[opensource-dev] Slightly off topic but need ideas how to fix

[Tateru Nino]

On 14/01/2011 7:13 AM, Altair Sythos Memo wrote:
> On Thu, 13 Jan 2011 11:17:27 -0500
> Erin Mallory<angel_of_crimson at hotmail.com>  wrote:
>
>> This is slightly off topic but as the ramifications of what will
>> happen when the old profiles are taken down is starting to get out
>> there, merchants and content creators are starting to panic about
>> what these new profiles mean for them. There is a a ton of content
>> that is going to be broken by this, much of it content that
>> businesses rely on heavily. a more full list can be found in web-3509
>> but a number of rewards systems, venders, and security devices found
>> within hundreds if not thousands of SL stores are built heavily
>> around the old profile pages and cannot be easily updated or replaced
>> before the old profiles will likely be taken down... Even if
>> businesses begin to switch over, that involves changing out sometimes
>> hundreds of venders, everything associated with the venders (like
>> gift cards etc), and during all of that the ability to make new
>> content is affected. Many SL businesses are teetering on the edge of
>> bankrupcy already, including many where this is the SOLE or largest
>> percentage of income to those that simply are incapable of getting an
>> income any other way. So I'm pleading with the lindens and devs on
>> this list to PLEASE start putting some thought to how to mitigate
>> this...
> i'm sorry but don't understand how web interface to show profile data
> can involve business..... scripts still work in both directions
> (groups, key2name, the new istr about display names), and web interface
> is just a re-design of the "old" profile in sidebar (upper piece
> SL-photo +SL desc, just under RL photo +info, on a sie groups and
> picks), is just a interface design... you can stil ask for friendship,
> open an IM, offer a teleport, invite to a group (and bot can still
> invite to groups), so how shops, security systems and other can be
> involded by web profiles?
>
Some businesses used the presence of picks to their locations in a 
user's profile as a method of gaming the search system, and set up 
scripts that would scrape the previous version web-profiles for data 
about whether a particular person had those picks on their profile and 
autopay them trivial amounts for it if they kept the picks for a long 
enough period.

Since my understanding is that picks don't affect search-results 
any-longer, however, I don't see that as a huge problem. Some businesses 
still keep the practice up, however, believing that it still works.

-- 
Tateru Nino
http://dwellonit.taterunino.net/