Comments on: PGification of SL

By: Hans

Hans — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 10:58:58 +0000

Hydra, your experience seems to have been really unpleasant and if that were the whole story then i would also be sympathetic with the planned changes to SL. However, I would ask whatever possessed you to put a corporation on mainland sims?

Meanwhile, although you say you are thankful for this ‘measure’, we do not really know what the measure is. For example, we have no real information about how LL will determine whether the offending whore house needs to move away from your sim.

If I were you i would move my corporation to a private island. Don’t wait for Linden Labs to come up with the formula to solve your problem: first they may not come up with a formula, and then even if they do you might find it was not exactly the one you were hoping for.

Hans

By: brieanne bomazi

brieanne bomazi — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 01:57:24 +0000

If your with a corporation that owns businesses on the mainland and you are concerned about your neighbors, then you should have either bought private regions, or bought on PG that doesn’t border Mature. Until the adult changes officially go into effect, people have a right to do as they please within the TOS on land they own. I, too have owned my SIM, with my adult business for years, and happen to be next door to a PG sim. Seems that LL screwed up by putting them next door to each other. The fact is, most businesses in SL don’t last 6 weeks, much less 6 months or more, be patient, or put up sim divider screens.

By: Edward Vellhi

Edward Vellhi — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 00:39:15 +0000

i bought my sim-edge mainland back before the land barons got their backs broken, so i paid a hefty fee for it. i didn’t mind the collapse of land prices since i was very happy with my parcel and had no plans to move. until sl fubar’d it by changing the rules. if i had the money i’m sure i have a case for suing for fraud, since i would never have bought it if i knew their promises about my autonomy there were worthless. it made my sl wife/rl fiancee cry to demolish our estate and i’ll never forgive sl for that.

By: Catz Mora

Catz Mora — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 22:35:03 +0000

The official stance of LL is that they have no intention of merging the grids “at this time”. This, of course leaves the door open for doing it down the road. Given the whole child avi thing I just don’t see how bringing under aged kids into that environment is going to go well.

I am sorry to hear you lost money on your mainland investment, and sadly you are not alone in that. I think many people thought they were doing just fine with their builds, projects, businesses and scripts and now they are faced with massive relocation projects.

By: Edward Vellhi

Edward Vellhi — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 21:38:12 +0000

As you may know, SL officially denies this has anything to do with a plan to merge the grids. Not that anyone with an IQ above room temperature believes it, but it demonstrates their general contempt for honesty and the intelligence of their users. I personally lost $220USD in land equity when their policy change made my investment in my parcel on the mainland useless to me (I make visual art including nude art), so yeah I’m a bit pissed off. As I said, their delusion that RL businesses will stream in to fill the emptiness on the mainland is asinine as they will find out shortly.

By: Catz Mora

Catz Mora — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 20:06:41 +0000

As an RL business owner myself, I wouldn’t own mainland sims for my business in SL regardless of the rating system. Even if you lose the whore house you have almost no control over what your neighbors are doing. They can still remain in the PG guidelines and detract from an RL’s business in SL. And the lag on the mainland renders it nearly useless. Furthermore, if you are part of an RL corp that decided to market their business in and online video game and then didn’t do their due diligence on who uses the game and how, I don’t feel a whole lot of sympathy for you.

That being said, the sim my venue is on is a teaching sim (not a whore house in sight) and now they are being forced to decide if they are PG or mature and are concerned over losing potential users because of fall of from having to pick one. As a venue owner trying to market in SL, I have no way of knowing which promotions I put out are reaching my intended audience and which aren’t because I am not being told triggers the PG filter, the Mature filter or the Adult filter. Fine, have your guidelines…just clue the rest of us in so we know the ground rules.

By: Catz Mora

Catz Mora — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 19:43:05 +0000

Hiya Wendy )))

I am not against the idea of guidelines. I have seen stuff on SL I am still trying to erase from my memory. That being said, we need to know what the guidelines actually are. Having a list of words that will get your posts bumped into a mature or adult category without letting us know what those words are is ridiculous. Many of us are paying members of SL and we also have rents and tiers…real dollars. For real dollars I expect to be told what the rules of engagement actually are.

I am also very concerned about the notion of artistic controls. It very much feels like creativity as approved by LL, going well beyond the “adult entertainment” side of SL. Again, stating that art with nudes is Adult…if LL ruled the world no school children would be allowed into museums. Another point is that SL…at least at this time…is an online video game enjoyed by adults. I know that not all adults enjoy the same things and happily SL offers a wide variety of activities for a wide variety of people. And honestly if you don’t want to have porn be a part of it you don’t have to, even without the new system in place.

Is the next thing is to monitor chat? You and I both know that no matter what the rating on a sim is the chat very often becomes sexually charged banter. Are we all going to be beeped in the not to distant future? ( I have to admit that could be very funny ).

The notion that segregating content will somehow protect SL from litigation after merging the grids is delusional. One could and mostly likely will make the case that given how simple it is to register as an adult in SL now, without actually being one, that the disaster that ensues was easily foreseen.

By: Edward Vellhi

Edward Vellhi — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 18:23:18 +0000

sl has its head up its behind and it’s going to pay dearly for it when the entire mainland becomes a ghost town. none of the users who actual pay tier are going to be interested in living in pg-ville (i sold my mainland and abandoned the rest to avoid tier on the now useless mainlain and the forced move to the adult ghetto) and despite the wet dreams of the morons in sl’s marketing department, rl businesses are not going to stream into sl to take their place. oh well, not like they haven’t been warned, repeatedly, against this course. so f ‘em.

By: WendyOfNeverland

WendyOfNeverland — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 17:40:01 +0000

The reasoning for this PGification is of course to reverse the very real perception by businesses and schools that SL is a teeming cesspool of porn and cybering. LL hasn’t expanded to them in the way they anticipated. I think businesses and schools need to feel “safe” in that grandma way you describe.

Also, by segregating the “adult” stuff it will make it easier to control access and avoid lawsuits when they merge the teen grid with the adult grid. Although forgery of adult verification is simple, at least LL can go to court and say they have an age verification system in place as a defense.

I’ve not heard about any censoring of group IMs or notices, but I just may not be up to speed. I do know there is a MAJOR problem with almost all group IMs now, including the SL Mentor group, but LL has said they have other priorities and it will take a few more weeks to fix the group IM problems. And yes, they are catching holy hell for that attitude on their blog.

But your point about how the creation of an adult content gulag affects the way how business is being conducted is valid. As with any of the changes that SL impliments, like the gambling ban, the change of estate sims etc, it will change the way things work. If you’ve invested a lot of time & money into the way things currently work, you rightfully feel angry about what is perceived as a change in the rules mid-stream. But you must know LL will do whatever they feel is the right thing to do for their long-term growth, even if it may leave a trail of upset residents in it’s wake.

By: Hydra Shaftoe

Hydra Shaftoe — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 17:16:58 +0000

You try being with a corporation that owns a couple mainland sims, then have a whorehouse move into one of them. Offer to buy their land and relocate them and they want $10,000US for it.

Now they have to move and that company can actually make use of its mainland sims again.

I’m really thankful for this measure.