Bot-Free Camping

All the recent threads on camping and its infestation by bots has led me to post this. Calla's, one of my favorite places for hair, has long had a bot-free method of camping. Here's how it works:

Campers don't get paid in L$, they camp for free hair. This is of no interest to bots.
To keep the campers on their chairs for the long periods needed to earn the hair, Calla's offers entertainment -- there is a trivia game that asks questions of each avatar in chat range on a random basis. Get the question right, and you earn L$2 or L$5. So campers can earn money, in addition to the chance of getting a new hairstyle. Bots being bots, they don't answer many trivia questions.

Since the big prizes are Calla's own products, the system attracts potential customers, not just random people out to earn money. Since the campers are real people, you have the additional pleasure of conversation and the chance of meeting new friends.

If we just HAVE to have campers, let's keep the camping chairs for real people, not bots!

So, my Obligatory Question is: Why don't more people set up their camping systems this way?

Because a lot of owners don't care enough and slapping out a few dance pads is faster and easier...?

Well, that goes without saying.

If it weren't for the fact that I needed a question, I would have worded it,

"The rest of you lazy bums, get up off your butts and put together a decent camping system like this one!"

maybe the alt bot runners could camp for free hair so their alt farms don't look so scary ..

LOL!
I avoid stores or any areas that use camping and bots, just as I don't use 'cheats' in games (Yes, I 'get' that it's just business, that it works to attract people in search, and IS permissible. To me it's just cheating.)
I think what you described is a perfect alternative.

You can dress it up however you want but camping remains camping and the *only* purpose is to game search, not to be charitable or social or whatever other fantasies people come up with.

If you think there's a difference between a bot farm, a camping for money farm or a camping for hair farm you just fell for the owner's deception.

Kitty, if you pinned me to the wall, I'd have to admit that I'm on your side. I'm against camping in any form. But as I said, if we've got to have it, a system like Calla's is the way to go.

Being sociable while sitting for hair at Calla's isn't a fantasy, though. I've met some of my best SL friends while doing just that. Not that I've been there in a while, I've been far too busy with more productive activities.

First let me say that I love the people who run Calla. Their hair is good, and they are both smart and generous in the way they give it away wholesale to noobs in their hunts, chairs, camping, etc.. However, their sim is lag central.

Calla has I think only the one camping area, which is on the ground a little ways off from the store, within sight of the TP in point, and houses only 5 or 6 campers. Typically all of them are fully accessorized avatars, and the trivia script is running. Arguably this little camping area is fairly lag-producing.

I haven't checked out occlusion at Calla, but it is possible that for many/most who TP in, the campers have to be rendered, bummer! Unlike having bots in a skybox 700m up, wearing nothing, no scripts involved. A bot skybox lags those on the ground very little, altho of course they do consume overall sim resources.

So that may be why more don't do it ... it doesn't really work very well if you want to generate traffic numbers.

Eeesh! You mean to say, bot farms are BETTER for the environment than Calla-style camping? I won't say you're wrong, but I will say that is a horrid thought to contemplate.
We need some research on this.

I never noticed serious lag at Calla's when I was a noob and camping there, but I will say that the lag has been bad the last few times I've been. I have no idea how much the campers are contributing, though.

Is there a list - or can we create a list - of camp places like Calla who offer "Quality" things? I for one wouldn't mind camping while sorting inventory to get some goodies.

One reason why people may not want to use this sort of system is that it simply isn't going to be as popular. Perhaps some people might want to get hair, and more hair, and then some more hair, but I imagine that most would like at some point to buy a dress or some boots or a rocket launcher or somebody else's hair or pay their rent or one of a number of other things. Particularly if the hair-handing-out is on a random basis. Even the largest designers would have trouble here.

The key argument that Lindal is making is that the campers are not faceless avatars running from text based SL clients, but real people, behind real keyboards, doing real socialising - they hust happen to be getting a freebie hair every now and again, and probably a reasonable quality one.

I've seen somewhere between "several" and "many" places that have chairs people can sit in and collect objects from the store (and I'm not talking about lucky chairs, as you are not talking about lucky chairs ). I do not recall, though, any that had the extras you mention Calla has - trivia and money and all that. Actually, I do not recall seeing that at Calla the few times I looked at hair, but no matter.

Oh, and the objects were either one of a kind for that seat (or set of seats) or were lower quality products (discontinued or deeply discounted products).

Hi Kitty, if I may paraphrase from the other camping thread, a quality freebie will advertise that creator and the avatar who is attending the sim might even go on to buy Calla goods. This is in my view quite different from paying absentees lindens.

It would have to be an absolutely stellar campsite with a tip-top community to regularly attract the same people with the reward of hair rather than cash, though. Either that, or offer a lot more value per hour in hair than other people offer in L$ (which actually reduces the length of time that people will stay - once they have all the hair on offer, they'll be off).

It sounds like a nice balance to me and would discourage bots, certainly, but if the question is "why don't more people use this system?" I think that "not everyone wants hair all the time, so it restricts participants" is a reasonable response. And places such as malls which have group camping to boost the traffic of the whole parcel would have to get contributions from all mall renters - a logistical nightmare.

If the intent is to allow newbies a "freebie" hair, then the "one free hair" offer from gURL6 is a perfect way to do it that doesn't involve camping (I haven't been to her store in forever, so I don't know what she currently does).

I do believe that the idea that "campers are customers too" is largely just a myth. Camping does increase sales, but that's due to the higher search ranking, not because you're handing out free money/something. People who refuse to put money into SL aren't going to become your customers except for the occasional insignificant exception, the only thing you're doing is reinforcing the freeloading mentality that's already far too common.

The real difference is between a few hundred CAMPERS and thousands of CAMPBOTS, who are not here for any reason other than to farm money out of SL into RL.

Has anyone ever tried making a little maze for the camper to go through in order to reach the camping spot? Not a hard maze mind you. Just something simple enough to stop a bot.

My other idea on camping was to make a tall building where the campers stand at the edge while earning a tiny amount of money. The difference would be that any person could walk up, pay the camper a fixed amount through the camp pad, and then be able to push the camper off the building with some nice screaming and animations. Flying disabled of course.

Yes, the noobie hair idea is a good one. but i do not agree with you about the freebie camping. I have frequently gotten freebies which have then prompted me to actually go and buy something. If I got a calla hair for camping, I would almost definitely buy something else if I liked it.
Freebies give a sampler, which is a brilliant idea. Frankly, there are certain items that I will not buy unless I have seen them out of their box, on another avvie or as a freebie taster. If i get a freebie something, i will usually buy something from there anyway.
I am not an exception either. Many people I knew from camping do exactly the same. They use the freebies as a sort of demo. But yes there are people who refuse to put anything back and there always will be. But don't write off freebies as a waste of time and resources. They are definitely not that.


hehe I'd pay for this lol

I love it! LOL I wonder how deep you could build the pile of bodies at the bottom Of course, they would all simply stand up and brush themselves off, probably landing on each others heads and become an avatar mountain!

Camping is without a doubt a drain on the sim's resources but the idea of eliminating bots is curiously similar to my comment in the Ethics thread. Does the camping site owner want to eliminate campers? If all they are after is upping their traffic figures then probably not. They'd be happier with a bot there 24/7 than a pad that's occasionally populated by an active avatar.

The content creator who wants to promote their content rather than their store, awarding freebies might only get a one in ten subsequent sale to that avatar, but at least if that avatar is waiting for a free hair/whatever, they are more likely to be camming around the store looking at the full range than simply being AFK waiting for the $L to grow.

We've already seen here that some people actually like camping. Eliminate the destructive bots by all means but heck, even I earned my first few $L camping. I've moved on but I don't want to go slamming doors after me.

Won't stop 'em. And the human campers would probably just camera in to the spot...

This may be a repeat but you can also consider having anyone who wishes to be a camper on your site to join a maintenance group. I have camp security balls which boot anyone not a part of my maintence group. Campers not a part of maintence or bots do not have access to my camp sites. I only have a few, but the people who serve my sites have been with me for well over a year and are like family now. They inform me of sim crashes and any other kinds of unwanted activities on my sim.

Campers as watchmen! That's a very clever idea, and it puts the campers to some additional use. Well done!

Or..

Set up lots of camping chairs in glass display cabinets and make a visitor attraction called the;

"There but for The Grace of God Exhibition"

lol fab! and when the campers finally get up and start moving, it will freak the people out lol.