Upcoming Changes for Adult Content: Answers to Questions

Who let you out of your hole?

I was thinking something a little less ultimatumish.

I understand that you don't want people "gaming" the system. but unless you tell us what isn't allowed, then how can we *not do it*?

-V-

Wot?

@Blondin,
There is no way you can possibly account for every situation and every circumstance. Can't be done, don't even try.

@Everyone else,
It has been stated by enough Lindens enough times, in enough different places. They are merging the grids. Not right now but in the future, they have stated it. No we are not all adults, even though we should be. Instead of pursuing and punishing the ones who break the rules, they are coming after us, the content providers who have broken no rule.

Enjoy your "Adult" time in SL while you can. It wont be too long and you won't be able to because it won't be safe for the "children".

Sheep!

There's a lot of concern about lag if high-traffic adult venues are forced onto the same sim.

Can I ask what class of server the new continent will be running on?

Yes, get rid of Mark Kingdon. How much damage can one man do? In M's case, lots - look at what we have today compared to a year ago. Cory is gone. Zee is gone. The CFO just quit. Wow, and we thought he was incompetent in VR!

Please, Phillip, please. Fire this "businessman" who can't run the lab without crashing it into stuff.

Class 5 of course, they have a lots of empty ones.

After shafting so many of us witht he Homestead axe, I'm not surprised... not one bit.

ok, just went welcome area hopping... if we're trying to give users and 'new' users a better experience

I first went to my original infohub... Periwinkle. in scanning range were 3 avatars, though it looked like a lot of the old information stuff was still there. I remember when that was a pretty busy spot and there were a lot of helpful people around. Now it's all but dead.

I then went to where most of my alts spawned... morris. Between morris, ahern and another sim or 2 that i forget the name of right in that corner where the welcome areas of those 4 sims meet by the map I figured that there were about 70 avatars. The lag was horrendous, and within a couple minutes I was in chat range to catch one avatar propositioning another, particle spam of rather large proportions (not naughty, but weird even to a seasoned avatar). Attachments so large that one person asked over voice why there was a boat on top of their heads and just general confusion. How a truly new player can even get accustomed to the controls when that lag and confusion is that bad is pretty much a miracle.

Suggestion: Why not reopen some of the seemingly retired entry points to reduce lag and confusion across all entry points? With fewer avatars in one area new players can get a better handle on the controls without the lag that they probably don't quite now how to deal with yet. With fewer avatars around mentors at these areas can better assist people IMHO. And with proper controls given to mentors they could keep the chatter at least to polite and inform people why particle spam is considered rude.

thanks for reading my rambling

Parcel post. In a plain brown wrapper.

For the record, I would like to insist that this statement is un-factual and that I get kerjillions of emails and IMs everytime someone utters it. @_@

It's not "they are" or "they will"....it's "They would like to, maybe someday".

So if you could correct that little difference whenever you hear it, you'd be saving me a lot of trouble. thx ^_^;

it came from Phillip Linden.
didnt you know?

Okay. We can believe Phillip's words, quoted in a number of public venues that he wants to combine the grids. The Chairman of Linden Labs. The big banana. The mosta of the Mocha. The guy who can and should fire M. The geekest of geeks who created Linden Labs from nothing, and started this whole thing. We've seen several quotes at several different dates from him that that's what he wants.

Or we can believe you.

I agree, what is badly needed is education.

SL is an ideal place to experience civilized behavior where you can set yourself free.

This may sound trivial but it seemed necessary given that there is so much misunderstanding and myths about the difference between SL and RL.

Newbies should have a mentor to walk them through the basics of SL 101:
* SL is a role playing game
* You can be what you want to be, but respect of others
* Show them the griefers, so they are prepared for it and learn how to avoid them and defend for yourself.
* (I don't believe in banning anyone, not even griefers. Violence simply breeds violence.)
* Banning is for the control freak society. A free society is tolerant of others even if they annoy you.
* Tell them that griefers grieve for a reason. Provide some ways for them to vent their frustration and the problem dissipates by itself.
* Tell them that this is a consenting adult game.
* No one will make you do anything if you don't agree to it.
* You can always mute them, block them, walk away, or log out. It is your choice and your rights.
* Show them how to build.
* Show them how to choose your friends
* Show them SL can be very rewarding experience if you choose the right place and the right people.
* Tell them you can be as real as you want to be, or as fake as you want to pretend.
* Tell them you don't have to trust anyone, or take any candy from strangers, esp objects from strangers.
* Tell them if you don't like your body, you can change your skin or shape, it's only an avatar
* Tell them you can have plastic surgery at no cost, if you don't know how, you can buy a new shape
* Tell them you can take off your clothes if you want, it is not your body
* Tell them people will take pictures of you, but it is only an avatar, not the real you
* Tell them there are battles and combat zones that people can get killed, heads can get cut off, but that is only a game.
* Tell them if you ever got killed, re-log, and you will get a new life
* Tell them that people do have sex in SL, but they are fake sex, not real, and it is only an avatar
* Tell them it is ok to have sex in SL, you won't get AIDS or get pregnant even if you have sex with 100 strangers
* Tell them you may see a pregnant woman or even a pregnant man in SL, but they won't give birth to a baby
* Tell them if they give birth to a baby, it is only their own alt, that is simply a clone of themselves on a free account
* Tell them the moaning and groaning you hear are only computer generated gestures
* Tell them if you wonder if they are really them, ask them to use voice chat
* Tell them that you will see animals walking around, but they are human behind those avatars.
* Tell them that people will roleplay anything you can imagine, from benign behavior to out-of-the-ordinary behavior, such s BDSM, etc. etc., but they are made-believe, not real.
* Tell them that you may see avatars on a leash or collar, but it is a role-playing game by consenting adults
* Tell them you don't have to believe anything you see in SL is real, it's no different from what you see in a movie, there is a script behind the scene
* Tell them you don't have to engage in those activities if you choose not to.
* Tell them if you happened to experiment with these novel behaviors, and feel uncomfortable with them, leave.
* Tell them if it bothers you too much, or you cannot deal with them, seek professional advice.
* Tell them this is a world that you create, so if you want it to be an enjoyable experience, build a conducive environment to share with your friends and those who you love.
* Tell them the experience you discovered can be very overwhelming and intense
* Tell them SL can be more real than what you think because there is a human behind that keyboard
* Tell them if you run into someone who you don't like, you can tell them politely your reasons why they offended you.
* Tell them you can be civil to each other even if you don't agree with them or what they do.
* Tell them SL is a place where you can experiment with different ideas and different scenarios, unlike RL where you cannot change the course of time.
* Tell them SL is like an interactive movie, if you don't like the scene, you can fast forward to something else; you are an active player in this movie.
* Tell them people come to SL for many different reasons, so don't expect they will always want the same thing as you think or as you like them to be
* Tell them people are different, you cannot expect them to be the same as you.
* Tell them there are jerks out there, and there are nasty people too but you don't have to stay
* Tell them some people think they can get away with rude behavior because they hide anonymously behind that computer, so don't get too upset at their isolation
* Tell them you always have the option to teleport out of any difficult situation or got caught in an orb or cage
* Tell them the money you spend in SL is virtual goods, they don't have any physical reality
* Tell them you can make money in SL, play money and real money too.
* Teach them how to deal with difficult people
* Tell them how to use your imagination to create in SL
* Tell them at the end of the day, SL is merely some pixels in your computer screen.
* Tell them you can laugh and cry, play or work in SL
* Tell them you can have fun in SL or be a grumpy old man if you choose to
* Tell them you can shake hands, hug each other, and say goodbye. It won't hurt anybody doing so.
* Tell them LL will do whatever they please, so don't be surprised when they change the rules on you.

Sounds like Parenting 101, doesn't it?

But that is what is needed for the newbies.

If everyone had a mentor like this, I think it will ease the pain for most of those who complain here.

If you never had any of this comforting experience in SL, it is never too late.

Find a good friend, or take the SL 101 course.

Love is free.
Anger is costly.
Hatred of other's activity is self-defeating.

We can live peaceful under one roof. If not, create another sim for yourself. (That is assuming that LL will not condemn you as inappropriate.)

It can be a win-win solution.

Ok, I'm a dreamer. I live in fantasyland.

But that is exactly what SL is. It is made-believe that it is real, but an illusion.

Yes, it is a fantasy!

That is a very good list, Bambii. Good job.

/me suddenly wonders how much this is worth to Blue and how much money he has on him...

Philip saying he'd like the see the grids merged doesn't mean it's going to happen any time soon. Philip, who's great and I say this with all due respect, would like lots of stuff to happen.


Philip is "founder and chairman", not CEO. M is CEO.

Oy veh.

Philip said "we want to".

Blue said "we would like to".

I don't know, in Dragon maybe that's a dire contradiction, but if so could y'all have your talon-a-talon drag-out flame-and-fang battle over 'em somewhere else. They look close enough for government work to me.

Oops. Fixed. Thanks!

Nice list Bambi

"Do you like... Oysters, Antonitus? You know, Many people like both oysters *and* snails"

-V-

He's quoting the question Dogboat. The answer is the doublespeak underneath it that says "The comment period is important to this and that and we don't know any more than you do"

-V-

No, he didn't say anything of the kind. He said:

----------

PHILIP ROSEDALE: "Generally, I think that the future of Second Life needs to be one where people of all ages can use Second Life together, and that's the direction that we're taking in our planning and our work. I think that the educational opportunities for Second Life are so great for all ages that we need to make it as available as we possibly can to people. If you look at what we've done with the Teen Grid, I think we've done a good job, as a small company, of being inclusive and creating an environment in which teenagers were able to use Second Life, I think, perhaps earlier than, I don't know, we might have been able to. We pushed hard to get that working.

But, if you look at the problems with having a teenaged area, which is itself so isolated from the rest of the World, they're substantial. There's an inability for educators to easily interact with people in there because we've made it an exclusively teen only area. Parents can't join their kids in Second Life so problems like that are ones that we think are pretty fundamental and need to be fixed. We need to stop creating isolated areas that are age specific and, instead, look at how we can make the overall experience appropriately safe and controlled for everybody. So that's the general direction that we're taking there."

ROBERT BLOOMFIELD: "Do you expect any official action or public notice on this anytime soon? And is the idea am I hearing you right that it would basically be to allow people of any age to come into at least some parts of Second Life? Is that what I'm hearing?"

PHILIP ROSEDALE: "Definitely. From my perspective, our long term strategy is that but I won't make any specific "this is what's coming next and that's where you can expect it," in that regard. We're still working on how to do that and what to do next."

----------

None of that say or implies anything about merging the main and teen grid ... period.

Agreed, I think Blue's statement is a fair summary of what Phil said. However, Phil also said that wanting to merge the grids did drive some of their strategy, so it is not unreasonable to think that this new policy is seen by LL as getting them a little closer to what they want/would like to do.

That said, Phil also said in that interview "we need to stop creating isolated areas which are age specific" but that hasn't stopped LL proposing to create a new isolated area limited to age verified accounts.

Matthew

Well, that and MIchael Jackson

(ducking and running)

-V-