Traffic Bots Against the TOS of LL?

Did I say that I am better than everyone else? No I didn't. You said it.

Smarter? You do make me laugh. I'm smarter than Chip, which is who I said it about, but since you want to be included as well, do you work for money? (you mentioned your RL income). If you work for money, you lose immediately, because I stopped working some years ago, having made enough to see me through the rest of my life. Do you really want to compare smarts that way? I think you'd be better sticking to the subject

So then, the first person who ever used ad farming as a way to make money on this platform wasn't wrong to do so, it was only that 10,000th person who was the preverbial "straw that broke the camels back" ... but everyone before that 10,000th ad farmer was a complete innocent.

I am most distinctly NOT Forum Cartel btw. I would hazard to guess that other Colette and Chip, very very few people on this forum have met me inworld.



But he has never explained why it's ok just for him and not for everyone.

It has nothing to do with how wonderful his furniture is, which btw, I think it's really nice stuff. It actually makes me wonder why he does bother to use underhandedness to boost his sales when its obvious by the quality of his products that being underhanded at business is completely unecessary.

But Phil did already explain that part too. He does it because he can and he likes to "win" at the "game".


For the record... I have a tiny little store that sells a few pieces of pretty ok furniture. I also sell a few little pre-fabs and o... there's a lighthouse I made once and a few other things. I don't really sell stuff in SL; I don't have a classified, I don't have bots, I don't have an ad for my store in my sig tag so that everytime I post I get free advertising for my store. I make things friends ask me to make for them mostly and I set them out in my silly little store... if I make my tier in a month I think that's pretty cool.

See, I'm a business owner IRL. Repeating that here seemed a little redundant.

What I've always wanted from this platform was what was sold to me the day I first rezzed... "Your World. Your Imagination" I lament and quiet possibly resent that I see that possiblity slipping away more and more everyday. Yes, yes, I know... you can't go home again.

I'm not the one who wanted to turn this into a place to do business. But, it just doesn't seem to make much sense to me that the people who DO business in this world seem to be undermining their best future by demeaning and degrading every aspect of this platform that can be exploited and abused simply to "win" a "game".

How is that good for the long term prospect of residents actually interested in conducting business on this platform? What would make an honest business person want to stay here?

Mostly I take a interest in this topic in concern for a friend of mine here, a fashion designer, btw, not a furniture maker, who is having a very difficult time maintaining her 4+ year business in this platform because specifically she refuses to use tactics she considers "below board". She's downsizing and considering going back to the real life profession she left to persue the business oppurtunities SL presented her 4+ years ago.

So anyway, that's what makes me concerned with this topic. I'm not jealous of Phil, or anyone ftm, who does business on this platform, because, other then setting out a few things I thought I made that turned out pretty good, I choose not to do business on this platform.



By using the same sort of ethics you use here, no doubt. O, and making money off your daddy's estate doesn't count.

Correct - not as far as LL were concerned.

Who knows what broke the camel's back? You certainly don't. My guess is that it was places like this and comments in the blog that made LL eventually take action. We do know that it wasn't anything to do with a strain on the system

You are arguing from fallacy, Pie. I've never said that it's ok for me to do it but not everyone. You are inventing things - not good at all.

What was NOT sold to you the day you first rezzed is that *all* of SL is "your world, your imagination". Your little part of it is still your world - nothing has slipped away from you.

What other people do with "their world, their imagination" is not your concern. You have your part, and they have theirs. If theirs is more than you can stomache, you can always leave.

The long term prospects are not your concern. You look after your little bit, and LL will look after the future of whole thing.

If she doesn't want to compete, it's her choice. If she thought that doing business in SL would be different than doing RL business, she was mistaken. She is perfectly able to compete, but she chooses not to. It's entirely her choice.

LOL. You are so silly. Hey! 20 years ago I was earning $4000 a week, by inventing, making and selling hardware add-ons for home computers - a one man business - hard work and effort. I would have liked to have had it easier from parents' efforts, but my parents had very little, and my "daddy" died when I was 2. My mother brought up us 2 boys by cleaning other people's houses. You lost your 'smarts' challenge the moment you wrote it, Pie.

Pie - your post was quite good until that little dig at the very end of your post. Assumptions....and yet more assumptions.

There are many many successful business owners who don't use traffic bots. The blueprint to success does not rely soley on possessing a Bot army...there are other ways.

Sorry, but i can't get too excited about Traffic bots either way......a far more important issue like the use of Copybots and content theft certainly would.

Creators that were successful a few years back can't expect to remain successful in a ever evolving platform, one constantly require to adapt to meet these changes. For one there were fewer creators around and invariably the Pioneers enjoyed a larger slice of the Sales pie....thats changed with population growth, an increase in a number of creators and the mulitude ways of reaching out to your audience. Not to mention that BIAB's and resellers has caused saturation in some sectors (female fashion & skins particularly)
It would be really hard to have a monopoly even in a very niche market......and even harder to hold onto it! If you stand still....you lose and dissapear off the radar screen. That's how it is.

If i compare the top advertisers in the skins sector about a year ago.....they were mostly all household names that still exist today. Now these top spots are filled with completely new creators some of which have questionable content!

It is what it is.
Banning traffic bots is just the tip of the Iceberg.

Hmm, so Phill just to get clarification:

It's okay for someone to do something on their parcel that renders search invlaid by using bots and other tricks.

Because none of that is verboten currently by LL, and is on their property?

Never mind the fact search manipulation affects every user on the grid?

Nail on head. Adapt or lose.

Someone get Phil a cookie. You're not the only one who does, Phil. There are many others, myself included, who manage without resorting to fraud. Also, you're the only person who seems to feel the need to regularly brag about how much you make, which makes me wonder what it is exactly that you're overcompensating for. Perhaps there's some pill or topical ointment that might help you with that.

Snark aside, if you think traffic bots should be done away with, that would seem to indicate that you think there's something wrong with them, and that they are detrimental in some way, yet you have no qualms about using them yourself. That says interesting things about your character, and none of them good.

That's about right, Mort, except for the phrase "renders search invalid". I would be against anything that did that; e.g. having the top results filled with places that don't sell what the person searched for.

You forget, adapt or die works in more than one way.

People can adapt to the situation, or make the situation change to suit them.

I know I'm not the only one, Chip. And I know that *you* don't earn much from SL, and wish that you could earn more. You said so

Or you can be hypocritical and engage with a company who use the same tactics. referals are the same as paid picks. A comany who brag about the number of accounts when those who use it know their padded with bots and alts.

If you were really so bothered about such tactics you wouldn't be here.

When it affects the entire grid, it's not your corner anymore Phil.

You are welcome to whatever it says to you, but it doesn't indicate anything of what you said. I've said it before that I'd rather not have any traffic bots at all. Why would I want to run an extra computer just for the bots? I would like to have rid of them.

I don't earn as much as I used to, that's true, but I still earn quite a bit more than most. It's not really long established businesses like mine that you harm, Phil. It's newer folks who will have a much harder time getting established because of people like you. There's not a lot of difference between people earning money with stolen content and people earning money with stolen search rankings. The ethics are the same.

Tsk, they state the number of accounts. They admit there are alts and bots.

Do most of the bot farms have signs up saying our traffic is generated mainly by bots in a box?

It then becomes LL's i believe, but at present they seem to be letting things run as they are, that is until they decide to change them

Oh but it is. I only do things in my little corner. SL uses what I do in its search listings. The rest of the grid is unaffected. Wake up!

Awww poor baby, but that would mean giving up your fraudulent ranking. You can't try and play both sides of this fence Phil. You could turn off that extra computer right now, but of course you won't.

I wouldn't look too far for an explanation .

He's stuck on a mainland sim so he can only go so far before his bots get the boot and he'll never be able to game his way to the top of Search / Places which puts him at a disadvantage compared to full sim stores who can throw far more bots at it.

He lists first in the new search on the other hand so getting rid of traffic in Places is in his best interest, he can pocket all the extra exposure by having only the new search around.

Additionally, he has his store listed 5 times in the new search across various places (wouldn't it be fun if everyone did that?) so even if you skip past the first few pages he'll still turn up again and again and again. That's not really feasible with a traffic driven search since it would require bots on each parcel to spread the listings out evenly and he's already pushing the limit with the bots on one parcel.

It affects the grid, it's like saying that putting a big ol microwave emitter on your roof in rl doesn't affect the neighbors... even though the radiation roasts their dog.

If it affects a grid wide service it's affecting more than your parcel, it's affecting every user of that service.

And when people find out there is going to be threads like this, because it does affect them every time they use search.

Who do? Linden Lab? When they publish figures on the number of accounts they say bots and alts are included? Bullshit. You are in no position to take the line you take when you engage with Linden Lab.

Hell no. It's so EASY to get established. Make things that people like enough to buy and promote them. Those who fail do so because all they want to do is make some things, put them in a shop, and sit back, leaving the system to send people to them. They don't deserve any success. But THAT'S what you anti-bots argue should happen. You don't want realism in SL.

Oh I don't expect anything resembling a rational justification. I just enjoy poking him with a pointy stick.

Of course I won't. I wouldn't lift a finger to do what shit-stirrers like you want. I would do it if I found it to be fraudulent, but only think people think it is.

Realism would be accepting the search ranking you've actually earned, not using fraud to artificially gain something you haven't earned. Your own behavior puts the lie to your statement. If it's so easy to get established why the bot farm in the first place? Just make something people want to buy and promote it honestly. Does it take a lot of practice to simultaneously talk out of both sides of your face that way?