A solution to the "Last Names" issue (Very long!)

[Kaluura Boa]

[ tl;dr version: Let's switch to Display Name only and have the viewers replace on-the-fly any of your known names with your Display Name or else.]

(First, to make clear where I stand, I must say that I am... was?... a big supporter of the return of the Last Names on the registration page.)

Last night, I had one of these moments of drug-induced absolute clarity (100% pure melatonine, the sleep hormone.) :smileywink: and I saw some light at the end of the tunnel.

It should be obvious by now that Rodvik is not a big fan of the return of the Last Names so let's turn the page and start afresh. What do we have and what can we do to make everybody happy? And, more importantly, what do we want?

On the left, we have the Legacy Names (Kaluura Boa), the old-style SL names with family names --which include the Resident last name to the displeasure of a lot of people. In the middle, we have Usernames (kaluura.boa). On the right, we have Display Names. (Like a lot of old-timers, I use Display Names to show only my first name, so: Kaluura). For the best or the worst, we have Display Names and it is unlikely they will suddenly disappear. Let's just use them. Let's make the switch to use only Display Names in-world.

There are a few arguments against the whole idea.

Confusion and impersonation. Display Names are not unique. So what? That is the same thing than in the real world. Not everybody has a unique name so that they can google it and count the Internet pages dedicated to their very own person. Merchants who still have an in-world shop can eject and ban avatars who carry their brand name on their land. Scripts can do that and more, like recognize names which only ressemble through the use of various Unicode characters. Such a system would not be perfect but if people do not try to impersonate merchants, they should not be worried of being injustly banned.

Sometimes, we also need really unique names to make white lists or black lists. This is only a problem of terminology. Scripts in such cases should ask univoquely for Usernames and not confuse their users with vague expressions like "avatar's name".

Using Usernames also applies to any accountance situation. If your scripter is stupid enough to want to store Display Names, change of scripter. Period. As a scripter, I will not bother storing anything but UUIDs. They are the really unique "name" of an avatar and from that, a script can show any of the related names --including the Display Name of the week-- when a Human needs something a little more readable.

Legibility. It is too much true that some people cross the line of the readability with their Display Name. In such a case, you can just say "Hey you!" or, if you are so inclined, tell the person that you cannot read their name, open their profile to get their Username. Whatever. An unreadable Display Name is not a wall of bricks across the whole world or a mountain higher than the Everest so that you cannot go around.

The Resident Legacy Name. If I am not mistaken, Rodvik promised to remove it as much as possible from the viewers. If Linden Lab does so, the Third Party Viewers will follow sooner or later. However, that is not enough.

Viewers should take the next logical step and intercept any name addressed to you and replace it with your current Display Name. To make everybody happy, this should be an option set by default on Display Name but which should allow you to be called by your Legacy Name or even Username. Your choice. And suddenly all the objects of SecondLife would call you the way you want.

The replacement system does not need to be perfect. If people misspell your name, no replacement will occur and you will see it. That is all. It would apply only to your name on your screen. You might still see objects calling other avatars with something else than their Display Name... but is it a problem? I do not think so.

LL's job in the matter would be minimal but very important: To make sure that Display Names are and stay reliable. And to burry the Legacy Names! As the name suggests, they are a thing of the past. People who think that Display Names are the absolute abomination should not have changed their Display Name and it should still match their Legacy Name. No real change for them.

No change to do on the name tags. People see others' name the way they want and they can call them the way they want or can. The others' viewer will intercept the chat and eventually modify it to use their Display Name or whatever is set.

Now we have the cake and we can eat it! :smileywink: Such a system would allow everybody to have a Legacy Name, a single name, a middle name, a Japanese-alike "inverted" name. Anything you want!

This Display Name switch revolution will not happen in a day but it is not so unrealistic, is it? Can we do it and move on?

PS: Dear LL, if you think the whole idea violates the concept of "shared experience", look another way. You do not want to pour gazoline on this fire, do you?

 

[Venus Petrov]

A very thoughtful and reasoned approach.  It is, however, unlikely to be read by any Linden of consequence in this subforum.  As Rodvik has once again closed his feed (my.secondlife.com/rodvik.linden), you might want to cross-post this in the Forum Feedback area where it might, MIGHT be read by a Linden sometime.  You could also try posting it to the Linden Lab feed (my.secondlife.com/linden.lab).  You would have to post it in pieces (original post followed by comments) to get the whole text in there.

Unfortunately, LL has cut off many pathways of direct communication from residents (i.e., customers).  Good luck!

[mikka Luik]

Hmmmm, well I'll adopt the simplest solution there and just address everyone by their UUID - simple, democratic, totally same format for everyone - problem solved =^^=

 

f9f8f276-9e5c-4f71-8509-d3ed1b0047XX at your service

[Dilbert Dilweg]

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mikka Luik wrote:

Hmmmm, well I'll adopt the simplest solution there and just address everyone by their UUID - simple, democratic, totally same format for everyone - problem solved =^^=

 

f9f8f276-9e5c-4f71-8509-d3ed1b0047XX at your service

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Lol Isn't that how they identify them selves in prison?

I am from Grid Block A, cell 32

ID f9f8f276-9e5c-4f71-8509-d3ed1b328fg

[Irene Muni]

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Venus Petrov wrote:

As Rodvik has once again closed his feed (my.secondlife.com/rodvik.linden), you might want to cross-post this in the Forum Feedback area where it might, MIGHT be read by a Linden sometime.  You could also try posting it to the Linden Lab feed (my.secondlife.com/linden.lab).  You would have to post it in pieces (original post followed by comments) to get the whole text in there.

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And in the old and forgotten (by LL) JIRA: https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/SVC-7125

[Orca Flotta]

Most of us spawn from a very long tradition of first and last name; I know my family did this for probably multiple thousand years. For me it's a riddle why we should deviate from that system. I am Orca Flotta, a resident of Second LIfe. Friends and foes call me ㋡rcs, that's why I made it my display name. But I don't like the lab using this intimate form of corresponding with me. Hey, I'm a paying customer and on a strictly business orientated relationship with them.

Anyway, who cares what Rod likes or dislikes, geting rid of family names was a very bad idea in the first place, he admitted to it ... and now we're expecting LL to bring back the legacy system. Pronto.

'nuff said

[Eileen Fellstein]

Ever notice it's always the person with the name that requires mental gymnastics to even read that is offended if you misspell or abreviate? lol

I just wish the forum would show my display name ( Eileen J. Fellstein) instead of user name (or is it legacy name? I'm confused at the difference). I took special care to add the .J middle initial in there so no one can confuse me with all the other Eileen Fellsteins on the grid!

The J is for Jenny btw. I figure the grid didn't have enough Jenny's running around.

 

In all serious I like the last names as opposed to display names, even though I have had some fun with the display names and I realize they can be handy for RP purposes. I like them because it does have that sense of a family name though someone in your RL family may not always be able to find it available if they decide to join you in SL. What else I like is that it is sort of an impossed bit of privacy, something I believe many people have too willingly tossed out the window with the popularity of things like facebook where people post stupid amounts of personaly identifying information about themselves and their RL family for anyone to grab and process at will. Whatever happened to sites warning you against doing that sort of thing?

[madman626 Fall]

That just wont work for user like me on viwer 1 or snowglobe and no thank not updateing my viwer just for display name why could i it silly.

[Eileen Fellstein]

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madman626 Fall wrote:

That just wont work for user like me on viwer 1 or snowglobe and no thank not updateing my viwer just for display name why could i it silly.

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I can relate Madam. I stayed with the V1 viewer long after most people had moved to emerald, phoenix and a variety of other things. At a certain point the old one just wasn't working well with some of the things they were adding into SL. Display names was one but also mesh was close to going live and other features. I bit the bullet and went to V2 then V3 and then I started experimenting with some based off those.

Also around that time, I started playing with some toys that used remote scripting and since I didn't much care for the original viewer that enabled that, I wound up using Firestorm.

Point is there is a lot more reasons to upgrade veiwer than display names. I'm actually surprised that you can even view a lot of objects and clothing around since more and more of it utilizes mesh. If you're happy, that's what counts though

[Sommerland Starostin]

I was very happy with my linden-made last name. BUT some people started crabbing about wanting their own first & last name & this is the crazy "Resident" last name with display name set-up LL came up with. If everyone had left well enough alone there wouldn't be even MORE complaining. Some people just like to complain.

[Ossian1488303077]

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Sommerland Starostin wrote:

I was very happy with my linden-made last name. BUT some people started crabbing about wanting their own first & last name & this is the crazy "Resident" last name with display name set-up LL came up with. If everyone had left well enough alone there wouldn't be even MORE complaining. Some people just like to complain.

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Aw, quit complaining!

(just joking)

Certainly Linden Lab looked for the most complicated solution they could find, but it isn't the fault of the people who asked.

What users wanted was the ability to change their name. Simply that.

But Linden Lab insisted that it was the hardest thing on earth; that Einstein had killed himself trying to figure the problem out.

I don't believe it. I still think that if they wanted to, they could add to even the present mess, the possibility of changing a user's name.

They could charge whatever they liked. They could put whatever conditions on it they needed. People would pay.

If that's as impossible as they've always insisted, I'd like to know why. Can they explain why a name can't be changed?

That gives two simple things they could do today to restore their own credibility and eliminate some of the bad feeling about this topic:

 

 

1. Allow name changes for payment
2. Explain why name changes are so difficult