What's the new "last name" policy going to be?

I noticed in the huge "last names" thread that there's going to be work done on this this summer.

I'd like to know what the "this" that's being done is going to be. because some of the proposals in that thread were really really bad. I'm sorry, but I'm completely at a loss as to what the benefit of being able to "sell" a name is, no matter what the protections are against 'name barons' or 'name greifing'. Who came up with this idea? Why should it take developer time? How is it supposed to be an improvement over the current system?

Also, if you do buy a name, will you actually be able to use it... or will you need to create a new character? If you can change your name, why not allow people to change their first names? If you can't, why is this a big enough deal you need to create a "project" and spend development time on it?

Heya Argent--that's what the earlier "Changing and Creating SL Names" meeting was for, to get live feedback (in addition to all that's already been said). A policy has not been defined yet, we're working that out based on Resident feedback, but we do want to make moves. Clearly this is popular and frequently-requested in the community, which is why we're investing time + energy on it. Oy, every time I hear a related variant of "Can I change my name?" come up... this is what makes it a big deal.

I too have heard the concerns of "name barony" coming up, with some likening it to those who grab large swathes of domain names on the WWW. There would then, sensibly, have to be enough "friction", or some sort of limits to deter that. Those have not yet been determined.

One of the challenges at present is, as you've alluded to, it's very convoluted to speculate what might happen: which is exactly why we need a clearer-defined policy. (Otherwise someone could spin off all sorts of "What ifs?", most of them leading into fear of abuses.)

About first name changes: they're likely much further off. We're focusing here on two things: 1) creating and 2) changing last names in Second Life.

More details of that will of course emerge as we continue progress on it.