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

Michael Schlenker schlenk at uni-oldenburg.de
Thu Aug 19 12:09:07 PDT 2010


Am 19.08.2010 um 11:51 schrieb Argent Stonecutter:

> 
> On 2010-08-18, at 13:19, Michael Schlenker wrote:
>>> 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.
> 
> That wouldn't be "having the same display name as a user name".
> 
> That would be "having the same display name as another display name". I'm not talking about that. Is anyone talking about that?
> 
Its a special case of the general case, i didn't check but I'm pretty sure 'Agent Smith' is taken by someone. If it is and you
had your way it would not be possible to use that name.

But lets have another take at this, you want to ban people from using 'Argent Stonecutter' as a display name, fine.
How about any homographs of your current SL name, should they also be banned?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IDN_homograph_attack

It opens a can of worms.

How about a display option in the viewer that can 'highlight' the fact that your display name is the same as your username
(different colour, font or an other UI hint). 
That would prevent many of the imposter issues, as it would be pretty obvious.

Maybe an opt-out to deny the use of current usernames as display names would be appropriate, but a general ban to reuse a current username 
as a display name sounds a bit excessive.

Michael





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