How do you feel about the new registration system?

Having seen an increase in teens in the main grid myself, and hearing from friends about an increase in griefers, I thought it might be eye-opening for Linden Lab to see how the residents feel about the current "wide open" registration system...



------------

Well, I would say the numbers speak for themselves here. About what I expected.

It's @#$@#%@#!!!!!!

^~ too horrible for words.

The primary negative impact for me has been in the forums. I haven't been griefed in ages. For whatever reason, the bulk of suspicious n00bs appear to be here.

I can't assess what other people have experienced. Some kind of grief statistics would be nice so this could be evaluated beyond the anecdotes we're all going to post.

See these threads:

- /108/4f/114896/1.html (a bunch listed here)
- Related: /108/2b/114941/1.html

I think everyone pretty much hates it. Sure, free/easy alts are nice for groups for land management, etc, but on the whole, looks like it was a bad decision.

MM

The new reg system needs to die a quick and painful death. LL bring back verification please. x_x

We've all seen several little games being played here in the Forums by fake newbies, teen newbies, and thoroughly confused newbies....
And we all know only a small percentage of people who play SL ever bother to look at the Forums....

Hell right now I'm just thankful I'm spending all my time working these days and not on the mainland.

This is not going to get better soon.

Yes, but unfortunately the police blotter is limited to the 25 most recent reports. So we'll never have enough data to determine the extent of the problem. All we users have are anecdotal reports here in the forums.

And just sitting here reading those posts, we see the following since the new registration system went into place:

1. More grief attacks and prim-spamming other people's land than before.
2. People scamming newbies by posing as store employees.
3. People swooping in on land that was mistakenly set for sale too cheap and then pretending to be "educating" new people.
4. The accompanying ineffectiveness of established enforcement tools -- banning is only good for the 2 minutes it takes to create another alt. And LL is no more effective at policing abuse than they've ever been -- in fact I suspect their work load has increased by several factors.
5. A very real risk that SLers in the mature grid may engage in conduct with minors that is legally actionable and which might even place LL at risk in the process.

In conclusion: nothing good has come of this, other than to add more players to an already-creaking infrastructure.

It doesn't seem to be going that well.

Seconded.

How do I start this game?

I joined SL 14 months ago and it seemed pretty good. A few rough edges, but basically OK.

Since November it's been getting less and less enjoyable. This year the decline has accelerated.

This latest ridiculous idea is in all probability the beginning of the end for SL.
There's been a distinct 'the lunatics are running the asylum' air to SL for a while now.
The relaxation of all registration restrictions makes it very clear that really IS the case.

I look forward to the next Town Hall... I think there may be some very probing questions asked, and a lot of very unhappy people telling Phil just how it is.

Lewis

i feel like it's a double edged sword. granted it lets more undesireables in, but i also feel like this was a logical next step to world domination. i certainly don't think it will kill sl. just make it more like the 3d internet i always envisioned it as. sl isn't a wow or eq competitor...it's more of an internet/http competitor...or plugin/extension thereof in my mind.

It seems to be going absolutely horribly. Time to rethink this move, LL. Stop worrying about WoW's numbers, Cory's silly 25 cent bet, and focus on SL's citizens, like you usually do.

Sure there were statistics showing that a percentage of people wouldn't sign up and stopped at the credit card information stage. Did you ever consider that maybe, just maybe, these weren't the type of people you want in SL? Possibly underage, possibly just looking to cause trouble?

Regards,

-Flip

And Phil will be seated on his plywood cube, fingers in ears, singing the Linden company anthem:

'LaLaLaLa - I can't H-E-A-R you'!

++

Excellent point.

coco

Anyone with a sound business head on their shoulders, and sadly that description seems to fit no one at LL, KNOWS that something free isn't valued as much as something paid for.

Charging for a product or service ISN'T commercial suicide.

If SL had a nominal fee to join that required a CC authentication new residents would value membership of SL far more than since 'Free Basic' was offered - which if you think back was when the rot started to set in from a griefing point of view. Plus age verification would be restored.

However I'm afraid my time in SL has shown that LL are NOT willing to back off even when it's obvious to a blind man they have made a serious error. What next? *shakes head*

Excellent post. I am not sure if many people have seen Daniel Linden's blog entry on the new registration system. It seems like no matter how much negative response there is to it, it's here to stay (kind of like the ResMod program, but even worse):

http://secondlife.blogs.com/change/2006/06/though_you_may_.html

The "abuse levees" are holding for LL.

They are NOT holding for individual folks or operations in SL.

But then, I guess we don't matter.

Heh.
I read that the other day, and immediately thought to myself that it sounded just like the perspective of someone who isnt on the front lines having to try to deal gracefully with this new influx of troublemakers.

Neil brought up an excellent point a moment ago, when I was filling him in on all this. He mentioned that a very real danger here is residents giving up hope on even bothering to AR at all, because we know bans are no good, and they can just come right back in and have another stab.
Once you get to that point, once you've given up, the "walking away permanently" sort of giving up isnt far behind.

I dont like that idea: those people walking away are our current and future friends, co-workers, and customers.

That about says it all.

1) More greifers.
2) More unkown(underage) residents.
3) PAYING residents moral dropping like a rock.

And has anyone seen that these new un-checked accounts are driving out long time residents? I mean, really, I'm suprised big players in SL, like Anshe, haven't bounced LL about this. Paying customers are being driven off by transients.

It is also very sad that LL is unanimously ignoring all the comments about the problems being stated in threads like this.

~Jessy *hoping this is not the end of SL*

Sorry, that was me. Barnesworth put me up to it.

I only reported one because this is exactly what I'm thinking. Really doesn't help moral at all.