Lindens Statements from Governance Meeting

[Ceka Cianci]

13 minutes ago, Codex Alpha said:

Depends. Do you look good in pink? What season are you?

I tried doing my seasons and I always just kept missing the other colors that I felt good in.. hehehe

When you are dark tone and even darker in the summer, it's hard to settle.. For me it is anyways..

[Silachan Rain]

The conversation surrounding whether prepubescent children should cover their tops because assumed-female children have a chest that will eventually grow to that of an adult's size which men inherently over-sexualize...

Is oddly close to how school dress codes these days often require girls to cover up their shoulders and such for the same reason. Bare skin is considered indecent and "distracting". Even if it's just shoulders. Because people inappropriately sexualize a minor's body... Seems very close to what is happening here.

Edited May 11 by Silachan Rain

[BriannaLovey]

1 hour ago, Coffee Pancake said:

[14:19] Keira Linden: We are also in the process now of evaluating several different products and systems to help with proactive moderation.

No doubt going to be a neural network that scans uploaded textures and flags them for human review. Buckle up, everyone.

[Ceka Cianci]

2 minutes ago, Silachan Rain said:

The conversation surrounding whether prepubescent children should cover their tops because assumed-female children have a chest that will eventually grow to that of an adult's size which men inherently over-sexualize...

Is oddly close to how school dress codes these days often require girls to cover up their shoulders and such for the same reason. Bare skin is considered indecent and "distracting". Even if it's just shoulders. Because people inappropriately sexualize a minor's body... Seems very close to what is happening here.

The rules themselves are for all avatars presenting themselves as under the age of 18.  So it's more than just prepubescent children that have to wear the modesty layers.

It's probably just easier to have one set of guidelines for all of them all in one age group, than breaking down things to different age ranges..

[Zidaya Zenovka]

I suggest people wear clown boxers and T-shirts that read "I didn't do a damn thing wrong and was forced to wear this lousy T-shirt."  

[Persephone Emerald]

1 hour ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

Um. Sure.

So, women can wear what they want, but we're going to demonstrate that we sexualize young women by forcing them to cover up, because . . .there are men who find them "sexy."

You can't see that forcing a 6 year old girl to wear a top is actually confirming that her chest is sexual?

Also, that 6 year old girl avatar is actually an adult, maybe a women, in RL. What if she didn't like being forced to wear dresses and bras when she was a kid in RL, so she wants to be a gender neutral "tomboy" in SL?

Edited May 11 by Persephone Emerald

[Codex Alpha]

6 minutes ago, Ceka Cianci said:

The rules themselves are for all avatars presenting themselves as under the age of 18.  So it's more than just prepubescent children that have to wear the modesty layers.

It's probably just easier to have one set of guidelines for all of them all in one age group, than breaking down things to different age ranges..

The whole point was to make it easier, and so that LL didn't have to spell out every single instance, example, and detail - just to have some SL'ers continue to lawyer them, find loopholes, etc. As you can see, it hasn't seemed to work, it truly is amazing to behold imo.

[Love Zhaoying]

Poor Governance!

[Innula Zenovka]

1 hour ago, Arielle Popstar said:

Regardless, it points out that LL is now banning on nothing more than their proactive monitoring of IM's. I can't see this ending well if word gets out.

Does it?   I'm wondering if they might not have been examining the IMs as a result of an AR arising from some previous incident.

Quote

"This is indeed a mystery," I remarked. "What do you imagine that it means?"

"I have no data yet. It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts. 

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

[Love Zhaoying]

1 minute ago, Innula Zenovka said:

Does it?   I'm wondering if they might not have been examining the IMs as a result of an AR arising from some previous incident.

We don't know if either person in the IM's shared the convo with someone else, who reported it. We don't know a lot.

[Ayashe Ninetails]

I have no words about the pink vs. blue argument.

Bras on infants and toddlers are very bad and I hope creators are able to work with LL on a reasonable solution to that.

Enforcing gender roles and policing undergarments can be terribly damaging. I don't have the answers for this as it relates to the new policies and it's above my pay grade to brainstorm them, but these decisions feel rushed, IMO.

I totally get the need for the overall changes, of course. No criticism from me on that part.

[Ceka Cianci]

31 minutes ago, Codex Alpha said:

The whole point was to make it easier, and so that LL didn't have to spell out every single instance, example, and detail - just to have some SL'ers continue to lawyer them, find loopholes, etc. As you can see, it hasn't seemed to work, it truly is amazing to behold imo.

With any changes, there is always people that are curious if they are ok or not or just want to make sure they don't break the rules.. I can understand that..

And yes there are those that look for loopholes as well to see what they can get away with.

then there are those that don't read them at all.. hehehe

It happens just about any time there is change, just about anywhere in the world. This one and the real one. hehehe

 

[Arielle Popstar]

22 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

Poor Governance!

More likely is a spin the bottle scenerio to determine Child or Adult V

[Arielle Popstar]

18 minutes ago, Ayashe Ninetails said:

I totally get the need for the overall changes, of course. No criticism from me on that part.

The changes to Governance too in actually following their stated policies?

[Arielle Popstar]

26 minutes ago, Innula Zenovka said:

Does it?   I'm wondering if they might not have been examining the IMs as a result of an AR arising from some previous incident.

If historic IM's, ok. Live IM's, not so ok. Not like they are fighting a terrorist couple here.

[Jaylinbridges]

1 hour ago, Rowan Amore said:

An article titled “Pink or Blue,” published in the trade journal The Infants’ Department in 1918, said that the generally accepted rule is pink for boys and blue for girls. “The reason is that pink being a decided and stronger color is more suitable for the boy,” it said.

So SL got the pose balls wrong too? 

[Arielle Popstar]

44 minutes ago, Codex Alpha said:

The whole point was to make it easier, and so that LL didn't have to spell out every single instance, example, and detail - just to have some SL'ers continue to lawyer them, find loopholes, etc. As you can see, it hasn't seemed to work, it truly is amazing to behold imo.

I am of the opinion that they threw out a half baked ToS change and left it to us to flesh out the details, hence the updating of the Faq. That is why they are reading the Forum to get some idea of the standards the Community is wanting and then converting the input to the law of the virtual land.

[Ayashe Ninetails]

2 minutes ago, Arielle Popstar said:

The changes to Governance too in actually following their stated policies?

I'm not going there at allllll. Not touching it. Newp newp! Ya can't make me.

I will clarify, though. I don't see a whole lot wrong with the general "modesty" approach for very obvious human child avatars. Most games have been doing that for absolute ages - even for adults (which I don't always agree with when the game's rating and content are suitable and appropriate for an older adult audience, but whatever). I'm not going to complain about something like that. Better battles to fight, IMO.

[Rowan Amore]

4 minutes ago, Jaylinbridges said:

So SL got the pose balls wrong too? 

Probably why most newer furniture does away with them altogether.  Women have always used pink or.blue ones when they were dancing, cuddling and even some adult animations.  We're not as rigid in our color choices. 

[Rolig Loon]

1 hour ago, Codex Alpha said:

The whole point was to make it easier, and so that LL didn't have to spell out every single instance, example, and detail - just to have some SL'ers continue to lawyer them, find loopholes, etc. As you can see, it hasn't seemed to work, it truly is amazing to behold imo.

No, that's a misreading. There's nothing in the policy or in LL's presentation and discussion of it to suggest that making things "easy" or "hard" was a relevant consideration. As far as avatar appearance is concerned, LL is recognizing that it's impossible to draw sharp, objective lines that define what looks "male", "female", "adult", or "under 18". Instead, they recognize that those have fuzzy boundaries and that decisions may often depend on a range of situational factors. 

Much of the nervousness being expressed is from people whose avatars appear to be in those ambiguous areas where it's hard to say for sure if they are male, female, adult, or minors. Prepubescent children and obvious adults aren't complaining for the most part. Those who are nervous either wish for sharper defining lines -- which aren't likely to happen -- or they don't trust Governance to be able to evaluate their avatars fairly.  Suggesting that they are "lawyering" or "looking for loopholes" misses the point that it is uncomfortably difficult to give those people clear answers. You're suggesting that they are trying to game the system or quibble around the rules when the reality is that they are in a grey zone where the best answers are "it depends" and "trust us".

Edited May 12 by Rolig Loon
typos. as always.

[Arielle Popstar]

6 minutes ago, Ayashe Ninetails said:

I'm not going there at allllll. Not touching it. Newp newp! Ya can't make me.

I will clarify, though. I don't see a whole lot wrong with the general "modesty" approach for very obvious human child avatars. Most games have been doing that for absolute ages - even for adults (which I don't always agree with when the game's rating and content are suitable and appropriate for an older adult audience, but whatever). I'm not going to complain about something like that. Better battles to fight, IMO.

Any platform I know of does not make a distinction between Child or Adult presenting. One is either a child or an adult in real life and the degree of modesty required is based on that.

[Silachan Rain]

8 minutes ago, Rolig Loon said:

No, that's a misreading. There's nothing in the policy or in LL's presentation and discussion of it to suggest that making things "easy" or "hard" was a relevant consideration. As far as avatar appearance is concerned, LL is recognizing that it's impossible to draw sharp, objective lines that define what looks "male", "female", "adult", or "under 18". Instead, they recognize that those have fuzzy boundaries and that decisions may often depend on a range of situational factors. 

Much of the nervousness being expressed is from people whose avatars appear to be in those ambiguous areas where it's hard to say for sure if they are male, female, adult, or minors. Prepubescent children and obvious adults aren't complaining for the most part. Those who are nervous either wish for sharper defining lines -- which aren't likely to happen -- or they don't trust Governance to be able to evaluate their avatars fairly.  Suggesting that they are "lawyering" or "looking for loopholes" misses the point that it is uncomfortable difficult to give those people clear answers. You're suggesting that they are trying to game the system or quibble around the rules when the reality is that they are in a grey zone where the best answers are "it depends" and "trust us".

Couldn't have said it better myself. I can guarantee you that those who are active in the kid community, especially those of elementary school age and below, are not looking for loopholes. Why would we? We're already being restricted further for the actions that other people are doing. We don't want to be involved in nsfw content. We're already making changes - the very day the ToS changed, people were sharing links to modesty layers as a temporary thing until skins could update. It's a discussion, and many of us also have teenager avatars which will be affected by the changes too.

No one is complaining about the *concept* of needing modesty layers. They have already existed for users as an optional choice, so requiring them is just one more step and isn't a big deal. What people are upset about and asking for clarity and changes about are the specifics of the requirement. If LL says that females need to wear a bra and bottoms, and boys only need to wear a bottom , yet their example was for a teenaged-sized avatar... The question comes up with why do pre-pubescent children avatars also need to wear a bra? What separates a male from a female from chest alone? People love to think that we're just looking for a reason to complain or to skirt the rules or something, and we're not. We're looking for clarity and fairness, that's all.

[Jaylinbridges]

48 minutes ago, Rowan Amore said:

Probably why most newer furniture does away with them altogether.  Women have always used pink or.blue ones when they were dancing, cuddling and even some adult animations.  We're not as rigid in our color choices. 

Nice wrong answer from a feminist.  Pose Balls were mostly replaced by the AV Sitter system for increased immersion.  And AVsitter still asks for male and female positions. 

Today, couples hopping on Intans and other older couple systems still use color coded balls (or hearts).  The male chooses the blue one.  If you are a gay or lesbian, you might pick the color depending on your relationship to your partner, or even height.  For heterosexual couples, if you pick the wrong color some dances will look silly unless you are the same height.  And of course for a sex bed, I hope you understand why males choose the blue ball, and females choose the pink ball.  We are talking about adults here, and there is an anatomical difference. (shocking I know)

Some gay and lesbian furniture change the poseball colors, but I never needed to buy confusing pose ball colors,  since those usually excluded heterosexual couple poses entirely.

From an old WIKI:

A poseball is a common kind of scripted object in Second Life, appearing as a round colored sphere. There purpose is to play an animation on the avatar that sits on them.  Often they are color coded red or pink for a female, and blue for male, in order to synchronize the playing of different animations, often for dancing or slsex. These are sometimes referred to as couple's poseballs.

[Rolig Loon]

Heh.. When I created my dance machine, I got rid of poseballs because they look dorky, not because of immersion.  

You're right, though, that when I have to choose poseballs, I grab a pink one. It's not because I like pink  (I don't).  It's just because that's where creators tend to put the female dance anims.  When I really don't care which anims I use, I pick a poseball at random.

But this is off topic ......  🙄

[Ayashe Ninetails]

1 minute ago, Rolig Loon said:

But this is off topic ......  🙄

Not if we ask - do poseballs need modesty layers?