Upcoming Changes for Adult Content: Answers to Questions

Has anyone else noticed that the new Maturity Ratings page has ABSOLUTELY NO REFERENCES to any exceptions for "Private use" of adult content?

There is one paragraph in there that states "In the FAQs below, we offer examples as to what types of Regions are and are not considered adult, based on, for example, distinctions between "public" and "private" content, as well as distinctions between content that is "expressly sexually themed" and content that is not." , but no such FAQ section exists yet. There is NO distinction listed between public and private use here. NONE.

And I see they did state in the maturity ratings that the new G-rated definition of "PG Land" is for kissing up to "universities, conference organizers, and real world businesses" WHO WON'T WANT MAINLAND ANYWAY BECAUSE OF LACK OF ACCESS CONTROLS!

Based on the new ratings:

Nude beach? Get thee to Ursula, with thy vile photorealistic nudity!

Personal Use of Adult Content? Say what? No such thing. Anyone can AR you anyway, claiming they followed an ad to a yard sale and could see this nasty stuff in your bedroom. Sell off and go to Ursula, or risk AR Hell.

Want what you thought you bought when you bought Mature? Ursula or an Adult rated private sim is the only place you'll find that.

===

*sighs* I give up. They are intent on committing financial and social suicide/genocide, for the sake of chasing a pipe-dream of future customers hat are seeking a clean and wholesome, G-rated grid. If that is what they want, then WHY NOT PUT ALL THOSE NEW SERVERS ON A G-RATED GRID, SEPERATE FRON THE MAIN GRID? Let THAT sink or swim on its own merits. Need content? Maybe you can entice the G-rated content creators to open shops in that squeaky-clean business grid. IF you don't chase them all off or piss them all off by slaughtering the main grid as a sacrifice to appease Big Business.

This may be of interest to some of you fine people....and the unfine ones too.


http://nwn.blogs.com/nwn/2009/04/unsexed.html

G&T, Ice and Slice (lime of course).

I need it as I'm listening to this crock of brown bag..

First, I agree that LL DID NOT announce this right. I talk to people daily that had not idea. This MUST be part of the log in and it MUST be something that people CLICK ON to make go away.

This changes the face of SL and ALL RESIDENTS need to know about it. TELL THEM about it then direct them here. Once a LOG IN SCREAN announcement has been made, you have 'made the announcement"

Personally, I think we DO need different continents. We need an ADULT, a MATURE & a PG. I also think that no like regions should be touching. Meaning that no Mature regions are touching and adult region or a PG region.

Age verification needs to be VERY PROMINATE at log in. It needs to be a part of the joining process. It needs to be made as important as anything else and if they do not wish to verify, they need to understand that they will NOT get Adult Content. I would actually like to see it go further and be made mandatory for MATURE content as well. But not until ALL residents are notified of the changes. As of now, LL is hiding what they are doing.

I do make plea to all on the forums, since I do not think LL will take the responsibility needed here to make it a log in requirement and ALL RESIDENTS ANNOUNCE THIS TO EVERYONE THEY KNOW!!!! SEND IT TO YOUR GROUPS!! HAIL IT FROM THE MOUNTAINS!!!! Do not assume LL will own up to their responsibility here.

I do not, in any way, think this will kill LL at all. The end goal here is to allow kids on the grid. They will be merging the teen grid with ours, even if they say "not in the plans". They need to sit down with Philip and talk to him, he is making it VERY clear that LL plans to bring in kids. And yes people, that WILL make money for them and I think alot of it. But, they need to make some control for MATURE land as well and they need to make ALL kinds separate.

I think the 2% number is WAY off but I also think it is not as high as many people think. They are not making it as clear as they should about the difference in ADULT & MATURE.

ADULT will be defined as excessive, overt, extreme, public. ADULT will be things we would not daily lives (most of us). This is public sex, escorts, sex clubs, BDSM (yea that is silly), illegal drugs, excessive violence, rape, fetish, porn.... the list goes on and will be defined better.

MATURE will be defined as 'normal' and 'private'. Nudity, 'art', drinking, smoking, sex in private (like home), normal violence (car wrecks). Stuff you do not do in front of your kids but dont think is 'overt'.

PG - this is easy, For the Kids.

Like I said in the last brownbag meeting, We do not need to define the difference in PG and Mature. We all KNOW the difference and it will be easy to separate that out. It is the fine line of Mature V Adult that the issues will come into play because there are such VAST differences in live and cultures here.

One example of this is the Lindens think ALL things BDSM are ADULT and not MATURE. Even art. I have seen some amazing art that is in no way porn but according to the Lindens the fact that she is wear a rope makes it ADULT/PORN. So does it mean that someone kneeling to their Mistress will not be allowed on a Mature sim JUST because it is a D/s relationship? This is an example of the lines that need to be worked out. D/s by nature is NOT adult but it is Mature. Now, if you want to beat and fuck your slave in public, THAT is adult.

Bottom line for me in all this rantng is.....

LL MUST learn to become responsible and accountable for what they are doing

LL MUST make a log in screen announcement about this change

LL MUST make verification part of the new user set up

LL MUST get the word to EVERYONE to verify (again log in screen)

RESIDENTS need to give LL a chance to make the terms and provide feedback

RESIDENTS need to see this will be taking place, no going back

RESIDENTS need to see that this is not as bad as it looks.

This is, in the long run, a positive step for SecondLife. Once the teens hit the grid (Yes Lindens do not even THINK of saying no unless PHILIP comes on to say he was lieing and he will NEVER allow kids on). This is a MUST step for the kids and it is good thing. Allowing then on increases so many things, but stops must be in place first.

This is not totally about kids, they want to lure more Real World business here as well and they cant do that with a playground next to a sex club. The applications and profit require it.

I will turn all my sims Mature because I do NOT want kids on the grid but that is a cost we all have to deal with if we want to be in SL. I do however welcome businesses here and that is why I encourage this change (even if I think LL is being dishonest with the residents by not making it log in announcement)

----Apparently I have committed user error and my partial message got posted while I was editing it. Please ignore this and see full message below----

Adult search words? Nope, you fail. You are Adult Content.

Blondin, this is EXACTLY what was meant by another poster yesterday, and one of the things I have been saying all along.

The new policy does NOT just affect explicitly adult content, it affects almost everyone. The explicit stuff is just the tip of the iceberg. Nine tenths of the thing is underwater, supporting the part that sticks up above the surface.

Ah, a lady after my own heart..

Bombay Sapphire and tonic.. plenty of ice, not too much tonic.. And since thats a gin that has a truly unique mix of aromatics (not so heavy on the juniper) no slice in this one. Theres a faint orange note in the flavor that the lime would overpower.

LL is checking the integrity of our filesystems... we're all fsck'd

try Plymouth, so smooth you think you've gone to heaven

they also make a sloe gin.

Excerpted from a couple posts from yesterday:
Of course we now know that exactly the opposite happened, and the new definition of "Adult" content is substantially broader than even the first version of that KB article. Having studied the new KB articles and reviewed some of the answers in this thread, I think it's safe to conclude that Blondin was blindsided by some part of the decision chain. If I were he, I'd be (privately) pretty damned annoyed.

So whatever we think of the policy, the policy-making process, or the policy-makers themselves, there's nothing to be gained by blaming the messenger--especially if he's given the task of communicating messages that don't reflect the actual policy direction.

1:13 "nobody will be required to move their entire build for new location. It is certainly something you would chose to do if you wanted to keep it as is."

A lot of attention has justifiably been given to the adult content rules in regard to what is sexually mature and what is sexually adult, but little to nothing has been said about the explicit drug use clause. As a preface to my question, I would like to point out a list of movies that are rated R and NOT NC17:

The Cheech and Chong films
The Harold and Kumar films
The Breakfast Club
The Jersey trilogy (actually, pretty much anything by Kevin Smith)
Less than zero
Trainspotting

What do all of these have in common? The use of drugs in a movie that got a mature rating rather than an adult rating by a well established and largely respected ratings board. This seems to point to a community standard that diverges from your proposed enforcement. In at least one of these cases (the Breakfast Club), the pot smoking scene is not even cut from the edited broadcast version.

So why the seeming disparity from what seems to be a well established social norm that drugs qualify as mature rather than adult content? What qualifies as "explicit use"? does having a virtual joint in your mouth qualify. Does it qualify only if the particle effects indicate that it is being smoked? what if that joint is just a cigarette? Is that still AR-able?

Lastly, how do you plan on handling the fictional drugs common in many cyberpunk and science fiction settings? Is Spice subject to the same restrictions as heroine? Oops, am I allowed to say Spice anymore?

I have a hard time seeing why a head shop should be viewed as worse than a gun shop.

Thanks i hadn't check his blog recently



LOL at the last line, since when has LL been transparent about AR's



Bullshit opps bad word



Maybe this will in time prove otherwise to LL only time will tell

Only if you believe that he was simply the messenger, and not one of the architects, or a knowing and willing sacrificial lamb.

As I said before, I think his whole job was as a distraction to us "activists" whilst the real policy was being determined in parallel behind closed doors, just as it had been for the previous year before they said ANYTHING to ANY resident about it. There was already too much momentum behind it before they went public, and very little was going to change. Now we see this truth borne out.

It is a common tactic in corporate circles, and they have executed it with relish.

I'm generally not one to prognosticate "doom'n'gloom", because they will undoubtedly still be in business once this debacle reaches its fruition, however, to think that they won't see some serious attrition and financial damage as a result of this posture is just not reasonable at this point.

It looks like the only recourse now is activism. Boycotts, tiering down to basic, not buying/selling L$, etc. The effort now has to be "getting the word out" to as many people as possible.

Could plan to have an "Adult Content Vacation" Day, where as many people as possible who will be negatively impacted by this policy (and anyone else sympathetic to them or to the issue itself) will just not log in. Only problem is that it is a two-edged sword. Having such a day, and very few people bothering to participate would send the wrong signal to LL.

I'll openly stand up here and say I dont blame Blondin.

Blondin communicated what he was given, and that wasnt enough to satisfy us, we highlighted all the holes in the info he gave us but he didnt have any more to give, not without revealing internal policy discussions that we now see were departing further and further from the original information. He may have been a party to those discussions or not but it doesnt matter. I'm guessing he'd rather keep the Linden surname and the pay that goes with it than not, so he just couldnt tell us where things were going.

I've been in that situation myself before and its not fun. I would imagine he can also neither confirm nor deny the accuracy of the above paragraph without violating company directives.

Bottom line as far as I'm concerned is now to plan for implementation. My main store is on an estate, so I'll be contacting the estate managers and asking if they plan to flag any parts of their estate as Adult and if so will they please let me know which sims so I can relocate to an available parcel there in advance, when the big change happens moving two stores (one on my land, the other rented from a guy I know is going to have to move) will be quite enough! Under the guidelines just posted, I'm not even in a questionable area any more.

If the estate my main store is on wont be flagging any, then I'll either find a new estate for my main store or just expand my mainland location some to make it my main location instead. Its going to really gall me to have to up my tier to do it since its getting paid to the company thats doing this to me, but in the long run I'll be paying out less - which is an important consideration since I know I'm going to take a real hit in business volume over the June/July timeframe no matter what.

It would save us (and you) an awful lot of hassle and resentment if at least some of the new adult land is deliberately identical to the old land that we shall need to move out of if we want to continue adult activities - the same rivers, hills, snow, beaches, etc, and then we just move to the same plot. Also, if all the work we have spent for years building objects and houses etc is not wasted - either an option for a simplified transfer method, or even better, just replicate everything and let us choose whether to live in the new one or the old one.

Of course over time this will evolve, but if you don't do this for the transfer, there are going to be some nasty effects on the land markets, and there will be a lot of unnecessary complaints - unnecessary because it is not essential to the separation of adult activities.

Interesting list... just checked out of curiousity and the only place Breakfast club is rated R is the US. It is G in most of Canada (PG in Manitoba).

/me catches up on the overnight developments, blinks, and wonders if she woke up in the bizzaro grid.

I'm willing to give Blondin the benefit of the doubt, as much as he is beginning to remind me of Baghdad Bob. Considering howw LL has treated this forum with such disdain since I've beem here, how they keep talking "new forum" bullshit and never deliver, and even the situation with Katt, who may have had her shortcomings but i think was just thrown in here with no help whatsoever, I'm willing to believe Blondin is merely the messenger .

To be truthful, I don't think any real policy maker has the balls to confront the residents on this issue.

I don't think the test station you're referring to has anything to do with access to the Adult Continent. It's a piece of left-over debris from the Verification Implosion a couple of years ago.

If adult includes things we don't do in our daily lives.. then that includes flying, teleporting, rezzing prims, changing gender and species, and in my case driving without glasses or walking distances without a cane.

So how about a six foot tall rat with prominent needle tracks and an oversized hypodermic sticking out of his arm? I've seen that in a super-PG area that has at times even banned bottomless toons like Donald Duck and Bugs Bunny.

I think LL knows darn well that the majority of residents are going to be affected by this. Not that 2 to 4% nonsense. They don't care, because they think this is going to make them money. They're wrong, but that's what they think.

Here's what will happen.

LL will implement the new policy. About 80% of residents and resident businesses are affected one way or another.

About half of them sit tight and hope no one will notice them, or that their content will pass inspection if they are ratted out by another resident.

Another quarter of them decide to disneyfy their content and try to remain in business.

That leaves 25%. Half of those decide SL isn't worth it any more and quit. The remainder makes a concerted rush for Ursula.

Ursula can't hold them all. Adult land prices skyrocket, while prices elsewhere plummet.

Savvy estate owners start ordering more islands and flag them adult to meet the demand.

This weeding process will continue, as the ones who decided to sit tight get AR'd by their neighbors and are forced to enter the "find an Adult spot to sit on" game. More people decide they can't afford the high priced Adult land and quit.

The end result: A tightly packed, laggy, nearly unusable Ursula continent. Vast, empty stretches of Mainland elsewhere. Many, many more private estates...but most of them inaccessible unless you are Adult verified. Higher costs (my rough estimate is about three times whatever rent you are paying now) for most of the remaining residents.

Oh...and about 30 to 40% less adult content in world. So, LL will achieve one goal. They'll clean up SL. Of course, they will make everyone miserable in the process, and put thousands of micro-merchants out of business. But, by God! SL will be a cleaner, more predictable experience!

thanks, I was amused/frustrated by this though:



Ummm .... how do you read an mp3?

Having 33% of your customers quit and the remainder refuse to buy land makes for a very quiet, boring, and predictable place all right.

All the empty mainland will be perfect for the spinning Cocal Cola, IBM and Nintendo signs.