Upcoming Changes for Adult Content: Answers to Questions

If you don't know who I am you've been living under a rock since 2005.

Regardless I have no problem with this system, I enforce it myself already, anyone in my communities that identifies themselves as under aged is banned and removed immediately.

But I also have some problems with the rating system and the way its being parceled up.

99% of what goes on in my sims can be seen on network television, any time of day. But the Adult Content definition states, as follows:



Depicting death is to have one avatar shoot another avatar til the target avatar falls down.

I can turn on network TV right now and see people shooting each other under no rating warnings at all.

My gaming system, people fall over dead when defeated, course it doesn't say they're dead, it just says they're defeated...so maybe I can squeak by as Mature content simply on that alone....but...wait....no cause then we have this:



Well damn, got me there, there isn't often a day in Lost Angels where some boobies aren't on display somewhere.

And...cause of this, you're now going to limit access to my content, by forcing MY content to be metered and authorized as Adult, when its your responsibility as a business to ensure that under aged players aren't getting on the grid in the first place?

And as I remember it we tried this back in 2007 and it didn't go so well, your contract age verification agency had a gigantic failure rate. And whats more, even if the verification agency was 100% capable, not every legitimate adult can verify or is willing to verify with an outside agency simply to access Second Life's more risque content.

And thats the problem I have, you're not taking the responsibility, as a business yourself to take the PERSONAL hit of keeping these unverifiable people out of YOUR platform, you're asking ME to take the hit as a business owner and game developer who has, in reality, tens of thousands of dollars, and hundreds of thousands of dollars in development and man hours invested in what they do in YOUR platform that gives it a large content offering that keeps people in your platform.

You're asking me to be the one to take the loss, while you personally get to keep the numbers of the unverified in Second Life, thus padding YOUR user metrics and to hell with mine.

I do not approve of this, you should be stopping unverified adults at the door already. Its not my responsibility to take a loss, after being so heavily invested, simply because in your mad quest to get millions of registered users you stopped verifying by credit card or even stopped verifying legitimate email addresses for people to be able to register an account.

This is your failure LL, not mine, and I find it preposterous that you're asking me to pay for your failure.

Take your Changes to Adult content and hide them somewhere in the code pits where all the "fixes" for the lag and problems in Second Life are, that way nobody will ever find them and they'll never see the light of day.

Or, to be more succinct, man up and take the hit yourselves. If you don't want unverified adults in adult areas in Second Life, then you shouldn't let unverified adults in Second Life AT ALL.

You show us, as a business, you have the integrity to admit you made the mistake and you're going to correct it at your level. And stop asking those of us that do offer adult content in Second Life to pay for your own mistaken past policy changes.

You don't need this ridiculous censorship system, what you need, is to start verifying user accounts again, period.

You take the hit, and I'll regain some respect for you as a development house. Right now, your stock with me could definitely use an upturn.

I must be living under a rock, then.

These entire thing feels like it's simply an attempt by Linden Labs to protect against civil suits relating to exposing adult content to minors by *selectively* applying Section 2.2 of the Terms of Service.
Time and time again people have said "Why should we have this since the Teen grid is for those under 18 and the main grid is suppose to just be for adults?", let me go into more detail.

Terms of Service 2.2


You explicitly say that all users under 18 are prohibited from accessing the service other than the Teen area, also, you now have the tools to ensure (To a standard that should hold up in court) all those that have an account on the main grid can be verified to be over 18 years of age, if you were really serious about protecting minors against adult content (And the like) you would simply verify all accounts on the main grid except you won't do that because you would lose a lot of members.

I don't understand how you can attempt to selectively apply age verification requirements in areas classified as "Adult" when according to the Terms of Service all areas except the Teen Area are to be accessed only by those over 18 years of age, it appears to be a convenient double standard.

This entire thing looks to be a token gesture to please the save-the-children crowd and to reduce legal liability whilst making sure you don't alienate existing and future members.

I really do hope this post is read by a Linden and replied to.

You are.

/me has asked several times but still does not have an answer.

Can somebody, hopefully a Linden, tell me who is driving this? They've had a month+ of residents telling them that this plan of theirs needs serious work. Cyn's latest blog and the KB article make it pretty clear that we've either been totally ignored or that there are some senior people at LL that are *totally* divorced from reality.

When it becomes clear that this plan is causing serious damage to SL, who can we thank for it? Surely Blondin isn't totally in charge of this. Is it Blue? Jack? Cyn? M?

OK, this was a major surprise to me to see. What on earth does nudity (whether photo-realistic or not) have to do with sex or violence? I'm sorry, I just don't see the connection.

Besides that, people that advertise "photo-realistic skins" - are they going to have to move? Blondin, you have said time and time in these threads that skin makers are not going to have to move. This is sounding now like they will, which is a MAJOR change from what has been said earlier. Can you please get some clarification for us on this aspect of the standard? This is very important.

I said this back on page 100 something.. I knew this was the plan and it will be 2-4% that get to move the rest of us will have to buy at over inflated prices so they can have more "look you can make lots of USD in SL" spin!

I am going to apply, I feel my public land and stages and dance poles and pose balls and sex beds/etc. open to all, is adult now I am listed in search and classifieds and have been for 3 years (yes this is an alt account) may not have adverted any events in months, may also not have high traffic. But if I don't get to swap I will just slowly sell the land off at least its a great sim and may be wanted by someone.


I will be really upset if I do not get a swap

Me too (under a rock - not in any sexually suggestive way, I might add!).

Which? The forum thread, or the policy?



Most people would qualify, I think.



That's a peculiar statement, especially in light of the rest of your post. In addition, if you are referring to the rest of the posts in the thread as "verbal diarrhea", then you're proudly adding to it.

Just saying that the rest of your post sounds spot on, but the title and introduction sound a little confusing and contrary.

Beginning to look like it's a pretty big rock.

Ok enough is enough here, Blondin drag someone in here from Linden Lab, kicking and screaming if need be to explain just who the heck has been asking for this and more importantly to explain why estates can't have parcel level controls, you can run your mainland estate into the ground if it pleases you but why the heck do you want to go dragging estates down with you?

People being able to cam is no excuse for this BS policy. How many weeks have we been here and you haven't taken one iota of notice of the concerns or alternative suggestions on how to make this work, so time to cut the crap and get to the bottom line of why the heck this is happening.

The problem is that mature mainland will hit the skids in a serious way after this policy has run its course. There will be so much mainland abandoned / for sale that the prices will be L$1/sqm or less for the vast majority of it.

As a result, I am going to ask for a swap as well. I bought Mature because it was "no restrictions" land. If my land is going to be restricted now, I better have an option to move to the same kind of land that I purchased.

So, to publicly put LL on notice, I fully expect a half-sim's worth of Ursula in exchange for my current Mature mainland, or they can eat my tier.

Yes. Please.

I find it surprising that people don't know who I am. I'm on page 264 of the Official Second Life Guide: Second Edition. But, whatever, you're not required to know. Theres lots of parts of Second Life and lots of people doing their own thing and thats all just fine and dandy with me. But I have done some fairly outstanding things within the platform...should you take the time to look into them, you might understand why you might feel like you've been living under a rock. That aside, the Lindens damn well know who I am and I'm not posting in this thread to talk to you folks I'm talking to the Lindens, who aren't likely going to listen but this is my outlet apparently.

Forum threads are verbal diarrhea, most people post to hear themselves talking. Which is largely why Lindens don't spend any time responding, take it from me, I have my own forums I have to deal with and I've learned the fine art of listening when I should and letting the rest just go in one ear and out the other.

I don't spend my time on the SL forums I spend my time in world looking after the 300+ sim/role play communities that use the role play gaming system I developed, and working on making that system better.

Far as being contrary, I was hung up on three times by Concierge today and told to put in a "ticket" to speak to a supervisor that I know will never be answered, just like the ticket that I've had in since April of 2008 about the increased physics instability in direct correlation with agents in a region since Havok 4 hasn't been resolved in over a year.

I'm not in a good mood, and the Lindens asking me to take responsibility for their own short comings hasn't helped much with that mood.

You mean, like, books? On paper? That's so Last Century!

i have no clue who you are, Suzanna Soyinka.
and why you should think you are important is beyond me.
verification is all very well if you live in the USA, if you dont then you will have a problem. however the nice people at LL will take our money instead and call it age verified.

unless your post was meant to be humerous you have a selfish or uneducated attitude and serious ego issues.

You won't get that list. LL has specifically said they won't publish it, as it would make it too easy to game the search system. Once again, they are asking us to take them on faith. "Trust us, we're being very careful to get it right".

Yeah, sure. Sort of like the current search, huh? Or like the forum censor, that won't let you post if you say "select" and one other common word.

If it comes to having to re-buy land, then I'll sell my existing parcels before the value drops due to the glut that will be created when almost everyone is moved.

It's a virtual world, ffs! LL should be able to recreate the exact same land conditions that people have now and just "move" people. In fact, why "move" people at all - Why not create an adult category for parcels, and then not show that content for those who choose to opt out. Instead of a "naughty" club, those users' viewers would show instead pictures of kittens, or rabbits (fully clothed, of course).

Or, given that the majority of content will be considered "adult" would it not be easier to create PG ghettoes for those who are offended by what they come across?

Oh, but that wouldn't generate any income at all - would it?

Yeah I know, I dunno why Hamlet even did that guide. Its not like SL people read after all.

/me has an upsight.

This is all about getting clubs off the mainland so the gteam doesn't have to listen to their neighbors complain about the lag they create.

So of course I understand this AO thing is happening whether we want it or not. I haven't seen one shred of evidence that "Many Residence want this", quite the contrary I Seen over 200 posts saying they don't... But this is LL sandbox so I guess we Play by THEIR rules or we can leave.

How about some answers.... your FAQ tells me nothing concrete. What will be considered ADULT?... I want a list.. what will be considered adult in the search?... again I want a list... Am I going to spend my time now fighting AR's over strangers doing nasty things on my land when I'm not there?... How will people become "Verified"? If they do, will they by default be allowed to search and visit adult areas, or will, like now, have to remember a checkbox to do a full search so my vendors don't get frozen out. Will we have to put little yellow stars over the "nasty bits" in order to sell skins and art on our land.... if we are FORCED to move to this new continent.. will the tracts be EXACTLY as they are now, including access to large tracts of open ocean and similar surroundings?.... or will we be dumped and forgotten in some ghetto someplace? I don’t have anything in my opinion that is considered “ADULT” by any standard. I do however have vendors that sell Skins, and I have a gallery and Photo studio, where I sell SL & RL artistic and Glamour nudes, as well as Vintage (1930’s – 50’s) erotica. By RL standards all this is considered Mature at most. But I don’t have any concrete answers. Am I going to log on one day and find that the nuns from the AO Gestapo have banished me to some dark hole someplace, and all my work and efforts will have been for nothing, and its simply a slow and expensive SL death.

You also all will notice that we couldn't comment in the open blog AGAIN....

/me scuttles back under rock...

Oh.. You've never been AR'ed before, have you?

There is no fight. They tell you that you've been bad and they take some action - you're only notified _after_ they take action. You can dispute the action and try to get it reversed/undone but you get no info on who AR'ed you, what the AR said, if it was one AR or 100 ARs or anything like that.

I dont see how this is going to stop anything lol...how are you all at LL planning to stop the "Johnny NooBs" from running around the grid in the buff with his new "attachement" on flashing everyone? It is to easy to create accounts in here for free...the age verification is the easiest part of creating a new account to fill out lol

You are right, this is not the end of SL. This will be the end of Linden Lab. they are going to be the biggest business failure of 2009.