Arwyn Quandry

If there's one thing I've learned about SL, it's that there are some truly paranoid individuals running around. The whole "alts are evil" rhetoric comes from these types. Bunch of weirdo conspiracy theorists given too much power by merit of the platform.

Even after a good long time in SL, I'm still a sucker for freebies and cheapies where I can get a great bang for my buck. I love those groups with a whole wall of gifts that cost under 100L to join, or groups that cost more but have really nice gifts available. Luas is one of my absolute favorites - 50L for a massive wall of outfits and accessories. I've also gotten a lot of value out of the Truth VIP group over the years, though their gift wall has some pretty outdated pieces. With an eye towards low cost and high amount of immediately available quality gifts, what do you think are the best VIP groups for new players to join?

Echoing so many others: Time limited demos annoy me and make me less likely to buy a product. This is especially true if it does something crappy once the time expires, like: 1. Turning transparent once the timer expires, potentially leaving me naked on a G-rated region 2. Spamming my whispers with chat telling me it's expired I've seen both of these and they both suck.

The fun can only be sucked out temporarily. After a nap and a snack, most folks are ready for another round.

@Bit McMillan made a tool for kid avatars called A-scape, which alerts a user if they accidentally TP to Adult-rated land and helps them quickly TP back to a safe zone. Maybe you could script or find someone to script something similar that alerts you if you've landed on G-rated land?

Now that I've done some looking around and thinking, I have a new question: What's considered breast development? For example, many babies are chubby and have lots of body fat distributed all over, including their chest. Take this stock image of an infant: Fat children can also have fat deposits on their chest. Same with overweight boys and men. I was looking at the skin I have for my child av and it's slightly chubby, including around the chest. I personally wouldn't call it breast development as her chest is fully flat in terms of mesh model, but are we going off of the texture? The mesh? A combo? There's plenty of chubby baby avs in SL. I grabbed a few screenshots of various skin and body ads I saw going around today - I'm not sure if any of these would be considered breast development by LL. I certainly don't think they are.

No, it just proved that they were listening and the uproar was heard. If no one had said a thing about the impracticalities of their plan, the plan wouldn't have changed. The fact that we spoke up clearly and pointed out the issues caused them to reply. I appreciate LL listening to us on this. As of now, the modesty layers are far more practical and reasonable. The BOM thing alone was a huge step. I'm grateful for the changes and can definitely see a path forward for child avatars to exist safely in SL.

The way I read this, it effectively means that any pre-pubescent avatar doesn't need a top modesty layer. As long as you don't display breast development and the area is 100% flat, you don't have any female attributes or suggestion of them.

Pet Delight: Seeing long-overdue justice finally being served on the guilty.

Yeah, the very fact that the body can be changed between ages with genitals squicked me. Interestingly, this isn't the first time I've noticed this phenomenon in the kid community where a particular body gets a vibe of being icky. The SMB body had the same reputation. You looked for clothing for it on MP and there was tons of questionable content. I rarely met folks in the genuinely PG community who used it. Same with particular clothing brands, even their non skimpy content. You just don't buy from them because they have the smell of "that" around them.

Did you know that when LL merged the Teen and Main Grids, they forgot about some avs? Their restless souls now wander the Sharp continent, hungry for flesh.

Re: furry kids, there were a small handful when I went to school, like two or three, as well as a few more who were nekos. They were perfectly nice folks and I never had any issues with them being around. I like wearing rabbit ears while being human and know some kids who wear elf ears but don't RP as elves. Personally, I'm not sure where cubs fit into the furry community. My understanding is that it's a hypersexual community overall so I don't quite get how kids play a part in it.

I often find myself craving more intellectual content in SL. It's easy enough to find places and events, but nearly everything in an average scroll through events is clubs, DJs, live music, shopping, or sex. I'd love to connect with groups and regions that host deeper discussions, whether they're educational or on a particular theme, or do field trips or other social content that isn't just dancing or f'ing. What are your recommendations?

I can speak to this topic a little as a mostly former child avatar. My child av still exists but I'm not on her very much anymore. I first became curious about child avs when I encountered Marianne McCann on Plurk. At the time I was on the Teen Grid, which didn't have any sort of child av community (obvious, considering we were all actual children), but made a child version of my avatar soon after turning 18. For me, my kid av has mostly been between the ages of 6 and 8, with occasional dips to 5 or rises to 9 or 10. This means I'm usually larger and older than most other kids, who often RP between 2 and 5. I like that age though because I can do a lot of independent things but still have an imagination and be childish. Part of what made me feel less connected to the community was the push towards tiny baby avs becoming so prevalent. There was basically no one making anything for avs older than 5 or 6 for a while and felt like a giant towering over these toddlers, but wasn't comfortable shrinking to their size. I definitely preferred things before mesh avatars became the norm, when everyone was roughly the same height. When I was actively playing as a kid, I participated in schools and camps. Those were my favorite things because it was fun being around other child avs in an environment meant for us. I loved doing swimming and soccer. I'd also build craft kits and draw using my wacom tablet. Anymore, when I pull that av out, it's to go on walks or horseback rides around nature sims. I like quiet parks and art sims where I can take pictures. Regrets, I have a few. I was unfortunately friends with some folks who I later found out were involved in *****. They never did anything inappropriate around me but I was hugely squicked to discover that's what they were up to later down the line. I also had a parent who was pretty controlling and gaslighting, which made me not want to deal with families again. I think the whole adoption thing is overhyped and weird now. Overall though, my experience as a kid has been largely positive, and while I don't get as much out of it as I used to, I still have happy memories of that time in my life.

Steam Deck might be the perfect solution to the Adult content issue of mobile. Steam allows adult games so SL wouldn't have that issue there. Smaller user base than mobile, obviously, but still a chunk of new folks.

Personally, I wouldn't, but it's an important question to consider with the mobile viewer. Contrary to what some folks think, teenagers are often very interested in adult content and I wouldn't be surprised if the mobile app brought in more of them, both the kinds signed up with their legit birthdays and the kinds that lie. Dealing with questions of sex in IMs may soon be relevant, especially with how puritanical the app stores are.

An actual question: What about adult content in IMs when the participants aren't on adult land? If I'm on a G region and I IM Joe Rando and we hit it off so well we wind up f'ing right there in my IM box, is that a problem? G regions can contain actual 16 and 17 year olds. While I wouldn't knowingly hit on an underage person, if I don't know they're a child, is the onus on me to verify that they're able to TP to an M-rated region? Or is it on them to refuse to engage with me in that way? Similarly, if my sweetie and I are on an M-rated region but we're getting down and dirty in IMs or private voice chat, is that a problem?

CEO has strong Father energy. Not Daddy energy. Father energy.

Listening to the discussion right now, not fully through it, but I appreciate Oberwolf's clarification that there's no plan to "boot the adults". SL has thrived on a robust variety of adult content and it needs that niche to continue.

To the accusations that "only old people are in SL for sex", I offer my own experience: When I turned 18 and transferred from the Teen Grid to the Main Grid, one of the first things that I wanted to do was go to Gor and get nasty. Virtual Sex: It's Not Just For Grandpa

A post on the Canny Feedback site by Birdie Linden recently revealed that there's a plan to create what they described as "finer-grained controls for content maturity": This brings up a lot of questions about what these finer-grained controls might look like and what they'd be applied to. Do you think we'll see region ratings change from simply G, M, A to something new? Changes in how Marketplace content is classified? What kinds of content do you think would warrant a differentiated rating? If you want to talk about the mobile app losing access to adult content, there's already a thread about that here. Please keep this thread focused on the maturity rating question.

Another grey area: I'm finding some inappropriate items made for children's bodies but listed under Women's Clothing. They're created for a body which is explicitly a child body, yet listed as adult clothing using an avatar which could pass as a tween or teen. Reportable or not?

Speak for yourself! I find that oh so blocky and awkward 2003 style irresistible! 😍 Hubba hubba!

I've opened a bug on the feedback site for the search issue. https://feedback.secondlife.com/web-bugs/p/banned-content-still-appearing-in-mp-search

Great minds - I was just looking to report one of the items I saw but couldn't figure out which report option to use to flag it as inappropriate for child avatars. Literally itty bitty undies and lace lingerie advertised on children - ick! Likewise, it's very weird that now-banned shops are still showing up in search. Even if you can't buy the items, it's icky that their very sexual clothing and obvious number flags are still visible there.