Upcoming Changes for Adult Content: Answers to Questions

nope, after 9 days you lose the original mainland

Note I did not say that the market was neccessarily tappable, just that there is incentive to try.

While someone is not going to pay in SL to have a single tube of toothpaste delivered, they might for a larger, more varied order.. or they might not.. but again, there is a *potential* market.

Many companies still do catalogue sales, and any of them might find SL a good environment to market in. Or not..

I also said this was risky to do so, but it is their company.

I do agree that the 2-4% seems low, and did say that they should be discussing the basis for that figure just sorting out the definitions of 'adult.'

That said, even though sex does indeed sell, most of that selling is merely by way of sexy clothing and/or clothed models, which are not likely to be considered 'adult' content here.

Hardcore sex or even softcore porn is not normally used to sell most products in RL. Bondage is occasionally used, but only in very limited circumstances and is pretty much always controvertial when used.

And to be honest really does this not alienate the people that do not use voice or have it on at all? It would appear to me that if you wanted to give everyone a chance to be heard that you could find some way to include them.

I for one do not use voice to chat but do have the sound on for others to use. Due to persoal reasons I wish not to have my voice broadcast on the net.

Ok.. I gots questions.. Some old, some not..

1: What would you, Blondin, say the breakdown is on residents that are in favor of vs that are against this project, based on what the forum responses have been so far?

2: How representative of all residents does LL think we forum dwellers are? Like, does LL think we here are a statistically meaningful representation of how the whole grid will react?

3: Say I have a chunk of land in a mature mainland region and my land is on a region border with a PG region. I have an opaque fence that surrounds my land and is 10m tall. This is my private home and is not listed in search but does not have ban lines. I've got lots of really, really, REALLY naughty stuff in my yard. Will that be ok under the new rules? If 'no', how about if it was bordering another mature region instead of a PG one? Also if 'no', how about if it did have ban lines?

4: Once this project is complete, will it be possible for a RL 13 year old to go to a convenience store with US$20, buy a pre-paid credit card, register for non-teen SL and use the pre-paid card to get 'payment info on file' status?

5: Who do you work for? The LL food chain has always been a bit of a mystery to me - I'm curious (and purely just curious - not looking to rat you out or complain) what it looks like between you and M. That and what's your job title?

6: Who at LL is driving this project? We're told it's not a response to a legal thing. Residents don't seem to want it. The wiki says that "corporations are a small component" of people that have been asking for it.. So.. Who's pushing for this?

7: What kind of feedback is being asked of you by your management? Like, do they just want to know technical/logistical questions we have or are they interested understanding the mood of residents?

Oh, of course. They are under no OBLIGATION to release anything more than legally required to (next to nothing in this case). It's not about OBLIGATION, though. It is about RESPECT and it is about SERVICE, of their customers. They have no obligation to even be TALKING with us about this change. However, that extreme I think we all agree would end up with the end of SL as we know it.



You're preaching to the choir. My bags are packed, and I am ready to get off this train on a moment's notice at this point. When businesses regularly make bad decisions and, more to the point, start treating their customers like utter crap, it is not a big deal, we can walk. THERE WILL BE OTHER, BETTER VIRTUAL WORLDS. May not be today; may not be tomorrow, but very soon. LL's grasp on this market is tenuous at best. I am willing to give LL/SL the old heave-ho, and wait a little while until the one that is run by a company who knows how to treat their customers right, as well as provide a REAL consistent experience (IE, in terms of PROPER MANAGEMENT) comes along.

LL gets high marks for trying in this regard, but the constant admixture of regular amounts of EPIC FAIL into the process taints the whole service.



Maybe, but the point is they don't HAVE to risk it! They don't. If they are looking to this as a way to tap into a new market, they DON'T have to do it at the expense of their EXISTING one. Well, unless they want to, of course. They can very easily go the "DisneyLand theme park" route, walling off a bunch of new G/PG-rated land and letting those who have issues with the existing market move there, whilst enticing the non-adult market segment to start there. THAT would be "giving residents a choice". THAT would be "giving residents more control over their SL experience". Not THIS.



Yeah, but the current market segment that LL caters to is majority adult. Not everyone has "adult content" on their land; I don't, for example; however, I don't have ANY problem with "adult content" around me, as long as it follows the EXISTING rules. As such, I consider myself part of the "adult content" crowd, and my non-adult business will be impacted by this *cough* ill-advised *cough* plan.



Oh, absolutely, and it's our wallet we can happily walk away with, too.

Some I am sure are feeling that this is turning into a pointless process. for one have just as busy a First life schedule as most people and find it hard to read through all the infighting just to get the information that would be needed to address the changes need to continue running a business that will be directly effected by this change even through I am personally located on a private sim on leased land.

Are you all planning a briefing of the plans? I am sure you must retain some information to protect some areas of the process and to me unlike others this is understandable from the view of the system.

Studly

I dunno, some of the advertisiing you see here may not be soft core porn per se, but it is highly sexualized. A lot of the television shows themselves are bordering on soft core.

Besides, with that name, I'd expect you to be the strong silent type.

Maybe because that is his intent? I mean, it is a very effective PR tactic which is employed in the real world by corporations all the time. They put out a PR decoy whose only paid reason to exist is to make the company look like they care about the customers over some massive policy or product change. "Yes, we really want to engage you in this change! Please tell me all of your concerns, and I will try to address [the ones which best can be spin in support of our goals]".

It's called "sacrificial lamb".

I would say it is beyond belief that LL would stoop to this, but I am seeing more and more of that particular corporate playbook every time he posts.

The initial web bubble was founded on people trying to do just this - slapping anything and everything on the web and treating it like catalog sales to a bottomless wallet out there someplace. Some stuff worked, like Amazon because of sheer size of selection. Some stuff didn't, like Pets.com where you could buy a crate of dogfood 10c cheaper, then spend 10$ to ship the stuff in 2 weeks time (hope fido isn't hungry now...) And nothing about catalog sales screams "come see it in 3d!" A web interface a) works perfectly well enough and b) reaches all of the world instead of the small fraction of us 80,000 inworld who go to that sim for whatever reason.

So we are now at the second half of the equation. While I as a consumer want to know what possible benefit I could gain from going to $company's sim and buying some RL service from them, likewise $company asks why they should go through the hassle and expense of a presence in SL in the first place? So far, I can think of nothing anyone can sell me inworld for RL use that would make me want to stop having fun and go visit their sim. If I need it, or want it, I can already get it in RL or on the web. So who needs SL for RL needs?

The direction seems to be going into a more distributed model concerning virtual worlds. Users controlling their own content. Unlike an operating system, the server software to run second life style virtual worlds is opensource. It will become an internet standard just like HTTP, FTP, UDP, TCP, etc. Portals will arise that allow opensim users to connect with each other, buy and sell items, and advertise their creations. In the late 80's and early 90's everyone had just a few choices to connect - Compuserve, AOL, local bulletin boards. You were stuck with their rules, their content, and their way to connect. But that all changed with the introduction of the internet and open standards like HTTP. With more choices already here and more coming soon, why would LL alienate a very large chunk of its customer base? It's a bad business move in my opinion.

well like most people that view my name they jump to the conclusion that I am male but not so at all just that have one of those voices you would know from across a room that coupled with my First life business and well know in my community dare not to let my fantasy life in SL spill over to RL.

One other thing in creating the account name I was hopping I could play on words a little and have it read this way "Lockjaw (on a) Studly"

=)

^^ This. +1 QFT

Romaq is demanding a high standard of evidence from people opposing the change. It's only fair to ask that he support his own claims the same way. He didn't say "I believe", he didn't say "Linden Labs thinks", he said that the big money is in businesses on the grid, no caveats, no qualifications. If he's going to say that, he needs to back it up.

Two people typing concurrently can answer questions faster and more accurately than one person speaking at a time. Text really is more efficient than voice in this kind of environment.

I just took part in a survey through a third party company about people's reactions to RL businesses in SL... referring to companies like IBM. The questions were very strange, things like "how similar is your experience with SL products compared to their RL equivalents" that simply didn't make any sense at all, since there's hardly any RL products that a company like IBM makes that anyone would buy in SL.

But this wasn't a LL survey, and the timing was completely wrong to be part of the planning for this move... just maybe I could see it being motivated by someone taking some of the odder assertions in this thread seriously.

You're right, I misremembered, and that's even worse.

Well, Firefox doesn't crash at all whereas SL Viewer crashes on me 5 times a night now. Oh, you mean objects! Well, I'm having trouble getting the JATO bottles I need to make my RL Civic fly like my Marlin inworld does. The people at Amazon directed me to the Darwin Awards website, but danged if I can find their shopping pages.

yep, around here you're safer to always err towards the worst case, as that's what usually comes true

The old venecian Dogen, the german-austrian Hanse, 12th -17th century, some traditional farmers in every country (i.e. cow-auctions) and last but not least real gentlemen were've been able in history and some honoric people are able today, to use a word and a handshake as serious contract to create fair tradesmenship.

But in general these times are mostly over. The spoken word counts nothing today. It is just sound. Like wind in the trees. Doesn't matter if they belch or speak or being silent.

A written word, verified and copied by much people, taken as evidence, this is what Linden Lab is avoiding like the devil avoids the holy water.

We can only shout: "look, all you .com, .org, .edu, with wich mess of a company you will have to deal later! Don't trust them!"

Looking for just the right pair of striped socks.

Are there any plans for open discussion forums in-world, or will that be limited to the closed Brown Bags?

I have a sickly gut feeling that when its announced that ursula is open that SL will let the land mongers in at the same time BEFORE all the people required to move have done so.

Say it isn't so Blondin.

If I can't legally get this content on my OpenSim, and I can't, then why should I care about the distributed model?

I mean, look at Mac OS versus Linux. Macs cost at least 40% more than generic PCs with equivalent capabilities, and OS X is less efficient than Linux to boot, and yet in less than 8 years OS X has several times the market share of Linux. Why? Because you can get applications for it, they don't suck, and they don't require a geek to install. And, no, the distributed repository approach that Linux uses for software distribution is NOT an exception to this.

I was using open source operating systems before some of the people reading this were old enough to use computers. I was using the ancestors of this OS before most of you were alive.

You need more than just an open source OS. Maybe someone will take OpenSim in a direction that recreates a fraction of the ecosystem that SL supports, like Apple did with FreeBSD, but until then the "application barrier to entry" for OpenSim based virtual worlds is heavy. And so far the only people who have even been talking the talk have been imposing MORE restrictions on users than Linden Labs does, not fewer.
I met my wife online in the early '80s on an online bulletin board and by the middle of the '80s I was running my own text-based dial-up virtual world, so I know all that. If people cared about whether the system was distributed or not, or open or not, Usenet and Fidonet would have killed Compuserve before most people had switched from DOS to Windows. It didn't: what killed Compuserve and AOL and Delphi was *better content* on the Internet. Don't tell me how users will control their own content, tell me how you're going to get *better content* in OpenSim. You're not going to do it by open sourcing everything... otherwise we'd all be running Linux or BSD and Bill Gates would be making a living asking "you want fries with that".

Better content on the Internet came about because it was a better and more profitable distribution mechanism than anything else. Until something replaces that aspect of SL I don't think they're going to need to care.

Take it to the team, take one for the team, blow some more SMOKE up everyone's asses.
LL needs to stop and think this whole transfer of land thing thru. Lets see... you lose one customer at 195$ USD land tier, oh well. you lose 200... that's a Loss. Are you guys prepared for that?

Burning life is in NO WAY comparable to whats happening here. That was land, for a limited time, for a specific event. Whats happening to US is 100% Different. Your not talking a limited excursion to a new land, your talking about uprooting HUNDREDS of people from land they personally picked, and FORCING Them to Either 1. Close down their adult businesses or 2. Move. period, those are our choices.

You give us no answers, no time line, nothing concrete, you dance around issues, and you basically treat us all like we are sub-human second class citizens. I realize you got stuck on the short end of the stick, and probably drew the short straw to get stuck with this, but here's where i start to lose my patience and understanding.

I am an escort. I have run, successfully, for 3 years, on a full Sim, an escort agency. I have paid land tier, for 3 years. I don't expect any more than anyone else... to be treated fairly. If i have NO CHOICE but to close my business, which has, and STILL IS, Legal to run in SL as no changes to the TOS has been incurred, or MOVE, the LEAST You can do is pay attention to what we are saying.


1. It has been stated that 9 days will be allowed move. It is entirely unfeasible. There are many full sim owners that simply can not pack up and move a full or even ½ sim in that allotted time. We propose a changed time limit of 30 days minimum, for anyone owning more than 2048 land. The original 9 days could be applied to anyone owning less than this amount. This allows existing businesses to still remain in business while the new location is being built and set up.

2. It has also been stated that LL will not charge a *duel* land tier while the swap is underway. While this is acceptable, there is also the time that we, current paying residents of SL, have to invest to rebuild/move. In compensation for this time lost, we respectfully request one months land tier credit, to compensate for our time, and loss of business this move will incur.

3. In consideration of the land swap, all group owned land choice should be given to the current group owner, or top contributor of donated land in the group.


HOW HARD IS IT???????

For the love of all that's freaking unholy, for ONCE, show your CUSTOMERS some consideration.