Sign the "Boycott Camping in SL" petition!

If you want quality entertainment in a quality game, sign this petition and let the SL community know you avoid camping like the plague that it is.

http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/no_camp/

Your boycotts haven't put the toothpaste, shampoo or deodorant companies out of business, Nimue, what makes you think this one has a chance?

Because it's not really a petition to ban camping per-se.

It's more like a place for those who hate camping and cheap entertainment to announce their presence

I think camping is a real drag. I don't think it should be banned though, to each his own.

I'll tell you that if I tp to a new area and they have a bunch of camping pads I'm outta their in a flash.

Brandi...xxx

Camping, while annoying for some people is a lifeline for others, it helps many people pay their land fees and buy the nice sparkly things that people in SL create...camping money oils SLs wheels.

If the landowners knew that camping does nothing but put green dots on the map and drain their lindens, maybe they will stop themself.
Noone has reached the popular list with camping. A good classified ad with the right keywords is much more effective.

actually, isn't a changing of the search feature in the works? where the traffic will not count? I believe i've heard something like that, were they are going to try to use relivance other than traffic. That will kind of make camping pointless?

It's all big ripoff. Destiny many places have made popular list thru camping.. sad to even see this exploit be continued ..

the actual resident count is false. if you exclude all the alternate accounts the number would be much much less. Lies Lies Lies lies lies
When they proffit from the money exchange and buying of lindens . Why would they want to stop it?? Sad but true

The truth is hard to come by in secondlife anymore . even being dorked around on the phone and danced around subjects on line.. sad but not worth staying anymore.. anyone who has worked hard for their genuine traffic would know what real hard work is .. the rest of the camping supporters are just a bunch of cheating greedy owners who want to only rape and pillage the users with cheap trick islands and shameless money briberies.
and then they come on your land to attract your users to their cheap shamelss camp club.. sad but SL has gone to crap in a hand basket

Delete your account and find a better online Virtual world that isnt controlled mafia style.


Oh yes and the empty promisses of a search fix.. so many features they have promised and said they are adding to make you feel all comfortable inside never come to pass. they got bigger fish to fry like getting 5 million dollar voice chat program to fly.. who cares about the exploits and Residents complaints!

How can you say camping is an exploit?

Owner pays 10L$ per hour to each person using a camping chair, times say 20 ppls =200L$, times 24 hour day= 4.8k, times 30days = 144kL$... avearge Classified ad costs 30kL$ per week, who is exploiting?

Paying for popularity is an exploit and not a true way to represent your self.. long time ago i found campers at places and no real social exchange ~I never went back!~.. no one talks except for "how can i make money?" .. its nothing but a big joke anymore. you arive at a place that has 90% campers and the rest just lookie loos going.. HOW RETARDED! and they leave
Like Charms casino and gaming lol what a joke. pay for campers to land on top of list . wow and then fall off becaUSE expense is a little high lol then you see still go there half or more are campers.. Explout plain and simple.. popularity should come come your creation and imagination and not by a payed user method.. stupid to even think thats a clear-cut way to gain popularity without genuine hard work.. they do eventually fall off the list but there is always another coming along to pay for their popularity rather tan work for it .

What is even funnyer they have campers camping to pay for their own campers.

Im sure the bots are next and or have been . i know of one lame owner who uses his own banks of computers to run several alts on his own land to enduce camping without paying.. hillarious
EXPLOIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! POPULARITY SHOULD BE EARNED NOT PAYED FOR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1

Camping is an exploit because it reports false traffic figures. A classified ad does not. Dilbert and I run a popular sim that has no camping...just true traffic and people who genuinely come to socialize and have fun. However, other places may "appear" to be more popular because the pay people to stand there like mindless zombies.

Linden will never change that because the guys wo pay these campers are keeping them in business buying lindens to pay them off. Makes no sense at all to me.

False traffic reports.... the traffic reports track Av's right? Well if a SIM has 100 Av's on it at any given time and the traffic report is reporting 100 Av's its not truly false. The exploit is the lame owners running their multiple Alt's strictly to pad their numbers without paying people who really want, or think they need the L's.

And I hate to say it but its the culture of the 'world' that makes newbies want to, rather NEED to, camp. You come in to the world with NOTHING... A goofy looking creation wearing goofy clothing and you have no money to do a thing about it. The 'Velvet boy' clothing and black prim wings on Orientation Island only retain their charm for about an hour. Search on popular places brings up Money Island and what newbie isn't going to like the sound of that? I went there as a week old newb... wen't there every single day and sat on some stupid box for an hour, or made the mistake of answering a few polls so that my email address provided could be spammed like flies on stink. And while sitting on that box I did manage to have some good conversations although 9 times out 10 I failed to get a reply to my 'hello' or I got one from someone telling me they didn't speak my language. Being an extrovert by nature I never gave up however more passive people would likely learn the lesson just to park yourself then go surf the internet for the rest of the night and just check the game every so often to avoid being booted for inactivity.

No longer a true 'newb' I still camp.... I pay weekly rent for an apartment now, want to buy things like 'cooler than freebie' clothes and because I refuse to throw on a female shape and skin to pimp myself out dancing on some pole....I camp! And when I camp I typically seek out one of the dozen freinds I made camping early on and I try to get a spot near them so we can talk and make fun of others while earning a few L's while we do it. What good does it do me to park my Avi on my freebie couch and chat with my pal sitting in my freebie Lazyboy? The 'chat' is the same whether I'm making no $L's or $2L's for every 5 minutes my character dances on a dance pad. Might as well benefit from it if I can...

And don't give me that crap that I'm making $0.17 real USD for my time spent.... I'm not paying USD in world I'm paying L's so that argument is weak. Sure I could 'buy some $L's' and save myself some hassles right? Wrong! Paypal transactions still aren't working for me, my ticket has been a work in progress for at least 2 weeks, and as I've mentioned its not really a hassle for me. I'm talking with people and having fun while I'm there... making my sad little $2L's for every 5 minutes I dance like an idiot with other dancing idiots. So.... if you can either fix my Paypal issues or feel generous enough to toss me a couple hundred $L's I'll stop camping.... maybe... because my better friends in world will probably still be camping too...

Perhaps removal of the 'most popular' search result is the way to go.

If something is truly so popular, why does it need even more affirmation?

So someone sees a place has great traffic and TP's in to see what all the fuss is about and what do they find? A farm of campers and a laggy sim.... No one to talk to.. shops empty.. and they can't make up their own mind about that? Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me.

Considering most 'legit' advertising touted in this thread involves using keywords that 9 times out of 10 have squat to do with the business it's only the lesser of two evils.

Grow up folks. If it wasn't traffic it would be some other gamed thing like alphabatising the lists and hundreds of AAAA1!!!Slots companies. The only real way to curb it is to fully randomize the serach results as far as whats listed first. But you can bet your ass the big stores would hate the idea of being thrown to the back of a list to keep it 'fair'.

There is no right solution that won't piss of some group of idealists. Camping is by far the least irritating thing that could be going on.

Edit- BTW randomizing would be gamed too by people carving their land into tons of little chunks all advertising so they have 50 parcels advertising their business to have the best odds of getting to the top of the randomized list.

At least the camping contributes to the economy.

If camping does ever go the way of the dinosaur and a bunch of unverifieds decide to quit because they just refuse to pay a few cents for their entertainment, then good riddance. They won't be missed.

AMEN!

Sounds like 'Elitism'..... 'payment prejudice'.

Maybe, but come up with a way for them to earn their Lindens in a less parasitic way then. I'm not against unverifieds per se but is another one of the niceties that LL has given us that has become seriously abused.

Easier said than done wouldn't it seem? I've only been a resident for a little over a month and so far it appears that if you can't build something worth selling you are limited to working in a service industry that caters heavily to 'entertainment fields' such as DJ, greeter... prostitute etc. Camping is the SL equivalent to getting a minumum wage job at a fast food place. You're doing crappy work for crappy pay. Sadly being a virtual world places significant restrictions on how many, and what types, of minimum wage jobs are available. Camping is camping whether you're sitting on a cube, painting a light-house, dancing on a dance-pad etc.... None of them glamorous however they do offer the 'in need' population a way to begin contributing. Newbie X can't buy Brenda's new tank top she saw in Brenda's classified add until she works enough hours at her minimum wage job. A lot like real life for a sad many......

SL is been around for how many years now? There are many creative and intelligent people in the world it would seem.... and yet they either don't care or can't find a better way. I would believe if that were not true... it would have already been done.

Maybe instead of camping the Lindens will decide to 'tax' the paying members to supply 'welfare' to those who request it....

I agree it isn't an easy fix. And yes service jobs are the only opion for those of us that don't create content. I take a bit of issue with comparing camping to a job in say McDonald, where you are performing some sort of service, preparing and serving food to others, where in Camping you are generally serving no use to anyone else but yourself, and drawing resources. And at the rate camping pays is it even worth it. Do real people actually camp and spend the money in world? Or are they all either traffic gamimg bots or Chinese money harvesting bots.

While some people possibly are unverified because of difficulty with getting a payment method that works with Lindens flawless system , I venture that a lot just don't want to pony up any cash, which is their right I guess. Some may say they can't afford to pay for a membership, but , in my opinion, if you can afford a machine advanced enough with the internet connection to run the game, I think you can afford to buy a few Lindens now and again.

You suggest a Tax. Considering my $10 amonth gets me no better access or features, other than the right to buy on the mainland (which I don't use) that a non paying resident gets, I think I already am being taxed sufficiently. Let Linden come up with maybe an aprrenticeship prgram for newbies or a "Charitiable Organization" where newbies can get a one time stipend, I'd be happy to donate to such a thing. he use of the word "Welfare" just makes me cringe, but that's another argument.
I'm not saying unverifieds should be shunned, banned, or treated differently. Butt LL's decision to open up the membership in the manner they did has created many problems, that they seem to want to ignore.

That was one of my points. The Virtual world that is SL does not provide for jobs that allow such a basic service. It's not like the virtual windows of my apartment get dirty and I can pay some newbie $20L's to fly up there and spend 5 minutes cleaning them. The environment offers nothing to the newbie besides camping as a means to make the $L0 become anything else.

In regards to drawing resources perhaps the number of camping stations needs to be limited rather than deleted. Casino Paris, I think that was where I was, has what seems like fifty camping chairs... maybe if each sim was limited to a maximum of 10 total it would be less laggy and places could not as easily use it to their advantage to make their popularity increase. Then... perhaps the Lindens could create incentives for SIMs who do not allow camping to add their 10, ways such as reduced cost of operation etc, so instead of one T-Online Island having 30 dancers and towel sitters at any given time there would be a wider number of SIMs spreading the campers out. Might also make new members explore more if they have to search a little harder to find a camping spot.

There is simply no good reason for camping to exist in SL. None.
Whatever measly economic benefits result from paying some cheap avi to sit in a chair for hours on end, is countered VERY handily by the drain on sim resources which would be better spent handing a person actually moving and interacting with the environment around them.
Populating sims with camping chairs...especially those located on mainland areas where people are trying to own homes and run businesses is nothing more than a subtle form of griefing. The sooner the practice is eliminated...the better.
I like the idea of turning camping into a money-making form of "employment", however. If someone wants to be a bartender, cashier, or towel attendant...then that's cool. Anything but a silent, resource-sucking, cheap zombie.

Think it through for a minute and you'd realize that it just doesn't make any sense to have "jobs" for everyone on SL.

Leaving profit aside for a moment, the most significant reason there are businesses and stores at all in SL is due to the fact that the owner can sell their L$ income for US$ in order to pay tier. Thinking that people will invest time to create something and on top of that pay for tier all out of their own pocket is beyond ridiculous.

Now assume that anyone with time to waste can just earn the L$ they need in-world, without the need to ever exchange US$ for L$. All of a sudden, the demand for L$ on the LindeX vanishes, and business owners are left with a surplus of L$ they can't sell, leaving them with no way to pay for their tier, so they all close down. LL's income drops below the point that SL is sustainable and *poof* it's bankrupt and there's nothing left.

Your suggestion makes as much sense as walking into a restaurant, stating that you flat out refuse to pay for your meal, but that you have a right to service because you're willing to do the dishes.

Noone finds the expectation of being asked to pay with actual money at any establishment in RL "elitism", but for some reason when it comes to SL all rational thought vanishes and it's replaced by the obsession to get everything for free.

I'm a long time online gamer, and I'm the sort that is generally against things like 'scripting' (in most places, this means using a bot to make your character powerful while you are away from the keyboard), real life finances making your in-game character better than those of poorer players, etc.

SL was always different to me. When I first joined, I was wondering how on earth I could earn some $L when I was only starting with $L 200; it wasn't enough to do the uploads I was planning to use to create objects to sell. Unlike many, I didn't have RL money to pump into my projects, but I understood that it was fine to do so in SL unlike everywhere else.

I found camping and was very relieved; and to this day, it seems like the main way that a person can make a little pocket change without a) being a talented builder b) having enough RL money to grease the wheels of production or resale c) doing something really repellent (though of course, some camping has you do that, but most doesn't.)

I was actually very impressed with something else about camping:

It enhanced the environments.

I'd go to Venice and see people playing guitars in the street, or cleaning windows; I'd see people styling their hair in a hair salon; people gardening near the hedges. I knew that there'd be no way you'd get people to do that sort of activity without paying them something for it, and popularity counts aside, I saw it as a real benefit to the atmosphere of a sim. I still do. One of the neatest things I have done in SL was camp at a very well made casino, dressed in a smart uniform that they gave me, with a big mean-ass pistol in my hand and standing in the most awesome James Bond pose ever. I was playing a security guard, which enhanced the environment tremendously. It was fun for me just to look at my avatar for hours!

Of course, I don't care much for camping that is not part of the environment; dancing in places where there's no sense in dancing, sitting in a default pose on a featureless box.

I'd always thought that if I had the money, I'd run a historical sim and put in camping that was relevant to the atmosphere in order to give back a little, give newbies a start, and enhance the environment. Say, for instance, a medieval sim with peasants harvesting in the fields.

I've honestly been rather taken aback by the vehemence that some people have shown in their dislike for camping. I think its benefits well outweigh the issues involving traffic count.

I do understand why people shouldn't be able to make GREAT money doing this, and I think the current rates are fine. You can make enough to buy a few things and it is enough to help new people feel safer about sticking around to try out the game, but it's not enough to take the place of the Lindex.