The Discussions on Traffic Reform with the Lindens

OK, but who would make avatars sit around unable to do anything just for a few L$ if it didn't pad search results, a sadist? If traffic is gone then camping is pretty much gone. So something to ask might be what could replace it. Money trees dwindled after they were being raided by throwaway alts, and so on. What would be ways to fill this perceived need for newbie handouts that might be a little more resistant to turning sour?

Ergo nothing. Using money to buy things does not qualify the money as money earned. If I get a hundred dollar gift card for Best Buy I did not earn the money. Similarly if I deposit my paycheck into my bank account it does not disqualify it as earned money because I am not buying things with it. What an odd thing to say.

Having hundreds if not thousands of people log on to the system simply to earn a few cents an hour and do nothing else is probably not something Linden Lab had initially anticipated or desired.

I keep seeing the argument to get rid of traffic scores revolve around shopping. Not all places are about selling things. Why are retail places even listed in the "Places" search to begin with? If you sell things then you should be listed under shopping. I hate to see non retail places punished. Already people who failed in traffic scores are starting to game the new search with profile picks. I have had 3 groups already make announcements about the change and to be sure to add them to my picks.

So again when searching for a "place" not a retail establishment, you will end up with irrelevent results because a lot of places that apparently had no value to be visited by people will be higher on search next to places that really do have the traffic and have worked hard for that traffic.

My guess is some people would want to have a few people around so their location doesn't seem like a ghost town. You don't need to use up a sim's capacity to do that - 3 or 4 would be enough.

Camping isn't any reason at all for grid instability. That's just a rumour, put about by people who find lag somewhere, see camping or bots, put 2 and 2 together, and make 5. Camping contributes just a tiny amount to the grid load. Massive numbers of real people logins are what causes grid instability.

No, it's exactly the same for stores and venues. And it's still not "punishment" to stop giving preferential treatment to already successful businesses at the expense of those trying to start out.

All successful places had to start at the bottom and work their way up. Some invested alot of time and hard work to achieve this. How is it preferential treatment to have your place listed before others because it DOES draw crowds due to hard work to keep them entertained? It does not seem right that a place that is dead 75% of the time can be up there on the list because they gamed the profile picks either. That IMO is just as sleazy as using camping bots to affect ranking.

I've seen stores that really boosted their traffic numbers with Lucky Chairs that gave out such great items, that residents would essentially camp them. I wonder if doing away with traffic will also decrease the value to shopowners of using Lucky Chairs.

Here are some numbers:

/327/9e/215659/1.html

Someone did an even better thread about campers, far more in depth - the numbers came out to something like 14% of all the avatars on the grid. I can't find the thread, but maybe someone diligent can. Honestly I think the 14% figure is low, because those were just campers - add the bots, and 20-25% would not surprise me in the least.

14% of 66,000 concurrency = 9240 avatars burning resources on the grid. Port into 50 of them, and they all start to hit the asset servers and stream your textures.

It's like putting zombie cars on a freeway during rush hour, and at all the choke points: supposedly popular places that attract noobs. You bet your bottom dollar that it matters.

* * * * *

Most telling is Vittorio's post - the last one in that thread:

/327/9e/215659/3.html#post1795512/327/9e/215659/3.html#post1795512

He's got business data that shows that yes - if you don't play the camper game, you get pwned. 800% increase in sales for gaming the system.

What happens over time as more and more people figure this out?

Let me put it this way: camping is gonna go. It's just a matter of time, because sooner or later we'll be known as Zombie Avatar Life not Second Life.

Many of the problems with Traffic as it is calculated presently could be fixed by weighting the various types of SL accounts differently. Such as:

Basic Account (no Payment Information on File)-- Ignored
Basic Account (Payment Information on File) ----- 1X
Premium Account --------------------------------------- 5X
Concierge Level Account ------------------------------ 8X

(We can muck about with the multipliers, if needed, but the principle is sound.)

Yes--this is unfair, but I question whether fairness should be a goal of traffic. I believe the point of traffic should be to accurately measure the relative popularity of locations.

My proposal bypasses the problems of enforcement and of arms races between LL and the bot operators, by attacking the economics of camping.

It makes effective camping bots cost 72US$/year per bot. That's sufficient money to discourage the practice--or at the very least--compensate LL for the extra stress on the grid that LL (and the rest of us) have to pay for due to the presence of camping bots. My proposal also kills any incentive to maintain camping chairs. Few people who pay to play Second Life, are going to be camping for 5L$ an hour. If nothing else, having to attract premium accounts to camping sites will cause a huge upward pressure on camping rates, making camping far less cost effective as a marketing method.

Ideally, LL would just not count traffic from camping and camping bots. But there is really no good way of doing that. The world is too big for LL to rely on AR-based enforcement of anti-camping rules. It's too easy to gain an edge on competitors by just one or two camping bots hanging around at 1000 meters (or underground, or hiding in a wall, etc.). And technical fixes to eliminate bots and camping can and will be gamed around (for example, LL could alter traffic stats so non-moving avatars were not counted, but then the bot-operators would just respond with camping bots programmed to wander zombie like around the parcel).

Yes--this will suck for some people. Such a system will certainly do no good for NCI (as the overwhelming majority of our traffic is free account newbies). However, it will give a far more accurate picture of true parcel popularity than the current system and be very expensive to game.

I read some of the thread. It's a novel idea, but I don't like it. For instance, I could sit on my store's land 24/7 and single-handedly gain 11,520 traffic points. And I could have some premium alts each gain 7200 points. (a premium a/c costs very little when you take the stipend into account). I can only see it ending up the same as it is now.

Removing the Places tab is the only answer, imo.

Agreed. Totally agreed. I just meant that if we HAD to keep traffic, that's the way I would do it.

If we had to keep is, then yes

Jeska's question is "the future of traffic", which doesn't imply that it has to be kept. My view is that it's fine to keep it and use it as it's being used in the All search, but to stop using it in the Places tab, which means getting rid of the Places tab. I'm going to attend the meetings if there's room to get in, and push for that.

I can't remember if it was this thread or the Places thread, but Carl Metropolitan came up with an excellent weighted system for traffic. If we have to keep traffic, his system would get my vote. Where is that, Carl?

[Edit: Doh, he made his own thread:

/327/0d/256330/1.html

Here's the post in its entirety:

Can I elect you as my representative? I doubt I could make it (or get in the sim for that matter) so if you go, you are now authorized to cast my vote as well.

Jeska really needs a thread here for the discussion - or she simply needs to read the several threads that are already here.

I sent Jeska a pointer to this thread, and she responded, so she may drop by in a bit.

All successful places had to start at the bottom and work their way up. Some invested alot of time and hard work to achieve this. How is it preferential treatment to have your place listed before others because it DOES draw crowds due to hard work to keep them entertained? It does not seem right that a place that is dead 75% of the time can be up there on the list because they gamed the profile picks either. That IMO is just as sleazy as using camping bots to affect ranking.

I'm not saying that campers don't have any effect - of course they do. I'm saying that they don't have the effect the some people like to imagine they do. Without any knowledge or evidence, some people automatically blame them for whatever ills they are experiencing.

Traffic is fine if you're looking for people. It's generally useless if you're looking for things.