Lately there have been disturbing rumors floating around in Second Life. For a long while now, debate has raged over Linden Lab's desire to require age verification on the main grid, quite a baffling prospect, since the main grid is supposed to be 18+ by default, and can be quite risqué in places. Even though the majority of the adult population is against it, Linden Labs has decided to go through with implementation...and at almost the same time,
Phil Linden described in an interview plans to merge the Teen Grid with the main (adult) one.
My initial thought was...what the
fuck are they on?!
Second Life is built entirely on user created content. This is something that Lindon Labs has almost no control over, and since these are adults building an adult society, Second Life is no place for kids. While there are areas that are strictly PG, It doesn't take much to wander around and find a red light district. Compounding this are the swaths of subcultures that make their home here, some of which are very adult indeed. Merging the grids would be the real life equivalent of the United States taking age restrictions off of all bars and taverns and allowing them to be built next to schools again.
Lindon Labs has been pushing through changes lately that almost everyone is against: The mandatory age verification for adult grid residents, and the creation of a landmass named Ursula, to which the Lindens plan to move everything deemed "adult" material. Protest posters can be found at just about every vendor, and the "bug fix petition" has 3,000+ votes against these changes already. Still, the Labs are moving inexorably forward, and anyone with half a brain can tell the direction they are going in.
The problem is that simply defining "adult" material is going to be a huge problem, especially in a place like Second Life, which has run on unrestrained freedom of expression and creativity since practically its inception. While the Labs say they won't be banning anything outright, many vendors are worried that a forced move will negatively impact their business, and there are fears that the age verification system will be buggy, and lock out actual adults (a very real fear, given Second Life's track record). Many residents feel as though they are being kicked off their own grid to make room for the "kiddies". Complicating matters is the idea that while many teenagers are more mature than a lot of the adults on the main grid, their number is eclipsed by the youngsters who are immature; by merging the grids, Lindon Labs may be inadvertently letting in another griefer wave, and just when they had managed to tighten restrictions on the 4/channers and "Patriotic Nigras" that where already here. Even if this doesn't happen, perceptions will cause a
lot of discrimination against younger players; they might very well become the next furries.
And all that is just the tip of the iceberg. They are also planning to censor words in Search, which could even farther limit the productivity of many vendors, even if they sell strictly innocent objects. There are many opportunities to step on toes when making these changes, and given Lindon Lab's history with rolling things out without properly thinking things through, the general consensus is that Second Life isn't going to survive these sudden, inexplicable changes in policy. It will be just like the decision to eliminate gambling, which completely trashed Second Life's economy for a while; only this time it won't be the economy that is in jeopardy, but Second Life's reputation as a free-thinking, creativity encouraging Internet society.
Further Reading:
Blue Linden makes Lindon Lab's case for these policy changes. He says that there are already many teens on the main grid, in spite of the current policy that the main grid is 18+ only (they lie to get in), that teens on the Teen Grid are the "nice kids" who don't lie about their ages and are more mature than most residents on the main grid (a fact that several
teens have disputed), and that the large majority of parcels on the grid will remain "mature" with only a small few deemed "adult" being required to move to Ursula. If these changes are all made, the final shape of Second Life will be one in which only the registered adults have full access to the world; with those who are not registered being confined to the main grid and only "PG" and "Mature" designated areas. This could be a workable solution, but there are still fears that what some people consider "Mature" others will see as "adult", which would raise liability for litigation from those who are particularly puritanical.
I've talked with Blue Linden myself via e-mail, and he confirmed that the idea was on the table, but that as yet it was only an idea. Despite the changes to the adult verification policy that they are rolling through amongst enormous unpopularity, there are currently no actual plans to merge the two grids, and it is uncertain when or even if they are going to actually implement it.
It is because of this and other factors that I have been considering withdrawing from Second Life lately. I'll give it some more time to see what happens and how I ultimately feel about it, but suffice it to say that some things have happened that have left me feeling disenfranchised about the whole thing, and this is one of them. While the subject is on Second Life, here are some random pictures I've taken of the places I've been recently:


Oh yeah, and
I wrote another article.
So what happens if you cut your spending and still come up short? Here's an article that lists
8 ways to boost your income.
An ex-NFL player turned fugitive was killed in a car crash in Greece recently, leaving behind an unsolved criminal mystery and a very weird sports legacy.
There are supposedly
real cases of people being raised by animals, resulting in feral children.