Upcoming Changes for Adult Content: Answers to Questions

When almost all people started to protest, it helped and the change in SL was canceled! Do it again and thats it! There are other way of how to solve this problem - protecting privacy of people in SL, not to ban intimacy! It can be provided by defining of the adult zones inside of the houses and under the domes of gardens with sexual content i.e.! Very easy and cheap solution! Not hard to implement and no need to segregate people! What they will be doing in their houses will be then on them, if they will not expose it intentionaly to children or public places!

Complex problems have sometimes simple solutions... One proverb says - When the mountain doesn't want to come to Mohamed, Mohamed have to come to mountain. By moving people to another island instead of to give them privacy where they are, we are trying to move the mountain to Mohamed.

If they want people to do not be intimate or to use adult or sexualy explicit content on public, then give them privacy and thats all! Why to move people to places where they can do things, when you can give them posibility to make such a places where they are and cover them from the eyes of childs and public. It is the same solution as in reality. When you want sex with your partner, will you go to some sexpart of the city or you will enclose yourself at your home in your bedroom?

Well - do you remember the revolution in SL when taxes were about to be payed in SL?

no i am afraid not, could you enlighten me?

YOu already have to be 18 to even sign up for the program, so what is the point to making a "adult area when areas already have flags such as mature and pg??? Makes no sense whatsoever. A program called IMVU tried a tact very similar to this but began censoring everything people made and disallowing adult themed items that bore sex or adult acts at all, even though they had filters and such already in place, and forced you to pay 20 dollars for their adult content to be purchased or viewed. This just seems like a move that will butcher sl content and the grid like that program did. Force people to move, then you limit the business outlets that people have, thus you are hindering the chance that your customers have to survive or flourish with their creativity, regardless of the maturity of the content!

The french philosopher Sartre said: Man is doomed to be free!

LL says: No! Man is from today on doomed to LL's freedom to destroy freedom.

They are - the new "Lindens" , i.e. Mark Kingdon, his buddies, attached investors and aimed alternative target-groups - they are fundamentally not prepared to agree with our former, present and upcoming projects, nor with our doubts and sceptics, nor with our questions and suggestions, nor with our success-proofed freedom to do with SL what we creatively, freely and free from reprisals did so far.

In their brownbag-meetings prepared brains, freedom *to* is entirely lost, and on the other hand, freedom *from* is constantly increasing.

Since this idea - agreeing with someone's thought and project - is completely intolerable to them, even not longer for *money*... any more. Since this idea, no matter how much money we pay to them, they decided entirely to give up their freedom of brain-movement and at the same time embedded in this, they decided entirely to give up our freedom of projecting, also to give up, that we decide about the appearance of our projects and also to give up, that we decide about the meaning, interpretation and localisation of our projects.

This is why we get here no answers to the meanwhile 5000+, mostly logical statements and the many well formatted hard questions and this is why the idea - second life - became worthless with LL's technics of biz-strategic mass manipulation for easy-to-see-through interests, wich have nothing to do with the idea: second life. Nothing!

99% of the customers are still not informed about LL's plans and 100% of the customers are not informed about the real backgrounds and targets.

But LL is up to 99% informed about the fact, that we do not accept this, because from 18+ on any rating and any intrusion in our *life* has to stop!

We all are complete adults per definition, law and constitutions. We don't want and we don't need guidings and instructions about how, and where located, we have to be or not.

Customers will pull different individual or collective consequences out of this - but they will - in this or that way.

Because LL touched *not only* technical or financial questions (with wich we struggle enough - since nothing works stable and properly enough with that bunch of hardware and software and this struggle is bundled with overpriced fees, measured on the service and the stress we catch here by their plans and mistakes frequently).

With their new plans, they touch our integrity, independency and existential, fundamental, human constitutions, wich are, as said, doomed to freedom and not to the opposite! wich any history shows exemplaric, in any case, without exceptions.

They started - as a biz-priority - a direct attack on biological, sociological, psychological, philosophical, historical, systemical, intellectual, creative, established main-attributes of the matured and life-experienced homo sapiens in an enlighted modern world.

Here represented as for self-design and -self expression prepared and skilled customers!

The wrong move of LL is in result a try of LL, to *bomb us back* into immaturity - and nonage-status while *they bomb themself* - at the same time - out of any acceptance by their customers and, at the same time - out of any acceptance for the product.

This will be the result.

Often said, with these or other or alternative words, by so many customers and high intelligent and creative people, but crashed on a wall of impertinent ignorance again.

I have my doubts, that this will be a fitting biz-model, nor a big succes for LL.

I have *no* doubts that this will be - in result - the collapse of our freedom - and fantasy - projects, no matter wich introverted or expressive self-design projects per individuals or wich introverted or expressive collective-design projects per groups.

Fact is: war on eros and intellect/sense has begun!

They are on their crusade-mission.

But we should show no white flag. Only over our dead avatar-bodies.

Also today again my usual diet consultancy for lab-managers: don't drink water, because fishes and frogs had hardcore wet sex in it. Drink sand, to stay "political correct" - guided by your ancient pilgrim fathers and present suits - and free of "sins"!

i would suggest that around 90% of SL residents have no clue of what LL are doing and have no idea that these forums exist, as far as i know there are no foreign language forums for this and LL are not making it obvious to anyone who logs in that they are going to drastically alter the face of SL.

see? its all a big act, LL are going to do exactly as they planned, and they dont give a damn about you.

Helloooooo Lindens!

It seems I chose a fantastic time to start up an Adult Alt Porn publication in world. heh. I am just curious as to how these new laws of the grid will effect publishers like myself. The kiosk or Subscribe-o-matic we have for our high class magazine does not show lude acts of adult material on the actual public kiosk, but inside the magazine you bet your butt there is plenty to blush about. How would we be able to age verify a resident who wants to click on and receive a copy of our magazine? Will the sims I put kiosks on have to be "Adult" or can they be in mature areas since there is nothing screaming SUCK MY COCK out in the open? How would we go about policing this on xstreet SL as well as in world circulation? How will fashion magazines be filtered if they have a breast exposed in one of their photos in the magazine? I know my content is purely Adult, there is no grey area there. I just want to know how this all will eventually effect the magazine's distribution.

Love & Humps
-Glam
(I apologize if this has already been covered. There are so many threads, I'm lost as hell.)

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.

http://www.metanomics.net/transcript011909
01/19/09

PG sims like the lost gardens of apollo will be full of kids, it will be just like RL.
Second life is dying and its ideals are dying with it.
its not your world anymore.

No. This unique setting wasn't covered so far, so it is another hard coded and good question for them. But I would not expect a good answer from them, because most questions they do not answer and they try to establish a totalitary fake-moral setting, wich doesn't exist in modern countries and capital/metroplitan cities of the world. They lost any connection to life, constitutions, the human condition and natural basics.

They try to separate things wich can't be separated, especially not for 18+ people with a brain and a hint of democracy and freedom.

I'm pretty confident this is simply not going to happen at all.

A statement from Linden Lab about this scenario would let residents focus on more realistic proposals and would let them have more reasonable expectations.

== I'm asking here for a word from Linden Lab about this ==
Thanks in advance.

1) Are there any clear, uncontroversial, unanimous agreed, examples of activities which are "mature" but not "adult"?
ANSWER: Nude beaches, Dance clubs with "alcohol" and dancing, combat sims, lingerie shops, private builds with furniture and accessories.

2) Some Linden's have suggested that only locations intended for "public" use with "adult" content need to move to the adult continent. Is this the case? If so what is meant by "public"?
ANSWER: Public would mean a build on the mainland that is intended to draw and host Resident traffic in such a way as to make it more of a venue than a residence designed for individual enjoyment. That said, mainland locations that have adult content on them may wish to consider a move to the adult continent, because that is where the adults will be. Residents who are interested in adult content will be looking there. Adult content can not be advertised on non-Adult land, so if you want your content found, it needs to be on adult land.

3) It has been suggested that picks to adult locations may not be permitted in profiles since profiles are intended to be PG. Could LL clarify the situation? If adult picks are not permitted, this will impact search ranking for adult places. How will LL address this?
ANSWER: Pictures and descriptions in profiles should be PG as per the TOS. It's possible to describe adult picks with PG terms.

4) Will LL assist in moving complex builds (e.g. large numbers of prims, prims over a large area, multiple permissions of objects, multiple ownership of objects) which can not simply be taken and re-dropped?
ANSWER: We have no way of directly helping in the move, but we will publish some tips on how to best accomplish it. We will provide what support we can but this is not likely to extend to scenarios such as this.

5) It has been suggested that profiles merely indicate whether an avatar is adult, without indicating whether this is via PIOF or aristotle. What is LL's view on this? If LL supports this idea, Will this be reflected in LSL functions?
ANSWER: This isn't part of the current plan, although it may have merit. It isn't on the roadmap, however.

6) Are there any plans to limit group membership to adult verified accounts?
ANSWER: Not at this time.

7) A major complaint is that a failed log on may result in a avatar expecting to be in a mature area (and hence maybe dressed in a mature manner or naked) being relocated to a random PG area. Some have even been ARed or suspended when for appearing naked in a PG area when they expected to be logging onto their (mature) home location or (mature) last logged on location. What plans have LL for resolving this?
ANSWER: We will relocate people to a safe region that matches the maturity they have set in their preferences. That means, most people will end up in Mature regions instead of PG. No more ending up naked in a PG sim.

It still appears that many people in world are still unaware of the proposed changes (not least of all because the blog headlines are no longer listed in the logon page). What plans (such as adding it to the message of the day) do LL have for advertising these change more widely? On a side note, given that important changes are still posted to the blogs, are there any plans to display these within the viewer again?
ANSWER: We are going to talk about it more when we do the Viewer RCs, as it will be part of the major changes in the UI that people will see. Announcements will be made via the blog and forums when new information is released in order to keep residents up to speed.

Lol, its going to happen.
you wont get an answer here about it from LL, i guarantee it.

I assumes since SL was 18+ that we were all adults I also assumed since some adults dont like adult activities then they stayed in the PG area. If they are not Mature enough to deal with bumping into a naked av ( something i have only had happen when in a newbie area or an mature area ) then maybe they should not be on the net

It still appears that many people in world are still unaware of the proposed changes (not least of all because the blog headlines are no longer listed in the logon page). What plans (such as adding it to the message of the day) do LL have for advertising these change more widely? On a side note, given that important changes are still posted to the blogs, are there any plans to display these within the viewer again?
ANSWER: We are going to talk about it more when we do the Viewer RCs, as it will be part of the major changes in the UI that people will see. Announcements will be made via the blog and forums when new information is released in order to keep residents up to speed.

which is part of the reason why i believe these forums are a sham.
LL have their agenda already, this is just false PR.

I pity anyone who is thinking of buying land here and not knowing about the impending changes.
a forum really is not the best place for something of this magnitude as forums are seen by most people as a comfy fireside chat and not really that important.
but hey LL, just keep it quiet and you may get a few more mugs to invest.

can you answer me?

Hello Blondin,
please, do you know if Linden Lab have been considering solution describbed higher in my blogposts? Posibility to define private space inside of house or under some glassdome i.e. by special prims and to show content and people inside this area only to people, who are inside with them? (Of course into this space would not be posible to enter age unverified, etc). That looks much more logical solution then to be forcing people to move, because they want i.e. sex bed in their house. Why not to give people privacy instead of to penalty them for intimate activities on public? It would even lower the lag (cause inside of houses would not need to be displayed, if created this way) and provide new functionality - like protection from anybody hearing what you are telling or writing in your house, posibility to have standalone media url for single houses, not parcels, etc....

Age verification is a major concern for many people who are against the new policy, I cannot see why age verification is actually required to access adult content, unless you are wishing to allow future integration of the teen grid with the main one.
Future integration of the two grids is something that also concerns me greatly even with a seperate PG continent aswell as an adult one, which is already going far further than LL's current suggestion, SL would not be a safe place for children to integrate with adults IMO.




I would far prefer Jacks idea of only moving any very extreme content to the adult area is the best option for time being, as it should cause only minimalised effects to existing business, rp sims etc. leaving most land owners unaffected.

Extreme content should consist of rl pornographic pictures, public sex clubs and extreme violent content/pictures.

RP sims, strip clubs etc.should stay as mature.

Land swaps should be offered to all those wishing to move on the mainland.


Future addition of a PG only continent would also be a great idea for the future, with a similar landswap policy being offered, at which time all existing PG/mature sims on mainland can become mature.

Not to forget the booting people out of the mentor group because they were not following all of the several lines of communication they use. When ppl complained after being removed it was 'well, you should have been reading our rarely-updated blog, wait until signups are open again' not 'ooops, we forgot to put in on the mailing list, we'll reinstate you'. They actually bragged in the next monthly mentor meeting that it was such a success in getting rid of people.

To be fair, they do have some avenues of communication ... which they do not pay much attention to. Like office hours and meetings that many of us can not attend because of our time zones.

Sounds like the opening to 'The Prisoner'. Apt in some senses.

Now that's quite revealing: those who won't be on the adult continent are the non-adults...

I suppose this makes it pretty darn official. They are going to create the place where I already thought I was. I am just in the midst of trying to buy additional land in my Sim. I will wait now to see if I want to stay at all. I will ask to move to the Adult Sim, then see if its worth upgrading to the next tier or not. WIth this policy change, I don't know that I want to be here anymore. Does anyone know of a replacement for SL? God, all the money I have spent is going down the toilet, I will not like my Mature plot anymore and I will not be able to find something on the new continent. My guess is that it will be a rush from businesses to get there and the residents who wish to move will be given last priority. I can't help but hope that SL pays a heavy price for this.
BT

"In case you didn't get it yet, we're forcing you to move with minimal support in an attempt to achieve our main objective, namely, to drive as much extreme content as possible out of SL."

Oh come now Blondin, you have GOT to be joking. You are essentially saying people should abandon things?

On one hand you are telling people they have to move. On the other you are saying LL will not help aside from writing FAQs, including with moves that multiple owners?

As the owners of the servers, LL is the *only* entity that can do some of these things.

Wondering why this change sold as to protect people who do not want to be confronted with adult content includes the obligated age verification for those who do seek adult content. Just a check box 'Show aldult results' would do the work... as is rather common elsewhere on the web.

I have a BDSM club, we tie each other up, have sex, in a skybox, bothering no one while we are having a great time ourselves. I just clicked on all visitors profiles, 0% age verified and less than half has payment info on file.

All my work, time, effort and also money spent on that club is lost when this comes through. To reduce my loss as much as I can, I am already not spending anything anymore, even on clothes. Why should I? It soon is worthless anyway when I sit alone with those few that did the verificiaton in my expensive skybox.

New residents won't find us anymore, also those looking for adult content. Quite a large group will drop out, finding their adult content elsewhere on the web, either
- cannot find adult content so assuming it doesn't exists in SL
- find the age verification to complicated
- don't want to share their private info with the Lindens (having on record who they are and that they seek adult content)
- doesn't take the time to learn and drops out before finding what they look for.

It would be nice if the Lindens should realize that people spend real money on building up a buisiness. With such a rude and drastical change those investments get lost. This won't do good on a already doubtfull reputation. Don't spend your money or your time on building up something in SL without realizing: At any given time the Lindens can just take it away.

But please, be honest:
- Forcing your failed age verification for those who want to be involved in adult activity is totally not needed to protect those who do not want to be confronted with it.
- It will hardly help keeping minors out (a laggy system with a 1995-user interface and much more exciting adult content elsewhere on the web already does that job much better)
- It kills off the large community that - at least from time to time - likes adult activity. No idea how you could possible seriously suggest that that is only 4%.
- All SL is according to your own terms of service only accessible for those above 18. So, be a big boy and be consequent: require age verification for ALL residents. I am sure you'll have an excuse for not do that but the real reason would be that you'll be bankrupted quite soon after.

The common opinion on those I am speaking in-world about this subject is that we ain't welcome anymore so we better leave. Talking to the Lindens or organizing a protest is seen as useless anyway.

We are no longer welcome. That is sad.
The way things are forced up on us makes clear again: We don't have rights. Not as residents, and not as clients of the Lindens.
SL once again proved to be a bad place to invest your time, money and effort.

Sometimes one sees that companies who change their policy carefully explain it to their customers, trying to ease the transformation, showing they care about their customers, explain what is happening and why. Others hide somewhere on their site a few notes "We gonna force those who offer adult content (and we don't know yet what that is, something with nudity and violence we think now) to move, hide their buisiness and only allow those in that use a totally dull age verification system (that is not working in any way reliable right know, is totally obsolete, no adult content anywhere else on the web uses it, and it won't keep minors out) which we most likely not gonna explain to new residents anyway. As you know us... we might need a few releases to get it all working correctly, so be patience while loosing your money. Drop dead if you don't like this new ideas. Next time we'll make up something even more louzy. Please keep on investing and refer your friends to SL."

Gee...I just start realizing how angry I am.

So again, here is Brie, and her $2's worth.
1. I own a full mainland MATURE sim, on the side of a mountain. I have spent 3 years+ acquiring this entire region. I have spent countless hours building on this sim. I want to know, when and if this is a forced move, do FULL SIM owners get first choice... and in what order? While i have NO PROBLEM waiting my turn, i DO have a problem with the idea that someone that's been a sim/business owner a month getting first choice over my 3 years of paying for my concierge account. Also, as i asked in my post on the now locked thread...if this is, indeed a swap...sqm for sqm, are we going to have a minimum time from acquiring it, to build/move/set up, before our old land is no longer ours with out an increase in tier? My Land is group owned...and i own the group. What affect will such a move have on people in my group that aren't verified...will they be locked out of our new home?
2. Also, in light of the fact that LL has started such an uninformed mania with rampant speculation, and limited answers, what about all the Adult Business owners that have seen a NOTICEABLE loss already? The changes are already hitting our pocketbooks....we need answers, and we need them concrete... and now. not 2 weeks from now, or wait and see... but something we can work with.
3. In my years in SL i have weathered a LOT of changes... most great, some REALLLLY Bad. I, along with a LOT of people, simply want answers. At various points over the years, LL has created groups specifically to keep people informed of important things... Would it be so hard for a LINDEN to create an *Adult Content Information group* that concerned residents can join, to be kept aware of changes as they come via Group notices...*New Information posted, please check the blogs ~insert link~* So that we at least feel like someone is listening, paying attention, actually Care?

***and as a side note... if you need a long-term resident affiliated with adult-business-orientated-linden... I'd love to have the job...

Brie

I am sorry, but this whole issue is turning into a farce. This has got to be one of the worst examples of customer management I have ever seen. I have no issues with the concept; make an adult region and put all adult material in it. That is fine. But the way it has been communicated is truely awful.

If you are not ready to announce to details of these changes then why release bits of information that only confuses people and leads to assumptions and panic. Why contradict each other when answers are given. It is just not helpful!

When you have worked out the details; what excatly is adult content, who is affected, how the moves will take place, when etc. then release the information and everyone will know what they need to do. They may not like it, but at least they will know. Right now we see shop owners, club owners, Art exhibitions etc. all wondering if they are affected and are just left in the dark. This does nothing other than to annoy people, and as you maybe can tell I am one of them.