I met a very charming dragon this evening, whilst I was trying to decide what to do with the cave-that-is-not-quite in Morgaine. He was very polite, though a tad bit confused on my location when I greeted him.

I cammed up from my position inside, to watch him lazily circling the focus disk. A most impressive wingspan he has, febrile with golden glow.

[22:11] Boomer Teixeira: Nice to meet you.
[22:11] Emilly Orr: And you. I haven't seen your name on ISC chat; did you just join our fair realm?
[22:12] Boomer Teixeira: Over a week ago. I hardly talk on there.
[22:12] Emilly Orr: It's not the worst habit to develop, there's a great deal of nonsense interspersed with helpful bits. :)
[22:13] Boomer Teixeira: It's like wordhunt, find the useful ones.
[22:13] Emilly Orr: Indeed
[22:13] Boomer Teixeira: OOH! I am going to go greet newbies with this avatar!
[22:13] Emilly Orr: HEE
[22:13] Emilly Orr: Do have fun!
[22:13] Boomer Teixeira: You too!

If he is the example of Caledon's new blood, I am charmed entire. He's well-spoken, and apparently--after only a week pledged to the cause of our land--a member of Caledon's Air Transport!

Do say hello if you see him fly by.

In other news, I may very well import this into world and just send it to people who transgress. :)

And MediaMaster is down. Damn it, I liked them.

In the meantime, back to That Woman I keep saying I'm done with.

Nany Kayo:

The sex industry is the only kind of business that will use a porn website.

Wrong.

No one has to search for the brothels. The whole damned place is a brothel. You can't search for anything or go anywhere in Second Life without being swamped with porn.

Wrong.

Only people interested in pornography are interested in coming to a porn website. It doesn't matter what island it is on.

WRONG.

Just about anything you search for will result in pornography.

WRONG.

From what I can tell from the viewpoints being expressed here, the only reason for anyone to use Second Life is for sex.

WRONG.

I don't even think I need to go on, but good gods. The woman is fixated and needs serious therapy. Or medication.

Apparently she's never been to Raglan Shire. Or anywhere in Caledon. Or to any of the jazz clubs. Or to Avilion Isle's grand ballroom. Or to the four sims that comprise Avaria. Or to Rua, either on the ground or under the water. Or to the SL Botanical Gardens. For that matter, all garden shops. The totality of Giverny, gorgeous as it is. Anywhere in the Cosy island chain. Any SL church.

Do I need to keep listing examples? There is such a wide, diverse grid, with such amazing things in it, and not even a tenth of it is hardcore pornography.

I keep trying to wrap my mind around how she thinks, and I am profoundly failing. Maybe every time she sees two poseballs together, she freaks out, so any chair, any log by a fire, that has a cuddle set, she must shriek and think porn.

Now, to her credit, if one pulls up Search and types in "furniture", and unchecks the "Include Mature content" box, one will pull up a lot of sex stores in the first fifteen entries or so--both under Classifieds and under Places. Even under the evil "All" tab, "love furniture" and "sex beds" seem prevalent among the entries.

Does this mean that SL is nothing but a haven for sexual deviance? No. Does this mean the Labs need to properly enforce their Mature versus PG rules? Yes. Does this also mean that businesses carrying furniture with sex animations need to mark their business advertisements as Mature, not PG? YES.

From Grady Vuckovic:

*Sits in the back seat of a car, while Linden Lab and the minority groups drive her to 'Disneyland'*

Ah, my apologies, then, Miss Vuckovic. Think I was thinking you were male in previous posts.

Quoted in the forums by Moon Corrigible from one of Jack Linden's office hours:

[12:26] Talarus Luan: So far, I see no evidence of it being "smooth", except in terms of being completely nebulous.
[12:27] Jack Linden: it'll get clearer Tal, as we get closer to that time. we're listening to a lot of feedback and answering as much as we can
[12:28] Jack Linden: you guys seem to prefer to know early than wait to hear later when things are more concrete.. and talking earlier means we get more of your input but also means we have some outstanding details to clear up

12:28] Talarus Luan: I wish I believed that, Jack, but so far, no Linden has answered any of the hard questions, nor is showing signs of "listening to feedback".
[12:28] Jack Linden: I think doing it this way is better
[12:28] Talarus Luan: Hearing is not the same as listening.

[12:46] Jack Linden: you guys seem to see this as moving Mature content, but it isn't. we're only talking about the very extreme end of content.
[12:48] Jack Linden: I thought there was a definition in the blog post..
[12:48] Ciaran Laval: Jack the definitons all got pulled
[12:49] Jack Linden: right. well i expect we'll see those tighten up. my understanding is that normal mature content isn't affected.

[12:51] Elanthius Flagstaff: The crazy part about it all is it's all just animations. Little tiny cartoons on a computer. It's literally impossible to even BE extreme at this level of detail
[12:52] Jack Linden: Elanthius.. that's not true. Some of the content is real photography or video etc, it's far from being just cartoons
[12:52] Elanthius Flagstaff: OK, well is "extreme" just real photography? Because in that case we'll all breathe a sigh of relief and agree with your plans
[12:53] Jack Linden: Elanthius.. I think that is what we'll get to define, but my understanding is that normal Mature content is unaffected, but the most extreme stuff, torture, dismemberment etc, will move
[12:53] Jack Linden: If I had that definition for you, i'd happily recite it.

I'm only grabbing four sections of a much longer post, and Moon Corrigible seems very willing to toss anyone a transcript of the complete "Brown Bag" meeting with Jack Linden if you IM her in world.

What it keeps sounding like to me? "We've got this underway, and we're still working on the details. Thanks so much for all your feedback. We'll let you know more when we figure things out."

Translation: We have no clue. We are therefore going forward anyway.

Valerius Constantine:

What SL needs apparently, according to LL, is a better class of user, that isn't silly, graphic, or desirous--but is still creative enough to pretty up the grid, while mindlessly buying lindens, virtual "land", and any products that a corporate client wants to advertise in-world.

[ ... ] And still no definitions of who needs to move, when they'll need to do it, *how* it will happen, or *why* it will happen. And still adherence to a "2%-4%" mantra which is on the very face of it ridiculous--

Yes.

Grady Vuckovic again:

Setup a page with a very long list of everything that is questionable, and have a "Adult" or "Mature" option next to it, for people to vote. Your a company full of programmers, I'm sure it wouldn't be that hard to make a page with a few polls on it. So then you could have say:

Full body nudity: [Adult] [Mature]
Partial Nudity: [Adult] [Mature]
Display of nude skins: [Adult] [Mature]
Cutting off heads in cartoon fashion: [Adult] [Mature]
Cutting off heads in realistic fashion: [Adult] [Mature]
Brief sexual scenes: [Adult] [Mature]
Detailed text based roleplayer of sexual scenes in public: [Adult] [Mature]
Silent sexual scenes of sex animations (no text roleplay, or only done in IM's): [Adult] [Mature]
Soft Vore: [Adult] [Mature]
Hard Vore: [Adult] [Mature]
Death: [Adult] [Mature]
Cartoon Death: [Adult] [Mature]
Flirting: [Adult] [Mature]
Strip dancing: [Adult] [Mature]
Clothed bodies rubbing against each other: [Adult] [Mature]

All right, I'll bite:

Full body nudity: [Mature]
Partial Nudity: [Mature]
Display of nude skins: [Mature]
Cutting off heads in cartoon fashion: [Mature]
Cutting off heads in realistic fashion: [Adult]
Brief sexual scenes: [Mature]
Detailed text based roleplayer of sexual scenes in public: [Adult]
Silent sexual scenes of sex animations (no text roleplay, or only done in IM's): ([Mature] if fully clothed, [Adult] if not)
Soft Vore: [Adult]
Hard Vore: [Adult]
Death: [Adult]
Cartoon Death: [Mature]
Flirting: [Mature]
Strip dancing: [Mature]
Clothed bodies rubbing against each other: [Mature]

These are just my definitions, though, you're free to go through the list and decide for yourselves.

Riku Ashdene didn't think things through:

I will admit to this, and probably have my account closed for it... I am one year Below 18. I have been on this game for many months.. and I think it is the best thing to happen to the internet. I dont use it for its "Mature Content".. I use it to meet up with FRIENDS I have on here.. Some of which will now be hanging out in the "Mature" section, which I will not be allowed to access. Which means... I am to be cut off from the people who mean alot to me. Also.. I have my PARENT CONSENT to be on here. They check up on me, and watch me like any other parent would.

Oh, for the love of all things...All right, blanket advice to any eyes that see this: If you're on the grid, and you're under eighteen, and no one has caught you yet--DO NOT CONFESS to being underage!

How simple do I have to make this? If you haven't been caught, don't offer yourself up. Just don't. It's universally stupid.

Windsweptgold Wopat brought up the groups young Miss Ashdene belonged to, as perfect reasoning why teens should not access the grid. So I pulled her up on Search, and lo and behold: Riku Ashdene no longer exists.

On the Adult grid, at least.

Though what's really interesting to me? I can't track down under groups anything she supposedly belonged to, while she was on the grid violating the ToS. Did the groups to which she belonged get axed as well?

Puppet Shepherd brings soothing words to calm the savage rants:

Quite honestly, many of the folks posting in this thread are overreacting. They are assuming things are going to happen that in all likelihood are not. LL has repeatedly said this will not apply to private residences, and nudity in a public space is not enough to earn bannination to adults-only land.

However, I can see where those of you who are doing the overreacting are coming from. LL apparently has only one person actively keeping up with this thread, and one person is not enough to keep up with it. Secondly, the lack of development of clear definitions encourages paranoid minds to run wild. Third, the presence of one troll in this thread who is allowed to continue to post multiple inflammatory messages is getting a lot of people's hackles up.

And it should be remembered, by myself, as well--we don't have firm definitions in place. The Labs have said that this is only for the truly extreme cases. Sure, we're worried that those extreme cases will not have a uniformity of definition, but--they're not planning on moving everyone.

Actually, what is starting to unnerve me is not the Lindens trying to hold only that "2 to 4%" of users/groups/businesses being extremely violent or "adult". What will unnerve me is--once on their own little grid, will that subset, now, of Pornodelphian designers, seek that second dividing line? The one that asks, So how much violence/sex/extreme content is too much?

In other words, once everyone's moved and "settled"--at least as far as they're going to--will people take the opportunity to go all out? Dolcett girls operating as an open group again, prim bodies on spikes lining the beaches, accurate-to-the-last-prim junkie kits, with places in the back alleys to wait out the drug's rush? Blood rushing down the walls, screams of the damned pervading the streets, giant shredded mutated forms melting flesh from avatars at a glance?

Necrophilia catching on? Rape rooms? Avatar-based reinactments of the torture memos? Seriously, this could make the problem of grid misperception worse, not better! Again we have to ask why it isn't safer, better, and altogether easier to make Ursula a new, fresh, clean start for SL? Why won't it work? Thousands of their customer base, protesting, suggesting this very option--why couldn't it work?!?

We'll likely never know, because the Lindens are wearing blinders in all of this, doggedly pushing forward past any and all offers and advice. They have a goal; they'll get there; and while they may slow down, they won't stop.

At least, until the bottom drops out of the economy, and people stop playing the game. And really--nobody wants that. Not a single one of us wants that.

Save for...just maybe...the Lindens themselves.