Nicknames

It's been suggested that names could be bought and sold.
This only solves one minor problem and gives rise to new ones.
I'd far prefer the ability to choose a nickname that's displayed _instead_ of my group and official name.

The nickname would be:
1) changeable for a small fee
2) checked against a database for uniqueness
3) searchable using find
4) ignored by a viewer setting in preferences (people can see everyone by the current method if desired
5) remains reserved for 24 hours after being abandoned
6) can only be changed once per 24 hours
7) for names that have been previously used, "find" can show the history of the name for a certain length of time (1-6 months sounds reasonable)
find by official name will still work
9) IMs from friends list or calling card will go to the avatar account, not to whoever owns the name at the moment

Some confusion would ensue, but I bet lots of people would continue to go by their official name.

not a bad idea, assuming of course there are no unknown issues that make things even laggier and bug-prone than now...

Absolutely no.

Purchasing names? Yeah... good idea. Let me run right out and buy a name that might have been owned by someone who just nuked 5 clubs and got 150 abuse reports waiting to go through.

Names should not be changed, unless by LL in the event of TOS violations.

I understand the idea of a nickname, but I don't think it should be able to obscure your SL name, and I don't see the point of paying for it. I'd rather be able to set a nickname anytime, but always show my sl name, e.g. above my head would indicate:

neko (Nekokami Dragonfly)

That way people could know that I'm currently going by "neko" but they also get my full SL name. If I'm rping, I might instead display:

XiaoMao (Nekokami Dragonfly)

and people would know that at the moment, I'm going by "XiaoMao"

Actually, what I'd like to be able to do is this:

小猫 (Nekokami Dragonfly)

since the names are all in English (or at least latin characters) and sometimes I'd like to be able to display something different.

Of course, I could just do this with a titling app, if LSL supported unicode.

neko

I meant like 25L or some other token amount, and the 25 hour downtime for each name would eliminate the situation of abuse.
Any abuse reports would go to the owner of the name at the time of the abuse, assuming that the report was made withing 24 hours. Even if a name was reported 1 minute before you chose it, you could not have possibly done the abuse...

Sorry, I don't see the logic behind your objection. Perhaps the name should be unavailable for a full week. That should prevent all confusion.

Agreed, floaty text is very weak. It should have fonts, the ability to be obscured by objects, sizing based on screen resolution, and unicode

That's a totally different topic tho.
Basically I came up with this idea as a much more usable alternative to the outright sale of names by LL, which is the topic of another thread.
I think my idea would please 90% of the people who want power over their name, and not create much more confusion over who's who that there already is.

I guess there should be an additional stipulation that only validated accounts can do it. This isn't a "second class citizen" rule because there is no actual payment being made. It just prevents things from getting stupid.

off topic - is it possible for a non-validated account to get banned or even suspended?

Yer. You CAN kind of fake it with titlers but titlers don't act like labels in too many ways. And it doesn't show in chat, of course.

In fact, I'd like to be able to put anything up there, with my real name shown in hover tips, but your idea would work.

Buying nicknames? OK, I could see buying the right to do this as a "linden sink", but that's all it would be for. Nothing to do with reserving names or anything else that made nicknames into anything more than a comment in the tag and chat.

I think the idea was that maybe I registered with a name, "Glxdak Oknar" 'cause I thought it was cool. Three months later, I think, "This name sucks, no one can pronounce it and most people have trouble remembering it."

If I want a new name I have to register a new account (and delete my account if I so feel like it). But now I have a ton of no-trans stuff I own, now I need to buy it again! Arrg! I'd much rather pay a small fee (L$150 is low enough fr this purpose) to just BUY a new name, which gets checked in the central name database for availability, and if it's free, I get it and my name/title changes. My log in name is still the same (and probably my forum name too), but now I don't have to go by Glxdak Oknar. However, since I own that name too, it'd be free to just hit the Name Change option and 'revert' to any other name I own. There would need to be a limit of course so that people don't buy 600 names so no one else can have them.

As for Friends list, etc. I think that current name (log in name) should show. Or alternatively log in name (current name). Possibly changeable as the owner of said friends list (that is, I can view my friends by log in or current name).