Question regarding name change/account merge

Torley's transformation to a Linden has made me curious about something. We have been told in the past that there was no way to change our account names once created. Obviously, the capability exists as all inventory, forum posts, etc... of Torley's have now been transferred over to Torley Linden (or the account simply had the name changed on it). Will this option be available to residents at some point, and if not, why? Not that I want to change my name, but I know there are some people that definitely would. I think many people would be willing to pay a nominal fee to change their name - since we are forced to choose one the moment we join, and the full implications of our name choice is not always apparent until later.

I agree, it is more than obvious that it can be done. If I had known I was gonna stick around SL for so long I would have went with another name. Sure, i can make a new account if I want and that would be all fine and dandy if I could transfer all my items over to a new account. That isn't feasible since more than half of my inventory is no transfer. I would be willing to pay a small fee to change my first name. It couldn't possibly be that hard to do.

It's disheartening to be told that it can't be done when it obviously can...

I know for a fact it can and has been done. However, this seems to be more a policy decision a technical one.


- Newfie

Come to think of it, didn't they also change the name of one of Wuvme's alts from Dildo to something else? It didn't even dawn on me at the time to ask about that.

That's a question we get in Live Help a lot. It would certainly be nice to be able to tell people they can change names.

Torley will also be the only Linden with a partner that I know of. But probably because it was an account merge more than anything.

Yes, I believe it was discussed then too.

From a policy aspect, I can understand it. I would imagine there would be quite an influx of people who want to change their names. I'd probably take them up on the offer myself.

This might be something to look into in the future as a "money sink" option - albeit a pricy one.

My partner and I are getting married soon and it would be so wonderful if we could change our last names to match (and, there is a perfect one currently on the list of options...) Lindens! Please seriously think about this -- if you want to charge for the service, or have people complete some kind of an application stating their case (thus discouraging people from changing willy-nilly when the whim hits them) -- cool.

Please? Please? Please? Please?

Please?

It would be a handy feature though I wouldn't change mine. I think it's something they could charge for certainly.

I want to change my last name.

-Ghoti

WHAT A GOOD QUESTION

Okeydoke, here's how it worked for me. This isn't the complete answer, merely my personal perspective.

Overall, it was smooth for me to go from Torley Torgeson ---> Torley Linden, but there were some technical complications in my case! Some Residents have noticed some new cubes I rezzed yesterday still bear the name "Torley Torgeson". One example of "content outta sync". That will get patched up soon. I hope!

In addition, I am a hot-pink-and-neon-green guinea pig for this. As other things in my Second Life, it's been experimental and a wild ride. Possibilities are being investigated, a lot of research has been left to be done, so anything else that breaks, I'm going to "report my findings" as it's formally known.

This isn't over yet, and extends into the future... I know from previous participation here that it's a popular question to ask. I feel it may be so popular that the floodgates will open, and there will be a storm. Something worth doing is worth doing right. (Cat Omega taught me that.)

I've been following Robin's answers about this too, and there are a lot of them, including:


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and the whopper at /20/e6/53959/1.html


Additionally, part of the problem isn't just identity, it's accountability. Sounds like a cliche, I know, but with the very tragique Fear of Alts on here, it can be hard to know "Who's who?" Something I established early on, not consciously but just as an extension of who I am, is to make it clear "I am me" to avoid confusion. Some will say, "Show my past names used in a history chain type of thing!" and another will go "I really want a clean slate, my previous name sucked!"

I can find no one-liner answer to this, but surely is a fertile ground for exploration.

One unfortunate: my Snapzilla albums start from 0 again!

With that in mind, how do you feel about newer residents coming to the forum and thinking that everything you've said in the past was under the auspices of being a Linden? That's the only part about this I find odd - your entire forum history is now labelled as a Linden, including the publicity you did for Chinatown and things like that. People searching the forum now and in the future might get completely the wrong impression now your words are under the name 'Torley Linden' on posts they see.

I'm suprised they didn't setup Torley Linden as a new forum account, or even create a Torley Torgeson forum account and run a quick mySQL query to push all your old posts back onto that profile. At least then confusion would be avoided, and it would clear up "who's who" for those that don't know.

Either way I'm pleased (as I've already said) that you've been made a Linden. It's interesting the way it's been done, which is definitely out of line with the way other Lindens appear. That doesn't mean it's not right to try it this way though, not by a long shot.

It actually does happen from time to time. I can watch the name changes using my name2key database. The agent key remains the same while the username changes.

As a matter of fact there seem to be a few Lindens that operate under both a Linden name and a standard user name simultaneously with the same agent key.

~Ulrika~

Yup true true... I was thinking about that too, maybe some way to show WHEN I was made a Linden! I wouldn't want new Resis to be confuzzled.

One leap I'm gonna do, I'm going to revamp my signature to make this more clear. There will be more tweaks to come, mo' ideas just say so!

I always find myself in weird situations! I used to ask WHYYY but then I just accepted it. Ahhh.

Hmmm... Interesting.

This is something to be noted....and that is a fair amount of history.

**shifts his shifty eyes back and forth shiftily in a shifty way**

I've seen that too in my own database. Starting bids for the info start at $25,000L!


- Newfie

Torley Linden nee Torgeson

Nee comes from the french for born, and clarifies the maiden or birth name.

Ooo that's classy!

Now you know I am not going to leave you out in the lurch. I will merge everything under the new Linden name - again, a bit of a history rewrite, but that way you will retain access to your older stuff.

I know the Big Thread was on last names, but I suspect first names are a bigger problem... a lot of people have first names they picked without thinking.

Changing the first name only shouldn't be that big a deal, since there are a limited number of people with a given last name. There's no crowd to hide in, and there's no need to keep the old (and, in many case, embarassingly stupid or just plain embarassing) first name around.

This should probably be a relatively inexpensive, but a one-time-only change, one that'd be really useful for people who've decided that even if their Hotmail account was "Sexxy145" it wasn't such a good idea to use the same name in Second Life.

Last names? Your last name is your family, and there's a lot of reasons for keeping it mostly the way it is. I know a couple of the other Stonecutters, I know they came into SL about the same time I did, we have things in common. I don't know if I'd have chosen them as my relatives, but you don't get to choose them in real life either.

What if choosing a new last name costs as much as getting a new account, US$10, and you get to pick either a new name from the current list, or the last name of your partner, and it shows up (Argent Newname nee Stonecutter) in your profile?

* * *

And now for something completely different:

Let people pick a "Middle Name", any time they want, as often as they want. Let them decide whether the name floating over their avatar is First+Last, Middle+Last, or even First+Middle... but all three show up in the profile or hovertext.

I like it, Torley, and it does take class to pull it off which you have plenty of.

Now if I were designing the database schema the key would be exactly that - the unique identifier key and the user names just indexed columns in a table referenced by that key. Easy to change names - we could change them on our own if so desired The reports of different users having the same key seems pretty messed up and in light of that not suprising Torley is having "issues" in creating new content.

Not really when so much in SL depends on the key, which is supposed to be a unique identifier, which is used throughout LSL.

Changing my name wouldn't be much fun. I want the ability to change other people's names. I would pay well for this service.