Can we get some clarification here?

The truth is, we're speculating about the whims of the gods here.

The rules are pretty clear to me, and I don't expect to run afoul of them, but, then again, I don't own a sex business, and I'm not the founder of any sex groups. I don't have the burden of thinking of a name that will be salacious enough to attract customers, but not lewd enough to attract the wrath of the Lindens. I think it's fair to ask if there has been a change in enforcement, but I also think it would be impossible for LL to quantify the change. In other words, it's a "yes or no" question. They aren't going to be able to say, "On a scale of 1-10, we plan to start enforcing the rules at level 6."

The other thing is that pushing the envelope of what is considered "decent" involves risk. Sometimes society celebrates your vision. Other times society condemns your lack of morality. That's the burden of living on the edge. Sometimes you get banned. If someone wants to avoid being banned, they should stay away from the edge, and, as Zaphod has suggested, err on the side of caution. On the other hand, there are certain spoils to be gained from flagrant nose-thumbing.

I was referring to Beebo, Peggy. And just for the record, I wasn't implying anything negative about lesbians, but we all know that conservatives don't typically welcome them with open arms. Well, except for Dick Cheney.

SL is a video game or will be treated as such anyway and fall under the same rules & guidelines for Games & DVD's in most countries, Teensex is a grey area, but these people are talking childsex, so why shouldn't childsex DVD's be also available to anyone that presses/ticks a "over 18" button/box, they too are only pixels? And if it's right/legal to depict child rape, why not baby rape too? Some will see it that way, imagine anything gross & twisted that is currently banned then explain why it shouldn't be ok? I imagine most of the population despite their kinks/fetishes have limits on what they could allow.

Just keep your heads down, pushing a childsex site to the top of the classifieds, believe it or not somebody you don't want will notice it.

If you are dumb enough to use offensive words as a group title in a non-18 plus world expect them to be changed. Till SL gets a verification system it really can't be seen as an adults only world.

The thing is, LL tacitly approved of it until Thursday. Then they moved the bar without warning. Fine. But if you do that, ffs, give people 24 hours to catch up. hrug:

I know it's annoying that they didn't announce it...but it does simply seem to be that sex = bad, violence = good.

I refer you to my original comments about the slippery slope. Anyone who didn't see this coming was SO naive, they SHOULD be playing a child avatar. ITYS.

Perhaps they didn't really approve of it or they would have said somewhere that "b^by c$nt f&*kers" was an approved group name
They merely tolerated it I suspect.
LL is now entering the world stage with 30k online compared to 1k so has more people looking at it and prodding it complain to them too perhaps?

The way I see it, by allowing such groups to exist for so long, LL was tacitly giving their approval to such names. A reasonable person could find those groups using a simple search, so why wouldn't they think that it was allowed? I fully understand that as an autonomous company, LL can set the bar wherever they like. As a courtesy to their customers, however, it would be nice to give people a chance to catch up. Hell, even credit card companies give you a month's warning before they change their rates on you.

What, yer gonna send 'em my way?

Mari

Hehe. Now THERE is a hard nosed businesswoman

And what makes you think I'm conservative?

My politics lean far left, but how does that equate with what I see as an issue of manners and appropriate behavior in public?

I'm not calling for a ban of explicit sexual materials, anymore than LL is doing so. Instead, I'm in agreement that some activities are not appropriate in public and that extremely crude, vulgar, and explicit sexual behavior is inappropriate.

My morals are not outraged by sexual material, so much as my aesthetic sense is outraged by vulgarity, crudity, and low-class behavior. It's almost insulting to hear that because I'm gay, I should somehow approve of the lowest common denominator in human behavior, whereas that expectation doesn't exist for heterosexuals.

I don't think that was the implication as much as there would be more empathy for people seen as being on the outside. At least, that's how I read it.

But you seem perfectly ok with telling others which political views are acceptable.

???

Maybe they didn't get any complaints they didn't worry, they can't spend all they're time babysitting moral standards.

I refer to your original post where you complain of two groups with political views that you do not like.

Well.

Hopefully, for those with 'male reproductive fluids' and 'non-consentual sexual acts' as things they like to do will still be able to do them in clubs or lands where such things are allowed by the owner, and won't be subjected to the same brand new definitions of what is private and what is public land that a**play has been subjected to.

To wit, stated by a Linden, for this purpose, 'private' land is land that hasn't got a 'high' rate of traffic, and no one can wander onto by mistake/chance and have any sort of chance of seeing or 'hearing' what is going on.

I'd take it that means locked doors arn't enough, since they can still 'hear' you/see the text, and can move their camera into the room.

Basically, even a skybox doesn't seem to be enough, especially if several people use it.

I'd say you'd need to set it up private with an access list, though the stipulation of no 'high traffic' still bothers me.

I'd check with support on your sexual practice of choice, as well, myself, just to make sure.

Given the current atmosphere, and the _possibility_ of people _maybe_ getting banned or suspended for lists of activities that we're not a hundred percent sure if they're acceptable or not, it's probably the safest thing to do to try and make sure.

I'd also ask to keep a record of the conversation, so you have a record of someone saying 'you can do this in public mature areas'.

Just suggestions for playing it safe.

This situation, with all due respect, is not new....I have been seeing ongoing forum debates about what is obscene, what isn't obscene, what obscene means and what anything at all means for the nearly year and a half I have been an active part of SL.

Nor is the debate restricted in some way to SL. I myself live in a country where the question of what constitutes material fit for public display is a hot button issue, sometimes even resulting in vandalism, destruction of private property and murder.

Obscenity, no matter how many posts go into this topic is in the eyes of the offended. To many of the people posting here, I imagine I would be considered anathema. I have been involved to a small degree in several groups which have since been banned, and vilified out of hand by the learned people of this forum as being deserving of numerous fates, including forced psychiatric commitment and real-life arrest. My reasons for being involved in these groups are my own, and no one's business save my own and that of my compatriots, all of whom I know are of well past the age of majority.

All of this aside, I agreed to a great degree with two bits of reasoning in support of LL's now infamous Notecard.

1) Any business can deny service to anyone, as long as it is not due to the standard exceptions (race, age, color, creed, gender, etc, etc). That is not to say they can't be sued for it, but initial refusal is their right. LL is simply exercising that right.

2) While what is allowed in private is still in some question due in part to the fact that I don't think LL has thought it through that far (they have never been terribly skilled at taking an idea through to it's inevitable conclusion), the force of the restriction was clearly over PUBLIC behavior, specifically Sims or area promoting behavior which LL feels a legal or moral imperative to quash. Public restrictions on behavior permitted in private is one of the understandings that make a pluralistic civilization possible. Of course, tolerance should swing both ways...but why bring up past name calling and threats.

Things have changed however, and all the arguments over what is obscene or not are moot before a simple fact.

LL chose two additional words, apparently nearly at random, and decided that they would not be acceptable anymore. Does anyone even pretend they are the most "offensive" words in the lexicon? Can anyone not sit down right now and make a list of 100 equally charged words which are not currently banned? This does not even take into account the fact that other areas, equally as obscene to some as sex, are wholly ignored and often encouraged.

Which words will be added tomorrow?

Many people on this list are willing to allow this to pass since they agree with LL that those words are obscene and should not be allowed. Yes, they say, this is an infringement on personal rights, but a just and correct one.

Will they still say that if the words chosen to ban tomorrow effect them, and not just the "faceless perverts"?

I do not condone rape, or violence, or any sexual act performed on any unwilling person or a person by law unable to choose to perform that act. I also do not condone the elimination of free speech, the silencing of diversity, prejudging people's real lives based on their acts in SL or the senseless banning or vilification of people based solely on one interpretation of what is "right".

To all those applauding LL and their acts today....please, think very very carefully. A precedent cannot be unset, a bell cannot be unrung. A right given away can never be truly given back. Public acceptance of LL's actions now will be used as precedent and justification of further acts down the road. Disagree? Many people said that LL was done after ageplay, and that thinking they weren't was paranoid incitement. Of course, to be fair, many people also said that all the people behind the forced sex sites should be rounded up too, while they had the truncheons out.

This is only the beginning...and LL will offer no clarification. Their attitude is clearly "live with it, or go back to Sims Online".

Though it may be cliche and to many of you, melodramatic, I have no choice but to invoke The Hangman in regards to all this.

When LL comes to ban your account...who will speak for you?

Before you go on - since this is the second post with a liberal smattering of the word obscene.

Ill point out Linden Labs doesnt use that word. They use Indecent and broadly offensive. Not nearly as strong as obscene.

Do they equate indecent and broadly offensive with obscene as you do? I dont know.

Maybe some clarification is needed.



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Indecency
Second Life is an adult community, but Mature material is not necessarily appropriate in all areas (see Global Standards below). Content, communication, or behavior which involves intense language or expletives, nudity or sexual content, the depiction of sex or violence, or anything else broadly offensive must be contained within private land in areas rated Mature (M). Names of Residents, objects, places and groups are broadly viewable in Second Life directories and on the Second Life website, and must adhere to PG guidelines.

Global Standards, Local Ratings
All areas of Second Life, including the www.secondlife.com website and the Second Life Forums, adhere to the same Community Standards. Locations within Second Life are noted as Safe or Unsafe and rated Mature (M) or non-Mature (PG), and behavior must conform to the local ratings. Any unrated area of Second Life or the Second Life website should be considered non-Mature (PG).

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There are "Indecency" laws and "Obscenity" laws. Without exception, the distinction is that the former applies to activities, and the latter applies to publications. Of course SL is a virtual medium and so is part action, part publication...but I would say that the closest thing to it in the "REAL" world is a live performance - a heavily (enitrely?) improvised one of course.

But that means that it IS the obscenity laws that should apply, NOT the indecency laws. Players of SL should be regarded as actors/scriptwriters. I believe LL's definition of certain forms of play as "Indecent" is technically incorrect - "obscene" should be the correct term. Whether or not you agree that they are is another matter.

Interesting discussion. We are exploring, in an SL context, the problem of when freedom of expression intrudes on other, legitimate rights people have - like freedom from harrassment. I am as big a civil libertarian as anybody, but I am not troubled by this case - at least not so far.

Problem here is when people are using words not really to communicate but rather to grief other people. For example, the author of the group name including the word c*mrags as much as admitted this was their intention. It looks to me (I could be wrong) that LL is acting against actions that are or are meant to be disruptive or cause enough upset in people they will drive the targeted people away from SL.

So I don't think we really have a free-speech problem here. The concept of a "c*mrag" can be conveyed just as well in socially acceptable language. Assuming it means what I suppose it means, one could have said "bedroom wipes," for example - all that's really lost is the deliberate offensiveness against people who have different sensibilities from one's own. Or, if they were making a political or philosophical statement, something like "Skanks Against Prudery" would have said it much better - and provided a useful acronym as well. Looks to me like these were griefers, and that LL decided this was something that will p*ss off people enough to drive them out of SL - maybe enough people to matter to LL - and so LL took action in self-defense. Other examples - which abound in SL - maybe did not look so much like griefing, so LL has let them pass - so far.

Sometimes bad taste can be fun, and leave one amused or edified. But sometimes bad taste just leaves a bad taste. Like this case, IMO.

And remember, it is their platform. They do have a right to protect themselves.

[Now that I think of it, as "Bedroom Wipes" I wonder if it just might be a legitimate product in RL - a tidy little package hung up on the display rack right alongside the Trojans. Procter & Gamble, are you reading this thread?]

: P

Oh, you mean you made an assumption based on:



OK. *shrug*

The same Community Standards that lists the "indecency" standards also has something to say about intolerance. Namely:



If one part of the Community Standards are going to be enforced by way of bannings and group censorship, then why aren't all parts of it? It's a fair question, and actually, it reinforced my overall point: How is anyone to know what is allowed anymore and what is not?

But please, make more assumptions. They do amuse.

Point of order...I think the reason "14 words" may be allowed is that it does not adversely comment on any group...rather it positively defends one ethnic group. Yes it's a hair-splitting definition...but if "defending white children" is in some way objectionable, how does one defend "Music of Black Origin"?

Edit: Yes, I am going to go away and search for groups that promote other ethnic groups now...will let you know what I find...

Uh huh. And "arbeit macht frei" is really about having a good work ethic.

It is fortunate lawyers do not define words. I can think of nothing that would be more dangerous to the English Language. Instead lawyers use words to suit their purposes.

Its possible to be Indecent without being offensive - Evedently the LL TOS writer agrees with me, since Broadly Offensive is only part of the description of the Indecency rule.

While something that is obscene is always offensive. I think its also possible to be offensive without being obscene. Obscene carrying the strongest negative connotation.

Now your comments on the legal use of these words is interesting. You might be making an excellent point -

Perhaps whats needed is more clarification.