Report a sim

[TalentBoy]

Have you?

Useless comments lead to nothing.

Bots have a place in SL scripted or not. But when they used

in wrong hand they are a problem for residents and for SL itself.

[Alwin Alcott]

40 minutes ago, TalentBoy said:

Have you?

Useless comments lead to nothing.

Bots have a place in SL scripted or not. But when they used

in wrong hand they are a problem for residents and for SL itself.

you got several answers now, tips suggestions, and you keep going on. It's useless and leads to a lock.
Let it go.

[Qie Niangao]

Is it really that difficult to track down the sim owner? Even if the land is group-owned, usually the responsible resident is pretty obvious from the owner of most of the stuff rezzed on the region, if not from group info. 

Just this week, @Reed Linden asked residents to help identify traffic bots—specifically those on traffic-enabled land that have not been identified as scripted agents. Per Inara Pey's indispensable blog:

Quote

• [Video: 14:20-14:54] Concerns were raised over the use of unregistered bots (i.e. avatars not correctly flagged as Scripted Agents) to game the numbers. LL is aware of the unregistered bot issue across Second Life, but outside of users reporting them on finding them, there is no easy solution to this issue.

Of course, just because the commercially-conscious Lindens understand this is a real problem for the platform doesn't mean Governance will bestir itself to do anything about a report. Indeed, they've "streamlined" the whole abuse reporting system to the point it's practically useless. Watching a few minutes of that video reveals that you're not the only one frustrated by the lack of a matching report category for the violation—and it is a violation, running unregistered scripted agents on a traffic-counting parcel. It's not always obvious to external observation, but many, many times it is.

[TalentBoy]

Thanks Qie Niangao for pointing that out. I haven't  seen that before.😛

Im happy i'm not alone feeling it have gone to far.

[Nick0678]

1 hour ago, TalentBoy said:

Im happy i'm not alone feeling it have gone to far.

You aren't and you should report that club, especially since it's a club and it's supposed to attract people there.

If Linden Lab took the traffic problem seriously and ended it once and for all, it would be a good step for the platform.

 

Back then the only reason i used the traffic bots was because literally almost everyone in my line of business used them

to appear in the search results, so the game was rigged already and i had to keep up with the competitors or hit the road.

The problem is that Linden Lab never took serious action to solve it gridwide and focused on targeted reports practically fixing nothing.

Showing such apathy, actually convinced me to withdraw my money and close the business which also translated to Linden Lab losing

5 private regions tier (1x30k, 1x20k and 3 HS) about ~USD12000/year and whatever extras from tenants purchases, my purchases etc

 

Traffic manipulation is a problem.

[animats]

Avatars that don't move or chat for long periods should not contribute to traffic counts. Maybe turn their green dots to brown on the map, too.

There are many bots that end up in the wrong place because their control program is too dumb to recover from a region restart. Those can be found piled up at Linden info hubs. Zindra and Horizons have about 200 such lost bots. I'd argue for moving them to seating after an hour of idling.

A bit of effort on inactive bot cleanup wouldn't be a bad thing.

[Paul Hexem]

31 minutes ago, animats said:

A bit of effort on inactive bot cleanup wouldn't be a bad thing.

As a matter of fact, I don't think any (very few, anyway) other service out there allows you to remain connected for more than a short period without making any inputs.

[StarlanderGoods]

Good! I love this.  I have also gone to a bunch of places thinking there was traffic, and found a bunch of non-bots boosting traffic.  But I am too lazy to report and I always think "well... someone else will report them."  And now someone else has come and my lazy worldview has been vindicated!

[Phil Deakins]

On 12/11/2022 at 10:03 AM, Qie Niangao said:

ust this week, @Reed Linden asked residents to help identify traffic bots—specifically those on traffic-enabled land that have not been identified as scripted agents. Per Inara Pey's indispensable blog:

 I was about to post that we were originally asked not to report traffic bots, and told that LL would identify them themselves. That was a long time ago, when the rule was brought in that made traffic bots illegal. It appears to have changed now, but @Reed Linden appears not to know much about bots. According to your quote, he said, "...specifically those on traffic-enabled land that have not been identified as scripted agents". It isn't possible because we cannot see the scripted agent status of any agent except our own, and I don't think he means that we should report our own lol. Newcomers! Hah!

Edited December 12, 2022 by Phil Deakins

[Nick0678]

Clearly there's a traffic bots party going on in this parcel and that 27000+ isn't real.

Took me less than 2 minutes looking at the map to locate it and i have spend more time blurring their names.

I am sure it's much easier for Linden Lab to locate  the "most common" traffic bots if they really want to, they have been running the platform for 18 years.

But here's some tip's

- same IP

- same /similar creation date

- usually lack payment info

- they are all together in one parcel

 

 

[Qie Niangao]

2 hours ago, Phil Deakins said:

 I was about to post that we were originally asked not to report traffic bots, and told that LL would identify them themselves. That was a long time ago, when the rule was brought in that made traffic bots illegal. It appears to have changed now, but @Reed Linden appears not to know much about bots. According to your quote, he said, "...specifically those on traffic-enabled land that have not been identified as scripted agents". It isn't possible because we cannot see the scripted agent status of any agent except our own, and I don't think he means that we should report our own lol. Newcomers! Hah!

Yeah, I vaguely recall this, as a response to pleas to see whether avatars have scripted agent designation. I neverunderstood why they denied that request. After all, "scripted agent" is a pretty noble calling: somebody cared enough to follow the ToS. 

Still, a traffic-collecting parcel full of idle avatars with a high traffic count is a parcel full of those avatars "that have not been identified as scripted agents." One or two amidst a bunch of active avatars, sure, they could very well be service bots with the proper scripted agent designation, but that's not a situation anybody would bother to report anyway.  We all can see where it's happening, and of course only newbies will get taken-in by the scam. The point of reporting those blatant situations is specifically to help those newbies who don't recognize the situation for what it is.

One possible gray area: AFK sex venues. These have been around a while but they're still so alien to my understanding that I can't formulate a coherent comment about detection. But I'd sure rather they'd not count as traffic, whatever purpose they serve.

Edited December 12, 2022 by Qie Niangao
typo and slightly reduced verbosity

[Nick0678]

And there's no need for governance to get trigger happy and ban accounts, just switch the suspected accounts to Scripted Agent

status and lock their option, then if someone is indeed a human who want's to switch back to Normal they can contact support.

There can be nice solutions to the problem.

[Arduenn Schwartzman]

On 12/10/2022 at 8:02 PM, TalentBoy said:

Why do i care? Makes it harder to find the clubs that are good. Unfair gameplay.

So many clubs with bots to report, so little time.

[Perrie Juran]

6 hours ago, Qie Niangao said:

Yeah, I vaguely recall this, as a response to pleas to see whether avatars have scripted agent designation. I neverunderstood why they denied that request. After all, "scripted agent" is a pretty noble calling: somebody cared enough to follow the ToS. 

Still, a traffic-collecting parcel full of idle avatars with a high traffic count is a parcel full of those avatars "that have not been identified as scripted agents." One or two amidst a bunch of active avatars, sure, they could very well be service bots with the proper scripted agent designation, but that's not a situation anybody would bother to report anyway.  We all can see where it's happening, and of course only newbies will get taken-in by the scam. The point of reporting those blatant situations is specifically to help those newbies who don't recognize the situation for what it is.

One possible gray area: AFK sex venues. These have been around a while but they're still so alien to my understanding that I can't formulate a coherent comment about detection. But I'd sure rather they'd not count as traffic, whatever purpose they serve.

So this dates back many years but was official policy set circa 2009. What is interesting is this in the policy:

"Linden Lab routinely looks at search results, and will treat use of bots to gain an unfair search advantage as an abuse issue. You do not need to file an abuse report for violations; Linden Lab monitors the search results. "

https://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Linden_Lab_Official:Bot_policy#Enforcement

[Paul Hexem]

18 minutes ago, Perrie Juran said:

So this dates back many years but was official policy set circa 2009. What is interesting is this in the policy:

"Linden Lab routinely looks at search results, and will treat use of bots to gain an unfair search advantage as an abuse issue. You do not need to file an abuse report for violations; Linden Lab monitors the search results. "

https://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Linden_Lab_Official:Bot_policy#Enforcement

Liars.

[Qie Niangao]

7 hours ago, Paul Hexem said:

Liars.

I'm sure there's a euphemism to apply here. But there's also the passage of time. @Phil Deakins would have a clear memory, but I imagine the Lab did take Search results rather more seriously back when that policy was written, when they were using Google Search Appliance and basically turned it loose to index every scrap of Second Life text, in-world and on the web.

I imagine that got cumbersome and possibly expensive, but it was the closest the Lab ever got to grounding all SL to the grid instead of letting random kruft drift free (notably, the accumulated flotsam known as "Marketplace").

[Phil Deakins]

7 hours ago, Paul Hexem said:

Liars.

At the time it was written it might have been true - for a few days, anyway. My guess is that they didn't want users to report traffic bots because it was a huge subject at the time, and had been for a long time, and they knew they'd be flooded with reports. I know it was huge because I was always in the middle of it   I'm tempted to find and link to that old RA thread again where the OP asked us to post the names of sims where traffic bots were operating. It was hilarious. But I'm going out so, if someone can find it, please post the URL. I'm sure that newer people would enjoy the laugh.

[Phil Deakins]

7 minutes ago, Qie Niangao said:

[...] but I imagine the Lab did take Search results rather more seriously back when that policy was written

Search results, yes, but they weren't all that bothered about traffic bots. It took a looooooong time, and a lot of public complaints before they did anything about it at all. They knew about it all along but I don't think they cared. I think they only did something to stop the users from  persistently complaining. I never complained though

 

[LittleMe Jewell]

5 hours ago, Phil Deakins said:

I know it was huge because I was always in the middle of it   I'm tempted to find and link to that old RA thread again where the OP asked us to post the names of sims where traffic bots were operating. It was hilarious. But I'm going out so, if someone can find it, please post the URL. I'm sure that newer people would enjoy the laugh.

One of these maybe:

http://forums-archive.secondlife.com/327/5c/279383/1.html

http://forums-archive.secondlife.com/327/00/317719/1.html

[Resi Pfeffer]

20 hours ago, Nick0678 said:

Took me less than 2 minutes looking at the map to locate it and i have spend more time blurring their names.

You could use "greenshot". It takes a snap and puts it into its editor where you can blur unwanted pixels, apart from other neat features. Save it or click the copy button and paste it anywhere you need. A job done in less than 20 seconds.

[Nick0678]

39 minutes ago, Resi Pfeffer said:

You could use "greenshot". It takes a snap and puts it into its editor where you can blur unwanted pixels, apart from other neat features. Save it or click the copy button and paste it anywhere you need. A job done in less than 20 seconds.

Thanks for the recommendation, if i ever switch (not likely) to Windows or MacOS i will use that.

Now i use xfce4-screenshooter.

[Phil Deakins]

19 hours ago, LittleMe Jewell said:

One of these maybe:

http://forums-archive.secondlife.com/327/5c/279383/1.html

http://forums-archive.secondlife.com/327/00/317719/1.html

It was neither of them, but it was nice to see some of the old names in those threads

The second one was posted when LL announced that traffic manipulation will become illegal on a certain date a few weeks later. I am flattered that the first 2 replies included comments about me lol. My first post in it reminded me of the fact that I had just completed my newest traffic bots system, which was dynamic and was a real joy to watch it operating. In fact LL's announcement came the very next day after I'd completed it

I'll see if I can find the thread I meant. It was really funny.

Edited December 14, 2022 by Phil Deakins

[Phil Deakins]

This is the thread:- http://forums-archive.secondlife.com/327/d4/303537/1.html

For anyone who hasn't seen it before, I should point out that the original post didn't have a list in it. The OP created and added to the list as people posted 'sims' to add.

It came to an end after a while because I started to feel sorry for the OP because, although she posted that she knew what was happening, she really didn't, so I told her what we were doing. But while we were doing it, it was hilarious.

Edited December 14, 2022 by Phil Deakins

[TalentBoy]

Wow thanks for response  😀

The club i was talking about i can't find out who owns it. Its group owned and the one as group admin

not have to be the owner.

But mostly all stuff owns by 2 avtars. If i report the wrong one it will probaly not been sorted out.

I will not provide a pic here of the "botting" as i think it will be against rules.

 

But i have another one 😁

[Ceka Cianci]

7 hours ago, Phil Deakins said:

This is the thread:- http://forums-archive.secondlife.com/327/d4/303537/1.html

For anyone who hasn't seen it before, I should point out that the original post didn't have a list in it. The OP created and added to the list as people posted 'sims' to add.

It came to an end after a while because I started to feel sorry for the OP because, although she posted that she knew what was happening, she really didn't, so I told her what we were doing. But while we were doing it, it was hilarious.

That was such a silly and fun thread.. I swear  it's hard not to think she knew what was up.. hehehe

I remember trying to add some names and mine were like, the only ones she called bull on..  hehehe

Edited December 14, 2022 by Ceka Cianci