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Last day for Zindra transfer applications in Second Life
If you've got a parcel on the Second Life mainland that deals in content or services that would be classified under the Adults-Only rating, today is your last day to submit a request to participate in the land-exchange program to Zindra, the Adult continent. Admittedly, there's apparently a backlog of requests for adult land-swaps, so processing will continue for some unspecified time, but if your application isn't in today (Friday 24 July), then you'll have missed out. The offer is only open to those doing commercial business in Adult content/services, and not to (for example) home-owners. Are you a part of the most widely-known collaborative virtual environment or keeping a close eye on it? Massively's Second Life coverage keeps you in the loop.
Second Life community standards updated
There are several sets of rules for users of Second Life. The Terms of Service (TOS) and Community Standards (CS) which combined form your explicit service-contract with Linden Lab, and assorted implicit ones, like following any additional conditions the owner of whatever land-parcel that you are currently on may have chosen to impose. Well, the Linden Lab have updated the Community Standards for the first time in, well, perhaps forever. While the Lab has said that it has updated them in the past, the document has remained unaltered since at least 2005. What's new, however, isn't necessarily as interesting as what's missing.
Second Life moves to 1.23, opens adult continent, allows more content
Linden Lab has released the new viewer, bringing Second Life up to 1.23 a few days earlier than expected, off the back of a very short release-candidate cycle. The new viewer brings three things with it: The new Adults-only continent (formerly Ursula and now Zindra), user-verification by documents or payment-status, and a new Adults-only content rating that opens up Second Life to more extreme sexual and violent content.
Second Life 1.23 (RC4) now available
Linden Lab have made a new Second Life viewer release-candidate available. RC4 is the fifth release candidate in the 1.23 series (Linden Lab starts counting from RC0). It's looking increasingly like the objective is to release before the Second Life sixth anniversary (23 June). Barely any changes this time around, so either Linden Lab isn't really aware of any showstoppers or doesn't perceive them as such. The context menus have had one small reversion, there are updates to the Mac crash reporter, and a fix relating to object updates that affected poseball visibility.
Second Life 1.23 (RC3) now available
Linden Lab have made a new Second Life viewer release-candidate available. RC3 is the fourth release candidate in the 1.23 series (Linden Lab starts counting from RC0). The 1.23 series is being fast-tracked, as it is scheduled to go live by the end of June. We're expecting this one or the next one to be the last before official release -- because frankly, there's not a lot of time-left before the Lab's self-imposed deadline. Probably the biggest reason you'd want to try this one out, is that it fixes a bug introduced in an earlier official viewer where cached information was discarded too aggressively, leading to things that should have been cached having to be redownloaded. Oh, there's a bunch of good bug-fixes besides that, but that's really the one you want. Read on for the rest.
Second Life adult content updates: Viewers, namechanges, grannies and grade-schoolers
The 1.23 Second Life viewer with the necessary support for Adult content is still being rushed to meet a June deadline, the exact reason for which seems a little unclear. There's some outstanding issues with the viewer release-candidates, but it seems fairly low on actual showstoppers and looks likely to make an official release in the roughly one fortnight remaining. Definitions for the content ratings have been finalized, though they show little noticeable deviation from Linden Lab's originally proposed drafts. It appears that all the changes have been simple explanatory wording changes. The PG rating holds a couple of surprises, though.
Second Life users offput by content-ratings test area
Linden Lab has set up a group of test regions for the new three-way content-ratings system, but the reactions we're getting from users indicate that many are less than pleased with the setup. Featuring electric fences, warning signs, barbed wire and floodlights, some feel that the setup evokes more of a wartime German feel than anything. An avatar approaches the fence, gets zapped and comes away trailing smoke. "So, which way are the showers," he quips. "It's like some wry commentary, hoax or rick-roll," observes another.
Second Life 1.23 (RC2) now available
Linden Lab have made a new Second Life viewer release-candidate available. RC2 is the third release candidate in the 1.23 series (Linden Lab starts counting from RC0). The 1.23 series is being fast-tracked, as it is scheduled to go live by the end of June. This release features six crash-fixes, problems with window-sizing, and issues with trees. Restore-to-last-position has been disabled, to prevent potential inventory-loss. There are some more pie-menu changes, but some of the changes in the previous candidates have been reverted.
Users weigh in on Second Life's upcoming content policies
As you may recall, just over a week ago, I put a poll out there asking people what their opinions were about Linden Lab's upcoming content policies for Second Life. Not why they thought the policy was being made, but how they felt personally about it. The overall balance of responses varied a fair bit for the first hundred or so votes, but the proportions settled down and remained remarkably consistent throughout the next couple of hundred votes through to the end.
Adult content changes for Second Life part of a larger phased deployment
Linden Lab held a "PG definition reach-out" session on Monday morning, as a part of its ongoing refit of content ratings in Second Life, the addition of an adult rating and an adult continent and so forth. One of the more curious things about the session is that no discussion of the definition of PG actually took place. Maybe the title of the session was just misleading, or we were just a bit optimistic. A large chunk of the discussion involved basics that have been rehashed over and over. Skins don't count as photorealistic nudity, for example, but there are a few interesting takeaways, nonetheless.
Is Congress the smoking gun behind Second Life's turnaround on adult content?
So, ever wonder what's really motivating Linden Lab's recent push to implement an Adult content rating and firm up age-verification for Second Life? How about HR110-920 FINANCIAL SERVICES AND GENERAL GOVERNMENT APPROPRIATIONS BILL, 2009? This is an appropriations bill that covers a lot of ground, covering appropriations for a whole lot of things. Introduced on 10 December 2008, the bill specifically includes an appropriation for an investigation and report to Congress on explicit content in virtual environments and on the access to those environments by minors.
Second Life 1.23 (RC1) now available
Linden Lab have made a new Second Life viewer release-candidate available. RC1 is the second release candidate in the 1.23 series (Linden Lab starts counting from RC0). The 1.23 series is being fast-tracked, as it is scheduled to go live by the end of June. The last RC's propensity to false-trigger at least one anti-virus program has been sorted out, along with several fixed to appearance updates (though if you try a strip-tease, you'll likely crash the viewer), along with a bunch of bug-fixes that include some crashes and a failure to startup.
Linden Lab talks Adult issues at Second Life press conference
Last week, the Lab held one of their occasional in-world press conferences in Second Life. This time it was about the addition of the new Adult content category, which not unnaturally has generated quite a bit of interest and concern among users. It's obvious from the questions that were being asked that quite a few people are still under the impression that this move is a precursor to merging Teen Second Life with regular Second Life (which is obviously not the case), that this constitutes censorship (it doesn't, though it does constitute additional editorial control from what the Lab is saying), or that all non-G-rated content is being pushed out to the Ursula continent (which also is manifestly not the case). We're not even sure how some of those notions got formed.
Second Life 1.23 (RC0) now available [updated]
Linden Lab have made a new Second Life viewer release-candidate available. RC0 is the start of a new series of release candidates, apparently scheduled to complete by the end of June. This release features a number of changes, including the promised Shadow code (which is more than a little experimental), and the new support features for Adult content. While it has only been out for a day, there's quite a bit of controversy over a reordering of texture layers on the avatar head, which reportedly breaks a lot of skin content and makes avatar faces that use them appear 'clownish'. Certain European locale settings may cause this release to crash on startup, and the viewer itself may be unusually slow to start up.
What do Second Life's new content ratings actually mean?
That's the question we've been getting asked since the announcement of the new definitions of PG, Mature, and Adults-Only content for Linden Lab's Second Life. We've been working on that question ever since. Interestingly, the new published definitions allow some content that was previously expressly forbidden. According to Linden Lab, "Real-life images, avatar portrayals, and other depiction of sexual or lewd acts involving or appearing to involve children or minors; real-life images, avatar portrayals, and other depictions of sexual violence including rape, real-life images, avatar portrayals, and other depictions of extreme or graphic violence, and other broadly offensive content are never allowed or tolerated within Second Life." Well, until now.
Upcoming viewer changes for Second Life adult content
Thanks to a piping-hot, fresh build of the Second Life viewer, we've been able to get a better look at the upcoming content controls that are due in the next major release of the Second Life viewer. As expected, there are now three content ratings available (though it is uncertain as to what their final names will actually be. Using "PG" as a content rating, for example, has legal issues): PG content, Mature content and Adult content. While it hasn't yet been determined exactly what content will fit into each category (actually, we barely have any idea about the existing content categorizations half the time), the actual usage and integration looks pretty straightforward.
Linden Lab changes course for Second Life's mature content
Linden Lab is making an announcement today about a key change in the way content will be handled on the Second Life virtual environment in future. (There isn't a link to their announcement quite yet, but we'll fill it in when there is). [update: Linden Lab's announcement is now available] What we seem to be seeing at the moment is a segregation of Linden Lab's adult virtual environment that goes beyond the simplistic systems of the past where regions were divided into 'PG' (the equivalent of a film-and-television G rating) and 'Mature' (F&TV PG ratings or higher). We're talking about the formation of an actual adult-content continent and the wholesale relocation of content.
