Bottom post of the previous page:
Are we going to let current naming policies stand for Manuel or does MRP need a higher level of naming policy?I'd like to bring up some kinds of names that I've encountered and I'd appreciate if people could give their opinions on the matter.
(Rude) Puns
I think pun names can be alright, but names like "Seymour Butts", "Aheet Mahpoo", "Bal Di", and others are pretty immersion breaking and ultimately dissuade other players from engaging them sincerely. If it came down to having no pun names or these dorky rude puns I'd vote for tossing out pun names completely.
References
These can range from things like "Jack Napier" to "Barack Obama" It seems like there is a certain level of popularity of the reference in combination with it's memeability. For example, a player named "Marsellus Wallace" is going to provoke players to ask if "he looks like a bitch" because the name goes hand-in-hand with the quote. This is a tough nut to crack from an administrative perspective because one can in fact make a reference that others don't know and it ultimately comes down to whether or not you get recognized and caught. Then the player has a history of having successfully played that character for several rounds and being recognized for that name. Whether or not this is immersion breaking has a lot to do with how easily understood the reference is, but that is difficult to quantify.
Worth noting here for silicon policy is references to real and possibly outdated technology. Are alright with naming your borg after an old graphics card? Is "Nintendo" (or the same thing except with periods in-between) allowed? Heck, is HAL - 9000 or AM allowed even?
Rude Language
Are we okay with an AI named "R.E.T.A.R.D."? I personally find names like this to be cheap and abhorrent, but does the community? This is likely more often to occur with silicon names, but since it isn't even really a pun I feel like it deserves it's own category
Prefixes + Suffixes
Are we alright with prefixes like "Dr." or "Old/Ol'/Ole" and suffixes like "Esq." and "III"? What if they violate the first-name last-name policy, as in "Prefix" "Lastname"?
Nicknames
I don't think that our current naming policy supports it, but I am actually in favor of name like "Mike 'Sparky' Smith" and " 'Doctor' Nick Riviera". Not really sure what the arguments against them have been, but I think that if sane uses of this were allowed it would be pretty okay. Maybe we should just get code support for nicknames in the character creator, idk
Argonian
I get the feeling that a lot of people won't agree with me on this but I firmly believe that the Argonian naming scheme is tired and shouldn't be on MRP. In most cases it defines a character in a really two-dimensional way.
Of course most of these issues don't apply to performer names, however in my opinion we shouldn't really be allowing any blatantly rude names be allowed.
Atmosphere becomes more important as RP increases, so the sooner we can come together as a community and say where we draw the line the better. The names of the people around you can do a lot to define the atmosphere of the round.
