Upcoming Changes for Adult Content: Motivations and Goals

Fixing the ban lines to work higher would probably be a much simpler solution for that wouldn't it? Changing a single value on the sim software and client would surely have to be a better solution. Instead of moving hundreds(/thousands?) of clubs and business's. And really, you can still eject people at that height. If your build and scripting is disabled for the parcel, they can't build or use any scripts while there. And setup the land correctly they can't even fly either (unless they know about the bug that LL has in their client software, yet another thing that is LL's fault).

So all they can do is just walk around, look about the place, and wait for you to come home to eject them out of the home and give them an AR for entering your land without permission.

I'm sticking this post in this particular thread because it has to go somewhere and there is no real place for it. Turning on the age verification filters,etc when/if they work blocks anyone not qualifing from entering the area. Further restricting the area to only group members, means only group members who must be proven adults can enter the area. The area is not advertised for any purpose. That seems to take care of all the issues regarding content that someone may find objectionable. No "adult" content is "easily" visible.

Now my question, if the above meets the requirments for seperation and exclusion broadly but not specifically addressed in your FAQ references, can someone going past the area in a protected channel or road claim anything they can cam into as being offensive?

In one case I own an entire region of the mainland except for a protected channel, in another 90%,, etc. seems to me the rights of the land owner to conduct business are being ignored in favor of some generic AV who may or may not ever visit an area other than to cam in from an adjacent region even though they cannot enter it or because the were transiting the area and cammed into areas they are not allowed to enter.

I can find no mention of your intentions to put the restrictions on the protected land portions of SL grid and cannot figure out how you can expect to enforce your defintions if you don't restrict the protected travel areas you control.

I applaud Linden Labs for finally taking some corrective measures to clean up this virtual world. Thank you for doing this. Now maybe some of my friends will come in world because most of them think SL is a sewer for the sex-crazed idiots.

I agree!

It's like putting your TV onto the adult channel. You watch it, you can't complain about what you see. A person cams into your adult sex club because they live nextdoor, what do they expect to see?! Everyone sitting around and playing cards?!

Oh and another point about the land ban lines and preventing people getting into your homes. If you have a home and really truly don't want anyone to ever reach it, another option is a private estate, or renting land from a person who owns one, who will ban people from the region for you when requested.
But I do agree that there needs to be more power for the land owners to prevent people entering the parcel Ceera, and it's a problem that does infact need fixing. But this action that LL is suggesting really wouldn't fix that for us.

But even so, that topic is really a matter for another discussion, and not the issue at hand.

Hey you have two grids already, why not rename Teen Grid to "Teens, Schools, Universities, Conference Organizers and Real World Business Grid" Job done.

... then again... maybe separating the adults from the above type of person is a good idea. >_>

ROFL

then why dont your friends sign in the teen grid ???

It bears repeating that Second Life is VIRTUAL, VOLUNTARY and ADULT. There is a huge difference between SL and RL. Seeking to apply RL standards to a virtual world is silly.

VIRTUAL: There is no safer place on Earth than the privacy of your RL home. In SL you can:

- live without fear of physical injury
- retain complete RL personal privacy
- mute an avatar or an object
- teleport to a different location
- fly to a different location
- build house in the sky
- disable particle rendering
- log out

VOLUNTARY: One must sign up for an account.

ADULT: No kids allowed.

By definition, everyone in SL is an adult. That 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. Welcome to adulthood, folks.

Your statement amuses. You do realize that LL is only considering the relocation/reallocation of about 2-4% of mainland? This does not include the plethora of already Adult themed private islands that will undergo no requirement to move?

You do realize you can wander mainland and Islands for days without encountering any "sewer(s)"? Are you searching for these places deliberately?

Perhaps a little acceptance will be in order if you and your friends wish to enjoy SL. By the way, how do you survive the Internet which is populated with so much porn and so many cat macros? They have been the staples of any society, although I do not believe cave drawings depicted cat macros (although likely would have had they thought of them).

People who like to fly in SL forced LL to reduce the effective height of general bans from 768 Meters to the useless 50 M height it is now. Raise it to 512 or 768 or whatever, and the fliers would be up in arms again about how all those banlines make it impossible for them to use their planes.

What good is it to eject someone from your 1000M high skybox, if it just moves them to the adjacent parcel, and they are free to come right back in? What good is it to TP them home, if they can TP right back? Setting "No Fly" on your land doesn't prevent anyone from flying if they were flying before they entered your land. It just prevents them from taking off if they were not already flying.

Here's a statement I found ironic:



You're absolutely right, Linden Research. It does. As usual, you are focusing on the wrong issues. The experience that needs to change is the inherent instability of your infrastructure.

I note that you still haven't managed to fix your core databases cluster so that it works effectively and can handle all the activities of Residents. Also broken is the hand off by the simulator software so that TP works correctly and consistently, bugs related to scripting, building, and just about every core service you provide. Is there any aspect of the Second Life viewer and simulator that isn't kludged or broken or fails to work adequately and as specified as Linden Research hides behind its "AS IS" clause?

You know what I'd like to see? A scripting language that actually complies with a known standard like ECMA; core services that aren't flaky; financial transactions that aren't stale; logins that aren't shut down; a 3 month period where there isn't a single Linden Research warning about "refrain from rezzing no-copy objects or engaging in money transactions until we send an all-clear;" a better avatar that doesn't have polygons that are turned inside out and brought more into line with current 3D technologies.

Instead, in my opinion, you have chosen to engage in yet another exercise to "improve the Second Life experience" for Residents by taking valuable human resources away from fixing the very real problems with your platform. You admitted by posting to the Second Life Blog last year that you're understaffed (people needed "to save the Grid!". You'd rather introduce new features and controls into the viewer and simulator instead of devoting the time, energy and resources into improving the experience for every single Resident you have.

Older and more experienced Residents are leaving in droves because they are fed up with some very real and very basic problems in your client/server architecture. As those content creators leave, some very good products are abandoned and unsupported.

And given the history of SL development to date based on direct experience, those new features and controls will integrate poorly, introduce further instability, and continue the exodus of experienced content creators out of world because they're fed up with the "SL experience."

When I rezzed in-world, I was told by friends what the "rule of thumb" is: that I could be exposed to adult-oriented themes in Mature rated sims such as nudity, violence, sexuality, or coarse language. If I didn't want to view or be exposed to such, it generally wasn't permitted in PG rated sims. I don't think I've been to a PG sim except for the Welcome Area in world.

The motivation and goals behind this move is, in my opinion, nothing more than a lead-in to the merging of the Teen Grid with the Main Grid. Your co-CEO, Philip Rosedale, said this option was being looked at at the Lab in an interview. It's a matter of public record. (Clue: there isn't a single teenager who wants to spend time with Mom or Dad inside Second Life! They have to put up with them in the real world! And in fact they all should be spending time with each other in the Real World anyway)

"Oh, before we can merge the Grids, we have to deal with the Adult content so little Billy or Suzie doesn't get exposed to adult material!"

That's what I think the motivation and goal is behind this. It's been spun to look like Residents have been asking for this. Given, under present definitions as you've claimed, that only 4% of content is "Adult" that means 96% is not.

You're devoting all this time and resources to a problem that reflects 4% of content?

Instead of examining all this content and wasting time coming up with your own definitions, pick up the phone and contact the MPAA Classifications division and arrange a meeting with the Classification Board. They have spent decades defining and refining definitions regarding content of motion pictures. SL content and activities aren't THAT different. Alternatively, contact the organization responsible for providing classification of television programming. You'll save time and money not re-inventing the wheel.

By the way, I don't trust your age-verification company. There are two reasons why. First, the company has a track-record for selling personal information. Second, the identification requested for verification purposes violates Canadian law. When age verification came into being, I went to the verification site. I left promptly and unverified.

Linden Research assurances that they don't retain any information after verification does not comfort me in the least. How do you intend to and do enforce the no-retention policy? You have a contract with them to that effect? Contracts are breached all the time by companies. The log-jammed court system shows that clearly. Corporate America doesn't exactly have the best track record for doing what's right or even lawful these days (one only needs to read the business news to see that; pick any date over the past 50 years).

I don't trust them. I'm not going to use them. Nor will I be coerced into using them by contract. You cannot, reasonably, demand a person break the law to satisfy a contract.

Bluntly and succinctly stated: You are wasting time and resources "putting lipstick on a pig" (that, by the way, is my professional opinion and I am fully qualified to make it).

Here's a measurable and attainable goal: No failures of core world services (as defined by Residents) for a period of 90 days. Shelve this initiative until you successfully do it.

(Word of advice, LL. Don't ask for opinions unless you're fully prepared to hear the answers.)

I posted this on the New World Notes blog, but it's worth posting here as well........


Interestingly, Stephen Fry (noted egghead and entertainer) had this to say the other day - not about Second Life, but about the internet in general, though it's equally applicable......

"This is an early thing I said about the internet at the time things like AOL were still huge. I said it's Milton Keynes, that's the problem with it. It's got all these nice, safe cycle paths and child-friendly parks and all the rest of it.

But the internet is a city and, like any great city, it has monumental libraries and theatres and museums and places in which you can learn and pick up information and there are facilities for you that are astounding - specialised museums, not just general ones.


As important as the more traditional cultural institutions?
But there are also slums and there are red light districts and there are really sleazy areas where you wouldn't want your children wandering alone.

And you say, "But how do I know which shops are selling good gear in the city and how do I know which are bad? How do I know which streets are safe and how do I know which aren't?" Well you find out.

What you don't need is a huge authority or a series of identity cards and police escorts to take you round the city because you can't be trusted to do it yourself or for your children to do it.

And I think people must understand that about the internet - it is a new city, it's a virtual city and there will be parts of it of course that they dislike, but you don't pull down London because it's got a red light district. "

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7926509.stm

This was taken from the blog:

"Over the past year or so we have been hearing from a growing number of you that the experience in Second Life needed to change. "
Will you tell us how large of a group this "growing number" is? Is it more than 2% of the population? More than 4%? Are you going to force 4% of the population to move in order to appease .25% of the population?

Well said and well reasoned! It will be promptly ignored by corporate decision-makers. LOL

I just did a group (just groups) search of a few terms.

This is the result of my quick research. With Mature Content turned on by my choice. Skip the rest of this post if you are easily offended or are the type that goes out of your way to find offence.

So based on these real fast really simple searches more then 5% of the groups focus on sex over business, education, or religion. I'm not saying more then 50% as this test would imply just more then 5% then your statement makes.

Yes I am biased for adult content but guess what I'm an adult, age verified, payment info on file and I've managed both PG and Adult clubs.

These search results are not bias. They don't care who I am or what groups I am in. They see I am looking for X and so they give me a result. You can do it too. I encourage any Linden not easily offended to try it out.

Following words minus the + (You must be trying to figure out what the words say to be offended Top word is nice followed by an offensive word. If your easily offended please move on.)

c+h+r+i+s+t+i+a+n got 309 results
s+l+u+t+s got 562results

e+d+u+c+a+t+i+o+n got 706 results
s+l+a+v+e got 2010 results

b+u+s+i+n+e+s+s got 1960 results
s+e+x got 2590 results

These tests we run with the following data. I am unaware of any changes to the search results between O/S or release version however in the event these results are uncommon I will post all technical information. (Caution going to the same location to do group searches will place you in the middle of an adult parcel. You have been warned)

Second Life 1.21.6 (99587) Oct 14 2008 18:00:21 (Second Life Release)
Release Notes

You are at 167739.4, 312736.4, 24.7 in North Forest Islands located at sim7132.agni.lindenlab.com (8.10.144.134:13006)
Second Life Server 1.25.6.113484
Release Notes

CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU T8100 @ 2.10GHz
Memory: 3545 MB
OS Version: Linux 2.6.27-11-generic #1 SMP Thu Jan 29 19:24:39 UTC 2009 i686
Graphics Card Vendor: NVIDIA Corporation
Graphics Card: GeForce 8600M GT/PCI/SSE2
OpenGL Version: 2.1.2 NVIDIA 177.82

libcurl Version: libcurl/7.16.4 OpenSSL/0.9.7c zlib/1.2.3.3 c-ares/1.4.0
J2C Decoder Version: KDU
LLMozLib Version: [LLMediaImplLLMozLib] - 2.01.22409 (Mozilla GRE version 1.8.1.13_0000000000)
Packets Lost: 344/187701 (0.2%)

Yeah this is a policing issue for the search results. I just did a search for s+e+x in the All and Places tab with mature box unticked and got thousands of results. Many of the top results were not innocent mentions of the keyword either. So one has to ask... Who is going to start policing the search results after the adult places are forced to move and the bad stuff still shows up in a PG search? I mean.. who is supposed to be policing it now? Just asking... Anyone?

Sorry, Blondin. I, for one, don't believe you. Companies don't take on major initiatives like this because 4% of content falls within the present definition of "Adult."

LL has, by its own actions and reluctance to address basic issues with its failing architecture, shattered a considerable amount of trust.

If Phillip said this is something being looked at at the Lab, then it's something being looked at by the Lab and I certainly do think this is prelude to just such a merging.

I also expect to see a release of the precise percentage of the Resident population who have stated that they're annoyed with mature content. Better be prepared to release the supporting data for independent analysis as well.

bring a working age-verification for europe too, and we discuss with you. atm the thought is silly

No, because they're already too high.

And as I said on another thread, even if this works it misses the real reason why merging the teen and main grid is a bad idea.

However worried parents might be about their children getting to see inappropriate content, this is nothing compared to the how worried they will be about inappropriate adults having access to their children. If parents start banning their children from using SL due to a merger of the grids, it will not be about what pixels their children might be seeing but about who their children will be interacting with on SL.

Matthew

LOl, 512 m range with the cam, its absolut silly to put up ban lines , lol. or doors, my house dont need doors, because all have the cam


and i dont need a kitchen, a bath or a toilet in my house.


btw, Lindens, it would be nice u stop playing with the grid on fridays, i cannot login

give us back the wednesdays

I dont see mature content at all...try to log in for almost 30 minutes now but it wont let me in...maybe this is something to worry about instead of this sh*t!

realy get tired of hard to follow (for me) discussions, wile there is no problem at all...this is just a way LL needs to do to get somewhere (like ad teen grid to normal sl).

if that so just do it LL and dont start discussions that will lead no where and make people think they got something to say when they dont got!

better things to discuss about:

1-normal log in...im trying for the 10th time at the moment..
2- lag..please start too fight it..its not normal that our costumers cant move when they want adult fun just because there are 20 people more...
3-log in after crash..when its busy it takes ages to log back in...
4 teleports not working...everyone gets tired of the broken teleports EVERY DAY!!

and i could get on like this for hours like this...this is a way of not showing mature content also?..then good job u solved the problem...

greetings

right Travis!!

I notice from several posts you've made that you have no problem shoving your particular moral code down everyone else's throat.

You missed the point of the original post made by the Resident. When operating an LGBT education site, Yahoo! classified them as "adult-oriented". The advertising subsequently presented because of the reclassification was completely inappropriate to the intent of the content. Now, they are having difficulty recruiting volunteers to help.

I happen to agree with the poster's concerns. If a resource or education center that deals with human sexuality or other mature topics must by definition be flagged as "Adult" then the resource may no longer be available to those who need it the most.

Gays, lesbians, bisexuals and trans-gendered people exist in the real world and in Second Life. To flag everything related to LGBT as "Adult" could be construed as a violation of California state law as it causes marginalization. And for no other reason than to satisfy your desire not to see such content. But is it really "Adult"?

These types of issues have been debated in school boards around North America when it comes to sex ed. "I don't want my 13 year old son or daughter exposed to such information!" And yet teen pregnancies continue unabated, and higher in areas where sex ed is not taught as part of a curriculum.

This is the very slippery slope that LL has put itself on. And no matter how they slice it, unless they use an already clearly defined scale of measurement (like MPAA classifications which have been refined over decades), lesbians, gays, bisexuals and trans-gendered people in-world will be marginalized based on sexual orientation or gender. That contravenes California state law.

And I recognize and acknowledge the original poster's very real fear that lesbians, gays, bisexuals and trans-gendered persons will have their expression curtailed and be marginalized in SL as they are in the real world.

We get it. You don't want to see depictions involving nudity, sexuality, or violence or be exposed to course language. Stick to the PG sims. Inappropriate content is supposedly kept out of them by LL.

Isn't there a way to create a viewer that filters out anything that is flagged as mature? For example, any land or items that have been marked as mature will not 'visually' appear in a Non-Mature viewer. This way inidividuals have a choice right from the start, and current residents will not have to go through upheavels to accomodate the new regulations.