Remove "Ladyboy" from the list of Adult keys!

And you just pointed to the very core of the problem here. People are so fast to judge without having any idea what they do.

Me either. I learn so many interesting things from these threads! This whole 'adult' content debate has educated me about things I never wanted to know. You humans - wayyy too complicated. However, being an inquisitive sort of canine, I will file away these things in my doggie brain for future reference.

And I voted for the JIRA.

Yes - the one facet of life that drives me nuts and once upon a time was at least not quite so prevalent here in SL.

Yeah, I have always been pretty open minded and not prudish at all, but I never realized how little I knew about some topics until I came to SL. I've still never been appalled or disgusted with anything that happens in SL, but I have sure learned a lot.

You assume that your UK values, or "western" as you term them, rule the day everywhere and anywhere. They do not. And the OP points to the fact that "westerners" just assume their values and language should be the basis for all things. They should not and are not. If SL is truly an international forum, and I think it is, then it should be sensitive to all its members, not just Americans, or Brits, or English-speakers. LL has the opportunity to be a truly global and inclusive forum, rather than a xenophobic haven for pompous prudes with delusions of grandeur. This new "adult/mature/PG" policy is a step backwards.

As for your parting shot, claiming everyone who doesn't agree with you lacks "judgement"... well, that's just as arrogant as the rest of your ethnocentric perspective. Thankfully, the sun DID finally set on the British empire... long ago. And no small part of that demise can be traced to this kind of display of pretend gentility. Good riddance to the former colonial masters, I say.

Now, how does it feel to be treated like a stereotype and talked down to?

First point: I stressed "In the UK at least" to make my cultural bias clear to all. I wasn't trying some kind of out-of-date imperialism where I forced everyone to my point of view. Good grief, you'll be accusing me of slave-trading next. The 'former colonial masters' are long, long dead. Most of them didn't even contribute to my genetics (Lithuanian immigrants in the 19th century, fleeing persecution, no less) let alone my opinions.

'Ladyboy' is not a Thai word. It is a Western, specifically English, translation of the Thai 'Kathoey'. As I tried very hard to point out, 'kathoey' doesn't have the same connotations in its country of origin as 'ladyboy' does in the west.

Now take a look at my profile, specifically some of the picks. Go on, I can wait. Visit my shop if you like, and view some of the bondage-related items I make and sell. Browse the location where it is set (warning NSFW). Do I still come across as prudish? I don't have any evidence for my lack of xenophobia. Perhaps you'd like character references?

What you have done is take a small part of my argument and generate, more or less from nowhere, an image of a stuffy, Tory, Telegraph-reading imperialist when nothing could be further from the truth. Ad Hominem attacks are one of the weakest forms of debate.

Guys, no point to fight each other here. This whole thing is about respecting other people, so be nice and let the other have their opinion. Thanks.

As it seems to have confused some people on here, I'd like to point out that I'm not in favour of the current move to an Adult rating, or censorship in general.

I think it was very brave of you to speak your mind. To be honest I didn't even see it as critical, rather an explanation of the word in the UK.

Voted for it, posted a notice on it to two groups, sent the info to someone who could post to two others

I don't know how old you are, but some of this might be generational too. The transsexuals I know would beat the stuffing out of anyone calling them "ladyboy" but I run with an over-40 pack most of the time. They generally don't care for "queer" either. Not that my friends are a representative sample of English speakers of any age, but usage changes.

Don't forget: the only words Linden Labs needs to filter are the ones that companies they're trying to sell SL to as a business tool are likely to check on.

The problem here is that the amount of characters allowed in a description field does not really allow for very much context. Added to that, that many try to include keywords to help it appear on search, so often much (sometimes all) of the description is just a list of keywords.

Software such as Google safe search require a lot of context and also use the adult rating of pages linking to or from the page in question in decided whether a page is adult or not.

The bottom line is that LL needs to radically re-engineer the land description field (allow a much larger amount of text, possibly with some structure and hyperlinked e.g. a very slimlined subset of html) for this to work. Someone would argue they need to do this for search to work anyway!

Matthew

Assuming that's not intended to be ironic, I wonder if it's true. It would be, if they were just trying to gussy-up Search for the purpose of making Search itself a more prude-friendly place. But it seems just as likely that Search is seen as the "thin edge of the wedge" where more restrictive controls are acceptable than if they just sent out G-Team to herd everyone and their dildos to Ursula.

The idea is that the *language* of Search could be controlled as a way of neutering the *content* of sub-Adult Search-listed parcels.

If the super-prudish restrictions are only on Search, of course, there's still all that unsightly unlisted Mature content lying around where the prudes may stumble upon it. Unless the plan is to eventually align the content restrictions with the Search terms, I can't figure out how they intend to even recover the current level of predictability.

Ironic, possibly. Cynical, certainly. Meta Linden said that the people who asked for it weren't residents, but rather people who had said they left or were put off by the in-your-face sex.

I still think they could do more to fight THAT simply by giving mentors the ability to ban people from welcome areas.

Almost 200 votes on this. Thank you so much for your support.

As in Jira, I entirely agree that also "shemale" and any other potentially discriminating terms should be removed from the adult search keys.

How all of you may see this in your local environment, it may not be the same somewhere else in this world. That's what tolerance stands for.

If this were real world situation I'd agree. But on the net no I don't, since these terms hold different meanings.

for proof, just google it and page after page after page of porn for certain terms. So although I agree with ya, looking at it in context, and Lindens wanting to attract the corps and ignore the little guys corporations will slowly dictate and mold how the rules are done. And since (on the internet) ladyboy and other terms are synonymous with porn sites and major porn industry genre's I doubt very much you will get that changed in the virtual world. So yea good luck with that.

Real world yea it's one thing, on here it's totally different thing. When dealing in context. And that's all lindens seem to care about.

When looking through their adult stuff, it's all net based "adult-isms" and not real world adult.

To be honest I think Lindens took http://www.urbandictionary.com/ and dumped all the words to their adult filter.

rofl

but yea, voted anyhow, but I feel in context I don't have much hope

while I don't personally think that word (or several others that I mentioned in the other thread) belongs in the list of banned words (especially considering LL's previous claimed support of medical and political usages)...

I WILL give Kelli credit for bringing up an important point, that needs to be addressed by LL. some word have been co-opted by porn relatted industries, and are very common within them. but even then many of those words are still used in their proper sense, and only sexualized by association and context. NOT in and of themselves...

so where does the line get drawn? if tomorrow the porn industry adopts the word republican and puts it into widespread use, does that mean it belongs in a word filter too? (ok maybe that was a bad example, some days I want to filter it now)

some of the worst offenders in LL's block list (as far not belonging based on core meaning instead of association):

Dungeon (seriously, how many own castles?)
Fetish (they know this is a term for native tokens right?)
Gor (in context of SL, makes all related clothing/weapon retailers adult)
Gorean (more guilt by association)
Ladyboy (a whole category of people are adult!)
Loli (this one pisses me off, it includes an entire range of goth fashion and is BANNED)
Penis (valid medical term)
Scat (a whole musical genre)
Master - Slave (computing reference)
Snuff (anybody chew tobacco? how about blow out candles?)
Strapon (problematic, describes how it's used, same as say, a jet pack)
Vagina (more valid medical terms)

there's actually plenty more, including things like Dom(me) and dominatrix, which denote power exchange, NOT sex per se.

The following keywords from the list aren't necessarly tied to sexual activities, or nudity hence i demand them to be removed from the list:
--------------------------------------------
Asphyxiation: Can't be considered a strictly sexual/adult topic (drowning in a pool or roleplaying to drown in a pool is an adult activity?)

Bondage: Can't be considered an activity automatically involving sex or nudity (rope bondage is a visual art form wich does not require any sexual activity or nudity to be performed)

Fetish: Can't be considered an activity automatically involving sex or nudity (usually it's actually the opposite)

Ponygirl/Ponyplay : Can't be considered an activity automatically involving sex or nudity, it is a roleplay where one or more persons play being a pony, wich has nothing to do with sex.

Submissive/Masochism/Masochist/Sadism/Sadist: are generic adjectives unrelated to being PG or not.

Slave: Is such a broad subject it can't be flagged as mature (so a memorial of the black slavery become flagged mature? nonsense)

There must be something about this one other than goth fashion. "Lolita" and "Lolicon" don't rate filtering at all, but "Loli" rates a total ban, and has for some time.

And what nation are you in prey tell to so attack anyone in the British isles you're a one to describe anybody as 'arrogant' with an attitude like this.

Funny isn't it it must be the done thing to pick on the 'British' empire.

Especially when one considers empires have spanned the globe from Japan to the USA.

Yeh, it's weird, to me it just seems just more of the bigotry people claim to be against, blindly and righteously hating someone or something.

Vote away, it's never going to happen. It makes reference to transsexuals, hence it will be considered adult regardless of how many people (are dumb enough) to think it's not. It has nothing to do with hate, it has to do with the fact that many gays and transgendered people wear their sexuality on their shirt sleeves, and have lost sight of the fact that it regards sexuality (hence the adult rating), and should be private, and not thrown in everyone's face. Personally, I'm straight, but I don't go around broadcasting that information to the world like gays do. I don't know anyone who's 'openly straight', do you?

Umm, if I had to say anyone is "openly straight" what about you? I mean, you felt you needed to tell us about your sexual life without anyone asking. Or what about people that have *gasp* opposite-sex weddings, date an opposite-sex person in public, have kids (sex of some sort being strongly implied) with them, take medical coverage for a spouse as assumed, or a million other things. By your logic, "Kiss a Linden Day" on Valentine's Day should be banished to Ursula and the 'partner's name' field taken off of profiles.

BTW, get your terms right. Transsexualism is about gender, not sex. Yes, transsexuals can be sexually active or not, as can anyone.