Your opinion needed: Maturity Ratings for avatar skins

[Ozwell Wayfarer]

If it is such a legally complex issue then it should not be put to the community as a choice in the first place. We are not qualified to make that call. As Ilan quite rightly said this is an issue you just cant win on because opinion is just too polarized. In situations such as this, defer to the most conservative law in the markets you aim to serve. Problem solved.

...where do I collect my legal consultancy fee?

[Constance Peregrine]

...where do I collect my legal consultancy fee?

I will drop 1 kc on ya when I go inworld next time-))))

[Dot Matrix]

I suspect the community discussions might have helped clarify what would be needed in the end.

[Tully McLeod]

It sounds as if the real question is not "what do we think it should be?", or "what makes sense?", but rather "what is safe for the business?"

From that perspective, you probably need to choose the more conservative option. That wouldn't be my first choice, but I don't have any liability if someone takes offense.

Ultimately, as long as what content an adult can access isn't being restricted, then I don't have a problem with the decision. If this means I have to click an adult checkbox and risk seeing something overtly sexual, I think I can deal with it.

[Deuce Halsey]

With the all the discussions of what should be covered, and to what extent, I wonder how many folks here are aware of already existing freebie skins that have baked on underwear (although they are termed "swim suits"? In the Linda Kellie Kid's Place OAR there is a small store with some freebie child and teen avatars. These are complete sets of shape, skin, and basic clothing. The skins all have baked on swim suits. (At least the ones I've checked do - I have not checked them all. But I have no reason to believe that any of them would deviate from this standard.)

My guess is that these skins would qualify under "Option B" in our discussion. (The boy avatars do not have baked on shirts, and the girls just have bikinis - though no g-strings.) The LK Kid's Place OAR is freely available and out there if anyone wants to load up their own copy to check these avatars out. One of my alts already has it loaded up on his free Kitely world. I have opened that world up for public access if anyone wants to drop by and pick up the avatars to see for themselves what this can look like. You will have to use your own minutes to access the world through the end of December. Oh, the freebie avatars are in the "Red Crayon" store just East of the arrival point.

These avatars will all need to be vetted against whatever the final rules are that Kitely puts into effect. If they don't meet the new Kitely standards people will have to be told not to use the Kid's Place OAR in Kitely worlds, or at least that they must delete any offending avatars immediately.

The location of the my alt's world with the LK Kid's Place OAR loaded:

http://www.kitely.com/virtual-world/Tad ... HambleLand

[Constance Peregrine]

and here:

http://zadaroo.com/?page_id=1675

[Deuce Halsey]

and here:

http://zadaroo.com/?page_id=1675

Yes, that is where I got the LK Kid's Place OAR in the first place.

In case anyone was wondering, the reason my alt has that OAR loaded was that I was planning to set up a freebie avatar store in my Donnybrook Beach world. Since Donnybrook Beach is billed as a "family friendly resort" I thought it would be nice to include some freebie child and teen avatars in the mix. Obviously these plans are now on hold until I can see the final published Kitely rules regarding skins and maturity ratings.

[Ghaelen DLareh]

I am a bit late to this discussion, so a decision may have already been made. For what it is worth, I'll add my two cents worth. I'm coming at this topic from the point of view of the consumer who likes to spend time in Kitely, buys a monthly plan, and builds a little. I am not, however, a merchant.

The degree of clothing coverage on avatar skins in the General area of the Marketplace seems to be the issue at hand in this thread. I personally don't know to what degree the avatar has to be covered in order to comply with the law (pick the law of whatever country).

Now, if I'm in an organization that supervises children, and if I allow those children to go online to the Kitely Market to shop for clothes, I want the G rating that pertains to them to prevent them from seeing skins that depict a (legally) non-compliant gendered humanoid body . If the law states the gendered humanoid body must have sexualized areas covered, then I want the G rated level to only show the children skins that have these areas covered. I'd like to avoid being sued by a parent who happens to look over my shoulder to what the child is seeing on their computer. So I think the leotard or T-shirt/shorts ideas are good ones. In my own home, I might let my kids see more "skin" but that's my own business.

I am an artist and teacher, and support artistic expression. But I don't support using the artistic expression argument to force Kitely to allow non-compliant skins for a G rating which then puts me (or Kitely) at risk for a lawsuit if I allow children to come to the Kitely Marketplace and find Mature or Adult rated skins in the G rated area. Why in the world would any artist/merchant want to put either Kitely or customers in that kind of a situation? If Kitely says it has areas that are family-friendly, then I expect those areas (or ratings) to be family friendly. If they aren't, I would have to do the same as I did with SL, and that would be to go elsewhere. That's not a morality judgement, that's just common-sense judgement on behalf of myself and the children I supervise. The result wouldn't be the best scenario for Kitely or the merchants either - if I leave.

I support the three level ratings, and because of the legal ramifications that are increasingly relating to virtual avatars and marketplaces, I would say to err on the side of caution as well.

I also like Deuce's idea of adding different categories to the Adult rated skins. However it is that I like my Adult avatar to be "skinned", I want what I want when I want it. And keep the Maturity rating for those days I'm looking for something modest but not G-rated.

If I like your work, dear merchant, I will buy skins from you at all these ratings - just don't push the Adult5XXX on me when I'm in the G or Mature ratings. I'll just get irritated. I really don't like shopping nor do I have a lot of time, but I do like having good quality skins, clothes, etc. Make my shopping painless and make quality stuff - I'll be likely to buy from you over and over.

[Ilan Tochner]

Today's Kitely Mentors Group meeting continued the discussion of avatar skins and maturity ratings.

Sierra Jakob created several minimal coverage area options which were used as references in helping guide the group. These areas can be left as blank white ar as some sort of undergarment/swimsuit that is burned into the skin texture so that people wearing General and Moderate rated skins can't get fully naked. The question for General was "would a teacher wearing this General rated skin and momentarily finding herself with no clothes get into trouble".

Please see: http://www.kitely.com/market/product/30 ... ty-Patches

The consensus was that the General maturity rating minimal coverage area Sierra defined was good but that General skins shouldn't be required to contain shoulder straps as part of the skin texture (obiovusly they can be included if designers want to do so but they shouldn't have to).

The question of what is appropriate for Moderate maturity rating was returned to this forum thread. Please view Sierra's options inworld (the product page images show just one of them) and let us know which option(s) you think are most appropriate for Moderate. Please consider that this defines the minimal coverage area for 13 year old teens as well but that making the requirement too restrictive will prevent adults from wearing sexy clothes over moderate skins (unless the designer designs the coverage to fit the general sexy line). Please note both the front and the back of the bottom and comment if you think more coverage should be required than the available options.

This is meant to be an iterative process until we find something that makes sense to most people. Also please remember that Adult skins are fully nude so people who are adults will not be prevented from doing adult things in Adult rated worlds - we don't need to make Moderate skins almost nude to support that. Moderate skins should remain appropriate for unsupervised teens (over 13) but they shouldn't be restricted to support the needs of supervised children under 13 as those are covered in the General maturity rating section.

[Carlos Loff]

I believe the Option A is better for GENERAL region rules

But with so many variety on clothe pieces and some that are semi-transparent it can be confusing and subjective, so for the MODERATE regions I would just keep it simple - NO NUDITY