Upcoming Changes for Adult Content: Main Forum Thread

hopefully one of the thick skulled will notice the feeling in this forum, if not we can only say we tried, and its better to try than to do nothing.
you have my full permission to rofl until you vomit.

While Blo Li is absent, I try to answer that short.

1. no sheet, no list

2. current definition is: babies need a valid age verification with Aristotle and Payment Info Used, before passing with full body contact the tunnel of love into the light

3 + 3a. shrug

...And the slippery slope we all warned LL about has begun!

Probably I'm more interested in the Mainland than Search, although both have such wondrous--and squandered--potential.

The desperately broken state of Search is also a topic of another, more recent Blog post, dealing with Traffic fraud--under the guise of "bots"--which are only the tip of the Traffic abuse iceberg. That's a different topic, yet one wonders what sort of institutions are more offended by encountering Adult material than they are by the widespread scamming that happens in Search, and whether Linden Research Inc really benefits from scamming and scam-tolerant organizations and individuals (regardless of their smut obsessions).

LL's inability to enforce existing rules w.r.t. Search has been mentioned many times, but for a real dose of complete anarchy, take a glimpse at Events search. (And this for a platform that has been trying to build its reputation as a kind of social networking app! ) All in blatant violation of rules sternly reiterated each time one posts an Event. If LL can't bestir itself to police compliance with even this most strict warning, it's difficult to imagine them addressing the simple spammer tactics that will surface if they tighten the search term filters.

It's certainly not clear to me how adding new rules to enforce will lead to improved enforcement. And at least to me, the anti-smut rules are addressing a pretty low priority among all the ways Search is contaminated.

You get it.

Unfortunately, this is something that Nany just doesn't get, despite repeated attempts to explain it to her: When existing rules are being ignored, throwing even more rules at the problem isn't going to magically fix it. In this case, rules regarding how to enter something in Search aren't being obeyed. Search is being gamed, and all the talk about adding new flags and overhauling the filters is nothing more than idle lip-service to the naive since it won't be enforced any more than it is now. The new system will be gamed, and the only people who will suffer are those trying to follow the rules.

Same thing with the new Adult category. If anyone honestly believes that it won't get gamed, then that person is severely naive.

A lot of content may not be sexually explicit or violent but will still be inappropriate for minors. The grid is 18+ only so any kind of verification should happen during registration.

Is LL worried about decency? well if that's the problem then the PG /Adult classification we have is already sufficient. The search filtering works fine to return only PG results when needed. One can choose to only visit PG sims that feature is already available.

So what is LL really after?

Lindens: Was a risk analysis done of this plan? Maybe a cost/benefit analysis?

Hi everyone, I had some thoughts. I live in Australia and do not carry a drivers licence (legally blind so no driving for me) or passport. I also do not trust my details to be stored by a third party, they can make whatever claims they like I spent several years as a security consultant nothing makes me trust those bold claims that they are perfectly secure from everything and anything.
Linden Labs have my credit card information on file, and I own land and have stored scattered about the place on others land.
So since I prefer to keep those details private and for some reason my payment details which were supposed to be used for age verification are insufficient? I know that this change is going to scare a lot of people and probably drive quite a few of them off, the last thing most people I know want to do is dump there personal and private details in yet another database.
What happened to there being no one under the legal age on regular Second Life, the reason teen second life was conceived, to protect minors from predators and inappropriate content therefore those of us who are left should all be old enough to make our own informed decisions about where we go and what we see, we KNOW entering a mature sim that there might be nudity or violence and a simple modification to search (uncheck show mature) deals with that quite nicely this change seems entirely pointless information harvesting for who knows what actual purpose.
Linden Labs Claims that they don't keep the information on file, but when it comes to alerting the required authorities they somehow come up with it?
I'm sorry but with the current state of affairs in second life I do NOT trust Linden Labs to have the best interests of there users at heart, whoever is running the show now and putting in these wide sweeping censorship changes needs to wake up and realise that some people will be offended by everything others will not. I get deeply offended at the number of religious events I see around the place but I simply go elsewhere and avoid them, I don't demand that they redesign the way the virtual world works to hide everything that could possibly offend me I simply accept that I was for a moment offended but when I leave I won't be offended by it any more. What happened to personal responsibility?

...the more intelligent, exact and precise the question, the more silent is a Linden.

It is part of their customer-demoralizing tactic/strategy.

But this tactic is even an answer and an unspoken information.

It is without words, but it opens their most hidden business-secret to everyone.

This new system and Ideas are even more regulated and censored than the damn internet it's self is. It is the 2nd most freaking ridiculous thing I have herd about second life and it so much is it make me angry. What the hell is that teen grid for anyway?

I can go online right now and find a bunch of crap by typing in a keyword into goggle that is 6 times worse than most of second life’s adult content!

Go head linden try it type in your fav nasty subject into google and uncheck that simple "Do not filter button" that any non adult with a brain can do and see what you get.

And if parents and people want to stop seeing this content on the internet what do they do?

They Get a lame software filter or use parental controls that are voluntary by the households and the parents to block it and watch the kids not go out and age verify the kids to use the internet what the hell?

. You don’t see the government regulating the entire internet to be “age verified” for legal content. And if some site is blocked at work or school it is not anybody but the individuals who own the internet connection in the USA doing it.



If somebody wants to keep a damn kid safe on the internet from adult content they buy software to block the kid and watch them. You should be adding voluntary parental controls for parents to use with passwords not doing stuff like this age verified enter my social security number crap. I don’t even have to do that junk if I wanted to go to a real porn site and see real people doing the adult content of second for free and some kid could do the same if they was not watched or blocked.



Put up some “parental controls” in client or provide into the client let the parents choose, I mean damn If I was a parent I would be more worried about blocking google and those free easy to get porn sites than second life. And those IRC chartrooms or what ever seem more than or just as dangerous as second life and they are not even policed to this extent. Hell some kids have been abducted from chatting in these rooms and they are still not regulated like this.

Why do we even need this system if the internet it’s self don’t even have it for the same or worse content. Why does linden lab have to police it? Do they think they are a video game company that is a totally different service than what second life provides and is under its own system? Do they think they are above the internet when like they first started they said it would be “the new internet” or something like that.


Blocking adult content should be 100% voluntary give the people who want to block it improved tools for restriction of content and leave the everybody else alone why should anybody even have to put up with a hassle like throwing a social security number, with ID theft you can forget you wont’ be getting mine. The most you will get out of me is a credit card and why the hell should I have to do that unless I am buying linden?.


http://www.internet-filter-review.toptenreviews.com/

Tools like this is how it is done on the internet no large coup rate entity is blocking the content for the kids unless they own the connection on there end and want too. Should I start calling linden lab my mommy even though I am an adult? The parental control system and blockers works for the internet it’s self and other content and it is 100% voluntary by each user that is in charge of the content stream and or hardware.

It's like this. Unless LL can show the "suits" that there is a *huge* user base to sell things to, there won't *be* any corporate clients.

Period.

Unless there is a merger between the Adult and Teen grids, LL will never have the kind of numbers that something like WOW or yahoo, or google will be able tot throw at advertisers.
LL wants to sell inworld space to corporate clients, but since it is in a virtual world, this comes under the heading of *advertising*. As long as it's cheaper to advertise in other online venues, LL needs to show the suits that they have something special to offer, and user numbers that are competitive.

In order to get those numbers, LL must combine the adult and teen grids.

In order to do that without a legal nightmare, LL has to segregate *all* adult content, not just the "most extreme". which is why Blondin's comment about "removing adult content from the mainland" is so telling. That is the plan. and I'm pretty sure that the eventual plan is to herd everyone into the the "adult continent" and then change the TOS and either remove Ursula from the main grid, or to simply say "All this content violates our TOS- we're shutting it all down" and BYe-bye Grownup SL.


LL actually thinks that they can stuff all the alternative folks in a corner and wall them off from the teens. (roughly like stuffing the worms back in the can- they won't fit) even though the grownups were here first, and in all meaningful way *created* the grid. LL creates the tools, and babysits the servers- *we* build the world.

Which is why, the smartest thing that LL can do is to build a PG *airlock* within the adult community, and take anyone who violates TOS inside it off at the knees. Brutally, without mercy or remorse.
They can't really put all the sharks in a tank- so the only option is the put all the folks who are scared of sharks in a shark-proof bubble, and Kill any sharks that try to get in.

It's *far* too late to "clean up" SL. SL is dirty, nasty, and chaotic. there are a million and six reasons why trying to contain the "adult" people won't work, but there's only *one* reason why creating a PG "airlock" continent won't work-

LL isn't willing to *try* it.

-V-

There is always risk with any good buisness if you dont take risks you will fail at somepoint i guess they need to make this one to secure there buisness for years to come you carnt branch out into diffrent sectors if you stick with trying to skirt around issues like adult content when your buisness platform is at risk of becoming just a gateway to virtual porn and your whole business relys reputation you would do the same it will bounce back yeah people will take a fall but its better than sl failing completly over this small adult problem and not being able to move away from silly digital porrn lol

When you get right down to base level, THAT is the 64 million L$ question...
So far nothing they've been claiming they can achieve by this move makes a lot of sense to me.

If the real and sole reason was to protect the delicate sensibilities of people who want their SL to be a prim and proper, pastel coloured, Peter Rabbit, "predictable" version of RL, then a PG only area/continent plus the ability to self-register as a PG avatar would be the simple and obvious, least disruptive to all (not to mention least costly for LL) way to do it.

So, what *is* the real, underlying reason? To me, it appears very much that they are either (a) clearing decks to sell up, or (b) clearing way to make profit themselves from access to "Adult" content. When it's all in one walled off area it'd be a short step to charge extra subscription fees, extra tier, and so-on and so-forth.

--
Aes

its quite likely that under Mark Kingdons leadership LL are slowly going bankrupt, and LL need cash desparately, this is what its about i think, people are not willing to invest in SL any more because LL are not trustworthy.
i read somewhere in the order of 100 regions are going every week, sorry i dont have a link to it.

As a WoW player, I can see it now.
The dwarves in the Deadmines drinking Coke,
Defias prisoners in the stockades wearing nikes... a vendor selling marbs in Stormwind, Jack Daniels getting a drink named after them in Ironforge.... etc. etc...

Okay what you all are doing is stupid! this game is for "adults" not teens....and you all should allow every sim to be "MATURE" not "PG"....because we are all old enough and "mature" enough to do what we want and not have to worry about the 13-17 year old teens messing it up for us "ADULTS" and also i think we should keep the Bloodlines and other stuff that has blood....oh and also keep the sexy sluty outfits....but make sure teens can not get them.

My guess is that this happened after the invitation by LL for residents in-world to file AR's about any "broadly offensive content" they had seen.

As you point out, this led to all manner of false AR's when people forgot that they were living in an "R" rated world to start with.

-V-

Well, in all fairness I should point out that:

A. I *am* a vampire, after all
B. Just because I have dietary restrictions, it does not automatically follow that I have *tasting* restrictions.

-V-

This policy won't have any effect on on whether searchers for Native American products end up in Gorean stores.

The issue is not the code, it's the definitions. What are they going to define as "adult content". They have yet to get their story straight on that.

Those extra 600 users are that critical?

You think Beatrix Potter stories are tame? What about all the vore and ageplay?

First of all Kyle, I'm fully aware of the situation in D/S- In D/S The Dom is taking responsibility for making the Sub's fantasy come true. IN D/S it is *all* about the sub, although it might not look like that from the outside. Goreans don't play that way. it isn't about the *sub's* fantasy, it's all about the DOM (At least IRL, and with the gorean "masters" who give me trouble in SL).

Second of all, I don't care whether or not the lady in question consented. you're missing the point. The point is that *I* didn't consent to be part of Mr. He-man woman-hater's game, and he has dragged *me* into the fun.
Further, even *that* isn't an issue for me, provided that when I courteously ask them to take it to IM, I get a courteous response.
It is some dickhead taking away *my* choices, and then *acting* like an asshole about it that bothers me.
Some jerk thinking that *his* fun is so much more important than mine that he doesn't even need to be *polite* to me is what leads me to try to screw up his game. After all, He is *forcing* me to play. Why shouldn't *I* be just as rude as he?

If I get dragged into a game like that, I'm not going to run away, I'm going to play to *win*. Period.

Remember, I didn't *start out* wanting to ruin anyone's day. I didn't seek out anyone to hassle, or make any value judgments about his game.
I simply asked to be able to go about my business without being involved in a public game of "lets make the slave blush". I was there *first* after all. They walked over to *me*, not the other way around.

Why should *I* be the one to have to walk away?, Hmmm? And why should I behave by any other rules than the ones *he* has established?

In any case, it isn't because I'm uptight, or anything. It is because some idiot has decided that the *rest* of the world is his bitch too, and I don't care to be treated like that.
So, I play my game, the same as him, and we get to see who wins.

What's wrong with that?


-V-

Exactly, Dear lady. Which is why I am involved without my consent, I feel no compulsion to preserve the feelings of the offender.

-V-

i think maybe you should chill a bit valerius.
The vampire stuff irritates me but i dont react to it.
i just click no to the ims.