Upcoming Changes for Adult Content: Main Forum Thread

I can't argue about making a case for torture but again in re-enactment of historical stuff where torture was commonplace then maybe thats acceptable but torture persay well except for certain Linden management where i would love to apply the thumbscrews i would say its for the violent category

Name them.

LOL

Somebody please pass me the Troll Spray...

Ah you fell into your own hole....taking this directly from your own quote!

Since the non-American user base is around 65%, i.e the majority... and since LL are driving verification through because of the Adult content....then why not apply the same argument in creating a GAMBLING CONTINTENT......yes that's right, you heard it here first!

Since you'll already going through all the trouble of age verifying and segregating your user base, you should be able at the same time, determine whether a user is non-American or not using the same verification system...thus killing 2 birds with one stone!.

So now we have an additional flag

Adult (S) = Sex continent
Adult (G) = Gambling continent

As far as I'm aware...the U.S law implies that a U.S citizen cannot gamble online using a credit card or use other forms of payment. If the location of servers is the issue.....well, you have your Brighton UK location that potentially could house the servers that stores the HOSTS for that Gambling Continent. If its the issue of being a U.S registered company.....then you could create a subsidiary company "Linden Labs Ltd" registered in the UK.

This time you could do things properly....any potential Gambling business setting up on the "Gambling Continent" would be required to leave a "Bond" along with personal or company details with LL....a kind of deposit against liabilities. Sure it will attract RL Gambling businesses and online businesses to this new Continent......in the same way you'd expect RL Sex orientated businesses to migrate to the Sex Continent.

Plus you get an injection of money supply back into the Game....some of the biggest spenders in SL were the casino owners!

Lindens,

If you get too far into regulating content you will run afoul of Common Carrier laws and get yourselves sued from BOTH sides. Let mommy and daddy take responsibility for monitoring their kids internet use. You can just demand opt-in with the click through EULA and indemnification.

I sure as hell don't want any kid of mine seeing this: http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2009/03/sri_lanka_and_its_long_war.html

or

Certain pieces of this artist's work: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Mapplethorpe

but it's *my* job to make sure I am there to teach, explain, support and educate them not yours and you can't possibly hope to be seen as anything but hypocrites at best and afoul of your own stated aims and customer commitments if you try.

Let people 'opt-in'. Let content creators and players filter out those who haven't. It's a simple flag. Boolean = opted-in then visible.

Architecture too broken to do it on a parcel by parcel basis? People bought PG sims and Mature sims. Draw the line there. Why make this difficult? Want to have it continent specific? Move the mature sims or the PG ones in clumps.

Jon

I am curious how slavery, in the conventional sense, can even exist in Second Life. Aren't the very acts of creating an account, logging in, and role-playing a specific lifestyle therein entirely *voluntary*? Where is the slavery? Suggesting that slavery by the standards Ms. Kayo is expressing exists in SL is a lot like saying there is unconsentual sex among the consenting. It just makes no logical sense!

Tom & Jerry, the Roadrunner *meep, meep*, etc.

G-rated

More brutality and violence is not to find anywhere in sl as it is to find in the good old cartoons.

Within films, books, media, Second Life. It simply isn't real, the av at the other end isn't really being tortured. Come on. The graphics aren't that realistic.

+1!

Blondin - the simplest thing for LL to do is this: make the entire grid adult, and have all members age-verify upon registration, as one is supposed to be 18+ to "play" anyway. None of us will ever agree about what is offensive, or about what belongs in whichever arbitrary ratings category* LL creates. Enforcement will cost LL a fortune, and cannot possibly be administered even-handedly.

*Case in point: I bought PG land, assuming, wrongly, that the definition of PG was in accordance with the MPAA. It never crossed my mind that LL would have a differing definition -- otherwise, why would they use the term PG? Imagine my surprise at finding I'd broken LL's PG rules by putting a horror build on my PG parcel! It wasn't stronger stuff than you'd see in the film "Poltergeist" -- which is rated PG -- but yet it apparently needed to be placed on a Mature parcel according to LL's ratings. So, I've recently moved, and have set my PG land for sale at a loss in excess of several hundred US dollars. Okay, my bad (hehe) for assuming LL PG=MPAA PG, but I truly worry about how LL will ever be able to anticipate every possible nuance in the definitions of all these ratings categories!

Yes, but don't push the BDSM community in front of you on this because most people even in the BDSM community have the sensitivity to not push shackled, collared, forced to sit postured, strutting chastiy devices, gasmasks or whatever in front of everyone.

I can tell you most people will find this highly offensive if they stumble upon it unprepared Mature or PG. I have seen the (negative) reactions when consensual slaves tp into a store or crowd like that. For most (businesses) this is a showstopper if subject to it in the introductory phase to SL.

Having said that, an Adult flag, unless it is on the avatar itself, and M and PG locations can reserve themselves from receiving adult avatars, will not prevent such occurences.

The adult flag will also not prevent the embarrassment of naked noobs in PG areas with prim penises caming in to sit in a meeting replying "I am french" if you try to speak to them.

This has all to do with mutual respect and sensitivity to what environment people are introduced to when joining SecondLife, and move around in. This goes for both sides of the coin.

In my opinion flags and barriers will just lower peoples sensitivity because they then come to rely on those barriers and get overly offended when the barrier breaks.

What matters is age (read maturity) for entry into SL and education that SL is a platform just as much for business development as it is for leasure and exploration.

I fear staying on the current course Linden Lab will create a large group of internal displaced persons, only to find none of the issues they want to address has gone away, while business have added unpredictability to their list of reasons why they won't enter the grid.

I would go so far as suggesting that LL insists everyone on the grid now age verifies either by PIOF or the other system which BTW i verified all the alts on today using my passport and it was painless lol even tho i had to use an old UK address as i now live in Holland but i assume it just verifies the passport number the same as the banks etc. do in the UK and here in Holland

That way you catch the teens on the grid already well hopefully and as stated ensure that all sign ups have to verify in the future as it was pre 2006 unverified accounts.

Yes LL will still lose some but probably less than this move will.

Oh Blondin - I'm sorry - you've been given the task to weasel out definitions, haven't you?

(IMO) nothing in SL can be seen as inherently 'extremely violent' - it's pixels, binary 1s and 0s - it's a graphical representation - but this is a huge, I mean HUGE ongoing debate online, that LL won't be able to solve. This is ethics. This is intent and effect stuff.

May I point you towards:
http://wiki.media-culture.org.au/index.php/Computer_Games_-_Ethics

Just one comment if you enforce what you say and many of my friends here since 2007 say the same: Goodbye SL

1. Violating peoples freedom of expression and speech

2. Changing SL policy without even thinking of consequences to the residents who are estate owners, business people or just explorers. Every new "creative and innovative improvement" to the policy costs people a lot of money.

3. Monopolistic practices by LL. You monitor SL and try to "take over" any good ideas and sign it by your name. From the financial perspective it is natural since you are the owner of SL and there is no reason for you to let competition take your brillant idea of virtual world. But remember that you achieved success only because your residents are successful and creative people. Of course you were the first to give us this chance, but why you taking this chance away now from existing and new residents? i wish you understand that enterprise business is not what will make your company even more successful, but only small business people from around the world make SL and LL such a wonderful place to explore. Hint: Stand always behind your residents and you will be the most successful company in the world. Do not be afraid of us, we don't want you to fail, we don't want 'take over' SL.

4. judging people and selecting people because of their interests (adult, non-adult), moral or not moral. In fact it should be only selection of legal or not legal and thats it. We are not criminals. We enjoy freedom but we respect the law.

5. Asking questions like "What do you consider offensive in terms of violence?" in the forums after announcing on the blog that you perfectly know what is violence.

6. Hypocricy! Because the best selling games for teens are about shooting people. The graphic is very realistic, more you kill more points you get, however you don't need to prove your adult age when you buy these games. Parents are buying these games for their children for christmas and it's ok, but playing in SL with guns where you actually can't even kill any avatar is considered EXTREMELY VIOLENT and you need to prove you are an adult.

7. Assuming that somebody can be enslaved, offended or forced to do anything in SL. All you need to do is teleport away if you don't like it.

8. In some old interviews I read that Lindens think about Anshe Chang as a goverment, then I assume if she is the goverment then you must think about yourself as Gods.

9. Stating that you can implement definition on what is moral or not moral, adult or not adult while the whole world cannot decide this for centuries.

10. When your voluntary feature doesn't work you decide to use force. (Age verification)

11. Charging people $295 per month to run one server and forcing them to pay $1000 to start and telling them they have no rights.

12. Forcing people to download the new version of SL client (now it is voluntary but still recommended) full of bugs telling them it's the great improvement. The number of crashes grows rapidly after "new improved version".

13. Forcing people to answer silly questions during log in: "Is your SL experience improved?" but being afraid to ask questions like "Would you purchase more islands if the price would go lower?" or "Are you really offended by adult content?"

14. Stating that SL is only for adults but every new policy is about "protecting our kids" (WTF?)

That's about it for now. This we find very offensive. Thank you

Still avoiding ad hominem, I'll point out once again that it is the public display of the act, not the act that is inappropriate.

You can virtually #+!@ your virtual ^%&? all you want in private. Nobody disagrees with that.

Blondin,

Can you simple give us a straight answer. Are you planning to respond to any posts regarding these changes and how they effect us all or are you simply going to ignore us all unless we ask a question on how to do exactly what the Lindens want us to do?

Please if you, representing the company is not going to look at any logical senseable alternatives, just please tell us now. We will stop wasting our time here and go let our members know to prepare for the worst.

sam

LMAO Do you really still hope that your opinion matters? Forget it.

Good post, Anabella.

Blondin, I know you are only responding to the "how can we enact this policy-change" posts, but I do get the feeling you are reading all of our vent-posts/don't-do-it-posts. In spite of my hopes to the contrary, I do believe this is a "done deal," so my real question is this: how on earth are LL planning to police this new, predictable world? Are we getting Police Lindens?

And as to helping you with definitions: when I joined, I saw I needed to be 18+. Check. I'm not a genius, but I knew from that point on to expect adult content once I'd logged in. So, have I a right to be offended by anything? NO. It's a virtual world. Things that would offend me in RL do not in SL. It's that simple.

This right there would prevent one of my alts from stepping foot OUTSIDE of an adult area if this were the standard. When shopping she is fully clothed and takes care to be upholding the rules of the area. But as her collar clearly marks her as a slave to another avatar then she would not be able to be seen elsewhere if such ridiculous and unbendable statements as this were to be the enforced.

Tread lightly, for this is another area of shaky ground.

Vampirism. Especially the kind that solicits blood from non-vampires with PERMISSION_TRIGGER_ANIMATION dialog boxes.

Well, no it wouldn't because violence in a combat sim is not violence in RL.

I don't find fictional violence offensive. I do find real violence offensive. By definition all violence in SL is fictional.

However, I would find anything in SL which incited RL violence offensive.

Similar for "slavery", "torture" or "rape" in SL. The nature of SL, is that these are actually consensual "slavery", "torture" or "rape" (so some would argue not really slavery, torture or rape at all). However, I do find real slavery, torture or rape offensive, and I would find anything that incited real life slavery, torture or rape offensive.

As regards extreme violence - well, I do find that graphic and realistic depictions of blood or gore distasteful (and makes me feel queasy) but that being made uncomfortable is different from being offended.

Matthew

add to that, most sims give their own warnings as the the content involved in them

If you were referring to the *involuntary* capture and servitude such as happened when negro slaves were torn from homes and families, forcably transported to an entirely diferent continent, and sold as chattel, sure.

But that is NOT what happens in SL when someone talks about "slaves". BDSM, and even Gor, are *voluntary* roleplay between two individuals. NO ONE forces a slave in SL to wear a collar or to do anything at all. They ALWAYS can log off. They have to voluntarily choose to attach the collar. The difference is as great as the difference between a death row serial killer and a teenaged kid playing a first person shooter video game. One was doing real damage to involuntary victims. The other is merely a game.