The Teen Grid, while technically on the same ‘map’ as the Main Second Life Grid, was always partitioned off with a set of technologies that were difficult to maintain. Any time you made a change to the server code, you’d need to double check to make sure the Teen Grid was still, well, separate – an odd thing to understand, but there were all kinds of protocols built in to the server code to maintain separate access streams and accounts and inventories and whatever else.
When Linden Lab announced that it was ‘merging’ the Teen and Main Grid what it was actually doing was pushing out the separation of the two communities to estate-level controls. It would no longer have to check through the server code all the time to make sure that the kids didn’t have access to Main Grid content. Estate-level controls basically mean that you can ‘pin’ a user to an estate (the Teen sims) and not let them out.
Through this, you can set up a separate registration system for schools and kids and at the end of that process they end up with an account that’s “pinned”.
But with the announcement it’s clear that there will also be some viewer-side functionality as well. Because the Lab will also prevent the teen accounts from accessing the Second Life Marketplace:
The 13- to 15-year-old students affiliated with these organizations will be unable to visit any regions except those of their hosting organization, and those accounts will not have the ability to search the Grid or to purchase items from the Marketplace. Unlike on Teen Second Life, adults that work with these students will now be a part of the broader Second Life experience, allowing them to bring rich educational content to their students. The ability to invite organization-approved guest speakers and other approved members of the community to safely interact these students will further enhance their learning experience. For more details, see the Teen Second Life transition wiki page.
What’s left unstated is that I assume this means that the 13-15 year olds also won’t be able to sell anything. Which strikes me as, well, stupid.
First, the idea here seems to be that the Teen Grid will be for organizations only. Kids will need sponsoring organizations, although I suppose, um, Disney could come in and sponsor some sims LOL.
It would be amazing if the sponsoring organizations went beyond schools. There are all kinds of organizations that could set up on the Teen Grid.
Judging by the uproar in the education community, most of the schools are decamping for OpenSim, or playing a giant game of chicken with Linden Lab on things like pricing and back-up.
But let’s assume for a second that there will be SOMEONE over there on the Teen Grid, remembering as well that U.S. schools aren’t the only ones whose voice should be heard but who, for some reason, are the most vocal.
Why these kids will be excluded from the ability to make and sell stuff is beyond me, unless I’m misreading things – maybe they’ll be able to sell but not buy? Why was this decision made? Why can’t they be excluded from buying things that are adult-rated or something? Is it an issue of them not being able to purchase Lindens or something?
I mean, there’s lots of stuff that you can learn in a virtual world. Identity, history, theater, art…I can think of a hundred subjects, and among them are the lessons you could learn by entering an open market with virtual goods.
Shouldn’t the kids be able to prim out some cool race cars or whatever and take their crack at selling them? Or will this just mean they end up creating alts for the Main Grid so they can take a crack at earning a few bucks?
I’m going to guess that LL just hasn’t figured out how to implement this with all the right protections and legal stuff. Presumably they WANT those teens buying and selling stuff to stimulate the economy.
Adding thousands of new users to the MG and not giving them away to participate in the economy just makes no business sense.
Entrepreneurship, charitable giving, fundraising drives, tip jars, etc are a big part of both grids, and should be maintained for the teens IMO.
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Dusan Writer and betterverse, Russell Holt. Russell Holt said: Dusan Writer’s Metaverse » Please Give the Kids Commerce: Second Life and the Teen Grid: http://bit.ly/dAFlhq [...]
I’m not sure how the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) might apply in this situation, but I know that the feds (namely, the FTC) have been discussing expanding online protections for children in general.
Could it be that LL’s restrictions on selling are responsive to some element of COPPA, specifically that children would be required to divulge identifying information in order to market their products?
As far as I know, the same basic separation tech still applies (for the 13-15 teens) – with a minimum of tweaks to allow the monitoring and management of the teens is being handed off to sponsor organisations. AFAIK, essentially, the code and functionality is *almost* unaltered.
I don’t see how COPPA can be spun around to prevent a teen from selling something himself. Haven’t they ever heard of lemonade stands?! Of course teens should have access to the Marketplace, just not the adult content parts of it.
What a weird world we live in. I used to work when I was 14 and nobody would arrest me for that, lol — no, I was not being “oppressed”, I was just exercising my right to participate in the economy and get some extra cash to buy shiny things without begging my parents for money
Anyway, times change, and I suppose that kids have to be super-protected from predators and other unruly elements that have popped up in the 21st century but for some reason have been able to avoid bad press in earlier centuries…
What all that has to do with limiting the teens’ ability to buy and sell content in SL completely baffles me! What are they worried about, that Adult content gets sold flagged as General and that kids get over-excited about seeing things they shouldn’t?…
Oh well. I think I’m too old. And that means I’m less conservative
Honestly, Dusan, what do you want to teach the kids by letting them buy and sell stuff in SL? That Linden Lab collects about estimated 120 Million dollars a year in fees and tiers – for almost no return? While the ones contributing content, which they are depraved ownership of, can be happy to cover the expenses, not to mention the time they work on stuff? That the consumer cannot use stuff elsewhere but only in SL, even when allowed by the creator? SL is not an “economy”, it´s a giant rip off, a ponzo scheme run by Linden Lab Inc. looking like an economy at best. Okay, if someone STILL wants to participate, by being fully aware of this, cause Sl is the only robber game in twon, it´s a respectable desision. Luckily Edu will move to elswhere, where the environment is much more commerce friendly in the RL sense than in SL. So there is a chance that kids will REALLY learn about COMMERCE and CREATIVITY and not about how to rip off and get ripped off.
A virtual world is actually full with good lessons. It can give the teens a clever life if they can control.