Community opinion

So if there is no forum. And no discussion in world, and no polling of the residents. Where does LL get the information that the "community of SL" feels ageplay is an issue that does not meet its standards.

*moves to Current Version Feedback*

Probably in "features suggestions". I understand that is the only forum a Linden might take a peek.

Magic 8-Ball?

same place they figured that the majority of people want voice chat, possibly.

Or that the majority are happy with the camping blight cuased by the Traffic metric still being used.

I agree with LL that there should be limits on age play.

However - claiming its community pressure when they obviously dont pay attention to the community is definitely problematic.

Really they are putting the limits on ageplay cuase its best for them and they "know" a lot of people dont like it. But the mechanism for actually guaging community opinion does not exist as far as I can tell.

I expect they have gotten many, many complaints through emails and phone calls.

While hardly (never) discussed on these forums before the Linden notecards, there has been a LOT of discussion on outside forums of this subject.

I would be willing to bet that there has been some kind of pressure/complaints from some type of legal organizations, since the subject has been in the news.

Just because we don't see complaints and objections here doesn't mean they don't exist.

Of course, those complaints DON'T constitute a large part of the SL community.

This post expresses no opinion one way or another on the subject.

Can someone point me in the direction of a forum or a blog link where this whole matter started. I can understand LL's interest in wanting to bury this, but I'm at a loss for where it began. Or has there been a TOS/CS update that I'm not aware of, perhaps because I'm running FirstLook?

A Linden sent a notecard in game to select players announcing an official policy change.

I don't doubt for a second that the number of ARs that LL gets over ageplay is enormous. There is your community feedback.

Of course they probably get more over sims being locked down due to 35 camping chairs on a 4096 m2 parcel, and greifers. No 'community pressure' listed there though..kinda invalidates your comment.

Simple response: They want to look like they are protecting children without having to actually use the old verification system that worked alot better than this open one.

There is no big law in the current RL news about camping chairs. There is about the subject at hand.

That doesn't equal community opinion in game. Theres also big laws about beastiality, is that next?

Camping chairs clogging sims can be considered a Denial of Service attack. Theres new legistaltion about cybercrimes and harrassment.

Check the police blotter - they are starting to take action on the camping chair problem:

Date: Thursday, March 8, 2007
Violation: Community Standards, Disturbing the Peace, Land Use
Region: Soulgiver
Description: Overabundance of camping chairs in a region.
Action taken: Warning issued.

I expect to see them cracking down on more stuff now that people are in such an uproar over losing the ability to openly advertise their cyber kiddie porn.

Will there be a crackdown on furpiles?
Will I no longer be able to hit on human men and women?
How similar do two dragons have to look before its not considered "bestiality"?

Still plenty of places you can chop up Avatars too. So the Lindens now send the message that sex is bad, but death is okay. Plenty of laws about death in real life...if you go down this route, Quake, Doom, Half Life 2, Hitman all become illegal, all get banned.

And it only seems to apply to computer games...for now...how about movies...Silence of the Lambs? Hannibal? Do we move from murder to theft then...Ocean's Eleven? The Italian Job?

How about books? Ignoring the obvious Nabokov classic, there are plenty of crime thrillers with murder as an incidental part...

And whilst all this goes on, the civilised West, so quick to judge others, rampage through Iraq killing thousands.

But that's okay, 'cos it's war, and war's not illegal.

From Ageplay to war?

Whoaaa!!! Talk about thread drift.

I think the community opinion line is a smoke screen. Ask enough people in the community and eventually youll find a bunch that will agree with you on any subject. Just ignore the ones that dont.


Edit -

this is a sarcastic comment and has evidently led to some confusion that I did not intend.

What I meant to say is I think the Lindens made up their mind based on business.

The "Community Opinion" was just a check item on their list of reasons given. Reasons I beleive they used to rattionalize their decision.

It is an easy thing to find people in the community that dont like sexual ageplay (im one) just say "well the community was overwhelmingly in favor of this." by pretending the people on the other side of the issue dont exist.

You seem to believe only your opinion matters thankfully that is not the case.

Its fine to ignore me - but you misinterpreted my statement about ignoring. I was stating the Lindens were ignoring people who were on your side of the issue.

Much like they ignored the people who are against voice chat.

Or they are ignoring the people who dont like the land bots.

Or camping.

I dont think their decisions really reflect community opinion one way or another. They make their decisions based on business then come up with rationalle after the fact.