RC Questions

They've spent the last 3 years demonstrating that they *are* that kind of corporation. You can't expect them to change now.


/me waves to the gang and settles down for another couple of months of aggravation

eta: my first post in this thread and my 600th all up. When this was first announced I only had 3 posts to my name.. 3 in 2+ years.. that's a lot of time you've taken from me in the last 6 weeks LL..

What does "Priority : Showstopper" mean?

Hovering the cursor over the exclamation mark next to Showstopper reveals:

SHOWSTOPPER: ONLY the most severe *confirmed* issues which demand immediate attention from Linden Lab. For example, inability for many residents to login. IMPORTANT: Abusing this setting will cause revocation of Issue Tracker access. If in doubt, mark "Critical" instead.

Exactly why it is a showstopper because it will create the inability for many to login and enjoy their SL as it will be moved and they cannot verify.

I am just waiting for LL to start banging the suspension and ban hammer down on us vocal people as Katt and crew did with the OS issue That is why I am wording things carefully

This issue of defaulting to PG and mature on login is a bug right?

the first time I ran the new RC it was defaulted to PG only. Not sure how that could be changed without changing the build. glitch perhaps?

Upon reflection, Jack's comment about the lack of support calls and tickets reminds me of a situation that happened once at a College that I once attended.

At a public student assembly, the President of the college announced that because applications for enrollment had dropped off precipitously, the college would be shutting down the school of nursing, which was actually a rather popular course of study. There was a huge uproar of protest from the assembled students, in all disciplines of study.

A student nurse then addressed a direct question to the college President, and pointed out that the REASON enrollment applications in that field had dropped to zero was that the registrar had, for over a month, been refusing to take applications! She had well-qualified friends who had tried to enroll, and who had been told flat out that the program was already closed! It came out that "someone" (never identified) had told the registrar that the Nursing program was going to be terminated, and to stop taking applications. When the Registrar re-opened applications, a flood of new applicants rapidly filled all available slots, and the nursing program was saved.

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Here in SL, Jack claims there have been few complaints in support calls and tickets. But he seems unaware that there is no suitable category to choose, and when people ask for help entering complaints, the people processing the support calls and tickets have been directing people with complaints and questions to these forums, and have not been ACCEPTING support calls or tickets for Jack to see!

Same here.

I had former not much reasons to join the forums.

I think I did 7 posts in 2 years or so...

The last 4-6 weeks I was maybe 2 hours in game and 100 hours here...even while my RL biz...I had my eyes frequently in here - pah - just to see one Linden typing: "yes" - "no" - "eventually".

And in game I moved infos from A to B, instead of fun and building.

What a mess.

This protest sign looks nice - it leads to the JIRA.

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Finest/132/72/22

Well, seems some germans realized now even in game what is going on. I think this estate is in german hands, but I am not sure.

That's not what Blondin said.

Blondin said that the swaps would go to people whose builds depend on sexual content, and made it clear that he was thinking of sexually-oriented businesses and clubs, not people who "merely" bought mature land and are now having the definition of mature land change under them.

According to Meta Linden they are not doing this for current residents, as much as for potential future residents who cited "in your face" sexual content as a reason they didn't bring their business/college/institution to SL.

Only if we can move our whole sim there, intact, with all builds intact, at no charge.

Ah I can't remember what it was first set as, it was only yesterday!!! However I tested it with some alts and it defaulted to PG and Mature on login, tried it as me twice in a row and after setting it to PG/Mature/Adult when I next logged in it was back to PG and Mature.

There are broad definitions on the knowledge base page, and then there specific words which are on a filter list. Presumably if it is filtered, it has been classed as adult.

There are three forms of adult content:

* The words which are filtered themselves
* Items/products/objects related to the words
* The activities related to the words

In order to avoid governance team actions, plan our parcel locations and setup, and our advertising we need to know very specifically what is allowed and what is not.

Therefore which of the following are allowed in PUBLIC locations (will not result in action by governance team against parcel owner)

(1) Use of adult filtered words on parcels in Mature and PG regions:

* In text of search entries for parcels? (this has pretty clearly been answered no, but is listed for completeness)
* In image within search entry?
* In title and description of objects on the parcel set to show in search?
* In title and description of objects on the parcel NOT set to show in search?
* In floating text
* In notecards distributed at such locations?
* In local chat generated by scripts at such locations?
* In sign textures at such locations?
* In group notices by the landowning group?
* In local chat at such locations by owners of such locations?
* In private IM at such locations by owners of such locations?
* In local chat by visitors/non owner staff?
* In Private IM by visitors/non owner staff?

(2) Presence of of items/products/objects related to adult filtered words in Mature and PG regions:

* Rezzed prim objects which are scripted and functional?
* Rezzed prim objects which are for display and not functional?
* Items for sale in vendors with textures depicting its use?
* Items for sale in vendors with only verbal descriptions in texture or vendor title/description?
* Items worn by parcel owner?
* Items worn by visitors/non owner staff?

(3) The actual activities related to adult filtered words in Mature and PG regions:

* By the parcel owner?
* By group members of the landowning group?
* By group members of staff or VIP groups?
* By visitors to the parcel?

If you were a Brit you would, I think, have little to fear. Offhand, the only parts of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 I can think of that you might need to worry about in SL in this context would be section 10, "Causing or inciting a child to engage in sexual activity" or section 12, "Causing a child to watch a sexual act" (which includes images of sexual acts).

In both these sections, a "reasonable belief" about the child's age is a statutory defence. Unless the avatar tells you, "actually, I shouldn't really be on the main grid, since I'm only 15, but I ticked the box anyway and used my mum's credit card," you're not committing an offence. Carry on after that, and you're in trouble, but up until that confession, you don't have much to worry about.

Certainly in every case in which I've had professional dealings the guy's problem has been that he's met someone online in a chat room or whatever and carried on with the cyber relationship after he's discovered the true circumstances.

Is it really the case that US and other jurisdictions' laws don't offer similar defences?

That's how it was for me, too, and it happened on every login. The unsaved preferences on teleporting and logoff, however, were random - sometimes I got the "don't show me" message, sometimes not.

Hey if any Lindens are actually reading this can you go ask the programmers for the expected behaviors? Otherwise we have to write reams of behavior and I doubt they are going to sift through it to see if any expected behaviors actually showed up.

...and many subsequent entries.

If there is no legal obligation and the vast majority of residents thinks this is a really bad idea, then I still don't understand why LL would want to actively censor anything in SL. It's a total mystery to me. And not only that, it seems plain stupid.

Wich ideas has the brilliant Linden Research, Inc. to offer about languages and their dialects related to Adult Content Definitions in search, advertisings, picks, websites, xstreet, forums, logos, descriptions, etc., etc. ?

How is your plan to put alphabetical censorship on - let's say - 200 nations, maybe 1000+ formal languages, 3-4000+ regional and local dialects and maybe 5000 sub-dialects?

For example: alone the european region Kaukasia wich goes through 4 countries has 60 languages...and yes: they have computer and internet...and oh, they know SL. I met some from that region.

Africa: 1.300...languages.

I mean: how many linguists are on LL's payroll and how big do you think the code/list for that can grow, measured in yottabyte?

For example: even mainstream-german knows 20-30-40 words for one and the same thing/behavior/action.

Additional to that there are 30-40 german dialects in and around germany and some more regional and local dialect and sub-dialect and lifestyle-scene specialities.

The number of german speaking customers is very large - most of them know every word in different german language dialect-variances.

Any idea how to controll that Big Brother?

Hahahaha

I wish LL fun with that! In 1000 years LL will be ready with a list for hmmm, 3 of 50-60 countries on the european continent.

Then start with India! And if you are bored: do China! And the numbers of ex-Sowjet-Union Countries. And so on...

I will try and back edit this comment as other people note things and I can verify them.

Behavior of Client 1.23 RC0 settings:
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* Setting Preferences/General/Rating and Search tabs to Adult do not always persist across different alt logins. Different people report different resuts when all the alts are verified.(bug)

* Some popups fail to remember "do not show this again" checkbox the next time you log in (bug)

* Default settings may not match your verification status. Should probably generate a "first time use" popup the first time you try and change a content setting or get an error searching or teleporting and are blocked. (bug)

Behavior of Filters:
----------------------

* Search now contains content level checkboxes on most tabs. The adult checkbox may be unchecked, either through lack of verification (greyed out), or choice. If you search for a filtered term, in that case, the term is ignored, and a message reading:
"Some terms in your search query were excluded due to content restrictions as clarified in the Community Standards." appears in the results window, or popup

* No explanation is given how to activate adult setting (bug)

* Adult search terms are ignored, but results can still include adult terms (the input to search is filtered, but not the output) (bug)

* Following links in Search/All can lead to adult filtered entries indirectly (bug)

* Use of media browser within client, Google search such as:
BDSM site:world.secondlife.com
returns adult results (bug)

* Filter functions on exact words. Words with both adult and non-adult meanings are filtered (bug).

* Variant spellings, joined/split words, plurals, synonyms, other languages etc are not filtered (bug).

* Search for "penis balls" filters out the word penis at Mature setting, "penis(balls)" gives results for penis incorrectly (bug)

* Actual filter list not published. Changes to filter list not published. This makes it difficult to use and avoid being reported. Filter list is easily discoverable by trial and error, which defeats non-publication.

Exactly. These institutions are necessary to LL's success.

But, I think adding the "Adult" designation and keyword filtering search is the wrong way to bring them in. I think the Adult designation will eventually bring more hard-core sex/violence centered business into SL, and that this sleaze boom will be very visible in the press. Meanwhile those residents who live a complete "second life", including commerce, building, sightseeing and sex, will be inconvenienced to the point of despair. This includes many, many with first lives that are somehow hampered, who have built the best businesses in SL.

WHY has LL so resisted the obvious solution, creating a separate grid for "work" avatars, which is accessible to SL only through a well-controlled gateway? Was the experiment with IBM such a failure? Nowadays, institutions want to use SL to hold classes and meetings - the brain-dead efforts to "brand" here have died out. THey don't need access to billions of necklaces, novelty skins, and nightclubs. These classes and meetings have a greater need for a lightweight client. Put them on a separate grid, provide a gateway to the current grid, and provide incentives for PG content creators to establish stores there. Leave the current Second Life alone, and tackle the much more minor (in terms of payoff) issue of allowing teens and adults to mingle in protected sims to another day.
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Daniel, I hope you're going to bill them for all the work you're doing.

The current rate here in the UK for a contract tester is around £30ph. I'd add 20% for the sheer aggravation and another final 20% because they haven't given you their use cases or process maps (snigger).

From my perspective, if they can't do the job themselves then that's their problem.

and it's just typically ill thought out of them to create a thread that has two completely disparate themes.

and finally, it's just incredible that they actually expect us to do the testing for them and what's more incredible is that some of you are actually doing it. The term is exploitation people!

if you want to check it out, fine. Come back and tell them it's failing and give very general information if you have to but we are customers here and there's nothing in it for us. They'll still put in whatever piece of poor quality software they think they can get away with.

as always, they are going to do the bare minimum with this. As with all good scammers their motto is "never mind the quality, feel the width".

/me ends rant

Make no mistake about it. If you own a private island that provides some form of public entertainment or content for people to come and enjoy and play in and must flag it adult, you are about to lose a large portion of the community.

Many are unverified and will NOT be able to see you in search, and those fresh to SL will have no indiication of any other content beyond their ratings exist. There will also be many who will not realize they need to set their search preferences higher if they need to and will be oblivious to the adult listings missing from the search results. The flow of new freshly verified residents into adult places will be nothing but a trickle.

I keep track of the number of unique visitors I get daily and will continue to when this is implemented. I do not plan on the results being very good.

I don't believe they are. Second Life is not oriented towards providing the tools that businesses need, it's oriented towards providing the tools needed for entertainment.

Businesses are not going to hold private meetings on a public grid, even on "private islands", and probably not even on individual sims behind the firewall. I can't even get access to my home email when I'm at work - they've blocked IMAP and POP - let alone access to whatever random junk I have in the Second Life asset server. They need a complete standalone company-controllable "grid in a box", and Linden Labs is not offering that product nor even proposing to offer it. That market will go to OpenSim.

The extensive university presence in SL and growing business presence is not visible here in the forums, but if you went to the recent education conferences in SL, or attend Metanomics events, it's obvious that this is a market LL is losing, desperately needs for credibility if nothing else, and is pursuing.

LL's new "behind the firewall" product is meant to address the issues you raise wrt corporate security. I think a much greater barrier is the demanding graphics - most education and business users really don't need them.

If LL doesn't act soon, the market will not go to Opensim, but to Protosphere (Proton Media), Forterra, Qwaq, ECS and the like. The open source version will go to Project Wonderland and the like. These provide immersive environments specifically for business, education and government.

Edit: Most, if not all, of the providers above make self-hosted "grid in a box" solutions available, as well as providing hosting.
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