More on Camping...Is Any Okay?

It comes off heavily as excuses.

As Coco said in that other thread. I also never thought I'd see a shift towards an attitude that gaming the traffic system was legitimate.

In 2005 you would have been roasted.

These "mudslingings" have been love-taps by comparison.

hehe.

I've been in the search engine business for many years. Some people call anything that attempts to improve the rankings, gaming, but the search engines make suggestions on how to improve your rankings. The rule of thumb with Web search engines is, if an engine says don't do it, it's spam for that engine. Simple as that.

Here in SL, the engine (LL) hasn't said don't do it, therefore it isn't spam, and doesn't merit the word "gaming", even though it does attempt to improve the rankings. People can call it what they like, but if it's fine with the search engine, then it's fine with me, regardless of what a few people prefer.

*rolls eyes*

i don't mind camping at all. i don't like it when people camp out and not chat though. i've camped at a few places and wanted to chat yet all i do is end up chatting to myself. boring.

in fact, i also offer camping in hopes that people would stick around and make it into a chat room. i want visitors to come and chat, listen to the radio talk show, and just have fun.

isn't that really the whole point anyway?

Those aren't real people. Those are bots.

Guys...lets admit it...this IS RL to some extent and everyone has an opinion and a method that works for them. Instead of cursing at people and making personal attacks against them, can we not try to understand another's perspective and discuss the topic at hand?

Personally I have a very successful large store, dont use camping and prob never will but mostly because i would rather give away free items that i make rather then lindens to get people to come in. I also am using things like hunts, the gold rush, etc and even have set up a legitimate yard sale on one corner of my land next to the store to get rid of stuff for an avg of 10L that i just dont want anymore but cant bear to just delete...LOL

I find it interesting that those who are store owners seem to be on the side of any method that works for them...and those that oppose seem to not have stores. I could be wrong on that but that is the vibe im getting from the posts. I say walk a mile in my moccasin's before you swear at me and tell me in no uncertain terms that i am wrong or unreasonable. For all of you who have been in SL for a long time...try starting a biz NOW in this SL economic climate and see how far you get...i venture that it would take alot more effort and creative ideas to get your items seen and gain the popularity that you have now because you started in basically a different SL.

For the record...I have GREAT respect for Phil...I have been to his store, he offered help to me when i was starting out my stores and i continue to appreciate his posts and his merchandise. I dont care if he uses camping of any sort or not frankly. He does what he needs to do to keep his biz successful with the rules of the TOS. While others may not agree with it, i have a much harder time with the fact that he gets reemed on here for doing and gets sworn at than i do with his methods.

Thanks Phil for all your help...keep up the good work! For others here....i repeat my mantra "seek first to understand" and please take a breath before you start swearing and attacking....

Hi Jojo.

You said, "Guys...lets admit it...this IS RL to some extent ...", but for some people, this is RL to a GREAT extent. In fact, for some, it *is* RL.

It's been a long time since we chatted, but then it's been a long time since I chatted with almost everyone I know. I'm thoroughly bored with SL, and I stay out as much as possible. If it weren't for the store making money, I'd be out of SL altogether.

It sounds like you're doing good, and I'm pleased about that. Keep it up

Phil come on over to Etopia and hang out with some nice fun people...just enjoy...smile.

Jojo,

This thread was Necro-Posted from back in January .. it was an argument that "settled down" already - at least as far as this thread goes.

It was not really a situation of "Store owners" against "non-store owners" many people on both sides of this issue own stores. And many on both sides don't.

Not everyone who owns a store advertises it in the forums sig. I have been in business in Second Life since 2005.

I don't mind camping in moderation, especially if they are washing windows or mowing, or scrubbing the floor, even less so if they reply when you say hello, but mass botting and hiding them in boxes puts me off.

You don't mind gaming the search results (aka cheating), as long as it's in moderation? LMAO

Personally I don't see a big difference in buying an ad or paying one or two people to camp. Both are means of marketing.You are still paying for your advertising,so what's the crime? I still maintain placing an ad works much better though,but still...

Camping and traffic bots aren't really equivelant, even if the intent is the same. Traffic is supposed to measure popularity - meaning the number of actual people who choose to visit a parcel. Campers, even though they're being paid to be there, are more often than not actual people who've chosen to go there for the money. Of course they might be bots too, designed to take advantage of the person offering the camping, but that's not something the parcel owner controls. The traffic numbers that result reflect the choices of people. Traffic bots, on the other hand, are completely artificial, and don't reflect the choices of anyone but the dishonest land owner. The traffic numbers that result from their use are completely fake. While I'm no fan of camping and I think the practice is rather tacky, it isn't cheating in the same way that trafficbot farms are. There's a difference between paying for traffic numbers and manufacturing them out of whole cloth.

You are entitled to your opinion, of course, but there's only one reason for camping, and it's the same as the reason for traffic bots - to artificially inflate the traffic figures for the purpose of moving up the Places tab rankings.

The idea of a place being 'popular' for its camping, rather than for what it sells or does, is splitting hairs. When someone is searching for something, and thinks that a place in the results is popular because of the traffic figure, s/he isn't going to work out how much of the figure is due to camping, and how much is due to what the place sells or does - it isn't possible. So the idea that camping 'popularity' is a valid measure of a place's popularity is a non-starter, imo.

I have revised my opinion since this thread started ... now ...

I figure ..

Any camping that remains after the traffic number is gone is fine

Any Campbots that remain after the traffic number goes away are fine

Any Trafficbots that remain after the traffic number goes away are fine.

Camping may be a cheap way to build traffic, but the avatars generating that traffic are other people (not the land owner) who went there by choice, unlike traffic generated by traffic bots which is created solely by the landowner and doesn't in any way represent other people choosing to visit the parcel. In a perfect world people wouldn't use either tactic, but there's a clear difference between the two in terms of the legitimacy of the generated traffic. If it's generated by actual people who went there by choice to enjoy something on offer on the parcel (even if that something is free money), it's legitimate. If it's generated by bots owned and operated by the land owner, it's pure deception and not legitimate. This isn't really rocket science, Phil.

I don't see a thing wrong with camping. I actually enjoy finding a camp bench to sit on while I cam shop. I have on many occasions sat on a camp bench and spent in excess of $500 while making maybe $4 or $6 els. Hehe I consider it a coupon. What curls my lip is to come across 10 or 15 avatars standing around a camp sign. In my experience, these are nothing more than the parcel owner's bots. A bench, some mops or something that adds to the character of a store is more than enough and won't cause me to leave, even if the camps are full. I will still shop, cause that's what I do.

However, it is my opinion that the bot farms have almost caused camping to become extinct. Even those that require you to be in a group to actually camp are now being raped by bots these days. It seems that many are just placing "models", or are just hiding some bots around their parcels. It's more cost efficient to them this way I suppose.

Just the sum of my opinion.

Its all exploiting the traffic system ..

Trafficbots are just the most blatant of the exploitation.

I quit camping when business owner found it cheaper to have bots then real life people there chatting, hanging out.
With the new system people pay for profile pick placement I heard as way to game the search.

You're right - it isn't rocket science - it's artificially inflating the traffic figures to get higher up the Places tab search rankings so that more people will visit the place for things that are nothing to do with camping. A high degree of intelligence isn't needed to comprehend that.

The idea that people and camping bots voluntarily go to places to camp is irrelevant. The reason they are invited there is to artificially inflate the figures for the purpose that I've already described. You see, anyone searching in the Places tab for men's clothing, for example, will naturally assume that the place's popularity FOR MEN'S CLOTHING is according to its traffic figure. But it isn't that popular for men's clothing if camping is used to artificially inflate the figure.

I hope that helps, Chip

Ha! A post by you, on this subject, with which I agree.

Traffic bots are usually the least intrusive of them too.

I would think that most places that use camping as a method of inflating traffic numbers would advertise the camping to attract campers. Further, I assume that someone who searched for men's clothing and read a listing that also advertised camping would be able to rub two of their rocket scientist brain cells together and figure out that camping accounts for some or all of their traffic. It may be a cheap way to get traffic, but it isn't dishonest. Trafficbots are pure dishonesty. Nice try though. Keep working on those justifications.

Thats because they are the least visible.


Thats part of Chip's point - there is a certain directness in having camping chairs mentioned in your ads and clearly visible to visitors.

But its still all just exploitation.

You're assuming a new user knows what "camping" is.

Justifications? What justifications? Are you reading the wrong posts?

You see, Chip, the idea that most people who use camping actually state that they use camping in their parcels' descriptions (that's what is displayed in the Places tab results) doesn't hold water. I grant you that some do, but that's all. As you know, with the massive use of camping bots these days, it isn't necessary to advertise camping like perhaps it used to be, and once the camping spots are being used a lot/all the time, there's no need to advertise camping.

But we aren't talking about advertising anyway. We are talking about the Places tab search - you can't advertise in there. All you have is the place's name and description, and on the whole they are used for keywords.

Whichever way you try to cut it, camping *artificially* inflates the traffic figures for the purpose of improving the Places rankings. Listen to Colette

I hope that helps, Chip