Cheer up, last names are coming back!

[Dartagan Shepherd]

In fairness, had posted this on a new world notes blog post about it back in November:

"The reasoning for getting rid of them in the first place was because a quite considerable amount of signups were being lost at the point of a new user choosing a last name.

I forget the actual percentage, but it was enough to make that call.

Also don't remember which Linden I heard those stats from, thinking either M or Amanda Linden who are no longer with the company. Thinking that the people who did this original research are no longer with LL.

Hopefully they'll be looking at that previous data closely before bouncing back to re-fix what they saw needed fixing in the first place."

Still don't want to quote an exact percentage, but like I say it was an incredibly high number of signups lost. That's something not so easy to get past, no matter how much community spirit it generates.

Majority of new users don't care and don't like it, by the numbers. There's only so much a more attractive wrapper around it can solve.

[Celestiall Nightfire]

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Pussycat Catnap wrote:

You can explain a lot of what goes on at LLs I'd guess; with this:

http://gawker.com/5885196/the-tech-industrys-asperger-problem-affliction-or-insult

- Decisions made on individual over-focused passions instead of thought for community/customer impact.

Which that little 'am too' 'am not' thing makes me think of.

Of course in SL, we've also got a tech-geek culture among the residents that seems to be even more severely afflicted than the Labites.

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Pussycat you posted a link to an Op-Ed piece that is negative, biased, and insulting against those with Asperger's Syndrome. 

Also, yes, Apserger's is genetic. 

My youngest son was diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome in 4th grade.  As a little kid, he was bullied, harassed, and taunted by other children at his school.  Because, he preferred to sit in a corner and read books instead of interacting, because he could not interact well, because he was different.  As, a fourth grader, he was also diagnosed as being clinically depressed, and in his own words, he was "shunned" by other children.  Do you know the heartbreak of seeing your child come home in tears everyday?   I have spent a lifetime (his lifetime) battling the prejudice and ignorance that people have against Asperger's Syndrome people.  

Opinion-Ed pieces like that "Gawker" trash piece are deplorable in their attempt to sling negative stereotypes at those with Asperger's Syndrome.

Please, think before you post such a link.

[William Gide]

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Dartagan Shepherd wrote:

Still don't want to quote an exact percentage, but like I say it was an incredibly high number of signups lost. That's something not so easy to get past, no matter how much community spirit it generates.

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So instead of fixing a problem with their sign-up process, the made a highly disruptive change in a pretty fundamental part of how SL works.  Then, when people complain about this hilariously bad decision, they sit on the issue so long that repairing the disaster would be even more disruptive than the original issue.

They picked a in-world technical solution to a web-facing interface problem.  It's all very discouraging.

[Seven Overdrive]

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Dartagan Shepherd wrote:

In fairness, had posted this on a new world notes blog post about it back in November:

"

The reasoning for getting rid of them in the first place was because a quite considerable amount of signups were being lost at the point of a new user choosing a last name.

I forget the actual percentage, but it was enough to make that call.

Also don't remember which Linden I heard those stats from, thinking either M or Amanda Linden who are no longer with the company. Thinking that the people who did this original research are no longer with LL.

Hopefully they'll be looking at that previous data closely before bouncing back to re-fix what they saw needed fixing in the first place

."

Still don't want to quote an exact percentage, but like I say it was an incredibly high number of signups lost. That's something not so easy to get past, no matter how much community spirit it generates.

Majority of new users don't care and don't like it, by the numbers. There's only so much a more attractive wrapper around it can solve.

---

 

 

 

I honestly do not understand (and really really want to) how they obtained this data that said people were abandoning signing up because of last names.  As I asked elsewhere, how was this data not skewed by current residents looking for a specific last name for an alt?  If LL did one of their secret surveys to obtain the data, then how did they track people down to send them the survey asking why they abandoned the sign-up process.  I mean... they didn't complete registration, right?

Regardless of how they interpreted the data, things still have trended lower to the point they have now quit giving any quarterly reports (wondered how long it would take them to stop those anyway).  So apparently the focus on last names isn't giving the short term returns they were hoping for.  If SL was compelling enough for the lost sign-ups, they would have picked a name to join.  I mean if Johnny7827364 could do it, then why couldn't they?

LL could have made last names optional (.resident if you declined to pick one) while preserving the old system and still add display names.  

[Anaiya Arnold]

I had a reply window open over the same thing.

Please Pussycat, do not spread that garbage.  It borders on hate speech at best.  I honestly think it crosses the border.

[Sommerland Starostin]

Sorry but this is what got us to "Resident" in the first place.  Just give us the names back, don't make it anymore complicated.

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Linda Brynner wrote:

 

 

My first reaction when i signed up was like... huh? Why can't i choose the name i want. Gosh that was 5 years ago... (unless i was willing to pay 100 US$ duh!) Strangly they then changed to one user name which is even more restrictive. And there we had display names coming to add to all the confusion.

The only thing LL needs to change is making it possible choosing usernames by oneselve at signup, possibly bringing back the dual fielded login screen, and communicate things like the single named users have a default second name 'Resident', or using the alternative login format like firstname.lastname (with dot) or firstname lastname (with a space) for use of single fielded login viewers.

Two names we can choose ourselves would be so much more freedom.

How hard can 

that

 be...

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