I'm a bit irritated by this. One of the remarks the Gwyneth Llewelyn makes seems pertinent to me. Are we really heading for a system that is so sanitized and protected that no-one takes the responsibility to consider HOW their profile or general appearance will be regarded by others?

It seems a "no-brainer" that profiles should be rated as many other aspects of SL are and as a consequence a person's decision/ability to access such ratings can be set via their account. That, surely would solve such issues.

By and large we are responsible adults, or we are supposed to be here.

I for one have never understood why it is that violence and gore should be considered suitable for a child yet sex is taboo. In my opinion both should be.

We have surely outgrown such taboos? Personally I find the bloody violence of most online gaming content to be utterly foul, but maybe my preferences are skewed?

I'm all for this, because people will always be people and those who come here for adult things, will always want to try and put adult/sexual material in their profile. This will allow them protection from unnecessary troubles that could have been avoided if said people/person(s) did not look at their profile or searched for the profile, in order to report anything they don't approve of.

This means less people having less power over someone else, and i like people having less power over others, because giving someone too much power means they can misuse it.

Is it tedious? Yes to some people, is it protection? Yes to several people.

With this, you can have your info censored to those who don't want to see it and have protection for yourself, so that way you won't offend people and get your account on hold, or banned, because you decided you wanted to visit a sim you don't go on. Rather it be a shopping sim, or a temporary sim, because friends.

People can be on the fence about this, but this will be less restrictive in a world that has too many restrictions and keep people happy.

So, here's the thing.. You can advertise your stuff, talk about rates and what not all while being G rated. You do not have to go into detail, have NSFW pictures and language on your profile to still talk about Adult things.

There is no need for adult pictures and language on your profile. YOu can say you are an escort, post your rates and even have links to your BDSM test, F- list and what not and still have a G profile.

As someone who is predominantly but not always in the "Adult" sims (when I shop I pop into Moderate and General areas depending on where the stores are located) I do agree that profiles are one of those areas where it's easy to break TOS just by showing up... if your entire profile isn't sanitized.

I would suggest these things:

1) Add a secondary text field (with a selectable rating, M or A) for the "adult" portion of the main profile. If a person wants to include R or X rated profile information, they can put it here. The primary field would be PG, as would the profile picture, if you break that rule, LL gives you a time-out.

2) Add a flag for each pick, classified ad, and the RL section - 0 = PG - 1 = Moderate, 2 = Adult. Default to the content setting on the account, but if someone with an Adult account rating puts in a PG pick about a store, that should be allowed as long as the content matches the rating.

3) Based on the flags above, if someone's account is only set to see General content, they only see the PG sections. If they bump their account up to Moderate, allowing access to Moderate sims, they can see Moderate content in profiles also. If they set their account to Adult, allowing access to all sims, they also can see all content on a profile regardless of rating.

This is a two-tiered approach. One, it requires a Resident to be aware of what they put into their profile, and where it should 'fit' in regards to SL's ratings. And two, it also requires the profile viewer to make a conscious choice to allow content other than General (opt-in), so that no one is 'surprised' that they see lewd things in a profile.

This also means, if someone complains about a profile, their own settings come into play - if their account is set to see Adult content in SL, then complaining about seeing Adult content anywhere other than the primary profile/picture is a moot point.

(LL should follow the laws and guidelines of their home state as to what constitutes a PG, R, or X rating. If someone in a more restrictive location opts to see more than their community or government allows? that's on them.)

I feel like adult rated profiles should get big warnings that popup for those who don't want to see adult language and pictures and who want to experience secondlife without all the adult content and nsfw stuff. Maybe for those who have settings set so that they don't want to see and experience adult sims and content and such.

I don't really look at peoples profiles much due to some I've seen before looking downright disgusting and disturbing. Though to be fair if I look at someone's profile and they have vulgar language and disgusting images in their pick images and profile... then that is my own fault for being nosy in the first place and looking. That being said though I've met some great people that have bad things written in their profiles but they turn out to be awesome people anyway. So yes I think it is down to us whether we want to be nosy and profile check.

After reading some more comments, I sort of changed my mind 😄

When I first read this proposal, I voted it up, because it made total sense for . I have RL customers from the academic world, some of which may have younger students, and the last thing they want is to listen to angry parents about the scandalous places where they're sending their minors to learn about university things.

Therefore, the idea that all profiles are supposed to be strictly PG sounds good to me.

But the reality is different: a considerable percentage of SL residents to engage in so-called "adult" activiity, because, well, let's be honest, there is nowhere else to go for that these days. Everything must be Barbie-rosey pink (well, except for guns and violence, those are always acceptable everywhere) and people have to reproduce either by mitosis or by sending for a stork out of Paris to carry them freshly-minted babies.

That said, as the Last Refuge of the World's Adult Population, SL has a special status. It is simply too naïve to assume that "everything is PG" — because it isn't. There is apparel on the SL Marketplace — accessible by anyone, even without being logged in — which would get women burned on stakes by the Taliban as an example to what happens to society, but even get them arrested in most right-wing totalitarian regimes, and a few left-wing ones (aye, China, I'm thinking about ). It's the kind of clothing that you wouldn't dream of to attend your grandmother's birthday — even if she is an enthusiastic, progressive, feminist activist and had burned bras in the 1960s. However, it is considered "General", for the purposes of SL, because, well, it covers the nipples and the unmentionables. It covers little else besides that, mind you, and you have to wear panties when dancing on a "General" region or risk getting flagged as breaking the rules by merely slightly parting your legs.

Anyway...

On a recent town hall meeting which I attended (were there more?), after half an hour or so of questions regarding ageplay, I asked a serious question on chat: "Am I the only person in SL who isn't into sex? Can't we move on with the pertinent issues?". There was just person who commented — and she laughed, she didn't say "me too". As you can imagine, the 4-region event was packed full with the audience, so, aye, I have to assume that the actual ratio in SL of people interested in sex versus others that are not is 400:1.

(I know, parochial statistics are not a serious scientific claim; the truth is that the rest of the town hall meeting proceeded to discuss sex-related topics instead of focusing on edge cases with ageplay)

That said, it's that a very substantial, if not the overwhelming majority, of SL residents to have a way to express themselves freely in their avatars' profiles — and in a way that is Not Safe Work Work Nor To Your Progressive ACtivist Grandmother. It's plain silly to disregard the reality and pretend it is otherwise — it isn't. And so people twist and bend the rules as much as they can, in order to limit the number of times they get flagged. It helps if you're a non-English speaker and all your picks, while being of sexually VERY explicit places, have been modestly covered with a blank texture. Or, well, if you provide a link that points you to an "adult" profile, somewhere on the Web. All that is irrelevant. All that is just trying to bend the rules as far as possible, while still being able to "pass" one's profile as not-so-adult-y while still being very much so.

Instead, it would be more than easy to have two separate profiles, or one profile with two or three sections, some of which could be hidden from the G or M public. That would be the "best" choice, since it is the one conveying the most possible content to others while keeping strictly to the rules.

It is also possibly the one that would take LL the biggest effort, of course. The second option would be to flag the profile G, M, A, and let the usual maturity rating preferences handle what gets displayed, and what doesn't. The problem with this approach is that it is an all-or-nothing affair. For those who lead a life, which includes a fair amount adult content but not necessarily at times, having an adult-only profile which wll show as a blank for social, non-sexual interactions... is a problem.

Therefore, I personally think that voluntarily self-flagging the maturity rating of one's profile is not the best choice — precisely because it doesn't leave much of a choice, does it? It will only please those who are strictly G, strictly M, or strictly A, without any intention of moving across the axis — which is only fine for a small slice of the population (especially on the "strictly G" spectrum!).

It also makes for some awkward choices. Suppose that, for some reason, someone wants to promote a certain apparel brand. It might be due to their personal preference, their close acquaintance or friend (which they want to promote), or, well, any other reason (including get paid to promote the brand). Now, for safety reasons, the apparel brand is unsure on how "adult" their content is supposed to be flagged. Let's imagine that it consists of a lot of sexy lingerie and revealing bikinis — all of which perfectly acceptable in real life in the appropriate setting. But in SL, these would, at best, be rated "moderate". And in some cases, in some mentalities or cultures or even whole countries, those clothes would be labeled as "perverse" and against (local) law. So what does the brand owner do? Simple — it flags the region where their store is as Adult. That way, nobody can complain. It's irrelevant if of the store is, indeed, selling perfectly PG outfits. It might even specialise in, say, casual business clothing — you can't get more boring and PG than that :) Nevertheless, there is this gray area, where the lingerie is, and where the beachwear is on full display. What to do? The brand owner decides that the number of PG-only people in SL, including minors, is not worth risking to have the region unflagged as "Adult". That's essentially just a label: beware, among all the harmless, safe-for-work clothing, which would be approved even by the most strict and backwards-thinking Ayatollahs, there be something that hurts your eyes. Tough luck — you've been warned, you're in an Adult region, so there is nothing you can do.

The problem is that the SLURL for that store would be deemed to be Adult — even if the location itself only shows the logo and the brand name, and might even announce "a vast selection of the most carefully crafted business casual attire" and give a few examples to show how PG these are.

But the link to the store isn't.

As a consequence, there would be one of two alternatives: either you cannot add the link to your "G" profile, or, when doing so, it flips from "G" to "A". There is no further option. It also means you have to tell your friend that you're very sorry but you can't promote their shop with a Pick, because you don't want to have an Adult-only profile, which, in turn, means that it will appear blank to many (and the link wouldn't be shown anyway).

Clearly, such a situation is to be avoided.

As such, I now consider that this proposal is "a" first step towards dealing with the issue, but not "the" step that we need. What need is to have the ability to have parts of our profile visible to some, but not all residents. Or, alteranively, have full profiles for each of the maturity ratings. Otherwise, it won't work.

Unless, of course, someone else persuades me otherwise with a very strong and compelling argument! 🤣

I'm a little on the fence for this request.

While, I too have been the victim of "oh my eyes! Why would someone put that in their profile" syndrome. I'm not sure adding a new complexity to something is needed when it is already addressed by the current rules. That being all profiles should be PG in nature.

I wonder that by "tracked" they might mean "the post-it is already on the wall and no one will read anything else here", but here it goes: profiles don't need to be like sims or movie ratings. You could have 2 slots to write about yourself (like that "1st life" tab not a single soul ever read) and make one PG, one R-rated. People that chose just PG (and people without payment info on file) will only be able to see the PG one.

This way you can have your profile for your G adventures and at the same time type down your risque side, which will only be visible for likeminded individuals.

Can even add a plot twist: people on G sims are blocked from viewing the other tab, regardless of their choices. No back channeling.

Sounds good!!!