BOT places! List them here!

Hi all.

I'm totally in chock over the need of this thread, so I also made a group called "Bot off"
You are all welcome to join the group.
I made it, so people, no bots LOL, could inform each other, if there's some meeting with the Lindens, where the subject could come up, or whatever comes up, I'm not sure, I just came to think of the name, and thought it was cool
The tag will be Bot off. I'm open for suggestions about the group, just IM me inworld, or write here, I'll try to follow this thread too.

Thanks all, for or against bots, for taking this discussion

I have three bots that act as NPC's for my roleplaying sims...does this make me a bad person?

No. You aren't being deceptive for money are you?

Okay a lot of new things to reply to.

@Colette: Since bots are not forbidden IN the TOS, one could assume they are allowed. But the fact that LL allowes them, knowing damn well they are there, means they are allowed. As I recall from a posting from Phil, he even discussed them with LL. But you are right, LL can adapt the TOS any time, like they did with gambling. I would not put my bets high on that, as they will get obsolete due to removal of traffic as wel know it (talking traffic bots here).

As for ethics: I did not see too many postings where someone explained WHY "gaming" search would be unethical. The reason I believe bots and picks camping are ethical:
- Both are available to anyone, so we do not have some secret advantage
- They are allowed by LL
- They do lead the potential customer to the items they are searching for in the first place, so no misleading.

@Zaphod: No I do not see the ethical challenge. What I do see, is the weird way LL handles this. If they want traffic to represent some kind of popularity, they could have banned camping and bots. But I guess the amount of users they can show is more important to them. So maybe, just maybe, the answer about ethics can be found at their office. They are after all the ones allowing systems that influence traffic. For what it is worth: I have been saying in the past I am against unlimited free accounts. For me, a pay-to-play mentality would have been a lot better, and probably have ment a lot less bots, but LL made the choice, not me.

@Chip: Very easy: I do not trample on my competitors. They do have exactly the same choices as I have, to optimize for search. What I see at the moment, is that in Search All, I am ranked higher then some traffic bot running competitors. Because I spent time to optimize. They simply chose another path.

Some extra information: Phil helped me a great deal to get to where I am now. This week I spent some time to help another furniture maker who posted in this thread, to improve his business. Do these 2 examples show people trampling on their competitors?
If a competitor wants, he/she can improve his/her ranking, and they even get help. So much help, that as a result I got a ranking higher then Phil He further optimized, so he is back at #1, but it shows out attitude towards competitors.

@Sling: You are wrong. The fact a handful of people look down on me for the way I do my business, does not hurt me the slightest bit. They are overshadowed by the amount of satisfied customers that thank me for my customer service, or simply for my products. The reason I keep posting here, is because I want people that read this thread, see different views, not just the opponents.

The weird part is: I do understand the people against bots/picks camping. Really, I understand where you are coming from. That does not mean I have to agree with you.
The sad part is, that there are only a few opponents in this thread who understand me, it seems. And that is what a discussion is ment for. To mutually understand eachother in the end. Not to prove who is wrong and who is right.

Where you are wrong in your writing, is the "what I do, benefits people as it saves then the effort" part. Though I do recall Phil saying something like that, I do not see it this way.
What I do benefits me. I have a business, and I want people to find me. Not with fake search arguments, but with the tools I have: Good parcel title, good description, inbound links. The people that find me, will find what they were looking for: low prim furniture.

Enough for now, I guess.

Not quite.
LL made a choice on account registration.
Some residents chose to abuse the outcome of that choice.

People who game traffic *choose* to game traffic.
Ad-farmers *choose* to extort.

Sling,
If from my posting this is the only thing from my posting you respond to, I guess we are done discussing. Can't say I did not try.

The arguments have been done to death, resurrected and done to death again. Responding to every single point that you make (again) would be tedious and superfluous.
What I am doing is taking pot shots at the odd point.
You come back with justifications for gaming traffic. I'll take pot shots if it amuses me to do so.
It's just sport now. The actual arguments are waaaay back near the OP.



You appear to say that you are trying to achieve a mutual understanding between the proponents and opponents of traffic gaming.

There are (at least) two very different meanings of the word "understand".
1) to comprehend, grasp the meaning of
2) to have a sympathetic awareness (of somebody)

It's clear that many people comprehend the reasoning behind the use of traffic bots and other gaming of the search system.
However, the comprehension does not mean that they accept the activity or have any sympathy for the perps. They will take every opportunity to shoot down attempts to justify the practice. They have no sympathy for your position.

They never will have.

You might have superior products at great prices and with great customer service. I don't know. It's entirely irrelevant.

LL not doing something about Traffic Bots because it would be impractical is quite a bit difference than saying they are specifically allowed.

From the way Phil spoke he asked them specifically a few times and they wouldn't come out and say they were not allowed. Thats a bit different than them putting down in writing that "Trafficbots and Traffic Gaming are allowed" Remember they will give no *SPECIFICS* on anything that is allowed or is not allowed. Thats been their standard operating procedure for years.

They will only broadly describe what is allowed or not when the situation forces itself.

So if the arguement is that LL has never said Trafficbots are not allowed, you also have to include the provision that LL has also not come out and said Traficbots *were* allowed either.

Instead its just undefined. However as you can see from the Jeska quote, the gaming of the traffic system has led problems for them.

Think a moment objectively - How practical would it be to ban Trafficbots?

Bot accounts have no special flag or code.

So it would involve some sort of code which might affect non-bots. That would be bad.

Or it would involve a AR report / Investigate system - which is already over-taxed.

If you want some evidence that trafficbots are a problem to the Lindens consider why they changed the search system after years .. Part of the reason, included in the Jeska quote Zaphod posted .. was Traffic Gaming.



I would disagree with you there, there are easily over a dozen posts on this thread explaining why people think the use of Traffic bots are unethical.



This ignores the fact that Traffic was intended to measure people going and staying at a parcel because they chose to go there.

With bot runners this measurement becomes irrelevant and the Traffic of the typical consumer is discounted.

As Que mentioned it makes the traffic system as useless as a traffic slider in the land settings.



This is actually debatable as I pointed out above.

However it really has little to do with whether the use of trafficbots would be ethical.

Just because something is "legal", doesn't mean it is right.



This ignores the fact the customer might have been looking for the most popular place of that type. Since Traffic Gaming ruins the link between traffic and popularity, it is most definitely misleading such a customer.

@Sling: The last thing I am after, is your sympathy. As said, we are done discussing.

@Colette: About the "bots allowed" subject.
The way I see it, is that Linden Labs give us a platform with much potential and many tools. In the end, they decide on how we can use that platform. Resulting in some things getting banned: Gambling, age play, and (most forms of) banking. Mostly because LL feared legal problems, but nevertheless they got banned.

LL knows about the bots, lets them run, and even profits from them (by showing higher numbers then there are actual users). To my knowdledge they never performed any action against someone for running traffic bots either. Which tells me that for the moment, they are allowed. And yes, that might change in the future, but we are not able to predict that. So how should being allowed be debatable?

As far as doing something against trafficbots goes, they are not even making an effort. Do not count traffic of users longer then a certain time period on a parcel, on the same coordinates? Disabling more then 5 accounts from the same user? Make botfarms AR-able? They are not even interested, at least that is what they show.

Then Search: Search is not changed because of traffic gaming, at least that is not what I can read from Jeskas post. Traffic is going to be changed, yes, the posting is about traffic.
The new Search All simply makes it way better possible to find what you are looking for, then the old one did. They went for Google, and it works out. By the way, Places Searches still is based on traffic, hopefully not for long.

Finally back to ethics.
You and I disagree about wether influencing Search with either bots or picks camping is ethical. Probably that is all wel can say about it. We both think different, lets agree to disagree.

An interesting remark is, because its legal its not right. Makes me think. Calling you names (in RL) would be quite legal I guess. But it sure would not be right. So you might have a point there. Then again, calling you names would probably be an effort to hurt you with words, and by running bots I still think I am not hurting anybody.

Your final staement is a good one. The customer might have been looking to the most popular one. That view on things might explain our different view quite well.

Are they? I dare to say they are not.
When using an average search tool, you are getting returned the most RELEVANT results, not the most POPULAR. Now of course each and every search engine displays some results based on payments (take Google as an example), but mostly the results are ranked in order of relevancy. Popularity DOES play a role in relevancy, but not by far the biggest one. A shop with 10 gothic clothing items and 90 sex animations, might be more popular then a shop with 100 gothic clothing items. So if I search for Gothic Clothing, I expect to get back the 100 items parcel, not the most popular.

Bringing me to my last point regarding Picks paying. In Google I can pay money to be in the sidebar or on top of the page, when a search is performed for my search words. How much different is that from picks camping?

On Google, that side bar placement is specifically designed and intended for people to pay for placement. By the way, you have that exact option in Search today.

Resident picks in Second Life are specifically designed to be a tool for Residents to show their interest in a particular place. Picks were never intended as something to be bought and sold for purposes of gaming search rankings.

Correct.
But the question remains why are people interested in a particular place? People getting money are interested in the place. No matter what was intended. With the knowledge that picks influence your Search result, from a business point of view you have to make sure you get those picks. People not using the Picks for other purposes are happy to get some lindens, I am happy with the result. Searchers find what they are looking for. Almost everyone happy.

No. People selling their Pick space for money are interested in the money, not your place.


No again. You don't HAVE to buy those picks. If you want to buy yourself some better exposure in search, then buy a classified, or a paid placement. That's what those tools are there for. There are countless, hugely successful businesses in Second Life which don't rely on traffic inflation or other manipulative tactics.

The bottom line is that you are misusing a feature set to gain a perceived business advantage. The only reason you are "allowed" to do it is because Linden Lab has no practical way to stop you from doing it. That doesn't make it "okay". It's a pretty shitty thing to do.

I'm done with this.

Half the picks for my place are payed for, the other half not. One half likes my place for what it is, other half for the fact I pay them. Both are as effective.


Now I do wonder who at Linden Lab you spoke, since you seem well informed. Last few Lindens I spoke with about this, did not give a damn and assisted me in finding out which Picks to pay and which not.
Calling it a shitty thing, does not impress me much, though Sling seems to think I come back to the thread for this kind of things


Well, okay

A Linden helped you find people who would sell a spot in their "picks" to you?

Or is something being lost in the translation.

Not sure what the Linden told Marcel, but it's pretty easy for a script to know which accounts can generate IBLs from a Pick and which can't. From what I've seen, though, I still think there's some more magic that's not public, so maybe the Linden let some of that leak, too.

No, though that would have been quite something

What I ment is that they helped me in finding out which profiles are showing up in Search, so they are adding to my search results. They confirmed to me that NPIOF accounts did not add to my Search results, and from the start I was very clear, I wanted to pay for Picks that benefitted me. So they helped me out in what type of profiles were beneficial.

Why would some accounts not produce IBLS?

SO why is it that NPIOF accounts do not contribute to your Search Results do you think?

What Marcel said: some don't show up in Search--there's no web page associated with the account. It's not as simple as NPIOF, though. I never really cared enough to figure out what the agent has to do in-world to get a web page created, but the script doesn't have to care: it just has to know whether there's a webpage or not, which is easy.

Now, if one were creating alts to fill Picks without paying, obviously one would have to know more details about how to get webpages for those alts, and any other magic that might prevent them from counting as unique IBLs.

Wish I knew the answer to that one.
Somehow only persons with either Payment Info on File, or Payment Info Used, generate their own HTML page. You can check that one, by searching for a name in the new Search All. NPOIF accounts do not show up.
If an account does not generate their own HTML page, no Inbound Link gets generated either from their picks. So, their Picks are not doing anything for ones search results. Weird but true.

One big but: there are a few profiles with no payment info that do show up somehow. Wether that is a glitch in the system, or some other mystery, I would not know.


@Qie: LL did no more then confirm the fact that Picks from NPIOFs do not contribute to search results. The reason I mentioned this, is to show how much LL is against this Pick paying. The ticket has been seen by more then one Linden, and the answer came from the team working on search. And from the first start, I mentioned why I wanted to know.
Believe it or not, there is no magic involved in getting a good ranking. Research yes, magic no.

Doesn't it seem interesting that not all accounts have their "Picks" count? ... If the Lindens really were such big advocates of Search Ranking gaming, you would think all accounts would.

I think the answer is likely pretty obvious, really.

They probably didn't want the trafficbot owners to just turn around and use their trafficbots "Picks" to game the new search.

I'm not going to try to guess whether the Lindens are pro-Pick-paying or not. I'm reasonably sure that the whole design of the IBL model was done with less serious thought and in less time than Cory's one-night creation of LSL. And that leads me to suspect that anything one does to "optimize" IBLs is just a temporary thing, until LL revisits what nonsense it's created here.

But unless things have changed, the NPIOF status is *not* adequate to determine whether a webpage exists for an account. See /327/16/235969/1.html, starting around post #50. [Edit: While I was hunting down that thread, I see Marcel mentioned "one big but...", so this matter is already covered in his post.]

And I think there's more than just that subtlety; I have pretty good evidence that IBLs from an account that doesn't login for a while eventually stop counting. I have no idea how that's happening, and maybe it was just a temporary fluke, but... well, obviously, YMMV.

This makes the Lindens sound incredibly lazy.

Or incredibly busy. We residents spend hours and hours trying to deconstruct blog posts and reverse-engineer technical features to understand the Deep Underpinnings of the Linden Mind, when I suspect the subject under analysis is often the product of a hasty decision under extreme time pressure to get on with the next crisis.