lindens latest blog: dob a neighbour

So they finally got around to getting a definition.. and it took them how many freaking weeks? I'm still not going to report two 'child-sized' avatars going at it. Now the RL images of minors, yes... oh, heck yes. Or if I know that one is an RL minor.. yes. I'm not going to nose my way into two adults doing something consensually. Not any of my business, unless it's in a public place or PG area.

er, what exactly are you people complaining about? this has been SL policy from the beginning. and what is considered community standards is listed in the TOS which i am SURE you all read. first you complain about griefers and alleged pedophiles and now you are complaining that the lindens DARE ask the community for some help in enforcing these terms? pick a side and stick with it people.

either the lindens police SL or they don't. can't have it both ways.

QUOTE: "Please help us to keep Second Life a safe and welcoming space by continuing to notify Linden Lab about locations in-world that are violating our Community Standards regarding broadly offensive and potentially illegal content. Our team monitors such notification 24-hours a day, seven-days a week. Individuals and groups promoting or providing such content and activities will be swiftly met with a variety of sanctions, including termination of accounts, closure of groups, removal of content, and loss of land."

If you are under 6 feet tall, or have breasts less than a C cup - do NOT engage in sexual behaviour.

If you have on a small schoolgirl type skirt, and are under 6ft tall with breasts larger than a C cup - change first.

My friend said something very interesting. Is this the end of Gor? A lot of Gor RP involves forced sexual acts. Also where does leave furry sex? Red Lipstick Penis is certainly offensive to me, or at least not up my alley, But the way they role play is non of my business.

NO! We have AR'd and AR'd mature things that come up in PG searches to no avail. We have AR'd and AR'd those who tell others they are underage to no avail. Now you want to tell us that it's OKAY for LL to suddenly put it all on us? Make us the thought police?

Get a grip.

i think you didn't read the new blog post.
http://blog.secondlife.com/2007/05/31/keeping-second-life-safe-together/

it's not just "age play" or "pedophiles" Linden Labs is going after now.
but RP rape or RP sexual violence
and just plain old violence... in general. Possibly meaning.. No more sword fighting! someone get virtually hurt!

Everything you do in SL is Role Play. I find it odd Role Play of any kind, especially in an environment such as SL's Adult Grid when you can just log off and everything is consensual and you agree to be 18 years or older, can be deemed illegal.

They say "potentially illegal" which pretty much covers anything that could be taken to court win or loose. Humm, that means good by virtual prostitution? There goes the main source of income for a lot of residence and LL.

Why not just turn SL into there.com or activeworlds.com and be done with it?

About a month and a half ago my wife reported an avatar who claimed to be 14 in real life. To this day evidently nothing has been done about it.

I AR'd one who claimed to be younger. She's back with another name now.

What's the point? Clearly LL cannot safeguard the grid from minors, so all adult content must go.

for some strange reason this bit of SL history comes to mind......

Tax Revolt:

Linden Lab’s policy of taxing residents for objects they create meets vehement resistance. In July 2003, rebellious residents dress in colonial garb and cover the land with giant tea crates and defiant signs that read born free: taxed to death!

Since returning to SL 6 months ago I had my new av at 4'7" after reading all tje crap- lately I have shortened my av to 4'2".

I do not participate in any sexual actitivty in SL. And I never will. Im simply a vertically challenged av.

Now am I to be fearful of being reported as being a child, and some story made up about me? Me fearful? hehehe not hardly

Just to be doubly safe I feel that LL should issue all females Burkas. After all it is all the female's fault just like in first life.

I will AR you as soon as I log in. It's my duty.

Wait a minute, this seems to be the fault of all Christian right wingers (to read the blog comments) burkas would likely be just fine.

I'm so glad that LL is doing this and I'm so sorry that a few residents didn't know how to set limits on their own behaviour so that it had to be done.

As is so often the case, a few really irresponsible people end up creating a backlash that requires limits to be set by an outside authority.

And I agree, there is a real danger now that a rigid mind set will result in too many ARs. Hopefully, the fun stuff (never understood why it was called the nasty) will pass scrutiny and only the really exploitive will get bounced.

Its sad it had to come to this.

Pass who's scrutiny tho? The majority of those people who are willing to spy on and report their neighbors?

There are other things Affected by this.
For example:
The Exploding head Animation.
The Exploding Avatar animation.
(Both rather grusome)
The Impalement Stakes.
~A near endless list of Torture devices~
The workable gallows.
The workable guillotine.
The functional Electric Chair.
The drowning tank.
The multi-Pose Golden shower set.
The Humpable Wolf.

There is a HUGE list of items sold that have now become (Apperantly) ARable simply by being Displayed, Sold, or Used. The fact that some segment of the Population finds them Amusing (Or sexually stimulating) does not excuse the fact that such items May very well fall into the definition of "Broadly offensive".

Things should get interesting in the coming weeks.

Angel.

I have an idea, why don't we get rid of anything that appears edgy or offensive. Lets slowly take away every freedom that we have in second life that may not be socially accepted by everyone, even if this freedom is what we love about second life. Oh wait, why don't we save some time and send everyone who dislikes our freedoms to a highly regulated and controlled game like the old sims online.

Worldwide? Socially accepted world wide would limit us very much.

I'm kind of in shock, really.

Many people oppose sexual depictions of minors. Most people do NOT want censorship of adults portraying adults.

We've said this countless times...

I've had misgivings before, but ignored them. But this blog statement finally broke any sense of being at home in SL that I had.

I'm so tired of moralizers being unable to distinguish between their prudery and actual harm.

By being unable to distinguish, they will open the door to persecution of the innocent, while real abusers (who are very manipulative) will get a pass.

Of course, "the exploitive" is pretty vague.

All religious images are offensive to me and others, ban 'em

Gorean books are good for selling at your local book store, but, it's not allowed in an 18+ community, someone who goes there knowing it's gorean might find out it's gorean and be offended, ban it!

All BDSM has some violent side to it, it's totally cool to put on network television, and movies, but, come on now, SL is 18+, us adults get offended real easy in our old age, BAN IT!

Seclimine is a form of drugs =/ it doesn't touch you IRL, and has no negative side effects, but the thought of people doing drugs offends me, ban it!

Naked people are broadly offensive to many religions, we shouldn't allow them, BAN NUDITY!

I knew a hat salesman I didn't get along with...so, hats offend me, ban them too damnit!

Grand Theft Auto is good to sell to people 17+, but, since we're 18+, it's NOT okay to do any RP violence, at all, infact, punching someone is sickening to lotsa people, BAN ALL VIOLENCE!

The color orange pisses me off, ban it too!

Infact, SL should ban everything above a "G" rating, BUT MAKE DAMN SURE THERE IS AGE VERIFICATION, we do not want kids to see the empty wasteland that is SL after everything is banned, it'll be all...ugh...political headquarters with no one in them, because, politics offends no one! Keep politics alive! And Earth killing cars! And meat eating!...Wait, I'm a vegitarian...ban all images of meat being eaten!

Infact ban my estates that I own, I mean, we allow violence *quivers* and virtual drug use *quivers* and sex *quivers*, all those crazy things no consenting adult should be allowed to do! Hell, I only paid a couple grand USD for the privilege of making my own rules on my estates, why shouldn't that be drastically changed suddenly? No one is going to go after LL, armed with their police department husbands and lawyers to get their money back and sue for false representation or anything...that surely won't happen!

ok perhaps i should have made my personal stand clearer and also no, i had not read about the rape/abuse stuff in the agreements and TOS and i apologize for that.

my personal stand is: it's all cartoons people. do what you want. if you don't like, don't look at it. there are a few out there who are going to go "crazy" in RL with the SL influence and act out, but most people are living out a fantasy that they cannot do or won't do on RL.

and, again, IT'S A CARTOON. it is also A CARTOON who is griefing you and doing something stupid that irritates you to no end and makes you want the lindens to ban them all but then everybody has a heart attack about any sort of attempts the lindens make on finding a way to ban them. don't make me put payment info on file but you stop those inappropriate griefers.

i feel this argument is in the same vein. you can't have it both ways people. those of you who are so terrified that you might pop accidentally into some adult location where, i guess, you will be forced to have unconsenting CARTOON sex (that you actually have to agree to have), if you are so horrified, perhaps this is not the world for you. perhaps IMVU?

My (German) grandparents lived in a time when people ruled who thought the same. They told me that it was no fun having the RL GM's in their pretty grey uniforms searching for people who failed to limit their expression.

Congratulations, LL. If you set out to create an atmosphere of fear and mistrust among SL residents, you have succeeded admirably. Encouraging people to report any and all "offensive" activity? Do you even think about the consequences of this stuff before you post it? I realize that you're trying to make SL "safe" (for real-world business, that is), but if you make the place so nasty and unpleasant that nobody wants to be here, the corporate world won't be interested either.

It was bad enough when you told people to "use common sense" in determining what is and isn't appropriate, rather than provide detailed guidelines. Too lazy, or just can't come up with any good answers? Given the global nature of the SL population, all that did was create confusion and help confirm the stereotype of Americans as being completely and willfully ignorant of the existence of other cultures and different standards of "morality".

Because of the wording in the blog post, BDSM activities will also be reported by informants. Given the amount of BDSM-related roleplaying, activity, and merchandise that constitutes a large percentage of the in-world culture and economy, I suspect they're going to have their hands full. Let's just hope they don't take their cues from the LiveJournal abuse team and start suspending everybody without an investigation. As soon as some insane cyber-vigilante group like the one that targeted LJ hears about this, they'll be all over this place.

What does crashing a sim and two people rubbing pixels have to do with one another?