There has been much discussion on numerous forums as well as inworld concerning the upcoming Adult Content changes as well as the creation of Ursula continent.
Of primary concern to many in support of the changes is the "first impression" of Second Life given to newcomers on welcome island due to the pervasive nature of sexually explicit and/or adult content in that PG area. In addition, there is a widespread problem of mature & adult content being placed on PG land by individuals who sought out less expensive land for their clubs and/or businesses. Finally, there are those in SL who have refused to modify their behavior to suit the sim/parcel classifications. For example, there are those who come to a PG sim still dressed in sexually explicit and/or fetish gear without due regard to existing PG regulations.
The response to those concerns has been the proposed complete segregation of all Adult content to Ursula along with search filtering that could have unintended consequences. Among the potential problems would be the lack of sufficient landmass on Ursula to provide a home for all existing adult-content thus harming business who might be forced to close when they are unable to find or afford land on Ursula. Another is the unintentional filtering out of support groups, charities and/or educational endeavors which might use a word on the search filter list or which should not be forced to relocate to Ursula. An example being a rape victim's support group that might find itself both removed from search due to filtering and would be inappropriate on Ursula.
These changes are, however, felt by many in Second Life to be too draconian in nature. Unfortunately, much of the opposition has not offered an alternative to the content changes so as to address the original concerns underlying those changes.
This JIRA requests that the Adult Content changes as currently envisioned by replaced by an alternate solution to the problem as follows:
1 - Increase the size of the G-team through careful screening of applicants and create second-level of G-team supervisory panels to handle appeals through a system of due process based procedures.
2 - Use of the increased G-team and appeals boards to increase the enforcement of of existing PG and Mature content definition through both faster AR response times and pro-active searches for Mature and/or Adult content in PG sims.
3 - Maintenance of a permanent, paid G-Team member at all welcome centers to eject and/or ban griefers from those areas and thus enforce PG content only for new arrivals.
4 - Alteration of Ursula to a voluntary location for adult content that would only be accessible by account-verified avatars. This would allow businesses to determine whether they wish to have the additional protection of being only available to age-verified avatars and the additional protection from griefing that account-verification will undoubtedly provide and the possibility of an increase in business through foot-traffic created by being in closer proximity to other similar merchants.
5 - Segregation of all PG sims to a single PG continent. Not only will this allow for easier patrolling of content, but it will also eliminate the problem of being able to view mature or adult content in nearby mature sim while standing/sitting/flying in a PG sim. The interspersing of PG and Mature sims on the mainland is simply unworkable.
6 - Inclusion of greater client-side user content controls so that those who do not wish to view mature/adult content can use a client-side setting to automatically grey such content. This would be accomplished by creating a BUILD setting in which content creators/owners could set a particular object or texture as either PG, Mature or Adult. In that way, if a person with a client set to view only PG content comes upon a Prim using an Adult texture, the client would automatically determine the content rating and substitute a default texture for the offending texture or in the case of a collection of linked prims it could substitute a large prim in default texture/color that correlates with the greatest width, length & height parameters of the linked prim object.
7 - Alter search to create at least two different sets of keyword fields for all objects and/or parcels. Words from the current filter list would be banned from searches of the PG keywords list, but would be allowed in keywords searchs of the Mature list. Access to the mature keyword search would be controlled by the same PG/Mature/Adult filtering preferences on the client-side as mentioned in item 6. Requests to use keywords from the ban list within the PG section for thinks like sexual abuse victims support groups, educational courses, etc..., would be reviewed on a case-by-case basis by members of the expanded G-Team with the ability to appeal to the supervisory boards mentioned earlier.
Those suggestions would allow for segregation of adult from PG content; improve the first impression of Second Life at welcome areas; and allow for greater user control of what is seen in Second Life without creating undue burdens on existing members and without creating unnecessary restrictions on the enjoyment of Second Life by all.