Website Load is a Balancing Act Now
Wednesday, December 20th, 2006 at 6:35 PM by: Jeff LindenWhen I started doing operational work, we only had 2 webservers, and that was more than plenty. They had been fairly well configured, performance-wise; most of the time, they just sat idle, actually.
The media attention, the growth, and new web development features since then have made us throw up a third, and then quickly another two, and so on. Meanwhile, webserver performance/reliability went from a non-issue, to occasional mention, to minor annoyance, into regular headaches.
We’ve taken several angles of attack to try to improve this. The latest in our arsenal is the installation of a load balancer.
(Many of you will already know what it does, but for the ones who don’t, it essentially sits in front of our webservers, taking your web page requests and contracting them out to the webservers indirectly. While this indirectness may seem like it makes things slower, this proxy actually solves many performance headaches.)
To facilitate the load balancer, we had to make one visible change- HTTPS requests that used to go to https://secondlife.com now will go to something like “https://secure-web#.secondlife.com” where # is a number. Rest assured that this is an intentional change, and not a sign that “we got hax’d!”.
There may be a few SSL certificate issues remaining with some of our web applications. Please do let me know, and we’ll get on any that show up.
Hopefully, though, the only other change you’ll see is that during what used to be heavy load times, the website experience is still fairly fast.
I could go on about the technical aspects, but I’m sure I sound pretty boring at this point, so I will just say, thank you to the ones who have been patient with us. Thank you for even coming to the website in the first place, so that we would even have this “problem of success.” Thanks!
December 20th, 2006 at 6:40 PM
Hmmm, just curious, why didn’t you go with load balancer that works at an IP level so you don’t need to mess around with the seperate certificates?
December 20th, 2006 at 6:41 PM
ooh I am first to comment, but don’t have the foggiest what to say, heh.
Keep up the good work, ya’ll, YAY!
Either way, this would explain the “Certificate Type Mismatch” errors I get visiting the web page with my Palm Treo? I always get worried when I see those, but it’s good to have it explained
December 20th, 2006 at 6:52 PM
Find this kind of odd. when we have rezzing issues in SL come here to see if there is anything on the blog just to find out there are Web page loading issues as well. is the SL DB on the same servers as the web servers? if so wouldn’t it be better to have the two separate? I don’t know much about servers and how they work.
December 20th, 2006 at 7:08 PM
i know i have said this before, but hey maybe i need another metaphor, let’s try this one:
You dont announce the sale of all sales in a one of a kind “market” then staff only 1 cashier.
i refuse to buy this latest excuse. with the heavy media attention SL has been getting, LL should have had everythign in place PRIOR to the stampeding masses that was the free accounts..
once just once, i would love for a linden to actually say: “dam, we wernt ready and we apologise for the screw ups resulting from our inability to prepare for this issue”
but i wont hold my breath.
December 20th, 2006 at 7:22 PM
I have been here only a short while. In this short time I have seen a drastic DECLINE in performance, excuses, fixes, updates and mega complaints. There are other things I could go on about but this isn t the proper forum.
This is a response to Maggie. Please dont hold your breath. I am still waiting for the announcement I saw posted before..When LL says they are selling to AOL or whatever. I pre-paid 1 yr premium and have no plans on renewing either premium or basic freebie.
Merry Xmas to everyone!!
December 20th, 2006 at 7:23 PM
All I know is at High load time when its the best time to make a living you practically have to give up no one can listen to music dance or even get into a club so I hope what they said today will be resolved. Because we the business owners are the people who make sl a place people want to come to. I ost over 2000Lindens worth of textures I uploaded and I lost my whole pub the other day took me a week to put it all back and that is working here around 18 hours a day due to load issues. My place is free for all but I have lost a fair amount of money but still have to pay tier. I thought we would at least get some sort of discount due to these problems. But I dont even get an answer when I email Billing. LINDENS you want my money please respond at least to Billing emails. I dont know how else to contact you. I cant call I am in Australia and damn near impossible to get through from here on the phone.
December 20th, 2006 at 7:55 PM
I wonder if anyone else on SL has ever grown a business as rapidly as LindenLabs has??
Life experience would teach SL users that all these wicked hangups that happen are just the unfortunate consequence of Second Life getting really popular and growing really fast. Not even the most prepared company could have handled the exponential demand increase without lots of glitches here and there… I’ve worked with a startup and have seen it happen… it is not laziness, folks, it is not lack of concern!!! LindenLabs gives a crap, they are doing all they can, they are probably spending every last dime on resources to keep up with demand. Even though I don’t like the glitches anymore than the next person, I like all the whinig and complaining from SL users a lot less.
I wish people would learn to be patient and stop biting the hand that feeds them.
December 20th, 2006 at 8:03 PM
That’s good news. However, a little more heads-up would have been appreciated.
I couldn’t figure out why thousands of my customer’s transactions were failing on my back-end. Finally I discovered the hard way the transaction log fetches from my server were failing. Now I’ll have to skip tonight’s party to fix it.
Please give us a chance to prepare when you effectively change the API to SL services. (or give us a nice REST LLSD form of transaction DB access).
Cheers.
December 20th, 2006 at 8:04 PM
Theophila Hegel Says:
December 20th, 2006 at 7:55 PM PST
I wonder if anyone else on SL has ever grown a business as rapidly as LindenLabs has??
Life experience would teach SL users that all these wicked hangups that happen are just the unfortunate consequence of Second Life getting really popular and growing really fast. Not even the most prepared company could have handled the exponential demand increase without lots of glitches here and there… I’ve worked with a startup and have seen it happen… it is not laziness, folks, it is not lack of concern!!! LindenLabs gives a crap, they are doing all they can, they are probably spending every last dime on resources to keep up with demand. Even though I don’t like the glitches anymore than the next person, I like all the whinig and complaining from SL users a lot less.
I wish people would learn to be patient and stop biting the hand that feeds them.
im sorry but the last tiem i checked i FED them. i dotn recall LL giving me anything. i chose to deal with LL, i chose to take my money and invest in LL. and LL for the past 6 months has not justified me doin so.
so pardon me for having the “audacity” to call LL on the carpet, i for one dont believe in giving out atta boys for obviously avoidable problems. and to answer your question, yes i have, and we never passed the buck on to paying customers. we never made them pay for shoddy service. we didn’t attach separate fees for non existant customer support. and lastly, we never posted any sort of tos or sales agreement absolving and shrugging off any sort of blame that OUR service may cause or attract.
perhaps if LL listened less to the atta boys and more to the bug reports and issues. posts like these would probably dwindle.
December 20th, 2006 at 8:35 PM
I write this as an SL business owner, who is also a lead tech in a RL Internet subscription service business. I know and understand what you’re going through with explosive growth on a subscription Internet service.
One of the big things we used to struggle with was that a “crush” of free traffic often killed the experience for paying customers. Now, we’re constantly working to ensure that our premium/paying customers don’t experience a degradation of service when we get good press or experience some other unexpected bump in “non-paying user” traffic to our sites. Seems like a simple concept, but it’s sometimes hard to see the forest for the trees when you’re fighting fires and trying to keep the service ‘up’.
Perhaps now that you’re ‘getting it’ with load balancing - set your next goal a level deeper and look into other service/application based load/traffic balancing that will provide those of us who help pay to run your business with the highest consistent quality of service.
As a sympathetic but demanding customer… I wish I could help. Good luck, and hopefully you’ll learn the lessons far faster than we did in RL …
— bg
December 20th, 2006 at 8:54 PM
wow this is quite interesting, I am thrilled to hear that the website headaches are gone for the SL web team. This will free them up to do things like troubleshoot bugs and whatnot, you know, the main complaint that I see here.. Its a shame people forget in the perfection of a second life that in the end we are all still human. Its not an “atta boy” or a “darn you LL.” In the end its best to sit back, take an objective look at things and think that maybe 1 day out of all 29,200 of your life there may be something frustrating you.. but theres still 29,199 to go, and maybe throwing a fit and posting unproductive things in a linden blog that is designed to help you, ISNT the solution.
a fan of constructive,productive criticism
Phishy Noodle
December 20th, 2006 at 8:55 PM
Hi Maggie, the Lindens were not forewarned about the day that Yahoo decided to put a link about SL on their homepage. On that one day, I noticed that the number of ACTIVE (logged in) avatars doubled, and it has remained double ever since. Imagine if you came in to work one day and someone had decided to immediately double your workload without a word to you about it. Are any of us really prepared when something like that happens? Not me… whew!
December 20th, 2006 at 9:50 PM
I would think the load balancer would be capable of handling rewrites of the URL on the inside, so you don’t have to deal with alternate subdomains like that, but I don’t know what kind of load balancer you’re using, so!
December 20th, 2006 at 10:22 PM
Hi Lorelei,
to a point i agree with you, if my work load suddenly and without warning doubled then yes i would be over whelmed. but would i be better prepared the day after? yes. and thats the problem. LL insists they have a handle on it and they dont.
they should have been better prepared. when you basically yell “free money” in an already competitive market, and then turn around and whine because your feet got trampled is ridiculous. i stand by my reply, “constructive” or not. LL knew better, imo they just dont care. and as long as we, and yes im included, keep loggin in to the same sub par, pass the buck, today’s latest double-speak excuse of the day rigamarole; they wont.
again i repost it here:you do not announce a sale in a one of a kind marketplace, then staff one cashier.
December 20th, 2006 at 10:34 PM
@Sexylady flagstaff:
Complaining at the web developers about teleports failing is like yelling at your dishwasher for not cooking your TV dinner properly.
December 20th, 2006 at 10:43 PM
i gotta say you guys realy made since of it, and pulled some of us out of the dark a little, i was always curious as to why the flukes kept up, but i get it now, t/y
December 20th, 2006 at 10:56 PM
There was this thing called the Slashdot effect (now the digg effect?), when these very popular tech websites linked to you, your site would take a body blow to the face. You don’t necessarily see it coming.
Can you imagine someone like Howard Stern saying tomorrow morning, “Hey, I was in SL, and you should go there and download it and go to the clubs!” Holy crap the servers would explode.
Even the biggest baddest of the bunch can get pounded. Victoria’s Secret did a fashion show on their web site and it was promoted during the Super Bowl. I’m thinkin’ you can tell how THAT ended. Heh.
It’s a never-ending battle.
December 20th, 2006 at 11:32 PM
I am happy with the work that the Lindens are doing and I realise that patience is needed however I have been very patient. All I want from them for now is to answer my Billing problem they took money I had in credit and I have no idea were it went it was not much but I still need to know why it was taken in the first place I just want to know as well that my credit card will not have money taken from it without knowing why. No record in my transaction both Linden and $US. I have that right, I am willing to wait out the problems but not willing to wait for weeks for a lousy reply customer service here is the issue. Please you lindens read these posts someone please again get back to me. Or do I have to lose the hundreds of dollars I have invested in SL already????????????????? They ask us to visit support but its just not there.
December 21st, 2006 at 1:07 AM
Maggie McArdle Says: December 20th, 2006 at 7:08 PM PST
You dont announce the sale of all sales in a one of a kind “market” then staff only 1 cashier.
You do if you’re Sony.
December 21st, 2006 at 2:19 AM
And now… some niceness: Hopefully all the “bumps in the road” will lead us to a happier, even more fun, Second Life. I expect some trouble here N there with something like this. Its not like Virtual Worlds of this Nature are a common everyday thing. Given time, LL will have it together & working. *whistles* “Always Look on The Bright Side of Life!!”
December 21st, 2006 at 2:45 AM
Jeff, I have written you (linden labs) before a few weeks back ans told you i have a solution to your seemingly never ending growth problems.I really hope that this time someone at linden labs take’s the time to read this and get back to me asap.The technology i am trying to show will not be as secret as it is now for long and i would think that linden labs would want to be on top of a technology that will be changing the way that web surfing,gaming and all other parts of information transfer over the http://www. You can’t afford to be left behind especially concidering your rapid growth.
December 21st, 2006 at 3:09 AM
Why don’t you give premium members priority access?
December 21st, 2006 at 3:09 AM
Wow now this is so ironic!
“Meanwhile, webserver performance/reliability went from a non-issue, to occasional mention, to minor annoyance, into regular headaches.”
I feel exactly the same way about the grid these days. Well it’s nice to know that I am not alone in the way I feel.
Hugz
Cat
December 21st, 2006 at 4:03 AM
Whilst I can accept the ‘annoyances’ that Linden Lab feels about the performance issues… what about the tens of thousands of regular users who are on the receiving end of the problems - and multiplied even more so by those who pay to be here.
Broccoli
December 21st, 2006 at 4:30 AM
Just a random OT comment because the relevant posts have been closed before I could get to them –
Anyone else noticed that the stars are twinkling again since the last update? That is so lovely ^_^ Maybe a lot of folks don’t notice the night sky in SL but I do, and I really appreciate this little touch of aesthetic realism. Thanks Lindens ^_^
December 21st, 2006 at 4:36 AM
Oh yeah and Happy Christmas to everyone, hope you all have a wonderful time, residents and Lindens alike, and here’s wishing us all the very best in 2007!
xOxOxOxOxOxOxOxOxOxOxOxOxOxOxOxOxOxOxOxOxOxOxOxOxOxOxOxOxOxOxOxOxOxOx
~~Happy Dragon~~
(Yay you fixed all the major problems. OK you totally broke the gesture system and I *hope* you are receiving lots of bug reports and are working on that, but I can tp and I’m not crashing *too* horrendously and my inventory seems to be intact, so things are looking UP ^_^)
December 21st, 2006 at 5:29 AM
I am delighted that you are in the position of being victims of your own success!
How could you predict the uptake? No way!
What SL has going for it is that you can do so much for free, unlike other similar services which are blatantly out to get you to sign up from the start. The whole reason I actually took Premier Membership was because I could have so much brilliant fun without spending a penny, then whoops, … I got addicted!
To be honest, it IS tedious when you are hoping to get in an extended period of time on the system only to find it is down, or the teleports are out or search is removed, but being realistic, it is amazing the whole thing works at all!
(Remember when the first 3D colour animations came out? - you had to hire a Kray II for several days just to produce a 2 minute animation!!!!)
Like all things in the Computer Industry, these things take time to evolve.
You’ve got music, chat, 3D, animations, sounds, videos, everything flying through the internet, I think the whole thing is unbelievable, but it will take over from everything that has comprised its component parts. It even has a viable currency system.
Even God took 6 days to create the Earth, and he didn’t have the restrictions.
There is reason to believe that the “days” were the extended, (Polar) days, based on what the Zoroastians thought was the vertical rotation of the earth, (according to their limited measurements at that time) and that they actually meant a period of approximately 700,000 years, 6 of those Polar Days is probably enough to build a small blue planet and create life even in evolutionary terms, but a Second Life? It isn’t called Second Life because it was knocked up in a few seconds on the back of a beer mat. This is a VERY complex system!
My only drip is that I loved it so much I recommended it to a large group of my colleagues through an e-group, but that was the time of the grey fog and it put some of them off.
Many companies have invested in major schemes that just didn’t work because people didn’t want them or need them - or the competitors came out with something faster, better, cheaper, easier.
Build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door. Well done you Linden people, we appreciate it is not easy to keep everyone happy all the time, but thanks for keeping us posted and updated. It also feels much more personal than other Virtual Worlds, because of the laid back style and I think it is reassuring to have this clear connection to the system owners.
Oh, yeah, now that I have said nice things about you.
Could you arrange more land, especially first land and also allow more objects on the land please? I am sure I spent more than I needed to, and I can never get enough stuff for my house. Also, can I buy more linden$ please? (I don’t understand why I am limited)
Do I win a free island for being your most ardent addict this month.
December 21st, 2006 at 5:42 AM
@Iron, they’ve implemented a type of load balancing called “sticky sessions” which keeps each user (or session) on the same server so the applications don’t have to be rewritten. In a truly load balanced environment any request can go to any server, and that requires additional web infrastructure to handle sessions that can span servers. There is also the technical aspect where only certain data can span servers without causing problems, which is why many applications would need to be rewritten to be compatible. Sticky sessions are a good solution to that problem.
December 21st, 2006 at 5:46 AM
“Whilst I can accept the ‘annoyances’ that Linden Lab feels about the performance issues… what about the tens of thousands of regular users who are on the receiving end of the problems - and multiplied even more so by those who pay to be here.
Broccoli”
Amen to that!
http://catcotton.blogspot.com/
December 21st, 2006 at 5:49 AM
Seems like it’s not possible to place a classified advertisment at the moment.
“XML error: junk after document element at line 1″
That was before it even had a chance to scan the advertisment for “yard sale”, “camping” or “casino”.
Broccoli
December 21st, 2006 at 6:45 AM
“the Lindens were not forewarned about the day that Yahoo decided to put a link about SL on their homepage.” - Lorelei Mission
I do not believe this, not for a minute. Since SL started, LL gets an article here, an article there…then just magically, Yahoo! and other media outlets all do articles in close time proximity. Smells more like an astroturf ad campaign (made by marketing to LOOK coincidental and not coordinated by the company or its marketing outfit)…its just too pat. And before folks call it paranoid, there have been doccumented cases of corporations funding ‘grassroots’ groups to get good press, LL is hardly above it.
And I am glad they fixed the webservers, nice to see something fixed for a change that did not utterly crash the game for days.
December 21st, 2006 at 6:57 AM
posting unproductive things in a linden blog that is designed to help you, ISNT the solution.
C’mon. What we do for fun otherwise?
December 21st, 2006 at 7:29 AM
Many intelligent contributions here on SL performance and other user issues here.
My comment and predictions is that unless LL moves aggressively to deal with underage use of the “adult” grid the prevalence of child avatars and pornography, SL’s days are numbered.
Look at the current Joe Klein article in Time Magazine. It has mainstreamed what is commonly known inside SL — that it’s full of predators and pervs who are anonymously preying underage players.
The bad press is growing. The simple change that LL can make is to require traceable credit card information from all SL residents, new and old. Otherwise, I believe, SL will lose it’s shine quickly, as is happening now to MySpace), and the next big thing metaverse will be an vastly less interesting and far more canned Disney virtual world.
No matter well the website load is handled, SL will thrive only when there is a minimal standard set for becoming a resident. What are you going to do about this, Linden Labs? Will you even publish this comment?
December 21st, 2006 at 7:31 AM
How about just spending a realistic amount of money on ensuring your servers can cope instead of trickle upgrades.
December 21st, 2006 at 7:32 AM
Many intelligent contributions here on SL performance and other user issues here.
My comment and prediction is that unless LL moves aggressively to deal with underage use of the “adult” grid and the prevalence of child avatars and pornography, SL’s days are numbered.
Look at the current Joe Klein article in Time Magazine. It has mainstreamed what is commonly known inside SL — that it’s full of predators and pervs who are anonymously preying on underage players.
The bad press is growing. The simple change that LL can make is to require traceable credit card information from all SL residents, new and old. Otherwise, I believe, SL will lose it’s shine quickly, as is happening now to MySpace, and the next big thing in the metaverse will not be SL, but instead a vastly less interesting and far more canned Disney virtual world.
No matter well the website load is handled, SL will thrive only when there is at least a minimal standard set for becoming a resident. What are you going to do about this, Linden Labs?
December 21st, 2006 at 7:33 AM
and yer age verification can only be a good thing.
December 21st, 2006 at 7:37 AM
Maklin Deckard:
“the Lindens were not forewarned about the day that Yahoo decided to put a link about SL on their homepage.” - Lorelei Mission
I do not believe this, not for a minute.
There is a certain distance between what you believe and what I’ll accept as true without any evidence on the matter.
Viajero: that was a nice piece you wrote there….although I think I remember reading it in 2004 as well.
December 21st, 2006 at 7:57 AM
/me waves to Cat
December 21st, 2006 at 9:03 AM
Azrael: thanks, had to write it twice to correct my stinking grammar. The difference between ‘04 and 12/06 is that it’s now that SL is getting mainstream media scrutiny on a massive scale.
December 21st, 2006 at 9:20 AM
As a newbie I’m just curious as to why the maintence/update day was changed without any notice. At least I didn’t see any notice. I have been prepared for the grid being down on Wednesday but now for no apparent reason and with no notice it’s down on Thursday instead.
I also want to resond to those who want to have ID checking here. I’m of age but i don’t feel comfortable having my personal data put into risk. And no matter how careful and secure people are security always seemed to be breached.
With such creatively minded people here surely we can find a more benign means of dealing with this issue? Also are other sites with adult content taking the actions proposed?
December 21st, 2006 at 9:46 AM
Ooooo! I am so impressed by SL! Seriously. I think you guys have built a miracle, and are on your way to redefining the Internet.
Having said that… Ooooo! You JUST started shifting to an n-tier architecture!?! Good move. Sounds like you need to get yourselves a good web architect on board. Or maybe you just did.
I knew you guys were kinda technically naive, as far as Enterprise web development — despite the great software architecture you created. And I don’t mean that in a mean way. I just mean you’re having some problems you should never ever have.. like the bad upgrade recently, and the load balancing, server stability, and alot of things like that. Take heart.. if you have good process and good Configuration Management and some really calm managers, you can get to a stable system that upgrades seamlessly.
Good luck guys! We’re all counting on you!
December 21st, 2006 at 11:07 AM
Viajero: We have “underage players” on the main grid! o.O Gods, who woulda thunk it? Seriously, Viajero, your solution is no solution at all. Kids have been using their parents’ credit cards for years to access adult sites on the Internet. Your solution is also a kick in the face to those adult users who can’t, for whatever reason, supply a credit card (and I’m one of them, so this directly affects me). It’s like making guns illegal, and then only criminals will have guns. I’m really getting a little frustrated about all you verified members thinking that banning or restricting unverified accounts will solve any real problems around here. It won’t. You’ll still have the same problems — they’ll just all be caused by your fellow verified members, and to this date, I’ve personally been griefed and harrassed by more verified members than by free/unverified members, so don’t think it won’t happen. I’ll be honest with you. I could give a rat’s behind whether or not someone I’m interacting with here on SL is 8 or 80, verified/payed or unverified/free, as long as that person acts mature and respectful (and, yes, I know quite a few people in their early teens who can).
As far as child avatars, what’s wrong with that, anyway? You can be pretty certain that the people behind them are adults, and there is this thing called “age-play” that, last I heard, wasn’t illegal in any way. And we have PG-rated regions on the main grid, now, don’t we?
I can understand your concern about predators, and I’m sure there are some around here, but SL is a risky place for a predator to play. Perhaps even more than in chat rooms, there’s a good chance that the person you’re talking to here is nothing at all like the person on the other end of the keyboard. That cute 12 year-old girl in the frilly outfit could well be an ugly 60 year-old guy with a twenty gauge shotgun leaning against his chair. I’ve met a couple people playing children on the mature grid. I’m pretty certain, based upon their spelling, grammar, knowledge, and other little linguistic details, that they were at least in my own age-range. I have yet to meet anyone on the main grid who could be mistaken for an actual child.
Anyway, back on-topic — I’ve never experienced any problems with the website, and I typically access it during what I assume is peak usage time. Am I the only one with no gripes about this?
December 21st, 2006 at 1:58 PM
Phoenix, I’m a noob too (1 month), and I agree that if there is a better way to trace age and create a disincentive for the worst abuses that is better than credit card verification then that way would be best. I don’t have knowledge of that other way–I’d love to hear about it though. Perhaps someone reading has ideas. Even more importantly, why hasn’t LL done this research. Or maybe they have. The point for me is that something needs to be done.
Amanda, your attitude sux, I think. You personally may not have witnessed or experienced abuse, but in only a month of poking around, I’ve sure seen it. What’s wrong with “age-play”. Well, if you don’t know, I sure am not going to convince you. I suppose it’s not illegal, I don’t know, or care. I didn’t even know that was the label given. I am definitely no prude, but as someone who has in the course of my career encountered both children and adults who have been sexually preyed upon, either physically or emotionally, I can say that this kind of fantasy is not healthy, period. Now I don’t have double-blind study to show, but again, I’m not going to convince you anyway. The question here is: is this something that should be allowed, even if it is “legal”. I don’t think so, and maybe LL has a toothless policy against it. But I’ve seen stuff that can’t be good for anyone.
Yes, kids have been using parents’ credit cards, and will continue no doubt. It’s a half-measure to use credt cards, and it will hurt some people. Others don’t want to give up info, and I’m one of them. But I will for a compelling good. And while some kids will get around this, most won’t. Problems wouldn’t go away with age verification and traceable identity info, but probems absolutely will be reduced. That’s what the goal ought to be, I think–reduction of the worst kinds of behavior that really affect real people. That’s worth giving a rat’s ass about.
LL ought to either come up with a c.c. verification system that is close to bomb-proof, or an alternative to this, or both. It’s responsible, and with the massive mainstream media attention it’s now generating, it’s in its own interests.
December 21st, 2006 at 3:04 PM
@Viajero
HUH???
*Blinks hard*
Where are these teeming hordes of underaged players being predated by the pervy minded? I can’t say I’ve managed to run into any, and I’m hardly an innocent when it comes to adult interaction on SL
I think there is a relevant concern here, but some people are *way* too paranoid about the reality. Fact of the matter is, the whole internet is a risk, not just SL - but it’s a risk that PARENTS have to supervise, and if you let your child loose to get onto adult platforms well then, you reap what you help to sow. Some increase in identity monitoring does need to take place however, since right now, the Lindens can’t guarantee the age of anybody logging on and it’s not really very responsible of them to turn a blind eye.
One thing you folks also need to realise though, is that just because someone LOOKS like a child in SL, doesn’t mean they ARE a child. It’s this cool little thing called the imagination… go check out furries and dragons too… you know, despite what the loopier fringe may claim, we really don’t look like that IRL either
And likewise, not EVERYONE who looks like a child/furry/dragon is having SEX. You know, plenty of normal, adult, human avatars have loads of that too 
It’s an adult entertainment forum in an enlightened millennium, go figure!
December 21st, 2006 at 4:49 PM
With the new shiny webservers and load balancers, isnt it time to put the lslwiki where it belongs? (That would secondlife.com if the hint isnt clear enough).
Its not so fun to sit and script primetime without the wiki, with account suspended or no answer at all at lslwiki.com which is the only decent source for information for scripters.
December 21st, 2006 at 4:51 PM
Fledhyris, my opinion is that one is too many. I don’t feel paranoid, I just think it ought to be banned, as a community value. You and others may disagree, but I would hope LL would agree, if just in their own financial interest.
I don’t agree that parents have sole responsibility to supervise. I believe that it does take a village, and that there are, even in your enlightened millennium, some things that are beyond the pale. It’s fine to say that bad parents reap what they sow, but this easy equation ignores the child.
I did my tours of the free sex places–as I said, I am no prude–and if you’re not finding child avatars getting f*cked, then you aren’t looking very hard. No paranoia here, it’s just that for me, one is too many. Where did I see child avatars getting f*cked? Well, I almost typed the four locations here, but I realize that that would amount to advertising. At one location I happened upon the avatar who managed the joint, and she (he?, certainly sounded like a he!) assured me that she kicks out offenders right away. But I had just watched and listened for ten minutes a child avatar having sex with an adult av. There are rules in the notecards of other places which are clearly ignored.
One is too many even if it is some sick old fart engaging in sexual age-play. Linden Labs should not provide a forum for unlimited anonnymous interactive fantasizing with pubescent avatars, whether the “child” is a child, a teen, a twentysomething, or another old fart. Just my opinion, and more importantly to LL, it’s the opinion of mainstream America. I don’t often stand with conventional norms, but when it comes to children, it is impossible to be protective enough in our society when it comes to sex. Ask any survivor.
Who am I to say some kinds of sex are sick? Just a person who has seen the result of actual adult-child sex, and who has had relationships with people who were abused. Not an expert and I don’t have any strong opinion on cybersex except for this aspect of it. I didn’t plan on writing so much on this topic, but I will try to make myself clear.
I believer that LL ought to adopt a zero-tolerance policy. This kind of fantasy, what I saw and heard, is in no one’s interest.
December 21st, 2006 at 5:16 PM
Jeff, thank you for the update. I’m glad to see you entering the LB/HA era with your web services. If you can stand it and wouldn’t mind putting it to the pen, I’d be very keen on hearing the boring part
Music to these ears. LVS? vserver? My every-day in a nutshell, and it ’sounds’ like fun!
~N.N.
December 21st, 2006 at 7:30 PM
Viajero, let me put things into perspective. I was the victim of child abuse, including sexual abuse, so don’t think I don’t know what I’m talking about, here. Just because our perspectives on this issue differs does not mean my attitude sucks. I just happen to believe that what happens between two consenting adults is the business of those two people and nobody else, so long as it doesn’t break any laws or intrude upon the rights of people around them.
You obviously have an axe to grind. Based upon my own past I well *could* have an axe to grind, but I don’t. Think about that. Perhaps the difference between us is that I can look upon this matter rationally and without superimposing my fears upon every possibly suspect happenstance, and you can’t.
We are in agreement that age-play is inappropriate in most sims. In fact, there are some in which it is expressly forbidden, and if it is observed it should be reported. Whether or not age-play is “healthy” isn’t for you to decide. In fact, this has been well-studied by people who know far more about it than you do, and is even used in certain cases as therapy. You really do need to understand things before you judge them. And for the record, I’m playing Devil’s Advocate here. I’m not an age-player in the sense that you have observed (I sometimes role-play characters younger than me, but I’m over thirty, so playing someone who’s twenty is, in a sense, “age-playing” for me.).
We’re also in agreement that protecting children is the responsibly of all adults — not just their parents, but the parents really do have to take the primary responsibility, here. In their absense, it’s up to the rest of us. The problem is that on SL you can be almost 100% certain that a child avatar is being played by an adult. I’m sure that most children that get access to the main grid are playing adult avatars. That makes this “age-play” and not “virtual pedophilia”. There’s a world of difference between the two. Like you, I think that we should have a zero tolerance for sexual predators in SL — whether they’re looking for children or anything else, but since we have no way of truly verifying a person’s age over the Internet, it’s awfully difficult to start pointing fingers at people without looking foolish, ourseves.
December 21st, 2006 at 8:18 PM
Something has to be done. Yesterday I watched a girl being assulted in SL by a bunch of boys who were covering her with GIANT UNDULATING PENIS DILDO objects. She tried running away from them but they were locked onto her and followed her automatically wherever she went and then covered her with hundreds of them all giant and wagging. She was almost crying as she was begging the boys to take their penis objects off of her. It was scary actually. Something has to be done. Just wait until Bill Oreilly gets ahold of this place…
December 21st, 2006 at 9:59 PM
Hi all!
First, I would like to say a hearty Merry Christmas to all members and Lindens! And Happy Festivus!
I have been a reader of these posts for a long time and find them always amusing. You know, any large site that has a place for clients to input comments, it is filled with a lot of negative ones and a few praises.. That’s fine, some people really find the need to vent (and it’s amusing for the restofus).
Nice to see Eric Rice in the crowd, hope you are well, long time no see!
Anyway, I would like to say nice job the Lindens are doing and thanks for the fix!
I would also like to say I have been a FREE member since the end of June and have a storefront, own half a sim and am in the black with virtually no advertising,,, Through all the good and bad times, I still have been able to forge through it all and come out on top, if you complainers are not at least breaking even, perhaps its your business model, or management, or something that is keeping you from that sucess you strive for (at least I suspect you are not based on your comments). Long story short, if I can do it with all the ups and downs, any one can, and if you are not, don’t go pointing your fingers at others (there are 4 more pointing right back at you).
Peace, Kisses and hugs to ya’ll
Ken Clarke (in world name - go figure)
December 21st, 2006 at 10:49 PM
The cert on this pages fails against blog.secondlife.com…. it’s a wordpress.com cert that you have active. You need you cert on here. Just FYI
December 21st, 2006 at 11:31 PM
Amanda, if by having “an axe to grind” you mean that I have a sensitivity to voiced, animated acting-out of child-f*cking that is easily viewable by anyone in the world, regardless of age, culture, and life experience, then I will cop to that. Yes, I do feel that some people, including children and even teens need some buffer, and that pedophiles ought not to be able to view or participate in the fantasy. Hmm…maybe I am just foolish for thinking that some harm just might come out of it. I’m open to being educated on a topic that is huge and that there is no single authoritative voice, but I am content that I speak out when I see something I feel is grossly wrong. I hope that LL will agree with me, even if only in its own financial interests.
I apologize for saying the words “your attitude sux”. I was being cute, not flaming, but I should have avoided that. For your part, you might be careful about both your condescending tone, and your setting yourself up as an authority. Your paragraph touting your objectivity is really a hoot. It says nothing, but your approach to my comments is angry and aggressive, which says something.
The issue here isn’t whether the child avatars are adult men or not, the issue is: who gets to watch this crap. It now includes pedophiles, and that’s seriously wrong. And in the wild west of SL, LL must assume that parents have no oversight regarding their kids getting on and going where their hormones take them. That’s being real. It’s LL’s responsibility to keep them out of parts of the adult world until they can handle it. Some kids can already, but that’s just beside the point. One child getting in trouble or one pedophile getting encouragement is too many. The standard has to be zero because the stakes are too high.
If some consenting adults want to create a age-verified, separate firewalled sim to do what they want, it would be better than the current situation, I agree. Still, my view at this point is that I wish LL would not support anything that approaches exploiting children. It’s called corporate responsibility, but it’s also in their financial interests.
I’ve been exposed at least enough to know that theories on treatment of victims of child sexual abuse are not set in stone. They are changeable and contested. Everything under the sun has been used in therapy at one time or another; claims of age-play being used therapeutically are a faint basis to base to ask for its acceptance. If it has been well-studied, what is the consensus? I doubt that much research support your contention. Tell me I’m wrong about this. Funny it just seems that the sexual mingling of adults with children is a taboo we ought to think about. My own background is that I have had two girlfriends who eventually confronted their abusers, and I learned some painful things over years about the effects of abuse. I’ve also worked with substance abusers and found how many of their challenges have to do with sexual abuse. Those excruciatingly painful memories shared with me, the effects of abuse on later life, in addition to just general common sense tell me that sex “age-play”, at least what I have witnessed, has no therapeutic value to anyone.
A far more established fact of research than your suggestion that sex age-play may be therapeutic is that the victim often becomes the perpetrator. Actively fantasizing, even performing sexual acts on avatars and getting off on them doesn’t seem to be heading the right direction. Perhaps non-sexual age-play works for your life as you say. My gut tells me that on the whole sexual age-play is a symptom rather than a cure. Even if there are two sides to this, I believe that, for its own survival LL ought to think about whether it wants to provide an opportunity for this particular kind of fantasy. One thing is certain: it’s too easily available now.
December 22nd, 2006 at 8:54 AM
It appears that just about since the traffic balancing was introduced, https://secondlife.com/community/friends.php has been failing constantly for me, reporting “Friends Online Now: 0″ when in fact I see friends online in-world.
December 22nd, 2006 at 12:00 PM
About 50% of the time, I’m getting a 404 error now.
December 22nd, 2006 at 4:32 PM
Viajero: By “axe to grind” the implication is that you grind it publicly. I have sensitivities, too, but I recognize that they’re *my* sensitivities and that not all people feel the same way I do about them. For the most part I choose to remain silent. You do nobody a favor by publicly criticizing people who have done nothing illegal or unethical, even if it happens to conflict with your moral perspective (and legality, ethics, and morality are different things).
Here’s the situation (or at least is likely the situation, although not always the case). You’re in an adult sim. There are no rules for that sim that specifically disallow a certain behavior. You observe that behavior. Deal with it. I do all the time. Now, if you know that behavior is specifically disallowed (like, for instance, going into a Gorean sim where furries aren’t allowed and you’re wearing your furry avatar), then you are in violation of the policies of that sim. To me, this is the same as breaking the law. It’s a reportable offense. If the behavior in question is age-play, then the same thing applies. If, on the other hand, the people involved are within the TOS for that sim you have no right to complain about what they’re doing. Go to another sim if you can’t deal with it. That’s what I do.
Age-play isn’t illegal. Yes, there are probably pedophiles who engage in this, but not all people who do are pedophiles. In fact, a significant proportion of age-play situations doesn’t even involve sex. Your mistake, here, was in reasoning from the specific to the general, which is faulty logic. You associate the whole with the activities of a portion the whole. Can harm come from age-play? Possibly, but no more so than any other kind of kinky activity, and I’ll go out on a limb and state that possibly as much as half the population of SL is here for just that — kinky activity. Mostly, though, these people *are* consenting adults, they know what they’re doing, and they can back out of it anytime they wish. Explain the harm that can come from that.
SL isn’t in the business of enforcing morality, and shouldn’t get in that business, either. Whether or not a particular form of sexuality is permitted in a sim should be up to the person(s) who controls that sim. It comes under what, in the Real World, is known as “community standards”. I’ve been in sims where the “entry notice” very specifically states that age-play and under-age avatars are disallowed. I’ve never seen a child avatar in any of them. Most people will respect the “laws” of a sim. Some won’t. They should be dealt with accordingly.
As for some of the issues you raise, let me start out by stating that I did not set myself up as an “authority”. I put things in perspective. I don’t care how many women you’ve known who have been abused, you can’t know what it’s like from our side of the fence. I can … and do. *We* are the “authorities” in such matters, insofar as anyone can be “authoritative” about something which is so personal and variable. Not the people close to us, or even our therapists can truly claim any sort of true authority regarding this issue because, unless it’s happend to them, they can’t possibly understand it. Yes, there are women who were abused as children who would find age-play distasteful … even abhorrent. But there are some of us who have a more neutral attitude, in spite of having similar experiences. It’s an individual, and intensely personal, thing. Neither you, SLn or anyone else has any right to deny people the right to explore their sexuality, in whatever way they wish (within the limits of legality). There are things which I know people do that are, to me, so totally disgusting that it makes me ill to even think about them. I don’t attempt to censure these people, though, just as I expect them to respect my own “kinks”. Also, I never said that “sex ‘age-play’” had any therapeutic value. The term I used was “age-play”. Please don’t interpret my words. I said what I meant and I meant what I said. I, too, have to question if sexual age-play has anything but purient value, but I’d like to point out that a great deal of SL has little but purient value. This is just another kink that many people find disturbing, among many that you can encounter in your journeys in-world. Again, if you don’t like what you’re seeing, go somewhere else. Report the situation to the authorities if it’s against the TOS of a sim, but otherwise, do as I do. Choose to remain silent.
December 22nd, 2006 at 8:15 PM
[...] Read‘|’Permalink‘|’Email this‘|’Linking’Blogs‘|’Comments [...]
December 23rd, 2006 at 8:55 AM
“SL isn’t in the business of enforcing morality, and shouldn’t get in that business, either.”
I agree with this… While I do not condone any wrong doing of any kind, I do also not want LL to start enforcing morality, ethics, etc. This is similar to the government banning gay marriages, or your local state lev. authorities stating that oral sex between two consenting adults who are even in a relationship is punishable. No. I agree LL should enforce normal laws, the same laws that apply in the real world, but I will never agree to allowing LL to tell me what is and isnt right for me to do in my own time with my experience.
As far as using credit cards as an age verification, not only do kids use their parents cards to gain access to various services they shouldnt (I know, I did it too when I was younger lol), But now, all they have to do is have a parent agree to it, and they can get a prepaid debit card… Or, they can be set up with one of the new accounts that is similar to prepaid, but is an actual account with a card that works the same as a credit card. Now, Just in those two methods, you can easily bypass that “age verification” method… So realistically, you would only be punishing those who cant or wont provide said information, while just making a small bump in the road for kids/teens who want to enter the grid, as they are the ones willing to do just about anything to achieve what they want, as that is what children do… They will fixate and set themselves on a goal, and sometimes not let up till they get it, depending on their nature of course. And in the end, I agree with Amanda… I too have been subject to various abuses through the years, and I personally feel to each his own. Just because I dont care to be a furry, doesnt mean others dont want to be one… And who am I to tell them they cant? I am welcome to teleport to another area if I find something disturbing there, just the same as I am able to type another url, or visit another channel on tv or the radio.
December 25th, 2006 at 8:20 PM
You guys should fix the missing water problem
January 1st, 2007 at 2:50 PM
LInden Labs is not in the business of legislating morality, but certain forms of expression are illegal and/or severely taboo (at any rate, taboo in the global “Western” civilization where 99.9% of its members come from– i.e., North America, Europe, Japan, Australia, etc.) Sadly, it is LL’s best interest to restrict some of these taboo activities, so we don’t become a target for government interference, and extreme “age play” is one of those. (And not just because sexual contact between adults and children is illegal in the USA.)
February 21st, 2007 at 9:56 PM
Ummm, I am consistently getting error 404 when trying to post an event. I am using internet explorer 7, and get no similar errors any place else. Everything is fine until I, or my partner on a completely different computer, try to save the event, error 404.
Every time for the last two weeks.
My partner contacted a Linden and was told to download a new browser. Hello? I am using IE7, the newest one, and she is using IE 6. Tonight when I went to events, it told me it was . . . 1970. Linden Labs did not even exist in 1970, and my computer clock says it is 2007. Methinks you have a problem there.
August 17th, 2008 at 9:47 PM
I barely remember writing all those comments on age-play, almost two years ago now. I think life got busy all of a sudden and I forgot to check back…
But I am sooo happy age-play has been banished by the owners of this game world, that they chose to take a stand, for whatever reason (financial or moral). This virtual world and the the real world are better, I believe.
And maybe “age-players” can get their “kinks” in other places, hopefully behind firewalled, age-verified worlds which are also out of the view of many who would be traumatized or triggered by observing that activity. It’s about creating reasonable barriers for kids from adult activity, and this has been achieved. Yay!