Saturday, March 14, 2009

Doubledown's Suggestion on how Mature content should be handled on the Grid


As mentioned before, Linden Lab has announced that mature content (content that is of a lewd sexual nature mostly) will no longer be on allowed on the mainland. Plenty of residents responded with questions: What does that mean? What is going to happen? Where can I park my dildos?
Along with that comes theories as to why Linden Lab would make this major world shift.

I have a suggestion on how to solve the problem without moving anyone (assuming the actual problem is that some people do not want to accidentally run into graphic adult content.)

On all account preferences, we each would have a main account check box that says something like "I agree that by checking this box all lands marked 'mature' will be open and available to me. I understand this means I may unintentionally see things of a graphic nature"
This would be a main account default. If you check the box, you are agreeing that every and all content in world is of their creator's accord, and I want SL to be wide open to me.

Now, if that main account mature preferences is not checked, then the user would see a YES or NO option in mid teleport to a mature sim. When the person would try to teleport to mature land, the person would receive a message "You are about to enter a mature area of Second Life. Click YES to proceed or click NO to return to your previous location." This would prevent anyone from somehow unintentionally coincidentally TPing into a mature themed area.

Let's say the person isn't teleporting over, and they are flying through: a blue box would appear with the same message "You are entering a mature area. You must agree that you are aware that mature uncensored content may be present. Click YES to stay or NO return to your home."

In my opinion, this solves the problem, if the problem is that there are not enough controls to avoid unwanted adult content in any users SL experience. But is that the problem? Linden Lab wants to move every and all mature content off the mainland. Why? If a user wants to control whether they run into adult content or not, it seems my method above would solve the problem.

I do see that it is a good ability to have (especially for business and for education) a preventive measure so you, your clients, your students, will not run into graphic content. However, uprooting a whole society and segregating them to the outskirts of Second Life seems to be the most irrational drastic of all the possibilities available.

Doubledown Tandino

P.S. Who are all these crazy educators that are constantly running into this nasty mature content? How is it that unavoidable? I am in Second Life full time daily and I don't run into anything mature except when MATURE is marked on the land.

P.P.S. I do not believe moving all mature content off the mainland will even solve the problem. When I am inworld, I almost never see where I am on the world map. Up until yesterday, I didn't even know if the land that I've been renting for months was mainland or islands.

4 comments:

R. said...

An interesting solution, but you are looking at it from a content creator/veteran perspective.

You are not looking at it from LL advocacy for the newbie/new customer perspective, which is what LL appears to be valuing over all we veterans.

-ls/cm

Anonymous said...

WORD!!!!!!!!

Unknown said...

Thanks Crap. @ Crap. With my idea above, lets say the new user comes into SL. They plop onto an orientation island (LL is the only one who can make that G-rated). By default, their 'able to view mature content' is unchecked... meaning upon entry, they would not be able to enter a mature parcel until they were to agree to consent that they chose to go there.

I see how the newb experience can lead to lewd adult content, but if PG-only land is the initial starting default, then it seems like the only way they could end up around sex objects is if they opt-in.

Noirran Marx said...

I like your solution, I think it's a good idea. I have always been baffled why we have PG sims in a world that is supposedly adults only. Honestly I feel if they want to reclassify things have your "adult mainland" and mark the rest of the mainland Mature. Enforce the rules they already have instead of making new ones up.