Insight Homewood

I have not visited Midsomer in quite some time. Now that I know there is a coffee house there, I am going to, the next time I log in, give it a visit. I enjoy these forums for learning what is new in the world.

While technically I have not started over I have however changed my attitude about SL. I think it happens to all of us to some degree that at first we are filled with wonder in this new world and become emotionally attached to the people of the opposite sex with whom we have become close to by sharing out lives with each other. When chatting becomes boring I visit and explore new sims. There are so many mind-blowing places in Second Life that fill me with wonder that someone has the skill and artistry to create something virtual that has a visceral impact on me. I try to stay connected with friends. I talk of things, SL, that we all can relate to. Other friendships encompass sharing of our real lives; they are and can be the most special relationships we can have in SL. For what it is worth, when I do send a hello to someone I have already been struck by something; their avatar, their title, some animation they went through or something caught my eye in their profile. Complimenting someone or saying I also agree with something they have said in their profile is one way I engage someone. I say hello in passing nearly every avatar I meet in Second Life. I do so because my first impressions of Second Life where that there were many beautiful places, but the avatars never said anything to me as they walked by. I remember the kindness of seasoned citizens when I was new. I pass it on to new citizens, sharing something with them that may make their Second Life expereince more enjoyable. I went through a phase of being a creator of things using the standard built in tools. I went through a decorating and customizing phase. Sometimes revisiting those phases will re energize me. Letting go of expectations I used to have helped me enjoy other aspects of Second Life. Good luck in your journey; Second Life, for me, is an integral part of my life; it has been a part of my life for so many years. I experience the world with the brain I have. I've become comfortable with the world as it is.

Contrary to what some have said about me, I am not against business owners in Second Life. For what it is worth business owners resist change to Second Life. For a business to survive, there has to be a thriving economy. If the sign up rate begins to be less than the drop out rate in SL, business owners will suffer do to the lack of new consumers of their products. Contrary to belief of these conservative business leaders, I believe the ability to have Display Names will tend to vitalize the consumer base which is so important to the success of business. For business owners to oppose change to SL, such as Display Names based on highly exaggerated fears, then the current sign up rate into SL will remain flat, and the drop out rate will begin to rise. So to oppose change based on unfounded fears is counter intuitive. Consider this point of view; in spite of the ability to change Display Names, this will not increase the incidence of impostors taking away or ruining the reputation of established business owners. If you fear being attacked so much, you must take your own measures to protect your products and continue to push on Lindens to implement better content protection schemes. Business competition is very alive in Second Life. There are hundreds of folks who imitate the latest clothing styles, for example. All us more-seasoned citizens remember when Bits and Bobs were the only couples dance animations around. Now there are dozens if not hundreds of dance and other animation creators in Second Life, due to the development of better creation tools to create them with and imagination of so many folks.The ambitions of others who wish the same success in selling products in Second Life as established vendors is part and parcel of of the economy in Second Life. Still do not put the cart before the horse. There are a lot of want-to-be creators and vendors starting businesses in SL, but if the economy falters, then it will be more businesses competing for a smaller consumer base. This will hurt business owners. The economy is driven by supply and demand. Keep the demand high, if you wish business success. Do not fear the changes that Display Names will wrought, but watch carefully for the effects, both positive and negative. If things turn out dour as so many of you predict, then there is a valid argument for an increase in valid AR and complaints to LL. If the effects are more positive than negative, then all business owners stand to benefit. Lastly, I do not stand alone in wanting change. I am willing to voice my opinions, as mine are as valid as anyone else's. Let us try to debate the pros and cons rather than impeaching the character of those who you don't agree with. Most people in SL are not even aware of these message boards. It only takes a cursory look at the number of unique posters on this topic versus the average population in Second Life on a typical day. I may very well represent a silent majority of folks who are interested in seeing this change implemented.

I do not discount that such things happen already. I do not discount that an impersonation can take place. I do say, it is an unfair world we live in. Those of us who get it, accept what we can, change what we can. Fro those those who can't, the world is always unfair, and what Linden Labs will roll out is unfair, only because of the potential. What I dislike is this potential problem being exaggerated as if it is going to be a major problem If you swim with sharks, you have to know how to bite and feed with them. As far as making real life money in SL, yes, a small minority depend on that income. If your income in SL is marginal for living purposes, I would say you might want to look into something with a bit more security. If you depend on SL for your life's necessities, I can understand your attitude, but I still can think that is a foolish to put your eggs into such a fragile basket. Remember the dot.com bust? Whose to say Linden Labs doesn't go belly up someday in the not too far distant future? It could happen, since there was a major corporate downsizing recently. It is the economy after all; its bad all over. You realize you can't get away from bad people. Second Life is not a shot at utopia that some folks think it is. There are few problems in SL that are not duplicated in real life. I think if you want as much protection as laws enable for real life businesses, then you have no business trying to succeed in Second Life. Life just isn't as fair as you want it to be.

Axi, I agree with most of what you say. Your arguement in the end, is a presumption I find hard to take. As I understand Second Life, very, very few people are famous grid-wide. While any sim owner with high traffic can number thousands of unique visitors weekly, of those visitors, only small percentage actually know who owns the sim, so that sim owner isn't as famous as they might think. Second Life is so vast that as I see it, there are many big fish in small ponds in Second Life. One person I can say is grid-wide famous is Craig Altman. I bet a majority of people here would not know who he is. Bits and Bobs animations is who he is. I think it is ego-bound for someone who feels well-known because they have a few hundred friends in their circles in Second Life. Since smartness and observational are characteristics that vary among a continuum in the population I would not be so concerned of that small minority at the one edge of the bell curve as so many seem to be so urgently afraid of. Another observation I have made from when I was a mentor, there are a minority of people who caused a lot of issues at welcome centers. Many experienced citizens were there to bait new folks and cause problems. It was a case of a small minority causing a very large problem. I have noticed the most griefiing occurrs where there are a lot of new folks and on sims where a lot of young (in rl age) folks congregate. I think it has something to do with all those hormones and such.

Ok, something is confusing me. New folks when they sign up, will they be able to choose a duplicate USER NAME as someone already in SL? According to one of the LL wikis I read, our user name is our account name; I assume that they will continue to be unique based on LL naming rules. Since Display Name will be distinct, what is all the ruckus about people duplicating a user name with their display name? I still think it will be quickly obvious to most citizens who have at least a few weeks in SL, that a person's display name can be anything, and won't be conned into thinking they are impersonating someone. Can someone clarify the facts here? So much of the discussion is talk about display name duplicating a user name being able to cause more griefing. Murphy's law can take affect here, as I see it, if you are taken in by a display name versus a user name, then you are not using too many brain cells.

Anita, you said this: By giving the opportunity to frequently change the name, shipholders clubowners and managers will get problems and will be griefed. If get tired of that they will leave SL..then what???? If they loose confidence in LL because of namegrieving??? I believe it will be obviously different; your User Name, will be different than the identical Display Name. For arguments sake, too many, "ifs," used dilutes your position. It is all supposition after all. I disagree that just because of having Display Names will cause more grief. I can understand the problems you have with griefers. I visited Dance Island once. It appeals to a younger, wilder crowd. I am sure griefing is more common there; it is the nature of the beat. But you cannot successfully connect Display Names with more griefing. The reason I say this is that there is a statistical minority of folks in Sl who for a myriad reasons will lash out to cause problems for others. I conclude that Display Names will do more good than harm. That is also a suppositional statement. Either one , without evidence, is valid.

Frankly, I think Display Names will make many citizens have more fun in Second Life. I do not think the vast majority will pick a name to impersonate someone. Now business owners in Second Life are the ones that are most afraid of the coming of Display Names. Most folks in Second Life are consumers, so when it gets down to it, the minority here are business owners are the ones that are most afraid of change. Change, however, is a constant, and in spite of the doom and gloom of the suppositions that many people are going to deliberately impersonate someone to ruin their name or business, I do not believe this will come true. I an hardly wait to see all the names people will start using as their Display Names. For example, at holidays in particular, say, Halloween, I bet there will be a lot of Count Drakulas walking around. Those are the positive aspects of Display Names. While there are role players who would want specific Display Names, I do think the percentage of role players is a minority in Second Life. These are my thoughts and I believe they are more likely to be the true outcome of Display Names than the predictions that it will ruin the life of a minority of people in Second Life.

Why did you give your Alt your real life name? OH, wait, you gave it the same Second Life user name. Oh dear, so does this mean your alt is going to go grief your real name? Wait, wait.. don't tell me, you think I am being sarcastic. Until the world functions for a few months with Display Names in the wild, none of us KNOW how it will be. Actually, if you do, I think Linden Labs would love to have you in their employ. I think Linden Labs experiments with changes. I would advise you to go about your business in SL and not worry so much. Worry can cause your blood pressure to rise, making Second Life less fun, and possibly shortening your real life.

Ok, folks, you are making this up. Having a DISPLAY NAME that happens to be the same as someone's USER NAME, is not, in any way, shape or form, IMPERSONATION of that avatar who has that user name. It is an assumption that someone is going to malaciously choose an existing vendor's name with the intent to ruin that person's reputation. If you are so paranoid to think this is going to be widespread and the destruction of Second Life as we know it, then get out of the game. Let's use some common sense. A new person in SL isn't going to know the reputation of someone who has been in SL a long time and is a respected vendor. Any experienced citizen of SL who may have a malacious intent will not fool anyone who knows the vendor. There are too many things going against it. The profiles will be different enough since the person with the fake Display Name, will not have the same USER NAME of that vendor. The imposter won't have the same groups, rezz date, picks and profile statements that the user has. In IM, local chat and notecard, any communication by this imposter will be obvious because their USER NAME will be different than the respected vendor's USER NAME. The argument against DISPLAY NAMES using such a scenario is so weak as to be useless. Do you people think the rest of us are so stupid that we could not tell the difference? Either you are so arrogant to dismiss the intelligence of the rest of us or are so introverted, you only see the trees in front of you and don't know you are in a forest.

@ Jack Linden Tell us please why Linden Labs doesn't just post a survey with all the citizens of SL to find out if they want a particular feature or not? This Display Names feature has created a strong negative reaction with a lot of folks. I think most people will go with the majority. Is there fear that the majority of citizenry are wrong? Is this the reason why there won't be a survey? As I see it, many citizens have voted with their feet to go to TPV for the reason that they find the added options make their Second Life more enjoyable. Most of the TPV developers added those features that they knew residents wanted. They way I see it, Viewer 2 could not have been developed with the eye toward what most people wanted in their viewer. I wonder why this is. Did the closed beta process fail? Or is this a case of, "we know what we want to do because our internal decision making process dictates it." It has been shown over and over again throughout history, that companies that lose sight of their customer base are doomed to fail. There are competitive grids out there and one may get traction based on being better-focused on what citizens want. Consider that.

@ Coby, since the load on a simulator is proportional to the number of avatars, and the amount of data that can be sent to each user quickly enough is limited, there is a natural limit that only can be fixed by a faster internet, when it gets down to it and every user having a very fast computer. Think about it this way, digital movies have much higher resolution graphics; it takes many hours to render a movie on very high end hardware. To make this world realistic as possible, with real time updates to every avatar motion, transaction, active script and clothing change to every avatar within visual range and you can get an idea that this is a difficult problem and can't be fixed on the server end or with some "better," software.

@insight I don't know about you, but i haven't met anybody in-world that actually liked the idea... maybe you just hang out with a different kind of people i dont know... I don't know what people think. That is why I think there should be a poll that Linden labs puts out. I mean if the Linden Labs people really want to know what we think, wouldn't that be the logical way to find out? Put a poll on the login page.

Why don't we vote on it, via the log on screen popup LL some times do?? Then we will see who wants what!!! This is an outstanding idea. I would add that the poll rules should be posted as well, and that it run long enough that we do get a large enough sample of the entire population. To make it fair, though, first everyone would have to be directed to a page with just the facts of the proposed change because it is my experience a lot of folks have no idea there are even blogs and web boards related to SL and don't care. If you ask around, it amazes me how many people click through the login and don't even see a notice on the login screen. When it gets down to it, no one who cares about the consensus will rely on posting on a blog or web board as it is not scientific. With further thought, Linden Labs should post a link to the facts page that a resident then has to click, "I have read the rules," then is allowed to vote. I think this would be the most impartial and reliable way to find out just what the overall citizen base thinks about the idea.

Is it not an assumption that a majority do not want this? If one bases the number of negative posts here, it is missing the fact that there are quite a few people with multiple posts. If you take the number of people who post negatively here, compared to the average number of people inworld every day, this is such a tiny percentage it is far from being even called a minority of people. It is clear to most people that those who dislike something are the most vociferous about it. Those who don't care don't post and those who are passionately for it, will post in opposition. One can't take these blog posts to be indicate that this is a majority. There is the birds of a feather affect here. People of the same mind tend to reinforce each other.