All camping is banned if it inflates ....

I can buy that

Plus, it tends to keep people in your store a bit longer. I may go into a store, scan it quickly, see a freebie vendor, and if it is something I like, grab it and go. If I se a Lucky Chair and the item is desireable, I may linger and browse and possibly buy, waiting to see if my letter comes up. Even if it doesn't that time if the quality of lucky chair prizes is good, I may come back.

My opinions:-

Nothing is going to change. Camping isn't going anywhere. It's been over 3 weeks since the policy came into force, and over 4 weeks since it was announced. So far, nothing has changed except a few small botrunners removed their bots. All the big ones are still doing it, so, if they can't even tackle the big botrunners that stick out like sore thumbs, they are not going to get stuck into little camping, and the current blog is just a clarification of what's now a ToS violation - of what won't be acted on.

More than a week ago, Jack said that they are "now" dealing with the main traffic bot people, and that they'd started to enforce the policy a week earlier. Today he said that they are talking the main traffic bot people (as if there's anything to talk about). The opinion that I expressed soon after the initial announcement hasn't changed. It's all a sham to appease the most vocal minority, although Desmond's idea might have a lot to with it too.

If I had 2 or 3 camping spots, I wouldn't remove them at this stage - not after seeing their inaction.

there is something about a lucky chair that makes me want to sit in it..i don't even care what the prize is..if there is a C there i am sitting..

i was at this club the other night and seen people yelling..Ceka sit on the toilet..
i was like..wha? huh!!! Toilet?
Yes your letter is up!!!

oh no way am i sitting on that thing!!!
nobody is getting screenies of me sitting on a toilet..not for $10L

i couldn't believe they had a toilet next to the dance floor and it paid 10L if your letter popped up lol

LOL I like that LOL

Jack works slowly, we've been saying the same about micro parcels for weeks and to be fair to Jack he kept saying, "they're going down, they're moving out" and we were saying "Not bloody likely" but you know what, this last week or so, the micro parcel cutters have moved out of the parcels they had near me, not all of them, one is still being completely outrageous, but quite a few of the others have either reduced prices so my neighbour and I can get the plot or just gone.

You should have more faith in Jack, it might not happen quickly but it does happen.

For a moment I read that as "I think it's a more effective more effective method *than* cultivating loyal customers."
And I thought. Yes. I can see how many people think like that

i think one day they should just close up second life and going fishing for the rest of there life ! its getting to much to be like real life,and sometimes that just sucks.

Yep, the chairs get used a lot of different ways. Some of them have transmitters so that people can swoop in with their HUDs guiding them, and they could be gone before any traffic brownie points would register. It gets people into the place and maybe they will have a look around. Others have cute stuff that's fun to grab if you are in the place, but wouldn't be enough to attract crowds. Still others are definitely set up to get people to huddle in the corner and wait around.

And then there are the places that put in walls with hundreds of chairs full of crap, and it's a total mystery why they bothered to rez and load the things.

Yeah...free toilet Lucky chairs went out when Lava Inside closed down....i just put one up with a L$100 protest prize lolllll

I only found out about this yesterday and I still can't believe it. There are so many things wrong with the grid, that I can't believe that this seems to be such an issue.

There are businesses closing all over the grid because people cannot afford the land. Removing something as harmless as camping is only going to make it harder for the smaller businesses to continue.

As far as I can see, camping doesn't harm anyone, and to call it 'gaming' is just nonsense. Some people use camping as way to make money so where will they all go now? I dont camp, I stopped doing that a couple of months after I started, but why shouldn't people be paid for staying on someones land? If the landowner wants to give away money - why shouldn't they?

This just seems like another way to discourage people from using Second Life. We can't be adults, we can't camp, and it begs the question whether or not we're allowed to simply sit in out own homes without being accused of bumping up the traffic figures!

There is so much that needs to be addressed on this grid. I get the feeling that the major issues are being ignored yet again, in favour of something which isn't really an issue for most people here.

Cully. LL came out with the new rule to appease the most vocal objectors. They haven't banned camping - they've banned the use of camping, and other things, to inflate a parcel's traffic figure so that it can rank higher in the Places tab. There will still be camping around but possibly a lot less of it.

It's a short sighted policy though. Any activity that attracts people for an extended amount of time will generate traffic. The problem is with traffic and in order to save traffic LL need to come up with a better solution.

Although I'm no fan of traffic for a variety of reasons I don't want to see it go as I like having more options to search by, LL should make traffic more useful.

It's a bad policy because there are too many grey areas, but what else could they do after they'd banned trafficbots? But nothing is changing, or at least LL are not making anything change. After 3½ weeks of the new rule being in force, there are still no changes to the highest traffic bot users, and that's the easy bit to deal with.

Jack waffles about "dealing with them now" (1½ weeks ago), and "we started enforcing it a week ago" (2½ weeks ago), and "we're talking to the main ones" (1½ weeks ago, and there's nothing to talk about), but nothing has been done. It's all just talk to appease the ones asking the questions. If it takes almost a month (and counting) to deal with the main traffic bot users - the easy ones to spot - how are they going to deal with camping and related methods. I just don't see them doing anything other than hitting a few for time to time, just to make people think they are following through on it.

3 weeks already?

Disappointing.

Day One: Identify 5 main categories...identify the top 3 offenders in each category. Send Warning. One person can do this in three hours.

End of Week One: Follow-Up...check for compliance...no compliance....Send 48 hour final warning to cease or have account suspended. One person can do this in two hours.

Day One of Week Two: Pull accounts. One person can do this in one hour.

Day Two of Week Two: Assign another person - double efforts - Repeat Above.

Week Three: Repeat Above.

Shall we supply them with the list to get them started on Day One??? I think most of us have it in our pockets.

To be honest it would surprise me this time, if actually something does change. Though the fact that login numbers are borked, could mean they plan to do something

As many people pointed out before, the only way to stop traffic 'gaming', is to stop using traffic as the search metric in Places Search. Because as long as people know that having much traffic ranks them high, they will find ways. And I seriously doubt that any of those ways is better then traffic bots.
It is a bit like sticking ones head in the sand, to try and 'repair' traffic as a metric that's useful to search. Whether it is traffic bots, camping, money chairs, just name it and people will use it. Where stopping to use traffic as a search metric (THE search metric in Places Search) solves that problem immediately.

Let us assume that the responsible people at LL are not stupid, then this indicated there is some hidden agenda. They do not want concurrency to drop too fast, as people already concluded. I would not be surprised, if after a few months, when concurrency slowly drops, traffic suddenly is removed as metric. This way they can directly influence the speed of the concurrency drop.

That's an unnecessary step as they have a list of the top traffic places already, and it covers all categories - everything. The list is sorted in traffic order and is updated every single day. Hell, I'll tell Jack where to find the list if he doesn't know about it

OK...so they are struggling with Day Two???

I think they are struggling with day 0 - they don't want to do anything about any of it. They'll probably throw in afew token actions now and then, but I don't see them doing much more than that.

As much as I hate to say it....they should have just left it As Is. Since the ruling....

1) Wrong Message to those who fought the issue, and acknowledged the attempt to address it.

2) Wrong Message to those who complied immediately, by removing the bots as instructed.

3) Wrong message to those who "might" comply only if they see progress and consequences.

4) Wrong message to those who will continue using bots at all costs.

Is there anyone who did not get a Wrong Message?



AS IT WAS....at least we all knew what The Message was.

Enforcement is very much part of the message... but it doesn't take much.

Yeah ya do need to break a few eggs before people take you seriously, though most do well enough with a simple reminder, once they realise you are a serious estate manager overall.

I had this issue with age verification ~ I said: no parcels with age verification required on the estate. Mainly because I can't stay in business with banlines everywhere.

Didn't take much for people to realise that yes, I was serious ~ essentially reclaiming parcels, removing the verification (I never found anything worth triggering it) and setting it for sale for $L 0 back to the resident.

Of course it's easier on 3 million square meters where a lot of people know each other, than across billions of square meters of anonymous grid. But people *will* figure it out. Might take a month or two.

Indeed it wouldn't take much, but since it's now a full month since the first announcement, and 3½ weeks since the policy came into force, and still the main trafficbot farms are left untouched, it's looking very much like enforcement is part of the message but not a part of the actions.

I see the warning of this eventually being enforced sure hasn't stopped the trash from doing it.Brand new club opened on may 21 and has a box 1996 Meters above it loaded with bots clubs names Reflexion Night Club Owned By a Meli,It's comes as no suprise to me seeing as the club she worked for Twisted Shemales still has them but now instead of a box hidden in the sky they have them parked on a camper bench making it appear like they are paying campers.This is just sad i think this kid glove warning is ridicules and i think a warning and a removal of search is more appopriate and then a sl ban if it happens again.

:0 although i do think it a good policy, i hope i don't run acrost it myself... as a 'do-it-yourself' kinda person, it's not unusual for me to leave myself on a posestand during the day at my place, albeit with a floating-text toy saying 'pardon if i'm afk - im your q's and i'll get back to you'... which i do, if someone has questions! (and not just saying 'hello' or something that doesn't much seem to require a reply...)

otherwise, the only prob with the anti-camp policy, is that it doesn't "leave their bodies in the streets as a message to their frieeennds" lol. ;0

Part of the problem is that a lot of people still don't know about the camping bans.
It appeared as a Blog....and was quickly buried under other main feature blogs.
I'm sorry...but that's not the way to impliment an official LL Policy....that kind of thing needs to be on the Login screen with multiple language options too.

A blog might be read by a thousand or two ....it's still only a fraction of it's user base. I'm betting that many Bot runners and avie campers are totally unaware of this policy.