SL must be careful to protect ethics on the web

seems you have a bit of a guilty conscience.. but anyway.. I did explain that what I said was over the top but deliberately because I was trying to get people to listen to what I was saying.

I don't care about what you chose to do with your second life.. I care about the needless anonymity being allowed by LL who are just looking to get the best statistics possible by making the system needlessly easy to access.

Do what you want my (obviously) chubby little friend.

p.s. you're a group of people living virtual lives.. no offence but i've got better things to do with my time than make you 'like' me hah. It's nice that you care about what people think about me though i'm touched (not bad touch though I would never suggest that you're the kind of person that would do that.. would I?)

Here's a suggestion, don't reply if you don't understand (which you clearly don't). Simple as that.

Also - criticising me for putting my opinion in the topic of MY post is a little bizarre. What exactly is the point of saying anything on a forum if you don't have an opinion?

You might also want to read the start of this post where I clearly state that I "want to know what others think". Whilst I still do.. I'm not willing to sit here wasting my time having circular arguments with people who obviously haven't actually read what I've written saying stuff like "its not our job to nanny children" or "we wont censor SL!".

Can you PLEASE read the WHOLE post before making comments like that, I know it must be important for you to feel like your fighting for your internet bredren but sometimes you just need to take that extra time to actually check your facts and not make sweeping statements based on nothing more than what you THOUGHT I was saying and not what i WAS saying.

k?

can someone who doesn't agree with that tell me why they don't please rather than take the easy option by pretending to care what I think about them in order to avoid giving a decent explination as to why what I have said is wrong. (thanks)

SL sex > RL sex

I voted No because what you're asking for doesn't exist with CC verification. I believe you're asking for a way to verify someone's age: are they over eighteen? Simple as that, yes?

In other words, you're asking for a mild version of Proof of Identity. Consider RL and allowing people into nightclubs and bars. The only thing that will get you through the door is a photo ID--and even then, there are ways to make fake ID's. Many legal situations require two photo IDs, such as a driver's licence and passport. While some places and situations do allow a credit card as a second form of ID, the first is always some form of photo ID. Consider all the ways US driver's licenses have changed over the years to help prevent the forging of IDs.

While I agree that CC verification is a good indication that someone is probably over eighteen, the people you're concerned with most--older teens, the borderline child/adult--can easily circumvent any CC verification needed to enter SL as an adult.

I didn't vote Yes on your poll because CC verification is not capable of, and not designed for, doing what you ask. CC verification is a false sense of security, if you will, and provides nothing in the way of a guarantee as to the person's SL age.

For now, on the internet in a game like SL, you must trust your gut when you converse with someone as to their approximate age and go with it. Maybe some day something will be invented to truly verify a person's identitiy on the internet. Unfortunately, having access to a CC number is not it.

mookid.... taking away the CC verification bugged me and worried me a lot too, hell I even tried protesting. It didn't work, it's over. The whole issue is moot. LL is not a democracy, they are a corporation and the corporate big wigs have made their decision, end of story.

My arguement when trying to change their minds was that the CCs helped keep more children out of SL and I still believe that because something is better than nothing. But lets be honest, it never did keep all of them out. Kids still found ways around it and they still needed to be dealt with. The only thing that has changed now is that we have more of the dumber kids who wouldn't have gotten in otherwise. While I still feel LL made a mistake, I said my piece, there's nothing more to be done now, it's their choice.


No you're not. You can argue until you're either blue in the face, or like me you move on. You're not going to stop anything unless you can buy up the company? Can you? Because thats who has the power, these are business owners not politicians.

Now, I have to say even I am having some issues with your arguments.


As a parent and even as an advocate for protecting children, I disagree with this statement. Children are exposed to sexuality as part of the growing up process. If you keep them completely isolated from it you create adults who either view their own sexuality as something perverse and ugly or you create promiscous teenagers who are really only trying to understand the part of themselves you've denied them.
I don't let my daughter play SL and I didn't let my son read Hustler, but sexuality in general was never something I hid from them.


Sure they can. I do, always have. I agree not all parents do and I agree the rest of us should remember that and be watchful for both the kids sake and our own. But parents absolutely CAN and more SHOULD. Then the rest of us could maybe relax a little more.

Being judgemental and critical of your audience is always the way to win an arguement.


A) What internet are you using?!
B) So SL is mostly populated by perves? Hmm we must be traveling different circles. As normal sexually healthy adults we have our pervy moments But once again... a bit judgmental ya think?


Ok...
* You're beating a dead horse, long dead, decaying even.
* You can not run LL and make decisions for them. You can tell them what you think, as some of us tried to do, but the decisions are theirs and once they are made you have no say in the matter.
* Even I believe that as human beings and adults we have a responsibility to be cautious about our adult activities and protect children who are not being properly protected. But there is a point where you draw the line and say "ok, I tried, but this is not my child, the responsibility in the end lies on the parent's shoulders."
* You are not advocating merely protecting children from pedophiles. You are demanding LL protect children from all forms of sexuality and that is where you and I disagree. You can not dictate your own morality on other people.

This statement...the one you are basing your entire arguement on is patently false.

I have been in SL for two years now. Until a short few weeks ago, SL has always had credit card verification. Yet, despite your Holy Grail of False Security, there were always teen in Second Life, as anyone who has been here for any length of time can attest. There has always been a need to watch for underage residents who have bypassed the rules and ToS and entered SL main grid regardless. There has always been a need for reseidents to report those teens and for LL to investigate the claim and remove those found to be here against the rules to the teen grid. This has always been the case, even for three years of credit card verification. Thus, your statement is incorrect and your arguement fails.

Stop for two seconds and think...every single MMORPG out today requires and always has required a Credit Card to register and play. Ultima Online, Everquest, Dark Age of Camelot, Star Wars Galaxies, World of Warcraft and all the rest. And yet, despite credit card verification being required...those games are full of teen agers under 18. Explain to me exactly how that can happen if simply requiring a credit card to register is supposed to ensure for certain (as you and so many claim) that the account user is an adult?

You are labouring under a totally false premise. The false premise that anyone who gives a credit card number to a website to register for a game or service like WoW or SL is the person whose name is on the credit card. Yes...most credit cards are owned by adults. But many, many, many children have access to the credit cards of their parents or relatives simply by saying, "Hey, I need the card for a second to register for this game." Credit card verification is not gonna keep teens out of the main grid...and it never did before.

I agree with you, Mookid.

coco

I think the point is that when a credit card is used, there is an adult legally responsible for the use of that credit card somewhere, and presumably that adult has given permission for the card to be used on those sites. LL's ToS for the MG do state that it is adults only (though not clearly enough in my opinion), so the adult responsible for using the credit card should be able to read that and decide whether or not to continue.

WoW and similar games are PG, labelled as such, and equally the adult responsible makes a decision based on that label.

In neither case does the credit card absolutely show proof of age. But legally, it transfers responsibility for allowing a child onto an adults zone from LL (or the content creator as things look like heading), and over to teh adult who authorised teh credit card transaction.

If your talking credit cards as a form of keeping underagers out, it does work more often than not. A kid who sneaks his parents card info is slick enough to hide the SL desktop shortcut and stowe the program under the radar so mom and pop dont see its installation. Your not gonna stop that kid from hitting the whorehouses and cybering with the 'fat blokes' wearing a Jessica Simpson avie. But for the rest of em, the only ones with credit cards are the ones who mom decided needed a card for some purpose or another, and those are few and far between. This doesnt mean someone without a card is underage. As its been stated in several forums, getting a credit card isnt a simple thing to do in other countries, and not everybody has established good enough credit here in the USA to grab one. If you need a card but your credit sucks, try one of the banks that offer a collateralized credit card. You desposit some cash, and get an actual VISA/MASTERCARD that you can use for CC transactions. The catch is that you can only use the card upto the limit of your deposit. As you use the card and and pay off your balence each month, your credit score goes up. And before you know it you'll be getting offers from the regular banks offering you more credit cards. Then you can abuse your creditworthyness, buy too much stuff you cant afford, and fall into the downword spiral of financial despair. But at least nobody will accuse you of being a kid on SL.

Credit cards are no proof of adulthood. It just weeds out the less capable kids.

I disagree with you - and voted no - because my rights as an adult should not be unduly curtailed because someone has abrogated their responsibility to their children. I am responsible for my children, and those children that I /choose to be beholden to/, and solely those children. I am not responsible for yours, and I would not ask you to be responsible for mine.

That's not what we're here for. We're here for an /adult/ experience. If I wanted to hang out with kids, there're plenty in the room I used to frequent in Yahoo.

I will take certain precautions, but after a point, I refuse to let your inability to care for your kids make my *adult life* less enjoyable.

Jopsy is absolutely correct. If you can't trust your kids not to get into deep shit on the internet, you need to keep it out of your house; if you view a pixellated penis as that dangerous, then you should take the same precautions against your unprepared child from seeing it as you would with a loaded gun.

And yes, I'm aware of how amusing that analogy is.

Well, the world just doesn't work that way. The world does expect entities to take reasonable precautions against providing adult content to minors.

What's happening here is WE will be the legally responsible entities, not LL.

LL is not going to be responsible for what happens to minors under your auspices. They have passed that buck on down the line to us. That's why we now have the caste system.

They will let teenagers (and children) in here by the droves, and agree only to kick them out when found. They will not be responsible for any adult content these minors run into. We will be.

Because they are also providing US with the accepted way to prevent minors from accessing our content: We will be expected to use the tools they once used (the verified/non-verified status) to refuse admittance to our adult areas to anyone who is unverified, and to protect ourselves from lawsuits.

If you provide anything in the way of adult content or activities and you don't do this, then when push-comes-to-shove lawsuit time, it will be you who is held liable, not LL.

Ignore the verified/nonverified categories only at your own peril.

If something happens under your auspices to a minor, the courts aren't going to care about whether or not they thought the parents took enough precautions. They are only going to care about whether you did. And I do mean you. Not LL.

coco

(Great 'loaded' analogy! )

Warp little Billy's mind? how? when he gets older he's not going to know what to do with a woman and will be messed up in the head even more because he has no idea how to behave around women. You basicly over-shelter him and then he has no idea how to react when confronted with the situation.

At the age of 8 I read my dads playboys, and I'm no more messed up than a normal person. At least I know what to do with a woman after we're married.


You over-sanitize the whole world and you will stop the growth of humanity, especialy in the procreation department. Your over-conservitisim and reliance on religion is hurting humanity more than it helps.

Shielding little Billy from it isn't going to fix the problem, helping him understand it better will help him deal with it much more effectivly. And then when he's older he won't be so confused.

So tell me mr. right wing, exactly what are you saving the children from? The ability to reproduce?

I'm non-partisan, so don't assume I'm liberal either.

If we are to use the verified status to exclude potential minors, LL needs to provide tools to not only prevent entry to parcels, but to prevent teh contents of those parcels (including avatars) from rezzing. little Lucy can just as easily be emotionally scarred from seeing the building fromn next door and maniulating the camera.

fair enough. I merely worry for children with parents who don't have the sense to take precautions mainly out of ignorance - they don't really know what goes on online... (yes there are parents that dont use the internet much but have kids that do. and no that is not you because you are reading this). The people I am speaking on behalf of have no idea about what SL is, to them it looks like a computer game.. This I feel is important in weighing up whether we do or do not have a responsibility towards helping them and ultimately their children.

I know alot of what I have said sounds like I think I know the 'right thing' or whatever but that's just how I am.. I'm still interested in what others think and why: I just don't express it right in prose . Sorry

I'm not questioning the morality of anyone in SL either.. I'm questioning the morality in leaving doors open to young children that COULD be closed.

Whatever people decide to do on SL is their business and I have no problems with it; although I suspect you may have attracted a fairly impressive collection of the world's horniest trekkies.. ¬_¬

Beam my up Scottie! (or whatever)

i'm not 'right wing' i'm much closer to the left. can you PLEASE explain how people exchanging chat lines whilst watching their computer show them 2 pieces of data interacting over the internet constitutes 'reproduction'. mate you're wrong in the head.

Most people would prefer not to teach their children about sexuality via playboy.. mainly because it's not actually sexuality; it's an extremely complex mixture of photography and money (pah, in your face). If your father had playboys then i would suggest that his sex life wasn't so great. So you may have been given some crappy tips over the years. no offence. (once again.. pah.). Sexuality is about a connection between 2 people not toilet seats and magazines.

I was going to go on but I think that's enough. I know you're wrong, you just don't see it because you're a someone that is actually aware that this technology exists and therefore there's nothing in it for you cos you won't lose out. I hope you're a politician... although that's fortunately not likely considering you've apparently branded me 'right wing'

Jopsy, I'm not here for the pornographic experience either; however, I do, occasionally, want to have a frank discussion about sexual things with friends. Consider it the whole "slumber party" thing.

Cocoanut, a minor I know of in the grid /is/ verified. I'm more than a little amused by the verified/unverified thing, because said minor has been in the grid for a very long time and fooled quite a few people. (Yes. Including me.)

Saying "ignore the verified/unverified status at your peril" would also mean one of my dearest friends would be rather, ah, screwed; he views his data as his own, and is leery of giving it to any third party.

Frankly? If anyone sued me because their so precious child came into contact with something adult in my store, I'd have to look into a civil countersuit for child neglect; my store is situated in a Mature rated zone and is on the Mature grid. Anyone whose minor child ventured there was apparently not being sufficiently supervised while engaging in risky activities.

It'd certainly be interesting.

I wish there was a way to verify that people weren't arrogant, condescending jerks before they entered the grid.

Of course, if the verification hit me on a bad day...

can you edit that with the new 'Sexuality is about a connection between 2 people not toilet seats and magazines.' line? thanks ever so much

Sexuality isn't something you can limit based on proximity, especially considering where your largest - okay, well, /mine/ - erogenous zone is.

Don't get all touchy.. I wasn't aware the word connection had anything to do with close proximity.. must be a guilty conscience eh?

No, and here's what I meant by "condescending asshole".