Upcoming Changes for Adult Content: Main Forum Thread

Do you know what really scares me? I know exactly how people will avoid this new policy. If adult activities can take place in mature zone in private then some adult businesses will be hidden in private. For example you will need to join the group in order to access specific parcel. if you can have a private room with sex gen beds for your friends then it doesnt matter if you have 20 friends or if you have a group of 3000 people. The size of the room does not matter either (and you cant expect LL to decide about size of your adult room), so you can technically make your parcel private, create landing point in public part of your parcel, then ask people to join the group. People will access your private parcel as your friends and it will no longer be the public place, the law will not apply so you can have all kind of adult activities. This is why it scares me, because a lot of us will flag our places as adult or move to adult continent but others will remain on mature land and claim their places as private, work undercover. Nobody, absolutely nobody can guarantee that this will not happen. Only the most successful businesses will flag or move to adult continent because they will be afraid of loosing their property, so who will stay? only people who have nothing to risk. So that's why this new policy is so dangerous because it will destroy the most successful businesses.

Well we will see if that happens here then and what company was that anyway as its always interesting to look at these things as there are often so many differences and the Law is so fickle in so many ways, can you give me the name of the company you quote so i can take a look myself?

Thanks

I'll hazard a guess that LL make these decisions and believe they'll get widespread support. They then get confused when they don't and it has to boil down to the issue of LL not actually having enough employees who live the residenct experience.

They tried to sell this as offering more choice, it quite clearly doesn't. The first draft FAQ's, which they withdrew, were extremely harsh. Now let's face facts here, they discussed it, they drafted it, they published them, they linked them from the blog. That was what they wanted.

The large numbers of users told them they were way off the mark. They deleted their own documents and went back to the drawing board.

They don't know what they're doing on this issue. Now if they had enough employees who lived the resident experience then this wouldn't really matter as all the issues would have been raised internally, but something is amiss as LL simply don't understand how their platform is being used.

Darkness Anubis summed it up in this thread here post #49:

/327/d5/312818/1.html



This sums up for me what will happen until the next sky is falling announcement from LL as SL will always continue to change and evolve, it is just the players that will change as time passes.

Depending on the real reason for this policy, "adult speakeasies" may be OK, or they may not. If they're trying to keep people from accidentally being shocked because they parachuted into a sex farm, then someone having a sex skybox at 3000 meters isn't going to be a problem.

If this is to protect the kiddies, then... yes, that will be a problem. And people who currently just have unusual homes are likely to get stuck in the middle.

That's why I want them to define what they consider "private homes" a bit better.

There isn't a single sex industry location listed in the Second Life Showcase, which is prominently linked on the Second Life homepage.

However important the sex industry thinks it is to Second Life, clearly Linden Labs doesn't agree. The sex industry is not being promoted here.

How much LL pay you for this propaganda? Adult content is NOT illegal like gambling, so it has nothing to do with evolution. Evolve as much as you want, but I'm not paying for it!

Hi Anabella, aka (Anabella Spark)
i was just thinking your run a very nice buisness with lots and lots of vendors, Now I think LL is planning to help you move but what about all your vendors, and what about the ones that arnt age verified?, now Im sorry for picking you out but you caught my eye, now there are dosens upon dosens of buisnesses like yours if not hundreds or even thousands, Malls and the like, how is this move not going to hurt, the vendors, with or with out age verification, you and other mall owners having to give refund to nonverified vendors, the amount of time it takes for the move, will ou be stopping the clock on their rent till their moved in? takin more money from your pocket.
These are the little things i dont think LL has thought about in the least and they are in my opinion the things that will have the biggest impact on the users

LOL

Would love too, been trying to find the damn name since i recalled it. I am sure it will come to me soon, will im you.

For sure, it's a done deal. As I posted in a thread on the main forum:

"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."

Take a good look at the language - at no stage do they ask WHETHER we think it's a good idea, only HOW we think it should be implemented. Asking for input is, as you so rightly say, merely a smokescreen.

I would of loved a look at that published FAQ that got pulled. If anyone can send me a copy IW via notepad. I would really appreciate it I would still like to hear LL explanation of the 2-4% and what exactly makes those ppl so unique as to have their own continent?

Well gosh then the answer is easy "If you own a questionable business you must now move your existing business up over 3000m kthanxbye LL"

Of course this can be done, and dead easy too........especially on a private sim where you're the Estate Owner....if you have other residents that live on your SIM you make it Mature. It won't stop you from having a "Members Only" Group invite sex club in the dungeons of your castle free to use...for the group at any time. With 30000 sims on the grid, the chances of ever being detected bya Linden are minimal...and your residents could keep stumm too.........without other residents on the sim, its even easier. So its quite possible a lot of the "Members Only" group are unverified........and of course this will happened, that's what happens when you to drive something underground.....read prostitution & drugs in RL.
Then there is another twist...blackmail by a Group member....so the whole thing gets real messy on SL.

On top of that, you develop a "Black market" economy of Adult products that are transferrable to the "Un-verifieds"

The above is a given.....don't even worry about it!

Hey all those RP Mafia groups might come into there own here!

This new policy does not affect estate owners. This is only about the mainland.

Not true at all.

Hewwo evewybody! *waves*

My fiwst post here, so let me intwoduce myself. I am a *counts her fingers* five year old child avi in SL.

The only reason I mention this is because just a few minutes ago, while I was twying on a bunch of new dwesses I got, the sim i was on cwashed. When I logged back on, I was diverted to a welcome area full of newbies - completely nakie!

This is completely unacceptable, Linden Labs! You need to fix this fundamental problem before you even THINK of going foward with this social-engineering experiment of yours!

*steps down off her soapbox and tries to gather what dignity she has left before transporting back home*

Actually the damage is far worst on Estates than Mainland, with what has been outlined to date. Estates are 80% of the grid....a lot of SIMs have mixed rating parcels. They want to do the Rating at Estate Level (e.g an Estate with 30 sims)....not even at SIM level!

So in other words it is just another rip off by LL, not only to adult businesses but also to people who rent commercial and residential land. Even if they allow to split one sim into mature and adult it still wont work because you can move the camera and see what is going on on another half. This whole new policy is a total nonsense. The only reasonable solution is to create pop up window warning people about adult content. It's fair and it doesnt harm anyone.

My guess is that they're phasing out Adult content altogether. It won't happen overnight, of course. When it does happen, I either find another sideline, or go underground with my SL business and jack my prices up. Guess which one takes less effort and makes moar money.

Consider the Caledon Estate which i think has about 50 sims and most of them linked up......if 1 SIM were completely Adult content (tbh i doubt that would happen on Caledon!)....Desmond would have either change that sim to Mature, which might mean his residents there might have to leave....or opt to make his entire Estate Adult. Of course we know which is the easier option.

It gets a bit trickier when you only own 1 sim and 50% of your land has Mature rated residents and the other 50% are Adult rated.....what do you do? Who goes...who pays the price?

Also consider the Fantasyland Estate with nearly 800 sims under that umbrella...how many of those are Adult Rated?.......or Dreamland Estate another 500 or 600 sims.......or the Azures with a few hundred sims....that's about 5% of the entire grid right there between 3 estates. What it means is that will have to create sub-Estate (renamed) and group the Adult rated sims together or ask individual Adult plot owners to relocate to that newly created estate.
Not sure how much that will cost....but LL ought to do all of that for free!

(I'm sure this has been said - but I feel it's worth repeating)

Well, in light of the upcoming changes (which I disagree with), as a test, today, I visited (in PG newbie ALT form) a number of PG infohubs in SL. Pretty randomly, but I went for the higher traffic ones. I haven't been to any, and hardly to PG land, since I started SL, over a year ago, and I was quite surprised (shocked, although NOT offended, I might add) at the level of what, IMHO, *I'd* call immature, off-putting behavior by a small number of the Residents present - many of whom appeared to be regulars hanging out at the PG infohubs, or newbie ALTs obviously created for the purpose of being a pain in the ass.

Here's a snapshot of the details I gathered - I spent at least 20 minutes or so at each, until I couldn't take the lag or the boredom anymore.


Nova Albion Infohub - Miramare (PG)
'Official Hub Landing Point -- a good place to start when you're new to the city. Find Linden info, help and pointers here.'
Owner: Governor Linden
0 bans
Within 10 minutes/public display of: Freenis-poking, shouting, cursing, gesturbating, full nudity, object spamming, sexual group tags/titlers, clique-chattering, newbie-hunting, homophobia, racism, sexism, sexual harassment.

Violet Welcome Area and Infohub (PG)
'A spot to start your second life, find info, and meet other residents.'
Owner: Infohub Builders (Jesse Linden)
7 bans
Within 10 minutes/public display of: Shouting, cursing, gesturbating, clique-chattering, sexual group tags/titlers, newbie-hunting, homophobia, racism, sexual harassment.

Memory Bazaar @ Ross Infohub - BY JESSICA ORNITZ & PROKOFY NEVA (PG)
'Meet new friends at the ancient bazaar, learn how to explore SL, a self-paced, interactive tutorial with visual cues and clues.'
Owner: Governor Linden
Group: Pharos Properties
0 bans
Within 10 minutes/public display of: Shouting, cursing, full nudity, sexual group tags/titlers.

Ahern Welcome Area (PG)
'Whether you're starting or are well-lived into your Second Life, hang out here with other Residents.'
Owner: Governor Linden
0 bans
Within 10 minutes/public display of: Racism, cursing, shouting, voice griefing*, gesturbating, homophobia, full nudity.

Calleta's Hobo Railroad Infohub - BY ORHALLA ZANDER (PG)
'It be dah home fer deh homeless tah enjoy sl, fishin n sleepin in dar boxes. Com'er down n relax.'
Owner: Governor Linden
Group: Hobo Reservation
1 ban
Really rather relaxing and friendly - quiet, around 20 avatars within 20 minutes - but nothing I found irritating or unpleasant. A relief.

Murray Infohub (PG)
'Temporary Welcome Area'
(very temporary, certainly no information that I saw)
Owner: Governor Linden
0 bans
Within 10 minutes/public display of: Cursing, gesturbating, weapon-griefing*, homophobia, full nudity, sexual group tags/titlers, newbie-hunting.

(* Hardly real griefing, but bad enough to make me want to turn off my speakers or just leave because it was annoying)


I wouldn't recommend any of them to a new Resident looking for a PG infohub, apart from Calleta's Hobo Railroad Infohub.

Nothing actually offended me at any of the locations - I couldn't care less - I know how to teleport and mute. But even though there were no visible signs of content that I would deem 'adult' in the context of this discussion (no porn, no sexually orientated poseballs, no 400m high penises, no role played sex emoting, no blood and guts), it does make me think that LL itself ought to take a good hard look at the management of its own infohub areas to begin with, before trying to pass any possible 'blame' onto Resident-owned/managed public areas in Mature zones - if one of the problems identified is the initial experience of SL for new Residents.

There were certainly a lot more freshly created Residents dropping in, without a clue, looking for help (and still in their first hour inworld, I would guess), at these PG infohubs, than I've ever seen in all the Mature locations I've worked in. I can only guess what their impression of SL is/was. In the places I frequent in Mature land, they've usually learnt a thing or two first (sure, you get the odd newbie looking for sex, but I've never met anyone who truly 'stumbled' across the places where I work or manage), or have consciously decided to seek out such content.

Luckily when I started SL, I teleported pretty quickly into Mature land (Bukkake Bliss, I believe - yum) and made friends within the populace of the 'adult entertainment' social network, who I found/find a lot more mature, welcoming, helpful and inclusive than those at any of the PG infohubs that I visited today.

I found being there more irritating than anything (especially as a more seasoned Resident and maybe because I'm middle-aged in RL). The (IMHO) incessant childish 'lol'-ing and 'muah-haha' laughing with no conversation, the picking on people's avatar choice, and the inanity of it all, was mind numbing and, to be blunt, boring. If I were to guess, from just listening to the reams of empty-headed chat, I'd say a lot of the Residents there were either minors or 'under the influence' of something RL. But of course, there's no way to tell - they could have easily been just stupid, immature adults. In which case, fair enough - thankfully, no-one makes me go to PG infohubs... but give me a mature, extreme, sexual, adult roleplay SIM any day, though.

I'm pretty sure a lot of folk on this forum would agree that what I experienced today, is common in PG infohubs - and maybe more so in Mature ones. But I didn't expect it (to such a degree) in PG (and especially Linden infohubs), that is my point. *THIS* is what would put me off staying in SL more than seeing so-called 'adult' content in Mature land, IF I was concerned with content in an adult virtual world (in actual fact, as a RL business owner, it would be the client/server unreliability that would/does discourage me, not content or predictability of content/visual experience).

I suppose I ought to throw in a question also - ok...

Linden Lab, how are you planning to better manage the (Resident-driven) offence that new Residents may be experiencing at your own PG infohubs. And how do your changes to adult content in Mature land make any difference to what appears to be a major problem in 'adult-content-free' PG land (especially infohubs)? In my opinion, you should be looking at making the PG experience more 'predictable'.

(Also, tackle the issue of Mature land/places coming up in a PG search - I had 'Include parcels with mature content' UNTICKED, but I got loads of results from searching (what I considered a 'PG' search) for 'infohub' that were on Mature land. This task alone, to clean up the search problem, will take a long time and lots of resources, but IMHO will solve a great deal of the problems that Residents, who don't want to see adult content, experience).

(P.S. I saw one SL Mentor at one of the PG infohubs - I didn't envy their task - I imagine they don't have eject and ban powers? Correct me if I'm wrong, though. On the whole, I've found security and staffing at Resident-owned public locations (i.e. sex clubs) in Mature, much better managed).

watch a Tom & Jerry Cartoon, you people at Linden Lab. It is traumatizing! Burning fur, the protagonists are cutted in pieces, knocked out teeth, exploding heads, flattened bodies and much more...

And this is G-rated in your country, right? Roadrunner, Speedy Gonzales, etc. -all G-rated.

In opposite to that, we are all sweet, harmless lambkins in here! Yes, we all are pure holy ascetics in opposite to that.

And we are, as avatars, unable to reach the sexiness of old Tex Average Cartoons. (Remember the scene: a blonde curvy bar-singer dressed to kill in red, watched by the drooling wolf?)

Can't you see now, how ridiculous your ideas about "adult"-stuff are?!

I am from Europe. I checked out what sorts of stuff is running in your nationwide TV-channels for children all day long: brutality and violence of all sorts, Manga and Hentai sort of cartoons, violent science-fiction of all sorts and...and...and...

And I don't want to know, how big the arsenal of plastic-guns and other serious looking weapons is in hands of your own kids...

Not to mention the explosions-cult wich is spreaded all over the world via Hollywood and TV-serials.

You people there growing up with nothing than explosions and bullets. Every 2 minutes in every film.

Boom! Bang! Fire! One dead body after the other.

And blood. Oceans of blood.

If I look a french film, I see dialoges, but if I look oldfashioned serials like"Streets of San Francisco", with Karl Malden and Michael Douglas: crash, bang, boom, burning wheels and all that.

And then: Disneyland?

Disneyland is philosophical seen funny, because: it seems it was created for one reason: to assure a nation itself about the halluzination that this nation would be not Disneyland, while it is the real Disneyland!, with a violent face behind the mask. This mask, overdriven builded, is then the amusement-park Disneyland.

But don't force the rest of the matured world to wear that ridiculous mask too.

Thanks.

In response to Linden's poor handling of this issue, I've sent notecards to several relevant and pertinent Lindens, summarizing each issue, each suggestion and each personal consequence of this issue. Why, you ask? It's not like I own any adult content, or even use it. My sim isn't even really worthy of its Mature rating beyond my own occasionally foul tongue or my desire to allow other visitors to do as they please.

The real reason is that I am an educational services provider, and a corporate build-service provider; For these reasons, Linden's focus on an Adult content boogeyman for what is clearly a public media PR building exercise, disturbs me. A decent company worth investing in the platform of, does not do these things; They fix their inherent and deep running issues. They bang on the works until the works actually function. SL is inherently dysfunctional now, with griefing rampant, broken build tools, exceptionally abysmal reliability, and absolutely no support. To put Second Life's support into comparison side by side with real hosting, $295 per month on a simulator gets me no information, continual policy changes for fluff purposes, and unmitigated griefing. $295 a month at my webhost gets me physical access to my machine, free coffee in the lobby, a leather couch to sit on while I wait to speak with the site manager, and problem-response times measured typically in minutes or hours at any hour of the day.

Please refocus your efforts where they're needed, Linden. I have now directed two projects seeking a metaverse outside of Second Life, and will continue to build projects outside of Second Life for as long as you have your focus backwards. As a servant of the businesses and educators you claim asked for these changes, I can clearly tell you that these claims are bogus: They asked you for stability, not a PR-spinning moral crusade.

Hi all.

I have tried to stay out of the whole debate, but I think one solution that is being over looked, is why doesn't the lab hire a group of Estate owners who have been on SL for 2+ years, and run adult communities to make the policy changes?

We, as the estate owners, deal and organize our sims alon the themes we want to, and are familar with the terms most commonly used during most adult oriented play. I knwo a few of us ar elooking for a means of making some real world money, since the job market is so tightly contracted, and if LL is truly going to force this, why not ask people who deal with this on a daily basis to be a part of the Lab?

I know sometimes I get with a Linden who doesn't know the themes on some sims, so some time is wasted trying to describe or deal with their shock, before an issue can be delt with.

I know personally, I wouldn't mind working for the lab. And I know a few of the other island owners would give their time, to help with the "adult vs. mature vs. normal" policy and enforcement decisions.

Just my opinion.

Where?