Second Life is changing, and everything seems to be happening at once. And Linden Lab are struggling to explain their intentions, as they trigger a flood of complaints that track the sun around the globe.
Perhaps the biggest is the announcement that the Teen grid was to close, and the Main Grid was to be opened to 16-year-olds. For almost a week, between the announcement at SLCC and the release of details in an official Blog, people were wailing. Second Life is currently limited to those over 18, legally classed as adults. There are maturity ratings in-world, so we can avoid the explicitly sexual, and we can choose how we behave. During that silence, the speculation grew extreme. Were we at some great legal risk in a new environment where we might be supplying obscene material to a minor? Probably not: those teens will be limited to places with a rating of "General" (formerly "PG").
Next for the delayed-explanation two-step is the change to the naming system. All through the history of SL, we have displayed unique names in-world. These are the login names for our accounts, the labels we use to access money in-world and the labels we build a business reputation around. There are around 20 million accounts, maybe 7% of them in regular use. Suddenly, we're told we will be allowed to use "Display Names", which will not be unique, and which will be allowed to match another player's username. Maybe I should set my Display Name to "Spartacus". I'm glad nobody is going to be able to use this for criminal deception. Oh, but they're changing the format of the username. Which also affects in-world scripts and all those fun things which might call you by name. How long before I'm suddenly not-me?
These stories, and the initial misconceptions, are going to run and run in the Second Life forums and in third-party blogs. Once they escape into a 24-hour world of news, gossip, and misunderstanding, one might soon begin to wish that Philip Linden at SLCC had worn a gag for the weekend.