> Boo to Linden Labs. Free Accounts are killing Secondlife

Let me clarify: I have a friend who came to Secondlife... well rather she tried to. She tried to get 6 different first names and was told every time that "this first name is not available with any of the current last names."


Sorry, but that's B.S. There are residents who hunt the starter page, taking up good names and have dozens upon dozens of names all stock piled. Why? Hell if I know, but I know it happens. I've been in SL since '05 and I've seen one Cloe, and never have I seen a Cleo, yet BOTH of those names are taken. This is of course specific to me and me alone, but I think it'd just ridiculous that there is absoultely NO checks and balances on this free account business.

The reason I claim it's killing Secondlife is simple: People who legitimately come to this place and who will stick with it are deterred because they cannot get their name. They're left to pick "Yoolie Thunderfoot" or some stupid name like that, so they'd just rather not play at all, while some idiot resident stock piles name after name and never even uses them.

Anyone else have this problem or heard of it? I'm really curious why there isn't the option to freely name your last name. With the proper filters in place, they can pretty much stop any truly offensive name from being created.

I'm disappointed in Linden Labs and I'm curious if anyone else has this issue / or at least knows someone who's gone through it.

Thumbs down to Linden Labs for creating this monster and then unleashing it.
Thumbs down to Linden Labs for never replying to my security issue.
Thumbs down to Linden Labs for never answering their phone.
Thumbs up to Linden Labs for letting us do as we wish here..n/m, thumbs down too.

I don't think this has a much to do with free accounts as it has to do with the fact that LL hasn't cycled the last names in a long time.

See: /142/cc/188583/1.html

And as for why they don't let people make up their own last name. It's probably because some people would end up putting their real name in there before realizing it's actually their username.

How many last names does LL have? A couple thousand? That would be high in my opinion but even if it were that many there are over 7 million registered members. First names could run out pretty quickly with those numbers. The problem lies with the fact that of that 7 million only maybe a few hundred thousand are currently being used. LL needs to purge accounts that are not kept current (if paying accounts) or not used for 180 days (if free accounts). I don't think LL has ever truly purged the members list. They may terminate it or close it at the users request but the name still remains locked up with that account..............pretty lazy way to do business in my opinion.

I've heard it mentioned in these forums before that LL can't terminate accounts because that would require "taking" of the member's property (or some such BS). That don't wash with me.........they have no problem at all about shrugging their shoulders with inventory losses by members. Linden Labs needs to clean up their data base........make the "platform" work efficiently for a change. And that would free up some names too.

We are better off having a seperate display name for in world and just a serial number for the account, that way anyone not logging in for 12 months looses the name and has to pick a new one to log in ut still has their account. This garbage of having names never available ever again because a new player logged in for half an hour 3 years ago and never came back is silly.
Ideally we should be able to change our displayed name at will too for those donning a mask for roleplay, but bans, object permissions would all be by the serialnumber.

I think Limiting Alts is also a good idea. And I agree with Peggy. There is no reason accounts that haven't been active for XMonths can't be deactivated. Enough withthe numbers shilling. If I were a potential Corporate Investor, I'd want to know why you are handing me a 7 Million total resident figure, yet less than 50,000 are online at peak times.

Just think of the server space that will be freed if they deleted all those useless accounts.

Mandy C

Amen sister!!!

And no more noobs with AOL names telling me how they could "rock my world".
It's easier to tell "Joe" to go F himself, instead of "HardDickmaster77745565432177"

I still wonder if i should report all the botlike avatars i noticed, theres several that just stand in same spot , they been there monthssss now and never moved, logs in 100's of times a day , on off on off on off on off on off same sim same spot, quite funny to see cause i found one thats middle of the ocean, i think that one missed the camping chair by miles

what`s killing sl faster then name unavailability is the paypal issue for the past couple of weeks so less money comes into sl

As far as I understand it, the last name system is a legacy thing. When Second Life was first set up, the last names were set to expire after about 100 or so people had used one. Why? Because 100 or so people is the maximum number of other people that our social brains can track. The idea was to create "families". Of course since the number of users went up, they had to remove that method for expiring last names or they would have cycled hundreds of times a day..

Actually, talking with a LL techie a couple years ago, a mostly-empty account (IE, an alt that never gets used) takes up almost no space.

A paying user that lapses on a payment has their inventory purged and their L$ added to the "Other" sink category after the 30 day mark.

Free accounts on the other hand never get purged.

And what does "almost no space" times 7 million equal to?

Well, I myself got that issue regarding my first name with the last names that were available to me when I signed up. So I just got creative with my spelling and made Kate look gaelic as Caete.

for the record, I have a friend named Cleo. So there is at least one

Yep, just manage to get in-world and do a search. I'm sure there's a bunch.

I would LOVE to be able to use a last name of my own choice. I have some terrific first/last name combinations I'm dying to use.

And yes, I think inactive free accounts should be purged, if for no other reason than it would produce a more accurate member figure than that "7 million plus" nonsense.

Glad to see people agree with me.

Just today that same friend came back and tried again with a list of names she had come up with, very uncommon names, and to my humor (and her dismay) almost all of them were used up, and for the ones she could use, if she was ok with "Bigthungerfoot" as a last name, she'd be with us now.

BTW-- Who in the HELL comes up with these last names? LL must hire 5th graders to come up with 1/2 of their resident last names. Either that or that's all Phillip does.

Actually, it wasn't till I read this thread that I realized that the list of last names was predetermined by LL.

Is there anywhere I can go to see a list of all the allowable last names?

All of the allowable names can be found on the start up page when you go to make a new name.

Sorry, I meant to say : The entire SHORT LIST of available names is there.

With this delay in last name cycling, LL is forcing it's members to be: John2830928032

Good work Lindens.*


*and by good I mean piss poor.

Maybe that's the only name they could get since all the other ones are apparently taken!

They do, in fact, need to get some new last names and they do, in fact, need to delete all accounts that haven't had more than a few hours' activity in the last 6 months.

I think that would be reasonable and would help the system overall.

i wouldn`t suggest that as it would prolly be bugged and delete half of the residents who are more then a few hours active in the past 6 month

Good point. Remember who we are talking about.

Quote:
"I've been in SL since '05 and I've seen one Cloe, and never have I seen a Cleo, yet BOTH of those names are taken."

Did a search and there are at least 140 Cleo names. Then randomly looked at profiles and my estimate is that at most 10% are active. The rest have no user input profile text. Time for a purge of inactive free accounts over xmonths old.

I expect that the limit on the number of last names is there to put a control on the database and how they have it set up to operate.