Upcoming Changes for Adult Content: Main Forum Thread

Exactly. This is going to be such bitch even for those of us with smaller businesses.

LL PLEASE be straight up and allow us to prepare so we can move forward.

Well said as i tend to be more direct in my approach, to much Military left in me where the wheat is always sorted from the chaff

Many of us said when they removed the need to verify and make freebie accounts that this would come back and bite LL in the arse and it looks like thats happening now eh?

Yes we are lucky to have SL as a platform for our members of our RL business and i agree many don't have the luxury of being VAT registered and able to write of SL expenses as advertising costs.

But i have also stated several times that i respect the views and opinions of others here during this discussion, i just get fed up with all the whining and whinging and the fact that so many don't even bother to read past posts before they post. But i am direct and will never beat about the bush

But i have to agree that yes some will fight on principle or belief, dam i spent 2 years in the Middle East where people were doing just that, but here LL has the final say in all matters and some just forget that it seems.

Peace

OMG !! explicit adult content..woman in love tryst with ferret to the island with you !!!!

Yes, i know....what's your point?
Backtrack to what i was replying to.

If you don't want to....consider where the majority of LL's income from.
in other words "don't bite the hand that feeds you"

https://blogs.secondlife.com/community/community/blog/2009/03/12/upcoming-changes-for-adult-content

-- What about objects/avatars/groups that some consider inherently related to specific sexual activities or preferences - e.g. furries, sexy clothing, etc. - will that be considered 'Adult content'?
We're still working on tight definitions (which we'd like your help with) on what is considered Adult, but in general sexy clothing, skins, and furries aren't inherently explicitly sexual, and stay in the Mature areas (i.e. won’t need to move to the Adult continent).



So..... you're saying furries *are* considered inherently sexual, even when modestly clothed and say or do nothing sexual in any way and must be confined to mature areas?

And how furry is furry? Are nekos considered furry if they only have ears and tails, what about nekos who have human body shapes, but skins with tiger or other big cat fur patterns over their bodies.

Hey Ciaran thanks for the reply time and time again we see these changes that LL introduce and people up in arms about it, granted this is the biggest one yet i feel, maybe i have been a bit harsh but why beat about the bush but as i have said thats just me

Also i have stated elsewhere that i am not happy with a forced move either as i know for sure we will be amongst the forced movers, but are thinking about a private estate again dam we just got rid of the last one lol but we all know that LL change the rules as they see fit and maybe if the people that really felt they are being put out left etc. then LL would rethink i don't know but shouting at LL and calling them idiots doesn't work either as many are doing.

Sorry about my directness in my posts

OK i will send you all an invite when we have been forcibly relocated

Hi all!

I am going to repeat ideas that have been said earlier in this thread... but they are good ones. They bear repeating, over and over, till someone from LL listens!

There really is a solution to all this that might satisfy everyone. People get *upset* when you change the rules on them (of course!) but I don't think you will find anyone here who really objects to someone saying "I don't want to be involved in ..... (insert favorite type of kinky stuff here)". So... the solution is to have a new continent with new rules. We don't need 'adult' land... we need the opposite. A new continent where people who *choose* to live there can voluntarily accept a more restrictive set of rules.

I understand that Linden Lab has a legitimate need to provide a less 'adult' environment for some people. I don't object to that. So, make an 'All PG' continent. Enforce a code of behavior there that will allow your business and educational clients to feel comfortable. Publicize the rules, so that the rest of us can dress and act appropriately when we are there. Who knows, maybe it will be wildly popular.... maybe thousands of people will flock to Second Life saying "Thank God! The perverts are gone and now *I* can play!" (I don't think so... but maybe I will be surprised.)

The key here is *voluntary*. You create a new continent with new rules and allow people to move to where they feel most comfortable. You aren't coercing anyone... you truly ARE giving them more choices. That is what you said you wanted to do, isn't it? By all means, beef up the content filtering that already exists, so that you can avoid getting search results from outside the new all-PG disneyland if you like. Wan people the first time they step out into 'Adult' SL, so you can point at the 'Enable Mature Content' flag when they whine about seeing a bare nipple.

This solution is already in place and working, you know. Look at SL Gor - it is a BIG collection of private estates where the rules for behavior are very different from SL at large. Many SL residents are totally offended by the way that people act there but it rarely causes problems because people are smart enough to realize that the social rules in Gor are different than the social rules in SL at large. Goreans stay at home and non-Goreans who don't want to deal with what they will see stay away. Many people happily live in both worlds, acting appropriately in each. We all make these sorts of decisions every day - rules at the office are different than rules at a night club. We know this - we get it. We can do it.

I don't see why LL would even resist this. Linden is *already* accepting the cost of creating a new continent and relocating people. Offer people offended by the existing mainland land on the new 'all PG' continent. Move all the arrival ports and info hubs to disneyland, so that the wider SL experience is 'opt in'. EVERYBODY wins!

So, how about it?

Again, if you back track....Phil's initial message, referred to his concern to how it will effect his Picks and therefore his "All search" rankings....nothing about Bots was mentioned.
You can maintain your Places ranking from one day to another.....doesn't matter where you log your bots i.e location A or locaton B

Linden Labs dont care what you think.
This is about money, and nothing else.
The residents built SL and now LL is pulling the rug from under your feet.
Enjoy it while it lasts.

Unless the furry has a shaft or nipples visible, they are no more sexual than someone who is Ruthed.

Think of the furry avatar that is worn as prim clothing, which is true for parts like the tail and head and such. That prim skirt you have isn't sexual, is it? Then why is a tail? If the furry isn't sporting a woody, then chill - they are dressed in their Furry Avatar. And even if you personally don't think of it as clothing, it is.

1 more user totally agrees lol

It's spelled "Lusk", not "Lust", and it's G rated.

I think you place too much faith in this suggested "private home" exception, Neptune. The justification for such an exception bears no close scrutiny.

Sex furniture is inanimate and by and large inoffensive until an avie jumps on it to use it. It is the act of use that offends and little else. No reasonable person could objectively suggest that the balls that appear when you choose the "Hardcore XXX" option on your sex bed do not result in the playing out of an explicit sexual act. I think a group of 70 year old ladies camming around whilst sitting in a coffee shop chatting and catching sight of you and your sl partner exchanging pixels on your home sex bed on one side of that shop and catching sight of naked women pole dancing in an empty sex club on the other side would be astonished to discover that your behaviour was acceptable whereas that of the pole dancers was not.

As for the 2-4% figure that has been quoted by LL. That I suspect is proportion which the prims directly related to sex bear to prims as whole. Sure remove them and you can stay put because without them there will in most cases be no sexual act.

Absolutely no need to apologise for that

rofl after that ferret tryst joke post I was wondering the same thing.

at what point (since I think they're moved definitions here as well) does a neko and human cuddling turn from pg to mature to adult.

for instance, what I would consider pg not even bothering with mature... 2 people cuddling fully clothed on a bench

now make one of them a neko, leave the other human

now make the neko a furry

at what point is somebody gonna get offended and start screaming bestiality and adult content for something as innocent as a cuddle. is cuddling safe but kissing not? or would "interspecies" for lack of a better word here relationships even mingling in what in a human-human relationship be considered tame be suddenly taboo because of the tail and fur?

At the same point all the demons and vampires do. Shall we all start singing the Necrophilia Shuffle in the key of D?

Lindal is correct....this has much wider implications then just the Adult sector of the economy, as i was trying to explain to various vendors in-world yesterday.It will impact all parts of the economy....from the residents who earn their spending money in-world from the Adult sector with NPIOF, to those Estates that rent out lands to Adult sector businessses or PG stores, depending who the minority are on any given Estate SIM.

In 2007 i was niave to think that the Gambling ban would not effect my business sales apart from losing a couple of spots at Casino linked Malls. I was quite wrong......as my historical Sales data shows my overall sales dropped by around 25% in the immediate months after the Gambling ban. I was bemused and couldn't figure out why at that time......it was of course the money supply related to that industry which had been taken out of the game!

When Benetton makes an ad campaign about it.

Merging the teen grids and the adult grid is an amazingly bad idea.

I'd stress the turmoil an inconvenience to the residents - except that I'm not convinced that LL cares about that . And I think a lot of other people have commented on it already.

If LL would look at their bottom line, I think they'd find that the adult content is one of the largest markets in secondlife. (I'm afraid I don't have access to any published figures - I'd be interested if any exist. One will have the usual problems in defining what "adult" content actually is to come up with such a figure).

Probably, LL has some intention of trying to expand their business by promoting non-adult content. If they were smart, though, they'd do this without interfering with their currently successful business model, rather than engaging in wishful thinking by throwing a serious monkey wrench into their existing businesses in the *hope* that they will expand its availability to other markets.

In addition, by acting as censors, they are going to open themselves up to more liability. As "common carriers", they don't have to be responsible for how well they manage to censor users. When they start to get into the censorship business, which they seem eager to do, they will be liable for failing to uphold the expectations of people that the censorship they offer will work as claimed. Since opinions vary so wildly as to what is acceptable and what isn't, this is going to be a tough job - an when they fail, which they will probably do (no censor in history has managed to satisfy everyone), they'll be open to lawsuits.

If they insist on opening this can of worms,I suggest that they re-market the "teen grid" as their "censored grid", or whatever they want to call it, in an attempt to appeal to those people who think that censorship is a good idea. And leave the current set up alone. They could also consider adding some adult verification to new users (grandfathering in existing ones) - if they can get the privacy issues worked out.

*If* their plans to promote non-adult content via censorship works out, the natural success of the free market will make the censored grid grow larger, and the non-censored one shrink, over time. I don't think this will happen, personally, but the market forces will make one or the other more successful.

One of the most interesting things about this whole affair is that it appears that sims like "The Dark Den", which by its own description, offers "Kidnap, auction and slavery RP", probably won't be categorized as "adult".

See for instance http://nwn.blogs.com/nwn/2009/03/ten-top-adult-roleplaying-in-second-life-.html

Given that the Republicans in the US are out of office, LL should take another 4 years at least to rethink their move.

It's crazy to believe LL are dependent on the adult sex business to remain a profitable business.

If most of the adult content providers get up and walk away from SL, do you really think new ones will not happily jump into the new adult areas?

I understand its not good for your business, or any of those businesses being asked to move or change textures to be less explicit ect.

LL will do what they want to, it doesn't make it fair but thats life, or even 2nd life.

The short term will mean upheaval, acompanied by loss in profits but in the long term things will even out.

Actually I was trying to be funny. Forgot to include the smiley icon.

I understood his point. "All Search" is the better system, but forced relocation is going to break picks which is going to significanlty impact all the work that many business owners have put in to create their rankings there. I was trying to point out in a humorous manner that "Places" search was actually the one that would survive this forced move better, since it relies on traffic, and therefore bots, to maintain rank.

Sorry, didn't mean to turn this into a bot discussion.

Neptune, again I must take issue. The effect of the proposals is to reduce significantly those residents able to access adult businesses. It is basic economics that the income generated by those businesses as a whole will fall dramatically. For example, the tips received by pole dancers and hosts and escorts will fall and their spending power within SL as a whole will fall. They won't be able to afford to buy all the latest dance animations, or the latest line of clothes or the latest AOs. Nothing will step in to take the place of that. This is huge for commerce as a whole in SL.

I can see a number of issues similar to the one you raise, Argent but none are insurmountable.

Given the assumption that individual sims would be rated PG, Mature, Adult and the "max level" viewable will be set dynamically by viewer preference here's a few thoughts:

Option 1: Sims flagged higher than your current view level simply appear offline to you. You cant cam in or enter them. Those sims show on the map but are redflagged with no info about their contents visible. Downside: You get the "ugly boundary" issue and the appearance of great 256x256 gaping holes in both mainland and estates. Advantage is that the restriction is implemented server-side and there does exist the option for LL to securely restrict a nonverified account from access to sims rated above "Mature" (whether I agree with them doing that or not, to LL that is an advantage)

Option 2: Restriction is applied viewer-side, viewer will not permit entry into sims flagged higher than your current view level and will only render terrain, sky and water in those sims, all other contents ignored. Downside: Too easy to hack or use a 3rd party viewer to circumvent the restrictions. Advantage: the boundaries dont appear ugly, no gaping holes on the map or landscape.

Seems to me the easiest way to get the advantage of both options is to implement option 2 but incorporate some kind of challenge/response solution into both viewer and server something like this:

User logs in, server checks the --channel parameter of the viewer and performs a challenge/response authentication against a key that is unique to that particular build (set in an environment variable or a DEFINE at build-time so not compromised by opensourcing the code) and when the viewer is authenticated as being an official one with the category restrictions built in, sends back a maximum view level permitted for this session.

If the viewer does not authenticate itself as a build that implements the content restrictions then the login process is interrupted by a big red dialog box warning that this viewer is not guaranteed to conform to the content restriction rules and by clicking "continue" the user is proceeding at their own risk of being exposed to objectionable content.

Login to second life will not complete unless the viewer successfully authenticates as an official build or the user accepts the risk.

That way you get a non-ugly way of concealing content that the user may not want to see and those of us that dont give a rip can be exposed to whatever we want. We not only get our "predictable" experience on demand, we also get the choice over whether we want it or not.

That covers LLs collective behind because anyone who sees "Adult" stuff had to choose to do so, either by telling the official viewer not to restrict content or by choosing to use a viewer that doesnt honor the restrictions.

Edited to add, it also eliminates the need to geographically separate anything since nasty stuff next to you higher than your view level will simply appear as empty inaccessible ground - "virtual geographical separation", if you like. It exists but in a parallel universe you cannot experience.