[opensource-dev] display names = the end of 1.x viewers?

[Michael Schlenker]

Am 18.08.2010 um 15:05 schrieb Argent:

> On Tue, Aug 17, 2010 at 6:47 PM, Michael Schlenker <schlenk at uni-oldenburg.de> wrote:
> Am 18.08.2010 um 01:16 schrieb Bryon Ruxton:
> > And 2. you should also prevent anyone to use a display name baring the name
> > of an existing username in my opinion.
>  
> NO. That would limit the usefulness for some kind of RP for sure.
> 
> Can you elaborate on what kind of RP would require you to be able to set your display name to "Argent Stonecutter"?
> 

Sure. Anywhere you wanna have uniform appearance, like having a bunch of 'Agent Smith' AVs in black suits to give the 
impression of identical twins or clones.

And compare to reality, where you cannot totally prevent anyone to use your name either, unless its used as a corporate name.

It would have loved to ban others to use the firstname 'Michael', but that wasn't possible in RL, and so 7 of 28 of my classmates
in 1st school class were named Michael. Its just like that, names are not unique if your horizon in time and space gets large enough.

BUT there you have of course a point when you fear imposters and other people that try to make your name look bad due to their actions
under your 'name'. Same issue in RL, you can go to court over it, or file criminal charges, not nice.

The limitation is kind of arbitrary. Maybe if 'Display Names' got some hinting (e.g. by using a different font or some other UI hint),
to distinguish them from 'transplanted' usernames it would be good enough for the trivial imposter cases.

Michael