WEEKEND OPEN FORUM (Updated)

Events, projects, discussions; announcements, observations, amazements-- post all and sundry here, for highlighting later!

Update, May 7:

- This coming Tuesday, students from Trinity University will talk about a new SL-based social network they created.  Details here.

- Alexander Rhyll unleashes outrage at Linden's recently announced age verification policy.

Comments

[Aaron Delwiche]

Next Tuesday (May 8th) from 8:00 am to 9:15 am (PST), students in the virtual world promotions class at Trinity University will share hard-won insights that should be useful to anyone who is building and promoting an institutional presence in Second Life. Students will talk openly about the lessons they learned while designing SLeuth: a social networking service that links new residents with mentors, friends and potential dates.

The student presentation will be held in the ampitheater on Metaversatility Island. (Note: Other than the fact that I am the professor of this course, SLeuth is in no way connected to Metaversatility.)

Metaverse development consultancies, advertising agencies, and non-profits, please take note. This is a wonderful opportunity to connect with thoughtful college students who have hands-on experience designing and promoting virtual world content. During the past semester, these students have explored community building, 3D modeling, viral marketing, machinima, blended reality events, and integration with web applications. In these early days of the Metaverse, it is very difficult to find people of any age who can claim first-hand exposure to virtual world development.

Everyone is welcome.This event has much to offer to newcomers planning their own virtual world development projects, and the student perspective should be intriguing to more experienced residents. To make sure that we save a seat for you, please send an e-mail to [email protected] or send an IM to Carbonel Tigereye in Second Life.

[Alexander Rhyll]

I’m sick of being inconvenienced because companies are afraid that they are going to get sued by parents that can’t be bothered to look after their own kids. Lets face it, this is probably the biggest motivation on LL’s decision for this new age verification. I’m sorry people but it’s not mine, or any companies’ responsibility to look after your children for you. If you can not handle the responsibility of looking after them, or are simply too busy, then you shouldn’t have had kids in the first place. And maybe if the US wasn’t so quick to shove their elderly in nursing homes to rot then you could have someone to look after them for you, someone you could trust. How is this for a verification system, all parents must prove they can be responsible for what their kids are and are not exposed to on television or the internet or in video games or any other form of media, otherwise the government finds them to be unfit parents and removes their children. No I don’t think this will ever be done since these people number far too many and are too used to passing the buck for their kids’ problems. It’s not their fault, it was the bad influence of some kind of popular media that should have regulated itself so they wouldn’t have to be inconvenienced about looking into what their kids are doing.

[Laetizia Coronet]

I would like to add two tings to Alexander's comments, with which I fully agree:

1) I only release highly private info for airport security checks. Do we want our "game" to feel like that?
2) There are a gazillion crude porn sites on the web, based in the US, where RL people have explicit RL sex in pictures and vids, without a single verification or even a warning notice. I name just one modest example in my last blog. Why should LL go to such extreme measures when others are apparently free to take no measures at all?
Feel welcome to discuss this on my blog as I won't close comments, so you don't have to go off-topic all the time to vent your spleen.

[Ignatius Onomatopoeia]

As a cyberlibertarian, the process of age verification bothers me. As a pragmatist, I can see why LL did it.

If SL can overcome the issues associated with 40K concurrence, it is about to become the benchmark for virtual worlds. News organizations--including the one for which I blog--have discovered SL. That's not news, even if the non-digerati public out there has not yet heard of SL.

I heard that some editors where I write did not want a SL column: the rep SL has for them is that "it's all about sex." We had to proceed very cautiously when running columns about sex in SL. LL is going to have to fight this rep every inch of the way, as (if) it gains some measure of "respectability" beyond its user base. Sad, I know, but it's business.

I wonder: how many Web porn sites are backed by multi-million-dollar companies with deep-pocketed patrons? That alone makes SL a ripe target for litigation.

Goodbye, wild frontier and hello, school-marms, preachers, and lawyers? Time will tell.

While I'm not defending the Linden Lab decision, I can see why they acted; I'm just surprised that it didn't happen sooner.

[Natascha Seiling]

Ok, so its happening, Good. Till I know exactly what verification involves, I'm not spending a single L$ nor holding L$ in my account. The stupid aspect is announcing the policy without the procedure in place! I am a humble consumer and worker in SL. My SL home, job and where I shop are "Mature" areas. Why invest in a sim if I could be locked out next week?