BOT places! List them here!

Well that is even what I said in my posting. Technically it is not the same, but as you say yourself, this is the key to many discussions, so why not avoid it. When I say someone is not telling the truth, I know that I do not call them a liar. But I also know that changes are big they think I did


In fact this is the only thing that actually bothers me. No matter how precise we are replying to postings, many take out 1 thing the reply to, and leave the other bits. It shows to me they have no more arguments on that particular part, but it would be more gracious to admit that. But hey, we indeed are having fun

Is this some kind of cultural problem? Other side of the railroad tracks or something?

@Rebecca:
Feel free to see lying and deceiving as alike, I do not care. Its not true and you know it.
If the fact that I state they are different makes you believe I admit the fact, that running bots is deceiving, you clearly are lacking the ability to have a sensible discussion (surprise...).

Don't let me stop you from making more postings, but don't expect me to react to them either.

It really is no wonder.

Per the dictionary -

Lie, Lied, Lying;

1. a false statement made with deliberate intent to deceive; an intentional untruth; a falsehood.
2. something intended or serving to convey a false impression.

Given the above "official" dictionary definition of lying, it is certainly apparent that the use of Traffic-Bots as a statement or act deliberately intended to falsely increase traffic numbers, thereby causing them to leap-frog ahead of their competition in "Search," in an effort to convey the false impression that their particular business is "more popular" than their competition, does indeed accurately fit the definition of lying AND deceiving.

Any further issues and/or disagreements should perhaps be taken up with Webster himself, which I've no doubt the masters of "spin" and "word play" in this thread will no doubt attempt to do.

If you remove the baggage of previous posts and comments, saying "What you just said is not true" does not carry a lot of weight IMO, not when it is accompanied with an explanation that makes it less, rather than more, personal. And "You are mistaken" can easily be a perjorative with a simple accompanying phrase (such as 'You Idiot!' - OK, pushing it a bit). The real issue is that this long ago ceased to be a reasoned debate for many and they rush to respond from first reading, and often they have more than half formed their response based on what they expect the response to be to their previous post before the actual response is posted. At least it reads that way to me.

See this a lot in Use Net - sometimes to ludicrous extremes beyond what is seen here - some of those people haved formed 'friendships' that go back years and their responses careen off of the first several words of the previous post. Great exercise, reconstructing what was really posted to what the person thought was said, based on their response. Complex conversational connecting the dots, punctuated by a lot of mental, "Uh, well, no, not really". I would love to hear a psychiatrist's opinion of these use net threads that alternate between two people in some opposing but symbiotic relationship that almost excludes all others from the conversation.

Still, not my problem, and if someone enjoys the conversation, why not? Like I said, seen worse...

Actually no Marcel that is not it.

I am perfectly capable of the point by point argument style. It however leads to a needless escalation and posts that become exceedingly long as each point/counter point expands each post responsively.

for example if I make 3 points.

And you when "refuting" my 3 points make 6

Then I refuting your 6 points make 10 ...

and so on.

It leads to convoluted garbage that soon clouds the topic in minutia

So instead I focus on whatever point(s) I feel is most relevant to the actual discussion or current tangent.

To be realistic, I think very few of us would actually expect Phil to stop gaming traffic.

At this point the system is so ruined you would never convince enough people to stop anyway.

I think many of us are simply more frustrated by the continual justification of a practice that is obviously cheating the original intent of the traffic system and the devil-take-those who it hurts attitude that goes with it.

Well I'll be damned... the difference between lying and deceiving is less clear then I thought. The best part is that I found the best explanation of my view on stanford university, the philosophial department So about this I owe you people an apology. See, I am not too big to admit I am wrong.

@collette: (sorry for leaving out the aps, I have to use cut and paste to type a c sine my keyboard is broken).

You are not really one of the people I ment with my remark. Your answers are often quite short, but at least you do an effort on answering the post. I have seen many times that a out of a big post 1 line gets quoted, and important pieces are just not replied to.

Furthermore you say "many of us" in your last posting. Are you sure it is many? Beause I sincerely doubt that. Does not make your opinion less important but it does show quite a different view on things.

Well you are right in that I am speaking for myself. When I used those inclusive terms I was just summarizing the gist from what I could make out of the last 10 or so threads on this topic.

I would be surprised if people actually think Phil and others would stop using Trafficbots in the current system.

I think people are jaded enough to know it won't happen.

--------------

Its a bit like the "Is having a cyber relationship cheating?" threads. There are a lot of married people hiding their Second Life activities from their spouse that will go to all ends to justify the activity. They simply refuse to allow the word cheating apply.

I doubt anyone actually expects them to stop what it is they feel they need to be doing, but the continual justifications are grating.

There is nothing to answer or be philosophical about, cheating, deception, lying about traffic, is just that, no matter how you justify it. there is no hairsplitting or room for word games about it.

As far as your suggestion that only a small group would care. is like saying, "people love being deceived."-----part of the deception is they do not know.... You are suggesting the majority of people are morally bankrupt--or that they just don't care.

Sine I was wring about the lying-deeiving thing, let me answer this one then, even though I said I would not discuss with you anymore.

You know that I do not agree with the morally bankrupt, even though I do love the term What I do mean is exactly what you are saying: They just do not care. Yes, I am convinced that the majority (and even that is an understatement) does not care a bit. Only a few people react in these threads, lets say a dozen. How many people will have read it? Of course we will never know for sure, but my guess is that most people really do not give a damn about traffic bots. And paying for Picks? I pay more people then the ones reacting against bots.

People don't care about alot of things until it hits home. When people get cheated suddenly they care.

You aren't thinking ahead. Like I said to Phil, doing things that undermine the ideal SL is like setting your house on fire to keep warm. Another expression is cutting off your nose to spite your face. I also think this applies to LL as well, for letting the various scams and deceptions run rampant. The don't seem to act until a legal boom is dropped or the mass media climbs on them.

The deceptive use of traffic bots encourages the idea of gaming the system and just like email gets overun by spam, SL as it is will attract all the international scammers who have no ethical compunction to avoid such behavior.

Without ways to stop it, it will be like sweeping back the sea to remove it from Second Life.

Since you've had word issues I'll show the dictionary definition of "compunction" before hand:

1. A strong uneasiness caused by a sense of guilt.

2. A sting of conscience or a pang of doubt aroused by wrongdoing or the prospect of wrongdoing.

Hi Colette,

I do understand your perspective and perhaps, yes, there is a certain amount of self-justification going on.

In my experience however, in any argument, once you start to attack someone on such a fundamentally personal level as their ethics or morals.. you lose the argument.

You may be right, you may be wrong.. but you polarise the sides to an extent that a constructive agreement will never happen.

Who, rightly or wrongly, is really going hold their hands up and say "Yep you're right.. I'm a morally bankrupt, unethical villain"..? I suspect no-one.

Who knows. maybe the motive of people in this thread isn't to reach a mutually agreeable concensus.. maybe it is just to prove that "I'm a better person than you".. in which case, please proceed..

In any event, if we can leave personal animosity aside, isn't there a question to address as regards LL's position in all this.

From my reading around the subject, while they admit that the current "popularity" metrics have been gamed and need to be addressed. There is also the suspicion among commentators that if not spun correctly there will be some red faces in the LL marketing department when the BOTs go and the true population statistics are revealed.

B

.

another Botplace with more than 30 Bots on a bunch

Southern Cross Shopping Mall @ Mingaloos Way
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Mingaloos%20Way/192/18/6312

LOL I don't expect anyone to admit they are a villain either.

But if someone is going to come out and say there is nothing wrong with gaming the Traffic metric, I am going to tell them they are wrong.

And if anyone thinks I'm going to be scared away by the insults and constant slippery definitions of a certain poster, they are loopy.

Thus if they don't like being told gaming traffic is wrong, they should stop saying gaming traffic is right.

Simple.




This is a good point.

Linden Labs gaming in the larger sense of traffic would also be wrong. Which I have said many times in the past

I've always thought that intending to deceive is lying -even if the person wasn't deceived. No arguments from me about that. Having said that, deceiving people is not necessarily lying. It's the intention and the knowledge that makes it lying or not. I.e. you can say something that you believe to be true, but isn't, and the person is unintentionally deceived. Or if you know that what you say will deceive someone, then you are lying, even if what you say is actually true. I've no idea if people can understand that, but it is true imo.

I won't go over all the old considerations about deceiving again, because they've been done to death numerous times in this forum. But I will say again that I don't believe for one second that people who use the Places tab search make judgements according to the numbers. Therefore, I don't believe for one second that my bots deceive anyone. Feel free to disagree, but it won't make any difference.

For the information:
As a result of parts of this thread, I've actually asked strangers in the store (not many) what they thought of me using traffic bots to get high in the rankings (after finding out that they came from search) and, so far, nobody has minded one little bit.

On the other hand, a girl just said this to me - "Phil, this may be my favorite furniture store in SL." It was her first visit, we weren't in conversation, but she felt the need to come up and say that. I get those sort of comments a lot when I'm in the store, and even via IMs when I'm not - all from strangers.

I really don't believe that the SL population as a whole minds one little bit about how I get high rankings. The *only* thing they are concerned about is that they find what they expect to find after reading the place's text in the search results. The only people who do mind are the few vociferous ones here. And I truly do believe that many people who find my store via search would be very glad that I used bots to help them find it. Also, I do not believe that anyone, except the few here, would feel in any way cheated if they learned that they'd arrived in my store because of bots. The ideas of cheating and deception are only in the minds of a few people here, and there is no way that I'm going to change anything just to satisfy those few.

My memory on the point is quite clear.
When I started using Search, I understood that the traffic numbers indicated the numbers of my fellow residents frequenting those places and the time that they spent there.
It's absolutely intuitive. Higher traffic number = more interest by my fellow residents.
I later found out about traffic bots and camping. When I did find out, my opinion of the people who did that was that they were dishonest. I still think that. They are scammers and cheats. They are no better than spammers.

I think it's because I came here later than you guys but I'd never ever think that higher traffic numbers in RL or SL meant more interest, i'd always wonder if they were tempting people with offers or bloating figures via some other means.

doesn't this in and of itself say something?

I came at the same time as you, and I also thought that about the Popular Places tab, but never about the Places tab. So it isn't "absolutely intuitive" at all.

It says I'm a cynical so and so

What did you think the "TRAFFIC" numbers in descending order stood for?

cynical why?

Because you'd seen your share of scams in the past perhaps?

I see misleading figures all the time, I also work with stats in my day job.

"There are lies, damned lies and statistics"

I've always stuck by that opinion.