Sex Beds Banned in PG land

That is probably true for the inworld support personnel, but not necessarely the case for the developers and other tech staff. I have met Lindens who never had an account before they became a Linden, some don't even hold an alt afterwards. There was this one, about 2 years old, who didn't know what an AO is and how to operate a rezzable vehicle. One I took shopping and he didn't know how to properly dress himself, because he had never bought prim attachments before.

On the other hand - if you work on server code why do you NEED to know how to adjust hair? If I work for flickr, do I need to be a photographer?

Why dont Lindens simply set up another second life.... one for the people they seem to be trying to attract i.e. business, commerce and education with no naughty stuff' at all...


and then another second life for people who actually 'PAY' to keep things going and who lindens never seem to give two hoots about...

i.e. the ordinary premium users who get more and more ludicrous and half baked rules dumped on them when all they want to do is come and 'play' and build.....

They already have that:

http://www.cleveland.com/education/index.ssf/2009/05/case_western_reserve_universit_5.html

To develop even more uses for the technology, CWRU on Thursday announced that it is partnering with Linden Lab, the creator of Second Life, to build a private virtual world, or "grid," just for the university.

"Right now Second Life is a very large, totally open, anything-goes-and-everything-goes kind of environment," said Lev Gonick, chief information officer at CWRU. It's an online world where a college student might encounter a shadier individual from anywhere.

The goal at CWRU is "to actually create a Second Life experience that's safe for use in education," Gonick said. "Everybody who gets into this space is actually controlled by the educational institution."

The software powering the private, virtual world will be housed on CWRU's servers behind a firewall, making interactions over it more secure. CWRU is the first university to get its own version of Second Life, though Linden Lab also is working to create private virtual worlds for technology companies IBM and Intel, the Navy and defense contractor Northrop Grumman.

No moreso than on MYFaceSpaceBook, or Real life for that matter. Jeezus, you'd think these kids have all been cloistered their whole lives.

A bit like RL then, do they lock their students up in the halls of residence on campus or something?

It appears I am not alone in thinking that the PG ban on sex beds, etc., only pertained to public areas. I did not realize you could not have them in privately owned, security-enforced land parcels.

I have a home at approx 3000 meters high, well protected by a security orb. No one can get near it. How is what I do within the privacy of that home offensive to anyone else? They should not be snooping, or even able to approach the home. I have done this to protect the sensibilities of others, as well as my own privacy. Isn't that enough to keep the average SLer from accidentally stumbling across anything "offensive" in a PG sim?

I know, I know, "the rules say..." but perhaps the rules should be revisited or reinterpreted, especially now that it is possible to build so high in the sky for privacy. The PG designation should apply to public areas and shops, not to private land inaccessible to others.

Just my two cents.

if they are tightening up the mature sims i couldn't see them loosening up on the pg sims..

it would be nice if people were looked at as adults and not helpless wanderers unable to take some shock value frozen in their shoes unable to tp away because the shock is so great..

it really was just a matter of time before SL became noticed and the scared cried for changes because of the kiddies that are not supposed to be here..or the ones who can't stand to see someone enjoying freedom because they can't express it themselves...or the ones that think nobody should be doing this or that anywhere in the world because it's bad..

this was the year i was wanting to pick up a couple of sims and one for my home one for my shops..nothing for profit or anything like that..just some place to put art of mine or others and some stores..
i didn't want to worry about someone showing up and ARing me because of something that they never saw growing up or they think doesn't belong in this world..

to get that relaxed loss of offending someone i would have to buy and list as adult now..

the thing i loved about SL when i came here is..you didn't have to walk on eggshells.
now you can't walk anywhere without getting them caught between the toes..

i wish there were no ratings and people didn't act as if they didn't know what they were loging into ..

it's sad that so many freedoms are getting divided up instead of making one world..

it makes me really wonder since we are heading back to the direction of the 1950's what sl will be like in 3 years from now..
it'll probably be safe enough for tv by then..

Sex in secondlife is masturbation in real-life. We all do it. I do it (and thoroughly enjoy it). YOU do it (and probably enjoy it). Lindens do it. Anyone looking through my real window and watching me doing it is welcome to do so coz I wank very elegantly.
But it's on MY property in secondlife and in real-life. PG, mature or adult is immaterial - it's not gonna stop anyone from wanking. If it offends you, then move on and interfere somewhere else.
"We" are cartoons - attractive ones, no doubt, but we're cartoons. Let's keep this all in perspective. I hurt no one by my self-pleasuring. If I choose to invite my partner or my one-night hat-stand to participate in pleasuring that is just between him (and occasionally her) and me.
Let this world continue growing according to our needs for liberty and freedom on this virtuality and make this a valid experiment. A few wanks isn't gonna hurt anyone. Now let's all grow up and use secondlife to explore ourselves and each other. In ALL ways possible.

I guess, but that was kind of how things were supposed to work in the mature sims. PG-ish appearances out in public, really naughty-looking stuff hidden from casual view, but we were allowed to swear up a storm.

Every time I look at this thread "Tweeter and the Monkey Man" starts playing in my head. We're being told that ultimately the revised rules will be AR-driven, pretty much like the old ones. The old rules were already an open invitation for roving bands of rabid church ladies to comb sims looking for stuff to AR, and it didn't happen very much, rarely enough that some people could assume this stuff was OK on PG land without word-of-mouth wake up calls. After the current wave of hysteria dies down, I suspect that the status quo will settle back to pretty close to what we have now.

What substantive difference is there, really, between 200m and 4096? Both are accessible with flight assist devices or vehicles. Objects on the land will still show up on the minimap. Your avatar will still show up in some form on the minimap. So why should the rules change now?

The beginning of my original post read as follows:


I did say that I misunderstood the rules. For that, I apologize. I also said that building at 3000+ meters reduces the likelihood of someone stumbling across my home unintentionally, and the use of a security orb prohibits them from entering the premises, or in fact, the land parcel at all. I thought I had taken adequate measures to keep everything visible *PG*, and to make it difficult if not impossible for anyone to view anything that was intended to be private. It is not my intention to knowingly violate the rules, nor is it my intention to do anything to offend my neighbors.

There are 11 people on the governance team:

http://world.secondlife.com/group/3a574f44-d9c6-8efe-7499-6cddcb65a8c7

11 People simply cannot police the 500,000 to 800,000 active residents in SL. What I expect is that Viktoria is correct, the rules will be widely ignored and broken, as they are today. There will be random and inconsistent enforcement, as is today.

I can't believe I didn't notice this thread until just now, given that it raises an issue I would have thought was quite straight-forward.

Privacy does not exist in SL, regardless of security orbs, banlines or whatever, because it is no trouble to camera in on any space - even a skybox thousands of metres above ground.

So the argument that sex or any other mature activity is ok in a PG sim as long as it is behind closed doors has got to be tosh. It never occurred to me to even question this since the term PG means 'Parental Guidance', which I took to mean that residents on PG sims may share playtime with minors in SL or at least allow them casual viewing of what they do - under their supervision of course.

Duh!

That said, I can understand Blondin Linden's surprise that residents on PG sims have sexbeds. Anyone who can operate the menu on a sexbed should have no trouble understanding the basic sim information at the top of the screen. It's hardly rocket science.

It could be argued that PG sim residents use their sexbeds in a positive way to educate their kids about sex, as RL friends of mine have done with the SIMs, but I still think they should be on Mature sims and, of course, strictly monitoring what their children are viewing.

If I ran Linden Labs, this would be top on my agenda:

http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/svc-205

How much drama would that save, do you think?

Anything would be an improvement on the status quo. Am I correct in thinking that skyboxe usage would be reduced since residents would have more or less total privacy on their parcels?

What kids? Kids do not belong here. With or without parental permission. It's made quite clear on signup when you are required to attest that you are 18 years of age or older. Anybody under 18 who is here anyway can be AR'd if you know they are and they will be removed. This is a grid for adults, and the last time I checked, I as an adult (I'm 40 personally) don't need parental guidance for a bloody thing, therefore PG meaning Parental Guidance is something I can in fact IGNORE. I have my own permission to do what I'm doing.

I understand, but you closed with a request to change the rules in light of the new building requirement. When we could build as high up as 768, the same conditions were true at the higher levels, above normal flight paths. I'm just questioning the logic of the basis for your request for reconsideration.

I think you misunderstood and over reacted to what was said. I know many residents in SL with kids and because they are active in SL it does go without saying children would take an interest in why their parents are on the computer, in a cartoon world, and why they are not allow to take part. Many of the residents I know with kids for this reason do allow their children to sometimes see what mummy or daddy are doing and take great care that they only view PG activities. At least this is good parenting whether you think it should be allowed or not. Personally I don't have children and I'm 51, but I accept that this will happen.

I agree.

Nevertheless, PG means the activities and behaviour of residents and visitors on a sim or parcel classified as such should be within certain obvious boundaries.

It may seem contradictory to have a PG classification when account holders on the Main Grid need to be over-18 but, firstly, it is impossible to ensure minors do not view or interact with SL simply by blocking them as account holders and, secondly, it is not unreasonable to expect that other adult residents might prefer the neutral ambience of a sim that conforms to PG guidelines.

While I certainly don't like the idea of minors mixing with adults on the Main Grid, I have always been happy with the understanding that any child allowed to view and interact with SL should be under the supervision of a parent or responsible adult, that they would be confined by their supervisors to PG sims and that other residents like myself would respect the need to refrain from doing anything that might contravene the guidelines when visiting PG sims.

The distinction between PG and Mature being fairly clear, I would have though that anyone with a fondness for pixelated high-jinks would just go and get themselves a parcel on a Mature sim as I did.

But I guess that is too simple.

Note: Thanks for the supporting explanation, Dekka. I could have saved myself the trouble of posting again if I'd seen that.

Those boundaries, however, are not really related to "PG" in the movies. The name "PG" is muddy, unclear, and completely misleading, and if you think of it in terms of "PG" movies you're likely to run into problems.

It has nothing to do with the presence of minors. PG is really more like "Business casual". You can get kicked out of a PG region for clothes, actions, or attributes (eg, group names) that are completely acceptable in PG-rated movies.

As I learned when the sheriff ejected me from a western sim for riding into town barechested. I wanted to do a Sergio Leone kind of thing but I didn't have a poncho and contrast is better than a near miss as Gramma used to say.

However, I think it's well-understood that, depending on the strictures of a sim and regardless of its classification, an av may be ejected and even banned for the most minor infraction. (If I were a sim owner, I'd eject and ban anyone wearing bling, fullbright, glow or facelights - no question - Hell, I'd even consider AR'ing their asses.)

Nevertheless, I think it is fair to take 'Parental Guidance' to mean anything where a minor may require the supervision of a parent. I don't see a point in debating the semantics of the term otherwise, which isn't to say that minors might necessarily be involved but that other residents simply prefer things according to that benchmark.

Personally I would prefer it if folk kept their children away from SL, although I understand that is just not practical, but I definitely do not want to mix with minor account holders as a matter of course.