So what changed in the Terms of Service?

[Daniel Regenbogen]

Welcome to a nice mix of Absurdistan and Prudistan. Once more not the dirty deed is punished but the pure idea that something dirty *could* happen. Bowing once more to the real perverts - those who see a child avatar and the very first (and last) thought is: SEX!

 

Now as landlord I can't simply visit a homestead of my customers because it is set adult - not even to quickly fix the rental box or help with some terraforming issues. As a creator I can't visit for example an animation store because the region it is on is set to adult, because they (amongst hundreds of others) they sell a couple of adult animations, too. I now have to first switch to a different avatar or push the size slider to the max.

 

The overwhelming majority of child avatars doesn't do anything wrong - but they are once more punished for the actions of a minority (which still will do what they want). And a (for example) 14yo avatar is forbidden from doing things an RL 14yo would be in full right to do.

 

Meanwhile murder, slaving, torture and so on are totally fine in SL.

[ValKalAstra]

2 minutes ago, Starberry Passion said:

That wouldn't work. What if they looked like Gemma Ward or Jenna Ortega or Halle Bailey

or Ariana Grande. Sometimes adults just have natural baby faces.

Then you have Asian Americans.

You have adults like Melani Martinez who dress in Lolita  or Babydoll style

Some adults just love to be cute and doll like,

Then you have women who don't have a lot of curves, Rectangular shaped bodies

Then you have women who dress certain asthetics, Like Cutecore or Yami Kawaii or 

Then you have Femboys, who are of age males that live their lives femininely but still identify as a male

Places like Lunar has a Kawaii asthetic that appeal to adults, Insomnia Angel have an adult lolita style that appeals to adults, Rosier has a Lolita style, like Insomnia Angel, that appeals to adults.

Uh, not sure you meant to quote me. I'm not arguing against any of that. 😅

[Starberry Passion]

1 minute ago, Daniel Regenbogen said:

Welcome to a nice mix of Absurdistan and Prudistan. Once more not the dirty deed is punished but the pure idea that something dirty *could* happen. Bowing once more to the real perverts - those who see a child avatar and the very first (and last) thought is: SEX!

 

Now as landlord I can't simply visit a homestead of my customers because it is set adult - not even to quickly fix the rental box or help with some terraforming issues. As a creator I can't visit for example an animation store because the region it is on is set to adult, because they (amongst hundreds of others) they sell a couple of adult animations, too. I now have to first switch to a different avatar or push the size slider to the max.

 

The overwhelming majority of child avatars doesn't do anything wrong - but they are once more punished for the actions of a minority (which still will do what they want). And a (for example) 14yo avatar is forbidden from doing things an RL 14yo would be in full right to do.

 

Meanwhile murder, slaving, torture and so on are totally fine in SL.

I'm not sure what you're talking about, they already said height has nothing to do with age, no matter what gender.

The murder, slaving, torture are all rp and consented to via adults. I don't like them, personally, but they are adult activities.

[Starberry Passion]

3 minutes ago, ValKalAstra said:

Uh, not sure you meant to quote me. I'm not arguing against any of that. 😅

You said

"joke aside. I'm of the believe that we (probably just me) perceive age based on two factors, one being the obvious anatomical markers, the other being culture and our personal familiarity with it. For example, with people around my age, I often guess them younger than they are and a big part of that is that the clothes they wear, their hairstyles, even their mannerism used to be young fashion when I was a wee lass. It just kind of aged along with them."

I'm telling you that you cannot go by looks alone and some adults are very immature.

[ValKalAstra]

1 minute ago, Starberry Passion said:

You said

"joke aside. I'm of the believe that we (probably just me) perceive age based on two factors, one being the obvious anatomical markers, the other being culture and our personal familiarity with it. For example, with people around my age, I often guess them younger than they are and a big part of that is that the clothes they wear, their hairstyles, even their mannerism used to be young fashion when I was a wee lass. It just kind of aged along with them."

I'm telling you that you cannot go by looks alone and some adults are very immature.

Yes, quite obviously. That was my entire point, yah. In the quoted part, where I mentioned anatomical markers AND culture, as well as in a later part of my post where I pointed out that visual identification is a mess, I shall quote myself here:

Quote

What I'm saying is that identifying age visually is a mess, especially in a virtual world of exaggerated (frankly warped) proportions and it's not like we don't have an 800 week long archive of proof for that.

Sorry if my english is a chaotic mess but I do think that is what I am saying, that you can't go by looks alone.

[Starberry Passion]

1 minute ago, ValKalAstra said:

Yes, quite obviously. That was my entire point, yah. In the quoted part, where I mentioned anatomical markers AND culture, as well as in a later part of my post where I pointed out that visual identification is a mess, I shall quote myself here:

Sorry if my english is a chaotic mess but I do think that is what I am saying, that you can't go by looks alone.

Oh okay, I see. Not to mention, most child faces on here look like adult faces, which makes it even harder.

It's crazy. I've seen some cute child faces but most wear adult skins on a child head.

[Innula Zenovka]

10 hours ago, Honey Puddles said:

How often do you go shopping, and find yourself in an Adult rated region? Do you even notice when you do?

Remember that the giant hitpiece article went out of it's way to target the maker of the Tweenster body (a child avatar).. because it was located on an A-rated region. One of the better known motorcycle shops (with it's daily midnight mania giveaways) is located on A-rated land.. they even SELL child-sized bikes! A large number of Star Wars roleplay regions are located on A-Rated land. Driver's of SL frequently visits Zindra, and is often sponsored by stores located on A-rated land.

And that's not even getting into clothing stores that just sit on A-rated land because "oh, I dunno, someone might get naked on a pose stand, better mark it A to be safe"

People who make bodies for child avatars will presumably have to relocate their stores to M land if they want to attract customers, and other stores and RP regions that cater to both adult and child avatars may also want to reconsider their locations.    There's no obvious reason why a motorcycle store needs to be on Adult land, after all, unless it has an Adult club attached.   

Or that subset of people who both RP as child avatars and also regularly use these motorcycle stores/participate in Star Wars RP/go on Drivers of SL expeditions to Adult regions will need to accustom themselves to changing their content preferences when they change into their Adult avatars and to changing them back when they return to their child avatars.    

I'm wondering how large those subsets are, in fact.   I suspect it's a matter of tens rather than hundreds of people.

[Starberry Passion]

Or they use an adult head and think it looks like a child, but it doesn't look like it but it's on a child avatar body, For example.

The face look like some 20 year old woman's face but it's on a child's body.

[Ingrid Ingersoll]

As predicted, there is pushback from a lot of communities in sl but I'm happy they've made changes to the TOS. And disgusted by some people here calling them "prudish". Get out more. 

Edited May 3 by Ingrid Ingersoll

[Indy Melody]

One time I met a newbie that was wearing one of those newbie avatars looking like an adult. She was asking me questions about getting started in SL. After a few minutes, she started asking me how she could get pregnant and have a baby in SL. All she wanted to do was that. The more the conversation went on, her speech pattern became more immature sounding to me. I did the unthinkable, and asked how old she was in RL. She replied she was 14. 

I would like to see better means to protect the adults in SL from the RL children that make accounts to join SL.

[Asadora Summers]

4 hours ago, Drayke Newall said:

When I heard about the latest article that produced all this reaction I wasn't surprised. Whether it was true or not, the fact that it was published didn't surprise me at all especially if you have kept up with LL's issues regarding all of this.

I'm surprised you haven't heard of anything happening to them in the past. Even the 2019 court case where they fired their information security director (for what ever reason - it is irrelevant) and their claims in said case of high ***** numbers every quarter and those offenders simply being able to return. From this article: Second Life Is Plagued by Security Flaws, Ex-Employee Says | WIRED

"Pearlman says that her concerns were only amplified by violations of Second Life’s “*****” rules"

"According to the lawsuit, in 2018 the manager of Linden Lab’s fraud team “presented information to Linden board members in quarterly fraud reports that acknowledged a high number of such ***** [sic] violations were actually occurring on a regular basis each quarter.” The suit says Pearlman “was concerned that Linden Lab was apparently allowing the users to violate ***** rules, by not implementing appropriate procedures to prevent violations from repeating at the same levels each quarter.”

From previous information, this current article isn't an isolated case nor are we talking about a small number of offences.

Trust me. This latest article is not the first time it has been brought up that LL have been ignoring taking preventative action and simply hiding behind their rules. I am not saying what LL should or should do or if they are correct or not but when even their own teams have shown concern in the past it surely means something.

...and the 2007 thing.

Edited May 3 by Asadora Summers
re-worded.

[NicholasTheHufflepuffWizard]

When it comes to creators of bodies and skins on Second Life needing to make a modesty layer, I feel like they should be given a bit more time to do so instead of June 30th. Which I think is pretty much is half a month to get it out, if I am correct. (Correction: It's actually two months of time, I was off on my calculation of time.)

I'd recommend five months to do, to allow for breathing room so that this can be done without skin creators having to rush something out.  

I would imagine it takes a good while to make changes to skin textures and so forth, and it can't be just shipped out in one entire day or week. These content creators may have other things to focus on aside from their usual craft, and may not always have the time to put something out.

It can't be easy to make skin textures, I'm sure it takes hours maybe even more than days of work to do so. Especially if its to be a good quality product. 

As a fellow user who has a child avatar, I'll do my best to follow the rules. 

However... perhaps just simply covering up should be enough for modesty?

I can understand for the most part what's trying to be done here, but depending on its effectiveness... it may or may not exactly work one-hundred percent. 

Edited May 3 by NicholasTheHufflepuffWizard
making a slight adjustment

[Ingrid Ingersoll]

2 minutes ago, Indy Melody said:

I would like to see better means to protect the adults in SL from the RL children that make accounts to join SL.

There used to be age verification in sl and anyone under 18 was on the teen grid and coudn't go anywhere else. I'm not sure why they dropped it, given the sh** that goes on in sl. Probably lack of bandwidth and not caring too much. 

[Starberry Passion]

4 minutes ago, Indy Melody said:

One time I met a newbie that was wearing one of those newbie avatars looking like an adult. She was asking me questions about getting started in SL. After a few minutes, she started asking me how she could get pregnant and have a baby in SL. All she wanted to do was that. The more the conversation went on, her speech pattern became more immature sounding to me. I did the unthinkable, and asked how old she was in RL. She replied she was 14. 

I would like to see better means to protect the adults in SL from the RL children that make accounts to join SL.

That is a thing too, there are children who do try to prey on adults. Children are very smart and some of them can outsmart adults very fast. Women, themselves, on average can think faster, outwit, solve a problem 5 different was much faster than a man can, Not saying one is smarter than the other but I am saying in the amount of time a man thinks up one thing, a woman thinks up 10 things already. No different in a younger person.

[Starberry Passion]

3 minutes ago, Ingrid Ingersoll said:

There used to be age verification in sl and anyone under 18 was on the teen grid and coudn't go anywhere else. I'm not sure why they dropped it, given the sh** that goes on in sl. Probably lack of bandwidth and not caring too much. 

Automated age verification doesn't work that well, it can fail most of the time, not to mention you can just use someone else's ID, if they ask for your I.D.

[Katherine Heartsong]

7 hours ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

Yes. How much adult SLex happens on the dance floor of clubs, between fully clothed avis who are supposedly dancing but going at it in IM? An awful lot, I suspect.

Eep! Eww!

I get awfully flirty and whisper whisper whisper while dancing sometimes, but honestly, people, have some modesty! If it's getting that warm on the dance floor get a room, people!

Then again I'm the type that always TPs home into my bath/closet/clothes room to change clothes cause how would you change into a new outfit in public in RL?

[Starberry Passion]

3 minutes ago, Katherine Heartsong said:

Eep! Eww!

I get awfully flirty and whisper whisper whisper while dancing sometimes, but honestly, people, have some modesty! If it's getting that warm on the dance floor get a room, people!

Then again I'm the type that always TPs home into my bath/closet/clothes room to change clothes cause how would you change into a new outfit in public in RL?

That's not going to happen, modesty in S.L. The adult side of S.L was made for adulting. If people wanted modesty, the would stick to general clubs, not Mature nor Adult. If you're in an adult club in an adult sim, people are going to adult all the time. 

[Zalificent Corvinus]

12 minutes ago, NicholasTheHufflepuffWizard said:

I feel like they should be given a bit more time to do so instead of June 30th. Which I think is pretty much is half a month to get it out, if I am correct.

What planet are you on where 58 days is "half a month"? It's obviously NOT this one.

[Katherine Heartsong]

Couldn't the whole BoM thing on top of your base avatar's skin layer problem be solved by either LL themselves making approved kid avatars (though after Senra's overall look, maybe not) or simply have any shop selling child/pre-teen avatars simply turn off BoM and work with any one of a handful of popular skin places to make them in the right skin tones?

For example, you go to shop for your 10 year old avatar body at "10 year Olds R Us" and buy the boy one. Voila, inside the HUD for the body are 10 skin settings from Velour to pick from (much like the new LaraX comes with), and no BoM option, so that when buy your head you simply need a skin for that head that matches the Velour tones?

Edited May 3 by Katherine Heartsong

[Phil Deakins]

58 minutes ago, Daniel Regenbogen said:

Now as landlord I can't simply visit a homestead of my customers because it is set adult - not even to quickly fix the rental box or help with some terraforming issues.

If you're behaving as an adult sometimes, like performing as a landlord, why don't you be an adult avatar at those times. Changing between avatars is extremely fast. It's you, as a child, who wants to be in adult places, so it's you, as a child, who should spend a few seconds changing. The world shouldn't have to change just for you.

I approve of the new regulations concerning child avatars. It's very late, but it's a good move.

Edited May 3 by Phil Deakins

[Vivienne Schell]

20 minutes ago, NicholasTheHufflepuffWizard said:

it takes a good while to make changes to skin textures and so forth, and it can't be just shipped out in one entire day or week.

It takes one hour to paint some black dots onto some skin. Also, BOM layers are not an option. The skin itself must be patched.

[Qie Niangao]

3 minutes ago, NicholasTheHufflepuffWizard said:

When it comes to creators of bodies and skins on Second Life needing to make a modesty layer, I feel like they should be given a bit more time to do so instead of June 30th. Which I think is pretty much is half a month to get it out, if I am correct.

If it's half a month, either the start time wasn't yesterday, May 3rd, or the end date isn't June 30th, so to what timeline does this refer?

I don't see it especially matters that a particular skin creator meet the timeline anyway. Rather, there needs to be some skin that complies that is preferably somewhat acceptable for use on a child avatar. Ideally, such a "fall back" skin should be distributed for free, until the regular skin creators have time to send out updates to their customers (presumably for free). Earlier I kinda hinted that there might be a Senra child avatar that could be used at least as an example, but such a thing might work temporarily to get through a transition.

There may be some inconvenience and less than ideal conditions for a while (e.g., not each resident's favorite look available immediately), but honestly it's nothing compared to the original Adult Content transition, with Zindra store relocations and Safe Hubs and Adult Search terms and settings and scores of disruptive changes. Some folks not getting their first choice of skin for a few weeks is not the end of the virtual world.

16 minutes ago, NicholasTheHufflepuffWizard said:

However... perhaps just simply covering up should be enough for modesty?

Yeah, this is what seems the sensible approach to me, too. Who cares what the skin texture is as long as the final baked texture is modest? In fact, who can even tell what the lower layers may have looked like, unless they're planning on policing raw image input to the bake servers—and for what purpose? I feel like some attention to the actual mechanics of the enforcement process would result in a clear, simple rule that people could readily follow without difficulty.

For example, as someone else suggested, how about a mandatory alpha mask that must be baked into every (SLUV-based) outfit? Just cover the transparent parts, no skin development necessary.

[Love Zhaoying]

15 minutes ago, Katherine Heartsong said:

whisper whisper whisper

OMG! No, really? Tell me more!

* whispering * Tell.Me.Moar.

[Zalificent Corvinus]

52 minutes ago, Daniel Regenbogen said:

Welcome to a nice mix of Absurdistan

Wow, radical concept, accurately describing your own post in the first sentence.

 

53 minutes ago, Daniel Regenbogen said:

Once more not the dirty deed is punished

To punish the guilty alone, one has to FIND them and the EVIDENCE first.

 

54 minutes ago, Daniel Regenbogen said:

The overwhelming majority of child avatars doesn't do anything wrong

Yes they did, they went to adult rated areas like they had some innate right to be there. The ToS was faulty, now that fault is fixed.

 

56 minutes ago, Daniel Regenbogen said:

And a (for example) 14yo avatar is forbidden from doing things an RL 14yo would be in full right to do

Really? Where in RL are 14 yr olds allowed to walk into Adults only shops, bars, clubs, movies, and demand in a loud but comically fake childish accent that all the Adults should stop being adult in adult places?

 

58 minutes ago, Daniel Regenbogen said:

Bowing once more to the real perverts - those who see a child avatar and the very first (and last) thought is: SEX!

Actually, when I see  child avatar, my first thought is:

"Arrogant Overentitled Toxic Pint-sized Anti-Adult-Activities Walking ToS Violation Clickbait Griefer Avatar! Kill it, kill it with FIRE!"

 

[NicholasTheHufflepuffWizard]

9 minutes ago, Zalificent Corvinus said:

What planet are you on where 58 days is "half a month"? It's obviously NOT this one.

Fair enough, I was rather wrong with my calculation. My thinking was a little wayward there. I'll admit to that. Still, I think skin creators should given more time than what is given for making the proper skins in order to follow up with the modesty rule that will be enforced next month.