It's been some time since we heard anything about the Adult Content Flag and Age/Identity Verification (formerly called Age Verification, now called Identity Verification or just IDV). Robin Linden from Linden Lab gave us a 5AM bump today, reminding us that this is still on the radar. The wording is a little clearer than it was, though there doesn't seem to be any new material in it. Notably absent is when all of this is expected to take effect, and how the information for verification is to be submitted - we've sent questions in about that. [Update: Robin answered our questions - see below]
In case you're wondering what content the Restricted Content Flag (or whatever we're calling it today) is to cover, well, we've asked lots of questions and narrowed it down - and are pretty sure about what it covers.
Having worked with a number of PR and Marketing departments over the years, I got used to hearing the phrase "Pulling a 360" as opposed to the more usual 180. The phrase meant one of several things, depending on context and the tone of the speaker.
Sometimes it was used to mean "A reversal of policy, accompanied by frenzied spending, followed by a reversal back to the way things were." - Money and time lost, and nothing to show for it; Most commonly though, it meant "A sudden reversal of position, while claiming that nothing has changed." - My old coworkers in marketing would call Linden Lab's recent governance policy shift "Pulling a 360" in this latter sense - and they'd probably snigger, albeit slightly sympathetically.
Linden Lab is pressured from all sides. They are being sued (along with ten Internet Service Providers) by French parent-teacher group Familles de France. Their Terms of Service have been found to be legally unenforceable by Judge Eduardo Robreno. German TV News Magazine Report Mainz has raised a scandal about Second Life and child pornography.
Linden Lab is on the back-foot, and struggling to find a place where it can meet these varied legal and media challenges. In positioning itself to meet these potential threats, fresh conflict has broken out on a new front, Second Life's own resident population.
The Community Standards say: "Content, communication, or behavior which involves intense language or expletives, nudity or sexual content, the depiction of sex or violence, or anything else broadly offensive must be contained within private land in areas rated Mature (M)." (My emphasis)
Robin Linden, on what is appropriate to be flagged as adult content which was still to be permitted in Second Life: "adult content is that which is overtly, graphically, or explicitly sexual in nature or intensely violent." (May 10)
Daniel Linden, on what is forbidden content: "Real-life images, avatar portrayals, and other depiction of sexual or lewd acts involving or appearing to involve children or minors; real-life images, avatar portrayals, and other depictions of sexual violence including rape, real-life images, avatar portrayals, and other depictions of extreme or graphic violence, and other broadly offensive content are never allowed or tolerated within Second Life." (May 31)
In an email interview with Hamlet Au, Daniel Linden says: "There is no new policy in yesterday's blog posting-- our Community Standards have always prohibited broadly offensive behavior." (June 1)
Except that's not what they say, Daniel. What they do expressly prohibit is intolerance.
Tell me, gentle readers. Do you feel that Linden Lab has changed stance? Or do you agree with Daniel Linden that Linden Lab's position remains unchanged. If the latter, do you think Linden Lab's position was never adequately communicated in the first place?
The only limits are the ones we place on your imagination.
Second Life communication channels are buzzing with talk of intolerance, and thought crimes. The topic is humming around the grid inworld and it's starting to appear on blogs. It's tricky, in some quarters, to find a conversation that isn't about this.
Daniel Linden (Linden Lab's director of community affairs) has posted what one resident has described to me as "Second Life's Patriot and Domestic Surveillance Act". While it seems like it is intended to clarify what Linden Lab does and does not permit, insofar as content goes, it has left many Second Lifers upset, confused and afraid.
On the 8th of March we sought clarification for an ambiguous-seeming sentence at the end of a warning notice that was being distributed by Chadrick Linden. That sentence was:
"Any account asserting an age that does not meet Second Life's minimum age of eligibility will be closed."
What we wanted to know was whether that referred to the claimed age of the avatar (particularly where it came to role-playing purposes). After all, it was pretty clear that the claimed age of the user was covered by this - but what about role-players, you know, role-playing?
A few hours ago, Robin Linden posted an update called "Accusations Regarding Child Pornography in Second Life". Since then, I've received a number of perplexed and bewildered and angry IMs from a few residents. Two, in particular, say that they have since been threatened with being reported to Linden Lab for child pornography and sexual ageplay. Why?
One is actually a child avatar (who never gets into sexual situations, though he is hit on occasionally), the other is just short or small, you know ... little (she has links to Little People of America, and the Restricted Growth Association in her profile). So, they are angry and upset. One that being a child avatar is making him a target for threats of reprisal. The other that being small appears to be sufficient cause for same.
Just think about that a minute. Being short is an offense? Something you can be harassed for now? Surely, as a species we're above that. Just when did it become okay to harass someone because of their size?
This is a bit of a multipart question on age/identity verification. In Robin Linden's words: "We should remember that some identification is about trust building. At some point people may decide they want to verify different aspects of who they are in RL." (thanks Laetizia)
Given that there is no apparent provision for verifying that it is your own details that are provided for verification to Integrity Services (you could use your brother's, sister's, a friend's, a parent's, relative's or co-worker's), what level of trust in the results do you have, as a user. Would that verification of another person raise your trust, reduce it, or have no effect? Remember, this verification is all supposed to be for you and me, to increase the trust we may hold in others.
Does the link between Integrity Services and Aristotle (who were subject to some apparent scandal for what people saw as breaching confidentiality/privacy of information) incline you to trust them less with your information?
And just for contrast with the preceeding questions (since this is about trust), do you trust that I am an adult Australian, as I claim to be, or do you have some doubts as to whether I am an Australian, or even an adult?
Yes, folks, "sculpties" will soon arrive on the preview grid. Torley Linden made a blog entry on the official Linden blog regarding this momentous occasion. SLI reader Tao Takashi was able to get some information out of Robin and Joe Linden, with the announcement that sculpties will be added to a beta client next week. I guess we'll have to wait just a bit longer to taste the forbidden fruit. *sigh*
What will sculptable prims mean for us? Watch this machinima and see for yourself. Imagine being able to bypass the 31 prim limit of a vehicle because you molded the shape. Imagine lower prim avatars and furniture. Hell, just imagine, in general! This is truly the biggest news that has come out of Second Life since flexi-prims!
The ARG ended on a positive note, with qDot explaining the reasoning behind Cubesque and CubeOverload. For those curious, Funk Schnook appears to be the "winner" for finding that old blog entry. What was your opinion of the mystery?
Second Life's Live Help service (currently called Help Request) is pitched to be removed when the next beta version is applied to the Second Life grid. Robin Linden has just posted to the Linden blog that the Live Help service (as we know it) is to be dismantled, and replaced by other systems.
Basically, Live Help has become overwhelmed beyond the ability of the resident volunteers and Linden staffers to maintain it. Robin said, "Despite the extraordinary efforts of some very dedicated volunteers, Help Request has outlived its usefulness by its very nature - it is, sadly, no longer possible to provide the one on one question/answer support that is promised due to the sheer volume of questions coming in."
In addition to sexual-ageplay, you can chalk up casinos (or the simulation thereof) to things that may not be publically advertised or promoted -- at least through Linden channels.
"[G]iven the ambiguities of the issues, Linden Lab has decided that we will not accept any classified ads, place listings, or event listings that appear to relate to simulated casino activity."
Linden Lab announced today that they would be limiting the creation of accounts and logins to Second Life when high load gets too great. That judgement will be made and enacted manually by Linden Lab employees (we do not know which ones or by what process), and when enacted will place the grid in restricted mode.
In restricted mode, the ability to create new accounts (of all types) will be suspended. Only those accounts who have already used the payment details on their account at least once may log in. Accounts that are already logged in will not be affected by this change. These restrictions will then remain in effect until Linden Lab chooses to relax them.
Robin Linden informs us that the rate of land being added to the Linden Mainland continents has been low (about 4 sims daily), and that this has driven the price up to approximately twice what it was last quarter.
Prices have been driven up by the temporary scarcity while Linden Lab labored to complete the backlog of island orders from November. Some people have been predicting the abrupt end of the recent artificial land bubble, catching real-estate moguls with their pants down, unable to unload parcels that they've bought, except at a loss.
At 2:33 PM SLT today with 27,426 residents online, the Second Life grid began to exhibit signs of database overload. These symptoms generally include failure to rez objects, avatars not appearing at logon, failed object and money transfers, failure to teleport from one location to another, Linden Dollar account balances not showing up correctly or not updating in a timely manner, notecards, profiles and group information not loading in a timely fashion (or at all).
Linden Lab engineers isolated the problem, which Robin Linden called a query caching problem. We're not sure if a query result was cached that should not have been, or wasn't when it should. The database load stabilized at approximately 3:35PM with 24,351 residents online.
It's been some time since we heard anything about the Adult Content Flag and Age/Identity Verification (formerly called Age Verification, now called Identity Verification or just IDV). Robin Linden from Linden Lab gave us a 5AM bump today, reminding us that this is still on the radar. The wording is a little clearer than it was, though there doesn't seem to be any new material in it. Notably absent is when all of this is expected to take effect, and how the information for verification is to be submitted - we've sent questions in about that. [Update: Robin answered our questions - see below]
Having worked with a number of PR and Marketing departments over the years, I got used to hearing the phrase "Pulling a 360" as opposed to the more usual 180. The phrase meant one of several things, depending on context and the tone of the speaker.
Linden Lab is pressured from all sides. They are being sued (along with ten Internet Service Providers) by French parent-teacher group 
The only limits are the ones we place on your imagination.
On the 8th of March we sought clarification for an ambiguous-seeming sentence at the end of a warning notice that was being distributed by Chadrick Linden. That sentence was:
This is a bit of a multipart question on age/identity verification. In Robin Linden's words: "We should remember that some identification is about trust building. At some point people may decide they want to verify different aspects of who they are in RL." (thanks 
Second Life's Live Help service (currently called Help Request) is pitched to be removed when the next beta version is applied to the Second Life grid. Robin Linden has just posted to the Linden blog that the Live Help service (as we know it) is to be dismantled, and replaced by other systems.
Linden Lab announced today that they would be limiting the creation of accounts and logins to Second Life when high load gets too great. That judgement will be made and enacted manually by Linden Lab employees (we do not know which ones or by what process), and when enacted will place the grid in restricted mode.
Robin Linden informs us that the rate of land being added to the Linden Mainland continents has been low (about 4 sims daily), and that this has driven the price up to approximately twice what it was last quarter.
At 2:33 PM SLT today with 27,426 residents online, the Second Life grid began to exhibit signs of database overload. These symptoms generally include failure to rez objects, avatars not appearing at logon, failed object and money transfers, failure to teleport from one location to another, Linden Dollar account balances not showing up correctly or not updating in a timely manner, notecards, profiles and group information not loading in a timely fashion (or at all).
