LL Traffic Future Chat Log

Offered, as they say, without comment.

**** Monday 5/5 - 12pm Meeting ****

[12:05] Jeska Linden: First, I'd like to thank you all for coming to the meeting.
[12:05] Taff Nouvelle: will there be a transcript Jeska??
[12:05] Jeska Linden: I would like to save a transcript of this conversation and post it to the group for others to follow. Is this ok with everyone?
[12:05] Jeska Linden: hehe
[12:05] Jeska Linden: What Taff said ;)
[12:05] Alicia Stella: yes
[12:05] Charlene Trudeau: yes!
[12:05] Taff Nouvelle: haha
[12:05] WilliamThewise Goodman: Totallly
[12:05] Georgette Whitfield: Sure
[12:06] Peter Houston: nice
[12:06] Jeska Linden: Or better question, is anyone not ok with taht?
[12:06] Dahlia Trimble: yes :)
[12:06] Taff Nouvelle: ok with me :-)
[12:06] Dahlia Trimble: ok
[12:06] Jennifer Llanfair: No prob :)
[12:06] Phil Deakins: fine with me
[12:06] Jeska Linden: Ok :)
[12:07] Jeska Linden: We've got about an hour here to brainstorm, gather thoughts and ideas and allow for group contribution...
[12:07] WilliamThewise Goodman: Would drop[ping you a notecard Jeska be helpful?
[12:07] Jeska Linden: we limited each meeting to 30 people, which will help - but I'd really like for everyone to have a chance to contribute
[12:08] Jeska Linden: If you've got other info/thoughts / longer ideas - feel free to send them over as well.
[12:08] Jeska Linden smiles to William
[12:08] Jeska Linden: There are several different things I'd like for us to discuss and I'll push us along if we get caught up in one thing too long.
[12:08] WilliamThewise Goodman: Great I love a good facilitator
[12:08] Jeska Linden: First, as I'm sure you all saw in the initial blog post - let me grab it really quick....
[12:08] Jeska Linden: http://blog.secondlife.com/2008/04/28/second-life-showcase-popular-places-and-the-future-of-traffic/
[12:09] Jeska Linden: As part of the "Improve Search" project, we're replacing the Popular Places tab content with content pulled from the ?
Showcase content on the website.
[12:09] Jeska Linden: Anticipating that this would bring up much conversation around traffic and metrics, we wanted to open the conversation up ?
to the community (hence the group and this meeting). ;)
[12:09] WilliamThewise Goodman: Good move!
[12:10] Jeska Linden: I'd like us to spend time talking about that announcement/the Popular Places change, allowing for questions/etc. Then ?
move to discuss metrics in general and traffic replacements in specific.
[12:10] Rice Cohen: Being on the popular list for the past 18 months, disagrees its a good move.
[12:10] WilliamThewise Goodman: Smile
[12:10] Phil Deakins: it's a bad move. there is a *lot* of opposition to it in the forum
[12:10] WilliamThewise Goodman: I was under the impression that popular often equates tolots of campers...
[12:11] Jeska Linden: So, let's start there,
[12:11] Alicia Stella: Jeska I have seen the letter u sent about allowing residents to flag places in search, like for suggestion for showcase, i ?
think that is a fantastic way to have the residents give their input and makes the showcase less controlled by LL
[12:11] Lias Leandros: not on the thread I started and you replied to Phil
[12:11] Rice Cohen: No, my place has been on the popular list for 18 months with real active traffic.
[12:11] Amethyst Jetaime: popular places are all camping spots or sex places
[12:11] Liam Serf: popular places is just who has the most traffic, not really a good place
[12:11] Charlene Trudeau: Whereas I'm all for the showcase, but would be willing to compromise and have both.
[12:11] Taff Nouvelle: firstly, how can we be sure that it will be a fair representation of truly popular places
[12:11] Amethyst Jetaime: ban camping, bots and alt farms
[12:11] Phil Deakins: Popular Places should go, but the Showcase should be kept to the web only, because it favours a few at the expense of ?
the many
[12:12] Lias Leandros: Right no we are discussig how the showcase will work, yes?
[12:12] River Ely: its unfair to generalise, not all popular places are filled with Bots
[12:12] Taff Nouvelle: exactly so
[12:12] WilliamThewise Goodman: Or promote and reward places with lots of real traffic
[12:12] Trinity Coulter: Well, Popular Places is only 20 places, so of course it will be Popular once it gets there
[12:12] Rice Cohen: My places is not filled with bots..
[12:12] Charlene Trudeau: I think the showcase should be a place to feature places that might be overlooked, with cool unique builds but not ?
necessarily stuff for sale
[12:12] Rice Cohen: It's real traffic.
[12:12] Liam Serf: what about camping Rice
[12:12] Georgette Whitfield: Agree with Charlene
[12:12] Jeska Linden: I can talk a bit about that - at least the reasoning behind why we made the decision
[12:12] Charlene Trudeau: which is why I'm not certain it should be one or the other
[12:12] WilliamThewise Goodman: Tell us
[12:12] Phil Deakins: the one thing that aan inworld Showcase would be good for are non-profit places
[12:13] Lyra Blackthorne: showcase is not "popular" if sex places are what is popular then they should stay but think that it should truely be ?
"popular" not forced or gamed
[12:13] Trinity Coulter: yes, Jeska?
[12:13] River Ely: Jeska, what are you all using to base teh concept of 'most popular' places hon?
[12:13] Rice Cohen: Exactly Lyra
[12:13] Jeska Linden: The Popular Places tab started a long time ago, when the world of Second Life was much, much smaller
[12:13] Lias Leandros: Why is the service provider's staff only choosing these showcase sites?
[12:13] Jeska Linden: It only lists 20 parcels with the highest "traffic" numbers.
[12:14] Charlene Trudeau: which is an awfully small number given the size of the world today
[12:14] WilliamThewise Goodman: Jeska we should separate out popular and traffic
[12:14] Jeska Linden: At that time it was also tied to a "traffice incentive" where LL paid the people who had the msot traffic
[12:14] Lyra Blackthorne: well am ok with the highest traffic being popular...if it is true traffic. Showcase to me is just irrelevant
[12:14] Taff Nouvelle: which is no longer true
[12:14] Jeska Linden: In other words- the world was much, much smaller and much, much different.
[12:14] WilliamThewise Goodman: Showcase is a totally different thing
[12:14] Rice Cohen: Jeska, before camping.. the popular places featured truly active traffic places that people enjoyed. Why can't you just block ?
out camping/money sims.. like you did casinos? Add a new tab for "Showcase" but also allow the real popular places determined by residents ?
to remain in tact?
[12:15] Phil Deakins: Showcase is fine inworld IF it's only for non-profit places, but it would favour a few commercial places at the expense of ?
the rest if commercial is inlcuded
[12:15] Taff Nouvelle: too easilly gamed
[12:15] River Ely: Do we need a 'Traffic' assessment at all, good product knowledge spreads like wildfire andf gains credence by word of mouth?
[12:15] Georgette Whitfield: Agree with River
[12:15] Jeska Linden: The Showcase is something very different - it's been on the website for another 6 months or so and highlights various ?
inworld locatoins.
[12:15] WilliamThewise Goodman: I need traffic information for my RL clients
[12:15] Alicia Stella: Showcase, if residents are voting to suggest places, is relevant IMO, Lyra
[12:15] Liam Serf: Some kind of popular place listing is needed for new users
[12:16] Rifkin Habsburg: So Jeska, are you saying that while the Showcase will be replacing Popular Places, it's not intended to provide the ?
same functionality?
[12:16] Lyra Blackthorne: yes, but for me I like to track what residents find popular
[12:16] Lias Leandros: Jeska why are only employees of the service provider choosing the parcels in the showcase?
[12:16] Phil Deakins: then leave it on the website jeska if it contains commercial places, as it does. or change it to non-profut places
[12:16] Jeska Linden: Rifkin - I think that's a fair assesment, Showcase is an attempt to highlight variety of inworld venues - high quality ?
locations to help people find things to do inworld.
[12:16] River Ely: Why differentiate, I dont understand?
[12:16] Taff Nouvelle: do you mean stores??
[12:17] River Ely: do you mean clubs
[12:17] WilliamThewise Goodman: Showcase is to educate people aboutwhat is availablke not what is popular
[12:17] Georgette Whitfield: I think the worry is that LL will give an unfair bias to already popular big SL content creator names who can afford to ?
pay for the extra publicity
[12:17] River Ely: at what times, USA or eu or Far east?
[12:17] Rifkin Habsburg: And this is because Popular Places is no longer appropriate for Second Life as it exists now?
[12:17] Alicia Stella: the pop places list has been nearly the same for a year, the same 20 hot money earning places, i think avatars will still be ?
able to find free money using search
[12:17] WilliamThewise Goodman: Agreed
[12:17] Jeska Linden: River - currently Showcase is in English, but at some point in the future, that won't be the case.
[12:17] Rice Cohen: High quality locations determined by LL's. Not all residents share the same likes... and residents have chosen to enjoy my ?
sim for 18 months, yet thats washed under the rug?
[12:18] Lias Leandros: But we are suppose to discuss showcase now and how it works
[12:18] Alicia Stella: if residents can suggest a location for showcase, by flagging in search, i love it
[12:18] Jeska Linden: We'll spend a few more minutes talking about showcase.
[12:18] Lias Leandros: what is teh criteria used to get a parcel chosen for showcase?
[12:18] Rice Cohen: If residents are allowed to suggest, that would cause residents creating numerous amounts of alts to vote on their own ?
places.
[12:18] Jeska Linden: Alicia - yes! Let's spend a few minutes talking about the proposed search flagging.
[12:18] WilliamThewise Goodman: And limit the number of votes the same whay you limit the number of events that can be posted
[12:18] Georgette Whitfield: es Alicia me too but then people would just pay their friends to vote for them
[12:18] Lias Leandros: or is it arbitrary and based on the Likes of a Linden Employee?
[12:18] Jack Linden: Pop places is somewhat self fulfilling, whereas Showcase will allow quality venues to get listed without having the pressure ?
of keeping traffic high
[12:18] Charlene Trudeau: And is there a limit to how long any place is showcased?
[12:18] Charlene Trudeau: or how many places are?
[12:18] River Ely: may I ask why< areas, cannot have a local directory of places, good and bad, and then groups of places and whole zones, ?
like locval yellow pages
[12:19] Jeska Linden: You are able to suggest a location to be added to showcase by following the directions here: ?
http://secondlife.com/showcase/faq.php
[12:19] Rice Cohen: Jack - so why can't both remain? By simplying adding a NEW tab for the Showcase.
[12:19] Phil Deakins: it doesn't matter if a place is showcased for only a week, it still gives commercial places an unfair and unmerited ?
advantage over all others
[12:19] Jeska Linden: But, in the future (we're getting feedback on teh design currently), there will be a way to nominate things for Showcase ?
from inworld.
[12:19] Trinity Coulter: Rice, I would think our goal today would be to provide a fair footing for all SL entities to gain exposure, not simply ?
maintain the status quo
[12:19] WilliamThewise Goodman: Is there a cost to showcase?
[12:19] Alicia Stella: Youtube uses flagging, it will help LL sort thru the mass of info to find violations and reward popular places
[12:20] Lyra Blackthorne: as a business owner I really dont have interest in showcase...tho fine if there. but I do want to know what avatars are ?
drawn to inworld
[12:20] Georgette Whitfield: I think Popular Places needs to go just cos obviously all the sex places are at the top and it makes SL look bad
[12:20] Alicia Stella: lets us help govern sorta
[12:20] Lias Leandros: can you have a Service provider picks tab and a community picks tab also? Its just that having only hwat Linden Lab ?
likes up there seems like we are all wast8ing our time making content
[12:20] Jack Linden: yeah, i think flagging will go a long way towards bringing the best to the surface for possible inclusion in Showcase
[12:20] Phil Deakins: Lyra. as a business owner, you'll be out of pocket because of the Showcase!
[12:20] WilliamThewise Goodman: As a business owner and sim developers showcase cvan be very helpful
[12:20] Rice Cohen: If residents enjoy the sex places, why is that a crime? It keeps residents coming back to SL for more.
[12:20] Lias Leandros: But Wiliam its arbitrary
[12:20] River Ely: Sex places would I guess be on a different ratings tab anyway so it really doesnt matter, does it?
[12:21] Alicia Stella: Mature Showcase checkbox?
[12:21] WilliamThewise Goodman: Rice there is a whole lot more to SL than sex
[12:21] Taff Nouvelle: they should be
[12:21] Lias Leandros: based on some employee in a cubicle
[12:21] Georgette Whitfield: Yes different ratings
[12:21] Taff Nouvelle: as they are on the inmternet
[12:21] Rice Cohen: William, no one said there wasn't. But if residents make it popular, its obviously what they enjoy.
[12:21] Trinity Coulter: so Jeska, do you have any thoughts on ways to keep the showcase fresh and representative of various SL entities ?
without overly being biased to more established places?
[12:21] River Ely: hang on, sex related generates income and that is what keeps content creators making things that p make places successful
[12:21] Razrcut Brooks: but not if bots make the place popular
[12:22] Rice Cohen: amen River
[12:22] Jeska Linden: Trinity - One suggestion I got from the initial announcement was to have a "New Places" tab inside of the Showcase, ?
what does anyone think of that?
[12:22] Georgette Whitfield: Um... most of the best content I know has nothing to do with sex River
[12:22] River Ely: as do weapons, fetish, ey al
[12:22] Phil Deakins: why?
[12:22] Kitty Barnett: would be great :)
[12:22] Charlene Trudeau: New places would be good
[12:22] Dakota Schwade: New Places sounds good to me.
[12:22] Taff Nouvelle: new places need advertising for sure
[12:22] Trinity Coulter: New places as a piece of the Showcase sounds very reasonable
[12:22] River Ely: true, we all walk diofferent paths, but that does not mean its the only path is what I was saying.
[12:22] Amethyst Jetaime: What would be the qualifications for a 'new' place?
[12:22] WilliamThewise Goodman: The categories in Showcase are pretty few right now and Isuspect they can be expanded quite a bit to offer ?
special interests a place
[12:23] Lias Leandros: Well its quite sad that LL has taken the opportunity to help content providers and turn it into a opportunity for corporate ?
spin. Only highlighting what LL wants to show on their website
[12:23] Rifkin Habsburg: The Showcase is going to rotate through places, right? Won't it just have the newest entries at the top, for each ?
section?
[12:23] Jeska Linden: The thing to remember is taht Showcase is still quite new and if it proves to be useful to the community, we can expand it ?
and grow it to include more categories and sections.
[12:23] Lias Leandros: what happened to "your world"?
[12:23] Jack Linden: i think 'New Places' would be good, as long as we define how that works (and not have people re-creating a new venue at ?
the same location over and over) :)
[12:23] WilliamThewise Goodman: It will also help peope understand that SL residents are here for many different reasons
[12:23] Phil Deakins: it can't rotate fast enough. it'll favout the few at the expense of the many ALL the time
[12:23] Alicia Stella: if residents can vote for places, its is our world
[12:23] Lias Leandros: But why only Linden Lab staff choosing these showcased parcels?
[12:23] Lias Leandros: why is the community being excluded?
[12:24] Trinity Coulter: yes, whatever the system, we have to have protections from people gaming it
[12:24] Taff Nouvelle: they are not read bacl :-)
[12:24] Jeska Linden: It's not excluded - we're also implementing a way to nominate/flag something for inclusion at the same time.
[12:24] Taff Nouvelle: there is a voting link
[12:24] Trinity Coulter: Lias, we're discussing ways to make it better
[12:24] Jeska Linden: They're just not all happening at the same time.
[12:24] Charlene Trudeau: how is community being excluded?
[12:24] Charlene Trudeau: oh, you mean in decision?
[12:24] Jeska Linden: it's happening in phases.
[12:24] Lyra Blackthorne: Jeska, is there no way to provide a real "read" on what residents find popular?
[12:24] Lias Leandros: Your not obligated to pay any attention to our wants under your new system
[12:24] Charlene Trudeau: the community is allowed to suggest places
[12:24] River Ely: Jessica, do you know how people are gaming right now to claim the best, biggest or most popular attraction?
[12:25] Lias Leandros: only what Linden Lab's marketing department wants up there will be there
[12:25] Razrcut Brooks: Lias, it is our world still. However , remember our world is privately owned by LL . Also, our community will have an ?
input in Showcase...read above.
[12:25] Jeska Linden: Lyra - that's actually a great seque into the next topic
[12:25] Trinity Coulter: Jeska, or Jack, what other sections do you feel would be a reasonable part of the Showcase besides the "New Places"
[12:25] Jeska Linden: Which we should be moving to shortly if we want to hit them all...
[12:25] Liam Serf: Jeska, good stuff so far, we all need to understand that things have to change and develop, there maybe some pain here and ?
there.
[12:25] Kitty Barnett: might want to make it clear from the start when that's introduced that "we'll you pay to flag us for inclusion into Showcase" ?
might mean you don't qualify or you'll get swamped instantly :p
[12:25] Alicia Stella: next topic yes :-)
[12:25] WilliamThewise Goodman: Educational
[12:25] Lyra Blackthorne: the showcase to me is like SL art or windlight all fine and good but not relevant to me in driving business
[12:25] Phil Deakins: before this one finishes, I want to repeat that the showcase should NOT be inworl because it's too biased and favours the ?
few at the expense of the many
[12:25] Lias Leandros: The paying customers will have no say at all in what is showcased - it will be used to make the Linden Lab website more ?
appealing for new players
[12:26] Charlene Trudeau: may of us think popular places does the same thing
[12:26] Jack Linden: trinity, i expect more categories may happen in Showcase as we better understand the breakdown of different places
[12:26] WilliamThewise Goodman: Can't we do both Lias
[12:26] Trinity Coulter: Lyra, I would think most businesses or organizations in SL would jump at ANY chance to increase their exposure
[12:26] Lias Leandros: Jack - we have no say in this at all
[12:26] Lyra Blackthorne: yes, but that is not going to happen in showcase
[12:26] Lias Leandros: and as it is designed - we never will
[12:26] Trinity Coulter: Lias, then suggest solutions
[12:26] Lias Leandros: outrageous
[12:26] Trinity Coulter: my goodness, that is why we're here :))
[12:27] Georgette Whitfield: lol
[12:27] Phil Deakins: solution: keep the showcase on the site, and keep it out of SL
[12:27] Lias Leandros: Oh no the showcase is a done deal
[12:27] Jeska Linden: Good point Jack - there are already close to 50 locations in the Showcase
[12:27] WilliamThewise Goodman: There must be ways to have rankingd from within LL and from the larger community
[12:27] Rice Cohen: I think LL's feels the Popular List is manipulated, but how is allowing residents a say in the Showcase going to not be ?
manipulated as well? Someone could easily make 200 alts and vote on their own place to be Showcased.
[12:27] Jeska Linden: Which represent a broad spectrum of Second Life - from Fashion to music to arts and culture.
[12:27] WilliamThewise Goodman: Like readers choice
[12:27] Taff Nouvelle: haha 50 out of how many??
[12:27] Jack Linden: Lias, what form of input would you like to see? How would that work?
[12:27] Lias Leandros: chosen by Linden Lab employees
[12:27] Kitty Barnett: if you think something should appear in Showcase, you'll be able to flag it as such, Lias... that's "resident input" right ?
there
[12:27] Trinity Coulter: yes, at some point something gets done and its not perfect but its a start
[12:27] Jeska Linden: Which is more than the 20 in the POpular Places tab.
[12:27] Taff Nouvelle: and less than the thousands available
[12:28] Alicia Stella: yes already the showcase is more helpful than pop places for sure
[12:28] Alicia Stella: unless i wanna camp
[12:28] Georgette Whitfield: So showcase will be in Search inworld soon too?
[12:28] Phil Deakins: it will - and it'll be bad for all business owners
[12:28] WilliamThewise Goodman: If SL is to survive and grow it MUST show the wide diversity of intereste here and showcase can do ythat if ?
structured correctly
[12:29] Georgette Whitfield: That's what was said about the ads at the front of the new search if I remember right
[12:29] Phil Deakins: keep the showcase to non-profit places and it'll be great for users
[12:29] Taff Nouvelle: with only 20 it will show a VERY narrow one]
[12:29] WilliamThewise Goodman: Residents are here for many. many different reasons
[12:29] Alicia Stella: is it possibel to move on, i would like to know about the traffic algorithm and how it can be improved and how the new ?
PLACES search will be sorted.
[12:29] Jeska Linden: Good point Alicia
[12:29] Charlene Trudeau: before we leave showcase, I would like to say that if you are going to feature any category that highlights content ?
creators, you have to have categories to cover all of them
[12:29] Alicia Stella: much of this was covered in blog already
[12:29] Charlene Trudeau: singling out Fashion as the only content creation category isn't fair to the other creators
[12:29] Kitty Barnett: some people (especially new people) don't even have any idea of the scope of places that are in SL... showcase can ?
expose them to things in SL they didn't even know existed and if they like it, they'll search for similar venues on their own to see if there's ?
anything else like that
[12:29] Jeska Linden: Let's move to the next topic, which is bound to have lots of thoughts hopefully
[12:30] Jack Linden: agreed charlene
[12:30] Charlene Trudeau: you need Home & Garden, for example, right off the bat too
[12:30] Jeska Linden: Metrics!
[12:30] Trinity Coulter: oh, it might be helpful to have this Showcase system be tied into actual in-world sign/ads at Welcome Areas and ?
Infohubs perhaps, but that's kind of another topic :)
[12:30] WilliamThewise Goodman: Yes
[12:30] Alicia Stella: Club Supply! hehe
[12:30] Jeska Linden: Currently the only Linden provided metric for your parcel/estate is traffic.
[12:30] Phil Deakins: the words "head" and "brick wall" spring to mind :)
[12:30] WilliamThewise Goodman: I am the owner and developer of Etopia Island a 2-sim Educational island focusing on Sustainable ?
Development. I am working to attract Real Life businesses who are in this field and need stastical information for them to make a decision about ?
renting here.
[12:30] Dahlia Trimble's ears perk up
[12:30] Taff Nouvelle: 30 minutes gone already folks
[12:30] Zillion Blackadder: Jeska, many people in the LL Futures group assume that we are talking about a revision of metrics for *all* search ?
results, not just Popular Places. Would this be true?
[12:30] Jeska Linden: Traffic is calculated using a complex algorithm and is based on the amount of Residents who visited, and the time spent ?
on that parcel out of their total time inworld that day. (Just to set the stage)
[12:31] Alicia Stella: yes
[12:31] Jeska Linden: (Zillion - yup, that's we're moving to now)
[12:31] WilliamThewise Goodman: It will be very helpful determine real traffic from fake traffic (bots and campers)
[12:31] Jeska Linden: Let's spend a few minutes brainstorming what other types of things you'd like to know about people who visit your ?
parcel/region
[12:31] Trinity Coulter: but in essence, the traffic metric currently doesn't represent 'movement', only 'presence'
[12:31] WilliamThewise Goodman: How many people come to a sim total daily, weekly, monthly and having longer term access to that ?
information
[12:31] Jeska Linden: What other metrics do you wish you had about your parcel/estate aside from traffic?
[12:31] WilliamThewise Goodman: Especially unique visitors.
[12:31] Alicia Stella: current traffic rating is too heavily reliant on time spent and should be more assoiciated with number of unique guests
[12:32] Taff Nouvelle: I would like them to be able to find me in seatr5ch
[12:32] Amethyst Jetaime: I'd like to know the average age and if they have payment info on file
[12:32] Dahlia Trimble: would sales volume be appropriate?
[12:32] Liam Serf: country of orgin, age of av, etc..
[12:32] Amethyst Jetaime: unique vistors
[12:32] WilliamThewise Goodman: Where they are from since this is a global community
[12:32] Taff Nouvelle: at present search is so badly gamed in the events section that it is unuseable.
[12:32] River Ely: repeats are as good if not better than uniques
[12:32] Georgette Whitfield: I want to know if they're single and if so what their phone number is
[12:32] Charlene Trudeau: unique visitors, repeat visitors, both
[12:32] Alicia Stella: i'd like to sort my search results by any of the elements that are used in the algorithm by themselves
[12:32] WilliamThewise Goodman: Where they come from but you would need tocollect Country and state information for that.
[12:32] Liam Serf: yes, unique, total visits
[12:32] WilliamThewise Goodman: Where they are on the sim so you can see what places are being used as arrival points
[12:32] Lyra Blackthorne: I dont care how long people stay at shop...just how many came on what day at what time. if they know what they ?
want might only be there 2 min, a new resident who needs help might be there 2 hours...but they areboth same traffic imo
[12:32] Jack Linden: Dahlia.. you mean L$ transactions on the parcel?
[12:33] Dahlia Trimble: count of sales, not L$
[12:33] WilliamThewise Goodman: And historical data to follow trends
[12:33] Taff Nouvelle: when will LL actually ENFORCE the rules in search.??
[12:33] Jack Linden: hehe Georgette
[12:33] Georgette Whitfield: lol
[12:33] Jeska Linden: ;)
[12:33] Alicia Stella: residents should be able to flag parcels in search that do not follow guidelines so LL can see what needs attention
[12:33] Alicia Stella: and events
[12:33] Jeska Linden: I hear a lot of people asking for unique, which is the industry standard for web metrics.
[12:33] Phil Deakins: are we just talking about statistics for parcel owners here, or are we talking about more metrics for ranking places?
[12:34] Jeska Linden: Just for parcels at the moment Phil
[12:34] Phil Deakins: ok
[12:34] Jeska Linden: The other conversation is far more complex :)
[12:34] Charlene Trudeau: also, regarding search, I wish the google search could be used in all of the tabs, in so far as being able to search ?
'victorian hats' and get any result with either word in it, rather than being stuck with exact phrasing only
[12:34] Trinity Coulter: Jeska, can I ask, this might be getting ahead of things, but will the actual "traffic" metric be changing ... the way that ?
specific metric is done, i mean
[12:34] Alicia Stella: in a club unique may not be as important as regular customers daily would be more nomral, a sortby option in search ?
where we can choose how to weight our results could be usefull
[12:34] River Ely: any customer service oriented person will remnd you Jeska the doolar that returns is better than the doller hard earned by ?
advertising and investment, I want customers to come back again and again
[12:35] Jeska Linden: Trinity - let's hold that till the last part of our discussion, as it follows nicely on this one
[12:35] Trinity Coulter: ok :)
[12:35] River Ely: you cdould have two ratings side by side, Uniques and repeats, why not?
[12:35] Phil Deakins: uniques are good but can be done by parcel owners. same with L$spent. what I fear is that those things might somehow ?
get used for rankings in the future
[12:35] Charlene Trudeau: that would be best, River, having both stats
[12:35] Jeska Linden: River - any other numbers help with that?
[12:35] Dahlia Trimble: how about a way to rate the amount of load a particular avatar had on a SIM, not a viewer
[12:35] Jack Linden: visitors and unique visitors are probably both valid
[12:35] Charlene Trudeau: And I'd like to see daily and monthly at least
[12:35] WilliamThewise Goodman gave you Traffic Information Suggestions.
[12:36] Lyra Blackthorne: most my business is repeat, and my group is most loyal of all, ...I dont need unique but "real" number of avies who hit ?
my shop, when they hit them by day and time
[12:36] WilliamThewise Goodman: Longer term trens will be important to show potential clients
[12:36] Alicia Stella: if traffic is just algorithm, like it is now, we will have same problems as we do now, letting us search in different ways... ?
"Advanced Search" options and sortbys it would be much more fair and would fit different business situations
[12:36] Taff Nouvelle: will LL e3vfer enforce the rules in search to stop advertising stores many times a day in events??
[12:36] Zillion Blackadder: It should be possible to allow landowners to see traffic metrics even if they are removed from search
[12:36] River Ely: yyes , the duration
[12:36] Georgette Whitfield: Yes and a limit to keywords
[12:36] Jack Linden: what about 'average duration of visit', would that be useful?
[12:36] River Ely: if people are hanging around a lot, its not good
[12:36] Trinity Coulter: I think when you start to get more information on people, more metrics, like you said, you start to reach a place where ?
privacy is affected, and by more metrics, you can either have metrics that help residents, or metrics that help businesses
[12:36] Charlene Trudeau: Dahlia, lag is lag, whether its viewer side or server side. Having any avatar rendering score is wonderful. I'd like to see ?
it be a number tagged by lsl so we could prohibit high scores to busy venues or big events
[12:36] River Ely: if they come see and buy and go its great
[12:37] Alicia Stella: yes average is a good one
[12:37] River Ely: so time for me is an important assessment
[12:37] Amethyst Jetaime: yes average duration would be very useful
[12:37] Liam Serf: yes average
[12:37] WilliamThewise Goodman: I am really interested in stastics thet will help RL businesses understand whythis is worth investing in.
[12:37] Jeska Linden nods
[12:37] Lyra Blackthorne: think duration would be important to someone like a club owner but less so to a retail shop
[12:37] Trinity Coulter: well, good statistics will help LL as wel
[12:37] Liam Serf: what about country of origin
[12:37] Trinity Coulter: well
[12:37] Jeska Linden: Another more practical question - how long would you want any metrics and what format?
[12:37] River Ely: Average would be good jack and let the potential customer identify if it is good or bad dempending on circumstance
[12:37] Kitty Barnett: have you asked Meta Linden as well, Jeska? I know she brought up new metrics LL could provide several times in office ?
hours
[12:37] Dahlia Trimble: Charlene, a high rendering cost avatar doesnt impact other much unless they are in the field of view of the viewer
[12:38] Dahlia Trimble: *others
[12:38] WilliamThewise Goodman: Quiet kitty
[12:38] Kitty Barnett: lol
[12:38] Alicia Stella: honestly i feel Transaction History should last up to 3 years so i'm the wrong person to ask about LL storing data for us
[12:38] Charlene Trudeau: and that varies wildly, Dahlia
[12:38] Jeska Linden: Kitty - yup, we're all moving toward the same end goal. We've got some ideas of what we'd like and what's possible, but ?
I'm curious in what you want.
[12:38] Georgette Whitfield: Sorry kitty
[12:38] Amethyst Jetaime: it would be great if there was a way to get stats off the web site and download them into excel
[12:38] Jack Linden: country of origin is tricky, as there are privacy issues
[12:38] Trinity Coulter: you can
[12:38] Razrcut Brooks: also, avatar metrics ARE available on the new rlease candidate.
[12:38] Dahlia Trimble: however a highly scripted avatar affect the entire sim
[12:39] WilliamThewise Goodman: Downloading my traffic stats from the web would be awesome
[12:39] River Ely: individual spending is different for every business, but the constant is the number of visitors that make a transaction, thats ?
important stuff
[12:39] Charlene Trudeau: It should be something we can take out of world if possible without paper and pencil :) And stored long enough to get ?
it out reasonably without worrying about being online at midnight at somepoint in time
[12:39] Jack Linden: so like an export to excel Charlene?
[12:39] Alicia Stella: i agree, would be handy to have parcel traffic stats on web, may hurt some business tho that make web based traffic stuff
[12:39] Charlene Trudeau: yes
[12:39] Amethyst Jetaime: YES
[12:39] WilliamThewise Goodman: Yes Jack!
[12:39] Georgette Whitfield: That would be awesome
[12:39] River Ely: YES export freindly
[12:39] Jeska Linden: :)
[12:39] Charlene Trudeau: :)
[12:39] Jack Linden: hehe
[12:39] Kitty Barnett: if you provide average "duration of stay", the median should really show as well, since the median is more useful than the ?
average
[12:40] Charlene Trudeau: the statistics only do you so much good if you can't track them over time
[12:40] Jack Linden: yes kitty, i'm a big fan of both median and mean numbers
[12:40] Charlene Trudeau: so unless you're going to build in complex displays that can give you daily, weekly, monthly, year to date, last year ?
to date, last year, etc
[12:40] Trinity Coulter: kitty is a mean kitty, so she probably likes mean numbers too
[12:40] Charlene Trudeau: export to excel is important
[12:40] Kitty Barnett: uh huh :p
[12:40] River Ely: but numbers of 'visit events' should not ever be used as a identifier to assume success...
[12:40] WilliamThewise Goodman: The outside world need tothink theyunderstand these stats so we should worrk to offer things that "look" like ?
web hits stickyness
[12:41] Taff Nouvelle: so no change then , the cheats get bigger and the honest people get pushed out again .
[12:41] Phil Deakins: we're only talking about stats - not rankings Taff
[12:41] Taff Nouvelle: I asked the same question twice and was ignored.
[12:41] Jeska Linden: These are things that are shown to parcel owners
[12:41] WilliamThewise Goodman: Folks tghere is a big different between what SL businesses need and what RL businesse need to comitt ?
dollars
[12:41] Charlene Trudeau: right. We haven't identified what changes need to be made to the traffic formula, or how they might be able to be done ?
by LL
[12:41] Zillion Blackadder: It seems to me there are 3 separate issues here (1) the future of Popular Places (2) Showcase management (3) ?
metrics for Search results ordering. The issues *are* related, but discussing them altogether could be confusing the issue
[12:41] Jeska Linden: Taff - what is your question?
[12:42] Liam Serf: what about an option to have different plots added to the sum traffic for a sim
[12:42] Jeska Linden: Zillion - yup, that's what we set out to talk about!
[12:42] Georgette Whitfield: Yes needs to be seperate meetings
[12:42] Alicia Stella: I want to know if the PLACES search will become web based as did the ALL search and what the default sorting method ?
will be... is that one of the things up in the air atm?
[12:42] Taff Nouvelle: will LL enforse the rules on events in search so that stores do not have 25 listings on the same day
[12:42] Charlene Trudeau: Oh, Liam, that would be awesome, especially for estate regions where you could add by region, or even estate name
[12:42] Charlene Trudeau: or both
[12:43] WilliamThewise Goodman: Can we hold off on the search discussion?
[12:43] Liam Serf: yes, Charlene
[12:43] Jeska Linden: Taff - briefly, we're working toward a search flagging system which should help with event spam (you can flag things as ?
"spam") we are not equiptted to vet all events that are placed.
[12:43] Jack Linden: Taff.. also the governance team is recruiting like crazy right now to handle such things
[12:43] Taff Nouvelle: ok thansks
[12:44] Phil Deakins: yep - that's another tool for griefing
[12:44] WilliamThewise Goodman: Is thjatra job offer...smikle
[12:44] Jack Linden: hehe
[12:44] Jeska Linden: Ok, is there anything else about what metrics you'd like to have about your parcel?
[12:44] Jeska Linden: Otherwise, we should move to the final portion of the meeting..
[12:44] WilliamThewise Goodman: OK
[12:44] Taff Nouvelle: how many campers and bots are on each woul;d be good
[12:44] Trinity Coulter: Jeska, I think that would be best answered by a general survey
[12:44] Phil Deakins: lol
[12:44] Alicia Stella: we like info, the more stats u can throw at us the better we can analyze our busineses
[12:45] Amethyst Jetaime: agree with alicia
[12:45] Alicia Stella: nothing is not usefull
[12:45] WilliamThewise Goodman: Is LL willing to collect additional information about resdients?
[12:45] Liam Serf: yes, show the basic stats, but give us the raw files to download and filter as we see fit
[12:45] River Ely: too many people rely upon teh parcel counter or clock, mine get ticked when I restart a sim :(
[12:45] Phil Deakins: parcel owners already know those stats
[12:45] Charlene Trudeau is from school of 'there's no such thing as too much data'
[12:46] Razrcut Brooks: too much gamed data is..too much :)
[12:46] WilliamThewise Goodman: If you are the one analizing it there is ...lol
[12:46] Taff Nouvelle: yes
[12:46] Charlene Trudeau: if its on my parcels it won't be gamed
[12:46] Alicia Stella: getting and storing basic user info and time spent can be very laggy using scanning scripts and such, so more info from LL ?
and less lag on sim is good for me
[12:46] Taff Nouvelle: but a lot do game
[12:46] Charlene Trudeau: if you're talking information for my use, there's no such thing
[12:46] Jeska Linden: Ok, let's move to the last topic, we've got about 15 minutes left.
[12:46] Alicia Stella: I want to know if the PLACES search will become web based as did the ALL search and what the default sorting method ?
will be... is that one of the things up in the air atm?
[12:46] Charlene Trudeau: if you're talking about showing every bit of it to everyone, well, I don't think you need to know all that :)
[12:46] Jeska Linden: We've spoken a bit about what metrics will help you with your parcel to determine if something is successful.
[12:47] Liam Serf: Yes, Alicia, lets us remove lag data gathering scripts
[12:47] Dahlia Trimble wishes Charlene would open a new mall....
[12:47] Charlene Trudeau: awww, thanks, Dahlia :)
[12:47] Dahlia Trimble: ;)
[12:48] Zillion Blackadder: .
[12:48] Phil Deakins hears a pin drop
[12:48] Jeska Linden: What, if any of those numbers should be revealed to the public or used for search?
[12:48] Jeska Linden: (ie: traffic replacement)
[12:48] Kitty Barnett: the RL name that comes from payment info accounts is the most unique identifier and the one thing that's least prone to ?
being "fakes"... so if traffic were to only count "per individual" (it's "per account" now), if someone logs on 5 accounts at the same time, only one ?
of those would ever count for traffic which takes care of things like alt camping. The second step would be to cap traffic at x hours a day per ?
individual. That would reduce a lot of benefits that comes with camping, and as an added perk, camping bots *help* make traffic less effective ?
since the parcel over wouldn't know if their traffic counts or not. You then get a metric for "popularity" that's more representative and accurate, ?
and comparable across parcels anything else
[12:49] Taff Nouvelle: only useful to parcel owners
[12:49] Kitty Barnett: uhm that's long :o oops lol
[12:49] Amethyst Jetaime: only if the system is honest and cannot be gamed by camping/ bots or alt farms
[12:49] Phil Deakins: no. definitely not. that's what I said earlier - my fear is that LL will use them in the future for rankings
[12:49] Jeska Linden: Or, is having more in-depth data to track advertising campaings and such replace traffic altogether?
[12:49] Dahlia Trimble: unique visitors may have merit as a traffic replacement
[12:49] Razrcut Brooks: nice idea Kitty.
[12:49] River Ely: i dont care if its kept secret or given away
[12:49] Charlene Trudeau: How would you sort search places if traffic is eliminated entirely?
[12:49] Zillion Blackadder: Over what time period, Dahlia?
[12:50] Taff Nouvelle: by relavence
[12:50] River Ely: by product or service
[12:50] Phil Deakins: it's been discussed extensisively in the firum, and there is nothing to replace traffic that can't and won;t be gamed
[12:50] Jeska Linden: Phil -so, what do you think should happen?
[12:50] River Ely: remove traffioc altogether
[12:50] Amethyst Jetaime: then eliminate it in public
[12:50] Dahlia Trimble thinks traffic results should be partially randomized in search
[12:50] WilliamThewise Goodman: There will always be peopl who are trying to beat the system
[12:50] Charlene Trudeau: relevance would work if we can get boolean searches to search for more than exact phrasing
[12:50] Taff Nouvelle: random order by relevance for me
[12:50] River Ely: its only used to ccreate stats and irrevelant distortions
[12:50] Phil Deakins: I think that the Places tab should be removed completely OR it should display the All > Places results
[12:50] Kitty Barnett: I just suggested one, Phil... it's open for discussion on the forums for 5 days and noone came up with a way to game it ?
extensively
[12:50] Charlene Trudeau: I use traffic to *eliminate* the highest traffic results, personally
[12:51] River Ely: I only ever search for specific products
[12:51] Charlene Trudeau: so I would lose a way of eliminating those places most likely to be very laggy, but am quite open to that
[12:51] Dahlia Trimble: partial randomization of traffic based search results would offer exposure to low traffic sites with minimal impact to those ?
who maintain high traffic
[12:51] River Ely: i pay people to noodle and search for other things, they look and earn, i get resulrts
[12:51] Rice Cohen: The places tab can't be removed, because their new search is spam infested.
[12:51] Rice Cohen: It would make it nearly impossible to shop
[12:51] Georgette Whitfield: Agree Rice
[12:51] River Ely: Rice is right too
[12:51] Alicia Stella: i think a new traffic algorithm (for PLACES search) based on ACTUAL users behind accts, time spent, number of unique ?
visits, repeat visits, etc, is a good idea, and let us filter the search results based on the individual parts of the algorithm, like sortby unique hits, ?
or sortby most time spent, etc
[12:52] Phil Deakins: Jeska/Jack. in the wiki (search section) it states that the Places tab will be moved to the All search (Milestone 2). Is that ?
still planned to happen?
[12:52] Jeska Linden: Phil - I think you're misreading that.
[12:52] Taff Nouvelle: limited keywords, and search results based on a number of selectable critiria
[12:52] Jeska Linden: It says that the tab itself will be converted to html-based landing page. (or it should)
[12:52] Phil Deakins: the new search isn't spam infested and it can't be spammed anywhere like the Places tab is
[12:52] Alicia Stella: yes
[12:53] Rice Cohen: Yes, it is spam infested..
[12:53] Alicia Stella: i tlike moving to html, away from the asset servers load
[12:53] River Ely: my biggest complaint about search is the inability to use wildcards, so you sadly , have to know exactly what to search for
[12:53] Jeska Linden: Phil - which doesn't change anything except the page that you 'land' on (which is currently empty)
[12:53] River Ely: and i dont have time to sit for hours gaming to fiind stuff
[12:53] Phil Deakins: Jeska. pity beccause removing the Places tab will kill traffic gaming at a stroke - as will displaying the All > Places ?
results in it
[12:53] Lyra Blackthorne: I hate to see time spent as part of metric, if it is a retail shop there is no need for a customer to stay long unlike a ?
club ewhere they would be there hours. if you have to be in a retail shop too long likely it is a terrible mess and you canyt find things
[12:53] Alicia Stella: yes, advanced search options like wildcards would be available when switched to html right?
[12:53] Georgette Whitfield: I never use the new search if I can avoid it
[12:53] Georgette Whitfield: I always use places
[12:53] Georgette Whitfield: I find it easier to find things that way
[12:54] Phil Deakins: People will get used to it.
[12:54] Amethyst Jetaime: the statistic should be available and let each parcel owner decide what is relevant for them
[12:54] Georgette Whitfield: Well, I always search for a place I know the name of already
[12:54] Kitty Barnett: HTML is a huge usuability step backwards from what's currently there though, Jeska... new search is clumsy with HTML, ?
it's slow and requires 3-4 times more "actions" to get the same result as current Places
[12:54] Rice Cohen: If you start taking away everything residents have strived hard for, traffic, places, etc - and have no goals or anything. Alot ?
of residents will start to walk. They will have no purpose left
[12:54] Dahlia Trimble: places seems easier for me but I usually page through the highest traffic sites
[12:54] Jeska Linden: Amethyst - so you wouldn't have anything be publicly used?
[12:54] River Ely: like some of the malls you end up in with a list of stores and no clue what or where anything is, and as normal, no one around ?
to ask
[12:54] Phil Deakins: of course, keep the Places tab with the traffic-based rankings, but don't complain about trafficbots etc.
[12:54] Alicia Stella: places limits the keyword searches currently since Teleporter and Telporters come up with seperate results, its too literal
[12:54] Taff Nouvelle: we could not even find this group without typing in the EXACT name.
[12:54] Georgette Whitfield: I still couldn't find it then lol
[12:54] River Ely: Rice, thats an assuption honey
[12:55] Taff Nouvelle: in quotes
[12:55] Alicia Stella: 2 seperate keywords so u can pluralize is dumb
[12:55] Rice Cohen: No its really not, read the blog posts.
[12:55] Alicia Stella: using the html that would be corrected i am sure
[12:55] Amethyst Jetaime: only if there is a way to represent the stats based on real users not campers/ alts or bots
[12:55] Dahlia Trimble: search for explicit strings would help a lot
[12:55] Jeska Linden: yup, you can find the new group under Search All, but not Search Groups, becuase of limitations...
[12:55] River Ely: no, but we often remeber fragments of more than one word, and the current system will not allow for *stuff*crazy* for example
[12:55] Charlene Trudeau: I like places, but we do need to be able to search for all relevant words in search, not just exact matches
[12:56] Dahlia Trimble: multiple words in the order they are entered in the search field
[12:56] Alicia Stella: if traffic counted people based on RL user name and not avatar name bots would be no more, no?
[12:56] Alicia Stella: hiding rl info from us of course
[12:56] Amethyst Jetaime: i agree alicia
[12:56] Georgette Whitfield: If I know the name of a store, I search it in places and go to the one with the highest traffic 'cos that will be their ?
main store. That's the only time I use traffic.
[12:56] Alicia Stella: count humans not avatars
[12:56] River Ely: multiple fragments in any order, al-a Google...
[12:56] Zillion Blackadder: A new system also need to cater for the naive searcher who just searches on one (common) word
[12:56] Phil Deakins: but it can't do that. bots are created with all sorts of rl names
[12:56] Charlene Trudeau: lol, Georgette, and I try the lower traffic first, in hopes of avoiding lag
[12:56] Taff Nouvelle: yes River
[12:56] Jack Linden: Alicia.. bots can have real names too. :) if the creator adds one to their account
[12:56] Kitty Barnett: Phil-not if they payment info on file..
[12:56] Georgette Whitfield: lol Charlene
[12:57] Taff Nouvelle: go back to a limit on accounts
[12:57] Phil Deakins: bots don't have PIOF Kitty
[12:57] Alicia Stella: make us all verify then, and link all our accts on the backend
[12:57] Dahlia Trimble: PIOF?
[12:57] Phil Deakins: Payment info on file
[12:57] Jack Linden: Phil.. actually they can do. land bots for example, sometimes have PIOF
[12:57] Taff Nouvelle: pay info on file
[12:57] Jeska Linden: Ok, we've got a few more minutes...
[12:57] Alicia Stella: credit card required? i'm not opposed
[12:57] Charlene Trudeau: what about unique IP's? Would the bots be able to spoof that easily?
[12:57] Rice Cohen: Before camping, the Popular Places list displayed places that were truly popular - clubs and such, with real traffic. Block ?
camping.
[12:57] Kitty Barnett: then only count PIOF, duh... try going to bank to ask for a credit card under the name of "Camp Bot" and see how that ?
works out :p
[12:57] Lyra Blackthorne: I think less than half SL has PIOF
[12:57] Phil Deakins: remove the Places tab OR fill it with the All > Places results, and the bot problems disappears at a stroke
[12:57] Alicia Stella: Ips aleady are spoofed to make alts since an artificial limit of 6 av's per IP exist on SL website
[12:58] Charlene Trudeau: but if you go back to CC issue, wasn't that one reason SL went free to begin with? because not everyone around the ?
globe can get one?
[12:58] Zillion Blackadder: Are you not all assuming that traffci will continue as an important metric in search?
[12:58] Kitty Barnett: you just change bots for alt pick farms... nothing changes
[12:58] Rifkin Habsburg: Jeska, Jack.. could you give us some insight as to how LL feels wrt traffic? Do you think it's mostly ok as-is? Or that it ?
needs major work to improve it? Or are you leaning towards throwing it our altogether?
[12:58] Jeska Linden: Ok everyone, I have a hard stop at 1pm, so I wanted to make sure to thank you all for coming.
[12:58] Charlene Trudeau: then what happens to your metrics if many of your visitors don't even show?
[12:58] Dahlia Trimble: Thanks Jeska and Jack :)
[12:58] Zillion Blackadder: Thank you both
[12:59] Taff Nouvelle: yes thanks
[12:59] Alicia Stella: thank you for this opportunity guys
[12:59] Jeska Linden: If you have more thoughts, please send them over, I'll make sure they get thrown into our pot of ideas to stew over.
[12:59] Kitty Barnett: thankies for asking for feedback and hosting :)
[12:59] Phil Deakins: kill the reason for trafficbots/campers and the problem no longer exists. fiddle with it, and the problems will stay
[12:59] Zillion Blackadder: Will transcripts for later groups also be avaiable to us?
[12:59] River Ely: sec, four of use my Connection, each of us have a our alts, should I be limited to save your traffic pattersns, I dont thingk so
[12:59] Jack Linden: thanks everyone for taking the time. very cool.
[12:59] Amethyst Jetaime: thank you for allowing residents input on this
[12:59] Georgette Whitfield: WooT WooT
[12:59] Jeska Linden: And I'll be posting this to the group after later tonight after the other meeting.
[12:59] Georgette Whitfield: Hoooooo!
[12:59] Dakota Schwade: Notecards later are OK, Jeska?
[12:59] Jeska Linden: Yup, or email
[12:59] Charlene Trudeau: wooohoo
[12:59] Jeska Linden: Whichever you prefer
[12:59] Dahlia Trimble: where are transcripts available?
[12:59] Charlene Trudeau: thanks, Jeska & Jack
[12:59] River Ely: email to main account holder would be good
[12:59] Jeska Linden: I'll post them to the group later today
[13:00] Jeska Linden: (in the notices)
[13:00] Dahlia Trimble: :)
[13:00] Alicia Stella: okay cool
[13:00] Zillion Blackadder: Thank you Jeska and Jack
[13:00] Jeska Linden: Thanks!
[13:00] Alicia Stella: Claps Very Loudly!!!!
[13:00] River Ely: not to run my math to sort outr what was said her , lol
[13:00] Dahlia Trimble: bye all, thanks :)
[13:00] Jennifer Llanfair: Thank you, Jeska and Jack.
[13:00] Taff Nouvelle: bye everyone :-)
[13:00] Jeska Linden: Bye!
[13:00] Jack Linden: byee jeska


**** Monday 5/5 - 5pm Meeting ****
Jeska Linden: First, I'd like to thank you all for coming to the meeting today and for having such thoughtful discussions in the group chat.
[17:00] Jeska Linden: Now then, I'd like to distribute our chat log to the group after the meeting, is anyone not ok with that?
[17:01] Jeska Linden: (usually easier than asking who IS ok ;)
[17:01] Tequlia Tapioca smiles
[17:01] Velouria Infinity: okeys chat proliferation
[17:01] MikeVanMan Dagger: ^^
[17:01] Musique Gable grins
[17:01] Jeska Linden: Excellent!
[17:02] Jeska Linden: Ok, we've got an hour here to brainstorm - gather thoughts and ideas - and I'd like for us to cover three different things today, but don't worry I'll push us along if we get caught up in one thing too long.
[17:02] Jeska Linden: flexes her old-school moderator muscles
[17:02] Tequlia Tapioca smiles
[17:02] Musique Gable nods
[17:02] Martin Magpie: haha nice
[17:02] Jeska Linden: The three things I'd like for us to cover include: Showcase replacing Popular Places in the viewer, parcel metrics, and the future of traffic.
[17:03] Jeska Linden: First, briefly, some background.
[17:03] Jeska Linden: I'm sure you all saw in the initial blog post -
[17:03] Jeska Linden: http://blog.secondlife.com/2008/04/28/second-life-showcase-popular-places-and-the-future-of-traffic/
[17:03] Musique Gable: Yes
[17:03] Tequlia Tapioca: nope but i will
[17:03] Velouria Infinity: yes
[17:03] MikeVanMan Dagger: nods
[17:03] Martin Magpie nods
[17:03] Jeska Linden: We're planning on replacing the Popular Places tab content with content pulled from the Showcase on the Second Life Web site with the next Release Candidate
[17:04] Jeska Linden: Anticipating that this would bring up much conversation around traffic and metrics, we wanted to open the conversation up to the community (hence the group and these meetings).
[17:04] Jeska Linden: Let's start with Popular Places...
[17:04] Musique Gable: Okay.
[17:04] Jeska Linden: I'd like to make sure everyone is aware why we are making this switch over -
[17:05] Jeska Linden: then we can take any questions and move to the meatier issue of metrics and traffic :)
[17:05] Velouria Infinity: traffic gaming being key, correct?
[17:05] Jeska Linden: The Popular Places tab was started a long time ago, when the world of Second Life was much, much smaller in all meanings of the word.
[17:05] Tequlia Tapioca smiles
[17:05] Jeska Linden: Velouria - we can spend some time talking about gaming in a few..
[17:05] Velouria Infinity: kk
[17:06] Jeska Linden: It only lists 20 parcels with the highest "traffic" numbers. t that time it was also tied to a "traffice incentive" where LL paid the people who had the most traffic (which has not been done for some time but used to be my job for awhile ;)
[17:06] Jeska Linden: The Showcase is something a bit different - it's been on the SL Website for the last few months and highlights various inworld locations which have interesting content, activities, or experiences.
[17:06] Musique Gable: My only problem I see with Showcases thus far is I'd hate to see favoritism come into play. How are places shown in Showcases going to be determined?
[17:06] Jeska Linden: The hope is that Showcase will allow quality venues to get listed without having the pressure of keeping traffic high and help allow the depth of experiences in Second Life to come to the surface of Search.
[17:07] Jeska Linden: We also have plans to add a method in the future (we're getting feedback on the proposed design currently), which includes a way for Residents to nominate things for Showcase from inworld.
[17:07] Jeska Linden: I'd like to take a few minutes to get your thoughts and feedback on this and take any suggestions on this change before moving on to the next topic (metrics!).
[17:07] Jeska Linden: Musique - we can start with that
[17:07] Martin Magpie: Is Showcase a done deal or is that still up for discussion?
[17:07] Jeska Linden: Martin - the Showcase switch is pretty much done (I believe the code was checked in today) but we can still make changes to the html
[17:08] Tequlia Tapioca: well its fairer to have residence vote but bots can vote alot
[17:08] Musique Gable: exactly Tequila
[17:08] Jeska Linden: And as the program grows (and is hopefully successful) we may be able to add more Linden staff to do more things with it
[17:08] Destiny Niles: at welcome areas and infohubs there are kioskos that gives landmarks - will those be utillzied also?
[17:08] Carla Chandrayaan: it's a done deal. they're ust deciding how to select featured places or whether/how to allow residents to nimonate places for it
[17:08] Martin Magpie: bots voting is also a worry for me.
[17:08] MikeVanMan Dagger: Good point Destiny
[17:08] Jeska Linden: There is another project underway to rework landmarks, which has had some discussion on the SL Dev list I believe.
[17:08] Velouria Infinity: Showcase may be good for LL and in a limited form for businesses new to SL which see a polished and more interesting venue as to why be here and what risk their brand is taking
[17:09] Jeska Linden: nods
[17:09] Velouria Infinity: but obvously risks for favorits sky very high and we can not
[17:09] Velouria Infinity: hide they are there
[17:09] MikeVanMan Dagger: Hubs can be used MUCH better then what they're used for nowadays, which is more like a drinking cooler for old early dwellers for which said hub rests upon
[17:09] Jeska Linden: I'm also taking suggestions and other feedback back to the Showcase team (the very, very small Showcase Editorial team)
[17:09] Velouria Infinity: is natural
[17:09] Lee Lindman: So showcase will be driven solely by a manual voting process ?
[17:09] Carla Chandrayaan: I don't really anticipate the showcase 'helping' businesses in SL. But doing away with the rigged numbers for popular places might
[17:09] Tequlia Tapioca: :) team of 1
[17:09] Velouria Infinity: suspicion is running very very high about it
[17:09] Ann Otoole: How is this system not going to remain basically what the fashion page is where LL decides who will be a top successful fashion store? I.e.; are you going to get out of the business of favoring certain account or will LL begin taking pay for positiong on the showcase? And how will LL prevent gaming of this? comes right around to the question of exactly how many access accounts are allowed per unique person, per household, per IP address.
[17:10] Velouria Infinity: but also this seems to be open to further gaming
[17:10] Velouria Infinity: from the resi's side
[17:10] Jeska Linden: Currently the Showcase is an editorialized list chosen by several people, but in the future (hopefully sooner rather than later) there will be an easier way to nominate things for th list from inside the viewer.
[17:10] MikeVanMan Dagger: There should be incentives to great locations that continue to reface their store with new products and a fresh look. These are places that could maybe be labeled as ACTIVE, where as within the last 30-45 days this location has been updated and is fresh. Maybe have a color system, green as fresh content, yellow (60-90 days) and red (120+ days), since last updated.
[17:11] Velouria Infinity: jacek Antonelli proposed something about incentivating/de-incentivating rating from resis
[17:11] Velouria Infinity: albeit complicated
[17:11] Tequlia Tapioca: good old days
[17:11] Beithe Mills: resis?
[17:11] Velouria Infinity: residents
[17:11] Jeska Linden: resis/residents? :)
[17:11] Jeska Linden: Torley-ism?
[17:11] Beithe Mills: ah
[17:11] Velouria Infinity: was there such a system in place in the past?
[17:12] Tequlia Tapioca: for us
[17:12] Tequlia Tapioca: avatar rates
[17:12] Ann Otoole: What is to stop one store owner from asking 10,000 customers to go to a competitor and flagging for content abuse while recommending that designer's store for showcase. its impossible and will be gamed.
[17:12] Velouria Infinity: Ann poses the problem we see
[17:12] Beithe Mills: but that would be easily spotted Ann
[17:12] Jeska Linden: Ann - We can speak a bit about the search flagging proposal if you'd like, but I'd rather focus in on the traffic issues for this meeting.
[17:12] sirhc DeSantis: ann all systems will be gamed
[17:13] Original Prim: Impartiality is an issue in Linden selected picks too, as many Lindens are successful business owners themselves.
[17:13] Jeska Linden: We've been speaking with several groups with an early (super early) proposal for search flagging.
[17:13] Darien Caldwell: how many stores have 10,000 customers willing to be dishonest? it's rather a silly notion.
[17:13] Harvey Swenson: why isnt the showcase just a random selection of nominated places? once they're vetted then just display them randomly?
[17:13] Ann Otoole: no it wouldnt. besides, who will police it? LL hasn't the staff for that. And what would LL do? delete the scammer accounts?
[17:13] Beithe Mills: and 10,000 customers without one that would report it......
[17:14] Argos Hawks: it wouldn't take 10,000. may not even take 10.
[17:14] Musique Gable: someone can make 10,000 alts, not impossible....stranger things have happened in SL
[17:14] Jeska Linden: Did anyone else have suggestions on how to improve the Showcase or any other questions on the removal of POpular places?
[17:14] Tequlia Tapioca: its a hard question and why you are here now
[17:14] Martin Magpie: Generally speaking any improvement to the current search is much needed not just for the residents but also for LL. I am glad to hear that the list is checked by more than one person. I still have concerns that a it will become another popularity contest and it's not about what you do; more of who you know.
[17:14] Argos Hawks: Don't include stores in the Showcase.
[17:14] MikeVanMan Dagger: popular places could have tabs at the very least
[17:14] Velouria Infinity: if we remove pop places what incentives bots have still to clog those high places?
[17:14] Musique Gable: I say put Popular Places in the residents hads.....as we ARE what make SL, SL
[17:14] Tequlia Tapioca: bots and abuses are hard to deal with
[17:15] Tim Gagliano: Can I ask a question of a Linden?
[17:15] Ann Otoole: ratings were gamed. ratings were removed. nobody got hurt. SL doesnt need voting for popularity systems. i agree reporting content clearly in violation of the CS/TOS is needed and there is an AR system now although it may need governance over the governance team
[17:15] Velouria Infinity: then ban bots in the TOS
[17:15] Dirk Talamasca: New residents are not allowed to place a vote
[17:15] Original Prim: Resident nomination does sound promising and I'm confident you can find ways to lessen gaming
[17:15] Shanti Sands: anything with resident voting to me is asking for *easy* bot abuse
[17:15] Jeska Linden: Martin - I understand the concern, my hope is that once we have search flagging in and nominations start rolling in, we can use that data within the Showcase
[17:15] Beithe Mills: What about violent/adult locations, would LL even consider showcasing those.........i do not run one, but content can be an issue on something like the showcase can it not?
[17:15] Tequlia Tapioca: bots are ages old
[17:15] Jeska Linden: Possibly like Digg or Craiglist does
[17:15] Carla Chandrayaan: I agree that it should be a rnadom pick. Unbiased (except possibly against overtly mature themes) of all sim or businesses or adventurous places i Sl
[17:15] Musique Gable: The thing is, there is nothing stopping bots/alts from entering SL...that therein lies the problem
[17:15] Tequlia Tapioca: only paying members gets votes is not right either
[17:16] Velouria Infinity: some even suggest a thirdy party to deliver reviews
[17:16] MikeVanMan Dagger: bots are defnitly a drain on resources, I logged on this monday morning, 56k residents online...where are these people? My friends and I have scoured everywhere.....the answer lies 85 bots jammed in a sky box
[17:16] Tequlia Tapioca: unless all are paying
[17:16] Tim Gagliano: Why do this instead of Enforcing the TOS.... If we Enforced the TOS, Traffic could stay... or.. have a filter to remove the bots/campers... to show REAL traffic
[17:16] Beithe Mills: We arent talking about traffic Yet, A/all
[17:16] sirhc DeSantis: with tim
[17:16] Velouria Infinity: So I ask, why are bots not a TOS volation or taxed financially wit