Names of avatars

[Madelaine McMasters]

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MaryJane Sunshine wrote:

What other option is there?

Or perhaps that's just the weak reason we were given. To pin point a step in the sign up process that's still presents the same issue now (just replace it with the first name woes) and remove last names completely (a unique option that was working perfectly fine since day one). It makes no sense, especially in retrospect.

I can only hope it will be reversed in time. I think last names were an important step in creating your own unique avatar... mine means a lot to me. I know many people in the day who would create alt just to save a cool last name. Seeing people running around with Resident for a last name just makes the world feel more cold.

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My suggesting that LL wasn't thinking was delivered with a wink, MaryJane (welcome to the forums, btw!). I think it might have been a case of not thinking clearly. I may be misremembering, but Rodvik explained that his analysis of sign-up data showed that many people attempting to join SL were apparently frustrated by the last name selection process and bailed out of the process. I also recall that (and here my recollection is fuzzy) Rodvik, after the naming system was changed, claimed that new user signups had climbed to 20,000/day. I recall detecting some pride in that claim.

But, even as the claim was being made, the concurrency (number of people in-world at any given moment) was falling. Rodvik may have mentioned this, and if he did, I expect he believed concurrency would improve as well. But what he may have neglected to consider is that the mindest of the person who's never experienced a product or service might be different than one who has. How would the frustration of having to pick a last name from a list compare to the frustration of entering SL with UglySingleName.Resident and the promise of Lovely DisplayName, only to discover that many of SL's facilities don't show your Lovely DisplayName? Or that SL isn't at all like the other MMPORG games they might have been familiar with?

While Rodvik, at the time, wanted to increase new signups, I don't think he understood that metric the way I do. He saw it as a way to increase concurrency. I saw it as a way to innoculate the World against Second Life. I cannot work out any rational explanation for wanting to dramatically increase exposure to a product that, by the metric of satisfied users (concurrency) is failing. If your product or service cannot retain a customer, why would you want to expose more potential customers to it?

So, I'm not so much suggesting that LL tells us they are thinking when they actually aren't as I am suggesting that the kind of thinking they do doesn't make sense to many of us, as we see the world differently.

And finally, I apologize to any of you who think brown is ugly and chartreuse is lovely. There is, as anyone who knows me will tell you, no accounting for taste.

[Marcus Hancroft]

Howdy, Walt.  

Creating names in the "FirstnameLastname" format DOES work.  Then one could use the display name option to separate the two names.  Like so:  

Username:  WaltWeston

Display Name:  Walt Weston

 

I wish they had never changed the signup process like they did.  Now we have to deal with ridiculous AOL type screen names as avatar names in SL.  New users don't realize when they are signing up that that crazy account name they came up with will be what people call them inworld.  I've seen some people with just numbers as their names!  How does one even greet a person with the name 0472185?  "Howdy, Zero Four Two!"???

[MaryJane Sunshine]

Thanks Madelaine I caught your wink :matte-motes-smile: As an old player coming back a few months ago... I had to research... why? I wondered... and this far into it's implementation the answer to the question seems even less adequate.

As you pointed out as well, 20 thousand sign ups a day, doesn't mean too much when "concurrency" is falling.

I believe they neglected to consider a lot of aspects that had nothing to do with last names... as if removing them all together could be an actual solution for any real problem.

Instead of improving upon it, (offer more last names, bring back some old last names, working on something that's actually broken) they decide to do away with something that's been a important part of SL and character creation since it launched.

I personally think your taste and logic are impeccable.

 

 

 

[Charolotte Caxton]

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Marcus Hancroft wrote:

I've seen some people with just numbers as their names!  How does one even greet a person with the name 0472185?  "Howdy, Zero Four Two!"???

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[Teagan Tobias]

Madelaine said:

I also recall that (and here my recollection is fuzzy) Rodvik, after the naming system was changed, claimed that new user signups had climbed to 20,000/day. I recall detecting some pride in that claim.

It appears that the lab did not consider that the large amount of sign-ups after the last names were removed only happened because everyone started making alts to get there first name as a single name avatar. I know I tried but was to late. It did not take long for names that did not look like scat to get used up.  I wonder if the daily sign-up is still that much higher than before.

 

 

[Leia36]

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MaryJane Sunshine wrote:

I can only hope it will be reversed in time. I think last names were an important step in creating your own unique avatar... mine means a lot to me. I know many people in the day who would create alt just to save a cool last name. Seeing people running around with Resident for a last name just makes the world feel more cold.

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Yes it does. I have discussed this with a few of my close friends who have last names. In the minds of some people It almost creates a class distinction, to others it is of no great import.

For myself the whole signing up process was poorly explained, finding my RL name was impossible, so I had to compromise. If you sign up for flickr for example, it is explained in big bold writing that the name you choose is permanent. This might have been corrected by LL subsequent to my sign up, but I am not sure, having not used it in some time.

I am quite happy with the display name feature, most people call me by my display name, and being able to change it is an advantage. While I would be prepared to pay to change it, I can live with it as it stands. My friends all know my RL name anyway and life is too short to worry what the haters think, so its a bit of a moot point.

Nice thread, learned a bit, thanks

[Walt Weston]

I have now told my friend about the possibilities of getting his old account back. He will try to follow your advice, and hope to succeed. He asked me to send you greetings and a lot of thanks.

 The thread has been very interesting to read, and I also appreciate all your answers about changing the last names, and  to learn about your opinions about it too. 

I think – if there are about 10,000 new members per day – it will be very difficult for LL to keep inventing different and new surnames contemporary to the others been used for a lot of different first names the hole time. And perhaps some surnames from rl are protected and are not allowed to be used? So probably LL has to make sure that no law has been broken by setting a protected last name on the list. It gives a lot of work. 

So perhaps also one of the reasons why the old system has been changed is, that before it was LLs problem to find new available surnames - now the new residents have got the problem (job) instead to find themselves a suitable first name. :smileysad:

[Amethyst Jetaime]

A friend of mine that recently returned to SL after an absence of 3 years was able to reactivate her account.  She doesn't have her complete inventory but she does have most of it.  There are only a few items missing.

If your friend simply abandoned his account as opposed to actually canceling it, he should just try to log on and see if that works.  If he cannot log in or if he canceled it when  he left, he has to reactivate it.  Any account may be reactivated if the following procedure is followed. This from the Knowledge Base::

Re-activating a canceled account

If you have cancelled your account, you may be able to restore it, depending on how long ago it was cancelled. There is a US$9.95 reactivation fee for restoring an account.

Warning: Even if your account is restored, the associated inventory, land, and Linden dollar balance may be unrecoverable.

To start the process:

    Open a support case.
    Under What type of problem are you having? choose Account Issue.
    Choose Reactivate an old account.
    Enter the required information
    Click Submit.

 

[Perrie Juran]

I would have posted this earlier but for some reason I was not able to access SL Name watch yesterday.  From http://slnamewatch.com/

First off, even with around 11,000 last names I don't think we are even close to exhausting the number of possibilities for more last names.

The most popular Last name in SL was "GossipGirl" with 163,228 users by that name.  There were about 300 Last Names that it appears that no one ever chose to use.  The numbers of days active (available to choose)  varied from 1,052 days to 0.  http://slnamewatch.com/index.php?action=list_records&status_filter=all&sort_order=DESC&order_by=usage_count

One fact that remains and is very hard to get around is that although with out the hindrance of selecting a last name stopping people from completing registration, as Rodvik stated over in SLU, "we can't keep them."  One side effect of this is that concurrency is down.  A few nights ago my statistic meter in world showed a low of around 30,000 users logged in.  That was deja vu to when I started back in 2007.

The other factor affecting concurrency is the number of Old Users who have left SL. 

What is getting missed (or at least what I think is getting missed) is this correlation:

THE KEY TO RETAINING NEW USERS IS RETAINING OLD USERS.

When new users log in to an empty world with nothing to do then there is very little to keep them here.  When there are no old users there to enthusiastically greet the new user, to say welcome, let me show you this wonderful world and help them through the initial learning experience, they are not going to stay.

I think I can say quite unequivocally, that for 99% of us, with out the help of the older, more established users, we would not have stuck it out.  I don't think you can get around this.  It's kind of how life works in general.

 

[MaryJane Sunshine]

Interesting links, thanks

When you say Rodvik stated over in SLU "we can't keep them"... I'm curious to peek at that statement in full context, and the actual timing of when it was said. It leads me to believe (if said recently) that they wouldn't consider bringing back last names, which is a shame if that's their current stance on it and I can only think... why the hell not?

I can tell from the short time I've been back, that overall population and content quality has regressed in comparison to a few years ago. I don't know all of the causes but you're certainly right about this...

THE KEY TO RETAINING NEW USERS IS RETAINING OLD USERS.

After comming back to playing more seriously again... even my oldbie butt has certainly learned a few new tricks. Without the guidance of other more experienced players in SL, newer people can become bored easily and frustrated with the basics of simply setting up their avatar.. not to mention people can easily miss out on unique apects/knowledge/content of this game when older users decide to leave.

I do believe people tend to take breaks and come back, which is a good thing, but the overall impression that has branded Secondlife recently isn't exactly the pretty picture that was painted a few years back either.

[Dillon Levenque]

 

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Walt Weston wrote:

So perhaps also one of the reasons why the old system has been changed is, that before it was LLs problem to find new available surnames - now the new residents have got the problem (job) instead to find themselves a suitable first name. :smileysad:

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The thing the old system gave us, and the reason so many of us liked it, was the ability to choose a first name. That way we knew we'd be called most often by our name of choice. Last names for most people were much less relevant (excepting those people who saw the chance to make clever—in many cases extremely clever—word play with the existing last names). In my case I just picked one that seemed to work. My first name is the one people use when communicating with me, just as I expected.

The 'single-name' system for reasons already discussed many times took that pleasure away.

An interesting (to me, anyway) side note to this whole discussion is that it is irrelevant to a fair percentage of SL residents and a large percentage of humanity. We (westerners) sometimes forget that not everyone does things the way we do. A huge portion of humans arrange their names with surname first, not last. Even among the 'given name, family name' people there is a lot of variety. Some almost never use surname, but go with first and patronymic. There's a pretty good look at this in Wikipedia if you're interested.

ETA Good luck to your friend

[Perrie Juran]

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MaryJane Sunshine wrote:

When you say Rodvik stated over in SLU "we can't keep them"... I'm curious to peek at that statement in full context, and the actual timing of when it was said. It leads me to believe (if said recently) that they wouldn't consider bringing back last names, which is a shame if that's their current stance on it and I can only think... why the hell not?

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"Right now after performance our biggest issue is not getting new signups or even people to experience SL for a bit, its turning them into long term users."  http://www.sluniverse.com/php/vb/general-sl-discussion/73965-if-you-were-linden-3.html

He did make a few more comments as you scroll down the page.

 

[MaryJane Sunshine]

Hah! I thought he said we couldn't keep them referring to last names. Now I get that he was/is reaching out for advice from the players on how to make new players stick around, which is always a good perspective to reach out towards. I find it odd that it's not asked on the official forums but that's another issue, most likely brought up before and perhaps off-topic.

 

I've not looked over @ SLU much but it obviously has an element that these forums do not and I'll be lurking over there a bit more often I think. :matte-motes-bashful-cute-2:

[Hitomi Tiponi]

In his January comment on Last Names Rod stated:

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Secondly we will be taking steps to remove more places where the dreaded “resident” last name appears inworld. If you have any places where you see it often that we might have missed it would be good to hear.

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Maybe this has been happening but there are still many places where it does still appear. And with the majority of users not using a Linden Lab viewer it does make you wonder how much control they have over this anyway.

[Coby Foden]

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Leia36 wrote:

For myself the whole signing up process was poorly explained, finding my RL name was impossible, so I had to compromise. If you sign up for flickr for example, it is explained in big bold writing that the name you choose is permanent. This might have been corrected by LL subsequent to my sign up, but I am not sure, having not used it in some time.

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Account creation example on 9 October 2012:

Step 1

Step 2

Step 3

Step 4

Hmm..! :smileyfrustrated:

• Still no mention that the Username is one's real identity. What can be seen by everybody. And therefore it should be something sensible, not some gibberish and rubbish.

• And no mention at all of the Display Names, what they are, how they are created, how they are used.

It is pretty obvious that as far as Linden Lab is concerned, they don't care at all what avatar names are.  They don't get it that we users do care. Uff... :smileysad:

 

 

PS.

I didn't complete the account creation process for JaneGilberth as this was just an example only of the present state of the account creation process. :smileywink:

[Qwalyphi Korpov]

The resident who provided the previous content, if any, has replaced it with this generic statement.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

I raised this with Rodvik over at SLU a while back.

I said,

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one thing I'm sure would help is, as been frequently suggested, warning people when they sign up that, while they can choose a display name once they've logged in, the username they're about to pick is going to be visible in all sorts of circumstances. I'm certain a lot of people don't realise that until it's too late. Are you considering that?

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His reply, in part, was 

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I would love to figure out an elegant way to do it. The problem is every extra line of text or click or choice in reg reduces people registering. At best they just start tuning out the text like a TOS, worst they see a warning and think somehow their RL identity is being talked about.

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[Perrie Juran]

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Hitomi Tiponi wrote:

In his January comment on Last Names Rod stated:

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Secondly we will be taking steps to remove more places where the dreaded “resident” last name appears inworld. If you have any places where you see it often that we might have missed it would be good to hear.

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Maybe this has been happening but there are still many places where it does still appear. And with the majority of users not using a Linden Lab viewer it does make you wonder how much control they have over this anyway.

 

 

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Got to love this!   When I ad people to my security orb I absolutely have to add the surname "resident."  A more knowledgeable scripter could correct me but I think this is necessary for many script functions.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

It's only necessary if the script hasn't been updated either to use usernames (which is the simplest way to do it) or to add "Resident" for you.

There is no need for scripts to use legacy names.   Older scripts need updating, but it's simple to do.

[Perrie Juran]

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Innula Zenovka wrote:

It's only necessary if the script hasn't been updated either to use usernames (which is the simplest way to do it) or to add "Resident" for you.

There is no need for scripts to use legacy names.   Older scripts need updating, but it's simple to do.

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one more thing for me to learn to do  

 

[Innula Zenovka]

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Perrie Juran wrote:

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Innula Zenovka wrote:

It's only necessary if the script hasn't been updated either to use usernames (which is the simplest way to do it) or to add "Resident" for you.

There is no need for scripts to use legacy names.   Older scripts need updating, but it's simple to do.

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one more thing for me to learn to do  

 

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It's basically a matter of replacing llKey2Name(id) or llDetectedName(n) or whatever with llGetUsername(id) or llGetUsername(llDetectedKey(n)).

 

 

You will probably need to change the way it reads the notecards, too, so it doesn't mind "Resident," even though it won't be necessary, to avoid having to redo your cards -- ask in the Scripting forum if you need a hand.

[Perrie Juran]

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Innula Zenovka wrote:

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Perrie Juran wrote:

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Innula Zenovka wrote:

It's only necessary if the script hasn't been updated either to use usernames (which is the simplest way to do it) or to add "Resident" for you.

There is no need for scripts to use legacy names.   Older scripts need updating, but it's simple to do.

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one more thing for me to learn to do  

 

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It's basically a matter of replacing llKey2Name(id) or llDetectedName(n) or whatever with llGetUsername(id) or llGetUsername(llDetectedKey(n)).

 

 

You will probably need to change the way it reads the notecards, too, so it doesn't mind "Resident," even though it won't be necessary, to avoid having to redo your cards -- ask in the Scripting forum if you need a hand.

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Thanks much.  It is an old script that I use and I have to manually edit the note card.  But it wouldn't take long to do.  My place is primarily my private work area so I don't have many people over.

 

[Roseysun Galicia]

Deleted

[Knowl Paine]

All the things Philip said...

All the things M said...

How is it important now?

I suspect Rodvick will not be any different.

When he is gone, none of this will matter.

 

[Melita Magic]

I don't see why they can't just enable both options?