Possible Solution to Alt Accounts

*This idea was originally posted Sunday afternoon. I've reposted since it was not reposted after the roll-back.*

I for one think that granting open access to Second Life is a good thing. People should be able to try it out without a credit card. For content creators, socialites, etc., the more people we have in world, the better. Of course, there are some bad things that have come along without requiring credit cards.

- kids are pretending to be adults. (nothing new here, but without the credit card requirement, it's much easier.

- it's too easy to get banned and come back as another AV and grief some more.

To keep SL open but remove the problems listed above, I would propose the following 3-tier system:

Free Accounts: Cost nothing. AVs are able to enjoy the world but are not able to do the following:
- own land
- own / carry / wear / create any scripted items (no scripts, no guns)
- enter a mature area. it's PG only for these AVs

Basic Accounts: One time cost of $9.95. These AVs can do everything except:
- own land

Premium Accounts: Same as they are now.

Maybe not a perfect solution, but it does slow down the majority of troublemakers who want to jump in, grief, get banned, come back. This post is merely to start discussion. If you can further the idea, post your suggestions....

My one problem with this:

I have an alt. I have scripted attachments.

Would this be retroactive? Would I suddenly lose my scripted attachments?

The idea of them not being able to own / wear scripted items also means they would not have things like Xcite! Products.

As far as charging for the basic account, I don't know. It makes some sense, I think, though.

Love & Friendship & Blessed Be!
Lynn Kukulcan

Good question. I wouldn't have a problem with current, "unverified" accounts being able to use scripted items (if they were using them inappropriately, they would get banned); however, I think that you should have to provide a credit card to enter the mature regions.

With the MySpace.com lawsuit last week, I'd guess LL is at least mindful that there is always someone ready to sue.

While I like the overall thrust of what you're thinking here, JohnT, SL scripts are like "dual use" WMDs. They could be a barrel of pesticide to control mosquitos, or they could be the first ingredient for VS gas. There are so many good uses for scripts, like the much-maligned llPushObject function. If LL is going to fine-tune grief control, there has to be more granularity to the functions griefers use for their misbehavior -- and users should be able to turn off Push so that griefers can't push anyone who doesn't want to be pushed.

Bottom line: why nerf a function that has good use just because a few people misuse it?

For every griefer there are going to be scores of new, unverified users who might try out the building and scripting functions before they sign up for a premium account. I don't want to make free accounts totally worthless, but I do like the idea of limiting them to PG areas.


I would go one step further. Now that you can get an SL account for free, what exactly is the motivation to get a Basic? If LL implements verification the way they've talked, it would be enough to simply buy some $L on Lindex to become verified. Why pay $10 a month when there isn't even a stipend any more? I could see them doing away with Basic accounts completely and just make "Free" the new Basic.


I'm ready to see what tools we're given to cope with griefers but mostly also to protect ourselves in mature areas from underage kids. Adding verification and an LSL parameter that can check for verification is a good starting point to allowing adult communities and private sims control over who can access their areas.

Free basic accounts should *only* be considered as a trial account, and a simple inexpensive one-off fee to "unlock" further features would indeed solve many problems.

As has been said before, if you can afford high speed internet and a good spec computer... $10 for a one off fee shouldn't really be an issue.

Lewis

Should be retroactive to classify all free accounts created after 6/6/06 this way. If they don't want to be in this status, they can provide verified ID and buy something!

Perhaps limit this status to a 90-day trial period. If they haven't bought at least some L$ by then, they are not likely to really participate at all.

Can't own land: Fully agreed!

No scripts: There are a few other things that not being able to use scripted items would kill, like they couldn't use vehicles, and they couldn't use 'Tiny' Avatars. But most would be nothing they couldn't live without for a while. But would they be able to interact with pose balls? If yes, there is no protection against minors using sex balls. But if no, an awful lot of the furniture, dancing, and other things won't work normally for them. They would at least have to be able to do the scripted nimations from the LL Library, or they won't even be able to walk or sit down!

Can't enter mature areas: Your last point has several major holes in it. "Mature" areas are not a solid continent of land, walled off from the rest of the grid. They are a patchwork of whole sims and individual parcels, scattered almost completely at random around the grid. In almost every case I can imagine on the mainland, any "Mature" rated parcel has PG-rated land (including Linden-owned 'protected land') close enough to it that a minor could stand in that PG space and mouse their camera deep into the nastiest parts of the Mature sim. Ban lines, security orbs and the like do nothing to prevent that sort of intrusion. So the only Mature places where your last point would be at all valid will be island sims that are not contiguous with ANY PG-rated lands, nor close enough to look into them from any nearby but not attached sims (diagonal corner connections or one-sim breaks).

With a complete lack of active verification of age, all unverified accounts would need to be completely unable to render or interact with Mature sims and Parcels in any way. That would make for an incredibly odd landscape, as they repeatedly get bounced off of ban lines that appear to be protecting nothing at all.

Furthermore, what's to prevent an unverified account that is actually a child from meeting up with adults on PG rated land? Any verified adult could be carrying a huge array of pose balls and other things that a child should not see. And even in PG rated sims, it's usually legal to conduct mature relations in non-public spaces.



That, or just provide verification of age, and purchase something. Let's say the initial $9.95 USD fee also purchases them a number of Linden $ at the current market rate? Pre 6/6/06 basic accounts should automaticly get placed in this status. Post 6/6/06 accounts can buy this status by at least providing verified ID (credit card info OR any other valid age check that LL is willing to process. As far as I am concerned, a mailed in picture of a photo ID would do!)



Agreed.

Well, LL has come up with a partial solution for being able to effectively ban people, but in essence, they are banning households. I'm mostly cool with that. Sure there will be problems with people who share computers, but how many public places have computers even capable of playing SL (I'm sure some people will enlighten me here).

I am, however, more than not excited about the caste system being created. I don't care if an AV has paid or not., and I'd prefer that no one else know that I have.

There has to be better ways to fix our problems....

if your willing to verify it why wouldn't you be able to keep it?

biggest solution to all this crap, have it like the online casino's. everyone should email/fax their id. those who do verify get to play those who don't the bye bye
simple as that no?

NO on this account. You would lose people like me who came in on a free account, experimented with building and scripting, then moved on to premium.

The proposed solution will stop griefing to some extent, but will also disenfranchise possible new content creators who want to test the water. You already know from Philip's anniversary statement how so many people (a lot of them probably good) turned away when presented with the request for ID. What more if you charge outright?

It makes sense to demand payment up front for pre-made content, as it's the case in MMOGs like WoW. But if you want to entice *creators* to come aboard, demanding payment is not a very good idea. They'll take their creative talents elsewhere.

Besides, like you can't stop a determined carnapper, you can't stop a determined griefer. In the meantime you will scare away the people you most want in SL ... fresh content creators.

The issue of griefing has to be addressed at the source, which is how the functions are used. Verification and payment form no filter against griefers, not by a long shot. There are griefers who pay large amounts to cause grief.

A very nice piece of writing! But since Sl is more mature then PG i don`t this plan will work. Parts of this idea are worth a look I believe and should be given a lookie by those incharge.......Lets hope someone hears you

Good Luck
Usagi

The soultion is actually easier -

Go back to the verified system for everyone.

Do not make it retroactive-

Dont penalize people who got in under the non verified system.

Dont make SL a system where people can identify who pays and who doesnt.

Hey, maybe something like this is a good solution.


Hardware Identification
The Privacy Policy now points out that if you install Second Life software we'll be collecting information about your computer. The point here is to allow us to verify a unique identity and therefore better contain griefing by multiple accounts from one system. This information will not be available to non-Linden employees, and will only be available to Linden employees in an encrypted ("hashed" format.

Hey yeah that looks pretty good. Why can't we do this and not have to "mark" people publically?

as im aware, the two are not codependant on one another