Upcoming Changes for Adult Content: Main Forum Thread

They've had a plan for over eighteen months, they first tried this nonsense at the end of May start of June 2007 and realised it wasn't feasible so went quiet about it. Now they've came back with "Adult parcels/ID verification part 2 - The return to impossible mountain" and they're still running into the same problems.

The simpler solutions are staring them in the face but they don't want to do that for some odd reason.

Make the adult continent voluntary.
Build a PG continent.

Watch them grow due to user preference. This would appease pretty much everyone but hey, let's watch Linden Lab implement a more damaging solution so they can tell some unknown body that they know what they're doing.

y?
IMO, SL is not mainstream. Not everyone gets it, in fact most don't. The few of us here to hype and promote SL are far more valuable than the "pragmatic" yet to come.

And it comes down to LL's reputation and how they want to be viewed.

A unidirectional system that Linden Labs appears to be proposing will be very unlikely to work well if it works at all due to lack of flexibility. A system where a definition of 'adult' or 'mature' is laid down and then everybody follows it would be terribly stifling to a great majority of the users and content creators of Second Life. In a world where anything is possible, a 'one size fits all' policy will break the system by constricting it too much.

What I'm proposing here is a bidirectional system. One where new definitions can be added over time and everybody gets what they want. How is this possible?

I've been a member of other virtual worlds long before LL created SL. I've been playing my character non-stop for about fourteen years on various worlds. On some of the worlds I've been to, there is a system in place called WI or What Is. The What Is system (sometimes Who Is) is a means of setting various attributes on yourself so that others will know how you want to roleplay.

For example: A person might set themself with the following string of flags, I;Sh;Un:WD;Wd which might stand for Intelligent, Shy, Underachiever, who is into World Domination and Who-dunnit type mystery novels.

How is this going to help?

Well, new flags/tags can be added as new things pop up. (Po) could be added for Pokemon, (Su) for Surfing to the list of total tags. Then the resident gets to set these properties on themselves as they see fit. If someone is into Surfing, they set the Su flag, if they're not into Pokemon, they leave the Po tag off.

Linden Labs can implement a system whereby the residents of a region, go through and tag their land with the various flags that are relevant to the area. This information is then collected and broadcast by that region's transponder so everyone coming into the region knows what's going on.

From the resident side, in our preferences, we should be able to set the flags on ourselves that match our interests, so I could logically set myself for Nudity, Sex, Romance, Surfing, and Pokemon if I want. Then I could set anti-flags, traditionally preceded by an exclamation point for NOT. So if I'm set !Religion, !Techtalk, !Clowns, and !Radishes, it won't let me into an area with those things.

Then a system is put in place that checks my preferences against the flags for the region that I'm teleporting into or checks against the flags for the pages that are coming up in my search, and then either denys or allows me access based on what I am allowing myself to see. For example, I'm looking for beaches with surfing, and 10 results come up, but one is near a church where Religion is set, another is near a carnival where Clowns is set, and another is near a farm where Radishes is set, then only 7 of the 10 results will be shown to me.

This will essentially give each resident the tools necessary to shape their own SL experience with a scalpel without LL having to do it for them in broad, painful strokes of a sword.

This also relieves Linden Labs of the responsibility of having to make changes later on based on changes in laws of various countries or varying definitions of 'sex' or 'pornography'. If a new fetish crops up, they just make a flag for it and then it's the resident's responsibility to see it or not see it by setting the appropriate flag or !flag.

This system also allows Linden Labs to PRE-set a series of flags so new residents don't stumble into things. Then the residents can unset the flags later if they do want to see or experience more of SL.

Templates could also be made and shared, so that if someone who has a Church in SL and wants to bring other members from Real Life into Second Life, that person could pass their template on to the new member, thereby protecting them from unwanted content.

This might go quite a ways to stop naked people from appearing at welcome areas after crashing, too, since SL can drop them in an appropriate area based on their flags.

Objects, scripts, and other things could also be given flags. This could also help by making it difficult or impossible to teleport into a PG area with an adult attachment on. Also, a particle effect that contains pictures of clowns wouldn't show up to a person who is set !clown.

The possibilities for a bi-directional system are limitless, invisibly allowing and denying access behind the scenes based on properties already set by the users of SL. No unsightly ban lines are needed.
Linden Labs might need to start off with a couple hundred tags, so that various possibilities are taken into account. There will be users that are okay with upper body nudity, but not genitalia showing, so a searchable database of flags will have to be set up so a person might have themself set as 123, 37, !41, !28, 155, as two and even three letter combinations might not be enough to cover a growing list of flags. A numbered system would work better for multiple languages, too, since the same number/flag could be listed properly in the appropriate language without needing the flag property to be translated. if 41 = Clowns, then a Japanese or Russian user could set 41 or !41 just as easily as the rest of us since having Cl for Clowns wouldn't make much sense to them.

Great care would have to be taken into designing a flagging system. Organization would be essential. Decimal values would probably be very helpful, so 10.0 might be nudity, and 10.1 might be intercourse, 10.13 might be a particular position and 10.5 might be an extreme fetish. Someone might be able to set themself as 10.0, meaning they're okay with nudity, but !>=10.1, NOT greater than or equal to 10.1, which means they don't want to see intercourse or ANY fetishes. The beauty of using the decimal approach is that if someone has set themselves !>=10.1, then if any new fetishes get added down the road, they won't ever have to deal with them or see them without even knowing about them. Since 11.0 would be obviously something unrelated to sex, the 'greater than' modifier would have to be limited to 10.999999999999999, etc. I'm sure if LL grabs this idea and runs with it, they'll be able to figure out that some people might be okay with 10.31 oral sex, but not 10.315 or 10.327 (fetishes based on oral sex) and find some way to set ranges.

Just my thoughts on the topic.

I tried stalking you yesterday...lol! One of these days, I may actually figure out everyone's office hours

my group has 8144sqm of roadside it's a bit oddly shaped but you can give me a squared off plot flat green just point the way I'll move mysefl

Hardly anything has been said of the potential devastation created on Estate SIMs'
I mean an EstateOwner that has mixed content, is going to have to make some tough decisions....it will eventually displace more people & businesses than Mainland.

I agree, and am old enough to remember Daniel and the last attempt at censoring our "Broadly Offensiveness".

The point i was making is more directed at the brainstorming part of this "plan". It seems to me, that all the points and arguments we are bringing up *should* have come up during that brainstorming session. Thus preparing them to answer or comment.

Like You, what i don't see, is any reasoning from them as to why a PG or G rated continent is not viable.

Their silence on the idea makes me believe they have thought it through. But it baffles me that they can not even comment on it as it is the most obvious and best solution all round.

Tiffanee's "What Is" system makes absolutely too much sense for it ever to be considered by Linden Lab.

After I muted the troll I did a bit of research to find out just what type of non-profit would have such spokesperson as Nany Kayo.

http://networkculture.usc.edu/fourthone.html

I especially found the following excerpt from the original proposal fascinating given the bigoted, intolerant and offensive posts made by the designated Director in SL:

"2. Who is your intended audience and who will participate directly?

Certainly, our project is primarily driven by and for individuals who are American Indian by Heritage but our audience includes the general population, who are openly invited to participate through our cultural outreach programs.

Our approach is very inclusive and we continually seek ways to collaborate with people of different cultural heritages, in our ongoing effort to celebrate the richness and diversity of the Human Spirit and Community."

The last time I checked the word "inclusive" meant TO INCLUDE and "outreach" meant TO REACH OUT...

Morganna Reggiane

Its impossible for me to go through and read everything here at this time. I'm at a loss for words on how to properly articulate this wirlwind in my head.

At the end of the day its my patrons, staff and investment I'm interested in saving. If I'm going to be forced into a situation, I want a small piece of silver. That being my land, set to MY adult group that has been joined by consenting adults fully knowing the context of my land and said group be allowed to openly and freely explore and use said land WITHOUT age verification. Set a date limit on that, fine. A cut off date as it were. At least have the decency and respect to allow that much to help myself and others get over the hump.

As its been stated in many of the posts I did have the time to read, 90% of my staff and patrons are not, will not, can not, be age verified to be able to enjoy adult material in an adult virtual world that is for adults and requires you to BE an adult.

Good Post. I'll snip the parts that caught my eye specifically



Responsibility on the individual and not the provider of the animation. I would agree with this as long as the the animation wasn't left in a public place for use.



Ok, I can agree with that.



What would you consider to be Tame Sexual Activity?



Even with a gradual introduction to the sexual or violent side of the role play it is still sexual and violent. How would one be gradually introduced to it?




I would agree with this.



They way that I am personally judging these are by asking myself 'is the theme overtly sexual'. I can't help be feel that the theme of a strip club is overtly sexual - even if no sex takes place. [/QUOTE]

my group has 8144sqm of roadside it's a bit oddly shaped but you can give me a squared off plot flat green just point the way I'll move mysefl

You have a very alien mind. Neither of these comments has the first thing to do with anything I said.

In the first, I was refuting your comment that people in the sex business are seen as too disreputable to make it in other, legitimate businesses.

In the second place, I could care less how many orgasms you do or do not have. Your desire to restrict, limit, or prohibit OTHERS' sexual experiences is what makes you a prude.

Don't bother responding, you're going on my Ignore list.

Tiffanee's suggenstion is nothing less than brilliant, but, I fear, too complex to be considered.

From what I read in the news, creating the Pornopolis continent is a play by LL to make SL more palatable to their intended market, educators and corporations. The attribute system suggested by Tiffannee would be logical and workable, but not somehting you would be able to explain to your average newspaper reporter. Hence it's not an option, I'm afraid.

150 pages of your paying customers saying "No, do it another way!" Wow, not even the Voidsim mess made people this angry.

And all you have to do to make nearly everyone happy is build the new G rated continent for the newbs, the businesses, and the teens. Everyone wins. Nobody loses. Fun continues and SL grows more and more.

But then again, it is possible that you make income from every post on the forums somehow, and making your customers this furious makes you money. I don't see how that works, but it would certainly explain some of the LL behavior lately...

We have not given any thought to grandfathering accounts. The idea is that everybody will need to verify to access adult content.

Already on mine:
This message is hidden because Nany Kayo is on your ignore list.

Does this include leasers of the estates? It would seem that it would be right and just to include their voice. As to date, this issue has been avoided by LL. When I wonder how many of those estate would have folded long ago with out the income from these residents. In addition, yes I do totally understand this is not a democracy and more of a business dictatorship on the policies you wish to support which is with in your rights we all signed the terms of service and freely handed this power over to you. However, if you wish to get a fully balanced view of everyone one would think this segment of residents should be included.

A time line for better answers would be in a few weeks, after we've collected and digested all the feedback.

In terms of what will happen to the vacated land, I assume that it would be like any parcel and go back up for sale. What do you suggest?




It's hard enough to come up with a Mature / Adult Distinction!

Unless Linden Lab takes direct action to prevent it, (which would be 180 degrees contrary to every recent offering of large areas of land that LL has managed), then the instant they make it possible for individuals to voluntarily purchase land in the new XXX continent, the greedy speculators and land flippers and land bots will swoop in and try to buy up all the land, and then try to resell it at extortion rate prices. And they will have a monopoly on land suited to Adult activities.

I really want to know how LL intends to prevent that nightmare.

They failed utterly in that regard with Bay City and Nautilus City... both areas are still blighted with "for sale" parcels at insane prices. But this will be MUCH worse, as an Adult Business will have no other option, unless that can locate suitable land in an Adult rated private island sim.

[/QUOTE]

what about the GO-GO clubs that say have Dance poles but are not stripper clubs?

Like any busy club in Miami or other major party towns with cage dances and the likes just to ad to the atmosphere?

We'll be reaching out to estate owners, content creators and some of the posters here in the forums.

And my thought is at that point I will stop buying hair, skins, shapes, clothes, and gadgets, and stop tipping clubs and people and probably stop going to SL altogether. If I can't go hang out with my friends, what's the point?

My alt will still be required to enter SL for the occasional client project but I don't see us doing as many of those as we did in 2007 - 08.

Agreed.

Although, in all honesty, petulance is far better than flatulence.