Child avatar indicator checkbox request
needs info
Elliot Evergarden
in light of the new rules for child avatars I request a feature in the Secondlife.com website where you can check a checkbox to indicate that you are a child avatar. This will be similar to the "this account is a scripted agent" check box. The child avatar checkbox will uncheck and disable the ability to visit adult regions automatically so that no child avatars get in trouble for accidentally going to an adult rated region. There are many adult regions where nothing adult rated is going on such as breedable auctions. Unfortunately this is going to limit child avatars from visiting a lot of PG places that are on adult rated sim only because rental prices are normally cheaper on adult rated sims. I would like the check box to be able to be unchecked on the Secondlife.com account in the event the person decides they do not want to be a child avatar or in the event that they are willing to change their avatar into an adult when visiting adult regions.
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Madi Melodious
This goes against what the governance board promised at the May Governance user group meeting. At that meeting we were told that all that was needed for a child avatar to become compliant to enter adult regions was to change our avatar to an adult format. At that meeting no other proposals where entertained or suggested that would indicate what a child avatar was.
This proposal will also run counter to what Oberwolf said on May 20, 2024 about wanting to keep child avatar specs vague. About the lab not wanting to define what a child avatar is. Adding this requirement will go against the spirit of that conversation.
At this time with so much discord caused by the new TOS, it would not be a good idea to compound those feeling with an addition requirement, that goes against the spirit of those two meetings.
Elliot Evergarden
Madi Melodious the check box is for every individual person to check or uncheck as they wish. This is not a requirement. This check box gives everyone the ability to self identify as a child avatar or not and all it does is makes sure adult regions are properly restricted and remain restricted because some child avatars don't want to make an adult form to go onto adult regions anyway. Please reread this and emphasize the word optional!
Madi Melodious
Elliot Evergarden To which it wouldn't be to long before people were pushing to make this a "option," mandatory.
Again, in accordance with what was stated in both meetings, the specifications for what is a child avatar are being intentionally left vague. Adding this would negate that even if it was as an optional option.
As I have stated in a time when there is much mixed emotion caused by the new TOS requirements, it is not a good idea to introduce new anxiety with this request.
Adult regions are clearly marked on the map and can be sorted out from within the viewer. I have adult regions blocked on my account. I cannot go to them unless I make specific effort to go there. That negates the need for this option.
Coffee Pancake
Elliot Evergarden You can prevent yourself from going to adult land already by changing the setting in your viewer.
This whole feature is a non-starter and creates engineering work that target a specific demographic.
Coffee Pancake
This is a really bad idea.
A child avatar is not an account status to be universally applied to all circumstances.
A child avatar is a collection of attachments and is entirely mutable. By design.
Elliot Evergarden
Coffee Pancake not sure why you feel this is a really bad idea. it would not be a permanent thing. it is a double safety. If you want to be a kid avatar, disable adult regions and keep it from being turned back on from the viewer on accident or due to a glitch. it is not a requirement it is just a safety feature. if you want to turn it off at any point you simply login to the website and turn it off. I came up with the idea to protect my family members who are child avies.
Coffee Pancake
Elliot Evergarden1 The problem with settings that can be toggled on and off, is they get flipped back and forth, forgotten and mistakes happen.
This is why the G,M, A selector in the viewer is causing issue.
* Child avatar needs to visit store on A land to get demo.
* Changes to an A appropiate avatar.
* Goes and fetches the demo.
* Forgets to put G,M,A back to G, M
* Accepts teleport without thinking .. is a child on A land and committing a ToS violation.
Putting an additional flip in avatar settings just increases the burden on remembering to change state.
* Person decides to be a Child avatar for a while, sets everything to G,M.
* Spends months as child avatar, things drift, they return to adult avatar.
* The forget about any of the settings because they haven't yet tried to enter A land and received no warning they can't.
* Roleplays an adult encounter on M land.
* Someone see's or remember they were a child, reports based on group membership, old pics about family, etc
* Child avatar ACCOUNT in adult situation.
Elliot Evergarden
Coffee Pancake the lindens can see everything. it's not that big of a deal. this again is a double safety feature which can be turned on or off and is completely optional. if you don't want to use it you don't have to. I am suggesting it to prevent accidental teleporting to adult sims to avoid the TOS violations for those who want to be a permanent child avatar on this avatar. most child avatars I know use a separate account to make an adult avatar so they don't have any conflict or confusions. I have always personally preferred this over an account that flip flops back and forth. for me it eliminates all confusion "this acct is a child" this acct is an adult.
Silverdown Seetan
Maybe if the toggle on the web account had. Human, human child avatar and scripted agent. Then defaulted would be human. The human child avatar one can just alert a popup say. You entering a adult region do you wish to proceed. Then one can change avatars without needing to retoggle it each time. Like that no one can say you not warned not warned of the adult region status. For me the g, m and a client setiing has been good enough, unless the client crashes then it loads whatever setting you had on last successful log out on both sl and firestorm viewers.
Or maybe just a setting that says alert when attempting to go to adult regions and then ask if they wish to proceed with teleport and being optional no one is forced to use it.
Elliot Evergarden
Silverdown Seetan having a. Popup is a reasonable compromise that could work well.
Silverdown Seetan
I have actually been banned more for my profile then the actual avatar , i have non-child like avatars (which i go as a monkey or a little alien avatar) and i get banned from places anyhow for the profile, At this point i just settled to believe the rule was to spice up the drama in-world.
Arangar Resident
LL have already said you can change avatars to go on adult land, so this would be useless in most situations at best, potentially abusive at worse.
Elliot Evergarden
Arangar Resident my idea is not meant to stop anybody from shape shifting if that's what they want to do. this idea is for those who wish to be a child avatar and have no intention of shape shifting. this would be a safety feature to prevent accidental teleportation to adult regions, they don't want to be there and they are no longer allowed there. the feature can be turned on and off from the website so there's nothing abusive about it.
Arangar Resident
Elliot Evergarden Then what you are looking for is a "Prevent teleports to Adult sims" option in the viewer which is something the group who programs your viewer can do, what you're saying you want is an option that will flag someone as a child avatar and draw attention to the people who use it for abuse.
Elliot Evergarden
Arangar Resident nobody will know it is enabled. all it will do is fully disable adult region teleports since they're now not allowed. it's not to draw attention to anybody for any reason. it is a private option only.
rsd58 Foxpaws
i agree with this - its would be good idea because people with child avatars can accidently go to adult sims so this would prevent them and make common sense
Spidey Linden
needs info
Elliot Evergarden
Spidey Linden i answered quartz mole's question thanks :)
Q
Quartz Mole
How does this differ from the existing "I want to access content rated" drop-down on Preferences>General?
Woolfyy Resident
Quartz Mole to my point of view it should be a simple checkbox named "Child avatar" or so, knowing that new rules apply to "child avatar" for example with no pornography or explicit sexual stuff.
Words have a meaning and need to be explicit, in spite of turning around the pot, if you want everybody to clearly understand what it means.
Elliot Evergarden
Hello Quartz Mole,
Thank you for your response. This feature would differ as it not only unchecks the checkbox in the preferences but also prevents it from being rechecked within the viewer. This is to avoid accidental activation from the Second Life Preferences. To re-enable it, one must log in to the Secondlife.com website, disable "child avatar mode," and then the checkbox can be selected again.
Kathlen Onyx
Elliot Evergarden Terrible idea. It's already been suggested that if a child avatar wants to go shopping in a A rated sim or visit an A Rated sim then you should change into an adult avatar. This checkbox through only the website will be cumbersome if you are just TPing quick to a shopping sim. What will happen is they will get tired of having to log onto the website to check/uncheck their option that they will just leave it unchecked rendering the feature useless. The viewer already has the capability to restrict A rated content. Adding a child avatar checkbox is duplicating the feature and we'd still have to have the ratings option in the viewer for those that are not child avatars but just don't want to access adult content.
Elliot Evergarden
Kathlen Onyx some people don't want to flip from kid to adult on their kid avatar anyway. Everyone I know that wants to do that makes a separate account to be an adult on. The whole idea is optional. if you don't want to use it don't use it. That doesn't make the whole idea useless because there are still a some out there who want to use it.
Madi Melodious
Quartz Mole Just a reminder, this goes against what was specified at the two community meetings by Linden Lab management about keeping the specifications on child avatars vague.
I do not think it would be wise to go back on that statement by requiring new rules on top of already existing rules that have caused a schism in the current SL userbase.