BOT places! List them here!

Since Phil preaching about supposed Logical Fallacies ...

I'll point out a few ..

The idea that Gaming the system is okay because people do not object and that many business owner's do it is an Appeal to Popularity.

Phil's claim that some Linden said Trafficbots are okay and therefore they must be allowed is an Appeal to Authority.

The idea that Gaming the system is okay because the Linden's haven't said its not, and haven't done anything to stop it is Affirming the Consequent.

And of course the idea that the Traffic Metric never measured popularity because it doesn't measure popularity now is a case of Circular Logic.

Not that this is some debating society. Just that if hes going to claim other poster's arguments are fallacious he should explain why his are not.

Sling: You should try reading the posts once in a while. Except for your last one, the answers to your questions are all in this thread. I see no reason to regurgitate them.

Your last question:
No I would not accept that. To do so would be a huge leap of non-logic. If you don't understand why, there is nothing I can do to help you. Personally, I go along with what LL wrote, which is very different to what you asked about. If you don't know what LL wrote, it's your own fault. It's all there in this thread.

This isn't always the case.

In Bella's example she found what she was looking for. But often the Traffic gaming results in making it hard to find what you are looking for.

Since in my experience, a typical high traffic store has lower quality items in a particular category than one run by a creator I find via word of mouth.

So often it is the customer that suffers.

Phil what some Linden wrote you is not the same thing as saying what Linden Lab wrote.

There is a huge difference between the opinion of some Linden and official Linden Lab Policy.

You people should make up your minds about who it is we are scamming (you should also learn what "scamming" means). If we believe what you anti-bots write, we are scamming everyone, including Bella, since she arrived at my store via search.

Scamming:
A fraudulent business scheme; a swindle.

Would you like to explain to Bella and the thread readers how we are engaged in fraudulent business schemes / swindles with our competitors, Chip? Perhaps you would also like to explain how we are engaged in fraudulent business schemes / swindles with those who share sims with us. Or maybe you'd prefer to tell us all about *any* fraudulent business schemes / swindles that we botrunners are engaged in. Of course, you might prefer to withdraw the word "scamming" instead.

Uh oh the Pheared dictionary attack.

This is where I would point out Dictionary entries are largely put together by underpaid graduate students as fast as they can manage, and are left as concise as possible for space considerations.

hey

yes ive read 66 pages but not on one single day, however
@ phil
i think one problem is this 20 bots are "childagents" for other sims - lagcauser too
and bots on other sims would be "childagents" for your sim, imagine what will happen when all neighbor sims are full with bots or real persons - in worst case 320 childagents on mainland looking at your sim.
on private estates it could be more (up to 100 avatars on sim as i know)
on he other hand i can understand that a businessman will sell as much as he can and will have best ranking in search, cos newbie_customers are also blinded by high trafficnumbers

with your own island you could probably have more than 30 bots running and no neighbor sims with childagents will cause lag for you.

just my 2 cents

Your traffic numbers are fraudulent. You use them to steal a search ranking that rightfully belongs to someone else. You're squatting on resources that belong to everyone in your sim preventing anyone else from using them. If these concepts are too difficult for you to grasp you may want to consider enrolling in some rudimentary classes at your local community college, provided you've finished high school.

No, Chip. Read carefully.

Scamming:
A fraudulent business scheme; a swindle.

I repeat:
Would you like to explain to Bella and the thread readers how we are engaged in fraudulent business schemes / swindles with our competitors, Chip? Perhaps you would also like to explain how we are engaged in fraudulent business schemes / swindles with those who share sims with us. Or maybe you'd prefer to tell us all about *any* fraudulent business schemes / swindles that we botrunners are engaged in. Of course, you might prefer to withdraw the word "scamming" instead.

Go Go Dictionary Phil.

Maybe though you should go past the very first definition for Scam that you get on google.

(I know he used that one - I checked )

It didn't make any sense the first time, Phil. Maybe you should do a little more than just repeat it. I think Chip's explanation of your engagement in fraudulent business schemes was spot on. Covering your ears and shouting "I CAN'T HEAR YOU I CAN'T HEAR YOU" doesn't remove the truth from his remarks.

You don;t know what a fraudulent business scheme is, or a swindle? You've probably led a very sheltered life. Read up about the Nigerian scam. It should give you a general idea. I hope that helps.

Totally agree with Marcel and I imagine I am typical of most consumers in SL. We just want to find what we are looking for. We don’t appreciate being mislead with non relevant search material. I personally am only ever annoyed if the search material is falsified and they don’t have the product the search claims to have. . Like Marcel, I would be unlikely to return to a shop, that is deliberate deception. My objective is to find what I want in the least amount of time, without going to a million stores.

I found I was presented with a lot of options when I searched for particular items of furniture. Surely Phil isn’t the only one who uses this method of marketing?

Of course Phil isn't the only one, that is why its such a problem.

And its not Marketing.

Its gaming the traffic score by using alternate accounts so their opinion of what should be popular counts multiple times.

If I made a poll on this forum and then voted in the poll with 100 alts would anyone not consider it skewing the results?

Running trafficbots isn't any different than that. Its deciding what they say should be high on the list matters more than what other people say.

I'm not the one with reading comprehension problems, Phil.

To wit:

Fraud - 1 a: deceit, trickery; specifically : intentional perversion of truth in order to induce another to part with something of value or to surrender a legal right b: an act of deceiving or misrepresenting : trick

Why should one person's opinion of what should be high on the traffic list matter more than another's?

I'm simply giving you a perspective from the end user, most of us are not aware, nor do we concern ourselves with the politics. This is your argument, not mine.

In post #950, Phil wrote "Their argument is that traffic was intended to indicate popularity, which I've never disagreed with."
Let's take this to mean that Phil agrees that such was LL's intention. From watching him twisting and turning in this thread, it's not impossible that Phil was simply stating that he had never posted a disagreement, although he does not agree.
However, let's use a working assumption that he accepts LL's intention for traffic==popularity.

People who game traffic are working against LL's intention. They have destroyed the intended link between traffic and popularity.
They continue to subvert LL's designs by abusing the Picks weighting in Search.

By destroying the intended linkage and forcing LL to expend software development resources on developing systems less open to gaming, search-gamers are stealing from LL and from all of us.
Software developers that could have been working in improving Sl are diverted to mitigating the damage that search-gamers are actively working to inflict on the intention of the system.

Search-gamers are lower than griefers.
LL can use relatively lower-grade personnel to slap down griefers.
LL has to use higher-grade personnel to develop Search systems that they hope will be more difficult to game.


Phil tries to argue that traffic-gaming and pick-paying are simply optimization techniques, no different to the judicious use of key-words.
That's arrant nonsense.
Phil is a thief. Short and simple.
He and his sort impose costs on LL and divert development resources away from improving SL.

Griefers do it for the lulz.
Phil does it for the money.

Manipulating your search ranking *is* falsifying the search results.

The fact that you naively fell for the deception and don't realize that you've been conned doesn't make it any less of a problem.

Their store ranks at the top because they manipulated their ranking that way, the ranking is not "earned" in any conceivable way and the reason isn't because it helps people find what they're selling any easier, it's because it gets more sales at the expense of their competition which doesn't stoop to using exploits in the new search (or manipulating the old one).

Bot camping, pick selling is the equivalent of posting random spam of website links where ever possible in forums, blogs, comment sections...

It's not optimization, it's manipulation and gaming of the systems.

Tell me. What color is the sky in your world?

This issue affects all residents of SL in more than one way whether they want to get involved in the actual debate or not.
It does not really matter whether you are a satisfied customer or not. After all if you liked the things you bought you would be using a LM to go back to make repeat purchases and so really it is only what happened before you knew about the place that matters.

Before you went there however, you were probably already unaware that your choices had been fiddled with. Obviously you didn't feel that impact because your experience was still good. Had your customer experience been bad then you might have been more of the mindset of asking yourself why this person's place seems to be so prominent when it is so bad.

Just because your experience and the product was good does not mean there is not a similar product out there that you would be even happier with had you seen their place being more prominent and gone there to shop first.
These practices also prevent the rising prominence of a better quality place in the future unless they too want to use these practices. They would have to use them in an at best equal way but most likely it would result in an escalatory fashion. A hypothetical business would need to surpass the established business with more of the same practices instead of focusing on better quality or innovation to capture more of the audience.

It is not valid marketing because with marketing despite the successes there are also failures to capture audience attention and it is quite fickle - hit and miss, hence the ever changing creativeness of legitimate marketing. Casting a wider net does not automatically mean more people come. However using bots and the other techniques outlined here are guaranteed to change the audience attendance when employed in sufficient numbers as it eventually drops non participating businesses off the front page. For a lot of people what is on the front page is all that matters.

How many times should each person be allowed to vote in November?

The Emperor's New Clothes
by Hans Christian Anderson

Once upon a time there lived a vain Emperor whose only worry in life was to dress in elegant clothes. He changed clothes almost every hour and loved to show them off to his people.

Word of the Emperor's refined habits spread over his kingdom and beyond. Two scoundrels who had heard of the Emperor's vanity decided to take advantage of it. They introduced themselves at the gates of the palace with a scheme in mind.

"We are two very good tailors and after many years of research we have invented an extraordinary method to weave a cloth so light and fine that it looks invisible. As a matter of fact it is invisible to anyone who is too stupid and incompetent to appreciate its quality."

The chief of the guards heard the scoundrel's strange story and sent for the court chamberlain. The chamberlain notified the prime minister, who ran to the Emperor and disclosed the incredible news. The Emperor's curiosity got the better of him and he decided to see the two scoundrels.

"Besides being invisible, your Highness, this cloth will be woven in colors and patterns created especially for you." The emperor gave the two men a bag of gold coins in exchange for their promise to begin working on the fabric immediately.

"Just tell us what you need to get started and we'll give it to you." The two scoundrels asked for a loom, silk, gold thread and then pretended to begin working. The Emperor thought he had spent his money quite well: in addition to getting a new extraordinary suit, he would discover which of his subjects were ignorant and incompetent. A few days later, he called the old and wise prime minister, who was considered by everyone as a man with common sense.

"Go and see how the work is proceeding," the Emperor told him, "and come back to let me know."

The prime minister was welcomed by the two scoundrels.

"We're almost finished, but we need a lot more gold thread. Here, Excellency! Admire the colors, feel the softness!" The old man bent over the loom and tried to see the fabric that was not there. He felt cold sweat on his forehead.

"I can't see anything," he thought. "If I see nothing, that means I'm stupid! Or, worse, incompetent!" If the prime minister admitted that he didn't see anything, he would be discharged from his office.

"What a marvelous fabric, he said then. "I'll certainly tell the Emperor." The two scoundrels rubbed their hands gleefully. They had almost made it. More thread was requested to finish the work.

Finally, the Emperor received the announcement that the two tailors had come to take all the measurements needed to sew his new suit.

"Come in," the Emperor ordered. Even as they bowed, the two scoundrels pretended to be holding large roll of fabric.

"Here it is your Highness, the result of our labour," the scoundrels said. "We have worked night and day but, at last, the most beautiful fabric in the world is ready for you. Look at the colors and feel how fine it is." Of course the Emperor did not see any colors and could not feel any cloth between his fingers. He panicked and felt like fainting. But luckily the throne was right behind him and he sat down. But when he realized that no one could know that he did not see the fabric, he felt better. Nobody could find out he was stupid and incompetent. And the Emperor didn't know that everybody else around him thought and did the very same thing.

The farce continued as the two scoundrels had foreseen it. Once they had taken the measurements, the two began cutting the air with scissors while sewing with their needles an invisible cloth.

"Your Highness, you'll have to take off your clothes to try on your new ones." The two scoundrels draped the new clothes on him and then held up a mirror. The Emperor was embarrassed but since none of his bystanders were, he felt relieved.

"Yes, this is a beautiful suit and it looks very good on me," the Emperor said trying to look comfortable. "You've done a fine job."

"Your Majesty," the prime minister said, "we have a request for you. The people have found out about this extraordinary fabric and they are anxious to see you in your new suit." The Emperor was doubtful showing himself naked to the people, but then he abandoned his fears. After all, no one would know about it except the ignorant and the incompetent.

"All right," he said. "I will grant the people this privilege." He summoned his carriage and the ceremonial parade was formed. A group of dignitaries walked at the very front of the procession and anxiously scrutinized the faces of the people in the street. All the people had gathered in the main square, pushing and shoving to get a better look. An applause welcomed the regal procession. Everyone wanted to know how stupid or incompetent his or her neighbor was but, as the Emperor passed, a strange murmur rose from the crowd.

Everyone said, loud enough for the others to hear: "Look at the Emperor's new clothes. They're beautiful!"

"What a marvellous train!"

"And the colors! The colors of that beautiful fabric! I have never seen anything like it in my life!" They all tried to conceal their disappointment at not being able to see the clothes, and since nobody was willing to admit his own stupidity and incompetence, they all behaved as the two scoundrels had predicted.

A child, however, who had no important job and could only see things as his eyes showed them to him, went up to the carriage.

"The Emperor is naked," he said.

"Fool!" his father reprimanded, running after him. "Don't talk nonsense!" He grabbed his child and took him away. But the boy's remark, which had been heard by the bystanders, was repeated over and over again until everyone cried:

"The boy is right! The Emperor is naked! It's true!"

The Emperor realized that the people were right but could not admit to that. He though it better to continue the procession under the illusion that anyone who couldn't see his clothes was either stupid or incompetent. And he stood stiffly on his carriage, while behind him a page held his imaginary mantle.

So in other words, you were not certain if you had, in fact, ever found yourself in his store, but then you coincidentally discover that ...



So in other words, you could not recall the dozen or so items you had purchased at Phil's store, as he so aptly mentions below, until after having posted on this thread and doing a random search to see if you had?





Let's put things in their proper perspective, Bella. Yours is not an unbiased, "most of us," end user perspective. Your perspective is that of Phil's and the other pro-BOT people in this thread.

If you are Phil's friend, and/or you feel compelled to post and defend the pro-BOT voices on this thread, then do so unashamedly. Doing so from a perceived unbiased customer's perspective only serves to discredit his, and the other pro-Bot voices on this thread.