Would you buy from someone who is 'Gaming the System'?

Understanding of ethics and the essence of fair play and good sportsmanship.

As someone mentioned earlier, I start out by looking for the "not so popular" stores and places first. That may entail ignoring the first several pages of search results. I also look at the details of entries, and sometimes even teleport to the various places, looking to see what kind of establishment I am dealing with. At the first sign of deception, I am out of there.



That's baloney. "I don't want to cheat the system..". Then don't. No one is forcing you to be unethical. Join the fight to get the system fixed, instead of "giving up" and "giving in". Become part of the solution instead of being part of the problem, and the issue will get resolved much faster.



It's a false dilemma. If a business is built so that the only way it can thrive is by cheating the system, then it deserves to fail. If not initially, then certainly when the system becomes regulated to punish/prevent the cheating. Honest businesses and their owners always face an uphill battle against those who cheat. It's the nature of life. Those that succeed despite the climate arrayed against them often end up being the most stable, long-lasting, and admired businesses. If you have any doubt about what I am saying, then look to Caledon as an example of one (now, I am not saying that Desmond is perfect and hasn't made mistakes; but he's renowned to be one of the most honest and upright businessmen in SL, and the respect that people afford to him and his business is well-earned).

As such, in order to be a successful honest businessman, you have to know that you're already starting from one form of *apparent* disadvantage, and find other advantages and ways of doing things to offset it until you achieve a minimum momentum. The reason honest businesses fail is that they make the assumption that everyone is just like them; that their competition won't resort to underhanded tricks and cheats, and are wholly unprepared when they do. Hopefully, they learn the correct lesson from the experience, and adjust their business models accordingly.



Use every ethical advertising avenue at your disposal. Search and classifieds aren't the only methods. Hold events. Use the forums. Encourage communal participation (that means form a community of vendors and their customers who actively promote your mall and the stores via their own grass-roots means).

In the end, what sustains a mall are good vendors with good customers, and nothing makes people happier than to know that you care more about being good at what you do than making a fast buck. Once you tip your hand towards the latter, it's usually the beginning of the end. It may take a while, but once people feel burned and used by your underhanded dealings, that goodwill and desire to help you out disappears, and they won't be back.

OK Talarus, tell me about the success of YOUR business...in the other thread I started.

I don't cheat the system, other than leaving an alt on the property occasionally, and my ONE camper system, and TWO lucky chairs that aren't even out at the moment.

I've been in business for over a year. Run a search on my name in the forums Talarus...You'll see that I utilize the forums. I spent money on advertising. I've done everything you suggested...but hm...have YOU been to my mall?

Nope, didn't think so.

Posted in other thread (misunderstood what you meant, sorry ).

Models generate traffic, so it's questionable about whether the traffic is honest but models serve a better purpose than your average traffic bot so that's just a side effect, but they do boost traffic scores and by quite a bit.

Define "cheating".

Traffic bots?

Camping chairs?

Lucky Chairs?

Pick rewards?

Group gifts?

Where do you draw the line? Boycott all of them, and you have very little left to choose from.

Some of those "cheats" (like Lucky chairs) arguably provide useful services to residents.

True enough. Everyone is going to draw the line at different points (or not at all) along that line.

I generally draw the line between "harmful" cheating, and "harmless" gimmicking. Traffic bots are directly harmful, not only because they unfairly utilize grid resources (which is why LL is pursuing them now), they simply are not "people", but are being used to represent "people". They also tend to be a bit above many business owner's capabilities.

Most businesses use "gimmicks" to promote themselves. Gimmicks like gifts/rewards/chairs/events/promotions/sales/what-have-you. They are things that anyone can do, and generally don't unfairly utilize resources, or misrepresent that actual people aren't what is making the place popular.

Camping chairs tend to ride the line with me, mainly because they shift the burden of botting from the venue owner to the patrons. However, the degradation they represent is still significant. It depends on the number and type of camping spots there are. For example, one place uses "camping chairs", but they unseat you every 15 minutes or so, to prevent bots. Other places use attractions, which draw people in to sit and hang around for longer. Those types I don't mind. In addition, if the region is nearly full, with 35 camping bot spaces full all the time, I generally will go elsewhere, because it is apparent the venue owner is more interested in playing games than running his business.

I draw the line between camping chairs and lucky chairs. Because lucky chairs pretty much require an actual human to be there, and paying attention, and potentially interacting with other people. Walk into a room with a couple of people and a lucky chair, and talk to them, odds are you'll get responses. Camping chairs, whether the avatar on the chair has a bot or an AFK human behind them is irrelevant, if they're AFK they might as well be a bot.

One model is not a significant increase in traffic at all. And yes it serves a purpose of showing the clothing product instead of a picture only. What I mean by getting honest.. My Models are not 4000M in the air crammed in a box with 50 others.. Honest is I'm showing you the model it's in plain sight.. Not hiding.. How can that be questionable?

Product display in plain sight? no question on the intent.

I'm not questioning the intent Taylor but one model there all day will generate around 1400 traffic points, that is not insignificant. Swapping models over and having one there all the time will generate around 1400 traffic points too.

As I said it's a side effect and the intention is to demo the clothing and people do seem to appreciate that, it's done with good intentions when it's one or two models, I'm not sure I'd say the same for stores who have 20 models mind you but they are demos of the items for sale.

I really have no problem with people using bots or campers to boost traffic.
I don't buy stuff because it's sold on a high or low traffic area. I buy because the quality is satisfactory and the price is reasonable. Period.

No Ceka, my post did no have you in mind, it was just coincidence that my post followed yours. I'm sorry you took it that way. I sent you a PM to make sure you got this.

I only buy quality items I can find. If I can't find you, I can't buy your stuff.

Similarly, if I find your store, but can't easily find your goods, I'll leave. So slow rezzing, disorganized, horribly spread out... I can't handle it, and leave.

So whatever you do to attract my attention and keep it works to your advantage.

If your bots or camping chairs lag the sim, I'll leave. So your clever and non-invasive use of these will help.

Which is why I voted, "I don't care". I'm almost thankful that you've "gamed the system" to get your quality stuff at the top of search, because I have a short attention span and will stop searching for stuff if I can't find it quickly. One can only take so much teleporting around and waiting for stuff to rez before going off and doing something more fun.

This, mostly. I don't have a short attention span, but sometimes my patience is just thin.

If that's your intent then why not simply create clothing demos that people can try on?

Unless it's one of the more "advanced" bots where you can get it to model a specifc outfit you're interested in on demand then I do not see much value in having only 1 out of X outfits/items you sell on display.

Model bot = dressed up traffic bot as far as I'm concerned

Because they want to show the actual product, or they don't want to upload twice as many files, or they have found that people like looking at store dummies more than trying on demos. Maybe they're doing both. Maybe they're trying to create the ambiance of a real store. Some stores actually hire models, and expect them to respond to the customers. At the worst a model MIGHT fall into a grey area, but when the black area has 5-10 bots per store in camping farms in the sky, I don't see one or two models that are actually displaying a premium line being worth fussing over.

I had just seen your IM..Thank you for sending it..I feel much better now..
i guess my humor has gotten me into trouble a few times before and i just assumed it was me..
thank you for taking the time to clear that up for me

When I know for sure that certain people are gaming the system (certain people here have admitted to using bots to pad search ratings), I don't buy from them. I see them as "cheaters". Anyway, plenty of similar quality items are available elsewhere.

That said, I may still inadvertently buy from someone gaming the system . . . not usually, though, thanks to the Viewer's Map feature.

Most of the time, I shop all the various businesses I can find that deal in the product I'm interested in, and I comparison shop. The item features, coupled with price, along with the quality I see, determine my purchases . . . NOT search rankings.

I would hope most people shop this way too.

If they do, then the "rankings competition" that some business owners are caught up in becomes more a matter of ego, than of good business.

The yellow pages listings in RL are alphabetical. When I peruse those, I make no assumptions as to whether any of those businesses listed first are better, in any sense, than those listed later. So too, here in SL. I ignore rankings.

Most of the time I use the All search . . . and assume nothing about the position a business holds in that list.

the all search is just faster for me...i used to shop from the places search before they updated the all search..
it and the classifieds used to be so messed up but now it's really so much better and you can use more than one word =)

So justifying behavior based on the success or failure of a business seems to say that ethics is trumped by business and the profit to be earned from it--that money is more important than ethical behavior.

Is that what you're trying to say? Is that how you're trying to win your point with Talarus?

Sorry Remacu, you're a couple of days and a couple of threads behind the ball here.

So, do try not to get too huffy with me until you catch up.

Exactly, Why upload and upload and upload.. Generally we model our newest outfit.. Not every outfit in the store.. The difference between a bot on a pose stand wearing your newest product and some Ruth Avie crammed in a box with a ton of others is huge.. How can anyone not see that? Just like the dummies in RL Store.. they serve a purpose to show product.. The ones in the back of the store room piled up don't.

I shop for the quality of product first and foremost.....the rest i can close my eyes to or X any boxes appearing.