History/Adult content

Help Portal:

This page compiles Adult Content info at-a-glance so you can easily see the history of what's happened and better understand what's to come.

During the first half of 2009, changes to the way adult content is handled were announced. The main goal of these changes is control over your experience: if you don't want to see adult content, you have that choice. If you do want to see it, provided you're age-verified, you can. The changes include:

Creating a new maturity rating of "Adult", in addition to the existing "PG" and "Mature",
Changing how the search function works
Requiring "verification" to access the adult land and search settings, and
Updating policy (Terms of Service, Community Standards, Knowledge Base articles, etc.) to go with these changes.

To make these changes required updates to the server software (version 1.26 and later) which hosts grid Regions, and the Viewer software (version 1.23 and later) which runs on your local computer.

Adult Content FAQ

For Frequently asked questions about this subject, please see the related Adult Content FAQ page.

Timetable

Initial Announcement - 12 Mar 2009
Release of 1.23 client software - 15 Jun 2009
New Adult mainland opens for visits - 15 Jun 2009
Move tickets for Adult Mainland accepted - 29 Jun 2009 10am Pacific Time to 24 July 2009 10am Pacific Time^[1]
Email notification to landowners - 26 Aug 2009
Auction of remaining Adult Mainland regions - Mid Sep 2009^[2]
End of policy transition period - September 2009 ^[3]

Changes to Region Ratings

Previously there were only two ratings for regions on the SL Main Grid: PG and Mature, and they were open to anyone to visit. Now there is a new category, Adult, which only "verified" accounts with the right settings activated can visit.

Once fully implemented, Adult Content is supposed to be stored either on Regions on the newly built Zindra mainland "continent" or on private Regions having the Adult Region rating. Estate owners can set their region ratings as they choose, and it is expected they will change or create adult rated regions according to the demand for it. As of 25 Aug 2009, 468 private regions were rated Adult, and Zindra plus Linden test areas were 290. Together they represent 2.62% of the 28,925 region total grid area.

Zindra Move

Kama City

Previously existing mainland regions will not have their maturity rating changed. Therefore mainland landowners with adult content will need to either move to the new Zindra continent, which is all adult rated regions, or to Private regions which are rated adult.

Existing venues which were significantly impacted by these adult changes were given a chance to move to Zindra via a SL Knowledge Base: Support Ticket, submitted from 29 Jun 2009 until 24 July 2009. Approximately 850 move tickets were submitted. The remaining land on Zindra is expected to be auctioned to Residents in the near future. For those who need to migrate to Zindra this link may be helpful:

Guide to moving builds from one Region to another

Maps of Zindra as it has developed can be found on that wiki page. The most current map can be found on the SLurl Map page. The initial map of Zindra contained 157 regions. Due to high demand, this was significantly increased during 3-10 July 2009. At least 531 regions have been named, so Zindra could grow that large if there is enough demand for it.

Changes to Search

Starting with version 1.23, there are check boxes in most tabs in search for PG, Mature, and Adult. This determines what kind of regions your results will come from, and what words may be filtered out of your query. You can choose the checkboxes in different combinations (they are not exclusive), and use different settings on each tab. If you are not "verified", the adult checkbox will not be available (greyed out).

If you do not have the adult checkbox active, certain input words to search will be "filtered". That means they are ignored as if you did not type them, and you get a message about it in the results window. There are a few words which are filtered no matter what setting you use. These refer to banned activities such as ageplay and gambling. An additional 60 or so english words are filtered if you do not have the Adult box active, mostly referring to sexual activities.

Verification and Preferences

To use the adult settings, you will need to "verify" your account. This is done in one of three ways: (1) Use the age verification page on the SL website, (2) Provide payment information on the SL website, or (3) Provide payment information on the XStreetSL site (which is owned by Linden Lab).

Verification links:

Once you have account verified by one of these methods, you are supposed to get access to the adult settings. You will need to go into Edit menu > Preferences > General Tab > Rating and choose "PG, Mature, and Adult" from the dropdown list. If you have a lower setting, then search and region entry or teleport will be restricted to PG only, or PG and Mature only.

Documentation and Software Downloads

Numerous changes have been made to Linden documents and software to incorporate the adult content changes. This includes the Community Standards, Knowledge Base, and Wiki.