A minor problem ...

What to think of the whole mess? First actually if it is a mess at all or if it is not screaming about a minor (*giggles*) problem. Reading the different comments and ideas people have posted in the SL forums and blogs concerning this one can find good arguments for any side in the argument one would choose to support. Of course first it would be necessary to read past the usual screaming of people who often seem to be more immature then the occasional teen who joins in and actually admits to be one. On the other hand those who teens who do join in and so far have resented rather well written arguments are those I have little concerns about. Why should I? They seem to be able to take care of themselves. But I do have concerns about the rest. Now of course I have read posts where parents wrote how great they kids are and how they are all big in business and responsible and everything but which parent would write that their kids are running wild and will most likely teleport to the nearest free sex sim as soon as they are on the grid. After all those people who post that because what is visible on the grid left and right they wont let their kids near SL no matter what are right as well. I would not be surprised if those people are actually those who spend their times in or near those adult communities that will now most likely try to build walls around them in fear of the minors streaming in. They are already there I bet, but there is a big difference of illegal access and being allowed in. After all when I joined a few years ago now I had little concept about how far human imagination can go when it comes to fetishes and how weird it all can be. I mean I knew a lot, but a few things made me really think I am in the wrong place. Luckily, there is always a right sim one tp away so I left each to their own. Now I am not going and scream that we all have to 'protect the children'. That is not our reason to be online. Actually I think more that the adults need to be protected and while I think that the legal issues wont be that bad as some fear, the possibility of those will be really upsetting and increase the levels of paranoia throughout the grid.

Of course, Philip has claimed in his speech, that the barriers to adult content present are sufficient to keep everything separated but if he really believes it, then he is living in a bigger bubble then I suspected him to already be in. Even since the first time the age-verification was introduced it was easy to game it and explanations of how to work around it could be found all over the net. And it is all still there so I expect any teen who signs up to get age-verfied alts as the first thing they do after looking around. Does LL really thinks that teenagers wont try to slip into the 'forbidden places'? Are they so naïve? Or maybe they believe that all teens are looking for education while I suspect that it will be rather the combat and open sex places that will see a rise in traffic after the merge. On the other hand, the teens are already populating those places so it might not be a big change after all.

Or I am just being cynical here and simply see the worse in a development that I don't feel well about.

What I don't feel well about is the felt need of self-censorship when having to think that minors are around that I have seen in many comments in the SL forums when this topic has been discussed. It bothers me, when people don't feel free and safe enough to express themselves as they wish. It bothers me when they fear that screaming super parents will blame them for whatever their perfect little angel decides to do on the grid. Or who that perfect little angel decides to 'do' on the grid … or what … it is SL after all so looking at the screen on what the kid is doing might give the unsuspecting parent some nightmares. The same is of course happening all over the internet but it is harder to read a forum post being written when looking from some distance then to guess what that horse furry and a tentacle plant are doing to some naked and bound woman. Fun all around but one can guess that law suits will follow. Teens test out borders and push them wherever they can. It is natural and has always happened what actually make me wonder if LL has some different kind of humans in mind that follows some strange model-behaviour designed by corporate marketing experts. That might actually explain a lot when thinking about it since that is the only explanation on how they seem to not have anticipated all the sexual and fetish related content to flood into the grid. I bet SL already created fetishes in itself. It is part of everyone's life and everyone's imagination so it came just as natural as the teens who will come in, explore and aim directly for those places they are not supposed to be in. It is actually not bad that they do it. It is natural and exploring is part of the development of their personality. But should they really explore ponyplay? I admit this one of the things I met in SL and that made me feel weird but not only I stick to 'to each their own' but also came to think that lots of what is being created around those communities is damn sexy. Now of course everyone is entitled to their own opinion about everything but I don't feel well about it when I have to consider overprotective bible belt parents blaming the world for their own problems. It is a lawsuit in the waiting and why LL would willingly go into this direction escapes my imagination.

No, that is not true, since I can imagine why they would do this.

First of course it seems like the ten grid was just as much of a failure as the behind the firewall corporate SL project also ended now. That however was already hinted at in Philips blog posts in the last weeks so it didn't came as a surprise. So the LLs decided to save themselves the money they would spend on keeping the servers up and use them for regular sims. I guess they can earn more that way but only if they manage to get the number of sign-ups growing again what brings me directly to the second reason that I can think of to explain this move. A artificial short term growth in resident numbers that will make the next statistic looks better then the last. It will be the one big log in boom that will make the curve jump and surely they will claim it on their good performance and growing appeal of the new fun, easy and fast SL.

Okay, I admit, that the last paragraph is dripping in cynism towards the lab and how it behaves. It is hard to be anything else considering, that I took my time to read at least over a bigger part of the blog posts and comments about this issue. I try to do such sessions regularly each time I get some time during the week and while often it is more about laughing and giggeling about the drama and imagined problems often enough it is also about valid concerns and the ever existing fear that LL will not only prove Murphy's Law to be true, but will actively go for the worse possible scenario. Just like he said:

'If there is a way in doing things that certainly will lead to disaster, then someone somewhere will surely do it.'

We might just be witnessing this rule working.