Upcoming Changes for Adult Content: Main Forum Thread

Has this been answered yet not worked my way through the thread yet.
This really is the decider on how much stuff is considered adult in nature, the lindens need to let people know one way or another asap.

I am a non-verified avatar. There are many reasons for it; I particularly don't care if I am ban-lined from parcels; it isn't why I am here. I have no problem with security orbs telling me "no go" either.

I was sent several copies of the "survey" recently, and in each case repeated the following when asked, "what would improve your SL experience?":


I have worked in RL business 18 years, in exclusive Los Angeles businesses. In the current state of this grid, no one in their right mind would use it as anything less than a loss leader. Alienating much of the user base; amazing grid and viewer instabilities, the prevalance of traffic-stat milking bots, the broken textures issue, the INCREDIBLE breach of the asset server back in January necessitating all the sudden "emergency maintenance," and lastly, please repeat after me:

BUSINESS DEMANDS STABILITY ABOVE ALL.


I cannot imagine that this, not "omgponiesanakkedguy!" was not at the TOP of the list of "what would you like to see in SL to improve things?" and by an OVERWHELMING percentage, based merely on the reading of the SL blog and the various forums attached to it for almost a year. It is the number one complaint of EVERY RESIDENT HERE. And if you thing Residents are sensitive, try a boardroom of executives.


So if LL thinks that this will in ANY way help them court Corporate, they are amazingly ignorant of business practices. If LL implemented every single suggestion mentioned in this thread: sequestered islands; verification; segregation; Mrs. Grundy Patrol and every other "corporate friendly" tactic and angle...

YOU WOULD STILL HAVE A TECHNICALLY UNACCEPTABLE PRODUCT FOR BUSINESS NEEDS. The fourth or fifth time (being quite optimistic) someone's avatar, giving a presentation, was lagged/bogged/logged and their carefully-crafted scale model of a new home/3d flowchart/molecular model was "missing from inventory" and then this proprietary business model was re-rezzed in some other location (happens frequently since january), they are GONE. Unacceptable performance, period.



So please... before you continue focusing on a pipe dream, consider fixing and stabilizing your platform before you ever think about such third- and fourth-tier problems. Your main problem with courting business is the instability of the platform, not the occasional pink flying wangosaurus.

Sex is a lot more interesting than violence to most users, the sex industry generates a great deal of money.

I haven't seen a great deal of things showing graphic violence in SL, I guess there is not the money to made from it.

LL can you confirm this as to what is adult or not.

Naked should not count as adult only mature in my opinion but what is LL's line on the matter, are bedrooms with sex beds considered to be adult or not or will they count as private residence due to their private nature ie. not public for all to visit at will when in use.

My later question is if I rent a room or house with a sex bed in out to other users, the location is not a public venue but it is still a business, although private in nature similar to a home.

Common sense needs to be used here, if such places are to be considered adult in nature then 2-4% is a gross underestimate of adult content in SL.

You might as well make all the mature sims adult and segregate the PG as many posters have asked, if examples as above are to be considered adult.

I am fully in favor of the new direction LL are taking but it has to be the extreme cases only who fall under the umbrella of adult classification, not just a little nudity in private clubs many of the dance clubs run nude events along with other competitions just for a bit of a laugh, sex is not their primary business, will they be affected by this proposal?

At the risk of repeating myself...

We've always been keen supporters of whatever the Lindens have decided to do, and (in our opinion) they have done a great job trying to figure out what is best for the overall enjoyment of residents and trying to best implementing these fairly.

Well, my partner and I are no prudes in this matter, however we do not like porn or seeing Adult activities in any shape or form. We have been to the public nude/naturist beaches and seen that most residents no longer wish to be nude, we've TP'd all over SL to many different sims and do not find offensive material thrust in our faces. Unless we actually search for sexual material, i.e. free sex sims or group activity, we'll not suddenly encounter it, further more, in their particular LM details/adverts you'll always have a clue of what is there and what to expect.
As for "Adult" activities mentioned, we honestly can state that we've never come across it!!
Been to Many meetings, I have never seen an avatar showing up trying to attend naked!

The real concern though is underaged residents....
Second day of my first experience of SL found myself taking to a young newbie female who admitted she was 13yo! One month later I was on Help Island 8 and met a 15 yo boy, six months later another "boy" said he would be 18 yo next month! I prefer to believe that these people genuinely made a mistake by either thinking it was Teen SL or by not reading the TOS.
How many more are there in SL? ...why mess about here? Lets use Credit/debit card verification for all NEW accounts? These "real 1st Life" names can be used and linked internally to avatar names by administration, thus having a far superior control over TOS abuses such as age and griefing.

Lindens..., don't listen to those who do not like this idea or who fear security issues and/or spread the the usual "law suit" scaremongering! These people possibly do not have credit/debit cards anyway (and possibly underaged anyway?). All we say to these people is, as online shopping is a huge multi-billion dollar industry with millions of people entrusting their cards with online companies spread all over the real world is..., WELCOME TO THE 21st CENTURY !!!!

I am sure lots of the users are already underaged on the grid.

But credit card verification is not going to stop kids getting on the adult grid many less responsible parents allow their children to use their card details, setting up pay accounts for them for anything requiring one, why would SL be any different?

There is no way to stop kids getting on the grid and accessing adult material any more than there is a way to stop them looking at porn on the internet, prevention is down to their guardians, it should not be LL's responsibility to go aany further than they already do.

Accept kids will always get in one way or another and make sure they have to deliberately make a decision before accessing the adult content just like porn sites do.
Warnings etc. they still will but thats kids for you.

Move public orgy rooms etc. to a new adult area as stated, leave tamer mature content alone.

Nakedness is not adult how many times do you see nakedness in real life situations, without seeking adult entertainment?

Think about it? I open the paper page 3 pretty girl with naked chest, walk on the beach naked chested ladies only in the summer of course, watch a movie scenes of love making.
Not all sex and nudity is certfied as R in real life so nor should it be in second life.

Do minors get warped by seeing a nipple or pubic mound? I don't think I did.

Only extreme content should be moved to the adult areas the 2-4% mentioned.

Exactly! "do I trust LL the company" would get an automatic NO but "do I trust most of their employees" would get a YES (unfortunately they are not the ones at the top)

Not in the United States you don't.

i just had a thought.... wouldn't having a clean mainland actually make the adult stuff more disirable?

i was thinking.. and i hope this makes sence.. like when you see a naked women every day or a naked man, after some time you may become desencitized to it, like to violence. So say you had to go into the pg world to shop for clothes, you have to be all covered up and obey the rules.. i dunno, like kids and smoking, if it's illegal it's cooler.. anyway! just a random thought

I think you are right it would probably be more profitable for the adult businesses in the long term.
It may even bring more people into second life when they know there is an adult orientated part to it.

But we should not be talking clean PG rated SL and adult SL, there must still be mature SL with the current mainstream mix between the two.

An adult area should have only explicit adult restricted services available, so anyone visiting can get easily to what service they want, not have to look around for it as they do now.

Done correctly this segregation could be a huge plus for all parties concerned.
Spawning a whole new community within SL, bringing much more realism to cyber sexual encounters

Done badly it could be devastating to SL and its adult certified community, impacting on many of its current users and affected businesses as the worries highlighted throughout this thread suggest.

Leave things as they are, then the tacky cr*p orgy rooms remain, encroaching on the experience of joe average mainstream user, who has nothing against adult fun but doesn't want to log in and see or here it every time visits SL.
Leading to the complaints that probably got us to this point now, worsening further.

that ferret offends me... so much so that i feel there should be an island to put him or her and all of his or her kind on it so that they can be forever unseen by the likes of me!

As i have stated previously i don't agree with everything that LL does and have spoken out against it and i am an adult content owner both here and RL and i am no prude lol and will definately be affected with this new ruling, but as always we will re-evaluate our business model here and adapt to the changes LL has introduced and make a new start with it. But i do think this re-classification of Adult is something that should have always been done from the start we should have had mature and an adult area as well as PG (tho PG is not a word i would have used) and also i am totally in favour of bringing back verification even if its just to visit Adult stuff, just a shame the move is happening now rather than have had an adult content area from the start in the same way PG should have been seperated. But SL has developed on the fly over the years and LL just hasn't forecast the future very well as SL grew.

OK so LL has said its not about merging the Teen Grid, well we shall see as time passes, but more and more teens are getting on the grid as its so easy with throwaway email accounts and at least with a verification system in place it will make it harder for them most of the time and in the bigger picture moving adult content is no bad thing as its another hoop for teens to jump through to access the stuff as they will have to verify and i hope that LL minimises the disruption as it happens. Yes they havent been forthcoming with answers but this is a big change and maybe they are reading and fine tuning what will happen next, i am sure they are. None of us know exactly why this is happening and maybe never will in the same way i do not know why my employer is closing its operations down here in Holland except for what they have told us, i am not a board member so why should i be privy to company choices, in the same way why should i be privy to LL decsions.

The worse thing LL ever did in my opinion was allow unverified accounts in the first place as it was obvious over time it would be abused and eventually harsh measures would have to be introduced to bring it back under control as is happening now, personally i would like to see everyone on the grid verified and we would perhaps have less griefing than happens now and maybe even less teenagers here etc.

Yes LL will lose customers over this and yes they will lose revenue short term but people are forgetting new folks will join and replace those that leave thats the way it happens and those people will verify when they join as i had to and then they will be able to access the adult stuff if they choose and they won't know about all the problems of the past and will enjoy their SL until something happens to affect them. LL has stated that PIOF will be good enough as verification

I see here in the forums people moaning over what money they will lose and i stand to lose money as well and over the years i have been here have put in a lot of cash but then i do not have all my eggs in one basket and if LL closed today it would be a pain but i acknowledge that when i accepted the TOS i agreed that LL was boss and that if i didnt like it then i could leave. People will and should look at re-modelling their businesses with the new rules in place and maybe generate more business for themselves.

If you really don't like what LL is doing and it really upsets you like i see in the forums here, then just leave and save yourself some stress and high blood pressure and lets stop assuming that LL is not listening and wait to see what happens next

Just my opinion

I think in theory, if the move goes well and all the people on mature sims are able to move "FOR FREE" and it isn't one of those "you have 10 days to sign up and the window is closed" kind of things, letting mature land owners move for say.. months after the rule is instated, then in the long run this could actually be a good move.

i may be totally kicked in the ass by half if not all of this forum for saying this, but i would like to see more corperations in SL, i would love to be able to rent movies there through netflix, or watch the stocks, stuff like that. i am one to go to sex places and hang out from time to time, so im not for SL going intirly to big bussness..

one more thing... if the teen grid merger happens, dont you think that will open up a whole new thing for linden to worry about "internet preditors" i can see it now.. linden on the spotlight after a little girl gets lured over SL

Simply because for me personally, I can not prove my age via the beta methods ( I tried ) . I used my National Insurance number. It was given to me when I was 15 by the Government, I've had it for 22 years. it therefore proves I'm 37 .. and yet I cant use it for the age verification. I don't drive. I'm insolvent so I don't & can not run a bank account. and I'm a UK resident (European). This has been explained already on the threads by a fair few post, not just my own and its very disheartening for you not to have picked up on the failings of the age verifying methods.

The Lindens seem hell bent on this course of action, right motives, being executed in the most asinine way.

I will state that under the current proposal my house rental and house building business's probably wont be immediately hit (Unless people can no longer have sex in their own houses etc - or be a marginalised group etc....... slippery slope, slippery slope).

LL rethink this 'Adult Continent' idea. Over 50 ideas have been expressed here which are much better than your proposal and are more effective - use them - stop this course of action!

Naturally I believe you are not really listening, and will continue with your plans with the eventual integration of the teen grid into sl - we are not stupid children, we are intelligent adults, many in rl positions higher than many of your employed lindens making these decisions.

Well I'm going to call you out Linden Labs, if you think this is such a small issue, affecting a small proportion of people, then lets see. I think we are bigger than you! Yes you hear me - we - the builders of your world will put our foot down. We are SL!

Come and find the 'ADULT' content - we will only accept reports and move orders from actual Lindens - you employ all the people you need to find the content, then give us 3 months to move. We will not voluntarily move to your concentration camp. You come and find the people/business you believe need to move.

And this is where you will fail and we will win.......

You will fail because you wont have the manpower to monitor and locate "ADULT" content successfully and in the required time frames.

You will fail because ADULT content is created quicker than you will be able to identify and contain it.

You will fail because people will refuse to move unless directed to as you seem to lack any form of compensation/incentives for business/sims to move.

So my advice to everyone is don't move, BOYCOTT this plan. Wait for the Lindens to determine you are in breach. Then move - assuming they have any movement plan in place.

After about 3 months and only maybe 70 shops/ sims relocating they will loose interest (Policing Power Resources) and this plan will fail. Then they may look at the better suggestions put forward and complete their aims successfully and hopefully SL wont have lost major parts of its economy by then.

So fellow SL'ers , what say you? I say strength in unity - BOYCOTT BOYCOTT BOYCOTT!

In the interests of all SL

Love

Photon

You could always use a prepaid cashplus credit card as that is accepted by LL as a verified payment method as i used one before in the UK and you DO NOT have to pass any credit checks etc to get one and can top it up at the Post Office and you DO NOT need a bank account and can have a bad credit history as well.

I suppose it depends how important getting verified is for people. But that is one way for UK people to do it HTH

The URL for it is: http://www.mycashplus.co.uk/

Moderators please leave this URL up as it will help those in the UK that want to verify themselves.

/me Agrees with Photon

LL spoke illogically: LL claims it is for more choice for all, and then proposes adult verification will achieve more choice for all. I don't get why.

The magnitude of the problem seems a guess, and with the uproar a phased approach may be wiser. Start first with Adult flagging and see how much content is flagged. Then add visual muting and banning of content if you CHOOSE to not see it, and see how much business is cut down. Maybe that's enough.

Finally, if it turns out underage or national law really are one of the real reasons for adult verification, they will now have enough information on the locations and size of Adult content to judge how big the impact will be for relocation, and decide on how to address that. Frankly I think visual muting and banning should satisfy that. And if the kiddies and puritans dislike living in a sea of muted gray, THEY can move to LindenLand.

There is indeed no way to STOP kids accessing the grid, I agree. However, age verification through these means can drastically reduce this abuse.
SL is an adult service designed for 18+. As such, SL is an adult service provider and is required to do whatever it takes to ensure the legality of those who apply for their services, and in fact all adult webs sites are duty bound to do so. i.e. Where there is the technology and means to implement the TOS for such an adult service, they are duty bound to proceed with whatever means are available to ensure that this is applied.

Nudity is not automatically an adult thing. But in most cases nudity is acceptable only under certain circumstances.
No problems with public orgy rooms either, why move them at all?? They are clearly maked as such, and those who do not like these places (myself included), will not tp to them!!! Unless you actually search for sexual material, i.e. free sex sims or group activity, you'll not suddenly encounter it, further more, in their particular LM details/adverts you'll always have a clue of what is there and what to expect !! so there is no point iat all in moving them.

So, do we have to go through all this upheaval just for this 2-4%?

I Agree With This Totally!! This Is Not A Good Thing For LL To Be Doing. We Spend Alot Of Time And Well Earned Linden Dollars & Rl Money In This Game. We Have The Right To Stand Up About The Rules And Changes LL Decides To Make. 1st- Bringing Teen SL Into An Adult SL Is The Most Stupid Thing I Have Ever Heard. Duhhh..this Is Why Its Teen & We Are Adult & It Was Separate To Begin With. 2nd-We As Adults Should Be Able To Have An Adult Environment Thats In Total Control Of Us. We Are The Adults!! I Hope Everyone Reads This And Post A Reply Or Posts Their Own Response To This Situation Bc If We Dont Fight For Our Right To Be Adults, We Will Have To Obide With LL Rules And Changes. Thats Right..We The Residents -ARE SL-. If It Wasnt For The Residents Of SL, There Wouldnt Be An SL. Only Servers Running For No Reason. Boycott Boycott Boycott!!

Tina

Could not have said it better, segregation is long overdue, do it but do it right, then set out a clear definition of what will count as adult content.
Make forced moves as painless as possible.

"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing"

Fight for your rights. Ask yourself a question: Would you allow to be treated like that in RL

It is time that SL residents strike back. This is our world. We created it. Nothing can stop revolution. Remember that without you this entire SL project would be impossible. We are the people - not the drones. We have our dignity. The time to act is now. Do not be afraid.

Thank you exactly as i see it

LOL this is not a democracy so therefore a revolution is a mute point. However if people are upset with LL then vote with your feet and leave this cursed place with all its mis management and maybe we will see you all back at some point later

Or instead of complaining start putting up constructive help as i am sure it is being listened to and read, however whether or not its acted on thats a matter for LL to decide, the same LL that owns this game/platform/whatever. Remember that yes we put content into the world and yes to a degree it is shaped by us but its not RL so the same rules do not apply