New Feature: Scripted Agent Estate Access Discussion

[Paul Hexem]

13 minutes ago, Polenth Yue said:

At the time, I said it didn't present them in a good light and I got a laugh emoji in response. But I was right, because now, public presentation is everything. Bot runners have to persuade estate owners to whitelist them.

Again I'm going to use myself to speak for a larger crowd- my own bots were ever only ever used to make my life easier performing very specific tasks via my direct input, and never collected data at all. If I ever bring them out of retirement (or for others that use theirs like I used to use mine), why am I being told I need to improve my behavior because someone laughed at you on the forums? Why should my own alts be banned from my own parcel?

[Love Zhaoying]

11 minutes ago, xDancingStarx said:

What do you even mean? There is no such thing as "implicit consent" as far as things like GDRP are concerned.

 

I don't even know what this means. Who is "we", and who do you call bad, mean or evil?

On the first question: Sorry, I explained so much today that I'm not up to it. 
 

On the second question: Anyone. At all. It is a general statement.

[Love Zhaoying]

2 minutes ago, Paul Hexem said:

Again I'm going to use myself to speak for a larger crowd- my own bots were ever only ever used to make my life easier performing very specific tasks via my direct input, and never collected data at all. If I ever bring them out of retirement (or for others that use theirs like I used to use mine), why am I being told I need to improve my behavior because someone laughed at you on the forums? Why should my own alts be banned from my own parcel?

Because the definition of "bot" and "scripted agent", and their "banning", is too broad, and is based on the definition and not behaviors?

How'd I do?

[Sparkle Bunny]

1 minute ago, Paul Hexem said:

Again I'm going to use myself to speak for a larger crowd- my own bots were ever only ever used to make my life easier performing very specific tasks via my direct input, and never collected data at all. If I ever bring them out of retirement (or for others that use theirs like I used to use mine), why am I being told I need to improve my behavior because someone laughed at you on the forums? Why should my own alts be banned from my own parcel?

Because other bot users ruined it for you. It sucks. I'm sorry. But you still have the option of Mainland (or even one of the old 512 Linden Homes, which is basically the same thing at this point, covenant-wise.)

[Love Zhaoying]

8 minutes ago, M Peccable said:

You make it sound like the services they provide or objects they create has no value to the resident using it.

Most of us who have created elaborate services or products will never recover the monetary value invested in all the time it took to create the service/object in question.

In my case it's a labor of love -- not a selfish self-interest. I glean more satisfaction for someone complimenting my product and telling me how useful it has been to them more than I do when I hear the cash register.

Watching it become more and more tattered as it's data becomes more and more fractured will be painful.

It must hurt, then, to be at the end of the discussion where there's blame, ridicule, derision, etc.! That sucks.

Edited April 1, 2023 by Love Zhaoying

[Rowan Amore]

18 minutes ago, M Peccable said:

If you are saying they will have to change the TOS to say no avatar lists can be stored outside of SL, you are being way to nonchalant. If that were to actually occur, SL would change in ways that frankly, we can't even imagine. All of the changes would be very negative.

It was more of a tongue in cheek statement.

[M Peccable]

Just now, Rowan Amore said:

It was more of a tongue in cheek statement.

Oh cool. That's a relief!  

[Scylla Rhiadra]

Ok, so. Someone or someone(s) abused the system -- maliciously or not (I think not).

LL responded in a way that 1) ensures that the system can't be abused in quite the same way again (by limiting the access of bots to places), and 2) means that they have tools now in place in their official policies that will allow them to respond more decisively to instances of abuse in the future.

So, what needs to be done to mitigate the damage to legitimate bot operations, while at the same time ensuring that those same safeguards against future abuse remain in place?

1) A parcel-level tool to restrict bot entry

2) Maybe lift the blanket sanction on Belli (although I don't think that's going to happen).

 

What else?

[Rick Nightingale]

19 minutes ago, M Peccable said:

You make it sound like the services they provide or objects they create has no value to the resident using it...

Again you infer and say something that I did not say.

Some others make it sound (here and in other threads and places) as if everyone running bots is doing it for the betterment of SL and all of us lucky residents and we should be grateful for their visits.

There's a middle ground. Note again that I did not say "everyone", I said "a lot of people". I don't include @Paul Hexem in that for instance.

It's been my experience in life however that most people do things purely for themselves (nothing necessarily wrong with that, or with monetisation, before anyone tries to put more words into my mouth). That is the way of the world  in my experience. There are as many (more I think) bad actors as good ones.

At best, some seem to think that because the service they provide is valuable to some, that others should just accept the inconvenience. How is that to everyone's benefit?

Anyway, my baking in Blender has finished, so... laters!

 

Edited April 1, 2023 by Rick Nightingale

[Love Zhaoying]

Just now, Scylla Rhiadra said:

Ok, so. Someone or someone(s) abused the system -- maliciously or not (I think not).

LL responded in a way that 1) ensures that the system can't be abused in quite the same way again (by limiting the access of bots to places), and 2) means that they have tools now in place in their official policies that will allow them to respond more decisively to instances of abuse in the future.

So, what needs to be done to mitigate the damage to legitimate bot operations, while at the same time ensuring that those same safeguards against future abuse remain in place?

1) A parcel-level tool to restrict bot entry

2) Maybe lift the blanket sanction on Belli (although I don't think that's going to happen).

 

What else?

It seems from discussions that there are two "classes" of bots: the "roaming data collection" bots, and the "non-roaming helpful bots".  It appears the second class has been included along with the first, although it does not appear as problematic (yet could collect similar data from anyone it encounters, without roaming). 

[Istelathis]

10 minutes ago, M Peccable said:

Watching it become more and more tattered as it's data becomes more and more fractured will be painful.

I remember when I first discovered your product and how excited I was that I could go out exploring with less of a chance of running into a security orb.  It is going to be an unfortunate loss if mainland prohibited bots from acquiring such data.  I hope that LL fills in that gap somehow, because it is a minefield out there.

[M Peccable]

I would have no objection to LL requiring roaming bots to be pre-registered and approved before being allowed to perform their job. Stationary bots would not need such pre-approval.

Edited April 1, 2023 by M Peccable

[Scylla Rhiadra]

Just now, Love Zhaoying said:

It seems from discussions that there are two "classes" of bots: the "roaming data collection" bots, and the "non-roaming helpful bots".  It appears the second class has been included along with the first, although it does not appear as problematic (yet could collect similar data from anyone it encounters, without roaming). 

Ok! So, one constructive thing -- although it's not going to help Mr. Peccable, above -- might be to distinguish between those two kinds of bots.

Stationary bots can, of course, still collect data, as can other scripted devices (such as RedZone) but at least such a distinction might permit people to keep bots in places like Belli that don't annoy the neighbours by dropping in uninvited for dinner.

Good start. Thank you, Love.

[xDancingStarx]

1 minute ago, Rick Nightingale said:

everyone running bots

I'm not saying that this is intended by you but I think we have by now realized that the recent changes may have implications beyond bots. And "bots" always comes with a negative connotation. It would have been fairer to say "if everyone providing services", to include systems like casperlets, group inviters, visitor systems etc.

[Scylla Rhiadra]

2 minutes ago, M Peccable said:

I would have no objection to LL requiring roaming bots to be pre-registered and approved before being allowed to perform their job. Stationary bots would not need such pre-approval.

Stationary bots and other scripted devices can do everything roaming bots can do. They are just limited to one place. I don't see the need or the desirability of that exemption.

[M Peccable]

5 minutes ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

Stationary bots and other scripted devices can do everything roaming bots can do. They are just limited to one place. I don't see the need or the desirability of that exemption.

I know you don't see it, but it's there.  My product is not the only one that requires the use of a roaming bot in order to function reliably. Using LL pre-approval could be one way to distinguish the good ones from the bad ones.

Edited April 1, 2023 by M Peccable

[Scylla Rhiadra]

3 minutes ago, M Peccable said:

I know you don't see it, but it's there.  My product is not the only one the requires the use of a roaming bot in order to function reliably. Using LL pre-approval could be one way to distinguish the good ones from the bad ones.

But why exempt stationary bots, who may well be collecting the same kinds of data?

[Love Zhaoying]

7 minutes ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

Good start. Thank you, Love.

Thanks. I'm done for the night, carry on and fight the good fight!

[M Peccable]

Just now, Scylla Rhiadra said:

But why exempt stationary bots, who may well be collecting the same kinds of data?

Because that way people can create their own bots for their club, store, etc, without having to do anything except what they do now, which is go to the website and specify it is a scripted agent.

[Sparkle Bunny]

I've suggested before that making scripted agent status a perk of premium (or even basic plus) membership would help with regulation as well as offsetting the costs of such regulation. People are substantially more likely to think about what they're doing if they have to pay for it.

Parcel-level restrictions would be nice to have, but at this point I think we just have to accept that Mainland is the Wild West and if you don't want bots, you'll either have to fine-tune your orbs or opt out of all the networks manually. Or move.

Same applies to Belli. It's a gated residential community and the landlords have decided it's not the place for bots. I expect they weighed up the number of ARs they were getting up against the number of residents who were running bots, and decided in favour of the larger of the two.

[Kika Yongho]

I agree with the "good start!" in taking into account the recent bots escalation.

Could the new deny bots feature be active by default for Residential sims, for a start?

That would include so many parcels and save efforts to large sim owning Estates!

Thank you!

[Scylla Rhiadra]

1 minute ago, M Peccable said:

Because that way people can create their own bots for their club, store, etc, without having to do anything except what they do now, which is go to the website and specify it is a scripted agent.

I think a more useful and meaningful distinction in that case would be not mobility, but function. What is this particular bot doing? Because, again, a stationary bot parked in a region, at a club or store, or wherever, could still be harvesting data like mad.

[Rick Nightingale]

15 minutes ago, xDancingStarx said:

I'm not saying that this is intended by you but I think we have by now realized that the recent changes may have implications beyond bots. And "bots" always comes with a negative connotation. It would have been fairer to say "if everyone providing services", to include systems like casperlets, group inviters, visitor systems etc.

I'm clearly only talking about scripted agents, not the privacy updates (which do also effect me, although I'm already aware of my responsibilities under the GDPR etc.)

There are obviously two, somewhat inter-related topics in this thread.

Edited April 1, 2023 by Rick Nightingale

[M Peccable]

1 minute ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

I think a more useful and meaningful distinction in that case would be not mobility, but function. What is this particular bot doing? Because, again, a stationary bot parked in a region, at a club or store, or wherever, could still be harvesting data like mad.

That's true, but it isn't the crux of the problem. The website(s) that host the information you refer to appear to be going away now, and my understanding is that the botphobia is being caused primarily by bots suddenly appearing and invading privacy, not so much by the data hosted on websites. The problem then is more so the roaming bots, and requiring stationary bots to be preapproved puts an undue workload on both residents and LL.

[Rick Nightingale]

4 minutes ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

...Because, again, a stationary bot parked in a region, at a club or store, or wherever, could still be harvesting data like mad.

I would be frankly shocked if many were not doing that since it's such an obvious source of who all their visitors are and what they wear. Valuable information to a store!