Upcoming Changes for Adult Content: Answers to Questions

Just listening to the really hard to hear landowner brown bag... (think someone could have mastered it and add some volume? on a laptop is like a faint loudness (until the UI sounds blip and click!) and whats with the dead air for minutes at a time?

what I get from this.

1. only the major adult providers and areas will be getting a free swap, we can put a ticket in if we are small or just want to be there but will be a case by case basis and who ever was speaking for the start said it will be only a few. 50 or so sims to swap the rest to go to auction?? am I hearing right?

a) witch means it will sell at the same prices bay city/nautilus did with land flippers
b) us that are small are getting the shaft, pay us again and more or shut down and close up.


2. in the city area in Ursala there will be no teraforming, so it will stay as it is.. from what I get all of us Adult users (or Naughty bit users, or deviants...) in SL requested this ... was any one at this brown bag? Am I missing something? Because I didn't request this, and from what I am reading here very few if any requested an adult bay city.

Sounds to me like the LL bean counters want it because they can auction 200 sims off and the land flippers will pay 10x as much for them gambling that we all will come along and buy them even higher. they say they will watch and kick them out but.. I don't believe it.

why do I get the feeling listening to these that the Lindens running the brown bag sound very unsure and afraid ? I hear no real confidence in any of their voices just un-certainty, that makes me even more uneasy..

does anyone want to buy 9800sm of Flat green corner sim sided by a protected Linden road (un built)
/me shakes head in disbelief guess its good all my premiums are up in June all verified and ready to go Basic....wait and see wait and see

Methinks the correct statistics should have been given as "2-4% of the population will NOT be affected".

I am not against the separation of adult material from the cleaner stuff. I am, however, deeply against and concerned about the way this plan is being executed. Linden Labs seems to think that classifying a property or activity as "Adult" is a simple black-and-white matter. Blondin's comment that if a private residence wants to throw an open party one day, then the entire residence will have to be reclassed as "Adult" speaks volumes on this mindset - and it should be as plain as the nose on anyone's face just how flawed this whole premise is! People bought Mature land in the past NOT because they wanted to erect 400-meter monuments to male genitalia all over it, but because they wanted the FREEDOM to be able to do so IF they so chose. Now, Mature land is no less restricted than PG land. In fact, I'm hard-pressed to determine the difference between Mature and PG land under the new guidance... But I digress.

The point is, anyone who bought mature land in order to not be restricted on what they can do with it MUST, by definition, relocate to Pornadelphia or otherwise reclass as "Adult". Why? Because there is that chance that you *might* want to throw an open house party some day - and you won't be allowed to do it anywhere else.

Again - the idea of separating adult content is meritorious. The execution, however, is pure crap. It would have been far, far easier to simply move the 2-4% of the population who wants absolutely nothing to do with adult content, so voicing their choice by having chosen the more-restrictive PG land in the first place. It wouldn't have even needed to be a mandatory move; simply open a new continent and direct "anyone who wants a squeaky-clean, predictable SL experience free of any adult experiences" to move there in order to maintain the desired experience. Anyone who sincerely wants nothing to do with adult content would gladly move there on their own. Anyone who chooses to remain in the now-mature Mainland would give up their right to AR offensive content.

This would have been far easier to execute, more widely accepted, and would not have resulted in the PR nightmare this issue is quickly becoming. It also would not have created the ugly spectre of fascism, or of the abusive land speculation that happens when being on a highly-specific piece of land becomes mandatory for ANY group or classification of people. Whoever it was who decided on the "force everyone to move" approach over the "let people move if they so choose" approach really, really needs to attend remedial training on business and customer management. Seriously!

Edit: It seems Linden Labs finally decided to unload its six-shooter into its foot, judging from the blog entries and the resultant 40+ page explosion of this thread; so I'll see this post again in about 8-10 hours.

An excellent plan, my good ferret! In the words of Edmund Blackadder, ..."A plan so cunning that if you stuck a tail on it, it would be a weasel!"

Document, Document, Document. But always be ready for a "Blondin wasn't in charge of this, and LL is not bound by his statements" sort of answer.


-V-

Would like an opinion on the following:

Region/Estate: a private island sim

Zoned: mature residential, public access, no restrictions
No parcel adds, classifieds or posted events allowed
Residents can hold private parties, by personal TP in only

Parcel: beach front, with public access, no restrictions, and Skybox

Details:

1) Beach, has a prim sign, allowing nude sunbathing or swimming, no voyeurism allowed

2) Beach, has a picnic blanket, with poseballs for cuddles, foreplay and more

3) Skybox, above 700 meters, with Adult furniture, sexgen bed, various rugs,
shower, massage etc. (no pictures)

4) Skybox, protected by a security system with a radius of 96 meters,
one warning, and 6 seconds to leave or be teleported to another sim.
(only a committed peeping tom, could get a look at or see into this skybox)

So, can this region/estate/parcel with public access and no restrictions be classified as Mature?

Please address points 1 through 4 individually, and as a whole!

My guess is that she is referring to the simply *gigantic* amounts of consultation LL has done with tons and tons of content providers who are panting to have SL become "Mr Rogers' Neighborhood".

The brown bags were announced here, but Cyn refers to a great deal more consultation, and so does blondin, with "industry experts", "Educators", etc.

Methinks all of that took place *well* before* the dog-and-pony show known as the "brown bags". The plan was cast in stone by then, and nothing was going to stop it short of armed insurrection or an act of god.

-V-

Jaereth old sock, Do calm yourself. Couldbe is going to be just as hosed as the rest of us, and what's more, she knows it. We don't accomplish anything by fighting amongst ourselves. Take all that bile and aim it at the *author* of your troubles- They live yonder, in San Francisco! Aim west, young man!

We're all victims here, whether we realize it or not. I suspect even the dreaded MS. "N" Will find that this dog's breakfast isn't to her liking.

Sometime between June and August, I suspect that we're all going to sprout a matched set of size-11 assholes- Why bicker amongst ourselves?



-V-

Is a bit more complicated than this. Many people have alts that have their own email addresses for different purposes. Business and personal. Many people also created an alt that has evolved into their Main inworld presence and their original Main account simply pay the bills. In situations like this is not enough to say just dump them and start again. Would be far simpler to be able to link any avatar account that you may create, to a main or central real-world account, if you choose to.

It will be interesting to see how LL handles Under Age AR's under this new system. Right now they are notorious for summarily suspending peple at the drop of an AR without investigating, and immediately shifting the burden of proof from the accuser to the accused, who usually has to send in copies of personal documents to prove age. Even people who have been Aristotle Verified have reported being the victim of false AR's, and it seems LL doesn't take into account their verified status, and demands identiy documents.

No offense to Blondin, but when you takes the cheese, you works for the mouse. In a very real way, he is either getting paid for, or volunteering for the job of having people shout at him. That he isn't a tireless advocate for our cause, I don't blame him for a bit- we're only paying his salary *indirectly*, we don't sign the checks (if any- it wouldn't surprise me a bit to find that he was buffering those ignoramuses from San Francisco gratis, the cheap bastards).

However, the fact that he's doing the best he can in difficult circumstances is *not* going to keep me from bending his ear. He is the LL representative hereabouts, and I have a bone to pick with LL. I don't see anyone else at the office volunteering to soak up my "pissed off customer" rants, and I doubt that anyone else would. IT's been fairly obvious all along that there were *way* too many questions for one person to deal with, and if LL was serious about this forum doing anything but stalling us while they finalize their plan, there would be three more people in here, including someone from senior management.

So, Blondin is it. He gets the big ziggy. which is why I say "Sucks to be you Blondin" fairly frequently.

Blondin may be a fan of the policy, or not- but I'm pretty sure that after it's all said and done, he is going to hate it as much as the rest of us- because there will be a *lot* of people who will hold him *personally* responsible for LL's screw-ups.

That won't be fair, but as I said, when you takes the cheese, you works for the mouse.

As Clint Eastwood said to Gene Hackman in "Unforgiven";

"*Deserve's* got nothing to do with it".

-V-

The whole thing with age play affected a small minority. Relatively. Did this stop age play? No.

The whole thing with banks affected a small minority. Relatively. Did this stop con artists? No.

The whole thing with casinos affected a small minority. Relatively. Did this stop gambling in SL? No.

The whole VAT thing affected a very large percentage of PAYING users. You all still happy about that?

THIS affects a majority of PAYING users on many levels as evidenced by this humongous thread. The implications go far beyond just the adult content people or people who use SL for adult content.

Methinks the only paying users they want in SL are people who are willing to buy at MINIMUM an entire sim or island. Everyone else is a nuisance. Which seems to be the business plan.

Good luck with that.

Brenda Connolly
Rotary Wing Radical


Join Date: Jan 2007
Location: Jerzee
Posts: 18,075 It will be interesting to see how LL handles Under Age AR's under this new system. Right now they are notorious for summarily suspending peple at the drop of an AR without investigating, and immediately shifting the burden of proof from the accuser to the accused, who usually has to send in copies of personal documents to prove age. Even people who have been Aristotle Verified have reported being the victim of false AR's, and it seems LL doesn't take into account their verified status, and demands identiy documents.

Oh well with fax machines and copy machines it only takes seconds to send the same information to LL as you did to aristole. with this you could turn the AR around and get the people who griefed you for filing a false AR.

I believe that the official answer from Blondin is "We will try our best to accomodate such requests" or something like that. freely translated as "probably not, but we don't want to say so"

-V-

Now *that* might make a bigger impact than a bunch of red "a's" Imagine a mainland filled with giant, oddly shaped, pink redwoods swaying in the breeze. "Does my land qualify as "adult", Mr., Linden, Sir"?

-V-

That might work quite well Very imaginative =)

And if you put up sign saying "Welcome to the peeni art exhibition" then poor Blondin, he going to go crazy trying to classify the parcel. Is art ya and no suggestion of sexual innuendo.

A forest of pink redwoods covering M-rated mainland. wow !!! lol !!! Be a field day for the TV networks. =)

So in the mp3 of definitions

first we hear blood to a certain level is ok (Mature), as we see it on TV on many many shows... fine good yes I have watched episodes of Greys anatomy that I gagged seeing some stuff! thats mature at least for that brown bag (the last one)

But not 2 minutes later any illegal fake drug use (smoking a joint/bong etc. , shooting up.) is Adult because it is not a legal thing .. beside the point that its not real...

that 70's show showed (and still does daily in re runs) smoking pot in almost every episode. CSI, Law and order, have shown shooting up , junkies, coke heads , crack smoking and everything else prime time... Fringe (fox 08-09) shows LSD use ...

I really could care less if its adult or mature wont affect me unless I have to police those that are on my public land. so here are the Questions:


1. If I am ARed for having a bong or joint that makes no object talk (the smell of mary jane in the air) etc. who's to say what I or a guest are "PRETENDING" to smoke ? maybe I like to roll my own cigarettes or use a much cleaner filter such as a water pipe? How will we fight it ? making a call and sending a ticket after we are suspended?

this is going to be the biggest mess yet! I hope LL hired 500 + people to INVESTIGATE each AR that comes in prior to just suspending people for non adult activity

at many live music shows in SL many light up a "joint" and pass them out its fun its pretend.. what happens there does this need to be on an adult SIM? we run shows do I have to say no smoking rope? not even something that resembles a joint?

I'm wondering why LL keeps forcing Age Verification and sequestering of Adult Content on us.

Can't they just let SL be the way it is? Will all adult businesses be forced to move to the new continent? Will I have to age verify to get halfway decent clothes? *sigh* Why does LL make it so hard to simple stay and enjoy SL... why do I have to worry about stupid things like this?

Nat.

Except that many of these were not LL's fault and they didn't have a choice. LL definitely could have handled every single one of them better but you can't blame them for the situations themselves.



This was LL's fault, they handled it clumsily and they didn't do it for any legal reason, just to save their PR butts from faux news and a few British online rags. This is one of those situations where the statements Linden Labs and spineless go together well in a sentence. I don't condone sexual ageplay by any means but there's a better way for them to handle it.



Again, LL's fault and a stupid PR move that was implemented even more clumsily, that being said if they didn't act eventually they would have been forced to act. I honestly think they were mistaken in caving when they did but they took the sooner rather than later approach.



Actually this was a clear and present danger to SL since there are federal laws against what was going on and the FBI was taking interest, again they could have handled it better but better they acted than get all of SL shutdown or real money transfers shutdown.



I'm an American so I'm not well versed in EU procedure but I believe that you have Brussels to thank for that not LL. I've heard all the theories about how LL could have avoided it but that's just shifting blame. I'm an American so while I'm used to stupid laws I have only my own government to blame for it. Shifting blame to LL for a tax that they can't avoid except to totally leave a whole continent is naive and wrong. If anything Europeans should have thanked LL for absorbing the cost for as long as they did.

Well, this appears to be changing: http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20090313/us_time/08599188495600

While this new policy will definately impact high profile purveyors of adult content, I don't think it will affect the average user. Look at how much "naughty" stuff goes on behind closed blinds in PG ATM.

Some will be AR'd by enemies, zealots and opportunists, but most won't. If you are truly paranoid, build high in the sky and become the needle in the haystack. For myself, I will continue to use my "mature" beach to sunbathe sans clothing, skinny dip in my river, and tub naked under the stars whenever I damn well please. I paid top dollar for the privelage to "own" mature mainland, and have no intention of relocating. There are damned few parcels in SL (as is) that can equal the bit of mainland that I live on. Not likerly to get a far swap in Ursala.

Pretty sure that I am not alone in this opinion... Just another stupid and non-enforcible edict from on high. Script limits is the real deal to have angst about.

I had the same feeling from listening to the Landowners brown bag. Some of the tones in Jacks voice was telling. I was particularly intrigued by the increase in tone/mood when he was talking about if a resident wants increase parcel size, or to keep the mainland parcel they are on, as well as the Adult parcel. It was the tone I imagined Blondin using in the now edited post from one of the original forums.

/352/01/312352/91.html#post2367767

/352/01/312352/91.html#post2367782


From: Brown_Bag_Meeting_with_Landowners_on_AO

Marty: 01:03 "I am one of the dozens of people who have been working on this project that we call AO for the past several months."

Marty: 4:40 "and We didn't do this without a lot of planning and it has taken months of of implementation to get us to where we are."

Jack: 10:20 " The continent as it stand is potentially about 250 regions in size. Initially only about 50-70 regions will be available. But we can ?osly? bring the others up as required "

How long has Linden labs been working on this. Obviously a lot longer then the residents have known. How many people have purchased land during this time with the belief that if not today next month or the next, they may build an "adult" facility on it. Or even, gee if this doesn't work I can always do a sex club, or combat sim, or a historical depiction of the beheading of royalty and thieves. How many people were in the process of building such things when they found out about this. Bringing their construction to a screeching halt.

Their lack of desire to communicate this information directly to the residents has me even more suspicious. They have relied on the residents to spread the word. Now they've released a press release. What are the folks at Linden Labs afraid of? Perhaps their 2-4% is an estimate of how many people effected will know about this before they implement it.

Oh heck why not,

Oh Blondie, will you answer this one?

Who exactly within the adult content providers was consulted??

Who among the Adult sim Owners was consulted?? I know about Lord, but well sorry owning one sim i think?? Maybe two not sure, where were the mulit sim owners??

Or did you hadn pick them as well with only people in favor of your plan?

Brilliant, a woman has brought up this issue! (I was going to give it a crack but wanted to avoid the tragic Male Feminist tag, but to hell with that.)

Here is me spin on the issue. Despite what I'm sure lots of blokes would like to believe, the energy and vigor of SL, in my not so humble opinion, comes from women on SL. It struck me very early on when I came to SL that women are flirtier, more assertive and freer with their opinions than RL - and I make a point of having female friends who are no wilting flowers!

I don't think it's too much of a call to suggest that this "cleaning up" by sweeping people off to an adult continent is not unrelated to the church in the late Middle Ages inventing the notion of natural expression of female sexuality as the work of the devil and all the other social attempts to bring female sexuality to heel. Earth shattering changes are not needed to tweak the social order. They usually happen by increments. In my view, SL is making one of those incremental changes by rejecting free sexual expression, even in an environment that almost invariably means a player has to go to some lengths to be exposed to it. The sexual energy of SL is part of its magic, that is being driven mostly by women, SL is reacting decisively and categorically against that energy - it's in my opinion a poorly disguised attack on female sexuality in the tiny world of ours.

OK did anyone notice that Linden Labs has had their head lawyer at every brown bag meeting?

You think that might be because they know a TOS is not a get out of legal action free card.

TOS's only really work for monthly services. Once you sell anything with a value, the tos when you bought it is a contract. Lindens base their whole services around a currency that has a real dollar value attached.

Sims are an investment, so is every product created and bought.

Changing the tos does not free them up from that contract and "the allowed to change at anytime" clause does not work after someone owns a sim or land or products they bought online.

Add up what you have in your inventory that you paid for. All those items have a value.

This is more than just about a policy change. Users and Sim owners and Content providers are not without recourse if they get damaged finacially.

There have already been several cases in the US where judges have ruled the TOS was not a valid excemption from legal action.

Further, if a Mainland land owner is forced to move and their new land is worth less than their old land, they have legal recourse as well. Same as if they find that land prices in the old mainland sims shoot up in value after the move, they also have recourse.

Lindens TOS is not a sheild against onesided actions that benifit one party as it and the policies and practices of the company at the time is considered a legal contract at the time items or land or sims were purchased because all these things have a value that is retained.

As for one if my store on the mainland has to be moved to the ghetto I expect a one for one swap with the same neighbors I now have without an increase in tier during the time period of the swap. If you go ahead with this distillation of the society I do not expect you to reap any monetary gain. If you do it will be time to fold up the tents and seek other forms of entertainment.

Again I am sure this has been expressed elsewhere in the forum but honestly it is out of control and not worth the time to excavate the acres of confusion...

I would like to hear an official answer to this question as well. And as far as I can tell, many content creators (and their customers) would like to hear it too.
And if you don't have a definite answer right now, will this particular area be addressed in the future version of your AO guidelines? Considering how common it is in SL, it definitely *should* be addressed.