Why the banning of Second Life by Twitch is nonsense

Tags

"second life", gaming, online, streaming, twitch, video

Twitch is a website that allows you to broadcast video of whatever game you’re playing and when a while back a few people decided to start streaming (thats what kids these days call it) Second Life, the company was shocked and horrified.

Because apparently there is nudity in Second Life.
Did you know that?
It’s news to me.

They banned Second Life because it violates their Terms of Service / Rules of conduct.
They also prohibit all versions of games rated Adults-Only according to the ESRB’s Rating Guide.

Now lets see how this applies to Second Life.
I think SL has not been rated by the ‘Entertainment Software Rating Board’, I can’t find it there yet.
Maybe if Linden Lab could get it classified and if they have competent staff there, we could get a sophisticated and sensible rating.

If ESRB would rate it adult, it, according to the ESRB website this would classify the game as;

ADULTS ONLY
Content suitable only for adults ages 18 and up. May include prolonged scenes of intense violence, graphic sexual content and/or gambling with real currency.

Maybe it is just me, but that is not my Second Life.
Except for a riot on Mayday, there is very rarely intense violence in 1920s Berlin and as I never visit the local brothel (the action happens on another sim) there is no graphic sexual content in 1920s Berlin (as long as you don’t spy on people in the privacy of their bedroom) and there’s no gambling to be seen, honest gov’nor, I never touched those dice.

These things are also not part of the sims I visit.
Sometimes someone’s clothes don’t rez, but Twitch writes;

Sexually explicit acts or content: Nudity can’t be a core focus or feature of the game in question and modded nudity is disallowed in its entirety. Occurrences in game are okay, so long as you do not make them a primary focus of your stream and only spend as much time as needed in the area to progress the game’s story.

Someone’s clothes not rezzing to me is a glitch, a lag related issue, not something someone does on purpose.
And outside our nudists corner at the beach in a neighbouring region, seeing nude people is rare.
Either way it is not the core or focus of the “game”.

You may mention griefing, sure that still happens in Second Life although generally it is rare, at least as part of my Second Life.
The sim I live in has capable managers who eject or even ban someone, often before they even get to the actual sim.
The last time I was seriously griefed by someone is years ago and the only reason I couldn’t do anything about it was because I had a duty towards my tenants to keep an eye on this person, otherwise simply muting him would have solved it.

I know that videos about griefing and adult entertainment in Second Life has flooded sites like youtube, but that simply does not represent SL as it is to many of its users.

In short, I could easily stream Second Life directly to the internet without there being a risk of nudity, kinky hanky panky, graphic violence, etc.

If I wanted to, I could make a SL video with all those naughty things in it, true.
And I wouldn’t mind Twitch not allowing that.
But I could make videos like that with a lot of other games Twitch does allow…

So not only does their ruling on Second Life not make any sense, it is hypocritical.

Just look at the games they do allow; Minecraft, Counter Strike, The Witcher, GTA 5, etc, etc.
These games CAN have nudity and sex in them, if the gamer wants to.
In GTA 5 it is even a pre-programmed part of it, you can hire a prostitute for a bit of action in your car and then violently murder her.
Which, apparently is fine.

To me some of these games are also a school example of containing “prolonged scenes of intense violence”.
Trust me I know.
I am the equivalent of a 42 year old soccer mum (even though I luckily don’t have kids and if I did I wouldn’t let them play soccer and by the way it is called FOOTBALL), one of the least likely people to be a hardcore gamer.
Yet I regularly play violent games, just the other day I was sniping Hitler in the face.

So, in short, they allow plenty of games that allow adult content in one way or another and banning Second Life for those rules, makes no sense.
They could and should ban individual users who stream such SL content or stuff like that from the games they do allow.

Do we care?
No not really, I never even heard of Twitch till very recently, I don’t really see the entertainment value of streaming game videos and there are other options out there.
Personally I prefer edited videos that show the interesting bits of games or virtual worlds, not just gameplay.

Nevertheless, Twitch is being hypocritical, and I’m allergic to that.
I’m also annoyed when the reputation of Second Life is being dragged trough the dirt again.
Sorry to disappoint everyone but there is no adult content, nudity, griefing or hardcore violence EVERYWHERE in Second Life.
I’ve only witnessed particle griefing once in the last couple of years and people from all over came to have a look.
But seek and ye shall find.

Just because it CAN be part of SL, doesn’t mean it ALWAYS IS part of SL.
And that is the same with some of the games they do allow.

The only thing that should matter is;

Can you easily stream SL onto the internet and avoid nudity, hanky panky and graphic violence?
Yes.
Can you easily stream SL onto the internet without breaking the Twitch rules?
Yes.
Ipso Facto; Twitch is talking nonsense.

Open door day in 1920s Berlin

The 1920s Berlin Project

As part of our 6th Anniversary celebrations we start 6 days of events with our annual Open Door day.

For 24 hours (ish) lots of tenants in our city open their doors to the public.

Visit today and for once you’ll be allowed to come explore the apartments and houses of our locals.

From luxurious villas to damp, moldy, stinky, dirty, tiny one room apartments in back streets, you can finally go inside them without a police officer coming to kick you out.

Just wander around our neighbourhood and keep an eye out for the big red ‘Open door house’ signs.

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Group limit in Second Life raised to 60… if you’re a premium member

Tags

"second life", groups, improvements

As of immediately Linden Lab has raised the group limit for Second Life members with a premium account from 42 to 60!

A gift that is actually useful and will be welcomed by most premium members and may even entice a few people to become one.

Linden Lab announced this today in this blogpost.

I am one of those ‘power users’ Linden Lab speaks of and I’m very happy with this improvement.

For 1920s Berlin alone we have over a dozen groups!

Of course, if Linden Lab followed my advice we wouldn’t need this many groups.
In a previous blog post I suggested adding more functionality to groups, adding subgroups, more roles, selective group messaging, etc.

And as far as I know, the official Linden Lab viewer still does not allow you to turn certain group chats or notifications off, some other viewers do.
So having 60 groups and using the official viewer may mean you’ll get flooded by group chats and spam, even more than before.

Nevertheless, this is a good step forward and I hope Linden Lab gives us more gifts like these that make it actually interesting and worth our while to be premium members.

The 1920s Berlin project celebrates its 6th anniversary!

The 1920s Berlin Project

On May the 30th 2009 I opened the door to a little very basic, noob build bar and let the public in for the first time.
The 1920s Berlin Project was born!
Only 3 months after joining Second Life, barely understanding how to glue prims together, I had started something that would soon grow into a vibrant active community of wonderful people.

And there is more to come…

But first we need to celebrate the 6th (!) anniversary of our little neighbourhood and we’re doing this by organizing 6 days of fun events and inviting everyone to come visit.

You can find 1920s Berlin by clicking this link: http://slurl.com/secondlife/1920s%20Berlin/236/232/751

We look forward to seeing lots of familiar but also new faces visiting us.

Prosit!

Jo Yardley
Schedule of events:

Friday, May 29

All day: Open Door Day

On this day everyone is welcome to visit our sim and take a…

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show #69: the young person’s guide to svvr 2015

the drax files radio hour

show #69

two days of goggle madness in san jose: the vrexpo on 40k square meters at the san jose convention center wrapped tuesday night.

drax & assistant were there for one day & got a good sense of the state of vr in 2015:

if you have the time, read on please:

– our new sponsor dutchie

dutchie’s stuff in sl is just awesome

– ben lang from roadtovr moderates an interesting panel on consumer vr:

– valve’s basestation for positional tracking = the lighthouse!

little drax interviews kite & lightning founder ikrima because he looks like his dad’s avatar

– fove eyetracking headset = great start on kickstarter

non sequitur = cybermind ad = the best pitch for exiting rl

– my fave: nonny’s company emblematic group makes a trayvon martin experience

nonny and partner at their booth

– xxarray captures you in 3d and puts you into a…

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Using virtual reality to rebuild the past, reconstructing the Zum Nussbaum restaurant.

Tags

"1920s berlin project", "second life", "Zum Nußbaum", "zum nussbaum", architecture, building, history, reconstruction, restaurant, The 1920s Berlin Project, virtual reality

—The Zum Nussbaum in 1903.

According to the media, I should be using Second Life for all sorts of wacky kinky pervy stuff, but I’ve found something a lot more exciting… time travel!

For the last 6 years I’ve been recreating a 1920s Berlin neighbourhood, in the progress gathering a wonderful community of people from all over the world who bring life into the narrow streets and small dark courtyards.

We’ll be celebrating the 6th anniversary of our sim at the end of this month and for almost all its existence we’ve managed the pay the tier, so I guess I’m not the only one who thinks Second Life has a little more to offer than what it’s reputation seems to suggest.

When I first started The 1920s Berlin Project, I realised the sim, just a tiny skybox back then, needed a hotel, a place to stay at.
I wasn’t sure anyone would want to actually rent a home and live there permanently (Oh how wrong I was), and a nice hotel where you can rent a little room to live for a few days would be more interesting.

The Zum Nussbaum building as it looked in 2010

After some research I found a nice looking building that wasn’t too big and an actual building in Berlin, with my very basic knowledge of how to build, basically walls with pictures and alpha texture windows, I recreated the first building for the sim that was based on a RL location.

Because of its age, the Zum Nussbaum has become a much loved little corner of our neighbourhood, people enjoy sitting there and chatting, having a meal and for many its tiny, dark, damp rooms were the first place they could call their own.

And although I rebuild it once or twice, it clearly was an older building.
As part of my massive “mesh Berlin campaign”, I’ve been meshing, and in many cases improving and rebuilding all the Berlin buildings from scratch.

Drawing by Heinrich Zille, 1922.

Most of the time meshing a building means that its land impact goes down but it actually looks better.
But sometimes I don’t care about the land impact and just want it to look great, even if that means the land impact goes up.
I especially feel that way when I am building something that is an actual RL building or that I just really really like.

The Zum Nussbaum (Or Zum Nußbaum) restaurant is one of those buildings.
Originally build in the 16th century, it was destroyed by bombs in 1943 and rebuild in the 1980s.
But that didn’t keep it from becoming one of Berlin’s few typical old fashioned bars.
Unfortunately for me that meant that most modern day photos of the building were pretty useless for reconstruction purpose as the modern rebuild version doesn’t look much like it looked in the 1920s.

So all I had to work on were old photos, pictures and paintings.
Together with the building next to it, I think I succeeded pretty well in making the building looked like the way it did before the bombs fell.
Someone alive back then would at leas  at least recognise it.

So, after 72 years people can once more head over to the Zum Nußbaum restaurant for a good cheap meal.

The Future of VR Is User-Created, Ebbe Altberg’s presentation at SVVR

Tags

ebbe altberg, svvr

Missed Ebbe’s presentation at SVVR (Silicon Valley Virtual Reality) Conference & Expo or just want to watch it again?

The video is now online, courtesy of Ruthalas Menovich.

Besides a sneak peak of an artist’s impression of ‘Project Sansar’ (the next generation Second Life made by Linden Lab), there wasn’t a lot of news or things to make us excited.
Still, worth a watch, especially if you, like me, enjoy Ebbe talking of one of his favourite sims…

First look at Project Sansar, the next virtual world Linden Lab is working on

Tags

"second life", ebbe altberg, sansar

During his speech at the SVVR (Silicon Valley Virtual Reality) Conference & Expo Ebbe talked a bit about Second Life, mentioning again some interesting (but not new to most of us) facts and figures, spoke of how The 1920s Berlin project was one of his favourite sims (hurrah!) and again had to tell everyone there that I am such a cry baby.

I never cry but when I explored my sim with the Oculus Rift for the first time and saw the Zeppelin fly over, something I’ve been dreaming about ever since I was a little girl, I did shed a little tear 😉

Most interesting to us was of course his talk of Project Sansar (working title), the next virtual world Linden lab is working on.
And Ebbe showed the first image related to Sansar.
Even though this was just a picture, not a screenshot or anything, it is still the first image we’ve seen, as far as I know.

I know Sansar is already running on some Lab’s screens but they haven’t shown us that yet.

So here it is, the first Sansar publicity picture;

show #68: minecraft in the classroom = better than sl?

New Drax Files Radio Hour episode with an interview with Hamlet Au regarding the Atlas Obscura article and a wonderful story about using Minecraft in schools, not to be missed!

the drax files radio hour

show #68

dear listeners, if you want to go straight to german high school teacher mirek hancl explaining how he uses minecraft to engage 6th to 12th graders, skip to 35:00 in the show.

for those who want to know everything about the recent drama regarding second life journalism – please listen straight from the top:

after your listening pleasure = read on for context as per usual?

– the atlas obscura article that started it all

atlas obscura on sl

– hamlet’s post in response & honour mcmillan’s rebuttal of the response

cica ghost’s balloons – art without deviant sex [by ziki quesit] – d/l unedited 30 min convo with hamlet [if you have the time & don’t trust us!]

– last week’s show also had to do with journalism…just saying…

– our musical guest slimmie

slimmie formerly slim warrior

– mirek hancl teaches minecraft [he appears in “virtualize it!” from…

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The positive SL article, Wagner Au’s story, the public response and the finale on The Drax Files Radio Hour

Tags

"second life", atlas obscura, decency, drax files radio, eric grundhauser, media, morals, new world notes, values, virtual reality, Wagner James Au

How is that title for click bait?

Recently a journalist who wanted to write about Second Life did the right thing, he asked for help.

As soon as reporter Eric Grundhauser realised how massive our virtual world was and how impossible it would be to write a proper article about it without exploring it for many days, he reached out to Linden Lab and asked for a guide.
Linden Lab pointed him in the direction of one of the best guides  imaginable, Ziki Questi.

She showed him some of SL’s most impressive sims (but forgetting the best one, mine ;)) and the result is a rather nice, positive article about Second Life.
One to counter all those negative stories with.
But he didn’t forget to mention the more adult side, luckily, unlike with most media, it was not the main focus of his story.

The story was published on a website called ‘Atlas Obscura‘, “the definitive guide to the world’s wondrous and curious places.”, as they describe themselves.
So not a tech website, not a blog about games or virtual reality, but more like a travel guide for those interested in the unusual.
It is very interesting that they choose to publish a story about a virtual destination, I like that a lot.

Make sure you read it, you can find it by clicking here.

But a few days later Wagner James Au on his website ‘New World Notes’, wrote an article about the Atlas Obscura article that was rather surprising to many.
He felt that the adult side of Second Life, ugly outdated sims and things such as lag, old graphics, etc. did not get enough attention and that the article thus “presents a distorted picture of Second Life that ultimately does a disservice to SL and its best creators, while doing nothing to help grow its userbase.”

You can read his entire article by clicking here, make sure you also read the comments below it.

Unsurprisingly many Second Life users were confused, annoyed and angry about his story.
Finally the media writes something positive about our virtual world and now this.

Honour McMillan wrote an interesting reply to Wagner’s story here on her blog and of course there was lots of talking about the subject on Twitter and plurk.

So Drax and I decided to invite Hamlet to our little attic studio in Berlin (AKA Skype) and interviewed him.
I think the result is rather interesting, an edited (for time) version will be part of the Drax Files Radio Hour to go online this Friday and we will also put the complete unedited interview online.

I personally think that just because sims are catagorised as adult, they don’t necessarily are ‘rated Adult for extreme sexual and violent content’.
Interestingly enough yesterday Linden Lab organised a ‘Inworld Linden meet up’ in the adult themed (stunningly wonderful) sim Basilique Town… where public nudity or even (wearing or walking around in?) underwear is not allowed!
And although the place has a few corners here and there where the rules are more relaxed and hanky panky probably goes on somewhere, these areas are for members only.
So their rating as adult may be legitimate, I definitely wouldn’t call it a sex sim, if it was, I wouldn’t even dare visit it, Lindens or no Lindens.

Then again, my rating system would be even worse, I’m such an old fashioned prude, I’d probably rate 99% of SL as perverted.
I mean some women walk around with skirts that don’t cover their knees!

I also think that a lot has to do with the words you use.
For instance Hamlet says Second Life is dying, I’d prefer to say it is declining or even better; evolving into the Next Generation virtual world that Linden Lab is working on now.

Anyway, I’ll leave the rest of my opinions to the interview we did with Wagner, a link to our podcast will be shared here on this blog, and on of course on the Draxfiles website as soon as the show is online.