where can I find pick camping places ?

who says they do not honestly belong there?

The person placing the link has to make a choice, I would say that they honestly choose to place a link (for whatever reason they want to place one)

That comment is grasping at straws

Felix Oxide put it extremely well from the point of view of a Pick seller. He posted:

" Most will not care what the place is selling, they just want the money and they will tell their friends where to get the free money too"

It follows that the pick is not a genuine recommendation for the products that the place sells.
The whole point of using Picks as a Search ranking is that Picks are actual recommendations.

The store owners are dishonestly passing off bought picks as recommendations by avatars.



" Most will not care what the place is selling, they just want the money and they will tell their friends where to get the free money too"

" Most will not care what the place is selling, they just want the money and they will tell their friends where to get the free money too"

" Most will not care what the place is selling, they just want the money and they will tell their friends where to get the free money too"

and again it comes down to .....

THEY CHOOSE TO PUT IT THERE
that is not being dishonest

good lord, it is obvious that you have a very strong distaste for paid picks... however just because it goes against your beliefs and morals, doesn't mean everyone else agrees with you

stop trying to convince the rest of us that it is morally bad, and unethical and let us decide that for ourselves

no matter what anyone says you are going to combat it with some far fetched grasping at straws comment, as you try to force your beliefs on to the rest of us

(reminds me of hard core bible thumpers who try to shove their religions down the throats of others, or the "bad person" will burn in hell for an eternity...)

oh well...

(and remember, I have not put my thoughts out there on the moral and ethical point of view of paid picks.... so please do not assume you know how I feel about it, because I choose to keep my comment strictly on the legal (according to the rules of SL and LL) side of things....)

And that changed (added to) the use of picks. LL did it with the full knowledge that people would make use of those links for ranking purposes. You need to accept that things have changed, and that you can't have what you want.

Tell LL about it - they made it that way with full knowledge.

Tell LL about it - they made it that way with full knowledge.

Correction: LL changed (added to) the meaning if picks, and they did it with full knowledge.

How can you say that? In this thread I have repeatedly said that it makes no difference to users whether or not places are ranked highly due to owner actions. I've included the users throughout, and it really doesn't make any difference to them.

I've told you enough times in the past why search engines use links as a major ranking factor, so there's no need for me to tell you again. It started with Inktomi, but they only used a count of links and it was a small ranking factor. Google then came along, putting huge ranking weight into links (link text), and when Google became popular, other major engines adopted their method. What Google didn't know when they came along was that their method, coupled with their huge popularity, screwed up the natural linking of the web. However, LL did know what would happen when they adopted the Google search appliance, and they accepted it. I even conjecture that they *want* it, so that SL business operates like RL business.

(1) acclaim? They rank places by relevance - not by acclaim. You're getting really mixed up. (2) I don't accept that at all, but so what if it does? What's it to do with any of us?

Aha! You did know that I've been including the effect for users, after all. I wish you'd get your story straight, Sling.

Acclaim? Rankings are produced acprding to relevance, and not according to acclaim.

Acclaim? (see above). Search engine don't even attempt to rank by acclaim.

Then those who intuitively interpret what any search engine lists for them are mistaken about what search engines do. I mentioned earlier about people thinking that a search engine lists websites according to some form of which ones are best, but people who think like that are new to the web and haven't yet understood what a search engine's capabilites are, and what the listings are that are returned to them. The same applies to SL's All search.

You've repeatedly said that, but that's just a straw that you grasp at.
You can repeat it until you are blue in the face, buy your repetition will never make it true.

Of course the ranking makes a difference.

Don't be so obtuse.
If the ranking made no difference, why bother to improve ranking?

It's very simple.
People try and achieve higher ranking because the higher ranking translates into higher visit counts.

Those at the top of lthe list get a better chance at getting the eyeballs and sales.
The user will generally start at the top and work down until they find something that is "good enough".

The ranking has a heavy influence on that the user will see.
Of course it has an effect on the user. Of course it makes a difference.

Not at all, I'm realistic enough to see that stores aren't the sort or places that should be dominating picks. Wow look at this store? Yeah right.

All a search engine is supposed to do is return relevant results, not the highest quality, search engines can't do that. There could be a superb content creator out there who has great products but doesn't know how to name them, they will rank lower in search. Is someone who knows how to name their products gaming search? Is someone who has a better understanding of parcel descriptions and names gaming search?

There are umpteen reasons why one store will rank higher than another, search just returns results.

Sling has a thing for quoting this bit, so I'll quote it too

Sling. You seem to want places to be ranked according to acclaim. You can't have that. Even without paid picks, you can't have it, because there is no way to measure it. How many times have you seen people in this forum asking where to find good this or that? And how many times have you seen people suggest places for it? And how many of those suggested places were actually in the picks of the people who suggested them? You see, most people will acclaim a place for themselves by taking an LM and not by putting it in their picks, and I suggest that most acclaimed places are in the minds and LMs of people rather than in their picks. There is no search engine that can rank places according to such acclaim.

Example: which places would you recommend for good animations? And are the places that you would recommend in your picks?

So, since you can't have places ranked according to acclaim, we are left with ranking according to relevance, and picks (paid or otherwise) are relevant to the places they point to. It makes no difference if a pick is added because someone likes the place that much, or if it is added for money, or if it is added because it's a friend's place. It is still just a pick, which produces a relevant link to the place's html page. They are no different to each other in terms of relevance and the search engine.

If you read what I posted, it would be clear to you that I see the dishonesty as being on the part of the pick buyer.


If you limit your self to the terms of the TOS in this discussion , then you are simply wasting bandwidth. The TOS does not currently ban the buying of picks or any other search gaming process. This is in no way an indication of whether search gaming is honest or not.

wow you mean you actually read my post this time

I have been saying all along I am speaking ONLY on the TOS because the rest is irrelevant

I can not say if a person is dishonest or immoral or unethical for buying or selling a pick

THAT is not my RIGHT to decide, NOT my right to decide what is right and just for them.

It sure seems like you think it is your right to say folks are unethical immoral etc though..

*shrug*

I guess I am now done, because it finally seems as though you actually read what I said this time

Of course it's not a straw that I grasp at. If you care to go back a page or two, I explained exactly why it makes no difference to users. It's all there, and I'm not going to repeat it for you.

Please try to follow the discussion, Sling. It's *users* that it makes no difference to - that's people who use search to find things.

Oh dear. What was that you were saying about straws?

Yes, Sling, a highly ranked place will get more users to it and, in that way, it makes a difference to users. But when I said it makes no difference to users, I meant no difference to the rankings for users - a set without influence is just as good as a set with inluence - and you know it. So let's try to have a conversation that flows, rather than inventing alternate meanings, shall we? It's by far the best way of discussing something.

I've said it before and I 'll say it again --
You know the price of everything and the value of nothing.

You're talking meaningless gobbledegook there.

You put up a wall of words on the technical process of linking. You ignore the meaning of the whole thing.
A link is a link.
An elephant is an elephant.

You fail to provide a reasonable explanation of why a search engine should rank an entity using something that has no meaning as far as the user of search is concerned.

Nevermind the history,
What ... TODAY... is the rationale for using links to rank?
You say that a link is just a link.

Ok. Here's 1,000,000 links - fresh off the link generation machine. They're "relevant to the places they point to".
Great !
Is that of any use to the user?

wow you mean you actually read my post this time

I have been saying all along I am speaking not on the TOS because the TOS is irrelevant to the question of the honesty of Pick buying and search gaming.

You chose to ignore that.

I'm sorry that you don't like my explanations of things. They do make good sense, even though they don;t suit your personal desires.

I suggest you take up the rationale of using links as a ranking factor with LL. They are the one's who chose to use the system, not me. All I'm doing is explaining it to you. I can tell you why Google chose to do it but, as I mentioned before, that's a little different to LL and SL.

Bingo! When a link isn't returning relevant results then we have a problem. Relevant results being the key issue.

So if I somehow generate 99,999,999 links to my site, these links are "relevant".
If those 99,999,999 links result in my site being ranked #1, this is somehow relevant to the user??

Would you like to tell us more about that?

I wish fewer people thought like this.

Everyone has a right to judge what is dishonest, immoral, and unethical. We have that right - it is a thought, an opinion formed and everyone has the right to those.

If more people stood up and pointed at what was dishonest, immoral, unethical, then fewer people would do those improper things. But when you know that no one is going to call you out on it, or that 1-2 people out of 200 will say something and the rest will be quiet, then you do not care about those 1-2 people and do what you want.

More people to need to sanction those who are dishonest, immoral, unethical. More people need to point them out and label them. Simply shrugging ones shoulders and declaring "well it is not my right to judge them" is, in my book, acquiescence.

The problem is that no one ever wants to get involved. No one ever wants to take the heat, no one ever wants to be labeled the attack dog, or the tattle tale, or the busy-body, and i understand that. I just wish more people banded together as a group to publicly say what they feel is right or wrong and stop sticking to the safe middle ground of 'non-judgment.

'

If what the user is searching for is found on your site of course it's relevant.

Since you are dealing with silly numbers, I'll do the same...

So if 99,999,999 SL residents decide to put a particular place in their picks because they like it that much and want to share what they found with other people, that is somehow not relevant to the user??

Would you like to tell us more about that?

The problem with that is, the judgements about picks camping are subjective. Some things, such as theft and murder, are easy to judge, but picks camping isn't so cut and dried and, whilst individuals have opinions, they are not facts, or even necessarily the majority opinion. I can certainly understand Rha's thinking.

That's a misuse gf the word "relevant" in terms of search engine users.
The whole point of ranking by Relevance is that the most relevant sites are ranked higher.

My 99,999,999 generated links result in my site being ranked #1.
The content of the site would be relevant to the user query, but so would the other sites listed below, and a 100 pages down.

The major thing going for my site would have been that I had generated 99,999,999 links to it.

How has this been helpful to the user??
They would have found my site on page 9000 anyway.

To take from a post by someone(?) above ......
Its called "shopping".
You visit 90,000 shops and look at what they have to offer, and then make up your mind.
- sort of thing.....

Nope.
Once you cut through the verbiage and look at the meaning of things, it becomes clear that bought Picks work against the obvious intent of using Picks as a ranking factor.
It's not subjective. It's entirely logical.


Again:
Felix Oxide put it extremely well from the point of view of a Pick seller. He posted:

" Most will not care what the place is selling, they just want the money and they will tell their friends where to get the free money too"


A pick existing on that basis has absolutely no value to the user of Search.
It only has value to the Pick buyer.

Behave! You're redefining the word relevant now. The whole point of a search engine is to help a user find what they're looking for, if I search for shoes and instead get results for jeans then the results are not relevant.



Not sure where you're going with this, if your site has the relevant information it doesn't matter to the user if it's ranked 1 or 9,000 as long as they get the relevant information. What you appear to be saying is that if somehow those links were generated some other way, that you agreed with, your site shouldn't be ranked first, even though to the user the results are relevant.

Yes indeed I would!

The user sees that 99,999,999 have taken the trouble to highlight the place because they like it that much. Sounds like a great place. It must be a great place to get so much freely-given acclaim.

That is extremely relevant to the user.




And maybe by the time we get to above 99,999,999 SL residents, the tech to get a few thousand avatars in the same place will have been sorted out.
Alternatively, a booking system will be in place so that 40 avatars at a time can wait for a time slot to visit this wonderful place.

Of course it matters to the user.
Not many users are going to check out all 9000 sites.
It matters very much to the user that the most relevant sites are listed first.
But... what is "most relevant" in this context and within the limitations of the programming?

It's certainly should not be sites whose main claim to fame is that they have manufactured a cloud of 99,999,999 links out of thin air.

who are others to say what is right, ethical and just for me?

that is like saying that I have to believe what someone else believes or I am wrong...

there is no right or wrong when it comes to morality and ethics, just opinions
and what one believes to be right or wrong...