(I'll use the nouns system and alter in this post since those are the terms my host system is most familiar with. This is not an exclusive post, I have no DNI. Post once again under the cut for the sake of people's dashboards.) I find it interesting how systems are usually expected to have collective names.
To start, I consider a collective name to be different from a system's name. In my eyes, a system's name, something like "the (xyz) system," is something used in third person. Two people talk about a system as a whole, and it'd be impractical to go "Arnold, Bella, Charly, Dylan, Emily and Francis are skilled artists" when you really just want to talk about all of their shared artworks. So you say "The Golden System has a lot of skilled artists" and leave it at that. This, to me, is fine - it still acknowledges the system as a group, even if you're referring to shared traits.
This is different from collective names, though. A collective name would be something you can call any one alter in particular and it'd be acceptable. You know Arnold and Bella, but you can't tell them apart until they clarify, and you don't want to ask, so you greet them with "hey, Goldie!" With the collective name, you say "Goldie is a skilled artist." They're talked about like a single cohesive entity.
For seemingly many systems, their system's name and their collective name are the same, if not very similar. The Golden System goes by Goldie when you can't or don't want to ask. Nobody in that system has any qualms with being called Goldie. When this sort of thing works for everyone involved, it's nice.
I find it strange, though, that the concept of a single cohesive identity you can greet by the same collective name and pronouns is so common even in communities specifically centered around plurality and especially when people use a definition focused on not being a single self. In social groups where you have to post an introduction to get in, there's a required collective name and collective pronouns. While this one doesn't apply to every group, we've sometimes had these introductions rejected when our "more info" section emphasizes that we don't actually go by the "collective" name and want to be spoken to like individuals.
In these spaces, whether we're proxying or not, we're rarely asked about how we present - we get the same "hi (system name)!" Ironically, some of our spaces with mostly non-systems handle this better. It's anecdotal and definitely not proper evidence, but we've met more systems who treat us like a singlet in system spaces than I can count. Our name and pronouns, interests, tastes in music and food and games, are all assumed to belong to a single shared collective rather than a system.
This isn't meant to be a criticism of any group in particular, it's just something I find interesting. Rather post a bad take and hear why I'm in the wrong instead of never posting it and keeping a flawed idea, so if you have any thoughts on this I'm open to hearing it.
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