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How to bring back dwell and kill camping chairs too

Duke Scarborough
Degenerate Gambler
Join date: 30 Apr 2006
Posts: 158
05-28-2006 20:27
I just had an epiphany.

Dwell is an important aspect of Second Life. It helps us judge who is creating content that people want. Unfortunately, it also created the camping chair/dancepad/etc...

Instead of killing dwell (too late - SIGH!), only one change was necessary...

Count dwell DIFFERENTLY! Count dwell at the 1 minute mark per UUID. And stop counting dwell for the same UUID at 10 minutes.

So, instead of counting places people go to and leave immediately (i.e. to pick up some free door prize - making it one minute per trip will make it inconvenient enough that people MIGHT go for a quickie now and again, but unless they macro teleports....), and instead of counting places where people are setting their AVs to idle (10 minute max dwell),

Dwell would count per UUID per property between 1 and 10 based on time spent, with 10 being a maximum.

Now, to prevent the server-side cost of maintaining huge lists of UUIDs for each property, make the clients carry the dwell status/property list. Resetting at 12:01AM PST, dwell counters would be stored in the client which would transmit a simple True/False when staying on a property for more than 1 minute.

What do you think? Can't we save the dwell?
Qweebokal Basiat
Unregistered User
Join date: 20 Apr 2006
Posts: 92
05-28-2006 20:53
From: Duke Scarborough

What do you think? Can't we save the dwell?


Nope. I can easily cook up a simple c-chair set up to overcome this scenario.
Nepenthes Ixchel
Broadly Offended.
Join date: 6 Dec 2005
Posts: 696
05-28-2006 21:38
From: Qweebokal Basiat
Nope. I can easily cook up a simple c-chair set up to overcome this scenario.


I can think of a way to make even more money with this than with the old system.

And storing it client side? Bad idea. That makes it hackable.
Tsukasa Karuna
Master of all things desu
Join date: 30 Jun 2004
Posts: 370
05-29-2006 03:19
OR:

Camping chairs could be outlawed as gaming the dwell system. Just a thought that i'm sure has been hashed and rehashed a few million times

;)
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Qweebokal Basiat
Unregistered User
Join date: 20 Apr 2006
Posts: 92
05-29-2006 03:35
From: Tsukasa Karuna
OR:

Camping chairs could be outlawed as gaming the dwell system.


Why cause more AR reports and LL policing than necessary?
Tsukasa Karuna
Master of all things desu
Join date: 30 Jun 2004
Posts: 370
05-29-2006 03:45
Mk. Go load up your Top Places tab under Find.

Know what most of the things here have in common?

Yeah.

**initializing rant enginve v2.20.72**
The whole idea of camping chairs goes against the spirit, if not the laws of the traffic system. It was made to spotlight developers who are attracting people with new and interesting content. NOT casinos and clubs who throw down these chairs to game the system. If you own casino, then lets see you come up with NEW AND INTERESTING ways of getting people to your land instead of resorting to the same old quasi-legal shit. Same goes to club owners. The Top Places list is totally useless now, people who ARE making cool things are not getting the acclaim they deserve, and the entire system is on the verge of being thrown out. Why? Because of the chairs, and because of LL's lassiez-faire(sp?) policy.


Besides.. lets play what if and say LL did outlaw them tomorrow. Any reputable place would have them deleted within an hour of the announcement. Any non-reputable place it wouldn't matter, because they'd still show up on top of the find places tab. Thousands of AR's about the same person violating the same rule would bring the linden B&hammer down quite fast. (you'd think)
**end of rant**
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Jonas Pierterson
Dark Harlequin
Join date: 27 Dec 2005
Posts: 3,660
05-29-2006 04:13
From: Tsukasa Karuna
Mk. Go load up your Top Places tab under Find.

Know what most of the things here have in common?

Yeah.

**initializing rant enginve v2.20.72**
The whole idea of camping chairs goes against the spirit, if not the laws of the traffic system. It was made to spotlight developers who are attracting people with new and interesting content. NOT casinos and clubs who throw down these chairs to game the system. If you own casino, then lets see you come up with NEW AND INTERESTING ways of getting people to your land instead of resorting to the same old quasi-legal shit. Same goes to club owners. The Top Places list is totally useless now, people who ARE making cool things are not getting the acclaim they deserve, and the entire system is on the verge of being thrown out. Why? Because of the chairs, and because of LL's lassiez-faire(sp?) policy.


Besides.. lets play what if and say LL did outlaw them tomorrow. Any reputable place would have them deleted within an hour of the announcement. Any non-reputable place it wouldn't matter, because they'd still show up on top of the find places tab. Thousands of AR's about the same person violating the same rule would bring the linden B&hammer down quite fast. (you'd think)
**end of rant**


Theres also alot of Gor sims..no chairs there. But yes, top place sis broken.
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Qweebokal Basiat
Unregistered User
Join date: 20 Apr 2006
Posts: 92
05-29-2006 04:24
From: Tsukasa Karuna

The whole idea of camping chairs goes against the spirit, if not the laws of the traffic system. It was made to spotlight developers who are attracting people with new and interesting content. NOT casinos and clubs who throw down these chairs to game the system. If you own casino, then lets see you come up with NEW AND INTERESTING ways of getting people to your land instead of resorting to the same old quasi-legal shit. Same goes to club owners. The Top Places list is totally useless now, people who ARE making cool things are not getting the acclaim they deserve, and the entire system is on the verge of being thrown out. Why? Because of the chairs, and because of LL's lassiez-faire(sp?) policy.


Top places shows (strangely enough) the "top places" that people like to vist. It does exactly what it's supposed to do.

Obviously people want to play Tringo and sit their asses sore in camping chairs more than they want to oogle boring prim "art".
Duke Scarborough
Degenerate Gambler
Join date: 30 Apr 2006
Posts: 158
Just a short comment
05-29-2006 06:49
Not all of the top places have camping chairs...just wanted to point that out. The most popular casino/club Extreme has no camping chairs and probably never will.
Wayfinder Wishbringer
Elf Clan / ElvenMyst
Join date: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 1,483
05-29-2006 09:54
From: Duke Scarborough
I just had an epiphany.

Dwell is an important aspect of Second Life. It helps us judge who is creating content that people want. Unfortunately, it also created the camping chair/dancepad/etc...

Instead of killing dwell (too late - SIGH!), only one change was necessary...

Count dwell DIFFERENTLY! Count dwell at the 1 minute mark per UUID. And stop counting dwell for the same UUID at 10 minutes.


Nice try, and I applaud the effort, but...

If I were a "traffic thief" who spent most of my waking hours trying to dream up new ways of pulling fake traffic rather than earning it honestly, I'd simply every day have all my friends bring in all their alts for ten minutes. Set up camping chairs that automatically TP an avatar out at 10 minutes so other alts can come in.

There's always a way to rig the system. That's why good system designers do their best to set up systems that are anti-rig in the first place. Dwell/traffic was an interesting idea, but from the start it should have been foreseen as abusable. To tell the truth, it wasn't necessary from the start. The only true way for LL to assign dwell based on superior content is to have a judge or two visit the different lands on a monthly basis to see who actually does have superior content, and award dwell accordingly. But frankly, that's kind of a moot point. The system has grown enough that it's pretty much self-propagating, dwell or no. Elf Clan is still going to operate, we're still going to hold events-- not for dwell, but for the good of our group and merchants. So dwell is, as far as I can tell, ancient history in the making. ;)

Oh, and as long as ya have people goofy enough to spend US$1 in electricity and computer wear-and-tear to earn L$3 per 15 minutes to camp, you're going to have goofy people promoting camping chairs. :D
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Wilhelm Neumann
Runs with Crayons
Join date: 20 Apr 2006
Posts: 2,204
05-29-2006 11:28
From: Wayfinder Wishbringer


Oh, and as long as ya have people goofy enough to spend US$1 in electricity and computer wear-and-tear to earn L$3 per 15 minutes to camp, you're going to have goofy people promoting camping chairs. :D



haha :D

Anyhow the time limit is a decent thing but i think the time would have to be longer and I also think that it will not stop camping chairs. Unfortunately I think that LL took a short cut to eliminating this not so little exploit by removing dwell which i found as a bit drastic and somewhat hasty. Honestly everyone will try to exploit everything as its human nature. I feel that LL should take the time to ban these types of scripts instead and remove them when they see them. (yes that's a lot of police work but.. it will work better then the removal of dwell) I see people stating about popularity etc being the reason why dwell is being cut. I have a neighbour in SL who knows that dwell is leaving who has installed camping chairs so umm i don't think this will fix the solution.

Honestly I dont look at the popular places chart anyhow but I know some do, but if your looking to remove the issue of popularity by camping chairs removing dwell won't fix it if someone really really wants to climb in ratings they will. Lets face it i see too many people buying lindens its easily accessible and easily obtainable if you want to be popular that badly and are that competitive well buying 1k lindens to put into camping chairs is going to be their response..


I do think this is a solution to dealing with the popularity ratings though (of coures people will try to get around it.. but that's life!) but i think the time should be 30 minutes and that the same uuid won't be counted again for 24 hours.. (they do it with traffic on the net so why not here?)
Michael Seraph
Second Life Resident
Join date: 9 Nov 2004
Posts: 849
05-29-2006 12:33
From: Tsukasa Karuna
OR:

Camping chairs could be outlawed as gaming the dwell system. Just a thought that i'm sure has been hashed and rehashed a few million times

;)


Just what we need are more rules that are easily broken. When you consider a law you have to consider how easy it would be to break and balance that against what it would accomplish. If you banned camping chairs, I could see thousands of AR's claiming that this club or that club was using them to get better ratings. Just what we need is more petty nonsense for LL to deal with when the grid keeps getting bombed as often as it does. Instead of banning camping chairs, why not just get rid of the "Top Places" tab in the Find window?
Ketra Saarinen
Whitelock 'Yena-gal
Join date: 1 Feb 2006
Posts: 676
05-29-2006 13:02
Dwell is *NOT* the main motivation to have camping chairs.

I'm pretty sure that most camping chairs *lose* money, even under the original dwell model.

Popular Places and higher listings in Find is the main reason for Camping Chairs.
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DW: Once
J: Well they're gone now, destroyed. Main reactor went critical, vaporized the lot.
DW: Like I said: Once. There's a banana grove there now. I like bananas. Bananas are good.


From: Clutch, 10001110101
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Tsukasa Karuna
Master of all things desu
Join date: 30 Jun 2004
Posts: 370
05-29-2006 13:48
From: someone
Dwell is *NOT* the main motivation to have camping chairs.

I'm pretty sure that most camping chairs *lose* money, even under the original dwell model.

Popular Places and higher listings in Find is the main reason for Camping Chairs.

.. And ranking in the listings and popular places based from what number? Dwell.


Tringo's a great example. Its a fun game, people played it, still DO play it. It ticked a lot of people off, yes, simply due to its popularity. It was getting hard to find events besides tringo matches for a few weeks.

But tringo won on its popularity and innovation.


Camping chairs encourage parking your av in them for extended periods, and doing absolutely nothing. Maybe playing a slot machine or some other game that's linked to the chair, in which case its not as evil, as it becomes a function of the game instead of a people sink. Thats not what i'm talking about.
I'm talking about the few hundred chairs thrown about by a new club owner just to get people to idle there and run their dwell numbers, and by proxy, their search rankings up.

From: someone

Not all of the top places have camping chairs...just wanted to point that out. The most popular casino/club Extreme has no camping chairs and probably never will.

Then they are doing something right. Props to them.

From: someone

Just what we need are more rules that are easily broken. When you consider a law you have to consider how easy it would be to break...


How is this different from the "No chat relays" rule that we already have? Its easy to tell by looking at a script wether an object is or is not spying on you. There's no grey area. It either breaks the rule or it does not. Does this device encourage absentee participation and artificially inflate dwell numbers? It either does or it does not. Not hard to tell.

From: someone

and balance that against what it would accomplish.


1. Dwell would go back to those who can attract people legitimately.
1a. And the system would probably not get tossed out.
2. Less idlers in the game, less scripts being executed, less lag overall.
-

I've got to agree with your point about enforcement, in a different way. LL already appears to be swamped with the problems they already have, without the addition of more AR's and requests coming in.

But in my book.. this ranks right up next to greifing. Folks took what was a good idea and twisted it around to what you see today. This needs fixed, when and however LL gets around to it.

My 2 cents.
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Ketra Saarinen
Whitelock 'Yena-gal
Join date: 1 Feb 2006
Posts: 676
05-29-2006 13:54
From: Tsukasa Karuna
.. And ranking in the listings and popular places based from what number? Dwell.


So the numbers are derived from how much L$ places get from the Dwell incentive?

I dont' think so.. Or with the cessation of the Dwell incentive, there would be no more numbers. The OP is referring to the Dwell incentive. Though usually it's just simplified to just "Dwell."
_____________________
From: Doctor Who
J: You've been to the Factories?
DW: Once
J: Well they're gone now, destroyed. Main reactor went critical, vaporized the lot.
DW: Like I said: Once. There's a banana grove there now. I like bananas. Bananas are good.


From: Clutch, 10001110101
Robot Lords of Tokyo, smile, Taste Kittens!
Tsukasa Karuna
Master of all things desu
Join date: 30 Jun 2004
Posts: 370
05-29-2006 14:03
Oh, ok. I was talking mostly about the rankings (I.e. How much traffic did you get), not about the reward (I.e. How much money did you make from having all this traffic)


Sorry 'bout the confusion :o
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