Kitely Forums

If i get the silver plan does it take minutes away or is that not involved, and can my partner visit me there for free?
Also can sims be joined together, say 4 sims, and what about the one i have now, its a time based one, i have all my kitely stuff out in displays there, would i have to give that up?.
I can take in all into invent if i have to, just wondering.
Nikita

Hi nikita,

I'm not sure I understand all your questions so if I answer something else please let me know.

Take minutes away from what Nikita?

The regions you get with the Silver Plan are Metered (i.e. time-based) regions that are not free access for everyone. Come January 1st, the Silver Plan will turn into a type of Premium Account ("Premium Account (Silver)") which will provide you with unlimited free personal time in Metered worlds. If your partner is also on a Premium Account then neither of you will need to pay more to access each other's worlds.

You can use the Metered regions you get to create any size world you want from our available options (1, 4, 9, 16 region worlds). You can export the single-region world you have now to an OAR file and import that into a new bigger Kitely world if you want.

Hi Ilan
By taking minutes ,i mean as my sim is now,it is classed as free but it charges me for time spent.
I see the same free wording on the silver plan so i just wanted to clear that up.
As for my partner, as it is in SL now, i rent homestead and she visits me at no charge to her, i am assuming if she does not become premium she cannot just visit me without some kind of charge, is that right?
If that is true it does nt seem right, if i pay for a sim i should be able to have someone come visit me without being charged to do so.


Next, i got a message suggesting all my skins should be classified as adult and assume avatars too.
I could see if there were breast showing or any body part classed as adult, but my avatars are fully clothed, the skins you only view a head.
Now when someone buys a skin or avatar and they, after purchase get undressed that has nothing to do with how i display what i have for sale.
Of course after sale and they get undressed they will see breasts and pubic hair, but i see no logic in that causing me to have to choose an adult setting
Choosing an adult setting just removes me from some peoples search who don t want to search with an adult setting.
Also with that logic, all my bikinis and dresses and pants outfits should be adult to, cos to put them on they will have to undress to do so,and of course that makes no sense just as someone buying a skin or avatar and after purchase have to get undressed.
I am at a complete loss of the logic behind this.
I have a topless dress that comes in 4 colors, it sell quite well on SL MP and obviously on there it has an adult setting so that if children are perusing the SL MP they won't be subjected to breasts if they don t have adult checked.
If children are perusing Kitely MP. they will see nothing in my displays they would not see in their own home or out in public,if they were to buy my skin or avatar and rez it from their inventory, of course they will see breasts and pubic hair, but again what has that got to do with how i display my items for sale, womans head? is that classed as adult to be filed away so children cannnot see it, and fully clothed woman is that classed as adult to hide from children..
I am on SL and Virtual Highway and have never heard of such restrictions, and SL is pretty strict as to their posting rules, if i was to post that topless dress and not adult i know they would deactivate it until i changed the setting,

Hi nikita,

The free part in "free regions" included in the plans it for World Storage fees - the 10 KC / region you pay for having a region in your account. For example, the current Silver Plan can have up to 10-regions stored (in whatever configuration between your worlds) without you being charged for that storage fee. Other time-based billing prices still apply: http://www.kitely.com/services

Someone always pays for the time people spend inside user worlds. Either by paying a fixed-price for the world to get unlimited free access for all visitors, by paying to be on an unlimited time plan to get no-charge visits to worlds they visit, or by paying for time spent inworld via Kitely Credits. If your partner doesn't become a Premium Account holder then you'll need to pay for the time she spends in your Metered worlds using your KC. If you want everyone (including people on Regular Accounts) to be able to visit your world without costing you extra then select one of the fixed-price world options not a Metered world option which, by definition, you pay for per use.

Regarding Maturity Ratings for Kitely Market products:

First, we'll be making updated to the Product Listing Guidelines that will define the exact rules so please consider the following just a partial explanation.

The maturity ratings in Kitely Makret need to apply to both the items sold and the items displayed in the product listing images. This is so that a 10 year old who is on a General maturity rating browsing the marketplace with his teacher won't encounter any content that will get that teacher fired and Kitely banned from their school. This means that both the images shown to General-rated people who browse the marketplace and the items delivered in a General-rated product are indeed family friendly.

A picture of an avatar wearing a modest Bikini can be General rated but if that product listing includes an avatar that has a skin layer that shows naked breasts and pubic hair then the product isn't really appropriate for General maturity rating users. If, however, the bikini is not sold with an avatar then there is nothing in the product itself that would prevent it from being rated as General. Alternatively, if it is sold with an avatar with a skin layer that has underpants and a bra as part of the skin texture then that product by itself is family friendly and can be rated as General. You only need to be concerned with the items provided in the current product you're listing not in how they will be used in conjunction with other products. Ask yourself would you feel comfortable knowing your 10 year old is being given access to the content contained in the product you sell. If the answer is not a clear yes then it can't be rated General (a Moderate rating may still apply - it's a scale not a binary Adult / Not Adult).

To be more specific, there are two questions here: one is what images you display in your product listing and the other is what do the actual items your sell include. For example, showing just the face of a person in a BDSM suit may make the product listing image family friendly but it doesn't make the actual product sold family friendly. The product's Maturity Rating are there to enable underage users to use Kitely (with supervision if under 13).

We'll provide full details about how to decide how to set the Maturity Rating for a product listing in the next couple of days. I'll then contact the people with Avatar Appearance products and request that they go over all their relevant products and set their ratings appropriately.

The rules, once published, will be enforced on all merchants equally so this shouldn't put you in a disadvantage.

While i understand your logic re. the 10 year old boy, why would a 10 year old boy be buying a female avatar, and what would stop a 10 year old boy from viewing adult content.
Someone bought a skin of mine and i think they bought it only to have a look, then they sent me a note telling me about the maturity rating.
Tonight i see a snide remark on a review about the skin they bought as quoted
"

ADULT product! Why is it rated for Children?!

Rating: 1

This product is not for children. According to the Kitely Market guidelines it should be rated as "adult". It contains explicit nudity and anatomical details. From what I hear, all of the S&N Adorable Skins are rated as "general" for children, but should be rated as "adult" according to Kitely Market guidelines.

This is a pretty huge issue for children and parents and for Kitely's future business plans as we all know them.

In addition, it is an unfair business practice that has reaped this merchant plenty of profits at the expense of merchants who have followed the rules.

When the info for these products is corrected, I am happy to update my review.

What huge profits?, i have sold 3 items and 2 of those i have had complaints about, In all my years on SL and VH i have never encountered road blocks at every turn.
I just get absolutely very discouraged with Kitely in general, sorry to say but i keep having negative feeling most of the time, i never feel at ease here.
If i feel this way i am sure others to come in the future will experience the same, i can't be unique.

As for a sim. i could care less if there are 5 or 10 offered, i only need one,
My partner and i love our privacy, i live in Canada and she lives in the UK, we have been together for going on 6 years now, and we just need a private sim where we can be alone and have no visitors.
Right now on SL we have a homestead which is a full size sim but prims are a bit restrictive, we live on a huge yacht down on the island, a shop 3000ft up and a sim size race track2000ft up for our cars to race on, so as you can see we are very spoiled as to things we can do on SL
My question was , if i get the silver, can she visit me without having to pay, she has no need for a sim as we are always together, so paying a premium makes no sense for her.

I don't know ,maybe in the end Kitely is'nt for me, i will have to give it some thought.

Hi nikita,

Regarding your first questions about maturity ratings and enforcement. A small classroom with boys and girls could each be buying themselves a General rated avatar using KC given by the teacher as she supervises their use. There can't be any surprises when the actual skins are worn and the kids start seeing each other virtually naked. If teachers can't trust the marketplace not to surprise them then schools (or parents) will ban access to Kitely.

A snide rating should not have been made before talking to you directly about it (or is this from the same person who contacted you previously about this via IM)?

The ratings system needs to be enforced and it needs to indicate the rating of the actual products that are delivered, it's not a matter of preferences. Once we publish the product listing guidelines for maturity ratings there will be clear rules to follow.

Are the two people who complained competing merchants? (right click their name in the Purchase History page and see if it shows a link to their Kitely Market store)

The Silver Plan provides unlimited personal time for the person who owns the account. Instead of paying a fixed price for a world you're paying a fixed price for the time you (not your visitors) spend inside worlds - which in turn enables you to get more land for a lower price than paying for land that everyone can use for free. These are two different options which are paid for differently.

If you only need a single region world for the both of you then get an unlimited free access (fixed-price) region which isn't charged for time. Neither you nor your parter need to be on a Premium Account (or Silver/Gold plan now) to be able to do that. Once the new fixed-price worlds become available there will be cheaper options for you to choose from than the current "unlimited free access for all visitors" options.

Thanks for the clarification re land.
Yes that person is a merchant so it wasn't a real sale but being nosey, because of my experience with virtual worlds and once being new, when i bought a skin and wore it i could 'nt understand why i did not look like what i saw on the display.
Then after learning the relationship between skins and shapes, i always make it a point to provide a shape so when they buy a skin of mine they can look exactly like the skin portrays in the picture, You once said to me that a display of a product has to be an accurate representation of what they will get, in that light when someone sells just a skin with no shape then the display is not an accurate representation of what they are buying, because on another shape it will look different.
People buy a skin that looks lovely in a display because they want to look exactly like the display, but without a shape they look nothing like it when they wear it

In my early years on SL and not understanding skins and shapes i bought quite a few disappointments, thinking i would look like what i just bought
That being said, because i feel it best to sell someone exactly what they will look like IE skin and shape together, that person ( Kitely merchant) has me a a great disadvantage now, while she sells skins with no shape she does nt have to list it as adult,
So someone searching skins without looking at adult content ,mine will not show up.her's will, looks like she used the rules against me to get my skins stuffed into adult while hers don t have to,
There is something very uneven here, while the rules are there for the reasons you give, they also give one merchant an advantage over another selling the same product, the only way to remedy that and even the playing field is to make all skins adult, shape or no shape
As for adult settings i did not know about that, i was viewing MP without an adult setting, i only knew about it when i went to edit one of my products to adult, it said i could nt do it untill i set my self to adult there, so how many others do not know about the setting and are cruising MP with non adult settings, then my stuff will not show but hers will

Hi nikita,

Regarding Adult ratings if her skins use textures that are inappropriate for whatever non-adult rating she's using then she isn't complying with the rules. Having looked at her product images, you may note that I deactivated ones that were showing inappropriate product images and told her she needs to make them Adult or change them to comply with the guidelines. She pointed out that various things were not well defined and that has prompted us to work to define them in more detail now. Once that's done it won't be up to debate which product listings are in compliance and which aren't.

There is merit in requiring skins to be sold together with shapes, the problem is that the skills required to create good skins and good shapes don't always reside in the same content creator.

As for making all skins Adult, that would solve one type of problem but would make it so that people who dont' switch their account to Adult rating won't see any skin options in the marketplace.

This may be a discussion we should open in the next Kitely Mentors Group meeting.