where can I find pick camping places ?

There *is* right or wrong when it comes to morality and ethics.

A man or woman having sex with a 14 year old they claim wanted to have sex, is still wrong - but I am sure if the man has the mentality that "if it bleeds it is old enough", then I guess 'by HIS ethics', he is right.

Sure each person weighs the issue that happens to them... Sure if you take a group of people, tell them to walk down a hallway that has $100 bill placed on the ground, some are going to pick it up and keep it, some are going to pick it up and turn it in, and some may just ignore it altogether. That does not mean there is not 1 right action over the rest.

There have been several studies on the decline of morality in the United States which state that people these days are less apt to pass judgment on what are wrong or right actions and more people these days claim 'no opinion', instead of making a stand and declaring a side and sanctioning the offenders.

Pick camping is a useless argument and I am truly shocked that you guys are still on this not-so-merry-go-round. No one is going to win.

However, if what i have heard is true, LL has 'nerfed' pick camping, thus indicating (to some degree) that pick camping is not what they intended for profile picks, therefore making the entire issue moot.

Well if I am shopping for shoes, of course I would want to find the best shoes I could. So I type in shoes for my search and find Nancy Newb's store at the top because she paid the most people for her links. I then go to Nancy Newb's store because I think her products must be the best because she is at the top of the results, only to find that her store is empty and her shoes are terrible and look worse than something in a freebie pack. I have now wasted my time by being suckered to someone who had a lousy product but many links to put her on top. IMO, links from picks only make it more difficult to not only save some time while shopping, but also finding items that truely are extraordinary.

You are wrong Rha, in Resident Answers we have Sling to decide about the morals and ethics. Do not think there are other ways to think about ethics and morals, hers are the ones to follow.

You know, I could not care less about what people think about paying for picks, yet I enjoy these threads. People like Ciaran and Phil I have seen with pretty good arguments (just to name a few), instead of throwing with "it IS unethical, no matter what you say". Just like a street preacher chanting the same thing again and again.

To wrap it up (since the OP already has been answered for ages):
LL implemented a new search all, and published very clearly how we can optimize for it. They explicitly mentioned picks as one of the metrics. Now it might just be me, but I think no one is so stupid to think that people would not use that information. And no one at LL is so stupid, that they did not expect people to go and use that information.

So what is the problem then? Well Sling thinks it is immoral. Dishonest. Unethical. Okay, let me correct myself. Sling does not think its immoral/unethical, Sling knows.

So in fact there is no problem. Just let Sling think she is right in her thinking, people reading the thread probably are quite capable of seeing the difference between solid arguments and Don Quichotte alike posts.

In the meantime, because the move of my store cost me a lot of picks (many picks towards a location that no longer exists), I did put up my picks reward system. And believe me, the face that a handful of people (provided there are so many) think I am unethical, does not keep me awake at night The people getting theit weekly 25 linden are happy, I am happy, the customers that find my store and buy my stuff are happy.

Search can't do what you're asking for. What if the best shoes are made by someone who only speaks Spanish so a search for shoes doesn't even turn up their store at all? Search can only return what you've asked it to return, it can't judge the quality.

Quality and style are also subjective, everyone will not agree that the top shoe result is the best product, that's simply never going to happen.

Okay Felix, now take a world without anyone paying for picks.
Nancy did read the forums well, the blogs well, and optimized her parcel description and items for search. Just as documented all over. But she still sells the same crap as in your example.

No search system (this has been said many times before) can tell you about the quality. Those who optimize get higher in search then those who do not. Whether people get payed for picks does not change that.

All that matters to the user is that they find what they're looking for. If the situation is that people aren't finding what they're looking for via search then we have a problem. If there was a store called "Sling's Shotguns" and people searching for "Sling's Shotguns" can't find the store easily, then we have a problem.

You're saying that if those 99,999.999 links were generated in a way that you agree with, the result suddenly becomes relevant, for that to be true the content would have to be relevant in the first place, in which case it doesn't matter how the links are generated, the end user found what they were looking for.

You are right about that. However, if I saw that someone actually took the time to place someones business in their picks and they are not the owner of the business, then I would think maybe this place is worth checking out.

Regardless of whether paid links are bad or not, you have to admit that the SL search engine is a terrible tool for effective commerce. I dream of the day I can actually shop in SL for products and see consumer rankings and opinions for that product. Just saying I can understand the other person's argument about paid picks. Just like camping and traffic bots, they all serve the purpose of attracting people to your store.

Sorry, Sling, but you don't make any sense - and you continue to argue against your invented alternative meanings to what is actually written. I'll make it a bit clearer for you. Whether or not paying for picks, or being paid for picks, is dishonest is subjective. Alright now?

Furthermore, you simply don't know what LL's "intended use" for picks is. All you know is what you imagine it to be. I keep telling you that, but you seem to think you have special information that isn't available to the rest of us, but you don't. It's all in your imagination.

Please be serious, Sling, or drop out of this conversation. The user doesn't see any such thing. The number of links to a place's html page isn't stated anywhere. Are you actually awake?

Why not?

Nonsense! All that can be said about that is that it is illegal in some parts of the world, and not in others. Of course it's ethical and moral. In some parts of the world people get married at that age, for goodness sakes.

Of course it changes it.
Without the paid picks the crap tends to get listed lower than the better stuff.
If Picks are used to weight the ranking and those picks are not bought picks, then the better thought-of places will rank higher.
That is the only rationale for using Picks as a factor.

Once people start buying picks, then picks become meaningless as a ranking factor.
The ranking produced is no more helpful than was Traffic-influenced ranking.

No search system can tell us about absolute quality.
However, a search system can tell us that many people consider something to be of quality. That is the rationale for Picks as a ranking factor.
But then, paid Picks destroy that.

Come on Phil. I have all kinds of respect for you as a businessman and I understand your desire to use the search tools provided by LL to their fullest, but can you really say with a straight face that picks were intended to be a salable commodity for merchants to enhance their search rankings with?

If you repeat your mantra du jour that you don't know, nobody knows or can ever know outside of LL, then you're just being willfully obtuse. Nobody is that stupid.

That's the same mistake that Sling made. People do not see any of the links that help to get the place high in the rankings - neither the links nor the quantity of them - so they are not even aware of them.

I hope that nobody comes back and says that the picks links can be found, because we are talking about simply using the search engine to find things - we are not talking about examining each result with a fine-tooth comb. It would take a lot of time to do that for each result.

your example doesn't constitute ethics and morality for the whole, only for the select who feel 14 is too young
as mentioned, in some cultures, at 14 people are married and having kids...

it may be immoral and wrong to you, but to others who believe 14 is plenty old, it is neither immoral or wrong to them, it is an accepted way of life and beliefs

same can be said for paying for picks, for some it is wrong, unethical, immoral, etc

for others it is just another form of advertising, and they see nothing immoral, unethical, or wrong about it...

trying to convince others that what you believe is wrong and immoral is wrong within it's self

You have absolutely no evidence for this, it's pure speculation. Go to google, search for shoes and then tell me the top results are the best shoes in the world.



I sort of agree with some of this, but there has to be a ranking factor of some sort. Some people have suggested random order. Picks will never ever work the way you think they should. For a start, not all picks count so there will be thousands of picks in Second Life that simply aren't counted ever.

Then we have the people with a bigger group of friends who will have more picks for their store than someone else.

I'm all for users having more tools when searching, I want to see users have control of ranking. That's not easy to implement, when I'm over at SLX I don't order my search results by relevancy after the initial search.

I was referring to the fact that none of us know whether or not LL accepts or even desires picks to be optimised by paying for them. It's been mentioned a few times in the last few pages, so Sling knew what I meant.

Certainly LL knew that they would be optimised when they introduced the system - not only because it's been common knowledge on the web since before LL started, but I told them myself. I've conjectured that LL wants SL business to run as RL business does, including all the optimising. Sling states that LL doesn't want it, but none of us know one way or the other. That's what my statement was about.

I would estimate that most users' picks don't count, but there's another big reason as well.

Picks are far too limited to be suitable for Sling's "acclaim" rankings. We each have only 10 to play with and yet most of us acclaim many more than 10 places in the whole of SL, so we do it with memory and with LMs. Picks are not the same as links from websites, because each website can link to as many other sites as the owner wants, so when Google started, the natural linking of the web was valid as votes. We can't do that in SL. We only have 10 such votes and yet most of us would vote for many more than 10 places if it mattered to the places, and if we could.

Picks, and the other contrived links that LL has produced, simply don't do the job of natural votes that the Google system is designed for.

Honestly I think you're trying to spin the whole discussion so as to avoid my very direct, specific question. After all that was my first post in this thread that's been going on for some time, surely I didn't bother to read it first so you might as well helpfully catch me up

So if you're still reluctant to answer my question, want to at least explain to me the difference between what LL "intended" and what LL "accepts or even desires"? And while you're at it, how you know for a fact what LL "certainly" knew when the rest of us are just posting the results of our fevered imaginings?

You missed the point Phil. Of course people are oblivious to a search results paid links. What I was saying was that if I happen to see a pick for a place in someones profile, I tend to think it may be worth checking out because they felt the place or product warrented a place in their profile. But now the whole paid picks thing sorta blows that out of the water. I certainly do not pay people to put my place in their picks, but they do anyway. Why? Maybe to have a quick LM to the place or maybe because they felt the place worthy enough to take up that limited spot in their profile. I do actually benefit from the weight of picks in the search under certain keywords, but it is not because I gamed it. It is because enough people wanted to put my place in their profiles.

Sorry I missed answering your question. I'll do it now. There is no spin at all. No, I'm not saying that picks were intended to be a saleable commodity. What I wrote doesn't imply that. I'm not saying one way or the other. LL may have intended that picks were not sold, or they may not care one way or the other. They may actually want SL business to operate the same as it does on the web with all the optimising that is involved, including the 'arranging' of links.

Sling has no idea what LL's view on it is, and neither does anyone else outside LL. Sling makes statements about it as thought she knows, but she doesn't.

LL "certainly knew" because I told them. I said that already.

Yes, I did miss that point, and it's true. It's a completely different side of things that I don't think has been discussed before in this type of thread. I don't pay for picks either but I do have a couple signs up saying, "If you like this store and would like to help others find it ....." to encourage people to consider adding it the place their picks.

Have to agree strongly here...... I paid out many L and got nothing in return.. I wont do it again.. BUT I do have lucky chiars and do give out prizes and not the freebie recycled stuff. This is a fun thing to do and many many search for lucky chiars. ; )

In what way did you tell them? I've told various Lindens various things over the past couple of years, but it doesn't follow that Linden Lab collectively "knows" what I told them, or would care if they did know.

It may seem that I'm picking an awfully small nit here, but my point is that you're still not in a better position than anybody to tell what LL knows or does not know, or what enters their decision-making process.

Of course I'm in the same boat there, but personally I can't imagine paid picks occupying any territory other than that which falls somewhere between "unintended consequences" and "necessary evil", dictated by the constraints of technology and budget. I know I've been kind of combative here, but I really did want to see if I could press you into stating that the notion of paid links was intentional, because I consider that *far* less likely and I'd be interested in the reasoning behind a position like that.

Phil!
You really are some piece of work.

I've been pointing out the natural use, the social use of Picks from day one.
You've just banged on on how Picks are merely cogs in a machine.

You and others know full well that paid Picks destroy that original and useful feature.
You say that Picks have changed because LL changed them.

Nope! LL simply incorporated Felix's "I happen to see a pick for a place in someones profile, I tend to think it may be worth checking out because they felt the place or product warrented a place in their profile" into Search ranking.
That made perfect sense.

And then .....
....it stopped making sense because greedy people put their own profit first and destroyed something that had been very useful.


You are just wall-to-wall spin.