they rowed a little boat about five miles 'cross the pond

Oh, the drama's starting bright and early on this one...

[11:42] Sxxxxxxx Exxxxxxxxxx: the owner of safira changed her name lol

Yeah, I'm noticing names changing on my friendslist, too. I don't blame anyone for taking the chance, but it's causing some slight dissonance here and there, to go to bed seeing person XY on the list, and waking up to seeing person ABL instead.

[11:43] Pxxx Lxxxxxxx: owner of 1313 mockingbird lane did also
[11:44] Axxxxx Rxxxxxxx yawns and loads a rocket propelled snobbery seeking high explosive anti [egowh*re] harpoon into her launcher

Was...that necessary to say? Also, what are you getting at? You're against the people changing their names? Why?

[11:45] axxxxxxxxxx Rxxxxxxx blinks
[11:45] hxxxxxxxxx Rxxxxxxx: Guys, this topic is off limits, please.
[11:45] hxxxxxxxxx Rxxxxxxx: It is too contentious at the moment.

I'm not sure why it should be contentious, though? I don't get the why behind the sudden drama burst.

[11:45] Hxxxx Cxxxx grinds teeth
[11:45] Sxxxxxxx Exxxxxxxxxx: apparently anything somone doesnt agree with is off limits

While I have inferred that before where this particular freebie and sales group is involved, it's mostly been discussion on stores that are or are not acceptable to post. In this case, the mod in question actually did seem to be less censoring, and more attempting to keep the peace.

[11:46] Sxxxxxxx Exxxxxxxxxx: but ok i just thought it was funny that even creators were doing it
[11:46] hxxxxxxxxx Rxxxxxxx: No Drama Zone.
[11:46] Sxxx Sxxxxx: Let's not ...
[11:46] axxxxxxxxxx Rxxxxxxx: I feel like I missed something, but I'm okay with that
[11:46] hxxxxxxxxx Rxxxxxxx: We are all stressed out, let's not play with fire, please.

Yeah. There's a lot of ambient stress already, we surely do not need to invent more reasons to be upset with things.

[11:46] Axxxxx Rxxxxxxx: hey dont mndme, i'm just a'mere resident' and everyone knows we're not real people right ?

Um...since when? I've said a lot of things about the abandoning of last names, but I don't think I've ever thought--or said--that people lacking last names weren't "real" residents.

[11:46] hxxxxxxxxx Rxxxxxxx: Shhhhh....
[11:47] Sxxx Sxxxxx: But, you are ..

Yes. And so they remain. But yes, new names for old and new friends are going to be challenging to keep up with for a while. All transitional states have growing pains.

In the meantime, Good Housekeeping magazine has been trying to put out more how-to-help-right-now lists for their readership. An earlier list of "cheap and healthy" foods goes off the rails fairly soon, but this one isn't terrible. Very few of their recommendations are intended to be complete meals; what they are designed for is to provide easy inserts for extra protein, fiber, or flavor that are shelf-stable. Variety in the pantry is never a bad thing.

And pulling back to SL, a big announcement from an unexpected direction. Got this from the maker of a hair store:

rafffle system I'm using has shut down :(

I had no idea and also got no info about this until just now, after the new round should have started i got a Notecard from the raffle saying:

'It is with a heavy heart that I am announcing today that all of the web-enabled products from Alicia Stella Design will end their service life as of April 15, 2020.'

So no idea on the cause, as this is the first I'd heard anything about it, but if anyone owns any product that ties in to a web server--fairly sure not the dance or DJ/club equipment, but definitely the raffle and contest boards, possibly the security equipment--are all going to stop working today. What does this mean for the haunted house? Well, if she's leaving SL, that's probably gone too. It's a shame, truly.

river swells and breaks its banks, acting up instead of thanks

[10:35] Txxx Rxxxxxxx (god): LALALALA

Handy life tip: if you have to specify you're a god...you're not one.

Also, unless you're specifically playing an idiot god, might be a good idea to upgrade the level of pronouncements from "LALALALA". Just sayin'.

In other news, I got a card today from the creator behind Caverna Obscura, and I will honestly be shocked if more people don't follow her lead:

Greetings!

Maybe some of you have heard the news that Linden Labs will raise Marketplace fees to 10% on December 2. Here is the blogpost with the official announcement:

https://community.secondlife.com/blogs/entry/3016-the-return-of-last-names-and-changes-to-marketplace-events-premium/

It is a 100% raise from what we are paying now (5%) so many creators/merchants will be raising their prices on Marketplace by 10% come December 2.

Caverna Obscura will also raise MP prices by 10% on December 1 (for all mesh items and some of the older prim/sculpt items). The in-world prices for everything and MP prices on most older prim items will remain the same. Here are a few examples of the price difference:

an item that is 595L$ in-world will cost 660L$ on MP, or

an item that is 395L$ in-world will be 440L$ on MP,

just to give you a feel of what it all means. I encourage everybody to use MP for finding items you like, then going in-world stores and using your viewer’s Search Area tool to quickly locate the item you are looking for on the sim. If you can’t find something in-world please don’t hesitate to contact Elvina Ewing. Of course those who prefer the convenience of MP and will not mind the price increase can continue to buy on MP.

Now, for me personally, I am likely going to see how this plays out, and make the decision then on what to raise. My biggest seller on my tiny MP store is still my very, very vintage Sukkot kit, which desperately needs revision, and the only reason I charge for that at all is because I want to track who's bought it in case I do find a way to revise it. (There are, still, no Sukkot poses on Second Life. It's not that they're hard to do, just that a) I'm not an animator, and b), I'm not Jewish. Shouldn't someone more qualified be doing this?)

But that seems to be where things stand. It's either a cash grab on the Lindens' part, or they're trying to drive traffic back in-world, and honestly, not sure which.

To the rest of the blog post, bringing back last names is a great thing, and everyone's been asking for it for years now, but what's cheap and underhanded in that is, they're requiring people be premium members to make the change, and they're charging an additional fee on top of that. It's baffling.

From the article linked above:

THE RETURN OF LAST NAMES -- UPDATE and CONTEST

We heard you loud and clear.

That's difficult to believe.

Soon it will be possible to change the name of a Second Life account. This is one of our Residents’ most requested features and we’re working furiously to make it available by the end of January. Name Changes will be exclusively for Premium members at an additional fee.

But note, they're not mentioning what, precisely, will define that fee, nor whether the fee will be in Lindens (as most in-world transactions) or in actual real currency (as in in-world divorces).

Changing one or both of your First and Last Name will be available as a single transaction. Last Names will be picked from a list, which you can help us curate.

Yay?

What’s a last name you would choose for yourself? We’ll soon hold a contest seeking your contributions to the pool of last name options. From all of the suggestions, we’ll pick five, and those five lucky Residents will be able to change their names completely free of charge! You will not need to be Premium to participate or to win. The contest will run December 16 through January 15th, and participation details will be announced shortly.

How...lucky for those residents. I don't want to enter, because I'm pretty happy with my last name, but this all seems very strange. Especially that post-January, people who choose to pay $12 a month (which feels like a forced choice, because elsewise, they're stuck with Resident until the end of time) will gain the ability to pay more to change their names, which is something Linden Labs shouldn't have completely screwed up so badly in the first place. Great. It feels like they're asking us to pay for their mistake.

Though it wouldn't be the first time...

on the seventh day I rest for a minute or two

(The below photographs all come from the "Passage of Time" exhibit at SL10B in Pizzazz. Part one and part two, for your reading pleasure.)

(from the events album; the "Passage of Time" exhibit in Pizzazz)

With 2009 came new challenges; namely, a system of 'rewarding' new premium accounts that I still hear complaints about to this day. Oh, granted, the occasional furniture or adornment gift that wanders towards premium accounts, the ability to buy and sell virtual land, and the premium-only sandboxen; these are all fun things, and--at least where the sandboxen are concerned--potentially invaluable to premium builders.

No, where the hitch seems to be is with the Lindenhomes. In essence, what the Lab has done is remade their "first land" proviso with a shocking difference, by giving each new premium account holder the ability to pick a "neighborhood", and subsequently receive--"free of charge"--a 512 parcel of land, complete with home and furnishings. Home and furnishings, I might add, that that premium account-holder cannot modify, retexture, or reconfigure in any way. It is theirs and not-theirs, in the same instance. It exists as a possession and it is never given away. Paradox? Yes, with each house that is offered.

I suppose, if the Lindens' intent is to quickly shunt new premium accounts towards tier fees and land ownership, simply because the Lindenhomes is question are so bland and utilitarian, then I suppose they work? So...yay for that?

(from the events album; the "Passage of Time" exhibit in Pizzazz)

I admit, I stood in front of this placard for a very long time. "Then in August, the Emerald viewer was in trouble..." This makes it sound as if it was purely a software issue, and not a deliberate violation of trust. I'm not going to turn this into another Emerald diatribe, but really, even within a commemorative event array, that single toss-off line does not sit well with me...nor, I would suspect, with any of the former users of Emerald who felt profoundly victimized by the developers' bad behavior.

(from the events album; the "Passage of Time" exhibit in Pizzazz)

This was another difficult placard to cover. I'm still not entirely comfortable with mesh, if only because I like to be seen as clothed when I go shopping. But the other issues that this particular sign mentions were both extraordinarily problematic at the time. As it turns out, looking back on these events, web profiles have turned out to be minimally non-invasive, though they still have features I'm not fond of using.

But the closing of the Teen Grid was a profound violation for many of us. First, because Claudia Linden, when asked, said it would never happen, but also because it's still such an appallingly bad idea. Intellectually, I realize there's no difference between someone I don't know who's thirty behind the screens, and someone I don't know who's seventeen; but emotionally, I stopped dating at all past the closure of Teen Grid. I do not want to play in mature ways with people I can't trust to be at least eighteen. It may be a minimal standard, but it's mine and I'm by damn clinging to it.

(from the events album; the "Passage of Time" exhibit in Pizzazz)

And here's another controversy that's still raging. There are many separate groups in SL, on many levels; at any given time, there's always someone new to embrace or disdain, but even within these cliques and sub-structures, there's a fluidity that comes from all playing in the same space, with the same tools.

The "Resident" last name--which, to be honest, doesn't even exist; it's a holdover to provide two distinct names under Legacy viewers--was the first brutal social distinction in SL. Within days of the announcement, anyone who didn't have a last name was almost universally dealt supercilious scorn or lip-curling disgust, and all for no reason, essentially--or perhaps for the very worst of reasons: "I was here first".

At this point, there are Resident-bearing sim owners, Resident-bearing business owners, and overall, as a defined class, they add more than they take away. But it's been a harder struggle for new residents than it ever should have been, simply by virtue of the Lindens removing their choice of a last name. It set the cultural bar excruciatingly low; too low for many at first even to make the attempt to struggle under. And it's a great shame to all of us, that so many of us couldn't see past that unfortunate distinction.

(from the events album; the "Passage of Time" exhibit in Pizzazz)

I'm still waiting for evidence that Project Shining will be worth the hype.

(from the events album; the "Passage of Time" exhibit in Pizzazz)

At the time I snapped this picture, the latest settlement involving the Lindens hadn't been announced. Looking back on it from the perspective of time, however, Rosedale's statement seems flawed and disingenuous. What we have in Second Life is real, and is ours? Hardly--as that settlement proves once again, what we have in SL is theirs, and it's as ephemeral as this exhibit will be, in a few more hours.

was it nothing but anecdote that you can tell now and then?

There are some very sharp points made in Extra Credits' latest video on working conditions in the videogame industry, and I think a lot of them gain added depth when we're thinking of Linden Lab and Second Life.

There's also some very pointed reasoning behind Shamus Young's diatribe against Netflix, and all of them I wholly agree with.

And there is now evidence that early humans lived as far back as 400,000 years ago. (And yes, that's a fossilized molar at the top of the article).

Here's Tor Books' list of the ten greatest, smallest moments in Doctor Who (nearly exclusively, barring very narrow references, dealing with the newest members of the show). It's an impressive list of gut-wrenching, gloriously precise, small moments where the world turned on a word...or a look...or an embrace. Why we're fans, after all: because we get the pathos involved. (Also, this reblogged from the Tumblr of one of my favorite artists for great truth.)

I also want to touch on briefly what's happening at DC Universe Online today. This from one of their producers (ironically named "DeadMeat"):

"As folks have seen we have had some major issues today keeping our US Servers up and running. We are working very hard to correct the problem and we will be keeping the servers down until we can deploy new software to help us fix the issues. The response to our new Free to Play model has been overwhelming (literally) and we are very excited about all the new players in the game. We are working hard to make sure DC Universe Online is the best experience possible."

He updated that half an hour ago with this:

"Update from DCUO Exec. Producer: 'We will be reopening the server soon. Although we do not have a fix yet for this problem we have added additional code to try and catch and diagnose the problem. I apologize in advance if we crash again, but know that the information we get will help to make sure we solve this problem as quickly as possible.'"

So let me get this straight. After a few months of nigh-insane hype, so many people signed up to try out the new Free-to-Play model on the block that they crashed the servers, and DCUO doesn't have a clue how to fix it so far.

I'm wondering how many coders for Champions and City of Heroes laughed themselves ill at this development. Possibly even sent condolences and bouquets. Mayhap even cards: Thank you for that huge sigh of relief, knowing you won't be a threat to our games. Get well soon.

Back to the last names JIRA, covered earlier. We stopped a bit before here:

The current choice of "resident" is not merely confusing, but no doubt unintentionaly demeaning.

Spelling not corrected, and yes.

I really feel like it does create a "them" and "us" kind of feeling between newer residents and the older ones. I recall the video where Torley talks about being able to use display names to fix the "oops" of making an initial account name like Xbobwuzhere67372X, and now with all the first names being used up, they are creating the same scenario where [users] HAVE to make those kinds of names now even if they just simply wanted to be Bob. At least with the last names, you could have 10 Bob's running around but all with different last names.

And frankly, let's be honest, no one seems to take a "resident" seriously. Are they an alt? Are they really new? I hear a lot of comments like "Oh.. its a Resident... never-mind".

Spelling corrected for one word; as originally written, it was "uses", not "users". But again, this is exactly what I've been saying.

Either bring back the list of surnames to choose from, or let us insert a last name of our choice, or maybe do both. I.e. the new user creating an account would get a choice to select from a list of premade surnames, OR to type in a surname he likes.

Either way, bring back surnames.

This also seems to be the prevalent opinion.

Being stuck with the surname "Resident" is just naff. Not to mention the issues with scripting and information management that were expounded when the idea was first floated, but duly ignored.

There's a lot of scripting out there that requires firstname.lastname constructions, which is why people on viewer 2-structured clients don't see "Resident" as a last name, and people not on the viewer 2 structure do. Even Linden-level scripting still requires firstname.lastname. (And, as previously stated, it always will until and unless the Lindens recode the Legacy system entirely.)

Display names are not last names. I hate display names because they leave people open to take another resident's name. "Resident" is not a last name, and all this leads to is people calling themselves Joe8375 and such nonsense because they can't have the first name they would like.

The issue of theft of identity also seems to be a concern with many residents. And there's nothing that stops anyone from doing precisely that with display names save the Lindens themselves; and by their example, they're proving the code is in place for them to repress certain names on a grid-wide level.

Unfortunately, so far they've only done that to prevent people terming themselves as "Suzy Linden", say, in a display name...so once again, the Lindens benefit from a restriction that is denied to everyone else.

LL claims that the Firstname Lastname convention was an obstacle for first-time users to sign up.

I think it's easy to show this can't be true: In 2006-2007 there was a huge surge in new users.
The naming convention wasn't an obstacle back then, why would it be an obstacle now?

I would say the Username Resident convention is a bigger obstacle, not being able to find a decent available username.

It is a bigger obstacle now, and it wasn't a major obstacle then; it just required a bit of finesse to find the "right" name--or at least, the name one could cope with when making up that first avatar.

Give folks the option to create a name, first and last, for their AV. LL, you have, inadvertantly, one hopes, created an SL class distinction by tagging every new member as Resident. Stop it! Options are a wonderful thing.

and

The new system without surnames makes it harder for new people to make accounts with unique usernames that aren't taken already. Instead of seeing avatars with names like "John Smith", "John Hammer", or "John Black", we have names like "John85673", "John85674" and "John85675" which makes it more challenging to differentiate one John from another.

No one should have to live with the stigma of looking like an AOL handle.

and

it difficult distinguishing avatars from one another when you see susie1592 and susie1952

all pretty much say the same thing.

I have to agree with the other posts here. The removal of the menu of last names, replacing it with "Resident" cuts part of the creative process of Second Life away. Being able to create a first name to go with a last name you found you liked was a big step in creating who you become in world. Cutting that step out of the creation process makes all names appear generic and dare I say, cheap. We may as well be honest, this digital world is anything but cheap, and even our name choices should reflect that. Let us have back the rights to being creative with our names as much as we are our images.

Ah, but remember, with the arrival of mesh, if we want to fit the rigged avatars, we have to conform our shapes to standard shapes. So--unless that option gets fixed--soon we'll all be clones anyway.

I guess then it won't matter if everyone's got a number over their heads, will it? It's not like you'll be able to tell who anyone is when we all look exactly the same.

People end up with these dumb names like Amber897 just because you want the first name Amber. It is really to the point you can just about type any first name in the world and the response is that that name is already taken, It has taken a lot of the fun out of making an avatar.

I grant you, avatar creation was never exactly thrill-a-minute, but it wasn't soul-crushing. Now, it seems to be. That seems like a pretty major shift in perception. I'm also thinking about how many people are coming into SL, hitting the 'Resident' barricade, and asking around for people who have alts they're not using to sell them one. Forget the selling angle: profit isn't the point here. But considering that very action is against the Lindens' stated Terms of Service, anyone who feels that's the better option is sacrificing a potential future ban against the altar of not feeling that wave of mistrust and dismissal when first entering the game. Being permanently banned for using an avatar that someone else made is less repellent than walking in under the Resident name for people.

The Lindens should really think about that one, long and hard.

And this comment really deserves to be read in its entirety. That is exactly what I'm talking about on this issue.

This is one of those cases where saying "Linden Lab has more important things to focus on" makes sense.

This is one of those rare dissenting opinions so far, and while I also agree with what they're saying, I also know, beyond any shadow of any doubt, that the Lindens WON'T focus on those things without the servers actually, physically, catching fire. This is precisely the level of nonsense they will spend time on--ESPECIALLY if they think it gives Second Life a bad name.

And it does, Lindens. It so does. It adds discrimination and social rejection to a game that had those things already, but only for minority groups. (Note: I'm not saying that popular rejection of furs, robots, constructs, or supernatural creatures is a good thing, either. But at this point, the avatar walking into the welcome area can be tanned, blonde, long-legged, and dressed in the most current, stylish outfit imaginable, in the current top-of-the-line skin, and people will still see the "Resident" over the name and back away. While it never made sense to me, at least there was that sense of difference between the bronzed beach bunny with the tousled Truth hair and the actual bunny on the beach with paws. It's still discrimination, and it's still wrong, but at least there was something OTHER THAN A NAME one could point to. Now? It doesn't matter what they look like. It doesn't matter how well they behave. It doesn't even matter how well they type--they are marked, they are Residents, and large sections of the grid shun them for that alone.)

I would like last names back because I feel it is part of what makes SL such a great community. Plus it is hard to contact people who feel that their display name should be their username, and will fill it out on forms, making it difficult to find them in search.

And this one's HUGE. I can't count the number of times when working in customer support that I had to search seven or eight different ways, check actual land purchases, and pore over each of thirty sims with a fine-toothed comb before finding some nitwit who'd filled in her display name instead of her given, SL, Resident-based name. Personally, I have no issue if someone wants to be Princess Melodrama the 92nd, if your name is Sissily7509, then write that down. Search is hard enough without you making it harder.

More later.

there was fire, there was death, there was lying on your breath

Ever think the Cheezburger sites are getting too specific?

More from the last names JIRA, which I started covering in the last entry. First off, NWN also covered the topic (and is also urging people to vote...please, please stop until the Lindens decide they're going to look at votes again)...At any rate, they have what they consider a "definite maybe" from Yet Another Linden I've Never Heard Of (likely TM).

We'll get to that. In the meantime, we're still near the beginning.

Please bring back last names. They were a mark of individuality, and gave scope for many witty and creative names. They were our identity in the new world of Second Life.
And rightly or wrongly, having the last name of Resident just gives that avatar less credibility in many people's eyes.

This seems to be the overwhelming sentiment expressed.

There's also an article linked in the comments that makes multiple excellent points, but I want to pull one in particular out to address:

"I know that the system is already in place, but could you and your team consider setting up a new add on system that rewarded Residents that want to become one with the community that is Second Life. Maybe after they have been here a certain amount of time, say three months, they could choose a permanent name?"

While I admire what she's trying to get across--even going so far as suggesting the Lindens could charge for this!--I think her misconception is that the firstname.lastname system has been disabled, and that's far from the truth. In fact, it's still permanently in place, and that's not likely to change until the Legacy coding is completely removed (which I said in the last entry is not likely to be gutted out any time soon).

So what stops xxName3611xx Resident from being xxNamexx Invertebrate? The Lindens. Only the Lindens. They could add last name options in at any time because the code is still there. The only reason later viewers only show a first name is due to display coding alone; all viewers still track residents as firstname.lastname still.

I can't say for sure it would be an easy fix. But I know for a fact it's far from impossible.

Do something like deal with server issues or customer service or hey maybe when someone files a ticket you deal with that issue.... but last names are vital and part of the experience of SL.

I will freely admit I was cynical enough to laugh out loud when I read this. As long as there is new bright and shiny to deal with, the Lindens will never voluntarily choose to work on grid stability. Hells, in a time when the grid was crashing completely every four days and the Wednesday update was still happening, they decided to implement voice. Which made more of the grid lag terribly, sent more sims offline on a weekly basis, and entrenched the split in thinking between owners of sims who refused to allow voice for anyone, and residents on the grid who wanted to use voice for everything, even business transactions (like, oh, say, virtual real estate), regardless of how cumbersome it was.

Last names made Second Life feel more like a community. I agree that if bringing real "SL" last names into the mix isn't possible, that I'd like to at least see the ability to have spaces in the names users sign up with.

Yeah, totally. Because if I see one more BetsyJohnson Resident...it looks wholly inadequate, and frankly, on the ridiculous side, and again, all that would take is offering that space...but see, therein does like a problem. Remember that firstname.lastname thing I mentioned? Yeah. Giving that hypothetical someone the ability to call herself Betsy Johnson is one thing; but if she had the space in between the first names, then we're talking firstname.middlename.lastname...and trust me, the coding doesn't exist for that.

Personally, I've noticed a distinct seperation between the "Residents" and those of us with a real last name. There's a class issue developing and I don't like it one bit!

No one does, but note her phrasing? The "distinct separation" between "Residents" and avatars with "real" last names. Even she's putting that divide in there, and saying, if only subconsciously, that anyone walking around with "Resident" as their last name isn't real.

Frankly, that kind of thinking is appalling--and note I'm not saying she's appalling for this line of thinking, I'm blaming the Lindens again for this one. They instituted the class division. They allowed Unicode abuse in display names. With two coding strokes, they not only created a forever orphaned class of folks that will only fit in through dint of extreme hard work, but also created options for people to use display names for things other than naming. With no restrictions on display names, paired with the perception of anonymous, easily discarded Resident accounts, they have fostered unrest and suspicion in the grid as a whole.

In a world of our own contrivance, I feel that history and continuity are important components in adding depth and richness to our chosen virtual existence. Amazing sims come and go constantly, but with luck, we avatars have a longer lifespan. The ability to choose a fitting surname means a lot. I also like the legacy system in which names were retired after a span of time.

Admittedly, many didn't like the fact that Legacy names were phased out after a certain length of time, but personally, I felt it added character, and as she noted, that sense of history. I don't run into a lot of Orrs, currently; I'm sure they're out there, but it was never one of the more popular names, and at at least one point in 2007, all the Orrs I knew were a) female and b) strippers or escorts (yes, including me). It sort of gave that odd cachet to the name, that--whether I knew these other women or not--we were all struggling, all striving together in an odd sense to both find our footing on the grid, and bring pleasure to the masses. (Yes, I know, prostitution can have dire consequences, even in virtual spaces, but I always treated it closer to Firefly's Companions than street sluts for hire. Of course, that's also why I'm not in the game anymore...Most guys don't want Companions.)

My point being that names "aging" as time passed allowed people to capture certain eras, be part of a moment in time, and--in a subdued sense--be part of virtual evolution. I mean, sure, it's a leap from "Therian" to "GossipGirl" but it's still progression, even sidewise. With everyone named "Resident" and no chance of anything else, there's no evolution, no sense of progression, no sense of fixed moments in time at all.

I do not at all feel that the display names are a good substitute for the last names. As several others have said, they've always added to community. I love beeing able to see a last name and tell by that approximatly how old the avatar is. Now, the "Residents" almost end up in a perma-noob state in a lot of people minds.

Echoing what I've been saying.

Please bring back last names for all those poor new avatars who have to tack on numbers to their desired names.

and

So much of SL is about identity formation, too. [...] Bring back options for last names, and you bring back a key part of identity formation.

Absolutely. But the struggle for comprehension continues:

Voted. Bring them back please!

WATCH, do not VOTE...WAAAAATCH.

Yes bring them back please and also a option for the resident avatars to switch to a normal name like the older residents in game

Again, note the terminology: "normal name". "Real name". More avatars in SL than the Lindens might think separate "real" people, aka, people with last names from the Legacy system, from the unreal, aka, those with the last name of Resident. Residents aren't "real", in the same sense, to a lot of SL. Again, fostering this kind of separation--essentially, creating one set of described avatars that are discriminated against from their first moments in the world--is a bad idea. Wasn't that actually part of what Second Life was founded to prevent? To give everyone an equal playing field--regardless of their skin color, religion, personal beliefs, relationship status, ability or disability, or weight?

Now we have a class of people we treat very prejudiciously, people we discriminate against, and we're not even once thinking about why. They are Other by their very existence: not to be dealt with, spoken with, instructed, purchased from...Resident last names are people who are treated with suspicion, dislike, resignation, repugnance, and on occasion, fear, hatred and loathing. Is this what the founders of Second Life wanted to happen?

And keep in mind, this is an easy fix, because the code never left. They could revert back to Legacy names AT ANY TIME.

I have to admit that I do feel separate from new people with 'just' Resident as a last name. I hate to be a snob but we ARE different. I have a real first & last name. I am a person with a life on the grid; not a player with a list of letters & numbers attached to a cartoon that I made.

Again, note the use of "real" in her words. "Real" versus fake; "real person" versus someone with Resident for a last name. This is telling, in how often this phrasing turns up.

I think perhaps people might've taken more readily to Display Names had they not been wrapped up in that bitter pill which is V2.

And, while this post is not about the difficulties of SL 2.0, I agree whole-heartedly with this statement as well.

Please PLEASE return the old naming system. I can't imagine how disheartening it would be if you saw this fantastical world you wanted to enter, saw the blogs/machinima/art created by long term SLers and then tried to join them... only to be turned back by the fact that the first 57 names you attempt to join with have all been taken. No one wants to be Anakin26655897V.

And while I agree, again, why, if you're choosing a name for a virtual world, are you going to name yourself Anakin (or Akira or BritneySpears or InuYasha or Shinji...I mean, really, don't you have a personality of your own?) at all?

(Of course, I'm saying this knowing many, many people who chose fictional characters to represent, on and off the grid, and knowing my most well-known handle before Emilly was entirely lifted from a book I favored some years back. Pot, meet kettle. How's the wife and kids?)

The issue is the loss of having a real firstname/last name identity, just as we do in RL, thus creating a second class of citizens in SL that are looked down upon through lack of a last name. And the ensuing difficulties in even creating a new name without sounding like some griefer newb.

Again--though this is implied, not directly stated--the association of "Resident" last names with griefers. Again, that distinct linguistic separation of the classes.

Please make this change and many of the others that users are asking for. Also remember that a large number of SLer's don't pay the premium because they can't see what good it does.

This also brings up an interesting point. While I abandoned my premium account-holder status over the complete cack-handed catastrophe that was the homestead/openspace sim issue--and told the Lindens that in my final "Why are you leaving?" essay question the Lindens provided on downgrading at that time--I've still only seen one good reason to go back to premium: the sandboxen reserved for premium members. Lindenhomes never interested me; offerings of gifts never interested me; and access to Concierge service I generally don't need as I'm not renting an entire sim (or owning one).

But that's another good point. How many new premium members would the Lindens gain by returning to last name options? Granted, with people like me, who were originally premium members when the weekly stipend was higher, my monthly fee would still be canceled out by the stipend payments...but with new people? New people who were never bound by the stipend system? Wouldn't that strictly be money in the coffers, directly, that would benefit the Lindens?

More later, when I have the time.

and we're already too late if we arrive at all

So, finally we arrive at the last names JIRA. Now, as usual, no matter how many times I or anyone else says it, people are still voting, not watching.

Don't vote. Watch. I know, I know, it's antithetical to everything the Lindens have told you in the past to do, but never mind--they changed their rules this time. The great case in point is seen on this JIRA:

Vote:	1893
Watch:	622

See what I mean? Swap those figures and Linden Labs would suddenly be a lot more interested in what's going on, believe me.

From the description:

In hopes of Linden Lab taking notice in the many Second Life Residents who would like the options of last names when creating a username in SL, I have created this JIRA! So many of us wish for the option of originality like we once had and hope that new residents in the Second Life community would be given this option.

The problem is, without completely revamping the entire SL experience--which I'm thinking might be coming in a year or so, anyway--there has to be some preservation of Legacy systems. And Legacy systems run on firstname.lastname pairings. So...one does wonder why the option was proposed in the first place.

Many people have expressed interest in having the option of choosing from a list of last names but also being able to choose "Resident" as their last name if they want to. So many of us believe that one of the best aspects of Second Life is the ability to be original in our virtual world and by being able to pick a last name we are able to find identity and originality!

First of all, SL never worked like that, just FYI. It was always You pick a first name, we'll do the rest. Some people learned the trick early on of going through specific server set-ups for specific names, but most of us, when we set up our accounts, chose from the list of that day's twenty names or so, and came up with something we could at least tolerate, if not actually like.

Now, would it be a good thing to be able to pick both your first and second name? Maybe, save for the distressing variations on John171827 Studd or SexyMILF WannaSexxMe that would crop up. (And if you think I'm kidding, just look up how many women named some variant of "Vagina" turn up under Search. Go on. Look. Bet it's still over fifteen.)

If this is a feature you would like to see brought back to the Second Life Grid please consider voting on this JIRA!

Stop that, you're losing intelligence points. It's WATCH, not VOTE.

We love all the new features that Linden Lab has brought our way the past few months,

No we don't.

but taking away the option of a last name, in our opinion was a mistake.

Especially since they NEVER TOOK IT AWAY--because the Legacy system STILL REQUIRES IT. Basically, all the Lab accomplished with their arcane maneuvering was to ensure that if thirteen girls log up for SL the same day and they all want to be named BellaCullen, that instead of BellaCullen Clockmaker, BellaCullen Wanderer, BellaCullen Noisette, and ten others, they're going to default to BellaCullen1 Resident, BellaCullen17 Resident, TheOnlyBellaCullen Resident, BellaCullenn Resident, BellllaCulllle3n Resident, and eight others that are worse.

Now often times the name people want is taken and they are forced to use numbers within their username, resulting in what looks like an instant messaging screen name.

See, this is what I don't get. We have a wide, wide world of diverse anime, books, comics, music, and that's not counting original thoughts, wandering impulses, and descriptions based on likes, hobbies, professions, and favorite plays--just to name a few. I will admit, part of my elitism is running across someone who has numbers in their name and immediately thinking they're lacking in some fashion. (And, outside of a few notable exceptions, I haven't been wrong.)

Of course, I did use the "BellaCullen" example earlier...because I thought it was sufficiently ridiculous as to be laughable in any virtual world...save, well, pull up Search again sometime and look up how many of them there are. Tragic.

This being said, we do also love the feature of being able to change our names in world. Keeping that option is great, especially for those in family settings within the Second Life Community!

No comment.

We simply would love to have the option to have a last name choice once again when creating an SL avatar! It makes will in turn, hopefully make the community feel less divided between the older residents and the newer ones. I know many new residents have expressed interest in wishing they would have had the option of a fun last name like the rest of us!

See, I think what all of us thought when display names were initially discussed was something that made rational sense--that we'd all keep our originally-chosen firstname.lastname combos, but we'd be able to change them at will from, say, SexiiBabii Dimplefobber to RillySexxiBabi Babe, or something. (Okay, yes, I'm being mean, but at least if my name was Emilly Orr--oh wait, it is--and I went to some space-based RP sim, I could change my display name to Zarin Nenotech or something that sounded more suitable. I'd still have my name, but the name displayed would be altered.

(Instead, what we got was this botch job of a .resident last name for everyone past the change date, and a display name option that didn't automatically override, and that could be abused with unicode characters, expanded into multiple words, and in general diluted to the point of madness. Yeah. Great plan, guys.)

Thank you so much for taking the time to read this and casting your vote!

You're an idiot. Urge people to WATCH if they want anything done, not VOTE, don't be stupid.

And randomly from the comments:

Resident as a last name, might be great for store owners or so, but having resident as a last name, even when you dont see it on 2.0 still makes it feel now your not part of the SL family anymore, your a code or a number.

Spelling uncorrected. But the sentiment is correct, nonetheless; and I'll tell you something else. Especially after the latest viewer 3 revisions, I see someone walking around just under Elly or John19 my first thought is not, Oh, they look interesting, I should go say hi but Gosh, their last name fell off. Sucks to be them.

As someone who has needed to make a business alt in the last few months, I found it extremely difficult to find a unique username that isn't full of numbers etc.

See comment above on how many different forms of characterization are out there. Read a book, I lack all sympathy.

I am for the return to a choice of last names. I think it has created two classes of "residents."

Unfortunately, I agree with her. As much as I fight against it, I see someone under a Resident tag and I dismiss them as someone who obviously doesn't know the world. And that's not good. There are some really alive minds under those Resident tags (though granted, I haven't run into many), who've fought and clawed their way to make impressions on the grid. More power to them (meant in actually non-sarcastic ways, because yes, the added burden of innate discrimination does not help when one is already trying to learn a new world, new controls, and what constitutes acceptable behavior here.)

All of the new residents now look like they have AOL handles. Also, all of the "good" names were picked up quickly - by older SL residents!

To some extent she's right--I know a lot of people who immediately ran out and got all versions they could think of "their" name affixed to Resident tags--specifically so no one else could do the same. This both artificially swelled the numbers of new accounts, and locked up a lot of names that could have been in use.

See, the old system, as annoying as it was on occasion, offered say, a list of fifteen names. Say you're Sallen Coster, and you decide you want to be Sallen in SL, too. Under the Legacy naming system, you'd log in and see something like this:

__Sallen__	[__Beaumont__]
__________	[__Dumoris__]
__________	[__Farthingbike__]
__________	[__Gisorri__]
__________	[__Ifrit__]
__________	[__Lemonteeth__]
__________	[__Morris__]
__________	[__Nathaniel__]
__________	[__Owlflight__]

and so on.

Obviously, these are not all "real" last names--hells, I'm not sure any of them were actual last names at any point--but my point is, say there were seven other people named Sallen who wanted to retain that name. Under the Legacy system, they could--because everyone could choose a different last name.

Now? Not only is that distinctiveness gone, that choice is gone. It's actually a far more restrictive system, and as much as I complain about people not using their imaginations, if I really wanted to be Emilly-with-two-Ls these days, I couldn't do it, because there already is one. As opposed to one choice separated between half a hundred potential last names--and that was just on any given day--now there's one choice separated between nothing--it's first come, first serve, and that was never how SL worked in the past.

The last one I'm going to quote--for now, though I am going to be going through the comments on this one over the next few days--is also the longest extract I'm choosing to mention:

I am really missing this part of secondlife, as now we are no residents anymore we are numbers like we are in all other chat worlds in the internet. It does not feel like being born into secondlife anymore, its just a chat like all others with a poor graphic. When i started secondlife i really felt like being born into this world, i had only a few last names to choose from, just like in the real life when you get a name by your parents. and inworld it was funny to meet someone with a strange name or also to meet "family" with the same last name. all this feelings are totally gone now. the feeling of a community is 0 now as you only see names that have got numbers just like in any other chat. there is nothing special here anymore. Since there are no last names there is no feeling of having a life in secondlife.I hate all this "xx12395433SUGARHONEYxxx Resident" names this is not what i would expect in a internet world that claims to have residents that live there.

Give back the last names, give back the soul of secondlife!

Now, again, spelling and grammar errors left intact, but essentially, there's a good point here. It's sort of like the frontier days of the internet, all over again--it used to be that everyone had handles, everyone went by something--something that became just as valued to their core identity as their own name. Something they lived by and defended, something that reflected their personality and personal choices.

Then AOL and Compuserve and a couple of other non-Usenet derivatives launched, and suddenly, everything crawling out of AOL onto the wider net had names like Bob1942 and Suzie1729 and--of course--the dreaded xxCommandoxx-style names. And sparks flew when the two tribes met. Those pre-AOL dismissed the 'new kids' because if they'd known or cared how to operate a computer before, they wouldn't have such a ridiculous name, and the 'new kids' retaliating that at least they were going by recognizeable names and weren't thugs and criminals hiding behind a fake screen name.

In microcosm, this is something akin to what happened when display names were introduced--instead of expanding the choices available, it caused division. Instead of causing the residents of their grid to embrace the newcomers, the newcomers were spurned as stupid kids, spammers, hackers, or even worse, outright copyright infringers. People started, for the first time, widespread bans of anyone under a month old from their stores, or anyone without payment information on file; some merchants even went so far as to set up scripted programs that would auto-ban anyone who walked through their doors without an identifiable last name beyond "Resident".

Was this really what the Lindens wanted when they introduced this? I don't think so. But it's entrenched now, and good or bad, the prejudice is widespread. Even the most outgoing folks still withhold, by perhaps the merest amount, when facing a Resident-only last name. Because it is marking these people, and in no good ways.