Name Change Charges (not Linden Labs)

[Dakota Noelle]

So, I am not sure of the TOS on this, but can someone in Second Life charge you Lindens to change your name within their group. I ask this because I fish in SL, and you have to register to be able to withdraw any lindens you earn from their ATM. Because I changed my name, I was not able to do this and requested my name to be updated and was charged L$1000 for the service. Yet I was not charged when I asked my landlord on my rental home to change my name so I could pay the rent into the terminal. 

Thanks for any info on this. 

[Rowan Amore]

4 minutes ago, Grace Itano said:

So, I am not sure of the TOS on this, but can someone in Second Life charge you Lindens to change your name within their group. I ask this because I fish in SL, and you have to register to be able to withdraw any lindens you earn from their ATM. Because I changed my name, I was not able to do this and requested my name to be updated and was charged L$1000 for the service. Yet I was not charged when I asked my landlord on my rental home to change my name so I could pay the rent into the terminal. 

Thanks for any info on this. 

They are within their rights to charge you a fee to change your name in their database.  It's poor customer service but alliowed.

[Lindal Kidd]

Wow, someone found a way to profit from a poorly designed piece of equipment.

It's scurrilous, underhanded, and altogether EEEEEVIL, but it's not against the Terms of Service.

This is why I don't play any of the "Earn $L With Our Game!" games.

[Dakota Noelle]

Thanks for the info, ladies, I was curious because I had not heard of it before.

[bigmoe Whitfield]

I will point out before any one comes in and jumps on a creator about this,   most of us,  do not have any quick method of changing names in a database,  most of us still have to connect to a shell window and enter entries manually to make changes,   I also use toad to make changes as it's a bit easier to go hunting for the data that I need to change,   so keep that in mind as situations as Grace has found out.   

[Arielle Popstar]

1 hour ago, Grace Itano said:

So, I am not sure of the TOS on this, but can someone in Second Life charge you Lindens to change your name within their group. I ask this because I fish in SL, and you have to register to be able to withdraw any lindens you earn from their ATM. Because I changed my name, I was not able to do this and requested my name to be updated and was charged L$1000 for the service. Yet I was not charged when I asked my landlord on my rental home to change my name so I could pay the rent into the terminal. 

Thanks for any info on this. 

Wouldn't it have been cheaper to just rejoin the group under your new name?

[Love Zhaoying]

32 minutes ago, bigmoe Whitfield said:

I will point out before any one comes in and jumps on a creator about this,   most of us,  do not have any quick method of changing names in a database,  most of us still have to connect to a shell window and enter entries manually to make changes,   I also use toad to make changes as it's a bit easier to go hunting for the data that I need to change,   so keep that in mind as situations as Grace has found out.   

But but but..why didn't things get scripted by these 3rd parties to store users' UUID's instead of names in the first place?

[Kimmi Zehetbauer]

9 minutes ago, Arielle Popstar said:

Wouldn't it have been cheaper to just rejoin the group under your new name?

I think it's their vendor thing that won't recognise the new name.

[Rowan Amore]

29 minutes ago, Arielle Popstar said:

Wouldn't it have been cheaper to just rejoin the group under your new name?

If she had a substantial amount of Ls under her original name, she would lose access to those unless she paid the 1000L to update.

[Arielle Popstar]

2 minutes ago, Rowan Amore said:

If she had a substantial amount of Ls under her original name, she would lose access to those unless she paid the 1000L to update.

Assuming her name change was done by LL, I would think that would be taken care of as well as propagating the change throughout the system including the Fish group. 

[Rolig Loon]

4 minutes ago, Arielle Popstar said:

Assuming her name change was done by LL, I would think that would be taken care of as well as propagating the change throughout the system including the Fish group.

Sadly, not if the person who scripted the fish system decided to store each person's name in a local data file.  If so, then each time someone clicks to get access her name will be compared with whatever was saved. Grid-wide updates to Linden Lab's name files won't touch files that are saved in a local server or an external database. As the Friendly Lion says, the smarter approach would have been for the scripter to save UUIDs instead of names but it's too late to do that now, I'm sure. The way it's set up now is an inconvenience for everyone.

[Arielle Popstar]

1 minute ago, Rolig Loon said:

Sadly, not if the person who scripted the fish system decided to store each person's name in a local data file.  If so, then each time someone clicks to get access her name will be compared with whatever was saved. Grid-wide updates to Linden Lab's name files won't touch files that are saved in a local server or an external database. As the Friendly Lion says, the smarter approach would have been for the scripter to save UUIDs instead of names but it's too late to do that now, I'm sure. The way it's set up now is an inconvenience for everyone.

Then it is a rip off to be charging for work they created for themselves.

[bigmoe Whitfield]

49 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

But but but..why didn't things get scripted by these 3rd parties to store users' UUID's instead of names in the first place?

That's always a good question. 

[Rolig Loon]

2 minutes ago, Arielle Popstar said:

Then it is a rip off to be charging for work they created for themselves.

I quite agree.

[LittleMe Jewell]

50 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

But but but..why didn't things get scripted by these 3rd parties to store users' UUID's instead of names in the first place?

Well, we all need to remember that even LL did not ALWAYS rely on UUID instead of the avatar name.  That was part of the whole problem around initially allowing name changes.

[bigmoe Whitfield]

7 hours ago, Rolig Loon said:

I quite agree.

if I'm not getting paid to correct the persons name, it will go onto a list for when I have time to get it done,  if they need it right away,  then they can pay the charge or they can wait.   

[Love Zhaoying]

2 hours ago, bigmoe Whitfield said:

10 hours ago, Rolig Loon said:

I quite agree.

if I'm not getting paid to correct the persons name, it will go onto a list for when I have time to get it done,  if they need it right away,  then they can pay the charge or they can wait.   

But but but..I NEED my name changed from DirtyHoneyBunnyDear17 to DirtyHoneyBunnyDear18 NAO!!!1!!!1!!!!

[Randy Pole]

It is poor design and lack of forethought on behalf of the designers of that database. They should be using the UUID of the avatar and not the name of the avatar. They can then use LSL calls to return both the avatar first name, last name and display name so no need to manually update anything when it changes (though display names might be best avoided thanks to the use of creative fonts that will probably result in characters that make totally no sense).

I understand that the needs of a database can change over time - I designed and managed one for fifteen years that grew and grew far beyond the original idea as managers added more and more "nice to haves" to reports data to be stored. In the end I had to totally rewrite and migrate the data over in order to have efficient indexed key fields. The same probably would be best for SL databases that have hard coded names as their key fields. Yes it will mean downtime but that can be prepared for and in the long run it is the way to go.

Edited January 30, 2023 by Randy Pole

[Phil Deakins]

As has been said already, UUIDs need to be used instead of, or as well as, names. That has been true since display names came in a very long time ago. After all this time, there is no satisfactory excuse for not using UUIDs - imo, of course.

[Lucia Nightfire]

18 hours ago, Rolig Loon said:

Sadly, not if the person who scripted the fish system decided to store each person's name in a local data file.  If so, then each time someone clicks to get access her name will be compared with whatever was saved. Grid-wide updates to Linden Lab's name files won't touch files that are saved in a local server or an external database. As the Friendly Lion says, the smarter approach would have been for the scripter to save UUIDs instead of names but it's too late to do that now, I'm sure. The way it's set up now is an inconvenience for everyone.

It isn't too late to correct the data. We now have https://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/LlRequestUserKey

It is, essentially, an official, remote Name2Key means.

I use this function with old names to get current names, via uri.

[Rolig Loon]

24 minutes ago, Lucia Nightfire said:

It isn't too late to correct the data. We now have https://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/LlRequestUserKey

Yup, as you say it's very easy to update. The main problem, I suspect, is that the people who operate the most troublesome sites are using scripts written by some long-forgotten scripter.  They have no idea how to change anything and, in fact, may not even have mod perms on their own scripts (strange as that seems).  There are also a lot of old freebie scripts out there that are still being grabbed by individual users. We see the same thing with builders who still use freebie door scripts that have been obsolete for over a decade. The technical problem is easy to fix, but the social one is likely to be with us for a long time. 

[Lucia Nightfire]

2 minutes ago, Rolig Loon said:

Yup, as you say it's very easy to update. The main problem, I suspect, is that the people who operate the most troublesome sites are using scripts written by some long-forgotten scripter.  They have no idea how to change anything and, in fact, may not even have mod perms on their own scripts (strange as that seems).  There are also a lot of old freebie scripts out there that are still being grabbed by individual users. We see the same thing with builders who still use freebie door scripts that have been obsolete for over a decade. The technical problem is easy to fix, but the social one is likely to be with us for a long time. 

My comment was mostly towards the ones that charge to change your name in a system, when that system could just be updated.

I think there is an incentive not to change the format to be more efficient.

[Rolig Loon]

5 minutes ago, Lucia Nightfire said:

My comment was mostly towards the ones that charge to change your name in a system, when that system could just be updated.

I think there is an incentive not to change the format to be more efficient.

Thank you.  I missed your point.  Yes, it's much less work to update the script than to keep updating individual names manually, so if a venue has a scripter (or simply shells out the one-time cost to hire one), that's the smart move.  Also, saves you bad publicity.

Edited January 30, 2023 by Rolig Loon
Additional information

[Dakota Noelle]

Additional comment after reading through.

1. No it would not be cheaper to start over, it is not as simple as re joining a group. Your rod is changed to new name when lindens do the change, but you rod is attached to an external database, that holds your earnings and ranks. To take lindens you have earnt, you have to click the in world ATM, that is also connected to the external database. If it was as simple as joining a group, I think I would have figured it cheaper to have done so.

2. As regards to the fact that, yes I would charge someone if I had to change their name in my database, that is down to you, I was only enquiring as to whether it was allowed. Also you state you would only do it for free if you did not have to do it immediately and in your own good time (however long that may be). Well, I did actually wait for over a month for my name to finally be changed in the database and was not even told that there was a fee for doing so, I was basically billed for it after it was done, which comes off of any earnings I make until paid in full. I am still waiting for my name to be changed in another part of the database, which relays to their website rankings and stats (which by the way I lost some ranks during the time I could not participate), I am hoping that once they finally get around to updating the other part I am not going to be charged again. But i am happy for you if you consider this ok to do.

3. Bad customer service - I think so. But considering that they have a database of well over 5000 players, I presume they think charging a fee to maybe a handful of players that decide to change their name as not really making any real money from it and also feel they can do so, as if you only lose a handful of players from that bad customer service, it is really not affecting their business as a whole, as your other 95 percent of customers are still there, unaffected about they way they choose to run and charge for their venture.

Again thanks for all the comments and feedback, much appreciated.

[Kavarek]

Well you would hope they would use ones account Key and not the account name at time of activation. Most people do that for databases. So changing the account name, or user name does not matter.

It is their system, but poorly designed, and they then take advantage of others due to their own poor design and mistake.