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There's nothing particularly unexpected there to be honest. Discussion on the changes, in the SL forums, have already highlighted several potential problems with the changes. Frankly the whole thing says "PR exercise" to me, rather than any attempt to address the issues properly without making a pigs breakfast of it.
I'm pretty much indifferent because my parcel in SL is Adult, and more significantly, it's blocked to anyone who's not in the appropriate group.
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I'm pretty much indifferent because my parcel in SL is Adult, and more significantly, it's blocked to anyone who's not in the appropriate group.
I agree, they dont want to solve the problem, they want to work around it with there loopholes so they dont loose out on money.
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you can not even imagine how right you are! same is about lone creators in sl, "companies" steal their work at sandboxes and represent as own by selling, linden lab just spreads its arms because those huge sellers also rent big regions :D
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This ties into my other post recently on @Safinemahoe2's post.
You are quite correct in that the 'norm' in SL and OSG tends to be somewhat hypersexualised. For males and females, although it's less noticeable for males. Although I've been to plenty of grids where glamor is rated higher than erotic.
But here's the thing ... why, if that's not what someone is into, do they want to go to a grid where that IS the 'style'?
Or to put it another way ... one grid I know of hosts formal, disco, and fetish dances. People go to the dances that have appeal for them, so the people who are only into fetish don't go to the disco or formal dances. I'm sure if someone turned up to the formal dance in their raunchiest fetish attire, they'd be asked to change or leave. And, in my opinion, that would be not only the host's right to do so, it would actually be entirely appropriate to do so.
Why do people persist in trying to go to places which have a specific purpose or theme, and not fit into that purpose or theme? It's like going to an AFK sex sim in SL, and complaining that there are no Greedy Tables.
You will note I asked questions above. And I actually mean "Please explain, because I don't get it" ... I'm not asking questions as a debating tactic.
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You are quite correct in that the 'norm' in SL and OSG tends to be somewhat hypersexualised. For males and females, although it's less noticeable for males. Although I've been to plenty of grids where glamor is rated higher than erotic.
But here's the thing ... why, if that's not what someone is into, do they want to go to a grid where that IS the 'style'?
Or to put it another way ... one grid I know of hosts formal, disco, and fetish dances. People go to the dances that have appeal for them, so the people who are only into fetish don't go to the disco or formal dances. I'm sure if someone turned up to the formal dance in their raunchiest fetish attire, they'd be asked to change or leave. And, in my opinion, that would be not only the host's right to do so, it would actually be entirely appropriate to do so.
Why do people persist in trying to go to places which have a specific purpose or theme, and not fit into that purpose or theme? It's like going to an AFK sex sim in SL, and complaining that there are no Greedy Tables.
You will note I asked questions above. And I actually mean "Please explain, because I don't get it" ... I'm not asking questions as a debating tactic.
"Why do people persist in trying to go to places which have a specific purpose or theme, and not fit into that purpose or theme?"
Well, first of all, there are those who don't care for dress codes. Like, at all. They dress like they always dress, and they seem to completely ignore their surroundings. Same reason why they insist in walking around snow-covered Christmas sims in skimpy micro-minidresses and 6" platform sandals with 12" spike heels or on subtropical beaches clad in black biker leather from head to toe like a one-percenter. Anything to not reduce their sexiness or badassitude.
Or it's simply their style which is the more likely, the more unusual it is.
I think some intentionally break dress codes to demonstrate how utterly they despise role-playing in any shape or form.
I also know someone who is too much of an anarchist to let anyone tell him what to wear. That is, even he puts on a tuxedo when appropriate. And he doesn't Hypergrid often anyway.
Then there are those who don't know that there is a dress code in the first place. Some go to OSW and look up which sims are busy without checking a) what that sim is and b) what's happening there. Others don't know the OSW website and believe the OSW beacons are nothing more than nifty Hypergrid teleporters. They seek out the busiest sim and teleport there to meet people. But the beacon doesn't tell them anything about on-going events either, not even about the sims except for whether they're Adult-rated.
At events that encourage or require nudity, there are those who a) are too prudish or too badass to strip down and b) couldn't possibly imagine for the life of them that anyone else actually would. At least not until they arrive there. After five minutes of waiting in vain for the clothes on the female avatars to rez, or after 30 seconds when the dicks on the male avatars have rezzed, they often nope out again anyway, so they aren't much of a problem.
Not being able to dress in a certain way because there's no fitting clothing of that kind for your body doesn't play such a big role. If I can't dress appropriately for an occasion, and I usually can't, then I don't go there, plain and simple.
I even refused to go to beaches for quite a while unless they were nude beaches. The reason: I have a Roth2 v2. There is absolutely no mesh beachwear that fits on this body. And layer swim shorts look ridiculous on me without a bulge. In fact, I had absolutely nothing I could credibly wear on a beach. I only started to go to non-nude beaches after I'd managed to re-texture some sculpty bulges for some layer swim shorts. Before then, I always sent Juno because layer swimwear looks better on her.
I think this only becomes an issue if you attend an event although you neither want to nor really can, but you have to because you were invited by someone who insists in your presence. For example, if someone absolutely wants you to attend the opening party of their fetish sim, dress code is latex, full stop, but you've got a Ruth 2.0 for which no latex clothes exist, and you refuse to wear stolen Athena clothes which may not even fit properly anyway. Then you can choose between coming as you are and breaking the dress code, coming naked which you think is sexy enough and still breaking the dress code or letting your sim owner friend down by not coming at all.
Now, this goes for single sims and mostly for specific events on those sims.
An entire grid with a specific dress code has to be monothematic and therefore tiny with no third-party sims whatsoever. I don't know any such grid from the top of my head. Even Littlefield isn't all about BDSM and doesn't require fetish outfits everywhere.
Okay, now let's imagine a hypothetic medium-small grid that's all about glitz and glam and showing off. Where everyone has a Lamborghini Veneno, of which only three were made IRL, as a daily driver. Two dozen sims dedicated to this in various ways. It's actually grid-wide dress code.
But there's one sim on that same grid where someone offers self-made, therefore legal, freebies. Let's suppose they're actually quite useful clothes for legal, made-in-OpenSim-for-OpenSim mesh bodies of a kind and in a quality that you can't find anywhere else, also because they're no-transfer exclusives. In other words, exactly what Juno and I need.
That sim is in that grid because the sim owner is friends with the grid owner, the previous grid which hosted that sim had gone down, the sim needed a new home ASAP, and the grid owner owed the sim owner one.
However, none of us can dress in the style required for the grid. There are no legal clothes for that theme that could possibly be worn on Roth2 v2, there are no legal clothes for that theme that could possibly be worn on Ruth2 v4, and both of us refuse to switch to stolen bodies with stolen heads, stolen skins, stolen hair, stolen clothes and stolen shoes just for that sim.
The only chance we'd have if we don't want to pass on that content, and we don't, is to sneak into the grid when there's nobody else online and hope that our mesh bodies and our clothes are too obscure for the grid server to have them blacklisted for not being glamourous enough.
Or a variant on this: Imagine a grid whose owner has openly stated that Athena Petite is an underage body, full stop, and therefore banned on their entire grid, full stop, because allegedly, everyone who uses this body is a paedo.
Now imagine you've got an avatar based on Athena Petite because you find Athena's boobs too unnaturally big, and you wanted your avatar to be more realistic and believable. You've actually managed to make your avatar look like a realistic, fully grown-up real-life woman. No doubt that your avatar is definitely not underage. Maybe even to the point that people say you dress like a grandma.
Okay, now imagine you absolutely have to go to that grid. There's a sim that offers exclusive content which you absolutely need, or your best friend is going to get married on that very grid, or your favourite weekly event has moved into this very grid, or whatever.
What'd you do? Pass on that content/your best friend's wedding because your presence is not tolerated on the grid because your avatar is allegedly a kid because it's an Athena Petite? Go anyway, just to let yourself be perma-banned? Pester your friend to get married elsewhere?
Throw your principles and the general look of your avatar overboard, get yourself a regular Athena and increase your boobs six-fold just to survive a trip to that grid?
If that isn't relatable enough, we could try another required dress code for a whole grid: business attire. For female avatars, this means: Blazer jacket. Pencil skirt. No bare legs, nylon is an absolute requirement. Medium heels, no flats, no high heels. Spoiler: That's actually doable with an Athena, but very difficult. In fact, it's easier with a Ruth2 v4 and 100% legal clothing, especially if you know how to make your own alpha masks (or you could ask, and you may get what you need).
Again, you absolutely need to go to that grid. What'd you do? Break the dress code, stay out or go insane trying to piece the required look together that you may think won't even look good on you?
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Well, first of all, there are those who don't care for dress codes. Like, at all. They dress like they always dress, and they seem to completely ignore their surroundings. Same reason why they insist in walking around snow-covered Christmas sims in skimpy micro-minidresses and 6" platform sandals with 12" spike heels or on subtropical beaches clad in black biker leather from head to toe like a one-percenter. Anything to not reduce their sexiness or badassitude.
Or it's simply their style which is the more likely, the more unusual it is.
I think some intentionally break dress codes to demonstrate how utterly they despise role-playing in any shape or form.
I also know someone who is too much of an anarchist to let anyone tell him what to wear. That is, even he puts on a tuxedo when appropriate. And he doesn't Hypergrid often anyway.
Then there are those who don't know that there is a dress code in the first place. Some go to OSW and look up which sims are busy without checking a) what that sim is and b) what's happening there. Others don't know the OSW website and believe the OSW beacons are nothing more than nifty Hypergrid teleporters. They seek out the busiest sim and teleport there to meet people. But the beacon doesn't tell them anything about on-going events either, not even about the sims except for whether they're Adult-rated.
At events that encourage or require nudity, there are those who a) are too prudish or too badass to strip down and b) couldn't possibly imagine for the life of them that anyone else actually would. At least not until they arrive there. After five minutes of waiting in vain for the clothes on the female avatars to rez, or after 30 seconds when the dicks on the male avatars have rezzed, they often nope out again anyway, so they aren't much of a problem.
Not being able to dress in a certain way because there's no fitting clothing of that kind for your body doesn't play such a big role. If I can't dress appropriately for an occasion, and I usually can't, then I don't go there, plain and simple.
I even refused to go to beaches for quite a while unless they were nude beaches. The reason: I have a Roth2 v2. There is absolutely no mesh beachwear that fits on this body. And layer swim shorts look ridiculous on me without a bulge. In fact, I had absolutely nothing I could credibly wear on a beach. I only started to go to non-nude beaches after I'd managed to re-texture some sculpty bulges for some layer swim shorts. Before then, I always sent Juno because layer swimwear looks better on her.
I think this only becomes an issue if you attend an event although you neither want to nor really can, but you have to because you were invited by someone who insists in your presence. For example, if someone absolutely wants you to attend the opening party of their fetish sim, dress code is latex, full stop, but you've got a Ruth 2.0 for which no latex clothes exist, and you refuse to wear stolen Athena clothes which may not even fit properly anyway. Then you can choose between coming as you are and breaking the dress code, coming naked which you think is sexy enough and still breaking the dress code or letting your sim owner friend down by not coming at all.
Now, this goes for single sims and mostly for specific events on those sims.
An entire grid with a specific dress code has to be monothematic and therefore tiny with no third-party sims whatsoever. I don't know any such grid from the top of my head. Even Littlefield isn't all about BDSM and doesn't require fetish outfits everywhere.
Okay, now let's imagine a hypothetic medium-small grid that's all about glitz and glam and showing off. Where everyone has a Lamborghini Veneno, of which only three were made IRL, as a daily driver. Two dozen sims dedicated to this in various ways. It's actually grid-wide dress code.
But there's one sim on that same grid where someone offers self-made, therefore legal, freebies. Let's suppose they're actually quite useful clothes for legal, made-in-OpenSim-for-OpenSim mesh bodies of a kind and in a quality that you can't find anywhere else, also because they're no-transfer exclusives. In other words, exactly what Juno and I need.
That sim is in that grid because the sim owner is friends with the grid owner, the previous grid which hosted that sim had gone down, the sim needed a new home ASAP, and the grid owner owed the sim owner one.
However, none of us can dress in the style required for the grid. There are no legal clothes for that theme that could possibly be worn on Roth2 v2, there are no legal clothes for that theme that could possibly be worn on Ruth2 v4, and both of us refuse to switch to stolen bodies with stolen heads, stolen skins, stolen hair, stolen clothes and stolen shoes just for that sim.
The only chance we'd have if we don't want to pass on that content, and we don't, is to sneak into the grid when there's nobody else online and hope that our mesh bodies and our clothes are too obscure for the grid server to have them blacklisted for not being glamourous enough.
Or a variant on this: Imagine a grid whose owner has openly stated that Athena Petite is an underage body, full stop, and therefore banned on their entire grid, full stop, because allegedly, everyone who uses this body is a paedo.
Now imagine you've got an avatar based on Athena Petite because you find Athena's boobs too unnaturally big, and you wanted your avatar to be more realistic and believable. You've actually managed to make your avatar look like a realistic, fully grown-up real-life woman. No doubt that your avatar is definitely not underage. Maybe even to the point that people say you dress like a grandma.
Okay, now imagine you absolutely have to go to that grid. There's a sim that offers exclusive content which you absolutely need, or your best friend is going to get married on that very grid, or your favourite weekly event has moved into this very grid, or whatever.
What'd you do? Pass on that content/your best friend's wedding because your presence is not tolerated on the grid because your avatar is allegedly a kid because it's an Athena Petite? Go anyway, just to let yourself be perma-banned? Pester your friend to get married elsewhere?
Throw your principles and the general look of your avatar overboard, get yourself a regular Athena and increase your boobs six-fold just to survive a trip to that grid?
If that isn't relatable enough, we could try another required dress code for a whole grid: business attire. For female avatars, this means: Blazer jacket. Pencil skirt. No bare legs, nylon is an absolute requirement. Medium heels, no flats, no high heels. Spoiler: That's actually doable with an Athena, but very difficult. In fact, it's easier with a Ruth2 v4 and 100% legal clothing, especially if you know how to make your own alpha masks (or you could ask, and you may get what you need).
Again, you absolutely need to go to that grid. What'd you do? Break the dress code, stay out or go insane trying to piece the required look together that you may think won't even look good on you?
Sorry Jupiter, you're throwing up some pretty unlikely hypotheticals.
I wrote a long response but it boiled down to a principal I hold dear: My Home, My Rules.
That's how I operate in RL, in SL, and in OS.
In my RL home, in my SL mainland plot, and in my region in OS ... the rules are what I say they are. Obviously within the constraints of the society I am embedded in. So I have to comply with RL Law, SL TOS, and the TOS that my grid owners required that I agree to.
The same, I imagine, applies to your RL home.
If, for instance, you had a rule for entering your home which I believed I could not comply with ... I would either (a) not enter it or (b) ask you to wave that rule. If you refused to wave the rule I would leave.
Because it would not matter WHY I felt I couldn't comply with that rule ... perhaps it might conflict with my religion or my principals, but it's YOUR home and YOU get to set the rules. The minute we insist on overriding that it stops being your home.
If I have a rule in my region (still locked down after 6 years of construction ... when I build, I build BIG :) that says "Do not do X" then you either obey the rule, convince me to wave it in your case, or you get out. I don't have to rationalise or justify it ... because it's MY home.
That basically addresses everything in your reply.
Now I'll address some finer points: In SL I use the HG body. Nobody would suggest that body is infantile. But, for a bet, I made a barely-pubescent avatar using that body. And I found sufficient free items (because I wasn't going to spent $L's to win a bet lol) to dress that avatar as a child. It was a hideous outfit with a lot of alphas to hide the clipping, but it was a viable outfit all the same So banning a specific body which is ostensibly an adult body is silly. It all depends on the shape.
Add the fact that I have an alt on my home OS grid who has an avatar which (with deformation) is less than 3 feet tall ... he should only be about 6 to 7 inches, but you can only do so much after all, and I'm not in favor of automatic measures to classify any avatar as unacceptable.
BUT ... if I hypergridded to a grid which automatically kicked me out I'd just move on, because at the end of the day it really is up to the grid/region owner how he or she wants to run his/her own grid.
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I wrote a long response but it boiled down to a principal I hold dear: My Home, My Rules.
That's how I operate in RL, in SL, and in OS.
In my RL home, in my SL mainland plot, and in my region in OS ... the rules are what I say they are. Obviously within the constraints of the society I am embedded in. So I have to comply with RL Law, SL TOS, and the TOS that my grid owners required that I agree to.
The same, I imagine, applies to your RL home.
If, for instance, you had a rule for entering your home which I believed I could not comply with ... I would either (a) not enter it or (b) ask you to wave that rule. If you refused to wave the rule I would leave.
Because it would not matter WHY I felt I couldn't comply with that rule ... perhaps it might conflict with my religion or my principals, but it's YOUR home and YOU get to set the rules. The minute we insist on overriding that it stops being your home.
If I have a rule in my region (still locked down after 6 years of construction ... when I build, I build BIG :) that says "Do not do X" then you either obey the rule, convince me to wave it in your case, or you get out. I don't have to rationalise or justify it ... because it's MY home.
That basically addresses everything in your reply.
Now I'll address some finer points: In SL I use the HG body. Nobody would suggest that body is infantile. But, for a bet, I made a barely-pubescent avatar using that body. And I found sufficient free items (because I wasn't going to spent $L's to win a bet lol) to dress that avatar as a child. It was a hideous outfit with a lot of alphas to hide the clipping, but it was a viable outfit all the same So banning a specific body which is ostensibly an adult body is silly. It all depends on the shape.
Add the fact that I have an alt on my home OS grid who has an avatar which (with deformation) is less than 3 feet tall ... he should only be about 6 to 7 inches, but you can only do so much after all, and I'm not in favor of automatic measures to classify any avatar as unacceptable.
BUT ... if I hypergridded to a grid which automatically kicked me out I'd just move on, because at the end of the day it really is up to the grid/region owner how he or she wants to run his/her own grid.
You asked for explanations. You explicitly stated that your questions are not rhetorical.
I gave you explanations.
But apparently, I didn't tell you what you wanted to hear.
Not everything in my comment is hypothetical. This, for example, is reality:
"Well, first of all, there are those who don't care for dress codes. Like, at all. They dress like they always dress, and they seem to completely ignore their surroundings. Same reason why they insist in walking around snow-covered Christmas sims in skimpy micro-minidresses and 6" platform sandals with 12" spike heels or on subtropical beaches clad in black biker leather from head to toe like a one-percenter. Anything to not reduce their sexiness or badassitude.
Or it's simply their style which is the more likely, the more unusual it is."
I could give you names and UUIDs from my home grid, but I won't do that in public. Granted, they mostly hardly ever teleport or teleported, but I myself personally witnessed one of them being kicked and banned from Stark for giving the impression of being a child avatar although she was actually anything but.
This guy...
"I also know someone who is too much of an anarchist to let anyone tell him what to wear. That is, even he puts on a tuxedo when appropriate. And he doesn't Hypergrid often anyway."
...is reality, too. Again, I could give you a name and a UUID, but again, not in public.
"Then there are those who don't know that there is a dress code in the first place. Some go to OSW and look up which sims are busy without checking a) what that sim is and b) what's happening there. Others don't know the OSW website and believe the OSW beacons are nothing more than nifty Hypergrid teleporters. They seek out the busiest sim and teleport there to meet people. But the beacon doesn't tell them anything about on-going events either, not even about the sims except for whether they're Adult-rated."
This was literally me during my first few weeks in OpenSim. And not only me as you can tell whenever you're at a motto party or at a heavily themed event in a heavily themed location, and in the middle of an event, people teleport in in what has to be their typical casual outfits. They just went where there are a lot of avatars to meet.
And in this particular case, these people won't know anything about any rules being in place until they're being told WHILE THEY'RE ALREADY THERE. The OSW beacon doesn't tell you anything about a sim, only the name, Adult rating or not and how many avatars are there, that's all. It does NOT tell you about what kind of sim it is, what's its theme, what rules are in place. It could be a medieval hard roleplay sim, it could be an Old West hard roleplay sim, it could be a BTB Gor hard roleplay sim, but if you don't know OpenSimWorld-the-website, you wouldn't know that before you actually go there. And if you do learn about the rules, you do so while having broken them already. Unless someone kicks you first.
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I gave you explanations.
But apparently, I didn't tell you what you wanted to hear.
Not everything in my comment is hypothetical. This, for example, is reality:
"Well, first of all, there are those who don't care for dress codes. Like, at all. They dress like they always dress, and they seem to completely ignore their surroundings. Same reason why they insist in walking around snow-covered Christmas sims in skimpy micro-minidresses and 6" platform sandals with 12" spike heels or on subtropical beaches clad in black biker leather from head to toe like a one-percenter. Anything to not reduce their sexiness or badassitude.
Or it's simply their style which is the more likely, the more unusual it is."
I could give you names and UUIDs from my home grid, but I won't do that in public. Granted, they mostly hardly ever teleport or teleported, but I myself personally witnessed one of them being kicked and banned from Stark for giving the impression of being a child avatar although she was actually anything but.
This guy...
"I also know someone who is too much of an anarchist to let anyone tell him what to wear. That is, even he puts on a tuxedo when appropriate. And he doesn't Hypergrid often anyway."
...is reality, too. Again, I could give you a name and a UUID, but again, not in public.
"Then there are those who don't know that there is a dress code in the first place. Some go to OSW and look up which sims are busy without checking a) what that sim is and b) what's happening there. Others don't know the OSW website and believe the OSW beacons are nothing more than nifty Hypergrid teleporters. They seek out the busiest sim and teleport there to meet people. But the beacon doesn't tell them anything about on-going events either, not even about the sims except for whether they're Adult-rated."
This was literally me during my first few weeks in OpenSim. And not only me as you can tell whenever you're at a motto party or at a heavily themed event in a heavily themed location, and in the middle of an event, people teleport in in what has to be their typical casual outfits. They just went where there are a lot of avatars to meet.
And in this particular case, these people won't know anything about any rules being in place until they're being told WHILE THEY'RE ALREADY THERE. The OSW beacon doesn't tell you anything about a sim, only the name, Adult rating or not and how many avatars are there, that's all. It does NOT tell you about what kind of sim it is, what's its theme, what rules are in place. It could be a medieval hard roleplay sim, it could be an Old West hard roleplay sim, it could be a BTB Gor hard roleplay sim, but if you don't know OpenSimWorld-the-website, you wouldn't know that before you actually go there. And if you do learn about the rules, you do so while having broken them already. Unless someone kicks you first.
You didn't answer the question I asked.
You talk about not knowing the rules, and that's fair enough. When you arrive, you should be informed of the rules one way or another. A sign at the landing zone. A notecard. Or someone telling you. Then, a reasonable grid and owner would give you a chance to correct whatever the problem is. My landing zone (if we ever get the region finished lol) is in a cave. There will be a big sign explaining the rules and you basically have to walk through it to get out of the cave. There will also be a notecard giver which covers both English and Spanish, those being the two languages used on the grid wherein I make my home. I think that's a reasonable approach.
For example ... I recently tried to go to a shop in SL. You know the deal, you find something on the MP and follow the "see this item in second life". I landed in the middle of something that was NOT a shop. I didn't even look around, I just went to my web browser ... got the creators name, and searched for it in case she had a new location for her shop. While I was doing that I got a very polite DM "I'm sorry, you may not have realised that you're in a gay club and women aren't permitted." I immediately hit home, and then apologised and explained how I came to be there and why I hadn't realised I was in a gay club. That's reasonable. I try to always assume the best motive when someone screws up and give them a chance to correct it, as did the gay guy at that club.
What I'm addressing, and I believe it's implicit in my post, is why you would WANT to go to a grid/region where the owner has (somehow) communicated the rules and in his/her opinion you don't comply with them?
Frankly if I were your little sister, and some said "CHILD AVATAR!!!" and started frothing at the mouth ... I wouldn't be able to get out of there fast enough.
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You talk about not knowing the rules, and that's fair enough. When you arrive, you should be informed of the rules one way or another. A sign at the landing zone. A notecard. Or someone telling you. Then, a reasonable grid and owner would give you a chance to correct whatever the problem is. My landing zone (if we ever get the region finished lol) is in a cave. There will be a big sign explaining the rules and you basically have to walk through it to get out of the cave. There will also be a notecard giver which covers both English and Spanish, those being the two languages used on the grid wherein I make my home. I think that's a reasonable approach.
For example ... I recently tried to go to a shop in SL. You know the deal, you find something on the MP and follow the "see this item in second life". I landed in the middle of something that was NOT a shop. I didn't even look around, I just went to my web browser ... got the creators name, and searched for it in case she had a new location for her shop. While I was doing that I got a very polite DM "I'm sorry, you may not have realised that you're in a gay club and women aren't permitted." I immediately hit home, and then apologised and explained how I came to be there and why I hadn't realised I was in a gay club. That's reasonable. I try to always assume the best motive when someone screws up and give them a chance to correct it, as did the gay guy at that club.
What I'm addressing, and I believe it's implicit in my post, is why you would WANT to go to a grid/region where the owner has (somehow) communicated the rules and in his/her opinion you don't comply with them?
Frankly if I were your little sister, and some said "CHILD AVATAR!!!" and started frothing at the mouth ... I wouldn't be able to get out of there fast enough.
"What I'm addressing, and I believe it's implicit in my post, is why you would WANT to go to a grid/region where the owner has (somehow) communicated the rules and in his/her opinion you don't comply with them?"
Again: One reason is because you always dress the same, plus, you ABSOLUTELY DESPISE dress codes with a BURNING PASSION, and thus, you deliberately, intentionally break them by going as you are.
Again: Reality. Could give you a name and a UUID.
Not to mention those who think that other people's rules generally don't apply to them, who think they can overrule anyone anywhere, or who try to weasel themselves around any rule out there by finding and exploiting loopholes or, if necessary, making them up out of thin air. Bonus points if they call you a fascist for enforcing your rules by banning them.
Can't give you a UUID because I refuse to go where I could find it, but I could tell you three names for the same guy.
A variant I haven't mentioned yet: The dress code is only communicated in the sim owner's native language because the entire target audience of the sim speaks the sim owner's native language. But that language is German or Italian or Brazilian Portuguese. In fact, the sim owner only speaks and understands that one language.
Sure, if you have common sense, you go find an online translator that can also identify the language if you can't.
But some treat anything communicated to them in a language other than their native tongue as not communicated to them at all. So they keep coming back because they simply don't KNOW that this foreign gibberish they were exposed to was rules, much less that and how they're breaking these rules right now. And they keep coming back until the sim owner either bans them or communicates the rules to them in their language, and I don't mean Googlish because some ignore that, too.
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Again: One reason is because you always dress the same, plus, you ABSOLUTELY DESPISE dress codes with a BURNING PASSION, and thus, you deliberately, intentionally break them by going as you are.
Again: Reality. Could give you a name and a UUID.
Not to mention those who think that other people's rules generally don't apply to them, who think they can overrule anyone anywhere, or who try to weasel themselves around any rule out there by finding and exploiting loopholes or, if necessary, making them up out of thin air. Bonus points if they call you a fascist for enforcing your rules by banning them.
Can't give you a UUID because I refuse to go where I could find it, but I could tell you three names for the same guy.
A variant I haven't mentioned yet: The dress code is only communicated in the sim owner's native language because the entire target audience of the sim speaks the sim owner's native language. But that language is German or Italian or Brazilian Portuguese. In fact, the sim owner only speaks and understands that one language.
Sure, if you have common sense, you go find an online translator that can also identify the language if you can't.
But some treat anything communicated to them in a language other than their native tongue as not communicated to them at all. So they keep coming back because they simply don't KNOW that this foreign gibberish they were exposed to was rules, much less that and how they're breaking these rules right now. And they keep coming back until the sim owner either bans them or communicates the rules to them in their language, and I don't mean Googlish because some ignore that, too.
Ok - I see where we're not communicating too effectively.
Yes - I agree that there are people who, for whatever reason, feel that they are entitled to break the rules. Said people deserve a kick and a ban once the rules are explained and they don't comply.
A person who doesn't make an effort to understand the rules is history as well. The grid owner is under no onus to jump through hoops to get the rules across. I have left grids because I simply couldn't make sense of the rules I was offered.
But I'm coming at it from a different point of view. What I'm trying to get at is why Juno would WANT to be on a grid where the owner was a small minded dweeb who immediately started frothing at the mouth because he sees what he thinks is a child avatar.
Sure ... your post lays out "this is not a child so stop overreacting", and I see the value in trying to communicate that with people. But having done so, many people aren't going to get it, at which point why not just write them (and their grids) off?
It would be different if it were an RL connected issue. So a grid which prohibited avatars based on their skin color would be an issue that required persistent addressing, because that connects to RL racism.
But this is a purely VR issue because except in a vanishingly small number of cases it's unlikely that anyone in RL is going to be confused with a prepubescent child.
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Yes - I agree that there are people who, for whatever reason, feel that they are entitled to break the rules. Said people deserve a kick and a ban once the rules are explained and they don't comply.
A person who doesn't make an effort to understand the rules is history as well. The grid owner is under no onus to jump through hoops to get the rules across. I have left grids because I simply couldn't make sense of the rules I was offered.
But I'm coming at it from a different point of view. What I'm trying to get at is why Juno would WANT to be on a grid where the owner was a small minded dweeb who immediately started frothing at the mouth because he sees what he thinks is a child avatar.
Sure ... your post lays out "this is not a child so stop overreacting", and I see the value in trying to communicate that with people. But having done so, many people aren't going to get it, at which point why not just write them (and their grids) off?
It would be different if it were an RL connected issue. So a grid which prohibited avatars based on their skin color would be an issue that required persistent addressing, because that connects to RL racism.
But this is a purely VR issue because except in a vanishingly small number of cases it's unlikely that anyone in RL is going to be confused with a prepubescent child.
"But I'm coming at it from a different point of view. What I'm trying to get at is why Juno would WANT to be on a grid where the owner was a small minded dweeb who immediately started frothing at the mouth because he sees what he thinks is a child avatar."
For one, I wasn't originally talking about ENTIRE GRIDS while you were ONLY ever talking about entire grids.
It isn't only grid owners who make rules and kick and ban avatars. In fact, grid owners rather have the decency to publish their rules somewhere.
I was talking about SIMS whose owners make their own rules just for that sim in addition to the grid rules.
First of all, rules specific to one sim or a few sims under the same owner have much more of a tendency to only exist in the head of the owner and never be communicated to anyone, much less written down and published somewhere that's publicly accessible. Avatars are being kicked and banned for breaking rules they don't even know exist all the time.
In fact, they actually may or may not be definite rules.
The sim owner may actually have a catalogue of definite underage avatar attributes in their head and check avatars for these attributes. Too short, check, kid, kick & ban. Petite, check, kid, kick & ban. Too light skin, check, kid, kick & ban. Twin pigtails, check, kid, kick & ban.
But: The sim owner may just as well only kick and ban avatars on the ground of FEELING like that's an underage avatar. The criteria for that may be the exact same as above and as in my original post. But they aren't defined and listed individually in the sim owner's mind. It's just that too short size and/or too light skin and/or too small boobs and/or too bright clothes and/or not sexy enough clothes make an avatar FEEL underage.
You can actually often read that on signs at sim landings: "We may kick and ban any avatar which we consider looking underage." But "looking underage" is not defined anywhere. There is NO list of defined criteria for what makes an avatar look underage.
If there was such a list, don't you think they'd rattle it down on the very same sign to make clear what consitutes an underage avatar and what doesn't? Much like the OSgrid plazas explicitly rattle down all the things they don't tolerate on avatars, one by one, on big in-world signs?
But they don't. Because it isn't a catalogue of defined criteria. It's gut feelings. Based on largely the same criteria as above, but never defined, not judged by the mind checking off a list, but judged by the guts that feel like it's a child avatar.
So instead, the sign may read something like, "It's up to us to decide what makes an avatar look underage. No questioning our decision."
If go you PRESSURE the grid owners to spit out what they think makes an avatar look underage, they MAY list up stuff like that above. After spending a while thinking about what they feel makes an avatar look underage, based on what avatars looked like that they've kicked and banned in the recent past. But not before then.
Grid owners are more harmless for another reason: They can't patrol and police the whole grid with 359 sims all the time. Even if they do have as vague as draconian rules, which grid owners don't have on the same level as sim owners, it's fairly easy to sneak past them.
A sim owner who has only got one sim, maybe even only one party sim that's only busy for a few hours per day, one or a few days per week, can easily police the whole sim and over 90% of the activity on that sim. Because it's only that one sim.
And avatars are much more often being kicked and banned by sim owners from party sims during parties and from RP sims during RP sessions than from freebie sims or landscape sims.
Besides, it is not specifically about Juno. It has never been specifically about Juno.
But Juno is a great example because she tends to have so much on her that may constitute an underage avatar. Either because it's on some sim owner's defined checklist of underage avatar attributes. Or because it triggers some sim owner's gut feelings that this avatar kinda sorta looks underage.
It's about Juno as much as it's about ALL avatars that have enough on them that Juno has, too. They're all just the same in danger of being wrongly kicked and banned for allegedly being underage. Not just Juno. In fact, many are even MORE in danger than Juno because Juno at least has a sizable pair of boobs which Athena Petite avatars don't have.
Why I've used Juno then? Well, I had the choice. Either use Juno as an example. Or comb the Hypergrid and search for bits and pieces to put together another female avatar with only the specific purpose of making one picture and showing demonstrating alleged child avatar criteria. Enormous effort to build something that's readily available already.
It was easier and more convenient to use Juno. Simple as that.
And it's more relatable if it's an avatar that actually walks around out there, goes shopping, goes partying, than if it's an avatar that was cobbled together for this one picture, never seen before and never to be seen again.
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For one, I wasn't originally talking about ENTIRE GRIDS while you were ONLY ever talking about entire grids.
It isn't only grid owners who make rules and kick and ban avatars. In fact, grid owners rather have the decency to publish their rules somewhere.
I was talking about SIMS whose owners make their own rules just for that sim in addition to the grid rules.
First of all, rules specific to one sim or a few sims under the same owner have much more of a tendency to only exist in the head of the owner and never be communicated to anyone, much less written down and published somewhere that's publicly accessible. Avatars are being kicked and banned for breaking rules they don't even know exist all the time.
In fact, they actually may or may not be definite rules.
The sim owner may actually have a catalogue of definite underage avatar attributes in their head and check avatars for these attributes. Too short, check, kid, kick & ban. Petite, check, kid, kick & ban. Too light skin, check, kid, kick & ban. Twin pigtails, check, kid, kick & ban.
But: The sim owner may just as well only kick and ban avatars on the ground of FEELING like that's an underage avatar. The criteria for that may be the exact same as above and as in my original post. But they aren't defined and listed individually in the sim owner's mind. It's just that too short size and/or too light skin and/or too small boobs and/or too bright clothes and/or not sexy enough clothes make an avatar FEEL underage.
You can actually often read that on signs at sim landings: "We may kick and ban any avatar which we consider looking underage." But "looking underage" is not defined anywhere. There is NO list of defined criteria for what makes an avatar look underage.
If there was such a list, don't you think they'd rattle it down on the very same sign to make clear what consitutes an underage avatar and what doesn't? Much like the OSgrid plazas explicitly rattle down all the things they don't tolerate on avatars, one by one, on big in-world signs?
But they don't. Because it isn't a catalogue of defined criteria. It's gut feelings. Based on largely the same criteria as above, but never defined, not judged by the mind checking off a list, but judged by the guts that feel like it's a child avatar.
So instead, the sign may read something like, "It's up to us to decide what makes an avatar look underage. No questioning our decision."
If go you PRESSURE the grid owners to spit out what they think makes an avatar look underage, they MAY list up stuff like that above. After spending a while thinking about what they feel makes an avatar look underage, based on what avatars looked like that they've kicked and banned in the recent past. But not before then.
Grid owners are more harmless for another reason: They can't patrol and police the whole grid with 359 sims all the time. Even if they do have as vague as draconian rules, which grid owners don't have on the same level as sim owners, it's fairly easy to sneak past them.
A sim owner who has only got one sim, maybe even only one party sim that's only busy for a few hours per day, one or a few days per week, can easily police the whole sim and over 90% of the activity on that sim. Because it's only that one sim.
And avatars are much more often being kicked and banned by sim owners from party sims during parties and from RP sims during RP sessions than from freebie sims or landscape sims.
Besides, it is not specifically about Juno. It has never been specifically about Juno.
But Juno is a great example because she tends to have so much on her that may constitute an underage avatar. Either because it's on some sim owner's defined checklist of underage avatar attributes. Or because it triggers some sim owner's gut feelings that this avatar kinda sorta looks underage.
It's about Juno as much as it's about ALL avatars that have enough on them that Juno has, too. They're all just the same in danger of being wrongly kicked and banned for allegedly being underage. Not just Juno. In fact, many are even MORE in danger than Juno because Juno at least has a sizable pair of boobs which Athena Petite avatars don't have.
Why I've used Juno then? Well, I had the choice. Either use Juno as an example. Or comb the Hypergrid and search for bits and pieces to put together another female avatar with only the specific purpose of making one picture and showing demonstrating alleged child avatar criteria. Enormous effort to build something that's readily available already.
It was easier and more convenient to use Juno. Simple as that.
And it's more relatable if it's an avatar that actually walks around out there, goes shopping, goes partying, than if it's an avatar that was cobbled together for this one picture, never seen before and never to be seen again.
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Pagane, no offense, but there's a very good reason why wikipedia isn't accepted a reliable source in any serious conversation.
Citing wikipedia only diminishes any point you're trying to make.
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Citing wikipedia only diminishes any point you're trying to make.
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Hardware isn't the only reason why people run the 32bit viewer. I still run a 32 SL viewer for the simple reason that I want to keep my OS and SL installations completely separate, and there only way I can reasonably achieve that is to run 32 bit for SL, and 64 bit for OS. That won't be a problem after my next hardware upgrade and I ditch windows altogether.
As for EvoX ... I fail to see the appeal. Perhaps it's just my old eyes, but the EvoX textures don't look good enough to me to warrant departing from the 'standard' skin. And, of course, I find it incredibly amusing that the high tech EvoX heads seem to use exactly the same skin layout that heads use in DAZ3D.
I use a system avatar quite frequently when I'm HGing all over the place. It rezzes faster, no matter what grid I land on, and being old school I attract less attention :)
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As for EvoX ... I fail to see the appeal. Perhaps it's just my old eyes, but the EvoX textures don't look good enough to me to warrant departing from the 'standard' skin. And, of course, I find it incredibly amusing that the high tech EvoX heads seem to use exactly the same skin layout that heads use in DAZ3D.
I use a system avatar quite frequently when I'm HGing all over the place. It rezzes faster, no matter what grid I land on, and being old school I attract less attention :)
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When I initially read the news coming out about PBR I was amused. In (or should that be on) Second Life I spend a lot of time exploring.
What I've noticed is that, for me and I acknowledge that your mileage may vary, the builds with the most appeal are OLD. They may contain mesh, but they are primarily prim and really EXCELLENT textures. Textures where the creator clearly did a lot of work to get the diffuse, specular and normal just right. I can think of three such creators, off the top of my head, who are no longer active on Second Life at all. Their shops are gone. The only legacy of their existence are the regions and plots on the mainland which one can find dotted around the grid, and as time passes those locations are slowly dwindling.
When I contrast those old builds with the majority of much newer mesh buildings, I find the newer stuff lacking. Much of it, to be honest, seems to have been taken from the various mesh sites on the web, and poorly converted for use in SL. And those builds, in my opinion, want for a soul. Somehow, these new buildings look less three dimensional than the old buildings from the days when the only way to make a brick wall look 3D was to fool the eye.
There ARE some really good new builds, I think. But they are few and far between. Every time I'm out bouncing around the grid ... it's the OLD stuff that has real character in my eye. That may be, in part, because the creators of today do some pretty weird things:
I recently went to fair where the 'latest and hottest' clothing was being debuted for the public. I was surprised to see that many creators these days are back to using the old 'baked in reflection' that was the only way to make a system layer look like it was shiny. Ummm ... don't these creators know about specular reflection? Of course they are all no-mod, so they got no sales from me because I'm not PERMITTED to fix their egregious flaws.
Not long ago I happened upon a building which was absolutely deformed from a distance. It only looked 'correct' when you got quite close. A little bit of investigation showed that the creator had uploaded the mesh with reasonable LOD values for High and Medium, and ridiculously low values for Low and Lowest. You might consider this for clothing ... but for a BUILDING?
There are some excellent creators still active in SL, there's no question about that. There are new people who will, if they keep at it, stand out from the all-to-average crowd.
But I, for one, won't touch PBR because it's the OLD builds from days gone by that encapsulates SL at it's most wondrous, I think.
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What I've noticed is that, for me and I acknowledge that your mileage may vary, the builds with the most appeal are OLD. They may contain mesh, but they are primarily prim and really EXCELLENT textures. Textures where the creator clearly did a lot of work to get the diffuse, specular and normal just right. I can think of three such creators, off the top of my head, who are no longer active on Second Life at all. Their shops are gone. The only legacy of their existence are the regions and plots on the mainland which one can find dotted around the grid, and as time passes those locations are slowly dwindling.
When I contrast those old builds with the majority of much newer mesh buildings, I find the newer stuff lacking. Much of it, to be honest, seems to have been taken from the various mesh sites on the web, and poorly converted for use in SL. And those builds, in my opinion, want for a soul. Somehow, these new buildings look less three dimensional than the old buildings from the days when the only way to make a brick wall look 3D was to fool the eye.
There ARE some really good new builds, I think. But they are few and far between. Every time I'm out bouncing around the grid ... it's the OLD stuff that has real character in my eye. That may be, in part, because the creators of today do some pretty weird things:
I recently went to fair where the 'latest and hottest' clothing was being debuted for the public. I was surprised to see that many creators these days are back to using the old 'baked in reflection' that was the only way to make a system layer look like it was shiny. Ummm ... don't these creators know about specular reflection? Of course they are all no-mod, so they got no sales from me because I'm not PERMITTED to fix their egregious flaws.
Not long ago I happened upon a building which was absolutely deformed from a distance. It only looked 'correct' when you got quite close. A little bit of investigation showed that the creator had uploaded the mesh with reasonable LOD values for High and Medium, and ridiculously low values for Low and Lowest. You might consider this for clothing ... but for a BUILDING?
There are some excellent creators still active in SL, there's no question about that. There are new people who will, if they keep at it, stand out from the all-to-average crowd.
But I, for one, won't touch PBR because it's the OLD builds from days gone by that encapsulates SL at it's most wondrous, I think.
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Let's boil this down:
You responded to a post where a person explains that due to the the threat of laws in countries where that person doesn't live, and therefore had no say on the passage of said laws, that person feels that they can't permit child avatars on their grid.
You then insulted the poster on a number of levels. Just to remind you I thought I'd quote some of the more salient points of the original post which you clearly didn't comprehend:
"It is not my place to try and push my morals and values upon others"
"Personally I would love to see kids riding ponies at my farm....and having fun being mermaids. If everyone in child avi were to abide by Jerralyn's statement, there would not be an issue."
If you are an adult, which your tantrum brings into question, I suggest an apology to @Safinemahoe2 is in order.
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You responded to a post where a person explains that due to the the threat of laws in countries where that person doesn't live, and therefore had no say on the passage of said laws, that person feels that they can't permit child avatars on their grid.
You then insulted the poster on a number of levels. Just to remind you I thought I'd quote some of the more salient points of the original post which you clearly didn't comprehend:
"It is not my place to try and push my morals and values upon others"
"Personally I would love to see kids riding ponies at my farm....and having fun being mermaids. If everyone in child avi were to abide by Jerralyn's statement, there would not be an issue."
If you are an adult, which your tantrum brings into question, I suggest an apology to @Safinemahoe2 is in order.
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The question that came to mind, after reading that (excellent) post was this: Why are people asking to have child avatars permitted on Adult grids?
Let me be clear ... I can accept the premise that there are adults out there who wish to have child avatars for completely non-sexual reasons. I don't understand those reasons, but people do all sorts of things for reasons I don't understand every day :)
But if that is something that a person wants to do why do they feel the need to go to places which have, for whatever reason, said NO CHILD AVATARS and ask them to change the rules? Why not just go to the grids where the grid owner(s) permit child avatars and where they have (presumably) elected to make the extra effort to ensure that nothing illegal is going on?
There seems little point. You aren't going to find clothing for your child avatar on a grid which doesn't permit kids. You aren't going to find child-oriented activities on a grid that doesn't permit kids. And you ARE going to inhibit the activities of the adults who don't feel comfortable doing adult things in front of kids.
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Let me be clear ... I can accept the premise that there are adults out there who wish to have child avatars for completely non-sexual reasons. I don't understand those reasons, but people do all sorts of things for reasons I don't understand every day :)
But if that is something that a person wants to do why do they feel the need to go to places which have, for whatever reason, said NO CHILD AVATARS and ask them to change the rules? Why not just go to the grids where the grid owner(s) permit child avatars and where they have (presumably) elected to make the extra effort to ensure that nothing illegal is going on?
There seems little point. You aren't going to find clothing for your child avatar on a grid which doesn't permit kids. You aren't going to find child-oriented activities on a grid that doesn't permit kids. And you ARE going to inhibit the activities of the adults who don't feel comfortable doing adult things in front of kids.
I was at a shopping region on the HG this weekend and actually found a pile of children's avatars, clothing and childlike decorations in one section in spite of the Grid Owner constantly advertising here on OSW that the grid is Adult Only. Hopefully the Grid owner will see the contradiction and not distribute the very things she is so against.
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I don't know about the damage aspect. I still believe it could be pretty significant for LL, or it could end up being a nothingburger.
Consider that Tilia is a valuable property in and of itself ... will it's reputation be harmed by 'association' with an organisation which is experiencing some really bad PR on a very hot-button topic? That has to be a big worry for the powers that be in (and above) LL.
I've had several communications from shops discussing getting rid of Caspervend, one of them as recently as 4 days ago ... so it appears that concern hasn't died down. And if that IS still a topic of enough significance still, then I have to wonder what other discussions are going on in SL at the moment. I don't know if it's just going to go away.
The other issue is the (non) statement from LL. On the various forums that are discussing this issue, the overwhelming sentiment is that Oberwager's statement was without any meaningful content, and many are taking that to mean that LL are trying to cover up the whole problem, and sweep it under the table.
Add the fact that the original article might have been taken down, but the archives at https://archive.is/https://medium.com/@dantesedmond1844/th... aren't going anywhere.
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Consider that Tilia is a valuable property in and of itself ... will it's reputation be harmed by 'association' with an organisation which is experiencing some really bad PR on a very hot-button topic? That has to be a big worry for the powers that be in (and above) LL.
I've had several communications from shops discussing getting rid of Caspervend, one of them as recently as 4 days ago ... so it appears that concern hasn't died down. And if that IS still a topic of enough significance still, then I have to wonder what other discussions are going on in SL at the moment. I don't know if it's just going to go away.
The other issue is the (non) statement from LL. On the various forums that are discussing this issue, the overwhelming sentiment is that Oberwager's statement was without any meaningful content, and many are taking that to mean that LL are trying to cover up the whole problem, and sweep it under the table.
Add the fact that the original article might have been taken down, but the archives at https://archive.is/https://medium.com/@dantesedmond1844/th... aren't going anywhere.
Interesting that you brought up Caspervend. They seem to have suffered the most damage of anyone (that we know of) due to the original article, and I agree that could be a big "in-world" issue. That should be concerning because any link between them and all the claims being made are pretty vague and not corroborated by anything.
Tilla itself will be largely unaffected by any of this. It is pretty well inoculated from the SL wing at LL, largely because it is required to be by law. Linden Lab is a Tier 1 financial institution, and it i supported by JP Morgan. 70% of its office is focused on Tillia. Anything I have read suggests there is a staff of 10-15 people who actually deal with SL on a daily basis. It mainly runs on auto-pilot, which is probably what results in this big problem and many more issues that others have mentioned on this thread. If you have ever called to try to get help at LL you understand a lot of the problem.
And yes, the internet being what it is, the article will NEVER vanish, but the fact that Medium felt there was enough problem with it to pull should speak volumes. And no, there is no confirmation that it was written by a current or former employee at LL.
Here is one of the best posts i have been following on all this. The author is no LL cheerleader, but he points out the serious flaws in the original claim and points to why a lot of these claims are probably not actionable.
https://3dblogger.typepad.com/second_thoughts/2024/02/is-t...
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Tilla itself will be largely unaffected by any of this. It is pretty well inoculated from the SL wing at LL, largely because it is required to be by law. Linden Lab is a Tier 1 financial institution, and it i supported by JP Morgan. 70% of its office is focused on Tillia. Anything I have read suggests there is a staff of 10-15 people who actually deal with SL on a daily basis. It mainly runs on auto-pilot, which is probably what results in this big problem and many more issues that others have mentioned on this thread. If you have ever called to try to get help at LL you understand a lot of the problem.
And yes, the internet being what it is, the article will NEVER vanish, but the fact that Medium felt there was enough problem with it to pull should speak volumes. And no, there is no confirmation that it was written by a current or former employee at LL.
Here is one of the best posts i have been following on all this. The author is no LL cheerleader, but he points out the serious flaws in the original claim and points to why a lot of these claims are probably not actionable.
https://3dblogger.typepad.com/second_thoughts/2024/02/is-t...
I think the biggest issue is that of public perception. A financial institution is going to find itself in dire straights if the public believe that it is facilitating the kind of thing we're talking about. It doesn't matter if it actually is ... because public perception isn't always based on fact, but on what the headlines told them. We only have to look at the amount of outright lies that the media have regularly promulgated in the past decade to see that in action. We live in a time when clickbait and misinformation is the primary methodology of much (most) of the mainstream media, and much of the public have the attention spans of goldfish and can't be bothered reading the article to get the actual facts. I've done it myself, as have we all.
So if Tilia see that the rumours are spreading, they may well feel that they need to bail on SL. Whether that is justifiable by the facts isn't relevant ... we've seen that companies have little fortitude these days and will bend the knee to pressure at the drop of a hat. We saw with the Bud Light fiasco that a brand can be decimated if the right focus is found to cause the public to turn on that brand. And that was just beer. Imagine if someone could trigger a mass campaign which convinced the public that SL is a hotbed of Child Pornography? Tilia would be gone like a shot. I'm not saying it SHOULD happen, or WOULD happen, I'm saying that it's possible and if the owners of Tilia haven't thought about it, they are idiots.
Medium jerking the article isn't necessarily the win that people seem to think it is. I've seen, in-world, several discussion on the topic and the general consensus is that Medium aren't as balanced as they claim to be and would easily have caved to pressure from someone with sufficient influence, especially given that their staff seem to share the same political views espoused by LL. In fact Medium removing the article is seen as more evidence that LL couldn't disprove the allegations. Remember what I said about public perception ... what the reality is doesn't necessarily matter.
And we come to the biggest issue of them all ... if the claims are actionable. As I noted above ... public perception is all that counts in these cases. Anyone who's paying attention to the news out of the US should be well aware that a very large percentage of the population believe that justice has been corrupted and perverted for decades now. I'm not arguing if that's true or not, but again ... those people aren't going to care in the least if some DA in California announces that there was no evidence to back up the claims.
And that comes back to my first post on this thread: LL had ample time to dig out proof that the entire article was a complete fabrication ... and their only response has been a fluff piece which didn't answer any questions and gives the appearance of a cover up. Whether or not that means that LL ARE covering up is irrelevant ... the only meaningful way to deal with this would be to offer absolute proof that the entire article was bogus.
Personally I think LL are banking on the public having a short attention span, and are hoping that this all goes away.
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So if Tilia see that the rumours are spreading, they may well feel that they need to bail on SL. Whether that is justifiable by the facts isn't relevant ... we've seen that companies have little fortitude these days and will bend the knee to pressure at the drop of a hat. We saw with the Bud Light fiasco that a brand can be decimated if the right focus is found to cause the public to turn on that brand. And that was just beer. Imagine if someone could trigger a mass campaign which convinced the public that SL is a hotbed of Child Pornography? Tilia would be gone like a shot. I'm not saying it SHOULD happen, or WOULD happen, I'm saying that it's possible and if the owners of Tilia haven't thought about it, they are idiots.
Medium jerking the article isn't necessarily the win that people seem to think it is. I've seen, in-world, several discussion on the topic and the general consensus is that Medium aren't as balanced as they claim to be and would easily have caved to pressure from someone with sufficient influence, especially given that their staff seem to share the same political views espoused by LL. In fact Medium removing the article is seen as more evidence that LL couldn't disprove the allegations. Remember what I said about public perception ... what the reality is doesn't necessarily matter.
And we come to the biggest issue of them all ... if the claims are actionable. As I noted above ... public perception is all that counts in these cases. Anyone who's paying attention to the news out of the US should be well aware that a very large percentage of the population believe that justice has been corrupted and perverted for decades now. I'm not arguing if that's true or not, but again ... those people aren't going to care in the least if some DA in California announces that there was no evidence to back up the claims.
And that comes back to my first post on this thread: LL had ample time to dig out proof that the entire article was a complete fabrication ... and their only response has been a fluff piece which didn't answer any questions and gives the appearance of a cover up. Whether or not that means that LL ARE covering up is irrelevant ... the only meaningful way to deal with this would be to offer absolute proof that the entire article was bogus.
Personally I think LL are banking on the public having a short attention span, and are hoping that this all goes away.
Good points, and I agree with some of them, but you have to remember that, outside the small minuscule percent of the population that inhabits SL and OS, the "public perception" is completely non-existent. (If you have ever tried to explain OS or SL to a stranger who has never heard of it, you know what I mean.) Sure, it is very big news to us, but for 99.7% of the media and the public, this story does not even exist. I shared your shame concerns at the start. When a few posts on social media picked up the story, I figured it would catch some attention. It didn't. I would not define Medium pulling the article as a "win" or a "loss" but they do not pull things lightly. So the fact that they did point to a lot of what the Typepad article i posted posted alludes too - that while there are many sordid allegations in the Medium article, there was very little in the way of proof. there was no claim at all of criminal behavior. Gross behavior, yes. Hypocrisy on the part of Patch Linden, yes. Workplace harassment, yes. (the most serious and provable claim IMO) Criminal behavior, no. The use of a fake identity to post the article also probably called the motives of the author into question. The tepid, boilerplate statement from LL was sad, but probably exactly what they needed to do business-wise. With the original claims now archived, this issue will fade fast and be of interest only to those of us who spend a lot of time in these virtual worlds. That is not many in the overall population.
Now, let me play Devil's advocate for a minute. What if, and this is very possible, the original article was total BS? A hit job by a disgruntled resident Patch banned, or a former LL employee that may have felt Patch's rath at work? Unlikely and I think it is a HARD stretch to say that Patch is not guilty of SOMETHING", but what about everyone else named in that article? None of whom were directly tied to anything illegal or a even in some cases a violation of LL rules. With LL being so vague in their response, would these people ever have the cloud lifted over their name? Probably unlikely, but something we should all think about. The fact that this incident is not gaining much public attention might be a good thing for now.
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Now, let me play Devil's advocate for a minute. What if, and this is very possible, the original article was total BS? A hit job by a disgruntled resident Patch banned, or a former LL employee that may have felt Patch's rath at work? Unlikely and I think it is a HARD stretch to say that Patch is not guilty of SOMETHING", but what about everyone else named in that article? None of whom were directly tied to anything illegal or a even in some cases a violation of LL rules. With LL being so vague in their response, would these people ever have the cloud lifted over their name? Probably unlikely, but something we should all think about. The fact that this incident is not gaining much public attention might be a good thing for now.
I'm more concerned about some grifter (there are many, on both sides of politics) with a big audience suddenly 'discovering' it and blowing it up. We recently saw gaming blow up into a big issue with the Sweet Baby Inc thing, and it's attracted the attention of people who typically scorn gaming.
The professional politicians (again on both sides) love to have something they can bloviate about to distract the population from more serious matters. We have to remember that gaming is now bigger than the movie industry in financial terms, and incorrectly, SL/OSG falls under the category of gaming. We're going to see more and more 'pundits' who formerly ignored gaming weighing in on the topics I think.
As to the validity of the claims ... I think there's definitely been some TOS violations if nothing else. Regardless of that however, I have no real opinion other than the fact that LL could have (and would have) been able to issue a definitive "there's no basis for any of these claims" if the article was entirely bogus.
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The professional politicians (again on both sides) love to have something they can bloviate about to distract the population from more serious matters. We have to remember that gaming is now bigger than the movie industry in financial terms, and incorrectly, SL/OSG falls under the category of gaming. We're going to see more and more 'pundits' who formerly ignored gaming weighing in on the topics I think.
As to the validity of the claims ... I think there's definitely been some TOS violations if nothing else. Regardless of that however, I have no real opinion other than the fact that LL could have (and would have) been able to issue a definitive "there's no basis for any of these claims" if the article was entirely bogus.
Agreed Vicki. As a corporate owner as well, I realized that even bad news was great for publicity. But when it is toxic and serious, it needs to be immediately addressed, handled and rectified. Speed and finesse is the key to the outcome. In LL's situation, they let the wound fester and it's now gangrene.
Tilla, being a larger company will run for the hills if they can. Caspervend will probably fade into the wind.
As I said earlier, Oberwager is an idiot. He hired some hippy dippy "lawyer" who doesn't have any work anymore since San Fagcisco defunded the police and the few cops left are just hanging around to collect a paycheck, but not enforcing laws. That "Lawyer" took time in between bong hits, to write a tin can, horseshit and sauerkraut statement for the quick pay. Oberwager, being a complete simpleton that might know Finance with his Bezerkley diploma, but lacks in the reading comprehension dept. thinks he is good as gold and this will all pass.
Nah, the proof provided by the ex employee, well written, evidenciary images, confirmed details covering all angles based on any defense will sink LL. They can pull all of the Libtard tricks of a criminal being caught all they want, it still exists on the internet. They cannot bury or hide it. They can try all the denial and gas lighting tactics of saying that YOU are the Pedo and not them, It won't work. Intelligent people know the truth. I have witnessed it in SL, I know just about everyone in SL has too. LL is going to burn to the ground in the business world. So much so, a national holiday should be established up that completion.
P.S.
Let me finish this off by stating, all I just said is not a "Rant"as Libtards like to claim anything they disagree with as being, or the non existent "Hate" speech. There is no such thing other than saying "I HATE you". So just in case some blocked turds want to create alt accounts to jump in with their less than 140 characters of idiocy to reply to it. And that is my disclaimer up front.
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Tilla, being a larger company will run for the hills if they can. Caspervend will probably fade into the wind.
As I said earlier, Oberwager is an idiot. He hired some hippy dippy "lawyer" who doesn't have any work anymore since San Fagcisco defunded the police and the few cops left are just hanging around to collect a paycheck, but not enforcing laws. That "Lawyer" took time in between bong hits, to write a tin can, horseshit and sauerkraut statement for the quick pay. Oberwager, being a complete simpleton that might know Finance with his Bezerkley diploma, but lacks in the reading comprehension dept. thinks he is good as gold and this will all pass.
Nah, the proof provided by the ex employee, well written, evidenciary images, confirmed details covering all angles based on any defense will sink LL. They can pull all of the Libtard tricks of a criminal being caught all they want, it still exists on the internet. They cannot bury or hide it. They can try all the denial and gas lighting tactics of saying that YOU are the Pedo and not them, It won't work. Intelligent people know the truth. I have witnessed it in SL, I know just about everyone in SL has too. LL is going to burn to the ground in the business world. So much so, a national holiday should be established up that completion.
P.S.
Let me finish this off by stating, all I just said is not a "Rant"as Libtards like to claim anything they disagree with as being, or the non existent "Hate" speech. There is no such thing other than saying "I HATE you". So just in case some blocked turds want to create alt accounts to jump in with their less than 140 characters of idiocy to reply to it. And that is my disclaimer up front.
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Well ... that statement from Oberwager said nothing, and that concerns me.
There's literally no way that it should take this long to ascertain the validity or lack thereof of the accusations in that article. The region that was fingered either had or didn't have the stuff that was allegedly there. There should be backups to ascertain what state it was in before the article came out, if the 'investigators' think it was cleaned up after the article was published. If LL don't maintain logs and backups sufficient to investigate this then, as an IT professional with more than 35 years experience, I say they are literally incompetent.
As to the impact that it has on SL and OSG, it's really hard to say. The reality is that no government can stop a determined citizenry which wants to access something. Even the Chinese government's best efforts resulted in a Great Firewall which is decidedly porous and is dependent on physical means (i.e. informers, authoritarian policing, etc) to fill in the gaps. So if governments DO regulate (which governments love to do) then all it will do is stop the people who obey the law, and the criminals will just keep doing what they are doing.
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There's literally no way that it should take this long to ascertain the validity or lack thereof of the accusations in that article. The region that was fingered either had or didn't have the stuff that was allegedly there. There should be backups to ascertain what state it was in before the article came out, if the 'investigators' think it was cleaned up after the article was published. If LL don't maintain logs and backups sufficient to investigate this then, as an IT professional with more than 35 years experience, I say they are literally incompetent.
As to the impact that it has on SL and OSG, it's really hard to say. The reality is that no government can stop a determined citizenry which wants to access something. Even the Chinese government's best efforts resulted in a Great Firewall which is decidedly porous and is dependent on physical means (i.e. informers, authoritarian policing, etc) to fill in the gaps. So if governments DO regulate (which governments love to do) then all it will do is stop the people who obey the law, and the criminals will just keep doing what they are doing.
Vickijoanne, I concur. I also have been in IT for 45+ years as well as dealing with legalities and lawyers all those years. What that incompetent Oberwager said was tin can Legal "cover my ass" garbage. If you read it close enough, it sounds like the U.S. State Dept. wrote it to make sure no one was "offended" but they were legally covered.
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If medium do pull the article in question it's been saved on archive.is multiple times, so it should remain available.
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Thank you for that information. I'll add it to the main post. What search term should we use to find the saved article?
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Sorry to be slow responding.
You go to archive.is (or archive.ph, or archive.md) and search for the original URL of the article, and it'll come up. I'll PM you a screenshot )
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You go to archive.is (or archive.ph, or archive.md) and search for the original URL of the article, and it'll come up. I'll PM you a screenshot )