It is a discouraging practice. For new members to see so many fake accounts it gives me the impression that the true SL Culture as intended is a failure and is only propped up by these fake accounts. Does anyone remember the Enron scandal in Real Life?

ConductorX Nieuport - Premium Member

Last night I clicked on popular places--and If memory serves me correctly they report traffic figures above
100,000 a day. Guess what! I counted 3 people walking around. 3 people! I hunted until I found some of the alt cans. I stopped counting at 70 alts and most had ten pictures of the place in them to create inbound
links to game the new search engine. How many people did the land map show were currently on the property? 92.

This is getting way out of hand. Abuse like this it getting worse by the day. New People have to struggle to see what is truly avaliable here--------they are simply funneled into the Alt Denswhere they hit huge lag, or crash, the find no other shoppers (even thoug the map says there are 20 or 30 --or 92 people there) then they find the same stuff for sale wall to wall. After a while-they start to sense that something just is not right-and it is NOT right.

Obvious abuse of the system like this should carry a strong penalty by TOS. It is cheating everyone in SL shoppers and legitimate content creators alike. It's not hard to prove that it is going on----just go there!

What matters now-is not what someone creates here-it's how many alts he can generate to have a chance at getting someone to see what he made!

Also these traffic farms significantly devalue the Key metrics data for per hour use and total hours used. When you have thousands of traffic bots logged in 24 hours a day you can be the total hours are going to go way up.

Linden Lab knows this data is serious skewed yet continue to let it go for their own reasons. They are no better then the traffic farm operators.... Maybe worst because people are using the Key Metric data to decide if they want to try SL for business.

They need to go back to limiting the number of users per IP address. 5 should be more than enough per IP. If one needs more than that then they can ask LL to make an expetion with a valid reason.

PLEASE, LL...implement this!

In addition, go back to limiting alts to 5 per user.

When shopping, they should be able to trust that search results will reflect the places people most like to shop. Likewise with dancing, clubbing, etc.

If traffic statistics can be distorted by camping bots, then the concept of the popularity of a place becomes meaningless.

It is a form of deception to use camping bots to make a place appear more popular than it actually is, and as long as LL allows this distortion to take place they continue to participate in this deception.

they can't.

When they opened sourced the client, they gave the keys away to how to connect to second life, which means anyone can connect as long as the follow the rules. Any action required to detect wether a user is a "bot" can be automated.

The best solution I can figure would be for you to challenge inbound users with a llmenu(LSL scripting language...) and if they don't click ok within a certain amount of seconds, send the bot home or ban it temporarily. Even this could be automated though, so obviously your going to play a cat and mouse game with bot creators.

Since any kind of Traffic Count to a place can be manipulated------get rid of it all together.
But at the same time, dramatically enhance the visability of what is offered. This can be done by providing images of the items and good descriptions.

In other words----make it easy for people make a judgement on the PRODUCT OR SERVICE through search so they can THEN decide to go there or not. Right now---search works the other way around.

If Search focued on products FIRST, people could find what they are looking for, Creators will have to compete by quality and price (or they won't sell much), and scammers that don't really put any effort into anything will find that very few people show up.

The limit of 5 per email address still exists. Limiting them to 5 per IP address is highly problematic (e.g., a PC shared by 7 housemates). Get back on topic this is a meta-issue about traffic.

Please stop this attack on alts, they are very useful, and my island has very low traffic (under 1000), so obviously I am not using them to generate traffic numbers. In fact my alts are generally used for activities away from my island (e.g., roleplay).

AFAIK it works like this : you visit Google and search for something, they deliver a page of results and you start visiting the links. If you click on the first link, spend 10 seconds on the site then go back to the Google results and click another link then Google assume the first site did not contain relevant information (or was just crap!) and they down-rate it slightly. On the other hand, if you spend 10 minutes on a site Google assume you found (some of) what you were looking for and up-rate that site.

If Traffic was eliminated from Search and replaced with this type of 'Linger' rating we'd get much more accurate search results and bots and camping would be instantly irrelevant as we'd only be measuring 'engaged' and active users.

Has anybody considered the peculiar effect that removing Traffic ratings would have on the economy? Now that new players start with absolutely nothing, they rely on camping for their first taste of inworld commerce. If you cut off traffic, then camping chairs serve next to no purpose and newbies are left without ANY income outside of perhaps Money Trees and getting themselves added to spam lists via "surveys". People are much, much less likely to put money into the system if they've never had a taste of what money can buy--cutting them off will NOT encourage them to hit the PayPal, it will simply encourage them to do as little as possible.

That said, I do think that Traffic stats for Search purposes are largely useless at this point and any kind of modification or Turing testing would simply get worked around some other way. I think a greater emphasis on keyword searches (granted, those can get gamed as well, though with perhaps less lag involved!) and maybe even Resident ratings of places (though again, with risks of 'gaming' the system) would work better and Traffic simply be discarded as the inaccurate measure that it has become.

And when the "Users Online" stats drop accordingly, Linden Lab should just admit that the stats were skewed and celebrate the fact that they will have become a better measure of the active population.

That's not the way it works - it doesn't measure static users in one place, that's what Traffic does now! It measures the activity of real users as they use the Search system. Only users that actually DO stuff inworld, moving from place to place and using Search to find their way, would be influencing the stats. If someone tries to game it with new Search-bots it's easily spotted and ignored - same as Google filter out spammed websites now.

The hatred of camping and bots is heavily and hysterically exaggerated. Anyone who spends a great deal of time inworld with a business, travelling all over the grid, sees that sure, there are some spots, especially those in the Popular Places, that are gamed – I would estimate a few hundred. But thousands more remain not gamed. Thousands upon thousands of small businesses of new people, in new continents, compete with each other and form useful clusters of business along one theme or language or neighbourhood precisely with traffic that isn't gamed, but might only be 400 or 1400, to help people distinguish from 4 or 40.

I've cited all the argumentation against the very persistent and vocal view who keep arguing to bag traffic against the silent majority who benefit from traffic and are not urging that it be removed.

Indeed, because search plus places plus traffic accounts for the overwhelming majority of sales/transactions for people, killing traffic that helps organize such sales, would be a horribly blow to the economy.

The relatively few gadget makers who scorn traffic and malls and commerce they view as tacky, and insist on everyone having their business model of selling from world of mouth or off websites like Slexchange.com, cannot be allowed to dictate their models, tastes, and preferences to the rest of the world.

CyFishy, when you write about things like Turing tests, I know that you must never have actually shopped and really studied this system. I'd be happy to take you on a tour. You can't look at this problem as an abstraction, and only fish out a few of the top 20 popular places and say OMGODZORS bots and camping and gaming and it's all crap.

Are you conscious of the fact that the overwhelming number of businesses do NOT use campers and bots? I don't use them or permit them on my lands; most rental agents, if they want decent FPS, and want to avoid in fact overtrafficking land and ruining people's pleasant experiences don't use them! Have you bothered to actually live and work in a world that might be different than yours culturally to understand this?

I do not want the few on the JIRA to decide this for the many inworld.

Answer: because they don't have a good way to retain people themselves, and need them to go somewhere to get fed a few dollars and oriented.

Could you just not look at the popular places listing, and stop visiting the parcels if it hurts your eyes? Just leave it alone. The world is big. Go to all the rest of the non-gamed lots.

why not replace it with a relevance type search instead?

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

Uh...you wanted to have it all in alphabetical order? By account types (as Carl Metropolitan has suggested, with concierge-level customers having more traffic weight than others, and zero weight for no-payment accounts?)

Who is going to decide the "relevance" of somebody's parcel? You? The Lindens, with their Showcase?

The elegance of traffic is that it aggregates visitors and displays the publicly. That's very open and democratic.

In fact, this system is so open and democratic that you can obviously see the gamed spots. It's not like you are somehow misled, looking at a place with 90,000 or 100,000 traffic and its description involving camping, Lindens, nude girls, and business-in-a-box. You get what it's about. If you are new, and you didn't get it yet, you will once you TP there, and the beauty of the TP system with p2p, is that you TP out in a second and hit the 4th or 10th return on your list, and realize quickly within a minute how it works: those are the authentically popular.

Sure, it's cumbersome to create a system that requires on "lore" or "streets smarts" to function better.

But the alternative is to call "relevance" either utterly subjective factors like "The Lindens like it" or "Mikey likes it" or "most expensive classified".

In Google, how is relevance created? By...drumroll...traffic. Traffic as in "visitors to my site". You can't somehow get away from traffic/visitors/hits. Avatars visiting land and making a stay of some duration are "hits". They count. Hits count! Sure, all kinds of hypey SEO tricks exist to get hits and hit counters can be faked, but you don't say "Hey, let's dump this entire hits concept on the Internet, shall we?"

How many people in this thread and who have voted for this topic own land, and have businesses that depend on sales from search plus traffic plus places? Raise your hand?

Me.

returning results based on alphabetical order, direct relevance to the initial criteria or other methods however would make far more sense.

I am quite aware of the way most search engines handle such a function and I am quite frankly disgusted by it. 'Popularity' is not a reliable metric at all. In fact it is so unreliable that when I run a search - not in SL mind you - I give as much information as I can to narrow down the number of irrelevant returns I receive.

running a search for "Housing" for example will turn up any and everything with the word "Housing" in it - related to what I am looking for or not. Running a search for "Government Foreclosure Listings" or "Housing foreclosures" or even "Housing foreclosure Auctions" will usually give me results that I really need.

Taking your example Universal Infinity; government, foreclosure, and listings, are all words relevant to housing, so if a description contains all four words then a search for 'housing' should rate that description more highly. i.e. - since those four words appear together, they become associated with one another.

In this way it becomes possible to return relevance more accurately; as a search for 'housing' will return results that are as related to the word housing as possible, but if you use the word foreclosure it will still focus in more and more.

It can even be tweaked to punish listings that use too many relevant words, by keyword spamming. Sticking to the example a listing that just reads; house, housing, houses, home, live, etc. could be rated down for using too many relevant keywords and not enough other words (i.e. - it's a keyword list and not descriptive).

This kind of technology is possible, indeed a number of programs use it every-day to filter junk-mail by making 'junk' words more 'relevant' when deciding what messages to filter out. I see no reason it wouldn't work for search, so long as it is able to refine itself.

I don't know if such a feature exists within Google's search technology already; if so then it should be given the greater weighting, as it better rewards items that give descriptive, useful, and relevant descriptions of their contents, allowing us to get better search results.

It wouldn't be perfect, not by a long shot, but it's a lot better than primitive keyword search, and a lot better than a traffic-weighted search. That's all traffic is; a weighting, I can't count the number of times I've searched for something and received an irrelevant result that just happens to have high-traffic =(

When PLACES are NOT sorted by traffic, but traffic becomes only one of many arcane – and SECRET – metrics or relevance measures like picks or landmarks or inbound links or whatever – it is essentially removed.

And that's why I am putting back "or keep it as is" to the title of this Meta issue, because a Meta issue has to reflect all pros and cons to an issue. Those who oppose traffic for their own reasons cannot be allowed to skew the reporting on the debate.

You have your own, opposing related issue - leave this one alone.

Opting to keep traffic as it is, particularly for the search/places tab, is in fact actively considered by LL, is a legitimate position, and there is no compulsory default position here that the feature meta issue must only reflect "change". It can also reflect the status quo, given that the Lindens are tinkering with it and at this stage willing to hear a variety of options (or so they claim, by having round tables and solicitation of public commentary).

Please stop erasing this legitimate edit that accurately depicts all the proposals that fit under this Meta issue, because it's a political move designed merely to favour one position in the title.

To this end; when traffic is actually removed, this issue will be re-tooled to search-relevance rather than specifically the traffic stat, this way issues linked here are still relevant as improvements to search.

For your case, I think you would be better served by creating a separate JIRA issue and linking it to here since it is relevant. As it is, this meta-issue was created not specifically to group together all traffic issues, but all issues that are related to the removal/replacement of traffic.
You can then, with your issue, mark it relevant to the new release candidate, and seek to gather any support for keeping traffic, this way you can attempt to prevent the change if you want.

[edit] Looks like you've already done that with MISC-1122, this is correct, but the edit is not, as it changes the meaning of this meta-issue, and the votes attached to it, so I've put it back.

This issue does not have to reflect anything at all but what it was intended to reflect by the original poster - the removal, supplementation or simple altering of the traffic system.

Further abuse of the system to alter this issue to suit your own purposes WILL be removed.

End of story.

Keep your opposition where it belongs - in your own issue.

The constant editing of this JIR entry is also a reason why the filing of https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/WEB-382 is NOT legit. One cannot clamor for the ability to prevent others from closing/resolving issues without consent and then turn around and edit another issue to skew it away from its intended purpose.

The Lindens have not yet indicated they will take out traffic completely; they are tinkering with it; and even if they do take it out, so what? They may discover that it was a horrible idea, when they see how badly it affects the economy.

Therefore it is perfectly legitimate to keep the proposal in to keep traffic, and the description of the full range of issues, intact.

The idea that the Meta issue can only be "for positions I like" and not the full range of positions on that topic isn't supportable. You are merely trying to skew the debate.

I don't edit things merely to be contrarian. I edit them under the concept of principles. "Meta" means "meta". It means capturing all the range of proposals under a topic. It would be silly to create two separate "Meta" topics, one of which has only one proposal in it. Keeping traffic the way it is is a legitimate option and in the range under this Meta topic.

Proposing edits and sticking to the idea of edits isn't the same thing as constantly closing other people's proposals. I would never see a reason to close another person's proposal.

Both are a kind of power play and if one is to be prevented - then both are to be prevented.

Again, you have filed your own issue ticket to keep traffic the way it is and have linked it to this issue. It may not be getting its own votes anymore but it is present. There is NO reason AT ALL to continue to alter this issue entry.

Cease editing this issue to suit your own purposes ... The original votes registered for this issue were for a CHANGE to the system - not for the system to remain the way it is.

Once again - each and every time I see an edit to this JIRA entry that has been made with the express purpose of skewing the original intent and voter weight of this issue to your own purposes .... I WILL change it back.

You have your issue for keeping traffic, that's ALL you can do. This meta-issue is a weighted one, it is a proposal in its own right and therefore has two purposes, which you cannot just arbitrarily change on a whim. The issue serves to:
1. Gather votes for removing/replacing/changing traffic, regardless of implementation.
2. Grouping together issues describing possible implementations, as well as other related issues (like yours).

Some meta-issues may aim to be completely neutral, such as meta-issues created to fill a void in the currently available issue categories, or to group together by some other abstract concept. However, other meta-issues, such as this one, are for a particular purpose, in this case; removing/replacing/changing traffic. See some other issues such as SVC-241; it's purpose is to gather support for, and group together relevant issues related to, improving in-world privacy. If someone were to come along and change that issue to include /reducing/ in-world privacy then it would complete defeat the purpose. This is however exactly what you are doing when you change this issue.

Please stop performing edits to this issue which completely change its meaning, if you do not then I will have to contact a Linden to either lock edits on this issue to me only (if that's even possible), or revoke your JIRA access.

Exactly. That's why I've created WEB-382, that proposes that contributions cannot be closed without the author's consent.

Unfortunately, the very premise of the "wiki" enables anyone to edit anyone else. I personally think that's for the birds. I find it ridiculously inept.

But if they have such a system, then everbody gets to edit. It's not just a select few coders and their hangers-on who get to edit we all do.

I personally wouldn't see a reason to edit the text of someone else's proposals. I would mount an argument against it, and leave it.

But a META ISSUE is DIFFERENT. It's a META ISSUE, duh. It is meant to serve diverse proposals and be INCLUSIVE. That means it MUST be inclusive of all the suggestions in that issue, and not attempt to gather votes only for the author's pet issues.

I have already said this, and I will say it again; meta-issues are great for two things:

• Grouping issues that don't have a category, or are temporary in nature (i.e. - are related to a specific category of issue that will hopefully disappear once dealt with, such as fixing particularly awkward bugs where several solutions are available).
• Grouping together issues aimed at a similar goal, while allowing people to vote on the goal itself, rather than the means of achieving that goal.

This meta-issue is the latter, and 81 people have voted to that end. 81 people are voting to REMOVE or CHANGE traffic, thereby indicating their dislike of the traffic feature as it stands today. By changing this issue to include keeping traffic, you nullify 81 votes, and quite frankly you have no right to do that, as every one of them is valid. You don't like the idea of removing traffic? You have your own issue, if it accumulates more votes than this one, then it "wins"; that's how the JIRA works. It doesn't support yes/no or multiple-choice voting. You either vote for an issue, choose not to vote (abstain) or vote for an issue that proposes the opposite (vote against).

I've e-mailed Torley Linden, Torley is a supporter of meta-issues and has shown no problems with issues such as SVC-241 which are doing the exact same thing as this one (proposing efforts be made towards a particular goal, without specifying details). By your logic SVC-241 should reflect both improving and decreasing in-world privacy, which is just a nonsense goal.

I posted this issue, so I damned well know what I meant by it a heck of a lot better than you do, so kindly stop editing it because we have already wasted far more time arguing this than any sane person should. I want this issue polluted no further with irrelevant comments.

@Prokofy: If you disagree with the original proposal – please feel free to create another Meta-Issue with specific goals stated. This allows for diverse (and different) views to be expressed.

Please keep discussion civil; those engaging in edit-wars will have their PJIRA access removed.

You're taking a side in this dispute, and that's wrong, you shouldn't be doing this.

Anyone can see that "meta" means "meta". That means the title has to reflect all the issues underneath the "meta". The proposal I have made, MISC-1122 in fact is here in this meta issue. How can you justify that, and yet keep the title referring to only one point of view?!

"Meta" doesn't mean "focus", Torley, it means "all-encompassing". I'm certainly not going to create a separate fake "meta" issue that only portrays one side of the issues, that would be to succumb to the same tendentiousness and arbitrariness that the JIRA already suffers from.

Diverse views should be falling under "meta" tags, and the stubborn persistence in this by the original author is odd, as it detracts nothing from his proposal.

In fact, there shouldn't even be "votes" on meta issues, because it's not clear what you are voting for (and therefore it is rigged). It should merely be a helper in sorting issues by theme.

"meta" doesn't mean "my group of things I like" – it means "all-encompassing".

Do you think you can defy not only Greek roots, but common practice in this very field of computer science?!

Example, from PC magazine:

"Definition of: meta

One definition of this Greek word is transcending, or going above and beyond. In the computer field, it defines things that embrace more than the usual. For example, a metafile contains all types of data. Meta-data describes other data. See metafile, metadata and meta tag. "

Prokofy Dearie: Sorry, but now you are being rather literal. You do NOT get to slam other people for throwing the definition of ANY word in your own face and then turn around and use the same tactic.

Go look at some of the other Meta-issues filed here on this JIRA. You may find that the definition of "Meta" is different here.

In any event Dearie - it seems you need to behave now, as you've been told quite bluntly that the JIRA is not your personal playground or soapbox where you may edit a preexisting issue - one that you have already filed a counter-issue for - to attempt to skew it to include your own viewpoint.

Your own example of meta-data describes it just fine; this issue describes a set of other issues, just like meta-data can be used to apply album information to music data, or to group music tracks by artist etc. The difference is that this is an issue-tracking system, not a collection of raw data, issues generally describe themselves fairly well, so the role of meta-issues therefore is to describe common issues/themes that they solve. In this case, a load of issues relating to replacements or changes to traffic all solve the common issue of replacing/changing traffic, which in itself is a big issue.

This is the last I'm going to say on it though, Torley's reply (thanks for that!) sums up meta-issue use perfectly well. Meta-issues should have focus, that focus might be to group things together, in which case neutrality is fine, but a meta-issue can just as easily focus on some other specific purpose (like this one), in which case changing that focus is incredibly counter-productive.

Uh, "the definition of meta is different here"?" Another case of exceptionalism for the small JIRA cadre? I don't need to "behave" as I have not done anything wrong.

I don't view the JIRA as "my personal playground," I expect it to have the same common sense and rationality as real life, and not go down the rabbit hole with Alice in Wonderland and the Red Queen, where a word means what it means only because "I say so". We already have a history on the JIRA where words like "resolved" are terribly distorted and yanked around to accommodate strange politicized objectives, and they lose their proper association.

Clearly, what's happening here is that the titling of this issue by the original poster is what is skewed, as it accommodates only one viewpoint, and not the range. Indeed, the obvious absurdity is that this meta issue contains underneath it in a list of all the issues my proposal to "keep traffic as it is" and yet the title cannot reflect that inclusion.

Haravikk, indeed the Greek "meta" means across, or after as in beyond. That is a high-level issue, and that must span a variety of data, grouping lower-lever data. It's a set of issues – and you can't have 10 different "metas" on one topic "traffic," making up little grouplets, some pro, some con. Meta means "meta" – it's the top-level of a group, and that group accommodates all the different range of data.

It's an absurdity to think that "meta" means "focus" – that's absolute jabberwocky – when it means everywhere else on the planet, "across" and "beyond" – it must span the range of issues underneath at the next level.

It's wrong to assume that every one of these 81 votes is for every aspect of every proposal. After all, "keep traffic as it is" is one of the proposals! And even if it were not included, what, 81 people all voted for counting premium accounts only?! Of course not. Only some of them would accept that solution.

http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/MISC-398

It groups all issues tagged "meta" in one place.

Do a search on the word "meta" and note that in many cases, the usage here is to group a range of issues under one topic to pull them all together under one tag for easy finding.

Regarding your assumption of the votes logged for this Issue: They are votes for altering or removing traffic as a whole - not for any one sub-task or linked issue.

You do not get to dictate how other users file their issues - just as others do not dictate to you how to file your own issues.

Yes - you need to behave as your edits clearly altered the purpose of this issue and of course you seem to believe that this issue MUST include your viewpoint as part of the title. That is simply not the case as your issue is currently only linked to it- not a part of it, nor a sub-task.

I find it amusing that you run to another Linden when you do not get your way and yet when the author of this issue brings a Linden in to make it clear that further edits will not be allowed .... It is suddenly wrong to keep this issue as it was originally filed.

Frankly at this point I am quite done with attempting to talk any kind of reason with you. I should have known better anyway, as I've tried to reason with you before.

No more.

The facts concerning this issue are simple and as follows:

1. This issue is for changing or removing traffic as a whole.
2. Eighty one people voted for the original intent of this issue - see one above.
3. You have your own issue which is related to - but NOT a direct part of - this issue.
4. Only the author of an issue can decide what the intent is or decide which changes to the issue will remain at day's end.

further edits to change this issue to anything but its original intent will simply show that some people cannot bear to allow a focused issue remain unchanged.

Someone message me when a real discussion and/or debate pops up.

Votes on meta issues are very misleading as anyone can see, as not everyone voting to "do something" about traffic is voting to "do something by banning NPIOF from showing in traffic".

My proposal to keep traffic as it is – a perfectly legitimate feature proposal given that the feature may be removed completely – is included in this meta issue – and properly so. It has been included in it for months, since its inception.

People concerned about the gaming of traffic need to see the proposals to regulate bots.

Authors of meta issues including many people's different issues have to serve the public interest of making the system coherent with meta tags that group together ranges of issues. They cannot be allowed to skew the debate and collect votes for their own pet proposals under the guise of making "metas".

My use of 'Dearie' discredits nothing whatsoever. It is my pet name for individuals who have shown time and again that they cannot exist in a polite society and who show no care for civil discourse. It is - in effect - a pet name of extreme dislike, much like the labels you yourself use Dearie.

In short? You do not get to assign a label to anyone else and think it somehow makes your points valid if you then turn around and trash someone for doing the same thing.

concerning your assertion that your issue is 'included' in this meta issue Dearie - let's take a look at the top of the page shall we? Do I see your issue listed anywhere as a sub-task? Do I see it as anything more than a 'related' issue?

No, I - and others - do not.

Your issue is a separate one, only linked to this particular issue by a minor relevance and a feature set.

It is NOT a part of CHANGING traffic or REMOVING it. There is nothing contained in the text of it which suggests any sort of change or alteration to traffic OTHER than to leave it alone.

Once more: You do not get to call the shots on this Issue Dearie. You've been told not to edit it further and so far you've listened. However you continue to rant and rave concerning your own opinion and how it MUST be included in this issue.

Apparently at least one Linden says otherwise - as has the original author of this issue, myself .... and all eighty one people that have voted for a CHANGE to the traffic system or its REMOVAL. Proof to the contrary is required before even one of those votes can be considered to be for your own slant.

In addition any normal user of this tracker - anyone that actually READS the bloody thing that is - can rather clearly see your JIRA proposal WITHOUT having to alter the title and intent of THIS proposal. It's right there under the related issues section!

If that is not good enough for you Dearie - too bad. You are not the King of Second Life or of the JIRA. Your opinions do NOT need to pervade each and every little issue out there, nor does ANY issue NEED to be altered to suit your own opinion or morality.

Simple as that. Good day Dearie - Your irritating need to continue to stonewall your own opinion works far better than a cup of coffee. For that I should thank you.

As for restricting it to premiums, what a joke. Premiums make up less than 20% of the population, and are dropping every month. (Because LL focuses on shinies as opposed to fixing the core structure and bugs like they have been asked for more than two years, which is why we are finally seeing all the Key Metric numbers dropping, and LL's embarrassment at actually mentioning new Key Metric on the blog anymore).

Many of us who are not premium explore, run quite successful businesses (and we spend inworld since we can't take out, so are very important in redistributing wealth).

Anyone who supports the present system of traffic has a vested interest in maintaining it. Everywhere on the map you look there are bot farms. Often 20+ avitars, there 24/7. I do not support bots used to boost ratings in search. Personally I place classifieds which cost me a small fortune, but still have to leave my avitar on all night so at least we can raise a small traffic count so we show in search places!

Sooooooooooo unfair!

And what of the carbon footprint of all the computing power used to run these bot farms?

And how do they do it? Are they using servers from their workplaces?

Please please can God Linden address the traffic issue soon? This Jira has been open since December!

Can I suggest you do a resident survey with the votes counted and action taken asap?

My view is that traffic could be removed altogether if it cannot be based on a system which disragards bots,
would the number of unique visitors work?
What about counting payment info only avitars?

Comments such as DR Dahlgren's indicate what's wrong with the Mentor's program and indeed, the entire Linden philosophy around orientation for newbies. Even when confronted with overwhelming evidence that the lion's share of people coming into SL want to make money, which is perfectly normal and fine and healthy, they still impose an extremist ideological viewpoint on them that they must enter a communist collective and collect freebies, live off free stuff in crappy prefabs on freebie communes, and never seek to spend a dollar.

Linden Lab would never have any income if they used that philosophy on their own business – they don't run Linden Lab from volunteer help and cast-off old computers working in a federal poverty program subsidized storefront.

So why does Second Life itself have to be like this?!

Clearly, the perception that needs to change is in in oldbie mentors and Lindens, not the overwhelming majority of people streaming into SL.

I'm there because of large groups; because of lots of people putting my parcels in their picks; because of lots of search and classified ads – I guess, but I have no way of knowing as the Lindens won't tell us their formulas for traffic optimalization.

Despite these very easily confirmed facts, I am four-square FOR traffic because the combination of the use of SEARCH PLACES plus ordering by MERITED traffic is in fact responsible for MOST SALES in SL. That means content and widget sales – and again, that's not a sector I'm in, so I have no dog in this hunt per se, except some customers renting selling such things, but hardly a significant percentage of the economy in SL.

The economy in Second Life depends on SEARCH PLACES PLUS MERITED TRAFFIC. If you don't want to hear it from me; if you can't confirm it bcause you yourself are either a) not in business or b) in a very niched business solely dependent on word of mouth, which isn't the overwhelming lion's share of businesses in SL, then you will confirm it as you see the economy utterly destroyed if the Lindens completely remove traffic from the PLACES tab on the search menu. Let's hope it won't come to that because of this constant inciting of hatred of traffic, based on isolated political, ideological, and psychological beliefs that are not in the mainstream of SL.

Bots should be regulated, as I have said in my JIRA proposal to that effect, but if we're going to fuss about carbon footprints, I fail to see why we should limit our fussing only to bots, and not to your avatar left on all night, wasting your electricity of your computer as well, or not worry about any of us using SL.

So are you basically saying that traffic is not a factor anymore? And if so, why are you for not changing it since it would basically be a useless, unused number? And what is "merited" traffic and how is it determined?

Your laments are misplaced and you misrepresent the situation. Newbies do not come in looking to "get rich"; they come in seeking to make money. That's normal, healthy, and expected in a free society not hobbled by ideologies about altruism and freebies. And why is it ok to have free vehicles and clothing even on Linden Land, thereby giving free tier to some businesses, but it's not ok to give free CASH, which is much more useful to a newbie because then they can CHOSE their content instead of being weighed down by the lame creations of the ages that they can't even resell most of the time.

Why should someone have to create – or not make money?! Why can't they get money for free as any immigrant would expect to get a hand-out or a loan?! The idea that SL has to be some magical, pristine, idealistic utopian where people only endlessly go to building and scripting tutorials and make high-end content and earn "the proper guild way" is in fact a MMORPG artifact belonging to the Middle Ages.

Normal people in modern real life – of which Second Life is an integral part – want to make money, and that's fine. They are educated people able to run computers on the Internet, with disposable time and income, with DSL lines, just like yourself but not part of your cultural niche. But since there are more of them than you and your fellows who share this minority few hating newbs who want to make money (which is why you and the mentors are unable to retain these people), ways should be found to address this normal, human, natural need for money.

Even if you were to get rid of traffic metrics, people would still pay campers just to drag them to venues to see vendors which help tier their land and make a profit. So you will never get away from camping.

Yes, Harleen, gasp the Lindens ALREADY CHANGED traffic. For better or worse remains to be seen (problems remaining in search/all hobble sales and help explain the economic downturn).

Traffic is most certainly a factor in search PLACES as I've explained a million times, which is what MOST people who are not geeks seeking to incite a huge useless information dump in fact use in the real practice of real SL.

So no, I am not for changing – as I've said a million times – the search PLACES tab on the viewer, which is sorted by TRAFFIC. Take that tab out; take traffic as a sorter of the returns there, and you will have dealt a death blow to the economy.

Indeed, the perfect solution to make their noisy but beloved minority tech elite happy, but also prevent the ruination of the economy, is to leave search/places alone, letting it sort by traffic, but take traffic out of search all.

Is that technically possible? If so, search all will be all that other stuff that the Lindens believe is so "vital" to search relevance, like JIRA entries and office hour transcripts. Then you all can muddle around in SEARCH ALL to your heart's content, never having your eye balls sullied by that hatred traffic that puts you all into such a frenzy.

Merited traffic is all the OTHER GADZILLION returns under the first one or three camped entries that return first. Indeed, for many key words, there are no camped returns at all. If you shopped, you would get this.

1. Search sorted by traffic does NOT give false results. After you discount the first few gamed/paid for slots (Much like those gamed/paid for slots on Google!) you are looking at legitimated, merited, genuinely popular venues that have real avatars really visiting them.

2. The Lindens should zone commercial and residential to prevent camping and other high-impact features of commercial activity from impacting residential users.

3. The idea that SL "looks bad" is misplaced, as nobody HAS to go to the popular places (soon to be replaced by a totally Linden-controlled and filtered "Showcase" that will have all the sanitized places without the tacky culture that you hate).

And they removed the classic Place search in favor of the HTML search in one of the RCs already, they put it back after complaints. And they have already removed Popular Places from the RC and replaced it with Showcase. These steps indicate to me, that they will eventually convert the Places search to HTML, when they can see a way to do it without an uproar.

And why would tech elite care about getting rid of traffic? I would think they would love something so easily gamed, gives them a chance to program camping bots and sell them. And as residents find ways to prevent bots, they are challenged to come up with smarter bots.

They sure as hell put it back after complaints, and if they put it back again they can expect even more of an uproar – and a legitimate uproar.

"When they can see a way to do it without an uproar?" So...thanks for confirming that the way that you think SL should be governed is by a tiny handful of coders and hangers-on at the JIRA should make their uproars, and get their way, but when the overwhelming majority of people in SL make an uproar, and rightly so, given the HUGE impact, that the Lindens should just sneak around them when they are not looking and put one over on them.

No wonder you can't retain people here.

Your tech elite is the loudest – but distinctly minority voice – on removing traffic. And yet that is the irony, that it is their own fellow tekkies who make the bots and clutter up Second Life with the bots. So police your own, and stop trying to overthrow the entire economy because you cannot police your own.

"This is the most ridiculus argument I have ever heard!!! With all the free stuff, from houses to clothing, that is available, you can go forever in SL and never spend a Linden. I was a mentor, and you can not believe how often the first question a naked asked noob asked was - How do I make money in here. Seems to me the perception of what SL is needs to change a bit."

Look at the eclamation points. Look at the dripping sarcasm. Look at the superior and disparaging portrayal of people who refuse to "go forever in SL" without spending a Linden (um, did you try that?). Look at how you invoke your superior status as a mentor. Look at your disparaging portrayal of newbies as "naked-asked". Look at your superior demand for the perception of SL.

All of this is unwarranted, misplaced, and irrelevant, because your point of view is in the minority, and can't be allowed to obstruct retention any more – it's a killer. Stop it.

I'm all for zoning, or making clubs with campers pay for their hogging of CPU, or whatever it takes. Let's get the facts here: do you own land? Do you in fact live on a sim where your CPU is impacted by campers?

The sense of camping is HUGELY overstated in SL because it's such an ideological and cultural issue. It sums up all the cheap and mass culture that you hate – which we can see you hate from your dripping sarcasm and superiority in your first post about "naked-asked newbs".

There are 20,000 sims. Camping is on a very tiny minority of them. The number of people who also have to put up with camping on a sim where they own, too is very, very small. Hey, I should know...I'm one of them and I do not tackle this problem by demanding traffic be surgically removed because it will kill economic relations that were freely, legitimately, and beneficially established.

Removing traffic, most of which is NOT gamed and IS merited, is *removing content by residents" – just because it isn't scripted content or primmed content that goes in an inventory box doesn't mean it isn't content.

Lindens should NEVER EVER be in the business of removing huge swathes of resident content like that so casually, and incited by such a tiny and hate-filled minority.

In short Dearie - I am keeping track and waiting for the day when someone finally wakes up and realizes that they could abuse report you right out of having any voice whatsoever.

You have not proven your case whatsoever (sorry, telling people what to run a search for skews the results). You have no proof that ANY traffic related result over 50 is 'merited' traffic (traffic is traffic, there is no real way to tell which is false and which is true - stop trying to twist the issue).

So far you have slammed anyone here that dares to disagree with you and on top of that Dearie you dismiss opinions based on literally nothing whatsoever - who cares if a person is or was a Mentor? EVERYONE is entitled to their opinion and quite frankly NO ONE gets to decide if an opinion can be dismissed by ANYONE but - wait for it - YOURSELF.

Now, I know for a fact that someone is going to come along and decide to report my comment - and not report yours Dearie. Fine by me - It just shows me how one sided some people's reporting really is to ignore such venom filled comments.

You either understand the issue or you don't. This issue affects you or it doesn't. So Vote or don't.

DRD

>So...thanks for confirming that the way that you think SL should be governed is by a tiny handful of coders and hangers-on at the JIRA should make their uproars, and get their way, but when the overwhelming majority of people in SL make an uproar, and rightly so, given the HUGE impact, that the Lindens should just sneak around them when they are not looking and put one over on them.

Stop reading your own opinions into mine, never said anything like this. Just my opinion from their actions is that they are looking to replace the classic tabs in search with their HTML counterparts. I never said I was for this I am not, replacing any of the classic search tabs with their HTML counterparts has consequences. I don't think they should "sneak around them" and do it, doesn't mean they will not, and if they do I would not support it. I have no idea if "tiny handful of coders and hangers-on at the JIRA" had any influence on their decision, and seriously doubt they did. Nor do I think SL should be governed by any such group. Probably most of the residents you consider part of that fictitious group, would not be for replacing classic Places search with HTML search (which effectively removes traffic). In the RC they have already removed the classic All search, and replaced Group search and Popular Places with HTML equivalents. To my knowledge none of this has been requested. Replacing Group search has it's equivalent consequences, you can now no longer search on the number of group members, something I found very useful. Read your own opinions into to this.

2. DR, you are not 'personally attacked". Rather, you blanket attack on newbies who wish to make money, and your false presentation of the cases of SL, have been challenged, critiqued, and rebutted. Deal with it.

3. I don't supply search terms – use anything you like. Go to the location. Note that there are no campers or bots. These are all facts easily, easily established.

4. The HTML version did not work; it lagged out SL for many people; it was distractive; it did not order the search as well, and they also got creative, and as far as I can tell, did in fact remove traffic completely, which is why the howl properly went up in the land.

5. The Lindens have well and truly messed up Group search, that's a fact, for reasons that completely escape me, but that's a separate problem that should be in a separate JIRA.

Yes, it does lag people out, just because it doesn't do that with you doesn't mean anything.

Never said it did not lag me or anybody else out, I said the lag is no different then what exists today when using the new All search.

You DO supply search terms Dearie - it is currently on you to prove that you do not.

As far as your 'proof' of how traffic 'works' goes - sorry, not a valid set of evidence. Let us say that a user is looking for general rental systems, not housing directly but looking to see what can be rented: They remain in the main section of the places search and type in "Rentals" - what they get is several pages of worthless results. I know - I've looked at them.

Teleporting to each and every individual listing to examine the parcel for any sort of traffic boosting scheme is NOT viable proof or evidence of anything other than a user having way too much free time on their hands. In addition the practice of checking each and every search return individually is one that the AVERAGE user simply will not do - contrary to your own belief. What the AVERAGE user wants is a search system that will return results THAT THEY DO NOT HAVE TO PARSE IN ANY WAY.

You want verification of that? Go make a - useless and biased - survey

That is my wish, to see the sytem changed. I do not need to feel talked down to like some dumb school kid. Post after post is just a concurrent flame war going on.

Quote "Curiously, since the Lindens revised their search quite a bit, the word "rentals" turns up my group first"
Yes in SEARCH ALL! The issue here is the SEARCH PLACES based on traffic in which you do not feature at all!!!

Quote "not a single one of my parcels has this "traffic" that everyone falsely imagines now governs search – somehow unaware of the changes Lindens ALREADY made to it."
no I am not falsly imagining it and they have NOT changed SEARCH PLACES

Quote "The economy in Second Life depends on SEARCH PLACES PLUS MERITED TRAFFIC. If you don't want to hear it from me; if you can't confirm it bcause you yourself are either a) not in business or b) in a very niched business solely dependent on word of mouth, which isn't the overwhelming lion's share of businesses in SL, then you will confirm it as you see the economy utterly destroyed if the Lindens completely remove traffic from the PLACES tab on the search menu. Let's hope it won't come to that because of this constant inciting of hatred of traffic, based on isolated political, ideological, and psychological beliefs that are not in the mainstream of SL."
I do have a business and its not a niche, perhaps only a fraction the size of yours but important to me and if search places went tomorrow my business would benefit as my places would show in ALL and CLASSIFIEDS

I do take your points about search places being integral to the sl economy but a system that is measured by traffic that is based on the number of avis on the land is open to abuse.

You see Prokofy I have a small problem, its called camping bots, in nearly every region I hold land there is a store or a club with their own bots online 24/7. When they raise the number of these bots in excess of 30 either I cannot tp into that region or the lag is terrible. Now hang on, why are they doing that, let me see, I run a honeymoon rental business, I place paid classified and suprise suprise we are near the top of the classifieds but then when I search places we are way down. Hmmmm, I see why they place 30 bots it saves them paying for an advertisement. Well that sure p****s me off, but I take it, but when my business can't provide a reception for 10 guests because the sim is full I get angry! Why should someone with a 4096 parcel fill the sim to capacity?

*3 examples next to my regions or in them*
GRELOD
XERIACLE
EASTFIELD

Please do not tell me I am the only business suffering because of this abuse of the traffic system, or that these bots are not rife all over sl.
Go to any region on the map and tp to where there is a sea of green dots, in the majority of case you will find all the avis are same birth date, not moving, buying, playing, speaking or contributing to sl in any form other than to raise traffic. Often they are not on camping pads but just placed there.

Oh and for your information Linden Labs treats bots as an abuse of system resources and advises filing AR. I have not seen this have any effect but I live in hope.

Sl business economy will not crash is search places is removed, or traffic measuring altered, paid ads work!

I will not be contributing any more to this post or any other in which Prokofy is involved, thanks mate for making a Jira newby feel so unwelcome and ignorant!

Look. I own land on 70 sims where I often share with other owners. There isn't a single one of them with bots, except for the Ross Infohub (Linden land) where they land due to bad scripting and get stuck.

Your main problem with traffic is that you have to compete against it. You are trying to compete against it and trying to show up in search for a "romance" venue of which there are gadzillions in SL. You are "near the top" because you pay more in classifieds. You are not able to compete with the gadzillions of others not only because they have bots, but because likely many of them have other things – picks, landmarks, more expensive classifieds, etc.

If you don't try to compete with traffic, if other metrics (picks, classifieds, landmarking) that the Lindens have built into search in fact help you stay on top (as they do for me), you don't become so obsessed and antagonized by "gamed traffic" and clamour so loudly to remove traffic completely because of this perception.

You truly exaggerate it. It is a factor for a few top "popular places" that game it – that chart is being removed, however. It is a factor for some others who resort to this measure – but only in categories like "romance" [sic]. If you type in hundreds of other words on other subjects, whether hats, prefabs, non-profits, etc. you will find those categories are NOT gamed, or if gamed, easily sorted by ignoring the first return (much as you have to ignore ads on Google or ignore that first return to Wikipedia, which is merely self-perpetuating; it gets hits because...people see it and click on it.)

For the overwhelming majority of people in business in SL – including in the sex business, which is not overrun by bots as much as you think – the returns are honest. It doesn't matter that it CAN be gamed; cursory research will show you that it is NOT.

Paid ads work if you have the money to stay on the top on the first page – hundreds of US dollars. Sorry, but that's a very skewed economy and I won't turn the economy only to top-paying classifieds.

I constantly check out green dots. And frankly, in all the sex palaces I see they are filled with real green dots on the ground, not clusters of bots in the air.

Basically, what's happened is that you are seized with a very subjective experience that has to do with what you see on 3 sims in front of you. And you and a few other sex club owners in fact are driving this discussion, just as they did in the Future of Traffic group, as I rather pointedly noted a number of times. The greatest critics of traffic are those who themselves feel forced to use bots in an arms race with other sex clubs.

I'm sorry, but the needs of sex clubs to beat other sex clubs in being first in search isn't something that has to be the engine of the economy, either. That is, we all recognize the important role to the economy of sex clubs. But we need not skew and warp and nerf traffic or even remove it merely to satisfy the grade B sex clubs not on the A list. Thanks for confirming that this is what it's all about again.

Why are you twisting what points I've raised?

Why do you feel it neccessary to personally attack everyone who has posted on this forum?

My concerns are about traffic measurement encouraging the use of bots at STORES, not at 3 sims near me but across the grid.

This is what I see, perhaps you don't, but I think you better accept that others do!

Now in regard to the sex business. "which is not overrun by bots as much as you think". What the hell are you talking about? Did I mention that?
"And you and a few other sex club owners"

WHAT????

I DO NOT RUN SEX CLUBS!!!!!!!!!!

"I'm sorry, but the needs of sex clubs to beat other sex clubs"
"merely to satisfy the grade B sex clubs not on the A list"
"Thanks for confirming that this is what it's all about again."

Are you crazy? Where the heck did you get this from?

You twist everyones words,
you are slightly unhinged
goodbye

I guess people really prefer to play miniature golf on their honeymoons and don't make use of their honeymoon cottages.

The point stands: this discussion around traffic and bot keeps emanating from the very same interested parties: those who are angry that they find themselves in an arms race with other clubs or miniature golf venues and are furious that they either can't show up in search or are forced to use bots themselves, or camping. So they shoot the messenger, and want to get rid of traffic all together. And no, this is not a phenomenon "across the grid," as anyone who steps outside the miniature golf industry can readily see. There are plenty of stores, malls, and gasp, even clubs and golf courses that don't rely on camping or bots, and therefore don't have gamed traffic, and therefore should not be punished merely because a minority do game it. Their traffic should count. Removing traffic as a system removes their legitimate popularity and merits.

It'd be nice to see the traffic stat kept for land-owners to see how their traffic stacks up; high traffic on some days can indicate the success of an event, or particularly busy shopping days (e.g - weekends) and it's useful for this. But as a measure of popularity for customers/search to use it's inherently flawed and too easily gamed to be of any real use anymore.

When you search, if you see a parcel/business that has 110,000 or more in the club industry, you know that it is using bots/camping. If you see a store that has 50,000, chances are good that it is using bots/camping. No owner is going to go to the trouble to pay for camping or pay for traffic-infusion bots and then only have them produce him a measly 10,000.

Meanwhile, if you see a venue that goes from 300-3000-8000 traffic, you can be fairly certain it is not using these devices. And duh, you can just go there and see that they have no campers or suspicious green dots that aren't visible, but could be in the air.

I get 3,000 on a rentals tower just by people normally living and inviting friends over. I see stores in my system with traffic of only 1500 or 3500 and they make plenty of sales. I myself have seen the validity of how sales are generated even with only 350 traffic, if you are targeted and relevant to potential visitors and if you have good key words. Traffic doesn't make sales: sales make sales, but traffic that is legitimate helps to sort searches that lead to sales, that's all there is too it.

It is not inherently flawed; it is merely exploited by a certain small percentage of users. That is not reason to destroy the use for the vast majority of people searching, who overwhelmingly prefer to use search/places that sorts by traffic to see popularity, and there is no reason to punish the overwhelming majority of merchants who do not use gaming gimmicks.

Your remarks, again, belong to a narrow, skewed take on this through the keyhole of special interests, either abolutist ideologues (if any part of it is gamed, then the entire system is corrupt due to the fallacious 0/1 thinking of technologists); "word of mouth" businesses who loathe traffic because it is more popular and democratic than their select and elitist system for sales; and sex clubs and malls in the traffic arms race themselves often themselves deploying bots.

These three interest groups sound off again and again with this narrow slice on the subject, and that's fine, but a broader perspective is required to be considered before the economy is destroyed for narrow ideological interests.

https://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/User:Benjamin_Linden/Office_Hours/2008-07-09

But my impression was not that this was "somebody commercially selling a viewer for SL" but LL looking to change the viewer to include this system, could be wrong, that's why I said draw your own conclusions. From the transcript it appears CMU has no knowledge of traffic or the impact of this on traffic or if this will replace traffic and the Lindens present were silent on the subject. And again, I am not saying it will impact or replace traffic, draw your own conclusion.

THE UNSOLVABLE PART OF THE PROBLEM:

Business owners (from GOOD to BAD) want to advertize their place as more popular than it really is, and are willing to do almost whatever it takes including any spammer-type act if they think it's cost effective. The alternative is to not get business from the search engine at all, meaning advertizing money will automatically being much less cost-effective or pointless.

THE SOLVABLE PART OF THE PROBLEM:

Any ranking based on traffic numbers will be manipulated to no end, by bribing campers with less money than they are spending in electricity fees while camping, and owners using single-computer hacked clients in control of multiple avatars. Or young people with no access to a credit card who are willing to waste the price of a real life meal in electricity to get say 100 lindens (which is why people actually online while camping are are more often than not, young clueless and excessively begging at the same time).

The one time I went to a "popular" site and wanted to buy a zombie avatar, some youth caged me and then orbited me because I wouldn't give him some lindens (too fast for doing an abuse report). Camping sites attract those like moths to a light. And of course, I couldn't find the site again to buy my item...

All this ruins any "coolness" of the spot the business is trying to advertize, and makes the business owner look and feel like a lowly cheating spammer and highly attractive to clueless greedy griefers.

THE SOLUTION TO THE SOLVABLE PART:

Let business owners BUY search rank from LL, the same way they'd buy it from a search engine. Rename "popularity" to something else to dispel any illusion of actual popularity. This solves the actually solvable part of the problem, and not waste energy on a hypothetical "honest" traffic system.

Keep the traffic system as a way for the owner or curious people to check traffic, but no influence on searches.

Much like a syringe exchange program to help junkies not get AIDS, it might not be popular with everyone but having business owners BUY SEARCH RANK FROM LL directly it clearly is a lesser evil.

As a bonus, LL will actually get honest income instead of camping money going into the pocket of hackers, cheaters, and young beggars willing to grief for 1L who camp those places.

WHAT ABOUT SEARCHING FOR COOL, CREATIVE STUFF?

Let go of the idea of a single ranking for everyone, it's always hackable to no end! Unless you have massive human ressources and decent programming talent like Google to keep the information to junk ratio high, it's not worth it.

The alternative is a stumbleupon-style model of searching, where searching for say "shoes" yields not only actual shoes, but the most cool stuff will automagically show up on top of searches and the crap at the bottom. Cheating this type of system is incredibly hard!

The only viable model of advertizing in a stumbleupon-style engine would be to make cool stuff to start with and hope enough people actually like it, because just being physically present in a location would not help at all...

is no indication of "fun" or "cool". I've been 45 minutes filling a survey once for 80 lindens, and at the end it didn't actually pay me. I soon realized it was a gimmick to raise traffic by a few points while knowingly advertizing a scam survey website which probably doesn't even pay the mall owner... the exact opposite of the constant stream of cultural shock and extra cute kitten pictures I get from stumbleupon.

How hard could it be to actually be able to use stumbleupon or identical technology from in-world, anyhow?

1. Increase the weight of picks in the search engine, and most important, give a weigth proportional to how old the account is.
2. Make the creation of ALT accounts only for the sake of resseling them later when they age (for their picks) a regular ALT abuse issue.