RC Questions

You are welcome. Many of us are trying to bring it to the attention of as many people as we can by sending them here or to the SLapt.me wiki. For many though I believe they do not fully realize all the implications for this if the changes go ahead as they are being stated by LL.

What does it mean that the new viewer will be somehow 'locked down' after a 60 day grace period? I read somewhere that this was planned but i cannot imagine what it means in practice.

Hans

A lot of the arguments people come across:

"It does not affect me, I am on a private island."
"It does not affect me, I am not into adult content."
"It does not affect me, I live on PG land anyway."
"It does not affect me, I am just here to socialize and not to sell things."
"It does not affect me, I rent my land."

So far we have concentrated on "What adult content changes?" which is good (since LL is not willing to tell people) but we might want to put more emphasis on the other questions too. The concepts of basic fairness to others and any censorship will be lost on many people so I would suggest we talk about concrete things that will affect their enjoyment/wallets, like:

"You will need to pay more money to implement these changes on your island and lose tenants and customers."
"When you sell your land it will be worth less than you paid for it."
"More ban lines will exist, so less areas you can go both on the mainland and on private islands."
"You might need to close stores located on PG and mature sims."
"Your landperson may need to evict you."

etc ....

So far we have concentrated on "What adult content changes?" which is good (since LL is not willing to tell people) but we might want to put more emphasis on the other questions too. The concepts of basic fairness to others and any censorship will be lost on many people so I would suggest we talk about concrete things that will affect their enjoyment/wallets, like:

Currently there is a drop down menu choice for search category of Adult (along with newcomer friendly, shopping, etc). Once a land rating of Adult is working, that category is redundant, and any parcels still flagged Adult after 60 days will be changed to Other.

aside from maybe having less choice

I visited the Moose Beach infohub, to see what the new player experience is like these days. Several comments:

- Its the worst form of short-term self-serving planning. Moose Beach is by far the busiest infohub, and its located right next to Bay City, evidently to sell Bay City land or show it off to newbies.

- Its often overfull (more than 40 avatars), which means its laggy, and helpers cannot get in. The newbies are left to be clueless amongst themselves.

- Sure enough, someone had a giant floppy dong and was raining annoying particles (a face photo, though, not penises, but still annoying)

- It's no wonder only 10% of new players stay, if that's still the experience they get. And nothing in the new adult rules would change any of that.

- I wonder if pre-verified new players will be directed to Arapaima (the Ursula infohub)? I think not, since that would require pre-setting their viewer to Adult.

A- Mature land isn't "mature" anymore
B- the Vast majority of residents will not be able to access anything deemed "adult content" unless they give up their anonymity and verify.
C- the definitions of what "adult" means will not be stable or made available to the population.
D-Only those who pass some mystical "test" after submitting their support ticket will get to trade their current land for adult land, and the rest are simply hosed.
E- later, Adult businesses will be forced to locate themselves on Ursula regardless of how high the land prices are.
F- No two lindens have the same answer to any given question about the vitals of this plan

Somewhere in there you might have covered the crux of the issue, but I missed it, so here is how I look at it:

* Throughout its website, Linden Labs talks about "buying land". This gives the average consumer the impression they are buying something, naturally enough. The average consumer does not know the intricacies of the terms of service, but they do understand the difference between buying and renting.

* The reality is Linden Labs offers a month-to-month rental, with the ability to change the terms under which they rent at any time.

* This mismatch between what they say, and what they really do is the root of our angst over the adult changes. When you buy something, you expect to get a set of fixed rights and conditions with your purchase. When you rent, you understand that the landlord might change the rent, or set new tenant rules.

* To "own land" normally includes the ability to admit or exclude whoever you wish from your property. The new adult land will take away part of those rights.

* To change the zoning or allowed uses of land arbitrarily so that it loses value would be considered a "taking" of property, and requires compensation if it is a government doing it. Linden Labs acts as the government of Second Life (the public land is even owned by an avatar called Governor Linden).

---------------------------------

Therefore I see one of two results:

(1) Linden Labs proceeds with their plans as we now understand them. They then commit a fraud or unfair trade practice by claiming to "sell" something, when they do not. There must be something you buy which is yours after-wards and which the seller cannot change after they sell it to you.

(2) Linden Labs modifies their plan to offer a trade for equal rights land as they had before, compensation for lost rights, or a buyback. The offer should be available to anyone affected by the changes.

* Considering that no land in the current plan will have the full rights as mature land has now, and that they plan to bring in new servers that pack *more* sims per box (lower overhead), a tier reduction of about 20% seems fair going forward. That means canceling the homestead increase, and lowering the remaining land from what it is now.

* As an alternate, establish a clearly labeled adult grid, with a separate login. That means a big notice at registration *and* at each login that this contains adult material for an over-18 audience. Call it Adult Second Life, or the Adult Life Grid, if you want to distance it from other SL marketing. Allow 6 months transfer time to move from the existing main grid.

They have boldly announced the first University grid, and the teen grid shows its technically possible. Once people are past registration, there should be no other restrictions to using the adult grid set by Linden Labs.

Anyone that complains that little Johnny saw a penis can get told "why the fuck were you letting your child roam around an adult site?"

* As another alternate, make it a fair deal for anyone that needs to move due to region rating definitions:

(1) Allow *anyone* that is affected to swap for land of preferred rating one time.

(2) Allow combining existing land anywhere on the grid into the move request.

(3) Rebate one month's current tier on the moved land for time and trouble moving.

(4) Allow increasing land area at the destination at a nominal price of L$3 per meter (the current minimum auction price for mainland regions). In other words, if you want to add 1024 meters as part of the move, it would cost you L$3072.

(5) Allow decreasing land area via Linden buyback at the current average mainland selling price. The idea is "you sold me this land, you broke it by changing the rules, give me a refund".

Some good ideas there, I will set up a page and place the questions and can make a start on the answers

PS: I have put a page with the list of questions that you posed on the wiki here

http://www.slapt.me/wiki/index.php/It_does_not_affect_me.

If anyone wants to make a start on them as I have some RL to attend to first

Unless they register, which is appearantly so easy that it offers no deterrant to kids. How can it simultaneously be useless for screening and all limiting in all other ways?

Unless they register, which is appearantly so easy that it offers no deterrant to kids. How can it simultaneously be useless for screening and all limiting in all other ways?

I read something about private estates being moved? That seriously can't be right can it, since we can control whats in the spot next to us?

How will this effect my rentals? If a renter puts up things classified "Adult" how will this effect me? If I want to keep renters, will I have to move to ghetto central now? Will I have to make new rules stating that nothing of a sexual nature can be placed outside of their house? Will they all move because of word filters and can no longer have sex? Most renters that can afford to pay rent work as escorts, and tend to bring their customers home, so it seems this could seriously effect me.
I've been relocated once and really don't want to be relocated again. If I have to do it again, I want a private estate!

What is odd to me is the sim I used to own was surrounded by all mature sims, but now I'm right next to a PG sim where you can just look across the boundry and see everything. Why was PG and Mature sims thrown right next door to each other anyways? Never made much sense to me.

Will LL slowly start to properly sort out how sims are set up? Such as offer PG land owners that are next to mature to move to a PG sim on another continent, and move a Mature sim from that continent to where the PG sim was....or even more simple, change ratings here and there to make it a little more uniform? As of right now there seems to be no reason to how it's set up. (Granted I don't get out much any more, and never go to PG if I can avoid it)

Every change LL makes, is always declaired the end of the world, but SL goes on. Some for the worse, some for the better. It would be nice to see things a little more uniform (Especially when I log in, and rather then be in my sim, be in a PG welcome area nude).

Unless they register, which is appearantly so easy that it offers no deterrant to kids. How can it simultaneously be useless for screening and all limiting in all other ways?

Because it doesn't stop those who already lie, but limits those who do not.

But even discounting any discussion about the actual validation process, you seem to think here that it's just a matter of verifying, and then you can go about your business with no changes. You completely disregard that verifying only *allows* you to *start* doing the required changes.

But what are the 'required changes' for the average user? Even for affected land owners (which will not be all land owners), what changes are needed beyond either changing advertizing and/or a one shot move?

People are not all equally risk averse. Some who will lie to 'are you 18' will not use borrow/steal ID or take the time to look for lists of dead people's information.



After verifying, though, how will a verified person be affected?

Note that I agree completely that LL needs to provide more support for both those (adverizing options and support for those moving), but I do not understand the insistance that there will be long term ill effects.

But what are the 'required changes' for the average user? Even for affected land owners (which will not be all land owners), what changes are needed beyond either changing advertizing and/or a one shot move?

Once again you use invalid extreme cases in your arguments. It is quite possible to fail at "keeping children out" and "letting adults who want access in" at the same time, because those are different tests applied to different populations, and it is quite possible for the failure rate to be between 0 and 100%

Again, I was responding to the tone of some of the arguements against. I do not believe that it will be 100% effective or 100% useless either.

I also agree that there are legitimate criticisms of the plan. I just don't feel they invalidate the plan. .

I suggest you download 1.23 and check it out if you want to know. or read back over the last couple of dozen pages of this thread if you don't understand

you're just wasting peoples time here. If you'd been following the thread you would already know the answers to this. since you seem to be relatively smart.

... if they are unwilling to screen against them then they have a lot of answering to do not only to LL but to everyone else using their services.

But what are the 'required changes' for the average user? Even for affected land owners (which will not be all land owners), what changes are needed beyond either changing advertizing and/or a one shot move?