25 Alts or Bots gaining traffic.

[Bridgette Dalgleish]

Hi, is this allowed to put a club next to my club and then gain traffic with 25 alts/bots.

I sent an intolerance abuse report to Linden Lab, but no one answering or anything happening, the bots/alts are always there.

I am working hard for my traffic and don't think it is fair to get traffic this way.

But I can be wrong of course and this is allowed in Second Life

[Rolig Loon]

According to https://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Bot

Forbidden usage

According to Linden Lab Terms of Service usage of scripted agents is forbidden for:

• increasing the parcel traffic by camping ("gaming" traffic);
• stealing an in-world content; violate the copyright (see CopyBot for details)
• performing any other activity prohibited by TOS.

See Linden Lab Official:Inworld policy on bots for more details.

[LittleMe Jewell]

1 hour ago, Bridgette Dalgleish said:

Hi, is this allowed to put a club next to my club and then gain traffic with 25 alts/bots.

I sent an intolerance abuse report to Linden Lab, but no one answering or anything happening, the bots/alts are always there.

I am working hard for my traffic and don't think it is fair to get traffic this way.

But I can be wrong of course and this is allowed in Second Life

It is against the TOS to actually have alt accounts that are there solely to game traffic.

HOWEVER, if those accounts are registered as BOTS, while it might make the place look busy on the map, the Bots are not counting towards traffic for the location.

All you can do is report the accounts.  If they are registered as Bots, nothing will be done about them.

[Bridgette Dalgleish]

Maybe intolerance isn't the right report. I should choose to violate against TOS or something? Maybe that's why LL don't do anything too.

[Lindal Kidd]

I'd use the unfair use of region resources category, assuming your competitor is in the same region as you.

[mjyothis]

Did you try contacting the Estate owners? They might have some sort of rule (although nothing is mentioned in their covenant which likely means they are turning a blind eye) regarding how many avatars are allowed per parcel.

LL will always take time to look into the matter. We had a similar issue on an adult mainland region where a club used to park 30-32 bots or AFK avatars as they called it. It was almost impossible to enter that region most of the time as it was already a busy region with a lot of smaller parcels. Despite us all land owners and renters sending AR regularly as that club was only on a 4096 sqm parcel (they were renting that parcel), LL didn't take any action telling us there aren't enough abuse reports. Finally, they did take action after several weeks but the alts were all back in 3 or 4 days. Even talking to the club owners was useless in that case as they strongly believed the avatar limit on a region is 100 even if it's mainland and they weren't doing any harm to anyone. So my advice is to get your estate owners involved rather than going to LL if you really want fast action.

Note: I visited your club but I couldn't see any bots parked at your neighboring club, so it would be better to contact your estate owners/managers via IM when they are doing it rather than just leaving a notecard. It would also be good to take a screenshot of the bots and keep incase you couldn't get hold of anyone when the bots are online.

[Bridgette Dalgleish]

We are european time, the owner is from the UK and I am from Holland. So the alts/bots are offline during your day/evening. But I have all the names, 25 of them that are there. The owner told me "We are one big family". Also he has this fishing game and once in a while there are over 80 avatars and when I have an event, I am scared my guests cannot enter the club. I am in SL for fun, but now it causes only stress and anger. There are so many empty parcels at the surrounded regions and he chose to be on where my club is.

I asked the Estate manager, who was helping the owner at that time.. "Why dont you give him a parcel at the other regions". Her answer was "because he wants this particular parcel and he is a good paying tenant". But he got kicked by them the month before, for not paying his tier....

[Resi Pfeffer]

12 hours ago, LittleMe Jewell said:

the Bots are not counting towards traffic for the location.

Not sure if i understood: Registered bots are not affecting the parcels traffic, or they dont count as avatars at all, not affecting the regions max avatar setting?

When i had my club on a mainland parcel, i was slightly afraid about the latter. We had constantly around 15-30 people when partying, and if we would have gotten a neighbor with a "big family", we would have had to move the club.

[Bridgette Dalgleish]

I am there now 3 years and what I think is that he want me to move, and then put his club on my old spot. So that is never going to happen. He is there a month or something. I wish I was rich so I could buy a whole region LOL I love my club and the people who visit, so I am kinda stressed about it all.

[LittleMe Jewell]

5 hours ago, Resi Pfeffer said:

Not sure if i understood: Registered bots are not affecting the parcels traffic, or they dont count as avatars at all, not affecting the regions max avatar setting?

When i had my club on a mainland parcel, i was slightly afraid about the latter. We had constantly around 15-30 people when partying, and if we would have gotten a neighbor with a "big family", we would have had to move the club.

Whether or not they are registered as Bots, they do count as avatars, thus counting towards the Region's total avatars allowed.  So, as Lindal mentioned, an AR could be filed for excessive use of resources.

If they are registered as Bots, they won't count towards Traffic -- so it is not illegally gaming Traffic - but by being there they can still make the place look busy on the map. 

If they are not registered as Bots and are there all the time, then they are likely violating TOS for gaming Traffic -- but LL would have to find evidence that they are scripted agents and not regular avatars.

Edited January 17, 2023 by LittleMe Jewell

[Nalates Urriah]

On 1/17/2023 at 7:14 AM, Bridgette Dalgleish said:

I am there now 3 years and what I think is that he want me to move, and then put his club on my old spot. So that is never going to happen. He is there a month or something. I wish I was rich so I could buy a whole region LOL I love my club and the people who visit, so I am kinda stressed about it all.

I have seen several clubs move to new regions and keep their clientele. They send out notices to their group and retain the parcel for 4 or more weeks to hold a We Moved sign and LM.

There is really very little about a location in SL that is special. All locations are a click away. So staying to prevent him from getting the land is just being spiteful and silly. It is a nose cutting thing...

I have a friend that has from time to time gotten irritated by a neighbor. She puts up huge signs only readable from the neighbor's parcel. The level of rudeness depends on her level of irritation. You might consider doing the same and saying something like, "Let my idiot neighbor know how much you enjoyed his bots. We have people over here."

And I have seen signs put up for the World Map that point to BOTS -->

So there are things you can do to make it uncomfortable for the pesky neighbor. But you do have to remember not to violate TOS or irritate your landlord.

[Bridgette Dalgleish]

Hahaha, you are so right, Nalates. I like you!! Maybe a very good idea. And I noticed I need to hire more DJ's. Because when I don't have on playing the guests move to the other side.

Sighs deep....

[Bea Valentino]

Actually LL can tell if they are scripted because you are required to go under secondlife.com and click they are scripted agent not ran by a human. if you don't and they get caught parked at your sim for days can be a auto ban. I myself have a few bots for modeling and i have them listed as what LL says and no they don't count toward traffic. which i am glad i never ant to give people false hope.

[animats]

If you can get them to make their bots sit on something, the sim load goes down. Standing avatars are physical. Sitting avatars have the physics status of what they are sitting on.

A few years back, I saw about a dozen avatars appear in my home region in Zindra. Always the same avatars. Turned out someone had set up a gay AFK place in a skybox, with a dozen AFKs and a bot to supervise. No customers, though, so after a month they gave up and left.

If it's all bots and no customers, expect something similar to happen.