Display Names? Are you KIDDING?

Dear Linden Lab,

Really?

I mean...REALLY?

Okay, you know me. I've been one of your biggest fans for many years. I've sat and watched as you guys have gotten bigger and bigger, and even if there have been things I haven't necessarily agreed with, I've rolled with the punches.

But you and I are going to have some words now. You're going to sit there while I tell you exactly what I think about your new display name thing.

Do you really mean to tell me that people HONESTLY freaked the hell out when it came to picking a last name when they joined SL? That because of these obviously idiotic people, now you want to do away with the 2 name system, something that's worked for years, and change it? That now I'm going to be "alicia.chenaux" and I can have a display name - a name that I can change at any time? A display name that anyone else can choose as well?

Oh nuh uh. No. No WAY.

I am Alicia Chenaux. I am not Alicia Dot Chenaux. DOT is not my middle name. My SL name is not an email. It's not just the way I happen to log in. It is MINE. I have been Alicia Chenaux for almost 3 years and it is ME. I have had other names in the past, and not one of them has ever truly been me. How would you like for someone to walk up to you at work and say, "Oh, by the way. We're just going to call you Jane Bigbutt now because your real name doesn't mean much to us." Same thing. By doing this, you're telling us that our SL names mean jack to you.

And probably the most disappointing thing I saw on the Wiki:

Can I prevent other Residents from using my Display Name?

Not generally. Display Names are not meant to be unique identifiers. Instead, if you notice that others are using a similar Display Name, feel free to change your own name.

So when this comes up, and someone [like me] chooses to use our names as our display name, and someone else decides to be an ass and use our name too - do you honestly mean to tell me that I'm free to change MY name? Instead of them? I have to change MINE? RIDICULOUS.

I'm begging you - PLEASE think this through. Please don't let our world become just another web thing. Don't let us be IMVU. Please don't let someone use KittyLove69xoxo as a USER NAME. We don't want this. We want stability. We want our inventories to load. We want to be able to attach clothing without it taking an hour. We want more groups!

C'mon. Please don't make all the years I've been cheering for you seem like a waste.