Why groups cannot change their name

[Grace Cuthbertsson]

Does anyone know why LL does not allow a group to change its name? Just like a company in RL might undergo a reorganization, so might a group in SL which makes the former name not as applicable to what the group is now about. The present solution is to create a new group with a new name, but then you have to go to the trouble of inviting all members of your old group to join the new one and then eject everyone out of the old one in order to close it. To me, it would be much simpler to allow a group owner to change the name of a group.

Does anyone know if that is even possible in SL? Or is it a matter of that's the way LL prefers to operate groups? I would even be willing to pay the $L100 it costs to form a new group to be able to change the name of an old one.

 

[Venus Petrov]

As far as I am aware, there is no simple way to just change a group name.  You could try to submit a ticket.  Check first to see i the name you want is already taken.

[RockAndRoll Michigan]

It *should* be a simple matter to change the group's name in the database. Other references to it such as land, people's profiles, etc., should merely point to the database entry by UUID.

I don't think they've set it up in such a relational manner, though. I think they've forced the group's name to be included in any database entries that refer to it, such as land settings showing that it belongs to that group. That's the only rational explanation I can personally come up with as to why you can't change the name.

Disclaimer here, I am not a Linden, and I have never seen the behind-the-scenes infrastructure related to database, this is just my best educated guess.

[Peggy Paperdoll]

On the surface I think I can agree.  But users names are not changable either and I can see a whole slew of reasons why LL would discourage that (to the point of flat refusing to do it).  A user owes things and has a whole section of the database devoted to those things the user owes.........it would be a rather big chore to make the necessary changes with something that seems so simple as a name change.  The sheer numerical possibilities of the 1,000's ( 100,000's or 1,000,000's) makes such a task something LL just might not want to get into.  We got "Display Names" as a compromise which is a simple UUID pointing thing that can pretty easily be done immediately without any manpower involved. 

 

Groups owe things too..........I think it's much the same issue as user names.  But, like you, I have no inside knowledge of the workings of the database.  But I do know if it were easy LL would do it.

[Dogboat Taurog]

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Grace Cuthbertsson wrote:

Does anyone know why LL does not allow a group to change its name? Just like a company in RL might undergo a reorganization, so might a group in SL which makes the former name not as applicable to what the group is now about. The present solution is to create a new group with a new name, but then you have to go to the trouble of inviting all members of your old group to join the new one and then eject everyone out of the old one in order to close it. To me, it would be much simpler to allow a group owner to change the name of a group.

Does anyone know if that is even possible in SL? Or is it a matter of that's the way LL prefers to operate groups? I would even be willing to pay the $L100 it costs to form a new group to be able to change the name of an old one.

 

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as sl goes on more and more groups will be created and they will have to reuse the dead ones, or we will get the XXXSL furnitureXXX etc just like the problems new residents are facing today with 111xxx123dave43abc resident.

im sure LL could do it, its a DB for goodness sake not a religion.

i honestly feel LL just doesnt care and can't be bothered to do anything but the bare minimum to maintain income.

[Grace Cuthbertsson]

Thanks so much for your comments, everyone. They have helped me realize that it might not be such a simple task after all to change the name of a group. If any of you ever hear of such a thing in the future, please let me know!

Have a great week!

[RockAndRoll Michigan]

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Peggy Paperdoll wrote:

 We got "Display Names" as a compromise which is a simple UUID pointing thing that can pretty easily be done immediately without any manpower involved. 

 

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That's exactly the point I was trying to make. A simple "UUID pointing thing" is how it should have been done in the first place. For example, if I create a group called Rock's Landholdings and it buys a plot of land, the land should not show up in the database as the property of Rock's Landholdings. It should belong to the group's UUID. So when the client comes to that property, and the asset servers need to display the land's owner as Rock's Landholdings, then the server should see the UUID, send a request to the database for the name of the group referred to by that entry, and display it. Rename the group? No sweat, piece of cake, update the database entry. Poof, everything that references it, be it land the group owns, a member's profile showing they are a member of that group, objects the group owns, or even objects associated with but not owned by the group, all are instantly updated because they never had the group name in the first place.

[Void Singer]

because it forces more lookups in the database... the more points of static data you have, the better you can take advantage of caching..... if you keep having to continually refresh that cache you are going to hammer the database.

why is that different than displaynames? with DN's you can take advantage of the client communications with the database and use those to update the local region items. you could potentially do the same thing with groups, except that the design is probably laid out separately so each client user info connect would also generate a new update request for group info. additionally there is a scale problem, since every user can start multiple groups, which of course multiplies update requests. same goes for profiles.

there's also a social factor to consider. if I sign up for a group with one name, and they later change that to something else, that change may be inappropriate either to my wants, or objectionable in general. and finally there is "collision" where multiple groups try to vie for the same name, or use anothers name to discredit them or otherwise affect their ability to operate using it.... doing name collision searches on the mass of groups we have is espensive, which is why it's only done once on creation. doing it on demand frequently is also going to hammer the database. and of course the negative impact of having yet another alternate name with no meaning if the DN style solution were applied.