POLL: Default settings for the new search

As many of you know, LL is soon to launch a new search: http://blog.secondlife.com/2007/10/23/updates-and-further-information-on-the-new-search-project/

The present plan is that an object will default to having its Show In Search property set to true if the object is set for sale and the parcel it is located on is set to show in search.

There are concerns about the repurcussions of this - previous bugs (and sometimes user error) in SL have meant some objects are unintentionally set for sale (often without the owner being aware of it), LL is hoping that the fact that many of these are on land parcels which are not set for search (in which case the objects will default to not showing in search). This may no be the case for clubs and other public or advertised venues.

There is clearly a scenario when LL proposed defaulting is desirable and LL thinks that this outweighs all those where it isn't desirable. Others outside LL disagree.

This poll is to try to guage what the general opinion is (assuming that the readership of these forums is reasonably representative which is a debatable point!)

I've set the poll to run for 2 days.

Matthew

I'd lean towards thinking that LL's current plan is probably as good as it's going to get. A few wrongfully marked objects vs every content creator having to check the box on their entire inventory.

Ideally object listings would just be decoupled from places and be a separate "Publish parcel objects" option (defaulted to off). That might make everyone happy.

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There's still one of the original problems with listing objects in search: selling is the only way we have to transfer an object in-place.

Depending on how long it takes for an object to become listed this could be serious problem (worse if someone sets it up for sale while the "buyer" is offline).

It would be useful to know how often you'd want to have an object be for sale, and not searchable, compared to how often you'd want to have it for sale and searchable.

So long as object still default to being not for sale, and land defaults to not being searchable, I don't have a problem with search defaulting to on when the object is set for sale.

Someone has posted the URL for the test search:

http://secondlife.com/app/search/search?q=you search here


I've tried it and it is quite interesting when you look at the location pages, e.g.

http://world.secondlife.com/place/1efddd28-fe06-41dc-a06a-b8bf9d97739c

You'l find plenty of things mistakenly set for sale due to previous bugs popping up here. So for instance in the above location the comments boxes are popping up in search as for sale for L$50 - I doubt they really want to sell their comment boxes (in fact you can't buy them since they are no transfer).

If you have a location set for show in search, I suggest you try out the above quickly just in case you have a no copy transfer item mistakenly set for sale before someone discovers it and buys it from you!

Matthew

This poll is pointless, Linden Lab has closed the related issue "Won't finish" already.

If the poll is strongly against LL's decision, I'll re-open the issue.

At the moment the number of responses to the poll is a little small though.

Matthew

Didn't you only set it to two days? That's not a lot of time to gather much responses here.

Anyway, I have my doubts about the system of searching for objects set to be searchable, it seems to just be asking for trouble as the system inevitably gets flooded with far more search items than it can realistically cope with.

IMO the better solution is to have them off by default and have a small charge per item you own that is searchable, so that it costs money to keep an item in search, thus preventing people from flooding it with excessive amounts of items. I mean, I could just set a ton of items for sale at a huge price so no-one buys them, put them somewhere people aren't likely to see anyway and then use this to try and increase the relevance of my search results.

I'm all for this new search on parcels etc., but I feel that it might be trying to do too much right away without really considering the implications of making objects searchable.

Maybe 2 days was too short to get a decent response.

I have reopened the issue - not because I felt the poll was representative (although it was indicative) but because of a suggestion from Gigs.

Namely that the Show on Search is set not only if the object is for sale and on land show in search but also if the owner of that object has copy and transfer permissions.

This doesn't totally eliminate an object unintentionally set for sale showing in search, but reduces the chances of this substantially, and removes all cases where an irretrievable loss can occur.

It also means that the majority of cases where an item has been intentionally set for sale on searchable land, will show in search by default.

It still will not satisfy everyone but it should satisfy a much larger proportion than the original plan.

Matthew