Upcoming Changes for Adult Content: Motivations and Goals

I just thought of that. Well ... me personally, if I ran an "adult" sim and saw a kid avie, they'd get the eject/ban, but that's just me.

Since i don't own enough sims to be able to log on today (go bots!) i thought i might take the time to clarify the FAQ for this topic.

Why is Linden Lab choosing to do this?

Because we are not very creative and our bottom line is down from our continued miss-management and incompetence and so we hired a corporate consultant team to help us find ways to attract more cows to milk. Our consultants told us that americans are country of paranoid delusionals who consider mixing adults with kids to be a Bad Thing. It's much better to raise dullards and suck on some prozak on the way to the beer store.

Why now?

Because our landmass continues to shrink faster then we can introduce new continents. With actual unique users and paid users on a steep decline we felt we had to do something to enable us to continue to milk this set up for another year or two.

What are the short- and long-term plans?

The short-term plan for this project is to become more attractive to other McCompanies with corporate mindset in the hope that we might be able to dump this limp platform before it goes splat. We do not have any long-term plans at this moment other then to retire to real life islands with large amounts of money.

Is this something that Second Life users have asked for?

Absolutely not. In fact we didn't bother to ask anyone other then our hired consultants.

How does this move prevent minors from entering Second Life or accessing content?

It doesn't, but that is not important. Reality is meaningless in the face of corporate image. If we truly cared about age we would put the age check on the Front Door.

Will this initiative affect Teen Second Life?

Not for at least a month or two. At that time it will enable us to merge both grids and allow us to print propaganda explaining how the grid has grow in landmass and new users! Teen Second Life has always been a red herring.

Will this initiative prohibit certain kinds of content in Second Life?

We do not prohibit any content. In fact we make our living from the content that has already been created and we warmly welcome copy-bot at this time as we have critical mass and don't give a rats about the content creators who made this world. In fact we wont even police this policy change.

Second Life has always been an open environment; is Linden Lab deciding to abandon that principle?

As we have shown in the past with our actions such as the OS-Homestead bait and switch, we do not have any principles, therefor there is nothing to abandon. Pro quo.

Has Linden Lab consulted third parties as part of this initiative?

Yes, we've hired many consultants to help us find a way to improve our image. In fact we have more consults working on our image then we have skilled coders working on the actual platform.

Is Linden Lab trying to deemphasize(sic) the community so it can focus more on the enterprise market?

We are only worried about the image and not the actual communities that are here now. Our goal is to increase perceived shareholder value with a sanitation of the grids image without any concern for established communities since most of our numbers are made of non-paying accounts and kids.

If I have already been age verified, or have a payment method on file, will this carry over for the new initiative?

Yes, all 12 of our paying customers will be verified.

Will this bring any benefits for vendors in Second Life?

No. This will segregate users into regions and lower sales for all. Except on a corporate level. In other words, our sales.

How will this program help attract new users?

It wont, but it will make the platform more attractive to marketing divisions of McCorporations and raise our perceived shareholder value.

How will these changes affect XstreetSL?

XstreetSL already separates Adult content, so we expect no changes at this time.

Uhhhh....

This thread is about "Motivations and Goals". The opinion I find everywhere is LL doesn't like their core users, do not see a future in what they created, and would be happy to make SL a new thing entirely. Every single person that I have expressed that opinion to, including creators who make their RL living in SL, agrees with me.

Banks? F-you, eat the loss. Casinos? F-you, eat the loss. Buy an openspace today? Two weeks later... f-you the price you agreed to is invalid. Don't like it? F-you, leave. Mafioso mentality, with a prudish twist. Las Vegas without casinos and sex. Not even crappy stage shows or Celine Dion. Empty pyramids. Ponder it.

Business and education better users than us? Well, let's see if they pay, as we have, for years. They come to SL, build a ghosttown sim, grab all the free press they can, and leave. Virtual board rooms? Please. They have all the videoconferencing they need. Why make barbies?

Time and effort is being spent on this hamfisted dust-up, while untold numbers of feature requests by people who actually PRODUCE income for LL have been ignored, for years. I build 90% of the time when I am in SL, almost two years, and the same annoyances are still right there waiting for me when I log in, WHEN I can log in. I haven't been able to for 3 hours now.

Well, right now LL, those users you don't like don't like you, either. You are basically telling us once every three or four months, "If you don't like it, f- off". Sadly, we are the ones ready, willing, and able to pay you consistently for your service. We love the world you seem to be ashamed of now.

Like the Internet as a whole, when people who love the endeavor for what it is rule, it booms. The talentless, officious, administrative leeches wrecking SL will just get paid big to wreck some other endeavor after "our" world is gone or sold to Yahoo. On behalf of users who love the world you created, I implore you to tell THEM to f-off.

Please. ponder whether these motivations and goals really have any promise.

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

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.

Please. ponder whether these motivations and goals really have any promise.

.

Unfortunately, no matter how much one tries there's no way kids are going to be kept from adult material on -any- game. Many parents in fact, don't monitor their kid's internet usage, like many parents don't monitor what they watch on TV, or listen to on the radio, or play on their video game systems. It's unfair to punish the rest of the community because a handful of parents aren't doing their jobs.

In my humble opinion all this nonsense would be laid to rest if Lindens simply cancelled 'free accounts' and made everyone a paid cstomer..i.e paid using a credit card or pay pal which you generally have to be 18 or over... it might also cancel out all that nonsense of masses of inanimate alts clogging up regions to.
.

I think it makes more sense to make a non-adult classification. Let the people that want to restrict content set up their own areas. That leaves the default as open and creative and unrestricted. It just makes NO sense to me to make the default classification a restricted one. That says that the cultural norm is the restricted one. I think the norm should be unrestricted, and if people want to restrict what they experience, they can create sub-sets. Please think about this. The idea of second life has appealed to me BECAUSE it is an open creative enviornment. Also, what a fight you are setting up defining the normal or default grid.

Why repeat culture wars in second life? Don't we have enough of that in the real world?

And, call it the Third Reich Life. SEIG HEIL! SH! SH!

I love this idea. (Oh, and yes, I am one of those vile persons.)

Fenix. we dont need a third grid, we need democracy!

Hi,

What I would like to see are these 3 labels attached to each sim where content of a sexual nature is carried, especially when looking at the in world map. There are areas I would like to miss on my random wanderings. So these labels would help.

AS = Straight content(inc fetish)
AG = Gay
AT = Transvestite etc type content.

Thank you.

Let me know what you think.

Regards.

Grid abuses and TOS infractions aside, of course ...

Why would you go to a mature sim if you don't want to see what's there? You wouldn't, right?

Doesn't sound like you need a filter to me.

first, u can buy CC on a petrol station, so no one asks for ur age, paypal i will not use , because it isnt secure.
LL will not accept my age-verification, because i am from europe, and the data the ask are prohibited to offer,

so let the ten grid where it is, the main grid too, who wont see naked legs on mature sims can leave the place

atm, i would love , LL would have some working people doing their job!