Definition of Theft?

Argent, do you ever read the other postings in these threads, or do you push the reply button without reading anything else? If you do read the other posts, please tell me what the heck is an active pro-bot? Who does have a pro-bot position?

There is no such right, neither in law nor philosophy. They have the ability to perpetrate this fraud, but that doesn't mean they have any kind of right that needs defense, and claiming that it's a right and defending it is absolutely a "pro-bot" stance. I don't know if you've got some unspoken reason for taking this position, or if you're merely terribly confused about rights, but to turn around and claim that supporting this kind of abuse isn't "pro bot" involves some terribly muddled reasoning somewhere.
François Marie Arouet Voltaire (1694–177, who is spinning in his grave at this very moment.
If you abandon your principles when they start to cut into your profits, they're not principles.

"Those are my principles. If you don't like them, I have others." - Groucho Marx

"If doing the right thing were always easy, everyone would do it." - Somebody

“Integrity is doing the right thing, even if nobody is watching.” - Somebody else

I've already told you why.

The numbers were never intended to be the true number of real customers in a store. All the traffic numbers are true - avatars were on the parcel for that number of minutes. There is no lying. If you imagine that traffic is supposed to represent what you said, then it's you who is mistaken.

Oh my! You mean you won't be shopping in my store? Woe is me (can you hear me laughing at you? )

Remacu. All you are concerned about is yourself. You are either very much mistaken in what you say, or you are a liar. I think it's the latter because you want to change SL to suit yourself, and screw anyone else who wants to use SL. How self-centered is that? I could be generous, of course, and give you the benefit of the doubt, and assume that you don't know what you are talking about, but I don't think you deserve it, so I'll assume that you're a liar.

Is it ok if I forget you, the person, as well? I hope so, because I find you extremely forgettable.

From the group conversation:There's no debate about the negative connotation in "misusing traffic" and just implies condemnation of the practice IMO, although I'm sure Phil will find a way to argue that he's exempt and not "misusing" anything .

Even so it does little good for LL to be running 18 months behind the curve. The subversion of the new search is where the current main focus should be and traffic manipulation can wait until after that's been dealt with (or ideally as merely one aspect of search manipulation).

What a nonsense this is. Law an philosophy... may I remind you that this is still Second Life we are talking about? A software platform on which the owners allow the use of traffic bots. Implicitly giving the end users the right to use it. Until they decide different.

And the fact that I take the position I am taking has got nothing to do with being pro-bot, where on earth did you get that idea. The fact we are allowed by LL to use them does not suddenly make me pro. And you talk about muddy reasoning? Almost a joke if it were not so sad.


Thanks for helping me in the right direction. The reason he is spinning in his grave must be the fact that the quote is from Evelyn Beatrice Hall though But I would not have found that one without your lead.


Very nice quote, though it does not relate to our discussion. The fact that your principles withhold you from running bots could be a link, but those are your principles. I know people who do not watch tv because it is against their principles. Which shows we all have a different set, which does not make one or the other a better person.

No one ever disagreed that traffic was meant for another purpose Kitty, not even Phil. But they let their users, starting with camping and ending with bot farms. The new search is their way of dealing with it, and my bet is that the old searches will all be obsolete, so traffic will be as well. And new search is much harder to influence, and it seems they can fine-tune it better.

Good example of that is the weight of picks. A few weeks ago I decided to stop with my picks camping, to save a few thousand linden per month which seemed pretty useless to me. It cost me about 25% of my picks, and did nothing for my ranking. You know that when I started with it, it did bring me a lot higher, so back then it seemed to have an influence. That influence seems hardly important anymore.

Nobody said that traffic isn't used differently to what was intended. I certainly use it in a different way. You didn't need to get a recent quote, Kitty. Cory said pretty much the same thing a very long time ago - and it's still there to be read and quoted.

All that anyone says is that LL accept the way it's used, and have stated unequivocally that it is not against the ToS at the present time. In other words, at the present time, they knowingly allow it.

[added]
Not only does LL knowingly allow the use of traffic inflating methods, but they also made out that camping is a *positive* about SL - in the website. I don't know if it's still there, but it was there soon after I joined.

You see, Kitty, your ideas and preferences (and those of the rest of us here) and LL's ideas differ somewhat, and our ideas and preferences don't decide anything. So what do we have here? A few people making out how wrong it is for other people to do what LL knowingly allows. They are banging their heads against brick walls, of course, because nothing they can say here will change anything. They should really wake up and start a campaign with LL - that's the only place where what they say might just have an effect. But will they do that? Will they attend all the relevant office hours and bend LL's ears continually? Of course not. If they are so bothered by traffic bots, they would certainly do all they could to eradicate them, but they don't. They just post in the forum now and then. It's just hot air. They can't be bothered.

In other words, they have not come up with a policy and enough resources to prevent it effectively.
It's clear that they do not want search to be gamed.

You are going to game it anyway for your own profit.

Your sense of ethics appears to be informed by what is not explicitly forbidden in the TOS.
There is absolutely nothing praiseworthy is such an impoverished set of ethics.

A parallel in principle although not in scale would be the sub-prime mortgage situation. Greedy people of low integrity packaged toxic debt with other debt and sold it on. There was nothing in the "TOS" that prevented that.

I'll ignore the silly sub-prime mortgae bit.

Right. And they knowingly allow it.

I'm sure that's right.

Correct.

You're on a roll

Ah. You just just had to go and spoil it with your own personal ideas of things. It's nothing to do with ethics. It's entirely to do with what you personally prefer, and that isn't impportant at all. You are impoverished by the way you try to press you own selfish desired onto everyone else. That's really not very nice. But it won't get you anywhere because the people who could give you what you want don't care about you, or about what you want.

Tell me something, Sling. Are you going to go to all the relevant office hours and continually press LL to act against traffic bots, or are you just mouthing some hot air here? If you cared at all, you go to all the relevant office hours.

If you're talking about rights, you're talking about law and philosophy. If you're just talking about what you can get away with, you're not talking about rights. Me, I'm just talking about what the right thing to do is.
You're taking a pro-bot position, then. Of course I have no idea what you're really thinking, all I can do is grant you the courtesy of taking your words seriously.
Then Evelyn Beatrice Hall is spinning in his grave.
If one believes bots should be eliminated, and yet still uses them, then one's actions and principles are not in agreement. This does not necessarily make one a bad person, after all Jefferson kept slaves, but it does color ones words, and how they are perceived. And if that perception seems to weaken one's words, that does not mean that perception is wrong.

The fact the LL allows something doesn't mean it's right, it just means that LL allows it to happen. LL allows lots of things to happen that are downright wrong. They have even acted to make the problem worse on occasion. That's inevitable... it's not even a reflection on the people who work at Linden Labs, it's just an unavoidable result of the way groups of people operate, whether they're governments, companies, unions, clubs, or mobs.

It is inevitable that there will be things that LL allows, and abets, that are wrong. The fact that LL allows, or abets it, is irrelevant to whether it is right or not. The position that people should not take a contrary position to Linden Labs (or any other group that has responsibility for establishing and implementing policy, anywhere) because they're arguing against "rights" that are accidents of policy is completely bankrupt, and arguing that they should not do so because it is a waste of time is barely better. To argue that they shouldn't comment because they don't take direct actions (and have you determined whether any of us *are* taking direct action or not?) is another slice of the same kidney.

To make this kind of argument when one is engaged in the activity in question appears, to me at least, manipulative.

Why are *you* posting about this in the forums?

You just don't get it.

Do you expect to post here defending the gaming of the traffic system and not have people call you on it?

It's entirely to do with ethics.
You just don't like being called on it.

Yes. Why is Phil posting so much here?


And hey! Me is an activisit. I had to hack into the LL servers to get the notecard that Kalpana Linden sent to the Traffic Futures group. Well, ok I didn't actually hack. I just opened the attachment in the notice sent to me

More spin. You know it; I know it.

Traffic is supposed to be real. Your bots inflate the traffic figures . . . in your favor. Thus, they lie.

Your perspective here is very very self-serving . . . as I would expect from someone trying to deceive in order to profit.

.

I respond to other people's posts. That's why I post here. Unlike Sling, I don't try to change what other people do. I mind my own business in that respect. Sling has a mission though - she's said that. Unfortunately, she doesn't realise that it's completely doomed to failure as long as she pursues it in this forum. She has a choice though. She can go to all the relevant office hours and continually push LL about it. The best she can get here is laughed at, I'm afraid.

What you don't seem to understand is that SL is a private system, and what the owners say goes. If the owners say it is ok to orbit and cage people for no reason other than we fancy doing it, then it's ok and we all have a right to do it. If the owners say it's ok to inflate the traffic figures with camping and traffic bots, then it's ok and we all have a right to do it. It's no good arguing with me about it - you need to persuade the owners.

Don't be so silly. All the traffic is true, and you know it. There are no lies.

Traffic *was* intended to show popularity, but it stopped doing that long before I joined in 2006, and it was known about by LL waaay back then. Since then, traffic hs been merely a means of sorting a dataset.

Of course what I do is self-serving for profit. That's what businesses do, for goodness sakes. Wake up!

I'm going to deal with your comments in reverse order:



Interesting logic. So . . . If one is concerned about oneself, one is either mistaken in what one says or one is a liar. Hmmmm. Are you concerned about yourself, PD?

You'd better be.

But let's address this attack on me directly, shall we? There are some alternative explanations aren't there?

1. I could be right. (Heaven forbid!)
2. I could also be a well-meaning person who's learned to stand up to villainy whenever and wherever it's found.
3. I could be someone who's just appalled that someone can get away with deceiving others for their own profit (e.g., like certain financial institutions, politicians, etc.)
4. I could be someone who was just raised to regard fair play as one of the higher standards of behavior.
5. I could be someone who's disturbed by people getting away with what just isn't right.

Interesting that you should ignore these.



Phew! Potent! Nasty. Just what I expected.

Apparently, I've hit a nerve. Big time.

Ad-hominem attacks in an attempt to deflect discussion from the real issues which are ethical, moral. Ad-hominem attacks to see if you can get me angry (won't happen, sorry).

And, yes, I'm extremely forgettable . . . but what I say and write probably will not be. And I will continue as long as there are people who lie and cheat to achieve their ends.

I am not surprised that you refuse to admit that your bot strategy cheats others and is a form of lying.

But, heck, I haven't been writing for you anyway.

I never realistically thought you'd see the error of your ways. However, I had to try. I was really hoping you were just a misguided, well-intentioned individual.



Woe, indeed, is you.

trying to tamper with the order of search results in a personally biased way instead of letting it self-organize zeitgeisticly is broadly offensive <.<

/me wonders how bad hir choice of words was in regards to easiness of being spinned against the originally intended message...

Businesses do indeed serve themselves and strive for profit.
Not all businesses use unethical means to do do.

Traffic-gaming is unethical.

Trying to give the impression that LL are perfectly happy with traffic gaming is dishonest. You read that latest notecard. They are quite clearly *not* happy with it.


For them to deal with it comprehensively and effectively would take more time and thought that they can give to it. They have bigger fish to fry.
This in no way means that they are OK with traffic gaming.


Your game in this forum is to ignore the ethics and to perform semantic dances around the meanings of individual words. You twist the meaning of everything to suit your own selfish wants. You operate in a moral vacuum.

You just don't like being called on it.

Silly, heh? Such a discount. Perhaps more people should be as silly.



True BS indeed.

Not your real traffic. Your stores aren't as popular as they seem to be. Your ranking in search is a lie. You cheat your competition out of their rightful place in the sort.

It makes me wonder if your products are any way near that good.

Heck if they were, they'd affect the rankings in search based on their own merits. Right? You wouldn't have to inflate your ranking this way.

I challenge you to let your products speak for themselves. But you're afraid to do that, aren't you?



Interesting perception. Very self-serving.

Hmmm. "Merely a means of sorting a dataset"? Now there's an interesting spin.



Ah, another "it's just business" person, heh? Hmm. I guess I do need another cup of coffee.

Have you been following the stock market recently?

Business is just business. Right. The cheaters in business, the greedy in business have brought us to where we are now.

So are you one of them?

Now you know that's not what I said. The lying part was about you lying, and not about being concerned about yourself.

Why would I even think of them. here is your lie:-





LOL. Don't you just wish

Don't be so silly.

Don't be so silly, and stop lying. If your intellectually-challenged brain thinks that I said that LL is "happy" with it, let's see a quote.

Ah. Now they are only "ok" with it. Yes, they are ok with it - for now - or they would do something about it.

When you can show me where I "dance around the meanings of individual words" I might agree with you. There is only one person in this dialogue who is posting straight and honest answers, and it isn't you, Sling. You add words, you change words, you lie.