Commerce

i wish LL moved to Netherlands somehow and become game to ppl +18 - then they would resolve many troubles in one step.

Iren Tinkel wrote:

 

i wish LL moved to Netherlands somehow and become game to ppl +18 - then they would resolve many troubles in one step.

 

 

Or anywhere else in Europe for that matter, All EU countries are subject to EU laws, not just national laws.

Dozens of Dutch sites (including a government funded site) are hosting/mirroring wikileaks because we do not like and believe in censorship. Try to do that in the US, you'll be in jail right now

Fantastic response Darius very nicely  explained and put's a lot of what's bubbling in the pot into perspective - Thanks :-)

^L^

actually i just dont know what teens do in sl. its game for mature ppl. i can watch my statistic on youtube who looks my sl video presentation - its mostly ppl 35-45, 45-55 and even not so much 18-25, just about 5% (zero for 13-17). so i dont see any sense to  shake whole sl just for some teens around. if they play in sl they will find anyway how to access adult sims and actually they need just flag +18 to access adult content in SLM. so it looks more like NOT POTECTING teens, but taking off responsibility - kind of - we warned its adult content, so if they enter anyway - we are not responsible. but WE - sl gamers - are always responsible anyway. and must follow and lalal. i find it silly.

sl must be for age verified ppl only.

Lasher and Irene,

You are both welcome. This world is getting smaller, but still there are chasms between us that sometime just seem ludicrous. I'd prefer a more sexually liberal and less violent moral climate too. However I'm not anxious to start a "Guns vs. Boobies" flame war either ... so I'll stop there. *grin*

Totally agree

• New maturity level for weapons: General
• New maturity level for tobacco: Mature

Ehem...

Allowing signed in Residents to set viewable Maturity levels on the SL Events web page in a similar manner with a cookie be a great help.

Brooke --

First, thank you for the big yellow flag on the front of the marketplace, suggesting 18+ residents may want to enable Mature Content. That, at least, was well done.

Now for the concerns.

I am trying to understand why you would want us to spend the hours, days and weeks it requires "edit our listings" to get them to accurately reflect the maturity rating they should have, without knowing which words are flagged as Adult and which as Moderate. Perhaps it doesn't seem clear to the Commerce Team, but essentially you're asking us to devote days of our time to guessing what's considered Adult and what's considered Moderate. How is this productive for any of us, and how will it generate anything other than frustration on our part, and reduce our ability to focus on our core business and tasks?

Please help us understand why it is necessary to keep the Blacklisted/Flagged words some sort of secret. If you're concerned the list might be used to inappropriately "get around" the Flagged Word List, consider that those selling actual Adult or Moderate content will want and need to keep those Flagged keywords, because their target audience uses them regularly to search for their products. To avoid them would simply guarantee that they lose potential sales, because they won't be reaching their target market.

Another issue: your new Listing Guidelines and definitions of moderate, adult and banned content enforce a system where a perfectly "G" product cannot also be successfully marketed to minors, simply because it might also appeal to those engaged in "M" roleplay.

Example:

I have several dozen listings for gowns which can be used for medieval / gorean freewoman / fantasy rp wear. There is nothing whatsoever 18+ about the content itself or even the listing text -- the gowns do not meet the published criteria for Adult or Moderate content -- and yet the listing has been flagged Moderate. I am presuming it's because the gown is also suitable to be sold to Gorean RPers, and that Gorean has been blacklisted as being, in and of itself, sexual (not true, btw - but you'd have to know the Community to understand that) -- but I don't actually know that "Gor" and "Gorean" is on the list, because you won't tell us. Be that as it may, Gorean RPers are a large target market in SL, as are medieval and fantasy RPers. By blacklisting "Gorean," I can now only reach half my target demographic when marketing my product, unless I list the product twice with two separate ratings (which I assume is still against the SLM listing rules).

I would like to ask that please help us address both of these issues. The first can be addressed by publishing the list of Flagged/Blacklisted words.

The second is more difficult -- at this time it seems you've painted both the residents and yourselves into a corner by trying to apply a black & white filter to a situation that is many shades of grey, at best. If LL insists on defining certain content as Adult or Moderate, despite it being legally available to minors in RL, then the only solution I can think of at present is to allow multiple listings for the same item, so that it can be marketed to the applicable audiences separately. Alternatively, you might reconsider your definitions of Adult and Moderate to more accurately reflect the legal and commonly accepted standards we live by outside of SL. Or you could get rid of the Teens -- which would be unfortunate.

Darrius Gothly wrote:

 

Linden Lab is a US company. As such, they are more likely to obey the laws in the US ... and the morality laws too. The diverse population of this country ranges from exceedingly liberal to incredibly restrictive. You can witness an incredibly wide range of moral guidelines just by driving the short distance from Los Angeles to Salt Lake City, Utah.

Sad to say but the US is also incredibly litigious. People file lawsuits for the craziest things, but when they feel their moral character has been threatened, or worse when they feel the moral character of their children is under attack, lawsuit is usually about the first thing out of their mouths.

It doesn't even have to be someone that is technologically literate. Quite the opposite in fact, a lot of people that haven't a clue about technology and Virtual Worlds like Second Life fear it greatly. Toss the gasoline of a perceived moral threat to their "innocent and manipulatable children" onto the bonfire of fear and ignorance and before long you have a heyday for lawyers and a nightmare for Linden Lab.

In this country, until a person reaches the age of 18, they are (in most locations) considered a minor. Consider the so-called "Sex Offender" who, at the age of 18 had consensual sex with a person under that age and subsequently wound up convicted of a felony and marked for life with the stigma of the label. There are many cases of youthful couples who made the mistake of having sex on the day of one partner's 18th birthday, only to find out their innocent act of celebration has now turned one of them into a life-long felon ... unable to enjoy a normal life ever again.

Yes Lasher, most of us on SL, and for that matter most parents in this country recognize their children are much more grown up at age 14 and up than the laws seem to indicate. But all it takes is a few extremists that garner the spotlight to ruin the freedom we now enjoy in Second Life.

I don't like it, and every chance I get I take exception to having to live under the mandates of the least common denominator extremists in this society. But Linden Lab is a company with a lot more to lose and really not a thing to gain from making a stand. I for one would prefer that they take a conservative stance, enact rules that keep them out of the courts and off the news, and allow us adults to continue enjoying at least one safe haven of somewhat more liberal relaxation.

Now excuse me while I go enable Advanced Physics and engage in some mindless wobble-watching.

 

OK Darrius - I cannot agree with you more about our assessment / description of the US personna and how the US population handles their affairs.  You were dead on in your assessment.

So now... being Devils Advocate (as I am just like Lasher and love voicing my opinions with no expexted end result from my comments but will offer it anyway) I will pose a very simple question for you to answer on behalf of what logic was in LL Senior Management's head for the decisions they made...

QUESTION:

LLis a US company - started, established, and operating in the US.  As far as I know almost ALL of the Senior Management are US Citizens and have either worked for, headed up, managed, and even founded US Operating companies.  As such, they are 100% fully aware - maybe even moreso than you - the US culture of being law suit happy and mixing often ultra-conservative moralities with their passion to litigate.

Knowing all this, WHY WOULD A COMPANY THAT WANTS TO PROTECT ITSELF FROM SUCH OBVIOUS MAGNETS OF LITIGATION AS MORALITIES AROUND MINORS/TEENS/CHILDREN PUT ITS COMPANY OPERATION IN RISK BY MERGING A SEPARATE TEEN GRID WITH AN ADULT GRID IN THE FIRST PLACE?

If as you imply, you prefer the actions LL is taking now by taking a more conservative stance in order to keep it out of the court system, news, etc., then why was LL so NOT SMART as to put their company into a situation like this in the first place by forcing this condition and impacting all the adults in the grid (mechants, customers, residents) for the ultra-small population of teens that were on the grid (I understand it was only around 1% of the adult population) ?

The LL situation is akin to me taking my shed full of fireworks and storing it now with my closet full of Lighters & Flame Throwers and then taking measure to make sure that no explosion happens or that its perceived by the local community to be a bad idea to store them in the same shed.

LL made yet another bad strategic move by merging the Adult & Teen Grids and now the tactical changes to everything in the grid and SLM to protect them from bad publicity and the courts is doing NOTHING but hurting 99% of their customer base.

Categorizing Listing by Keywords is a smaller scale bad idea used to protect LL from their massive scale bad idea of merging Adult & Teen grid.

Rachel Darling wrote:

... lose potential sales, because they won't be reaching their target market.

I think that is the idea here; to marginalize the adult and some of the mature content in an effort to clean up the grid for opening to a bigger family oriented audience.

We saw exactly the same when they moved people to Zindra with secret keywords and issues in the event and classifieds system that took ages to fix (if ever.) That keyword list may still be around somewhere. It used to be on slapt.me, but that site is gone.

Example:

I have several dozen listings for gowns which can be used for medieval / gorean freewoman / fantasy rp wear. There is nothing whatsoever 18+ about the content itself or even the listing text -- the gowns do not meet the published criteria for Adult or Moderate content -- and yet the listing has been flagged Moderate. I am presuming it's because the gown is also suitable to be sold to Gorean RPers, and that Gorean has been blacklisted as being, in and of itself, sexual (not true, btw - but you'd have to know the Community to understand that) -- but I don't actually know that "Gor" and "Gorean" is on the list, because you won't tell us. Be that as it may, Gorean RPers are a large target market in SL, as are medieval and fantasy RPers. By blacklisting "Gorean," I can now only reach half my target demographic when marketing my product, unless I list the product twice with two separate ratings (which I assume is still against the SLM listing rules).

I would like to ask that please help us address both of these issues. The first can be addressed by publishing the list of Flagged/Blacklisted words.

The second is more difficult -- at this time it seems you've painted both the residents and yourselves into a corner by trying to apply a black & white filter to a situation that is many shades of grey, at best. If LL insists on defining certain content as Adult or Moderate, despite it being legally available to minors in RL, then the only solution I can think of at present is to allow multiple listings for the same item, so that it can be marketed to the applicable audiences separately. Alternatively, you might reconsider your definitions of Adult and Moderate to more accurately reflect the legal and commonly accepted standards we live by outside of SL. Or you could get rid of the Teens -- which would be unfortunate.

Thanks Rachel...

This is the actual real example of what I have been trying to say in my posts.  The whole strategy of black word listing is wrong and doing it on the most critical and hidden KEYWORDS is even more wrong.

LL has absolutely no clue about their own customers.  I am not Gor nor follow or participate in thier in-world activities... BUT I respect them as critical base of customers of mine even though I do not sell ANY items that LL would have categorized my items as sexual, kinky, immoral, etc.  I sell sculpted landscape terrains and shapes and it is well known that some of the most beautiful landscaped sims/terrains in SL are in the Gorean & Medieval sims.  For me to ignore marketing my ROCKS to the Gorean population would be utterly stupid.

But now with LL black-balling major SL cultures like the Goreans, they hurt many of us Merchants in our ability to sell to them effectively in SLM.

As for LL itself, they are giving the Gorean cultures yet another big reason to leave SL and set up their sims, lands, shops, and all their spending on SL competing grids.  This is already happening now and we all know which grid is growing fast because of LL's policies and failings.  I set up my shop in this competing grid as did many of you fellow merchants as we want to follow our customers.

Again LL - yet another wise move by you on finding more ways to write your own demise - your compeititors could not do more to help you.

I'd like to know where that grid is. 

Given that the new Listing and rating policies outright bans rp of non-consensual situations (sexual or otherwise), and in-world skins with nipples are now classified as Moderate content, it would appear that way. I was hoping it was a phrasing mistake that just hadn't been thought through properly.

The fact of the matter is that the Adult population and rpers spend a great deal of money in SL. Turning SL into TSO would be a serious mistake -- we all know what happened to that platform.

If,  however, that is what the new content policy is trying to do, it would be good to know up-front.

InWorldz and Roleplay Worldz. IW is by far the greatest potential of the two, I'd say, as they have currency and cashout, while RPW only has a Paypal interface that's a bit kludgy at best. But the reality is that neither has even 100th of the user population or concurrency of SL. From a merchant perspective it's a non-starter for now...unless the intent is to purposely push adults to other grids, in which case the growth could escalate substantially.

Toysoldier Thor wrote:

This is the actual real example of what I have been trying to say in  my posts.  The whole strategy of black word listing is wrong and doing  it on the most critical and hidden KEYWORDS is even more wrong.

LL  has absolutely no clue about their own customers.  I am not Gor nor  follow or participate in thier in-world activities... BUT I respect them  as critical base of customers of mine even though I do not sell ANY  items that LL would have categorized my items as sexual, kinky, immoral,  etc.  I sell sculpted landscape terrains and shapes and it is well  known that some of the most beautiful landscaped sims/terrains in SL are  in the Gorean & Medieval sims.  For me to ignore marketing my ROCKS  to the Gorean population would be utterly stupid.

But now with LL  black-balling major SL cultures like the Goreans, they hurt many of us  Merchants in our ability to sell to them effectively in SLM.

As  for LL itself, they are giving the Gorean cultures yet another big  reason to leave SL and set up their sims, lands, shops, and all their  spending on SL competing grids.  This is already happening now and we  all know which grid is growing fast because of LL's policies and  failings.  I set up my shop in this competing grid as did many of you  fellow merchants as we want to follow our customers.

Again LL -  yet another wise move by you on finding more ways to write your own  demise - your compeititors could not do more to help you.

A disclaimer that on a personal level I would be perfectly fine with an SL without minors at all. However I do see the strategy and the bonus of teen/family "friendly" world, and that the overall market is a bigger one, rather than a smaller niche world like a certain red light world some of us are familiar with. Being work-safe and teen-safe makes for a larger world with more varied interests, in many cases promoting interests beyond just entertainment. So in that sense I'm behind it.

Also not against Gor of course, but what is the problem understanding the connections between "innocent" items and adult activities? I heard someone just mention in world "omg, dance poles are flagged adult and they don't have anything explicit in the pics". Am I the only one that can connect the dots that dance poles are a strip club item, and while an innocent hunk of metal in itself, doesn't mean I should be promoting stripping to a 16 year old minor? (Yes minor, here in the US, meaning that it's illegal for a minor to gain access to a strip club in RL).

Many aspects of Gor are innocent, contain great roleplay elements and are not "evil". A campfire is nothing in itself. A rag, or a free-womans gown is nothing in itself. And yet the roleplay consists of alternative lifestyles which carry over into RL activities and relationships, promote slavery that is of a sexual nature (implied where not explicit). I could tear most of the pages from the Gor books out, place them before you and the majority of them would have nothing at all adult or suggestive in them. And yet here in the US in some stores (such as Barnes and Noble) you will find the Gor books in the adult section. Is this really that hard to grasp that it's not the item, it's the thing the item lends itself to. If you're promoting a Gor item, you're indirectly promoting the whole of the Gor "lifestyle". If you sell a dance pole you're indirectly selling and promoting stripping. It's that simple.

It's not always a fun issue to deal with, this liability and protection thing, but if we're adults having an adult conversation can we at least behave like adults on the issue instead of sounding like a caught teen and saying "what? I was only ..."

On the subject of other grids, you need to quit with this. Besides breaking the guidelines by mentioning them, I know you can't wait for some magical world to spring up, be volumes better than SL and magically steal all the SL residents. Punishment to LL for not making you the kind of sales you think you deserve here and that's nice for you. But it's extremely rude to your "fellow merchants" to try to siphon users/customers/sales from here to another place. Many of us are committed here. We're not interested in the symbiotic relationship between opensim clones and SL. They will always be leeching off the SL userbase, because they can't market their way out of a paper bag to users outside of SL. I notice that you're not willing to make that break from SL in order to make a few bucks on another grid until all your money opportunities dry up in SL, but you are willing to take my customers from SL to make a few extra bucks in another world. How considerate of you to your fellow merchants. The few hundred active users on other grids are not and will never be a threat. Personally I'd love to see the viewer source closed, and compatibilies between opensim and SL closed for good, if you people are going to continue to leech off the SL userbase, though. Not doing me or your "fellow merchants" any favors there. Good luck with your whopping concurrency of a few hundred at best, maybe you should fully commit.

But as you said earlier, your rocks are not at all affected by this ratings policy. If you want to sell other grids, do it in your own space on your own dime. But I've got a feeling if you weren't selling people on other grids to SL users, you'd have a concurrency of 5 rather than 300 on them. Assuming any of them are up to 300 concurrency.

Dartagan Shepherd wrote:

Many aspects of Gor are innocent, contain great roleplay elements and are not "evil". A campfire is nothing in itself. A rag, or a free-womans gown is nothing in itself. And yet the roleplay consists of alternative lifestyles which carry over into RL activities and relationships, promote slavery that is of a sexual nature (implied where not explicit). I could tear most of the pages from the Gor books out, place them before you and the majority of them would have nothing at all adult or suggestive in them. And yet here in the US in some stores (such as Barnes and Noble) you will find the Gor books in the adult section. Is this really that hard to grasp that it's not the item, it's the thing the item lends itself to. If you're promoting a Gor item, you're indirectly promoting the whole of the Gor "lifestyle". If you sell a dance pole you're indirectly selling and promoting stripping. It's that simple.

I disagree entirely.  A rug that is described or keyworded as fantasy/medieval/gorean.  Or "would look great on a gorean sim" isn't promoting that lifestyle.  It's just advertising that it's a good fit for those seeking items that will fit into the theme of where they life.

A pair of boots advertised as medieval/gorean isn't promoting gor or the lifestyle.  Maybe the creator doesn't even like or approve of gor.  it doesn't change that the item suits and they can increase their profits by targeting another demographic.  There are people who create medieval products who have never set foot into Gor and know nothing  of it but they're aware that the gorean style is similar to medieval and thus target Goreans when selling because it's a HUGE customer base.

Likewise, a dance pole CAN be used while clothed.  The act of twirling on a pole is not adult or those "strip off the pounds" workout classes at most major gyms across the country would NOT be providing those classes.

your logic is akin to saying that child avatars promote child molestation because SOMEONE in SL might do something inappropriate with another person wearing a child avi.  Just because one MIGHT use something for a purpose does not mean 1) that's its intended purpose 2) everyone uses it for that purpose 3) if anyone uses it for that purpose, it's automatically bad.

Strippers wear bras and panties... should we stop marketing those as "general" as well?

You're reaching.

I can use certain "aids" as paper weights on my desk too, but not many parents would appreciate that in a public office.

And while I'm sure clothed pole dancing is all the rage in some parts, I don't think that's the general association.

I've shopped for Gor in the past. I knew to also look in medieval, rustic, Roman and a bunch of other things. I also know Gor involves sexual slavery and people looking to hook up beyond SL. That I wouldn't want my 16 year old around. What I do in my personal adult time and what I'd want a 16 year old exposed to are two entirely different things.

In defense, I'd not let them in at all, personally. We decided to go with PG only a full year before they implemented age verification, not because we particularly liked it, but because we could understand which way the wind was blowing and that there were certain inevitable bits coming as SL grows up. This isn't the first community/world to undergo these kind of changes and be bitten by the need for more protection and rules as they've grown up.

It's still difficult for us, knowing that we're all adults and yet we have to keep our conversations "clean", even at times when no one would be offended. Don't know, all my life I've had to learn to respect what's proper and improper in whatever space I find myself in. I don't try to justify it with strange arguments like dancing clothed on a strippers pole though

People use the Gorean search term for reach, if the items are Pg in nature, which many of them are, then it's silly to classify them as moderate just because of a keyword than in itself is not moderate. This is an example of the silliness of word filters and people trying to decide the nature of a product because of word filters.

We all know certain terms are not considered PG, Gorean is not one of those terms.

I'm not arguing they should be general, although I can see a logic to it, I'm arguing they should be moderate and not adult as they are permitted on mature sims... as is nudity which is also adult on MP but not inworld.

When I was an SL stripper, I was always clothed.  never went down to less than panties and a bra.  and many do the same.  And if you don't think it's common for stripper poles to be involved with clothed women, how did the pussycat dolls become so darn popular?  Any one of these kids can turn on the TV and see one of those videos.  And those are REAL women.  Not pixels.

As for gor, there are MANY MANY people who spend their entire online time in Gor and hardly ever do anything adult.  Some teach classes, some RP teachers, doctors, bakers.  Some are full grown woman playing NON SLAVE roles and partake in no adult activity whatsoever.  So I strongly disagree that everything gorean should be adult.

The fact remains that if you can take the item off of a Gorean sim and it isn't adult or moderate then the items shouldn't be flagged as adult or moderate no matter what TYPE of people might use it.

What Ciarran said.

Dart, I know you want to find the logic in what was done and how it was executed...we would all like to. My constant question in SL is something along the lines of "Did they really mean to do that? There MUST be a logical explanation...somewhere...ah, here's one, maybe." Even so, abandoning or alienating the existing, paying customers in the hand for the potential ones in the bush, is something LL have been doing for ages. All it's accomplished so far is to narrow or even erode the growth of the user base.

Now, if they currently have a sure-fire way of bringing in a larger group of "family oriented" players than they'll lose by upsetting the existing paying customers, I'm all for it and I'll adjust my own business and products accordingly. The problem is, I don't see it...and lest we forget, the PG-oriented TSO is just a memory now.

The other problem is that a product with a bird "cocking his head" is STILL not adult content, and will never be...and neither is a medieval gown that might appeal to Goreans. So please, lets at least admit that the filter and its implementation is flawed as it currently stands. Then maybe we can all work with LL to try to come up with a better solution that won't continue to erode both our and LL's bottom line earnings.

Bottom! She said bottom! That's at least a Moderate word, if not adult! Ahahah, see how silly this all is?

@Ciarran and @Rachel

Sorry about that, I guess I let a personal peeve get mixed in there. My wife and I were in a virtual world type place years ago. It wasn't an adult space, but it didn't take long before some wannabe master was hitting on her even after he knew she was 16. I was furious.

And that's not to say that a good portion of the Gor type lifestyles aren't chok full of responsible adults that would never do anything like this, because that's also true. As long as there are the exceptions of some fool knowingly hitting on jailbait though, with no job and no life, I think the lowest common denominator needs to be dealt with. The more you push Gor, the more a teen is eventually going to find out that its core element is the slavery bits, because without them, Gor is not much in the way of writing or storyline as RP goes. Failure to face that fact I think is folly.

I'm more frustrated with LL I suppose, and even though I'll stand by the decision, and it's not likely to be changed, I just refuse to accept SL in general as a place for 16 and 17 year olds. But if they're going to do it, do it right and protect them properly. The logic part is easy though, it's all legal liability. There's certainly not an ethics or morals committee running these decisions

They created their own liability though, and so we own it by proxy.

That said, I miss the old days when you never knew what you might find walking through your local SL mall, heheh.

But right, that whole issue is probably moot at this point and out of context of a keyword discussion, so again, sorry for that. I think the keywords issue is that LL plugged some pre-made solution in there and it's very agressive and needs to be taught what words to allow and of course problems need to be addressed with many items getting plugged into the wrong Maturity Rating.

I respect all lifestyles, respect Goreans and merchants that may lose sales over this. At any rate, will try to keep that out of the discussion, not that some of the justifications don't make it tempting to interject reality doses.

Magnet Homewood wrote:

 

Bottom! She said bottom! That's at least a Moderate word, if not adult! Ahahah, see how silly this all is?

 

It sure is, a logic defying farce - which is  near nigh impossible to defend. I discovered today that a pair of 'kinky' boots are forced into Mature but the same 'Fetish' boots are perfectly acceptable in PG who I wonder is the sad person or even saddder comittee that sits and ponders over the intrinsic corruptions  and connotations implied in the words  'Kink' and 'Fetish' do they have a  metaphorical pair of scales on which to measure the naughty weight behind each word or do they have some lab rats sitting in a research room having every word in the dictionary read to them, and depending on their noted wince and  grimmace factors each word  is then graded accordingly.? And what happens when they just can't make up their mind or worse get their Pedophiles  mixed up with their Paediatricians ? (it  has happen more than once). Do they solve their conumdrum with a flick of a coin? And what effect  does this have on the hapless censors do their minds become adled and corrupted due to over exposure to toxic  inuendo that their next port of call is litigation to sue LL because in the process of enforcing the companies adult content policy, their formerly innocent minds have been corrupted.

Just a thought

^L^

and I'm not saying Gor is a fairytale land populated by rainbows and unicorns where nothing bad ever happens.  Yes.  it is an adult lifestyle.  But it's also just a STYLE.  As in a STYLE of house, a STYLE of chair, a STYLE of clothing.  The word Gorean is as much an adjective as it is a noun.  It's akin to saying something is a steampunk outfit or a victorian chair or a modern house.

If I could take an item and replace the word "gorean" with the word "modern" and the item is no longer "offensive" then should gorean be a "bad word"?  The item hasn't change.  The use hasn't changed.

Being able to buy a Gorean rug won't give children the ability to go to a Gorean sim.  It won't help them purchase the books in a book store.  I simply maintain that it should be whatever the term Gorean is attached to.  Gorean Rape Bed=BAD Gorean Boots=Good.

Anything "adult" about Gor is adult in it's own right clearly and undebateably.  Those items should have other words to flag the filter like slave, sex, rape, whip.  This filter is looking for a word that out of context can be either general or adult.  Just as the word "bed" isn't mature but "rape bed" or "sex bed" then becomes an adult item.

Dartagan Shepherd wrote:

 

And that's not to say that a good portion of the Gor type lifestyles aren't chok full of responsible adults that would never do anything like this, because that's also true. As long as there are the exceptions of some fool knowingly hitting on jailbait though, with no job and no life, I think the lowest common denominator needs to be dealt with. The more you push Gor, the more a teen is eventually going to find out that its core element is the slavery bits, because without them, Gor is not much in the way of writing or storyline as RP goes. Failure to face that fact I think is folly.

I'm more frustrated with LL I suppose, and even though I'll stand by the decision, and it's not likely to be changed, I just refuse to accept SL in general as a place for 16 and 17 year olds. But if they're going to do it, do it right and protect them properly. The logic part is easy though, it's all legal liability. There's certainly not an ethics or morals committee running these decisions

Well I certainly have some sympathy with that viewpoint and I agree that it's not a suitable place for sixteen and seventeen year olds as things stand. I'm more concerned with profiles and groups though than medieval buildings and gowns in that respect, but that's for a different thread.