traffic and what my ticket result was

Sorry for starting a new thread, but I have lost track of the ones we were discussing traffic and the fact that I submitted a ticket about it.
(edited to add, the ticket is in response to how is traffic calculated and is the KB info correct or the wiki info, because at the time of this ticket, the info from those two locations did not coincide with each other)

my head hurts too much to try to hunt it out, so going to paste the result from the ticket, then crawl back in bed.

decide for yourself which is correct (wiki, or KB) however this is the official word from the lindens.

What knowledgebase articles are there about traffic? The only one I see links to an article from SL History that references out of date links.

I only see the one as well, which I mentioned in the ticket has old info, apparently either they see more, or that is considered up to date.

as I said, people can choose which they think is correct, I am just putting out the result of the ticket (even though it confuses me and still doesn't answer what I was asking, other than in a round about way)

you would think, being it is the second life wiki, that if something was brought to their attention that is not the same info as the kb has, that they would look into it. nope.

Support / KB
Search for "Traffic"
First up is:
https://support.secondlife.com/ics/support/default.asp?deptID=4417

====================================================
Knowledge Base
Second Life Info > Second Life by Role > Business Owners >
What is traffic (formerly known as dwell)?

Traffic is a number for each parcel which is based on the amount of Residents who visited, and the time spent on that parcel out of their total time inworld that day. It's calculated using a complex algorithm.

Traffic does not result in popular parcel owners being paid.

For further historical context, please see "Traffic" in the Second Life History Wiki.

Traffic is one of several factors included when calculating search results. This FAQ has some more information on inworld search and how it works.

Rating: Rating of 3 Stars ( 3 Votes)
=====================================================


Of which the Documentation says in respose to the ticket:
"The Knowledge Base is the official location of information pertaining to Second Life. Based on your ticket, I checked our KB articles about Traffic and made sure the information was up to date and links directed correctly."




"The information is up to date"

Any more questions?

That article doesn't contradict the wiki, the SL History Wikia does.

"..... and the time spent on that parcel out of their total time inworld that day. It's calculated using a complex algorithm."

Which *could* mean that the greater the percentage of their time that an avatar spends on a parcel, the less influence their presence has on the traffic score for the parcel.

If this were true then the logical response of bot runners would be to spread their bots over as many parcels as possible - moving their bots from parcel to parcel.

According to Qie's log of Jack Lindens's last Office Hours, LL see a significant growth of traffic-bot-for-hire operations.

True, but the knowledgebase article is so vague.

I was talking to a bot runner this evening who claimed less than 10 bots was helping generate traffic of 35,000. I disputed this and he told me he changes the bots during the course of the day. I'm not convinced and others told me he had 20 or more bots in the box, but there were only 8 there when I was talking to him.

Just to reinforce the message:

In that Office Hours referenced above, there's a line just above the lines already quotes:

"[11:21] Jack Linden: We especially want to look at the people who are selling traffic via piles of bots. That is clearly not cool."

It seems clear that the growth of the issue has registered with LL.
And they are really, relly, mind-bogginly slowwwwww to deal with even in-your-face issues., so it must be really, really bad.

ZOMG!!!
That KB article must be an aberration. L are usually clear to the point of obsessive disorder.




However, your bot-runner says he moves his bots.
The only god reasons for that would be:
1) try to fly under the radar, and/or
2) recognise that there is (currently) a diminishing return for time spend on a parcel

The wiki's claim that it's just simple minutes on parcel seems to have originated with Kitty's experiment in /327/66/157270/1.html#post1371911. The KB article vaguely suggests a more complex formula based on the *proportion* of an avatar's time on parcel ("...the time spent on that parcel out of their total time inworld that day".

It may be almost time to resort to the SCIENTIFIC METHOD.

Absolutely, he just laughed when I said he wouldn't be getting traffic like that and told me you do if you know what you're doing. I don't know either way, but he could have a point and he kept insisting it's generally 10 bots or less.

By happenstance, my group partner just got IMed by group offering Traffic Injection

Group Info:
"We at Traffic Injection are a professional team that works 24 hours a day 365 days a year to solve low traffic problems. We can easily put you on the all-1st search pages and make your land traffic grow to 150,000 or more."

A SLURL in the IM leads to a 512 with a crap office build.
Traffic on the parcel is currently 12354
There are 10 bots up in the sky

A second SLURL in the IM leads to a parcel with a traffic of 14314
The bots in this case or (Busy) avatars in office cubicle workstations on the 1st floor of the crap building.


They also do modelling contest votes.

And so you should be. It was fully covered in the other thread.

You've been told how the traffic number is arrived at, by more than one person. You've been told how to test it for yourself. But you ignore everything you've been told and continue regardless.

Rha. Test it yourself if you really want to know. Other people have done the tests, including me. Why don't *you* do it instead of all this beating about the bush. It's VERY VERY easy to do.

Rha.

In case you don't know how to test it, here's how...

Cut a small piece of land. Ban everyone from it. Stand on it for 5 minutes then go about what you normally do. When the traffic numbers are updated, the parcel will have a traffic figure of 5.

Keep everybody out. Bring and alt in to stand on it for 5 minutes. Log the alt out so that it goes nowhere else. When the traffic is updated, the parcel will have a traffic number of 5.

Easy, init. There is no complex formula involved, regardless of what the Linden who answered you thinks.

I do not care how or what determines traffic
I am not beating around anything, if you read my first post then you would know why I posted this thread, to show the results of my ticket (it is not to say, this is how traffic works)
personally I do not think either one is perfectly correct in how it is done, I think there is more than SL discloses, and more than what people come up with when tests are run.
(shrug) but what do I know... right?

I started this thread because my head hurt to damn much to search out the thread that I said I would post the results of my ticket to LL in regards to the wiki info and the kb info not being the same

I am not saying this is how traffic is calculated.

I can not remember who it was, but someone said they would be curious as to what the results of the ticket was, so I posted it to let folks decide for themselves.

I do not want to test for traffic results, I already did try tests with alts (on a small parcel that would not allow anyone on it, other than the alt,) and it was never consistent

please do not treat me as though I am totally stupid

I HAVE tested it, and I did it so that no one else could get in, I used an alt, left it there for an hour one day, a couple hours the next, etc
did that for a week

and the results were not consistent.

*shrug*

I suppose you will claim I did something incorrect... oh well

The thread didn't need any searching out. It's still right here on the first page.

Folks can't decide for themselves. It's not that kind of choice. They can test it for themselves.

All I can say about your tests is that either you did something wrong, or something else got in the way, so I'll say it again...

Traffic is avatar minutes on the parcel. That's it.

hey!

*bingo* 1440 points/day

Phil, Rhaorth already stated very clearly that this thread is not to rehash the argument over what the actual formula is, it's to report on the official Linden response as previously requested.

I would think that you in particular would find it interesting that the ticket response comes right out and says the KB article is accurate and current, despite your experiments and those of many others showing something completely different and not complex at all.

Something seems to be afoot, even if that something is simply that Lindens who respond to tickets can be badly misinformed or perhaps don't even bother to check the facts before issuing a boilerplate response. Imagine my shock Or possibly there is something else to the traffic formula that for some reason isn't being revealed by the simplest tests.

I dunno, I try not to worry about traffic (other than being in general agreement with your proposal that Places should just go away rather that being reworked in some complex fashion). This questionable confirmation is a bit troubling though.

exactly Anti, I am not here to rehash who is right or wrong or what the formula is.

As I already explained I put this in a new thread because I had a nasty headache and did not want to try to find the post where I said I would put the results from the ticket. (I wish I could remember who it was that I said that to, so I could make sure they see it)

It does make me wonder if the lindens do know the actual formula, or if they just point people to the KB. I don't even know if the Linden who replied, actually checked the wiki (my guess is no, as her reply was for me to update it if I find it doesn't match the KB)

I can;t help but wonder what is being left out, or why it is different for some folks and not others.

As I said I did the traffic test, and my results did not match the 1 point per avatar per minute, and each test was not consistent with the other.

That's not a very scientific test, if you only checked 5 minutes.
What traffic do you get from longer periods?
60 minutes?
12 hours?

Yep I've seen someone cycling their bots by either login or teleporting them to other places agout a year ago, there were at least 100 bots, but no more than 50 or 60 in the cage at a time as they cycled continually appearing and dissapearing.
We need the exact formula revealed to encourage more people to run thousands more of these hammering the teleport and login servers as hard as possible then when the grid grinds to a halt by this cheating practice LL may actually do something.
Why can't Torley do a "how to game the traffic system" tutorial for new business owners?

*yawns and wakes up from a long, long RA nap *

The KB and Lindens are correct... in describing how things worked when we still had dwell (everyone was assigned X traffic points per day which were divided among parcels depending on how much time you spent on a parcel vs how much time you spent online).

When dwell was discontinued (and with open sign-ups just around the corner) the formula changed and the KB was likely never updated (and if the support staff has their own internal documentation I doubt it was updated either) so for three years now we've had the "it's complex" non-answer.

Unless you're lucky enough to hunt down and talk to the Linden who actually wrote the code, anything a Linden says should be prefixed with "I'm not sure, but I guess that..." for your own sanity .

Of course it makes me RAAAGE just thinking about how everyone is wrong on this topic except me but nonetheless I'm still grateful for this thread. It's important that we know we're never going to get a different answer out of LL and that's why the "it's too complex for your puny brain" answer persists.