Upcoming Changes for Adult Content: Main Forum Thread

I understand about the wanted comments not really being stated as would really require an etch in stone but a "this is what we have concluded sofar an where we stand at this point" note or notice would prolly be appreciated..

Uhm, as for the inworld notice... i also understand that there could an prolly would be alot of sudden grief all at once.. which might become overwhelming or possibly distructive as where this thread stands.. but there really should be some notification as to whats going on here sent to inworld in some sortly fashion like maybe directing peeps to another thread perhaps to least see what others would think.. ya know?

Alot of good points where made like .. camming into places from where ever to see what all is around would be hard to detour but i can see ways around that.. just don't forget where you put us. xD

Oohh I can fix that - er.. I can give you the context of the conversation I didnt post it before because it seemed so gosh darn long

[12:35] Equinox Pinion: but how can you plan that already if you dont know what will be G rated and what not
[12:36] Fontte Newbold: I won't begin to poke fun at the sort of urban planning that you could put into that project. :x
[12:36] Jack Linden: Equinox, it's just a shell, roads and so on. It can grow or not as needed
[12:36] Equinox Pinion: i see..so it will be at the edge somewhere
[12:36] Talarus Luan: I get the distinct feeling that either the real issues are being hidden from us, or that Blondin and the team doing it are aware of the weak rationale, but someone On High in the Ivory Tower has simply decreed it to be.
[12:36] Ciaran Laval: One of the concerns on the forum is that Land flippers will get their hands on the land and sell at extortionate prices, if adult content is forced there then the land flippers do have people by the short and curlies.
[12:37] Fontte Newbold: I'm going to make a broad assumption for a moment that this move is to improve the overall media image of Second Life, in re, it's not simply a slum for internet sex shops.
[12:37] Talarus Luan: Either way, it is a recipe for a rather messy epic fail.
[12:37] Fontte Newbold: Based on that assumption, I'm going to make another broad point. Two, actually.
[12:37] Equinox Pinion: they want to get real business into sl fontte
[12:37] Elanthius Flagstaff: One of my main concerns is that land flippers will NOT get their hands on the land. Please be sure to transfer the land directly to me
[12:37] Equinox Pinion: look at the post about having meetings in sl
[12:37] Moon Corrigible: Well business meeting places would take a whole lot of load off the servers
[12:37] Jack Linden: There actually isn't that much content affected by this.. the stronger end of the material accounts for only a very small amount of content on the mainland
[12:38] Fontte Newbold: The first: forcing "adult content" underground is going to make all kinds of interesting things happen in terms of media exposure and, yes, exposure to real businesses.
[12:38] Talarus Luan: I beg to differ with you there, Jack.
[12:38] Talarus Luan: I don't buy the 2-4% BS in any way, shape or form.
[12:38] Talarus Luan: Simply from the apparent motivations.
[12:38] Jack Linden: We've surveyed theland, literally walked the regions, and trawled search and user transactions.. there is alot less of that material than Search would have you believe
[12:38] Elanthius Flagstaff: No-one believes the 2-4% thing. For a start people will want to move to maintain the freedom they have now
[12:38] Moon Corrigible: Well if you dont define Dark Den as "Adult" then yeah maybe
[12:38] Ciaran Laval: I beg to differ too as was exemplified at Blondin's office hour yesterday, you can't define the content that needs to be moved
[12:39] Talarus Luan: Yep
[12:39] Equinox Pinion: and how will private estates be affected by it
[12:39] Talarus Luan: Well, Jack, I wanna see the hard data on those surveys.
[12:39] Fontte Newbold: The second is, if adult content is such a problem, it speaks to the fact you're not attracting more than "early adopter" businesses at this point.
[12:39] Ciaran Laval: Forced relocation is an awful policy Jack, that is my main beef with this.
[12:39] Jack Linden: Now if people want to move there because they want to be in that designation, that's a different thing and yes, maybe it'll be very popular from that perspective
[12:39] Elanthius Flagstaff: I guess that's right, since we don't know your definition of adult it's hard for us to comment on the percentage affected. Your original FAQ on the subject was very very broad
[12:39] Fontte Newbold: And the best way to combat that would be to make Second Life more useful to real businesses beyond their marketing arms.
[12:39] Ciaran Laval: Jack if you let people move there because they want to be there it grows organically, that would work.
[12:39] Jack Linden: Private estates can set their own flags and arrange their islands accordingly
[12:40] Jack Linden: They don't have to move their island.. but if they wanted to they could
[12:40] Equinox Pinion: so you can just flag a parcel?
[12:40] Talarus Luan: I wanna know WHAT comprises those figures, because there is a HUGE disconnect between the fact that what is claimed (which is still mostly nebulous) as adult versus what we see all around us that IS adult.
[12:40] Ciaran Laval: What of private estates who have a 50-50 split? Will they get any help with moves because many won't want to flag as adult.
[12:40] Elanthius Flagstaff: Is there any hope whatsoever that you'll continue with the crazy migration but drop the requirement for adults to be verified? I hear a lot of talk about how this is to give people choice but instead it removes choice and forces people to age verify or be PIOF
[12:40] Fontte Newbold: In particular, I'd be interested in Linden championing developers again, since they were the ones really getting businesses interested in SL, as opinion leaders.
[12:40] Jack Linden: Equinox, i think on islands you would flag the region
[12:40] Fontte Newbold: But this is all a major digression.
[12:40] Uni Ninetails: <--- Agrees with Ciaran and wants to know also
[12:41] Talarus Luan: Right now, 10% of Great Pubnico would have to move. That's 10% of the content, not 2-4%.
[12:41] Dennis Lagan: how about avatar profiles? they are sometimes very "adult" too. will you disable non verified ones to see them as well?
[12:41] Equinox Pinion: phew...do you know what mess that will be for private estates???
[12:41] Equinox Pinion: i mean so many have mixed regions
[12:41] Jack Linden: Elenthius.. that wouldn't be my call to make. I read a lot of the forum posts and there were some good comments in there
[12:41] Jack Linden: *Elanthius
[12:41] Ciaran Laval: Private estates flagged tghemselves as mature to allow them to manage this and now the rug is pulled from underneath them
[12:41] Fontte Newbold: Holding the technical elements completely aside for a moment, the real problem you have here is simply people not being able to choose the content that suits them, forcing you guys to enact that decision for us.
[12:42] Elanthius Flagstaff: When do you think Ursula will come online?
[12:42] Elanthius Flagstaff: I mean start allowing people to move there?
[12:42] Fontte Newbold: Would it not be a better decision to allow us to, y'know. Disable or filter offensive content at our end?
[12:42] Equinox Pinion: that is really bad jack....you have no clue what you will do with private region owners with it
[12:42] Jack Linden: I think it'll all be a couple of months yet. it isn't a sudden thing
[12:42] Talarus Luan: One would think, Fontte
[12:42] Fontte Newbold: And then work with companies and parents to enact sane content filters?
[12:42] Elanthius Flagstaff: Like google image search, you get adult filter by default and you can easily turn it off
[12:43] Jack Linden: Equinox, if island owners need to shuffle their estates, those changes are free
[12:43] Talarus Luan: That's why I call BS on the whole "give users more control over their SL experience". It's a meaningless platitude, since we already have 100% control over our experience.
[12:43] Jack Linden: If they need to move islands about directly because of this, then we will help there too
[12:43] Elanthius Flagstaff: How can it be free to move half your residents to a new sim and maintain two separate sims one adult and one mature? That's going to push small estate owners out of business.
[12:43] Fontte Newbold: The basic problem you have here is content is self-ordering, and you're not enabling people to create enough structure around the content /they/ want to see.
[12:44] Dennis Lagan: haha jack, free, everything you want to get free from lindenlab by something they caused theirself is a real fight.
[12:44] Equinox Pinion: well...will be not so easy as you think
[12:44] Ciaran Laval: Jack with all due respect some sims are mixed now with parcels flagged as adult content, it simply will not be viable to flag all of those sims as adult. Something will have to give one way or another. PG sellers on other parcels will not want their customer based restricted in this fashion. This is a big problem looming.
[12:44] Elanthius Flagstaff: For a start when you start trying to move residents they just give up and leave instead
[12:44] Talarus Luan: It goes back to the heart of my questions.. What is the REAL motivation for doing this? What are the REAL issues trying to be solved?
[12:44] Equinox Pinion: agree ciaran...thats what i meant
[12:44] Fontte Newbold: I wish you the best of luck with this, Jack. But TBH, this is going to be a lost cause for you folks at the Lab.
[12:45] Fontte Newbold: Unless you have the ears of some media groups I don't know about.
[12:45] Elanthius Flagstaff: I suppose the plan is to wipe all adult content out of SL, it won't work completely but it'll be pretty thorough I think
[12:45] Talarus Luan: Yup
[12:45] Fontte Newbold: The best way to put it, is this is a digression into turning Second Life into There.
[12:45] Talarus Luan: Like I said earlier, it is a great plan for that.
[12:46] Fontte Newbold: There's a reason people prefer the former to the latter.
[12:46] Ciaran Laval: Well the estate issue will lead to backdoor censorship because the options open to estate owners simply aren't flexible enough.
[12:46] Moon Corrigible: See I dont think that they want to wipe out adult content completely because its too much of a loss of revenue - but I DO think that the fact that others think that is quite telling
[12:46] Fontte Newbold: Namely, the original assumption of freedom, as opposed to restricted content.
[12:46] Jack Linden: you guys seem to see this as moving Mature content, but it isn't. we're only talking about the very extreme end of content.
[12:47] Talarus Luan: Point is, it is apparent that not NEAR enough thought about the "plan" was put into it before it was implemented.
[12:47] Elanthius Flagstaff: I think everyone agrees strip clubs count as adult. Every single club has strippers. All of them.
[12:47] Fontte Newbold: If you could clearly lay out the definition of that extreme, we'd be all ears.
[12:47] Uni Ninetails: Give an example of what considered extreme
[12:47] Ciaran Laval: Jack to put it simply an estate with a strip club and a mall is going to lose custom one way or another
[12:47] Ciaran Laval: Now some of those estates are going to go under due to that because of the loss of revenue.
[12:47] Talarus Luan: Jack, you all can't even DEFINE "extreme". You keep asking for feedback on it.
[12:47] Uni Ninetails nods
[12:47] Jack Linden: ..Equinox.. just confirmed that it's a region flag
[12:48] Jack Linden: not per parcel
[12:48] Talarus Luan: By the time we are done, Mature WILL be considered "extreme" by someone.
[12:48] Fontte Newbold: !
[12:48] Moon Corrigible: Hoenstly if you COULD define 'extreme' it would put everyone's mind at rest I think
[12:48] Equinox Pinion: ok...but that is a problem jack
[12:48] Dennis Lagan: who is held responsible if a resident on a prviate estate places adult content, while the adult flag is not enabled, without the estate owner knowing? as far as i know lindenlab doesn't take care of disputes between residents, for you only ther estate owner exists, you don't care about people that rent form estate owners, so will you take the estate owner responsible?
[12:48] Jack Linden: I thought there was a definition in the blog post..
[12:48] Equinox Pinion: i mean i am not affected by it...but sooo many are
[12:48] Talarus Luan: Nope.
[12:48] Fontte Newbold: The definitions that have been layed out are all extremely vague.
[12:48] Ciaran Laval: Jack the definitons all got pulled
[12:48] Fontte Newbold: By design.
[12:48] Elanthius Flagstaff: The other problem is whatever definition we agree on now some overzealous G Teamn member will apply their own interpretation and it will be banishment without appeal. People can't afford that risk.
[12:48] Talarus Luan: If there is anything, it is totally nebulous and/or circular.
[12:48] Talarus Luan: Oh yeah, the KB article got yoinked
[12:49] Jack Linden: right. well i expect we'll see those tighten up. my understanding is that normal mature content isn't affected.
[12:49] Talarus Luan: ..for the moment
[12:49] Uni Ninetails: sighs
[12:49] Fontte Newbold: There's just one problem with that assumption.
[12:49] Ciaran Laval: Blondin said stripping is adult
[12:49] Fontte Newbold: It's a slippery slope.
[12:49] Ciaran Laval: Right there you have a problem
[12:49] Elanthius Flagstaff: That was very amusing. They posted a forum entry asking for people's opinions on the KB article. Everyone posted that it was utter nonsense. And it was pulled and some Lindens pretended it was posted by accident
[12:49] Kyrion Yalin: Jaack, when i came here, i was atracted by the slogan 'your world, your imagination', what i see now, more and mote is that it has become 'your world, our imagination' and that is not good,. this is my feelling about all this
[12:49] Talarus Luan: Thing is, WHY is it a problem for "extreme" content to be left alone as it is?
[12:49] Fontte Newbold: Once you get into the business of actively policing content except in extremely limited examples, it's hell or high water.
[12:49] Talarus Luan: WHY is it a problem in the first place?
[12:50] Ciaran Laval: Thoe original FAQ's were very very scary, they'd have made mature PG.
[12:50] Talarus Luan: The CS already deals with most of the issues identified by Blondin et al.
[12:50] Fontte Newbold: Tal: PR.
[12:50] Zo Oz: /ao on
[12:50] Dennis Lagan: jack, if you walk in the streets in a real city, you see adult content too. even living adult content if you go to the wrong places
[12:50] Talarus Luan: Well, then I wish someone at LL would just come out and SAY that it is an attempt to "clean up" SL's press image.
[12:50] Jack Linden: Kyrion, all we are doing is saying look, if you want to see the most extreme end of Mature, we'd like you to age verify and by the way that stuff is on this continent over here. For everything else.. no worries, you can be Mature on the rest of the grid
[12:50] Fontte Newbold: And handling minors with internet access, who quite frankly, tend to lie to get onto the main grid.
[12:51] Talarus Luan: Then I would know I should go ahead and logout for good.
[12:51] Uni Ninetails: still havent been given an example of whats termed as extreme....
[12:51] Ciaran Laval: Oh Jack that's not all you're doing at all. Just take a look at the concerns of your current paying customers
[12:51] Jack Linden: That way for those that want that experience, they can find it.. and live it. If you don't, then you can igore it
[12:51] Jack Linden: *ignore
[12:51] Fontte Newbold: The thing is, Jack.
[12:51] Talarus Luan: Why can't that happen now?
[12:51] Fontte Newbold: As previously stated, content is already self-organizing.
[12:51] Elanthius Flagstaff: The crazy part about it all is it's all just animations. Little tiny cartoons on a computer. It's literally impossible to even BE extreme at this level of detail
[12:51] Ciaran Laval: They need a PG continent to give them true choice at each end of the scale.
[12:51] Talarus Luan: ..and since when is the main grid not populated by adults?
[12:51] Mari Moonbeam: Wouldn't it be cheaper and less disruptive to close the money losing (so I've read) teen grid instead of all this. And give the existing teens a coupon for a free 6 month premium acct when they are old enough as a thoughtful parting gift? And leave the adults (PG and M) alone?
[12:52] Fontte Newbold: All you're trying to do, is impose artificial structure onto that, without defining the original reason for said structure.
[12:52] Talarus Luan: If kids are here, you need to make that not-your-problem
[12:52] Uni Ninetails laughs "true true
[12:52] Dennis Lagan: as i said jack, with a simple dialog before accessing the sim, people can also ignore it
[12:52] Jack Linden: Elanthius.. that's not true. Some of the content is real photography or video etc, it's far from being just cartoons
[12:52] Fontte Newbold: And if you want people to be able to choose content on their end, then step back well beyond this decision.
[12:52] Fontte Newbold: Because you're really questioning whether The Grid is a useable concept.
[12:52] Elanthius Flagstaff: OK, well is "extreme" just real photography? Because in that case we'll all breathe a sigh of relief and agree with your plans
[12:52] Ciaran Laval: Such content is covered by the existing community standards.
[12:52] Talarus Luan: It's not, though
[12:53] Equinox Pinion: but we still dont know what is "extreme" for you
[12:53] Talarus Luan: It's going to be sex poseballs in public.
[12:53] Fontte Newbold: I think you'd do far better if you were able to draft a client that lets people organize sims into their own personal grid.
[12:53] Elanthius Flagstaff: Or do naked avatars bumping into each other count?
[12:53] Uni Ninetails: we knw what kinds of contents what we do not know is what is considered extreme i mean i could make a tree shaped like a wang, is that adult? *gets a bit sarcy
[12:53] Talarus Luan: It's going to be dancers stripping
[12:53] Jack Linden: Elanthius.. I think that is what we'll get to define, but my understanding is that normal Mature content is unaffected, but the most extreme stuff, torture, dismemberment etc, will move
[12:53] Fontte Newbold: Oh yes. And I completely forget the chilling effect this will have on people producing for Second Life.
[12:53] Jack Linden: If I had that definition for you, i'd happily recite it.
[12:53] Ciaran Laval: Jack you need to chat with Blondin, he was suggesting stripping is adult content


Basically that's the middle part - before they were talking about land issues and afterwards customer service. I'll gladly give the whole thing to whomever wants it - its just a lot to read


OK after posting this originally I realized that it IS just too gosh darn long to read. Basically what it amounts to is that Jack seemed really surprised that as many people were upset about it as there were because he honestly truthfully seemed to think very few people would be effected.

I believe that's exactly what Meade was asking about since it seems to *totally* contradict what you've said.

So... Who do we believe?

edit:

TY for posting that, Moon. It still seems like Jack and Blondin have very, VERY different definitions of 'extreme' though... Again, who do we believe?

There were definitely some issues with First Land that would need to be addressed if it was going to be re-launched.

Isn't By Parcel what we have now?

Blondin,

In case you've missed it, I've tried to pull out some of the repeating questions into this thread:

/327/61/313891/1.html

Matthew

I'll go there now and check it out. See what I can do.

No - regions are mature or PG.. Parcels within a region can again be classified as 'mature' but I think that's just to differentiate PG stuff vs mature stuff on a mature region.

sorry for being snippy earlier about the tech stuff blondin, I just got frustrated when within a couple minutes of the forced upgrade I was having worse problems than I'd had in several months.

/me apologizes to everybody by bringing cookies and coffee and donuts and tea into the thread and laying them out for everybody to have

A possible Final Solution to the Mature Content question could be..........

When a new Citizen signs up, why not grant them access only to the PG (or even G) Sims/Regions unless they choose otherwise. This would be very simple to accomplish and easy for them to change if you would follow the simple example in the search functions

In all search functions there is a little box to be check "Include Mature Content".
Why not just have a similar box on the General Page of the preferences screen that an individual would have to check, and then confirm, to be given access to any Sims/Regions that are classified as Mature. Then it would be an active choice that would have to be verified before being applied to the preference settings.

Unless, of course, your true purpose is to institute some form of censorship or gradually do away with mature activities altogether. If this is the case you should be upfront about it and perhaps some enterprising people would set up a competeing cyberworld with less puritanic ideals.

I know several younger citizens who started out as SL Teens and they had no access to Mature areas until they reached their 18th birthdate. It should be quite simple to make those same setting apply automatically to all new citizens until they choose otherwise.

As far as the searches themselves, it would be a simple matter of having all sims, regions, groups, businesses etc that has mature content add an "MA" designator into the title and first line of any description. Setting the word filter protocol to look for this designator, and then exclude it from the search result of those persons that haven't opted in. It would be automatic just as with the younger Citizens.

It would be a reasonable solution to the problem, which could be accomplished with an update and a bit of co-operation by all concerned, if that is indeed your interest.

Are you selling unlucky chairs or using them? Are they in your club or in your house? Sounds like something that would classify as Adult but I'd be happy to drop by and take a look if you'd like to pass me a LM.

Yes, and if it were *enforced*, Search would work properly.

One of the reasons why many of us feel that LL doesn't need to take this drastic an action to solve their problems. There seems to be a tendency to forget that everyone in SL had to *say* that they were 18+ in order to get in. In a way, the entire *grid* is already "rated R", with internal rules that limit content in some areas to "pg" ratings.

We don't have to *babyproof* because there are no babies here. the sensibilities that we are trying to accommodate are *adult* sensibilities, not those of children.

The proposed course of action seems rather drastic, and hasty.

-V-

I have one for halloween, but I can log in and set it up again real quick if you need to see

edit: another 'fun' but gore thing I can set up quickly is the bloodslide I have. Both it and the unlucky chair I would classify as fun mature and not adult at all, but if unlucky chairs need looked at then the bloodslide may as well

Because Dreamland is owned by Anshe Chung - even the parts that are public.

The whole VPN mess we've experienced; teleporting naked into PG infohubs following a sim crash; finding our shoes and hair up our asses every time we TP... Those are "cutting-edge" mistakes.

These aren't cutting-edge mistakes we're talking about here. These are stupid blunders straight out of the "Never, ever do this" lists in Business 101! You know, the list that starts off with, "Never hang your entire subscriber base out to dry every time some political interest winks at you"? That's what this is all about!

Since we don't have an "Adult" setting by parcel at all, no.

The problem with the current parcel controls are:

1. They don't prevent access anywhere except down near the ground, and most people want to restrict access to their skyboxes.

2. Group access bypasses age-verified, so you can't restrict access to a group AND restrict access to age-verified.

3. Access controls don't prevent unverified users from seeing the content from off-parcel.

My "skybox zone" proposal SVC-2390 would solve #1.

Gigs Taggart's "privacy pocket" SVC-205 would solve #1 and #3.

I don't know the Jira entry for #2.

Thank you Matt - this is very helpful!

Blondin.. I just dropped you an IM if you going 'walkabout' tonight

For a second there I thought you were reliving 2007.. you mean they're back??

edited to add that it's late at night and I completely misunderstood this.. so just ignore this as the ramblings of someone who should have been in bed hours ago

who has the list of jiras??

Blondin if you look at those you'll see the answer to everyone's (and not just for mature but everyone who wants a bit of privacy) prayers.

It's a damn sight easier than anything else on the table

Yes, I know that.

What I don't know is why that matters. When Random User teleports to Random Store on a PG parcel and sees Something Nasty on the Adult parcel next to them, are they going to care if the estate is owned by Governor Linden or Anshe Chung?

Linden Labs is avoiding that problem on the mainland by making it a "continent-wide" restriction. The thing is, that leads to the most disruptive part of the scheme ... forcing people to move. If the adult restriction was allowed to be per-sim (or per-parcel), then far fewer people would need to be moved, and a good deal of the disruption would be avoided. Why isn't that an option?

I have a question for Blondin....
Wouldnt it be easier and more profitable to have a PG mainland and make the existing one Adult?

I would propose that the logic here is flawed. All land NOT owned by a Linden or by Linden Labs is owned by someone. By definition that makes it PRIVATELY owned land, regardless of what use the owner chooses to use it for. Therefor with the exception of Linden land there is no "public" space inside of Second Life.

Simply allowing someone to freely come and go from your land DOES NOT make it public land.