So what is the grid going to -look like-?

My previous thread asking about this verification stuff has devolved into everyone shouting and ignoring what I've asked, so I thought I'd ask this here:

Trusting Fool is verified. Paranoid Much isn't. Mature Sim has a single plot of land that is marked as 'restricted'.

If Trusting Fool and Paranoid Much are standing in the same sim, on a parcel that is NOT restricted, and looking into the parcel that IS restricted, what do each of them see?

Does Trusting Fool see the parcel while Paranoid Much sees... emptiness? Will adult verification be, essentially, a way to cloak your build from some people? Or are both of them going to see and hear the same stuff, but Paranoid Much is just going to have 'ban lines' on the parcel in question?

Because, to be perfectly honest, if it's just ban lines, what the hell is it good for? I can still look, listen, talk, interact... my camera range has a pretty damn decent range on it. So Paranoid Much is still going to have 'access' to adult content, it'll just be mildly difficult.

I have no idea until the actual flag is available to restrict parcels. Then I'll be able to take a look but I'd imagine right now it will just be ban lines as people have asked about parcels having privacy before and it hasn't happened.

Easy. They see penguins. Penguins eating pie.....

Mmm, pie.

I think it's going to look largely the same as ever, but with the 'really naughty' stuff somewhat clustered and in private estates, with restrictions &c &c.

I doubt many others will bother setting restrictions, unless someone gets sued and panic sets in.



Why I think so:

16,000 sims now... let's extrapolate a year, and call it, ah, 32,000 sims. Double.

That's 1/4 BILLION prims now, 1/2 billion prims in the near future.


Say 1% of the prims are 'naughty' - that's still 1/2 a million objects to report, not counting avatars!

Pretend you are Chastity Linden, whose job is enforcement (I picture a young but prim, chaste female avatar in a bonnet) - and you are always really lucky at teleporting around and rezzing your environment (hah!) such that you can zap one naughty thing each minute.

It would take you 347 days without sleep or bathroom breaks to get 'em all.

Not counting the ones people set back out, right after you left.

Poor Chastity.

Aha! Finally a use for the 4x4 minimum parcel size: perfect for a sexbed, while the surrounding parcel stays unrestricted--and no need for Peeping Toms to develop advanced camera techniques. You could even sell tickets: as long as the "stage" is restricted, the landowner is protected, right?

If you release ten thousand cubes emitting Goatses image particles I guess you're supposed to flag the relevant parcels.

In terms of private property, sure, your're right Desmond. What about the massive adult sims, paying a lot of money in tier? When you have to block at least half the usual visitors, probably more like 80%, what then? You're not going to pay that tier, I bet.

The face of SL is already different. Casinos for the most part are gone. Next up, the porn playgrounds, lesbian sex islands, etc. Not that there won't be demand, I just don't think the traffic and profit margin would warrant paying for a whole sim. If you own a massive store, and a tenth of it is adult but generates half your proft... well, your store will cease to me massive fairly quickly, probably.

You're right that people will still be nekkid in PG areas, etc., because they have no risk involved. The people WITH risk, on the other hand, are the ones that pay big tier. If this causes them to flee to lesser status in annoyance of having to risk their investment, things may change a GREAT deal.

Indeed, yes, for the big 'vice' businesses I would expect so.

In such circumstance, I see a market shakeout. But not a collapse by any means.

Banning things, a la prohibition or gambling or drug laws, does little to the underlying economy.

What happens is that you'll get dedicated areas for such with whitelists - speakeasies, and the like. Better know the password, or have Uncle Jimmy vouch for you at the door.

And the survivors will make more money than ever, but from a harshly restricted clientele.

William Gibson also wrote of a virtual 'walled city' in his book Idoru... an independent virtual place founded upon its own rules, simply because it could be created easily via trust networks even amongst the most strict social conditions.

Conditions which essentially caused its invention in the first place. A prophetic vision, to say the least.

I think they big time lowered the bar from what was expected on what consititutes "real naughty" though.

I guess, Desmond, I am coming from this from the perspective that without tier, there is no SL. Speakeasies aren't going to produce much tier. The constant production of new land is a driving economic boon to LL. I feel strongly that people investing in new land will have this whole issue ringing in their ears when they make the decision.

/me laughs... actually, I picture her immediately as a character from a certain shortlived adult comic strip from Penthouse bearing the name "Sweet Chastity" ... (nudity appropriately covered where necessary, for those with sensitive eyes)

http://xs113.xs.to/xs113/07125/SC33a.jpg

ah, those were cartoons

and yes, I agree... I see this very hard to really enforce. Gambling is one thing, but sexual behaviour of some sort is as natural to human beings as breathing, drinking and eating.

I wrote some depressing things, but I erased them, so instead i'll just think of pie.

I don't see any reason for doom & gloom myself.

We will adjust - we always do. After a while, you begin to notice the pattern:

I remember 6/6/06

I remember thinking it was the end of days when Telehubs were removed.

I saw armegeddon when Event subsidies were removed.


*Change* is afoot, and its got everyone freaked out - just like it always does.

Could it mean the end of an era?

YES!

Will it be the last one?

NO!

A lot of how the grid will look is going to depend on some things.

If the "Integrity sells your info" is either true or percieved is true and word gets out - People are simply not going to verify. A lot will leave angry.

If its a mixed group of verify and non verify across the grid you will see many of the non verified people logging in less often. Many of those didnt come to live in a Sanatized PG World.

I think there will be a lot of people being reported over the vaugeness of the restrictions as well.

The idea of random people wandering the grid and ARing peopele for pixel-sex-cybering - and getting a LL pat on the back for is , really annoys me.

LMFAO

There is one small whiff of sanity in LL's latest blog on the topic

"What happens if I don’t flag my restricted content?
We strongly encourage estate owners and parcel owners to flag any restricted content and restrict their parcels to avoid minors inadvertently accessing it."

That's - "inadvertently"!!!

Someone who cams into a structure does not "inadvertently" get in there.
Ditto for someone who opens the door of a structure that is clearly not intended for general public access.

Someone who walks into a strip club does not "inadvertently" see strippers.
Someone who walks into a BDSM dungeon does not "inadvertently" see BSDM activity.
Ditto for nude / sex beaches, etc.
Pony Farms are probably a grey area

"Inadvertently" should mean that restricted content should not be a problem in a PG area if it's not viewable in/from a public area.

"Inadvertently" is when someone is wandering around a public area and is suddenly surprised when out of context "offensive" content comes into plain view.



*sigh* - probably not a runner anyway. Logic is seldom understood by the terminally anal.


LL openly admit that minors are on the adult grid in enough numbers to be an issue.
The logic of LL's position is that the minors "inadvertently" claimed to be 18+ when they signed up. They now wish to head off further "inadvertent" moves by those minors.
It wont work of course because minors will "inadvertently" verify their accounts by entering forged details into an online system. ("Fast. Process takes under 5 seconds to complete from the time information is submitted."


The fact is that an age verification process that actually verified the age of an account owner would cost money. It is clear that nobody in authority or in business is prepared to spend money on such a thing. They prefer to spend some money on dressing up a PR pantomime.

Who said it won't cost money? The only statement regarding payment for the AV I know about comes from the blog where the beta test for concierge levels was announced (http://blog.secondlife.com/2007/08/29/identity-verification-comes-to-second-life/#more-1177) and there it was said that we all will have to pay



Isn't it nice to pay a data miner to exploit your data?

I think that "inadvertently" is just a mis-type on the part of that Linden, after all, there is no way to "inadvertently" sign up for SL, it is a deliberate action.

And of course all this shouting at the top of their voices that they have minors on the grid, is probably not the most media savy thing they could do.

I shall never ever divulge THAT much personal info to some 3rd party company.

Someone said....." I don't see any reason for doom & gloom myself.

We will adjust - we always do. After a while, you begin to notice the pattern:

I remember 6/6/06

I remember thinking it was the end of days when Telehubs were removed.

I saw armegeddon when Event subsidies were removed.


*Change* is afoot, and its got everyone freaked out - just like it always does.

Could it mean the end of an era?

YES!

Will it be the last one?

NO! "

As I recall 6/6/2006 was a nightmare for 3 months until sept 9th i believe one of those non information account broken intohe password data base with a simple 3rd party password breaker. This is not as lay back issue that occured But a real problem that lasted for almost a year

Doom and Gloom whatever that term means or should i put in english terms with i can understand ( CHANGED PEOPLE DON`T LIKE is a better way of putting it ). We most move on yes, but we must also learn from the past NOT to repeat it!

The only problem with your argument, Desmond, is it wont be just Chastity going around policing things. Residents will be policing as well. We saw it with the gambling issue. Club owners were turning each other in because they didnt think it was fair that they didnt have a sploder (or whatever) but other clubs did too. It wasnt always just the money either. I think most of it had to do with the "thats not fair attitude"

I think it will be the same with this. Many people don't like it when they feel someone is getting away with something even if it doesn't impact them at all. I welcome age verification but I have much better to do with my time than caring what my neighbors are doing.

In the end, I think 6 months to a year from now, there will be some changes but overall things will be the same. Everyone will have something new to determine the sky is falling.

You misunderstand, what you are talking about is money.
I was thinking more of MONEY!!!!

In order to bring some measure of reliability and trust into the verification, the following would have to happen
- Someone enters details into the online system
- a letter is posted to the person that the details refer to (under plain cover to help avoid interception)
- the letter explains clearly that letter is in response to the person's apparent request on the Integrity website on a date and time and that the purpose is to allow access by an existing SL avatar (name can not be supplied) to restricted adult content
- The person signs the letter, confirming that they personally requested the verification.
- They post it back to Integrity, who then complete the process.

That's a lot of paper and postage stamps. That's a lot of delay. But hey! Do we care about being responsible for other people's kids or do we not??


I'm talking about that level of MONEY.

The process still would not foolproof, but it would have credibility.

I agree, it'd be nice to know how they are going to handle the whole, is it going to look like patchwork or is it going to look like empty land, banlines or what? If they are testing out the registration process, then Linden Labs should already have an idea of what it's going to be and pass this kind of information on.

But knowing them, it's going to be banlines and easily cammed around ones at that, which would defeat the user-assumed point of doing it in the first place. Unless, you assumed that LL would do the laziest thing just to cover their behinds. I'm assuming CYA on their part, myself.

I'm going to have to do the exact opposite if this is in fact the case.

There is know WAY I would consider my morning show or it's content as "PG". According to LL's latest definition the show's content would fall into the restricted category. As it is now, I only do the show from "Mature" areas making sure I check the little "Mature" box when posting events like a good li'l SLitizen.

So will this mean I will have to cut a 4x4 parcel inside my DJ booth, make it unrestricted, and set home to there so I can continue having the fun I've been having over the past few months broadcasting live from SL?

That would be about as stupid as having to offer personal information to a known data mining company based in a foriegn country (it is to me anyway, I'm in Canada) to access content restricted to those 18 years of age or over in a game that is already restricted to those 18 years of age or over...*blink*...

Like I said on my show the other day - If a Vulcan tried to analyze that chain of logic his head would explode.

/me wanders away wondering if OpenSim will take off or if they're looking for investors.