Get Rid of Name Exclusivity

[sorenna]

On 5/18/2021 at 4:03 PM, Roseora said:

I'm fairly new to dc but as I see it i'm slightly in favour of not having names be exclusive. I've not had much trouble naming my dragons here yet, but I played neopets for years and well let's just say tangerinarainbowdust and dietstrawberrypepsi don't make great pet names.

 

Pro exclusivity:

 

Forces some creativity, like adding surnames or clan names, or thinking of rare names or making new ones.

 

Allows people to have something more unique.

 

Non exclusivity:

 

Name exclusivity isn't sustainable long term if a playerbase grows or has high turnover. (neopets is a great example, good luck creating a neopet today and it having any sort of sensible name; and you can only have 5 on there per acc) on DC one can have hundreds of dragons and could want to name all of them.

 

It's not nescessary; they still have their codes that are unique; so even if two of the same sprite were to be named the same thing, they would still be possible to differentiate.

 

Can lead people to not name out of frustration, or give them names they didn't really want.

 

Names will get taken up by inactive accounts, so the pool of potential names gets even smaller, artificially.

 

Add to your pro-exclusivity list:

 

No lineage confusion.

 

If you can have seven different dragons all named "Fred Smith," it's going to be a lot harder to tell whether a lineage is inbred or not/whether you've got one dragon with seven offspring or seven dragons with one offspring in your project/whether an egg offered for trade is something you already have (i.e. a 3G Valentine checker from CB "Miss Smith" - is that your "Miss Smith" or a stranger's dragon with the same name?)/whether a Thuwed is legitimate or not, etc.

 

I'm theoretically open to removing exclusivity, but it would be a nightmare for managing some of my larger lineages if I couldn't easily tell where I was and which dragons' offpspring I already had.  (Especially Valentine/Christmas, where you can only have two CBs on your scroll so any lineage requires lots of trading and swapping!  If 50 people have Holly dragons named "Holly Jolly Christmas" then it's going to get rough on breeders and lineage builders.)

 

Perhaps the dragon's code could be displayed in parentheses under its name when looking at lineage view?

[Tini]

3 hours ago, sorenna said:

 

Add to your pro-exclusivity list:

 

No lineage confusion.

 

If you can have seven different dragons all named "Fred Smith," it's going to be a lot harder to tell whether a lineage is inbred or not/whether you've got one dragon with seven offspring or seven dragons with one offspring in your project/whether an egg offered for trade is something you already have (i.e. a 3G Valentine checker from CB "Miss Smith" - is that your "Miss Smith" or a stranger's dragon with the same name?)/whether a Thuwed is legitimate or not, etc.

There's already all kinds of lineage confusion. People already steal what would be the canon Thuwed name, or make up their own. Your average user doesn't have the actual thuwed names memorized. I could name a CB pair 'Opscijalak0 Thuwed' and 'Ajrut Thuwed' and only by actually checking the dragons could anyone tell if it was an actual thuwed or not. The only way to actually tell is the 'verified' link. For anything above like 4g its much better to use a site to check for inbreeding. https://dragcave.net/lineage/MQnTb its much easier to just use the tools people have made than leaving it up to human error, and even if I'm sure somethings not inbred I check anyway, because I don't trust my scanning. Its more often I think something is inbred but its actually not, which stops me from tossing it. If its 4g or under its easy enough to just hover-check the codes of all the cb  males then all the cb females, but after that its holding too many codes or names in the brain.

 

[Fuzzbucket]

Having things misnamed Thuwed isn't the same level of disruption in lineages as having half a dozen Ajrut Thuweds out there. We shouldn't have to go off site to check for inbreeding - not that inbreeding in itself is wrong - some of us do it on purpose at times and try to avoid it at other times.

Name exclusivity makes it much easier to check.

 

And no, no "warnings" when we breed, to get past that; that suggest that inbreeding is wrong, and it isn't.

[Charu]

I still support this and feel like the best way to help give people their exclusive /n/<name> URLs is to add a number at the end for ID. The first Midas Dorkface can still reroute to /n/Midas%20Dorkface but people still choosing that name (hopefully they just aren't aware of the history of this name) can have /n/Midas%20Dorkface/1. Maybe another option would be to checkmark if you want your name to be exclusive. If a name is exclusive, you can't have /n/Midas%20Dorkface/1. However, the problem is a lot of people have dragons into the thousands and I don't know about you, but I don't want to go through and checkmark if I want other people to have those names or not. 

 

Imagine if we only could have exclusive names for human beings. That's my major problem with name exclusivity. 

 

Also, the argument on distinguishing inbreeding via lineage isn't a good argument because multiple people have posted examples of confusing lineages that aren't inbred.

[Falorni]

One thing to remember is the cave doesn't discriminate inbred eggs; just like CB vs bred/messy, inbreds are the same as any other egg so IMO the "itll be harder to check for inbreds!" argument should not hold much value.

[Fuzzbucket]

No, there is nothing in the game against inbreeding - but both for lines where I DO and lines where I don't, I need to be able to carry on doing whichever. In just the same way as I try to make sure to breed a Thuwed or an SA with another.

[sorenna]

On 6/27/2021 at 8:11 AM, Fuzzbucket said:

No, there is nothing in the game against inbreeding - but both for lines where I DO and lines where I don't, I need to be able to carry on doing whichever. In just the same way as I try to make sure to breed a Thuwed or an SA with another.

 

Fuzzbucket has this covered!  Needing to check lineage parentage holds true no matter what kind of lineage pattern or procedure you're doing.

[OMGitsKairi]

On 6/23/2021 at 8:36 AM, Falorni said:

Here to again voice my massive support for yeeting name exclusivity; working on a lyrical lineage project and it truly is such a bleeping pain to have to try to find some not-horrendous looking alternate to the name you need.

 

The Caretaker?  Yeah, okay, expected that to be taken.  The  Caretaker with two spaces?  C a r e t a k e r?  both taken!!  This stuff is such a huge tamper to my motivations to work on any kind of lyricals in the future, ugh.

 

 

As a fellow lyric lineage creator, I feel your pain. Also I would like to submit this as evidence,

https://dragcave.net/lineage/pO6Od

 

That zero has driven me bonkers for nearly 10 years.

 

Pls. I'm so tired. 

 

[OMGitsKairi]

39 minutes ago, 0x08 said:

But say there are two, three, four dragons, all named "name". What would happen if a person were to visit dragcave.net/view/n/name? Which dragon would appear? 

 

It has been proposed earlier in the thread (I'm not sure which page) that in the case of multiple dragons with the same name

exist, then it would display a page similar to a progeny page listing all of the dragons with that name.

[KageSora]

19 hours ago, OMGitsKairi said:

 

It has been proposed earlier in the thread (I'm not sure which page) that in the case of multiple dragons with the same name

exist, then it would display a page similar to a progeny page listing all of the dragons with that name.

How is that supposed to help you find the dragon you were trying to get to if there's more than a handful of dragons with the same name?

 

Suppose you have 500 dragons named "Bob", how are you supposed to find a specific one?

 

Just spend however long manually clicking through every single dragon until you find the right one?

 

Sound like a rather poor replacement for something that currently takes you to the exact dragon you were looking for.

 

Unless there is a way to go to the exact dragon you want without memorizing the code then I will never support anything that gets rid of the current function of view/n/name

 

It would probably be one of the single worst changes that could happen to the game, IMO.  And I say that as a person who's been deeply upset that names I really wanted were taken.

 

I've followed this topic for ages and I've yet to see anything that makes me not despise it.

[Fuzzbucket]

1 hour ago, KageSora said:

Unless there is a way to go to the exact dragon you want without memorizing the code then I will never support anything that gets rid of the current function of view/n/name

 

It would probably be one of the single worst changes that could happen to the game, IMO.  And I say that as a person who's been deeply upset that names I really wanted were taken.

 

I've followed this topic for ages and I've yet to see anything that makes me not despise it.

 

I wouldn't use the word despise, but I do agree.

[OMGitsKairi]

4 hours ago, KageSora said:

How is that supposed to help you find the dragon you were trying to get to if there's more than a handful of dragons with the same name?

 

If there's a specific dragon you're looking for, wouldn't you know what breed it is? The page I had seen proposed had tiles showing the dragons. 

 

It also just occurred to me that maybe it might also be possible to view dragons by name, but also by owner. Like, view/n/Bob/omgitskairi 

would bring you to my dragon named Bob, but view/n/Bob/(your scroll name) would display yours. 

 

It's not a perfect solution. But so few things are. In my opinion, the scale by which the site has grown has outpaced the current naming system. There are few things in the game I find more disheartening than finding a name that I would use and enjoy is on a scroll that has 10 dragons, no growing things, no badges, and joined in 2010. 

 

Edit: Also the view by owner thing I mentioned could depend I guess on whether the owner's name was visible. Not sure at the time of this post about how dragons whose owners have their name hidden would be handled. 

 

 

 

Edited September 19, 2021 by OMGitsKairi

[Skadi]

To be honest the big thing I don't like with name exclusivity is how inactive accounts can sit on names. Imo either bring back inactivity sweeps or get rid of exclusivity because if only one person can have a name for a dragon, it should be someone who's actually playing. The timeline for inactivity can be like 2 years, giving room for people who only play during holidays. 

[KageSora]

9 hours ago, OMGitsKairi said:

 

If there's a specific dragon you're looking for, wouldn't you know what breed it is? The page I had seen proposed had tiles showing the dragons. 

 

It also just occurred to me that maybe it might also be possible to view dragons by name, but also by owner. Like, view/n/Bob/omgitskairi 

would bring you to my dragon named Bob, but view/n/Bob/(your scroll name) would display yours. 

 

It's not a perfect solution. But so few things are. In my opinion, the scale by which the site has grown has outpaced the current naming system. There are few things in the game I find more disheartening than finding a name that I would use and enjoy is on a scroll that has 10 dragons, no growing things, no badges, and joined in 2010. 

 

Edit: Also the view by owner thing I mentioned could depend I guess on whether the owner's name was visible. Not sure at the time of this post about how dragons whose owners have their name hidden would be handled. 

 

 

 

What you mention in your edit is exactly the problem with that solution.

 

If you can use it regardless then that sort of defeats the purpose, partially, of hiding scroll names.

 

But if you immediately lose access to it if you hide your scroll name, you're basically punishing people by stripping functions they can currently use just because they don't want their scroll name broadcast on all their dragons.

 

I've it happen multiples that names I really wanted were taken.  I know it sucks.  But it doesn't suck enough to completely strip out existing, useful functionality and replace it with a poor (and possibly conditional) substitute at best, or just say "lol u used that?  screw u i guess" at worst.

[Fuzzbucket]

2 hours ago, KageSora said:

What you mention in your edit is exactly the problem with that solution.

 

If you can use it regardless then that sort of defeats the purpose, partially, of hiding scroll names.

 

But if you immediately lose access to it if you hide your scroll name, you're basically punishing people by stripping functions they can currently use just because they don't want their scroll name broadcast on all their dragons.

 

I've it happen multiples that names I really wanted were taken.  I know it sucks.  But it doesn't suck enough to completely strip out existing, useful functionality and replace it with a poor (and possibly conditional) substitute at best, or just say "lol u used that?  screw u i guess" at worst.

 

1000% agree.

[Falorni]

8 hours ago, Skadi said:

To be honest the big thing I don't like with name exclusivity is how inactive accounts can sit on names. Imo either bring back inactivity sweeps or get rid of exclusivity because if only one person can have a name for a dragon, it should be someone who's actually playing. The timeline for inactivity can be like 2 years, giving room for people who only play during holidays. 

This, so much this.  Also agree with Kairi's statement - the game certainly has outgrown the current name exclusivity system.  When there are countless of users deciding to not name their dragons simply because it's a massive annoyance to find unique names, that imo should be enough to signify there is an issue - and I'm speaking as someone with unique "canon" character names on my scroll that, sure, would be a bit of a bummer to lose the "claim" to.

 

I also want to genuinely ask: people who are so vehemently against this solely because of view/n/ functionality - why do you use that function specifically?  I promise I'm not trying to be mean (just dunno how else to word the question lol), I just personally never saw any appeal to it and it's incredibly hard to try to come up with a working solution without understanding what specific aspects about it you guys like.

[Shadowdrake]

5 hours ago, KageSora said:

But if you immediately lose access to it if you hide your scroll name, you're basically punishing people by stripping functions they can currently use just because they don't want their scroll name broadcast on all their dragons.

I'm sure TJ can create an exception for the user, given he did that for... hidden eggs, hidden eggs' lineages, managing hidden scrolls, and viewing private groups. Of all the concerns about making names non-exclusive, this is probably the least concern because it has an obvious solution.

Edited September 19, 2021 by Shadowdrake

[ShorahNagi]

1 hour ago, Falorni said:

also want to genuinely ask: people who are so vehemently against this solely because of view/n/ functionality - why do you use that function specifically?

I don't use it all that often, but reasons I've seen people say they use it is:

 

*Easy way to check if a name's been taken before trying to use the name

 

*Easy way to find a dragon on your scroll (ex. I know I have a horse dragon named QuiDuck...I know he's in a group with 100+ other horse dragons [on a scroll with 3,000+ dragons] By using view/n/QuiDuck - I can quickly call up his page)

[OMGitsKairi]

4 hours ago, Shadowdrake said:

I'm sure TJ can create an exception for the user, given he did that for... hidden eggs, hidden eggs' lineages, managing hidden scrolls, and viewing private groups. Of all the concerns about making names non-exclusive, this is probably the least concern because it has an obvious solution.

 

This. And also, even if a user had their scroll hidden, and their dragon was viewed via the hypothetical /view/n/Bob/(scroll name) function,

I'm sure it would still be possible to have the "you cannot seem to find the scroll you're looking for" message show up if someone tried to

look for the scroll.

[KageSora]

8 hours ago, Falorni said:

I also want to genuinely ask: people who are so vehemently against this solely because of view/n/ functionality - why do you use that function specifically?  I promise I'm not trying to be mean (just dunno how else to word the question lol), I just personally never saw any appeal to it and it's incredibly hard to try to come up with a working solution without understanding what specific aspects about it you guys like.

You might as well ask "why do you look for a specific dragon on your scroll?"

 

Because the answer will be "it's the simplest, quickest way to do that"

 

I want to check if I used a BSA?  Or a lineage?  Progeny?  Maybe I want to breed the dragon?  Or maybe I want to release it?  Make it into a zombie attempt?

 

Instead of taking multiple steps and up to several minutes hunting around manually trying to find where the dragon is listed, I can go instantly to the exact dragon I want with no extra steps in a fraction of the time manually looking for it takes.

 

IF you can find an alternative that satisfies that, then I'll be less opposed to it--though I rather like the whole "one use name" thing, it's more interesting than everybody naming their dragons after the same fictional characters or using the same popular songs to make lineages.  I like the challenge of making a themed lineage using names that aren't taken.

 

I'd be willing to let that go, however, if there were a guaranteed replacement that would be one single step that takes like 2 seconds tops that takes me to the exact dragon that I want to go to every single time the way the current functionality does.

 

IF TJ would be willing to make it so you can view your own dragons via a view/n/name/scrollname link, even with your scroll name hidden, that would remove my biggest objection.  Of course he might not be willing to make that exception.  And if he's not, then I'm never going to be on board with people wanting to take away a function I use every single time I work on any of my lineage projects because they can't accept that they can't have a specific name.

 

(And don't say "just memorize the code"--random strings of case-sensitive alphanumeric characters are not typically easy to memorize and keep straight--especially if your brain likes to swap letters or numbers around--meanwhile proper names are strings of alphanumeric characters that have actual pattern and meaning to them which are easy to memorize by comparison.)

[Fuzzbucket]

 

15 hours ago, Falorni said:

I also want to genuinely ask: people who are so vehemently against this solely because of view/n/ functionality - why do you use that function specifically?  I promise I'm not trying to be mean (just dunno how else to word the question lol), I just personally never saw any appeal to it and it's incredibly hard to try to come up with a working solution without understanding what specific aspects about it you guys like.

 ⬇️  ⬇️   ⬇️   ⬇️ 

 

14 hours ago, ShorahNagi said:

I don't use it all that often, but reasons I've seen people say they use it is:

 

*Easy way to check if a name's been taken before trying to use the name

 

*Easy way to find a dragon on your scroll (ex. I know I have a horse dragon named QuiDuck...I know he's in a group with 100+ other horse dragons [on a scroll with 3,000+ dragons] By using view/n/QuiDuck - I can quickly call up his page)

 

6 hours ago, KageSora said:

You might as well ask "why do you look for a specific dragon on your scroll?"

 

Because the answer will be "it's the simplest, quickest way to do that"

 

I want to check if I used a BSA?  Or a lineage?  Progeny?  Maybe I want to breed the dragon?  Or maybe I want to release it?  Make it into a zombie attempt?

 

Instead of taking multiple steps and up to several minutes hunting around manually trying to find where the dragon is listed, I can go instantly to the exact dragon I want with no extra steps in a fraction of the time manually looking for it takes.

 

IF you can find an alternative that satisfies that, then I'll be less opposed to it--though I rather like the whole "one use name" thing, it's more interesting than everybody naming their dragons after the same fictional characters or using the same popular songs to make lineages.  I like the challenge of making a themed lineage using names that aren't taken.

 

I'd be willing to let that go, however, if there were a guaranteed replacement that would be one single step that takes like 2 seconds tops that takes me to the exact dragon that I want to go to every single time the way the current functionality does.

 

IF TJ would be willing to make it so you can view your own dragons via a view/n/name/scrollname link, even with your scroll name hidden, that would remove my biggest objection.  Of course he might not be willing to make that exception.  And if he's not, then I'm never going to be on board with people wanting to take away a function I use every single time I work on any of my lineage projects because they can't accept that they can't have a specific name.

 

(And don't say "just memorize the code"--random strings of case-sensitive alphanumeric characters are not typically easy to memorize and keep straight--especially if your brain likes to swap letters or numbers around--meanwhile proper names are strings of alphanumeric characters that have actual pattern and meaning to them which are easy to memorize by comparison.)

 

And all this too.

Edited September 20, 2021 by Fuzzbucket

[Shadowdrake]

9 hours ago, KageSora said:

IF TJ would be willing to make it so you can view your own dragons via a view/n/name/scrollname link, even with your scroll name hidden, that would remove my biggest objection.  Of course he might not be willing to make that exception. 

TJ has a record of being reasonable about implementing both privacy and personal usability, such as private groups and trades, and the hidden lineage update. Also, there's at least two easy solutions to this--either have your dragon show up at the top of a name directory, or have a /n/name/scroll option to head directly to it, not even mentioning the possibility of having /n/name automatically redirect to your dragon and a name directory being a whole new page--so this stringent objection seems somewhat overblown.

[Falorni]

40 minutes ago, Shadowdrake said:

TJ has a record of being reasonable about implementing both privacy and personal usability, such as private groups and trades, and the hidden lineage update. Also, there's at least two easy solutions to this--either have your dragon show up at the top of a name directory, or have a /n/name/scroll option to head directly to it, not even mentioning the possibility of having /n/name automatically redirect to your dragon and a name directory being a whole new page--so this stringent objection seems somewhat overblown.

Yeah I have to agree that the reaction is a bit overblown and almost comes off as hostile - which is really discouraging when I'm genuinely trying to understand where y'all are coming from as someone who personally doesn't use the function much.    To everyone else though, thank you for the responses - I definitely see why you'd want to locate a specific dragon with view/n/, I guess I just don't have enough dragons on my scroll atm to make that a necessity for myself LOL

 

However, I really like the idea of your own dragon (or dragons if name exclusivity is repelled lol) showing up on the top of a hypothetical name search/directory page!  Would still allow those of us that are nosy to snoop who named their dragon what but kept the functionality of being able to find your own dragons easier

Edited September 20, 2021 by Falorni

[Sextonator]

Imo the easiest solution would be for people

to just create a spreadsheet with dragon names and codes for dragons they need to keep up with, or just a very organized series of bookmarks. Might be tedious, but I don’t see a reason to keep something that only benefits a smallish group of people when removing it can benefit a great group of people. /shrug

[schenanigans]

I don't understand the objections to view/n/name/scrollname to be honest. You can already circumnavigate whether the owner's scroll is hidden completely just by knowing the name, whether they wanted you to or not? It's even easier to access a specific dragon unwarranted right now than if there were scroll names added to the link - at that point you'd need some level of familiarity to the scroll and owner to be able to get to the dragon you are looking for. 

 

I do find it impressive that people have more than a handful of their dragon names memorized to be able to use the functionality frequently. I can't remember even half of the names of some of my special group dragon names xD

 

I think view/n/name/scrollname is a great idea. 

Otherwise, I imagine the view/n/name list would be able to have sorting options (breed, age, etc)

Edited September 20, 2021 by schenanigans