Merging Teen and Main grid?!!?

I was told recently by another resident that LL is considering merging the teen and main grid. This might not be news to anyone else but it was news to me. Apparently a handful of residents discussed the issue with Blue Linden and while the pros and cons were discussed, the general consensus was that it would be a good idea, even though it might mean rearranging regions to provide a buffer zone between mature and PG areas. I have a copy of the meeting log, and Blue stated that he posts meeting logs somewhere, though I can't find them. Does anyone else know where those logs might be, and does anyone else think this is a good idea?
( For the record, I think this is a horrible idea! )

not a good idea

have not heard of it...

ew Me too, don't get me wrg, I like tweens, just not in my SL.
And yes there are TG ppls in SL=Main Grid,
but officially? *gah* Something else to be paranoid, wince watching, worry, deal w/.
No thanks!

I heard that also. It will definitely be time to put up ban lines, security devices or some way of restricting who accesses your parcel because all it's going to take is for one mom to walk in and see her teen staring at two women (or men) engaged in SL sex and the S&*t is going to hit the fan.

I think it is quite likely - being as it is impossible to police underage users getting on SL MG. The obvious solution is to introduce age verification, merge the TG and MG and make the residents enforce access to mature content. Move the responsiblity to the residents.

Personnally, I don't see it working unless the Teen Residents have a similar function to restrict access to verified teens.

So a bad idea.

Yay for lawsuits from creeps hitting on teens in IM?

Its a bit ironic that the Linden discussing this is called 'Blue'

This was a hot topic back when Daniel Linden was about, and many have speculated that the infamous "Keeping Second Life Safe, Together" blog post was a prelude to same. For all intents and purposes, it would seem that a TG/MG merge has been DOA for months, though.

Let's hope it stays dat way.

The whole age verification thing where LL states it's the land owners job to flag your land as adult was, in my opinion, the first step. The whole point of the excersise is not to protect teens, but to roll legal responsibility onto someone else; that being us, as land owners instead of LL.

Merging the grids makes good business sense in that it will reduce costs by consolidationg software development and eleminating hardware to run the teen grid. Also, in order to asure you are not getting prying eyes from your neighbor's parcel, estate sims will be more atractive to truely adult oriented places.

Any logical mind can see that merging the grids is just asking for trouble but you have to remember, companies are ran by accountants. Whatever makes the best bottom line is the ultimate decision.

This is like the "Second Life is going to be bought out," in that it's been discussed ever since the Teen Grid came into being. It would require a major overhaul of the mainland part of the grid, namely putting all the PG sims into their own continents and all the Mature sims into their own.

However, the original problem of verifying age still comes into play... and in this case, it'd be harder for the Lindens because they'd have nowhere else to send the brats back to. Not that it matters anyways, little bratbrat will just make a new account and reverify anyways.

At least with a Teen Grid/Main Grid separation, LL has their own backsides covered if Mommy or Daddy should catch their precious brat watching the pixel pron. After all, it's then Mommy and Daddy's fault for not making sure their brat was on the right grid. Or for allow the brat the use of their credit card. Merging the two would take that slim protection away.

First thing they'd have to do is make verification work. I seem to recall then ditching it because half of Europe couldn't properly verify.

As it is, I'm verified, yet can't get onto restricted parcels.

He usually posts them at http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/User:Blue_Linden/Office_Hour_Transcripts although last week's doesn't seem to be up yet.

One important thing to remember is that office hours cover "what we will do", "what we might do" and "what if we do".

That office hour with Blue fell under "what *if* we do..." and wasn't anything that was set in stone, it was merely solliciting feedback about several possibilities.

What I *think* Blue's main starting point is: the teen grid punishes teens who do abide by the rules because they don't get to interact with the main grid as opposed to teens who couldn't care less and who simply sign up for the main grid. Their parents/family can't get to them or even talk with them, they loose all their friends when they turn 18 and it's a big pain for educators/performers/etc to host any events for the teens so the teens need to be a bit more accessible for adults and there should be more access for teens.

Ouch! (>_< Noes! (>_<

The main grid is NOT safe for underagers no matter what. In my short time here I've known a few, and they're just begging to cause a scandal with the activites they're trying to get involved in. (>_<

Age verification is broken and still gets nowhere when it comes to what people say and do in IMs and group chat. (>_<

"Mature" content is still found in PG regions. (>_<

Roleplay is the norm for many people and age can be part of a person's RP, making it hard to tell who is who and what is what. (>_<

There ARE people looking to find RL kids. (>_<

Inworld paparazzi is just waiting for the next tasty morsel to exploit for their sensationalist crud. (>_<

The rules about sexual ageplay have faded with the blog posts they were 'settled' in. Current noobies know NOTHING about the 'ban'. (>_<

Noes! Noes! NOES!!! (>_<

Yup. This started right around the same time as Daniel's post, I believe, amongst other things. Wasn't the thread here called someting like "Dob your neighbor?"



What I think would be an interesting alternative would be some sort of "merged space" -- I could see a lot of the corporate builds and educational spaces wanting to get the teens in, etc. It woudl take a lot of back-end work to make it happen, though.



So, how do you feel about it, Immy? Dun hold back...

I seriously doubt that they will merge the teen and main grids any time soon.

Age Verification still does not even begin to work. People in many countries who ARE of legal age can't 'verify' with the current provided age verification service; other people have proven repeatedly that they can verify with false info easily; and even where verification DOES work, it only limits what the non-verified person can do within 50 M of the terrain surface!

The adult grid is a hopelessly mish-mashed mess of Mature-rated and PG-rated sims and parcels, many of which are right side by side. It's hopelessly easy to cam from a PG, no age verification needed sim/parcel into the hottest XXX slut areas in SL. They can see everything, hear everything, and buy anything from the vendors, in spite of any access restriction attempts. There is NO way to prevent that, short of restricting all XXX content to private, off-the-map sims.

Merging a bunch of KNOWN childrens accounts with the XXX content available in the main grid would be an almost instant lawsuit in the making. Not gonna happen, in my opinion, while age verification and access control to parcels is as patheticly ineffective as it is today.

Self policing content isn't going to work with 10,000 odd sims and only a handful of Lindens policing the stuff. It's a full time job, and there is no way they will catch everything. This is a moronic idea.

Cripes, that's the most idiotic idea I've heard yet on SL.

Concerned about some 14-year old wandering into a BDSM basement? What about the moronic adult walking about a shopping mall asking people to fondle his Xcite bits? It's not the "law abiding" content creators that will keep the kids safe.

But (not being a parent) I'm less concerned about teens being exposed to "mature" content as I am with having to deal with even more griefers, more idiots that ignore even the most basic of social conventions, more beggars, more clueless interjections into otherwise interesting open chats, and more blingtards cluttering up the scenery.
Geez, keep the kids where they belong.

B. (obviously not having a good day)

That was one of Blue's suggestions a few weeks back.

He suggested having a few Linden-owned sims that teens could visit and that adults could selectively be granted access to (after submitting to a background check). One reason it might not work is that it probably wouldn't scale well at all since most of it is manual work I think.

Introducing G-rated sims might work though as long as those are only accessible to "payment info used" adult accounts. Payment info might not verify age, but it is good at establishing identity. If something bad were to happen on a G-rated sim then LL can just hand over personal details to the authorities which is what they do for adults who sign up for a teen account.

It will merge in a week or two when the final buy-out details are hashed out with Disney.

I like to have sex chat, extra-XXX chat whatever, but I don't want but have to be responsible of the true speach of the other person...

like:

Nuno Mccullough say: I what is your age? I'm 36 (my RL age)
Other Avatar: cool, I'm 30 (and in fact has 18, 17, 14.....)
Nuno McCullought: come with me, let's... (censured speach)

If this happen I wounder why people still care of being premium, (as I was thinking to be) is like paying LL to have bad decisions and to pass to our side their responsabilities, if the age their age verification system doesn't work is their problem not ours, LL have to sove the system problem and not pass that issue to third parties

You problem, Nuno, is not necessarily created by a merging of the teen grid. There is nothing in place (yet) to stop a teen signing up and claiming to be thirty anyway.

However I do think the two should be kept separate. Personally the amount of griefing-kids that are signed up at the moment is bad enough without giving even more a free reign.

I agree with Ceera, even if they were to separate PG and Mature regions, the content is still out there and easily available. Bundles of freebie poseballs and freebie genitals everywhere. I'm assuming that kind of content isn't even allowed on the teen grid, which already makes it easier to police. I do think some older teens would be mature enough to handle it without committing illegal activity, but the majority probably wouldn't. I don't like the idea of merging the grids and personally don't think it will happen anytime soon.

Move the responsibility to the residents?...that is never going to work, for one very real life reason...Ultimately the Second Life main grid is an adult oriented website...it is a site that allows users to upload and create content in that website. And like other websites that allow registered users to upload content, it remains the responsibility of the site's OWNERS to determine the suitability or legality of the uploaded or created content.

It is NOT the responsibility of the USERS of a website to control or verify the age of another USER that may access the site. Nor is it the responsibility of a USER to determine if the content uploaded by another user is legal or suitable....from a practical standpoint it is impossible..since I can't tell another resident what they can or can't have on their land...I can only report it...but Linden Labs can't FORCE me to report it, or make it a condition of my membership that it be reported...I do not have the power, as a simple resident to be responsible for another person's actions or content...It is legally the responsibility of the OWNER of the website to police that website.

Just because during the huge membership drive that Linden Labs had a year ago, they chose to abdicate this responsibility does not now make it the registered residents responsibility. It is has always been Linden Lab's legal responsibility to perform reasonable age verification when registering a user that will have access to their adult oriented website. Just because they chose not to for a long time, cannot make it the residents responsibility now.

Additionally, have we learned nothing from facebook and myspace?...What the owners of other websites SHOULD have learned is simple...if you have an unrestricted mixing of both adults and children (and yes, teens are children, legally) on the same social interaction website...the paedophiles will come flocking...they have proven this again and again...We all know that ageplay (though ostensibly banned from Second Life) is still happening on the adult grid...so, Linden Labs want's to toss some REAL kiddies into the mix?...duh...

Keep the main grid and the teen grid wide apart....Second Life is NOT a family website...it is NOT where family members would or should be going to interact socially...that should be done around the dinner table...not in different rooms of the house through computers.

I honestly don't have a problem with teens camming in to watch a couple of pixeldolls getting it on. I knew where my dad's Playboy and Hustler stash was when I was a teen. I haven't seen Hustler lately but back in 1984, it was pretty hard core. If teens are going to get their pretty little eyes zapped by pixel sex, then they haven't been on the internet at all.

[Edit: This is not to say that I want teens actually IN the adult areas. The adult areas should definitely be age-verified-only. I'm only talking about camming in.]

I really doubt it.