New Rules on Bots

[Phil Deakins]

You could AR it weekly.

Once upon a time, after I'd tried, unsuccessfully, to contact the neighouring landowner, I ARed a building of his that encroached on my land. Nothing happened, so after a while I ARed it again. Still nothing happened, and I started to get annoyed because I was unable to use the land it covered, and I was paying for it. So I upped the frequency to daily, then to several times a day, and each time I said that I would increase the frequency until the building was either gone or moved off my land. And that's what I did. It got down to hourly, but nothing happened. So I decided to IM the AR team manager, and the building disappeared minute later. He was a good guy.

Your case is different though, but it wouldn't hurt to AR it on, say, a weekly or fornightly basis. You never know. I might eventually work.

Edited June 5, 2018 by Phil Deakins

[Fionalein]

7 minutes ago, Phil Deakins said:

You could AR it weekly.

... wouldn't that be abuse reput abuse?

[KT Kingsley]

I don't think an avatar's scripted agent status is visible to anyone but its user and the Lab?*

Those herds of green dots may well be acting as a visual lure on the map, but you can't know if they're registered as scripted agents and thus not counting towards traffic numbers, and thus perfectly legal.

Indeed, the only evidence, albeit somewhat tenuous, is that they are there and are thus acceptable to Linden Lab.

(I'd bet LL get plenty of ARs about suspected traffic bots. While it's possible that they routinely ignore all of them, it's also possible that they do investigate at least some, and of those mostly find them to be correctly registered scripted agents.)

*I have been told that unregistered bots float on system water, while registered scripted agents will sink.

Edited June 4, 2018 by KT Kingsley

[Coffee Pancake]

Have to just assume that if an AR doesn't result in action then you were mistaken in making the report and the behavior is entirely acceptable.

Personally, I'm thrilled about all the extra free primbs I can temp rez, not to mention bot based fun and hijinks. 

[ChinRey]

1 hour ago, Fionalein said:

... wouldn't that be abuse reput abuse?

No, it wouldn't.

I once had a neighbour with some system vegetation encroaching on my land, making part of it useless, just like what Phil told us about.

I filed an Abuse Report but nothing happened so I opened a support case about it too. LL's reply was that I might have to file several ARs before they reacted.

[Phil Deakins]

nop

Edited June 5, 2018 by Phil Deakins

[Phil Deakins]

On 04/06/2018 at 10:10 PM, Fionalein said:

... wouldn't that be abuse reput abuse?

Perhaps the frequency that I got to ARing would be considered as abusing the AR system, BUT I considered it abuse, by LL, that I was paying them for land that I was unable to use because a neighbour planted part of a bulding on it, and, for many weeks LL did nothing about it, in spite of me, the paying customer, asking many times. They were taking my money and not providing what I was paying them for. I considered that to be abuse.

Now, of course, we can return items that partially infringe our land, but we couldn't back then.

Edited June 9, 2018 by Phil Deakins

[Wulfie Reanimator]

I understand why the distinction between "bot" and "scripted agent" might seem weird or unnecessary, but I fully agree with Phil on it.

Bot is the umbrella term. "Scripted agent" is a term specifically for avatars registered as such. Not all bots need to be registered.

I think that sums the whole thing up nicely.

Edited June 9, 2018 by Wulfie Reanimator

[Phil Deakins]

Aha! Someone who thinks logically

[Fionalein]

 

11 minutes ago, Phil Deakins said:

Aha! Someone who thinks logically

LOL nope, another one who failed at simple semantics... both the wiki text and the text on the "scripted agent" registration page clearly show the lab just calls bots scripted agents ... under certain circumstances they are required to be registered as such and of course you can try to troll the Lab and register your normal avatar if you are up to deal with the consequences.

PS: Semantics is closely related to Logics 

Edited June 9, 2018 by Fionalein

[Phil Deakins]

It's hard to believe....<sigh>

Look. It doesn't matter what LL, or anyone else, calls bots. The only thing that matters is what they actually are - and they are not necessarily 'scripted agents' (as in the SL 'scripted agent' status) unless they are registered as such. Some bots are scripted agents, and some are not. It's not rocket science, though it may seem like it to some.

In SL, 'scripted agent' and 'bot' are not interchangeable terms, even though you may prefer to use them interchangeably.

I have plenty of bots that are not scripted agents - they don't have that status. Wanna see some?

Heck! People often talk about reporting bots on land that's set to show in search. It happened in this very thread. But why report them if they are 'scripted agents'. Scripted agents are allowed on land that's set to show in search. You're out on a limb with this one.

Edited June 9, 2018 by Phil Deakins

[Fionalein]

1 minute ago, Phil Deakins said:

It's not rocket science, though it may seem like it to some.

Oh Phil, your interpretation surely proofs language sometimes is rocket science - surprisingly even to it's native speakers

[Phil Deakins]

Eh? Are you saying that your non-native understanding of english led you astray? Or are you criticising my native understanding of english? Or are you just looking for a verbal fight?

[Wulfie Reanimator]

25 minutes ago, Fionalein said:

LOL nope, another one who failed at simple semantics... both the wiki text and the text on the "scripted agent" registration page clearly show the lab just calls bots scripted agents ... under certain circumstances they are required to be registered as such and of course you can try to troll the Lab and register your normal avatar if you are up to deal with the consequences.

PS: Semantics is closely related to Logics 

Yes, it's mostly just semantics in this thread. Whatever word you use (call them NPCs for all I care), it doesn't matter as long as everybody involved understand what's being talked about.

But if that distinction needs to be made, there is one.
I just went back to read the actual status page (which Fionalein quoted below), and I actually take it back.

And with the tone this convo is starting to get, I'm out, be nice to each other.

Edited June 9, 2018 by Wulfie Reanimator

[Fionalein]

4 minutes ago, Wulfie Reanimator said:

But if that distinction needs to be made, there is one.

And that would be?

'Scripted Agent' is our term to describe a Second Life account that is operated by a program rather than by a real person.

Using the Lab's definition as above: Show me how an unregistered scripted agent differs form an unregistered bot. 

[Phil Deakins]

21 minutes ago, Fionalein said:

of course you can try to troll the Lab and register your normal avatar if you are up to deal with the consequences.

Just out of interest, LL would be perfectly happy for peoplel to register their avatars as scripted agent, so that they don't count for traffic unnecessarily on their land - when they leave their avatars logged in and go to bed, for instance, or when they are working on their land. That's the very reason why scripted agent status came in.

Incidentally, 'troll' doesn't mean what you used it for. It means something quite different.

[Solar Legion]

You can argue until the cows come home and it won't make a lick of difference.

For the purposes of Second Life, a Scripted Agent and a Bot/AI/Program driven account are the same thing, as defined by the service owner.

Outside of their service? Sure, they're different enough to argue the semantics.

Here, within their service (which this forum is a part of) their definition is the one that applies.

Simple as that.

[Phil Deakins]

Just now, Fionalein said:

Show me how an unregistered scripted agent differs form an unregistered bot. 

Being unregistered means being unregistered as a scripted agent. Being registered means the opposite.

A scripted agent is a bot. It's a scripted agent because it's run by programme. There's no argument against that, and nobody is arguing against it.

What you're forgetting though is that the 'scripted agent' status is not the same thing at all. That only refers to avatars that have registered as 'scripted agents', and those avatars can be bots or not bots. Mostly, probably near totally, they are bots, but they don't have to be.

If you want to call all bots 'scripted agents', you're not wrong, unless you think that they all have that registered status - they don't. So it's best to keep the phrase 'scripted agent' to those avatars (bots and non-bots) that are registered as such, and use the word 'bot' for all bots, registered or not. Otherwise you can easily be misunderstood. To me, a 'scripted agent' is a registered avatar. A bot is an avatar that's run by programme, which may be registered or not. The two expressions are not interchangeable.

[Solar Legion]

Of course it also makes sense to refer to them as ...

Registered and unregistered.

Seriously, splitting hairs over this is pointless.

Edited June 9, 2018 by Solar Legion

[Phil Deakins]

1 minute ago, Solar Legion said:

You can argue until the cows come home and it won't make a lick of difference.

For the purposes of Second Life, a Scripted Agent and a Bot/AI/Program driven account are the same thing, as defined by the service owner.

Outside of their service? Sure, they're different enough to argue the semantics.

Here, within their service (which this forum is a part of) their definition is the one that applies.

Simple as that.

I understand what you're saying, but I don't agree. When we use the term 'scripted agent' we do mean registered as a scripted agent. At least that's how I've read the forums through the years. More usually, we use the word 'bot', because we have no way of knowing whether or not an avatar is registered as a scripted agent.

Early in this thread I said that scripted agents are bots, because they are run by programmes, and I repeated it a few minutes ago. Through my posts, I've dofferentiated between a bot being registered, thus making it a 'scripted agent', and a bot not being registered, not making it a 'scripted agent'. It's what is meant by the term 'scripted agent', when it is used here, that we're discussing.

[Phil Deakins]

9 minutes ago, Solar Legion said:

Seriously, splitting hairs over this is pointless.

I don't think I've been splitting hairs. If someone says, there are scripted agents on that land over there and the land is set to show in search, we'd all say, they're allowed. But if the same were said but with 'bots' instead of scripted agents, we'd say report them. It's what's understood. At least it's how I've understood it through the years, and I've been into bots through the years, as you know.

People don't say scripted agents instead of bots - it's so much easier just to say bots. Scripted agents have come to mean registered as scripted agents.

(me) I've got 10 scripted agents on my land.
(someone else) good for you. at least you're not trying to game the traffic.
(me) oh but I am. none of them are registered
(someone else) but you said.....  I misunderstood.

Edited June 9, 2018 by Phil Deakins

[Solar Legion]

It does not matter what term the general user base uses. It really doesn't.

The service provider makes no distinction: To them the only thing that matters is registration status.

Use whatever term you feel like using but do so with the understanding that you are the one making the distinction and that you are the one who treats that distinction as something that matters.

Not going to continue this further: Argue the semantics all you like. At the end of the day, they do not affect how the service, service owners and systems view or treat a scripted agent/bot.

[Phil Deakins]

Well, I posted no argument against what LL described. I've only been talking about how the terms are actually used by users here. LL has its understanding and users, whilst agreeing with the accuracy of LL's statement, use the term in a slightly different way.

If someone started a thread to ask about scripted agents, I'm pretty sure the first thing we'd want to find out is if they really do mean registered scripted agents, or just bots.

[Paul Hexem]

Phil really just likes to argue his point, even when it's not that big a deal.

Like when a gunsmith hears magazines called clips. Even if it's wrong, the gunsmith is gonna have to get over it, 'cause people are gonna keep doing it.

[Phil Deakins]

Only when someone is arguing their point I can hardly argue on my own can I LOL