Blaze Borgin

I think those of us who really don't want to interact with the teens seem to be just planning on pulling out of the G rated areas. Most people are generally decent enough and my guess that there will be more avoidance than outright hostility. No offense, but I will probably be one of those keeping my distance at first. None taken, I understand. I think one area where there may be a bit of friction is wargaming. By the current standards, violence is not really permitted in a general rated parcel. I think it is a sure bet that there will be an issue there. Huh, so all damage enabled land is rated mature? That's something new to me. Well i suppose unless the current armies develop a new PG combat system using LSL. One of the other big concerns that I hear about (not that I personally care too much) is about the prevalance of copybotted content. How big of an issue is it over on the TG and do you anticipate problems once the merger kicks in? That is a worrying thing. It's a huge issue here on the teen grid. We aren't really talking about a few 3-5 avatars wearing some hair or a skin. We're talking about 90% to even 100% of avatars per region wearing near completely copybotted avatars starting from the shape down to the last bracelet. Guaranteed anything from hair to furry avatars to weapons all have their own illegal copies here going around for free or even sold. It's become so common that the very idea of speaking out against it is considered laughable. One copybotter account alone can contain up to 5000 stolen items. Multiply that by maybe 50 and you have a pretty big problem, though that could be due to our small size. Yes i do believe there will be issues with stolen content. The most that any creator can do is keep a close eye for their items. If you see someone wearing your product, I say inspect it quickly and double check. If it's stolen, notify the owner. If they refuse to remove and delete the item (which they most likely will) file a report or send in a DMCA. That's about it.

Well, generally people seem fairly open to it, mainly the content creators. One of the resident owned sims is being stocked up with things like furniture, clothing and hair. Some residents are quitting for now as they won't be able to use SL for a year or two (and don't like the idea of being tossed in a small playpen) Other than that, things are going about as normal. Some are looking forward to exploring the main grid while others are worried that teens may face discrimination from residents who negatively stereotype them. I myself am looking forward to this merger, despite some concerns with safety. It's going to be nice to get back in touch with some of my old friends who transferred as well as improving my skill at building and design. I think that, even though this merge is going to be a huge change for all of us, I don't think our daily routines will change much. Safety is still shaky, but at the same time it may not be anything a little bit of precaution and common sense can't fix (for now anyways) I'll probably set some stuff up on the marketplace and see what happens. We're all planning on participating in the community where we can, just as we normally would here.

No one expects you to respond to anything. They just expect you to read it, understand it, take it into consideration and let things move on. No.

Nany, please. Just stop. You are not the diamond in this rough. Stop trying to make yourself out as someone who is morally above everyone else here. It's not the case and it has been said with evidence several times. I'm not going to go off pointing out the issues here because I just see another endless cycle coming up like the one above, and before that one and before that. I'm only going to say this. In cases like these, becoming a negative subject of discussion is not some spontaneous event. It happens for a reason, that being your impression. Give the whole "I am morally more awesomerrr" 'tude a rest. Your reputation has already been battered enough. No need to make things worse. *Click* Aaaaand we are back on topic . Time to work out plans for after New Years.

Nany, could you please stop going on and on about your pet project. Not every thread is an appropriate place for you to promote yourself. For goodness sake, this thread is about the introduction of teens onto the main grid and the welfare of minors, not yet another opportunity for you to turn this into something all about you. Please give it a rest already. Yes, we know you have a nonprofit and you have successfully managed to somehow panhandle enough to keep it running. Good for you! Now can we please return to the subject at hand which isn't you by the way. Thank You So Much

I was sort of thinking the same thing, just that there could be the equivalent of that adult only group for teenage users. It would be nice to have some sense of the kind of people you run into. I never really liked the decision do keep age undisclosed to other users. Yes it is to assure the security of residents, but wouldn't you be safer knowing who you're talking to rather than not knowing at all? I feel without some kind of indicator that says "adult" or "teen" people would be more at risk. I'll definitely wear a small "teen" tag when I'm in public just to avoid any future complications.

Unfortunately Linden Labs is not implementing that due to safety. Which doesn't make much sense to me considering it becomes easier to get targetted by a pedophile now.

This is a terrible idea. Anyone who owns a sim should be worried about this, whether or not their sim is PG. There are so many ways this can bite you in the posterior it isn't funny. LL - if teens must come to the main grid, you must isolate them on their own continent. This is the only way to avoid horrific legal complications for both LL and it's adult customers. Failure to isolate teens from things many parents consider objectionable/the law states they cannot see will send SL down in a burning fireball of controversy, criminal courts, and lawsuits. LL will no longer have a customer base to get money from, because SL will no longer exist. Yeah they already did that. It's called Teen Second Life. There is no main grid or teen grid, those were just terms made up to name the two seperate masses of regions. We're all on one grid. Agni. If you go on the map or SLurl, move your view down the the farthest south eastern corner and you'll see our little corner of the world. We just have a barrier blocking us from teleporting into main grid regions. The request to make an isolated continent for us to reside in basically means you want linden labs to do nothing. Meaning several main grid designer's items will get stolen by the day and Linden Labs would still be losing money, pushing them to this kind of situation. That doesn't mean they have the right idea merging us either. I honestly doubt nothing will happen at all. Someone, whether they be adult or teen, will be misinformed or make a mistake and then we'll see yet another clear example of the domino effect. For now, nothing has happened yet. We don't know for sure if Linden Labs is completely ignoring safety. Maybe they have some plan underway. Maybe they have some blind hope people will look the other way. I don't know. We don't know. No one knows other than them. It seems pretty clear now that LL is not taking any of the perfectly valid and reasonable suggestions presented on this forum. All we can do now is prepare for what is to come, despite the hassle and irritation.

btw why are we all bickering amongst ourselves, isnt it LL we are pissed at? Well I suppose you're right. I guess situations like these can bring out the worst in people sometimes. One comment can lead to a heated argument where there may be nothing gained from it in the end. I suppose now, since LL has not listened to our suggestions, it's time we start planning what exactly to do once this merge happens. I might wear my own "I am a teen" tage on my avatar just to give anyone i meet some advanced notice. I'm not really worried about pedo's as i never give out any real life photos of myself in SL, nor do I partake in a virtual relationship. The least we can do is just be careful with who we talk to and who we decide to get personal with.

I read a post a while ago about a teen from TSL who thinks that teens should be given their fair chance in SL MG as he callled it. All i can say about this is after 4 years of PAYING in SL wh yshould we as adults HAVE to allow this? we paid hard earned money to have our freedoms, why should we have to give them up because LL deemed that kids are allowed to come in now? Teens have invested thousands of dollars into TSL for half a decade. You aren't the only ones who have paid for a virtual world of your agegroup only and are now losing it. and lets remember its NOT just 16-17, they are allowing 13-15 in as well. My kids fall in the 13-15 year old category and they know better then to even ask. They are allowing certain 13-15 year olds in with severe limitations. Unless a 13-15 yea old is participating with educators or a nonprofit, they can not log in at all. As for a point of spending time with rl family members in sl............. cant you log off and watch a movie together on the couch? or wait for weekend visitation? since when is an adult oriented video game quality family time? Don't you have a family?

I just dont see this goin well and no offense kids, but shouldnt you be focusing on homework and education and no playin an adult oriented game? No offense to you but if you do have children, shouldn't you be taking your time to support them, help them with homework, commit more to your job and your family and help see things through instead of playing an adult oriented game? It's the same thing for both sides. Either age group has some form of real life commitment that they must do in order to see themselves through life, and that is where moderation comes in. There is no problem with using a virtual world as long as you can stay true to those commitments (or most of them at least). That being said, I still agree with you. Now I do want to come on to the main grid. Explore some new locations, converse with a whole new age group and put products on a large market. The problem is, the way it's being done now, with such lack of information, I don't see how it can possibly turn out smoothly. We've all been expressing our thoughts, concerns, opinions and recommendations. Linden Labs seems to be ignoring pretty well all of them. Linden Labs is going through with this, and for those of us who are still staying, it seems that, no matter what, we will have to take some extra precautions.

1) Legally kiddies yes. Kiddies in terms of maturity, no. 2) People would care since all inventory gets transferred when a "kiddie" turns. We're talking thousands of stolen items per account flooding into the main grid per day. Sounds like any business owner's dream eh? 3) So then you're telling me a family can't play the Wii together for enjoyment? We're not talking about living in the virtual world, we're talking about exploring, creating and just enjoying what fun family activities there are to offer. Couples have the real world right here but several explore SL. Individual adults who have real life jobs have the real world right here, but they spend time in sl. You have the real world right here, but you spend time in SL. As long as they aren't literally LIVING in the virtual world (which is fairly sick) there really is no problem. 4) Well obviously, but you never mentioned legal issues in your last post, which led me to believe it was the concern of scarring teens for life. Yes I believe that there will be problems, that may even lead to SL being wiped out completely, unless LL does it right, but so far, we're in the dark about safety measures. Heck, we're in the dark about a lot of things.

I feel it's better to try a move to get Linden Labs to do things properly now rather than wait for some major legal case to bring it down later. Avatar 1: Duuude did you hear? SL is being shut down! Avatar 2: Wut? No way! What happened? Avatar 1: Some major lawsuit. Some kid got like... violated. Lots of people involved. Avatar 2: Wooah blowin my mind. Man if only we coulda seen this coming. Linden Labs would not be getting these "blackmail threats" if they had kept the public informed and actually took into consideration the concerns and input from its customers. I seriously hope you enjoy your little non profit org you got going on. If Linden Labs doesn't do this right, you may not have long to enjoy it. Neither will the rest of us.

How is showing concern for the adults and minors involved griefing. Please enlighten me as to how making attempts at getting the message across that this plan can not work unless it is done right is griefing. I honestly doubt Linden Labs is taking any of these resident's thoughts into consideration. Comments on this blog post don't seem to be doing anything at all. There is almost zero feedback. This can;t be made into a simple case of "look the other way" when millions of people are involved. Banning him would only prove his point.

There are thousands entertainment and technology companies that make a profit without selling pornography. Porn is not the only way to make money on the 3D internet. Of course it isn't, but it has played a major role in SL. The sex industry has been a large contributor to the economy for years. Banning it in one fell swoop would create an unbalance and destroy quite a few jobs. I can see many reasons Adult content might be more trouble than it is worth. All of the consternation here is an example. All of this chaos is the result of the decision to merge the teens into an adult virtual world. The fact remains that Second Life for aduts was here about 5 years before us teens got our own slice of the pie. It was originally set up as an adult community. It was used by adults and had content created by adults. Merging in adult content into an originally teen world would be more trouble than its worth. This is a different case as the simple fact remains that you adults were here first. Most would say that integrating teens into the adult community is more trouble than its worth because Linden Labs has not yet told us anything as to how they will ensure our safety and keep adults free from liability without a lot of extra precautions to be taken on our parts.

I wouldn't go so far as to call Shockwave a griefer. He's firm, but makes a valid point. Safety and customer satisfaction play 2 large roles here (mainly safety).

Nicely said. I honestly am getting tired of the bull that LL is spewing at meetings and on the blog. Simply tossing out a statement or 2 sentence reply does not answer questions, nor does it satisfy anyone. I understand you feel that ranting is not the answer, but it is a little hard to maintain a calm state of mind when about 1000-2000 suggestions on the two merge posts alone go unnoticed. If LL does have some secret plans for safety implementations, let them announce it to the public, and soon. (The two best ideas at the moment seem to be age restrictions for group signups and creating a PG continent). They can be messy processes (especially addin the third continent) but I'm sure it would be well worth the labour if we, teens and adults, all want to keep this virtual world. Also, I feel that banning adult content is NOT a good idea either. Though I do not use it or will not have access to it (nor do I want to), it's a major part of SL. I'm sure the economy was greatly boosted by the sex industry and created another reason for users to explore this fantasy land. It's a part of second life's culture. Quite frankly I feel that removing it takes a chunk out of SL's purpose. You can live a near limitless fantasy. Why would you want to add a roadblock 3/4 of the way down the bridge into town? The only way that this merge can be done smoothly and safely is if LL gets their rear ends in gear, inform their public (not any of that 5 sentence, motivational, "Safety is our top priority" crap) I mean solid information, details, explanations, specific plans and events. They need to respond to their customers needs and find a way to reach some sort of consesnus (that's how several companies work). Take all residents opinions into consideration. Ensure that we will be safe and/or free from liability. Give second life a bright future.

Try not responding to near ANY customer's concerns. You really should have been at yesterday's TG meeting with terrence. It was fairly pointless. He seemed to dodge questions regarding safety. Several people, including teenage residents (who by the way are not "those customers") asked questions related to tags, concerns about PG/M region borders, filtering and age play. Those perfectly reasonable and important concerns were either ignored or given the same cue card answer "Safety is our top priority. We are talking with several people about it." I honestly don't understand how LL can expect this transition to move smoothly with other residents when so many questions remain unanswered.

Second Life began as an all adult virtual world. From what I;ve read, the adult content was what made it such a success, it was a huge contributor to the economy. Just like what MsToya said, eliminating adult content would take a huge chunk out of jobs and the flow of money, not to mention the loss of customers.

The argument for LL to ban all Adult content keeps growing. Are the contributions from the puritans or the regular patrons?

1) Ages 16-17 does not = kiddies, period. 2) There already is a sort of offline/closed alternative. Opensim. You can set up a small personal region for little to no cost. The reason why very little teens use it is that it is very empty, a little more complicated and for some, nothing to be gained from it. Plus, if Second Life did provide free regions for teens instead, that wouldn't change much than what we already have, or do anything about content theft. 3) I don't exactly see what is so sick about certain parents who would like their sons/daughters to join them in the virtual world. I'm not saying that SL is best suited for teens as it is right now, but the idea of parents wanting to share in a virtual experience with their family is just fine. It isn't like they would take them to a strip club or find a perfect stranger to hook up with them. If anything, it can be for supervision. 4) Disturbing content in spam and griefing paraphernalia is fairly common, not only on the teen grid, but on the net in general. At some point or another, a pair of eyes will see it. Not saying it's right, but at the same time, you're a little late to "preserve the innocence" of senior adolescents. Again, no I'm not saying that the merge was a well thought out idea, but at the same time, it will not signal the apocalypse (not right away anyways)

One thing that does concern me & many others.. when the issue of copybotted items came up in that chat.. someone said.. so? Well, so.. expect to lose a majority of your inventory as the ADULTS that created that content originally file DMCA take downs, and LL removes it a piece at a time from your inventory, and/or bans accounts for being the creator of said copybotted items. I can imagine. Everything here is copybotted. I thought i cleared out all the stolen items in my inventory, then just today i stumbled across some converse pornstar shoes sitting in my objects folder. It's out of control. I saw where Terrace said that 80% of PG/G sims do not border mature.. and i hate to bust the bubble, but as more people become aware of the changes coming, plenty of people owning private regions (of which the majority of that 5000 (80%) number comes from) will likely increase their maturity rating to M or A. I suspected as much. I'm sure adults don't like the idea of teens sneaking into their private estates. It would be nice if we could just have 1 PG continent. It would savesome future complications. Oh well. If it doesn't come now, we can always hope it will come later.

So Terrence Linden came in to talk to us on the TG today. http://walkingthenewworld.wordpress.com/2010/11/27/terrence-linden-on-the-tg-today/ http://slfeed.blogspot.com/ http://slgridmerge.tumblr.com/

I suppose the most we can do is just try our best to cope with what happens, though I know none of us really want to.

Oh big time. Well, Terrence Linden is coming in to the TG today. I'll ask him about details on safety measures, if any.