Upcoming Changes for Adult Content: Answers to Questions

1) What about people who "live above the store"? People who have a skybox with personal non-publicly-advertised bedrooms on a plot with a ground-level non-mature/adult store? If you own X-meters of land. Will you be GIVEN the same amount of land on the adult sim?
ANSWER: 1) Personal bedrooms - if they aren't advertised and aren't holding sexually- or violently-themed events, aren't really adult content. It's just a bedroom at that point. 2) Skyboxes - if it's advertising adult content, it will have to be on adult land. 3) Land swap - If your content on the mainland is adult and you choose to move to the adult continent, you will be able to directly swap land to the adult continent. It will be the same amount.

2) Will there be adult Help Islands and Welcome Areas?
ANSWER: No, there will not be any Help Islands but there will be safe InfoHubs that will be flagged as Adult. It will start with one and more will be added.

3) As it stands now, the ONLY way to choose either the "Age verification required" or "Payment info required" checkboxes is to first check the "PUBLIC ACCESS" checkbox, and if you do that, you can NOT use the check boxes for an access list by name, a group that has access, or selling passes for access. Age/payment verification completely EXCLUDES any possibility of using any other access restriction. Flagging a sim as "ADULT" absolutely, positively, MUST NOT disable the ability to use an access list or land access groups to restrict sim-wide access. It has to work as IF (((Age verified - True) OR (Payment info on file = True) OR (Payment info Used = TRUE)) AND ((Access permitted by explicit access list) OR (Access permitted by group membership)))THEN Allow access. NEITHER TRUMPS THE OTHER! It has to be possible for a sim to allow only members of the "Furry Sex Maniacs" group who are ALSO Age or payment verified. Because WE have no way to limit membership in the "Furry Sex Maniacs" group to only age or payment verified individuals. And because that same group may have Mature land elsewhere that membership allows access to, regardless of age or payment verification.
ANSWER: Logic is:
IF (Resident Maturity >= Region Maturity) //either by age-verification, payment info, etc.
THEN (check other access permissions) // including group, age-verification required, etc.)
ELSE (Resident doesn't get into region) //no matter what the other access permissions are

The other access permissions behaviors have not changed. I believe this means that what the resident has stated above is correct. We have just added a step before the current access restrictions to check maturity level first.

For example, if we have three residents in the Furry Maniacs group:
1) New Furball (not age-verified, not payment-verified, not an adult)
2) Shopper Furball (payment-verified and used, but not age-verified, is an adult)
3) Grandma Furball (age-verified, is an adult)

If the region is set up as an Adult region, no matter what other settings are used, New Furball will not be able to enter until they have added some information to their account to verify that they are an adult.

If Allow Public Access is turned off, and only the Furry Maniacs group is allowed in, Shopper and Grandma will both be able to enter.

If the Age-verified Adults checkbox is then also selected, only Grandma Furball will be allowed in.

The permissions build on top of one another.

4) Your answer was "we will be conscious of placement when we move people". Is it going to be up to LL's of where we are going to be placed, or is the continent going to be opened for all of us being evicted to pick and choose for ourselves? I almost get the feeling we will be handed a number and we have to go match up our number to the plot assigned like at some dinner formality where our name is upon the table in which we have been assigned by the host.
ANSWER: Currently, we are considering allowing the residents to choose 3 options for where they would like to move and Linden Lab would assign on a first come first serve basis based on their picks. What are some thoughts on this?

5) What is LL going to do about XSL?
ANSWER: XStreet already has adult content separated and payment info with Xstreet will also qualify for verifying an SL account.

6) How will people end up on the land swap list? Will it be voluntary or will they be selected by LL
ANSWER: People will be able to request a land swap and we will review to make sure that their parcel meets the criteria of being on the mainland and containing adult content, and that they would be impacted by the changes.

7) How much time will we be given to select and move everything over before dual tier kicks back in or will it be that once the swap is done the legacy mainland reverts to LL and we're given a certain amount of time to remove our items?
ANSWER: Linden will assign parcels and the resident will have 9 days, over a two weekend period, to go and 'buy' the new land. At the end of the 9 days, we will reclaim their mainland parcel. Again, there will be no dual tier.

Are you going to have beaches and snow in Ursula???
ANSWER: Yes and No. There are lots of coast lines and some substantial beach property. Currently, there are not any snow specific regions but snow can easily be added to the mountain peaks.

I think this is a good idea. The Furry community is, naturaly, in an uproar about this situation and spaming group members constantly about how wrong LL is reguarding this. And on the same note, they constatnly claim how being a Furry isnt about the sex. Honestly, I dont have paid information or a pay account and I had no trouble enabling my adult verification with the simple insertion of a credit card number so I could buy lindens (Which I dont have the need to buy.)

People find any excuse to whine and complain. I see many many good things comming from this. Especialy with so many in the furry community being far under any legal age and being exposed to/doing adult and sexual acts/age play/beastiality. The average joe pre-teen not exposed to such things tends to see such blatant disregaurd for adult acts and imediatly conform to the -new- and -different- deviances almost instantly. Not only does this sort of behavior cause them to act in a manner that could likely get an unknowing adult into trouble online, but it surely effects their sexual prowess offline.

While this may not seem like a good idea for LL to change the Terms of Service to those that wish to promote such conduct and inspire others around them through the only influance they really have going for them (IE Sex), I think in the long run it will at least give those that do enjoy sexual tensions in an online setting a better chance to have people their own age as well as stopping 90% of the grief from those who make one day old alts to harass and cause problems within a sim.

I say good on ya' LL. Its about time.

I for one dont like being around kids when I am in a place that condones sexual nature of ANY sort. It makes me uncomfortable, its unwanted, and dispite many sim owners claiming to not want child avatars or children players in their sim, I often find that to be quite the opposite if the underage or child avatar lifts their tail to them. This at least will discontinue the pedophilia to some extent.

While it wont stop children form using their parents credit cards, I do thing that it will cut down on it to a more comfortable level for those responsible and educated enough to enjoy such things and who are deserving of the title Adult.

Yep, they sell the boat(s) in future with or without us galley slaves. Franchise system. Cluster-system. SL-in-a-box. Something like that. Not only a disneyfication of SL, but a McDonaldisation of SL. Slogan: Much worlds - Not longer the Lab's problem. Some box-buyer will make smut worlds - some will make clean worlds out of the box. LL will just count the money and the license fees. This is the meta-plan behind all small steps they do actually.

Disney's gonna be hella surprised when they find out not only is all the extreme stuff still there, but it's also on the most valuable property in SL.

Sweetie, which particular bit of "they don't care what we think" are you having problems with? You're only upsetting yourself for no good reason.

From my perspective this heralds one of two things:

We get moved off to kinkyville, it becomes fabulously popular and the pg stuff dies a death and LL will be known as the virtual porn kings

or

PG will take off big time and our time is coming to an end and either we'll be sold off in a job lot to someone else to manage or we'll wither on the vine.

Yes, LL does exploit us something shocking and charges us for doing it. LL only provide the platform, we actually provide the entertainment, clothing, buildings etc. They then use our creations and imagination for their marketing to get more suckers in.

Their basic premise is that if you don't like it leave. We stay so therefore we collude with everything they do.

That's our problem.

They will not listen to us because we don't count. They don't even see us as customers, just as residents.

You've just got to get over this idea you can reason with them or that logic will change their minds. We are no more important to them than a cog in a machine.

It's foolish and disheartening to think otherwise.

The best we're likely to get out of them is some poorly executed plan. If we're really lucky they may even tell us how they're planning to do it before they kick it off.

nothing more.

This thread has become so mindnumbingly off topic that I'm at the stage of tl;dr. Pontificating on things that are completely outside of the move itself and the baying for blood is just sucking the oxygen out of this and drowning the thread in a static it no longer needs.

This has been going for almost 3 weeks now (I think) the time for footstamping is over.

You're missing the point.

THERE IS NO WAY USING THE EXISTING LINDEN TOOLS AND APIS TO PERFORM THESE CHECKS.

This is an EXISTING problem that NEEDS TO BE FIXED.

I'm sorry for yelling, Blondin, but you're REALLY missing the point here.

SL is losing around 80 regions per week as reported in a previous post.
the "kids" are their only hope now i believe, eventually Adult land will be phased out totally by price hikes, LL will be financed by content from xstreet, residents will not have the power to build anymore and inventories will be flagged and stripped of goods LL dont want you to have.
private island owners will be forced out also, again by massive tier hikes, but LL will wait until it suits them. LL can change colour at any time, and there is nothing you can do about it.

unfortunately LL's plan wont work as technology is not on their side,big businesses are not interested and the sl code is open source.

unless LL give cast iron reassurances about its management and future it will fail, but LL are untrustworthy so no-one will believe them anyway.

not a good scenario for something that once held such hope.

are you therefore implying that there will still be a requirement for some (all?) parcels to age verify too?

Hope you have lots and lots of Lamp posts to put out there

Except that's not how it currently works. Right now, if Age Verified is checked, AND Group Access is checked, then Shopper Furball can get in despite not being Age Verified, because Group Membership is checked first.

Are you saying that server 1.26 changes this?

Also, group access and age verified only work close to the ground. They don't protect skyboxes.

Hence:

http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/SVC-205
http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/SVC-2390

Any plans to allow those selected for the initial move/land swap to tier up and retain their original Mainland land in addition to the new plot, the original land of course no longer intended for Adult usage? I rather like my existing plot and would like the right of first refusal before it goes up for auction or is otherwise set for sale in the marketplace at large.

I agree fully, but along the thread I had a chance to increase my english language knowledge - so I used the last days for some training sessions and language workouts as a side effect of all this (this is no joke, serious) and to work on that on different emotional, intellectual and also stupid levels was a perfect fitness training. Much more than ingame chats wich are by their nature not as complex than a forum. So-even talking against a wall was making kind of sense in this meaning. Beside this: I think I know where this all leads, same as you and some knowing it too, since long. But I will watch curious, so or so, what the green points on the map will try then. Like watching a Tana-land or Milgram experiment. I - for myself - know that it is over, halfway soon. The free expression "game" as we knowed it. Oh, hahahaha, lol, in this moment a new entry of B.L appeared. Well, It seems Grandma Furball will need a notary, three attorneys, a complex list on desktop in front of the screen and some academic levels to understand that. A NATO strategy plan is much less complex. The labyrinth point of my former post seems verified with that. I love chaos. It will be chaos. And the last green point will switch the light off. Friendly Greetings

Y'know, Blondin, I don't envy you. Really. I try to imagine myself in your situation, powerless, a thousand customers screaming Blue murder (pun intended) and probably very little support from the powers that be. In fact, I'm not sure how you do this job. Cycling to work, knowing what awaits you here day after day. Surely it can't be much fun.

I have a hunch this issue is burning up the staff at the Lab as well. I can only speculate as to why Linden Lab chose to wade into this quagmire. I would like to believe it is not incompetence - that there is a grand vision the company holds close to its chest - but having been a victim of the VAT fiasco, I am uneasy about the management of Second Life.

Y'know, I was about to board a train to Brighton to apply for a job with LL when news broke of the gambling ban. I was so disappointed that I took off my shoes and placed the invitation on the kitchen counter. Then came the banking ban and VAT and, well, it was all rather sad. No doubt, the abandonment of core principles must have gone down hard in the Lab itself. If it was tough for customers, it must have been heartbreaking for many employees.

I think what really saddens so many people is the failure of leadership - the lack of vision to stand up to social conventions and even governments in order to defend the first completely new world since the founding of the United States. There are no Jeffersons or Franklins at Linden Lab, no Washingtons or Madisons. Instead, the company is run by engineers, accountants and lawyers. Decisions appear ad-hoc, reactive, petty. I think many of us feel, gee whiz, you could have done something grand with Second Life. You could have shaped the future, shaped the real world, and yet you chose to play it safe. It is this, in my opinion, that hurts the most.

/me waves

So what would you vote for if your views on it were just libertarian? Like "I do not mind people enjoying adult content, I just don't choose to do so myself"

This is exactly why LL should be worried. This is the reason why many MMO's no longer exist today.

Okay, I'm lost ... all of this time you have been saying PIOF would be functionally equivalent to age-verified for parcel access and now you are saying the opposite? WHUH !?

Okay, simpler question: a non-adult plot has the age-verified checkbox on. Would a resident with payment info but not age verification be able to get access to the plot or not? A simple binary question for you.

Re read the 2006 amendment. It extends the legislation to animated scenes. It is currently being challenged in the courts, but it is technically current law.

And they have real names? How do you figure that if they are not confirming information? I am not sure that I am the silly one here....

Odd question: For those who apply, go through the review, and are found NOT to meet the criteria for moving, will there be some sort of safeguard or rubberstamp or whatever declaring them safe so that a more conservative Linden cant come along the next week and declare the exact same content too adult for Mainland?

If you can find some way to convince legsilators from pushing through the kind of legislation that is going through, more power to you, but there are far more overprotective mothers in the world than there are players in SL, and all the mad faces in the world are unlikely to change that.

I have to agree here, with each major LL policy change.....the game becomes more sterile. The only thing that keeps me going for now are my businesses.......for pure enjoyment and fun, i think i would choose some other game. In terms of enjoyment i preferred SL when i joined back in 2006 even though the platfrom was far more unstable.

So.. Is there ANYTHING we can do about all this?

Logic doesn't seem to be working.. Is there some other key to getting something good to happen? Like, if we can make Bondin's head explode, do we get a pass on this stuff for another 2 years?

Spot on.....just wait till it hits the whole grid!

This is much wider issue than just Adult Content as you say.
It's quite amazing how a company can be so incompetent in misjudging it's customer base!

Keep laughing. The last "age play" ruckus about a year ago was triggered in part by overreaching British pedophilia laws.

Maybe your vidcard is crappy, or you spend a lot of time wearing comedy avs. But there's been some *very* realistic work done in SL with high end equipment that's quite striking and I think would pass the "reasonable person" test.

Not "cartoon"' at all.