Lindens Statements from Governance Meeting

[Madi Melodious]

2 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

It's not like they're going to court to demand the right to use a litterbox in their RL school, or anything silly like that.

I thought that was a joke.  Did that really happen?   I'm afraid to look it up because of what I might find.  

[ErwinVonVlotho]

Just now, Madi Melodious said:

I thought that was a joke.  Did that really happen?   I'm afraid to look it up because of what I might find.  

As far as I know - and I researched it, because I wanted to write about it if it's true - that's just an urban legend.

[Love Zhaoying]

1 minute ago, Madi Melodious said:

4 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

It's not like they're going to court to demand the right to use a litterbox in their RL school, or anything silly like that.

I thought that was a joke.  Did that really happen?   I'm afraid to look it up because of what I might find.  

It was political theater, and generally unsafe to discuss because of that, except as an example of absurdism. 🙂

 

[Arielle Popstar]

7 minutes ago, ErwinVonVlotho said:

Not if they're in for noncing.

Yes but Zal didn't specify.

[gwynchisholm]

1 minute ago, Love Zhaoying said:

I'm thinking more about basic examples like, 4-legged dogs or cats.

They are not "18" for roleplay purposes (unless that's what you have to say, screw immersion!), but they can say they are "adult" (presenting as 18+).

 

I feel like that’s a little more cut and dry, quadrupedal avatars in general. Adult presenting in the case of something with a non human lifespan isn’t always 18. However that still does bring other stuff into question if it’s broken down to human or non human age ranges. I would still consider conventional furry avatars to be following human age ranges. Quadruped animals, definitely not unless you just say your avatar is 18, I feel like saying they’re adult is good enough. But then that’s like, do vampires follow human age ranges? Thats a more human avatar anyway so they’d be held to being adult presenting as a requirement even if an adult presenting vampire is canonically 110 years old or something, 18 wouldn’t cut it.

how does one determine the presenting age of an aircraft, for the one person I know who’s avatar is just a whole, irl to scale F16?
 

5 minutes ago, Ayashe Ninetails said:

Yep, but those rely on clothing makers to create for their specific mesh, so options are very limited. Like the Snokra. Very cute and I'd wear it in a heartbeat, but it'd be a pain to dress

I use a DSD avatar and usually you can find stuff that’s just close enough that it works. Even if they’re on their own size and no clothing on paper is meant to fit them (except for a few items from apricot paws they don’t sell anymore), working with alpha cuts and modifying your shape you can get plenty of stuff to work.

[Love Zhaoying]

Ok, I thought of an example.

Is the "Bellessarrian Cat" safe? Or does it need to state that it is over 18?

Bellessarria being Mature, and all.

 

[Love Zhaoying]

1 minute ago, gwynchisholm said:

Thats a more human avatar anyway so they’d be held to being adult presenting as a requirement even if an adult presenting vampire is canonically 110 years old or something, 18 wouldn’t cut it.

Yep, "immortal children" are one of those quandaries, but they shouldn't be wandering around naked anyway, or going to "adult places" if they want to keep up the pretense that they are a "normal child".

 

[Chery Amore]

2 hours ago, Love Zhaoying said:

I wish others could understand that.

It really is as easy as, "just follow the rules then there is no reason to worry about it".

I might kind of add and don't be a belligerent, know it all, smart a** , insult thrower to them at every opportunity.. especially when under investigation yourself.  Not that I think they lean this way, no way of knowing.  I do know I've worked for companies that have a hard internal line about abuse of an employee.. including verbal.  With TOS they basically say they can cut you off when they want for any reason. Go down near the bottom and read about termination and user conduct.

 Linden Lab may suspend or terminate your Account at any time for any reason

 

[Love Zhaoying]

1 minute ago, Chery Amore said:

I might kind of add and don't be a belligerent, know it all, smart a** , insult thrower to them at every opportunity.. especially when under investigation yourself.  Not that I think they lean this way, no way of knowing.  I do know I've worked for companies that have a hard internal line about abuse of an employee.. including verbal.  With TOS they basically say they can cut you off when they want for any reason. Go down near the bottom and read about termination and user conduct.

 Linden Lab may suspend or terminate your Account at any time for any reason

 

"I didn't break any of your stupid rules, but even if I did, I have rights!!1!!1!!"

 

[Ayashe Ninetails]

2 minutes ago, gwynchisholm said:

how does one determine the presenting age of an aircraft, for the one person I know who’s avatar is just a whole, irl to scale F16?

I know we're kind of getting into the weeds here about how on Earth non-human avatars will comply with the new rules, but I have to say this made me LOL so hard. If someone doesn't make a speedo paint job for an aircraft, I'm going to lose my faith in SL shenanigans.

[Vivienne Schell]

1 hour ago, Madi Melodious said:

I bet you don't' run a business in RL.   You can't survive as a business and constantly alienate your customers.  

Worked pretty well for Microsoft, didn´t it?

[gwynchisholm]

2 minutes ago, Chery Amore said:

I might kind of add and don't be a belligerent, know it all, smart a** , insult thrower to them at every opportunity.. especially when under investigation yourself.  Not that I think they lean this way, no way of knowing.  I do know I've worked for companies that have a hard internal line about abuse of an employee.. including verbal.  With TOS they basically say they can cut you off when they want for any reason. Go down near the bottom and read about termination and user conduct.

 Linden Lab may suspend or terminate your Account at any time for any reason

 

This is an important one. I’m under an NDA for finite details on this but I used to do some social moderation for a social platform. And a lot of times when people were presented inquiry on some issue, or were given some kind of disciplinary action or even a ban on some matter, they would try and dig out parts of the rules or TOS to counteract our call.

Lines like that one are backups to any gray area issue. Just because you didn’t technically break the rules doesn’t mean you didn’t do something undesirable for the platform. And that includes all kinds of stuff.

There was an issue with market manipulation on the platform for example where multiple virtual shops were colluding to manipulate the prices of virtual items. Price fixing. We didn’t have a rule against it, the TOS for the game didn’t say anything about it, the TOS and rules for ingame markets didn’t specify anything about price fixing or shared price guides or anything like that. But it got bad, and a few users got bans and the items got deleted, and a bunch of people were notably seriously annoyed by this and tried to argue that we were abusing their rights as paying users of the platform for unjustly deleting items they payed irl money for. Some threatened to sue…

Completely forgetting the whole line like that, anything we determine is harmful to the platform may result in termination or other action for any reason at any time, with or without any explanation.

LL can do the same, and should use it, and does use it, and will use it. Someone is going to argue their specific avatar despite presenting underage is actually an adult and is actually exempt for some reason because it’s not outlined in the rules, and they will be banned anyway because LL says so. 

[Love Zhaoying]

Just now, Ayashe Ninetails said:

6 minutes ago, gwynchisholm said:

how does one determine the presenting age of an aircraft, for the one person I know who’s avatar is just a whole, irl to scale F16?

I know we're kind of getting into the weeds here about how on Earth non-human avatars will comply with the new rules, but I have to say this made me LOL so hard. If someone doesn't make a speedo paint job for an aircraft, I'm going to lose my faith in SL shenanigans.

A little history may help some people who don't know already: 

There's a "thing" that started as someone saying, "I sexually identify as an Apache attack helicopter". (There is lots and lots on Google about this, people take sides on good/bad intent.)

Years later - one of my favorite online serial comics actually has (had) a character who was literally an Apache attack helicopter (controlled by their brain removed from their body, etc.).  The author was poking fun at the original concept by making it positive and identifiable.

Subsequently, I'm not surprised there are "aircraft avatars" in Second Life.

On Topic: I suppose, in Second Life, an aircraft avatar's age can be partially judged by when that model of aircraft was in production (unless "brains in jars" are merged with older aircraft).

 

[ErwinVonVlotho]

13 minutes ago, gwynchisholm said:

how does one determine the presenting age of an aircraft, for the one person I know who’s avatar is just a whole, irl to scale F16?

As LL won't be worried about the media getting hold of a screenshot of someone doing it up the tailpipe, who cares what age it presents as?

[Madi Melodious]

18 minutes ago, Vivienne Schell said:

Worked pretty well for Microsoft, didn´t it?

No, it didn't.    Microsoft alienated enough of its customers that investigations were launched by several US departments, including the DOJ.  Regulations were passed in many countries to regulate how Microsoft does business there.  They alienated so many of their customers that the company was almost broke up, and the founder was forced to retire as CEO of the company.

This led to a formal change in how the company does business.  Microsoft no longer goes out its way to "embrace and extend" common standards.   Instead of fighting the open source movement, Microsoft is one of the leading contributors to open source software and the Linux kernel itself.  

The Microsoft of today is not the Microsoft of Bill Gates.  

Edited May 10 by Madi Melodious

[Leslie Trihey]

3 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

A little history may help some people who don't know already: 

There's a "thing" that started as someone saying, "I sexually identify as an Apache attack helicopter". (There is lots and lots on Google about this, people take sides on good/bad intent.)

Years later - one of my favorite online serial comics actually has (had) a character who was literally an Apache attack helicopter (controlled by their brain removed from their body, etc.).  The author was poking fun at the original concept by making it positive and identifiable.

Subsequently, I'm not surprised there are "aircraft avatars" in Second Life.

On Topic: I suppose, in Second Life, an aircraft avatar's age can be partially judged by when that model of aircraft was in production (unless "brains in jars" are merged with older aircraft).

 

"Would you intercept me? I'd intercept me."

[Extrude Ragu]

1 minute ago, ErwinVonVlotho said:

As LL won't be worried about the media getting hold of a screenshot of someone doing it up the tailpipe, who cares what age it presents as?

I've heard stories of MLP Ponies and Aircraft Refueling.... Ugh.. why did you remind me of this horror

[gwynchisholm]

1 minute ago, Love Zhaoying said:

Subsequently, I'm not surprised there are "aircraft avatars" in Second Life.

there’s actually an airplane avatar as one of the SL library avatars from id guess over a decade ago if not older. I remember way back when I first played this that I used it as it was an option for a starter avatar in a guide or something?

I don’t see too many people with machine or vehicle avatars but I know they’re out there, I’ve seen the rare occurrence, or the aforementioned person I know who plays as an entire F16. You know how hard it is to maintain a conversation circle with several people when one of them chooses to show up as an actual 50 foot long aircraft?

[Love Zhaoying]

1 minute ago, Madi Melodious said:

9 minutes ago, Vivienne Schell said:

Worked pretty well for Microsoft, didn´t it?

No, it didn't.    Microsoft alienated enough of its customers

One example:

I've got a work friend who runs Minecraft servers. After Microsoft bought Minecraft, they screwed everything up for people who run their own servers. 

 

[Love Zhaoying]

1 minute ago, Leslie Trihey said:

"Would you intercept me? I'd intercept me."

No, that is a child's face.

[Vivienne Schell]

3 minutes ago, Leslie Trihey said:

"Would you intercept me? I'd intercept me."

[Madi Melodious]

6 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

One example:

I've got a work friend who runs Minecraft servers. After Microsoft bought Minecraft, they screwed everything up for people who run their own servers. 

 

They did do that.   Not all policy changes always work out well.  i don't know enough to comment on the minecraft issue. 

Edited May 10 by Madi Melodious

[Bubblesort Triskaidekaphobia]

People are playing a lot of lawyerly word games, over this and that detail, but in the end, LL is just going to do what they want to do.  Acting like SL governance enforces or follows rules as written is absurd.  They removed a sign in my yard giving away free maps, for being "commercial activity."  They just do what they want, and give whatever explanation they want, and we just have to deal with that.  In the end, the only rule that matters is don't piss them off.

Personally, I just avoid official things with regards to LL.  Best not to meddle in the affairs of dragons.

[Kathlen Onyx]

2 hours ago, Ceka Cianci said:

I would hope in a serious meeting where many are looking for answers.. The rp would be put on hold.

It certainly not put on hold when these Child Avatars are asking for product support help in groups. They say stuff like "but i don't understanddddd because I"m a kidddddd" (insert annoying whining of someone who is an adult)

 

[Leslie Trihey]

7 minutes ago, Madi Melodious said:

They did do that.   Not all policy changes always work out well.  i don't know enough to comment on the minecraft issue. 

If I recall correctly they put in a "Why won't somebody pleeeeasssee think of the children?" anti naughty word system that was auto-banning people even on their own privately owned servers.

Edited May 10 by Leslie Trihey