October 9, 2009 by Ciaran Laval
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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.
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Re: Toothless adult content policy leads to open rebellion
Nice writing style. Looking forward
to reading more from you.
Re: Toothless adult content policy leads to open rebellion
Quite often, Linden Lab "policy" is nothing more than a front, a "whitewashed" grave so to speak. It's quite common where legal or ethical issues are involved, for companies to make a lip-service show of handling a situation, but in truth don't really care whether it actually works or not.
"Hey, we've set up the policy and our customers are ignoring it. We don't have the manpower to police 1.3 million residents. It's THEIR fault." Blaming the customers is an age-old Linden Lab trick.
Most of LL policy is ineffective. As pointed out, the company has never had a good, solid, effective anti-griefer policy with consistent results. Their entire method of handling intentional TOS-offensives is indeed "toothless". People sign up for bogus free accounts, they grief, and if on the off-chance they do get banned, they just sign up with a new account and do it all over again.
The adult grid and LL "policy" is largely ineffective. The company can't possibly police the number of members and potential offensives. I am the first to admit that I am sick and tired of perv-merchants being in every market I visit. I'm all for removing them from the mainland to a specific continent. I just don't believe LL has the ability to effectively do so under current policy.
When a company lacks manpower, the effective way to enforce such policy is to set some major examples and let simple fear do the job.
1. Warn a few major offenders
2. If they don't move within 10 business days, ban them from the grid
After that's happened to a dozen people, the word will get around. Sure, it's a Russian Roulette game where people may escape the bullet-- but the knowledge that there IS a bullet will force folks to comply. As they do comply, that leaves fewer people in the Russian Roulette game, and the chances of getting the bullet increase.
Toothless policies have for years been the laughing stock of Linden Lab. They are known for banning people where such is not necessary (arbitrary drama-queen employee decisions), while leaving major offenders un-touched for years. Among griefers the company is a joke... which is a shame for the rest of us who try to respect and even help enforce company policies in our own lands.
Re: Toothless adult content policy leads to open rebellion
Yes, something is wrong with the way LL bans people. I know that they always claim a lack of manpower to run around the grid and remove content and ban ToS violators... for a day :( But in this case we're talking about what LL always wanted: self-enforcement, i.e. the community flagging ToS violations and reporting them. I'm baffled by the lack of response, although I also believe they have millions of ARs per day to deal with, and a tiny team to deal with them all...
Re: Toothless adult content policy leads to open rebellion
Let me propose a question. Just what would it take to enforce it? How long would it take to remove all the adult content from PG/Mature search? How long to ban the accounts that put the search ads in place for 3 days with an email explaining why they were banned? In my experience I've found that you stop it dead in its tracks and word gets out. 3 days later they would no longer have to deal with a majority mutiny, they would have some minor stragglers here and there that don't get it but are easily cleaned up.
Re: Toothless adult content policy leads to open rebellion
Indeed, it takes a bit of will to deal with the majority, there will always be chancers and those who don't quite understand the rules but to deal with the main issue, it takes Linden Lab to give a couple of people a few days to play around with search and visit the obvious violators. Then they might moan, which again sends a message to others that Linden Lab are serious about making this work.
I don't think anyone expects Linden Lab to be able to be 100% watertight on this issue, but it's not unreasonable to expect them to be able to see the same blatant violations of the policy as most other folks do.
Re: Toothless adult content policy leads to open rebellion
What still kills me about this? Seven months after everything, seven months after everything bloggers and residents and merchants and sim owners could do and say and scream and shout....everything we said would happen, HAPPENED.
And the Lindens are STILL NOT LISTENING.
Re: Toothless adult content policy leads to open rebellion
Yup, just as we all said in the blorums and blog comments.
It was so full of fail, of epic proportions. We told Blondin tirelessly about it, and he ignored us all. Now, they stick him with it, leaving him holding the bag, and nothing happens. What a surprise.
I really don't have any sympathy. Stupid SHOULD hurt.
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