> Boo to Linden Labs. Free Accounts are killing Secondlife

ISPs don't create content, they merely provide access to content overwhelmingly created by others so I assume you're not paying for your internet access?

Taking it a little further, paying a webhost for hosting services doesn't mean you're entitled to free internet access either.

I'm really not sure what you mean here. Is my ISP paying for my SL account? No, I have a basic account. Also, I create unique content which is not created by other users (certainly not overwhelmingly). And lastly, I AM paying for my internet access...

I'm not at all trying to be rude, but I'm completely confused by your choice of words.

I read your post as: without user-created content, SL would just be a barren wasteland with nothing to do and nothing to see. Since user-created content is what drives and makes SL successful, LL shouldn't be charging for access to SL.

If I got that wrong, then simply disregard what I said .

If I did understand it proper: your ISP is doing the exact same thing as LL. The internet is about user-created content as much as SL is, yet you pay your ISP to be able to browse sites but paying LL to log on to SL would be ridiculous. I just have a hard time seeing the difference.

I too have a 'basic account', I do own land, I do employ people in SL and do business, contribute to the economy and have never taken a single L$ I've earnt over the years, out of game, it has been invested in business, and people.

I don't have any desire to buy Linden owned land direct, I pay tier every month. I have been a SL Greeter for over a year and a Member of the SLBB assisting business's in SL free of charge.

My first account was a 'Life Time Membership' which after paying, 3 months later was reduced to a 'basic' account without any recompense or justification. I have put back into the SL economy over the years, well over a million L$'s.. yet some would say we have no worth?

Well, yes and no...

Without user-created content, yes, Second Life WOULD be barren. If content was created by another method, it would cease to be "Second Life." With that said, I think the structure they have right now is fine. I wouldn't change it. If you want to own land, then I understand them charging for it...property isn't cheap (digital OR tactile). And with my basic account, I'm still paying LL if you think about it--I pay rent to a gentleman that pays LL for his land...so I'm essentially still a "tax paying citizen."

As far as me paying my ISP to browse user-created content...well...that's a slippery slope. The comparison you've suggested certainly is there...but it's not that simple. The beauty of Second Life is what it stands for...community, creativity, commerce. C3...Hmmm...I like that...new business model, specs and figures...GO!



I really don't have the energy to debate that massive conceptual tie you've made...I love the idea, but I'll leave it at that for now. And honestly, all that mumbo-jumbo is irrelevant to the actual topic at hand.

i agree with you on this

people who have paying accounts think that they should be treated with royalty

i have a basic account an i also contribute to SL, i have a job working in a combat
sim to keep order there, the only money i pay is for L$ for me to spend.

but all premium account holders are not uppity a-holes like some say.

but i have ran into my fair share of a-holes that makes me want to not play anymore
but i dont let them get to me at all.

people with free accounts contribute just as much as people with premium accounts.

About 5000.
315 of these are currently available to new registrants. Prior to January 2007, the average number of registrants per last name was about 600. Within the current batch of 315 names, however, the average number of registrants per last name has exploded to 16,359.

The most saturated last name in SL history is Allen with over 146,000 users. Before the "last name freeze '07", the most over-used last name in SL history was "Yao" which accumulated 9,677 registrants before LL retired it. At the time, it was a fluke. Now, however, about half of the last names available for selection, namely "Allen", "Beck", "Oh", and "Barbosa", beat this record.

Names last rotated: 176 Days Ago
Average Number of Agents per active last name: 16,359
Average Number of Agents per retired last name: 660

More statistics at http://slnamewatch.com

By the way, i don't think it has anything to do with free accounts. Real people snapped up the good names by now -- heck, they've had 6 months to chug away on it. If anyone is auto-creating an army of alts for whatever purpose, it seems more likely they'd be using random strings or incrementing sequences of numbers. These names would probably not be interesting to you or keep you from the name you really want. Making a script that creates real-sounding names sound like alot more work, and before long you'd be out of names anyway.

The cleanest solution to this problem is simply to release more surnames.

I reckon SL would run a lot faster if those accounts who didn't log on to SL within about 2 months were deleted (people do have first lives), objects in the inventory named 'object' are deleted after about 1 month of there existence. And Sl becoming Fully Open Source or atleast le other servers be able to connect to the main grid.

/13/0f/199251/1.html#post1599736

WHAT "corporate investors"? anyone who knows databases, and MySQL especially since it's most common, and manages message forums or other places on the web you have to log into after creating an account and verifying an email address knows that maybe 1 in 10 accounts are good, the rest are spammers, multiple accts and accts abandoned because the owners FORGOT their password, never got the first confirmaiton email so they created another and another and another account and gave up (emails to them were probably canned as spam is why they never got them)

But unless you look at which accts have not logged in in 6 months or one year, they will sit there wasting space in the database and increasing odds of corruption, increased time to backup/repair

Of 7 million accts and only 50,000 logged in at PEAK times, 50,000 is meaningless because 10 people can log out right now and 10 can log IN and the number will stay the same.
Time zones span the globe, just because it's peak time here in Eastern USA and you are sitting on SL after dinner doesn't mean your friend in Australia is also sitting down after diner- it's the middle of the work day for them!

As one group of users in one time zone begins logging out, those in another time zone begin logging IN.
A lot of people probably do not spend half the night in SL, nor are they on while at work, so yeah I can see 7 million accts and a rotating group of 50,000 on at any one time together as not unusual.



So choose Cloe2, Cloe3, Im_Cloe or whatever, it's seriously- *not* important when you can't effectively choose a last name to go with it anyway. I've been on 6 months, Ive run into about 4 other "Jigsaws"



Sure there is, you have to provide a VALID email address as I recall to sign up for an account, and in general you can't use the same email address w/o an error about it being in use already.
People are not going to sit there creating dozens of stupid accounts and dozens of email addresses juts to have 30 alts.



Oh STOP playing drama queen, you can't seriously believe that! With all the nuts, scammers, spammers etc out there who can track your home address down, why would anyone want to use a real name in a place like SL or message board or anywhere on the net in the first place either?
Would you want some nut showing up on your doorstep from some forum because you two got into a heated argument and this nut decided to look you up and found he/she was pretty close to your home?

Maybe an unused account doesn't take up much space, but 10 million of them probably do, I think perhaps that should be a disadvantage for a free account, that if you don't login in 12 months you get deleted. I don't see the point in keeping everyone who logged in once's account till the year 2050.
Nice necroreply too by the way

Obviously I agree.

PS: I had a 5 digit Compuserve UIC.


Edit: I just reopened http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/WEB-704 and I hope everyone in this thread votes for it.

It's like 2007 all over again!
weeeeee!

Tateru Nino report a while ago that LL do purge old inactive accounts. The link is:

http://www.massively.com/2009/02/15/linden-lab-purges-nearly-a-million-inactive-second-life-users?icid=sphere_blogsmith_inpage_massively

I tried the FreeRealms beta last night and it's method of picking names involved picking parts of the last name which are combined to form one last name. This seemed like it might be a good way to do name selection.

Uh.. You know she said that back in 2007, right?

It's near 3 million now. I've been keeping track. I am the source for that info.

And she probably left SL because she couldn't get the name she wanted.

Yes, such a happier, simpler time.

/me looks up at all the geezers and asks, "There was a time when ~only~ 50k logged in at a time?" (^o^)

Apologies in advance for being a pedant but Kate looks like Cáit (pronounced 'Cot') in Gaelic and the full form is Cáitlín (pronounced 'Cotleen').


Further apologies: it might be Gealic but it isn't Gaelic since there is no 'y' in the Gaelic alphabet.

"Ban free accounts!" looks something like "Saor in aisce cuntais crosaigí!" (pronounced see-yor in aysh-kuh cun-tash cross-aw-gee!) although don't quote me on that because it's been a while and I also disagree with the sentiment.

Yes, AND? the issue is still valid as was my response.

/me will consider this and reply in 2011 or so.

Well said! Both my names have no numbers and all I did was use a little imagination. There is only 1 other Yevad here! I was a little annoyed that my alt wasn't allowed Doobie as a second name though, as there is no other first name in second life like my alt, so I see no reason for not allowing me to use Doobie, but as you say, it is rather trivial and I have many things to do here other than looking at my name!

I have basic accounts too, but only because my paypal doesn't work with SL. Luckily my RL sister has a paid account, so I can do things through her if I need to and we share a $40 tier this way, saving us both money! It has also ment I have been forced to build up my business without a cash injection, which is ultimately more satisfying.

My business has a monthly turn-over of around 20,000L a month, so no-one can say my basic account doesn't contribute to the economy here. I never withdraw to RL either, so it all stays here and is used for bills, uploads, giving to charities and occasional gifts for myself; contributing to the economy again.

Like you say, bashing free accounts is rather unfair and doesn't account for the various reasons for this. Paypal is my reason, and both the Lindens and paypal are the only losers out if this situation, although the Lindens still gain, as somewhere down the chain money has been put into SL for someone to do business with me, and their money is used for uploads etc...

I think it's kinda cute that we have "relatives" out there who share our surname, though we don't know them. Just like RL...and i don't know anyone in RL who has been named John45634569 Smith34557567. If there wasn't restrictions on names, there would be hundreds of people with celebrity names with numbers, just like everywhere else on the net. It would be awkward for people who do role-play too...imagine how many Star Wars fans would have made Luke Skywalker names, for example....

[14:26] Luke59623745236452 Skywalker35432452: hi
[14:27] Luke89476099304 Skywalker6574568: hi, hows things?
[14:27] Luke59623745236452 Skywalker35432452: good, u?
[14:28] Luke89476099304 Skywalker6574568: not too bad. I saw Luke657486385 Skywalker67593645 last night and he said Luke76945684 Skywalker65477576 was thinking of joining that other Star Wars RP group, but only if Darth654856487 Vader35463547354 leaves.

Would be very absurd...

"Oh, don't tell me... your name is Igor?"
"Amathing gueth, Marthter, This ith for Igor."
"But I thought you were..."
"No, thith ith for IGOR."
"Oh, Igor at the embassy."
"Thath what I thaid, thir."