The following notes are taken from the Sansar Product Meeting held on Tuesday, March 20th. These weekly Product Meetings are open to anyone to attend, are a mix of voice (primarily) and text chat. Dates and times are currently floating, so check the Meet-up Announcements and the Sansar Atlas events sections each week. Official notes, when published can be found here.
A portion of the meeting looked at the mid-March update, which is covered separately here. The latter half of the meeting was also an extended – and at times confused – general discussion on access control. Part of this did highlight the benefit of more scripted capabilities for access control and persistence of scripts, etc., (e.g. limited ban times, rather than a one-time “forever” ban until revoked; or the ability to apply the same access control list across multiple experiences). The discussion did not draw specific conclusions, but highlighted the potential for more focused discussions with specific product experts in the future.
Given the above, these notes focus on the core feedback provided by Boden and Jenn in terms of how the Lab views things.
Publishing on Sansar
There is some concern in the Lab that the current route to surfacing an experience is potentially confusing for some creators, in terms of knowing whether or not their experience is actually listed.
The current flow is to go to the publishing options, which opens on the Who Can Visit tab (below left), where the general access options can be set (Public, Only Me, by lists – Friends, Guest, banned).
The user then moves to the Atlas Listing tab (below right) – the first option of which is set to Hide This Experience From The Atlas by default, which unless unchecked, means the experience will not be surfaced in the Atlas, regardless of anything set in Who Can Visit – hence the confusion.
This led to an extended conversation about access, terminology (e.g. given a scene has a URL, isn’t that technically “published” anyway, regardless of the status of the experience?), options, etc.
Purely in terms of dealing with the confusion over whether or not an experience can be seen in the Atlas, the simplest approach would seem to be to leave the Hide This Experience option unchecked – this would also then more accurately reflect the explanatory text given with the Why? link.
Tool Tips
The suggestion was put forward that why going forward, and allowing for complexities of language localisation, etc., the Lab should look to ways to offer tool (or hover) tips within elements of the UI to help users better understand options and buttons.
Access Control Roadmap
In terms of access control to experiences / events, the current order of things at the Lab seems to be:
- Implementing the underlying infrastructure to allow event ticketing.
- Then build-out the tools to allow pay-to-access events (this will initially be internally / possibly with partners, prior to the tools being publicly surfaced).
- Then, depending on how demand for events grows, go on to provide:
- Experience / event owners to appoint moderators for their events, who can help manage the actual event (e.g. remove people causing problems).
- Event organisers to rent experiences so they can host events without necessarily having to build a dedicated experience / contract someone to build it.
Does Access Control Mean Adult Content May Be Allowed in Sansar?
- Currently no. Linden Lab’s Terms of Service, Sansar Terms and Conditions, etc., remain unchanged.
- While access control may offer a step towards allowing adult content, there are other factors still to be put into place (e.g. age verification – something which could affect the experience owner as much as LL).
- As the product is still in a “beta” status, the Lab is sensitive towards how it is perceived in the media (understandably, given the history of SL and certain elements in the media).
- Adult content may come in the future, as Sansar grows, particularly as the environment means there is not necessarily the kind of “link” between moderate and adult content as might be seen with Second Life, simply because spaces in Sansar can be clearly separated one from another.
Other areas of consideration include the Sansar Store, and how Adult material would be handled there: would there need to be a separate Store for such content?
While no final decision on adult content has been made vis Sansar, Boden pointed out that the steps being taken now in enhancing access control, providing the means to support groups with different interests and requirements, etc., could eventually lead to adult content support as Sansar matures.
Access Control & Dress Code
In early discussions on Sansar, Ebbe Altberg raised the idea that experience creators would be able to define what outfits could be worn in their experiences, if they wished. So for example, a steampunk themed role-play experience might require visitors to be dressed in appropriate costumes, thus avoiding the immersive nature of the experience being broken by someone waddling around as a pigeon toed under grown flying purple people eater (so to speak). This is apparently still on the roadmap for some point in the future.
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 