Are Virtual Worlds the new place to discrminate in?

The question was really about judging the age of somebody you hadn't talked to yet...

edit: what it really comes down to is intent. If they don't supply any info in their profile and they're trying to look like somebody who's young, legal-young or not, you pretty much have to talk to them or follow them around. The graphics just aren't good enough in SL to be able to tell how old somebody's trying to look, if their intent is to look anywhere near 18. They could well be trying to look 20. Or 16. Or maybe 14 or 22.

ITT:

Actually in RL there are federal laws that mandate businesses private or public to accommodate for disabled, it's called The Americans with Disabilities Act. http://www.ada.gov/

So say if someone has a service dog even though they aren't blind and a store/theater/cafe tells them to get lost that place gets fined $25,000 USD and the goes to the disabled person.

So maybe look it up first before you suggest it's not against the law.

Or perhaps you should read it also..

"ADA Title III: Public Accommodations

Title III covers businesses and nonprofit service providers that are public accommodations, privately operated entities offering certain types of courses and examinations, privately operated transportation, and commercial facilities. Public accommodations are private entities who own, lease, lease to, or operate facilities such as restaurants, retail stores, hotels, movie theaters, private schools, convention centers, doctors' offices, homeless shelters, transportation depots, zoos, funeral homes, day care centers, and recreation facilities including sports stadiums and fitness clubs. Transportation services provided by private entities are also covered by title III.

Public accommodations must comply with basic nondiscrimination requirements that prohibit exclusion, segregation, and unequal treatment. They also must comply with specific requirements related to architectural standards for new and altered buildings; reasonable modifications to policies, practices, and procedures; effective communication with people with hearing, vision, or speech disabilities; and other access requirements. Additionally, public accommodations must remove barriers in existing buildings where it is easy to do so without much difficulty or expense, given the public accommodation's resources."

Public accommodations - not virtual accommodations.

This is true. The USA's ADA laws do not extend into virtual worlds. Yet.

First of all define virtual, now define public.. which fits Second Life more?

It's some sort of crime against humanity to be so stupid that you can't tell the difference between fantasy and reality; ADA does not apply to SL businesses. SL is not real! So you CAN prohibit people in wheelchairs from SL business premises, just like you CAN prohibit people from flying - although they can still cheat, of course.

Pep (Stupidity is its own punishment but unfortunately others get punished for it as well)

PS Kokoro - don't dignify their ridiculous argument by mimicking their inability to differentiate between reality and fantasy.

PPS When you pick up that Community Chest card in Monopoly do you think you *really* have to pay $150 to the IRS?

Actually, no. Sometimes people shrink as they get older. My grandmother was around 5'-4" at her tallest, but she was only about 4'-10" when she passed at age 78.

Regarding the wheelchair accessibility issue... if we could all point at a wooden cube and teleport in real life, we wouldn't have the need for ramps, elevators, or stairs here, either.

First of all I earn my living in SL I earn Real money and have a real job here. And yes I have to report my income to the IRS. I'm also a disabled person so SL is a community I have access to where as RL I have far less access to. It might be your fantasy but it's my community and I feel and accept it as a community. If your argument was fact then phones are fantasy too but you can't use the phones as a tool to discriminate either.

You think you are living in a fantasy world. Fine.

Pep (Just don't impose your fantasy on me)

You think you are living in a fantasy world. Fine.

Pep (Just don't expect to be able to impose your fantasy on me)

Discrimination will exist in any world so long as idiots are allowed to register. It should concern people greatly that LL is simplifying the registration process.

It doesn't matter because avatars don't have disabilities.

No Avatars don't but people behind those avatars do. Wheelchairs don't have disabilities but the people who use them do. Service animals don't have... and so on. The fact is disabled people do use SL and some of them are effected by asshats and their intolerance and abuse.

Avatars have whatever the person creating them wants them to have. Wings, horns, purple fur, a snout .........or one leg. If the creator of that avatar chooses to perceive being one legged as a disability then so be it. It's not up to anyone to define someone else's SL.

"Hey Mommy, Word just let me type a naughty word!"

Pep ("Can we sue Microsoft?"

Fixed it for ya!

Pep (I reserve the right to criticise people that end sentences with prepositions, whatever their race, religion or disability)

Isn't that sorta the same thing they say about gays and lesbians? About how they should keep away from kids else they "turn them gay" too?

Jes sayin'. Me, I'll keep all my limbs, thanks.

Q. What are public accommodations?

A. A public accommodation is a private entity that owns, operates, leases, or leases to, a place of public accommodation. Places of public accommodation include a wide range of entities, such as restaurants, hotels, theaters, doctors' offices, pharmacies, retail stores, museums, libraries, parks, private schools, and day care centers. Private clubs and religious organizations are exempt from the ADA's title III requirements for public accommodations.


virtual Not real. Something which is virtual has no physical basis itself but mimics a physical object in conceptual terms. For instance, on the Web you’ll find graphical representations of buildings which you can‘walk through’ using your mouse. Such a building is a virtual building and it may be part of a larger virtual world.

Hmmm.. this is a hard one.. but since I still can't quite reach my hand through the monitor and slug the greifers, I'd have to say that SL is still mostly virtual.

Sides, The Public Accommodation above does specify that private clubs and religious organizations are except, and since most people religiously guards their space in SL, I'd have to say it is all excluded from ADA rules..

Discrimination sucks, I agree with you, but bottom line, every place in world is a private virtual space, and as long as you humans continue to have to put everything into little boxes, discrimination will continue to happen.

That's a fashion statement, not a disability.

A farm boy got a scholarship to Harvard. On his first day on campus, he stops an upperclassman and asks, "Can you tell me where the nearest bathroom is at?"

The upperclassman responded, "Here at Harvard, we do not end our sentences with a prepostion."

The farm boy thinks for a minute and says, "Can you tell me where the nearest bathroom is at, a$$hole?"

That seems to be the Second Life definition. The term outside of SL included both sexual and non-sexual versions. In the RL, you and I would be seen as "ageplayers." In SL, however, this requires sexual activity.

Mind you, I'm not saying I agree with this.



I find I often keep at a bit of a distance in the WAs and elsewhere for this very reason. Unless I'm ready to deal with this.



/me recalls her former neighbors (emphasis on "neigh".

I have noticed that those who have the biggest issues with my avvie are usually the ones who I might assume do the, um, more "interesting" stuff.



Definitely not something I'd be interested in viewing (and I know you weren't suggesting I would!).

Interestingly enough, over the weekend, I found myself invited into a party that Stroker Serpentine was holding. I'm sure now, somewhere, there are pictures of he and I together. The scene at the event was dancing, not "adult play," although the language and some content (a very realistic and rather sizable prim penis was on display while I was there) would raise eyebrows.

I was invited and welcomed, but I would not have felt excluded if I'd been asked to leave.

Mari

"This is the sort of English up with which I will not put."

Keep the ad hominem comments to yourself please.

The upperclassman would probably then give the farmboy a briefcase full of money and tell him to buy his way into Yale

That's not necessarily true, at least where I live in RL. Any place of business, and any privately-owned facility open to the public must abide by anti-discrimination laws. I have known several private businesses around here that received heavy fines for not providing all of the accessibility required by law, to include wide doors and wheelchair ramps.