Upcoming Changes for Adult Content: Main Forum Thread

i watch out for those who want to do things with waffles....now, cookies, on the other hand....

I've been to many combat sims. The Gor ones, CCS, WARPS, DCS, etc. Most are in private own sims and so, those people should be left alone to thier own devices. Why bother people who are not bothering anyone else?

I'm hearing people here talking about others who go into such sims to stir trouble and complain about the adult nature. Which is mind blogging because you willing went into a sim that advertised was adult in nature and complained about it.

It's like going into a adult video store and complaining that all the vidoes have nude photos of people.

Back on topic.

If the lindens do infact impose restrictions on these combat sims.. and many of these combat sims are adult as well because of the violent roleplays that might happen. Many of which have no sexual scenes.. but are just violent in nature. Such as getting your face beaten into the ground...

These sims will lose traffic, since many people who join them are just exploring around SL for things they like and stumbled upon this sim. Many of them are also new players or people who didn't put thier credit card info or used age verification. So they will lose traffic to thier sims.
How much traffic is another story, but they will be impacted.


One question I'd like to ask and I'm sure others have asked it as well. When will it stop? When will the constant restricting of adult content will stop? Until it's all gone? I've already seen a few people here in this topic wanting it all removed from SL.

Do you know how many land owners you will lose if that happens? I'm sure the lindens can give us the figures if they wanted.

I speak from a business point of view, LL can only boost profit and turnover moving forward if they take a new direction into there approach! LL its strategy was that they have let people running the SL grid for years, but this approach has taken the profit away from LL! The time has come now for LL to take the control back and to also take the profit back to there side!

and yes 'despite for loads of people' this could affect the adult business ..... but this a choice a company makes, not the customer base!

It will stop when the whiney busy bodies have screamed loud enough to get LL to simply remove it all to protect their "image". Whats truly ironic is then these same people will complain because there is no money to fix any service issues and there is nothing to do because all of the content creators have left.

that are the ones that LL is targeting now, which RL company would like to be related with ADULT & XXX content ?? = none

So your saying that all of the people creating adult content, in all its forms, are stealing profit from LL? I call BULLSHIT! Just who the hell do you think is paying the land use fees? Who is buying the Islands and estates? Thats right, the people you want to now place restrictions on because you can't handle even a virtual dose of reality,... and last I checked turnover is the last thing a business wants, retention is more profitable.

Try retaining your existing user base instead of driving them off first, then worry about expanding.

So a company decission which relays alot of the content on their customers and now they taking it back they promised this such a long time to hold it up that everyone can enjoy his own way to enjoy SL?!

Well if it is a company decission to give their customers a boot, then here only one thing can be said ...'LET THEM SUFFER AND LOOSE THEIR MONEY'

SO in other words said, if they realy want have it this way be assured, they will loose alot and never regain it again.

Those are also the ones that have to date and will continue to ignore SL, no matter what you do.

And with the suffering ones i doesn't meant the customers in SL i meant LL's as a whole!!

Just to prevent any missunderstanding. *Growls*

I don't know how many of the users are educational or business, but there seem to be quite a few educational and business presences in SL. I see no evidence that adult content has stopped anyone from establishing an SL presence.

However, when I go to these regions, they're mostly deserted. I believe the problem is less that they're scared of adult material, and more that they simply have no clue what to do with their SL presence. The trend seems to be to set up a crappy virtual trade show booth, and ignore it.

I actually like that idea. Of them being able to flag themselves as "G" only. So that they can only access G rated sims and avoid all the mature content that's in SL.

But then again.. is it really about them accidently stumbling into a adult sim? To me it seems more like two things:

1)They don't want any mature material to exist for personal moral reasons, I'd go as far as to say religious reasons..

2)They don't want kids (and they would consider 17 and younger as kids..) to see such mature content.


For 2: I have to say that most of us who are involved in such adult enviroments don't want kids or teenagers to see it either. If we find someone who is under 18 we tend to AR them fast and get them banned from the sim, immediately.
So you have my vote when it comes to keeping the little ones out of the adult areas, but the problem is how? Even in RL it's incredibly difficult to enforce thanks to the internet. If they wanted to see the adult stuff they will, one way or another they will.

With that said, restrictions still need to be in place, but not the kind that will impose such headaches and trouble to everyone else. Having a mass exodus of people moving is a serious pain in the ass. Sure we'll be on one continent which would be nice, but to have everyone more is the problem.

Some people's builts are design according to the sim floor they live on. Some live in snowy places, other a beach place.. others.. a hill side. So when they move, some will have to alter thier builts so they can fit in the new land, which is just more hassle.

If the teen grid is infact being merged with the main one.. then.. why not have them on thier own continent?

Also.. how many PG sims do we actually have in SL? And how many mature ones? I think those figures could shed some light into the situation.

Well, I'll still stick by my opinion that moving these parcels elsewhere will indeed make SL more "predictable" (the goal of this project).

But I fail to see how age verification fits in.


Maybe a blue notification box informing you've entered a mature partition of the mainland, so those not wishing to see this content can just turn back.
But age verification?

Heres a thought that could settle this,.. add up the number of PG sims and add up the number of mature sims. Which ever set has the least amount of property being used, make them move.

I guarantee it wont be the mature sims,..

'Zactly ... and their RL products have no, or very limited use in the SL universe. Their money would be better spent on advertising on tv, papers, etc. not in SL.

Cheers,
Trilla

I honestly would like to find out a comparison of spending. She states that non-porn would be high-profit/low maintenance, whereas the XXX spending is low profit/high maintenance.

I feel that if this were homogonized, puritanical, a LOT of the business side would go down. Someone comes into SL, and buys a skin, a couple of hairs, and a few clothing items. There is no real way for them to "earn" lindens, not like the other games (and most won't buy lindens, not without a reason), so...there, the linden trail stops. And why bother buying a house, if you don't have a reason to "hide"...a few would buy a private house/section, just to be able to invite friends for coffee/tea, or set up a garden, or educational spot...but most, if they cannot have their beds/dungeons/etc...there really isn't a reason for the rest, the "clean" furniture.

Now...those that come in for the fantasy portion. They come in, at first, thinking "only a skin a couple of hairs, and a couple of outfits"...then they find their fantasy nitch...Someone into BDSM then will end up buying boots/latex/hair to match/furniture...and of course, they need the land to perform their particular perversion on...and a lot of them will also set up their own private houses.

You say high profit/low maintenance...you know where that would come from? Less people in SL, because they come for really only one reason...in many various forms...but it boils down to fantasy. I myself rarely go to PG sims, because there isn't anything there for me. Without those, to keep the same level of technology, same level of support...they would have to raise fees...cashout fees on $L, tier, initial cost of land...it would all get passed down.

Bringing in the teens aren't going to help. Again...they don't have a LOT of disposable income (yes, i know they do have some...some have more than me...some have more creative skills/etc). Who is going to pay for it. the Parents. and if the parents are in SL...well, that's $L incoming that is essentially halved, being spent between parent and child. I played on another MMORPG, and they welcomed the kids...but, the money didn't come from the kids...it came from the adults. And it finally came down to "we need adult areas". Even when the age limit was 13 and above...and there were many avatars below that age...one "active" member was 6.

At the top of your screen it already tells you which sim your in PG or Mature, most people ignore it and then get pissy when they see something they dont like... it will be far less disruptive to business to move the PG only people. There are far fewer of them.

To answer the age verification thing, it fits in with whether you are allowed to go into an "adult" sim or not. Not verified? You dont get in, cutting off thousands of customers, employees and friends in the process, thus negatively affecting the economy.

Follow Up: Adult Content Changes





When we announced we'd be looking at changes around Adult content, we talked about 3 features in particular - geographically separating Adult content, filtered search results and account verification. We also provided the areas where the community could provide useful feedback, specifically about the timeline, more granular definitions of mature vs Adult and how those who need to move want to make that work.

Over the last week and a half the team has been watching and engaging in the forums and will continue to do so through the end of the week. This week and next we'll be meeting with small groups of stakeholders including educators, solution providers, land owners and adult content merchants to get their feedback about how our adult content plan affects them. We are also inviting a few forum participants to talk with us around the question of content definitions. We will record and provide transcripts of all the meetings so that everyone will be able to access the conversations.

What we've learned so far:

Nearly all your questions revolve around the following subjects and while we don't have all the answers yet, we're committed to answering them before this program launches.

1) Enforcement
2) Definitions
3) Scope
4) Business Impact
5) Impact on Private Estates
6) Why not a PG Continent?
7) Personal Information / 3rd Party partners

Next steps:

Week of March 23rd and 30th - conduct brown bags, post transcripts of meetings

3/24 - Solution Provider brownbag
Text Transcript
Audio Recording

Please join the Forum Discussion.

We will continue to provide transcripts and recordings as the brownbags continue.After we've compiled all the feedback, we'll announce our thoughts around the next phase of the project.

thanks!

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ok guess its part of the blogs, wouldnt know that either most blog i've encountered lag my computer more then SL ever does so don't like them. Off to thier own continent.

Hmmm.. video game companies?

Hmmm... movie companies?


It's not like the adult content in SL is 100% XXX rated as you are implying. There are sims where people go to just "fuck". And then there are many other sims where people engage in a life style that is like no other and I'm refering to BDSM and it's many and wonderful ways of engaging in this life style.

Do companies want to be associated with that. Many aren't in that type business, but it's not like the BDSM sims or sex sims are causing hassle for these business.

Here's a good question:

-Is SL going to be geared towards companies only? Or the user base? Or both?

If it's only companies.... well then most of us should stop seeing SL as a place to go have fun and just find some thing else to do with our spare time.

If it's just for the user base, then.... why are we even talking about such restrictiosn.

If it's for both... I still don't see how we are in this situation. Any company that is seriously considering using SL as part of thier business would buy a private sim and not get a small parcel.

So I still don't see how any of this "Adult and X rated" content is hindering any company from using SL for thier businesses.

So your solution is to remove all "adult" content?
One question...define "adult"
your idea is childish and wont solve anything. LL would lose 3/4 of their clients, while gaining a few educational customers..
And on another note.... Who the hell are you to say that anyone using "adult" temed items is NOT NORMAL??!??!?!
"This would open (YES FINALLY) a new door for a new strong customer base, a base with more educated and normal thinking people (creators, educators, etc ....), a pity then for the rest," are you saying you dont have sex, drink, or do anything an adult does?
normal...that is a term i truley hate to see applied to anyone. in Boston its normal to live the red sox, in New York its normal to hate them...which one is truley NORMAL?
Idiot.

I will admit, i get a little miffed, when i tp into an area, and i find out later, it's a PG area (especially when i get booted from a sim, to one of the welcome areas...being booted from a Mature sim to a PG sim, standing around naked, is ...well, not quite fun.).

I personally wouldn't mind a "the sim you are entering is running a different maturity rating than the one you just left" warning, so i can look up and go "oops, gotta throw clothes on"...

kittyn

I admit I haven't read the entire 150 pages of discussion since I last looked but do we have at least a tentative strawman definition of "Adult" yet to discuss? The original Maturity Ratings FAQ is still an "Oops!" page; is there a tentative definition somewhere else?

It seems absurd to me to be debating this issue without any kind of official working statement of what "Adult" might mean.

One of the reasons that doing this kind of thing is so hard (and that governments and institutions in the real world have been trying to do it in the real world for decades, mostly unsuccessfully) is that while many people will confidently say "oh, we can all tell porn from art" (or for that matter "we can all tell when blood and gore is excessive" in fact getting *consensus* on distinctions like this in practice is just not possible.

I think "The Tin Drum" is art, and "Lolita" is art, and the works of Crumb and Mapplethorpe are art. But all of these have been banned by RL authorities, who presumably thought they were porn, at one time or another. Are these just rare "edge cases" that we can handwavingly dismiss? I don't think so; they may be small in number compared to cute kittens (non-porn) and Hustler centerfolds (porn), but they will be common and troublesome enough to make the exile of adult content difficult, expensive, and divisive.

I would urge the Lab to post a "Tentative / working / draft Definition of Adult" somewhere, so we at least have a concrete something to talk about...

I'll try to get it up on slex tonight. Because it only counts unique visitors, it's an expensive to run, both in terms of cpu cost and memory - you're welcome to use it but it's not something you should keep running all the time.

If the PG sims were contiguous and geographically separated from the M sims, people wouldn't be flying from PG to M. But they're not, the PG sims are in little clumps with dozens of M sims between them.

for those who state that they would like to get rid of all the XXX places/etc...i would like to propose that if that happened, then thosw who are leaving get the choice to have the items that THEY contributed to the SLuniverse is removed, also. I live a gorean lifestyle on SL. I also create furniture, 90% of it has NOTHING to do with BDSM/Gor. i know quite a few people who started with XXX (escort, buying escorts, stripping, Gor, BDSM, whatever), then went to create (build/script/texture), and not necessarily in that field.

In fact, one of the most prominent people, who is/was an RL Millionaire....started out in SL as *gasp* an escort! And she ended up on the cover of several prominent magazines!

@Rayne:
Exactly why I believe they should put up a notice where people CAN'T ignore it.


I'd consider it more like complaining about them showing a sex scene in the movie's teaser in the theater lobby.

When going from a few dozen PG zones to the next, that consistency feels nice. Then you come across a parcel which makes no attempt to hide or even partially enclose the naughtier bits.