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

All of which are impossible to fix now

Age verification: only applies to the data given, it does not mean the person on the account is the one in the data given. There is no way to control misuse of data for bypassing it.

Alts: cat is out of the bag, trying to stuff it back is not possible

Mainland: would really have to create a second mainland and start fresh there for a controlled mainland that has a covneant

I am sorry, you are just arguing with no concrete reason, I am here for a serious discussion, not to argue silly points.

LL could also move their servers out of USA... in a more forgiving country...

It sounds likee LL has a lot of prep work to do before this can really happen, so maybe we shouldn't get too worried. They move at a pace that would make the builders of the Pyramids say, "Hurry up already". But there is always standard plan B which is just do it and not worry about what happens. Which is probably what will happen.

The WHOLE sim would be flagged adult, ergo, no kids.

Except it's not. Voce chat doesn't even HIT any Linden Labs servers. It's all handled at Vivox. It's not logged, tracked, verifiable, NOTHING.

I don't use voice chat. Ever. I tried it a few times and it just doesn't work for me. It wrecks the experience as far as I'm concerned. But I've got no way of proving ANY of that.

Add that to the long long long list of things that would have to change in SL before this would be anything but a disaster.

Oh, OK, so it's a sim I can't get into. Because I can't prove I'm not a kid.

Very true Brenda, this is not going to happen next week, or probably not even next year, but it will happen, so now is the time to see the good and bad, and make sure that problems are ironed out before it happens

Again: there is no verifcation of identity or age of a user possible

Do you not understand that?

There is no way to verify who is at the controls of an avatar.

Mix the grids and you have no legal protection from kids using false information to say they are over 18. Because there is no assumption of all on the grid being over 18

And there is no server flag that says you were or were not on voice, so even choisng not to use it doesn't protect you there.

see my earlier post, age verified or PARCEL OWNER.

Honestly, the teen grid exists for a reason, and I'd rather see it disappear than it get merged. The fact that a few attempts at a lawsuit have came up with parents of children finding out what their kids were doing on SL shows this all too well. However, a huge protection is the fact that these kids violate the terms of use and negate all liability from anyone but themselves when they sign up using false and misleading information. The teen grid exists for a reason.

Now with the fact that they are merging, I have to wonder exactly how big of an affect that will have. Children will see that they can't access near as much because now they can see everything they may be missing, and we get more underage user's with fake age verification. As well, PG sims may be that way because they aren't showing mature content but that doesn't mean the people that reside or do business there should work their way around a younger audience.

All in all, a bad move. I know some that are under 18 in SL that I'm good friends with because they're mature enough to act well beyond their age, but coming across someone like that is a huge rarity. Plus, like a few others have said, it's not my job to make sure what I do is kid friendly, even if it's not considerably mature.

Hey, I got an idea...why doesn't LL stop trying to fix what isn't broken, and start fixing what is. Maybe fix the alpha-textures issues, or lighting that wont overlap, or group chat working only half the time...you know, the things that should have been fixed when they started happening a long time ago.

You're the one who said that SL was the 3d web and so it was inevitable that SL would become like the 2d web. If SL is not like a 3d web, than it's not inevitable that SL will become like the 2d web.

If you don't really mean that SL is "the 3d web", then we don't have anything to argue about here.

The owner of my parcel is a group. Now you'd have to make that group adult only (verified) or I could make a kid an owner role in that group. So now I can't be a member of my own group.

If they allow teens on the main grid and push through the age verification... I'm gone like a lot of others too.

BUT.... it seams the lindens can flag an account that has payment on file, has been age verified and whatever else... how about you Lindens also flag teen accounts coming on the main grid (gawd help us all) in a way so they can only visit PG areas, and all new teens must still sign up to the teen grid for that purpose (and even be restrained to that grid for say 6 month).

I don't want no stupid teen interfering with my second life and asking stupid questions like "why do you wear a collar?"

If you cannot keep them out of mature areas don't invite them here at all!!! It's plain fucking stupid that your mature residents should have to do age verification because you want to open the mature grid for kids.

You're assuming that they're actually going to do all the necessary prep work.

Maybe merging will help fix things. You know, like using parts from one broken down car to fix another........

If you read the rest of my post you'd see that I don't..........C'mon Argent...hold your head up.....

the thing is for me is i would like to hear LL's version or some kind of announcement..
i mean it would be nice to know what their intentions are from them instead of us all having to guess what was meant from some interview..

if this were affecting the market someone would step up and say..this is what we meant..
people panic around here just like they do with the market because a lot play it like that..
now they leave us wondering..do we still invest or do we pause or do we move on..
let your residents know about major changes before you go out giving interviews getting them all in a frenzy then letting them stew in a slow cooker..

One thing that hasn't been mentioned, how will the kid avie groups (Hardknock Elementary, etc) deal with RL teenagers who want to play as kids? Almost all RL teens wont' play kid avies, but I think a few will. Any opinions on this? Since the kid sims and groups are all very PG, they could let them in.

I can give you a parent's point of view. I hope that real kids would be welcome among SL kids' groups.

As far as how the teens would represent themselves, I'm pretty sure that my daughter and her friends would use avatars that are either similar to themselves, or tinies or furries.

I base that on the social games and video games they play now.

Maybe there are one or two girls who would want to be hotties. But they do that already in real life, and since they aren't my children... I have nothing to say about it.

As far as the child avatars... and please don't jump all over me for this, but I wouldn't have a problem with adults who use child avatars interacting with my child. What I DO care about is what KIND of person she's interacting with, and (the more I think about this) if this merge happens she and I will be playing side by side for a long time.

I mean that our computers will be side by side, even if we're in different sims.

I *would* be reading the chat logs, especially IM logs.

For her, learning how to get around SL would not just be the things we all had to learn, like how to fly, how to manage inventory, etc., but she'd also have to learn how to deal with people she doesn't meet in an ordinary day.

She already knows how to AR people, from the games she plays now.

I'm sure she'll see things that shock her. I'm sure we'll have some rather tense family discussions about whether she should be there at all. But I will aim to teach her to judge people by what they do and not what they look like.

And I have no doubt that she will want to explore when I'm not around to see.

I'm not scared by it, really. I'm not worried about the sex in SL. I'm more worried about assholes, the mean people. And I'm not looking forward to having to be so close a monitor. It's going to make SL into something of a job for me.

Dead wrong.

I am the parent of a 13 year old girl in RL. I do NOT allow her to socialize on web chatrooms and the like that are open to adults as well as kids, and that are not monitored to be "kid safe". For example, the Webkins site allows chat, but only with pre-scripted choices for responses, so the kids can NOT exchange personally identifyable info.

I don't want kids on the main grid for the same reason I would not want the city I am in in RL to open all the adult bookstores, porn theatres, strip clubs, massage parlors, bars, and "adult social clubs" to kids. There are things going on beyond those closed doors and solid walls that I do NOT want my kid to participate in, as an unsupervised minor. But in real life, there are walls they can't see through, and a bouncer at the door checking ID at such places. So I don't care all that much if there is an adult bookstore 5 blocks from the elementary school. The kids walking by it on their way to and from school can't see inside, and won't be allowed to go past the door if they try to get in.

Unlike Real Life, in SL, the walls and locks and any other "protections" (short of being a non-public, members-only sim) that you can try to implement can't keep those kids out. Age Verification? They can fly in at 51M above the terrain and do whatever they please, or lie about their ID and get verified anyway. There is NO way to allow them on the grid, and at the same time restrict them from being exposed to adult content.

Yes, some kids are already lying about their ID and getting on to the adult grid. But the vast majority of kids are honest enough to turn away when they see a sign on the door that says "Must be 18 to enter", and not to lie about their age to get an adult grid account. There is a world of difference between that situation and removing any hint of access restriction, by actually welcoming kids onto the Adult Grid. Sure, a sim or parcel may still be tagged as "adult content", but in many cases, the exposure will happen without the kid being aware of any limits, because the client itself does not restrict them from camming past that wall.

As a parent, if they merge the grids, my kid will NOT be allowed to get an account in SL until she turns 18. She wants one... Not to socialize with the adults, but to build and create like she sees her mommy doing. She would love to work with me on a build to learn the technques, but woudn't want to hang out with me, or with others my age, most of the time. But as the grid stands now, I would not allow her to enter and roam unsupervised.

Just curious. What is preventing kids from building on the Teen Grid? Don't they have the same tools the main grid does? Can they access the tutorials and what not?

Not a good idea at all!

First and foremost I would like to state that I would love a learning environment that accommodates both under 18 and over 18 individuals. The education potential of 3d interactive environment, at this time, is an underutilized resource. To provide this environment to all ages has the potential to propel the world’s technological growth into places unimagined by all. I frequent many of the science, scripting and building SIMs when I have breaks in my school schedule at an online college. The learning I do in college is very valuable to me, however I can learn a great deal quicker in a 3d interactive environment. I also learn a great deal from my 9 year old nephew.

I love children because I value the learning that I do from having them around. My nephew shows me a perspective of the world that I would have forgotten otherwise or just did not see. (Especially when he circumvents the protections I have placed on my computer and he messes with something he should not.) I do not always monitor him on the computer because he knows that unless I am standing right there he is not allowed on the internet and that I will be checking to make sure that he has not logged on. There is great joy to having children around that I would not miss for the world.

The world that we have in SL is something special to me. Although I have played plenty of 3d games, I never played them over the internet. I just was not interested in getting online and playing a game with a bunch of kids. When I first logged into a 3d environment it was rather limited compared to SL and the games I was used to playing. However I liked it for the interaction with characters that it provided and it did not use all of my resources. I hear some of you asking, if I liked it so much why did I leave? One reason really made me give up this simple yet interesting environment where I could have had an easier time becoming a developer. I was always being propositioned by children. So, I moved on.

Coming to Second Life has changed my life. I spend more time learning than I could have thought possible. I also am not barraged by the constant propositioning of adolescents. This is the main reason that I stayed in Second Life. I can meet with adults here. I have met many people that are mentally on the same level as me. Not just folks who are experimenting with sex to figure out who they are. There are many reasons given as to why a merging of the Teen Grid and the Adult Grid are a bad Idea. One of the main reasons is the potential for litigation. This litigation will not only have effects on individual users but on Linden Labs itself.

I may be jailed, fined or otherwise ruined because young folk like me. I listen to them. I tell them if they are on the wrong path and why. After all the greatest question of a young person is, “Why?”. It is often the why that is the hardest to explain. This is more true on the web where you cannot meet the child’s parent to gage if their only satisfaction in life comes from a bottle or a needle. Linden Labs will not be personally meeting with the parents of any adolescents they allow on either grid.

If they remove the responsibility of the educators to verify whom they allow onto Linden Labs grid; lawsuits will be not far in the future. By merging the grids they will be in effect doing just that. The educators will no longer have control over who is allowed to meet with the children they are entrusted to educate. Any school that allows children to interact with adults must be very cautious about who the adults are. They cannot exercise this maxim if the children are interacting with an adult with falsified credentials in an uncontrolled environment. Which is what would be if the teens are allowed onto the full adult grid. Because Linden Labs provides the environment, this will lead to a sanitized version of Second Life in order for them to insulate the company from litigation.

The educators will not be exempt from this litigation. Because “Little Johnny” will eventually meet someone on the grid that is taking a class just to be around the kiddos. It could even result in his death. Where did “Little Johnny” meet this person? The answer will come up to Linden Labs’ Second Life school account. The economics of the litigation that follows is not good for Linden Labs or the teacher who introduced “Little Johnny” to his death.

Economy is a big thing in Second Life. It must be or there would not be so many seminars about just that subject. These seminars attract the big wigs of Linden Labs to assure us that things are going well. The economy in Second Life is one of its greatest selling points and like it or not sex sells. We know this thanks to all of the marketing that is shoved down our throats through any media. Linden Labs runs a serious risk of losing a large part of the Second Life economic base through making the grid a safe environment for all. Which like it or not translates to sanitation of the main grid to prevent litigation; should the Adult Grids and the Teen Grids be merged. Along with a loss of the sex industry will go a large portion of the customer base and the builders of that industry. There are other grids that will be catering to adults. Although I am not so much in SL for the slex, I will go with them because I have no desire to be around kids all of the time.

To those of you who admit to knowing of some teens who are on the Second Life Adult grid and not reporting them; I say shame on you! They are clearly violating the TOS and as a citizen who should be making a safe environment for children you should know better than allowing them to stay here! Will they come back with another avatar if you report them? Surely they will but they must learn that this is not proper behavior. You cannot be teaching them anything but that sometimes if you do not follow the rules… You will still be rewarded! This is the type of behavior that is sure to get them into trouble with a person that would do them harm.

The merger of the two grids is a bad idea because you would be removing the one point of control that Linden Labs actually has to make the grid a safer place. Opening the Teen Grid to adult students is a far better alternative. One that can add a layer of security through the schools and face to face meetings or financial aid paperwork.

HuntinHippy

yopu just disproved your own argument, YOU would have to make them an owner. ergo YOU allowed a kid in.