I am one of those recently invited and I red yesterday on the Atlas Listing Guidelines page at:
https://help.sansar.com/hc/en-us/articles/115001835703-Atlas-Listing-Guidelines
the following rule:
"Experiences containing adult content are strictly prohibited."
and on the Item Listing Guidelines page:
"Selling adult content in the Sansar store is strictly prohibited."
This means that Sansar is completely NON ADULT! In spite of several and repeated statements made over the last 2 years by LL's CEO Ebbe Altberg, in interviews and meetings, according to which there will be no limitations on this topic in Sansar, others than those of SL (basically no "child porn", which is of course understandable).
Now, as you can imagine, as someone who makes a living in SL since 10 years selling exactly adult related items, I was completely shocked! I asked for confirmation on the HELP page and this rule was confirmed!
So... no sex in Sansar? When more than half of SL's economy is generated by the adult industry? Are you sure this choice is right?
Now... even if I didn't expect this (coz I unfortunately tend to believe public statements made by CEOs), I am however very well aware of a few more or less "alternative" facts :) which may have led to this decision, like for instance :
- Sansar is, in its concept, basically directed to a different kind of users than SL (which is in fact also a pity but .. that's the way it was conceived)
- The expected users of Sansar are supposed to be, apart from a few Maya Gurus, mainly what I usually call "kids".. young people who jump for all that's "new", game nerds and alike
- This whole VR craze MAY really become as big as expected, even if I personally think it will be just a trend like many other trends, which will last a few years till another trend comes. Coz that's how it works for "kids". And that's how "kids" work. But OK, it's maybe worth a try..
- For reasons which I fail to understand, the present young generation is somehow very "shy" in matters of sex. I can't understand this coz when i was so young.. but ok forget it.. those were the hippie times :) Today it is just the way it is. This also explains why SL got a quite bad image among many of today's "kids" due to it's adult related experiences. And this may also explain to some degree LL's decission on this topic for Sansar.
These (and other aspects) being said or thought, and since I have no hope that LL will change their decission on this matter in Sansar, I would allow myself to make a "compromising" suggestion:
Let Sansar be non adult OK but ... make ONE MORE like it, based on the same technology, same engine and such, call it Zindra if you wish :) and make that one ADULT ONLY! And do not connect these 2 products in any way in order to not scare the "kids" again. One is one and the other is the other. Simple and i would say.. efficient.
This is a logical and broadly used solution when a compromise can not be reached due to extremely different opinions. If you can't compromise then SEPARATE!
Thats what they did on the beaches in Germany for instance after the reunification. The east germans were not religious at all and their beaches were mainly nudist beaches, the west people were more catholic and couldn't see naked people around them. And there was no way to compromise. So what to do? Simple: put (yet another) wall between the beaches :) And that may sound a little .. "Trumpy" but.. IT WORKS :)
So please LL, do think about it. After all you invested a lot in Sansar and with only a maximum of a few 100K's of "game nerds" in, plus maybe a few corporations and organizations, it it's hard to imagine that you will get that money back or even .. make a profit. Coz the people of my generation, those older than 40, when they will hear that Sansar is NON ADULT, they won't even look at it! You will lose a lot of SL users that love SL mainly because of its "adult" part. Just think about it please.. "kids" are not all that matters and .. sex sells :)
Mony Lindman
PS: I am also aware that most of the present users in Sansar are most probably aged so that I could call them "kids". My comments above are by no means directed against you, and not meant to offend you in any way! They are only meant to remind LL that.. well.. adults are also around and they can also spend some money on themselves not only on their kids, as the advertising industry assumes since the 80' :)
Date
Votes
29 comments
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Teager I think the statements from LL for quite a while now have been very clearly geared towards Sansar not allowing adult content in the beginning, but potentially allowing it one day.
Starting out without adult content seems like a solid idea to me. We want to avoid getting Sansar the same bad reputation Second Life has, so we can open the doors to more visitors with more varied interests!
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OldProGamer well, speaking on like public launch day... an opinion coming from someone that not care if adult is supported either way... I dont think this software could stop adult content from being created, but I would imagine the general public atlas would frown upon it and taboo it... Perhaps there would be a separate atlas that one would have to dive into with some additional terms and whatnot that need to be followed. pretty sure its the last thing on their minds right now... This software is balls deep in creation limitation... and its in its infancy at that... peoples imaginations are going to explode in this thing.. might develop new medical syndromes and stuff hehehe
a pandora's box has been opened.
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Lillani Adult content will, eventually, be allowed when the proper gate keeping is established for it, this was answered at an Office Hours meeting because I asked.
In beta (which Sansar will continue to be in for quite some time), while in development; there's no point or need to have adult content in Sansar this early; it would poison the well too early and give it the same sort of sulllied reputation that Second Life has for its adult content. Sansar don't need that out of the gate.
Also, adult content is not half of SL sales; the biggest markets in SL are hair, clothes, and mesh bodies.... adult sales are far behind those three titans of industry.
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Mony Lindman To Teager:
I understand and I did not expect LL to change this choice once they made it but why not make one more Sansar with the same resources but another name and with ONLY adult content? So they could have 2 filled beaches instead of 1 half empty ..Mony -
Mony Lindman I'm sorry if my comments appear here late but for some reasons each of them is kept several hours with the mention "Pending aproval". For my first post that took 2 days. And my comment to Lillani which i just posted has the same status as I write this.
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Mony Lindman Looks like shorter comments are posted without having to wait for aproval and longer ones must wait. I will try now to re post my comment to Lillani in shorter parts and see if it goes through this way. Because otherways, since it's weekend, it may have to wait till monday to be aproved..
If THIS comment appears i will make it so.
Mony
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Mony Lindman To Lillani(2):And once Sansar gets such an "image" it will be very difficult to change it, after years (as it is now for instance difficult to change the "perv" image of SL among kids), so this part of the adult SL users will be basically lost. And if some other competitors will open meanwhile similar worlds WITH adult content then these adult interested users (and they ARE many!) will be lost for ever..So I continue to believe that serving the interests of BOTH parts of SL users from the beginning on, in 2 different Sansars, not related and not connected to each other, would be the best choice at least from a commercial point of view. Ignoring the adult industry for several years or even for ever is not something that will help generate a strong ECONOMY in Sansar. -
Teager If I had to guess, I would say that the reason they will not split the grid is because adult content is not off the shelf right now for Sansar, but to implement the necessary moderation and age limit checks is not high on the to do list right now, with so much necessary development left to be done before this can be considered a functioning, user friendly platform. If this grid will one day allow adult content, then to divide it would only hurt it. More users in one place makes for a more successful social grid.
Also, as Lillani said, it's just not necessary to allow adult content during this testing phase. We're all just creators here to do our jobs.
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Mony Lindman To Lillani(1b):
The problem with adding adult content at a later time, probably after years, is that the present SL users interested in this part of SL will just not go into Sansar at all if adult is not allowed. They will be very unpleasantly surprised when they hear it and I can bet that they will consider Sansar as a "place for kids and game nerds" which is of no interest to them.
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Mony Lindman I'm sorry this will be a mess but there's nothing i can do about it, some messages are posted imediatelly some others are marked as pending..If i was sure this is a technical matter i would report it. But .. i'm not sure :)
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Mony Lindman Teager wrote:"If this grid will one day allow adult content, then to divide it would only hurt it."
Yes it would but they can merge the 2 grids at THAT time as they did when the teen grid was merged with SL. And of course I'm generally not speaking about this testing stage but about the time when Sansar will be open for all and all SL users will be invited. At THAT time they will lose half of SL users if there is no adult choice!
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November Perhaps the forum has an automatic word filter and posts containing certain words get queued for approval? You could test by trying to post the same post with one 'suspicious' word spelt out and one with the same text just that word ***red. ;)
added:
:) This post got sent to approval. Maybe it´s also writing more than x posts while being a forum newbie or something?...
Maybe the someone who does the approving can enlighten us. :)
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Lillani There's really no solid argument for allowing adult content at such an early age in the project; especially when it's not even out of beta... and I imagine, will not be, for some time. And I say this as one of the biggest proponents of adult content; I mean, I did make a living from adult content for several years in SL. :)
And while, as they said, adult content will be allowed eventually; Sansar doesn't need it to start growing. It's one of the few VR platforms with actual promise and a team behind that is already experienced in creating a successful virtual world. Sansar's VR will be a draw to those with VR... because there's a massive thirst/glut in the market for VR platforms. And currently, none really exist that are viable. Sansar is arriving right at the start of the golden age of VR, and Sansar is aimed directly toward VR users, first and foremost.
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Antonio Fontes LoL Mony... Sansar its still a Baby... Adult content would be like ageplay in such early stage!
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OldProGamer Just look around and use a bit of imagination, you could not have a system like this with open adult content, you'd be put in jail for what will eventually could be developed here if it was on the public altas. Just imagine a hustler magazin in the middle of a comic book site. And that's just a magazine of pictures. It aint gonna happen like that.
You can't have people wandering around walking into real lifelike scenes with whatever ridiculous S&M crap you could come up with. You'd be sued off the planet
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Mony Lindman OldProGamer I did not say that adult should be in Sansar ! I said exactly the opposite. To make 2 SEPARATE places, this one and another one with ONLY adult content.This was in fact the "idea" mentioned in the title of my post..
As for being "sued off the planet" , maybe if we were on Planet Mid West. But we are not :)
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Lillani Splitting hairs is an incredibly bad idea, and it still would be "Sansar".
Let adult content come when Sansar is ready for it, not before. That's the stance LL is taking anyway, so it's almost pointless to even discuss it. :P
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Galen I see no value at all in making 2 Sansar "grids". That didn't work out well for Second Life and its Teen Grid.
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Galathir Darkstone Multiple grids is the only idea worse than no adult content at all (@Mony Lindman). As for being at risk for having adult content on their grid (@OldProGamer), that's what Maturity ratings are for. Easy peasy. I'll hold out hope that LL will allow for (properly-Gated) adult content in the long run. Truth is that if this is intended to be a game platform, they'll be cutting themselves off at the knees (or at least the ankles) to forbid ALL adult content. M+ games make up a growing portion of the market these days.
All that said, I tend to agree that it's way too early for that kind of content to even be discussed right now. Sansar, as we're seeing it right now, is nowhere near ready for public consumption.
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OldProGamer sansar isnt a grid, basically if you think about it, its a graphic / virtual reality WWW
Not only do the business owners have to worry about adult and its protection, the end users will be held much more accountable by governments with this as well...
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Galen I don't see the liability difference. Please explain.
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OldProGamer from which angle? age verification, producing, publishing, prostitution, lewd acts, child pornography, offended people, access to minors, regional issues, illegal content, extremism, copyright issues with pictures and videos replaying etc etc etc etc etc. Nothing i would want to dive into in this day and age with articles 2257, etc etc etc
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Galathir Darkstone "Grid" is just a term. Call it a platform if it makes you happier, OPG. I disagree that there is a significant difference in liability either way. As long as we have a way to provide an "Age-gate" to deny access to those are underage, then the liability falls back on the user who is accessing it "illegally." At least as much as it does anywhere else, including SL.
And Sansar is certainly NOT a VR WWW. Not even to the degree that SL is, and that has failed to fill that role as well. For starters, the WWW is decentralized and has no governing body that is "responsible" for it, which is completely different than Sansar, which LL is responsible for managing. It would be more accurate to describe Sansar (and SL) as akin to Web-Hosting, where LL's customers are using the 'rack space' to host their own sites. If LL decides to exclude all adult content, like some web hosts do, that is their decision. I just happen to think it is unwise as a long term strategy. Hopefully previous comments to the contrary will bear out, in time. As I said before, I can see the wisdom in avoiding it at this point... as Sansar doesn't need to carry that baggage out of the gate.
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Dorian Vandyke After Sansar has open for all, I just noticed today that the NON ADULT requirements are no longer there in the guidelines for experiences and for listing in the store!
Now I'm confused, so I asked for an official confirmation that adult content is now allowed. When I receive it I will let you know here.
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Galen I look forward to the answer. Thank you.
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Mony Lindman This was the answer:
Greetings Mony!
Thanks for reaching out to Sansar Support! I do apologize for the confusion. Adult content is not allowed in Experiences or the Sansar Marketplace. We are welcoming a wider range of age groups into Sansar. There may be changes in the future but as of now we are are not allowing adult content. Please feel free to reach out if you have anymore questions!
Thanks 😄
Brianna -
Mony Lindman And this was my answer to this answer:
"But this must be written in the listing and Atlas guidelines as it was before the opening, otherwise people will start uploading adult things and then you cant stop it anymore, you not only play games with us but you in fact play games with yourselves..
These lines were there last week now they are not more:"Experiences containing adult content are strictly prohibited."
and
"Selling adult content in the Sansar store is strictly prohibited."In the last few hours i could have uploaded statues showing intercorse and sell them in the shop .. and i wold not have broken any rule! Coz there is no rule anywhere on your site at this time that forbids adult material!Whoever removed those lines might be kowing something that you dont know .. and might have had the right to remove them. Such rules dont just dissapear without a reason! PLEASE CHECK and inform me if possibleMony" -
Mony Lindman ok this seens to be the final answer:
Hi Mony,
Thanks for getting back to me. I completely understand. We are still working to get all documentation posted and updated on the site. I have provided a link below that prohibits it but we are working to get the word out. I have escalated this feedback. Thanks for bringing this to our attention!
https://www.lindenlab.com/legal/content-guidelines#Thanks Again 😃
Brianna
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Moonrise Azalee This isn't just a 'different second life' ~ this is a different platform. We don't even have chairs we can sit in, our avatars cant sit on grass or even run. Even thinking about adult content at this point is redundant. Can't lay on a bed, no poseballs - this is a completely different platform. Can't just get adult scripted items brought in and tossed out for sale anyhow.
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