“Simply email us at membership@nrahq.org or dial 800-NRA-3888 and request to be placed on the “Do Not Promote” list. This will significantly reduce the amount of mail you receive without affecting important mailings, magazine service, or your membership renewal.”

They don’t make this information easy to find.

LL had no choice in the gambling ban. It’s servers and HQ are on US soil. Gambling in SL was breaking the law and MANY Attourney’s General were working on a case against them.
As international law in several countries is written, child sex (even only as role play between consenting adults) was breaking the law.
Violations of intellectual property must be investigated and pursued under US law, or the entire server system can be shut dow as a remedy. This can’t be done on a community level.
MANY businesses and universities, which are the core of Linden Labs income and product offerings, have no exception policies in place regarding tolerance for nudity, even virtual.

As to community governance, LL has not made move one to explore that further, and eve attempt any implementation of that. So the Linden dream was starry eyed optimism from the start. It is totally unworkable on any real life system.

Some form of the changes coming are unescapable. LL can’t continue as a business with it’s continued international reputation as a sex pit, and with the continued derision and fear of the business community because everyone “knows” that SL is only for sex crazed looses. WE know that that is totally false - but the international press does not.

But do not confuse this post with blind apology for LL and the way they have handled these issues in SL in the past. Zoning and age verification are onerous. Given the past history of implementation of such policy changes, there’s little room for blind optimism. But the only reason and “Adult” area would be a ghetto is if the users make it one. It surely will be if the sleazy builds and sloppy looking decor of most adult entertainment places in SL are just throw together in one area. Quality builds are not such a rarity among private Islands. But the story is different on the mainland. Honestly . . . what percentage of mainland “Adult” builds have you seen that truly hold much aesthetic appeal? My point is not to get into what is good or isn’t. It’s simply that I challenge the premise that such a move automatically means a ghetto.

There are many questions to be answered yet. How will the move work? If someone who has an Adult business has friends who do not choose to age verify - do they then have to have a separate house in a un-zoned area to see them? Does an Art Galley that features an SL display of GLBT art become Adult because it mixes sexuality and art while a display of Michelangelo Buonarroti’s “David” is ok in a Mature area because that’s in Art books?

At every single turn LL has acted ham handedly and clumsily in implementing large changes. They have been late and they have been erratic when they DO act. Their approval then banning of skins for child avatars is an example. Their inexcusable gambling policy implementation ruined many innocent players, costing them thousands of real life dollars.

So I suggest that you work with others in SL and form a consensus view on how these changes should be implemented. If we speak with the clear voice of consensus and reason, then perhaps, LL will listen and we can at last see a glimpse of the utopian dream of a few years ago.