Camping Chairs are relied upon by some

Umm, you do know that you make no sense, right? First you indicate that some camping locations do NOT indicate that they are, then you say there's no exscuse for being surprised there's chairs? Huh?



If "begrudgers" are people who don't like being lied to about a locations popularity, then I guess I am one. If by "begrudger" you mean:

be·grudge ( P ) Pronunciation Key (b-grj)
tr.v. be·grudged, be·grudg·ing, be·grudg·es
1. To envy the possession or enjoyment of: She begrudged him his youth. See Synonyms at envy.
2. To give or expend with reluctance: begrudged every penny spent.

Then I certainly am not one. I for sure don't begrudge the 'enjoyment' someone gets from sitting in a chair all day doing nothing. Nor do I pay into the chairs, so I'm not begruding a single L$ to any chair camper.

It's great that newbies can make some L$ on their off-time. I don't care about that. What I do care about is the fact that Camping Chairs (and derivatives thereof) are clearly a way for the proprieter of the location to *LIE* about their popularity. It's like click-loading a result on Google, or filling a webpage with keywords.

And yes, I do leave locations that have camping chairs and shop at other places. Not only is the practice dishonest, but it's downright creepy with all those idle people there.

I have read about only one legitimate use of camping chairs, and it was the description the proprietor of the VGI casino gave. However, I have not been there to see if his descrition was accurate or not. But the description he gave, at face value, was a perfect representation of casino "Comps" that you would find in a RL casino, so it made perfect sense. The chairs were described as being set up AT the casino machines and the longer you played, the more they payed out. Sounds precisely like a SL version of a 'Comp' you'd find in Vegas.

Seeing someone's viewpoint doesn't mean agreeing with it.

I can see the viewpoint of the campers and the operators. They're both following good market strategies in a distorted market. I just don't believe that's always a viable long term strategy. Recent events have borne my beliefe out, and have demonstrated that my viewpoint is more likely correct than theirs.
Everyone in SL makes an honest living. without having to do anything onscreen... all the work's done offscreen while you're logged out [1]. That virtual "offscreen job" pays for all an avatar's actual *needs* in the virtual world *and* provides a little extra for luxuries. For Basic members that's not much extra, but since everything you can actually buy on SL is a luxury it's all bonus.

[1] I picture my avatar slaving in the prim mines below the primhead in the middle of the ocean between the old mainland and the atoll continent.

Exactly. It's a con, pure and simple. It'll keep working even though lots of people have abandoned the Find because newbies won't know about the con and will actually think that traffic is a measure of popularity - not an unwarranted assumption at all.

I'd find his justification more convincing if it wasn't the case that if you didn't gamble, you didn't get anything - but as I understand it, gambling just increases the multiplier.

Like I said, I hadn't seen it in action, just his description of it, and it sounded like a great idea.

First of all I never indicated that some camping locations DO NOT say that they have camping going on. If you read my post I say that "ALL" of the sites I have ever camped at mention they have camping chairs in their discripton of their site on the "find feature". Which means if you do not want to visit sites that have camping then all you do is read the discriptions and avoid those sites.





You are not being lied to. The site IS popular...just not popular for what you have in mind. It is popular to those of us who like to camp. Again, if you read the discriptions you will notice that the most popular places always mention they have camping or dancing pads etc.




Hmm...so your saying that you visited a place that had all these creepy people sitting around in camping chairs and there was NO MENTION of camping in the discription of the site? I find that hard to believe. I would have to advise you that if you see the word "camping" ANYWHERE at all in the discription then they are not being "dishonest...but you just may end up in another creepy place so don't go there.

I have lots of fun in the places I camp out. There is an abundance of social interaction at "Moonshine's Casino" bar for instance. Some will come and sit idle but most sit at the bar and chat all night long about building, scripting, buying land or just RL conversations. It is quite entertaining at times. Then there is XL Casino that has lots of multiplayer games and contest and lots of social interaction. The manager of the Casino is almost always there runing things and announcing new events etc. Not all camp grounds are full of zombie's.

Even if they mention it, if they are billing themselves as a store or something, it is deceptive.

"To earn" suggests contributing effort and value.

"Labor" further suggests the contribution of effort and value. By your own admission, these people don't contribute anything of the sort. They sit on their asses and do nothing (nothing, that is, beyond gaming a popularity system. Woo, there's a creation of value, all right!).

This is wishful-thinking economics that has no basis in practical reality.

I wish they'd ditch the L$ and replace it with diminishing balance US$ accounts for micropayments across the grid. Put this silliness to an end already.

If they ever use USD I'm never shopping again. This is besides the legal ramifications..the Linden is best, lets put the silliness of camping chairs and ideas to use USD behind us.

You do whatever you'd like.

Which makes it worthless for the people who are actually paying Linden Labs for the service, therefore Linden Labs will have to change it or drop it.

Destroying the service you're depending on is never a winning strategy.

No I don't think so! If they mention it...it then gives you the opportunity to either go there or not. It is being honest and forwarning you. I hardly see that as deceptive. Deception is a lie so if they are telling you about their camping then they are not lying. If there are no "stores or shopping" then that would be deceptive and I have not seen that happen so far.

A site can have a mulititude of things to offer many people. If they bill themselves as a shopping mall then 9 times out of 10 there will be far more stores than camping chairs. If they bill themselves as a casino you can bet your bippy there will be 4x's as many slot machines as there are camping chairs.

This isn't working. The reason they have that position in the Find is largely down to camping chairs, if they have any number of them. That's what chairs are *for*. But they pretend that that position is connected to their other commercial activities, in other words that lots of people go there to buy shoes or whatever because they're good.

Camping chairs cause a situation where either:

1. Someone knows that people use chairs to distort the Find rank, so they don't trust it and ignore it, unless they want to camp themselves, in which case the rank doesn't matter;
2. Someone doesn't know that people use chairs to distort the Find rank, and they think that it's a really popular place because of the quality of goods.

So terrific. By camping you're either destroying the utility of a free resource, or deceiving newbies. Cheers.

But I don't expect any of this to convince long-term camping enthusiasts - unless they're really new they will have worked it all out before, it's a question of not giving a shit about other people. Which is why it simply needs fixing to make sure it doesn't happen; argument is pretty pointless.

<edited out>

Screw it, I just read Ord's response, said it better than I could.

Actually, you didn't say that. You said:



Which indicates that you have refused to camp at locations that do not state they are camping locations. Which, again, states that there *ARE* locations that do this. So your inference that ALL caping locations state the have camping chairs is false by your own statements. I do not want to get into a flame war here, but you are double-talking here.




Going back to your statement above, you said:



So, yes, these locations are posted as being souces for Shopping and Entertainment. Since someone like me is searching the Find Places for Shopping and/or ENtertainment, NOT camping chairs, it is deceptive that the majority of the traffic noted on the Find Places list (Which is the SOLE indicator of quality provided) stems from camping, NOT their top-billed services. Honestly, If I walked into what was billed a top-notch restaurant and found out it was nothing but a fast-food hut that counts the cars outside waiting for the traffic light as buisness, I'd be upset.




If I look through a find places list and see a Clothing Store listed, it would stand to reason for anyone, that it's traffic rating is due to it's success as a clothing retailer. It doesn't matter if it has a couple slto mahcines, a hotdog stand, or what have you. But when that traffic number is generated, not by actual shoppers, but by camping chairs, that's deceptive.

We're full-circle here. There's obviously no way you will admit that camping chairs are a deceptive practice, and there's no way you'll convince me camping chairs are anything mroe than an eyesore and way to mislead those who don't understand how the traffic numbers are generated.

And as I've stated before, I do my best not to support camping chair supporters. Whether they say they have camping ornot, if I see camping chairs, I leave. Any buisness that needs chairs to generate traffic, obviously aren't high enough quality to stand by their products/service alone. And frankly, I don't buy cheap junk.

I'm out of this aspect of the discussion at this point.

Honestly, I think they should just toss the whole traffic thing out. Provide categories, locations select the categories they cater to, then a find against those categories provides an Alphabetized list that *starts* at a random point in the list. That way there's no deceptive statistics, no stacking the list with a bunch of !!!AAAA AARDVARKS LOUNGE entries. Just a fair sampling.

OR, provide a way for the customer to provide a positve rating *THROUGH THE CLIENT* that cannot be scripted or turned into a pay-for-ratings system. One account can only rate a location postively once. They canr ate as many different locations as they want, but each one only once.

Don't see why the "rank" on the find list is expected to matter anything to begin with. Heck, didn't even know there actually _was_ some sort of rank calculated on something other than amount paid for advert.

All a popularity based rank says is, a number of people visit that place for whatever reason (maybe because the staff is wearing revealing outfits, or because the view is nice) ... but unless you're a sheep that needs to look up to others in order to find out what to do, why should the fact other people go there influence _your_ decision to go there or not?

Check out descriptions of places, think if it's something that sounds like place where you want to go, then maybe go check them out and make your own mind on them. Rather than complain how "omg i was lazy so i followed where people go, and it turns out they go to that place due to criteria different from mine"

Actually if there are more than 100 results your rank determines if you even appear on the list. And I have to disagree with the dishonesty claims. If you can't figure out by the high numbers(?!?!?!) then it should be obvious before you are even there a minute they have campers. And whether the numbers are based on paid advertisement(campers money balls clubs tringo(but amusingly campers is the only one people whine about) or shoppers it says nothing about the quality of the content just their visibility.

ps. Campers cost LOTS of money. It's up to you and everyone else who visits their store if the content is good enough to turn a profit inspite of the heavy advertising costs. And if it is no one is deceptive are they just making their good content visible to you.(or of course going broke fast unless your stupid enough to buy bad content simply because they have high traffic?)

That's what the "next" and "prev" buttons under the search results are for, aren't they? To retrieve another 100 results if there's more than that many at once...


Exactly. Traffic rating simply tells there's lot of people going to a place. Which rarely has some straight correlation with actual quality of it, even in RL. So expectation one can pick a 'good' place based on number of people going there is just that, an (often unreasonable) expectation.

Honey, sweetums, if you think prostitutes have to be female, you ain't shoppin' on the same street corner I am.

Really? So when I say my investments earned money it means they contributed effort and value?

What it comes down to is some people want to put camping chairs on their land and others don't want them to. I don't care for them myself, buy your land is your land and it's not up to busybodies to whine about how you use it. If you don't like camping chairs, don't put them on your land and don't sit on them. Heck, you can even boycott places that have them. But who really gives a flying f*ck whether or not you think the campers are lazy or stupid or whatever?

Its not that people hate the campers, really. Its that the camping system F-s up the traffic/ordering system

Does anyone really use that system? When I'm looking for something, I read the descriptions. If I'm shopping, I skip anything that says "mall" or any place that sells more than a couple of types of items, for example, boats and wedding dresses. Any place that says "free money" I skip. I don't need the lag of waiting for hundreds of different textures to load while I'm shopping for something specific. Hopefully the one thing the removal of Dwell and Point to Point Teleportation will accomplish is the death of the malls.

Like page 2 on google unless someone is really motivated to dig you might as well not be there.

Wouldn't rely on this presumption. Personally if am in hurry i find it easier to click 'next' and check whatever is on top of next page of SL search returns, than scroll down and click through entries somewhere at spot 60-odd. And since my listing is sorted by name rather than traffic to begin with... in the end, you probably have quite a bit less influence over attracting one's eye than people think. Especially when quite a lot of referrals is simple word of mouth -- you see cool stuff, you find out the creator, you run a search for that specific person and work your way from there. And no amount of traffic gambling can affect that 'system', really...

I'd be surprised if most people using find bother to look past the first page of results and by that i mean the 24(atleast on my screen) that appear without scrolling or reordering the sort. Human laziness is pretty reliable.