Upcoming Changes for Adult Content: Answers to Questions

OK, now read the UK "extreme pornography" law.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extreme_pornography

Note that the standard is "...a reasonable person looking at the image would think that any such person or animal was real."

I dunno about your avi, but mine isn't a "cartoon". The objective of the high-quality graphics is photo-realism.

Also note that there's no age test here; not even an adult can escape being protected by this nanny state. How long before a viewer session originating in the UK is blocked from teleporting to "adult only" regions?

Kiss your Brit friends goodbye...you'll only see them in the infohubs after that.

Following that logic they can't "move us to our own grid". All their grid are belong to them.

No reasonable person would think an SL avatar was real.

As long as a non-profit is getting grants it's a cash-cow, whether they have traffic or not is irrelevant. How many deserted virtual universities are there?

Or this might be the place where tough or unanswerable questions are sent to be ignored. Safely out of the sight of the Blog.

"Material is considered extreme pornography only if the main purpose of creating it was to produce sexual arousal. This rules out most mainstream films, documentaries, war footage or instructional videos, regardless of content, though these would be included if images were extracted from them for the purpose of sexual arousal. Textual material or cartoon depictions are also excluded regardless of theme or detail."

Its the last line i think that you should read SL will be excluded as its cartoons, maybe when its high end graphics that might be a problem, but i doubt the British old bill will be knocking on any doors over SL lol

I have done so. Repeatedly. With puppets. They still don't grok it.

First, at a minimum, 10% of people will quit SL, not because of the adult material, but simply because LL isn't a service one can operate a business under. At the max, I'd say 33% will quit, depending on how many businesses are suddenly gone and how empty the place becomes. Just yesterday, I went to Lava to get some lights for our refurbished club - it's not there anymore. So even before the ghetto is built, your customers who don't even HAVE any adult stuff are quitting because they no longer trust LL.

LL's myopia and refusal to change course cost them money over the Voidsim debacle. A better solution when they saw Mainland was faltering would have been to just stop selling the voids. But easy and effective aren't in their vocabulary, it seems. So they have lost many many paying customers, and those people did not move back to the mainland. And when the price goes up again, more homesteads will be lost. And I speak as a former void holder when I say that next to none of us who have left Mainland will ever be back - we'll quit first. And many HAVE quit, and more will follow. All because LL didn't ask why mainland was undesirable (Lag, griefers, ban lines making it look like Alcatraz, lack of estate controls, limited terraforming, adfarms...)

Here is a clue LL - those of us who left mainland did so for a reason. We aren't going to come back to it, not now not ever. So you can either take our money and keep us as customers the way we are, or continue to try to force us into your pigeonholes and watch us fly away from you. And the more fun places that disappear, the easier cutting ties with you will become.

And since you want to play businessmen, here's a tidbit you should remember from MBA school - every customer lost is really 10 customers lost because that person will tell everyone exactly why he isn't a customer anymore. And if you think I've recommended Second Life to anyone lately, you are completely out of your minds.

As long as the money is there, which is not a given in the current economy.

The fact that there are so many deserted virtual campuses suggests they are not as put off by adult content as some want us to believe.

That pretty much sums it up.

It's 50/50 here in Europe. Nude beaches, nude-lakes, nude- river-zones, nude elsewhere and nude-everything as flexible concepts. Even at public city pools we have days - special event days, where people can swim and sunbath naked. People of all ages and from all classes. And for these in nature and open air: some are fenced with rules and service and entry for a fee, some are complete wild, unregulated and non-fenced. So called wild-zones. One of the biggest wild zones is here in Vienna at river Danubia. Everyone can be there from age 0 up to age endless. Babys and grandmothers so to speak. No rules. No one cares. Officialy allowed. No trouble, no age restrictions. Nothing. Free and easy.

The maybe biggest in Europe is at the south coast of France, full professional, much Hotels, Shopping Centers etc. there, it's famous name is Cap'd Agde. - But: there is all..., incl. less or more official sex-playgrounds with orgys around the clock open air... and whatever bars, hehehe - and also quiet family-zones and nude shopping zones, everything for all needs.

So seen, and if one comes from that culture, one can drive a nude beach in SL as a relaxing only zone, but with the same right an all-inclusive nude-beach - here I think again, it is not at Linden Lab to have right to decide what is a "common nude beach" - Cap'd Agde for example offers itself only under the name: Nudist Centre, but offers all and more....

This is the problem with self-made rules. They are not able to meet the ideas or traditions of the whole world. Blondin would say: Cap'd Agde is adult. We europeans would say: it is our normal lifestyle and far away from LL'sdefinition of adult, we do not die while seeing naked people and even not when they are in action live and under the sun, hehehe . Normally no one takes a notice if there lays a couple around in 69 position or whatever they do. It is kind of normal and too often seen than it could be much impressive.

But as often said: LL can watch direct at their front door - San Francisco has open air events along each year, oh la la la - Folsom Street Parade is one of them. A BDSM thing. very hard and offensive, a robust event in any meaning. I saw videos. It rocks literal.

Then the gay pride thing and all that. On some special event days you have more naked, half-naked or fetish clothed and active hopping people running around there than clothed ones was my impression, hahaha.

In opposite to that is Cap'd Agde decent and quiet. And? The uncountable sex-driven communities in San Francisco are still citizens and communities and scenes and sub-scenes of the town and not moved elsewhere. The scenes,individuals and artists and freaks and folks are open active in the middle of the City all year long. And what de we know how much Linden staff and employees enjoying that too..., oh yes, I bet! This is what makes LL to bigot moral apostels, because they have all what they try to ban from mainland now, in front of their own doors all day long and around the clock in their real life.

Really? Can you show numbers to back up those statements, please? Everybody seems to expect LL to do it, so we should be held to the same standards. LL aren't going to listen to some random numbers, they are going to need to see where you got them from.

Businesses have been going out of business since I have joined SL - one example does not make a trend.... You're going to have to show how many are getting out precisely because of this ruling.

Otherwise LL will say they have their own numbers that show it's the right thing for them to do (and no, they don't have to show them to us.... it's their world)

/me points!!

Who else can spot the irony??

Oh do behave, we've had obscenity laws for years, there just wasn't an internet when they were originally published, there's also the issue that you need to be looking for it.

Oh it was MOST intended. But it cuts both ways - if we yell that we don't believe their numbers, then they are more than within their rights to say the same....

While it is true that business have appeared and disappeared since day one, this is a very old business that has existed since before I was inworld. Friends of the owner said he had a big sale where he just gave everything away, then quit because he decided LL's inability to run the grid had gotten so bad that he just didn't want to be here anymore. So while the data is secondhand, yes, LL's latest move was certainly the final straw for one very old business. What is most worrisome to me is that it's not even being implemented yet. What's going to happen in the months to come? And who is paying that tier now? Nobody - gov Lin holds it, and he'll keep holding it for a very long time.

Like I said, the current stuff inworld is what keeps people here. The more stuff that goes away, the more easy it'll be for people to not bother with SL anymore. And while my estimates are just that - estimates - based on what happened with the voids and the outrage in these forums compared to that of the voids (easily quadruple the posts) I put the user loss at between 10 and 33 Percent.

Blondin is the messenger, He can only print what he can answer or what he is told to print. I really dont think he is required to give you or I any answers on this or any other blog so the fact that he has taken the time to answer and monitor this blog is a good thing. There are many in SL that are frustrated about this issue and no one persons question is more important than any other question here.

As to the number of answers Blondin has given to answer questions about this issue, he has given 5 sets of 8 questions. So he has a total of 40 answers. I am sure that you know how to find his other postings.

/me waves to Blondin errrrr Legend.

40 answers in 10 days for the whole world. I am impressed. Maybe ripe for the Guinness Book of world records. A service employee in a restaurant is able to give you 40 answers in one minute, if you ask quick and precise, hehehe.

LL fails on all levels. Really.

Question Blondin answered: Some clubs/stores which receive a large number of visitors have carefully chosen their location so that they are on quiet sims to avoid overloading the sim. If 2 or more such clubs are swapped into the same sim on the adult continent, it will have a detrimental effect on both those clubs and other residents of the sim. What plans do LL have to avoid this?
ANSWER: We will be conscious of placement when we move people.



Question Blondin answered: Will swapped plots have similar surroundings (roads, water, ocean whether plot is on the edge of a sim or mid sim etc)?
ANSWER: We will make a reasonable effort to match your existing location type, although we will not be able to terraform or match plot shapes

I have a simple question...

On SLX if you want to look at 'mature/adult' items.. you get this...

WARNING/DISCLAIMER

You are about to be redirected to Xstreet SL Uncensored.

The adult content within this site is intended for ADULTS ONLY (18 years of age or older). If you are not of legal age or do not wish to view materials of a sexually-explicit nature or you are offended by transgender images or topics, then please click CANCEL now. If you continue on to view any adult content within this website, you are stating the following:

1. I am an adult over the age of 18 years.

2. I will not allow anyone under the legal age, stated in 1. above, to access any of materials labeled Mature.

3. I am viewing mature content of this site willingly and I understand that by doing so I will be exposed to materials of a sexually-explicit nature.

(ENTER/CANCEL)

and it's not 'sticky'.. every time you go to SLX you have to do that if you want to enable mature items..

Now... on the MAINLAND here you could fly from one sim to another, However for a PRIVATE SIM... you have to GO THERE... you can't just 'fly in'... so... explain to me in simple terms WHY IF YOU TRY TO TP TO AN "ADULT SIM" the viewer can't....

WARNING/DISCLAIMER

You are about to be enter a region that has been declared ADULT.

The adult content within this region is intended for ADULTS ONLY (18 years of age or older). If you are not of legal age or do not wish to view materials of a sexually-explicit nature or you are offended by transgender images or topics, then please click CANCEL now and your teleport will be canceled and you will be returned to your starting point. If you continue on to view any adult content within this region, you are stating the following:

1. I am an adult over the age of 18 years.

2. I will not allow anyone under the legal age, stated in 1. above, to access any of materials labeled Mature.

3. I am viewing mature content of this site willingly and I understand that by doing so I will be exposed to materials of a sexually-explicit nature.

(ENTER/CANCEL)

Please, TELL ME WHY THAT WON'T WORK.. IF IT'S GOOD ENOUGH FOR SLX (which has been stated will not be changing) WHY ISN'T THAT SUFFICIENT FOR IN-WORLD.

Please, a simple straight answer... and 'well people can lie' ISN'T A GOOD ANSWER.. Junior can put in Dad's Credit Card info for PIOF....

Make that one of the 8 questions for today...

Good thing this is not a restaurant.

Half answered, most of the questions have been half answered, hence why the answers end up generating more questions. I don't blame Blondin for this however, the policy simply wasn't thought through.

Simple answer: LL could do that, if they wanted to.

They could do lots of things, things to make SL a cooler & better, if they wanted to.

Not a cartoon? Well, I'll agree up to a point...like you, I want my avatar to look as realistic as possible, and I've repeatedly asked LL to make improvements to the avatar mesh for that very reason. But I don't think anyone would look at an SL avatar and "think that any such person or animal was real". We are a long way from photo-realism.

I feel for our Brit friends. They have long had a very open and tolerant culture; the British Eccentric has a long and honorable history. Now they've allowed a number of idiots at the controls, and are seeing nonsense like the "extreme pornography" laws and the recent capitulation of the judicial system to Islamic religious law.

But this is all beside the point. Although there have been some nods by LL toward various international laws and sensibilities, the Company is still governed by U.S. and California law.

Can we get back to the main topic, i. e. , trying to convince LL of the economic folly of this so-called "plan"? If I was asked my opinion, I think Shockwave's estimate of a loss of 10 to 33% of the customer base sounds terrifyingly spot on.

But maybe they just don't care. They killed off 17% of the grid with the OpenSpace whipsaw tactic, and that particular fiasco has still to play out fully, with the next price increase.

The question wasn't "why won't you" but "why won't that work"... two different things. If it would WORK (and since it's good enough for SLX it works) THEN we go to WHY WON'T YOU DO IT.