Definition of Theft?

You could equally easily say that RL is unfair for some businesses because they can't afford city center locations, or they can't afford huge newspaper and TV ads, etc. etc. etc. BUT all of those things are there for them if they can make their circumstances fit. It's no different in SL. All of the facilities and tools are available for everyone to use. If a person's individual circumstances are such they s/he cannot make use of them all, that's the way it goes. There is no reason for everyone to restrict their useages to the level of the weakest person.

You might just as well say that not everyone can offord to buy an island to run a business in, but that's no reason why all businesses should limit themselves to a 512 plot.

I'm not the one who defended bots with the claim "anyone can run them if they want to". I'm only pointing out that this claim is incorrect. If you think that, once this claim is disproven, the justification or moral basis for using bots is damaged, that's your choice - I didn't say anything about that.

True, I had 2 bots for modeling purpose. And they were meant just for that too, if you look into my field of competition, 2 bots do not make the slightest difference for traffic. That is why I said: not yet. If, and only if, I was going to run bots, I would run enough of them to get noticed. Maybe not to get on #1, because I would need my own estate for that, but enough for the top 5. My estate owner does not mind, LL does not mind, but I still think LL is going to let traffic die as a metric. Plus all new users probably use Search All, something I do put my focus on.

Well I think everyone can run them, either by renting server space somewhere, or by renting bots (as far as I know, they are already available), or simply run them on their own systems.

The rest was not as much directed to your part, more a general remark. Whether everyone has the opportunity to use certain things, is in no way influencing my choice of use-not use.

Just Food for Thought.

I will no longer make purchases at that store, and today, I will remove them from any blog recommendation, and I will remove them from all the notecards I made, to hand to customers, recommending that they buy that particular item, to complete a room setting.....which was a lot of notecards handed out, advertising for them.



I thought about that, too, Madhu.....and I hope that's the case. But.....if that store was ranked on the first page of that particular word search.....perhaps they would have had 6 people in the store.

I'm a small fish....will never be on the front page of a traffic search, in a very competitive field, simply because I don't have the square foot area and enough product to support that kind of traffic, legitimate traffic.....and very blessed with what I do have.....but I'm thinking about my favorite stores, that I have supported for almost 2 years.....the 2 at the top of my list do not use bots, and I highly respect them for that.....I think I'll write a note to them, today, and tell them.

And, they have good traffic.....but it's not going to hit the 10k to 60k figure and put them at the top.....and they should be at the top....because they are truly the Most Popular, because of their product and customer service. They will have around 3000 on any given day. When I'm at their store, they have real avs shopping. That will never get them on the first page, where they should be, and in fact....will never get them close. That's a shame. Perhaps their count would be 6000 legitimate, if that were the case.

I'm not positive that every person who conducts a search, goes by traffic count....I don't....but that's because I'm hip to the process, now.....but I used to. I bet the new people do. I'll ask around, to the shoppers, and report back. Not one person in my social circle approves of bots. There are many practices in SL and RL business that are "allowed".....that doesn't make them Right.....and there was a certain Hypocrisy to me, in this case.

I've got no problem tapping into your Concsience again. Have a Great Bot-Free Week.....and I'll see you, in your Bot-Free Businesses.

Mickey,
Default search is the new Search All, and I think that more and more people will be using that one. So traffic will get less important in the end.

It is not so much a question of approving of bots. As long as LL keeps traffic as a metric in Search, even it is only in Places Search, people will use bots. And if a new business wants to compete with them in Places Search, they will put up a bot farm as well. They do not necessarily approve of bots, but they know it is the only way to compete on that level. Phil is a good example of that: he stated many times he would love to pull the plug. But if he does it now, it will cost him hundreds of real dollars per month, since his competitors will not pull the plug.

So again: LL is the place to complain to. They should either forbid the use of artificial traffic like camping or bots, or remove traffic as a search metric. As long as they keep the current policy, people will keep running bots. And the fact that some people find it unethical does not change a thing. The people using them, do nothing wrong in the end. They do nothing that is not allowed. And it is not up to you to determine whether it is right or wrong, neither to me. The only people determining that, are LL.

/me looks at Dek with shock, "where do I go Masterbot at"?

Marcel...I've determined that it is Wrong in my mind. My friends, agree, so it's not like I'm off on a tangent.
I pose the thought and question, and plant a seed, for others to determine in their own mind.....and proceed accordingly. You be the Judge.

A business person who has consistently fought the right to use bots, when one of us brings it up.....well, if they were totally cool with it.....why the need to defend....I see some wavering there. If someone says they don't want to use them, but have to....as you say.....well, there you go. Point made. If they were Right...there should be no hesitation.....go about it full force. If it were right.....why don't you have bots in place, right now?

I work in a RL business that is dog eat dog right now, in today's economy. Some are resorting to practices that are "allowed" (maybe....some gray areas).....but the practices are not Right....and it is a blight on our profession. If I resorted to those practices, I would clearly have an edge financially.....but I won't. Never. Same applies here.

My conscience is clear.....is yours?

I agree and i would be happy to use that method when available although they are helpful modeling so if a way round the modeling different sets of clothes could be found also that would be good

Since I'm the "businessman" referred to, I'll reply. I don't want to use traffic bots because I'd rather not have to maintain them on a second computer, and I'd guess the same would be true of most traffic bot runners. It's as simple as that. There is no wavering of any kind. They are not wrong in LL's view, so they are not wrong at all and, as long as LL allows it, I'll use them.

You are free to think of them in any way you choose, of course, but remember that you are a tiny minority. There is no overwhelming opinion against them, as someone suggested in the thread. There simply isn't a big enough set of resident opinions for there to be an overwhelming view either way. There are voiced opinions from a relatively tiny number of people, but even amongst those there isn't an overwhelming opinion for either side.

Your friends' opinions don't matter. I asked plenty of real customers about traffic bots and not one of them minded either way. They don't matter either, because when you add all the opinions on both sides up, they are just a tiny drop in the ocean of residents.

Yeah my conscience is as clear as it can be. Well, regarding this subject, it is

The reason why people do defend the right to use bots is simple: They stand for what they believe in. That is why I defend the right to run bots, even when not running them. Defending one of my major competitors, who as an "unfair advantage" over me in Places Search. As for Phil, the only botrunner I know on these forums, it is quite simple too: he gets "attacked" for using bots, so he defends his rights. Plus, he finds it amusing.

Why am I not using them? Because I do not see the need for it yet. My energy is focused on other things at the moment. At the moment I want to be able to cater more visitors of my store, by creating more items. First get a higher percentage of visitors to actually purchase something, then get more visitors to your store Free business advice too.

But as soon as I see it fit, I will not hesitate to put up a bot farm. Clearance from estate management is there, clearance from LL is there, so nothing keeping me from it. But I really hope, tat before that moment arrives, LL does the sensible thing. Because on one thing we all agree: Traffic bots should disappear

I don't agree with that The traffic metric in search should disappear. I think that's the one we all agree on.

If traffic bots are banned and traffic is still used for the Places tab, it will cause problems. Right now, (probably) most traffic bots are high in the sky, out of the way, not causing lag for people, and using minimal system resources. If they were suddenly banned, they would come down to where the store is and uses would be found for them - models, etc. - even camping unless that were banned too. You can be sure that people who use them will still compete for those rankings, and that's how it would be done. The bots would be down where people are, causing lag and using too much in the way of system resources. Right now, their resource useage is minimal and they don't cause lag, but that would change drastically.

I would like to see traffic removed from any determination in Search.... make search to give random lists each time you search for a item.


This is all I will say about this so flame away

LMFAO!

True, that is what I did mean by it as well, but phrased not too well. Removing traffic removes traffic bots, though a few ignorant users probably will keep running them, because you never know

makign a comparison with real life, would people think bad about, for example a club that had hidden speakers playing crowd sounds, and animatronic people seen thru some windows?

anyway, I do feel kinda cheated by artificially inflated traffic rankings, seems a bit like false advertising...dunno

for anyone that is interested, http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-8638 is a proposal to add an optional captcha to login process, making it so automated logins wouldn't be blocked, but also be identified to allow the system to not count them for traffic, this way people could have their "live" mannequins, greeters, NPCs, automated avatar pets etc while at the same time making it possible to have non-humans (meaning who is controlling an av, not the appearance of the av itself) be filtered off of the search ranking system

(yeah, I know people could make bot clients that would have the user fill in the captcha, or use one of those services that get people to do captchas sent to them in exchange for some shit, but I don't think there is any perfect solutions possible, this just discourage people to some extent)

I think many people out there wouldn't be using traffic bots if competitors weren't jumping over them in the search ranks only because of trafficbots (meaning they don't have anything against or for bots, but use them so they won't have theirr rightfully earned spot in the search stolen from them), so to end the feedback loop, preventing people from using bots to game the search ranks would probably be the way to go I think

many places would replace bots with camping spots, in in my opinoin, that would be less bad (though still gaming the search to some extent), cause that would give newbies some money, and potentially provide an environment for people to interact and such

Why flaming? What I can and will say about it, is that I am totally against it because it makes no sense whatsoever.

When I search for something, be it in SL or somewhere else, I want to find relevant results. Of course, I know that not all resources did their best to get a good ranking, so I probably will miss very good places that simply are on page 4 or 5. But on the first page, I want to see results relevant to my query. That is what search engines are about.

Simply returning a random list of results, would render search utterly useless. When I search for a sarong, I would most likely find 10 useless places with either 1 or even no sarong for sale, before finding the specialist in sari (my AV wears sari). Pretty weird, don't you think?

using bots for traffic is not theft...neither is paying for picks, putting store info in your own picks, optimizing search for your land and item descriptions, offering freebies etc. These are all ways people choose to get people to see their stores. As long as LL is ok with it...what difference does it really make. everyone is entitled to their opinion of what is acceptable in terms of promotign their biz, but to call promoting your biz within the TOS of SL is a stretch. None of the things mentioned above is against TOS and none will guarantee sales. They are simply tools folks use...period.

btw, doesn't the TOS say anything about gaming the search?

calling using bots "gaming search" is a subjective judgement. it is really called increasing traffic count with use of bots. and yes, that is ok within the TOS.

I don't think so. The only possible section would be 4.1.viii:



To what extent gaming the search constitutes "interfering with" or "disrupting" it isn't quite clear, though, and as others have mentioned the Lindens have taken no action thus far.

Would having more than one criteria for search positions help? People could search by traffic, or not, choosing to use items purchased the past week or whatever. Or word relevance. If those are already in play sorry I haven't paid that much attention. I do notice the same shops come up a lot and some, even with (store) name search, don't come up reliably at all.

I would like having different sorting options

btw, I'm sorry if I offended anyone by saying it was "gaming the search ranking". I was under the impression the traffic data, and how it is used to arrange results in the search, were meant to be an indication of how popular a place is and not just simply how many avatars, regardless of which percentage of them are real people, are crammed in that area...

I like this, as it is now we are given false info.