Upcoming Changes for Adult Content: Main Forum Thread

rofl

dunno, that's not quite my style, how about one of those annoying megaprims with a texture large enough to read on the map "adult content here"

not that megaprims are bad, use them a lot, make big builds a lot less primmy, but how many people randomly search the map for shopping rather than go to the search function lol

No worries; I'm still trying to digest the last one I had to eat. Fill you up pretty good, they do; but, damn, the indigestion!

People who go on the list should have some choice as to what terrain type they move to. Particularly waterfront parcels, anyone who currently has existing waterfront should get priority for those parcels on the new continent.

The same thing could apply to roadside parcels.

People going on the list could be allowed to select 'skybox only' as their preferred use in the new continent ... they could then, in theory, not be concerned about what their terrain looks like or if they're adjacent to roads or ground access.

I think it's already been said pretty explicitly that people who have to move will have priority over those who don't, so commercial and public emigrants will have priority over residential and non-AO ones (and speculators).

Would it be possible to offer each parcel being moved a choice of say 3, 5 or 10 random parcels of equivalent size and have them order them by preference? That could help ensure that people don't get a parcel they hate ...

Just throwing ideas out there

It appears that LL defines "lessened" dialog to mean 65 pages or almost 1000 responses, in just three days since they closed the other forums, 99.9% of which are overwhelmingly opposed to LL's ridiculous notions. I won't add to those responses because, having been through many of the posts, I have seen all my concerns echoed many, many times. Furthermore, while it may just be my depressed state, I can't shake the feeling that LL has already made up its mind, that all of this so-called community feedback is just for show...

The same could be said for gambling which imho was far bigger than the adult business or at least on par with it and when it was banned yes a lot got hurt some got burnt and other's sales dropped but in the grand scheme of things it all picked back up and the economy grew again and the people that are in SL now that joined after the gambling ban are none the wiser and continue to contribute to the economy.

The wheels of SL continue to turn and SL continues to grow. For some it will mean taking a loss perhaps short term and for some they will fold as there business model was not flexible enough, but i would be surprised if the economy didn't pick back up and i am sure as PIOF becomes the required standard for sign ups people coming into the game won't ever know generally that you never had to use any verification in the past and we will go back to pre freebie accounts days when everyone used details to sign up and for SL as a whole i believe that will be a good thing as time rolls on.

It took SL a long time to recover after that change, and some would argue it never quite did. However, at that point SL was still on the growth curve of the "hype and excitement" graph. Whilst I'm not going to jump on the "this is the death of SL" bandwagon, a similar hit to SL now, particularly during a recession will take longer to recover from.

Matthew

It depends what you mean by "garage" - a lot of University and educational projects use OpenSim because it offers more flexibility in what they can do (offering programmability way beyond LSL), and because it offers backup and evern version control facilities (there is even a module to allow you to use subversion to version control your prims on a region).

As regards scalability - OpenSim is working on various ways to allow anyone to connent their own hosted sim to a grid, and also interconnent grids. Each University could run they're own estate on their own hardware, and interlink them into an educational grid. Businesses could do the same. Home users could rent a dedicated server from their favourite ISP (for a fraction of the cost of a SL island), and run about 4 islands on it. We would be looking at a grid with servers distributed globally not just located in two facilities both in the US. That isn't to say that there are some serious technical difficulties yet to be resolved particularly as regards security and safety of assets, however, that model seems pretty scalable to me.

Matthew

I agree and this is why it is better imho to work towards minimizing the fallout after the changes have been made rather than fighting amongst ourselves as it is almost certain it will go ahead over the coming weeks/months as the press coverage will attract a lot of people to the game and as i always said LL is a company that needs to make money first and foremost, we the customers may have built it but corporations don't care generally about the little people, as they will always be looking at new ways to attract people to the game and they know they will lose some customers here i am sure and it is up to us as the customers to ensure that we survive, adapt or die as always.

Life is harsh its what we do with the situations that face us that count and this is not a democracy but a dictatorship and if we want to play in it then we have to abide by its rules not always our rules.

Mmmm, apart from the minor fact that as I have the source code, I would know exactly how the client packages and sends that key to the server at authentication time. I can therefore capture the network traffic and extract that key.

If LL ever did this, I'd give it less than an hour before that key became public knowledge!

Matthew

I agree totally Matthew i will be affected by this also and personally i don't think its a smart move by LL but then thats up to them what they do with SL, which is a shame as i think there should be more customer company steering groups etc. There is a lot of intelligent people in SL that LL never use to help shape the future of the game. I think they have looked at the potential impact on the game as a whole and decided the loses in the short term will be bearable because i don't think they want to ruin SL at all but the problem is none of us are privy to the short and long term plans of LL the company so we cannot help steer anything perhaps in the right direction.

I hate the thought that this upheaval will cause a lot of damage to a lot of people over time but eventually things will pick back up i am sure as they did after the gambling and we will move forward again.

This is interesting. LL are saying that "adult" activities in "public" places must move to the new continent. However, their definitions of "adult" and "public" seem to be based on intent.

e.g. a beach of naked people is only "adult" if there is the intent for people to have online sex there. If there is now sexual intent, then it is merely mature.

e.g. a demo of a sexual pose in a shop is not adult if it is there for the intent of people to try the pose, and not for the intent of have sex.

e.g. a sexbed is "adult" if it is in a location intended for public use, but not if it is in a location intended for private use.

Now determining intent is extremely subjective, yet LL want us to believe that they can consistently and fairly police this policy. Whilst LL's past record doesn't encourage trust (deleting free to play games, when the gambling policy clearly stated it did not cover free to play games; suspending someone for exposing a nipple on artwork in a PG area whilst promoting another museum on PG land which also had some nudity in the artworks;etc), the fact that in their own FAQ on the new adult policy they seem to think that someone dressed as a teddy bear or sonic the hedgehog is "mature" (hence not suitable on PG areas) really does not inspire confidence!

Matthew

Well, judging by the latest blog entry - LL seem pretty keen on SL as a meeting platform for business. I've made my arguments in other threads why I'm unconvinced that virtual worlds are the right technology for virtual business meetings (lack of real body language for instance). However, in writing the previous post about OpenSim, it occurs to me that OpenSim is better positioned for business meetings than SL at the moment (and no, I'm not going to make predictions that OpenSim will replace SL in x months ...).

Consider the advantages of OpenSim

i) you can run OpenSim behind your company firewall
ii) you can control who can logon to OpenSim
iii) you can control their usernames (configure them as real names for instance)
iv) you can run up an OpenSim on a spare server for no additional cost, and then uninstall it when you are done
v) if company X is also running OpenSim you can join your grids (permenantly or temporarily) via hypergrid
vi) you can make archives of your builds on the sim - if the MD prefers to meet in a garden whilst the CTO in a glass warehouse, you can store both builds in archives and switch the sim between those builds instantly
etc.


The major lacks in OpenSim at the moment are the lack of a permissions system (or rather the distributed nature of OpenSim makes permissions easy to override) and lack of a virtual currency - neither of which are of any significant important if you are interesting in virtual worlds merely as a meeting environment.

Anyway, my main concern is that LL's strategy seems to be an attempt to attract an audience which is going to take a lot of persuading to use SL and for which there *are* some very strong alternatives, at the expense of the recreational audience who need less attracting (indeed mainly need retention policies) and for which (at present) there are far fewer serious alternatives.

Matthew

Hi,

This is to the Yes posters who are collectively clapping LLabs on with this forced march of the "2-4%" they insist is nothing more than a few tacky "sex clubs and porn palaces" which won't affect them or their virtual bottom lines...

Think again because I am Adult Content and I spend A LOT each month in your clothing stores, your furniture palaces and your ivory pure PG portals in the support of MY Second Lifestyle as a Vampyre Domme.

Thanks to this ridiculous decision I will not be reopening my TASTEFUL Gothic home and gardens located on a 1/4 Mature mainland sim I OWN and for which I pay $195 in hard cold cash each month. I will NOT be holding my Monthly themed Blood Balls, hosting 1000L contests or running the Lament Trivia games. All my expensive and well made bondage equipment will be covered and locked away...flushing away 20K in the process.

Oh but that won't affect us you say...that's all those trashy Adult places.

Kiss goodbye the approximately 5000L per month I spend on seasonal landscaping and garden decorations. More if it's Halloween, Christmas or I simply feel like it.

Say farewell to the 3000K a month I spend on elaborate and deluxe costumes for the Blood Balls. I can buy 3 or 4 different costumes before deciding which to wear.

If 2 of the 3 clubs I frequent are forced to move or close then what do I need with new dresses, shoes, hair, jewelry? That's another filthy 2500L you can deduct from your pristine pockets....PER WEEK.

I own 4 chims chock full of sexy dances but I spend at least 3000L per VISIT to the top dance stores however why bother adding NEW dances if my only social choices will be a bot infested PG prudery or a lagged Adult ghetto?

As I don't dare USE any of the sex engine furniture I own for fear of some cretin camming into my PRIVATE 1/4 sim I clearly will not be entertaining and will no longer enjoy decorating my home, gardens or myself for a slave's admiration and appreciation.

I forsee a substantial drop in my monthly spending at YOUR establishments...

Hear that sound? That's 11,000L you just LOST because of this kneejerk, reactionary and ultimately futile effort to sweep the "smut" under the virtual rug so that LLabs can pretend that it's the 1950's and we're all just happy Ken and Barbie dolls.

Morganna Reggiane

Intrigued by the suggestion that the mainland is full of porn, I've just spent a couple of hours doing something that I've never done before. Aimlessly walking mainland highways having selected my start location randomly from a map. I saw little activity and even less for a person of the most fragile disposition to be offended about. The most extreme things I noticed were a billboard advertising escort services and a shop selling XXX videos. I'm rather left wondering why a general mainland clean up is necessary. I'm unable to see why offending locations can't simply be dealt with as estate management issues under the existing ToS.

I had to smile though as to what happened when I decided to go shopping at a garden centre. I tend to buy my garden stuff from Bliss Garden Centre and so to get there I typed Bliss in search places and head of the list that appeared was "Bukkake Bliss"!!! From the description of the activities which take place there, I don't think there's much doubt doubt that the owners will need to get their cases packed in readiness for the move. It seems to me that search could well do with being better regulated and I haven't actually heard anyone suggest otherwise. I think its deficiencies are responsible for the most part in giving the false impression that SL is full of porn.

And you won't be the only one. I personally know a couple people who spend upwards of 200$ US a month on the game, one in particular has a budget of 500$ US a month. You (LL) may not think that losing a few big time customers like that would hurt your bottom line, but when enough of them do and when your good publicity only draws in more freeloaders who have no intention of getting PIOF you'll start to notice.

You want to discriminate against us because we don't hide our sexuality? Pathetic really. Lets be blunt, we all look at porn, and we all know we do; anyone saying otherwise is a damn liar. But because we aren't ashamed of it and because we are public about it we are to be beat down with policy, red tape and misc blunt instruments (watch out, some enjoy a good paddle)?

That's really all this is. As I said previously it's someone butting their nose into my life, not liking what they see and instead of being a civil, respectful and proper human being and leaving me alone they try to change me, force me to their will.

Will SL live on? No. Something different will take it's place, a new SL. When all the good friends quit in disgust, when all the good groups and producers (builders/scripters) quit from bankruptcy. It will not be the SL many of us fell in love with, and it will not be a place where we'd want to stay.

This, porn ghetto, will be a conglomeration of the worst, nothing more.

Grow up LL, yes I said it, grow up. SL may be your little sandbox to build up cities and watch as the tide destroys them, but you're playing with real people and real money and while the bottom line may be your only interest, your obsession with it will be your downfall.

You increase tier, you screw over openspace owners, you're talking about limiting script capabilities (which will force users to dumb down products) and you're trying to destroy a large industry. (To name a few..) How many blows do you think you can deliver to this pillar of sand before it crumbles to the ground leaving nothing but forgotten ambition in it's wake? (/me thinks I got to poetic..)

Do not be so blind as to think that the newcomers you attract with your "prim and prissy" publicity stunt will not learn the truth. You can hide as many forum threads as you want, word will spread; the internet is not yours to control and bad news loves to spread. All it takes is one person, one post on some random game forum and instantly: boom: you have a bunch of others backing it up, wondering why, asking how, and lamenting over the good 'ol days when a person took responsibility for their actions and if they wandered into a porn sim they shut their eyes and wandered the hell back out.

And you can be damn sure that many people will start such threads out of sheer vindication for how much you're screwing them.

What to many people, and companies, fail to realize is that in today's world it's more then just what a persons worth that's important. You can't quantify that "xxx amount of customers brings us xxx$". Realize, and realize it fast, that screwing your customers and calculating them as "acceptable losses" is not a smart move, because you will lose far more potential customers from word of mouth.

QFT. I too have spent hours wandering, and have never come across anything I didn't want to. OK, I'm broadminded in the extreme, my interests are wide-ranging and I'm the adventurous type, but nevertheless I've still had to actively seek out some of the locations I was keen to explore.

For anyone of a sensitive disposition, there's the convenient mature on/off toggle in search, quite apart from the ability to TP out of a situation you don't like. Sadly, some people still want to control the actions of others who engage in activities they don't like, and a vociferous minority is typically capable of making its voice heard in a quite disproportionate way.

That said, I don't think that's what this is about, although that voice, and the way search operates, are useful support for LL's segregation claims. I suspect that the speculation aired earlier about creating an 'adult' haven that will attract some of the big players to SL is spot-on, and the move in $bottom line terms has little or nothing to do with protecting anyone.

I'm totally against the changes, but I think in LL's eyes it's a fait-accompli. In the forum version of the blog post, several telling paragraphs of the original have been conveniently omitted, and they are all couched in the future/future progressive tense - i.e. "we will" be doing this. In true LL fashion, at no stage are we asked for our view on WHETHER this should take place, we are told that it WILL; our input is sought only in relation to its implementation.

Also, if LL engages in the practice of making surrounding land 'adult' because of what the neighbours are doing, it will force verification on many who don't want it, simply so that they can stay in their homes.

I have no investment in business, 'adult' or otherwise, but I'm opposed to the segregation of the community and resent being taken for yet another LL ride. With my second rezz day and LL's birthday coming up, I don't see much to celebrate

Your pretty dumb LL if you think this is gonna help stop any type of adult sexual activity or keep peds away from kids when you allow them on the grid. Its even dumb to think that it will look safer in the public eye. Its a simple case of another botched think tank on how you should change things for public appeal or for money. Well I'll be one to say how easy its gonna be for kids to be exploited or perved on or even for them to participate.

1. They use someone elses identifications to register.

2. They just end up getting sexual devices from adults and then using them.

3. Your not going to be able to ever detect when an "adult" item is set on the ground, cause any creator will have a multitude of things in adult items your not gonna be able to classify as adult at this point in the game. Meaning your not gonna go through everyones adult items to somehow flag individual uuids on objects or on animations inside those items or other various forms of flagging that would need to take place in order to stop adult content from being dropped in undesignated areas. Your all not that smart.. Sorry to pop your bubble on that.

4. Pedophiles will just start coming in as teens once you open the flood gates and they'll prowl around through the teen areas. Its not a difficult concept to wrap your minds around i'd think. And I was a teen once and can say I was always seeking out sex and adult things its called hormones.

5. Your basically segregating communities which is to me a way of profiling people. Or it makes it look like they should do their adult things behind closed doors cause some people are too retarded to simply walk away if they don't like something. LOL. Well i hate to tell ya'll this but people DO partake in their adult fun behind closed doors and its called SL. Are you that prudish at Linden Labs that you need to make an isle of lesbos or an island for lepers and the like?

There is a ton of other things that are gonna be an issue with people and this. It will never be a cure to adult things. Nor should there be a cure to "adult" things. Let people make their own decision on what they want to be around. Don't be the dictators who claim what consenting adults can do when its within the boundaries of LAW. You all need to get a grip and get a grip fast. SL is gonna become one of the lamest games on the net. Mind you there are probably people getting rich at the lab but it doesn't change the fact your lame. In other words you've dumbed the game with the type of political, religious, moral, and ethical type of judgement, or over all BS that people come into a game like this to escape. Thanks for making our gaming experience that much closer to real life.

You've also talked that this is another way to provide an over all better experience and provide people with opportunities or some other bull. I'm paraphrasing cause its generally all the same. Its gonna benefit everyone in the community with a standard or something right? Well I'd just like to add one more thing about your new movements towards helping everyone as a whole experience the game fairly and equally....

I still can't sell my items on SLX because of decisions made by a few of your games general users who moderated the forums before you bought it out. So you lie. Your not providing the same opportunities to your customers who have paid for years. Some aren't able to use all the services you provided even tho their accounts have always been in good standing. Your not treating people equally and fairly, and your most definitely not looking after the best interest of the content creators who provide your customers who don't build with the items they use to enjoy your game. You seemed to all forget that we as creators provide all the content for your members to play in and now you slowly bend us over the railing once again and forget to kiss us behind the ear as you quietly whisper to us in your so seductive voice that your going to rape us once again.

Thanks LL for following your standard once again. Its a good thing that some things are consistent with you always.

*edit to add*

If anyone writing in this forum really thinks LL is gonna listen and do anything or cares remember all the other extended blog comment topics that went on for page after page to get some lame copied and pasted response about how they'll get back to us. They did that with every topic that has come to the forums from the blog..

When are they gonna tell us about their decisions on bannings with SLX again? hehe.. oh wait NEVER thats when. We've moved on to other topics now... LOL

Basically what they've told you is whats gonna happen. Not that you'll ever be able to do anything about it in your feeble gripes and disgusts on the decisions. lol. BUT>..... It does sure make some of you feel like your voice counts doesn't it? So keep shoping customers, keep buying land, and keep on loggin in. Good sheep ... goood good sheep.

I wish it were true, but each time i have visited a few of the grids that i have an account for, there doesn't seem to be many logins....never seen more than 20 on any grid.....admittedly that was back in Jan 09. If i saw 1000 or 2000 at any one time especially peak login times during a Sunday.....I might have more faith in those projects.....the growth seems to be occuring at snail pace imo.

I do agree with this statement.....sales have never quite been the same as pre-gambling days even with 4 times more logins......maybe 3 times if we deduct the Bots.

I've got a new idea and a better one than doing all this "creating and adult section of land segregated from the rest of SL" idea.

How about we take all the prudes.... (cause really thats what it is if you can't, as an adult, walk away from something you don't like.....) and make a barbie doll island. That way all the clean people who don't like sex online, or find it makes them uncomfortable, or whatever issues they have with it, can be alone.

I wonder why adult content gets put to a locked area and these people who witch hunt don't have their own locked area.

I would like to start a campaign to start a barbie doll continent LL. Please hear our cries.>> WE NEED A BARBIE DOLL CONTINENT NOW>!!!!

I've got another idea....

This one may be even better.. I think we should seperate classes of people based on how much they spend..

I mean.. I'm uncomfortable with people who don't spend x amount of Lindens in game. I think they should be on their own continent.

Wait wait wait... I think I've narrowed it down to the best idea yet..

We get verification on everyone.. Names, ages, location in the world, their race, and what they do for jobs. Then we just make their own regions.

We can have a black region, a white region, an asian region, arab region. etc.. you get the point...

Then in each one of those regions we can seperate the classes...... Then we can further seperate them into their own areas by their career i suppose.

We will have to decide who really is important and who isn't.

Heck maybe just get rid of certain races all together huh?

I don't know if its a good idea but seems it kinda might follow the same line of thinking... Mull it over a little and let me know.. Let us all know how you'll seperate people even more.

Which is probably why LL would like gambling back and hey maybe they will be able to setup a gambling continent where for example American residents won't be able to visit, if they run it via their Brighton office and invite licensed gambling professionals to run the sims they might be able to do that.

Maybe as well its the fact that a lot of people won't put PIOF or buy Lindens to use. Hopefully with people being made to put PIOF that may help stimulate the economy as well or maybe not lol we will all have to wait and see i think but it will be an interesting year to watch i am sure as this is not the end of LL surprises thats for sure as they tune their business model to fit with a falling and bad RL economy.

It will be the business that are prepared to adapt and change that will survive here in SL just as in RL and some hard choices will have to be made by lots of people thats for certain.

OK, I confess I am an adult. If you force me to move to the new Adult Grid, will my land look exactly like the one I am living at now? Or are you going to move me to a dump? Why not just rename the Mature areas as Adult and move all the PG people? Let's see, I might be wrong, but I think the most profitable business on SL is the !XCITE store and the place is always packed. You say that SL is about 5% adult content? I think a large percentage of us visit them. I think you will have a bunch of people running around and taking pictures of guys who forget to put their weenies back in their pants when they log on and then turn them in to the TOS people at Linden Labs. LOL I am serious. Oh and what about all the people who don't rezz all the way? Have your ever said to someone why are you naked? Oh sorry, I am slow to rezz, let me reboot because of all the SL LAG.

4Leaf