Quiplash

There is already a potentially disastrous issue developing on OpenlifeGrid, and it's not technical.

At the moment, there are two underage users on the grid and in the chatroom. One is 15, the other says he is 11. (Of course, it is possible that one or both are lying, but many of us have had extended conversations with the 11 year old, and several of us, including me, believe that he's the real deal. Either that, or he's an incredibly good roleplayer.)

Discussion has turned to how to create an appropriate policy for this. A number of people (myself included) have impressed upon Sakai the need to deal with the issue, PRONTO. I can forsee a time when OpenlifeGrid is overrun with children and teenagers, because there is no age policy in place.

I'm in favour of an 18+ only age restriction, perhaps with a separate grid for kids and teens as SL does. Either that, or a PG13 grid with all adult content banned.

BEARintheMorning

I'd recommend they put in the same unenforcable policy LL has in place.

Useless for keeping underager's off of the grid but a CYA move none the less.

It would be nice if OpenlifeGrid actually made an attempt at enforcing their policy unlike LL not even bothering though.

I've put in THREE AR's now (up from two a couple of months ago) on underage users in SL (the most recent one - I know the kid and his parents RL) and LL has done nothing about either.

They do need a firm policy though or everyone is wide open to prosecution I would think.

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Aodhan McDunnough

Yep, there's no way to enforce it anyway so make sure you have the next best thing, the CYA.

@Bear
I don't think we can expect the banning part from OLG. To do so OLG (or LL for that matter) will need clear proof that someone is underaged and this proof needs to get into their hands. One thing both OLG and LL cannot afford to do is to ban someone who shouldn't have been banned.

While I wish we could clear minors from the grid, I don't think LL can act on the AR even on your say-so that you know the family iRL.

By the same token that we cannot prove someone is of age, we cannot prove someone underaged either, not without violating their RL privacy. I don't know if there is any evidence that can be used.

It's a dilemma really so all we can really rely on is the CYA.

WarKirby Magojiro

This would run OLG into the ground before it even takes off. There's no way in hell I'm going to any grid that doesn't allow adult content.

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BEARintheMorning

Correct on all counts.

It's unfortunate but true. The best we can do as residents is mute/ban from our land. Not to turn this into another IDV rant but even though we all know it won't work, it is an added level of security for all of us if it's implemented correctly (I know, I know, that ship sailed...lol...) and of course it only makes sense to use some sort of IDV system if teens are allowed on the grid in the first place.

Aodhan McDunnough

What I want to see is something along the lines of an IDV and a means for a resident to block content from those lacking verification or from specific people. It's your content, you have the right to choose who gets to see it. Advantage here is that we only have to worry about the kids-kids (as in kiddies to pre-teens).

Now how blocked content will appear is ... not appearing. The land will still be there, all the banned/blocked person will see is empty space (keeps the world contiguous and pretty).

Two approaches to movement:

1. Blocked person cannot enter region at all. This will be annoying to people just passing through therefore...

2. Blocked person can still enter "region" but will become invisible to others when he does (his data gets transmitted to no region) so that no communication or server load is generated. He however will still see himself moving in the empty space (completely generated client-side). Advantage here is that there's no annoying ban "lines."

BEARintheMorning

Of the two, the latter is the only one that makes any real sense unless they also disable camera controls on an unverified client (not likely).

I'm editing this to add an apology to Quip. We should be talking about his OP.

If you have the ear of the powers that be over there on OG Quip, I would suggest to them to get something in place NOW as a stop-gap but to consider the things that have been discussed here for the near future. In my opinion it will be much easier for them to impliment things that Aodhan has suggested sooner rather than later.

Quiplash

Oh hell I don't care, take the thread where you want. I'm not that attached to it, really.

As for catching Sakai's ear, well, a number of us made it loud and clear that he needs to do something NOW about this. Whether the message got through remains to be seen. At the moment, the launch of the pioneer land program has again been delayed by an extremely flaky grid. In other words, nothing has changed since the original "within 24 hours" announcement made last Friday. Feh.

prinţesă nină

i reckon im the only person that couldnt care less if there are kids on the grid. why should i care if someone i talk to is a kid?
besides, if you want to think this is the 'next web' how can it possibly exist without kids?

Mecha Dinosaur

REX is going to allow allow really nice avatars, REX is going to allow properly proportioned avatars, REX is going to allow anatomically correct avatars. Now here is sticking point: REX is going to allow properly proportioned and anatomically correct child avatars. It will also allow anatomically walking penises and vagina, even internal organs.

Any of you read Snow Crash?

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Dnate Mars

The only way to really solve this problem is to ban everyone.

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Aodhan McDunnough

@Bear

We were largely still on topic. The issue presented is policy with regard to underaged residents. IDV still falls under that. While it's not one of the two presented items, it's projecting a bit into the future within the same issue and what options are possible.

Briana Dawson

Worry about children is a waste of time.

Just slap the 18+ sticker warning in the installer TOS and on the web page.

No matter what, kids are going to come, it cannot be stopped.

BEARintheMorning

That is a great point prinţesă.

I've said in other threads that I don't have a problem with kids accessing the grid. I do have a problem with what they have access to on the grid though if that makes any sense.

That's why I like Aodhan's suggestoin of filtering content.

I know there isn't a perfect solution but that doesn't mean we can't try.

Aodhan McDunnough

It's something I mentioned in the old SL forum. I'm sure LL's plan would be to open the grid to all ages, which is something I'd like to see. But this cannot be done until the safeties are in place. Those safeties are the IDV and the ability to make content disappear. LL has gotten the ball rolling on the first part, I'm still waiting for the other shoe.

Torley back then lamented that even if you're banned from a property you can still interact with things in the property, and that includes purchasing stuff. Thus the current banning/blocking system is sorely inadequate for all mainland regions.

For kids to be able to roam the grid the mature content must vanish from their sight. Of course I don't mean removal but simply not sending their data to clients used by unverified residents.

prinţesă nină

but adults would have access to kids areas?
hmmm.
i fail to see how this would protect children

Aodhan McDunnough

Good point. Actually this is an existing problem even for the Teen grid (i.e. you can't prove the avatar's owner is an adult).

At this point I'd say that kiddies shouldn't be in SL/OLG/whatever unsupervised or unaccompanied. Supervision is something within the control of parents.

The IDV + "invisible" regions/parcels are not foolproof protection for kids but they are a necessary CYA for the region/parcel owners. Unguarded mature content can be ARed.

Lucifer Baphomet

Its still my opinion that they ticked the 18+ box

If theyre here (teh main grid) its fraudulently...
The parents are responsible.. not me (or you)

Briana Dawson

/fixed

Aodhan McDunnough

You and I and LL agree. They ticked 18+ by giving a birth date.

Unfortunately lawmakers don't agree with us.

Joshua Nightshade

I think the first mistake you're all making is approaching the open grids the same way you approach SL. While the software is very similar, the overall goals and arrangement is not.

LL operates a grid, and the sims that reside in those sims. They are a closed business operating under United States laws. As such they decide the policy and rules within their grid and on their sims.

The open sims, however, are different. I'm not fully versed with Sakai's business objectives but as I understand it he will offer limited "fully-hosted" sims on his grid along with the ability to connect your own self-hosted sims to his grid if you want. Similarly OpenSim itself is less about anything other than you, yourself, hosting your sims or grids and connecting them to others. In both examples these positions are different from LL's, who are in complete control of everything within Second Life. Sakai would be completely crazy to think he can exercise any control over what someone else does on their self-hosted sim that is merely a name in a database on the overall grid. At best he can remove the name, but given the decentralized model that won't keep people from connecting to the rogue one if they want content that's adult or around ageplay or worse.

Also, none of these are based in the US and are not subject to US laws or jurisdiction.

Briana Dawson

I think expecting any similarity to how LL does things is expecting way too much. Especially on the issue of "policing the grid for minors".

These places are going to be wild. Sure there will be some moderators or whatever you want to call them - but how will the customer service/moderators scale with the population increase?

I predict if anything it starts out like EverQuest I with a LOT of corrupt people (GMs in EQ) controlling things until things get worked out and the power abusers get canned.

Edit - also like LL's MENTORS and RES MODS.

Edit again - there have been some Linden employees who abused their positions, especially when everything changed in 1.2 and when dwell went live.

EvilMole

This is the thing about any organised "grid" system: sooner or later, whoever runs the login system will have to deal with exactly the same issues of local real world law as LL has had to. That means minors, gambling, banking, and kiddy porn.

And I'm not confident that any of them will deal with the issues any better, given that all of them seem to be in denial about it.

EvilMole

OpenLife Grid requires centralised registration of avatars in order to ensure cross-sim movement works, no?

If so, there's your centralised "point of failure" right there. Of course, people can host their own independent sim, not connected to anything else - but if you want to connect sims together in a grid, you either need centralised log-in/identity servers, or a distributed identity/trust system (which raises a whole host of other issues).

Joshua Nightshade

Not especially. Adam can elaborate this further if he chooses but as I understand it future OpenSim releases will make the need for a grid at all obsolete. If I remember correctly the sim itself will function as a website essentially and you can teleport region-to-region simply through the DNS name. The original WWW was a page with a list of links but you don't need to navigate to SLU by going to a database of websites first and clicking on the name.

What this means for assets and identity I don't know but the goal I think is to have no need for a grid system at all and have each sim a self-contained island.