Lets discuss what and why to do about Offending instead simply rant?

Theres a joke about a church lady calling the police because her neighbour shows of at his window and disturds her peace.
So the police visits her to see self what is exactly going on, but as much as they try they manage not to look into the neighbours windows to see him flaunt his stuff.

So they as the lady what she is upset against.
"See, if you step on this chair and look though the upper left corner of my living room window you see him running arround without clothing in his bathroom!"


The morale of the story is that there is a line regarding how much you have to hide wich offends others.

So faar people only where upset about things LL wants to do, so why not collect ideas of our own and present them to Linden Labs.

First thing wich upsets me is that Linden Lab so faar treats me like a minor and "protects" me from content wich could be "offending"

Theres quite a lot of things i consider offending and i do self a lot of things others consider offending, the trick is, i do not go to places things happen i consider offending, and i dont bring hings wich the majority could consider offending into places wich do not carter to said activities.

What Linden Labs is doing now though is open the gates for people wich love to stick there nose into other peoples lifes and tell them what they are allowed to do and what not.


So my idea would be:

Linden Labs lists precisly wich activities are ILLEGAL, in other words, all activities wich would have legal consequences for Linden Labs if they allow them on there servers, we can not expect that they go to jail for us.

Linden Labs lists precisly wich activities are considerd "not for the public eye" so people know how to behave where, you will laugh but "common sense" will not work in this regard, SL is a multi national and cultural thing, there are social norms even between the american and european continent wich clash badly.

Linden Labs redoes the "mature checkbox" into that if you switch it off you can not enter plots marked this way and maybe do not see anything wich happens there, its green land, no prims, no other avatars, nothing.

so if you do, offer or build somehting on the "legal but not for the public" you check the mature box and thats it.

I enjoy Second Life not for a certain content or activity, i enjoy most the freedom i have to socialise as i want. If Linden Labs decides that it has to tell me what is good for me and what not and turns the whole into a dammed disney world plastic world i see no point visiting it.

All that has nothing to do with violence, nudity or kinky sex and all to do with my freedom to choose my poison and say what i want in the limits of social acceptable behaviour.

I consider running arround in the nude in PG sims offensive and i consider it offensive to have other people morales crammed down my throat.

We have already PG and MATURE sims. If that is not enough add more labels so people can set the flaggs approbiate to the content and noone can claim to stumble into something "offending".

Make clear what activities are "not right" at wich place and we have a deal.

Treat the residents of SL like grown up people and allow them to make a choice, doent enforce what someone else considers right onto them as long it means no legal trouble for you Linden Labs.

SL has grown behind a cooperate platform to sell goods and do videoconferencing for cheap, or purely educational activities.

It has grown into a community wich is alive, has its own culture and a very whide palette of social norms.

This is what it makes it alive and interesting, you can learn about other cultures and see how a own culture developes, doing the same in RL is for most people very impossible because it would mean to life several month in foreign cultures and countries to get that close to the people there, SL is like a catalyst in this regard, there is no other way to connect that fast and closly to people with other cultures.

If you start to "clean it up" you will not only remove "offending content" in regard of sexuality or roleplay but yuou will remove "offending content" in cultural and personal means too.

Instead, create the tools for the people to flagg there plots and encourage that neighbours talk with each other and find solutions how to set up things they can get along.

Stomping down on everything wich could be "broadly offending" will very soon end with the question if gays should be allowed to "flaunt there sick orientation in public" and woman to show there face in public, because booth are if you go to the approbiate countries "Broadly offending" to the majority of the worlds population.

Even the American outlook on decency wich is for european eayes already pretty "backwards" is worldwide, for the majority of the cultures and peoples worldwide broadly offensive.

Do you want a SL wich carters to the minial consens and therefore needs a religous and morale taskforce monitoring IMs and chat or do you want a land where people learn to mind there own stuff and get along without enforcing there cutlural and religious rules on others?

I am all for banning what brings LindenLabs legal trouble, but saying "look its ok to run arround and shoot with guns randomly at others in war sims but having a sim where people lead others on a leash is very bad and we simply can not allow it because it is broadly offensive doesent works for me.

Because if two people like the leash thing and do it in there sims i really dont mind and consider it way more healthy than taking a gun and shooting other players for fun.

As long Linden Labs runs war sims and allows the building of guns and there use between consenting adults they have absolutly no morale high ground to declare any other form ov violence illegal. NONE.

Simulating the killing with guns, knives or bombs resulting in simulating the maiming, torturing and killing of humans, as long this is not "Broadly offensive" too i consider Linden Labs idea of what is "Broadly Offensive" simply very very sick and the people responsible should search for professional help.

I couldn't agree with you more. Every culture has it's own ideas about what is and isn't correct and what is and isn't offensive. While smoking a joint is fine in the Netherlands, it's not in the US (as far as I'm aware). Drinking alcohol is fine in a lot of countries, but considered wrong in others. And you already made the point about guns.

If LL were to listen to it's users, what they consider "our community", they might realize they were heading in the wrong direction. Allthough I support your idea of discussing instead of ranting, as long as LL isn't listening or joining the discussion I don't see the point.

We might be forced to take other steps and maybe start talking about the possible actions against LL... I think spamming them with complaints about offensive content could be one:

• Tell LL you're offended by anybody carrying a weapon (even if it's only visible with ctrl+alt+t), and ask them to close every war sim and ban every AV carrying one.
• Tell LL you're offended by anybody selling, carrying or consuming alcohol. Ask them to close every sim that has a bar (IE every club) and every AV using alcohol.
• Tell LL you're offended by cursing. Ask them to ban everybody that uses phrases like the F word, "OMG", or even the word "God" itself in every language available in SL. Sims that play rock, rap, or other music that is cursing should be closed too.
• Tell LL you're offended by nudity and every shop selling erotic pictures should be closed, every AV ever being naked should be banned (you don't have to undress to change). Skirts have to be at least knee high.
• Tell LL you're offended by tatoos and piercings. Everybody wearing one should be banned and shops selling them closed.

I'm sure we can make this list even longer. Everything will be considered offensive at some point and they'll eventually have to ban everybody or stop their foolish kindergarten teacher-like behaviour.

Now, in case you wonder if I am really offended by anything... Well, not the above mentioned but sometimes I am. I've seen rape and bestiality poseball sets that made me feel sick. So far I've been lucky not to have witnessed any pedophily. But I can assure you that if I do ever see something like that, I'll do the same as when I came across those rape and bestiality poseball sets: I'll walk, fly or TP away and move on with my own life.

Lyn

• Tell LL you're offended by people typing in foreign langues, playing foreign music and movies. Ask them to ban everybody that type foreign and close down land that has to do with any thing foreign.


(this is just sarcasume I have alot of foreign friends but it is flustrating when I don't have transenlater with me.... lets keep this list going)

Actually the best censor around is the teleport button. If you don't like something then you can simply leave.

I will agree that protecting minors is in the best intersts of all parties, and with SL opening new servers in different countries they, as well as we, may be subject to those countries laws. Frankly it's a legal nightmare and one of the reasons I bet LL published what they did.

However, the way the current policy reads is way to broad. And it opens up the possibility of grief attacks by one or two indivials that find a Sim offensive (as what recently happened in an adult Sim that I visit...when asked to leave the Griefer used the new policy as his reason for griefing us).

It also means the several religious or other groups could use this policy to try to enforce their own beliefs. Something we have seen again and again in the real world.

Your ideas make sense and would not violate anyone's privacy. Lets hope someone actually bothers to read them.

Actually...that gives me an idea.
Report anything and everything as being offensive to you (provided that you aren't being a hypocrit), this should FLOOD Linden Labs with abuse reports for things that don't make any sense to be banned, yet will in the user base's eyes be "broadly offensive" and thereby either making them DEFINE the term or get them to remove it.

My point exactly.

Flooding LL with abuse reports is a bad idea. They have enough on their hands, you'd merely be abusing the abuse reporting system and running the risk that genuine AR reports would be lost in your spam.

Instead of tit for tat reporting people should stand up for what they believe in. If you don't want Goreans banned you better start talking fast because I have a feeling it's not going to be long before that's an issue. Making your points now is important because we're only at the tip of the iceberg. Robin Linden hinted that there may be more censorship to come at yesterday's meeting.

I agree with the comment about treating us as adults and not minors, banning words like "Lolita" is over the top, deeds not words are the issue. If the film Lolita is on the telly, the name of the film is in the telly listings of newspapers.

By the same token people should be willing to take some personal responsibility. The whole "Broadly Offensive" issue makes me inclined to be that we're going to be part of bland PG world and if people don't speak out soon, that's where we're heading.

NOW you know why I spoke out against the ban of ageplay.

I knew it would lead to "broadly offensive."

And I know "broadly offensive" will lead to...

The ban of Gor.

The ban of BSDM.

The ban of combat.

The ban of sex.

The ban of furries.

And I don't want that.

I am standing up NOW and voicing my opinion that this is WRONG and violates previous AND EXISTING Community Standards, "No intollerance of a person, group, practice, or ideal."

I WILL NOT live in a second life where my thoughts and actions are policed by a nebulous concept of "broadly offensive."

Yes, they _do_ have enough on their hands and I wish they'd stop wasting time with stupid politics. And as for "genuine AR" reports.. that's the whole point. I don't think there are any genuine AR reports except for illegal RL activities that are shown in SL as RL photographs (like RL child pornography being sold in SL). The way LL is heading, will cause a lot of stupid AR reports already.



We are speaking out but nobody in LL seems to listen. To them, "our community" is the press and some corporations that they hope to get rich off. So far they haven't commented once on all our issues.

Draco: I totally agree.

Which is why I don't see an issue with adding ones that are pointless from a human perspective. The point of them is to show that they are so many viewpoints that you can't account for them all.

If I were to decide that humans were offensive, and so were my fellow furries, then who would stop us from reporting people?

And humans are offensive. If the entity judging us were not human, we'd smell. Horribly, merely because of biological differences, just as humans we either can't smell it or find it pleasing. Humans do incredibly detrimental things to the planet: strip mining, broad cutting (strip mining of a forest, forget the actual term), polution of air, water, silence, ground...We ARE slowly killing the planet, so there is a point of view that would find us "broadly offensive," so is it impractical to take on that view point as part of who I am in SL and report it? No. Humans do it to furries all the time.

A while back on Livejournal someone had their journal reported for abuse relating to an "art" photo. The person who had that journal then went on a spree of reporting journals where the default picture was a breastfeeding Mother. The result was that Livejournal upheld the original ban and then banned default pictures of breastfeeding Mother's. This led to a lot of annoyed Mother's protesting, to no avail. So the end result was more censorship, not less.

That's where we'll end up if we report issues that are not AR worthy, eventually LL will take these pointless reports seriously and act "with the support of the community". That's not really a place where I want to be heading.

One of you should pop along to Robin Linden's office hour, not to berate her, but to discuss the issues. It's not the ideal format but those minutes are recorded and circulated. As long as you discuss rather than abuse, it's a platform that is available for you to make your points.

I understand, though "banning humans" doesn't quite work in this instance.
I want to report something so absurd that there is a valid view for it, but the ramifications are impossibe to implement ("banning males avatars," "banning humans," "banning white skin," "banning stupid users," etc.)