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At Second Life, we are committed to creating a richer, more immersive, and safer environment for everyone. With that spirit, we’re excited to share several important updates and developments that not only aim to improve our virtual world but also ensure that our community continues to thrive in a safe and engaging manner. Bringing Second Life Everywhere: Mobile and Desktop Updates Our development team is working tirelessly to make Second Life accessible wherever you are, whether you're on a mobile device or sitting at your desktop. While our Mobile App is still in Private Alpha, we’re looking forward to expanding access to more members of our community shortly. Our new App promises to bring all the richness and beauty of Second Life directly to your mobile phones and tablets. Don't miss our latest developer update video for a sneak peek at what’s coming! On the desktop front, we're gearing up for a wider release of some of your most requested features for the Second Life Official Viewer. We're particularly excited about rolling out innovations like Mirrors and 2K textures, which were showcased in a recent "Lab Gab" video. Making Second Life Safer: Strengthening Community Protections Our priority has always been to maintain a safe and welcoming environment for all while preserving the freedom of expression that makes our virtual world so special. That’s why we’re working to further enhance the safety and protection of the Second Life platform. These efforts include strengthening some of our community and employee policies as well as evaluating improvements to our age verification process. One area of ongoing scrutiny both internally and externally concerns child-presenting avatars. We recognize and want to acknowledge the vibrant community of residents who enjoy roleplaying as such, and we also feel that it is crucial to reinforce our stance that sexualized ageplay is strictly prohibited. Today, we are updating our Child Avatar Policy to ensure a clear separation and to safeguard all community members. We know that this update has the potential to cause confusion or concern in our community, so we’ve prepared an FAQ which we will continue to update as questions come up. Strengthening Internal Policies and Community Engagement We recently posted our initial response to community concerns about alleged violations of company and community policies by employees, contractors, and community members. Since that time, we have conducted multiple thorough investigations to look closely at whether there were specific infractions or problematic interactions that needed us to take action. The investigation determined that all Lindens and contractors have stayed in compliance with our own community guidelines, as well as unwritten, ethical guidelines. I do not make this statement lightly, and I know there will be plenty of discussion. What I can say is that there is no incentive, monetary or otherwise, for me to mislead the community. At some point, the community has to trust that we, the Lindens, do well when the community thrives. We may make mistakes along the way, and we know that our community will engage with us when we do. Second Life is an enormous virtual world and we have to walk a very fine line between policing and preserving freedoms while also protecting the future growth and health of Second Life as a platform that respects diversity and creative expression among our community. The findings did highlight opportunities for improvement. As a result, we are making updates to our internal policies to raise the standard for how Linden employees should respectfully engage with community members. This addresses multiple forms of engagement including how we present ourselves, how we interact with the community (even in moments of conflict), and how we minimize the perception of conflict of interest and favoritism in our interactions. Additionally, there have been specific actions we have initiated or finalized: Updated our Child Avatar Policy Updated our internal Policies and Procedures Implemented personnel changes Initiated management improvement programs Committed to Community Roundtables (see below) Committed to increased transparency and accountability Looking ahead, we are excited to announce the launch of our Community Roundtable with Second Life Leadership. The first one is scheduled for May 20 at 9:30-11 a.m. PT. This will be an opportunity for community members to connect directly with our top executives, share your input, and discuss ideas on enhancing Second Life. This initiative represents another step in our efforts to improve our community interactions, ensuring that your voice is more directly heard and valued. I will be a part of the first Community Roundtable and welcome you all to attend. Building a Better Second Life Together All of these updates and initiatives are part of our broader drive to continually improve Second Life. Stay tuned for more, participate in upcoming events, and let's make Second Life better together. Oberwolf Linden

Hey there! I wanted to take a moment and chime in as the person who oversees our Governance team. I've seen some of you mention concerns over weaponizing the policy. I want to assure you that we are prepared for people who might attempt to use this policy in a less than good hearted nature. We have a lot of internal processes in place not just before we take action on an account, but also as part of our appeals process. We understand that we are human, and some times even we might make mistakes even with our own intentions in the right place. We work hard to ensure that no action is taken without full and proper evidence to support the action. In addition to that, our appeals process ensures that not only does the person who took the action is not involved in the appeal, but that the process itself includes a review from more than one agent as well.

Hi all! I'm gonna admit that I haven't read every comment on here yet but I will be doing so shortly and responding where I can. Just a few things first: The only change to the Terms and Conditions is the update to the Child Avatar Policy The FAQ is a living doc, which means we know it is in no way complete right now. As questions come up here and through Support, we'll be adding more questions and answers to hopefully help clarify some of the changes.

Residents presenting as Child Avatars shall be prohibited from the following: Entering any Region rated Adult. Residents must change to a non-child or non-childlike avatar to visit Adult rated regions. Engaging or participating in any event or location where nudity and/or sexual activity is present, encouraged and/or expected. Wearing genital/sexual attachments including clothing, attachments or HUDs created for and/or worn by child avatars to indicate genitalia, whether visible or not. Being fully nude. Child avatar content creators are required to add a modesty layer which is baked into child avatar skins or bodies, is not transparent, does not match the skin tone, and may not be removed. Child avatars where the focal point of the body is on the breasts, pelvis, or buttocks Participation in lewd or sexual acts in which one or more of the avatars appears to represent minors (or the depiction of such acts in images, video, textures, or text).

The only part of this that surprises me is the "modesty layer" bit; that's going to break a fair amount of content, I'd have thought. Overall, this is much less Draconian than it could have been. It's going to trigger some complaints, but other than the fact that kid avatars aren't going to be able to run around at nude beaches anymore (which I think is a good thing) or be given "realistic" baths (which . . . maybe is also a good thing), I don't see how this should impede those representing as children overly much.

I see there's this optional notification, at least in the Official Viewer. Or is that age-related rather than maturity-related? There's also this: So, I think, the sensible course of action would be to set your preferences to G & M only when wearing a child avatar.

That isn't a child avatar dude.

If the participation of child avatars is a valued part of the social interactions in such places, then it will be worth their while to change their ratings to Moderate. Region owners are going to have a decision here: what is more important to them? Adult activities, or kiddie avatars? As Coffee and others have noted previously, the main differences between Moderate and Adult are that 1) sex can't be "public" in M-rated areas, and 2) you can only advertise Adult events for A-rated areas. And honest, sorry . . . I don't think kid avatars should be hanging around places where there is public sexuality. That would violate nearly every other part of these rules.

I like it. Especially the FAQ, this part: That finally puts to rest a lot of mythology about the "closed door" policy.

My husband convinced me to try a Dinkie avatar and I will admit that putting the look together has been fun.

Hello Again, I just want to let everyone know that we have been making some updates to the FAQ originally posted. In addition, please don't take the silence from us in the thread to mean we are not still reading all of the feedback. We are still listening and working to answer more questions. Quick link again to the FAQ for those who might need it (or if you are like me, to just save you the time of trying to find it in your sea of open tabs). https://lindenlab.freshdesk.com/support/solutions/articles/31000173097-child-avatar-faq

More Fantasy Faire lunacy

Resting on Route 66

From Oberwolf's statement:

/me logs into second life Gah! I'm feeling a little dizzy.. /me clicks accept and goes to usual activities in SL

I think if you set your preferences to G and M only, you can't teleport to A land, just like you can't search A at the search engine or the marketplace then. But I'm not sure about that, it has been years ago that I made my settings. I think LL knows how to handle griefers by now, they ain't stupid. Maybe a good reason to ban Firestorm.

The bit about no kids in adult regions... Thats the one thing they've done here that makes some sense.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/191119559@N02/53686944393/in/dateposted-public/ Why is it only when I am done uploading and posted it here and there, that I notice the glaring editing mistake. Gnarrgh. Bummer. Too late now.

So, while I still have my Voroznia apartment -- for at least one more week, anyway -- I've begun the process of furnishing and decorating my new digs on my own parcel. This is a really nicely done skybox loft with a wrap-around. It's exposed brick, with skylights and a lovely sort of glassed-in "conservatory" area at the back for plants, which I'm really looking forward to decorating. It's open concept, which is a bit of a challenge -- I haven't decided yet whether or not to put in a bathroom or bedroom (I probably will), or how to do that. But I'm starting with the living room area, cuz it's relatively easy. My last few places of "residence" have all quite consciously looked a bit like a grad student's digs: ratty hand-me down furniture, lots of books and clutter, etc. But I've decided to go a little more upmarket on this place. I've actually lived in a converted warehouse before, and it was awful, but there's no reason this one can't look nice. Not much yet, but it's a start. The picture in front of which I am standing is a gorgeous new acquisition by @manoji Yachvili. I want to put lots of art in this place.

Back to using the normal Lara Petite body. Has more clothing options than the X version, especially when it comes to the kind of outfits I want.

eu e casca de bala ...

My 2 pennyworth #1 If you agreed to the new TOS and didn't read them, it's on you if you fall foul of any misdemenor #2 If you are just here to be a child avatar, approach your skin ceator of choice and ask them to provide an updated version with the baked in modesty layer, change your ratings to G & M only and carry on with your SL as you always did. #3 Older teens trying to sneak into adult places, as I am sure we all did in RL... Deal with the consequences be it LL or the region owners rules. #4 Everyone else just take a little responsibility especially those on moderate regions who may have content unsuitable for children be that making it group only, the land settings so nobody can see who is up to rumpy pumpy on your parcel or any other tool. #5 I think there are more children here than we actually believe judging by the way people stomp and cry and don't take any responsibility for their own SL. oh and a final one just occured to me... getting thrown into an infohub whenever that has happened to me EVERYONE is naked anyway with floating heads and body parts. I am certainly not going to clutch my pearls and worry theres a naked child on my head, I am too busy trying all my landmarks to find a region that isn't down. Thats just my thoughts after surviving to page 30.

I'm not sure this post can stay intact for long so I tried to sanitize it a bit in case it helps, because it's a thing that needs to be said (over and over again, apparently). By citing that source the Medium piece advertised itself as nothing but bitterly demented fanfic. But people were eager to fall for it, including people who definitely should have known better. It's undoubtedly helpful to do as the Lab has done and craft policy to increase confidence in the future environment. But that doesn't go very far to reduce doubt about the past. Maybe there's a PR rule that says not to waste time addressing past allegations; maybe nothing can ever be said to sway the conspiracy theorists from their theories. (At some level, I guess we know that's true.) Nonetheless, there will remain a cloud here if the Lab can't go a few steps further to reveal the process followed in those external investigations even if it's counterproductive to ever offer concrete debunking facts. I suppose the more specific response would involve repeating false claims in order to refute them, giving them more mindshare in the process. Would it help to have a statement from one of the outside investigators? Is there anything they could say that wouldn't have the same downside of repeating lies in the process of refuting them?

My sister is struggling with this exact issue right now. The 'most naked' she ever got was for a bath, and was still covered in soap suds and clusters of bubble attachments. She's looking at trying to mod her skin (which she does have the PSDs for) to make a modesty layer that will 'blend in' with the soap bubbles.. but she's panicking a bit over 'how modest does a modesty layer need to be?' Crotch, sure... she's a bit like Barbie there already but sure. Must nipples be covered on a child av? She uses the "Male" body chest setting, does that affect what needs to be covered? What about the butt crack? How.. MUCH of the butt crack? etc. She uses a Tweenster body, so there's no geometry defining any genitalia down there, but the ambiguity of whether 'what she comes up with' will be 'good enough' or 'safe enough'.. And it's kind of emotional meltdown city. Funny how the Lindens got called out for wrongdoing, the Lindens found no wrongdoing.. but let's police the bodies of child avatars.. for a treat.

Where are you going?

I can speak to this. https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/Parents-Lil-helper/1304818 Parent's Little Helper, and other systems like it, allow a parent or other trusted adult to 'take the hand' of a child, or to pick them up and carry them. It does this by cleverly leveraging RLV. When the parent selects "Pick up", the Helper will rez an invisible object. The child is then 'force sat' on that object, which then follows the parent around as they walk, animating the child as if they're being held, riding on shoulders, etc. Similarly, the system can force-unsit when the parent 'puts them down'. It can also be used to have a child av 'sit' on a vehicle, or in a 'time out' chair, etc. Yes, this is potentially open to abuse, as an outside actor with nefarious intent could 'sit' a child on adult furniture. This is why such systems usually employ a whitelist system, only allowing trusted individuals to use it.

Hi 👋 I'll be answering questions as I can here in the thread or adding to the FAQ

Not only useful, but maybe vital in this instance. LL has GOT to make a real effort to ensure that these new rules are well-publicized. Otherwise, there are going to be a lot of people running around in contravention of them without even knowing it. The most obvious instance is the "modesty layer": in theory, anyone who has agreed to this ToS and is wearing a child avatar without a modesty layer is AR-able.

Finally finished landscaping my parcel. I decided to be really different and original and built a beach!

There was no intentional "secret hiding" of anything or an "anti-vehicle policy". When the pier kit was made it needed to be walkable, but being drivable wasn't part of its design scope. So, it was never tried or tested for vehicles. As it turns out the physics are fine for walking but they do not play nice with most vehicles. It wasn't purposefully designed to not be drivable. It just happened to not be and therefore does not function for a purpose it was never meant for. Sometimes things work out in a way that something works just fine for something that was not intended, but this was not one of those times. But it is why we put generally place bollards and posts where the boardwalk meets the genuine roads and we don't put rez zones for land vehicles on the boardwalks.

Dancing for a Tribute band