Merging Teen and Main grid?!!?

Purchases made with L$ don't, but purchases *OF* L$ might, and those are the only clearly real-world transactions that an SL business makes.

Without that, you're right, but it's the same issue - Europeans told to VAT register if they want to be competitive, but unable to do so because LL won't back their microtransactions system to a sufficient real-world level.

There will never be a age-verification system that can't be gotten around nor will there ever be one that will work for everyone in the whole world. Just ain't gonna happen. So all you really can have is a system that trys it's hardest to limit your own personal (or corporate) liablity. That's what this system will be. It's Linden Lab taking all the fingers pointing at them for allowing minors access to adult material and turning those fingers to point at both the content creators who have made the adult material and the land owner that the adult material sits on.

Is there any company now that offers a service to verify anyone's identity, anywhere in the world, that works for anyone who wants to use it?


This is actually something I've wondered, but it also points to a common phenomena... Linden Lab doesn't think all the way thru things very well. Or else PG and Mature land would be a little more seperated to begin with, huh?


How hard is that going to be to make?


That would be the whole point of the system, wouldn't it?


Yup, it's a crappy system. Are you surprised?

But really, what else are you going to do, as Linden Lab? No matter what you do, it's NOT going to work for everyone. But if you do nothing, you're left with your pants down everytime Fox News or Sky News or whatever other exploitive "journalist" comes along decides to crusade against 'interwebz p0rn'.

Linden Lab says: We are cannot control access to the grid by minors. We are not responsible for any user created content. We have an age-verification system in place. We have tools available to land owners to restrict access to their parcels based on age-verified status.

Linden Lab's lawyers sleep peacefully. Linden Lab's financier's are happy they no longer have to fund a redundant Teen grid. Corporations around the globe bristle with glee at a new consumer base to exploit in SL. Everyone's happy.

You know, what I often wonder when these age-verification threads come up is... how come with all this media covering the debauchery of SL, some enterprising 'journalist' hasn't done an expose on Red Light Center, since it's quite obviously geared towards practically nothing BUT sex. Could it be very simply that in order to gain access to that platform's truly adult material one needs to provide payment/verification information? Yea, I think it is. Just as simple as that. Does it mean there are no teens in RLC? Hardly.

PS... I'm not picking on you at all in this post, Ceera, you raise very valid questions. They just all have answers no one likes.

I don't expect an age verification to be perfect, but at the very least they need to make it something that, when it DOES acurately reflect the person's age status, can be used in a manner that makes a valid difference.

The LSL commands needed to detect and act on age verification status were one of the first things that I and other scripters requested when the whole age verification thing started up. Linden response? Request denied.

They refused to add those commands to LSL, or to add a requirement flag for group membership, or even to make the blasted status VISIBLE so a person could make a decision themselves. What good is a "verification" status that no one can act on?

"Age Verification" as implemented by LL is a bandage made of wet toilet paper, when what is needed is a wall of iron. And LL has flat refused to do ANYTHING that would make it any more effective.

Hmm, so Werewolves & Neko's together are ok, but not dogs & cats?

Ok, so I've been waiting patiently for Blue to post the logs of the meeting that prompted this whole thread and discussion (for April 9th) but oddly enough, the logs for the 2nd and 9th have been skipped, while logs for the 18th are now available... maybe I need to ask to have them posted...

but just in case the grids are merged, I'll be ready... I saw an article on msnbc today about a high-pitched device call "Kids B Gone" that drives teens away:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24280571/

I fully anticipate that my development team will get started on a version for SL, and it should be available in our stores in the near future

OMG nooo dont merge the teens with the main grid, thats a big mistake. and big trouble just waiting to happen.

I LEFT a DIFFERENT online place where they do just this... (NOT SL)

It is supposed to be strictly PG-13, but in reality the company sells clothes that allow patches to let men and girls be naked.

They feed teen girls to adult men.

There is even a patch that makes girls wearing the company-provided panties appear naked without even their knowledge or permission.

The day I left that cesspool forever, I visited the village specifically for YOUNG TEEN girls, and it was crawling with men who were menbers of the group that provides the sex clothes and patches.

One of these men, with his group tag visible in his profile, was a REPRESENTATIVE of the company.

So NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Don't want kids here in SL. PERIOD!

SL is WAY safer, BECAUSE they work hard to keep kids separate. It is sad the nice company (SL) got the bad press.

That may change very soon though.

There is a ton of info on "alledged" pedophilia at that OTHER PLACE (not SL) about to be released.

Love Poddy

"Inside me is a little child, struggling to get out...its her own fault, she stood too close to the buffet." - Unknown

"I love children. Seventeen or 18-year-old girl children that is."

~ W. C. Fields

“When I was a kid my favorite relative was Uncle Caveman. After school we'd all go play in his cave, and every once in a while he would eat one of us. It wasn't until later that I found out that Uncle Caveman was a bear.”

- Jack Handy

Lolol

Roflmao

IMHO it makes sense. SL itself isn't "adult oriented" but it contains adult stuff. The web isn't adult oriented either but it does of course contain adult material. Banning minors from SL because there is sexual stuff going on is as stupid as banning minors from any big city because there are sex shops there somewhere.

Besides that - what's the real purpose of age verification? Any kid smart enough to steal their parents ID will we able to look at much worse stuff right there on the web (omg real genitals, not just pixels). The purpose of age verification is not to protect children, it's to protect ADULTS from the legal troubles they will get into after cybering a minor.

But what if they see a big pink fluffy kitty walking around and talking, Lisa?

It could traumatize them for life!

LOLOL

Love Poddy!

I think the purpose is to protect LL from legal troubles mostly, any benefit to residents would be a byproduct. The indemnity they receive is in return for resident data.

Otherwise I agree with you.

Exactly. And which is also why it won't have to work for everyone everywhere in the whole wide world for the system to come out of beta. Just because you might not be able to verify easily, doesn't mean LL isn't going to move forward protecting their asses. They really have little choice but to distance themselves legally from the adult material being produced on the grid. Once they successfully do that... legally, if not technically, then a teen grid is completely redundant. It already is kinda redundant anyway, huh?

Maybe once they get all their ducks in a nice legal-like row, they will allow the scripts that you are requesting Ceera, and are just holding off allowing them until the system is fully out of beta. Maybe, I really don't know, but I think allowing those scripts now would only confuse the issue in what I am sure is already a confusing enough situation. Or maybe they are just being turds, which is equally likely.

I don't see the Teen Grid surviving another year or IDV taking another year to come out of Beta. I also think another really sensationalized news story could snap the system into place even faster. At this point, working completely for everyone or not, it would take changing a single webpage to change the system's status from Beta to Official.

From previous experiences with MMO's...

What Teen would want to hang out with people in their 30s???

LOL! I got "gasps" from one group when they found out I was in my late 30s. They thought I was "too old" to be playing video games.

I think a lot of them would. My daughter's friends all wanted to come and live with us when she was in school. You might be surprised how much fun old people can be.

Any teen who's not supposed to hang out with 30yo's

I myself have had access to adult material since I was less than 8 years old, it was called daddy's porn stash, and it was so huge that I was able to keep some of it and he was none the wiser.

Now, here's the real problem. SL, even with verification allows people to be very anonymous. Because of this, it's full of people with alternative life styles. As an admitted lolicon, myself included.

There are people that WANT kids here in SL. Spend a week wandering around as a child avatar and you will find it. There are people with total hope that I'm actually the 10 year old I RP myself to be. Now we want to introduce RL kids to the fray? How is anyone ever going to keep track? Online age verification NEVER works. For what it does, it will not protect the kids wanting to be found from the adults wanting to find them. And in the end, you will still not know who is who. That IM from a 12yo girl chatting about her panties could have been a retired trucker in Arkansas laughing his head off PWNing pedos for teh LULZ.

Don't openly add RL kids to this mess! (>_<

LOL

I agree that there is no way to be absolutely sure that everyone in SL is of adult age, but I do not see any reason to invite underage users via merging the two grids. I think that it would really create a mess and I would get pissed if I made a friend and then came to find out he or she was actually my neice's age. Is nothing sacred?

Exactly. It simply *doesn't matter* if there is a teen grid or not. A teen who wants to be on the main grid is here already. Age verification can always be circumvented. Its purpose is not to protect kids, it's about protecting adults (and LL) from legal consequences. If there won't be a teen grid anymore, the hardcore adult stuff will migrate to virtual red light districts, which isn't a bad thing for many adults either.

As far as I understand it, the primary reason for merging the Teen and Main Grids was that the big-name brands like Coke, AA, etc didn't like the idea of having to build everything twice, and didn't like the idea of being imprisoned on an TG island (so that they couldn't, for example, advertise all across the grid). Since they seem to have reduced interest in SL now I suspect the plan may go by the wayside.

LOL, we used to knock off a mates older brothers porn stash, later down the track, he told us he knew we were knocking them off but didn't care except we kept taking all the best blondes
Yeah, age verifications not perfect at keeping kids out, but car door locks aren't perfect at stopping car theives either, doesn't mean we should give up on having them.

My argument here is more along the lines of having a minimum age for driver's licenses. Broken age verification is one thing. Broken age verification plus open access to/for/with underage accounts is another. (>_<

Open registration insured open access to the main grid for any minor that wanted in. There is currently nothing stopping any minor from accessing any adult material anywhere on the grid. Age Verification and age-restricted parcels are where you'll be asked to show your drivers license.




If you thought you were losing potential corporate advertising dollars because you had made it too difficult for those corporations to target multiple demographics within your platform by having separate grids for teens and adults, wouldn't you be considering making it easier for those corporations to spend money with you by merging a redundant teen grid with the more robust main gird? I mean, you still want those corporate advertising dollars, don't cha?

There won't be a Teen Grid and an Adult Grid, there will only be Second Life for everyone with certain areas restricted to age-verified residents. I'm taking any and all bets.