Scylla Rhiadra

Does that thing work on the forum too? 😁

Fair point, but what I mean is that I don't know what else should mean by "copy," as the handling of PBR materials is the same.

I'm just confused by what she means. So far as I can see, perms for PBR materials are handled the same way in-viewer as legacy ones.

You mean they can't be ripped???

There is. At least for Android. But I also found it worked quite well in my browser on my phone.

Eeek. Why not just hide visibility from them, and do that shopping secure and satisfied in the knowledge that they have no idea?

Oh, missed that. However, this isn't (thank god) about child avatars or hate speech. Quartz can of course weigh in if he feels differently, but unless this thread is really narrowly about mesh vs. system avatars, it seems to me in line with what's been discussed.

I don't see this as being at all "off topic": this thread is, in the broader sense, about "banning" certain kinds of avatars from places. With respect, I have not "completely disregarded" or "denied the validity" of female-only spaces. Where do I say this? What I have suggested is that female only spaces in SL don't actually do the same thing as their parallel in RL, or at least can't guarantee the "safety" or "exclusivity" of such places, because the best that you can do is ban male avatars. What poses the potential threat to women? The avatar, or the keyboardist? Is a space that bans virtual representations of men, but allows access to RL men who are using female avatars, in any REAL sense exclusive to women? You're no safer from potential harassment or abuse from men, because the harassment and abuse originates not from the avatar, but from the RL person at the keyboard. If it makes women feel safer, or less likely to be triggered by excluding virtual representations of men, then that's fine. But it's an illusion, and potentially a dangerous one, to assume that the absence of someone wearing a Signature Gianni or Belleza Jake means that there are, in fact, no men present in that space. It's not that such spaces are invalid. It's that they are, by virtue of the nature of this platform, not actually accomplishing what they purport to do -- unless all that is desired is the lack of visual evidence of the presence of men. Possibly they do something else instead. But surely this is obvious?

Someone above mentioned the lesbian tea house. I'm not absolutely certain that it's the same one, but I've been to a place that billed itself as such a few times in the past. It was very nice: the conversation was mostly intelligent and interesting and the locals very welcoming. I was also told that one needn't be a lesbian to be welcome there -- which, given that I am straight, was important to know. I liked the place, but I only went a few times because I was getting approached by women who were . . . interested. Well, of course I was: it's a lesbian tea house. And to be clear, these "approaches" were by no means obnoxious or crude or objectionable: as I've said here before, in my experience anyway (possibly in part because I don't go to sex places) women are much slower, gentler, and more tentative when approaching someone as a potential romantic or sexual partner than many of the men I've run into here are. The problem wasn't them, it was me. I find such approaches (unless they are crude or obnoxious, in which case they are easily dealt with) awkward and embarrassing, and I also felt that I was in some way misrepresenting myself just by virtue of being there. I suppose I could have put a sign over my head: "Straight, and not Interested in Romance or Sex." But that would be kind of stupid and presumptuous of me. So I stopped going. Which is too bad: the people there were nice.

I quite agree that what happens virtually in SL can have a very deep emotional effect and that that be a disturbing or negative one. Harassment, abuse, coercion, griefing, and so forth are, even in a virtual context, very real things, and have demonstrable impacts. Which is why I didn't say that women in SL faced "no danger"; I said that they don't face "the same kind of danger" as might threaten them in RL. By which I mean to say, simply, that real world physical embodiment puts women at a kind of risk that they don't face when virtually embodied. And yes, the virtual appearance of a man could, I imagine, be triggering to a woman who has suffered abuse, just as a scene from a movie can be -- but again, it's not quite the same kind of impact.

Yeah, this is the part that, in an SL context, doesn't make any real sense. There IS a point to safe spaces for women in RL, mostly (but not entirely) for women who have been abused or assaulted. In SL, of course, there isn't the same kind of danger facing women. And, as men can (and often do) represent as women anyway, banning "men" from a place is in essence only banning the representation of men. And one can still find oneself hit upon or harassed by someone using a female avatar. I suppose the same logic might be applied here: On the whole, I don't think that there are many women who are interested in watching gay men go at it (although, who knows?). But the point is that all that you can actually, in practice, do is ban women avatars, not actual RL women. The same is of course true of lesbian sex places: if a man gets off on watching lesbian sex, he need only use a female alt. So the "comfort" that comes from male- or female-only sex spaces is either an illusion, or it is purely about the visuals.

And it can be all yours for the low low price of L$10!

Totally. I really don't get this restriction.

Yes, these are all in a sense different cases than what we're discussing (a club that, so far as I know, doesn't really have an aesthetic or conceptual theme), but they represent possible exceptions. They're also different because they are about representation, rather than the means by which one "represents" (system vs. mesh). I have mixed feelings about these things. A few years back, I actually used 20s Berlin as an example of a place where restrictions made some sense, and Jo Yardley popped up in the thread (as she will occasionally here) to correct my suggestion that there was an actual ban on non-proportional, non-human, and non-1920s avatars there. Given the ease with which one can block or hide other avatars, I'm not sure I see this as a major issue myself, and I DO tend to judge landowners and club owners who try to impose these sorts of restrictions. It's seldom to do with my concerns about "bigotry" in the RL sense (I don't think that banning furries is the same thing as banning POC) and more about just being welcoming and community-minded. And that applies, maybe even more so, to visitors to these places. I wouldn't go to 1920s Berlin wearing 2020s clothing because it would be discourteous to do so. (Fortunately, I have a really extensive collection of 20s clothing!) And I wouldn't go to a furry sim that requested (or even demanded) furries only without at least donning my Neko outfit (which I know, yeah, not really "furry" but it's the closest I have). It gets less clear in some cases. A place that banned representations of POC? Well, screw that: I'd go as a black woman out of principle. The case of gender-exclusive places is trickier, especially as we're always talking about representation rather RL identity. I think it would depend on why a ban or restriction was in place. A He-Man Woman Hater's Club, I'd happily crash. But should there be places that are women only? I get the point of "safe spaces" for women, in RL, but in SL? I'm iffy. And Boystown, which apparently is men only -- I actually don't understand and really DO find that a bit offensive. Are the men afraid that women are going to be competing with them? Or does the appearance of a woman just spoil the scene? (In RL, when I was in my 20s, I would occasionally go dancing with gfs at a local gay male club. It was ideal in many ways: nice music, dance, and no one trying to pick you up or grope you on the dance floor. And the men there were lovely: they were welcoming and thought we were kind of a hoot.)

I did poke around a bit in the Preferences of Black Dragon today, changing key shortcuts and such, but didn't get to the communication tools. I'll let you know what I find. Remind me to avoid meeting this lady in a dark alleyway, or a Walmart parking lot.

We used to have a frequent poster here who was, let us say, "very sexually active" in SL, and frequented pick up places. Her attitude was pretty uncompromising: if you weren't all mesh, and high quality mesh for good measure, she wasn't at all interested in you because (or so she said) the visual aspect was very important to her. And she quite vehemently supported banning people from hookup places unless they met that criteria: those in system avatars were just wasting her time. So, there may be more to this than mesh as a sign of age, disposable income, or what-have-you: for some, I suppose, the visuals are that important. She had, of course, every right to pick and choose the kinds of avatars with which she'd interact. I think, arguably, she had less right to make that decision on behalf of everyone else who attended such places. Which is the other side of this: it's not just about depriving non-mesh avatars of the right to go to certain places; it's also depriving those who are there of more choice in their potential partner. Of course, land and club owners have the right to ban whomever they wish blah blah blah. But I wouldn't go to a place that was being so exclusive, nor one that was making aesthetic decisions for me.

How is a stripper on a dance pole, or a threesome, not "sex stuff"? Again, there are two things that this might mean 1) The "artistic nudity" ends up in the same gallery as people having sex, albeit not in a "hardcore" way (whatever that means). In which case, anyone who wants to view artistic nudity (to which category some of my images, which do NOT depict sex, belong) is also going to be exposed to porn. OR 2) Adult becomes a teeny little category reserved for "artistic nudity," and anyone who wants to see sexuality is going to be exposed, on "Adult+", to both relatively benign porn, AND hardcore stuff, all in the same galleries. All because you think that some of the bikinis posted in General are too small, and the skirts too short? What your grandma and coworkers find inappropriate is probably not the same as what mine do. I'm not sure at this point we're going to agree on this, but I still think you're collapsing categories in a way that is going to reduce the choices people have in terms of what they view on platform.

Not LL employees, of course, but the mods on Primfeed. Which might even be more difficult: I'm not sure how many of those there are, and they may be volunteers? Yeah, honestly, this version of "G" is sounding a bit like Bible Camp? In my RL, women walk the streets of the city in tanks and crop tops, with midriffs showing. I passed a young woman this evening wearing shorts and a bikini top.

I guess? How are you going to define these so people understand? Percentage of skin showing? Is the problem with the black dress that it has a cutaway showing midriff? How large do the triangles of cloth on a bikini covering the breasts and crotch have to be to qualify as "G"? Are bikinis acceptable at all in "G," or only one piece swimsuits? And if bikinis in general are ok, why not the black dress, which covers more than even a fairly conservative bikini? And, to re-address a point I made above, should a picture of a woman stripping on a dance pole, or beckoning her partner to join her in bed, be placed in the same rating as a pic of a threesome, or a dark bondage scene? ETA: To clarify what I'm getting at in the first part of my response: for these to work as actual, practical guidelines for what is or is not acceptable, they need to communicate with at least some clarity the rules. "This is what I mean" isn't workable. Primfeed's current ratings system unquestionably has ambiguity and involves subjective judgement by someone (the poster, the viewer, a moderator), but it is based pretty explicitly on SL's own rating system, which has been in place now for 15 years, and which is fairly well understood just by virtue of the fact that we have all had to deal with, and interpret it while engaging with the platform. And it IS clearer than "yes a bikini but not one that shows too much breast."

Fair enough, I'm convinced. The bulk of my comment, however, was about your critique of LL's tolerance of Nazis and other icky people, which I think is only half true and was, in any case, a non sequitur.

I "liked" this in recognition of your comment about LL's tolerance of some really awful stuff -- although it's also not just, or maybe even mostly, about money: LL was founded on the principles of what now seems increasingly like a rather quaint and old-fashioned brand of techno-libertarianism, and there are vestiges of that still in the company. They've moved slowly and reluctantly over the years against content in some measure because there is an honest belief that communities like SL should be self-regulating rather than governed by a top-down model. On the other hand, your rather clumsy shift from comparing the banning of mesh avatars to the oppression brought upon RL societies by authoritarian governments, to a critique of LL's tolerance of extreme right wing viewpoints is . . . less convincing, maybe?

Let me begin by saying, again, that it's not that I don't have sympathy with your concerns. And yes, there is always going to be a subjective element involved in making these distinctions, unless we are literally measuring hem lengths or making determinations about exactly what percentage of boob or bum cheek can be shown. I'm still, however, not in agreement with your proposed reclassification. I'm really not seeing the distinction between General here and Moderate, unless the former means starched collar and crinolines, and you can only wear tee shirts and cutoffs in the latter. I have no idea, seriously, which category most of my outfits would fit into using these distinctions. I don't even really understand what you mean by clothing fit for a "preschool or a meeting with your boss": would not jeans and teen shirt be ok for those in RL? Where do you work? And what kind of preschools have your children (if ever) attended?? As for this, I'm pleased that my "artistic nude" pics are no longer displayed side-by-side with acts of sex, but you've elided the distinction between "sexually themed" and "hardcore," which it seems to me is a pretty important one. There is a difference, to use an example, between watching a movie with tasteful sex scenes (no shots of penetration, ejaculation, etc.), and viewing "Debbie Does Dallas." Where would erotica, which probably features some element of nudity and definitely would be "sexually themed," but that is by definition not "hardcore" or pornographic, fit in? I just don't think this a very useful redistribution of these categories, and I don't think you've removed or even clarified the subjective element: you've just shifted it around. And in so doing, as I noted before, you've made it less easy for someone who might want to see sexual content, but not "hardcore," to avoid the latter. Something I've said before in other contexts here: I don't seek out sexual content, but I am not going to get over fussed about seeing a couple going at it somewhere. What I really don't want to see is someone hogtied and strapped naked to a table and . . . well, you get the idea.

The Roman poet Lucretius is a focus of my next exhibition. He was a popularizer of the atomism of the Greek philosopher Epicurus, whose materialism and atheism made him a very "dangerous" writer in later Christian times. Lucretius also wrote in disturbingly frank terms about sexuality. According to St. Jerome, Lucretius went mad when given a love potion by a woman who was besotted with him. Which, of course he did. Because that's what love can do to you.

Really? You can't remove your account? That's certainly something that should be addressed. In terms of the Bonniebots thing, though -- there really is no way for them to scrape data from in-world. All they have is your account name. They can, of course, harvest data from what one posts on their platform, but have said that they won't. How trustworthy that assurance is you'll need to decide for yourself.

That's the "new" Midday? Not the legacy one?