Weired behavior at setting parzel of region to mature

[Ilan Tochner]

Hi Samantha,

We serve an international crowd with a focus on complying with laws and conventions used in mostly English-speaking Western countries (which is were most of our user base is located).

See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_po ... by_country and the articles linked to from that page - you'll note that there are adult-content related laws we have to comply with even in this very short and incomplete list of western countries. You'll also note that what is classified as adult content differs from country to country. You may not like this fact but those laws do exist. In some places even full frontal nudity in a mundane shower scenario is not allowed without making sure the visitor to the site is over 18.

The unit of what needs to be age restricted is the world not structures inside that world. Same as the basic unit is a website not parts of the website. You don't like it, neither do we, but it is what it is.

[Ilan Tochner]

Hi Serendipity,

There is no problem with people in bikinies French kissing in a Moderate world but having them have virtual sex in a skybox is not enough to keep the world Moderate and not Adult. If an underage user can cam-around to view the sex scene then the world exposed that user to age-inappropriate content. The only way to prevent that is to make the world require people to be over 18 years old, and that's done using the Adult maturity rating.

Unlike in the real world where peeping into other people's homes is usually illegal, in a virtual world people are allowed to cam around to wherever they wish inside any world they are given access to. As that is the case, we have to comply with the various international laws that define what needs to be done before users are allowed to view adult content (see my previous reply to Samantha).

[Serendipity Seraph]

Hi Serendipity,

There is no problem with people in bikinies French kissing in a Moderate world but having them have virtual sex in a skybox is not enough to keep the world Moderate and not Adult. If an underage user can cam-around to view the sex scene then the world exposed that user to age-inappropriate content. The only way to prevent that is to make the world require people to be over 18 years old, and that's done using the Adult maturity rating.

Unlike in the real world where peeping into other people's homes is usually illegal, in a virtual world people are allowed to cam around to wherever they wish inside any world they are given access to. As that is the case, we have to comply with the various international laws that define what needs to be done before users are allowed to view adult content (see my previous reply to Samantha).

I understand but I will not personally comply with such bullshit notions. You do not have to comply with international laws but with the laws you are under the jurisdiction of as I understand it. I can find really XXX rated stuff online all over the world except in places with a really thick firewall for instance. I don't see why a virtual world product would have any more stringent rules than web pages do. But for sure IANAL. And all of this BS about protecting children from seeing nude bodies really makes me seethe personally. Especially when the children are past puberty and know all about what nude bodies look like. I will try to keep my anger about this idiocy out in the world under some control.

[Serendipity Seraph]

Hi Samantha,

We serve an international crowd with a focus on complying with laws and conventions used in mostly English-speaking Western countries (which is were most of our user base is located).

See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_po ... by_country and the articles linked to from that page - you'll note that there are adult-content related laws we have to comply with even in this very short and incomplete list of western countries. You'll also note that what is classified as adult content differs from country to country. You may not like this fact but those laws do exist. In some places even full frontal nudity in a mundane shower scenario is not allowed without making sure the visitor to the site is over 18.

The unit of what needs to be age restricted is the world not structures inside that world. Same as the basic unit is a website not parts of the website. You don't like it, neither do we, but it is what it is.

You are not subject to the laws of sundry different countries. That is not afaik how international law works. I am subject to US law being a US citizen but I am not subject to Saudi law just because someone in Saudi Arabia may view some of my content. So I don't see what all those different pornography laws have to do with it frankly. If you tick off your main audience it will not matter whether you are considered compliant with all these weird laws or not.

Time will tell. I know you guys are doing your best but I don't think this set of constraints is a good idea without some modifications.

[Dundridge Dreadlow]

Relax.

Please try not to worry what people under 18 can and cannot do, and think of those people who will lose their jobs if they are viewing "NSFW" material. (Not-Safe-For-Work)

It doesn't matter if it is silly, if you disagree, if you live/work somewhere more sensible, or if they just work somewhere with ridiculous rules - losing a job is pretty serious - especially if the person concerned works with young people and NSFW material means they may never be able to work again, or triggers a more detailed investigation. (sigh)

Maybe someone under 18 can see another real person take a shower, but you go to prison if you show someone under 18 a picture of someone in a shower, and they throw away the key if the person in the shower picture is under 18. As to people taking a shower with clothes off - do real shower shops show full nudity ? "The Sims" just shows a censor bar over the areas in question. Sure you can download a nude patch, and their animated people have doll parts, and you can download new skins, you just have to decide to do it. I would expect "moderate" to be doll parts, and "general" to show that censor bar, but that's just an opinion.

Most websites and companies will allow no more than what they consider a moderate rating, and a region/world is a public place unless labelled otherwise. Most website hosting companies for example wont touch anything adult with a barge pole (You don't need to point out how many will ) and television will not stray before 9pm. It's a much wider, global, political debate than just here. If you have a world, you are technically a publisher and subject to the same rules as other publishers. (sorry, I don't like it either)

Personally, I'm opposed to censorship, but still, I would not expect to see live sex/shower shows in the middle of the town centre at lunchtime, especially if I'm trying to eat or work, it's distracting. (Not even taking into account the laws on public indecency) Somewhere more appropriate perhaps. If people are wandering around on a nudist beach or in an area where everyone agrees "it's fine, just relax", then no problems. That's what the adult switch is for. Maybe if it was labelled NSFW instead of adult, it would be less of an issue to people.

Kitely is not interested in censoring material, just labelling it properly to help it's visitors/customers.
Go easy on them.
They aren't the bad guys

[Barnard Smith]

My goodness you are a whiney bunch! And some of you think you have some power. The bottom line is that this game isn’t ours we rent sever space. And as this game isn’t ours some policies are management level decisions, take it or leave it kinda thing, not open to endless mind-bending unproductive time wasting debate. As this game isn’t ours to rule over, some policies shouldn’t be open to the public for debate. In some policies management decisions should be made and implemented, if you don’t like them, you can always just pick up your ball and go home or find another game.

I am an old Second lifer and these issues with Maturity and Skin ratings are like living in a flashback of the past. In the beginning Philip Linden had a management style similar to Oren and Lian, running around for every major decision, having meetings, getting everyone’s input, and trying to make everyone happy..then it suddenly stopped. In the end he pulled totally away from the public and made it very difficult to contact him or approach him. I also believe this management style lead to his burn out and subsequent sale of SL.

I came to Kitely over a year ago because I got tired of being ripped off in Second Life. I built my worlds and immediately set them to adult and group only! I don’t have plans for any kind of adult entertainment and never have had plans for it. Some of you seem to think that an adult rating is shameful, or is some kind of limitation, I see it otherwise. An adult rating allows for the MOST freedom in creativity, use and function, along with less legal liability, and the most protection for your world. It may come down to perception, but I see it as a plus!

Its simple most of those responding to this thread have at least 5 worlds, some have 20, and others have as many 30 worlds. Some haven’t even created all their allotted worlds yet. So of those that have a Moderate/Mature world but really want an Adult world and call it Moderate/Mature, could then set just one of their worlds to Adult and get your freak or whatever on there.

The CEO’s need to be more decive thereby being more productive for all of us. Some of the power needs to be taken away from the “group,” and the group only to have input capacity. The way it is now it has gotten out of hand, and Lian spends too much time holding hands and making all the people happy instead of game building. Want a better game? Then leave the CEO talent base alone, use them for the big stuff and let them work! We don’t want Oren and Lian to burn out before they really get started with what they want to do, to burn out and sell out, then what are we going to do?? Pick up our balls and start over that is what some of us would have to do. We are renters, not owners, we rent server space, and the CEO’s are human, they can be used up, let’s try not forget that.

[Deuce Halsey]

I got started in virtual worlds with Second Life, but not until after it was difficult to contact management. I attended one "Office Hours" session early in my SL career and it was a total zoo. I never went back. I've been in Kitely for nearly three months now and find the responsiveness of management here to be completely refreshing. That said, I agree that there have to be limits to the amount of input that management seeks from the residents. At the end of the day someone needs to be in charge and make the final decision, and in the case of Kitely, that person is Ilan.

The CEO’s need to be more decive thereby being more productive for all of us. Some of the power needs to be taken away from the “group,” and the group only to have input capacity. The way it is now it has gotten out of hand, and Lian spends too much time holding hands and making all the people happy instead of game building.

There is something to this. Clearly the maturity levels issue was important enough that Kitely management needed to seek input from the residents in general - and specifically from educators and others whom the new rules would most directly effect. But allowing circular arguments and discussions to go on and on and on... and the repeated voting over the course of three meetings.... was largely a waste of time.

Management can be a delicate balancing act, and I do hope that Ilan continues to be open to input from the resident community. But it would be nice if he wouldn't drag out decisions any longer than necessary.

[Barnard Smith]

Hi Serendipity,

We are, at our core, a hosting company for virtual environments. People who manage worlds in Kitely are in effect publishing content using our service. Some countries have laws that define how their residents must act in relation to various forms of content they publish. In some cases those countries even go beyond their own borders and take punitive action against foreign companies that enable their residents to bypass their own laws. If we want to be able to service people from those western countries then we must take these laws into consideration when defining our own terms of service (we're not even trying to comply with the laws of most second world or third world countries).

It has nothing to do with us agreeing with the reasoning behind those laws, in fact in some cases our personal thoughts on the matter are the opposite of those legislations. It has to do with us needing to comply with laws that effect our customers in our target markets so they will be able to use our service. If you read up on the subject you can see that even in the US the subject of online adult content filtering is constantly being reintroduced by politicians and every few years a new law is created. The US Supreme Court has overturned these laws so far but other western countries have enacted similar laws that are in effect to this day (please see the link I mentioned in my previous comment).

Our terms of service are not optional, if you don't agree to comply with them while using our service (even if you disagree with the logic behind them) then you can't continue to use our service. Neither you nor I are lawyers but our terms of service were written by lawyers with a lot of expertise in international law and how it pertains to online services. We can't make exceptions or we risk legal liability so please don't force us to suspend your account. Your disagreement is more than noted but we have no leeway in how we enforce this. The only thing we did have was flexibility about the definition of minimal outfit for General and Moderate worlds. After several weeks of discussion in the Kitely Mentor Group meetings we finally finalized that issue yesterday. This issue is closed and we will publish the details once we have basic templates that content creators can use to compare what they've built with the minimal coverage of their intended maturity rating.

Again, international law is a lot more complicated than your comments indicate you think it is. Multinational corporations get into trouble about this all the time. We're currently too small to be on anyones radar but if we successfully leverage the arrival of the Oculus Rift and its ilk to address the expected growth in demand for virtual reality environments then we may one day have to deal with this issue in some country's courts. We want to make sure that we are prepared for that eventuality as best we can. Please understand and respect that.

[Constance Peregrine]

Yesterdays meeting tweaked an old high school memory, so when I left, I went...[and the neighbors, while thrilled, were not so much...impressed...cops were NOT called!!][this was after I ate some really, really good Texas Chili I made that I shall be enjoying for the next few days but that my stomach will complain horribly about]



I also remembered the 2 guys streaking through the smoking areas [yes, we had smoking areas outside but in the center of the school..imagine that!!], they had underwear over their heads, only, it had the school talking for weeks!!

Anywho, I made my region adult when I realized children could drop in without parental oversight to easily and since I am actually rather conservative [not politically!!] in life, I decided to err on the side of caution, pretty much what is the root of this whole discussion, really.

I don't personally care one way or another, I decided many years ago if I don't like something, I will not be involved in it, and move on quietly, usually [well, ok, sometimes with some silly-attempt-at-witty-swipe-comment]...I do my own thing, I have earned that due to my age.

[disclaimer: I reviewed the video and it seemed to be covering all adult naughty cartoon places, appropriately, if some frame is not, feel free to remove it-))))]

[this has been a PSA for the TMI Company I formed, also, yesterday]

[Deuce Halsey]

When I was in high school there was a guy who threatened to streak past the buses as they were loading outside the school at the end of the day. To the best of my knowledge he never did it.

[disclaimer: I reviewed the video and it seemed to be covering all adult naughty cartoon places, appropriately, if some frame is not, feel free to remove it-))))]

That video received extensive broadcast television airplay in the USA 40 years ago when it first came out. If it met the broadcast television standards of those days it won't cause any problems today. (Unless, of course, someone uploaded a "doctored" version to Youtube - but that looks like the original version to me.) I was in fact a high school student and fan of Ray Stevens when that song was released, so I remember it very well.

Thanks for the lighthearted blast from the past.