Censorship Option/Parental Controls.

I know this beta is "supposed" to be open to 18 and older at this point but there has been ongoing and what seems to be escalating issues around this topic of conduct.

My idea is that there is a client side customizable word filter similiar to the server side controls that IRC servers have. So that as it becomes public or for those people who allow their kids on this beta (you know who you are) can lock out certain content they don't want their kids to see.

Secondly, have a way to register an account name as underage, so there fore have a filter at the mature sim borders so that underagers cant cross, see into, or see that a mature sim exists.

N\Maybe this can squelch some of these issues

I like the concepts, but, I dont want this turning into The Sims Online. Currently, on the sims online, everyone is against children and wants to force them into their own city and lock them away until they are old enough to play with the adults. I don't think that is fair to kids and don't want to see something like that happen here.

I think a parental lock would be a good idea, but that it should all be handled on the client. There's really no need for Linden to do anything beyond dealing with griefers, harrassment, or hate speech. Everything else is the parents' responsibility. Frankly, if you're that concerned about the possibility of your children being exposed to nudity or (oh no!) "bad words", then for god's sake, what are you thinking, letting them on the internet in the first place?

...or for that matter, what are you thinking, letting them outside?

Anyway, I'd include a number of separate options: a language filter, a sim entry lock, to prohibit users from travelling into Mature sims, and a sim access lock, to prohibit users from seeing content in Mature sims. (I'd make the barrier either a (client-side, remember!) wall that appears once the client is within 10m (or therabouts), or alternately give an "access restricted" message, possibly with a pop-up text-entry field.

They're features that are probably necessary, but I honestly don't see it as being that big a deal. If a parent feels they need a leash for their child before they'll be satisfied, I say give them one.

My L$0.02.
Catherine Ω

kids will play once it is Live there is no way around it period.
and even if they didnt play alot of kids sit and watch the parents play so then the parent must stay away from the areas of concern ...
Nowhere did I see a place for people to show ID at the door to get in, even if they said NOONE under 21 permitted ((alot of you wouldnt be here if ya listened to that)) it would be very dificult to enforce, none the less someone stated it says noone under 18 , well tell me how is this enforced? how do they know how old anyone is ? they are simply taking your word for it period!

There is Nothing wrong with being moral on the other hand there is a whole lot wrong with being immoral
its just a conciouse decision what you want to be percieved as , actions speak loudly but here words are stronger.

I didnt say I let my kids play THIS game at this point so if you are refering to me then perhaps you need to get the facts straight , if you werent then my opologies.
But once Live and more than 1 player per account then yes if I was still playing they would be allowed to play just like EQ, Daoc,AC ect...(( you know who you are also ))

problem is people only read what they want and they take things out of perspective and out of context and make of it what they want .
Perhaps people should take things as they are said and intended here and alot less shit would have to fly!

when I say something I say it as an entire statement , not 1 sentence extracted and then an arguement from others based on that sentance....its an overview , if your not going to bother reading the entire post and baseing an arguement on that as a whole , the way it was said and intended then why waist the time and space of this board?

uhm yah - i can't respond to a lot of what you said rivn cuz i don't know what you're talking about but uhm - hang in there ok?


I agree with the chat filter bit. Some peeps are offended by "coarse language".

I would like an ignore command for those people which get up in my face and spam me with text.

That would be great. We can't deny that will undoubtedly become an issue.
Thanks,
flyk

Well interestingly enough we had another issue lastnight that didn't include swearing nudity or anything else that would be considered censorable.

Its funny once but ongoing it isn't.

Disrupting public events, is what I am trying to say here.

If someone says stop (especially a Linden) you should stop....
I don't want to start a p1551n match but c'mon now. We just started trying out public events and it is tough enough to avoid the crashing lag monsters.

So here is the issue that came to my attn... How do we do crowd contral adequately? This is behaviour that isn't subject to my censor ideas, so what now?

could be solved with 1 word But noone likes that idea or so it seems ......

JAIL

'Jail' in one word does not describe a whole heck of a lot.

Now excuse me while I go look in the other forum to repost
what I said against word filters here.

OK I'm pretty new to this forum software. I'll do my best.

Here is the link to my post in General about word filters:

/8/7e/537/2.html#post3216

I'm not sure if that will get linkified, so I'll paste it as well:

------ paste
No word filters.
Which prior game have word filters worked in?
Dark Ages of Camelot? Nope.
Earth and Beyond? Nope.
Everquest? Nope.
Ultima Online, where you set your own wordlist. Not really.

Word filters are a terrible idea.
You may think they sound like a fantastics idea,
but they really are not. They don't end up working
the way you think they will work. A word filter
will either be highly in the way or simply turned off
asap. That is how it has been in several other games.
------ endpaste

I'll add a tiny bit to that. The main trouble you will find is that
people will be talking around, and worse, acting around your filtered wordlist, so the children you are trying to protect
really aren't being protected. (the case I didn't cover in my
original post)

One option for crowd control I've seen used successfully is invisible walls. The entire area where people will be 'performing' is surrounded and topped by invisible walls. If there is no need to fly the area can be made a no fly zone and the area doesn't need to be topped. Participants are given a secret means of teleporting inside those walls.

Another thing that would work is if Lindens were able to ban someone from a certain area -- like a Sim -- for a few hours. Disrupters could be warned and then 'ejected' from the Sim till the event was over.

Word filters are great, provided their use is controllable on the client side while in mature sims. But filtered language being enforced on PG sims is fine with me. I have no need to spew expletives in front of kids.

I used to play word games on the net, and one game had a word filter that changed 'bad' words into random words. It was hilarious. The person cussing had no idea what word they had actually said because it was randomly generated. Only those with word filter on saw the word provided by the filter.

The only thing that was a pain was that, for example, 'ass' was a filtered word, so trying to say you were from Massachusetts was extremely difficult. If the currently generated word was 'popsicle' you'd say 'Mpopsicleachusetts' or if you were trying to abbreviate to 'Mass' you'd say 'Mpopsicle'.

So if this sort of thing was used, I'd suggest a 2 level filter. One in which only complete words were filtered, and the other in which embedded words were also filtered.

As far as other parental controls, I don't think there's enough we, as adults, can do to protect children. You can say it's the parent's responsibility, but the fact is that some parents don't do their job. I think it's wrong to leave unprotected kids hanging on their own -- they can't adequately protect themselves -- they need some help. I'm against interference in parents doing their jobs, but I'm all for providing help to kids when parents just don't care. If you don't think it's necessary, just talk to a kid whose parents don't give a damn.

So things like plenty of obvious warnings on entry to a mature sim, a readily available means for a kid to teleport out of an area or to call a Linden for help are terrific. Now how you'd keep kids flying over a mature sim from seeing naked people running around on the ground, I dunno. But I'd feel better if I didn't have to worry about that kid flying overhead and seeing me. Not that I would ever run around naked. hehe

I guess maybe the answer to that is having all mature sims separate and with an obvious wall like the Outlands. Now whether or not Lindens or volunteer residents should patrol that wall is a heated debate for another day. And how they'd identify people under 18, and what they should do if they suspect someone is under 18 but don't know for sure is discussion with no answer -- you can't ask for and see a drivers license online.

Offering help to kids who need it in whatever way you can without turning into a police state (no big brother, no jails) is reasonable.

Kerstin

Thank you for illustrating some of the weaknesses of word filtering with that Mpopsicle example.

Now, do we put 'p1551n' on the screen out list? In Earth & Beyond you couldn't say 'my ship is slow' without being censored. It was hilarious, as you call it.

Once a server side filter is in place, then you'll have people testing which words are banned. At the same time the conversations you hear will 10% of the time be `They filter that? What on Earth for?' an so forth.

I stand by my belief that wordlist filtering is useless and misguided.

Filters can be decived by simply putting a space in the word where it doesnt belong (unfortionatly) such a sh it ect , no further deminstration should be required you get the point ...all in all I guess if someone wants to get around them they will find a way BUT if they purposely are makeing the effort to "get around it" then they are KNOWINGLY violating the polocy of that sim so some penalty should apply , considering it is not a slip it is intentional..... just my thoughs for what its worth

Sleeper, I disagree.
The idea behind a world filter like this is to set up a simple way to scoop out incidental swearing. It won't stop people who are intent on harassing people. It will, however, give parents one extra level of protection. If I'm frustrated and say the F word in the company of a minor by accident, it'll catch it.
It alone won't ensure the 'cleanliness' of the language, but it will provide one more defense. If it can be disabled by adults, then what's the problem?

Good point Datura, well put. Nothing is a fix all in this current internet world. Otherwise it would be safe to play and surf. But for the innocent even a minor boost in censorship would help, even if it is only 20% effective it still helps.

Now I dont know if this is an option (and first time posting so Hello All).

In regards to another world/chat program (Rose to be precise), they have come up with a nice way of setting the kids from adults sort of thing.

By which I mean they have two different account level. Adult (Rose Nights), and Child Friendly (Rose Life). When the account is purchased (by cred card), the purchaser decides which they would like. Nights or Life. Adult content is not allowed in the Life version.

This places the responsibility on the parents. to choose to keep their children seperate from adult concepts or not.

Now I am not saying this would be something that could immediately be implimented. Even in Rose, there was just "Rose", then after a few years "Rose Life", and finally a few years later still "Rose Nights". Somethings require time and success for the company providing the environment.

Of course that doesnt take into account if it is even possible in SecondLife. That is for the programmers to determine

All the children aside some of us adults just won't want to see what some people will have to offer. I ran across some disgusting things the other night I would have rather not seen. These should deffinately be in a mature section. Of course there's filtering filtering and more filtering but bottom line is people should be somewhat respectfull and act like adults. If you would not say something to someone in real life it make sense that people won't want to hear it here either. For those who think it is dumb or un-necessary to try to keep your kids from being exposed to negative things..Take alook around at youth today, they will get there fair share of junk when they are adults. We do not let our kids play SL but, Daddy what's that is not any better when they are standing beside me. Lets just be Good neighbors and enjoy SL. Something this awesome can be ruined for so many by so few...That's just plain sad.........

Very true, well put. But I am wondering. Should there be warnings placed in the vacinity of these areas for even adults that don't want to be exposed to this, or for those who may have kids in the room while they are on? So as to give the user an option not to be exposed to such an area? Think of it also as a advertisement to those who do want to be exposed to it.

I like this! but I would want to be able to "ban" ppl form my land... there has been no cause for this yet... but i'm sure it will come up!

Personally I dont see anything wrong with adult content on SL, and if I so desire at some point would enjoy exploring what can and cant be done with this engine in that regard.

However, for my own peace of mind (being I dont want underage people there as much as any), I would do what little I could to discourage this. (walls around the land where it will be explored, no fly zones so that people cant just pop over).

all of that can help a little. but some controls for keeping people off of personal properity that havent been invited (ie given a password or whatever) would be ideal. that can be done with doors, but does *everything* adult have to be in an enclosed building? surely some commands to set those passwords to the land/area itself would be a better option.

just my 2 cents worth (though it's gonna cost ya $1.50 after calculating tax)