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I've just been having a giggle over at the official forums after reading a post from someone who informed us that she ended up stuck outside her neighbours bedroom window for a week and that her neighbour "Wasn't best pleased about it". Fortunately support eventually came to the rescue of her (and her neighbour) and figured out what the problem was, but I digress.

The Adult Content Policy, the brave new world, it's a steaming pile of failure and this is exemplified by the fact that PG and Mature search is still full of openly adult content. Despite Linden Lab sending warnings, using funky features to highlight where the issues lie, sending emails, messages of the day, blog posts, many many people have chosen to ignore it and the end result is that they're largely getting away with it, it's business as usual for these operations. Not a sign of anything being done about it.

This is greatly annoying those who have complied with the policy, and they're right to be annoyed about it. We are now nearly a month into this squeaky clean new world of predictable experiences and the simple fact of the matter is, the policy has no teeth, no enforcement and very little will (besides Blondin) from anyone at Linden Lab to make it work.

It would seem that they're content in Linden Lab Ivory Towers that some people complied and they're taking their tea and biscuits and planning for people who aren't going to come here. From day one we told Linden Lab they were getting this wrong, from day one Linden Lab steadfastly refused to listen, almost seven months on from the first blog post about this Linden Lab execs still have their "Blah blah blah, we're not listening" headphones on. Bad policies lead to bad results and the proof is in the pudding on this one.

The premise, which I've always supported, was to allow adult content merchants to take the responsible route of trying to restrict access to their content to verified adults. The delivery on the other hand always looked doomed to failure and continues to look doomed to failure. Indeed those cocking a deaf ear to emails, blogs and messages of the day are doing so in such a brazen fashion that the policy is now totally toothless. New adult businesses are opening on mature mainland, why shouldn't they when there's no real hint of any enforcement?

Blondin seems to be fighting a lonely battle against a growing tide to make this work. I have a lot of time for Blondin but he seems to have his hands full with all sorts of issues, he is the community man at Linden Lab, not just with the new Community Partnership Program (which is still unclear) but with communities in general. Representatives from the Bay City Alliance and other cities bring issues to Blondin and he does help them but he's the only Linden who seems to give a flying fig about the adult content policy and he doesn't have the power to make people comply. He's not an enforcer.

I was invited to a meeting with disgruntled Zindra merchants this week, no Linden was invited. The mood is not good, basically they're fed up and feel like mugs for toeing the line when others are in open rebellion against the policy, ignoring it and happily being allowed to ignore it. Really, how long would it take for a few Lindens to sit down and use their own search facility to find these businesses who are in blatant violation of the policy?

The longer this nonsesne drags on, the longer it will take to clean it up. Indeed I'd say we're close to the stage where Linden Lab have to admit defeat because the next stage is going to be that those who have complied will chance their arm at going back to mature land, where they have the visibility and reach they crave and will be 99% sure that Linden Lab won't do a damn thing about it.

This is what happens when a company does not listen to their customers, you end up with a toothless and ineffective policy. Linden Lab were told time and again that they were doing this wrong and they would not listen. I hope those who didn't listen are happy with the results, becasue their customers sure as hell aren't.