Is Paying for Links in Profile Picks Cheating?

It was a hypothetical situation.

You cant misquote someone on a hypothetical like that.

Jeez you even try and spin a critique.

funny thing is he did the same thing he's complaining about ... but that's Phil's nature.

The pick buyer is paying the pick seller in order to use the pick for the unethical manipulation of search ranking. Whether or not it's more unethical or less unethical than something else is irrelevant. It's still unethical. We've been through this before.

What if there were two tabs in Profile for Picks?
One would be clearly labelled Rented Picks - and had no effect on search ranking. This would allow people to earn L$ by taking the option of being walking billboards.
The other would be for Picks for which no reward is given. Those picks would influence search ranking. It would be a TOS offence to offer to buy or to sell a pick in the Picks tab.
There ya go squire. Fixed it for you. People have a choice. People can earn money. Parcel owners would be forbidden to try and cheat using unbought picks.

Would we see masses of profiles in which the same parcels were listed in both tabs?
Would we f.......!!






An omission on my part. I'm pretty sure that I've included that one in a previous post. I see any pick allocation purely for search ranking as an abuse. Given that we only have 15 picks per account, this swapping one one has limited benefit as a parcel owner can only do 15 swaps after which they can't even pick their own parcel. Nevertheless, if it's done to affect rankings then it's cheating.




You're still having difficulty understanding the concept that people should not cheat the ranking algorithm by buying votes.

As above, if people want to earn money by being walking billboards, that's fair enough as long as we all realise that the pick is a paid-for billboard pick, and as long as such picks have no effect on search ranking.

We haven't look at these threads from another angle! What impact would it have on Noobs or No-Payment-Info users who no longer could earn a bit of pocket money in game? I regularly get SL players asking me how they can earn money or if they could work for me doing this or that. My guess there are several thousands earning money from either Picks or camping or both.

Well, if the campaigns from these threads successfully manages to get Picks
abolished (or help make them become meaningless) or influence the removal of traffic as being a measure of Places Search.....i shall simply paste this URL and the Bots & Camping threads and say......"there you go, theres the reason you can no longer earn money in SL...go protest to them or protest outside their homes"

Oh, get over yourself!

None, the amounts earned from camping/paid picks are so insubstantial when compared to people who buy L$ that it might have a localized effect (people who target NPIOFs) but it doesn't amount to even a drop in the ocean in the general economy.

Even those tiny amounts are still important to the people who earn them. I suspect that retention would drop.

There are a lot of SL folk that simply won't put their payment details on their a/c....or cannot because their credit card companies won't authorise payments to Linden Research Inc. This is a multi-national game platform afterall, and some people do experience difficulties in the ability of buying Linden dollars.
The way they manage to buy items or even rent a cheap appartment or home is through earning cash in game....mainly through camping and subsidised by other events like placing Picks.

That's useful comment! Maybe i should send them over to you.......and you can explain to them how they can earn Linden dollars.

I guess it's a bit like the RL world economy where a great percentage of people don't know where their next dinner is coming from. In the grand scheme of things, their weatlh or spending power is also a drop in the ocean!

Handouts are important to beggars as well, it doesn't mean the RL economy will collapse if people stop giving them money.

Retention has always hovered around 10% apparantly even during the high days of camping so whether or not newbies can get handouts wouldn't seem to be the major contributor as to whether people will stick around.

No, but in the RL economy people can't just decide to stop living and go do something else.

However, I do see your point about the 10% rate.. which seems a little sad really

Well this thread just won't die

NPIOF avatars will have a hard time finding a pick camping place, since most of them do not pay for NPIOFs. Simply because most of them do not show up in search all, so they do not have an inbound link. Still, the people getting payed are happy with the extra cash I bet.

Then we have 2 camps: one camp thinks paying for picks is not ethical, the other camp does not agree. Somehow, I can understand both camps, for what it is worth. But there is a weird thing going on:

Paying for picks seems unethical, while trading picks with friends, or asking all your friends to add your store in their picks, are not unethical. How about that. The only ethical thing, is when an avatar arives on a parcel, enjoys his/her time there, and adds a pick.
Following this way of thinking, a big board in a shop saying: Please add our shop to your picks, is unethical too, as the main reason behind this board is rising in search. This is, in my opinion, at least weird.

That's because - in all cases, the person is adding the pick because of a benefit they got from your store, which is unique to them and implies they like the store. Asking friends to add the pick, no matter what they think of your store, is a bit more borderline but most people don't think that regulation should get into personal relationships.

However, PAYING someone to add a pick is equivalent to conjuring a benefit out of thin air, that is nothing to do with your store, and making that the reason why the other person would add the pick. Even if you gave them credit to spend at your shop in exchange for a pick, that would still require your store to have value to them in order for the pick to be worth it, but as it is they can pick 20 different clothing stores that pay for picks and then spend all the money at a 21st, because they hate all the other 20. That is subverting the purpose of picks.

Wouldn't it be better tho if rather then giving people meaningless amounts of Lindens to be camping zombies or walking billboards, we actually started giving noobs JOBS?

Wouldn't that give them a better feeling? More reason to become attached to the platform? Perhaps improve overall rentention to this platform?

Hire a noob to be a greeter at your store... you know, an actual human being to interact with... how novel!!

Planting people on camping pads or slapping a billboard to their backs as the only way someone just starting out can make any money here might be exactly the thing driving people FROM this platform. Kinda friggin boring way to make a living.

I have tenants who camp, so I beg to differ.

You're quite right. In fact, I think Prokofy did a survey of his newbie tenants at one point and found that jobs were the number one thing that they wanted to have to make SL more attractive.

The problems are, pay and trust. Since a camper can simply run a camp-bot or a lite client 24 hours a day without having to attend their PC, in order to make it worth people spending their active time you would need to pay them more. The trust problem is that, unless you somehow monitor them around the clock, how do you know they aren't actually pushing customers away?

I've always seen picks as advertising. Whether it's advertising friends or relationships, stores, clubs yadda yadda yadda. You on the other hand don't see picks as advertising at all, so we're never going to agree on this issue.

Ofr course exchanged picks are done for ranking purposes, or prior to that, advertising purposes. People read picks, it's free advertising, it has been ever since I've been here. Picking a friends store is done to promote that store, it's not often done because someone loves that parcel. How many stores would you have in your top picks? How many stores would anyone have?

Any known ranking factor is going to cause business to chase that ranking factor.

That's very harsh. In SL. it's like, we don't need people who need to make small amounts of money in SL to enjoy the place, so let them go somewhere else.

Well, i have 2 models that do work for me and double up as shop sales assistants, i also have 3 camping spots (1 each on 3 diffferent locations) which are 2 guitarist and 1 operating a Chinese Noodles van. The 3 camping positions are for real AV's as i have created a camping group. I often interact with those campers i.e general chat. As far as gaming traffic......i'm so far down Places Search on popular keywords it doesn't make any difference, instead of being around 250th +, i'm about 190th -lol I have long since given up on Places Search as i can't compete against those using large number of traffic bots.
I might convert those 3 camping spots into Models/Shop assistants sooner rather than later.....plus i pay the Models monthly bonuses when their shop does well.

Well the upshot is that i spend somewhere between 35-40k each month to those real AV's, which i know gets recycled back into the economy. So i think i'm doing my bit for the SL community in general as the costs far outweigh the benefits (i.e sales)

So do i...at my cheap mainland home rentals. That's how they pay the rent.

How does that work? I'm trying to imagine it at my place, but I can't get past the thought that only a few hours each day would be covered, and that's even if the assistants were straight enough to be there when they should be there. How do you work it?

How is the loss of a handful of tenants/customers who barely spend anything across SL going to have a noticable global impact?

Assuming they camp 24/7 at L$2/10 minutes they'll be able to afford a L$1000/week rental at the very most.

I'd need 10+ 24/7 camp bots (9 actually, but 24/7 camping just isn't realistic) just to cover rent. Throw in general spending and it's 15 24/7 campbots.

I have no idea how much time the average camper actually spends camping on average every single day but I doubt it's 24/7 so the actual number of campers to equal what I spend in a month is probably at least double.

That's not to toot my own horn but just as an example that the amounts involved with camping are so insignificant compared to what 100,000+ US$ spending/L$ buying residents spend that it simply pales in comparison.

I don't actually keep track but from random wandering it seems that camping is far, far past its high day and people already predicted the sky would fall if camping were to go on the decline. It hasn't happened and it won't happen.

It might affect *you*, but that doesn't mean there would be a significant "global" impact.

Asking friends, or trading picks with other business owners, has nothing to do with your store as well. So those should be unethical too. Either picks really only mean you love the place, or they do not. So whether I ask a friend, or pay a stranger, both did not add the pick because they love my store. They either like me for who I am (friends) or for what I pay (the stranger). Maybe even both.

So, if you say paying for picks is unethical, the rest is too. And if you can bend the rules for friends, I can bend the rules for strangers. Seems logical.

Well- the majority of the time you have to accept that they will be afk whilst modelling on the rotating stands.....however when they're at their keyboards they do assist the customers...that might include modelling other products or providing general information etc. They not only assist at the shop they model at but also at the other nearby shops on the complex. Where they make the difference are with those 50/50 type customers....by converting them into sales.

I've recieved a number of notecards from customers and also future potential customers complimenting our models for their displayed professionalism & helpfullness. For me it's money well spent and couldn't do without them. They graduated from the camping positions to become model....so the 3 i have used, i've known over a year....so yes, I trust them. Eventually i'll convert the other 3 camping positions into models at some of the other shops.