Bye bye traffic bots

Nope!

Here's the sequence






I had interpreted your postings making mention of RL dishonesty in this and other threads made in the context of cheating/gaming Search in SL as a justification for people to cheat/game Search in SL.

If what what you were doing was simply bringing the fact of RL unethical behaviour to the attention of any readers not already aware of it, in the same way that one might bring their attention to the fact that water is usually a liquid, then I was confused by your mentioning it in the context of a discussion on SL search gaming.

Nothing new there then.

And nothing new in your childish attempt to distance a phrase from its context.

You're so lame.

Smooooooch!

Nope I have been pointing out why it happens and what needs to be done to try and stop it, for example a policy change. Like in RL with the politicians and their outrageous expenses claims, they're not going to voluntarily give up a good thing even though it's as clear as day that they are taking the p*ss. Asking them nicely and calling them names won't make them stop abusing the expenses system, it's going to take a change of policy.

This is why I pointed out that bot runners themselves had said if LL change the TOS they'll stop doing what they're doing, the answer to trying to combat the issue was out in the open, Linden Lab needed to make a policy change.

Fair enough then. I had put you in the same box as people who have posted to the effect that "It's business. Businesses cheat." in order to justify what they were doing.
My apologies to you.

So we are agreed that search gamers are dyed-in-the-wool low-lifes who lack the ethics to behave well and have to controlled via explict wording in the TOS.
You might not chose that exact form of words, but the principle is the same.


Most of these low-lifes just get on with it.
A few of them appear here in order to attempt to have their cake and eat it. They want to continue cheating, but want to be well thought of at the same time.

I'll continue to poke at them, and I'm sure that others will continue to do so as well.
They get a free ride in Search. They get poked at if they try to justify themselves here.


Separately, people will continue to pressure LL to slap down the low-lifes.
Banning traffic-bots is a small step, but it is a step in the right direction.

well ill cut the queue for my poke then, cos i plan to suss out the loopholes and have bots running. it is a necessity. forum-goodwill doesnt pay my tier.

ZOMG!

I'm poking Nina!

I am definitely watching.

Raises hand. I'm a search gamer.

I use the word Sage to describe what technically might be Avocado, because sage is more popular. I put the phrase Low Prim Antiques on a sofa I just made yesterday (so not an antique). I labeled the store walls as low prim bedrooms....when the wall is not actually a bedroom. I use obscure keywords in the description lines. Some times I am so brazen as to use two phrases such as bookcase and book shelf. OMG

I use obscure tags on the blog that pull in people who have never heard of Second Life. I use flowery descriptions on Xstreet, and list every single item in the box, just to show up in more searches. Slap my wrists for exploiting the word Luscious and Wild. (not in the same sentence, of course) And not sure if it's politically correct to use the word lavender for light purple. Heaven Forbid.

I send out group invitations to people who visit the store....coddle my group members so they stay, and the group count increases....reward them with gift certificates for putting the place in picks. Some days I set out a prize tosser, which keeps them in the store longer, and increases traffic count, plus they have to join the store group to get a prize. OMG

Some days, when I am done using the male alt to place the sit poses....I set him at a desk with a laptop for hours, and pretend he is my accountant....damn good looking one, too....that in itself, is a crime.

And in order to get away with all of the above crimes....turned my cheek on my friends who use models and window washers and camping chairs......even laid off the bot owners for months and forgot about them.....with a "to each his own" attitude.

Totally irresponsible, lacking in principles and a threat to society.....that's me....."dyed-in-the-wool low life."

Lock me up and throw away the key.

I can see them moving past this to other means of manipulating search... not just bots.

Because It could simply be re-worded: Almost everyone agrees that manipulating Search rankings is unfair.

Sorry if this has been covered, but who do you consider in violation? It's way too easy to make the land owner an alt that you don't care if they get banned for a few days or removed all together. I see LL chasing their tails on this one.

As long as traffic counts, there will always be people gaming it.

Is there a responsible use of land bots?

Interesting approach.

A couple of thoughts come to mind though.

How will this work when loophole or not your traffic numbers alone make you a suspect?

-and-

The Gteam really doesn't care about "innocent until proven guilty"

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Actually I highly suspect in a few months we will be getting "I was wrongly banned under the trafficbot rules" threads.

Since Zara and the gang have a shoot first, ask no questions later approach to bannings.

Yes, and they will be credible complaints because the new policy does not state what guidelines Linden Lab is going to use. You'll see a lot of people banned and not legitimately knowing why, while they see their neighbors getting away with what seems like the conduct for which they were banned, and that's going to feel quite unfair.

The problem is not the goal of getting rid of traffic-bots. The problems are:

1) The policy is vague, does not even describe what practices are prohibited;
2) It seems to leave determinations up to the wide discretion of Linden Lab employees;
3) There seems to be no mechanism in place to determine that every case will be treated on the same standards;
4) Traffic remains way too important in search results, and honest people have very few alternatives to getting attention other than to concentrate on Traffic numbers.

Thinking about it, I don't think that Linden Lab has any plan to even enforce it. They have never been willing to pay staff to enforce their own rules. They are probably hoping that the hanging threat of action will scare people from using traffic-bots, and maybe the are planning an initial blitz to make people think they are serious. Ultimately, though, it will be advantage to the gamers, who spend their time figuring out ways around the rules rather than producing something worthwhile.

Well, advantage not only to the gamers, but to the people who are friends with the gamers and get their secrets. It's time for me to take an interest in a few people I know only in passing from these forums.

Nothing new under the sun here. The first real clear and enforced policy still has to be made Standards are made by our Linden gods, and different standards are implemented by each Linden. That will probably be the way it's going to happen.
With 4 I have to disagree. It is pretty well possible to succeed without concentrating on traffic. That is the way I always did it.


They will probably tear down the biggest culprits. A few weeks of action, followed by a long silence. Most traffic bot runners will not have seen the blog, but a warning will be issued first. We will see what happens next. The next few weeks will be interesting.

When they ban the account, the land is removed from search.

They kill the account, the land is reclaimed.

My view is that they've no intention of being heavy-handed in the short term. They know very well that many pure traffic bots will convert to being "good bots" and that, I believe, is what they they want. They don't want ARs because they don't want a sudden reduction in the numbers. They are not going to look at the map for stacks of green dots, or look at the the top traffic scores (they have that list already) - they are going to "monitor the search results". How slow is that? The whole thing just seems to be so half-hearted. Even the blog posts were was below the fold and in small print. It's just not something that they are really interested in, imo. They simply don't want the traffic bots to disappear in a hurry. They'd rather it takes time so that they can be converted, and so that camping can make a big comeback to keep the numbers up.

I honestly can't see much change coming - some reduction in numbers, yes, but not a lot. The biggest change will be that the form of the avatars will change, but the numbers will more-or-less hold up. But I may be wrong.

On the contrary, I think it will be enforced.

But it will likely be very random and spotty enforcement. Pretty much for the reasons you describe.

Therefore "loopholes" aren't going to save anyone. Instead it will be more like a negative lottery.

And eventually it will be enforced by ARs and an erratic Gteam, just like gambling, and ad farms. Probably closest to Ad farms.


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So anyone who runs the bots could get suspended/banned at any time. Kind of like speeding enforcement in real life. With less predictability.

as long as camping is still a part of SL, i don't care if they enforce bot annihilation. maybe the rates will even improve again. i have tier to pay, dammit.

most likely it will improve. Camping may wind up being like some places where you are forced to verify that you are not a bot randomly.

I think that is the thing that will catch some landowners, if they use bots to camp their own land they will get AR's from would be campers about how it's a bot farm sitting on camp tools.

I know of a couple places like that already... including one where the hoverscript is just that. No actual payout when one of the bots broke and I used the camp pad...

Pretty much yes. And people who have always operated within the ToS running bot-farms will no longer do this. Not because they might get caught but because this is now outside the ToS. Is only outlaws and dumb people who operate outside the ToS, at any time. Sooner or later they get caught and hung, or shot while trying to escape by Marshall Linden.

I wouldn't count my camping coins just yet. Businesses are likely to pull all artificial traffic-generation schemes after LL adjusts the search-ranking traffic metric to no longer mirror the reported "Traffic" number for the parcel. If they do what I expect, only a very, very strange variant of camping would work at all, and then I doubt that a camper (or bot) on a parcel could ever justify the merchant's expenditure of L$1, unless that camper returned (say) only every other day for a month.

That's way off in the future, Qie.

Or you think it is anyhow.

You claimed forever they would never make policy against trafficbots, remember?

I am not sure your Linden Policy clairvoyance is all that reliable considering recent events.

they will have bigger fish to fry. my traffic has never been worthy of notice, other than the fact it gets me on the first page.

K good luck with that.

Though probably continuing to mention it is a bad idea. One of the lurkers might be one of those AR-happy nuts.