More on Camping...Is Any Okay?

Exactly.

Chip doesn't have a valid point. His idea is that measuring camping minutes is a valid way to measure popularity for the Places search - and it isn't. And we are not talking about ads. The Places search lists parcel names and descriptions, which have very limited numbers of characters that are not usually wasted on words about camping.

Yes it is.

I'm not sure he so much meant it was "valid" in an absolute sense

He more was saying it is "more valid" than Trafficbots.

Even if he meant that it's "more valid", it's still not a valid point. Camping is used to artificially inflate....etc. etc.

Just for a brief smile:

More real life camping:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/norfolk/7321306.stm

It seems that you feel on balance trafficbots are less bad than campers because they use up less system resources to achieve the same result.

While Chip seems to believe that on balance campers are better than Trafficbots because they have some redeeming values that Trafficbots don't have (paying newbies L$, very transparent, more likely to be actual people, etc)

I don't see why your reason can be valid, but Chip's cant be.

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Of course.

I say just get rid of all of them and either make an ungamable traffic system or just get rid of the whole traffic number entirely

I didn't say that traffic bots are more valid than camping. They both artificially inflate... etc. etc. If that's bad, then they are both as bad each other. I did say that traffic bots are less intrusive than camping, but that's different.

I think something like this already exists. I recall seeing a listing for a "camper shooting gallery" or something of the sort. Unfortunately, I didn't go check it out or get a LM.

Precisely. If people are using camping bots then it's the land owner who's being cheated (not that they'd care since they only want the traffic). If the land owner is running camping bots, they aren't camping bots. They're traffic bots. Traffic bots disquised as camping bots might be the lowest of the low since they're probably advertising camping but keeping their chairs full of bots so they don't actually have to pay anyone. In that sense it would be like double false advertising. But, if it's genuine camping advertised for customers to come and make some money, then it's a legitimate loss leader, not much different than having a popular freebie vendor to get people to the parcel.

And Phil, you ARE trying to justify your traffic bots by claiming that camping is the same thing so you can use the "well all the other kids are doing it" excuse.

I don't recall trying to justify anything in this thread since it was brought back to life. I think you really are reading the wrong posts - that, or you're making things up. If you would care to read what I've actually written, you'll find that I haven't made any excuses for using traffic bots. I've written that they "artificially inflate...etc." enough times for it to get through to anyone. I've agreed with such statements as they "exploit the system", as does camping, and so on. Now, if you *really* want me to defend exloiting the system, say so, but don't put words in my mouth just to make your non-vaild point.

I hope that helps to clear up your confusion, Chip. If you are still confused, please ask

cAMP AWAY !! ..


free pie !

AND POPCORN !

... and free L$

LOL ..


Pie anyone ?

I don't have a store so I don't have any reason to use traffic or camping bots.

Is there a way for someone that does legitimately use camping chairs to make sure that they are not tied up by bots? I.e., so real people, like newbies, can actually benefit?

All camping is "legitimate", but I know what you mean.

I believe that there are some camping systems that require hands on operations to use them. Dunno where though.

So you've had a change of heart and I should just disregard your previous posts in other threads where you defend the practice of using traffic bots?

[snark]I hope that helps, Phil[/snark]

This seems to be the case, or nearly so. If a business owner really wants to compete in the traffic game, campers simply can't drive the numbers as high as trafficbots, and Traffic is so gamed that it's near the point where a place that isn't at full capacity all the time may as well not even bother with Traffic at all.

So, even if we stipulate that non-bot camping is good--that the social benefit of giving L$s to campers outweighs the harm of eroding Traffic as a metric meaningful to searchers--that's not enough to make it viable to a business.

And that will leave a big gap at the very bottom of the in-world "pay scale." That will be bad for customer retention because, I think, many new residents really want to try to "break even": seeing it a bit like a game to start, many probably feel it's akin to "losing" to put RL money into the game. Without skills, what do they have to trade for L$, besides time spent camping? It would be great to find something they can do that has at least as much value as camping did, for a time, to businesses. Whatever that is, though, they'll have to do it at least as well as bots.

Oh it does. You've been going back to earlier posts that aren't part of this new discussion, and writing as though they were.

Nope. I haven't had a change of heart at all, and I still defend the use of camping and traffic bots, though I haven't said anything about that in this new discussion.

Mostly, mall owners use it to fool renters into thinking they have high traffic so they will spend their lindens renting out spaces from them. The reality is that most wont' sell anything. Nothing. The mall owner just waits for the next fish to come with dreams of making a zillion lindens over night.

But there is one good use for campers. Many sl players use the map and check for the number of "green dots" at a location. If there are no green dots means nobody is there, so they don't go to empty space. With campers, it appears as if people are there. So people will go there looking for others to talk to and play with.

If there are only bot campers, the people won't stay because they will feel rejected when avatars do not respond in any way. So it must be balanced with some real people. To get real people to come to your place, there must be a way to attract them. You must have something they wish to participate in.

If you give Events, you will get traffic for the Events, but unfortunately, the same thing happens with camping, you get a lot of bots at events, voting, that are used by people trying to take the contest money. As soon as Event is over, they and their bots disappear. If you run fair Events like I do at The Cheetah (shameless plug), you will find less people at Events, because less people with bots show up.

I believe the KEY is this, which I give away freely. If you have something people want, they will come. Everybody has free sex, camping and dancing, so that is not enough I believe, there must be more.