like E-Bay, and not have to wait a week
for a money order to get to places.

So, I bit the bullet and signed up for one.

The company writes back and tells me that "I don't have enough funds in my balance"
and therefore I cannot have a card.

This tickled me as I have a far healthier account than many card owners and I know
this one guy who pays his debt with other cards!

So, maybe it wouldn't have affected many people, but it actually kept me away from
SL for ages, simply because of the credit card thing.

Wolfie!

The parents should monitor their children's activity on the internet. Internet providers and cable networks have parental controls so parents can monitor what their kids watch and view. The same should be done in online games.

I left the Sims Online because of that too. A 12 year old "fell in love" with my avatar and I broke to him gently and this poor child was tremendously heartbroken. It got me so angry and I asked where the heck is the parents watching this kid?! If my child had access to the interent, you better believe I'd be on top of that!!!

I never heard of a child owning a credit card. Credit card companies don't give cards to kids. They have to be as young as 25. If a child has a credit card then the parents gave them that. Not only in the internet but everywhere else some parents just don't watch their children anymore. It's a "yeah son, here u go. You can have this motor powered scooter and scoot anywhere u want as long as u just keep busy"

I am tired of the kids in the game too!! Almost everywhere I go, some dimwit shoots and bombs around the sim and I wind up having to get stuck or relog! Now I had to wear a shield on all the time because of that!

Something should be done about this. I'm sure the lindens will be thinking about that eventually when they see how letting kids into the adult areas create a lot of angry parents when the parents find out their underaged child got involved in some kinda scandal with an adult. How do we even know pedophiles will find this a perfect opportunity to prey? I hope something is done to organize this better.

I just remembered that the last time I was on the sims online, they had some kind of symbol or setting on the teen avies that indicated it was an underaged child. Thats an idea the lindens should think about! Could help!

I've run across two kids that admitted their age.

One was 11 and very polite. I could tell she was just some bored kid on her sisters accout This was before SL was a free for all. I turned her in but I felt bad. I didn't want her to wander into some sex dungon or some other bullshit but I don't like to be a heavy either.

SL really isn't a place for kids. LL should feel a moral obligation to keep kids out. So far I don't see it.

This is a great idea, I too used to play TSO and left for the same reasons, but the only thing about this idea is you have to get the users to be truthful about their age in the first place when creating the account in order for a system like this to work.

That will not happen. The ones that lie about their age obviously know that lying will get them in, or else they would not do it.

There's got to be some other way to verify age/identity that is not too invasive to one's privacy...I don't know, but I totally agree with other poster too, SL is definitely NOT a place for kids.

hmmm this is actually curious, because I'm 22 and I think I've never met anyone younger than me lol Most of the people I know are about 40, or at least that's what they say.
Anyway, if you're in a mature zone, you don't have to worry about your language. It's not your fault a teen is there (he/she shouldn't be there at the first place).