Upcoming Changes for Adult Content: Motivations and Goals

I have a problem with this, being that all of the 3 sims I frequent the most are Mature, and it's not becuase they contain copius amounts of explicit content, actually it is because really there is no compelling reason for them to be "PG" or spend the extra time policing people to maintain the PG label. One of the sims I am talking about is a sandbox, which has many "PG" rules in place, but has shops on the periphery of the sandbox to help pay for tier, and they do not discourage people from trying to make and sell skins or skimpy clothes, sexbed scripts or whatever there. The Next, and right next door tot he sandbox because we just made great effort to merge with them, Is half a sim for builders university (part of the sandbox), and half a sim for clubs, with beach and some shops. The clubs are mature but have not and will never have strippers and escorts...explicit music is probably the only real "no-no" you'l find at our club, besides i guess suggestive dancing and occasional foul language. The Third sim is Virtual Sports Nexus (or SLSBA until the new name change rule), which would be the farthest of all 3 from having any mature content, but it was a "PG" sim several months back, and we found out the hard way, it did not ever bring us any traffic as a reward- instead we were constantly reiminding people "dude, this is a PG sim ixnay on the ______"....when the sim was switched to mature and a club was added- lo and behold, traffic boomed.

The only "problem" I see here at all is that Linden labs just hasn't the slightest clue of what people in world really do or think, and right now they are trying to ask the near impossible of the populace (because Sl is an adult gaming experience, no matter what way you cut the cards) in an effort to save the few thousand teens on the "teen grid" from just being shut out.... even though they are a drop in the bucket as far as traffic or overall populace is concerned.

If this comes to pass everybody will have to choose which way they want to be segregated, estate owners and managers will have to work hard to enforce the segregation, because if the segregation fails people can and will be taken to jail and labeled for the rest of their lives as sex offenders.....they will literally have thier lives ruined because the Lindens don't have the balls to just come out and make SL "Adults Only" like it really is.

Unless people are having sex in the store, I don't see why you would be forced to move. If the store is not based around or advertising on a clearly sexual theme, then you should be fine where you are.

People often 'test' sex beds in the stores.

(Kids could too...Maybe with that new 'friend' they made in the PG only area...who talked them into going shopping.)

Has LL really thought this through. I do appreciate that their responses have remained civil though. I did want to note that and say thanks for that much at least.

I recall when TSO did not listen to its beta testers (the game went under later for the same reasons expressed at the outset) they did not reply, let alone in public. They just erased the beta forums.

How about you allow estate owner to cut Adult parcels .. like Clarissa says, ppl test beds... and even though they do it with clothes and without genitalia .. theyre still humping.(excuse the phrase but i have no idea how to say it otherwise)

I believe you can still be warned and banned for having cyber sex on your own property or in your own house on pg rated land... which is why Ive always bought mature land...is it now possible that mature land I live on may be re-rated and cyber sex becomes a no-no even in my own property ??

Im repeating my question because as I said I was about to buy more land in my region...a change of rating negates that.

This Red Light District Sim has potential.

Assuming "ADULT" is very different than "MATURE," owners of Adult businesses and services might prefer to be located on the Red Light Continent so residents don't have to depend on Search to find them.

Why not open the Red Light Continent on a VOLUNTARY basis and see how it goes? People might pay extra to locate there!

Otherwise, enforcement will be a nightmare for Linden Labs. (I think you have better things to do.)

no no WE think they have better things to do

This is a very popular request Wallace, and it's definitely on our radar. Linked accounts aren't included in this project, but you are right, this would be an excellent application for them. For now, you will need to age verify any alt account that you wished to have access to adult content.

If this did take effect, which seems a given, then offering a sweet deal and clemency is the least LL could do. Sweet deal = certain number of avs for the price of one Premium membership, or a smidgen more (1.99 more per year per av maybe). Also, clemency as in, either abolish or widen the av limit. Maybe ten per registrant instead of five?

A lot of people use alts for business purposes or create one per roleplay sim. Maybe they want to play an aesthete elf in one sim and a burly Gorean in another. They won't make the same friends and being either or both might enhance their SL experience. So, add some buffer to the more painful changes SL is making by offering some tidbit like this in return.

This disturbs me. This seems like a big tap dance around morally sensitive people. Second Life has always been a game for adults, Like any game for adults you are going to have adult content.

You say a very small percent would have to be moved, but why should they be uprooted because some blush easily?

It seems like if people are that bothered by the adult content Second Life may not be the right place for them. I'm not saying anyone should leave but they have to decide what they can and cannot handle. What they do not have the right to do is to lead a charge to uproot people.

Second Life has done this once before with the Age play policy. I warned people that if you bowed to the moral minority once you would keep bowing forever. A new phase in my prophecy.

Wrong answer. If the zone is PG, and a child sees people testing out sexual poseballs in the store, and then their parents become aware of the situation, there will be hell to pay for that store owner and the other people involved....maybe you as a parent wouldn't freak out, maybe I wouldn't either, but you guys are opening the door for those few people out there that would as we have seen many times here in US news to go on a crusade and crucify everybody and I mean everybody that "allowed an innocent child to be exposed to explicit sexual images"- not to mention the lawyers that would be more than happy to help them out.

This is a monumentally bad idea, because it wont be much different if the hypothetical store we are talking about is in a mature zone and a kid gets in there somehow....really, this will be such a huge problem for everybody involved, except the kids, who already know about all this "explicit" junk, just like you did when you were there age.

'Children' should not be on SL -it's over 18 only!

I am concerned about this as both a parent and as a Second Life resident. My second life is generally mild enough that I feel comfortable having my kid watch what I am doing while online. I let my friends know when there is an audience on my end so that the conversation can be kept family-oriented. But, when the kiddo is out or in bed...my second life is still rather mild but the conversations can take on more serious tones.

I do also monitor my child's activity while online. It is my job as a parent. But, I do know that kids that are determined enough will always find a way.

If a merge is to happen, how will Linden Lab assure me, as a parent, that my child cannot create a "fully mature" appearing avatar. Maybe without verification my child could not "buy" a fully functional "adult oriented scripted prim" but how is LL going to stop my child from building his own if he so wishes. I worry that SL could become a place where pedophiles from around the world come to "shop".

I warn my son about adults pretending to be children online.

What is to stop an adult from creating a child avatar expressly for the purpose of appearing benign and safe to real children. What is to stop the real children from playing with their sliders and creating the "adult content" for themselves in their attempt to explore and express their own sexuality. I often wonder if the avatar I am interacting with is of the gender that they are appearing as. I hate to think about how stilted Second Life will become if we are left in a position of wondering if that 6' tall well-endowed female avatar that we see is an unverified adult lady or an unverified 13 year old boy...

I'd like to be able to say that as a reasonably intelligent adult I would be able to determine in short order whether another person is an adult or child. But, with the affectations some others have adopted and with the language differences, I'm not so sure of my ability to correctly judge.

We are too easily able to hide behind our "appearances" here. I don't think that is a bad thing. Unless we are talking about children.

I have been reading all different things about this change. Now I have to agree that changes are due, but I think that the overall changes being mentioned here and other threads may be the straw that breaks the camels back. The over all experience of SL has lowered, however I do believe this was due to some bugs that have been fixed. It just makes me wonder if others out there will look at this and say, this has gone to far and I am done. If this happens and a mass crowd follows then it might just cause some major issues in the already slow economy and slow sign up rates. I think a better solution than age verification as it is talked about here would be to have a warning come up whenever someone TP's to an adult rated sim, this warning would allow the end user to agree or not to agree, thus removing all liability from LL and allowing the user to choose if they really want to go to that sim. This the users who don't like adult content can have a warning. The best way to implement this feature without causing mass confusion would be to have an option added to the preferences where you can choose to be warned or not warned. This way the ones who don't care see no change and the ones who do, have a way to not TP.

I do however think that making a "Red Light" area may be a bit confusing to some depending on what is actually considered "Adult Content". If they only have blood and guts and have to be placed on or near a sim with true adult content then some may be still seeing what they don't want to see and ruining there over all experience.

Separating sims or content may be an issue in the long run as some may feel that a if adult content is separated then religious content, education sims, and alternate life styles should also be separated, thus changing the over all experience in a negative way in my mind. Along with this a good idea would be to make the teen grid a family grid where parents and children of all ages can go play together without changing the overall experience of the main grid we have all come to know.

Sorry for the long post but just wanted to get my thoughts out there.

Congratulations, Linden Lab, on throwing yet another wrench into the works of one of your oldest communities, and your supporters. Let me share with you a little point here:

I work with educators. I make my living pandering to them. Not ONCE have any of my clients ever brought up concerns about adult content. And never, -ever- do they even want to step anywhere near your mainland. Why? Not because of the morass of adult content. No, just the ad-towers you promised to deal with, the land cutters you still don't deal with, the endless spam, griefing, towering blank cubic builds, jutting megaprims, trees angled into buildings, and endless other issues. Educators. They don't want a damn thing to do with your mainland, seriously, even if you do sanitize it of one "problem" out of billions of individual issues.

I do not own a sexbed, I do not own a prim-dick, and my avatar's skin doesn't even have naked detailing. Our estate community self-regulates and will continue to do so; We will do so as long as you rely on the inherently broken system of Integrity/Aristotle for "verification" (A friend successfully "verified" as two different superheroes. Twice. On the first try, on two accounts). Why? Because this is Our World and Our Imagination.

Not yours. You want to fix this issue? Make payment info mandatory FOR THE GRID. Not just for an area but for the grid as a whole. End the stream of alts, bots, and other useless malcontents who actually have a serious impact. Don't make a paid account mandatory like it used to be. Just payment info. Why? Even the US Congress (You're still an American company, right, despite dodging your banking offshore?) thinks that payment data and a digitally signed agreement is enough. Do the right thing, Linden, and show us that you're not afraid to reverse a decision that someone higher up made in spectacularly bad taste.

This is the wrong approach for solving a problem which in fact should not exist in a game rated 18+ . Second Life's MAIN grid is for ADULTS ONLY and no adult should need "parental control" (that's what "PG" means). Underage individuals should not be allowed in SL at all. And indeed age verification is necessary in order to make sure that no underage individuals can access Second Life.

But once verified as adults and participating in a game for adults, we should behave like adults. I can personally see absolutely no reason for the existence of PG areas and PG compliance rules within a game rated 18+! If there really is a minority that needs to be ghettoized at all in this MATURE game, that is NOT the sex oriented community because sex just belongs to mature life but the "PG" minority.

An adult who, for no matter what reason, plays a MATURE game but doesn't wish to have access to adult content should (apart from seeking medical advice) be given the choice in his account to set his avatar to "no adult content" and from that moment on they should be always warned when entering an adult parcel and asked to agree or not to go on.. a simple blue pop up with a button "yes" and a button "no" should solve the whole problem. Same for viewing search results or profiles of escorts for instance or any other mature information which would require "parental control" also in RL.

But moving all the adult related businesses into a ghetto, within a game for ADULTS who's economy strongly depends on the existence and well functioning of sex related places, is totally wrong, counterproductive and economically unwise, to say the least.

Let me give you one example in order to understand to what degree this approach is wrong.. Few months ago I was suspended for 3 hours as a following of a complaint from a player who claimed that his "3 years old son sitting on his lap " was "shocked" when seeing my escort picture in my profile! But ladies and gents, according to which laws of which civilized country does a 3 years old child have the right to view content from a computer game rated 18+ ? A 3 years old is not even allowed to view the teen grid! Coz he's not even a "teen". Does a father who plays a game for adults with his 3 years old son on his lap not break the existent laws in the real world? Is this not the same like watching a movie rated 18+ with your child on your lap?

I've been told several times that LL tries to make Second Life "family friendly". Well I'm sorry to have to contradict but that is not possible, because SL is not a family game , it is a game for ADULTS aged 18+. If there are underage children in a family , that family can not participate in SL in its totality , for the simple reason that SL is rated 18+ and underage children should not have access to such content at all, be they on the lap of their fathers or anywhere else..

THIS is the problem that must be solved and not the NORMAL activities of mature individuals within a mature game. SL is either a game for children or it is a game rated 18+. It cant be both! And at this time it is rated 18+. Therefore , unless LL intends to make it a game for children, not the adult specific activities should be set aside in second Life but the participants who for some reason decline their adult status should be given clear options to do so, in order to respect their personal freedom of choice. But the present approach in which huge changes should be made that will surely affect not only the budgets of many individuals who live from SL but also SL's economy itself, in order to protect something that should NOT EVEN EXIST in a game rated 18+ is by default WRONG WRONG WRONG! Please think about it LL !

Mony Lindman, owner of 3 very popular free sex places for mature people in a mature game.

Actually, this discussion matters quite a bit. While a lot of the technological underpinnings of the AO continent are nailed down, there are still many, many decisions to be made around implementation and enforcement. These areas, as well as identifying possible features, functions, and areas of concern that we haven't thought about are critical for the success of the project. We've already received a tremendous amount of feedback in this regard, so many many thanks.

We are given to understand that this is *not* a precursor to resolving the question of how to fix the Teen Grid. Perhaps some find this reassuring, but I don't see it that way.

Suppose we "fix" the Adult Content problem tomorrow, and then six months from now we discover that the Teen Grid solution requires doing something completely different.

What if then the right answer is a separate, super-pure "G"-rated environment for teens, institutions, corporate presences, etc.?

Will the remaining non-Adult Mainland have to be further downgraded to G at that point?

Or will there be yet another segregated continent? With this approach, how many hyperfine gradations of purity will we ultimately need, each with its own separate set of sims?

(Can it really be that LL hasn't thought about this?)

Oh, please.

This is nothing more than a PR spin exercise. More and more evidence is mounting that this has been well-planned for some time now, and all we are doing for you is helping you polish a steaming mound.

Many hard questions have been asked, and the only things coming from LL throughout FIVE threads are nebulosity and confirmation of the situation, IF indeed any answers have come at all.

This is just another iteration of the same "PR sell" you all used to push the OpenSpace changes. "Oh, but we're listening!" Maybe you are hearing, but there's no indication here that you are really listening and considering what we are saying. If you really cared about your residents, you would have included them BEFORE you made these decisions.

Answer the questions, especially the hard ones. Because, if you can't, then it is simply more proof that this is just PR fluff.

Stop insulting our intelligence here by pretending that any of this matters.

I am the owner of FurNation Alpha, Vista, and Hell. Prior owner of FurNation Skunk Forest, Lake, Meadows, and Chronos which have been condensed and given away because I could not afford the increase on the four openspaces. Linden Labs had screwed me over with that one. Thanks again.

Now I am hearing this Age Verification thing again that will outright destroy the current Mainland and I am being told I will be FORCED to move to a new Adult Mainland because I am an animator selling sex animations. Also my sims will be forced to do the same having to list Adult content which will have to be Age Verified to do so.

Terrific. So how many people will want to share their Drivers liscence, credit card information, Social Security or Social Insurance card info, or any other form of personal identification. The point is anonymity not to be told you can't go here or you can't go there. On top of that how is Linden Labs going to compensate me in the forced move to the Adult Mainland? Are they going to give me the space free Meter for meter or are we going to have to spend more money and then try and sell land that will be worthless. I know for one I will not stand for the latter choice and I don't want to move. My customers know where I am and they would be confused if I had to move.

I have had my shop on the mainland for two years always in the same place and Ihave spent a considerable effort in making sure I point traffic there. Now I will have to be told Sorry for all the work and money spent but you have to go here now? How is Linden Labs going to compensate me for that? They're not. So what would I do? I have not come to that choice but I have been weighing options.

This decision to move forward with age verification is going to kill Second Life entirely. Have they learned nothing from the epic disaster that followed the casino's leaving and thus dropping their numbers and then the Openspace scandal that they are now trying to hide the deep aftermath of that shrunk the size of the grid like water under a heat lamp.

Mature and PG sims have worked up until now. If some moron goes to a mature sim and gets upset for seeing Mature material then too effing bad for them. They ought to stay to the PG sims then. No sex there. Hell I have been diciplined by a Linden once before when a sim crashed and I logged back on to find myself forced into a PM sim and I was not in appropriate attire. (Actually at the time I was unclothed) I left immediately and explained the situation and at that time I was told there was a fix coming it that would see what type of sim you crashed in and in that off chance you get logged in at a telehub, it would be a mature one if you punted from a mature sim. But nooooo that's not happened and this was THREE YEARS AGO.

The Lab needs to think before they start taking drastic actions like this. And they best not follow through with this decision.

But then again the last time we all protested the Lab ignored us so they will likely ignore us again. Though it is HIGHLY advised they do not.

How about customiseble height for the boundary, adjustable for each parcel. Some people only want to stop people accessing the first 50m's of their land, and others have skyboxes going up to 4k height (thus making flying there not possible anyway).

So maybe just have a slider setting the height the ban lines go up to should be an option. And really there is no such thing as 'too high' if you don't own the land, and it belongs to someone else, because it's their land and who enters it, is up to them.

Qie, that's a common issue in the Lab. I notice that none of the concerns I voiced as someone who actually panders to the educators they're using as an excuse in this instance were even discussed despite a Linden being here to pick and choose which posts get a response based on which are least likely to turn into political antimatter when a junior Linden answers in a fashion that does not agree with the senior Linden's party line. I honestly thought we were beyond these sorts of moral crusades when Robin left the Lab, but it seems I was critically mistaken.

Linden Lab, I would like one of your mouthpieces floating from palatable post to palatable post to answer me here, in simple and unabridged language, from a four year resident veteran of Linden projects such as SLTV, your own current SL-DEV project, and prior private-meetings with "FIC" community founders Linden-to-resident in person, to a Linden respondant. Even mediocre legal counsel would tell you that a service provider is not directly responsible for the actions of their users when it is clearly demonstrable that the service provider does not have omniscient control over their users and their content. Yet all the same, you want to willingly and voluntarily commit to an endeavour destined to fail, in controlling this content, thus opening up legal avenues for a zealous nut to pursue you for "not doing enough" in any case regardless, with an actual avenue to do so (Insufficient measures). Act as a service provider and not police, before it's too late.

ISPs do NOT get sued over pornographic content; Parents get stern warnings for not having a net nanny, and laughed out of court. I've said it prior that not one of my pristine, pure, corporate and educational clients have objected at all to adult content; Some of them even embraced it, putting in meet-and-greet areas for people to socially network. I can tell you from direct firsthand experience as a corporate and educational service provider that damaging the user base of Second Life (And this will, -heavily-, based on prior trends. I know one particular four year old community numbering 15 sims that this move will decimate), will have a profound ripple effect on your beloved corporate clients. No userbase, no incentive, they all retreat to the other worlds which are now slowly making you far less of a monopoly. When they go, my livelihood will have to follow them. As will my own paid class 5 estate which I ate the price increase on for even more piss-poor service than I can ever remember getting back in 2005 when I co-founded FurNation.

Rethink, Lindens. And genuinely discuss. Suspend all changes for six months. And put it to your residents to decide. Revolutionize your process... and hold a referendum.

Inasmuch as this thread is supposed to be about motivations and goals, I've not seen any other expression of what motivates this change, other than:
So, pursuant to the stated purpose of this thread, is there any quantitative or other objective data that substantiates this claim?

(Okay, I'll even settle for subjective: If this is all because Mitch wishes it were so, then let's know that's what's behind it.)

We cant police what people do 24 hours a day. If someone wants to get jolly in the middle of my store they can. Nothing I can do about it.

By simply facilitating 'adult' activity (that I am powerless to stop) am I to be exiled and forced to loose business as a result?

THIS is where the problem lays in fact! The permanent attempt from the side of LL and of some SL players to consider SL as a "family friendly" game, which a game like SL , can simply NOT BE from a legal point of view. You should NOT feel comfortable having your kid watch SL content because SL is rated 18+ and your kid is not 18+. No mater if you think you can "censure" your kid's access to this MATURE game , allowing an underage person to view mature content is against the laws of most civilized countries. It's like allowing your child to watch a 18+ rated movie on TV with you. I repeat , SL can NOT be a "family game" , not for families that include minors. It can either be a game for children or a game for adults, but it can NOT be both because that would be against the laws of real life! And at this time SL is rated 18+ ALLOVER the main grid! So children should be kept away from computers at ALL times when playing SL. Everything else is simply illegal.

Mony Lindman