Upcoming Changes for Adult Content: Main Forum Thread

/me sticks her hand up!


I've been trying to find an answer to this ever since I started spending a lot of money on full perm animations *the day before* the adult sims announcement

It would seem rather disingenuous, if not hypocritical for LL to allow people to use sex beds for their intended purpose on Mature sims, but restrict their sale to Adult sims. Even if the sale of which included the restriction of "clothes on, freenis off", whereas using them required no such restrictions.

My main business is houses but I also make matching furniture so it made sense to expand my products to include sex beds. Sex beds barely appear in my search terms! *I would be happy to remove any "adult" search terms* if and only if it meant not having to become "adult"

I have my own sim which I have bought with my SL profits and a lot of hard work so selling sex beds meant I had to make the decision to move from PG to Mature - not something I took lightly because of search. Restricting my sim to Adult/Verified only is an absolute no-go.

I spoke to Concierge on an unrelated matter about a week ago and as an aside asked them about this. The only "almost definite" they could give me was the changes wouldn't happen until August. Thus I went ahead with my sex beds anyway (since I was in a half-way house between having spent a lot of Lindens on animations, but not enough to make an attractive product). Hopefully I can at least recover the money spent before then. Can a Linden confirm that August is indeed the timeline for this?

The fact that I may have to pay even more money to LL just to have somewhere to sell a product that my customers find attractive and yet be lumped with the sex clubs and whores just so LL can present a better "corporate image" makes me sick. Selling sex beds is a whole different kettle of fish to offering sex for payment (which, btw, is illegal in most countries).

To me, this smacks of a bungled attempt from "on high" by Lindens that only ever see what the Lindens that actually use the grid want them to see - a happy sanitized "creative workspace". The OS debacle was similar. I sincerely hope that somebody somewhere gets some common sense because right now this is going to effect more people than the OS thing ever did. Sure, the big players will be fine, but what about the small businesses that make SL what it is?

/me smacks the corporate entity that is Linden Lab around the head repeatedly with a clue bat.

Actually prostitution is legal in most countries, with the notable exception of the US. Laws in other countries regarding prostitution are generally designed to make it illegal to do it safely. Regardless, what is offered on Second Life can't be legally defined as prostitution as there is no physical contact.

I hope your store does well. Send me a landmark inworld, and I'll come check it out.

Quoted for truth.

Now on to the main issue:

I just heard about this whole thing today, I was in a Christian sim when someone handed out a notecard about the whole ordeal and what I can't understand is why it is deemed necessary by the Lindens to relocate much of the population. I spend most of my time at PG rated sims and discussion groups that are in mature sims but the content for the most part wouldn't be deemed adult in nature (unless talking about thoughts on morality would be classified as adult as they delve into subjects such as sex, drug use/abuse, and violence). They're religious/philosophical/political discussion type sims. It just seems like too much of a hassle to have this relocation. I have no vested interest in having adult content in SL at all but people have put money into this online virtual world which was presented to them as one thing and now it's being drastically changed for them.

I can't say that I like or am comfortable with a lot of things that go on in SL but what adults do is their own business as long as it is consentual and within the law and if I am uncomfortable with anything it is very simple, I stay away from it. That is something that is very easy to do and it is certainly not the end of the world if I accidently stumble across something I don't like, in that case I TP out of the area, problem solved. The people who enjoy a more colorful SL should have the freedom to be there on their own land and not be shoved aside into some corner because some people don't like what they do. It seems like those who want this to happen are in the minority, like I said, I spend most of my time at Christian sims and I don't believe this subject has even been brought up, I was shocked to hear about it through the notecard today so I'm assuming it has little to do with what people are petitioning for and a lot to do with money, or for good PR in the media. I do however realize that not everyone is as laid back about this whole issue as I am (I tend to lean more liberal) and I don't in the least think that those who are strongly against adult content should have to have it thrown in their face or should have to deal with stumbling upon an area that is offensive to them without first being warned but there has to be a better way to deal with this whole situation (I haven't tried it but isn't there already a mature content filter in the search on SL?)

I don't know much about this whole process but wouldn't it be easier to move those who want SL to be a 1950's conformity world into their own isolated area instead of the other way around?




Moving on, am I understanding this wrong or is the teenage section being merged with the adult? Why is that necessary and why if the Lindens are concerned with safety and security, why move them at all?

I'm all for keeping SL a safe place and keeping kids away from areas that this society (US) deems inappropriate for them but it doesn't seem like the present solution is a very good one unless I'm misunderstanding things. I'm not a parent but to be honest if I were and if my kids were online I'd rather them not be online conversing with adults who were strangers unless I was present, maybe that's being overprotective but it's the way I look at it.


Oh, one more thing: I just wanted to add my two-cents on this whole collar wearing thing. I don't see it as a big deal, I've worn them in the past for purely asthetic reasons. Would that not be allowed?


This all just seems so pointless and with very drawn out complications that are seemingly endless, there has to be a better solution, there has to be a way to have your cake and eat it too.

In the UK at least, prostitution is one of those "grey areas" of the law. A blind eye is usually turned if it's "safe".

I have no beef against the "adult industry" Indeed, I started my SL as an escort (if there are any escorts reading, learn to build if you want to make Lindens lol). It does raise an interesting question though (given the no gambling (US)/no underage (Germany?)) rules that have come in because of various restrictions in countries where SL is available but not in others. (Note that I'm not passing comment on either). Where do you draw the line?

In my experience, the vast majority of people join SL to have sex. They then buy land so they can have sex in private. They need land, houses and furniture for that Eventually they have relationships (which almost always go wrong). But you need land and products for that too.

The SL economy is based on sex. Some people go beyond that and stay and build up businesses. But I know I wouldn't sell half as much land or houses etc. if it weren't for the need for people to have a space to go in private to be intimate

Yes. So is Xcite. Which do more residents find objectionable, and is more damaging to the New User Experience?

Ooo ooo I know, the one without the mass 'blanket' bans on them?

(Sarcasm for the slow ones)

If your absolutely offended with what I've said your totally out of line and have no idea of the concept of discussion and debate between two parties. Seriously now, did I point you out and start calling names? No, I didn't so stop getting so offended over something said in statement of personal opinion. I'm not trying to piss you off actually the intention of the original post was to assist in trying to find a solution. I said it was indecent because it is indecent with the prior sexuality remarks included with. Please get a dictionary and realize this wasn't an insult towards any party and merely a way to point out the opposing party's view on it. "Just because it isn't, traditional, doesn't mean it is any less of a symbolic part of who and what I am." I haven't stated anything other than that its just indecent to some and if your all about having people try to recognize your lifestyle without recognizing another that is just full blown hypocrisy. So again let me stress this point, stop taking this as an insult.

@Winds A wedding ring is a traditional thing now of days and wedding rings weren't the Christians, as Christan's saw them as a pagan symbol in the early days. Even back then though it was becoming if not already a symbol most religions had adopted. If I'm remembering right I think it dates back before dates to caveman era ;p Anyways excuse my mistake but to clarify I was referring to the sexual association as most posts up to now that I've read talk about the sex stuff, so my bad to sound so "narrow minded" but I was trying to keep on topic.

@Rayne If your using the nazi and chinese references in juxtaposition that's a bad thing to do since people aren't being slaughtered in mass over this nor is genocide taking place. Take care. Seriously, don't go there for political pity as there are far better ways to remember the past other than using it that way.

@Patasha I made a poor reference/analogy and a joke. My bad, you didn't get it, don't put words in my mouth over a poor example. Please let your next post be something like Kalypso or Moon with actual suggestions and ideas rather than directed insults.

@Dogboat Thanks for understanding that I was trying to make light on both sides so people could stop bitching and fighting each other and try to make common ground and actually talk about ways to solve an issue ;p Now you make a good point about the 18+, but obviously kids are playing sl right? There is nothing stopping a kid from clicking on with their pc. Now seriously if someone tries to say oh well your blah blah blah its not my fault.. I know.. and please read my previous post about the right parties not doing enough to prevent kids from being on a mature game. A little disclosure on myself: Before the homestead changes I ran a real estate business in SL which I ended after the changes.

@Kalypso The collar wearing thing was because in some posts it was in regard to something sexually associated. I'll have to look but that was my basis of the post since its obvious the underlying issue to the main topic is keeping the kids away from the naughty stuff in sl. I don't find it offensive in asthetic reasons and what adults do on their own in their own privacy doesn't bother me if it doesn't effect me or my family. Was my mistake on not referencing what I was talking to and those who are in an offended craze to change right now took it way too far. I believe your post to explain much I meant to ;p

@Kalypso, Moon, and Phoebe
That is exactly what I wanted to see. Ideas and talk of compromise/solutions. If there is one thing that I believe everyone can agree upon it is that everyone is under the assumption that this is an 18+ game, yet there is no verification needed to actually get on.



Now about my first post I think the first paragraph did it all in showing how there is a lot of insults being thrown around and now since it seems I've offended some of you I'd like you to take a look at this quote, "a fictional character I just made up for the sake of explaining a point yet not targeting any resident in particular) " I hope you guys who replied to me read that and understand I wasn't attempting to insult any of you >.> (I'll stop myself from trying to explain in crappy analogies too )


As for adding age verification in again what are people's opinions about that in regard to it being a better change to have versus forced relocation?

I'd like to start out saying I seldom ever post on the forums. The times I usually do are for feedback purposes and questions / responses.

This time however I have a little proposal / idea that you may like and could possibly implement. My proposal here is based on the very fact I believe SecondLife to be a "game" and just like all of the other "games" I have played, SecondLife lacks some stuff that could help this very situation.

1. Account.
A. Alot of other game clients have a main account. This is either used directly for the website and or game client.
B. You login to the "client" with your account/pass and then as a common action, you can create "characters". Obviously your main account will be what you choose, and the "characters" will be each of your avatars. Most likely there is a character limit, I've personally seen 3-10 limits in varied games, and I believe 5 is ideal.
1b. Editing appearances can usually be done on creation, optimizing it before actually finishing and logging in.
2b. Each avatar character in your Main account could / should have the same LAST NAME as if its your "family"
3b. Family LAST NAME should be either user input and/or selectable as usual.
C. In a lot of games, account currency, even though it usually bears no actual value unlike Linden Dollars, is shared throughout each "character" since its the main account that holds the value.
D. Inventory is normally shared character to character, usually by an inventory system ( you take object from your character, place it in a personal storage, swap characters, the desired character withdraws the item from the account. [Obviously SL objects with no copy permissions should really only be affected by an inventory system, since sharing copy/trans or full perm objects would bear no harm anyway.] Pretty solid since the transferring would only work between your own avatar characters. Also, having an object on character and deleting the character, without storing the objects it held back into the inventory, completely voids its existence.)
E. Main account cannot transfer avatar characters to another Alt-Main account of theirs. (Judging if people should actually have an alt account after this. ) If not, a fee should be put in place, to transfer an avatar character to another account (must have available slot to receive character transfer) and the character being transferred will be wiped of any no copy and/or no transfer objects.
F. Main account should be linked with XstreetSl and only that Main account should have its own XstreetSl. For example, an Alt-Main account cannot link up to your Main's XstreetSl. (probably an obvious deduction)
G. For verification purposes, only the Main account will be needed to be verified, none of the avatar characters it holds. This would completely void the need to verify multiple accounts until someone makes Alt-Main accounts.

2. In-world Mature / PG
A. Let's say a person, anyone in particular, wants to roam SL free of Mature content. By wanting to teleport into a mature sim, or walk into a mature parcel, they should be presented a warning message. ( You are about to enter a mature rated area, continue? [Yes/No][Save my answer{Maybe add this into General preferences if someone wishes to uncheck it}] This will make sure that the resident can only throttle what content they wish to see. This doesn't exactly pertain to throttling if the resident is "age verified" or not, but it will present them a way to be warned before walking into something unwanted.
B. A resident wants to void all areas that are Mature in hopes not to walk into something unwanted. So for this I'd present; anything within a mature sim/parcel that is near the resident, doesn't rez at all. No matter their draw distance, because of their preference to not view mature, these areas won't load anything. Consider it as if the whole area is "muted" for the time being.
C. A friend of a resident is standing in a mature parcel, the resident being teleported does not want to view mature content. Resident being teleported is either still presented with the "You are about to enter a mature rated area, continue? [Yes/No][Save my answer] " No can either keep the avatar in place or teleport them back to home for safety.
D.An option to allow-disallow friend from teleporting you, period.

3. Age Verification.
A. I don't have much to say on this. I am not verified I don't believe.
B. I like the verified paypal account idea. Where you need to link your bank account with theirs and register that verified info with SecondLife / XstreetSL.
B. If you have transferred money from paypal into XstreetSL, this possible could count as "payment info used", or possibly transferring the money and then buying L, or a product with it.

Well, there you have it for now. All I can muster up at the moment. Mainly feature suggestions, but I believe they can help settle some problems. I would also like to add that I trust Linden Labs, and I hope, in high expectations, to witness a reply on this.

Also, any idea in here can obviously be built upon, or completely dropped.

I'm failing to see where you said it was indecent to some. (Go back and check your post, I didn't alter that quote at all) From what I read you outright said that you think it is indecent. Now, people can make mistakes, they can write something and forget to add in a little bit that would totally change the context. However, given that all I have is what you write to go on and what you wrote has no inclination that you are not trying to be offensive; I took offense, it's your fault for not articulating yourself properly the first time.

I fail to see how me responding to something I can only take as an insult based on the information you gave me in a negative way makes me a hypocrite. I fully recognize others lifestyles, but I do not accept insults or hasty and aggressive backtracking posts made by someone who is attempting to save face and acting like they didn't throw out an insult at someone.

Because I just posted previously it was in reference to a sexual associated thing and stating something is indecent is not an insult. In comparison to a wedding ring Yes, a choker would be considered indecent and vulgar to social norm.

Seriously your not helping the thread by trolling listening in on when and not to be offended. What makes you a hypocrite is your claiming of recognizing both sides to this. You are only recognizing your side without understanding the other, which in a sense after reading all of your posts is exactly what your getting all riled up about on this topic. SO instead of bitching to me about all of this why don't you share some ideas and help progress rather than waste your time trolling someone with the slightest different thought? Also if I was trying to "save face" I'd be trying to coax you.



Now on the useful side:




@ Kourtnee

2A seems to be something LL could easily do. It pretty much covers the issue, but I'm not sure LL would be happy with doing something like that in which the media would tear it apart.

Estate tools could probably have more implemented as there is already the option to not allow users who aren't adult verified.

No sir. I would prefer NOT to take my partner's name off my profile, even though it obviously identifies me as a serious faggot to anybody who bothers to read it. And you'll pry my partner's collar off his neck only after you step over my cold dead body. You are not going to shove my big gay ass back in the closet, not at THIS stage in the game; not even for your precious cheeeyyyyuuulllldruunnn.

You know, I put up with enough of this horseshit in RL, I shouldn't have to deal with your bigotry in SL too.

Get lost troll, read all my posts or none at all.

People are most often guilty of what they accuse others of. You keep calling people trolls when they get mad at you for your posts, when your posts are provoking such responses due to the way you write and what you write.

Perhaps it is you who is the troll DeeJay.

Lindens:

How do you expect to smoothly move a continent's worth of your paying customers, their business locations, and their content ....

when doing something about the extortion plots (scattered 16s that nobody lives on owned by mostly antisocial leeches) is taking such a long time to resolve?

A direct question, so please give us a direct answer.

Troll? Me? Hardly. Someone who disagrees with you is not a troll.

Alright let's skip all the hub bub

1. This is deffinite they are only trying to figure uot details

2. You should do a capture of the search today and use it as refrence to start as to advoid land scammers

3. Instead af trying to define extreme and private we should start with if your land is shown in search or classifieds because you clicked the box and paid L it is no longer considered private

4. All non private land that contains any sex or violence should be relocated for free with some sort of per meter L bonus for the incovience as well as this new land (ursula I think witch is looking great and I'm eager to explore the builds showing up on the map) should come with a 1.25 prim level for forced moves

5. These loop hole filled definitions are silly sex is sex and violence is violence wether its in a musuem or a 'play area' and regardless if there is blood pixels or not blowing someone up is blowing someone up

6. Now inspect my land and show me where my comperable plot is on ursula so I can get moving and we can be done with this
-O

1. There are no children in PG sims.
2. Nany wants to get rid of the collars on the Mature sims as well.

There is no hope for you because if you'd read his response and actually read my entire post without being a selfish bitch and getting offended over the pettiest of things (one of which a mistake, which I attempted to correct, and you held no shame in rubbing in my face) among bigger issues, you'd notice he's getting offended over naming policy/filters, which I'm pretty sure I didn't reference at all in any of my posts. Also Yes, I will call you and him a troll since you aren't providing any material for the topic and discussion to progress where as I am actually concerned and interested in how LL will do the changes, how it will affect myself, and how it will affect the other residents of SL. FFS I don't care if a gay or straight man or woman wants to enjoy his partner's name if it doesn't violate LL's Policy. Whatever though I'm done.. Since you don't seem to give a damn about coming to a solution or presenting ideas which this topic was made for in the first place and just want play your "victim" of a biggot role and find someone to blame. Definitely has gone on long enough, if your so offended IM me about it or PM me.

Yes how exactly do you intend to do this?

Collars are sexually associated? Please. It's a collar. It's not like I tie a string around his bits and lead him around in public.



And now collars are naughty things that we should keep the children away from?



HEY GUISE ITS OK TO BE GAY N STUFF JUST DO IT IN PRIVATE RITE? LIKE DONT HOLD HANDS OR KISS IN PUBLIC OR NUTHIN', CUZ MY KEEEEDS MIGHT SEE IT

Yeah, yeah, yeah, same as in RL. I get it.

ETA: Psst... that's "affect", not "effect". Just a FYI for when you write your congressman about T3H G4YZ TAKING OVER AND DESTROYING THE SANCTITY OF MARRIAGE, ZOMG.

Even if it's listed as a residence?

Please, name calling? And they want to call ME a troll. LIES! *shakes fist* I haven't even invoked Godwin's Law yet. Pssh.



Actually I did, about 80 or so pages back. My major question was why invoke these NEW changes, when the OLD system isn't being enforced (Mature vs. PG parcels and search) and how LL plans to keep someone from acting out a porn scenario on voice in a PG parcel, since voice is obviously the hardest thing to police.



How magnanimous of you. Oh, that was sarcasm by the way.

As for the bigotry issue, I think it would help to point out that many of us put up with a hell of a lot of bigotry in the "real world" and that SL has been a relief valve for us. The last eight years with a conservative administration (for us Americans at least) has been nothing short of a horror show. Insisting that we lock down our behavior in the very world in which we relax in the evenings by role-playing, is nothing short of a slap in the face. And yes, a lifetime of abuse WILL make some of us touchy.

If it's a 'private' residence why is it made public by paying to have it search?

And if you want a loophole of how it's a private residence but is in search how can we possibly give a percise definition of what a residence is in sl?

And here we have a perfect example of the issue at hand. Everyone has a different attitude towards things.

I can understand where DeeJay is coming from (but not agree). For example in rl I am deeply offended every time I see a woman in a chador (burkha). That a woman's freedom is curtailed in such a way because of a book written about an imaginary friend around 1300 years ago should be illegal.

In sl though if someone wants to wear one, that's fine. In theory we're all adults in here and I know that it's free choice not cultural oppression.

It always makes me go all gooey when I see obvious signs of affection between couples, and I don't care what gender they are. However, you move it over the line into public sex and I'll turn the hose on you.

Same in SL, you want to use the furniture in my shop to have sex, you'll get a flying lesson.

The line I draw is different to everyone elses, which is why trying to create any kind of "public morality" is never going to please anyone.