Teens on the Main Grid – Ok – call me truly ignorant here….

I have been reading a number of blogs from teens on TSL who post about looking forward to transferring to the main grid. I find some of them quite fascinating – they discuss their concerns, their dreams, their expectations and intentions.

I have to seriously admit that I have up till now not paid much attention to what the TSL environment is or the fact that they eventually move over to the main grid.

I have some questions and concerns and hope some of you could shed some light for me.

1. What, if any and aside from breaking TOS, stops an adult from creating an account and interacting as a teen in TSL?
2. What, if any and aside from breaking TOS, stops a teen/minor from creating an account and interacting on the main grid?
3. Age Verification – uh – well some parents don’t give a hoot what their kids do and I know for a fact I have come across avatars who easily and without hesitation tell me they are under 18 years of age. I council them and report them to LL.
4. Age Verification – so if you do not age verify you can not get to Zindra – so what!! There are still tons of private sims who continue to allow pubic access and have extremely mature themes or activities going on.
5. What if any groups or outlets are there in SL that provide teens who transfer from TSL to SL information and warnings about the “less than ideal” activities in SL and steers them to the more productive and creative outlets in SL?

I worry about the teens that cross over to the main grid without proper guidance and fall prey to the lunatics and bad or extremely mature behaviors in SL.

Comments?

You are truly ignorant.

It's not Age Verification . . .

Pep ( . . . it's Account Verification. )

PS Damn you Rizzy, I was going to do that.

PPS But you haven't noticed his name is double-barrelled

Yes - I am truely ignorant here - but hope you all will help sort me out

A fairly heavy amount of red tape, where you have to validate yourself to LL and prove having legitimate reasons for being there, and, as I understand it, will even then still be quite restricted and not free to roam the entire teen grid. It's *quite* tight, and from all accounts, pretty damn solid.

Pretty much nothing. As per your 3, parents would be the best answer.

Probably, yeah. They'll thin out a bit, but they'll likely still be there. Still likely harder to find than any random porn website or chatroom.

I don't know of any specific, but on the other hand, I don't really subscribe to this theory that SL is home to lurking masses of lunatics just waiting to pounce on innocent people. People are much more likely to fall in with a friendly crowd who shares interests, and that's only more true for somebody who already know a fair bit about SL and what they want from it.
Again, things like Facebook, Blogs and Twitter (which Wonderella once skewered perfectly by inventing the new service "Blotter" are far more likely to provide food for stalkers. So by and large, if you're not savvy enough to navigate the comparatively safe SL, you'll already have run into far worse trouble on the Internet at large.

Oh, and, since you asked for it: You are truly ignorant.

The Linden's have insisted they aren't planning on combining the two grids. Many of us are skeptical about that, but at this point any comments and what will and will not happen is purely conjecture.
'

I think question one is basically like question two, except reversed

so on that note... there really is nothing to stop an adult from creating an account and pretending to be a kid, to access TSL
(If they already have a main (adult) account, it could raise flags if the lindens monitor mac addresses and/or ips')

*shrug*

I think the better question is...

why would an adult want to even access the teen grid under the guise of a teen?
(please don't answer that, I know why... just don't want to accept the underlying factions that go with it) ugh (I suppose their could be legit reasons but if they are legit, do it the right way)

(we know why the teens do it as an adult on the adult side of the grid)

But you must provide personal information. There are no anonymous accounts in teen SL. I am under the impression that they actually do take verifying that information serious, though, of course, they can't prevent you from falsely using an actual teen's ID.

I think it is possible to exaggerate the number of "lunatics" and so forth on the grid, but they do exist, and they frequently DO target noobs. A casual glance at the police blotter will show a pretty high incidence of "indecency" violations in welcome areas, for instance. I myself was hit on in my first day at Help Island by a guy who offered to show me his "music" collection. (No I am not kidding; I thought this was an even better line than offering to show me his "engravings." I went along with it, because I wanted confirmation that he was a sleaze. Confirmation was indeed forthcoming when he TPed me to his VERY well-equipped skybox . . .)

LL has tutorials that cover a lot of this stuff, but there is also this, put out by the SLLUFN. It's written for women, but it's certainly not intended to be restricted to them. I give in-world copies out to anyone who is newish.

http://womensresourcehub.wetpaint.com/page/Newbie+Woman%27s+SL+Survival+Kit[URL]

I'd actually wonder why they would first go through the hassle of creating a teen grid, to merge it with the rest of the grid later. Linden labs created the teen grid specifically to remove minors from the grid while offering them a place of their own, there's absolutely no point to creating that space of their own if it was to merge it with the maingrid later.
The only viable reason why the two grids are actually physically connected that I can think of, is to simplify the transition from the teengrid to the maingrid once a teen turns into an adult.
You don't build a barrier to take it down. You build a barrier to implement a form of seperation.

Philip Rosedale is on record stating that it is his/the company's goal (having used a somewhat ambiguous "our", and that they are working on it. M has echoed that.
The reasoning is that they want a virtual world as all-encompassing as the web, and it makes no sense to artificially separate it.
...and then they went off and separated the adult continent, so go figure...

Tali did a very good point by point, but I'd like to address one basic assumption found here

Teens that cross over are of the age of maturity, (in the US; in some places they have been for years) and are in fact, adults under the law...

that means they may engage in any accepted (and several unaccepted but tolerated) activities they like, and can legally make up their own mind about what is and isn't "less than ideal".

furthermore being adults under the law, they do not require any "proper guidance" beyond what any other adult resident receives. presumably they've had a lifetime of it, aimed at preparing them for this moment, and even if not, there is no imaginable cause to subject them to that type of continued parentalism. And I suspect more than a few would reject it out of hand.

that said, NCI does a wonderful job of introducing ALL adult residents to the grid, and it's many creative outlets.

Yay! Now my kid can use my credit card to purchase Lindens and they'll instantly be adult verified! WooHoo!

Well, as for the teen grid merging with the real grid, something will need to be done to prevent my above statement from being a reality.

When they do they probably will make a tiny below the fold announcement on the Blog and then quickly Spam it off page One

To be specific, the Lindens have said that they want, for example, to have a space where RL parents and teens could be on the same grid. However, M was careful to qualify that by saying that LL first needed to create spaces on the main grid where teens would be safe. One imagines that the "Adult" split is part of that. Not sufficient, though, imho.

I haven't heard anything more about what such spaces would be like, but I don't follow the blogs or Lindens very closely nowadays.

M did not mention anything about protecting current grid residents from teens. To my mind, that is just as important. People's lives RL have been ruined by false allegations from disturbed teens; certainly it would be much easier to ruin an adult's SL.
.

That's not even half the problem. (>_<

As for the teen grid merge, something will need to be done in regards to IMs between teen and adult users first. Forget about teen access to porntopia, that's harmless. How about creep access to teens? (T_T)

I think the paranoia about adult and child interaction has been so overblown.

This has been a point raised again and again by all of us that have been following the adult changes from day one... back in March. The first time lil Johnnies momma comes in and catches him poseballing with someone, or Lil Sallys momma see her precious daughter collared, all hell will break loose. I think that LL is in no way ready to accept the liability that merging the the two would bring.

Teens have ALWAYS been in SL, since the day free accounts came in. They have no business in SL period. none. The move of all us *adults* to Zindra was supposedly to protect the *normal* people that didnt want to *accidentally* stumble upon adult content. If they had simply enforced the TOS as it stood, 80% of the problem would have been fixed. There is however, no cure for sheer stupidity. I mean seriously, you look up *free sex* in search, and land in the middle of a free sex park, WTF was you expecting?
But as always, rather than hold people accountable for their own actions, lets make everyone FOLLOWING the rules pay (which we were, or we wouldn't have ended up on Zindra to begin with).

I'm just sayin....

~Brie

I don't have the luxury to think this way. Out of sight, out of mind; Sadly, doesn't apply to what I've experienced. (T_T)

"The government has no current plans to raise taxes"
But you can bet they are talking about it.

They realy need to keep a teens only continent as well for them.
But as far as keeping the creeps away from the kids it also keeps parents away from their own kids too.
just think in WoW any 10yo can play unsuspecting with creeps too, how does Blizzard handle all the liability involved in that?

because WoW isn't a social environment like SL is. The limit of what actions can be done there, and the control of content makes the difference.

~brie

Arwyn Quandry will be transferring to the Main Grid on 1st August 2009 and Arwyn has done a good job about blogging about the TG over recent months. Check this out: http://arwynquandry.wordpress.com/

I was a Former TGer from 2006 until December last year. It's rather hard for adults to create TG accounts because LL needs real proof (ID) they are teens from 13-17. All teens have to do is put a false date of birth in and they are here. This is just not right.

There are TSL Approved Adults that work on educational regions on the Teen Grid. They have to go through a TG background check by Linden Lab. Adults will then have to filll out a Ascertain Screening & Investigations Consent Form. https://www.ascertainsi.com/secondlife/bgConsent.asp

More information can be found here about Educators Working with Teens: http://simteach.com/wiki/index.php?title=Second_Life:_Educators_Working_with_Teens

As to a possible grid merge, this is old news and I hope it doesn't happen. I do know on the MG there Teen Grid transfer groups that teens join when they transfer over to get information about SL. I do agree that when teens become adults they should get more guidence about the MG.

Lunatics? Who says we're lunatics?? LOL
Having just been a teen in real NOT so long ago, I wonder about this "proper guidance" from older generators who have f**ked up this planet good and proper. I think teens will be fine as long as they dont find this forum.

Noobie Hunting was once an honourable sport akin to English fox hunting which I (truly) love. Those red coats, those steeds, all those dogs. Really picturesque. And that little fox getting lotsa exercise.