No kids in the real SL, EVER!

Hiro,

===Seperate Grid===
1) a second grid will require more support, as Nolan pointed out there is barely enough staff for one grid.... How many babysitters will be put into the second grid?

2) A second grid would be poacher paradise pure and simple. How do you stop a 35 year old pedophile from teaching joey and suzie how to do bad things?

3) And what if the majority of kids lose interest? sorry kids time to close shop, not enough of you pay. Or merge them? no thanks.

4) Will there be content restrictions on the second server? how is that monitored? we can upload ANYTHING, they will do the same...

5) it's okay to have bad ideas, just admit it.

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We do have a choice, if they are here now it is a TOS violation and the results are clear. Open a door that cannot be closed and you have problems. If there is a minor in SL and I were to find out about it I would report them immediately, and everyone else should do the same, mostly for their protection.

integrating children into this enviornment even 6, 12, 24, 48, 96 months down the road is a bad idea... this is a SECOND LIFE, and it's grown to be an adult life, which was it's intent at the onset. A child, minor, kid is not prepared for living in an adult world, most adults are not prepared either.

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Eggy, are you a pedo? integrated G sims are horrible horrible horrible ideas.... it just takes one instance and you can forget the minors buying $tuff because the whole ball of wax could be gone....

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So in summary -
Yes, Minors are here.
No, they shouldnt be here.
Why? For our protection and theirs.

Philip mentioned he would LIKE to see it. Guess what? I would like to see it rain money.

The only perfect world is Star Trek, and they have... oh wait... THAT'S FICTION. So until you find a cure for human nature lets just let the current rules stand....

So please, stop crusading for a bad idea unless you are a pedo, thanks.

You people just love going into a panicked frenzy whenever a linden shifts his weight around.
We have a lot of minors already and the world hasn't ended.
Not all minors are gun-toting lunatics who would spend the whole day griefing people.
In fact, the behavior you would probably see in the vast majority of "minors" wouldnt be much different from the rest of SL... hang out, chat about frivolous stuff like clothes, music, etc... and above all, BUY stuff
I wouldnt mind if LL experimented with a G-rated sim where a few minors would be allowed as a test.

Minors are already buying smokes, so let's just make a seperate brand for them.. 50% less nicotine and the nurse has to watch them all the time they are smoking.

The "it's already happening so let's make it legal" argument strikes me that way.

Oh.. and the argument that Avs in DisneySim should have non removable undies.. THERE has that.. and you can get the naked hack file...

Oh.. Anarchy Online too.. and you can get the naked hack..

don't ask me how I know =p

Surreal

P.S. there is one comedic possibility... 35 yr. old Pedo creates his "I'm just a cute 12 yr old" Av .. and ends up preying on 54 yr old Pedo with the "I'm an adorable 13 yr. old"

Valid questions.

1.
a. If minors are joining, that's more revenue. More revenue = more staff.
b. At the town hall meeting Linden Lab said 2 important things - first, that they will be hiring a bunch of people, second, that they may need to "give up some control" - I'm assuming to gov't or IEEE or something similar. This means additional funds and additional support.

2.
How do you stop poachers from coming to the main world? You really don't at all currently, other than relying on report abuse. At least in seperate sims you could do custom filtering and text screening to hunt some down. Would this be a little laggier? Yes, it would be 1 listen per sim. You prevent non-children from joining, check IP addresses and compare with adult accounts. You have children accounts tied to parents' credit card / personal info.

3.
That's silly. It's the same risk as with regular SL.

4.
Yes. Perhaps textures / sounds would have to be uploaded from approved sites. The whole second grid would also have to be seperate from SL so that kids couldn't hard-link object keys. There are programs out there already that do content filtering, so this sort of thing is available and possible.

Hiro, I seriously hope you are playing Devil's advocate here because, logically having minors legally in SL is a monumentally bad idea.

it really really is.

1 - You are basing your responce on number one on assumption. So, I can only respond with one I guess. I assume the extra staff being hired is to fill the places where they are already understaffed and not to add a content monitor for content minors are going to upload, and lets not forget if it's integrated how do we stop them from aquiring adult content from some other means? That job right there will take months of code, and long work hours to monitor it. Staff get paid, and increasing the staff... Well if there is the assumed funding it will go to pay new employees, the ones they needed as of like 1.4. Or they can just let kids into SL and spend this assumed money on lawyers instead.

2 - stopping poachers, you said it yourself you can't. Why invite children to a hazordous enviornment? I never went on a school field trip to a hazardous waste dump or a ciggarette factory, and there is a reason for that, Children shouldnt be exposed voluntarily to a bad scene. Children do a fine job of exposing themselves to dangerous situations all on their own, hence the ones that sneak in.

3 is silly?? Do you know what happened to Asheron's Call 2? It was 8 servers (grids) strong and the player support dropped off and servers got merged down to 4...

4 - I already addressed some of this under number 1. Basically, I dont want to introduce the idea of censorship at any level into SL. That is a can of worms that should not be opened. Second grid, first grid etc.

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Also revenue for a second grid... are we going to let little joey and suzy run rampant bidding on land and buy L$ on the GOM with mom and dad's credit card? Most revenue in SL comes from land ownership. Auctions and tier. No financial support for Second Grid... And it is a grid that would need WAY more work than SL does now. So where is the financial incentive? certainly this "expendable income group" gets an allowance right?

Linden Labs, a company that is in the business of making money on entertainment software, Realistically, How are they going to run a second server farm, pay double the amount of employees and make enough proffit for their employees families to live....... How will they do it by taking milk money from kids?

And lets say little johnny gets dad's visa platinum card and buys a sim.... Is Johnny liable? No, if kids are allowed in SL Linden Labs could be held accountable. Gone would be the "What was Johnny doing in an adult game" line.

It's a bad idea from a legal, financial and ethical standpoint and the more I think about it, and the more I hear your argument the more I realise : No minors in SL... EVER

I thought maybe yeah, eventually. But, no it cannot and should never be.

It would be nice to see, I do agree with Philip but as I said before it would also be nice to see it rain money. On paper, in theory, in a perfect world. but this is not a perfect world, and when dealing with humans you really need to take into account the worst of human nature when you design something that is supposed to be fool-proof.

the ONLY 2 ways this could ever work is if A) children suddenly become mature adults and can understand the adult world. or B) laws change and Children are treated as equals at any age. Simply put, if it happens in any form, bad things will follow.

Ferran, more good points, and yes, I'm playing Devil's advocate because I see this as an eventual inevitable that we need to prepare for. This kind of discussion hashes out some of the roadblocks in place that Linden Lab will have to hurdle to accomplish this.

...


As for your overall assumption. SL is becoming much much larger than we currently know it. As Linden Lab has officially declared its goal to be the Metaverse - namely, replace the Internet - we have to think very big and maybe we can address tough issues before they become lawsuits.

I dont live with my grandma, where on earth did you get that idea?
Me and mom did live with my grandparents when i was a kid though, is there anything wrong with that?
My idea about youth is that they are mostly shallow and boring people who love socializing, though they mostly talk about frivolous things like movies, bands, clothes, their daily lives, etc.
You know, exactly like most of the really old and supposedly mature people of SL

Eh, I'm pretty sure that there already are minors in here playing with mommy's Visa, but I no matter what have concerns regarding this. Nothing to do with "I like/don't like kids" or whatever, but more from a legal point of view, yes...

1. If a problem happens involving a minor, the minor won't be held responsible. Who'll have to take the blame then? Either LL or the parents. Which gets me to point 2:

2. Half of the parents WON'T take responsibility. If they let their kids on the comp all afternoon long without monitoring their actions and the kid goes on porn sites - and if this happens in an environment when they DO have the opportunity of blaming other people (i.e. happening in a public place... or with, say, an online game like SLinvolved?) - how much do you guys want to bet that said parents will try whatever they can to hold LL responsible? And it won't even necessarily be out of care for their pwecious widdle chyldrun - it'll be because they can make cash out of it!

And yes... We've seen weirdest things happen, and not only on the internet. I'm speaking of this kind of parents who'll sue the teacher for "sexual harrasment on their 4-years old" because the teacher accompanied said kid to the bathroom when he needed to take a pee (don't laugh, it happened in the village next to mine, and even was in the newspaper). This kind of parents who'll let their kids all afternoon long in a cyber-café to keep them busy, and then will attack the café's owner because the kid went on a 'bad' website. This kind of parents who use their kids as a convenient excuse to get what THEY want. And so on. Pessimistic, am I? Nope... just realistic. I see such people living next door to me IRL, why should I assume that things would go perfectly just because it's the internet? Well, I sure don't.

I'm aware that inevitably, there'd come a day when things would expand, and such. But if/when this happens... please, LL, cover your bottoms legally speaking. Add a hundred articles to your TOS or whatever, add a hundred of heavy restrictions to counteract every blame that could be laid because of kids' actions and parents trying to take advantage... but by all means, never let kids make the law in this game. Because it's what they'll do, whether they're aware of it or not, through parental action, the day something 'wrong' happens... *sighs*

Addendum: Nope, I don't trust kids in general to behave in a well-mannered way, especially when nobody's watching them. I was 14 too one day, I was a quiet and polite, well-behaved teenager according to what my parents and other 'grown-ups' were always saying... and yet 10 years later, I'm extremely aware of how childish I was, and of the stupid things I've done. I'm thus afraid of imagining what a NOT 'well-behaved' teen could/would do in such an environment. We can't count on exceptions to the rule here.

*facepalms*

I'm working on the kiddie version right now. I thought I'd do like a Happy Meal and toss in a cheap-ass toy with a Box of Joints.

- Ace

One legal complication that hasn't been mentioned up until now is the issue of the age of consent, which varies in different countries. I have seen an American woman who had cybersex with a seventeen year old called a 'pedophile', and yet in the UK that would be perfectly legal. Our age of consent is sixteen, except I believe for gay males, when it is eighteen. There is a movement currently to get that reduced.

I know that we are supposed to be working under American law, but I feel it would be very difficult and costly to get a successful prosecution for something that was not illegal in the place the 'perpetrator' lived.

And all-in-all, I think the idea of allowing minors is the most resoundingly bad suggestion I have heard since I have been in Second Life.

Just like everyone else, "no"

Just in case this "seperate grid" actually seriously gets considered:

1) I don't want under-agers to be able to IM me

2) I don't want under-agers to be able to buy/get a hold of anything I ever made. (ie. I don't want to provide tech support)

3) I don't even want to share the same currency. Maybe a L$ junior?

I hope "separate grid", means a wholly partitioned world, with no interaction between the two. I don't even want the ability to teleport into G sims. If I want to log into a G sim, I want to have to log out, and log back in as a "G" account.

(read: I am never ever going to log in as a G account)

Consensual sex of any form between two fertile members of the human race should never be regulated by any church or state. Life is all about breeding. It's an instinct. Birds do it, bees do it. Why not bloody teenagers? Sex shouldnt be hidden from the younger ones. They're gonna go and do it, anyway, its best to be informed about all the potential consequences, like babies, AIDS and other STDs

Well, I personally know quite a few people under 18 which are far more mature than people I meet in SecondLife. There's a lot of people in SecondLife now, that I'd rather not IM me..

But, nothing wrong with having Kid Sims?

There would have to be

a) a very very smart filter on all chatting, including a warning that all chats are recorded

b) a review of all uploaded textures.

Though still, you could probably do some wrong things with prims. Not sure how they're going to regulate that..

As for getting IMd, I would really really like an option not even to show up on the "Search Online" list. Anyone who wants to contact me needs to use a calling card.

Some people are ready to reproduce at 7 or 8. Does this mean they're mature enough to deal with a 40 year old sleazebag posing as a 14 year old girl for the purpose of pleasing his sick fantasies? Obviously not. So where do you draw the line? What age? Conveniently, federal laws have already done that, picked an age where the majority of people are at least mature enough to deal with the platitude of nuances and consequences of a sexual encounter.
...
Personally, I feel a majority of people still aren't ready at 18. /shrug

I think there are probably many good arguments to be made for and against having kids in SL. I have two small children myself, and one of the reasons I spend time in SL is precisely because it doesn't (officially) allow minors. As a stay-at-home mom, I spend most of my day with kids, I don't need to babysit other peoples' kids during my recreational time, as well.

I have been tempted to allow my Lego-crazed, five year old son to play with the building tools in SL, on my own land in the middle of a PG sim (with me sitting right behind him in RL). There are three reasons I don't do it: 1) It's still a violation of the TOS; 2) I might still get him into a situation that I can't control and that would be upsetting; and 3) He might nag me to play with SL all the time after he'd tried it once.

I sincerely hope that if minors are allowed to use SL, that it would be on a separate grid from the adult-sanctioned one. Even better, maybe LL should take the high road with this idea and market a SL-like world to some sort of educational entity. I think there are many practical, educational uses for the tools in SL. I know that my son's (public school) kindergarten teacher has a computer at her desk in the classroom now, I think it's just a matter of time before there are computers at each student's desk.

Selador also brings up a fascinating point regarding ages of consent. However, it's even worse in the US where each state can set its own age of consent, and they can be different for males and females. Does LL really want to worry about policing all that, on a daily basis, and all the legal headaches that would incur? It seems to me like a major hassle.

are we (or is philip linden) talking about 16 years olds? or 8 year olds? cuz there's worlds difference between the two. 6 to 12 year olds with separate grids or sims, supervised, would react to this as a learning experience, and that goes along with ll's announced intention to bring sl into the realm of education.

16 year olds want structured, competitive online game environments. that's possible here, too, in separate, supervised grids or restricted sims.

i think everyone is reacting too strongly without enough information. if the lindens are thinking of unloosing unsupervised 6-16 year olds on the sl grid, they're insane. And they're not insane.

I passionately disagree. I do not think we are over-reacting. Many of us have put way to much time, energy and money into the creation of this world to have it compromised by allowing kids on the grid. This is the appropriate response.

I am opposed to both allowing kids onto the main grid and creating a separate grid.

NO KIDS IN SECOND LIFE. NO COMPROMISE!

I could agree with it if it could eliminate travel between the grids. No adult to kid grids, no kid to adult grids.

Philip, you have finally done what i have always wanted to do, you pissed everyone off!!!


i hate kids, i work in a gamestop and when they come in, i just literally want to shoot my self, their so god damn annoying

As a mom myself, I am opposed to the idea of minors in SL. Heck, I won't even allow my daughter to watch over my shoulder *AT ALL* when I play, even if I am in a PG sim. There are just too many holes that nasties can worm through, even if you did have G sims.

That being said, I think LL has the intelligence and resources to come up with something that is SL-ish that will be fun and interesting for minors, and yet not "connected" to SL.

LL is very innovative, and I think that strength could be applied to develop something for minors in a very positive way.... but SL would have to be completely rebuilt/redesigned to make it even remotely OK for minors, and I don't think that's reasonable/advizeable/desired-in-any-way. Therefore, it would have to be a completely different product.

Cast my vote in the "ABSOLUTELY NOT" category.

As a gay man I already face a rather vocal minority in the real world who very wrongly think that all gay men are pedophiles. I do NOT want children in my SL where those same foolish prejudices would almost surely follow.

Ok. Some kids drive underage. Lets lower the driving age to accomodate them.

Some kids drink underage. Lets just give up. Roll over and play dead. Lets do away with the drinking age. After all, they have mom and dad's CC they must be mature enough!

I agree completely.

Second Life is full of sexual content - EVEN IN PG SIMS. It is impossible to guard a minor from the sexual and mature content and it's absolutely ignorant to think that there aren't predators here - male and female - that would pursue known minor - try to convince them to use voice, or web cam, or send exchange pics (child pornography).

LL couldn't stop it, and Second Life would turn into a haven for sex offenders trying to lure minors into Virtual AND REAL LIFE sexual situations thus creating a need for F.B.I. monitoring etc - JUST LIKE AOL.

If LL wants Minors - put a 30 sim grid - NOT CONNECTED - and Call it "Young Life" or something.

Do i need to mention the maturity level (and please don't anyone say something so dumb like "ive seen grown ups act more immature"? We aren't talking about 21 year olds acting 16. We are talking about teenagers who were just a few years ago 10-12 years old with little exposure to the vices of life - and with out any decorum to deal with diversity and respect personal choices. and differences. We don't need more harassment here.

Pre-frontal cortex check = Mandatory. NO MINORS!!!!

Briana Dawson

Being a mom myself I could not agree more with Briana and Romeocat on this issue.

NO KIDS IN SECOND LIFE. NO COMPROMISE!!!

Lindens we await a response acknowledging our collective communal voice.

Whether or not it is a separate grid, it wont keep out a grown man. How do you prove someone is not a minor?
How exactly would this differ from minor-friendly places, as in, every MMOG on earth, every chat room, every IM program...
The onus should always be on the parents to supervise their children's activities. Not on technologies or corporations.