BOT places! List them here!

Let me see now. Is there a key word in the 3-word phrase? I don't see one. Hmmm. Let me look a bot closer...

A scam is a "fraudulent business scheme; a swindle"

Oh to heck with it Chip. I can't be arsed with you. It is just so silly to believe what you wrote about it. You know exactly what a scam is.

Um, wow. Just... wow.

The light has dawned?

Yes indeed. Each of the 3 words is key to the meaning of the 3-word phrase. That's why there are 3 of them. 1 word on its own doesn't convery the meaning of the phrase. In fact 1 word on it's own means something different. It's only when you put them together that they take on the precise meaning of the phrase. It's easy when you see it, huh?

Hey!
I just thought that I might comment on this one.
I don't need looking after.
In my experience of on-line fora, one of the major causes of drama is people coming to the defence of other people. That always seems to inject elevated passion.

I don't feel in the least insulted by any comments here.
In order to be an insult, it would have to come from someone That I consider to be worthy of respect. It would also have to be accurate.

If I use a term here such as 'cheat', 'thief' or 'griefer' I am trying to describe the actions of a person. I am describing my feeling about an activity.
When I used those terms, I explained the logic behind my use of them. It was not name-calling.


>>
"But if you call me a thief, don't be surprised if I call you a bucket of shit."
<<
Now THAT's name-calling


So please! Nobody try to defend me from anything or anybody.

Jesus Christ. Are you friggin serious?

It would be hilarious if it wasn't so creepily pathological.

I'd like to think it can be both

And now I know why Pie posted that story.

I think that your answers are helpful.
You are saying that you believe that the use of traffic bots is contrary to the design intention of LL and that they are subversive of the system.
Despite that belief, you use traffic bots, defend their use and intend to continue to use them for you own gain.


Then we move to the question of the systematic buying of Picks and/or use of alt Picks (as a form of bot).




I wonder if your estimate reflects the global situation.
I'm a profile junkie. I'm forever reading profiles of people I come across. Put me in a space with a bunch of avatars and I'll immediately start on their profiles. Guaranteed!
It can be a great way of discovering places.
In my experience, it is more common to find places in people's Picks than it is to find "My bestest, bestest friend".

Picks were not 'screwed' as an indicator of popular choice.
The effect of the personal friend picks is spread too thinly to have any significant effect on the ranking of the parcels encapsulated in the picks. Unsurprisingly, the parcels encapsulated in the picks tend to be parcels where people spend time. These could be their own parcels, friends parcels, or public parcels where they hang out. Guess what? The parcels in personal picks actually mean something in terms of where avatars like to be.



Picks started to be 'screwed' as soon as someone started to use them to game the search system.

You say that "Picks camping is only a miniscule amount of the 'screwedness' of Picks."
I don't know what data you base this on.
More and more as I travel around I see places that offer reward to people for listing the place in their picks. It's growing all the time.
If Paid Picks is not a major subversion of search now, then it's not going to be long before it becomes one.

Paid Picks are as much a subversion of search as are traffic bots.
You admit that traffic bots are a subversion of the system and contrary to LL's intentions.
I don't believe that your refusal to recognise the subversion caused by paid picks is any more validly based that is your defence of the use of traffic bots.

About the light dawning on him - no. About the meaning of a 3-word phrase - absolutely. That's why we use phrases instead of single words, y'know I'm sorry if it's beyond your comprehesnion. I have tried.

Picks have not been about popular places for a lot of people for ages. Ever since I got here I've noticed plenty of people with their friends in their picks and the idea that people enjoy hanging out at the store owned by a friend is stretching it somewhat, they do that to support their friend, not because they think the parcel is cool.

The point with picks is that they were being misused for quite some time but now because of how search works they have more value, so people pay others to list their places.

Picks are simply never going to be a fair system of popularity.

Phil

the other two words were "Business Scheme"

are you trying to claim you do not have Business Scheme?

Almost. They alter the listings - something that LL did not intend to happen. They don't change/alter/subvert the system though. LL allows them, and I'll continue to use them until either LL disallows them or there is no further use of them.

Yes they were. Ever since I arrived in SL (way before the new search), Picks have been used for both places and personal. You don't use them for personal things, but it's very unusual not to see personal Picks in someone's profile (I'm not a profile junkie but I do see lot of them).

No it's not. It is so common that my estimate is that it is more than 50%.

Sometimes they do, but there is no sense of popular vote in the randomness of those locations. They are just pictures of avatars wherever they happen to be at the time.

Picks were well and truly screwed for use as popularity in the new search loooong before the new search was even thought of.

My observations.

I can't argue with that.

In meaning, yes. In quantity, I don't think so.

It's just my view of it, that's all.


You use the word "subvert", and I've gone along with it, assuming you mean changes/alters. But you may mean "destroys", which I don't go along with one little bit. Nothing is destroyed by traffic bots and paid Picks. Something is changed, but nothing is destroyed.

People jockey for position when position matters. It's the way things are, and as long as LL accepts it and doesn't do anything to change it, and doesn't tell us that it's not allowed, people will jockey for position, like it or not. And as long as I consider it beneficial to me, I'll be a part of it.

I think the thing with the friend picks is that they are not concentrated. They are spread thinly, like background noise. They are not significant for individual parcels in the larger picture.
If there are particularly popular parcels that are listed in people's picks due to people liking those parcels, then their true popularity will assist in their ranking.
That is an entirely valid reason to use picks as a factor in search ranking.


That reasoning is completely destroyed by the use of paid picks.

You say: "Picks are simply never going to be a fair system of popularity."
This is correct only because people are setting out to game the system, thereby destroying the link.
Without paid picks, the system is a good indication of popularity.
Without traffic bots and camping, traffic is a good indication of popularity.


Which of these 'screws' the picks weighting?
1. Say four friends list me as a person in their picks.
2. Say I pay 400 people to list my parcel in their picks.


You *appear* to be arguing that because Picks is not a perfect indication of popularity, then it's OK to completely destroy it as an indication of popularity in the pursuit of personal gain for the parcel owner.

Exactly. Particularly when compared to wholesaling of picks to focus large numbers of IBLs back to a specific parcel.

No I'm arguing that no solution is perfect and people can and will game whatever is put before them. Picks are being gamed more now because their significance has increased dramatically. You're not going to stop that.

Its just harder to game picks than Traffic, thats all.

You cant simply create 20 NPIOF accounts and log them into your skybox to count their Picks like you can Traffic.

You are quite correct. Some people game systems as far as they can get away with regardless of the effect on value of the system for others.

However, that fact of gaming is not the core of this thread.

The debate is about the honesty of gaming the systems.

That's news to me

It started as a list of botrunning places, and since I said that traffic != populartity, it seems to have been about that - and that wasn't far from the beginning.

It's beginning to look as though my estimate of 50%+ personal Picks was rather high. I'm checking as people come to the store, and it looks like I'll have to revise my estimate. It doesn't change anything about my views though, except the degree to which Picks were already flawed when LL started to use them for the new search.

Two wrongs don't make a right.

So they were flawed? Doesn't mean buying of Picks is not wrong.

The implication of the "list" of botrunning places was to be a blacklist/shamelist of places that used traffic bots.
I don't think that anyone disputed that *current* traffic != popularity.
Had that been the topic of debate, this thread would have faded out in a couple of pages

The debate was about the honesty/morality of using traffic bots (and paid picks) to influence search rankings. That's where the heat got generated.

What utter drivel.

nothing convenient about it, I have been reading this thread from the start. I posted quite early on, asking what are bots, well before Phil mentioned happy customers.

You were rude to me........I don't really care, it speaks far more volumes about you than it does me.

Ahh I was? Hmm I just went back and retrieved the post.



There were no personal attacks, no accusals you were lying, no suppositions you were not telling the truth.

Or me simply stating why I felt you were scammed was rudeness?

Or was disagreeing with you over whether this is Marketing rude?