Are your human employees registered?

This is the wrong thread for that one. This thread is about a store owner who was penalised for having live employees working in the store, and not afk as far as we know. You're mixing it up with Ralektra's thread.

Uhh, yeah, it does, sad to say.

What was the whole point in using bots to drive sales again? MONEY

What is the whole point of using the minimal amount of effort to put something out for sale, regardless of quality? MONEY

Combine the two, what do you have? MORE MONEY

My apologies on that oversight, Phil. So these other drones were all present and correct at their monitors, fingers hovering over the keyboard all the time were they? I'd be very surprised if they were because in two years I've yet to have a useful exchange with a showroom dummy.

The theory of camping avs and store mannequins is hunky dory, I'm sure, but I have to say the experience is another thing entirely. To all intents and purposes there's no difference between a scripted av and someone whose RL boss has actually collared them to do some work for a couple of hours.

It sounds like you didn't understand what I wrote. What you quoted of mine said that there is no corelation between the use of bots to drive traffic up and the quality of the merchandise. I.e. just because someone uses traffic bots in whatever form, doesn't mean that their merchandise is poor quality. That's all it said, and it's self-evident.

Whether or not they were afk, we don't know. It turned out that there were 30 of them, or so someone said, which means that the models were almost certainly somewhat overdone, and I posted that, if that was the case, then the warning was justified. The topic led on to the discussion about live employees in general.

Early in the thread, I said that certain live people, such as those you mentioned, shouldn't count for traffic, so I don't think we disagree about that.

I am sure that some people are using the 'store model' excuse as the means of increasing traffic and improving rankings, but others are using them genuinely. I used to run a box of traffic bots when it was ok to do so, as you no doubt know. I also ran store demo models, which were highly functional and desirable for customers. Those demo models improved traffic too but they were there for a different reason. If I'd just wanted the traffic from them, they would have been with the others in the box. They are still there - 6 of them - and there are 4 more (castle characters) on the ground. All of them are registered as scripted agents and sooner or later they won't count for traffic. I use 3 or 4 more when I'm improving my bots programme, which are also registered as scripted agents even though they never stay logged in. I use them to test a change and then log them out each time. I registered them, not because they stay logged in, but because they literally *are* scripted agents. (Just thought I'd throw that in so that you're up to date with my bots )

But this thread isn't about actual bots. It's about employees with real people at the keyboards, and whether or not LL wants them also to be registered, AND it's about the impact it will have if they are supposed to be registered.

But, they DO correlate, insofar as one is related to the other.

No, there is no rule that says "only people with lousy products or are scam artists use bots", but there doesn't have to be for them to be related to such.

Personally, even if a person's products are superior quality, I find his/her use of bots to drive sales still is morally reprehensible, but we've been over this ground already.

I simply don't believe being in business has to be "all about making money". That's the same mentality that has gotten us into this mess we're in right now with the world economy. Sometimes, you just have to say "no" to the easy path, because it isn't always the "right" one, and you pay for it later (or someone else is forced to pay for you).

The actual quote said that the island owner has 30 employees in total to run the club and mall and that not all of them are on at the same time. We still don't know how many models are employed at any given time, but from what I was told it's not 30 models.

Exactly. So there's no corelation. People who make good quality stuff use bots and people who make poor quality stuff use bots. The use of bots is not an indication of the quality of the merchandise.

Different people have different views. Generally speaking, RL businesses are in it to make profits. There is no reason why SL business *should* be any different. Of course, many SL businesses are different because they are hobbies but that doesn't mean that the money-making business mentality is out of place in SL. It just means that everyone who has an SL business doesn't necessarily think that way, although many more would think that way if their businesses really took off

Take Desmond, for instance. He recently explained why he would quit his SL business if it's profitablity was significantly reduced. That was a purely financial consideration.

Ah. That's different. They could have worked shifts and only a handful were on duty at any one time, in which case the warning would be just not right.

that will never be a clubs problem..lol..
i remember stage call after stage call..so many had other things to do..
450 dancers and couldn't get 9 to the stage a lot of the times.. LOL

Correlation is NOT causation. You're talking causation.



As we've been around before, not all RL businesses are in it "for profits", solely, or at all.

I never said the "money making" mentality is out of place, either. Just the "money making at any cost" mentality is, no matter whether it is RL *OR* SL.

You know what the cost of using bots was? The loss of meaningfulness of the traffic statistic for use as ANYTHING. That didn't just affect you, it affected EVERYONE. So, the "at any cost" mentality had a cost that someone else paid, just like I said.

What is the solution? LL thinks it is rules and enforcement. I think it is just tossing away the useless metric because some selfish "businesspeople" couldn't control their urges for profit, or excused it as "me toos" because they thought they couldn't compete otherwise. Regardless, now here we are with LL smacking down people having on-site "employees"; who knows what stupidity it will be tomorrow?

Congratulations! You, as one of the bot runners, and staunch defender of same, should be happy with the results. After all, you got yours, right? Why should you care about anyone else?



I seriously doubt you can boil down what he said and why to a "purely financial" consideration. Well, you might; I don't.

You can call it what you like, but there is no correlation between the use of bots to increase traffic and the quality of the merchandise. The use of bots to influence the traffic numbers is not, and never has been, an indication of the quality of the merchandise. It's a fact - there's nothing to disagree with.

We have indeed been through it all before, so there's no point in going through it again, is there.

I don't need to boil it down. He said that, if profits shrank too much, he would have to stop. It was pretty straight forward. He even told us about some RL expenses as part of his considerations. It was a purely financial consideration - and nothing to do with other things, like interest, pleasure, or even making a loss.

Well, as usual, you're wrong because, more often than not, it was true. So, yes, it is a fact that there WAS correlation. People who are of the mindset "make money at any cost" often don't care how it is done; they're willing to game traffic, sell freebies, scam people, whatever. That there were some who did not doesn't change that sad fact, nor does it change the fact that using bots was still morally reprehensible.



Unless you want to, that is. <.<



He also stated a number of other considerations, including some avenues he was exploring outside of SL, and what LL does in terms of some forms of policies so, no, it was NOT "purely a financial consideration". Finances may be a part of his continued presence in SL, but it is not "purely" the only factor affecting such.

I'm late going to bed, so I'll be very brief

Whatever