Bad news of the day: They're thinking of merging the Teen Grid into the main one

It's not a matter of "spoiling fun" but a matter of self-protection in a highly litigious society. I'm fine with a merged grid so long as it is on the Teen Grid or somewhere else. Merging these areas in the main grid is asking for a lawsuit to happen that will ruin a number of lives and SL's already-shaky reputation with it. It is unfair to put adults doing adult things at risk by throwing children into proximity. If parents want to be on the same grid as their kids, then let them enter the Teen Grid. Same for educators and their adult classmates. Problem solved.

Wrong, we don't hate kids.

We hate suddenly having to be unpaid babysitting employees by parents that don't parent.

I want the children to be safe, but that requires: PARENTING

Verification, disineyfication, etc... does nothing to protect the kids.


Right now the teen grid is the only real good way to protect the kids, since it is monitored heavily and hard to get into (but it's not fool proof). If they allowed adults to verify and get into the teen grid as mentors/educators, it would be one thing. But suddenly dumping kids onto the main grid, well that's going to cause problems.

You are not being asked to babysit anyone, you talk to anyone that you want to talk to, and ignore the ones that you dont. its as easy as that.

OK so you set your parcel to adult content, and kids are not allowed in. that means that adults that think the same as you will find your parcel MORE attractive. No kids.

PG areas will be where the kids are allowed, nothing really changes, do you honestly believe that everyone on the "adult" grid is an adult? Sorry, things WILL change, now you will know if someone is a child or an adult, and that surely is a good change.
I have met a few well underage p[layers on SL, and believe me, they are not interested in the sex places, they want to go to fight sims, blow things up, or LEARN.
I have had better conversations with them than I have with some adults here

Ok, so it will mean that adults cant have simulated sex in the open in PG areas, hold on, I thought that was the rule anyway??

If you want to saty away from the kids on the grid, then stay in Adult areas, the kids wont be allowed there.

Agreed, but there are a lot who want the kids here, for good reasons, the ones that do dont post here because they are afraid of being labeled, exactly the way that you put that in your reply "Please allow me to spare you the details on what I mean by "want"."
Most people like their kids, but the ones that post here are the ones that either dont like kids or are afraid of them, or so it seems

When the kids are officially on the main grid, you still have the choice to meet them or not, adult or PG sims settings.

I have always looked forward to the day that the grids are merged, I am married in SL to a woman who is a teacher in RL, I have a family here, all well over 18, I would love to have real kids here that can join my family and make the whole SL life more real
I am one of those who will actually enjoy "babysitting", and there are a lot of us on the grid

I am not specially quarrelling with you Taff except that I have read arguments here that it is discrimination and unacceptable behaviour to choose not to talk to any special type of avatar like nekos for example. Would it be considered discrimination not to talk to under18s and would there be some special way of knowing that the avatars are under18 because I havent seen how they would do that and how would you tell the difference between real under18s and the adults who pretend to be under18. Maybe they would have a special setting in preferences that if you wanted would allow you to mute all avatars under18 and maybe all items made or owned by them as well or even better a setting that would make you and your stuff invisible to anyone under18.

read again: there is no way to prevent a kid from camming in, or falsifying their data to get into an adult area.

Plus age verified restrictions only go to 50m... and there are ways around that.

If someone tp's them in, or they use one of the many teleport X distance tools they can bypass the verification restrictions (there is a Therion avatar with a tp that does that and it will go past the age verification barrier, or it did)

The problem is with kids added to the grid, the only way to avoid lawsuits and ruined reputations is to make the grid kid safe because parents are not parenting.

So yes I would have to babysit little junior by not being able to do things that are standard now on the main grid because they might make little junior run to mommy and daddy and ask questions about things they didn't want them to see (never mind they gave the brat internet and no supervision)

What happens, they scream and file ARs... and LL comes down not on them but the adults. Because otherwise they face a PR hell for punishing a kid for viewing things they shouldn't have on an account they shouldn't have had.

Seeing this information makes me glad I'm on a private island that could be turned into age verified.

they can tp in at 51+ m

lol you are missing the point..sure we know kids are on the grid..and there are some adults that seem to know they are but don't report them and breaking the TOS..
they might not be on the grid if they did..

but the main point is this...say you have mature sims and you have pg sims and say the current PG sim land owners do not block kids.you now have a grid that those adults in the mature sims able to access the kids that were staying on the teen grid..

you think all these new people coming to SL that add 10,000 logins a sex scandal are gonna care about getting banned from sl?

if they do it the way you are saying ..there are going to be a lot that close off their lands and the kids would probably have less than the teen grid in room..i don't think it is going to be mature and pg..
i think their intentions are to make the grid where they feel it is safe enough to say ok kids come on in..look at all this new room you have...
the only reason i think that is because all we have to go off of is an interview..
because we are always the last to find out and we get half the story but know change is coming..
i think residents have every right to feel upset because this was sold as an adult grid the whole time now were being told it was always intended to merge with teen and that was not the case when people decided to dump tons of money into an escape..

(T_T)

never know he might just have some

Please tell me what is stopping an underage person from saying they are 18 and joining the main grid now, and doing exactly the same camming trick?
At present there are tools to allow you to block NPIOF, or non age verified, ok so there will be another button to block under 18s. at least a bigger percentage of under 18s will actually sign up AS under 18, unlike now where they just cheat.
I can only see good coming from this, maybe it will stop the idiots running around naked, because most of those idiots ARE under 18.

Can you tell me how this will be any different to the normal chat rooms, or the 2d web??

Because now if they are underage they get banned as soon as someone reports them. There is less risk of litigation on the adults because the child accessed the main grid through fraud.

There is an inherent understanding that those on the main grid as it is are supposed to be over 18, due to the ToS and questionnaire at account creation (all that is required by law) to cover adults and LL from liability.

By adding children under 18 to the main grid, all that goes away.

There is no longer that protection from liability and legal issues for LL or any SL resident.

Meaning a bored kid can AR you for propositioning them in Voice chat for sex play and then you face possible jail time and an account banning for sure. And it's your word against theirs if you were both in the same location with nobody around. And the way the laws and LL would work is your reputation in rl would be ruined, and your SL account will be banned. You may not face time or penalties, but you may likely be put on lists to be watched in RL.

That is the big problem, it's taking away the legal protection of the age segregation of the grids.

It's different now... Some of us like it that way. (>_<

Q: What is one big, majorly-significant difference between WOW and SL?

A: There have been at least two news stories about adults meeting teenage WOW players through WOW and arranging to meet them for sex, whereas no such stories about SL have been published yet.

How long after this merger will it take before the first such news story is made? Not long, I reckon. Yar, not long indeed.

On the one hand, as a kid avatar, I suppose teens being allowed on the grid will mean I don't have to worry about those false underage ARs that I've never had to deal with yet anyway. On the other hand, I'm going to have to try harder than ever to convince strangers that I'm really an adult. Is it worth it?

I haven't made any decisions yet, of course, but this situation is making me think, very long and carefully, about remaining a child avatar in the post-merge grid.

I will never report anybody who is underage, unless said person piss me off.

OK, I understand your point there, the same can happen in RL, but, if someone propositions a child they deserve all they get, and the same rules will apply, if they say they are over 18, then they are commiting an offence for which they can be banned.

It still comes down to parental control, as I said I would love to have real kids in my SL family, and with the parents consent.

Maybe it will mean that adults on the grid will have to act like adults when it happens

heres an example
someone setting up 40 different accounts using 40 different emails..assuming they still have the open door policy..
then just giving access to the mature grid areas to any kid that decides to play...

This is just nonsense.

It has been made clear by numerous people that what is at issue is alterations to SL the legitimate presence of children would bring.

People don't hate children, they like the SL environment the way it is, and would prefer to keep it that way.

That's the point. Adults want to act like Adults in SL.

OK, I live on a private sim, I have a store where I make and sell furniture, I write scripts, teach and I live with my SL wife and SL kids, we do not indulge in orgies, we dont make or sell sex related items, the sim is PG.
It will make no change to my SL life since I live SL the way I live RL, except that I may meet some real kids that want to learn from me.

If I didnt want kids on my sim, then I would flag it as adult, then they could not even TP in.

The main change that I can see is that adult places would HAVE to be on private sims, the mainland would have to be fully PG. That sounds very similar to the way the 2d web is run now.

the thing is ..who does SL think they are going to attract with this idea? Families?
any families i know that close are not sitting around on the internet..
they are doing stuff together..
do people really think a parent that actually pays any attention to their kids is gonna choose sl over something like sony home?
i see a lot of kids that have computers in their rooms being on here more than families going into a virtual world spending time together..

Actually, there is... I've sat through a couple of sales-pitches for the kind of gear that lets you do it. But it costs thousands of dollars a seat and involves having the entire session hardware-encrypted by a tamper-proof module that monitors the user and shuts down the session if they stand up, and does periodic biometric verification even if they don't. Usually includes cameras, fingerprint readers, IR and ultrasound range sensors, and even then it assumes that the user knows it's a career-terminating move to be caught trying to cheat it.

I think that would be seen as overkill by LL.

Who are they going to attract? schools, universities, companies that sell to teens etc.
I think that is fairly obvious, it is all part of changing SL to a commercail platform, I am sorry, but that is LL plan, and we will have to accept that.

From what I hear, TSL is in a very bad state of Disrepair - and my source is very reliable indeed. This sounds to me like Linden Labs can't be bothered to fix TSL and have just found quick fix solution. While I don't think a grid merger means that we'll have tonnes of kiddie winkles with watermelon guns or worse trotting about and causing us grief (as kids do) because there will probably be a partition in place, I do maintain that this is one of the WORST ideas ever.

Linden Lab, please stop being lazy and just fix the teen grid. I know you wasted all your money on a homepage nobody wanted and nobody likes, but a grid merger is not the way forward.