So why are kids on Zindra?

i am in cabbin fever right now..3 weeks in a row of sick leave. 1 of them being with the flu..
i don't think i have slept this much since right after being born in RL lol..

my doctor has become my warden hahahaha Dat Bastige-AH lol

Ephraim,

I am not personally mad at you and do hope that there are no hard feelings. You do seem like one of the nice guys in the forum. I do know that you care passionately about your point of view and are not doing this to persecute anyone. It is just that I feel as strongly for mine, that this would hurt a subset of the population who have done nothing to deserve it. Just trying to show that the opposing viewpoints have just as much validity as some of the ones being presented.

There is absolutely no offense taken, Jesse. I know I can come across as arrogant and even aggressive when I don't watch my tone, especially when posting in a hurry, and that can give the impression that I just want to do the Josef Stalin on what others have to say. Let me say that I totally respect the validity of other people's thoughts and opinions even when I may appear to be somewhat short on sympathy.

Furthermore, I had to sleep, which is why I haven't replied for several hours.

For the record, I do not have an issue with residents who chose to ageplay and, for that matter, I do not have any problems with residents who would like to engage in sexual ageplay - despite the construction placed on it in certain jurisdictions. It's only pixels and I can think of at least one individual in my experience who might have made good use of the opportunity to work through some heavy sh!t in her childhood if she could explore the consequences of what happened to her in the comparatively safe environment of SL without compunction.

Nevertheless, the fact remains that sexual ageplay within SL is more than a matter of conscience because it is deemed an offense in the RL jurisdictions of many residents and serious damage may result. All the noodling about being fully clothed, not actually engaging in sexual activity or that old chestnut - "we're all adults in RL" - isn't going to make a blind bit of difference when the wrong snapshot gets into the wrong arena. The mess of working out who was at fault will be enough to bring someone down in RL.

There has been a great deal of reference in this thread to making ARs to solve the problem but, really and truly, how useful or even reliable is the AR process? Would it not have been better to simply make a part of SL where ageplayers should stay clear and let the poseball cowboys go at it without having to scan the vicinity for avatars that might compromise them by their very presence?

I think that part of the problem is that residents who do not engage in sexplay are quite simply unaware of how that can happen but let me assure you it does. I have seen a lengthy barney in chat whereby some fool saw it as his right to position his kiddie av right beside a sexbed, idly watching and commenting as a couple went at it. The sim owner wasn't online and perhaps that ageplayer was banned shortly after but the damage would have been done already if the resident in question had intended anything more sinister than being an all-out pain in the neck.

It is complacent to say that, well, that's the way it was when we only had 'PG' and 'Mature'. In my opinion, there would be no call for an 'Adult' continent if those classifications had been managed properly in the first place, which isn't to say that I think ageplayers should have been restricted to 'PG' but that the unrestricted sexplay in 'PG' areas should have been curtailed. I don't believe the Lindens would be quite so beleaguered by the moral majority today if that had been the case.

However, we now have an 'Adult' classification and I think that an excellent opportunity to straighten out the issue with a categorical warning for ageplayers to stay out has been missed. Still, it isn't the end of the matter as far as I am concerned: in an earlier post, Argent said that 'Now it's down to "how can we deal with what's there"' but I believe policy can be changed just like coding and I am very uneasy about the way this attitude that sexplayers should just make do with the status quo appears to have been hard-wired into SL.

It appears that the point a lot of sex players keep missing is thet the adult continent is not just about sex, for a sim to be offlimit for child avatars it has to be about sex (a few private sims are) as long as LL is mixing violent roleplay with sexual roleplay in the adult definition child avatars will be welcome there, if LL was to zone off a section for sex only there would be a point but LL does not do zoning.

if sex players want a place without child avatars in view they should get their own private island(s) afterall every other group that wants an exclusive area has to do this, no matter if it is gor, furry, bdsm, domestic disapline, scify etc etc.

Ain't that the truth but the classification is there to take account of sexplayers and ageplayers are the only other content with the potential to really screw them - if you'll forgive the contradiction in terms.

I see an opportunity for some enterprising land baron.

A whole series of sims, adult rated, toon kids excluded.

Porntopia.

No, it's there to take account of prudes who don't understand that "Mature" doesn't mean "Classic Looney Tunes". Many people who are NOT EVEN INTERESTED IN PUBLIC SEXPLAY will be forced to move to adult sims, because they don't trust the G Team. They are right now sitting there with pornstore-in-a-box builds to make sure they qualify for Zindrula.

My advice to LL: Stop the whole adult content nonsense. Make Zindra not adult but PG rated. A sunny place for all those who don't want to see adult or mature content at all. A place for homes, businesses and education. Wouldn't that look much better in the eyes of the public than a giant red light district?

In the eyes of the media (especially in certain countries) SL will ALWAYS look bad regardless of what will be done.

When there was no adult continent they were talking about "a huge paradise for perverts". Now there is an adult continent in place and guess what they are writing? "ZOMGZ SL gets a full continent dedicated for smut!!!".

If kid avatars will be allowed in Zindra the headlines might say "zoMG kids being abused on SL smut continent!!". If they ban kid avatars they might say "SL forced to ban kid avatars on smut continent in attempt to desperately fight the child molesters who populate the rest of SL!!". ZOMG!!!! I can already see it printed

Sighs.

Same thing happened when "the internet" was still new, or cell phones. Those things were always *bad* regardless of what was happening - because it was something new, it was a threat to the established media, a threat to traditional forms of communication, it was modern, unknown, and originating from across the big ocean = BAD.

Sheesh, you make it sound like The Grapes of Wrath with gonads in place of oranges.

No, no, those are really miniature coconuts.

Ephraim Kappler,

As I see it your argument can be broken into two components:

i) there should be a child free mainland continent dedicated to sexplayers
ii) Zindra should be that continent

I'll take these in reverse.

Although Zindra is promoted in the press as the "Sex Continent" and most of the discussions have been about sexual content - as it is currently defined, it is not a continent dedicated to sexplayers. Firstly, Adult covers extreme behaviour not just extreme sexual behaviour. It includes extreme violence too. Secondly, Zindra is not a continent dedicated to any particular behaviour, it is a continent in which the extreme behaviours are permitted. If anything it should be called the "Extremely Permissive Continent".

The public areas in Zindra are an excellent example - there are signs there forbidding nudity, violence, bad language etc. Although these are part of Zindra, the landowner (in this case LL) has made these parts PG!

Now you can argue that LL should have made Zindra the dedicated sexplayer continent but at the moment that isn't what LL is proposing. You can try to persuade LL to change direction but you do not have much time. Once residents own land in Zindra, LL could not turn Zindra into a dedicated sexplayer continent without radically changing the rules about what landowners can do with their land (and don't forget that many of the early Zindra landowners will have only just moved because of LL changing the rules of what could be done on Mature land).

The fact that 4500 jira votes, 500 signatures on an open letter, in world protests, 100+ page forum threads, negativity at brown bag meetings etc. has had no impact on what LL is proposing is why Agent (et al) feel that you aren't going to change LL's minds this close to the opening of Zindra.

Let us take the concept of an sexplayer dedicated continent (irrespective whether this should be Zindra or a new continent you can petition LL to create).

You mention in your post that one of the reasons for a continent from which child avatars are explicitly banned was because the AR process is not effective. However, how would a dedicated child-free continent change this?

Let's take your example of the child next to the occupied sex bed refusing to move. Any responsible child avatar would have realised the problem, and either avoided the area in the first place, or would have swiftly moved on when realising the situation. Either the child avatar in question qenuinely didn't know or appreciate the SL ToS on child avatars or was out to annoy.

These latter two situations are still going to happen on a child avatar free continent. There are still going to be those (particularly given the range of languages) who will genuinely not know that a child avatar is banned on that continent and turn up anyway, and there will be those who just wish to annoy and will turn up in a child avatar "just for fun" or to grief.

So the senario you describe *is* going to happen on a child avatar-free continent. At which point what are your options? If the land owner is online, they can eject and ban, otherwise it is an AR i.e. precisely the same options as now when a (maliscious) child avatar shows up in a sexual location and refuses to leave.

So I can't quite see what a LL maintained child avatar free continent would offer over and above the current situation where a land owner can explicitly ban child avatars from their land. In that in both situations, if you want a child avatar free life you can stay on land which the owner or LL bans child avatars from and AR any child avatars which disobey.

Matthew

You know, it's ironic that the first scandal on Zindra was caused by dear , sweet, Marianne. I would have laid odds that it would have been Immy.

It's always the sweet quiet ones you have to watch out for.

Nah, it was caused by the infamous Prokofy Neva, who now even blames Marianne for having McCann as last name, when everybody knows the story about the abducted RL girl that goes by the same name. Doesn't matter that Mari's account was created more than a year before this horrific crime happened...

Wait...WHAT??????

I think Mari allowed her curiosity and desire for socialisation with Lindens to overwhelm her better judgment in this case.

Pep (All those Lindens and no-one told the dickhead to change for four minutes, wasn't it?)

Quoting Prok's blog:

"they all lost crediblity when Marianne McCann (shudder at the use of that RL abducted child's name again) "

"and if they use the last name of an abducted child suspected to have been killed by sex offenders, and if they push for their rights to appear on the adult continent among clearly sexualized content -- that place becomes even more profoundly suspect."

This is the kind of person we are dealing with. And a few others of the same twisted mind. Yesterday someone in the xstreet forum encouraged residents to send in fraudulant AR's against kid avatars with made up and set up "proof", so LL will deal with them quickly.

That's horrible. I think SL might be a scarier place to be a child than RL.

Am I the only person in this rl and virtual world who thinks that violence is infinitely more harmful to children than sex?

If I did the violence thing I'd be just as unhappy seeing a child as I was about to take the virtual life of someone as I would be if I was in an adult club and one of them walked in.

Certainly a mood destroyer on top of being tacky.

this sounds like a person that would stoop to anything no matter how many people they hurt to get their point out there..
those are some of the sickest people in the world if you ask me..
but then again when they have nothing they have to make a road no matter how many people they hurt..
how weak to stoop so low.

you would think something like this would fall somewhere against the TOS/CS
if not it should..

Some people have never had a loaf to be on. Remember this is a person who made rl death threats on someone - then ran and hid in a bar when she actually met him.

Actually, for what it is worth, I agree. In general, I find violence infinitely more disturbing than sex, and the only occasions when I have any problems with the latter at all is when violence enters into the mix.

But it's hard to disentangle the sex from the violence in the case of child molestation because underage sex is, at least implicitly, always "violent," in that the child is neither mature nor physically powerful enough to say "no." That's why we call it rape, even when no "obvious" violence has occurred.

(NB. For those who might misconstrue: I am talking about RL, and NOT SL here.)

How low can Prok go? Marianne McCann started her avi in 2006, the world had not even HEARD of Madeleine, who was abducted in 2007, back then.

What you're suggesting simply isn't possible. The only way to enforce such a policy is with the AR process, which means someone has to do that scanning.


This is already against LL policy. What makes you think that a different LL rule would have changed things?


I don't believe that the lack of enforcement against sex play in private areas of PG land was a significant motivator for Zindra. If anything, it's the other away around - the best content got put into Mature sims to avoid PG issues, whether or not they could have qualified to be on PG. The result is that people who wanted to do interesting things without being exposed to sex had to go to Mature sims - and would run into sex parlors unintentionally.