lindens latest blog: dob a neighbour

I wonder all the weekend why there was not the thought of a simple solution:

Rate all areas, or have the owners rate them, by PG and X. This is done already with Mature / Nonmature, so there should not be a problem at all. Since the reason for this ratings are the diversion of adults and kids, owners failing to do properly should have to face the consequences.

Then rate all stuff thats created by PG and X, meaning, a coke can is PG, a ballgag is X. Items with X cannot be worn in PG areas, so literally the dick will fall off... Creators that fail to rate their items properly (e.g. some adult toy being rates PG) should also face the consequences.

This would mean: the X rated areas can contain any item that is created, but the PG areas are kept clean from "offensive", e,g, X-rated items.

Any X-rated area should have a notecard, popping up at entry, be it TP, fly or walk. It should just have the mandatory information that this is an adult area, as well as a ownerwritten text with the purpose.

There you are: the creators and landowners regulate themselves, noone can claim, no to have known where they walk (thus finding the content offensive), and X-rated items cannot offend PG-avs or be used for annoying people in PG-areas.

And then, leave the content in the right ranking for those who VOLUNTARILY enter them or create them there.

Greets, Xe

Except in the Community standards Broadly Offensive things are completely permitted as long as they are on Mature Parcels.

what kids? sl is an adult-only game, right?

The problem is, there's no verification at all at the moment.

And the reason why there will never be "verification for all" is because that would ruin SL's vision of making Second Life into a general platform for making virtual worlds. Someone who wants to log in to SL to access some totally non-adult content that they know someone has provided there might well be put off by having to go through an age verification process intended to ensure they can access adult content that in fact they don't care about.

Touche! My bad. LOL!

So I'll amend my 'Broadly Offensive" to "Near Universally Unacceptable" (on the topic of child sex) . The 'Near' bit would be to head off the nit-pickers.

On a serious note, perhaps LL should consider amending the "offensive" pejorative. It is perhaps more judgemental that they should be comfortable with.
There's always going to be a problem where people look for their own meanings of a term rather than to look for the spirit of what someone has tried to put into words.

I'm voting all the way for the Lindens (original?) core/spirit value -"Mutual Respect" - which encompasses the point of view that Broccoli appears to have come round to.

So do we end up with Philips Vision - without sex - or the grid that many players want?

My money's on Philip's Vision in the end.

Broccoli

I think "Philip's Vision" has changed at least 4 or 5 times since SL began. He isn't getting exactly what he originally wanted. Maybe we won't either, but we might still get something good.

At the moment. Don't count on that being part of SL as it moves forward.

Mari

I don't think Philip is allowed to have his "Vision" anymore. I think Philip has as much say in Second Life as I do.. and he could kill it by simply pulling his name. I mean, the headlines, "Second Life creator and visionary leaves Second Life due to lack of Linden Lab's vision.." just sounds wrong.

Does anybody know what "Phil's Vision " actually is?

Does anybody know if the money is on
1) Philips Vision - which probably encompassed sex in Mature rated areas?
2) Philips Vision - without sex -
3) "the" grid that "many" players want

Does anybody know how many different grids are wanted by how many different loose groups of many players?

That would have been a much better choic of tems for Dan Linden to use in the Blog.

Of course, if that is what he meant.

So... what does this post have to do with the blog? Do you support changing the TOS and CS? All I see is criticizing people's sims. In which case I would suggest if you can do it oh so much better, why don't you show us non-creative, genital thinking people how it is done. Here's an option... uncheck that "Show Mature" box in your search window. Hmm... I thought that was unchecked by default... oh.. I'll bet the devil made you check that box and go to those poorly built gorean sims and sex dungeons that came up on your search results.

thing is - even if its Phil's vision it with be Phil's vision not Broccoli/Lewis's slanted version of it.

One coment in an article to a mainstream audience like the Washington Post does not a sex ban make.

You have to remember who he was talking to. Of course he is going to tell them he never intended SL to be a sexual playground.

Besides there a huge difference between not wanting Second Life to be a sexual playground ..

and not wanting there to be any sex at all.

----------------------------------------------------
My unsubstantiated guess is Phil wants the amount of sex in second life to reflect the amount of sex in first life. Blatant things kept out of everyday sight unless you go to certain places.

I presonally think they BETTER change the Community Standards if they want all this stuff banned.

Its pretty hypacritical to say in one place this stuff not allowed, while in the Community standards NOTHING sexual is forbidden on Mature land.

Does he?

Or can he hide his own Easter Eggs ?

It's cool to see you did this Broc. I applaud you for that. I will say this in regards to your final paragraph though. Not everyone is going to describe well. I think the "Mature" tag is pretty obvious and if someone is too stupid to put a "Mature" tag on a mature sim, they'll be reported (and rightfully so) in short order. Thus, IMHO, the status-quo is perfectly capable of filling that role. Second, this IS the adult grid, not the teen one. Accidents will happen. I work at a college and even at the college there are high school students that come here. They and their parents have to sign a paper stating that since the college uses the internet that underage students MAY see objectionable material due to the nature of the internet. That's the same w/SL. In fact, SL is even safer because you can choose to search and show "Mature" areas, further, there's a seperate teen grid for 17 years and under.

The standards that are in place are more than adequate.

/me spits Coffee on her monitor. Wrong Phil I think, Honey.

A) There's no way to 100% be sure of any type of verification or that any "child" will not be able to access, if diligent enough, the adult grid.

B) LL has clearly stated what is the adult and teen grid. They outline in the agreement as to what and who are welcome where. They have taken the reasonable precautions necessarry to prevent children from accessing the grid.

C) Society isn't the parents, the parents are the parents. It isn't LL's job to parent the children of the wolrd or to shield them from "unmentionables". If a child runs into the street because a parent isn't watching that child and it gets hit by a car, is it the car maker's fault because it produced that car? Is it the state's fault because they gave the person behind the wheel a driver's license? Is it the driver's fault if the child runs out from a blind corner? The car maker makes brakes and safety inspections for a car, the state requires age and driving tests for drivers before giving a license, the driver has to pass those tests. All saftey steps to hopefully prevent accidents. But regardless of the reasonable precautions that are made accidents will happen. And when they are unruly children breaking the rules and they know it. Well, shame on them not Linden Labs or the SL community.

For that matter, so is bestiality and a number of other things. SL is a game, not real life. In the adult grid, all players should be of legal age.

If you are of legal age and you are consenting, you should be allowed to do whatever you want, since you can't be forced to do anything you don't want to in SL, that should take care of that.

In RL, it's legal to have roleplay of all types, age play, rape play, clown porn, etc. That should also be legal in SL. In fact, in the USA, it's legal to have and distribute electronically generated kiddie porn as long as no actual children are involved. I think kiddie porn is reprehensible, but then again I think a lot of things are reprehensible (like voting for W, driving an SUV, or wearing a fur coat) but it is still a person's right to do what is legal.

LL, don't lose sight of the original social experiment that you intended SL to be.

On my property I've put up two signs:

Sign one says, "By entering this property you agree not to be offended by displays of BDSM."

The landing point has a welcome mat that whispers the same thing.

At the main entrance I also have a sign that says, "No kids or kiddie avs. If you are offended by BDSM or violence, hit Ctrl + Shift +H and teleport back to Mommy."

Think that should cover it, liability wise?

I see it's already started - I am hearing reports of individuals marching into adult-related areas and claiming they are recording everything preparatory to filing a report with LL/some media outlet.

It is just griefing, pure and simple. The motivation is exactly the same - try and stop people having fun.

Gently remind those Concerned Citizens that recording without someone's consent is also A TOS violation and first one to hit the AR button ends.

But I think LL are finding themselves in a quandary. The current "official" division, where the teens are over here and the adults are over here and (almost) never the twain shall meet, is great (and I think maybe even legally mandated?) for a talker or similar, but it's horrible for a content delivery platform like they want SL to become. On the internet as a whole, most sites are open to *everyone*, except for a few that are the porn sites and are 18+ only. The official SL model is that you can't do that, you have to choose either only 13-17 year olds can access it or only 18+ years can access it.

As we know the actual reality of SL at the moment is that the main grid is "18+ only but we won't check, hem hem" and I suspect that's because that's what many content providers want. They want a way to make their content available to everyone, regardless of age, because after all if it is purely PG content then why not? But the law is probably soon going to say that they can't do that - they can't say "18+ only" but leave the door open *knowing* that underage people are getting in. And equally, they won't want to add age verification for everyone, because then when Jane Public wants to fly around Dell Island she isn't going to be comfortable when, in order to get to do so, she has to go through the same verification process that people who want to access hardcore pornography have to go through.



This isn't relevant. Not that I don't have an opinion about it and not that I don't respect your opinion too, but discussing our opinions is pretty irrelevant because they won't count compared to the actual legal ones. Only the outcome of the French lawsuit will describe this.

Hardcore pornography? Behave, whose going to get id'd to view hardcore pornography? I simply don't see id verification working for people to be flagged as viewers of hardcore pornography, not when Google is still alive and well.

Anyway, what's Jane Public got to hide? Is she upto no good at the back of Dell island?