I agree that there needs to be an effective system of advertising, though I'm not sure what one can do that wouldn't be very obtrusive. On-road billboards would only make sense if SL were constrained to be a lot more like RL--you can fly short distances and teleport long distances, so who even sees roads much less billboards?

why not replace it with a relevance type search instead?

For that matter, paid classifieds need to go as well.

There is currently NO way for an honest person to survive with the current traffic system.

Kindly do not attempt to dissuade me either - I really do not care what 'evidence' you may forge.

I - and apparently others - simply refuse to use a system where its proponents actually admit that it IS a 'game' and not a useful system.

As far as relevance goes ... Never used Yahoo, Google, Ask or any other search engine? They sort by relevance. It is simple enough to work with if you actually use half a mind. Instead of searching for something as basic as 'dresses', why not be more specific?

It really is not that difficult a concept. Wow - instead of running a search for such a broad spectrum thing as 'dresses' and getting results that are nowhere near real, you could remove the false information and have a search engine that actually requires you to use that one, final, dying brain cell!

http://blog.secondlife.com/2008/04/28/second-life-showcase-popular-places-and-the-future-of-traffic/

Their plans are atrocious, and should be stopped.

I personally don't care if Popular Places stays or goes – I don't use it nor guide newbies or oldbies to it. But it is a place where people can enter the economy.

Take away easy, quick, non-obstructred, friction-free entrees to the economy, and people don't say. All the Lindens are offering as an alternative amounts to a mixture of their favourite FIC friends' stores and the kind of stuff you'd hear on National Public Radio.

Solar, I fail to see why having a metric of number of visitors used for search relevance is "a game".

And millions of people use Google ever day with precisely such "politically incorrect" searches as "dresses" and get some value of it, and begin to add other terms when they don't.

I don't have any alts, bots, devices of any kind on my land, and the traffic that my tenants or I get on parcels is a valid representation of visitors. I put my cheap rentals are separate parcels so the tenants can have media and ban powers, and I don't care if the surrounding commons has lower traffic even with a lot of their activity – it's good enough for sorting search/places relevancy even with only 250 or 1000. You don't need bots to make sales, and taking away the traffic that does help sort is wrong.

I fail to see anything wrong with that as a metric to be used in search.

I don't see why Linden-edited subjective choices of their friends and picks is some kind of normal substitute.

Imagine if Google sorted not by the number of hits an entry already had received in the past (traffic, duh?), but...what Sergei Brin thought was interesting. It wouldn't be Google.

As far as traffic based searches go ... I'd frankly have no problem with it being used IF the average person running the search actually took the time to sort through all the false traffic readings.

Seeing as most do not take that time - the system is now useless.

The false readings, just what you'd have to reject if you were using Google, that come up at the top sometimes, are quickly discarded. Most people automatically scroll down.

Pro-tip: stop using "search all". That's why you get so many results you don't want. This is common, especially among haters of search – they use "search all".

Try using the tabs. As if you were on amazon.com and not typing in a word to be searched in kitchen wares and everything else, but say, 'books". Like on amazon.com, in SL, you need to refine the search with the tabs like "places". Search/places works pretty well. It works to make most sales inworld. If the Lindens remove this, they will kill sales and kill the economy. That, of course, may be the idea.

Most people get around find and shop up a storm. Your particular cultural niche may not involve searching and shopping, but most people's do. Please don't impost your own particular micro-niche in the SL spectrum on the entire population.

'Gaming the system' is not the same as calling a game Prok - use your head please. It is another way of saying that people take advantage of the system. Another way would be to say 'the system is rigged'. Thought you'd know that.

That aside, attempting to discredit my view by being purposely obtuse does not work quite so well.

Thus far there have been NO plans to do away with the entire search system. what they do plan on doing is removing one of the most abused parts of the system. The rest is to remain intact.

Mercia - there has been no 'intolerance' here thus far. If you take a general, broad spectrum section in my comment (I was not talking to you anymore by that time) as being directed solely at you ... I doubt I have to finish that thought.

I frankly do not care what your credentials are, nor do I care for the tone of your response. simple fact: Most people in SL are far too lazy to spend that little extra amount of time to run a search which contains more than one word.

For reference - I am generally polite. That ends about the time I log out or otherwise feel that a person is being obtuse. In your case ... Polite stops at being talked down to by someone who may well have been abusing the system or simply allowing the system to be abused.

I agree completely. And this is not a technical issue, it's a social/political one.

Why should I be embarrassed? I am not the one taking a holier-than-thou approach or looking for holes in a person's legitimate comments.

As far as your response goes - if you are so concerned, use the IM system in world.

Frankly if other users are allowed to respond (the author of this 'issue' comes to mind as well as a few others) and be downright rude to someone simply because they disagree ... well then why not call them on it as well?

In any event this entire issue posting is irrelevant: Linden Lab has decided they are going to remove Popular Places and revamp the system somehow.

This entire thing is moot.

As I said however: If you have an issue with me, take it to ME, in world, in an IM and kindly be polite about it and leave the high horse at the door.

I think you'll find I am generally rather polite and kind.

Advocating for the preservation of the traffic metric may be viewed as "social" or "political" as you like – but surely no more than removing some forms of economic activity that people "just don't like".

Solar, cease YOUR assumptions, Using search/places isn't useless. It leads to sales. For huge numbers of people. Those oldbies with WOM Widgets, Inc. who don't find it useful need not destroy it for others in order to thrive. Diversity is the key here.

The system isn't rigged. It has an open and visible traffic metric that is merited on most lots. The gaming of some lots shouldn't discredit the entire system, and lead to destruction of merited sales.

I really don't care about the form and manner this discussion takes. It can rant, rave, use ad hominem, do whatever it wants. The point is for people to come to their senses about what they are destroying in the name of their Better World.

I'd like to see some empirical evidence, not opinion.

Search places works for me. If I search "prefabs" or "houses" I think my store gets somewhere on the first two pages- further up if Show Mature isn't checked. Given that I don't do anything at all to maximize traffic- no bots, no idling alts, no camping- I don't even do all my building there to eke out extra traffic, and yet my store still shows up in what I consider a reasonable ranking, then gaming of search is obviously something that's overstated. A search on houses pushes me below irrelevant rental office results too, but it's still OK. Publicly viewable traffic is an excellent search metric in my experience, and enables me to measure my popularity against other similar locations.

I have no vested interest really- my store appeared higher in the new style search last I looked, but it isn't as useful as a metric.

Mr. Neva, there is nothing at all 'political' concerning this issue. We are not making a choice that affects a country. We have no political parties. I will admit that this may well be a social decision.

When it comes to issues like this it really does not matter how many people any one user claims to support or speak for, in the end such claims are nothing but a load of BS. A user of Second Life can only speak for their own ideas and interests.

That said, it has been my personal experience that certain search criteria return so many useless entries that it is really not worth the time to bother looking.

I regret that removing traffic as a means to sort search results may hurt the legitimate businesses out there however, leaving such an abused metric in place can cause just as much damage - especially when you take into account the number of new users who still do not know that the system is abused.

Telling you all of this is about as useful as a sledgehammer blow to the skull is for getting rid of a headache.

Frankly, there can be no discussion if even a single party involved refuses to even consider another view.

Mr./Mrs. Albion: I notice that you demand empirical evidence concerning another's opinion. Such evidence is impossible to acquire without somehow polling all users or enrolling them in a mandatory survey to determine the usefulness of their search results.

However, going by your own words and comparing them to Solar's I would have to say that - to him - the results you have gotten while looking for your own business are unacceptable. Apparently he believes that even a single page full of hits which are derived from traffic abuse is too much and that the average user (which includes newer users) would not take the time to go to the next page.

While I do not wholly agree with his extreme view as to such a result, I do agree to his view concerning the average user. Humanity is currently obsessed with Instant Gratification, most expect a proper result now and not later. Most do not want to have to do any work to get or find what they want. This is a sad and true fact.

Personally I would like the traffic numbers to remain in place however, I would like them to no longer be used to sort the search results. find another method to sort the results and keep the traffic numbers present. Not a perfect solution, but i can work.

A metric that holds up the economy and helps most people make its sales isn't "aburd" or "broken"; it is, rather, a political issue for you and others simply because you perceive that it somehow damages your interests, or because you don't wish to have any economy at all (a political issue itself).

There's nothing whatsoever wrong with sorting search results by traffic, and ignoring the first few gamed slots, especially if the Lindens simply refuse to remove or license or charge for bots (they should).

The alternative involves privileged classes of people skewing the world away from its current democratic and accessible form through lobbying Lindens to put them in Showcase, a subjective notion, or paying huge amounts for classifieds.

You can't declare a topic a "Meta Issue" when it is already part of another meta issue – it is in the Traffic Meta issue which is Jira SV 1052.

There, I had to weigh in against also a very one-sided crowd trying to insist that a "meta" issue can only include anti-traffic measures, and no pro-traffic measures. So I added "keep it the way it is" as certainly a legitimate point of view for any meta issue, that should have pro and con.

And sorry, but this is going to be put back to "new feature" just as many times as you try to shift it, because it is indeed a new feature, in a context where the Lindens are announcing some form of changes to it, and in a context where a hysterical mob is calling for abolishing traffic as a metric for search relevancy completely.

If this formulation troubles you, if you disagree with it, that's fine, but don't try to monkey and disable and sabotage somebody's proposal. Accept that it has a right to stand as is, and move on. Go away from it if looking at it hurts your eyes. Go work to promote the proposals you do like.

It's this constant tampering with other people's content and proposals, and refusal to maintain even a basic civic tolerance of their articulation of their own point of view, that makes for such a Lord-of-the-Flies experience on the JIRA.

The purpose of JIRA proposals is NOT, contrary to popular geek culture, to create "wikis" where "everybody has at it and the strongest and most sectarian wins". The purpose is to articulate proposals, and see if they gain support or suggestions or not.

Leave it alone.

Prok, you may have added the words "Keep it as it is" to the title of SVC-1052, but as the comments there attest it is was me who asked the meta issue author to make it neutral. I did not find his changed title more than begrudgingly neutral, so thank you for finishing that job

Proposing features is a legitimate exercise. Especially when the Lindens have called on people to brainstorm about the problem with the gaming of traffic.

I've found it necessary to argue – legitimately – that traffic should be left just as is. I think other actions like licensing/regulating bots are more to the point to address gaming concerns.

When the Lindens are likely going to deprecate a feature, a proposal to keep it is indeed a new feature.

Knock it off, Nightshade, your agenda here is clear. And apparently you need some education: JIRA is not merely a "tech support and bug fixing tool". It is for proposal of features as well. Back off.

I'll just be reporting you for abuse of the tool instead. Weren't you already banned from the JIRA for doing exactly this?

That aside; I still don't support keeping traffic it is for one simple reason; it is far too easily gamed. In theory it's a great system, and in the early days when people weren't out to exploit and undermine every single system available, it was perfectly fine. A measure of time-spent on a parcel was great, and (when not gamed) it's a useful statistic to land-owners.

However, to consumers/search-users it is far too easily exploited and makes search results almost entirely meaningless, when the most relevant results appear on the last page of a search because other people are running bot-farms to artificially inflate their traffic figures. Linden Labs doesn't have the resource to properly regulate bots in this way, and even before bots camping was a huge problem; allowing irrelevant plots of land to jump to the top of pages, making it hard to find what you were looking for, or unfairly diverting traffic away from smaller businesses who are forced to bot-farm/camp-farm as well to compete.

As a result of bots and camping, traffic in its current state is completely useless, leaving us with a statistic whose values are meaningless.

I run zoned rentals – I have land on 70 sims I often share with neighbours. We don't use camping systems. We don't have bots. So the traffic metrics on our land are not gamed. Why should we be held hostage to ideological extremism from the aversions of a tiny minority who "hate" the low culture and sleasy business practice implied by camping and botting?

And I'm only one of thousands in these types of communities. There are thousands of private island rentals and venues of all types, from business to non-profit. None of them use camping. None of them use bots. Why are they held hostage to the views of a tiny minority that loudly expresses their aversion to the "gaming" of a minority of parcels in Second Life.

If you use search/places on any key word, you will likely find a) gaming of only the first few slots at best but more likely b) no gaming at all, and just normal traffic.

Traffic sorting of search/places is responsible for MOST SALES. It is the clearest form of search, as SEARCHA ALL is horribly cluttered with individual avatar profiles, even town halls and Linden office hours and bug hunting and all sorts of junk.

Search All, apparently due to Linden intervention sorting not by traffic alone, but by other indicators, is now far less filled with gaming – but it's results are often unusable, and yes, even with closed quotes, and yes, even with Boolean indicators blah blah. We're not stupid. We know how to use Google.

The exploitation that occurs is a function of a) the Lindens refusing to regulate bots by making them require payment and marking and b) the lack of available advertising space which makes people desperate to buy eyeballs for their venues.

There is a 0/1 thinking that often prevails in SL discussions which is really deadly – it says that because some tiny portion of a system is gamed, and it is not "perfectly 100 percent free of gaming" that you must therefore savagely destroy what every enables "gaming". This is totally throwing out the baby with the bathwater.

Linden Lab claims there are only 10 percent bot log-ons – that let's us know they in fact DO know how to recognize bots and COULD regulate them if they had the political will.

The idea that search is "useless" is sheer unsupported hyperbole, as thousands of people use it constantly to find and buy stuff, or go to events, or explore content. It's just not true that the system is "broken"; what is broken is this very skewed perception of a minority of people who insist on imposing their will on the economy in really scary ways that will destroy it.