where can I find pick camping places ?

Ladies and gentlemen,
Read along with me how very classy our dear Sling can express herself about her fellow forum members, if she cannot win an argument in a normal way:





Since I pay for picks, I seem to be a sad little money grubber, a gobshite and I even suck.
Now I am not inclined to file an AR because I think the damage done to herself is way bigger then any AR can do. This, ladies and gentlemen, is miss Trebuchet revealing who she actually is. All chat about ethics and morality finally dropped, only to fall back to insulting behavior.

Sweet.

Paying for picks is not something that can be sustained indefinitely without sales, for the average gobshite. If their stuff really is shite, it won't sell, and all the paid picks in the world won't change that. Paid picks don't hurt because the average person knows that quality is subjective. They don't think that the place was irrelevant, they just think the stuff is shite. A person who sells crappy vehicles but is still #1 for vehicles is not hurting the system. It just means that the shopper has to actually shop a little more. But that gobshite probably won't stick around because tier is too expensive to keep paying throngs of noobs for picks.

So as long as I make more then my tier, I am not a gobshite? Relieves me a lot, just began doubting myself

On a sidenote:
My ranking after my move did not go higher then #4 for my keywords. Simply because I lost all picks with the move, I decided to put back my picks camp system, I did not feel like waiting for things to happen but help it a bit.

Well, 2 weeks later I did not rise one single bit, so as far as I am concerned the weight of picks is overrated a lot.
So today I did some more optimizing of my parcel, within a day I will see how that works out. If it works out, my picks camper became pretty unneeded, though I probably will keep it there to reward the people joining it.

huh?

since when?

as far as I know a pick is a pick is a pick...

the picks section of SL doesn't care why the pick is there, it doesn't make a difference if the pic is a paid spot, or if it is someone putting it there because the store owner is a friend, or they just like the stuff

it doesn't change the fact that the pick is still a valid and just a pick, it still will be weighted the same way as any other pick

it seems that your only gripe is that some folks pay to have ppl place their store in their picks... which is ludicrous to be upset about

who gives a rat's ass who pays who what
frankly it is none of your business who is paying who for what services (and I consider picks a service to another)

maybe you just need to not worry about who is paying who

the search results are still gonna be the same, paid picks or non paid, who gives a damn

I am beginning to wonder if you really do not care about paid picks, but rather just like to be in the middle of the debates

Relevance, to the end user, is what counts. If the paid pick helps the end user find what they are looking for, then it helps. If it does not, it is a waste of money and frustrates the entire system.

A pick with a love poem on a gadget store plot does nothing to promote the store, because people looking for gadgets will not find it. For that reason, no one really cares about whether or not the pick has been paid for if the pick leads to things that people are looking for, even if it is not of the quality they desire, because as has been said before and you agreed, quality is subjective and the system cannot judge quality.

If someone searches for vehicles and the first (non-classified) result is total rubbish - and maybe the 2nd too....


The trust in LL's Search has been destroyed.
First impressions stick!

I'll point out the obvious first, the person with the sign has the same intent as the person paying for picks. They're both tempting people to place their parcel in their picks. They're going about it in a different fashion but to say one is ok and the other isn't is absolute balderdash and totally undermines your argument. The Google argument you keep talking about is about natural linking, asking someone to link you isn't natural linking.

You're missing the reason why Google have an issue with paid links, the issue is that the results are often not relevant. Again, that is not the issue here. Google want people to find relevant results, to this end they feel that paid links do not produce relevant results. In Second Life that does not seem to be the case, you've not even argued that this is the case, all you keep talking about is ranking. Google want relevant sites to rank higher, they don't want someone searching to find spammy results at the top of the search.

So what if it's crap? It is still a vehicle. It may just be a noob builder. But it is still a vehicle. I would be pissed if the link took me to a furniture shop when I was looking for a vehicle.

There we go again... no search system can see the quality of stuff. Geez... how many times that has to be said.

And not only first impressions stick. Impressions where you insult people because you can't win stick as well.

Exactly, then we'd have a problem. If I search for a vehicle and find a vehicle then search is working.

It's an awkward tradeoff on all sides.

Several of the users of pick-camping, bots etc I've spoken to in-world have had an argument that sounds a lot more convincing that when they're put on the defensive. Simply, that they have to do it because others do, in the absense of an actual Linden ban to make it impossible. A "gentlemen's agreement" of any kind is impossible if there's no enforcement.

However. Even the founders of capitalism agreed that it works better, the more information customers have, and the less obstacles there are in the way of business. For a long while SL had many fewer obstacles than real life does - it doesn't have problems like distribution funneling, or one advert costing 7 figures in real dollars because that's what the next business will pay. And I think a lot of people are objecting to the idea of anything like this coming INTO SL. I even remember there were complaints when paid-for ranking of classifieds was introduced - when classifieds first came in, their original ranking had been alphabetical, and everyone saw how that didn't work.

(And oddly, I seem to remember that the classifieds were meant to be the replacement for the advertising boards on the forums, at the time they were going to go away.)

Now, while I might accept there's some inevitability of those problems cropping up in SL too, it's hard to really argue against the people who would prefer they were kept out.

If you search for a vehicle and the first listings are crap vehicles, then search has a problem and so have you.

Google (for instance) try to avoid this problem by estimating the authoritativeness/reputation of a site based on links to it.
"Google and most other search engines use links to determine reputation. A site's ranking in Google search results is partly based on analysis of those sites that link to it. Link-based analysis is an extremely useful way of measuring a site's value, and has greatly improved the quality of web search. Both the quantity and, more importantly, the quality of links count towards this rating.
...
Google works hard to ensure that it fully discounts links intended to manipulate search engine results"

An unpaid pick is "I like this place enough that I'm using one of my picks to recommend it to others in my Profile. Putting this place in my picks says something about me."

A paid pick is "I don't give a rat's arse about whatever this place is pushing. I just get paid for putting a Pick to it."

Rubbish, go to Google and search for shoes and tell me they're the best quality shoes in the world. There would be no point in having anything beyond page 1 in search if what you're saying was even remotely true.



Yes Sling, but in Second Life the problems Google speak of do not exist. Google are talking about someone searching for information on radiosurgery finding sites that sell knives for operations or completely unrelated subject matter about car loans. That is the issue google have with paid links.

That problem is not happening in Second Life, the links are still relevant. False keywords are an issue for search here.

Yep. That is why SL needs something like Google's product search. You can type in shoes then order the results by relevance, base price, product rating, and seller rating. A bit off of the main topic, but I think this argument would be more pointless than it already is if SL stores and products were reliant on this style of search rather than the giant haystack of 'Search All'.

LMFAO!!!

Agreed, it's what I do at SLX, I'll search for say shoes then order it by one of the other search rankings.

I'm all in favour of the person performing search having more options.

There you go again, Sling. To you, the search results must incorporate product quality. At the risk of being boring, I'll say again, as others have said, no search engine can discern product quality or rank on product quality. So if the first results just happen to be crap vehicles, it has nothing at all to do with how those results got there.

Also, your arguments have been about places with crap products getting high in the ranking by paying for picks. Where did that come from? Places with excellent products pay for picks and do other things to get high in the rankings. And as we all know, quality is subjective. Another thing we all know is that lesser quality items are sometimes more desirable for some people, because they probably have a much lower price tag, or they may be made from fewer prims.

None of that stuff can be incorporated into a search engine's results, Sling, which means that a pick is a pick is a pick, and they are all quality picks.

Technically, we don't know that until people have actually tried to write one.

On the day before the Wright Brothers invented the aeroplane, there were several accepted theories proving that it could never be invented.

Actually they don't - they actively encourage the acquirement of links to get higher in the rankings. I don't know if that was part of your Google quote or not, but wherever it came from, it's only true for certain types of links - it's not true for all links that are acquired specifically for ranking purposes.

Also, what Google does, they do for their own engine. It has no relevance to any other engine, including the SL All search.

I did say that "no search engine can ..." - present tense

If a search engine will ever be able to able to determine quality, it's a very long way in the future, when artificial intelligence is light years ahead of what it is now.

You are quite wrong about my wishes for search results. You are being wilfully obtuse.

I do not expect them to rank on "quality". You just associate that with me in order to manufacture an easy target / straw-man for your self to attack.
I do wish them to attempt to rank on indications of quality.
One indication of quality is the inbound links.

There are two types of inbound links.
1. There is the natural type where one site links another because the operator of the linking site recognises the worth of the content in the site being linked to.
2. There is the manufactured type what the link is made solely in return for some form of reward.

Type (1)s are *indicators* of worth / trust / value / authoritativeness
Type (2) can give no such indication. These are no more indicators that would be a site linking to itself.

A pick created for no reward is an indication that the picked parcel might have worth.
A pick that is created solely on the basis of reward is absolutely not an indication of worth.

This is just plain common sense and logic.

Sling, you're talking yourself in circles.

How about this: if one has enough money to pay for picks, one probably has enough sales to back it up, and therefore their stuff is likely of passable to good quality. There's your indicator of quality! Now can we end this?

I'll point out the obvious.
If an avatar sees a sign reading "Please add this place to your Picks if you like it", they have a choice.
They can think - "Yeah sure, like make me your home page. As if!"
They can think - "Yeah. THis is a great place. I have no problem recommending it to others and having people who read my profile know that I recommend this place."
If they make a pick, it is a natural link. It is done on the basis of a perception of quality.

If an avatar sees a sign reading "Add this place to your picks and we'll pay you L$x per week" also has a choice.
They can chose to create a pick in return for reward or they can chose not to.
If they make a pick, it is not a natural link. They are making it on the basis of a reward and not on any perception of quality.

This is common sense and totally vindicates my argument.

I've seen enough parcels using campers and then closing down weeks later because the sales couldn't cover the costs.
They had enough money to pay the campers for that long, but they gave up in the end.
They ability to pay is no indicator of quality.
I know this from direct observation of events on the ground.

But I quoted you saying that, if the first results are crap vehicles, then the search system is in trouble. With the best will in the world, that's an indication that you expect quality vehicles to ranked first. As Cristalle said, you are talking yourself in circles.

Not at all. I associate it with you because of what your write (see above).

Type 1s could certainly indicate the relevance of the receiving site to the first site's visitors, or it could be for one of many other reasons. Remember that sites link to sites for all sorts of reasons that have nothing at all to do with search engines, and links cannot be automatically assumed as "worth / trust / value / authoritativeness".

Type 2s can be every bit as much "worth / trust / value / authoritativeness" as type 1s. It makes no difference whether or not a link is reciprocated or paid for, the site at the end of the link can be of the highest quality, and the link arrangements can have been accepted *because* of that, making the links offer "worth / trust / value / authoritativeness".

It is not black and white, Sling. Even your own favorite god of all search, Google, recommends, suggest and encourages website owners to acquire (artificially arrange) relevant links for the sole purpose of improving their rankings.

The first sentence is correct, but the second it totally wrong. There is no search difference between the two. Take a place that has a visitor who likes the place enough to Pick it (your first sentence). Then the visitor notices the pay-for-picks sign, so s/he clicks the sign to get paid for it - and why not? The visitor is now described by your second sentence, meaning that the pick is *absolutely* not an indication of worth.

I do see what you are getting at, but your conclusion is wrong. A pick is a pick is a pick.