Upcoming Changes for Adult Content: Answers to Questions

This is where LL employees should declare their interests in world to much insider trading can go on behind closed doors. Maybe its time for a list of LL employees and their alts be posted outside of LL servers of course as they are discovered.

Accountability is key in these issues.

I would like to know how this affects the huge Star Wars Roleplay community in SL?

Does a RP sim have to be labelled as "adult" due to roleplayed depictions of death if someone comes along and decides to have a battle?

As combat is only a small part of roleplay in these sims labelling as "adult" would detract from the main purpose...

I might have already missed a similar question in pages and pages of posts about this subject, sorry, but I would really like to know where I stand on this... I run my mainstore and dance club business in the same sim and this would obviously impact on them too

I think it's only fair to note that the incident is almost 2 years old, when Meta was a freshly-anointed Linden. Sure, it was bad judgment and an ungenerously-spirited thing to do, but there has to be some kind of statute of limitations on historical asshattedness or we'd all be too ashamed to get out of bed in the morning. (Or at least I would. )

I had no more clue than you, Akira - except that I noticed the conference flags carried the Remedy logo. A quick Google resulted in this from 31 March 2009 : http://www.virtualworldsnews.com/2009/03/remedy-and-rivers-partner-for-immersive-workspaces.html

"Remedy Communications announced today that it had partnered with Rivers Run Red to co-market and sell the Immersive Workspaces Platform, a tool for Web-and virtual worlds-based collaboration in Second Life..."

This harks back to the 2008 agreement whereby LL agreed to exclusively license Rivers' Immersive Workspaces Platform who, with Remedy, "will jointly develop and market new products and services built on their existing technologies and platforms". (http://www.virtualworldsnews.com/2008/09/rivers-run-red.html)

Might give us a bit of a clue as to who exactly wants SL 'cleaned up', and why...

Agreed, but then this was posted today on Xstreet...

I tend to agree with you and i think further digging is required at least to satisfy ourselves as to the possibilities of why this is happening. If we can drag the information here and all read up on it, the use of our collective brain power may get the answers that LL are refusing to give us.

Its amazing what collective brain power can do

Knowledge is power, creating new knowledge is super power!

well, I suppose finding out the business plan of LL is an ok thing to do.. All I know is that we're not the right kind of customer for them as they're moving onto a business/educational space. ATM they need us to keep funding their new positioning, but the time is very quickly approaching where we'll be redundant.

What i really need is a scripter who can finish off a couple of scripts for me. mine has just told me he's taken a rl job with silly hours and has left me with far too many almost completed scripts.. I know, how selfish of me

I just read post #4871. Ohh, and #4873, too!

This just beggars belief. Two days after I receive my reminder that I will be paying LL a further sum to renew my Premium Account.

The hypocrisy of LL in this matter leaves me breathless.

We are already seeing effects of this Adult content policy in a dance club on a private sim island.

This is almost too much to bear. I went to a lot of trouble with my profile pics, now they are blocked. There is no sex or violence overt or covert in them. What the hell is going on? There is one profile pic, maybe 2, that I know of that might conravene the LL "guidelines".

Thats how i see things overall so its time the customer fights back collectively and gathers what we can to try and put it together I see what i will be doing next week lol



All this trouble and all you think about is completing scripts lol but i am sure there are a lot here who can help, but if you want a box to say "hello avatar" i am your man

"Pic" or "Pick" ? (And how are they being "blocked"?)

Well it seems we know whos tellinfg them to do this now then, and why this is going ahead but surely if other users of social netwrks wanted to join they would have?! well it seems they are happy to shove all their old users away up a conerner to make room for new ones. basically saying thanks now get lost your a embaressment. Well one good thing when this is all done we are going to be happy in the adult land away from their madness for a while(That is if we can even get into it) Though other companies maybe even ones that are struggling right now I dunno like there or someone will see all this and decide well maybe we should open up for all these SL refugees. Or amybe even a new company will show up. So this could very well be a very bad idea.

Now im going back to shooting ewoks on a pg island.

Well, It *was* back in 2007, and she was new. I'd say that unless she gives you reason to think that she is untrustworthy, give the lady a break. If she proves untrustworthy *now* then we know something about her as well, right?


All things considered, the comment about the "millions of potential users driven off by Adult content" sound like a load of smoke that has been blown up her ass.
primary schools can't go anywhere where there is porn, drugs and violence. IF they are planning to introduce children to SL, then yes, there are possible millions out there who can't play now because of the adult content.

However, if we are talking about adults- businesses, professional associations, etc, I'll only note that the case study LL released about IBM would seem to indicate that there wasn't any porn trouble.
And NPR "Science Friday" has been simulcasting from SL for *years* without incident, so far as I know.

The porn problem is drastically overblown as an issue.

And Couldbe, if you could ask meta for the Metrics of her statements to you about these millions we'd be grateful.

How many complaints about adult contact were the result of griefing in a PG area? How many were greifing in a mature area? How many were teleport mistakes? how many were self-inflicted? (I wonder what those green dots mean? Oh! My eyes!)

These sorts of stats should be available, and yet they aren't being quoted, which leads me to believe that the do *not* support LL's case.

The data are being spun to support this thing. Frankly, I think it's a problem that could be solved with far fewer drastic steps, and much less trauma all around.

-V-

The best thing that we could do is set up a consortium and build our own adult grid - either through using LLs BIAB or through opengrid. Unfortunately raising that kind of cash will probably be as difficult as finding the right skillset of committed people to establish the start up and see it though.

edited to add: and I mean a closed, manageable system - not hooked into the open grid stuff.




lol ta.. I too can get that far.. after that I'm in trouble

I've asked her for metrics before - got nowhere. She doesn't actually want to provide the XSL merchants with metrics, just pick their brains about the different types of data they are looking for which I assume LL use/will use to feed their internal data analysis (rofl if only) and their marketing.

To me, Meta is another waste of space Linden as far as customer communication and support is concerned.

<off topic warning>

Just spotted this on 'Click' (the BBC TV's technology programme).

"Virtual worlds and web 'merging'"
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/click_online/8016135.stm

This is a fairly bland text article and the words 'adult content' are nowhere to be heard (it appears to be a very mini promo about digital goods and commerce inworld, leading the way), but there's a link to see today's (25th April 09) episode in the top right menu (uses RealPlayer or Windows Media Player) if you want to see Kingdon speak - the interview is about 10mins into the programme (lasts about 6m30s).

Thing that made me smile was the one smirky reference to 'literally pimping your avatar' by the presenter in the introduction.

It's not yet on the BBC iPlayer (but will be very soon I imagine):
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00k7q8m/Click_25_04_2009/

It's available to UK viewers - I'm not sure how to access it if you're outside the UK (but I've heard it can be done, maybe someone can post how?).

hmm.... funny you said the very thing that came to my mind when I read the liked writings of Meta/cala "insider trading" maybe the FBI should have looked closer at this company

That's just the Janitor. He's waiting to lock up.

We must not feed them enough...I think its just greed.
BT

I do have to ask of meta linden one thing,

Have you perhaps toyed with the notion that perhaps the many users who are not in this game that you are trying to attract e.g the educators and the corporates...perhaps maybe just maybe when all is said and done they will not under any circumstance no matter what you attempt to do to attract them to this world they will likely not set themselves up in world.

I will say this i am actually one of those corporate types that decided not to use sl as part of my real world business model. I came into SL back in 2006 after watching a BBC report about reuters and many other brands joining sl and the possibility of earning money. So i signed up and logged in considering that perhaps i could see a way to introduce my product/brand into a different market.

I looked around and decided it wasnt and my reasoning had nothing to do with griefers, It had nothing to do with people on poseballs having cyber sex, It even didn't have anything to do with people swearing. My one and only reason for not developing my brand inworld was this Second Life was not the correct market.

After researching long and hard i came to see that really rl based brands don't necessarily have a market in a virtual world perhaps some small amount of advertising to lead people to rl from sl to check out the products but as it stands Second Life was not the right place for what i was offering.


Perhaps Meta you should entertain the notion that corporations and educators are looking at sl and thinking maybe but when they get in there they realise it's just not going to work for them and perhaps the investment that is required for them to put into it e.g land ownership and premium accounts. After all that is done its wasted expenditure for a real world based business. Second Life is unlikely to feature in business models as a long term thing if any term is played out. It will more than likely be a Fad. In 2006 businesses were interested in sl as a new merging market but the reality is that its not.

Second life is an escapism reality for people to get away from the real world and that in a nut shell is why real world business applications or educational institutions will not be viable in second life because the target audience they are trying to attract is happier dressed up as a furry, or being a vampire in a large scale roleplay situation.

Wake up to the second life reality that is and stop chasing a short lived fad from 2006.


Y

I do have to ask of meta linden one thing,

Have you perhaps toyed with the notion that perhaps the many users who are not in this game that you are trying to attract e.g the educators and the corporates...perhaps maybe just maybe when all is said and done they will not under any circumstance no matter what you attempt to do to attract them to this world they will likely not set themselves up in world.

I will say this i am actually one of those corporate types that decided not to use sl as part of my real world business model. I came into SL back in 2006 after watching a BBC report about reuters and many other brands joining sl and the possibility of earning money. So i signed up and logged in considering that perhaps i could see a way to introduce my product/brand into a different market.

I looked around and decided it wasnt and my reasoning had nothing to do with griefers, It had nothing to do with people on poseballs having cyber sex, It even didn't have anything to do with people swearing. My one and only reason for not developing my brand inworld was this Second Life was not the correct market.

After researching long and hard i came to see that really rl based brands don't necessarily have a market in a virtual world perhaps some small amount of advertising to lead people to rl from sl to check out the products but as it stands Second Life was not the right place for what i was offering.


Perhaps Meta you should entertain the notion that corporations and educators are looking at sl and thinking maybe but when they get in there they realise it's just not going to work for them and perhaps the investment that is required for them to put into it e.g land ownership and premium accounts. After all that is done its wasted expenditure for a real world based business. Second Life is unlikely to feature in business models as a long term thing if any term is played out. It will more than likely be a Fad. In 2006 businesses were interested in sl as a new merging market but the reality is that its not.

Second life is an escapism reality for people to get away from the real world and that in a nut shell is why real world business applications or educational institutions will not be viable in second life because the target audience they are trying to attract is happier dressed up as a furry, or being a vampire in a large scale roleplay situation.

Wake up to the second life reality that is and stop chasing a short lived fad from 2006.


You are pandering and trying to attract a consumer base that is more than likely going to find another excuse not to get involved in second life. If its not adult content blocking them there will be another excuse.

They are a lost consumer base forget about them and make the current consumers happy and drop this deployment before you commit suicide. Why alienate the people who keep you running chasing the people who don't.

LL needs all the customer data it can get to spin to suit its purposes and what better way than to have alts asking questions in forums and going back to their bosses with look sir what a clever Linden i am i worked all this out myself lol

LL survives a lot on its customers brains to plan things as they issue these crazy plans knowing they can let us all vent then come back with the we listened and look what we have done for you.

LL has the biggest and brightest Think Tank ever available to any company, it is not LL staff though imo it is us customers with all sorts of skill sets and they get it all for free. Think what the costs would be to translate the wiki etc. bug test the software etc. etc. we do it all for free for them.

They have said they will not get rid of the Mentor program but look at the new Yahoo style Q&A that they are putting in place at the moment, all being done by Mentor volunteers and when it is completed and released so everyone can join in and work on it, whats the betting they then change the Mentor program?

Well just a couple of thoughts

Sorry for the double post it was accidental

QFT (EDIT: and a big thumbs up)

It is a valid point some of the benefits for LL employees is of course insider trading and being in the know to get an edge on other customers, you can't tell me there are no fringe perks for being a LL employee.

Adobe and Time Warner just 2 companies i have worked at and boy if you knew what was what there was plenty of fringe benefits, it goes on everywhere, even the the Military if you knew a good QM

Trouble is SL is about making money, good money if you are in the know and LL employees should not have that opportunity to be able to do it. You wanna work for LL they ask, then you do not have any in world dealings unless you declare your interests so there is transparency. Fine if they want alts but no working the system to the detrement of others imho.

They've always exploited their customer base and they'll continue to do so while people allow themselves to be convinced this is a collaborative effort.

Some people just refuse to see that it just exploitation, pure and simple.