Upcoming Changes for Adult Content: Answers to Questions

Folks, the time has come for me to leave this forum. I have deleted the bulk of my conversational posts, but I leave behind my articles to be locked when this thread is closed.

Blondin, I am sorry for all the grief you are getting, but, honestly, in your heart, I'm sure you have some sympathy for the loss we all feel as Second Life changes from an open and organic world, full of promise, hope and joy, to a large-scale corporate platform, regulated, sterilized and controlled.

I have tried throughout my time here to be balanced and sober in my posts. I have tried to write coherent, well-reasoned articles that would be helpful to Linden Lab. Equally, there are superb posts here from other people - insightful posts, intelligent and sophisticated posts. I now believe all that work was in vain.

I am sorry that Linden Lab does not have the genius to seek win-win solutions to problems. I am sorry to see the turmoil in this forum. I'm sorry to have witnessed the changes since 2007. The new people coming into SL will never know what existed before. Perhaps they are better off for it. For us, the old guard - particularly those who came before me - the residents who built Second Life - who made Linden Lab a successful company - well, I am sorry they must now be sacrificed. More poignantly, I'm sorry their spirit must be sacrificed - the spirit of freedom and responsibility that we all craved and could never find in RL.

As for these fora (plural of forum), I suppose some future issue will ignite my desire to contribute, but, to be honest, I believe Linden Lab has become complacent and arrogant in its success. You have first-mover advantage, but, one day, someone clever will cherry-pick the best of Second Life, avoid the mistakes and add new dimensions that will bring the virtual world industry to maturity. Until then, I shall limit my exposure to the vicissitudes of Linden Lab. I shall retire to my own private world and complete the novel for which Second Life has been the backbone of my research for the past three years.

"Good night, and good luck."

I seem to recall Blonding saying something about the whole "advertising without using search" and he mentioned handing out notecards as being one method that he considered advertising. presumably, prim invites would be included, but IM's would not.

I *think*. who knows about *any* of this crap anymore?

-V-

I'd put my position a little differently. I'm all for giving people more tools to avoid seeing things they'd rather not see. Fixing search, clarifying definitions, even a geographical separation between PG and Mature land, or an added "Adult" and/or "G' rating.

I can even see the utility of requiring validation for all *new* accounts, and keeping any unverified away from the PG or "G" areas, as well as the welcome areas.

I can especially see the utility of clearing out the "dead" accounts, and allowing residents to "validate" a single account and tie a bunch of alts to it.

I can see the utility of creating a safe haven area that has bullet-proof content control (we're talking demolition man stuff- you can't tell me that LL can't write a subroutine that assigns a demerit every time you cuss in open chat! ), rated "G", for corporations, education, and even Teens.

BUt what I *cannot* support is making people move *involuntarily* to the new place. I don't see how that can be accomplished without the metaphorical "rivers of blood" flowing all over mainland. LL will be able to enforce its decisions, but doing so will leave it wide-open for any former resident to sue them for breach of contract, theft (of their virtual goods, paid for and owned by them), and possibly even civil rights violations, depending on how fuzzy-headedly liberal the judge is.
The plan as stated will do *none* of the things that LL wants it to do. None of their goals will be met, it will not change anything except to create a whole new level of pain and agony amongst the residents causing many of them to leave.

So I suppose you could say that I support many of the *goals*, but am adamantly opposed to the *plan*.

-V-

This is getting more surreal and ridiculous as the days go by. You can sell stuff in the designated place but can't advertise it properly, meanwhile you can sell it in the wrong place and advertise it if you play little word games, or I guess you can sell it everywhere you want if you hire a kid to stand on a street corner and pass out handbills........I'm not trying to be hyperbolic, but WTF is gong on out there? I'm wondering if Blondin is one guy, or are they taking turns. "OK, Fred, you be Blondin tonight. Let's see how you can Fuck with them". Maybe it's an office contest, and they are looking to win a cruise to Hawaii, or a set of steak knives.

Screen captured, save, uploaded to a texture in world and WILL be plastered on bilboards in our store given to all our PAID employees to have on them. You just 'mature-ized' our BDSM store with all our displays AS IS. They are DISPLAYS for TESTING. For once a sane answer.

According to blondin, you'd get 9 days to move without being double-dipped for tier. he also said that time frame was negotiable. after the end of whatever move-in period you've negotiated, LL takes your mainland parcel and you only own your Ursula parcel.

-V-

I totally agree and that is why I have made the decission to just stop making any poseballs or furniture or animations that are sexual. People keep asking me why I have boxed them all up and put them out for free and it's because I KNOW that it will become an issue. People come in and they want to test them. And, anyway, I will have no way to advertise them without the keywords needed to do so. And it's just easier to write it off and work on making my store (that is located in a mature area) more PG friendly. Saves me a lot of heartache later.

Anyone wanting full permisson sex balls come and get them now. I doubt that I will even keep them out free for too much longer.

When people ask me why I am doing this I just say "Because Lindens have gone nuts"

I asked this EXACT question THREE TIMES as to why it wouldn't work as a gatekeeper for adult regions and was BLATANTLY IGNORED.. good luck gettting an answer....

There are so many more elegant ways to accomplish...yes ACTUALLY accomplish...keeping the sensitive residents away from questionable content. I am not even going to go through all the smart alternatives I've seen suggested since this whole debacle was announced but yeah, there are alot better ways to do it.
Most of those alternative methods won't lead to a class action suit.

So please, Linden Labs. Rethink this.

Blondin: In this case, we need clarification. Notecards, IMs and transferred prim invitations are single person-to-person communication. Sure, such one-on-one modes can be used for advertising, but we cannot have _any_ of SL's one-to-one modes of communication become labeled _arbitrarily_ as advertising subject to the "Adult Land" rules. Only mass communication (land ads, classified ads, event ads) should be considered public advertising 100% of the time.

Oh, and P.S., communication within Groups cannot be considered "public" 100% of the time, either, since a Group does not communicate to the random masses.

Please confirm... Thank you...

I'm sorry Blondin but this is completely unacceptable. The people on Mature land bought it because it was the land where they could do anything they liked. It is no longer land where they can do anything they like.

Probably, a great many people will be happy to stay on mature land.

But a great many also will *not* be happy to stay there. they'll be angry that LL is changing the rules *after* they bought their plot and paid LL for it.
Those people are entitled to *chose* whether to move to Ursula, or ask for the purchase price of their land to be refunded to them.

I'd think that the least LL could do is offer them a swap to something close to what they have. I know Ursula can't hold everyone who would choose that- so make Ursula as big as it needs to be. They are LL's servers, and lord knows LL has plenty of them lying around after all those homestead sims got abandoned!

LL simply *must* open up Ursula for anyone who wants to move. These changes are too huge to do anything less.

-V-

OKay, do you know what happens when a vampire reads something like that while taking a drink? Now I have blood all over my keyboard and the mood is completely ruined! Your fault!

-V-

You aren't by any chance an American School Administrator are you? Your take on this seems suspiciously like that of a school superintendent that believe that scheduling 20 "practice tests" over the course of the school year *isnt* cheating on the standardized tests.

"Of course we don't advocate cheating! But here are many of the ways that people can cheat on the test, so don't do that!"


-V-

At one point, he even intimated that Word-of-Mouth was also considered "advertising", actionable under the same policy.

I don't think it was really word-of-mouth. Was more like having people verbally advertise in public places.. Sortofa "hey, party at my house" thing.

((Pulls up a stool, sits down, takes a large leather bound book out of her backpack. The book looks old, very old and gives of an air of.. power. Thumbs thru the book a moment, finds the page she wants and smiles mischievously. Pulls her glasses down to the tip of her nose and looks to the assembled crowd *))

All right everyone, this is a story of abuse of power, lack of consideration and how some people have to be FORCED to see reality.

One upon a time, there was a Mobile Home Community that had been in existence for many, many years. Not a 'trailer park' where people come and go with the blowing of the winds, but a COMMUNITY. People rented their plots of land, paid monthly fees and made homes there. Some even made businesses out of their home, writing, painting.. creating. Many had been there for 10+ years and had made their little plots of land into a real home. Adding landscaping, gardening, turning bare pieces of land into THEIR lives, THEIR way. Retired people that had come there for a real home. These homes were not cheap either, double, even TRIPLE wide homes that would equal and even SURPASS normal homes in comfort and design.

All was good.. people were happy....

Then one day, the owners of the rented land got a bug up their arse and decided that they could make more money if they used the land to build overprices, cramped, only mediocre houses. Take the rental plots and wipe them to the ground and build new houses.

Only one problem. The people LIVING and WORKING there.

The owners didn't care "we're doing this and nothing you can do about it.."

"But we LIVE here, we WORK here, we've spend years and thousands and thousands of dollars to build our IDEAS, our IMAGINATIONS here" the residents cried.

"Tough tookies" the owners said "you can find other places.. see we have another park here.. way way way across the city, down there in the low part of town. No one is there yet, but you can start over there."

"NO!" the residents screamed "it's ridiculous for us to move, this place is full, gives you a good income from our rent! You've got EMPTY LAND OVER THERE, build the homes there!"

"Ridiculous or not, we're going to do it... you'll have 90 days to find a place to live and move your homes, you're welcome to move to our other park... if you can find room. And oh, you'll have to pay for moving yourselves."

"That's incredibly expensive and time consuming! If you're going to MAKE us move, then at least MOVE us!"

"Nope, your problem, we'll save a spot for you, but you'll have to packup, move, unpack, redo all your landscaping, new deposits, new utilities, new everything.. and it's outta your pocket... oh and if you are NOT moved in 90 days, we'll be locking this area down. You can't get in and we'll put all your stuff in storage until you can find a place to use it."

The residents looked at each other, looked at the owners and in a clear voice said "FRACK YOU!" **

So the residents sought out a barrister, who looked at their situation and say "This is not fair, not reasonable and not logical. I will help you." So the barrister sought out a wise and intelligent judge and got an injunction preventing the owners from carrying out this plan until some reason and sanity could be applied. After about 16 months of legal wrangling, the owners finally had to give in to an arbitrator...

And what did the arbitrator say? Well, that the owners DID have the right to reuse their land how ever they chose, HOWEVER they also did have the ABSOLUTE RESPONSIBILITY to the people that lived there to treat them with RESPECT and FAIRNESS. The arbitrator decided that -

- the owners had to bear ALL costs of relocating the residents, including their homes, their properties, even their landscaping and additions. Those represented work and money that the residents had put in to their HOMES and must be recognized. Deposits and costs for new utility hookups, electricity, water, sewage, etc.. must ALSO be covered, since the OWNERS were removing these people form their homes at the OWNERS decision, not the residents.

- for those RESIDENTS that had their business at their homes, the OWNERS had to make COMPENSATION for lost income, costs of re-advertising their business at the new locations.

- that he owners COULD NOT "shut down" and "lock people out" of their homes until EVERYONE was moved, and had to give them AMPLE TIME to do it.

In the end....

The RESIDENTS carried on, some left the area totally, disgusted with the situation, some went to other places to live and tried to rebuild their happy lives and some muddled on and tried to make a life.

The OWNERS? The cleared the land and then the housing bubble broke.. they ended up with 2/3 of the land barren and empty, 1/3 of it with houses, but only about 1/2 of those occupied because no one had the money to buy their over priced homes and the bad publicity during all the legal wrangling made people not want to buy there.. and lost more money than they could have made had they just built new homes in the new land.

Here ends the tale my friends... but the story goes on...

((closes book, puts it back in her backpack and smiles.. ))

* 100 bonus points to whoever reads the "Grimm Fairy Tales comics from Zenescope Entertainment and may have seen this coming.

** Sanitized for public consumption, no relation to "Battlestar Galactica" or any NBC/Universal property.

I have about 6 mainland builds... I think I wd only want to keep 2 of them where they are when the change is made... the others I wd WANT to be on Ursula... which is likely to be less littered than the regular mainland and (at least at first) not riddled with overpriced microparcels.

I wd love to see the microparcels idiots be relocated to.... I wd love to see (e.g.,) PP Parx get stuck with 20 sims of land he/she/it has no use for

Quote:
Originally Posted by Milla Janick
There's a build of the 1.23 viewer at the Open Source Portal:

http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Open_Source_Portal

Since it is a very early version, and the search filter obviously isn't complete, I'm sure things will change, a lot. It's an interesting look at what's on the way though.

FWIW, I can't teleport to the Arapaima Safe Hub at all with it.


Correct, usual LL quality control, and foresight.
First things first.
prevent the TP to Arapaima, no matter what your maturity level is.
and, the usual LL bonus, a crash every 5 minutes.

In LL, we trust, to get it half right, in twice the time.

ta. Just consider me a mood killer

If you mean the Public Nightly (PN) viewer then of course it's going to be buggy. It's meant for testers to give feedback on and to test cutting edge features with and is not meant to be used for general release use so of course it's going to be buggy. If you're treating it like a real viewer then you really are looking at it the wrong way not to mention making yourself look ignorant since you clearly didn't read the documentation for it.



Edit: Read into the purpose of the open source portal, it is meant for people who are interested in coding and the development of the viewer so if you're just going to use a project meant to help people in bettering the viewer to bash LL then you should really just do everyone a favor and either learn to read or just keep your idiotic comments to yourself.

Wow, I don't remember seeing anything about an Adult Content conference either. I guess this must have been somewhat 'secret', attended only by involved Linden staff. Sure wish we could get hold of the chatlog of that meeting...!!!

Not if the search censoring routine acts the way most "choose a username" fields work-

It'll let you know that at least *one* of the words you've used is "adult" and advise you to re-write, but it won't tell you what it is.

-V-

On the 1.23 testing people testing the new viewer have been trying to drive that in for LL that the messages it gives when blocking a search for using "adult" words needs to specify what words have been blocked otherwise it's a total crap shoot, I honestly doubt LL will change it but they really should at least tell people what's being blocked.

That reminds me of some time ago when I was trying to submit an SL ad for Bondage Ranch. The system rejected the ad over and over again. I looked carefully through the ad, trying to figure out which word it was objecting to. (The word "bondage" is not forbidden in SL.)

Guess what it turned out to be. I was advertising "bondage play". The system was rejecting it as: bond AGE PLAY

And here they'd been freaking me out, making me wonder what verboten thing I was submitting...

(Important to note here that SL forbids only SEXUAL ageplay, not general ageplay -- and yet they had locked the general word "ageplay" out of their entire ad system. Use a sledgehammer to thread a needle...)

Heh.. Just doing a little browsing around and found this at ftc.gov. It's a letter somebody sent to the Secretary of the US Federal Trade Commision..

Maybe a bit stronger words than I'd use but, anyway, the end reads...









....ready for it???



















http://www.ftc.gov/privacy/coppa2/comments/aristotle.htm


edit: and, to be fair, it's a bit out of context since it's date 2001.. I just got a good laugh that LL's verification service was strongly urging the US government to do the exact opposite from what LL's planning..