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

This is what they want SL to be. It is where the advertising and marketing riches lie. Mr and Mrs John Q Conformity and their 2.3 kids.

*sigh* As has been posted quite a few times.

Segregation is not to protect children from mean adults. Parents should be filling that role. It is to protect otherwise innocent adults from precocious children.

Do you really want the risk of some minor Aring you with "So-and-so showed me their naughty bits, and said stuff to me on voice".

With LL's track record of responding to ARs? And the US's tendency to act first, then investigate when children are involved?

Really its inevitable we are gonna get teens on but I am not so sure about the evil intent of parents. I work very much in a format that offers entertainment of a type to teens and early twenties and have never come across a miffed parent. Well, miffed maybe, but not intent on suing or keen on prosecuting me. Maybe we underestimate teh parents?
Teens generally congregate with each other and steer clear of adults - it will be teh same here. I do agree it will attract pedos and pervs to some degree so I think that will stop sl from immediately opening the floodgates. To be honest, I dont think age verification will prevent the pervs. They will simply be proven to be older and still be pervy.
As I said just above this, I am NOT a parent and I dont really know parents of teens since my real age group dont have many teen children but are they really concerned with adult spreying on their teenagers or with teh teenagers preying on each other?????
Edited - "adult spreying" sounds disgusting. I meant "adults preying"!!!!

Well, if they do merge the grids, it will do wonders for sales of private sims - which can be isolated from the rest of the grid and taken 100% off-line for anyone not on the access list for the sim. If they allowed "Homesteads" to be purchased as a stand-alone item, and not with the prerequisite of already owning a full-size sim, then those would sell like hotcakes as well, even with their bloated pricing. Because only a full sim, or a Homestead that you own 100% and can also isolate by un-checking the "Public access" box, will have any privacy from the kiddies.

In the real world, the 13-year old riding her bike down the street can't look through my walls and into my bedroom. In SL, she can be in the next sim, and can watch the whole scene.

Speaking as the *parent* of a 13 year old girl, if they merge the grids, she will NOT get an SL account. Period. Not until LL makes enforcable access restrictions that cover 100% of the airspace on any parcel, and aren't trivial to circumvent.

Age verification, as implemented, is 95% useless. Even if 100% of all valid adults could successfully verify, and zero percent of underage accounts could verify, it only "protects" an area 50 M above the terrain surface. That isn't even sufficient to keep someone out of the upper floors of my castle, which is firmly on the ground - let alone keeping them out of my skybox. And it is trivial for an unverified individual to stand just outside a "protected" area and experience virtually 100% of what goes on inside that area.

This idea of merging the grids is an impossible pipe-dream, until they make age verification something that can actually be implemented successfully in all nations, and until they implement changes that provide real privacy from intrusion.

The only thing I could see working would be to open access on the Teen Grid to Adults. Make it a choice on login that an adult's account could choose to go to either grid. then parents who want to interact with their kids, and educators who want to teach kids, could do so. And enforce, as best they can, content restrictions and ratings restrictions for adults who visit there.

So I guess positioning PleasurePlanet.net as an Adults Only grid world was a pretty darn good idea! lol

You go LL! Keep taking your management lessons from eBay and you'll spiral right down behind them.

Unfortunately, that's the kind of people who write the laws.

I like the PG continent idea mentioned a few posts back. That would take care of a lot of worries about accidental viewing of adult content. Lindens like making continents.

I hope they do make teen owned avatars easily identifiable. Hopefully you should know when a teen is around even if they are out of visual range. But a PG continent would make this unnecessary as you would know to be careful when you go there.

Shouldn't that be 'Mr and Mrs John Q Conformity and their 2 kids and a Tiny'?

Yes, big flashing signs above their heads.. "JAIL BAIT"

As an ex-teen gridder, THIS IS A BAD IDEA!

Teen-grid is full of crappy drama and putting aside all of the teens aren't mature arguments (which by the way they are),

This would crush any type of business in the teen-grid because no matter how much they think they can, they simply won't be able to compete.

Not to mention it opens the door for varying types of child abuse, which is the reason it was divided in the first place.

<3 you all TG'ers, but wait till your 18.

PG continent for teens - a good idea. I can really see that going down well with most teenager - NOT!
I dont wanna move for sake of a few brats and dont wanna change my sl lifestyle. I bought long ago and my neighbours are all old slerians with normal fantasies that dont bother me. I bet we have more teens on already than we care to add up.
Let's see how it all works out.
BUT I think one assumption we must be careful of is this growing trend that members of sl are 30 to 50 years old with real husbands and kids (and wives, I guess). Many of us are NOT. So what happens to these teens is of no consequence to me - I am partnered in sl anyway to someone 64 years old. Singles are not gonna pay much attention to a teenager as long as they are labelled as such - maybe that is an idea. But please dont impose a change of lifestyle on us coz some peopel want instant baby sitter in a computer setting. Some of us are here coz it is a free lifestyle and suits our needs and desires. Teens are a REAL life responsibility - not my sl life responsibility. YOU had 'em - you take care of 'em (in real).
I paid for privacy and assume age of my friends and lovers are over 18.

The Age Verification system fails utterly to accurately label adults as adults, even when they TRY to use the "voluntary" system. So how is LL supposed to "label" teen users as teens? By a strictly voluntary choice on the part of the teenager to label themselves as such? Oh yeah, I can see _that_ working really great. NOT!

^^
THIS. And the person who (many posts back) stated that they would continue to live their SL as they always have (including their BDSM shop) I just don't see how that would be possible, if adult content must somehow be contained/removed in order to accomodate someone else's kids. Even if there are no pictures/ads, the theme alone would be enough to be considered too naughty? I may not participate in all the adult content SL has to offer but I like having the options. That's why I care. Cause it's not what I signed up for, not what I pay for. If I wanted Disney-fied I'd go to Webkins.

there is no verification online!

There is no way to do it. There is no way at all to show that Bob is using the account and is of appropriate age.

Thus the only choice they will have is to make SL a clone of There.

It's a new form of censorship. Jut because we all don't take part in some of the adult themes here in SL, doesn't mean we shouldn't be allowed to have it. I still think that if they want to get teens and their rl parents/relatives to play together, then let those adults onto the teen grid. This way, the main grid won't change and everyone is happy.

That is what PN though with their client till the server codes changed and bypassed the hide me tools they wrote into it.

It's running war, but there are things that can be done that are hard to code around.

Briefly coz I must fly, but ...
cant ther ebe a disclaimer stating that sl world is designed purely and solely for us of people over 18 and if people any younger com on that is their parents' sole responsibility - throw it back in faces of parents who do not monitor their teens and children? After all, parents are now prosecuted if their offspring dont go to school in some places.
It NOT up to me to change my lifestyle. It's up to the parents of underagers to insure their OWN kids are NOT being contaminated by our sexual and artistic pleasures.
I repeat I dont mind kids on as long as they stay away from me. And judging from teh opinions of many people that wont be difficult.

Do you know what they actually did, and how SL templated them, or are you just repeating some third-hand reports when what really happened was something simple... like perhaps they forgot to make some connection use their proxy?

will not fly... been tried.

Hence the limits of the "experience may change online" clause on games.

Yes, where kids go on the internet is always the responsibility of their parents. But just because there is a disclaimer when loading the client saying "If you are under 18, leave" won't cut it. While most parents on here are watching what and where their kids go, for the most part, parents use the internet as a babysitter. Do they check on them? I am sure... but most likely not on where or what they are doing on the internet.

Thus the Teen grid is perfect. Parents have a safe place for their teen to play and not worry too much. Though i have never seen the teen grid first hand, I hear it is quite good.

As another poster put it, the grid keeps having login issues whenever we get near 75k online. How would we handle all the teens logging in? Anyone here think the main grid could handle 150k logged in at the same time?

The fact is, why bring kids and teens into an area where there are many adults. I think that is just a horrible idea.

Combining the grids, or at least introducing areas where teen and adult users can coexist, will be a boon for education in Second Life. As things stand there is a major problem with using SL for education: what do you do when some of your students are over 18 and some are under (a common situation with both high school seniors and college freshmen)? You can't have your class meet on either grid without excluding part of your potential student body.

Other potential advantages: parents and their teenage children will be able to stay in touch with each other in SL. Parents will be able to provide spending money to teens from their L$ assets rather than having to put US$ into the system to buy L$ for them, saving time and transaction costs.

I don't think we want to just let teens into the adult grid without any controls. But we can have mixed-age areas with suitable monitoring; a good start might be areas owned by educational institutions, which would be closed to teens when no representatives of the institution are present. And we can have limited teen-adult messaging, perhaps by allowing cross-grid messaging only to friends with parents having control over which adult users their teens are allowed to friend. Basically, a teen could not add adult friends other than approved educators (like the adults who have permission to enter the teen grid now, and have to have background checks to get that permission) or Lindens, but a parent could add friends for him or her.

Personally I'd like to see the parents doing that to face reprecusions for neglect, just something like a class on proper parenting in the information age.

A class with basic stuff:
* Why your little brat does not need a computer in their room
* Why your child should ask you to log them into the internet at home
* Why you should watch what your kid does online
* Why it isn't other people's responsability to make the web pg
* Why the internet is not a daycare center

Bingo. Sing up half the parents of the world and the internet will become a better place. In all seriousness, LL needs to implement some way of recording from a parent that they understand the risks their child will be placed into the main grid and they take full responsibility. Mind you, this won't take the blame off of LL or another player, but at least it would make some of the parents question what exactly is SL before allowing their child to log in

Posted this in another thread, but after reading Shirley's post, I felt it was worthy of copying:


First, there are other platforms out there for educators--this isn't it! Perhaps LL could consider specific islands, purchased by educational institutions, allowing both teens and adults. It couldn't be that hard to configure. The adults could import the resources needed for any educational experiences. As an educator myself, I would love to be able to utilize the resources on the entire grid, but I'm enough of a realist to see the profound potential for abuses. Maybe it's time for us, as teachers, instructors and professors, to develop our OWN grid for just that purpose--teaching. As for SL as a whole, however, I value the diversity, freedoms (yeah, there is still a great deal of freedom in SL in spite of the TOS), and 'spirit' enough to want to oppose any potential for more "controls" in the name of protecting the children.

On a strictly personal, and probably selfish, note--as parents, the hubby and I don't get to go out as much as we would without kidlets. That said, SL is our recreation--our time to be alone to dance, hold hands and explore. I don't want my fifteen year old, on the computer in our dining room, showing up on the Titanic and interupting dinner. Is it too much to want a place that is just for ADULTS?

My question to you, however, is at what age do we stop monitoring our own children's internet use? I ask for a reason. In another thread, someone mentioned being with a child at all times while he/she is on the grid. That would mean sitting right next to the child, which is certainly feasible and perhaps even advisable MOST of the time. In my case, I have a fifteen year old; a twelve year old; and a seven year old. Each has his/her own computer with computer time limited dependent upon age. My seven year old is only allowed on the computer in the dining room; is only allowed to visit sites I have previewed (Webkinz, Ty, Neopets, etc). My oldest two, however, have their own computers and are SUPPOSED to be only on sites we have discussed. I check the history on both computers periodically, I have filters on both, and to some extent want to TRUST them to be "on their own." Their doors are always open, so I can pop in at any time, and do, to see what they're doing online. I guess my point is that it would be nearly impossible to sit with all three, every time one of them wants to access the computer. I don't expect LL to make my job "easier" as a parent, but I also don't want them opening the door to many things that will make my job more "difficult."

So you want to now prosecute the parents, and you don't see the dangers of this proposed merger??

The "catch" is, most kids today probably know more than the parents.