Coffee Pancake Posted January 22, 2023 Share Posted January 22, 2023 1 minute ago, SparkleSpice said: Are you serious with this statement? Like you seriously believe that bots can provide nothing of value?🤠 Bots circumvent agency of individuals and undermine the development of robust platform features. Everyone loses. Welcome to the forums btw. 1 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Myra Loveless Posted January 22, 2023 Share Posted January 22, 2023 1 minute ago, Coffee Pancake said: Bots circumvent agency of individuals and undermine the development of robust platform features. Everyone loses. Welcome to the forums btw. The existence of bots has never robbed me of my agency. I am still perfectly capable of making decisions, whether or not bots exist. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Coffee Pancake Posted January 22, 2023 Share Posted January 22, 2023 (edited) 7 minutes ago, Myra Loveless said: The existence of bots has never robbed me of my agency. I am still perfectly capable of making decisions, whether or not bots exist. You're looking for somewhere to visit, perhaps an active place with people .. p00f goes your agency as you're forced to place after place populated with fake people. What if you had a bot to check and aggregate the data from those places and discount static unchanging accounts. Your agency is now at the mercy of a bot arms race as one party tries to undermine the data mining with brute force by deploying dozens and dozens of brand new bots, making them even harder to distinguish from real people. oops Edited January 22, 2023 by Coffee Pancake 1 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SparkleSpice Posted January 22, 2023 Share Posted January 22, 2023 5 minutes ago, Coffee Pancake said: Bots circumvent agency of individuals and undermine the development of robust platform features. Everyone loses. Welcome to the forums btw. Personally I disagree and could argue that bots can actually advance the development of robust platform features. And thanks! it's a pretty nice place to be! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EliseAnne85 Posted January 22, 2023 Share Posted January 22, 2023 24 minutes ago, Sid Nagy said: Well at least partly. Most participants are just a bit more carefully tiptoeing through the minefield this time and diplomatically beating around the bush by keeping it a tad more general. The other threads I saw were about specific bots. This is about should all bots be banned period. I think not banned, but visual to all as a bot (perhaps a hovering machine looking thing that says BOT on it) but it is paid for when signing up, not free. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rowan Amore Posted January 22, 2023 Share Posted January 22, 2023 (edited) Interesting that the rez day board featured on one specific website is owned by.. a current poster. Or is that irony? Edited January 22, 2023 by Rowan Amore 4 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Coffee Pancake Posted January 22, 2023 Share Posted January 22, 2023 Just now, SparkleSpice said: Personally I disagree and could argue that bots can actually advance the development of robust platform features. Not when 3rd party hacks end up becoming necessary and essential features. We have group invite bots as scripts can't. There is no pressure on LL to add that functionally as we have found a way around the limitation. development in this specific platform feature is dead This can be applied to all uses for bots in SL. 3 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Myra Loveless Posted January 22, 2023 Share Posted January 22, 2023 2 minutes ago, Coffee Pancake said: You're looking for somewhere to visit, perhaps an active place with people .. p00f goes your agency as you're forced to place after place populated with fake people. That doesn't rob you of your agency. It just means you made a mistake. BTW, did you know Bonnie says she's doing what she's doing because she got tired of exactly what you're describing. In fact, if you look at her webpage you'll see they track traffic by delta rather than by strict population count. She explains that it's because sims with high population due to bots have a constantly high population, but if you see a large change in population, it's because something big is going on. 4 minutes ago, Coffee Pancake said: What if you had a bot to check and aggregate the data from those places and discount static unchanging accounts. Oh, like Bonnie. 5 minutes ago, Coffee Pancake said: Your agency is now at the mercy of a bot arms race as one party tries to undermine the data mining with brute force by deploying dozens and dozens of brand new bots, making them even harder to distinguish from real people. By that same logic, any information that doesn't come from you undermines your agency. When you look for a place with active people and there's bots? Well your agency is still gone if there's not bots, because your "agency" is still at the mercy of some data aggregator, whether it be Linden Lab or otherwise. ... "agency" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul Hexem Posted January 22, 2023 Author Share Posted January 22, 2023 31 minutes ago, Sid Nagy said: And by closing the two previous threads while pointing to the fact that the Lab finds everything is within their rules as far as bots are concerned, nothing will change. We will have to live with it or leave I guess. I've just decided to live with it. The only thing in common with those threads is that this one was inspired by a statement in one of them that all bots should be banned. That's a pretty significant suggestion, banning all bots regardless of what they do. As been pointed out though, better bot identification might be really nifty for a variety of reasons. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Istelathis Posted January 22, 2023 Share Posted January 22, 2023 I have a soft spot for bots, but can understand why others are frustrated with them. For games like fishing and lindo, a lot of landowners are frustrated with them because they would rather have real people visiting their land and socializing, rather than a bunch of bots collecting linden. Because of this, there is often an account age restriction put into place for such areas, although that doesn't always work because some bot owners have accumulated a ton of different ones that surpass a year and continue to make more. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Coffee Pancake Posted January 22, 2023 Share Posted January 22, 2023 (edited) 4 minutes ago, Myra Loveless said: That doesn't rob you of your agency. It just means you made a mistake. You can't attribute failure to achieve a goal a mistake when your decision making is based entirely on false data. This is literally a lack of agency. 4 minutes ago, Myra Loveless said: BTW, did you know Bonnie says she's doing what she's doing because she got tired of exactly what you're describing. In fact, if you look at her webpage you'll see they track traffic by delta rather than by strict population count. She explains that it's because sims with high population due to bots have a constantly high population, but if you see a large change in population, it's because something big is going on. Thank you for explaining how to game the system. I'm sure no one will find ways to creatively automate that attack vector. Perhaps with scripted bots. Edited January 22, 2023 by Coffee Pancake Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Myra Loveless Posted January 22, 2023 Share Posted January 22, 2023 2 minutes ago, Istelathis said: here is often an account age restriction put into place for such areas, although that doesn't always work because some bot owners have accumulated a ton of different ones that surpass a year and continue to make more. This is a valid point... I can't think of any good workaround. Not even making scripted agents detectable via script, because registration of scripted agents is voluntary, and it's up to LL to enforce it, and they only seem to enforce it if the bot is gaming traffic. Hmm... no actually, you know what? Perhaps solving a periodic captcha to play the game? 3 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SparkleSpice Posted January 22, 2023 Share Posted January 22, 2023 6 minutes ago, Rowan Amore said: Interesting that the rez day board featured on one specific website is owned by.. a current poster. Or is that irony? I don't think it's irony, The rez-day board was actually recently added to the destinations guide! as a means to spread joy and "Be excellent to one another." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Myra Loveless Posted January 22, 2023 Share Posted January 22, 2023 5 minutes ago, Coffee Pancake said: You can't attribute failure to achieve a goal a mistake when your decision making is based entirely on false data. Your agency is not dependent on your success at achieving a goal. Sorry, but it's just not. The "bot" isn't making the decision for you only if you failed. It seems you're arguing that the mere existence of bots at all is what undermines your agency... but only if you become aware of their existence... which is just... weird logic to me. I cannot follow that at all. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sid Nagy Posted January 22, 2023 Share Posted January 22, 2023 4 minutes ago, SparkleSpice said: I don't think it's irony, The rez-day board was actually recently added to the destinations guide! as a means to spread joy and "Be excellent to one another." I don't celebrate birthdays or rez days. Neither in RL or in SL. Why the **** should my face be on such a board? Who are you and your bots to decide what is joy and what not? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Istelathis Posted January 22, 2023 Share Posted January 22, 2023 Just now, Myra Loveless said: Hmm... no actually, you know what? Perhaps solving a periodic captcha to play the game? Apparently, some clever bot owners have somehow found a way around it. While fishing or playing Lindo I will get a periodic question at times, so it must help a little though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Myra Loveless Posted January 22, 2023 Share Posted January 22, 2023 (edited) 2 minutes ago, Istelathis said: Apparently, some clever bot owners have somehow found a way around it. While fishing or playing Lindo I will get a periodic question at times, so it must help a little though. Well, I'm thinking a full on captcha... like the click the image type captcha, or something procedurally generated that can't be answered with simple heuristics. but you know the really funny part about modern day "click the images that contain" captchas? They're used to train deep learning AIs to answer the same question... It's like modern captchas are slowly making captchas impossible. Edited January 22, 2023 by Myra Loveless 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Love Zhaoying Posted January 22, 2023 Share Posted January 22, 2023 34 minutes ago, Myra Loveless said: I advise to be careful about starting an arms race when it might be as simple as training a deep learning AI to pass well enough as a human... "turingism" as you put it. Threats! Nice. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ezbeharra Posted January 22, 2023 Share Posted January 22, 2023 (edited) Well I keep saying it so I guess I'll stop after this but it really doesn't matter whether bots are good or bad or a bit of both, there is no way for LL to be able to detect them easily so banning them from the grid or imposing special rules on them isn't going to happen. Edited January 22, 2023 by Ezbeharra expand 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Orwar Posted January 22, 2023 Share Posted January 22, 2023 8 minutes ago, Myra Loveless said: Hmm... no actually, you know what? Perhaps solving a periodic captcha to play the game? Well, then you just write a script to send you a text to let you know your robot friend needs help. Meanwhile, two thirds of the userbase will be swearing at their monitors in a global chorus over faulty captchas. 5 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Plant Evergreen Posted January 22, 2023 Share Posted January 22, 2023 One time a bot stole my sandwich and made me cry! 1 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Coffee Pancake Posted January 22, 2023 Share Posted January 22, 2023 1 minute ago, Spryth said: One time a bot stole my sandwich and made me cry! Welcome to the forums! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Myra Loveless Posted January 22, 2023 Share Posted January 22, 2023 (edited) 15 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said: Threats! Nice. WTF? That's not a threat. It's a prediction of what can happen... It's called foresight. Calm yourself! How the HELL do you get a threat from that? Seriously! Edited January 22, 2023 by Myra Loveless 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rowan Amore Posted January 22, 2023 Share Posted January 22, 2023 21 minutes ago, SparkleSpice said: I don't think it's irony, The rez-day board was actually recently added to the destinations guide! as a means to spread joy and "Be excellent to one another." Guess you missed my point entirely? You're connected somehow to the BB accounts since your particular rez day board is featured on their website long before it was in destination guide. We call it Sock Puppet Sunday around here. 😂. Your comments would therefore, IMO, be somewhat biased in regards to bots. Of course you like them. Personally, the only ones that bother me are the ones @LittleMe Jewellmentioned and greeter bots. 4 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rick Nightingale Posted January 22, 2023 Share Posted January 22, 2023 1 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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