Where Have I Been?
I haven’t been spending a lot of time in second life for awhile now. One of the major reasons is due to the change of allowing anyone to sign up without age verification. I thought at the time it was a bad decision and believed it might make security a problem in the grid. So I started only logging in for the radio shows from TD and Snail Races on Saturday. I had other projects in real life I wanted to finish up so this was a good thing because I was getting hooked on playing in second life for hours!
Around the time this change happened I was telling my nephew about Second Life. He’s underage so he had to sign up to the teen grid. At the time his parents weren’t too happy to give out a credit card number or a cell phone number so he wasn’t able to sign up. I kept on telling him about all the stuff people could create and he was very interested. Well a couple of weeks later the registration was changed. I told him about the change and he could sign up without any verification. My first concern was making sure he signed up only to the teen grid so I told his parents about this concern. He got signed up but his computer wasn’t powerful enough for SL. Well recently he got a new computer and is now on the teen grid having some fun. He’s a bit bored over there so I walked him through a simple script so he can make and sell stuff. I am hoping some of the stuff I showed him will help him create his own stuff and have fun in the teen grid.
I’ve finished lot of the projects I needed to do and have more time to give SL. I’ll be blogging more and spending more time exploring this virtual world. I’m still very interested in this world and I HAVE changed my mind about the verification changes. I understand that many people didn’t like giving out their credit numbers or might not have one. I also understand that verifying with a credit card or cell phone doesn’t necessarily verify the age. There are many web pages on the Internet that aren’t for teens and don’t verify age also. This all goes back to parents being responsible for their children. So by this change it would allow people from other countries easier access. A week ago I actually saw someone from Russia racing in the Snail Races. If Second Life can allow easier access and keep it secure then the change could be a good one. We will all have to wait and see what happens. I for one see many good things coming from SL.
