Popular Places tab goes, but the Places tab remains

If that's what Linden Labs actually does with it- and as long as Linden Labs promotes it for what it is- I would agree with you.

Here are the two problematic points:

1) It's promoted in the FAQ as "editorially-controlled area that highlights some of the best inworld venues and locations that might be of interest to new and existing Residents." That suggests some sort of independent, fair review of various sims based upon quality.

2) In the FAQ, Linden Labs admits that it is considering just selling the promotional space in the Showcase. "While there are not immediate opportunities for prioritized promotional placement within Showcase, it is something that we are considering."

If Linden Labs did something along the lines of the way you formulated it, Chip, then I think it would be a good idea.

The FAQ, however, suggests that they are doing something different from what you described.

Now, let's say there is a tab called "Linden Picks" (as someone else in this forum suggested; I think that would be a better title than "Showcase". Then the FAQ on Linden Picks accurately reads that the sites are chosen by Lindens as areas that they consider to be of interest to new and existing residents. (Or even jazz it up- these are picks by Lindens as "Can't Miss!" areas.) That approach would be both effective and fair (to me, "fair" is based on honesty). The name "Linden" in the tab gives it instant credibility with new users as "official" or whatever.

The "Showcase" idea follows a pattern with a lot of ideas that come out of Linden Labs. It's a great idea for what it is; but then it's soured when Linden Labs promotes it for something it's not.

/stands by for "FIC 3.0" blog post by prok.

Yeah, this would likely qualify for 3.0.

Prok is busy rallying the troops against traffic changes though.

Modesty forbids me posting her angry IM's to me after I voiced approval on the blog back on October of changes in Search.

Too bad comments are closed already, I could use some entertainment.

LOL. I feel for you.

Hah. Last 3 paragraphs.

http://secondthoughts.typepad.com/second_thoughts/2008/04/trafficking-in.html#more

Yep, I read it earlier today.

I hope they change their minds about selling space in the showcase. I think it's a mistake. I can't see what purpose would be served by it.

Agreed. Is this a JIRA proposal yet? Should it be?

Not sure that's necessary yet, but people who feel strongly about it should definitely join the future of traffic group and voice their opinions at every opportunity.

Assuming you can get a word in edgewise. That group is a madhouse.

The "Popular Places" tab definitely outlived its usefullness and good riddance to it.

The problem with getting rid of the "Places" tab is that many are concerned with "Where is everyone?" So naturally the places with the higher traffic are bound to have more bodies whether they be bot or person. The new search makes it more difficult to find populated places. Currently with the "Places" tab you pop in your keyword and boom you have a list of the places most likely to have people there.

I do not mind the new showcase listings as long as they are not paid for and they have no camping. I have stumbled across some fantastic builds in SL, but very few had any value to make me come back again and again. I came, I saw, no one was there, nothing to do, now what? Move on to the next I guess.

Oh yes, loaded with problems. It would be lucrative for anyone who decides to rent out shops on that older land, maybe even spawning landmark farms. That welfare place has land with a claimed date in 2004, for example. Parcel age could also punish older businesses that decide they need to expand and move.

If they're willing to invest human effort into creating the showcase I have to wonder why they couldn't invest human effort to vet traffic listings. It shouldn't be difficult for them to visit popular places and determine if their traffic numbers are legitimate or if they're generated by bots or campers. Add to that some disciplinary action for cheating traffic and they'd only have to do random spot checks.

The simple point is it can't be gamed. If you want to search by relevance, use the new search. There, the only thing that punishes you is your own indolence or refusal to optimize.

You know perfectly well that rentals are private transactions that LL can't really track. The game simply shifts from sitting avatars in a spot to renting a stall or a sign on the oldest land possible. It's a nonstarter, just as bad as using traffic as a sort or relevance factor.

I'm not sure that's correct. Would NCI deserve to get a blurb on the Showcase page while the Shelter or ASL does not? Well--certainly _I_ might think so... but I'm sure that the people involved in other resident help and education organiztions might not share that obviously unbiased and neutral opinion.

Really its going to come down to how the new Showcase page is run. If LL changes the businesses and organizations listed there _frequently_ and works hard to avoid _even the appearance_ of playing favorites with friends and Linden-alt owned locations, it might work. But if LL throws the first things they think of up there, and then leaves it unchanged for six months while they go on to the new shiny...

On the other hand, if Showcase just replaces Popular Places, it's a wash. Popular Places as it is now configured is even less useful than a static listing of Linden friends and alts would be.

But if LL gets rid of Places, then they will cause some serious problems. Places is the "White Pages" of Second Life, while "Classifieds" is the "Yellow Pages" of Second Life. Both of them have their uses and should not be combined.

Perhaps the answer is to make Places work even more like the White Pages. Have results listed alphabetically. Even let users enter a letter of the alphabet to start their listings with.

Or give users a choice of several ways to sort the list (it is already done with Search/Land Sales--the coding can't be that difficult.) Users could sort by traffic, alphabetical order, how long the business has been listed, mainland versus island businesses, name of owner, number of times business shows up in Profile Picks, etc.

So what? Who goes around tracking the acquisition dates of land? It's not the same as going to parcel A and seeing the traffic number. If you want the best find someone FIC or just super old that wants to rent out their land and change the parcel. And even then, so? Linden Lab is providing a means to find relevant places - if the populace will take the time to use it and make it better.

Some people stick to using the places tab, which doesn't necessarily give relevant content. ~A1 Furniture Sex Free Camping Gor Toys which employs 30 alts camping will still get in front of your eyes faster. But if it ranks by something they can't artificially represent, something that the tenant has to search hard to find to game, then by all means, let them do it that way. At least it won't encourage 30 bots and they can lose the extraneous ~A1.

We're in the realm of choosing a lesser of two evils. I have chosen mine. Come up with a solution if you have something better in mind.

The problem with listing by a single criteria, such as the phonebook does, is that, when using search, people are conditioned to expect the results to be 'ranked', with the best results at or near the top, rather than just listed in some sort of order. People don't expect that of the phonebook, so the single alphanumeric listing order is fine. Displaying the results according to parcel acquisition age, or any other single criteria, is simply listing - like in a phonebook. It isn't ranking anything. What value to users would that be? With an alphanumeric listing order, it is obvious that there is no attempt to rank places according to merit, but with a parcel age listing order, and others, it wouldn't be obvious at all, and people could easily think that the best are at the top, which would make the tab useless for users.

I still say that getting rid of the Places tab right now is the best way to proceed. Those who don't yet like the All seach will get used to it - especially since it already produces far superior results. If there had never been a Places tab, nobody would be asking for one.

If you mean, "But if LL gets rid of the Places tab, then they will cause some serious problems.", then you are mistaken. There already is a Places tab equivalent in the new search, and it works a lot better than the tab does. Removing the old tab won't have any negative impact.

I emphatically disagree.

The fact that LL chose to make a drop down box in place of check boxes makes it far less obvious that there are actually options there to narrow a search. New users end up with a bunch of useless results because it simply isn't obvious that one can narrow cast a search to "places" instead of "everything including the kitchen sink."

I've used the new Search All. I find it far less useful for doing the job that Places does than the Places tab.

I wonder if they can make the pulldown selection mandatory, like it won't search unless you've made a selection. I know you can in most web page designs, esp for stuff like filling in address info; making selecting your US State mandatory or whatever. That would force users to actually SEE the pulldown box.

I agree that it could be made more obvious, such as with checkboxes instead of the dropdown, but the point I was making is that the Places search already exists there, and the results that it produces are far better on terms of relevance than the results in the Places tab.

Our businesses aren't sitting next to the anchor stores in a mall. They aren't going to walk by or even SEE our doors on the way to the SL equivalent of Macy's.

I realize there might be some potential benefit by for some reason having more people in SL due to the fact that they now have a tab to look on to find things they might like to do.

But that potential benefit is outweighed by the fact that those businesses will receive a vastly disproportionate amount of business that might have gone to other people.

Moreover, there are other ways to spotlight businesses. Taking applicants, vetting them for the standards LL has stated (which are minimal), and then selecting them by lottery would be a lot better than simply the Lindens deciding who is going to get all the business.

Even better - limit all Spotlight places to non-profit entities.

We might even see a resurgence in interesting, non-profit places as a result.

coco