All camping is banned if it inflates ....

Jack's blog:-

https://blogs.secondlife.com/community/land/blog/2009/05/21/further-clarification-on-bots-and-camping#cf

He says that all camping, that is used to inflate a parcel's traffic so that it does better in search, is banned. It includes real people camping and bots camping.

The comment that's been put around about store models and such needing to be on their own small parcels turns out to be wrong. Not that it wasn't said, but that it is not now correct. Store models and such are not being touched at all. Later they will be able to 'register' as bots but that's all.

Well... it's another rule, but so what. It's now 3 full weeks since the traffic bots rule started to be enforced, and 4 weeks since the announcement, and there are still no changes to the biggest users of them.

Ha Ha

Repent now.

Phil where I think this is going, is possibly clawing back some grid capacity for new users.

Let's set aside the traffic gaming for a moment.

For example, if you just look at concurrency I think the grid's been resource limited for a long, long time now ~ the grid starts to break when there are a lot of humans on it.

So there's two things to be done:

1) get the grid more capacity,
2) get rid of things loading down the grid

I think they are doing both.

Say the grid has a concurrency capacity of something like 100,000 for the forseeable, and not a lot more... what's to be done?

Well, wiping out *all* bots isn't necessary, it's just important to remove *enough* bots, campers and the like to allow the peak number of active players to function. Particularly on Sundays and holidays when the humans come out. We both know that bots and campers don't draw a whole lot of resources, but still, typically, they draw some.

* * * * *

Thinking of it this way, I think this sorta matches what we are seeing. No radical drop in concurrency, but keeping it just low enough that the grid doesn't start to lock up. With enforcement scaled in as needed, until there's more grid capacity.

And sure, traffic is part of the formula for search, but I see search very, very differently. To me, search is the ideal thing for a company to monetise, like Google did. Want to appear high up? Pay for it... which the Classifieds do, and there is little incentive to make search so good as to break that financial model. "Barely good enough" (just like google itself!) is more than enough.

Just some thoughts. Perhaps in truth it's nowhere near this cynical, but as one wise fellow once said: "Follow the money..."

... and that leads me to think:

a) that concurrency will be trimmed to just below peak grid capacity as needed by whatever means,

b) that search will never be so good as to make Classifieds (i.e. paying for a better search ranking) not worth it.

I would guess that a few "local color" bots or campers, such as a street musician, or a scullery maid, or a clothes model, would not be objected to, but if you had more than a few of such things it would be seen as an attempt to game Search.

Just my opinion, though.

There it is in a nutshell.

What I'm not understanding is why LL doesn't just GO with this. Clearly, as you mention, they have no incentive to improve Search. There's no profit for LL in an effective Search function.

Why don't they just openly follow the Google model, and basically merge Search and Classsified, with those who pay most given the highest spots on the list?

(I'd suspect the reason is a lingering wish to be seen as Visionaries rather than as Entrepreneurs. Visionaries don't make decisions based on profits--and openly making Search a profit-making entity would open them to accusations of being.....Entrepreneurs.)

Linden Lab is following its new bot policies to the extreme, insane conclusions. The best thing to do is to help them along the path as quickly as possible until they hit the dead end. Feed them the next logical gamed response until they finally get tired of supporting this useless "Traffic" statistic and get rid of it altogether as easier than wasting time policing "gaming."

At least it appears that Linden Lab isn't just being half-hearted and lazy about it. It's better that they give their best shot at enforcing a bad policy, rather than just making a bad policy and letting it linger around. That is at least a welcome change to the usual, "Promise big and forget about it," approach.

I don't necessarily like this solution. Advertising is overhead, and I hate overhead as an obstacle preventing people from starting up their own businesses.

However, this approach would be preferable to Whack-a-Bot. At least it provides a standard set of enforceable rules.

People who claim that Pick buying is "just advertising" should have little objection to this.

Provided that the paid listings are *clearly* identified as such, searchers have a choice as to which parcels might be worthy of a visit.
Right now they have no such choice. It's not clear who has spent or gamed their way to lead in All Search.

Well so this means that having 20 model bots would still be okay? Which means that the 20 bots formerly in a box, are now in plain sight, have to be rezzed in the client. Welcome the lag... because this is what will happen, bots will be moved from the boxes to the stores. Traffic is still important so people will use the ways LL declares to leave alone. Not good.

But: They are not yet enforcing the bot policy, so how you think they will enforce the new one?

I agree completely.

(Also, think of all the mental energy being expended on gaming Search...think what amazing new products and services could appear if even a fraction of that energy were to be redirected to actual creation....)

Also...on the subject of "gaming" the search...is it against TOS to carve up land into many little parcels and name them something like FREE FURNITURE FREE FURNITURE FREE FURNITURE FREE FURNITURE FREE FURNITURE etc in order to bully all competition off the first page of search? This happens way too much, and there is no way to compete against this tactic without stooping to the same childish level. It cheapens the users experience and hides a lot of quality parcels from the users search that do not use such low tactics.

What if we declare next Monday "go to the lowest parcel on the search" Day?

Imagine the gems that might be found and the businesses that might be rewarded for NOT using bots and other such tactics, that way.

Acording to the blog, it's all means of gaming search that will be punished.

If that is putting 20 models up to buld traffic in order to get around the ban, microcutting parcels, etc...

It's all now against the ToS. It says now that 'gaming' search in any way is against the rules.

There are good reasons why bots are put way up or way down from the commercial level. In the presence of a lot of bots, lag is awful. In SL, it is nearly impossible to shop in a crowded store. The commercial operator who uses bots visible to customers will be cutting her own purse.

So I wonder if flooding a parcel description with 1 or 2 keywords is "gaming".

Interesting. Looks like I will be holding an AR party soon.

...except they've specifically said that resident's can't AR bots, the Lindens are weeding them out themselves. And I see no evidence of bots disappearing from the grid. The stores with abnormally high traffic are all still up there with the same abnormally high traffic.

Doesn't seem to me like this change of ToS has, or will ever, make the slightest bit of difference.

Well modelling bots will be on the rise then.

Next step, paying people L$3 an hour to be store assistants.

And shoppers will be ignored by the store staff.

SL gets more like RL every day

Yes, there is. People finding what they are looking for are happier, and happy residents stay involved, rent land, purchase Lindens, etc.

Having accurate keyword results is more important to me than whether or not a store usues bots to get to the top of the list , personally. When I search for "appliances", I shouldn't see "dildoes". I ignore the traffic numbers and alphabetize my search lists, but even if I did go by the numbers, if a store's products are good and priced acceptably, I am going to by them. Conversely, if you sell shit, I'm going to go somewhee else, no matter how I may have been directed to that store.

If you search for appliances and find dildos, repeatedly, you may come to distrust search, and having no alternatives, not bother trying to find things in SL. This is how bad search results hurt LL, whether through keyword spamming or false traffic or profile pick camping. It is in LL's best interest to make search results as relevant as possible.

False keywords mean people don't find what they're looking for, you're making a rather large assumption about picks, keyword spamming and artificially inflated traffic, unless you're using the places search which is always risky.

I think the Lindens view the impact of bots and campers like burning gasoline. You burn the most when your foot isn't on the gas, because you are getting none-miles per gallon.

False search terms should be penileizzable

They shoud be what?