underage resident complaint

Every week the blotter mentions underage resident complaints. Whats this mean? You mena someone not the right age was in a mature sim? Or people a certain age can not play SL at all?

(And I'm over 30 so no, I'm not concerned just curious )

I think there is an age limit of 18.

At least there were during Beta.

So the point of a PG sim is just if you dont feel like having people around you with phalic attachments and whatnot?

That's about it

Actually, I think Linden Labs has a plan they're working on that will allow younger players eventaullly to join. They will be restricted to the PG sims and (somehow) sheltered from the Mature sims and from mean folks who might prowl the PG sims looking for little kiddies. I wish them luck in that enterprise

But, primarily, you're correct. The PG sims are for folks who prefer not to be subjected to .... whatnot.

It means someone let their age be known, and someone used the abuse report to report it. I've done it a few times, but only in beta.

SL is currently 18+ (hope it stays that way for as long as possible)

Then it better be like Everquest 2 was or is, Have it be completely different, on different servers and server names and a whole entirely different game. Call it Young Peoples Second Life or something like that, where only young people are allowed. I know not all young people under 18 act like total children but there is no way to decipher mature people to immature people or kids. So I say make it totally different for kids, where adults and kids play seperately. Cause I simply won't deal with children.

Instead of completely seperate services, why not maybe make a half-dozen G sims, stick them on the opposite side of the world from the outlands, and only let minors travel the G areas and maybe the welcome area?

Also, I think Linden Labs could get away with lowering the minimum age to 16.

Think about that? Now when u are or were a little kid, what did you like doing? Evberything your parents told you not to like. I admit it, I was the same way, and by this day and age it has gotten worse. Kids these days wanna go where they know they aren't allowed, cause they think they will see something they can giggle at or make a big deal about. I guess that's just kids. That's why I say seperate servers, seperate game.

There are plenty of underage people in the game. From what i've heard, LL has gotten enough complaints from mommy & daddy of kids who were kicked out for age they had to let some in, as it just wasn't worth the hassle/threats they got from it (I can't back this up, 2nd hand information entirely).

That aside, there's plenty who are under age and are at least intelligent enough to not say it in public.

Sad, but true. Parents really should not want their children in SL, but we all know the state of parenting in this day and age.

As far as the age restrictions go, I can't imagine them ever opening it up to <18, simply due to the fact they can't really entirely restrict avs from the Mature sims (you can always go to the PG sim next door, set your draw distance to 512, and tada..)

Si, the minors would simply have to not even know the Mature sims exist. Simple as that.

<RANT>

My concern is not that we need to be able to lock up the Mature sims like vaults to keep children from seeing things they ought not see. Our society is fast closing the gap between porn and real life anyway. Nor is it that children are a nuisance to have around. I long ago disabused myself of the delusion that childish adults act more like adults than children do. If they get out of line while masquerading as adults – then try ‘em like adults

What I am REALLY worried about is letting adults have unrestricted, PRIVATE access to un-supervised children in an environment where disguise is the norm. My own kid would be behaving perfectly normal in forming a friendship with another 12-year-old boy who happens to like the same things he does. I would dread finding out that the 12-year-old boy was really a 50-year-old man with a love swing and a camera and the name of my son’s school!

I can sit down with my son and talk to him about any sort of attachment childish adults might create, and about any word he could possibly pick up online, but I can NOT make him paranoid enough to forestall a determined predator in disguise – especially a predator with all the creative tools of Second Life at his disposal for whatever picture he wants to paint.

It is – in my experience – wrong to leave children in the public park alone – no matter what reputation the neighborhood has. Period. It is also wrong for Linden Labs to post a sign that says “Leave your Children Here!” in that same park. I don’t care whether you checked the park for naughty graffiti or not. There are still strangers there whose motives are far from insignificant.

Perhaps there should be someplace where our society’s chief export – feral children – can graze and yield up their disposable income to the Company and their hides to the circling wolves. But I’d prefer it not be here, and it certainly won’t be with MY kid.

Yeah. I feel like a heel as I continually tell him he can’t play. And I’ll feel like a complete tyrant telling him that the day they open SL up to youngsters. But, unless I intend to sit in the chair next to him through every minute of building, every event, every minute of conversation with every other player, I really have no choice, do I?

Unless Linden Labs pulls something amazing out of their hats, of course. And they’ve done that before, so I can always hope My own suggestion is that Linden Labs segregate children in their own world, and then do it’s best to screen all players in that world – allowing children only, and then providing just as many childcare Lindens as any RL childcare would have to have to accommodate the number of children there. THEN, I’d let my kid play – sitting next to him all the time ANYWAY, of course And, I’d like it even BETTER if I could have complete control over every person who is allowed to speak to him. I really don’t care what he sees so much as who gets to talk to him.

Anyway, I just wanted to remind the Lindens where my objections lie. I’m not worried about how much noise the kids make; I’m worried about what’s going on when it gets too quiet.


</RANT>

So LL kick out an underage user, in accordance with the accepted ToS, and the parents started hassling/threatening LL?? That is truely messed up....

Madox, I believe the user they are talking about is Jack Miller. You can read up on him in old forum posts.

According to our TOS, players must be at least 18 to join Second Life. We've spent a huge amount of time thinking about this restriction, and for now it seems like the most responsible stance to take.

While we like to think bad things never happen, especially in Second Life, it's impossible right now to provide minors with the safe environment they deserve. We're continuing to look at ways to open Second Life to teens (13-17), including some of the ideas you've mentioned:

- banning them from M sims
- implementing parental controls
- creating kid friendly 'G' rated sims

For now, though, we will keep the age restriction in place, and close the accounts of anyone we discover to be under 18.

You guys are my heroes

So far

The problem that most (if not all) online games face is this: how do you know that the age stated on the signup form is correct?

Answer: you can't. 12-yr old Billy can ask Mum/Dad to pay for this great new game he's found, and said parent will happily hand over the credit card to keep him quiet. Too many parents are using the PC as a virtual babysitter without carefully monitoring what their child is doing.

On the flip side, if Linden did provide a child-only/child-safe environment, how do you prove that the only people accessing it are actually children?

It's a very tricky problem (and a potential legal minefield), and personally I think the current solution is the best one - over 18's only and kick anyone found to be younger.

Here would be a way to keep the younger people off the game for sure. Have the person answer questions about stuff that happened in their real time and give them a category to choose to answer questions. Then after the questions were asked, give the person about 10 seconds to answer or something like that, and if they don't answer in time it would not only dissallow them another try but would make sure on the next attempt to give totally different questions. Yeah this could become totally flawed too and would be a pain for people who were of age and still couldn;t get the right answers. Well it was a thought, maybe someone will think of something ingenius to keep things straight as far as kids accessing an adult only game.

You can always set up traps to ferret out the youngsters... like make a shop that sells Olsen Twins posters. Anyone who purchases one instantly has their account frozen ;P

LOL, I remember a system like this on the original Leisure Suit Larry game (errm, is my age showing?)

Trouble was, all the questions were very US-based, so I only manged to get 5 in a row right by fluke - it used to take me anything up to 20 attempts before it would let me play..

A nice thought, but what about dumb adults and clever kids, or people who have someone knowledgeable standing next to them?

The 16-and-up idea is probably the furthest LL can go in this direction. At 16, you should have your wits about you enough to fend off anything questionable. Mature sims could be made invisible and impossible to enter for under-18 users.

If yours is, so is mine =)

What a "naughty" game that was. How (almost) innocent it seems now.

#!

LSL rules!!! (liesure suit larry that is, i havne't figured out that darn scripting yet!)

Love for Sail rocks as do all the rest

I remember playing the original but for some reason my Aunt only would let me play certain parts......


JV