Upcoming Changes for Adult Content: Answers to Questions

I posted a poll based on the Knowledge base maturity ratings page as it reads right now:

/327/43/317552/1.html

The knowledge base page itself is here:

https://support.secondlife.com/ics/support/default.asp?deptID=4417&task=knowledge&questionID=6010

Please vote, and tell all your friends in SL to vote. If the Lindens won't post a poll on the login page, lets run our own.

Hey Everyone, I'm up and running but I have a few meetings to attend to. I'll be back later today. Just wanted to check in

Personally, I think that is an insult to Baghdad Bob.

Well, that's fine, but I have SEEN this numerous times from both sides of the corporate veil, and I have seen the actual playbook (yes, an actual printed set of instructions/guidelines for how the schill was supposed to handle the customers).

You can see the cues in the specific ways in which the schill reacts to certain stimuli from customers. If he really was only the messenger, he would have no reason to stonewall ANY customer's questions, and he did just that to me and others, in person, and here in the forums. In addition, oft times, he betrayed his hand by giving his own personal "beliefs" about the adult content rules; a true messenger would never interject his own beliefs, because it appears as an obvious taint and bias. I mean, if we are trying to get across that something should be one way, and the supposed "messenger" is giving his opinion that it is another, then what is the point in trying to give any other opinion than the one he holds? What incentive does he have to communicate contrary opinions? "That's nice, but I don't share that belief" is not the posture of a messenger.

Thus, while he may be a sacrificial lamb, he is most definitely NOT "just a messenger".



They don't have to. That's what the sacrificial lamb is for.

Well, it's easy to promise that the land will remain untenanted for a moth after you move- Nobody will want to buy it!

-V-

And from what we saw they put roads along the sim edges ..... that will be fun.

Oh dear!
It's not looking good is it?
I too think that the end result will be an overpopulated "Adult" Sl and an empty, dull, sanitised alternative.

I left "There" because of its anodised, frankly boring, experience.

SL has been great, but this latest development is very worrying. Effectively, LL are now taking over and imposing an artificial division/segragation/apartheid system, under the guise of "choice". Forcing residents to move to ghettoes is kind of scary, isn't it?

Oh well, looks like it's time to close my account, get into the ****pit of my plane, fly to Vegas, play some ****s, read a few books like "The Owl and the ****cat" and "***** by Gaslight", then maybe twiddle the ***** on my radio and listen to an ****nal game.

I like how they use the weasel word "numerous". It can mean anything or nothing. 20 residents could be "numerous" if you consider that a mainland sim only holds 40 people.

I see LL posted their draft of the policy on the blog. Sadly, it's still so vague, I honestly can't tell if my store will fall under the header of Adult or not. I'm also disappointed they say they already had their 'brown bags' and yet I never saw them announced. So much for having a voice in the process. I have tens of thousands of customers who like myself, want to know what is going on.

Given the circumstances I'm going to be forced to press this issue. I'm going to open a ticket, and If I don't get a definitive answer, I'm going to make a phone call, and if I still don't get a definitive answer, I will be on your doorstep, LL.

brown bags?

Surely that's some naughty adult sexual reference and thus should be banned at once!

I am entirely in favor of the new "Adult" classifications, separations... what-have-you's that LL proposes.

What I am sick and disgusted about seeing is the destructive, discredited, throw-back association between the unclothed human body and "intensely violent acts..." etc etc, as in:



"Photo-realistic nudity" in the same catagory as acts of death, torture, dismemberment!!! God... you guys should be ashamed of yourselves! This is a disgusting reinforcement of the value system which has caused so much agony and harm around the world, infecting the relationships and self-esteem of people everywhere, sustained by medieval organizations like the [various religious organizations which I shall not name but which count as adherents the majority of the human race].

Much of the western world is beginning to heal themselves of this sickness. Is it not reasonable to expect that the rules of the Second Life community incorporate even a minimum of enlightenment regarding the facts of human nature??


Sudane................................

Brown Bags were "targeted" meetings, invite only. They haven't announced anything. They saye they "announced" the proposed policy. They didn't . Posting in a forum and blog that most people don't read is hardly announcing.

Or it can simply mean what we use to throw up into after reading that pile of BS.

Hi Blondin, just let us know when you are going to have a day without an excuse not to be here, ok?

You read the Wiki yet? Any comments?

You sound like a waitress: Someone who says she's coming, while she is walking away.

See the above title. This to me seems to be overkill. The vast majority of that which you indicate will be forced to flag as "adult", explicit sexual content aside (porn), can be seen these days on basic network television.

That said, I find it deplorable, after nearly 4 years in Second Life, that you would now tell us what adult is and is not. What mature is and is not.

-I did not come to Second Life to be treated like I can not tell the difference.

-I did not come to Second life to have those definitions dictated to me either.

And you, Linden Labs, are the progenitors of the problem that lead to the need for this drastic step in the first place.
Had you the foresight 3 years ago to leave well enough alone, and refrain from removing Credit Card requirements from accounts, it may have staved off the inevitable influx of minors and degenerate sociopaths that flooded the grid. Thus leading to the innumerable issues with child pornography, claims of pedophilia, and the rest.

Prior to the removal of the credit card requirements on accounts, I can say the issues in this regard were minimal. Of course, the grid was also not nearly as populated back then. Nor had Second Life enjoyed the amount of free press such things like the German pedophilia claims, among others, created. Not to say this is the only "free press" SL has ever had. But it is surely not the kind I imagine you had ever wanted.

Since that time, this shift toward dictating to residents what is Adult, mature and PG has escalated further. And now, here we stand on the precipice of a, quite possibly, epic disaster for business owners and residence across the grid.

There is no justifiable way you can tell me or anyone else that regions that host combat, for example, will not have their traffic impacted by this change. There is no way you can assure any of us that those same regions, should they host vendors, shops and businesses, will not lose retail sales for those shops and businesses. And those shop owners will thus be unable to continue paying their rental fees.

For many, this means a huge loss in revenue for their SIM TIER. And this ultimately means a loss of revenue for YOU Linden Labs. As hundreds if not thousands of current and perhaps future estate owners find themselves unable to shell out the $295 a month in estate fees.

Perhaps my statements seem a bit paranoid? Perhaps even delusional? But having been in Second Life now since 2005, and seeing the way things have changed, way things have been managed, the implementation and removal of key features to the Second Life Grid and the SL Client it's self, I do not presently find my self filled with a sense of confidence over this entire affair that I feel this massive change should be accompanied by.

"Your call is very important to us..."

The definition of Adult is so broad it would include kissing.

I assume this also means damage option for land will now only be available for Adult regions.

So, your point is that you're just fine with everyone *else's parade being rained on as long as *yours* gets a sunny day?

Kinda selfish, ain't it?

-V-

My stomach isn't strong enough to read the blog post. Can someone tell me, a Linden would be nice, what happens if while a land owner is off line a pair of random strangers come on the land and perform random adult acts.
Who gets AR'd? the strangers or the land owner? Will land owners have to hire 24 hour security to protect their land?
Will this be the end of sand boxes and other places that allow open rezzing? Such as stores that allow you to rez and unpack a new purchase.

Unfortunately, totalitarian acts, by definitiion, don't allow those affected to pick and choose which blanket rules they choose to accept. It's all or nothing. LL don't have the skill, experience, sensitivity, time or money to define grey areas, so it has to black and white. It's a kind of "If you're not with us, you're against us" mentality - ie: This is what we have defined as "Adult" and everything else is not. No fine lines, no choice, no option to use one's adult judgment to define one's own experience.

In real life, there are areas of my city that I would not walk trhough in a short skirt, late at night. There are no walls, signs, fences or rules that say I shouldn't. I don't because I know from experience, judgement, research, what might happen if I did. If I accepted that my government had the right to take the people in that area, and put them in some sort of zoned compound, with walls and warning signs, then I would have to accept that those same rules would infringe in some way on my own liberty. Yes, it would be easier to identify the "bad" areas, but at what cost?

The line is drawn, and we're either defined as moralistic prudes with the IQ and emotional intelligence of a five year old, or we're promiscuous, amoral, peverted degenerates. That's it. You can't pick and choose what you think is ok or what isn't. That's what we have at the moment in SL, and obviously LL don't want that anymore.
Digital F******!

"I feel your pain"

https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/SVC-4149

I added a comment requesting the list of "naughty words" that will get your search listing filtered or flagged as adult. The new requirement for maturity ratings is:

"search tags plainly suggestive of adult behavior or content will require the respective Adult designation"

OK, so give us a list, so we know what not to use. Letting us guess that this word is suggestive, and that one is not, is a poor way to do business.

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My not entirely humorous attempt at "plainly suggestive of adult behaviour":

I use my hand to guide my floppy into the slot, sliding it in and out repeatedly. Now its gone from floppy to hard. The slot is sticky as it pops out. My fingers caress the ball, and grab the stick, moving it around, and pressing all the right buttons.

(get your minds out of the gutter, floppy disks, hard drives, trackball mouse, and gaming joystick of course, its all computer hardware)

I've said something about this elsewhere, but I might as well sound off here, too.

Situation. I own a couple of residential private islands. I let only to friends. We don't advertise, but nor do we seek to keep people out; I've tried various strategies, come to the conclusion that ban lines, security orbs and the like are more bother than they're worth, and that if people do tp in by accident, they're welcome to look round so long as they don't make a nuisance of themselves and and leave if I ask them so to do.

The casual visitor may well find, in some parts of the islands, items on public display -- my collection of tentacle monsters, for example, is much admired -- and perhaps even activities going on that certainly seem to demand an "Adult" classification.

But I am loathe to flag the places as "Adult" as opposed to "Mature" because I don't want to inconvenience any of my friends, tenants or their friends who haven't, for whatever reason, verified their ages with LL.

It seems, though -- and I have put in a support ticket requesting clarification -- that I may well have to go down that route and cause actual inconvenience to actual people (particularly those who use a free builders' resource centre I host up in a skybox, well away from anything happening on the ground) by insisting they get themselves age verified, in order to protect the hypothetical sensibilities of hypothetical people who may hypothetically find their way to my islands by accident.

*hands you a Brown Bag. With the SL logo on it. Available on the website, right under First Bling.

Of course the land owner gets the hit. However, I hear for a small fee Vito and Vinnie Linden will be more than happy to "protect" your land from random non LL approved troublemakers.