Are you able to Hide your Avatar Birth date from public view (your profile)?

[ZaylaObsidian]

I ask this because by your avatar birth date you are able to figure out somebody's RL age through it - (starting at least 16 years to first join SL to your current avatar birth date.)

Have been wondering about this for some time, reflecting that in IMVU you can hide your Avatar birth date from the public for Privacy Reasons. If this is not currently possible, do you think SL might change this in the future? 

But of course I do not expect such info not available to the Moderators of SL. 

Thank you for your responses. :) 

 

>Re. Valerie Inshan: Would be at least 22 years of age from your avatar birth date. I know it may be older, but at least 22.

>Not all people have alts though and I do understand the younger gen able to lie about their age signing up. But I've been more focused on the age you can at least sum up (if joining SL the real required age minimum). Liking everybody's ideas so far. Personally though, I'd enjoy to keep some of my own details able to be shown or not.

[valerie Inshan]

No, your SL birthdate cannot be hidden. Btw, what makes you think you can figure out RL age from the SL birthday? I was born in SL on February 8th 2008: so, how old do you think I am in RL? ;)

ETA: And, I don't think LL will ever change that. Probably the least of their concern, actually. 

[Lindal Kidd]

You are correct that you can determine a minimum RL age, but that is probably not the person's ACTUAL age. And what if they lied about their age when they registered? Your formula is not very reliable.

[Syo Emerald]

Please, don't make the mistake to assume that 16 year olds have nothing better to do than signing up for Second Life on their brithdate. The account age of an avatar tells you NOTHING. Absolutly nothing and people will probably laugh at you if you confront them with their theory.

Just think about it...last year I made an alt account. It has a totally different avatar birth date than the account I'm posting with. If you know meet my alt inworld, you will think I turned 16 last year? See, you don't even know if the avatar you meet is the first account this person ever had.

The only thing that the avatar birthdate tells you is when I chosed to create an account in SL, not more, not less and that information is basically nothing, so its not interesting to be able to hide it. The avatar birthdate is even useful for security reasons, because places that have to deal with griefers can protect themselves from throw-away accounts by auto-ejecting everything whos account is new.

[Madelaine McMasters]

Hi Zayla,

Your theory requires a majority of SL residents to have signed up on their 16th birthday to have any predictive power. Back in 2008, Linden Lab released the following demographic data.

RL Age     % of Resident Population

13-17         1
18-24       25
25-34       35
35-44       24
45+          15

For your theory to be usefully predictive, a majority of residents would have had to sign up for SL before it existed.

Any 13yo who started on the teen grid would be three years younger than your theory predicts.

Given that one must be 16+ to be here these days, I think it's reasonably (not completely) safe to say we're all 16+. My theory is about as predictive as yours and requires no math.

I'm on my second tour of SL, I started here in 2008. I currently have four avis, all with different start dates. The oldest is from 2010, the youngest is from last week. Anyone willing to do even a little sleuthing can figure out my RL age via a mechanism quite different than your theoretical one.

It's true that we can draw some conclusions from an avatar's SL age and maybe some would want to avoid having those conclusions drawn, but on average, I like knowing if someone is new, or perhaps should know better by now.

And finally, I've reason to believe that Valerie would have as much difficultly remembering life at 22 as I do.

;-).

[valerie Inshan]

Maddy said: "And finally, I've reason to believe that Valerie would have as much difficultly remembering life at 22 as I do"

But.... but... Wait!!! I WANNA BE 22!!!!

[Madelaine McMasters]

I'm coming up on twice 22. I certainly wouldn't mind looking 22, but I wouldn't want that if I had to think 22. That's when I got married! ;-).

[KarenMichelle Lane]

Too cute! 3x20 +1 here