Upcoming Changes for Adult Content: Answers to Questions

If we are nice polite and orderly we will be treated accordingly. HAHAAH

I'm not really promoting civil disobedience for the sake of a drama but some impetus is required of the other side. There needs to be a sign that there is actual listening and response to what is said. I get very little sense of that here.

What ferments more and louder response is people feeling not heard!

Well in a way it is. It will severly slow down the flow dramatically of any new people into the adult sims and businesses. We will not be able to advertise to them and have no way to let them even know we exist and let them know how they can verify to even see us in the first place.

I am really concerned how this will affect the Gor communities since many roleplayers play alts and are unverified. I'm sorry but I do not see much sunshine and rainbows for adult places in this policy.

Sorry.... It just HAS to be said...

Nice ass!

On a serious note: You're absolutely right. The very act of trying to define what's adult in such black-and-white terms is tantamount to throwing the baby out with the bathwater. There are a lot of "innocent" people and content creators that are going to get caught up in this mess. I have a theory that, if Linden Labs proceeds any further with this insanity, it's going to reduce SL's population by more than half. Of the people who leave SL, half will leave in frustration and disgust, and the other half will be banned.

First of all, you make it sounds like we're some organized bunch of professional protesters. Fact is, I don't know any of the other people here (except Argent) either pro or con. So if we are an organized group dedicated to the defeat of this pogrom, I must have not gotten the memo.

As for the hyperbole, the grid is 5000 sims shorter today thanks to their bungling. It's a matter of record. And their own graphs show the number of full islands increases by a paltry amount in the same period.

https://blogs.secondlife.com/community/features/blog/2009/04/16/the-second-life-economy--first-quarter-2009-in-detail

And if you can name a permittable tactic that would get their attention, I'm sure lots of people would award you the internet. But if they aren't listening to anyone but themselves, then nothing legal I can think of will get their attention. And frankly, I'm tired of trying to save these fools from their folly. If they insist on going so far as to ban people for saying the word "Beer" someplace, then they've completely lost sight that they sell escapism - that's all they sell. And if the customers are no longer permitted to escape in SL, they'll have no reason to hang around.

If you go back and read the first 200 or so posts, Viciously, I think you'll find people were quite calm and polite. Things escalated the more people were ignored, evaded, misdirected and basically disrespected.

We're not stupid. We know that, when someone asks a politely worded question that is crystal clear, and they either get no answer, a one word answer that doesn't do at all for the whole question, or the answerer does the equivalent of 'Oh look! A Kitten', and makes inappropriately teasing and playful comments instead of answering the question...I think it's understandable that people get pissed.

Being polite and orderly got us no where. Linden Labs is only starting to answer with any kind of sense now that they realize what a clusterf**k they have unleashed. It was only by NOT behaving like good little school children that got us any flow at all in the dialogue.

Linden Labs brought this on themselves. If they had engaged us like the rational people we are from the beginning, most of the more extreme outbursts would have even happened. I don't say none, because let's face it, there's always somebody who flips out.

(In answer to my question "Will adult parcels be blocked from search regardless of content or language used?"

Thanks, looking forward to hearing the official answer.

Scroll back. I think he did.

Actually, they dont know what their goal even is. They dont want us out of business, because then they lose money as well. It's all about the bottom line, they are trying this to see if it will draw in some corporate accounts.
And the slogan is STILL >> Your World. Your Imagination.

Who cares? For 2$ you can get a pre paid visa card regardless of age... Visa says on their site you're technically suppose to be 13 but store owners don't check (and aren't required to) age on the people buying them... so yeah.

They claim they were losing money on those thing. Eliminating something you are losing money on, is a positive on the balance sheet.

I'll ignore the "give you the internet" comment and just try to be positive.

This decision they made ... it's not the sort of trial balloon a company throw up there to see how people will respond. I think they already knew that.

*****The moment they put it out there, you were going to move ... period!*****

So, the tactic ... the ONLY intelligent tactic at that point was trying to broker a better deal, within the dynamic they have outlined ... (repeated for emphasis) within the dynamic they have outlined.

I wish you the best of luck in your further business ventures, and that goes for everyone here. They will be closing this thread soon, so I guess there is not much left to say.

He has replied above: /352/11/314444/303.html#post2413403

People tried that, if you'll read back at the beginning. They got shat on. Continuing to play by the rules when your opponent is not is not a successful tactic at all. If they change the rules midstream, as they did by the 'flexible' word list and moving from 'extreme content only' to strictures that make the word 'nipple' evil and ban talking about beer, then it's insanity to expect them to play fair. You adapt and survive, or you don't and you get flattened.

It did start out reasonably polite.

There was also a point when we were told that answers were forthcoming. This didn't seem to be acceptable, as the bombardment started, and when answers were not given on the time table required by the person asking, which seems to have been NOW, NOW, NOW, NOW, the board went into massive attack mode.

I haven't seen a Linden disrespect anyone.

Hm..

There's been a fair amount of concern over ursula population density.. Adult places tend to be high-traffic places. We asked about this, many times - what cramming all these high traffic places into a relatively tiny number of sims would do. The answer LL gave was that all ursula regions would be on class 5 hosts. That's it. Nothing else.

There's been lots of concern that land speculators would do to ursula what they did (and are still doing) to bay city and nautilus. The answer LL gave was that land speculation wasn't a banned activity. That's it. Nothing else.

These are very reasonable and legit concerns and if LL does not manage them, the adult industry in SL will, at best, have growth halted.

You sure you want to stick with that bit I quoted? I'm feeling nothing but contempt from LL...

Ok...I just blew Sprite all over my monitor...

Yes, but the question is whether people have "Adult" enabled in their search preferences, whether or not they're qualified. It's a real concern, at least for a friend of mine who sells a lot on xlstreet.

She says that, in general, when she pays for front page placement for an item, mature items attract hits in the low hundreds a day while general ones attact hits in the thousands. Since her sales figures in-world certainly don't suggest her mature items are less popular than the pg ones, she suspects a lot of people just don't bother to enable mature items on when they're searching on xlstreet, and she's worried this will carry over in-world unless people are actually looking for something "adult".

The practical implication of this is that her original idea of moving her whole store to an adult sim looks a lot less attractive than originally it did, since she won't be able to advertise anything from there other than to people who've got "adult" turned on in their search preferences.

In the short term, at least, if looks like she'll need two stores in order both properly to describe some items (advertise them from an adult sim) and to gain maximum visibility for others (advertise them from both an adult and mature sim). Maybe in the long-term she'll find that most people keep "adult" turned on in search all the time (after all, you need to enable "mature" each time you use xlstreet), but short-term she doesn't want to risk it, particularly on top of a store move.

So really, adult land will be limited to adult use only. Park or porno pit, its all the same, its going to be hidden. (not just put out of reach, but hidden)

for all of you who've just listened to it, feel free to correct the bits I got wrong..



pt 2

...but will expand

ray runs two sims - one pg and mature. wants to know if it will be ok for kids to be in their mature region

cyn
policy doesn't state anything about rp types
some spurious comment about sexual ageplay


Q3: no idea what the question was
cyn: it's about allowing people to find what they're interested in rather than LL trying to fix their image problem

reporter hotshot: how will landowners be compensated for the move
jack: for those who are in the free move.. a couple of weeks to inspect the parcels, exchange via support tickets - where they want to move - doing all they can to make it fair
there'll be plenty of choice for land
compensation:
people can keep their old land as long as they clean it up
or sell it
or abandon it back to ll

they are not removing adult content - they're providing a placer that will be very attractive
and will provide a predictable experience. Which cyn thinks is a good idea.. me, I'd rather be able to tp somewhere and find it there rather than banished

age verification and non compliance
ran a poll in one of her malls and was surprised by something (audio dropped)

ray follow up up questions
why not focus on music or art rather than adult?
private residences in skyboxes.. will all the adult things be allowed in mature private lands

jack
this is focussed on public land not private
why adult rather than music? waffle then says that there has been a number of people, residents whining (my term) so this it to enable them to control their content - search primarily it seems

Q? measurement of success for this - what will they be (I think he's asking for metrics)

cyn was flustered
jack waffled.. they haven't worked out just what they want to measure.. (I love you guys lol)

usecase drivel again, feedback and how people are using it

reporter hotshot
segregating adult is clearly censorship.. will you be publishing info on the complaints you've received, how are you not lowering your standards to the lowest common children denominator

cyn.. the adult definition is at the far end of the scale. they're adding a layer for adult predictability.

not segregating.. it's still part of the mainland.. it's about choice.. (just wait until I make a post on this grrrrr). "we're asking people who chose to be adult to live in the adult area, but it's not about segregation"

Q?hardship for some adult companies
A:
they've had discussions with some adult content creators
example 1: most people in the adult area are already verified and the rest can easily get verified. This creates an important marketing and search opportunities
gives a search example - forgets we'll be cluttered with the pg shit. he talks as if each search is exclusive rather than incremental. he thinks it will be a big plus for the adult community


Q? poor quality audio. profoky I think
......30% will comply, 48% don't trust Aristotle or want to do what will they want on their land
the question appears to be about the integrity of Aristotle and using payment as an adult identifier

A: people who don't verify will be self selecting for not accessing adult content. there are may different ways to do this - he lists them
enforcement: ARs

profoky follow-up
we think landowners in the adult business will designate their land as adult. They're hoping that we'll follow the rules, but he couldn't specify just how they'd manage non compliance

cyn suddenly realised that this might be an issue lol

Q?: different continents having different uses - is this a new ll trend
why use search analysis and use cases when this is a world and you should be talking to urban planners? (he calls it geography)

jack: waffle.. then their philosophy of about providing more choice, one of those items is land and predictability. zoning etc. they've learnt from nautilus baycity etc.. lots of people like predictable land experience.. others like the chaos of the current mainland. This affects the geography.. eg bay city is separated by water which may end up with some land at the back. in other places it needs to be tightly integrated

started to talk about residential areas only

choice is the driver.

other is a side of land looking at customers - community, use, needs to balance both. this is key

drexter Q - grid merge outlook - how relevant is this to the merger
it seems educators are afraid penises will drop on their kids

Cyn - we can't stop 13yo doing this
but we can provide a predictable search. no decisions on the merge have been made yet
Cyn tries to convince them that cleaning up search will make educators more comfortable
they'll engage with the community about that.

she emphasises that the changes are about providing a predictable search experience for users.

Kane? Q - are child avs allowed in adult regions?
A: recap of current position and states it will remain the same

profoky Q - something about verification for BIAB sl users
cyn policies inworld doesn't extend to those

Ray Q - how will search filter work on ads?
went quiet as they scribbled notes to each other
A: they're being very careful in formulating the list - they spent hours looking at how the words are used. They've tried very hard to make sure dual use words don't get caught up -

Q - are skins adult content and do teen grid rules apply
A - they're going going to redefine photorealistic as adult - but mainly for photos
however if you're going to be using ads then you're going to be adult then they changed their minds and said skin sellers only could stay where they were.. ???

cyn - no underwear required for skins

QFT!!!

The above reference to beer begs another question from me, though... What would LL do if Heineken or Anheuser-Busch or Molson or Sam Adams or someone wanted to buy up some of the mainland? Would they be relegated to Ursula? Now THAT would be a funny situation... "Sorry, St. Pauli's Girl, but you show too much cleavage...that's no longer allowed in Second Life..." "Wet t-shirt contest? Sorry...no can do! Only on Pornotopia!"

This is exactly my experience and exactly my concern. Right now, it looks like flagging your parcel as adult could be the kiss of death in terms of audience, traffic and sales.

I never log in until i am ready to buy something in xstreet and always forget to select the adult option when i browse the main listings.

do your own trolling mate - including flickr

In the case of her business, it would probably be best to spin her adult items into a separate adult store. Piling it all together does neither the service. Adult things will sell best in adult sims, non-adult things will sell best in non-adult sims.

Couldbe Yue said:
Q?hardship for some adult companies
A:
they've had discussions with some adult content creators
example 1: most people in the adult area are already verified and the rest can easily get verified. This creates an important marketing and search opportunities
gives a search example - forgets we'll be cluttered with the pg shit. he talks as if each search is exclusive rather than incremental. he thinks it will be a big plus for the adult community


Yeah sure.
It creates opportunities in the way that hurricanes are good for the construction industry.

[/QUOTE]In the short term, at least, if looks like she'll need two stores in order both properly to describe some items (advertise them from an adult sim) and to gain maximum visibility for others (advertise them from both an adult and mature sim). Maybe in the long-term she'll find that most people keep "adult" turned on in search all the time (after all, you need to enable "mature" each time you use xlstreet), but short-term she doesn't want to risk it, particularly on top of a store move.[/QUOTE]

Oops, yes... I stand corrected. *Blushes*

But we both have points on this one. A> It's not protecting kids and B> It's hurting business.

So what was the point of this movement?