RC Questions

That is not a bad analogy, but there is one flaw.. LL also provides the virtual land the phone sex companies are on, gets rent from them, etc.

And the telephone company does seem to censor at least a little bit.

Also, not sure about all yellow pages, but the San Francisco yellow pages does seem to have some filtering, but it is done by separating the keywords used in search from those in descriptions (or possibly by having a good dictionary of synonyms. Interestingly enough, I just tried my local yellow pages (which admittedly has one of the most useless search engines I have ever seen)... 'Sex' does find sex related businesses (including, interestingly, escort services), 'Tit' gets no results other than businesses that incidentally have 'tit' as part of their names (e.g. Titan), and 'Strip club' gets 'country club grooming', a pet salon, lol.

Try european yellow pages, start in Sibiria and stop at the Portugese coast.

Along your way through the billions of yellow pages of all countries you will find what you searched for and much more...

It works also for South-America and halfway modern parts of Africa and Asia.

(well, except the Vatikan state)

I had hoped you would be serious by now, but you are up to your old tricks. You know perfectly well what I am talking about, but you try to cloud the issue with nonsensical statements for the purpose of distraction and confusion. Shame.

Dear diary,

Yesterday, May 13, 2009 I had the day off, spending some time reading the forums on the Ursula move and growing more and more depressed with every page.

You see, I own two businesses which, and at least I'm fortunate enough to know this, will have to move. There are so many others who are uncertain, given that at best the LL responses have been vague. And the reality of finding out that LL has not even announced this yet, after planning it for "months"

So I went to Blondin's open office hours, and pleasantly surprised at least, at his response style, even though a lot of the answers are still, "we are working on it" type.

Yet in the back of my mind I know Ihat overall this plan is going to cost me..and dearly. I can see the future.

I am going to be caught in a storm.

LL is only begining to 'feel' how many people this will affect. I can only pray that this ends quickly, as the stress of it all is catching up to me, yet it isnt to be so.

I can only hope I get land that is as good or close to what I paid for, beautiful waterfront all the way around in Wolof, in the old volcanic island Nuba region. In the sky I made an adult club that, to my surprise, became popular.

After a time I opened up a second, much different place on the ground, tailoring it to the shape and the slope of the land.

Over two years of work in all.

I can see the future.

I am faced with the choice of spending hours and hours of moving, losing a lot of what I cannot move and the person who made it is no longer available. No biggie, I'll redesign, make it better.

More hours.

I'll fight it out, what choice do I have? I'm not making a lot of money, I think they are paying for themselves but not much more. But they arent for me, are they? They are for others to enjoy.

But there are many many problems now.

I can see the futrure.

I will spend these hours of work, having been assured
(by reading between the lines despite LL claims to help as much as they can!) that I will recieve no help other than the land choice, which if I am lucky, will be somewhat close to the land I paid more for. I will redesign one place, reshuffle the other, build new roads, fit it all to the new shape (having been assured that I wont get the same shape or terrain)

Hours and hours of work I am facing.

I was optimistic for a while, after playing around with a new design. But reality set in soon enough, and there I was reading the forums, attending Linden open houses, each one more clear than the one before that LL is failing to adequately prepare the residents. They havent even announced it yet, wait until they get hit with the same questions over and over about the gray areas when they finally DO announce it.

I start to think ahead, at the hours of work, knowing that if traffic lowers for too long I will not be able to afford it anymore and will have to close down.

I may be depressed but I'm fighting, as hard as I can.

Against LL, against myself, trying to accept the pain of nearly starting over. Two years of work, and now more, barely making tier.

It's worth it, I tell myself, I'm fighting for me, for the 60,000 traffic of both places that enjoy them. I'm fighting for them too.

So I closed out the browser, closed my mind a little, decided it's time to go have fun.

Before deciding what to do I stop in one of my places just to check on things.

I'm immediately confronted with a few people being jerks, one telling another to "f**k off"

So...I'm fighting for this?

-----------------------------------------------------------
I've cried more than once over this, and now I'm crying again, "I'm fighting for this?"
----------------------------------------------------------

May 14, 2009

The truth is yes, I am fighting for this. For them, for the untold people that aren't jerks, for the people who have enjoyed my work even though I don't hear about it.

Yet the future is bleak. The growth meant more tier. Moe headaches, more risk. Less chance it pays for itself.

My enjoyment at this point, one day later, after attending Jack Linden's circus of an open meeting.....((oh people, if you could only have seen it)).... is in the knowing that LL will be with me in this storm, that I can actually sit there and think "Oh LL, you think THIS is bad? Wait until you announce it, hear the same cries and protests and questions about the gray areas over and over and over and try to respond to the flurry of "I want to move" tickets, and to TRY to start moving people."

I'm enjoying thinking how bad it will be for them.

The irony is that I willl be there too.

I can see the future.

This is only the begining of the storm.

I'm crying again as I write this.

I hope Linden Lab cries, I hope they get hit with tens of thousands of tickets and maybe even a breach of contract suit, I really do. This will likely kill my businesses, and me.

This mess has just burnt me the hell out, and it's just begun

~Jill~

i am a furry and in mature areas i prefer to be anatomically correct. not lewd. just flaccid and nude. what ill the changes to the definition of mature mean to me? i have already been banned from two mature areas while being nude, NOT LEWD in any way. This was after they announced the changes but during the discussion period which i think was jumping the gun. they had not even made any changes to the TOS yet to say i couldn't do what i was doing. . . which was just being nonsexual nude (anatomically correct) in mature areas. i have been doing it for years and only now its a problem? i have done the same thing right in front of lindens while in mature areas without the bat of an eye and only now they do something? if mature becomes the new PG then SL is totally worthless. it may as well be the new THERE. but if those of us who are just expressing our dislike for clothes and prefer to be nude (NOT LEWD) are left alone when in mature regions (not adult regions. i mean mature regions where anyone who doesn't work for Disney would have no problem with casual nudity) then i am totally OK with the changes. i would really like an answer to this. . . either in this forum or via private contact with the lindens. . . oh and if this post gets deleted like similar posts i have made on this issue have in the past i will just keep reposting it verbatim. i have it saved.

<comforts> I am in favour of all this, but even I think LL are moving too fast and do not really understand the scope of what they are doing, nor the depth of the issues.

They should have proceedures to cover moves already in place before implementing this.. not merely 'send a ticket and we'll do our best', but some sort of proceedure to move whole sims intact.

In theory, shouldn't that be possible, right down to the terrain..? This is all virtual, right? All just numbers which when fed into the engine coordinate locations? Shouldn't it be possible, from the inside, develop a subroutine that moves a sim intact, terrain and all? And another that seeks out sims with similar contours and/or water features, and finds the best fit, then blends the boarders to smooth out the transitions?

I realize that math does funny things sometimes and rounding is not always precisely the same when you change variables (even if you change them all proportionatly or by the same increment), but even if there were functions to get the rough fitting working, wouldn't it smooth the transitions?

They should also look at moving people over a longer period of time and do some test moves in advance, and to leave the original structure intact as a copy as long as practical (i.e. until the new location is properly set up).

The current approach of 'it will all work out, just watch,' seems naive at best...

That is precisely what I said. Let me repeat: Being an adult means one has passed through puberty, has learned to relate to people and become responsible for one's decisions - including the decision to be in a VIRTUAL world with other adults. As an adult, one recognizes and accepts that people have different styles and tastes and that rudeness or harassment should not be confused with sexuality.

It is Linden Lab that is saying "this is our way" instead of allowing residents to manage their own lives. Of course we are not 'comfortable' with EVERYTHING we see, but, as I said earlier, an adult takes things in stride. Only spoiled children seek the comfort of an ideal world.

Having read my articles, you know without a shadow of doubt that I am fighting tooth and nail against the letter of the law. Everything I have ever written concerns the spirit of the law.

You use the term 'compromise' as if it were a self-evident panacea of virtue - a cure to be applied like a salve to all issues - as if there were no such thing as a bad compromise. Taking reasonable precautions against what? Defined by whom?

Okay, I think you are playing games here in this forum. I think you are enjoying obfuscating the issue - seeking to deliberately misdirect and confuse for pure pleasure - or, perhaps this is your own version of 'disruptive technology', but, either way, it is not helping anyone, including Linden Lab, to clarify and solve the problems under discussion.

Wow. Hugs. I agree with all you said. I sent notecards to Jack & Cyn Linden today. Not that I think it will do any good. Maybe more like, see we told you so.

I have to agree here. Alexander, from what I have seen of your posts in this forum, why are you not pushing more passionately for a G-rated airlock continent? Why are you not pushing for Age-Verification for EVERY resident of SL? How are the current changes to Adult content going to protect minors? How are these current changes going to prevent someone who does not wish to see a sexual act in SL from seeing it?

You have said you are for these changes, so what exactly do you envision these changes will accomplish for you personally as a resident of SL?

The main problem (in cases of people who DO have full sims, mine are not) is that plopping a sim down in or beside an existing one means you have problems with the borders not aligning, terrain wise. I can imagine it would be very difficult at best to 'redo' the sim at its base level in order to be able to terraform it in such a way to match.

The problem also becomes one of time, in order for them to "help" people in the actual moving of items. They wont because it would take much longer than it already will. Add to that that IF (and it won't) the terrain doesnt match, then you are on your own anyway to do the final touches (shift, shuffle, cram)

Of course, it won't stop me from asking them if they will physically move everything I have, they CAN, but likely wont, for the above mentioned reasons.

As it will be very soon, LL will have their hands full once they announce this, and I didn't mention here (and have seen very little mentioned about it) the non-english speaking community who will be affected also, and LL seems intent on keeping in the dark a while longer, as well as not banning non-english adult words.

In the first mention of this, posted on March 12, Cyn Linden said "During the next six weeks, we will seek input from many segments of the Second Life community." We are already over two weeks beyond that and counting, and still not one peep to those non-english speakers, nor the majority of residents. Speaking of which, what was their official "How they are going to announce it" answer? I seem to recall they DID say they were going to have it on the log-in screen. That is the only fair way to annunce it, or at least at log-in point to a website.

~j~

QFT

As a British Ex-pat living in Holland I had this problem and had to use an old British address with my passport number, because although I live in Holland and am registered here and no longer registered as living in the UK, Aristotle would not accept my correct and current Dutch address details lol

Also more importantly Aristotle has not got a current, (Self certifification) certificate under the Safe Harbour agreement:

http://web.ita.doc.gov/safeharbor/shlist.nsf/webPages/safe+harbor+list

and as such cannot be trusted with EU data under EU guidelines. You can read more and follow some informative links from this page on the SLapt.me wiki:

http://www.slapt.me/wiki/index.php/SL_Verification_(Age_%26_Payment)_-_Issues_and_Information

Alternatives to verifying with Aristotle are also given on this page

You echo a lot of my sentiments here and I still think everyone that wants the move should sex up their parcels and put them in search and apply for the move, ensuring their parcels are free public sex areas and using all the naughty words

I am sure you are right Argent, but this may be one that LL have not fully thought through.

If a vendor is allowed to sell 'non-sexual organs' in a Mature environment, such as a store alongside a Mature nudidst beach, would that vendour be allowed to advertise in a Mature search, as opposed to an Adult search? If that were the case, what key words could that vendor use that were not deemed Adult?

It seems likely that any of the key words used to advertise organs, sexual or not, would be cassified as Adult.

Any men involved in vanila relationships in the privacy of Mature homes will, if they wish to make their relationship realistic, need to be age verified. Such people would then be exposed to all of the Adult themes that this whole excercise is supposed to be shielding them from.

We will have to wait and see if one of the Lindens would care to clarify whether Ursula will be seperating the men from the eunuchs...

In the scenario I suggested they wouldn't need to advertise them at all, any more than your local library advertises their water fountains and rest rooms. The purpose for the vendor would be to allow gentleman of refinement and natural sensibilities to avoid embarrassment when enjoying the respectable maturity of the nude beach.

QFT.

I gave up responding to Alexander quite a while back, when I realised his idea of 'playing devil's advocate' was to argue against himself if necessary, as long as the argument was perpetuated. While I respect anyone's right to express an opinion, and constructive criticism is useful irrespective of whether it accords with consensus, I have to wonder at the agenda of one who arrives in the forums soon after their rezz day of 4 February, who refutes the idea that they're an alt, yet by their own admission has spent little time inworld before starting to post argumentatively as if they know what's going on.

I've even contemplated the notion that he's really a Linden having fun stirring things up on his downtime...

*HUGS* Good for you in continuing on despite the hardships this throws your way. Yes, I would much rather be enjoying my free time than arguing with a stone wall. Even though our arguing will not change much, it is important that they see this is *not* a welcome change.

I am actually one of the 'lucky' ones in this battle. Since I am not a merchant, verified as a test, and am pretty much PG (according to the normal use of the term) I would not be directly affected. I am almost tempted to move to Ursula in solidarity though as these changes will affect everyone in SL.

In theory, since a rebooted sim can hop from one machine to another.

In practice is a different matter though. As you point out, finding similar land contours is tricky. Actually, when it comes down to the details nearly impossible. Complicate this by the fact that LL has chosen the land contours and some of the builds for Ursula already.

There is also the matter of what to do if someone being moved does not own the whole sim. Should the non-moved parcels be temporarily duplicated then the ursula copy deleted (and the opposite for the moved parcels) ... what if someone grabs a copy of something hile there are 2 of them. Also, some scripts do not like sudden sim name changes.

They don't need to find matching land contours for an island, or when they can create the matching continent from scratch.

That is, of course, not mere;y a "complication" it's the actual problem. You don't need to find similar land contours if you haven't built the land yet, you can just drop empty sims between them and do a little 3d projection and curve fitting based on the baked terraforming of the sims.

Take the sim down during the process.

Have they said wether or not islands will be affected by this? i mean you do have to TP to an island. so you should know what you are doing when you go to one.

Of course, all this and more. Not taking the other side in this, Kara...

I'm not saying it *can't* be done, I'm saying it *won't* be done. But I won't talk about tech issues since I don't know them. It's just that, by and large, LL will not spend the time doing it for anyone, full sim worth or not.

What gets me is that this "policy" of *non-help* in those matters means that LL is casually dismissing the fact that, while *they* cannot be bothered with the time to do it, they think that *we* apparently have time to spare to get our things/places back to square one, and businesses losing earnings while they do it.

~j~

Do you mean Private Estates?

If so, then what they have said is that the "forced move" policy applies to mainland only.

Estates can elect to mark themselves "Adult Content" at the sim level. That will restrict access to those that are "Account Verified" (i.e. Age Verified using Aristotle or PIOF, PIU status in-world, or have bought something on XStreetSL). My understand then is that all ads which have a location on that sim will only be available to residents that are Account Verified. (Wouldn't make sense to do otherwise since nobody else has access to it).

What this does, of course is leave people who lease or rent PG or Mature space on a sim that is "going Adult" needing to move if they either want non-Verified people to visit, or have a PG or Mature business and want to advertise such that non-Verified residents can see them.

So yes, while maybe not QUITE as drastic as moving builds, private estates are going to be affected.

the biggest problem is they don't actually know how many people are going to request the change and they don't want to find out.

It would certainly be easy enough to get some ball park figures just by opening up an expression of interest ticket for people.

Unfortunately though it looks like they'll just go into denial until they open up the move requests and then when they're swamped they'll panic and make the usual bad decisions that will upset their customers even more.

Everyone who bought their mature land because they wanted to be able to use it however they wanted to should be in on the swap and hopefully everyone will apply. LL expect us to self select for the move using their criteria rather than looking at the contract for use they have will LL currently and expecting LL to honour it.

Just like everyone who has a business that sells pg items should be requesting pg land to enable them to continue advertising their wares. To adversely impact businesses without recompense is unacceptable.

http://nwn.blogs.com/nwn/2009/05/new-world-newsfeed-2.html

an update on the ftc blog post last week..

it's an interesting take and quite reasonable when you consider that LL sponsored the Berkman report last year. Trying to control the agenda is a sensible move.

I'd be happer if the FTC were looking at the shonky business practices of LL rather than the kids angle, but i suppose there's more media mileage in little johnny making his allowance from performing on webcams than consumers being ripped off..

Oh, I totally agree they will not lift one finger to help even if there were no issues that Linden Powerz could not solve. What annoys me is that they have said they have been working on this plan for 18 months ... yet nobody at LL in all that time saw the most basic problems that the residents raised on the first day after the announcement.

Their counter to that is they were discussing plans, not details. So deciding to build the continent and do work on it was all done on a whim?

Because universal age verification is *more*stringent and thus more restrictive than what is currently going in. I am arguing compromise.

How is total age verification that much different?

You are also falling into the same trap that others have here, using the word 'prevent' when you should be thinking of the word 'mitigate.' Prevention is impossible. That does not invalidate the concept of mitigation.