Traffic no longer used in search??

I recently researched this in the Second Life Wiki (now that I'm part owner of a club, I have to care about these things).

Since maximum avatars on mainland is 40, maximum traffic would be 57,600 on mainland sims (40 avatars at 24 hours/day). According to what I read, it could potentially go a little higher (perhaps by one avatar leaving and being replaced by another in the same minute leading to 1 extra traffic point).

On a private estate sim, maximum avatars is 100. Maximum traffic would be 144,000.

Of course, if you had your sim maxed out with bots to get the traffic rating up, it would be kinda moot, since no one would be able to actually come to this place you've maxed-out traffic-wise. It's not like you get paid for high traffic anymore.

hmm, I haven't danced(and erm etc) for money; haven't camped for money.

I've only built stuff for money.. hey, I'm a builder whore! yayyy me!

Not if you use them correctly.
Monday - traffic is zero, load up Your sim with 100 bots
Tuesday - Turn off the bots and let your 144,000 traffic the bots made yesterday bring people in.
Wednesday - Use the traffic from Tues visitors to bring people in
Thursday - max out the bots again

Rinse repeat..

But I don't think I have ever seen anyone try it like that...

Yes. They do. Right up!

Controllers of traffic bots are the same sort of self-centred spiritual pygmies as those that finally screwed the global economy in the pursuit of a fast buck. The only difference is that they are minor league scum, but that's only because they never got out into a position where they could do it major league. They would if they could.

according to the ticket I submitted regarding how traffic is generated

lindens do not deal with the wiki, or check to confirm if things match the knowledgebase

the linden said she checked the kb to make sure the info on traffic was up to date (and that it is) and if I see something different on the wiki, to log in and update the wiki

however I am not going to update the wiki, I have already been told off privately because I try to educate people on how traffic is calculated according to the official source

so all I will say, is, that according to the lindens the kb is the official and correct source.

you make up your mind as to which you wish to believe

(personally, I do not bother with traffic numbers)

I've always been partial to Guy Ritchie films.

The "traffic" issue for me is that it distorts the search results to show places that have high traffic, regardless if they actually are the kind of place the customer was looking for. You can't buy those quality products from a small shop if you can't find the small shop that specializes in them.

Whichever theory on traffic is correct, it's not ideal for stores. How long someone stays there is more important for a club, for a store it really isn't that useful a measure, so it's always going to be somewhat distorted, then of course you have parcels that contain a club and mall, I have seen very few where the mall traffic was worthwhile.

i guess you missed the parts where i said i have 3 paid memberships and own lots n lots of land.

Some. Certainly not all. And I am absolutely NOT one of them!

(in my experience working at different clubs, I'd venture to guess than less than 10% of exotic dancers ever turn into whores.)

And we get right up your nose, which give me no end of pleasure. It's a truly beautiful thing

You don't learn, do you Rha. You've been told how the traffic is calculated, and you've been told how very easy it is to test it for yourself, but you just don't want to know, so what are you going on about?

That's the issue for everyone, as illustrated in this thread. Sweethearts Jazz, with its 79k traffic, is the #1 result for garden. I noted other clubs ranking pretty highly as well. Traffic serves no purpose for anything other than clubs, which is my point. It doesn't make sense for traffic to be a ranking factor.

I have been told... by residents, and I have been told, by lindens. Who do you think I will believe over the other, especially when my own tests were not consistent?

and as I stated in the other thread, I did test the damn traffic test, back when someone else had a thread about how they tested it, just because I never made my results public doesn't mean I did not test.

I put the info out there cuz 1, I like to give people all the info they can, and being that LL themselves told me that the KB is the official info, I figured people should know that, and 2 I thought this was the thread where I said I would post my results from the ticket, but my head hurt too much to check, so I just went the easy way and made a new thread, to show my ticket result.

AS you clearly saw in the ticket reply, the linden themselves said, if you find that something on the wiki doesn't match the KB, then log into the wiki and update it.

I could have done that, but then I would have had you and a few others jumping all over me for updating it, so instead of having that happen, I just put my results here on the forums, for anyone who cares to read them.

as for traffic and how it is calculated, I take the word of the official info over the word of a resident.

(especially when I have conducted the tests myself, and have had inconsistent results, and please do not tell me I did something wrong, it is a simple test, a child could do it, and by you saying I must have done something wrong, you just simply insulting my intelligence)

until LL decides to confirm that it is 1point per avatar per minute, I will continue to refer people to the KB and let them decide or try the test themselves and then decide.

not that i know much about traffic and all, but christ rha, you dont think you place too much faith in what a linden may bother to tell you?

sometimes yes I might (but so what, that is me, not you, not anyone else, so what if I believe them)

however (as I mentioned in the other thread) this situation has me wondering, I do not believe either side 100%
I think there is more to it than a simple 1 pt per avatar per minute

but I also think there is less to it than the kb/history shows

Whether the placement of bots can effect lag or not is something I have no way of proving, not being a user of them, so not being able to carry out tests.
One thing for sure, is high numbers of avatars in a sim do cause lag so, bots will most likely also impact in just the same way.



The statement above addresses the fact that any bot, in a mainland land sim is wherever its placed, taking up avatar places in the sim, this is a major problem on the mainland, where many smaller parcels are often owned by many different users, these sims can quite easily reach their 40 avatar limit.

The simple fact is on mainland 1 bot = 1 less human user able to visit that area.

As a user who resides on mainland with parcels in a number of sims why should I not be able to visit my land because of your or anyone elses bots.

I consider this problem alone enough of a problem to require action by LL banning bots on the mainland.

I have have nothing against usage of bots on island estates, where they affect only the island owner or their customers, being used to run legitimate tasks.

It is their usage on the mainland that bugs me and mainly the pointless traffic boosters, often placed out as pathetic greeters in an attempt to provide some sort of cover to their real purpose.

I should really be clarifying my position as ban bots on mainland.

The point you make about the bots buying and selling mainland automatically also shows the problems that occur when land is sold at low cost by mistake, if land is purchased automatically by a bot then automatically repriced to a new cost and placed on sale then there is not time notice the error and respond, this problem has been highlighted in the past due to the number of people who fell foul of such bots.

Sure these cases are the result of an error by the seller, so maybe they need to learn a lesson the hard way, but for new users many would never even contemplate that bots will act so quickly to take advantage of their mistakes.
What do you think is their opinion of Second Life when something like this happens? Sometimes this problem could mean the loss of a significant amount of RL money.

Bots obviously didn't help Sarah Nerd's land business operate profitably on the mainland, which is a great shame, she was one of the more trustworthy dealers.
Perhaps this is because unless benefitting from mistakes, cheapest is not always the best buy, as in rl cheap items, land etc. are normally cheap for a reason.

Ok, Rha. You are perfectly entitled to be the only one who is left in ignorance on the subject if that's your choice. For everyone else...

Traffic = avatar minutes on the parcel.

There you are then. You have no way of knowing according to you. So why make statements that require knowledge....

Now you speak as one who does know. I'll repeat what I said earlier. Well-used bots do not cause lag for people in the sim. I'll expand on it for you. Well-used bots are placed so far away from people that they are never in anyone's range, unless someone decides to fly all the way up to have a look, in which case, it's their own doing.

If you're only concern about bots is lag, then perhaps you should modify your objection even more, to something like objecting to bots on mainland that cause lag for people. Or perhaps, objecting to bots on mainland that cause lag for people but only if the whole sim is not owned by the owner of the bots. After all, if the sim is owned by one person, whether mainland or not, it's nobody else's business what s/he does with it.

This is a point I brought up some months ago in a thread. Ban bots but keep the traffic rankings, and we will be left with results like that all over the Places tab searches.

I think the statement above clearly states lag is not my only concern regarding bots and their usage.

Regarding whether they should be allowed in sims that are owned by only one user, in an ideal world, yes they should as long as they remain in such sims only.
Where the detriment of their usage is then only evident to the sim owner themselves.

Trouble is this would probably be extremely hard to enforce, so it will no doubt be necessary to just ban usage in the mainland outright.

The reason all bots should be banned on mainland is if traffic bots (the major cause of problems) are banned, but other so called other usefull bots allowed, people currently using them will just create mickey mouse tasks for their bots and nothing will change.

I was going by a sentence in your post that followed that one.

I don't think you'll get any support for the idea of banning bots only on mainland but, that aside, you are right that, if traffic bots are banned it won't reduce bots by very much because 'genuine' tasks will be invented for them and things will be worse - those tasks will be where people are, causing lag and much more use of system resources. I pointed that out in another thread some time ago.

Banning all bots isn't going to happen because LL (Jack) acknowledges that some of them perform useful functions - similar to them acknowledging that there are genuine uses of 16m parcels, so they aren't banned. The only realistic way to deal with traffic manipulation is to get rid of the reason for it. As with many things, if you only deal with the symptoms, but leave the root cause in place, then you won't prevent it at all.

The silly thing is that getting rid of the cause of traffic manipulation has been part of their own "roadmap for search" for a long time now. All they need to do is make the change - they already did it once, so it's quick and easy to do. There is no need for the discussions that Jack says will happen soon (again!). Traffic can be kept for the benefit of landowners, of course.

works for me, thanks!
(just remember in the future, when you feel the need to try to educate me again, that I have chosen to not be educated on your idea of how traffic is calculated. )

It works for me too, but don't expect not to be corrected by me if you post things that I know not to be true.