Socially|Mundane

Until this year, Second Life had two basic areas of operation (AO - I know: LOL): They always were referred to as PG and Mature. Pretty broad categories with regard to things so subjective and wide-open to individual purview.

It was a simpler time, "mature" is where all the naughty things were allowed and "PG" is where the naughty things were not allowed - and often said to really mean "G-rated". Questions about exactly what was and what was not allowed were raised way back in 2006 during my first year and certainly much longer before that.

The word from the horse's mouth (direct from top decision-makers of Linden Lab, Robin Linden being one of them) was pretty clear. We weren't led, but rather made to believe that anything of a "PG-13" nature or more must be in "mature" areas, including any nudity where naughty body parts could be seen and even in the language used. Even epithets were not allowed. Everything else of a simple, clean nature was allowed in either regions, PG and Mature.

However, the caveat to this was that private areas, such as a home could have these "mature" things otherwise not allowed in public PG regions. This included running around streaking as long as you remain in your private space. Private meaning just that: private by invitation only and not a place where there is even an implication of invitation to the public at large.

The thread on the Second Life "Land" blog is growing daily. There's enough there to print-up a novel and it make an interesting read as long as you have an entire day to kill.

However, if you have subscribed to the topic and received the digests in email, it's relatively easy to keep-up with the discussion as it moves along (not so sure I want to say "moves foreword.)

The big debate started out with the issue of bot accounts: remote-controlled, inert avatars that serve no purpose otther than to boost traffic for the parcel they are "camping" on. Seriously, no other use, save "modeling" and "group control".

As for group control, only a single bot is needed unless you need to auto-manage more than 25 groups as each can manage that many. The premise is simple: using a bot, which is really just an alternate avatar account, some scripted objects and the like, the bot can manage groups.

Tateru Nino wrote a fascinating article about the 'true' assets of Linden Lab. I often am just this side of stunned at the fascinating subjects she chooses to cover and the agility and depth, yet pithy way she does so.

It's the kind of easy, interesting read on a subject...or rather an angle on a subject you simply haven't really considered. 'Tis why among all the blogs and news sources, even from Linden Lab themselves, Tateru is my favorite SLebrity reporter. Yes, Tateru. yes, you are.

I follow "industry" news in all the genres I am involved with in first life, which includes professional media; audio, photography, videography and cinematography as well as graphic design and publishing in print and digital forms.

So I was impressed with news that came out of the Google I/O conference this week - kind of a developers version of the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) for lack of a better description.