Upcoming Changes for Adult Content: Account Verification for Accessing Adult Content

I attempted several times to Verify my age when the original system came out, and each attempt failed. I now have a situation where one of my alts has payment info on file (Premium account as I bought land) but that is not the Alt I use when accessing adult content. If verification is to be enforced, I am pleased that 'payment info on file' is acceptable, but could it please be extended to all my alts too. P.S. non of my alts are bots, they are used for several things such as testing Scripts, Clothes designs and roll play.

I'm sure you asked this for a Linden to answer, but I think they already kind of did. You'd only be blocked from Adult islands and continent(s), and be able to move through PG and Mature sims as before.

The thing is, however, there may not be much left on Mature Mainland and not many Mature islands remaining. That's because most people chose Mature land on purpose, and now Adult is the new Mature, and Mature is the new PG (more or less), so most owners of current Mature parcels will want to preserve the privileges they bought in the first place, and move to Adult land.

So that leaves you with the same choice: to put payment info on file or not? Although LL had a serious security breach back in '06 (IIRC), it's pretty difficult to do business online without, well, doing business online. I guess, practically speaking, you'd pretty much have to choose between going PIOF or leaving SL.

I agree with this. I have an alt for mature locations, but no payment info on that alt. My main alt is a full member. who can supply Lindens to the alt as and when required. I think Linden needs to set up a better system for supporting alts so that residents can also divide their activities between, say, professional use (likely to be PG at most) and play activities. Dividing the land and search to clarify mature and non-mature content is only part of the issue.

I run a combat sim, this will greatly decrease the level of people who commonly come to my sim to look at it and see if they are interested in our content, just like any role play sim people use alt accounts to injoy our services, not only will i lose some of my player base who will not want to put forth the effort to verify all of there alt accounts, my sim will not be viewed by people just looking for something new if they are not verified, this could ruin my business completely i would hate to see my sims go down when i cannot support them any more.

By being on main grid you have already accepted the terms of service, why not just force people to verify there age when they make an account instead of forcing the people of SL to do it for you by marking our sims as forbidden territory.

I do hope this is matter will be thought through and take a different path than it is taking at the moment.

You've never heard of the concept of a protest action?

The join date on the forums is the first time you use the forums, not the account creation date.

If that was it, they're going about it wrong. Instead of requiring PIOF for access to adultopia, they should be requiring PIOF to access SL at all.

AS WE TOLD THEM BACK IN JUNE 2006 when they made it free-for-all.

Tegg Bode and Talon Foulon do not appear to understand the more seasoned SL users. I must admit that some recently established accounts are idiotic.

Argent Stonecutter seems to be coming from many of the same places that I am.

I have no trouble age verifying...I have done so. Now I am told it wasn't worth the effort...great!


ALL accounts should age-, or at least identity-verify and some means of effectively verifying for non-US citizens should be found, and right quickly!

Talons probably one of my alt's
I think there is a tendency for seasoned account users to also uproar against change too, just look at all those who would still have us running Havok 1 or opposed Voice, Mono and Windlight
Heck some would oppose the introduction of colour if they had been using B&W SL for 2 years.
I age verified not long after it was introduce, yep it didn't work on the last Linden test parcel, but that's something that isn't unfixable in a short time frame, it may have already been fixed in a later server update for all I know.
It took me about 5 minutes tops, and I'm not going to worry about that 5 minutes I didn't have to do near 2 years ago, because I was already payment info used.
It's long been since due that people should be all verified so money laundering, massbotting, griefing and other uses for infinate free disposable accounts are allable to be targeted, free accounts for people to explore are one thing, they can be free, they just have to verify that there is a real person linked to that account who is responsible for that accounts actions.
If this means the creation of a continent where people know the rest of the avatars they interact with are adults, then they should be free to do so, without people who refuse to verify complaining that they will be excluded from the good stuff, and other people comlainint it will cause a seedy sex ghetto continent, but then complain when those businesses move next door to them in unzoned mainland.
The grid should have been zoned years ago, and there are many peopl who want to be able to interact with their children in SL, take them to the great PG scenic sims out there on the mainland, many that happen to be on mature parcels. And LL are obviously realising this is a market, and will bring the teen island to the main grid some time in the future so teen accounts can misx with other adults in a controlled enviroment.

And at the risk of invoking Godwin once again, it is "just" the sex business to start. What will be the next form of content or behavior that LL deems inappropriate, and decides to sequester, or perhaps even disallow totally?

They can sanitize SL all they want, it's their game. They can open it to RL adspamming, whatever. They are a business and wishing to wring every penny out of their porduct is natural. But then just stop with all the hippie idealism. People bought into, and invested heavily in it, financially and emotionally. They deserve better.

If Linden Labs would actually finish these kinds of things and make them really work, people would be less reluctant to change.

Of these four transitions, only Havok4 is close to complete, with only a few minor problems that can be easily ignored. Mono is still being actively worked on and has had far fewer benefits than originally expected. Windlight is far from complete and seems to have been abandoned halfway through. And Voice, according to Linden Labs, will never be fully integrated into SL.

So why should you be surprised that "seasoned account users" have a somewhat jaundiced view of Linden's track record?
Case in point. There is no indication that Linden Labs has any intention of getting rid of free unverified accounts that are routinely used to freak the mundanes in PG sims.
Except that the only place that will be safe from random floppy dong attacks by griefer alts will be the new adults-only continent. Zoning won't produce the safe grid you're looking for, and based on the Lab's track record it's likely to end up half-completed.

If this change in age verification policy is being driven by people who do not wish to "accidentally" see adult content, then surely THEY should be the ones to take action, not the majority of us who are comfortable with it.

Therefore the simplest thing to do would be ask residents, when the create their accounts, whether they want to see adult content or not; those that do not, which would include the current complainants, should tick the box.

After that anyone who has ticked the box is barred from places where there is content that is defined as adult.

Simple.

Why make the majority of us jump through pointless and potentially deterring hoops to prove our age, when we're not the ones who are complaining????

Knowing LL's record on customer service, you can be sure that if they go through with this and force everyone to age verify, it will be a mess, it will not work for everyone, and will quickly be circumvented, so why bother wasting our time with it.

Make the concerned ones responsible, don't punish the rest of us!

I'm not sure most of this is remotely realistic. If you find some people want a PG type game offer the choice to new players when they start, and a switch to existing players. If you choose PG you cannot TP to mature areas, and have a filtered search. The most importaint is to enforce the standards within the PG areas. THis would be a realistic goal thats obtainable. Otherwise you face a pipe dream that will bleed money out of SL.

Innula, why should you have to submit to anything at all? As has been pointed out so many times in this thread, if the purpose of this is to cover asses that can be done by adding an opt-in on the registration page. If the purpose is to provide more choice of environment for those too limited to accept the presence of adult content in an adult environment then that is achieved by providing a specific environment for that purpose; restricting what people may do in the current environment is limiting choice, not expanding it. If the purpose is to verify age then the proposed system will not achieve it, will place a burden on many (which you seem prepared to accept but many will not) and even if that is the purpose it would be good to provide credible justification for requiring it. If the purpose is, as appears more believable, to achieve some level of identity verification then that should be stated clearly and honestly so that we can have an intelligent discussion about the immense privacy implications involved.

Sadly, SL residents seem to become so focused on what is happening inside SL that they lose sight of the wider relevance of these issues. NWO has already been mentioned by one poster in this thread, only to be laughed at by another. Before you dismiss it as wacko conspiracy stuff it is well worth investigating the agenda of organisations like the Trilateral Commission, Bilderburg, etc. and, in particular, their policies and methods for promoting microchip IDs and a cashless society. Then you might see why this issue is being pressed by LL, why the UK government is doing their utmost to introduce ID cards, why identity theft is becoming not only a problem but a highly publicised and talked-about subject (hint: if you want to sell burglar alarms it helps to burgle a few houses).

As someone once suggested: if you are not angry you are probably not paying attention. There is no reason why, as an adult, you should not be free to engage in adult activities in an adult environment without laying a trail, tied to your identity, that can be used to blackmail you in the future. I recognise that you have made some excellent suggestions as to how it might be possible to age verify someone via a trusted 3rd party, without LL or highly dubious companies, like Aristotle, needing to see any of your personal information except for the fact that you are over 18. But you still seem to accept, without question, that there is any need for more than a statement to the effect that you are over 18. Nor do you seem to have noticed the incongruence of the stated reasons for this move: to provide some (unspecified and seemingly silent, possibly tiny) number of residents with an environment that excludes adult material, and the requirement that to be able to access such material proof is required that one is over 18.

I am not really directing all of this at you Innula. It just happens that you raised the point I wished to address: the blind acceptance that any of this is necessary. Such unquestioning acceptance allows systems to be imposed which, if you were aware of their full implications, you would certainly not be happy to support.

Look beyond the issue as it affects SL and see the source: notice that this is a response to policy that is being established by America's new 'enlightened', 'liberal' president; a policy that is a direct extrapolation of the neo-conservative agenda; part of the system that created and orchestrates the financial woes everyone is so heartily complaining about. Learn why these things are so and then revisit your willingness to accept, hell no, to even pay to have such restrictions imposed on you, as if your only other option is to accept the even worse situation of providing your personally identifiable information to a disreputable data mining company like Aristotle. It isn't. Another option, and the one Thoreau insisted was the only moral one, is to stand up against such injustices and impositions.

[edited to improve clarity]

1) A Teen Grid and account (No Adult content allowed, no electronic signiature required, and can NOT access the Adult Grid)
2) Adult (Mature) Grid and account (*with account electronic signiature verifying over 18. ADULT CONTENT and ROLEPLAY CONTENT ALLOWED, after all, it IS "ADULT"
3) A PG Grid and account (No Adult content allowed or Adult oriented Roleplay and no electronic signiature required, and can NOT access the Adult Grid)
4) An Education Grid (Education content only)

*Why not an "electronic signiature" on an "Adult or Mature only" account, swearing or affirming they are of legal age to participate in the Adult Mature Grid? Even if it meant having accounts specifically FOR either PG, Adult, Teen or Education. In that way LL is covered, as well as it staying fair for users who don't have a CC (especially in today's economy) or for privacy acts. After all, can there ever be a sure-fire way on the internet to prove someone's age?

And why not fine tune SL before publishing it on the web and getting people used to certain policies, spending time and money on creating and working, and then making more changes here and there at any time, disrupting and causing hardships on those that followed the previous rules to begin with?? We can NEVER REALLY KNOW what change will occur next, or get "comfortable" in fear of yet "another change".

***Also, has anyone ever thought of having a residential ONLY mainland and Commercial ONLY mainland on the Grids? As it is now, you have residential and commercial together, making sally and fred, who are trying to watch a good movie at home, see the flashing store sign next door coming through their window that says "OPEN 24/7".

If it's doable, i say seperate the grids entirely, along with the account types, as explained above, and seperate businesses from residential mainlands on the seperate grids.

On a last note, and one of great concern and importance, when inworld LL characters have to come inworld and make changes to people's mainland parcels who are not adhering to policy, some intentionally and some UNIntentional, PLEASE obtain a method to know WHAT each other is doing or HAS done, as well as WHEN it has been done or WILL be done, so that it does not conflict? To have one Linden say "that's ok", while another one comes later and says "That's NOT ok! (and removes it immediately without warning)" is awful and truly confusing and unfair.
And to have them dress professionaly would be nice too, as when i see a "creature" with the last name Linden, coming and removing things and disabling scripts without warning and IN FRONT of the parcel owner, it raises a brow and sinks the "rumors" of LLs having "friends" inworld and doing "favors" with their infinite ablility tools they're granted.
And it would be real nice and courteous to SEND A MESSAGE TO A PLAYER WHO INADVERTANTLY MAY BE BREACHING POLICIES BEFORE REMOVING THINGS AND DISABLING SCRIPTS. Let them know via a message or email that there is a breach, give them fair time to fix it, and if not fixed, then feel free to remove...but not without warning..it's truely, truley UNFAIR, and a waste of time and money for all and a total chaos if you ask me.
And if you're asking what that has to do with the "Adult" issue? Well, i can already see ahead: Policy changes made, and more LL inworld characters randomly coming in and removing/disabling things without warning if they deem it to be "of adult nature" while another one doesn't.

Thanks for your input - We are reading each of these responses. We'll be following up later this week with a recap and schedule of in-world brown bags next week.

UPDATE...please check condensed thread for continued dialog on the subject...
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