age verification

QFT

Pep (I'm still waiting for someone to suggest a *good* reason for a kid avatar to want to be - and to stay - on an Adult Continent.)

I can't get in-world from MY working hours.

Mama Louhi's house of Voodoo in New Toulouse?

Children of the corn?
Nightmare on elmstreet?
there are plenty of horor movies featuring children (any av depicted as under 18 is a child av)

This is perhaps a good point. Sadly it was discarded, due to being poorly written.

The support page says "Representations of intensely violent acts, whether or not photo-realistic (for example, depicting death, torture, dismemberment or other severe bodily harm)". This is pretty vague, and so broad that it really needs to be refined, along with many more specific examples. I don't know if Blondin has given any, but there certainly aren't enough for us to judge reliably whether a given borderline case would have to be classified as Adult.

This leads to a problem that people are missing. There's nothing in the rules that say an estate owner can't classify a sim as Adult even if it isn't required by the actual content. They might choose to do this for a violent role play sim simply to avoid the hassle of trying to get an official ruling, even if their sim has nothing that would force the exclusion of child, or better yet, teen avs.

Being rated Adult is not proof of any adult content, let alone adult content that is currently prohibited to child avs. Being rated Adult isn't even proof that it's permitted for you to run around stark naked running a masturbation animation.

While I agree with your sentiment, I think the point is that there are still people who file abuse reports because they sincerely but ignorantly believe that child avs aren't allowed on any Mature rated parcel, regardless of what's actually on that parcel.

Because it's so difficult to ensure that everyone who signs up for SL understands the specifics of this rule, I wouldn't use any term stronger than "ignorant" to describe them. Perhaps, in a moment of anger, I might say "jerk", but certainly not a vulgarity.

Few things annoy me as much as people inserting the word "small" before "child" without basis. LL defines "child AV" as appearing under 18. That includes large teens just as much as small children.

People have already given examples of movies that involve teens and extreme violence. I don't understand why it's so difficult for people to at least understand the idea of teen avs in extreme violence RP sims, and that the idea is consistent with currently acceptable fiction (at least in the US). You may or may not agree with it in SL - I can think of practical reasons for prohibiting it - but don't distort what people are talking about.

Couldn't find it, the only place I found by that name is a hat store in Harold. Is it still around? Anyway, the exception that proves the rule.


Got landmarks to SL content relevant to those movies you believe will be shipped off to Ursula?

If you're in a violent sim in Ursula, it's far more likely to be Dolcett than Stephen King. As a child avatar, you don't really want to be there, do you? If I played a child avatar, I wouldn't.

Even if they were correct, and child avatars were for some bizarre reason not allowed on Mature land, I would still be inclined to apply as strong and unsavory a sobriquet to their actions. I would have the same opinion were it against the ToS to dress as a Gorean on PG land, or wear any other unusual attire without otherwise engaging in griefer activity. I am not objecting to their ignorance, I am objecting to their actions.

I again bring up the example of a friend of mine who I was showing around Second Life. She suddenly vanished, and I discovered that she had been ejected and banned from a PG region because her group title described her as being a female dog. Her avatar looked something like this...



I have no compunction describing the person who banned her without so much as a warning in derogatory terms. They were not only an ass, but worse: they had no sense of humor whatsoever.

As you have seemingly pointed out, LL make no distinction between avs who appear 17 and those who appear 17 months old.

Pep (So you are arguing that if it is appropriate for an older teen to participate in extreme violence then it is also appropriate for a two year old toddler)

Until there are a lot of roleplay regions involving intensely violent, non-sexual child avatar oriented roleplay, the question is pretty much academic.

Horror movies involving teenage protagonists generally have considerable sexual content as well, they may not be relevant to Second Life.

In addition to the pop references already given, here's a totally mundane example:

Andy Author has a great idea for a RP sim - maybe violent, maybe sex, maybe both. Having money to burn, Andy buys a private island, rates it Adult because that's the intent, and starts writing the backstory and perhaps some character descriptions. Of course, Andy has no graphic ability, let alone SL build skills, and so hunts for someone to actually build an environment on this barren island.

Child Creator puts forward the best proposal at the best price. Don't ask why Child Creator uses a child av - perhaps Child's parents forced law school on the poor kid when finger painting or Lego architecture was what Child really wanted to do. In any event, Child and Andy wander around the island, talking about ideas. Every week, Child adds some more buildings and landscaping to the island, adds some furnishings, and so on.

In the meantime, Andy, being familiar with the RL issues around marketing books, starts to advertise the island, creates a web page, encourages people to show up, look around, give comments and start submitting their own character descriptions. He sets up a landing spot, and gives everyone a notecard telling them when it will be open, and stating that nudity or RP aren't allowed until it's officially open for business. Andy wants to start the RP the instant Child says the build is done, and Child gets paid. Of course, not everyone reads notecards, let alone obeys them.

Is this scenario likely? Perhaps not in the specifics, but the point is that there are reasons for visiting an Adult sim other than participating in the RP. It might be to help with a build, to help with scripting or lag, it might be just to show off a new build to a friend who uses a child AV.

I wouldn't be shocked if LL, purely as a bureaucratic convenience, prohibited all child AVs on Adult regions. It's a much simpler rule than trying to teach both newbie residents and overworked, inexperienced AR staff about the subtleties of current child AV policy. But I haven't seen any indication that they've done so yet, and there is nothing in the current wording that either prohibits child AVs from all Adult regions or permits sex anywhere and everywhere in an Adult region.

Contract Clause 1: "While building the content, the Creator will not appear as any avatar which might be considered a minor."

Pep (If it's a deal breaker, then you have to ask why)

I said no such thing.

Let's not mix up the discussion contexts. Being against the rules and being appropriate are two separate issues.

LL's rules that relate to "AVs that appear under 18" are specifically about sexual ageplay. There's nothing explicit in the rules prohibiting a two year old toddler AV from participating in extreme violence. There is the general rule against "Broadly Offensive", which they might choose to apply, but that is no explicit age boundary for that.

The general question of whether it's appropriate is independent of the rules. And for that, it is perfectly reasonable for people to treat a 17 year old AV differently from a 17 month old AV. It's not reasonable to confuse "appropriate" with "against the rules".

You might choose to include this clause, and if unacceptable, then ask why. That's your right, if you're negotiating an agreement.

There's no rule that says Andy Author has to do so. If you want such a rule, ask LL to create it. Until then, it doesn't exist.

Then by your argument, it is also perfectly reasonable for people to treat a 17 month old (apparently) AV the same as a 17 year old (apparently) AV.

Pep (Inappropriately)

The parenthetical use of 'apparently' is the key to this very good point.

The average adult male avatar is probably about 6'8" and the average adult female about 6'3". Both have the body of a Boris Vallejo masterwork. Anyone attempting to make a realistic looking avatar, will look like a teenager ... side-by-side comparison being what it is.

The fault is in the rule, that is really just a suggestion. There should be a required field in a person's profile where avatar age is clearly listed.

In many contexts, of course it is. Taken out of context, it's not a particularly useful point.

You just reminded me of some of the things that drive me crazy about a lot of the discussion of "looking like a child" in Second Life.

There is a difference between a "child" (which commonly refers to someone who is pre-pubescent) and a minor teen (who may be post-pubescent but under the age of majority or under the age of 18, depending on your context) and an adult teen (someone 18 or 19).

A pre-pubescent child has no secondary sexual characteristics. That means no body hair. That means lack of body shape. If you can't see a child's genitalia and don't dress them up in markers of gender (blue or pink clothes, for example), you wouldn't be able to visually determine their gender.

It is true that pre-pubescent children are shorter generally than average adults. It is not, however, true that all adults are of normal adult height. It is not true that height is an accurate indicator of age. After puberty, people tend to stop getting taller. When people get old enough, unfortunately, the start getting shorter again.

A short person who clearly has secondary sexual characteristics just is in no way visually a child. A short female with developed breasts is a short woman, not a child. A short male with chest hair is a short man, not a child. Human beings are biologically hard wired to translate the appearance of the secondary sexual characteristics as evidence of sexual maturity. (That is why pedophilia is considered to be a mental illness. The pedophile is sexually attracted to the lack of secondary sexual characteristics, and not sexually attracted to those with secondary sexual characterisics.)

Once a person finishes puberty, it becomes a lot harder to visually distinguish a young teen (say 17) from an adult. They have the same secondary sexual characeristics. They are all finished growing in height. In real life, we still have some visual cues left, though. Skin condition is a big one. Facial features- from changes in bone structure- is another. Because SL graphics are still crude, it's hard to create those subtle differences indicating an adult's age in Second Life. (It's damn hard looking 40 instead of 20.)

Even so, there is virtually no visual cue that could reliably distinguish someone who is 17 from someone who is 18.

Plus, as you point out, there is no uniform method in SL of establishing a "normal" or "average" human height.

Therefore, it drives me CRAZY that people use height as an indicator of age. I wish I could figure out how that ever possibily started, because it contradicts everything everyone (should have) learned about biology when they were ten years old.

Didn't the rest of your post answer this question, in that we lack other methods to draw this distinction?

To me, if one lacks a way to make a distinction, then one simply can't make the distinction. I don't think it follows that if one doesn't have a good basis to make the distinction, then one must rely on a poor basis to make the distinction.

Plus, in practice, most of the time the short avatars accused of looking like children are short women with obviously developed breasts, dressed in adult clothing. All the relevant visual cues say "adult," but people get focused on the one, least relevant visual cue.

That drives me crazy.

(Worse, I fear that there isn't enough education to children about basic, functional biology, they grow into adults who learn all their sexual information through the media, and thus have no way of explaining to themselves the biological differences between an adult and a child.)

Though I do understand a little bit what causes the mentality. There is such hysteria over the issue, and the penalties are severe (a virtual "death" in the sense of being banned, or public humilation in the media, or worst case going to jail), that one might expect overreactions from hysterical residents. It's not enough that 99.9% of the evidence points toward the avatar appearing adult, because that still means a 1 in 1,000 chance of being wrong, and the penalties for being wrong seem (or are) so severe that it's not an acceptable risk.

It still drives me crazy.

Linden Lab could help by having a better policy which actually clearly defines what a child avatar is. But they don't. And thus hysteria and overreaction ensue.

Well, people have an annoying way of deciding for themselves what they will use to make a distinction.

I would actually differ with your thoughts concerning physical characteristics, especially as it relates to girls. I have some friends I went to High School with, that were very developed at fifteen. I'm twenty-three, and still waiting.

I think the best indication of age for people one doesn't know well, is social context. At least in America if you are driving a car by yourself, you are likely at least sixteen. If you are in a bar, you are likely at least twenty-one. If you are seen at University, it is likely you are eighteen or older, in most cases.

Here on Second Life, we have no social context. People are left to their own devices.

I didn't mean to say that adult women must have basketball-sized breasts.

(Have you heard Dierde Flint's song, "The Boob Fairy?"

What I've seen in Second Life are avatars accused of being children based solely on height, when so many other relevant visual cues so clearly- at least to me- say otherwise.

Your observation about social context is certainly a good observation, though.

Except that in all of the above examples people could have forged proof of age. Including the last one.

I'm not sure that's relevant. The issue isn't being a perfect judge of age, but being reasonable about it.