Age Verifying - Useless?

its been over a year since age verification was announced ...

Has it ever really been rolled out?

It seems more like a whimper - with most content that is "Adult/mature" not being labelled by land owners as Age Verified only.

Probably because there is no sense in labeling your parcel that way when a large number of valid adults either can't or won't age verify, and when the verification check only limits access to less than 2% of the buildable volume of your parcel. (The 50 M layer closest to the terrain.)

... FAX...???

this is exactly the problem

Someone who is payment info on file AND age verified should be imune to "guilty until proven innocent" underage-reports.

It should require proof that that person is underage and committed fraud in the verification process.

Are there any documented cases anywhere where someone has been suspended in this way despite having age verification completed?

Understood that Ordinal wrote below:



Sorry, I should have been born in Missouri rather than Michigan Are you certain on this, Ordinal? (Not suggesting you're making this up - just curious whether you're making this statement based on actual occurances or assumptions)

I'd have thunk that this is the way it works right now. (Meaning: if you have age verification on file, you wont be automatically assumed guilty until proven innocent.... because you've already proven innocence in advance.)

If it doesn't work that way now - totally agree thats utterly silly.

Yes. A friend of mine who even completed manual verification via sending in copies of documents was suspended AGAIN weeks later. He had to send in the SAME documents again to get his account back.

I have heard of this as well.

There is no excuse for this. Anyone who has provided actual documents via fax to SL should be immune from further false accusations.

I don't know why they keep refusing to accept my ID.

Yes, or rather I am sure enough to feel confident stating it as a fact - as other people have indicated above, there have been several cases around where people have been age-verified and it has made no difference to the process. They were still banned immediately and obliged to send in personal details in the usual way.

Which does make sense really - a child *ahem* could see that the "age verification" process was not sufficient to actually verify someone's age, and in circumstances where LL care at all they would not pay any attention to it. I repeat: that is not what "age verification" is _for_; it is solely a legal procedure.

The drop down boxes setting your DOB when you sign up is all that is required.

The age verification (even with it being beta) is voluntary just like payment information (which also can be falsified easily through various means)


Part of it may be related to the same way they lock down accounts and such when it comes to other issues. Resolving them on a case by case basis

I do know from helping moderate a forum, SOP on a report of abuse/harassment/age issues meant locking that account and checking the posts regardless of if there had been prior incidents with them. In one case the individual verified with his brother's ID when his age came up, but slipped up and sent his real one after turning 18. The account was perma banned instantly.

Perhaps that is what LL is doing, they know it's possible to game the system but are watching for slip ups.

Which in turn will only weed out the completely stupid ones and will never catch the smart ones. *shrugs* Not like there is any way that COULD.. well, except parents. But that means the parents need to be doing their job as well.

exactly

course that means we'll hear "you can't watch you kids all the time"

but you can password protect a computer, yank the network cable out and lock it up, etc...

but you have to be responsible enough to do your part as a parent

But thats not the long term goal.

You weren't here when they laid out their long term goal regarding this stuff.

Because its taken too damn long.

LOL

I know the long term goals.

I also know a bit about the difficulties that are inherit in trying to meet those goals.

Things like:
* Compliance with every countries privacy policy laws and regulations on personal data
* Getting access to means to verify in every country that has users on the grid so they can be verified
* Ways to limit the effectiveness of identity theft being used for false verification
* How do you confirm the person verified is the actual user of the account

Quite a few others as well

It's a nice goal, but reality has shot down more than one plan

hmmm

But the long term goal isn't to verify everyone.

The long term goal is to allow everyone over the age of 13 onto the grid.

Only the people wishing to see adult content will need to verify as 18+

All Adult content will be labeled by each land owner in perfect (DOB your neighbor enforced) compliance.

Which is going to require a complete rebuild of the grid's mainland areas, and force rental sims to possibly purge residents.

They would need separate continents for the NC-17+ stuff due to camera tools and use.

Then there would be the transition phase of moving builds to the appropriate sims (in a away that doesn't penalize folks on tier)

A mature area next to a g rated one could have PG but suggestive images on the outside... and simple camera panning will allow someone to view into it and see things that would make a porn store owner blush.

To be honest, in conclusion, I personally and think others shouldn't and don't mind. I've been on Second Life for a few hours over one week and have seen enough to make me thank God I haven't stumbled upon it four years ago. I prefer to be optimistic and consider it an additional step towards the safety of a younger community of Internet surfers.

Although after having discussed the issue with an additional friend in-game, he told me he's been flagged as underage and had his account suspended. I nearly choked when he claimed it took him around 3 weeks to get his account back. Now that's rather outrageous, really. I'm not wanting to wait 3 weeks because some buffoon decided it'd be funny to flag me with investigation...

Is it possible to get any 'official' word from a Linden Labs staff member on the matter, or are they generally unresponsive regarding issues like that?

hey - thats what we think -

According to good buddy Dan L , there are "Several ways it could be done"

And having separate PG and M type land was not one of them - he declared that a failed system.

Course I heard he quit - So we shall see.



http://slcreativity.org/blog/?p=32

What?

Sorry was buying some ice skates for when me and Beezel take the scenic tour of the river Styx.

one way would be to make locks in the camera controls, but you still run into the outside appearance of the plots. (as is now, you got residential owners complaining because of strip clubs with billboards near their PG rated land)

they are looking into zoning of the mainland sims, which still runs into the relocation issues. (The land was bought with no covenant and LL will have to push one them... so they would have to move rather than violate the zoning )

You can leave off the "issues like that" part actually.

Don't you think you are being uneccesarily critical?


After all we have a new Forums Czar!


Katt Linden -
Post count: 2

ROFL. That's mean.

Yeah, well I think someone let that Kat out of the bag