Bye Bye Darien

Bye Bye Darien. I wish you were not leaving.

Posted on her website: http://www.darishaus.com/site/home.html

And here is the reason: http://www.gamepolitics.com/2009/05/11/congress-awaits-ftc-report-explicit-content-virtual-worlds

I know the joke is "Can I have your stuff when you go?"... Well... I have her stuff now and it's giving me one of the suckiest feelings I ever had. She alone delivered quality and care in an environment where these things have been forgotten.

Her and people like her have been an asset to the grid. Yet, no good deed goes unpunished.

Crud...

Wow.. congress in charge of protecting children.. might as well just have the sexual predators in prison in charge.. at least then you would have some pre-warning!

Second Life has always had stronger than required statements and protection than any other adult service on the 'net. But if the parents will not do their job in monitoring and watching their children, no one else can, period!

Honestly, if Congress wants to me to raise "their" kid, they'd better start paying me to do so. Otherwise, he's my kid and sod off to them. That said...

You know, in any other online community, a bit of legislation like that would have the users and related companies up in arms over it. There'd be rally cries of, "write your congressman/woman and tell them what you think!" But not LL. Oh, no. You'd think they were in favor of SL a la Disney, with the fact that they have basically denied that something like this had anything to do with their decision.

I think the biggest problem is that with LL being a State's based company, and the way that the States have this love/hate relationship with sex and adults, they are all too afraid to be labeled "Hormonal Sexxor" to stand up and say anything. And they do not have the deep pockets and lack of concern about image that the true 'Adult Industry' has when they have gone to fight against the strange laws.

The one hope is that if Congress starts down this path is that the 'Adult Industry' will get involved, and start paying them off (lobbying) against any foolishness.

The action seems a bit premature.

Going by the references quoted:
1. The US Congress required the FTC to report on the general question of access to explicit content in virtual worlds
2. The FTC are due to report back in December 2009
3. The FTC attorneys interviewed by virtualworldsnews.com "seem much more open-minded and cautious in their approach than Representative Kirk. They're on a fact-finding mission, not a witch hunt. They told me they wouldn't necessarily be pushing for a law enforcement hike, just making general recommendations."
http://www.virtualworldsnews.com/2009/05/ftc-reporting-to-congress-on-virtual-worlds-kids-and-explicit-content.html

It would seem that *if* the US Government are going to impose restrictions on explicit content, then the earliest it would happen would be sometime in 2010, after the FTC submits a report for them to consider.
It appears that the report will not be making specific recommendations for legal moves. It may be that the report will inject some facts and sanity into the posturing.

Unfortunately, the idea that all these adult Content Changes and the inextorable advance regardless of the disruption or cost to Residents is a reaction to this FTC action makes far more sense than any internally-driven action by LL. But it is absolutely the WRONG response to potential legislative interferance.

Sadly, by the time the FTC actually says anything solid, LL will have already done the damage. Like shooting your girlfriend rather than watching her starve to death, without looking in the pantry to see how much food was left. Stupidity rampant.

Jesus.

Then we are really screwed. Congress isn't looking for facts and sanity, they don't operate on those premises.

LL puts their policy in place, the FTC reports there are measures to keep kids away from bad roleplay, Rep. Kirk gets to tell his idiot constituents how he saved the children and everyone moves on.

On the plus side, this should kill any idea of merging the grids.

Yes. It's all about appearances.
End of.

True. And this would also explain why LL says it's not because of outside forces. Think about it, this way, they can claim they did this all their own and thus come away looking really good as well.

I hate politics. They get in the way of actually getting things done.

I sincerely hope you're right but I have a hunch they're going to merge the grids for the sake of business survival and kill any ideas in the process.

Ok.....lets see....the first link states findings are to be presented to congress in DECEMBER 09......by the time everyone is finished running for the hills, there wont be any adult content left anyway. Get real here.....I'm really sorry to hear about this person Darien leaving, that's a shame. But, the problem with reacting so dramatically to something that hasn't even happened yet.....is it simply makes everyone look guilty. We can't run away......because that's allowing all this bullsh** to defeat us before there's really even been a battle.

Ok, so LL is taking steps to separate AC.....well, they shoulda thought of that a few years ago, now they're way over complicating it.....but it's their party to cry at I guess. But, that's hardly the end of the virtual world as we know it. And congress.....gimme a friggin break.....you KNOW as soon as they start honking their horns about SL and child access to AC.....we're gonna see a News headline about some congressman who's got an avatar on the grid RP'ing a family....and he's the kid. Seriously.....this is such crap, and freaking out over it totally DOES NOT help AC creators and legit users in ANY way. Stand your ground people.......it's up to the PARENTS out there to do the parenting, not congress. But here in the virtual community, our reaction to this crap is going to dictate the future of SL.....NOT what we're reading in these stupid articles....it's US.....we're the ones who have the ultimate control here.....we gotta stick around, hold ground.

And I'm sorry mr congressman.....but have you ever visited rotten.com before hmmmm??? Why don't you go a little ballistic about kids having easy acces to THAT crap. Then I'll consider the possibility you have a brain in your head.

oh i hate that shit!
and i do think a gig of that garbage on a kids comp is FAR more worrying than even the most deviant sexual fixation.

I think Darien is way premature. It seems that she's projected forward from Event 1...a Congressional request for an agency report...to a potential threat to her RL identity and possible criminal charges.

That's an awfully big leap.

Be well, Darien.. I'll miss you!

Probably not.

Several thousand posts ago, several people shared the notion that this really looked like a policy pressed by some sort of outside factor, and that unrestricted and unregulated pornography on the open mainland would eventually be a problem.

This was of course crushed in the rush to accuse the Lindens of just about everything imaginable ... or was it those damn religious people ... or maybe it was the PG folks. Nazis, one and all!

Darien got it right when she said that people should be thankful that the Lindens told them anything at all, and that they were actually doing us all a favor.

She is also right to leave, even though she will be very much missed. The problem is, that people here will not do what any reasonable person would do ... polish things up a bit, clean up those ads, and at least pretend to cooperate.

Oh no ... eventually someone will send their Congressman a picture of a penis, and it will be on!

The majority will cooperate. LL has made it clear that this is all about choice and that are choices are 1) cooperate or B) leave. Most will stay.

There are always congressmen that pull this kind of crap. Always have been, always will be. I don't care much that LL caved in to this Kirk idiot scaremonger but do care about, and am quite troubled by, the way that LL managed it. It didn't have to be like this. They actually could have made this more-or-less painless instead of the complete disaster that it's turned into.

corrected that for you.

Been saying that all along.

Sorry to hear that Darien is leaving.

She did not say that. Only that Darishaus closes. And I very much hope *only* that is true. I know Dari for very long, perhaps not as long and not as close as others here. But I think the decision was very hard, she's been there once. Certainly she has very good reasons to plull the plug finally. Unfortunately history repeats itself.

There is still some light at the end of the tunnel. Perhaps it doesn't carry the name SL anymore, but what does that matter? What matters are only the people, those who made all that imagination a reality for so many of us. Dari did so much in the short time we all had here. And I certainly hope it's not the end. We all love you Dari! *gives you a big hug*

Reading some of what Rep. Kirk has to say, the Teen Grid is actually a pretty good response to their complaints.

Yes, it's as easy for a teenager to register for SL. As easy as most any other chat/social networking/whatever site on the internet.

However, teens can't be open about their age in SL, or they risk being kicked off. This makes the main grid a poor place for predators to look for children to prey upon.

Linden Lab has has done a pretty good job of keeping predators out of the Teen Grid.

Second Life as it is with the dual grids is actually a pretty good model of preventing predators from meeting children online.

I think she jumped the gun, but that's her choice, if Darien wasn't comfortable with how things were shaping up then it's right for her to pull out.

I don't think this move by congress has much to do with LL's move, they've been trying to do this for two years at least. Linden Lab in many ways are ahead of the game, which is why I find the desire by some Linden's to merge the grids puzzling. They have something there that other websites and worlds would love with the Teen grid.

LL are sponsors of child safety online initiatives, whereas they aren't perfect, they're better than most and any report should see this.

Dari Haus is like a staple of the BDSM community. Sad day.