using bots to target and bann targeted other land groups to gain people

[Marigold Devin]

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Pussycat Catnap wrote:

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tcservices1 wrote:

k. well I 

[ ACK !!! ]

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OMG PLEASE

PUNCTUATE

AND PARAGRAPH !!!

 

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FIFY :matte-motes-evil:

[tcservices1]

thank you for your kind words.

[Pussycat Catnap]

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Marigold Devin wrote:

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Pussycat Catnap wrote:

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tcservices1 wrote:

k. well I 

[ ACK !!! ]

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OMG PLEASE

PUNCTUATE

AND PARAGRAPH !!!

 

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FIFY :matte-motes-evil:

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Fido?

Rex?

Rover?

Spot?

Snoopy?

 

[KarenMichelle Lane]

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Cerise Sorbet wrote:

Land partitioning and no-script flag will not help, given the way that bot relay system works. You have access to all the avatar names/uuids on a region if you're anywhere on it, no scripts is ineffective for attachments, and these avatars can do all their key collection and relay from client side scripts.

The only way to stop this would be to identify the avatar(s) collecting the information (who may not act as, or even be, unattended bots) and prevent them from teleporting in. This would still leave members of tcservicee1's group vulnerable, if that group is visible in their profiles or they leave it active somewhere.

It's very clearly anticompetivite behavior but good luck getting LL to care about such things unless they affect their own marketplace.

 

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Oh poo! Yes you are correct. I keep on forgetting that those Bots have real avatar accounts under them

[Phil Deakins]

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Cerise Sorbet wrote:

Said estate has been openly flouting the bot farm and spam rules for years and LL has clearly been content to let it continue unabated.

 

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How do you know?

ETA: Users have no way of knowing whether or not an avatar is registered as a scripted agent (bot) so, irrespective of what something looks like, we can't tell whether or not the rules concerning bots are being broken. Also, there are no rules about bots. The rule you refer to is about gaming traffic. Bots don't need to be registered as scripted agents unless they stay on land that is set to show in search - gaming traffic.

[Phil Deakins]

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tcservices1 wrote:

i have a problem. I have a popular syym. I rent and developed. and there is a sym that was popular that came to my land because people came to my land to have fun. they did not like it. we found out that they are not a info hub and they were using special scripted bots and transporting them at intervals to the info hubs and getting them to londen city owned by billy, and torrec. we did not complain but then they use after we have parties ect anyone that comes here or has my group in their profile it will bann them. making people mad. I was asked to do something. I do not know how. today after a full 80 people which came from everywhere and we had a rez day party. they went to londen city and the bot immediately banned them from there. I realy don't care if they use them but was asked why are they constantly using bots in info hubs and targeting everyone on my popular sym. to punish them for coming here. where we did nothing to them. they keep getting mader, sending trolls and we all can fight back. we limited restriction to the land so they can use their cars, huds and have fu. they keep targeting my group. because and people are getting realy mad because they are using bots to target info hubs and my group.

is this illegal?

people do not like getting banned because they went to another sym. I do not know how to resolve this.

thank you terry

tcservices1

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No. It is not illegal.

[Cerise Sorbet]

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Phil Deakins wrote:

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Cerise Sorbet wrote:

Said estate has been openly flouting the bot farm and spam rules for years and LL has clearly been content to let it continue unabated.

 

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How do you know?

ETA: Users have no way of knowing whether or not an avatar is registered as a scripted agent (bot) so, irrespective of what something looks like, we can't tell whether or not the rules concerning bots are being broken. Also, there are no rules about bots. The rule you refer to is about gaming traffic. Bots don't need to be registered as scripted agents unless they stay on land that is set to show in search - gaming traffic.

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This is tested and repeatable. Avatars of a certain age, when they visit specific LL hubs at the tiime specific bots are present, will immediately receive teleport lures from other specific bots located in the LC regions. These are poorly scripted bots and very easily identified as such.

It's also quite easy to verify that those bots are not registed as scripted agents, because the traffic numbers on those regions would not be possible unles they are being counted.

 

 

[Phil Deakins]

Bots are allowed, so the LL hubs bit is irrelevant. You seem to think that bots are not allowed (that there is a rule against them) but they are as allowed as manned avatars.

It's not possible for we users to know whether or not an avatar is a bot - not possible at all. It's possible for us to make educated guesses, based on unrealistic traffic counts and immobile/unresposive avatars, but they are only guesses. We cannot "verify" them as bots/scripted agents.

[Cerise Sorbet]

You really are incredibly thick, Phil. Spam is against the community standards, so is traffic gaming, and those poeple do both. The fact that they use bots for this is really kind of beside the point.

 

 

 

 

[Qie Niangao]

In this case, however, there's just no question. Even a quick visit will reveal that the vast majority of traffic comes from bots, and when the numbers are inflated to such an extreme extent, it leaves no room for doubt.

Also, although folks in this thread have lauded the builds there, the place is pretty lame, and particularly clueless-newbie-centric, so I'm not sure why the OP cares about group members losing access to it. I don't understand why anybody would ever go more than once anyway.

[Drake1 Nightfire]

I walked around there as a lycan with a Chinese food menu I made in my hand.. I asked everyone I met of they knew where Lee Ho Fooks was. Scarily, no one got it.

[KarenMichelle Lane]

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Drake1 Nightfire wrote:

I walked around there as a lycan with a Chinese food menu I made in my hand.. I asked everyone I met of they knew where Lee Ho Fooks was. Scarily, no one got it.

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Ya know, the current generation of our youth have no idea who Warren Zevon is or the musical legacy he left for us to enjoy!. Hey, Isn't that Trader Vic's?  I'll have a pina colada please.

-- "Aaahoo! Werewolves of London"

 

[Marigold Devin]

I've read this one over and over again, and subsequent posts and still don't get it.

How would banning other land groups mean they would gain people?

Whether they are using some kind of bot as management to eject and ban your people or any people is entirely up to them though, and there is not one thing you can do about it. They are not doing anything illegal at all.

 

[Marigold Devin]

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Drake1 Nightfire wrote:

I walked around there as a lycan with a Chinese food menu I made in my hand.. I asked everyone I met of they knew where Lee Ho Fooks was. Scarily, no one got it.

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They welcome pussycats as well

[Phil Deakins]

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Cerise Sorbet wrote:

You really are incredibly thick, Phil. Spam is against the community standards, so is traffic gaming, and those poeple do both. The fact that they use bots for this is really kind of beside the point. 

 

 

 

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There is no need to start with the insults, Cerise. What I wrote is absolutely true. I'm not thick  btw. I am knowledgable

You wrote, "Said estate has been openly flouting the bot farm and spam rules for years".

First: I haven't written anything about spam, so you can't find any fault with anything I've written in this thread on that subject..

Second:  The "bot farm" rules you referred to don't exist. Bot farms are allowed.

Third: What I wrote about bots is completely true, even if you don't know it; i.e. (a) they are allowed, (b) they don't need to be registered, and © we users cannot know whether or not a bot is registered. There is nothing you can say that makes a, b, or c untrue. You can resort to insults, of course, as you have already, but they have no bearing on the facts. All they do is get some anger (in this case, about being found to be wrong) off the chest

I asked you how you knew they use bots to game traffic. You then claimed that you can easily verify it, and you explained how. I pointed out that you can't verify it at all and that all you can do is make an educated guess, which is absolutely true. There is nothing correct that you can say aginst that.

[Phil Deakins]

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Qie Niangao wrote:

In this case, however, there's just no question. Even a quick visit will reveal that the vast majority of traffic comes from bots, and when the numbers are inflated to

such

an extreme extent, it leaves no room for doubt.

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That's true almost all the time, but Cerise said that we can "verify" traffic bots, and we have no way of doing that. She was wrong. All we have are what I said before - educated guesses.

[Qie Niangao]

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Phil Deakins wrote:

 All we have are what I said before - educated guesses.

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Some circumstantial evidence is very strong, as when you find a trout in the milk. - Thoreau

[Pussycat Catnap]

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Phil Deakins wrote:

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Qie Niangao wrote:

In this case, however, there's just no question. Even a quick visit will reveal that the vast majority of traffic comes from bots, and when the numbers are inflated to

such

an extreme extent, it leaves no room for doubt.

---

That's true almost all the time, but Cerise said that we can "verify" traffic bots, and we have no way of doing that. She was wrong. All we have are what I said before - educated guesses.

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Yep. There's only one place in SL where I am reasonably confident that I'm looking at traffic bots when I go there.

The place, near my old land in Fietzo, advertises itself as a shop renting bots to boost your traffic, and has a dozen or so of them standing on pose stands, along with signs and notecards telling you how it will work to boost your traffics and other ways they can boost up your status in SL search...

I've been ARing them regularly every few months since 2009... They're still there. But until they stop claiming to be traffic bots, I'm going to keep assuming they are.

Anywhere else - proof can all be found to be suspect. And in many clubs and hangouts, it can be common for people to AFK. Half the time I log in, I go AFK after turning on a music stream.

 

 

[Perrie Juran]

This is not the first time the Region in question has come up in the Forum.  There was a thread about six months ago.  There may have been others but that is the one I know.

At the time I decided to take a look for myself.  There were a lot of what I will describe as "Lifeless Avatars" there.  Whether they were Bots or not I can not say though my suspicion is they all were.  I never saw any of them move and none responded to IM's.  They were all positioned in places that did have a semblance of adding to the ambience of the SIM.

During my brief visit, about ten minutes, I never saw a single Avatar move nor did any ever respond to an IM.

I don't know why they haven't done it, but I think it would be great if LL gave us a way to recognise with certainty when an Avatar is a registered agent.

[Phil Deakins]

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Qie Niangao wrote:

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Phil Deakins wrote:

 All we have are what I said before - educated guesses.

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Some circumstantial evidence is very strong, as when you find a trout in the milk. - Thoreau

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Oh yes, but still educated guesses

[Drake1 Nightfire]

there are a few sims i have been to that have a cluster of Avs waaaaaaay up in the sky. Upon  flyiung up there they all were starter avs just standing around. Same closed group tag, never answered an IM. They screamed traffic bot.
I do agree, Perrie, we should have something on the profile to say if its an approved bot.

[Perrie Juran]

For the record, we do need to be careful with our terminology here.

"Bots, or scripted agents, are avatars controlled by computer programs rather than people."

"Bots per se, are allowed and have legitimate uses, but inappropriate uses are violations of this policy."

"If you own a Second Life account that is primarily operated by a Scripted Agent (a "bot"), please identify it as a bot on the Scripted Agent Status"

http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Linden_Lab_Official:Bot_policy

By mixing terms here LL causes a touch of confusion.

The language here does not require that Bots be registered, i.e., it just says, "Please."

What we need to know more than whether it is a Bot is if it is Identified (Registered)  as a Scripted Agent.

 

[Phil Deakins]

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Drake1 Nightfire wrote:

there are a few sims i have been to that have a cluster of Avs waaaaaaay up in the sky. Upon  flyiung up there they all were starter avs just standing around. Same closed group tag, never answered an IM. They screamed traffic bot.

I do agree, Perrie,

we should have something on the profile to say if its an approved bot.

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Just being a bit picky here Bots are approved. They can be used in ways that are against the rules, e.g. for increasing the traffic count, but it's the use of the bots that's against the rules and not the fact that they are bots.

But I think you meant registered. Bots don't need to be registered at all unless they stay on land that's set to show in search, but I agree that it would be useful if we could see whether or not a bot is registered as a scripted agent.

[Phil Deakins]

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Pussycat Catnap wrote:

---

Phil Deakins wrote:

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Qie Niangao wrote:

In this case, however, there's just no question. Even a quick visit will reveal that the vast majority of traffic comes from bots, and when the numbers are inflated to

such

an extreme extent, it leaves no room for doubt.

---

That's true almost all the time, but Cerise said that we can "verify" traffic bots, and we have no way of doing that. She was wrong. All we have are what I said before - educated guesses.

---

Yep. There's only one place in SL where I am reasonably confident that I'm looking at traffic bots when I go there.

The place, near my old land in Fietzo, advertises itself as a shop renting bots to boost your traffic, and has a dozen or so of them standing on pose stands, along with signs and notecards telling you how it will work to boost your traffics and other ways they can boost up your status in SL search...

I've been ARing them regularly every few months since 2009... They're still there. But until they stop claiming to be traffic bots, I'm going to keep assuming they are.

Anywhere else - proof can all be found to be suspect. And in many clubs and hangouts, it can be common for people to AFK. Half the time I log in, I go AFK after turning on a music stream. 

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Perhaps those on pose stands are registered as scripted agents and don't count for traffic, so LL doesn't do anything about them. If it were my business that was advertising traffic bots, I'd want to have some high traffic on the business parcel but I'd achieve it by using bots another way than just standing them there in plain sight.

Or LL may no longer care, of course.

[Phil Deakins]

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Pussycat Catnap wrote:

I've been ARing them regularly every few months since 2009... They're still there. But until they stop claiming to be traffic bots, I'm going to keep assuming they are.

Anywhere else - proof can all be found to be suspect. And in many clubs and hangouts, it can be common for people to AFK. Half the time I log in, I go AFK after turning on a music stream. 

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When the rules about artifically increasing the traffic count came out I removed my own traffic bots, which was a shame because it was a beautiful system to watch operating Not long afterwards someone on a parcel in an adjacent sim started using what I assumed to be a bunch of traffic bots - all clouds on a high platform. They didn't affect me at all but, feeling mischievous, I used to push them off the platform on a daily basis. Most of them landed on other parcels that didn't have any buildings on them, so they stopped counting for the person's traffic. I also ARed them. It didn't take long for them to be gone for good. I've no idea if the guy gave up or if LL dealt with them, but it was fun while it lasted

Perhaps if you can arrange for 2 or 3 more people to AR them at around the same time as you next do it, it might have an effect if they reallty are unregistered and on land that's set to show in search.

Also soon after the rules came out, some people in the forum argued that avatars that were operated by humans but were unattended for significant amounts of time should also be registered if they are unattended on land that's set to show in search. Most disagreed with that extreme view, of course, but there were some extremely anti-bot people and views at that time.