When do you cut loose from a losing game?

"changes default setting to [ ] Include Mature content"

I'm not running 1.14 yet.. too many problems with it from what I'm hearing.. and I'll trust my instincts and wait til the complaints stop, or until they stop letting me log in with 1.13.2

But is the setting (still) persistent? if I check "[X] Include Mature Content" will it be included the next time I log on? If that option setting is persistent between sessions.. then I think most of us could care less whether it's on, or off the first time someone installs and runs SL. A number of online services work this way (Google Image Search for instance)... but once you've turned Safe Search off.. it's off.

if the setting is reasserting itself each logon (like "Disable Camera Constraints" then I would frankly consider that intrusive behaviour. (reminded of the glitchy "Include mature content" feature on SLexchange that requires me to reassert the choice every time I visit the site).

So, can someone clarify if the setting remembers what you chose, from session to session?

So far it has been persistant for me. I only had to tick the box once and it has remembered my setting.

So.. we're only talking about the "after a clean install" setting?

Okay really I think this might be making too big of an issue over something very trivial. How many noobs don't search for sexual stuff in their first month? Dance clubs, sex toys, hookers.. that tasty "Include Mature Content" checkbox is right there next to the search field. Anyone doing a search that gets no or few results is gonna tag that, And when their searches suddenly become richer and more useful, they'll leave it tagged.

I'd suspect that 95% of people in SL want the mature-labelled classifieds to come up. Mature RATED land listings too. (classifieds have a checkmark to state mature or not.. Land listings seem to base this setting on the "rating" of the sim.. correct me if I'm wrong on that). People who don't like porn, can choose to avoid it.. but in doing so they limit their ability to find other content that may be peripherally "mature". I think most of the searching public will figure it out the first few times they do a search.

What I want, is a [X] Mature option for profiles and groups. (is there one for Events and products?)

depends on how much of a new player oriented business you are I suppose.

If your the type of business that gets sales from people who havent found the mature click box yet (early bought items) then this is fairly large.

And as SL grows the number who arent interested in sex at all will grow.

As much as I dislike some of the 'adult' content here, I think it's a bit silly to have this Search restriction.

After all, you aren't just going to "find" some of the distasteful stuff here unless you happen to search for it, generally, although there are a few places that have 'normal' keywords in them as well as their adult material.

I would guess that this is all part of the Linden masterplan ... break something, then 'fix' it somehow after the community uproar, then be thanked by people for their great work (when, in fact, the problem was their fault in the first place).

I so hope that the forthcoming 'parcel granularity' so you can actually differentiate between 'sex' and 'anything else that happens to be on mature land' fixes this problem. It would, of course, have made sense to make this 'mature off by default' change AT THE SAME TIME, but no, that would have been too obvious.

Broccoli

Actually you'd probably be surprised that what a large % that is already.

I'm sure most people, as newbies, find themselves exploring the sex areas, but then grow tired and grow out of it fairly rapidly as they discover better things to do.

Broccoli

I've GOT a new-player oriented business, and it's not about sex! While I have houses for all sizes of lots, I have a special set of houses precisely to fit in the 512 lot sizes!

And anyway, even if I didn't, houses is not something that needs to be filtered out for people! Everybody who has houses on mature land (to name just ONE of the possibilities, there are clothes and all kinds of other things) is now off by default!

This is absolutely not a minimal thing to us. Think about it: People who are looking for sex-oriented things will quickly enough figure out or find out by asking that they need to enable mature! People looking for houses aren't even going to THINK about it!

So who loses in this scenario? Not the sex places! Not the people on PG land. ONLY the places on mature land that aren't about sex, that's who! That's who is paying for this!

That little box isn't all that obvious as one might think. I myself have accidentally been unable to find my own place in search before because somehow I didn't have the box checked! And I remember it took me a fair amount of time when I first joined to figure this part out. It just is NOT all that obvious!

Meanwhile, all kinds of players who either aren't aware of this, or are just simply not thinking about it - because, like I said, one doesn't tend to think about looking for or ticking off a mature box when one is looking for houses or hair or something - are simply not going to see us!

But the sex places, yes - when someone is looking for sexual content, they WILL find that, and sooner rather than later.

When they are looking for clothes, places on PG land will show up, and plenty of them! Places which are not on PG land - WILL NOT.

I have a money tree. I constantly have new players dropping in on my lot who don't even know I have a money tree, and don't know what one is. I always tell them how to search for them, and always say to be sure and have mature clicked on so they will find them all!

So we are paying the price for this, just for having non-sexual places on mature land, without even having committed the "crime!" While the people looking for sex WILL find it, because for one thing, the idea of mature and not mature will make sense to them.

Who would think you have to check off "mature" to find clothes, or houses, or hair? Or a dozen other things!

coco

I know quite a few. Most shop in Mature areas however and dont judge people who are into sex stuff



This comes off as patronizing.

So those us us still into sex SL are less grown up than those who give up on cybersex?

Lovely.


Admittedly most people after initial exposure dont like the crass and tasteless sex places. But many of us dont grow tired of sex.

Luckily IRL we didnt grow out of sex as a species. Real Life would be pretty boring without people in it.

Now THERE is a rating system I could really applaud

PG : Pretty Good stuff, nothing to write home about

M : Marvelous, you'll want to see this

XXX : extra ugly and vulgar, avoid like the plague

These ratings would be applied based on the aesthetic quality of an item rather than on the degree to which it involves sex. So a poorly made penis would get XXX, but one that was well crafted would get M.

Rotating LAND FOR SALE signs in the sky would be XXX of course, and you would have to show proof of age to even search for them. Children should not be exposed to poor taste until they're old enough to handle that kind of knowledge.

I can appreciate the problems this has caused Coco and others - it doesn't seem fair. I don't blame Linden Lab however. They did not spring this on us without notice, and Coco herself admits to having applauded the announcement when it was made. Now it's clearly a bit of a problem, and I sympathize with those who are impacted.

I blame the smut, and the purveyors of the smut. I know this is an unpopular view, but it's mine.

I believe that this, like other seamingly minor changes, is merely a bump in the road, and everyone will recover from it sooner rather than later. I also tend to agree with Kitty and Beebo and others, that there are other issues going on which might be contributing factors.

I am curious- In your veiw, how much sexual themed content should be allowed in Second Life?

I really feel for the people who have been hurt by this decision. Would anyone be interested in a landmark hosting service? I have a property with a tasteful building in a very quiet PG sim where I would set up landmark-givers to the users real store locations. I wouldn't host sex businesses since it would be circumventing what I believe LL's intention was in messing up the search. Just a thought. Where would be appropriate to spread the word about this service if it's inappropriate here?

Whether or not they sprung this on us without notice is completely beside the point.

The notice - even if I had read it right at the time - wouldn't have done me any good whatsoever!

I blame them for doing it PERIOD. I'd blame someone for taking my lunch, too, even if he gave me prior notice that he would be taking my lunch.

Anyway, they don't need to do this at ALL. There is no POINT to it. All it does is hurt me and those like me.

coco

Edit: I take that back. I understand there is a point to it, and I understand the point. The problem is, the benefit to them from doing this is almost nil, while the damage to us is considerable.

As much as you like, so long as it remains in compliance with the Community Standards. That's the short answer. The long answer I will find a more appropriate thread for, when I get home from work later today. I don't think it's appropriate to take coco's thread that far off course. (as you might imagine, I do have plenty of thoughts on it though )

This is what i am having a problem with. the hooha about the amount of sex stuff here. The internet as a whole is far worse and we are supposedly all adults here, im not a great fan of the XXX stuff but i certainly dont feel its thrust in my face when i search or travel around SL and if i find something not to my taste i TP out, now regards to the search system FOR GODS SAKE PEOPLE they are just dam words and u dont have to sit there and read them if they offend you.

For the ones that are complaining about to much sex here avoid the sex clubs, shut your eyes etc. do what you do when you are browsing the web, avoid the XXX stuff and remember we are in an electronic version of a Virtual life so if its really that bad CTRL-ALT-Q and uninstall the game and perhaps unplug the PC from the router, because stripped down to basics SL is a great chat program and whiteboard like ICQ, MSN, YAHOO etc. but with cute avatars in a 3D enviroment where u can do stuff that you cant do in the others, its not RL so try to keep it in proportion and dont let it affect your blood pressure

I think LLs have made a bad decision by making it PG by default for all the reasons stated here and in other threads but as LLs have shown us in the past they are not the brightest bulb in the box when making changes to the system unless they think that by doing it near the weekends they avoid all the fallout it causes because they dont work weekends in the office, maybe then they are smarter than i thourght

Peace

That includes the smut within the community standards?

So why should all the store owners suffer becuase some people following the community standards did what they are technically allowed to?

Maybe the benefits to them are tremendous if they do it this way, maybe a big corporate is interested in here or the puppeters controling LLs purse strings may have suggested PG by default etc. etc. there is probably a good reason in LLs eyes to do this and i would say slowly but surely the grid is becoming a place where people of age 13 and above will eventually be allowed to play here that would fit in with the long term plans of perhaps becoming a 3D internet.

There are thousands of potential customers out there for LLs and SL so i dont suppose for one moment they truely care about us players that dont own more than one sim, they will do whatever they feel they need to do to bring SL to as wider range of people as possible.

This is just my opinion based on lots of things that have been happening over the last year or so, but i could be totally wrong but if i could place a bet i would say that sometime in the future, perhaps a few years yet, but SL will open its doors to everyone on one grid, and i imagine these changes are just part of the overall plan to bring SL to everyone eventually in the future.

I truely feel for you and all the people affected by this stupid change.

The interesting thing is the Lindens dont seem want to highlight/endorse the Sexual content in Second Life by adding a Sexual designation. (PG/M/X)

So it seems instead sexual content will be crowded slowly into the closet.

They just overnight made a reason to own PG land for people who were not amoung the anti sex crusade.

Many argued against teen Second Life becuase we assumed eventually theyd want teens on the main grid.

As time passes that worry seems less and less far fetched.

Wow, that is really mindnumbingly stupid. Most land is mature on the mainland from what I can tell, there seems to be far less PG land available even if you want it. The majority of people do not own mature land to sell sexually oriented material, it's because of availiblity and a certain level of freedom (not to be ARed for cursing on your own land or something.) Filtering out places by the land rating is... absurd. I bought PG land mainly because it doesn't attract casinos, clubs and camping chairs etc. Now I will have to worry that everyone will be looking to buy 16 meter parcels with signs to their store, I guess. Once again, everyone loses, this seems to be the policy, if no one is happy we must move forward!

Oy vey.

I'll also add that old users do clean installs all the time, this won't just affect newbies, although that is bad enough.

If it is compliant with community standards, it is NOT in your parcel descriptions, parcel names, classified advertisements, profiles, etc. I cannot for the life of me figure out what it is about the Community Standards paragraph on "indecency" that is so incredibly difficult to understand.

"Content, communication, or behavior which involves intense language or expletives, nudity or sexual content, the depiction of sex or violence, or anything else broadly offensive must be contained within private land in areas rated Mature (M). Names of Residents, objects, places and groups are broadly viewable in Second Life directories and on the Second Life website, and must adhere to PG guidelines."

I just did an "All" search on the term "beds", with the mature checkbox un-checked, and before my laptop crashed, I counted THREE sexually explicit ads.. explicitly detailed in both the visual and verbal depiction of sexual situations. This is what is pushing Linden Lab to take actions like this. What you seem to say in these conversations when they come up is that you should have the right to place this content wherever you feel like it might be to your advantage, and I should just ignore it when I see it. I should just grow up. No, no, and no again. It is clear where it is acceptable and where it is not acceptable. There is a way to run sexually oriented businesses on the grid, and even use the various directories and search facilities to draw in customers. It just needs to be done with common sense. And it doesn't take an overly complex interpretation of the Community Standards to do so.

Rant over. (sorry coco)

This idea being talked about to move the "mature" filter from the region level to the parcel level is a terribly good idea, and would fix the current mess. It would of course put us back to ground zero, because people will abuse it by placing explicit content and not declaring it as mature, just to get an edge on the search action. At least those could be ARd where/when appropriate. In this case, I absolutely think the interests of the folks who are being unfairly impacted by this change should be considered above all else, and it should happen very quickly.

And @coco - I didn't mean to say that because you supported this when they talked about it, shame on you. Obviously it seemed like a good idea at the time, but now we've got a new problem that wasn't anticipated, and the change obviously wasn't well thought out beforehand. (or maybe it was, but this particular issue just never came to light until it was too late)

Is someone with sexually explicit content on mature land following Community Standards as long as their search criteria is "PG"?



The All search includes classifieds - where the user is reponsible to check their content as mature if it is. The classifeds havent yet been changed. If Mature labelled classifieds are still required to be PG I do not believe this has been made clear enough.

The issue were having involves the Places tab only.



When did I EVER say this?

In any form?

Sure, as long as it is contained within "private land" on that mature sim.




I don't remember - they were probably classifieds. And yes, I can see where my interpretation of the CS might not apply to classifieds flagged as "mature", as there is no particular mention of them. The spirit of the language suggests that they do. Classifieds are a "broadly viewable" directory, and "directories" are mentioned specifically. But then, what would be the point of a "mature" flag if you had to keep the content PG? Not sure why I didn't pick up on this one before.




Maybe I am misappropriating that to you, when someone else has said it - I'm recalling the threads of a few weeks ago. Apologies.

What my point is its not the "smut" as you call it
- its those people who advertize the "smut" in this visible way where PG type people can easily see it thats hurt everyone.

I understand a need to curtail how raunchy advertizing is in place where people not interested in sex might see it. However I dont like punishing people who are not offenders.

I personally think the Lindens should set asside part of the Mature designation to include sexual related material. At the same time the normal mature shouldnt be changed. Allowing the mild forms of Mature (launguage, reasonable nudity) to go on. Like others have said there should be no reason for all of SL to be kid safe.

If they want all the ads PG - Okay , then they need to definie nudity. They need to definie the language allowed. They need to define what can be said in reguards to how life is lived in Second Life.

Ill never agree those broadly interpretable paragraphs are clear enough.

Id prefer some area where Sexual material can be advertized - somewhere that the PG'rs can easily avoid. But I dont see this as crucial as protecting the ability for people to DO the things theyd like to do without interferance from the more prudish types.

"Content, communication, or behavior which involves intense language or expletives, nudity or sexual content, the depiction of sex or violence, or anything else broadly offensive must be contained within private land in areas rated Mature (M)."

It's just too vague and confusing...

What does "contained" mean?
"put up a prim fence so it can't be seen from outside the parcel" ?
"put prims around it so that it has the illusion of being "indoors" ?
"make sure it doesn't overlap parcel boundaries" ?
"just make sure it can't be seen from parcels in PG sims" ?

What does "private land" mean?
"any M-sim parcel not owned by Gov Linden" ?
"any M-sim parcel used for 'residential' instead of 'commercial' (ie, no parcel listings or classifieds pointing at it"
"any M-sim parcel that is non-public because it has ban lists or allow lists" ?

I don't know... and I'm sure that the the interpretations are different among the people that enforce this policy too, which is bad. Determining "yes" or "no" with regards to compliancy should be more exact and undebateable.

On another topic:

I am strongly in favor of preserving "M" and "PG" classification at the sim/region level... if someone buys a parcel deep inside a PG sim because they don't want to have neighbors flaunting their adult content, then they should be accomodated.

Conversely, if someone wants to build something "tastefully" erotic or sexual... and put it on the roof of their house... they shouldn't have to be afraid of some prude in a neighboring parcel AR'ing them. (unless, perhaps, if they're too close to a PG sim and it's clearly visible from there).

It'd be cool if there were "? rated sims", where parcel owners could decide on a parcel by parcel basis whether content was mature or not, it would be excellent for private sim owners who wish to have a PG public area and a M private area in the same region.

I wouldn't want that to be the default for the mainland though.