Re: How do you get Linden Labs to pay attention to an abuse report?

[Scott Maroon]

Live chat will generally tell you that its' not their job to handle abuse reports, its' the job of the Abuse Team, which is true. However, there is no way to contact the abuse team when they ignore your AR. It has been my experience that if get on live chat several times and tell them the situation, and complain enough, eventually one of them will help.

[Void Singer]

well then I guess you figured out the answer to your question then... although I wouldn't recommend trying that often, or you are likely to see all of your future problems placed in the circular file.

 

PS abuse reports are generally not immediate attention items unless they are in a category that involves illegal activity, and even those can take a while before they are acted upon. reports are also prioritized by number of complaints against the same person, and probably further, from the same region. so if someone is causing a problem, the more people that file against that person, the more attention it gets sooner.

the number one reason for not getting any action at all is resident/resident disputes (like : so&so didn't pay me or refund my money) and not filling out complete information.  complete information should be the exact policy being violated, date/time/region/image if applicable, and a quick detail of events.

[Tateru Nino]

I did some math back during Second Life's peak, when the number of ARs moving through the system was easier to track. At peak times, each on-duty member of the abuse-team had to deal with a new AR every 20 seconds. So, that was 20 seconds to decide whether to take immediate action, ignore it, or defer the report for later investigation to try to determine if it was correct.

It's difficult to judge what the load on the abuse-team might be right now, but I don't imagine that they have more than a minute or so, most of the time to make a decision on each report. I imagine that leads to bad decisions, or things getting forgotten or ignored.

I suppose the Lab could find a way to put more people on that duty, if we were willing to pay more for them - or willing to have fewer resources allocated to other areas.

[Peewee Musytari]

When you see and hear the utter crap that so many people file ARs over, dealing with them has to be one of the most soul destroying jobs to have in SL.

In a perfect world, the residents would have enough braincells to realise when something is meant to be ARd and when its not & then 90% of the ARs would not be filed & the ones that are valid would get the attention they deserve in a timely fashion.

Sometimes its the residents themselves that are to blame for bad service not LL. I have seen people be ARd for not getting out of someone`s else`s way and then that person files an AR against the other one for filing an AR and trying to get them in trouble!!!....Can you imagine a job where you have to sift through that sort of tripe day after day

[Marigold Devin]

Well put, Peewee, I would give you Kudos if I could for this one.

[Marigold Devin]

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Scott Maroon wrote:

Live chat will generally tell you that its' not their job to handle abuse reports, its' the job of the Abuse Team, which is true. However, there is no way to contact the abuse team when they ignore your AR. It has been my experience that if get on live chat several times and tell them the situation, and complain enough, eventually one of them will help.

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Live Chat are a whole different department to the one that deals with Abuse Reports, but I personally wish the Abuse Report system (and support generally) was a bit more consistent.

Example, traffic bots still get used from time to time. If I see them, I AR them, and the following day when I check they will usually be removed. Sometimes, though, I will return and find the bots are there, in exactly the same positions, no action having been taken.

Of course the bot owner maybe believe it is safe to put the bots back in place the next day, because LL don't do any follow up after the initial action - they don't have the staff/time to do. So sometimes it can look like LL haven't taken any action against the bot owner, because when I go back and check the bots might seem to still be where they were.

If you truly believe you have a case for submitting an Abuse Report, if you can get others to back you up and also submit an AR, the AR team will take more notice.  If that isn't possible, then wait 24 hours and submit another abuse report.

[Void Singer]

they other problem might be that they aren't really traffic bots.... if they're flagged in the account setting as a bot, they're compliant. but wee can't see that information.

[Marigold Devin]

 

 

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Void Singer wrote:

they other problem might be that they aren't really traffic bots.... if they're flagged in the account setting as a bot, they're compliant. but wee can't see that information.

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I'm scratching my head just a wee bit.  For sure if they are declared to be non-scripted agents they can be used as bots, but a cluster of bots creating high traffic, on a land that has an empty store/venue/sales area below are still traffic bots and disallowed.

But, it does depend who is in the AR office at the time of submitting the AR.

Also, it depends if they believe these people are truly playing Tiny Empires (which I really don't get). :smileyindifferent:

I realise sometimes I am pretty naive. And sometimes I'm spot on with my observations, but always, I am willing to learn.

[Tateru Nino]

If they're flagged as scripted agents, they don't generate any parcel traffic. That's actually what the flag is for - exempting an account from the traffic system. Some people set it even though they're not bots.

[Void Singer]

what Tateru said =)

(yes this post was just an excuse to say "Hi, don't usually see you outside of blog land")

[Marigold Devin]

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Tateru Nino wrote:

If they're flagged as scripted agents, they don't generate any parcel traffic. That's actually what the flag is for - exempting an account from the traffic system. Some people set it even though they're not bots.

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Thank you for clarifying - then I know for sure the bots I found most recently are traffic bots, judging by the ridiculously high traffic count on the parcel and only bots there.

*****

In truth, the only thing that bothers me about the number of bots inworld is if they prevent logins for non-bot residents. I know it's been a long time since we got that message up "Due to an unexpectedly high demand for this service, logins have been temporarily disabled" (might not be a word-perfect quote)

I really am always .........learning something new every day.

[Marigold Devin]

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Void Singer wrote:

what Tateru said =)

(yes this post was just an excuse to say "Hi, don't usually see you outside of blog land")

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I learn a lot from you, Void; you got me taking more notice of my script counts, and I've been spreading a script control HUD around to friends/folk who ask for it.

In RL I recycle !! *laughs* (feel like I can hear people muttering "bloody do-gooders and tree huggers")

[Void Singer]

 

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Marigold Devin wrote:

In RL I recycle !! *laughs* (feel like I can hear people muttering "bloody do-gooders and tree huggers")

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heh, cool, so do I =)

 

[Phil Deakins]

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Marigold Devin wrote:

In truth, the only thing that bothers me about the number of bots inworld is if they prevent logins for non-bot residents. I know it's been a long time since we got that message up "Due to an unexpectedly high demand for this service, logins have been temporarily disabled" (might not be a word-perfect quote)

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That was only a rumour, and an incorrect one at that. One or two people imagined that there was a fixed number of logins possible and, if bots were using some, then some real people couldn't log in at all. That was totally wrong, but the erroneous idea took hold in some people's minds because they wanted such things to be true to strengthen their attitude and arguments against bots.

One time when bots logging in might have caused delays for real people logging in was when the grid came back up after going down, and stacks of accounts, including bots, were trying to log in at the same time. But even then, bots weren't really holding things up in the way that a few people liked to think they were; i.e. thousand of bots automatically trying to log in simultaneously is what a few people imagined and posted. But, in general, bots didn't and don't do that. Many don't auto-log in at all after being logged out by the system. Many of those that do don't do it simultaneously. Mine, for instance, log in at approximately 1 minute intervals, and they only start doing that after 10 minutes has passed, allowing time for the sim to be updated and come back online, and if the sim isn't online, they wait another 10 minutes, and so on. So the login "problem" was an imaginary one that some poeple liked to think was true.

[Vania Chaplin]

In fact, when I joined SL, in january/2007, I remember an announce that if there were more than 24,000 concurrent users, logins would be denied for basic users, but as far as I know this was never enforced and soon later was officially dropped.

 

[Phil Deakins]

The idea of LL not allowing basic accounts to log in when SL is very busy rings a very faint bell, but that was before bots started to be used in quantity.

[Vania Chaplin]

Yes, when casinos were all over the second world; when I almost leave SL when found a place dedicated to pedophily, and was proud to had bought my first prim hair after spent hours camping; when Wednesdays were used to frequent the forums, because LL’s engineers were busy introducing brand new bugs.

But, that was the only time when LL officially announced something in this line. Soon after they put more and better servers on line and concurrent users reach 30,000 :smileyhappy:

[Void Singer]

 

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Vania Chaplin wrote:

In fact, when I joined SL, in january/2007, I remember an announce that if there were more than 24,000 concurrent users, logins would be denied for basic users, but as far as I know this was never enforced and soon later was officially dropped.

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which, perforce, would include basic account bots.... (which is pretty much ALL of them).

 

(and then for fun add the fact that at the time, a yearly subscription premium membership gave a 400$L stipend, which effectively meant the account paid for itself)

[Phil Deakins]

The stipend at that time was the same as it is now - 300L a week.

[Marigold Devin]

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Phil Deakins wrote:

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Marigold Devin wrote:

In truth, the only thing that bothers me about the number of bots inworld is if they prevent logins for non-bot residents. I know it's been a long time since we got that message up "Due to an unexpectedly high demand for this service, logins have been temporarily disabled" (might not be a word-perfect quote)

---

That was only a rumour, and an incorrect one at that. One or two people imagined that there was a fixed number of logins possible and, if bots were using some, then some real people couldn't log in at all. That was totally wrong, but the erroneous idea took hold in some people's minds because they wanted such things to be true to strengthen their attitude and arguments against bots.

One time when bots logging in might have caused delays for real people logging in was when the grid came back up after going down, and stacks of accounts, including bots, were trying to log in at the same time. But even then, bots weren't really holding things up in the way that a few people liked to think they were; i.e. thousand of bots automatically trying to log in simultaneously is what a few people imagined and posted. But, in general, bots didn't and don't do that. Many don't auto-log in at all after being logged out by the system. Many of those that do don't do it simultaneously. Mine, for instance, log in at approximately 1 minute intervals, and they only start doing that after 10 minutes has passed, allowing time for the sim to be updated and come back online, and if the sim isn't online, they wait another 10 minutes, and so on. So the login "problem" was an imaginary one that some poeple liked to think was true.

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I think context is key.  First of all, I have to tell you that I don't take notice of rumours unless I can find facts to back them up.

I can tell you things from my own experience. I know it has been a long time since I did actually see the message "Due to an unexpectedly high demand for this service, logins have been temporarily disabled". It was probably actually 2009 when I last saw this message, and I saw it only twice in my entire Second Lifetime.  Both times happened in the same week, and the login screen showed there to be a very high number of users logged in at that time. 

My argument against bots is this - and it has nothing to do with bots being able to auto-relog, and nothing to do with everybody trying to log in at the same time including said auto-relog bots - if there are 12 bots, 1200 bots, 12000 bots among that high number already logged in, then regular residents like myself would be prevented from logging in. And that makes me cross.

You are a bot owner? We are bound to always disagree on the right to use bots.

I also must tell you that I have been repeating since 2008 that I appreciate there are some useful bots on the grid. However, the ones stuck in skyboxes doing bugger all except cluttering up the grid for the purposes of making a sim look busy p1ss me off, for reason stated above.

[Phil Deakins]

You can disagree on the "right to use bots" as much as you like but everyone has a right to use them. LL make the rules and they say that bots are allowed. There's never been a time when we didn't have the "right to use bots".

I can understand you being annoyed when logins were disabled due to high demand, knowing that many bots were already logged in. That would annoy most people - me included if i were unable to log in when I wanted to. That "unusually high demand" message was rare and I've no idea what caused it. I don't recall ever seeing it. I posted about certain false rumours that some people liked to believe, merely because they disliked bots, but the inability to log in due to unusually high demand isn't one of them.

 

[Phil Deakins]

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Scott Maroon wrote:

Live chat will generally tell you that its' not their job to handle abuse reports, its' the job of the Abuse Team, which is true. However, there is no way to contact the abuse team when they ignore your AR. It has been my experience that if get on live chat several times and tell them the situation, and complain enough, eventually one of them will help.

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Someone in live chat once told me that, if my AR about overhanging prims hasn't been dealt with by the next day, let him know and he will deal with it, and that's exactly what he did.

A few months later, I ARed another overhanging prim and, although I had dealings with live chat in the meantime, I decided not to ask anyone there to deal with it. I adopted the attitude that I pay plenty of money to LL every month for my land and I'm not getting full use of what I pay for, so I insist that the AR people, who are paid to deal with those things, actually deal with it - and I got it to happen. I waited a reasonable time after the first and second ARs, and then I started to AR daily, telling them I would increase the AR freqency until it was dealt with. A couple of days into that, I decided to send a notecard to Harry Linden, the AR team manager. Within minutes of sending it (literally), the prim was gone, and I received an apology from Harry. That was the second time that Harry had done things right concerning ARs and me when the team members did things wrong. I don't know if he's still around but he is or was one of the many good Lindens.

Although live chat people can deal with some AR stuff, I prefer to insist that the people who are paid to provide me with the customer service I pay for actually provide it. A year or more later, a Linden said to me that it's a pity that those who shout the loudest get their issues dealt with the quickest. So, my answer to the question in the title of this thread is, when the AR is about issues concerning your land, shout loud and often at the people who are paid to to provide you with the customer service that you pay for and have a right to. If you are not getting full use of what you pay LL for, shout loud and often.