User:Benjamin Linden/Office Hours/2007 May 31

Transcript of Benjamin Linden's office hours:

[10:00]	Drew Dwi:	morning :)
[10:00]	Benjamin Linden:	hi guys
[10:00]	Benjamin Linden:	hi Drew
[10:00]	Benjamin Linden:	cute av :-)
[10:00]	Very Susanti:	Hiya evryone
[10:01]	Drew Dwi:	thanks :)
[10:01]	Squirrel Wood:	Hellos ^^
[10:01]	Benjamin Linden:	hi Very, good to see you again
[10:01]	Benjamin Linden:	hi Squirrel
[10:01]	Very Susanti:	Hi benjamin
[10:01]	Benjamin Linden:	you as well
[10:01]	Squirrel Wood gave you Fortune Cookie.
[10:01]	Squirrel Wood:	rez to get a fortune ^^
[10:02]	Benjamin Linden:	maybe we'll wait just a few more minutes to let people arrive
[10:02]	Benjamin Linden:	hi Gao
[10:02]	Gao Niangao:	hi Benjamin
[10:02]	Gao Niangao:	hi all
[10:02]	Very Susanti:	Nice Avie Drew
[10:02]	Squirrel Wood:	bear! ^^
[10:03]	Very Susanti:	hehe thanx
[10:03]	Drew Dwi:	danks :)
[10:03]	Benjamin Linden:	np, you can rez it when you get home :-)
[10:03]	Very Susanti:	haha don't trust us here lol
[10:03]	Squirrel Wood gave you AutoSizing Ring Seat 20+.
[10:03]	Benjamin Linden:	what does the ring seat do?
[10:03]	Squirrel Wood:	A little something for when there's not enough seats available ^^
[10:03]	Benjamin Linden:	is it like timeless prototype's chair?
[10:04]	Squirrel Wood:	basically a ring that supports 20+ people and that expands as more people sit on it
[10:04]	Very Susanti:	omg I hate those, make me seasick
[10:04]	There is no suitable surface to sit on, try another spot.
[10:04]	Squirrel Wood:	it doesn't rez new seats. just expands
[10:04]	There is no suitable surface to sit on, try another spot.
[10:04]	Drew Dwi gets trampled :P
[10:04]	Squirrel Wood:	the blue ring acts as a table
[10:05]	Benjamin Linden:	ha, sorry drew
[10:05]	Benjamin Linden:	you blend into the seat!
[10:05]	Benjamin Linden:	:-)
[10:05]	Drew Dwi:	good for spying >:D
[10:05]	Benjamin Linden:	ah cool
[10:05]	Benjamin Linden:	I was trying to sit on the blue part
[10:05]	Squirrel Wood:	you may have to zoom close in on the yellow ring to successfully sit down
[10:05]	Benjamin Linden:	haha it even moves us around
[10:05]	Benjamin Linden:	pretty neat
[10:05]	Very Susanti:	yeah that is the part i don't like
[10:05]	Squirrel Wood:	it shuffles you around and slowly rotates people over time
[10:06]	Benjamin Linden:	haha really?
[10:06]	Very Susanti:	kewl though
[10:06]	Benjamin Linden:	hi Connor
[10:06]	Connor Whitman:	Hi
[10:06]	Connor Whitman:	:)
[10:06]	Benjamin Linden:	ok so I know Very and Squirrel have been to my office hours before
[10:07]	Squirrel Wood:	^^
[10:07]	Benjamin Linden:	how about connor and drew?
[10:07]	Drew Dwi:	nope, been wandering from office hour to office hour first time to catch yours tho
[10:07]	Benjamin Linden:	great, well welcome
[10:07]	Connor Whitman:	I was amking time to find an open Linden Office
[10:07]	Connor Whitman:	ty
[10:07]	Connor Whitman:	*making
[10:08]	Benjamin Linden:	so normally I like to pick a particular topic to discuss, and get your feedback and ideas on
[10:08]	Benjamin Linden:	we started talking a little bit about search last week and I think I'd like to continue that today
[10:08]	Connor Whitman:	I am havind a particular issue
[10:08]	Connor Whitman:	and can't seem to fix it
[10:08]	Benjamin Linden:	go ahead connor
[10:08]	Connor Whitman:	In the SL Site
[10:08]	Drew Dwi:	the tubes are broken again :P
[10:08]	Connor Whitman:	on my billing info update
[10:08]	Connor Whitman:	I dont have a CVC field
[10:08]	Benjamin Linden:	hmm, unfortunately I'm not the best person to help you with that
[10:09]	Connor Whitman:	and I need it
[10:09]	Benjamin Linden:	have you filed a support request?
[10:09]	Connor Whitman:	yes
[10:09]	Benjamin Linden:	ok well they should be following up with you then.
[10:09]	Connor Whitman:	Ok
[10:09]	Connor Whitman:	It's a nice place u got here
[10:09]	Benjamin Linden:	thanks!
[10:09]	Benjamin Linden:	it's a scope cleaver house
[10:10]	Benjamin Linden:	I love it!
[10:10]	Benjamin Linden:	althought it's very primmy
[10:10]	Connor Whitman:	:)
[10:10]	Drew Dwi:	have you noticed with search, if I type in like first or third it gets no results? kinda odd to believe there are no groups with first in them
[10:10]	Connor Whitman:	Huge Prims could help, but they don't seem to work very well
[10:10]	Very Susanti:	damn the prims I say
[10:10]	Very Susanti:	haha
[10:10]	Very Susanti:	puters always get faster
[10:10]	Connor Whitman:	not about lag
[10:11]	Connor Whitman:	U can reduce the prim count
[10:11]	Very Susanti:	I bet scultpties won't reduce prim counts it goes counter to every technology trend
[10:11]	Connor Whitman:	if u have large prims
[10:11]	Very Susanti:	large prims mess with the physics engine
[10:11]	Squirrel Wood:	When I search for a specific name on the "search all" tab, there is a whole lot of other items listed before the actual name which should be first in the list as an "exact hit"
[10:12]	Connor Whitman:	I have had no problem with some I had to use
[10:12]	Connor Whitman:	or I couldn't have built that place
[10:12]	Benjamin Linden:	we are sort of hoping sculpties will reduce prim count
[10:12]	Connor Whitman:	yes
[10:12]	Connor Whitman:	and more perfect pieces
[10:12]	Benjamin Linden:	since people won't have to use as many shapes to create organic shapes
[10:12]	Connor Whitman:	specially on furniture
[10:12]	Connor Whitman:	or scuplture
[10:12]	Very Susanti:	can I ask what backing technology is used? is it a real search engine index or just a database?
[10:12]	Squirrel Wood:	Sculpties will definitely reduce avatar prim counts ^^
[10:13]	Benjamin Linden:	Very, it's searching a MySQL db
[10:13]	Connor Whitman:	Shoews will be great
[10:13]	Very Susanti:	I know Benjamin, but I doubt it in general
[10:13]	Connor Whitman:	*Shoes
[10:13]	Very Susanti:	K
[10:13]	Very Susanti:	DB are great but not as full featured as you want for search engines
[10:13]	Very Susanti:	and often slower
[10:13]	Squirrel Wood:	hmm... when I sear on the "All" tab for "Benjamin Linden" I have 5050poker show up top abd the actual name is on position 6
[10:14]	Benjamin Linden:	that's right Very, we'd like to move to a real search engine
[10:14]	Very Susanti:	yeah order too is more complicated
[10:14]	*X-Flight, Carbon Rod X: All Go
[10:14]	Benjamin Linden:	do you have any suggestions?
[10:14]	Squirrel Wood:	google? ^^
[10:14]	Very Susanti:	you guys are a C++ shop right?
[10:14]	Benjamin Linden:	yes Squirrel, we definitely want to improve the accuracy and relevancy of the results
[10:14]	Connor Whitman:	I am not a developer
[10:14]	Very Susanti:	I have used Lucene, not sure of it's C++ support
[10:15]	Benjamin Linden:	yes, we're mainly c++
[10:15]	Very Susanti:	but it shouldn't matter in an SOA archt
[10:15]	Benjamin Linden:	hi Wyn, welcome back Gao
[10:15]	Wyn Galbraith:	Good morning.
[10:15]	Connor Whitman:	Morning
[10:15]	Benjamin Linden:	good point, Very
[10:15]	Very Susanti:	Iassume you have some kind of ESB implementation
[10:16]	Benjamin Linden:	so beyond the back-end technology questions, I wanted to get a better understanding of how you use search today
[10:16]	Benjamin Linden:	would you all mind giving me some specific examples?
[10:16]	Gao Niangao:	((thanks... sorry: spontaneous Linux client flake-out))
[10:16]	Very Susanti:	well it is probably important to define the search you are talking about
[10:16]	Drew Dwi:	just curious have you considered making the land searches be able to sort out the rental vs buying? as searching for land sales tends to be flooded land priced at $0L which you can't filter out which is for rent
[10:16]	Very Susanti:	Event searching is different from location searching
[10:17]	Connor Whitman:	I use a mac, but are u talking about search engines on the www? or here?
[10:17]	Squirrel Wood:	I usually use as few words as possible and as exact a "description" as possible to find what I want. works nice on the major search engines but usually tends to yield surprising results in SL ^^
[10:17]	Connor Whitman:	I only use the regualr search here
[10:17]	Benjamin Linden:	that's an interesting issue, Drew, I'll bring that up with the team
[10:17]	Very Susanti:	yes but they do add fuzzy matching and keyword expansion, but the results are ordered into zones
[10:18]	Very Susanti:	with the exact matches appearing in a higher zone
[10:18]	Drew Dwi:	cool :) real annoying
[10:18]	Benjamin Linden:	so Squirrel, when you say "find what you want" what are you generally looking for?
[10:18]	Drew Dwi:	the other option I think would be cool is to filter out land that doesn't have anything other than the default coventant on private estates
[10:18]	Squirrel Wood:	land search should filter out ridiculous land prices like, 9999999999999
[10:19]	Very Susanti:	haha yes
[10:19]	Drew Dwi:	filtering high price is easy, its the low that you can't filter out currently
[10:19]	Squirrel Wood:	clothes, items. stuff like that
[10:19]	Benjamin Linden:	do any of you use websites like slexchange for item searches?
[10:19]	Very Susanti:	and it would be nice to have a real relavency ranking that is not tied to dwell
[10:20]	Squirrel Wood:	slx... rarely.
[10:20]	Drew Dwi:	yeah only used slx, can honestly say never used the classified stuff
[10:20]	Benjamin Linden:	hi Mattias
[10:20]	Benjamin Linden:	you can click the yellow ring to sit
[10:20]	Squirrel Wood:	usually search those when trying to decide what I want to build
[10:20]	Mattias Jansma:	hello
[10:21]	Squirrel Wood:	the yellow ring ^^
[10:21]	Connor Whitman:	It would be interesting if u could have way to group ur friends on list
[10:21]	Connor Whitman:	like on msn
[10:21]	Benjamin Linden:	so Squirrel you use slexchange sort of like a competitive analysis tool?
[10:21]	Very Susanti:	yes that would help alot in managing really large lists
[10:21]	Benjamin Linden:	to see what other people are building?
[10:21]	Squirrel Wood:	basically
[10:22]	Wyn Galbraith:	Good idea Squirrel.
[10:22]	Benjamin Linden:	I like that suggestion Connor
[10:22]	Squirrel Wood:	to see whether its a good idea to reinvent the wheel or not ^^
[10:22]	Benjamin Linden:	interesting
[10:22]	Wyn Galbraith:	I hate that 'oh I have a great idea' only to find out it's been done better by someone else ;)
[10:22]	Very Susanti:	if you are a savy advertiser I suppose you could and make money
[10:22]	Connor Whitman:	the inventory window could be more user friendly too
[10:23]	Benjamin Linden:	so when when any of you search using the built-in search, do you generally use the All search or go specifically to the sub-tabs?
[10:23]	Connor Whitman:	like a tab instaed of a folder
[10:23]	Very Susanti:	people buy what they see, and don't always find the best thing first
[10:23]	Squirrel Wood:	what I would like to see is a list of names at the right side of group chat sessions like in IRC so you can actually see who is still there and listening in :)
[10:23]	Wyn Galbraith is terrified of her inventory. "It's like my RL closet, a real mess."
[10:23]	Connor Whitman:	ahaha
[10:23]	Connor Whitman:	I clean it up
[10:23]	Gao Niangao *never* uses the All Search
[10:23]	Very Susanti:	I use the specific sub tabs
[10:23]	Connor Whitman:	but Its hard to get it on check this way
[10:23]	Squirrel Wood:	I tend to use the ALL search unless I know specifically what I want to search for
[10:23]	Very Susanti:	and in events I use the filter
[10:23]	Benjamin Linden:	actually Squirrel we're adding that as part of voice chat, have you seen the new beta viewer?
[10:23]	Roof Doors:	Mattias Jansma is at the door.
[10:23]	Wyn Galbraith:	I do when I can't find something in the other tabs.
[10:24]	Connor Whitman:	there external Hud that help on that right?
[10:24]	Roof Doors:	Benjamin Linden is at the door.
[10:24]	Connor Whitman:	I mean ALL search
[10:24]	Squirrel Wood:	I don't use the beta viewers here. Though I do try out the first look series viewers ^^
[10:24]	Connor Whitman:	I used it before
[10:25]	Connor Whitman:	now using the regualr version
[10:25]	Benjamin Linden:	well the current voice chat viewer only works on the beta grid, so you wouldn't be able to use it here :-)
[10:25]	Connor Whitman:	the Beta new interface is very weird to use
[10:25]	Gao Niangao:	actually, I tried the "chatterbox" window... i kinda like it... except it keeps the Voice part of the UI even when I've disabled Voice completely
[10:25]	Benjamin Linden:	but we are rolling out some improvements to the chat interface as part of the voice chat
[10:25]	Connor Whitman:	on frieds and communications
[10:26]	Drew Dwi:	is voice chat 1 to 1 and via group going to happen also?
[10:26]	Drew Dwi:	ie, not tied down to land?
[10:26]	Benjamin Linden:	I'm glad you like it Gao. in the final version you'll be able to hide the voice pieces if you're not using them
[10:26]	Benjamin Linden:	yes, Drew, that is happening also
[10:26]	Connor Whitman:	brb
[10:26]	Benjamin Linden:	Connor, what confuses you about the chatterbox?
[10:26]	Connor Whitman:	Voice is very good thing on SL
[10:26]	Connor Whitman:	Im looking forward to it
[10:27]	Very Susanti:	the chatterbox is nice
[10:27]	Benjamin Linden:	thanks Very :-)
[10:27]	Very Susanti:	it is the only way to tell who is tlking
[10:27]	Benjamin Linden:	right, that's the main reason it was built
[10:27]	Very Susanti:	it would be nice if you could mute someone from the chatterbox
[10:27]	Benjamin Linden:	plus it will be the way you initiate 1-to-1 and group calls
[10:27]	Very Susanti:	I suspect voice will be a great griefer toy
[10:28]	Benjamin Linden:	you will be able to mute individuals using the chatterbox
[10:28]	Connor Whitman:	thats cool
[10:28]	Very Susanti:	kewl
[10:28]	Connor Whitman:	so u go on chatting
[10:28]	Connor Whitman:	and mute the spammers
[10:28]	Benjamin Linden:	actually you can individually control volume levels for everyone you're talking to
[10:28]	Benjamin Linden:	which is very helpful
[10:28]	Very Susanti:	can you do that today?
[10:28]	Benjamin Linden:	hmm, I'm not sure what's in the latest release
[10:28]	Connor Whitman:	I hope the interface gets easier to use
[10:29]	Benjamin Linden:	can you elaborate Connor?
[10:29]	Connor Whitman:	Yes
[10:29]	Connor Whitman:	The box on beta
[10:29]	Very Susanti:	well I wonder how easy it will be to manage the "chat" voice and IM voice from a single box
[10:29]	Connor Whitman:	is very unfriedly to users
[10:29]	Connor Whitman:	You could need a more Apple like interfaces
[10:29]	Squirrel Wood:	How about an option "people not on my friends list cannot hear me" or "I can only hear people on my friends list" ?
[10:30]	Connor Whitman:	thse are usually very simple to all
[10:30]	Connor Whitman:	thats cool too
[10:30]	Benjamin Linden:	that's an interesting idea, Squirrel
[10:30]	Drew Dwi:	the speakers button on the far right wasn't intiutive, I didn't realize what it did untill someone told me.
[10:30]	Benjamin Linden:	there is an option for only allowing friends to call you
[10:30]	Connor Whitman:	LOL and Kill sound gestures LOL they are spooky ahaha
[10:30]	Squirrel Wood:	sometimes I want to concentrate on building but still want to be able to hear my friends ^^
[10:30]	Benjamin Linden:	we're changing the speakers label to an icon
[10:31]	Drew Dwi:	maybe who's talking or different name would do it better justice
[10:31]	Very Susanti:	how will you set the context you are talking in, as in general voice chat or a specific friends conference?
[10:31]	Very Susanti:	Hi Chaley?
[10:31]	Connor Whitman:	they were anoucing voice changers in SLExchange can u kill those on ur land?
[10:31]	Squirrel Wood:	the yellow ring.
[10:31]	Benjamin Linden:	welcome Chaley
[10:31]	Drew Dwi:	no heh
[10:31]	Connor Whitman:	Hi
[10:31]	Wyn Galbraith:	Hi Chaley
[10:32]	Chaley May:	hi :)
[10:32]	Benjamin Linden:	Very, this will be done in the chatterbox
[10:32]	Very Susanti:	I think voice changers run on peoples puters, so no
[10:32]	Connor Whitman:	it could be an option to kill those kind of gear
[10:32]	Benjamin Linden:	that is one part that will be potentially confusing
[10:32]	Connor Whitman:	yes
[10:32]	Connor Whitman:	it is
[10:32]	Very Susanti:	well I would love to see that part of the interface
[10:32]	Connor Whitman:	I can do a sketch on the interface actually
[10:32]	Benjamin Linden:	that's right, there's no way for us to control the voice changers
[10:32]	Connor Whitman:	I like that
[10:32]	Very Susanti:	I suspect that part will need the most resident review time
[10:33]	Connor Whitman:	That can be confusing but I think we can tell after a while
[10:33]	Benjamin Linden:	yes we plan to have that out soon for you to look at
[10:33]	Very Susanti:	kewl
[10:34]	Very Susanti:	also we need a way to disable Windlight, it crashes my laptop
[10:34]	Very Susanti:	if you stick that in the next beta, I won't be able to run it
[10:34]	Connor Whitman:	MacBooks Pro seem to have a 'buzz' when running SL
[10:34]	Drew Dwi:	thats the fan probably
[10:34]	Drew Dwi:	my macbook does it too
[10:34]	Connor Whitman:	everybody cumplaints about that
[10:34]	Very Susanti:	or the harddrive spinning
[10:34]	Connor Whitman:	yes
[10:34]	Benjamin Linden:	there will be a "downgraded" mode for people that can't support windlight
[10:35]	Very Susanti:	could be swap thrashing
[10:35]	Drew Dwi:	nah its the fan for sure :P
[10:35]	Very Susanti hates that word
[10:35]	Connor Whitman:	I have no lag whatsoever
[10:35]	Connor Whitman:	and have all on
[10:36]	Connor Whitman:	it makes a difference if one practises SL Sports, scripts are very heavy
[10:36]	Connor Whitman:	weather Island doesnt take a lot of ppl at the same time
[10:37]	Wyn Galbraith has to put an icepack under her laptop when in SL.
[10:37]	Drew Dwi:	just curious, is SL coded to take advantage of dual core processors?
[10:37]	Connor Whitman:	mine doesnt heat
[10:37]	Connor Whitman:	its just the buzz
[10:37]	Wyn Galbraith:	This is a dual core tablet pc
[10:37]	Benjamin Linden:	I'm not sure about that Drew
[10:37]	Very Susanti:	it wasn't a while back, I saw a blog entry that said you should set the processor affinity, but I haven't seen anything new since
[10:38]	Benjamin Linden:	and yes, I do get a lot of fan action with SL
[10:38]	Benjamin Linden:	hi Tuesday
[10:38]	Connor Whitman:	I maybe need to get a desktop version
[10:38]	Tuesday McKay:	Hi Benjamin!
[10:38]	Connor Whitman:	an iMac at least
[10:38]	Very Susanti:	I had an over heating problem for a while kept freezing my laptop
[10:38]	Connor Whitman:	is it a PC?
[10:38]	Very Susanti:	then I replaced it and put more gunk on it and that helped
[10:38]	Very Susanti:	replaces the fan I mean
[10:39]	Benjamin Linden:	so guys, let's get back to search for a little bit
[10:39]	Connor Whitman:	Ok I need to go
[10:39]	Benjamin Linden:	what do people think of traffic as a way to rank results?
[10:39]	Very Susanti:	sucks
[10:39]	Wyn Galbraith:	The fan works, it just gets very hot anyway. So I have those plastic icepacks to keep drinks cold in the freezer. And use that when it peaks over 111.
[10:39]	Squirrel Wood:	doesn't give very accurate results if you ask me.
[10:40]	Very Susanti:	I think the way to do it is by popularity, ie, someone does a search and then tp's to the location
[10:40]	Benjamin Linden:	see ya Connor, thanks for coming
[10:40]	Connor Whitman:	TY
[10:40]	Very Susanti:	add a hook there to increment a popularity counter
[10:40]	Connor Whitman:	I will come next time and bring an interface example
[10:40]	Connor Whitman:	:)
[10:40]	Very Susanti:	even better if you can tie it to the keywords, to get a keyword relevance
[10:40]	Connor Whitman:	i graphics
[10:40]	Connor Whitman:	bye all
[10:40]	Connor Whitman:	ty
[10:41]	Wyn Galbraith:	Bye
[10:41]	Squirrel Wood:	search also is manipulated through the use of many, many keywords. you want to bump your result up? Add any keywords of the x-rated kind to your classified ad and up it goes
[10:41]	Very Susanti:	that is how most search engines do a relevancy boost
[10:41]	Benjamin Linden:	ok that'd be great Connor
[10:41]	Benjamin Linden:	well google has the idea of page ranking
[10:41]	Benjamin Linden:	we need something similar for relevance
[10:41]	Squirrel Wood:	mayhaps not just a popularity counter but an accuracy counter as well.. so people can tell "Hey! this item has nothing to do with what I searched for. bump it down!" ^^
[10:42]	Very Susanti:	also keywords or tags should be tied to a term document frequency so you can penalize keyword spammers
[10:42]	Chaley May:	Isnt googles ranking system based ont he amount fo people that have webpages linked to it?
[10:42]	Very Susanti:	well they use a combination of term document frequecy and hit frequency
[10:42]	Gao Niangao:	yes, Very... something sorta Bayesian, like spam detection
[10:42]	Squirrel Wood:	How about providing several lists of keywords based on general topics that one can choose one from on posting a classified ad?
[10:43]	Benjamin Linden:	Google's algorithm is complex and proprietary
[10:43]	Squirrel Wood:	that would help to greatly cut down the keyword abuse
[10:43]	Very Susanti:	yes
[10:43]	Benjamin Linden:	but yes, one part of it is how many other pages link to a page
[10:43]	Benjamin Linden:	when you say keywords, are you guys talking about tagging?
[10:44]	Very Susanti:	but gogle appliance wouldn't work since they way they think of documents
[10:44]	Very Susanti:	well tagging by keywords
[10:44]	Very Susanti:	I think allowing tags might not be best
[10:44]	Very Susanti:	best to use the description alone to get the search terms
[10:45]	Very Susanti:	then a target description will get better search results
[10:45]	Gao Niangao:	ah, well, there are "tags" supplied by advertisers in the descriptive text, and "social networking tags" by users...
[10:45]	Very Susanti:	tags can be used which have no relevance to the description
[10:45]	Gao Niangao:	but the credibility of the users has to be some kind of "earned" metric
[10:46]	Very Susanti:	you can also add a boost based on a resident voting system
[10:46]	Benjamin Linden:	I think the idea with tagging is that every time someone tags something with the same tag it's like another "vote" for that tag
[10:47]	Benjamin Linden:	so it increases the strength of that tag
[10:47]	Benjamin Linden:	the idea being that the community validates the tags
[10:47]	Very Susanti:	I don't follow Benjamin
[10:47]	Benjamin Linden:	ok let's say we're tagging the coffee table here
[10:48]	Benjamin Linden:	if seven of us tag it with table and one person tags it with "casino" or something
[10:48]	Very Susanti:	when I talk about voting I mean like a ranking system, like the user reviews paradigm
[10:48]	Benjamin Linden:	then the table tag is weighted much more heavily
[10:48]	Gao Niangao:	the problem is that the community has to be able to invalidate tagging sources that are unreliable, or vett sources that are good... otherwise the system is subject to "gaming"
[10:48]	Very Susanti:	I think that kind of weighting should be tied to how many times people actually went to that site after doing the search
[10:49]	Benjamin Linden:	that's true Gao, and I think it's interesting to look at examples like del.icio.us and digg
[10:49]	Benjamin Linden:	because they have to deal with gaming all the time
[10:49]	Very Susanti:	if I did a search and went to your store your store would get a boost based on my visit
[10:49]	Wyn Galbraith:	That's a good idea.
[10:50]	Benjamin Linden:	I really like the idea of including tp's in the calculations Very
[10:50]	Squirrel Wood:	hmm..
[10:50]	Benjamin Linden:	sort of like clickthroughs on the web
[10:50]	Squirrel Wood:	That may actually work out ^^
[10:50]	Very Susanti:	in addition if I had a way to give a store a rating that rating could boost the stores relavance and a secondary ordering
[10:50]	Wyn Galbraith:	I think so too.
[10:50]	Benjamin Linden:	does Google include what people click on in their relevance calculations?
[10:50]	Very Susanti:	exactly
[10:50]	Very Susanti:	yes
[10:50]	Very Susanti:	I have sat with their sales reps
[10:50]	Wyn Galbraith gives Very the Good Idea of the Day award.
[10:51]	Benjamin Linden:	:-)
[10:51]	Wyn Galbraith:	Too bad we got rid of the voting system for places.
[10:51]	Very Susanti:	but they charge by document and each location would be a document in their way of doing things
[10:51]	Very Susanti:	so we implemented an alternative search tool
[10:51]	Benjamin Linden:	because Google was too expensive?
[10:52]	Very Susanti:	yeah for a system our size it was in the millions
[10:53]	Benjamin Linden:	hi Alph
[10:53]	Very Susanti:	anyway we had a hybrid system included LAS for name variations, a name index and an relationship ontology
[10:53]	Very Susanti:	was a big system
[10:53]	Gao Niangao:	you know... *recency* of a tag is also important. otherwise the system becomes an insurmountable barrier to entry
[10:53]	Benjamin Linden:	if you could all pick one thing to fix with search today, what would it be?
[10:53]	Squirrel Wood:	search priority ^^
[10:54]	Chaley May:	the price of classifieds
[10:54]	Very Susanti:	searches should operate off of the description utilizing a term document frequency for ranking
[10:54]	Benjamin Linden:	what do you mean by that, Squirrel?
[10:54]	Very Susanti:	so the results are targeted towards more specific descriptions
[10:54]	Gao Niangao thinks "Popular Places" has outlived its usefulness: "nobody goes there anymore, it's too crowded"
[10:54]	Benjamin Linden:	so Very, you would like to see more useful and accurate descriptions?
[10:55]	Squirrel Wood:	ye. classifieds seem to be sorted by how much people paid for them. And some waste 100,000s of L$ on those just to be on top
[10:55]	Very Susanti:	well that is up to the people who make the adds
[10:55]	Chaley May:	but still put a limit
[10:55]	Benjamin Linden:	is that what you meant Chaley?
[10:55]	Very Susanti:	but I would like to see a system which prefers people who make careful decisions
[10:55]	Chaley May:	i think classifieds/advertising should be cheap
[10:55]	Very Susanti:	and penalizes keyword spammers
[10:56]	Chaley May:	that stops people spamming land sales with adverts names
[10:56]	Chaley May:	creating parcels with long names for adverts
[10:56]	Very Susanti:	second I would want to add it the hit (tp) based rankings
[10:56]	Benjamin Linden:	because they show up higher in the list, Chaley?
[10:56]	Squirrel Wood:	I would remodel the classifieds to use a bell curve on the payment. pay a little, be at the bottom of the list. pay ridiculously much, be at the bottom. pay like, 1000L and you'll be amongst the top listed ones
[10:56]	Gao Niangao:	Very, I agree: the more popular keywords in the supplied description, the less weight they get in a match
[10:57]	Chaley May:	not to be higher up on the list
[10:57]	Very Susanti:	I have two other points: 1) if you could add a button in the IM wndow to paste a slurl it would really be helpfull as tp fails, and my friends often don't show up as online
[10:57]	Very Susanti:	2) a way someone can mute their chatter sound
[10:58]	Benjamin Linden:	do you mean paste a slurl to your current location?
[10:58]	Very Susanti:	(sorry to be off topic but we are close to the end and I wanted to get them in)
[10:58]	Very Susanti:	yes
[10:58]	Gao Niangao:	but Classifieds are a significant contributor to LL's revenue... competition for a paid top slot won't go away
[10:58]	Very Susanti:	I have to to use a script to paste it to chat and then copy and paste
[10:59]	Very Susanti:	which is horrible when there is a lot of chatter
[10:59]	Chaley May:	classifieds generate no revenue
[10:59]	Benjamin Linden:	I'm not sure classifieds really add that much revenue Gao; I think we'd rather have a system that works better for Residents
[10:59]	Chaley May:	paying Lindens to classified gets sent into oblivion i believe
[10:59]	Squirrel Wood:	search classifieds for "Avatar". the top listed one paid like, 132,000 L$
[10:59]	Squirrel Wood:	and that is quite some money.
[10:59]	Benjamin Linden:	wow!
[11:00]	Benjamin Linden:	personally I don't feel price is a useful metric for search results
[11:00]	Benjamin Linden:	the problem is we don't have a system for advertisers to do paid placement in search results
[11:00]	Chaley May:	I dont.. people cant afford classifieds so they use everything else for advertising
[11:01]	Very Susanti:	you could eventually do a system similar to the web advertisers, people bid on how much they want to pay per hit and use that in their ranking
[11:01]	Benjamin Linden:	I think that's right Very
[11:01]	Benjamin Linden:	then we can get the noise out of classifieds
[11:01]	Benjamin Linden:	make it more like craiglist :-)
[11:01]	Very Susanti:	and then search can be a money maker too
[11:01]	Chaley May:	making classifieds work better is the key to fixing problems of relevence for other searches by removing the need to use events for advertising, or land sales, place names
[11:01]	Benjamin Linden:	I think that's a great point Chaley
[11:02]	Benjamin Linden:	ok guys, I have to run
[11:02]	Benjamin Linden:	thanks for coming today!
[11:02]	Chaley May:	:)
[11:02]	Chaley May:	bye Benjamin
[11:02]	Benjamin Linden:	and thanks as always your valuable input
[11:02]	Squirrel Wood:	I hope you got at least half a dozen good ideas to pass on and do something with today ^^
[11:02]	Gao Niangao:	thanks, Benjamin
[11:02]	Benjamin Linden:	definitely!
[11:02]	Very Susanti:	I want to start another topic too, but maybe for next time "Groups suck .. for event advertising"
[11:02]	Benjamin Linden:	let's talk about that on Tuesday, Very
[11:03]	Benjamin Linden:	it sounds interesting
[11:03]	Very Susanti:	especially since we only get 25
[11:03]	Squirrel Wood:	25 groups is not enough ^^
[11:03]	Very Susanti:	I am constantly rejecting offers even on groups I would like to get notices from
[11:03]	Chaley May:	If classifieds work better people wont use adfarms for advertising
[11:03]	Drew Dwi:	:) bye
[11:03]	Very Susanti:	okies thank you
[11:03]	Benjamin Linden:	bye Drew, thanks for coming
[11:03]	Benjamin Linden:	alright everybody, have a great weekend!
[11:03]	Squirrel Wood:	^^
[11:03]	Very Susanti:	you too
[11:04]	Tuesday McKay:	Bye!