Anatomy of a Fail

By the way, I can see why LL would be opposed to this, since it is tieing up additional server resources at no benefit to them. There is an arguement that use of bots to generate traffic is unfair to LL.

Unfair to anyone else? Much harder case to make.

High ranking in Places search generates sales.
Phil lost 25% of his sales when he removed his 20-odd bots for a test.
Look at the traffic figures in a search for "Furniture - to take a simple and common sort of search. Or try 'Houses'.
Those rankings need about 80 bots 24/7. You see them on the Map.

That's terribly 'unfair' to people like Phil, who are limited to around 20 bots as they they don't own a complete Mainland sim.
Even if they owned a complete Mainland sim, they'd still be limited to 35 or so bots.

He's not against bots on any matter of principle.
He's against them because he can't compete with that sort of Places ranking, and Places ranking is a very clear generator of sales.

Well, that's just the thing. Non-profits don't issue stock or pay dividends. Their earnings may not benefit individuals or stake-holders. They CAN have employees, and can compensate executive staff within reasonable bounds, but it has to be very carefully orchestrated and planned, otherwise, it can cause the company to lose its non-profit status. 501(c) NPOs are very strictly regulated under the tax code.



Well, as long as they come as part of a pre-arranged compensation plan, perhaps. However, an arbitrary "kick-back" outside of any compensation plan to anyone is a definite no-no.



That's true as well, but again, it has to be all a part of a documented business plan that is part of the petition to receive nonprofit status.

For-profit businesses have a lot more leeway or "fudge factor" for the way they are organized and run, but non-profits are EXCEPTIONALLY strict. I've had to assist in setting up a business to qualify for 501(c) NPO status, and it is very grueling what hoops they make you jump through with your business plan in order to qualify. However, they rightly have to do that because so many people would not respect the stringent requirements otherwise.



Well, actually, I am arguing against the EXCESSES of capitalism. There is a point where those "selfish interests" come into sharp contrast with the welfare of the commons which permits them to exist in the first place. Good companies understand that there is an important balance between their own profit-based motivations and the welfare of the community they operate in. Good businessmen understand the notion of not "poisoning the well", either for the public at-large, or for their industry or territory specifically. Bad businessmen, on the other hand, just do not care; to them, profit is pretty much nothing more than an equation, a formula to be replicated, like a money-printing machine. Once the machine has been run completely dry, they move on to greener pastures to exploit. It's ultimately a moral/ethical/attitude problem, but like a kid driving a bulldozer, it can wreak havoc in the surrounding environment without regulation.

<.< the talks here concerning profit reminds me of the talk I had with someone about how it was unrealistic in cyberpunk for the mega corps to operate...

Most people are not aware that the t-shirt they bought at s-mart was made by po a little 12yr old in china that makes 2 bucks a year

And if they knew, they usually wouldn't buy it and raise a stink... so after seeing stuff on the news many stay willfully ignorant.


And as for the bots, they are not allowed now. Why, because they were determined by LL to be bad for the system and search. It wasn't to deal with a vocal outrage on the forums by a few, it was because they figured out how it affected the grid as a whole and decided to act on it. Slow as molasses in reacting to what most could figure out (more avatars logged in to build up traffic = more load on servers and the network systems, sims with near max users in them hindering landowners on mainland sims, etc.)

As for the other ways to manipulate traffic and search, odds are they are looking into that too.

One big reason for fixing this would be bringing in RL business concerns, a search system that is manipulated to the point of uselessness is not going to make the SL investments look like a good thing.

But I believe the biggest reason was the impact bots have on the grid in the numbers used... if you have those like Phil using about 20 and others using 80... the numbers of bots (obvious or disguised as campers on pads) is likely going to be very high.


As for the comment about household accounts... a dedicated bot user would just resort to something like tor and get around it

You didn't answer it. You posted but you didn't answer the question that you were asked.

Talarus. I'm back

But during my absense I decided not to continue with the silly businesses and profits argument. You don't understand it, and you can't help posting loads of shit just for the sake of it, and I'm happy to leave it that way. Alright?

Oh god almighty, people aren't still arguing with Phil about trafficbots are they?

**What will stop this pernicious menace?**

You're just depressed because Jade didn't win. It's knocked the wind out of your sails. pussy.

You're a bare-faced liar, Sling.

which "pernicious menace"? trafficbots or the neverending argument?

lol. Actually, I hadn't heard the song before, but I listened to all of them and I would have placed it #1. But then, that's me and the music I'm used to. People in such a spread of countries are used to other music. I liked the one from Bosnia and Hertz... but it didn't do very well. And those knockers on Turkey's lead singer merited being right up there - as she was

The absence of any explicit law on bots meant that the law was that traffic bots, in general, were allowed. There may have been specific instances in which they violated the rules against unreasonable use of resources.

Let me rephrase it to be clearer. Phil believed that a) traffic shouldn't be used in search; b) traffic bots shouldn't be allowed for the purpose of manipulating search; c) prior to the recent announcements, traffic bots that manipulating search were not against the rules.

I don't believe there's anything hypocritical about that because the particular issue isn't one of overriding ethics.

That reasoning reminds me of someone that him and his guild banned from WoW.

They found a bug that allowed them to do something they shouldn't be able to do... and instead of reporting it as such they used it to build up the guild's funds and gear. It hadn't been ruled and exploit, till someone else discovered how to do it.

So nothing was on record about it being an exploit... they were just using an undisclosed feature of the game for a time till it was listed as an exploit and fixed..

Oops , nope it was an exploit from day 1.

Hating a thing that you think should stop and then doing it. Well that is like saying you hate how George is wrong for kicking puppehs, and then kicking them yourself. If it's wrong for George it's wrong for you.

Ah, but it's not about bots.
It's about the mindsets that give rise to them, and other gaming mechanisms.
Even the discussion is gamed - which is hardly surprising, given the presence of gamers.

It will go on forever and ever.

We're all DOOOOOMMMMEDD!!!

Actually, there are retained earnings, otherwise Harvard wouldn't have the huge endowment that it has.

Depending on the type of non-profit, it may well be permitted to retain earnings for the purposes of growth or protecting against future loss. A non-profit cemetery is permitted to put its earnings into a perpetual care fund.

Shane. You are equating the use of traffic bots before the new rule to be somehow "wrong", but it was never wrong. It was out in the open for all to see, it was talked about a lot in public, it was discussed with LL employees such as Jack and others, LL employees were asked specifically if it was wrong, and everything that came back from LL was that there was nothing wrong with them unless it breached the ToS by doing things like filling the sim so that other people couldn't get in.

If I was still buying stuff in SL, I wouldn't care at all about bots. It's LL's traffic system that's the problem. Besides there's so few people actually rewarding any creator for their hours and hours of toiling. Any way they can get a little positive reinforcement to keep on being creative is okay by me.

I do, however, take great joy in boycotting business people who contribute nothing to this forum except bitter and inane posts written above their unimaginative ad for their products.

Your point is valid, but each case needs to be analyzed on the circumstances. If someone started using traffic bots the week they were invented, that's one thing. If someone waits three months, starts losing business, complains to LL with no response, and then decides to use bots just to compete while continuing to lobby LL for a change, that's another. I don't know which of these, if either, is most applicable in this case. I'm just pointing out that it's not so black and white.

So explain in simple terms then how something determined to be wrong in the blog posts was ever not wrong.

It's like saying it's now wrong to spam group invites at clubs to random folks, but it wasn't wrong in the past so those that did it in the past did nothing wrong.

If it is wrong, it's always been wrong.

If you ask "is it okay to have bots on my land" The answer would have been "yes it's okay"

I doubt anyone of them said "Is it okay for me to put a couple dozen bots in a box to create additional traffic on my land in order to get my place listed higher in search"

I don't think I've ever seen a thread in my life with this many quotes :x. holy square boxes batman

Actually, LL employees were specifically asked about putting traffic bots on/over a parcel to increase the traffic number for search ranking purposes, and they always answered, yes it's ok as long as they don't breach the ToS (in ways like I mentioned above).

You asked me to explain it to you. I thought it was self-evident, but I'll give you an example. Right now it is not wrong to walk around naked on a nude beach in a mature sim. In a little while it will be wrong to do that because LL will bring a new rule in to say that it's only allowed in an Adult sim. The point is, it isn't wrong now because it's not against the rules, but it will be wrong when it is against any rules or ToS, and when it becomes wrong, the wrongness won't be retrospective. The new rule won't mean that it was always wrong but we just didn't say so. The same applies to traffic bots.

ETA:
If I'd thought that it was actually wrong to use traffic bots, and I used them anyway, I would have been the hypocrite that a few people like to make me out to be - just for sake of it. But I never thought that using them was wrong, and I was never hypocritical in using them.

Translation: "You win, Talarus; I am outta here. Peace out!"

You can think that if you want, but these were my thoughts...

I think you are either genuinely stupid, or you just say things you don't really believe for the sake of arguing. Either way, you are not worth arguing with. I also thought that I am stupid for entertaining your arguments. The result was what I posted.

just a point about non profits...there are plenty that operate within the laws and also give giant perks to their board and hired employees. this is often held up to public scrutiny but is not against the law and DOES provide the effects of distributing profits. in many cases, the public outcry is what curtails this type of spending. but things like trips to conferences in hawaii, use of helicoptors to transport short distances, limos, expensive gifts and dinners and even things like donors offering services to the ED at their home...like putting in a lovely new pool patio etc....those things happen more times that you might imagine.

Having worked in non profits for many years ive pretty much seen it all...and trust me...there is PLENTY of profitting going on.