Definition of Theft?

I stand by my assertion as well that using traffic numbers alone to determine where to have a store is a bad biz move....for anyone. I teach in my classes that folks should look at traffic, talk to other renters, talk to the landlord, check the map at several times a day over the course of several days, etc. so that they are informed consumers and do not get taken in by inflated traffic counts. It is just good biz practice and keeps from making costly mistakes.

There needs to be an overhaul on the search practices in general, in my obviously not remotely humble opinion and I don't know if a collective group of us from various walks of SL life could achieve this or not.

Here's an example of what I find annoying about how it is right now.

If you go to classifieds and you search the word "dog" an Animation store comes up first. A few weeks ago it was a large furnishing and prefab store because they ran a 50K ad. Now, he doesn't sell dogs, and I doubt that the animation store does either. Maybe they sell dog collars, or dog walks, or dog doors, or doggie style poseballs...but why are they appearing at the top of the search for dogs when they clearly don't specialize in dogs?

Now, we can all manipulate the search engine, but my point is we shouldn't have to manipulate it. The search should work for us, not against us.

I really am on my high horse today.

If a place has the word in its text, it will be listed

according to the amount paid

Dang! I just went to shop at another favorite store, and saw the dreaded clump of dots in the corner of the sim. The store was in the sky....the bots were ground level around a campfire. I messaged the people around the campfire, and it's been an hour, and no one has called me back....so I think it's safe to assume.....especially since their traffic count is 10,875 today....and I've never bumped into a soul, when I'm there.

Now, in this store, was one of those promotional signs about Content Theft...."stealing the clothes off our back" promotion.

How Hypocritical. Inflating your traffic figures with the use of non-people, implying to the general population that you are an amazing store, so that you have an astronomical edge in the search over your competitors....

So I thumb through half a dozen pages until I spot another favorite store with a traffic count of 72.....he has 2 people in his store, soon to be 3.......and the above store has Zero, so at this particular hour, Mr. 72 is more popular among shoppers. The majority of the general population is not going to know that, and find Mr. 72, and go to his store, using the Places search tool.

Theft.

And this is interesting.....when I look at the map....all those bots are gone, except one. Was it something I said? All I asked them was...."Are you Real? or are you a Bot?" So Sensitive! Maybe I can make them disappear by talking to them.

That's your very own definition of "relevant", so if the classifieds yield relevant results how can it be a "crap" sytem?

You already argued in this very thread that the ordering of the results can't be used to prove anything.

None of the shops are on their own parcels, which is something else I wanted to know, so they can't be promoted in search individually and, as far as search is concerned, they have to rely on people that the owners manage to bring in, which brings us back to the Places tab and traffic.

This is a situation I'm looking into myself, there are pros and cons. You get more parcels in search for the individual stores but your combined traffic nosedives, which affects search rankings. Not sure which is the best way forward.

I would like to interject that I don't have a problem in any manner whatsoever about the use of models in stores. They are wonderful selling point in clothing, hair and skin stores because they give a much better idea of what something looks like than a flat one dimensional picture does.

that sounds like the mall owner logged with the account normally used for the bot and send that message (or sent a msg thru the bot client)

doesn't make much sense for a real person to log and stay still, unless that was a model camp...

Phil..sounds like if you converted your static bots into the same number of models in store that some in opposition to the bot practice would deem your use of them ok. I did not know you had models to use to try out couples poses. I dont believe i have seen anyone with a furniture biz use them in that way. I think that is a wonderful idea. I cant tell you the number of times i have tried hopping back and forth between animations trying to figure out what they would look like and just gave up, purchasing nothing. It is esp difficult in the animations where one will not move until the other one jumps on, like many of the dances, etc.

It is definitely interesting to me that having the non-user avs (or bots) go from doing nothing to wearing clothing etc as models makes them go from horrible and theft to perfectly fine. Esp since it would increase the traffic count in exactly the same way and make your position in search exactly the same as well. Good to know...

ideally those "models" would be on their own parcels, though in a way, somewhat similar to non-rigged camping, it is better than just cramming bots in a skybox or hole in the ground, at least it adds value to the store by providing some welcome functionality to the customers instead of just messing up the validity of the popularity ranking system