How do you feel about the new registration system?

tka a chll pil and cybr pnadnastorng farpaly and I cood hav big big loot pls?

It's sad, but I think you are right. Abuse reports were only marginally effective in the past (it took about 6 abuse reports AND a forum thread to get death threats removed from someone's profile who was stalking a friend of mine, for example). I read Daniel's blog entry, and it is all well and good, but it is just completely and utterly unrealistic. If someone doesn't want to use a credit card, good riddance, honestly. Go play TSO or something. Between zero liability policies by credit card companies and the easy ability to get disposeable cards, not wanting to give your credit card number is just stupid, and certainly no justification for LL opening up the floodgates like this.

I have always been fairly supportive of LL, but lately, I feel like I am in the Twilight Zone - some of the stuff they are doing, from the ridiculous way they handle these forums to this brilliant new authentication scheme just makes me think something is seriously wrong in the offices of LL. From the moment I read the quote of Cory Linden about SL beating World of Warcraft's numbers, I knew we were doomed.

Maybe a chill pill, a few bottles of prozak and some pain killers should be available in the library. If residents are going to have to deal with this on their own, we're going to need something to get us by.

u frgot a h in ur name

just five minutes ago, withholding names of course, but a few of us just saw this interaction take place on the Luskwood platform:

Newbie1: is there an age limit for this game?
Me: Yes, you have to be over 18, or go to the Teen Grid.
Newbie2: You have to be 18+ to get into the Mature areas but they don't check.
Newbie1: lol I know i've been to them
Newbie1: kinda fun
Newbie3: (with gun) are u redy 4 a duel?
Newbie2: Just dont let them know nobody checks its cool
Luskwood regular: Actually the entire place is 18+, if you're under 18 you should be on the teen grid.
Newbie1: lol most of the places are mature yeah!
Newbie3 (shoots at 1 and 2)
Newbie1: lol wahtever
Newbie2: They dont check.
(Newbie 4 in a car drives over me and pushes several of us off the platform.)



... that about sums up the New SL.

For an environment like Second Life to become the future way we use the Internet then the whole idea of having to provide credit card details etc. for age verification just doesn't hold any water. It may have come before the tools to deal with it are adequate enough, but in reality it's what's needed to really make something of the world.

Oh, and as a content creator, I'm all for something that brings in lots and lots more people. Sure, you get jerks, but then you get jerks everywhere on the Internet. Second Life can't exist in a bubble of perfect behaviour - to do that would mean closing the doors and dying away.

And yes, I'm aware this view is in the minority and it's different to how I first viewed the changes but, in all honesty, a bit of extra griefing is worth the growth both for the system as a whole and myself as an individual.

pnanadastrung wul saved us.

And they're in the forums, too.

pwneed

Awful idea!

I do see your point Moopf. It's just somehow so much more personal when you have an avatar in front of you calling you every name in the book. The mute button is an invaluable tool, but I think at this point, we're going to need more. Ejecting someone from your land sometimes means that they're still only a few meters away.

yes, Michi:



/me gets his hate on

MM

Moopf, I really do hope you are correct, and that we have grabbed up our pitchforks prematurely. Maybe it will all settle down. We can hope- but that's about all we can do.

y wood LL hvae open regstraton if thye donot like me?

they luvme and made me

Yes, I know it's uncomfortable when it happens, it's happened to me quite a few times in the years I've been here. As I said in my first post, the tools are more than likely inadequate currently and that will need to change. But a good way to get the man-power to add those facilities is to get people through the door either eventually paying directly, or paying to rent, or paying for goods leading to LindeX transactions etc.

Moopf, while I agree this is a wonderful long term goal, the tools are not in place or available to make this kind of change overnight and on a whim. There are about three thousand small-to-medium size steps that would be required to get from where we are today as builders, to the equipvalent amount of tools available to a webmaster. This ain't the time, and it's not yet the place, to open the floodgates.

Regards,

-Flip

This is what I was wondering. Although the new system seems fraught with problems and pitfalls, I do wonder how so many people reconcile the desire for an open ended metaverse with the kind of controls on access many of us want or need. If SL ever becomes the stepping stone to a true metaverse, we're going to have griefers galore.

Something to chew on.

I just feel it's something that has to happen to allow Second Life to thrive. It may be messy to start with, and I can understand why people think it's a bad idea because of that, but I'm sure in the long run it will be for the benefit of everybody here, be it to run a business, to be social, to play games or to learn etc.

I think we're all in agreement here, Moopf... but here are two problems I have:

(1) Proper privacy controls should have been put in BEFORE P2P teleporting. They still haven't gotten around to ANYTHING decent for mainlanders.
(2) The new group tools & shared banned lists & the ability to ban an avatar, and also have it ban his IP address and MAC address from your land should have put in BEFORE they opened the floodgates of registration.

It seems sometimes Linden Lab wants the attention from the press release, so they throw an easy, overnight, increase the numbers change out there without giving a damn about the tools to manage these things for existing residents. While Daniel's claming abuse reports are dandy, they're not: they're ineffective, slow, take weeks, and are a completely unscalable solution. Looking at them for data is like reading tea leaves.

Regards,

-Flip

I know what you're saying Flip, I really do. But as I know you understand the way things work in the real world, surely you must also realise that there are times when the cart has to come before the horse due to business pressures. It may not be in the best interests of everybody here to do it now but it is in the interests of Linden Lab and the platform, and it's a decision most likely made through need or opportunity rather than it being in the best short term interests to the community per se.

If the shit hits the fans, those tools will quickly appear. They're good at fighting fire - you often have to be as a small-ish company.

I think it's about much more than the money, though (and I realize LL disagrees with that).

By removing constraints on registration, LL has not only let in people with NO investment in seeing Second Life become a better world. They've also given the sociopathic among us a new way of dodging the weak controls that were in place in the first place, and they've opened the door to underage kids getting to the mature content. If anyone doesn't think that could be a problem, think "Jack Thompson" or "Hillary Clinton", both of whom have used "protecting children from porn" as a political drum. Think of the Congressional hearings and the FBI stings that have been inspired by nothing more than AOL teen chat rooms. Now do a quick Find on the word "sex" in world and tell me how many pages are returned.

Then ask yourself: What has LL done to open themselves and their subscribers to legal problems and, at the very least, a bad image?

Mark my words. The day's not far off when an escort at some major club will hit the front page of your local newspaper because her parents found out their 14-year old daughter was a cyber-prostitute. It happened in TSO, it's happening in SL, and the new registration just makes it easier. It won't be pretty for Linden Labs OR for Second life.

Some of us have been desperately begging for these tools since well, well before this change happened. We were barely above water before, now we're drowning.

Ask the folks at The Shelter, they'll say the same.

It's becoming unmanageable.

When you put the horse before the cart, bad things tend to happen. You might actually be right, it might actually be the right thing to do, however, I'm going to have to stick to my guns in that it was done...


...in the wrong order.

I think it's much more than money that's motivated this as well. I think a huge part of this is trying to really establish the platform before a competitor comes along. Profit or not at the minute, if somebody gets the march on LL, it'll never work for them.

Often it takes something considerable to focus the minds of those who are flying from idea to idea all the time, which is always the impression I've had from Linden Lab. This is probably the best thing that could happen in order for you to get the tools you actually want - if it really does get out of control they'll do something and they'll do it quickly.

Like I said, it may be messy for a while, but there'll be light at the end of the tunnel. Well, I think so anyway