New Feature: Scripted Agent Estate Access Discussion

[Love Zhaoying]

I am seeing the same arguments repeated. Starting to agree the thread has run its course.

[elleevelyn]

7 hours ago, M Peccable said:

That is why I advocate for a bot registry system that requires roaming bots to be pre-approved by LL before allowed to roam. For static bots, pre-approval wouldn't be necessary

i very much doubt Linden will ever do bot pre-approval. Linden don't pre-approve viewers. They don't have a pre-approval registry to moderate behaviour for  merchants, landlords,  skill gaming operations, to name some either

at best Linden might do something similar to viewers and skill gaming which are self-certifying processes. However, when a person does self-certify then Linden just take their word for it. And if a person doesn't self-certify in the viewer case then Linden still doesn't prevent the person from connecting their viewer to the grid 

 

 

[Katarin Kiergarten]

6 minutes ago, elleevelyn said:

i very much doubt Linden will ever do bot pre-approval. Linden don't pre-approve viewers. They don't have a pre-approval registry to moderate behaviour for  merchants, landlords,  skill gaming operations, to name some either

While I agree they probably won't, there's a difference between those other examples and agents that show up where we are, which isn't something that any of these other entities do. These show up where we work and live, in substantial numbers, without invitation. They aren't something we can easily avoid. 

So a higher degree of scrutiny for any roaming bot operators who want an exception to be made for them would be warranted. It might not be possible, but it would be completely reasonable. 

[elleevelyn]

4 hours ago, M Peccable said:

I thought it applicable to a group that, as a result of a knee-jerk reaction, demand an immediate banning of all bots (as this thread shows)

 

to be fair the question posited was: allow_all_bots or deny_all_bots, pick one

an answer of deny_all_bots is as valid as allow_all_bots. Neither answer is irrational in the binary choice case

presenting the  question as a binary choice could be considered irrational tho. But in the Belliserria and private estates case then irrational or not, this is the question - pick one

[elleevelyn]

44 minutes ago, Katarin Kiergarten said:

So a higher degree of scrutiny for any roaming bot operators who want an exception to be made for them would be warranted. It might not be possible, but it would be completely reasonable. 

yes -ish.  Even if there was a bot registry then I don't think a right to operate a bot overrides the right of the landowner to exclude that bot, no matter how benign the bot

so I think any resolution is more likely to focus on the landowner than on the bot operator

an example of where this goes: Some people have a bot which up until now they have parked in their Bellisaria Linden Home

to fix this then bot access permissions could be extended down to parcel level as has been suggested in the thread already

then to fix it completely, deny_all_bots_except_mine on my parcel. A way to do this could be to add our bot(s) (and/or named commercial bots] to our  parcel access whitelist while also enabling the deny_bot parcel option

Edited April 3, 2023 by elleevelyn
[and/or]

[Phil Deakins]

12 minutes ago, elleevelyn said:

an example of where this goes: Some people have a bot which up until now they have parked in their Bellisaria Linden Home

This thread is way too long for me to read through it all, so, if this question has been answered already, I apologise for asking it again, but...

How do you know that "Some people have a bot which up until now they have parked in their Bellisaria Linden Home"?

We can't detect bots and what are assumed to be bots might be alts; i.e. avatars that are not being controlled by a programme.

[elleevelyn]

2 minutes ago, Phil Deakins said:

This thread is way too long for me to read through it all, so, if this question has been answered already, I apologise for asking it again, but...

How do you know that "Some people have a bot which up until now they have parked in their Bellisaria Linden Home"?

We can't detect bots and what are assumed to be bots might be alts; i.e. avatars that are not being controlled by a programme.

it came up earlier in the thread in posts from Bellisaria Linden Home owners who said (or agreed with posts) that they do have their bot(s) hosted in their Linden Homes

The issue they raised was now that  Bellisaria estate has deny_bot, they will have to host their bots(s) elsewhere, which  will incur an extra cost for them to do so

i don't know how many people this will effect in total, other than those who have said in this thread that this is the situation for them

[Phil Deakins]

Thank you, elleevelyn. That answers my question

 

 

Edited April 3, 2023 by Phil Deakins

[Love Zhaoying]

1 hour ago, Phil Deakins said:

Thank you, elleevelyn. That answers my question

 

 

Phil, there was also a lot of discussion about whether certain bot functions could be done by scripting today - so the users in question would not need  bots. The answer was "no", the needed functions do not exist in LSL today.

[Innula Zenovka]

12 hours ago, Love Zhaoying said:

Forgive my ignorance (or don't), but it's hard to imagine there being much functionality for a bot as a group moderator besides forwarding group messages to/from email, potentially responding to keywords, etc. 

I know they're sometimes used to enforce bans on posting slurls and urls in group chat, for example, by automatically removing posting rights from people who break the rule.   I would imagine they're used to enforce bans on swearing, too.

 

[M Peccable]

4 hours ago, elleevelyn said:

yes -ish.  Even if there was a bot registry then I don't think a right to operate a bot overrides the right of the landowner to exclude that bot, no matter how benign the bot

so I think any resolution is more likely to focus on the landowner than on the bot operator

Yes, that is correct. The pre-approved roaming bots would not have any special privileges other than roaming. They would have to obey all parcel, region, and estate permissions.

[Love Zhaoying]

I think the idea of having "approved" and/or "pre-approved" bots is very, very frought.

[Phil Deakins]

5 hours ago, elleevelyn said:

The issue they raised was now that  Bellisaria estate has deny_bot, they will have to host their bots(s) elsewhere, which  will incur an extra cost for them to do so

This is just a thought about what I quoted, but it isn't really a response to you personally

If there are people as described in elleevelyn's post, there is a simple solution that costs nothing extra. Give up your Bellisaria home and get another Linden Home that isn't in Bellisaria. That way, you won't have to pay anything extra.

Of course, if you really want to live in Bellisaria, and you really want to have bot(s) parked in your Linden Home, and you don't want any extra costs, then you have to give one up, because you can't have both.

Edited April 3, 2023 by Phil Deakins

[Love Zhaoying]

18 minutes ago, Phil Deakins said:

If there are people as described in elleevelyn's post, there is a simple solution that costs nothing extra. Give up your Bellisaria home and get another Linden Home that isn't in Bellisaria. That way, you won't have to pay anything extra.

That definitely sounds like a good option.  The old LH will not be shut down for awhile, supposebly.

 

[Istelathis]

For some the skies of Bellisseria have been darkened in a feeble attempt to prevent the inevitable.  

Beep boop beep bop. You will all become batteries! 😈😜

 

Edited April 3, 2023 by Istelathis
Shorter clip

[EliseAnne85]

I just wanted to make something clear *because* I could have sworn someone in this thread said SCRIPTED AGENTS *do NOT* add to the traffic count.  Yes, they DO!   I don't know why someone would say that and it not be challenged in this thread - because, again, yes scripted agents add to the traffic count.  

From the LL Official Scripted Agent Policy:

 

Traffic is a numerical metric calculated for every parcel of land in-world. We can summarize this score as the cumulative minutes spent on the parcel by all visitors to the parcel on the previous day (Pacific Time, US). For details, see Guidelines for creating search listings in the Knowledge Base.

In calculating traffic scores, the number of visitors includes Scripted Agents. This has led to people using Scripted Agents to increase traffic scores and boost search rankings unfairly.

https://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Linden_Lab_Official:Scripted_Agent_Policy?_gl=1*enmj4*_ga*NzU3NTE0ODc3LjE2NzgyODc3MTQ.*_ga_T7G7P6DCEC*MTY4MDUzNjIwNi4xNzQuMS4xNjgwNTM3MTUzLjUzLjAuMA..*_fplc*TUY4dDNtRUVGeXk4UU13dFllJTJCSlMzTzlOeVUwVXZFT2RvNDEzeWRHTnJUMiUyRjJDRk15Q1JjWkM4cHpJQlhIWFhQWDBzekRMMFVtVWFsR1JyVXhMb0xWRG05NjdxQ3FVdXNtU0dlUjduV29YRlBsRyUyRkVWNDVqcHU0elglMkZZQlElM0QlM0Q.

Edited April 3, 2023 by EliseAnne85

[Love Zhaoying]

1 minute ago, EliseAnne85 said:

I could have sworn someone in this thread said SCRIPTED AGENTS *do NOT* add to the traffic count. 

Yes, it was one of the Lindens who said it (unless it was a Mole, same thing).

[EliseAnne85]

1 minute ago, Love Zhaoying said:

Yes, it was one of the Lindens who said it (unless it was a Mole, same thing).

One of the Linden moles said that scripted agents do NOT add to the traffic count?  I thought it was one of the pro-bot debaters who said that.  

Well, the OFFICIAL Scripted Agent Policy says that scripted agents DO add to the traffic count.

Therefore, a clean sweap, as Coffee suggested, may be necessary.  Or those who have large amounts of traffic bots will not turn on deny_bots then; and, if they rent homes, that would leave the renters open to the bots if the land owner does not turn on deny_bots.  

[xDancingStarx]

13 minutes ago, EliseAnne85 said:

someone in this thread said SCRIPTED AGENTS *do NOT* add to the traffic count.  Yes, they DO!   I don't know why someone would say that and it not be challenged

Because you misunderstood something here. If a bot is declared as "scripted agent", they will not be included in traffic counting. However, people may use bots that are not declared as scripted agents to boost traffic.

In this thread this was said in the context of the following argument:

Someone said that since enabling "deny_bot", their traffic had decreased, implying that it proves the effect of this setting on scripted agents. The other person however pointed at the fact that, even if bots declared as scripted agents can't enter their place anymore, this cannot have any effect on the traffic because they didn't count against traffic in the first place.

Also, and I'm by now a bit anxious to post anything more in this thread since people have already asked why the thread wasn't closed yet. But still I want to add that a balanced approach to this topic is the best way, since you want to encourage bot owners to declare their bots as scripted agents. Then you can have bots marked with different colors on the mini map, and everything. 

Edited April 3, 2023 by xDancingStarx

[Dyna Mole]

11 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

Yes, it was one of the Lindens who said it (unless it was a Mole, same thing).

AHEM ... Moles are fun-loving creatures in the world of Linden but we are not "the same thing". 

[Zalificent Corvinus]

13 minutes ago, EliseAnne85 said:

I just wanted to make something clear *because* I could have sworn someone in this thread said SCRIPTED AGENTS *do NOT* add to the traffic count.  Yes, they DO!   I don't know why someone would say that and it not be challenged in this thread - because, again, yes scripted agents add to the traffic count.  

From the LL Official Scripted Agent Policy:

 

Traffic is a numerical metric calculated for every parcel of land in-world. We can summarize this score as the cumulative minutes spent on the parcel by all visitors to the parcel on the previous day (Pacific Time, US). For details, see Guidelines for creating search listings in the Knowledge Base.

In calculating traffic scores, the number of visitors includes Scripted Agents. This has led to people using Scripted Agents to increase traffic scores and boost search rankings unfairly.

https://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Linden_Lab_Official:Scripted_Agent_Policy?_gl=1*enmj4*_ga*NzU3NTE0ODc3LjE2NzgyODc3MTQ.*_ga_T7G7P6DCEC*MTY4MDUzNjIwNi4xNzQuMS4xNjgwNTM3MTUzLjUzLjAuMA..*_fplc*TUY4dDNtRUVGeXk4UU13dFllJTJCSlMzTzlOeVUwVXZFT2RvNDEzeWRHTnJUMiUyRjJDRk15Q1JjWkM4cHpJQlhIWFhQWDBzekRMMFVtVWFsR1JyVXhMb0xWRG05NjdxQ3FVdXNtU0dlUjduV29YRlBsRyUyRkVWNDVqcHU0elglMkZZQlElM0QlM0Q.

Not exactly. UN registered bots count towards traffic scores, registered bots do NOT, that was kind of the POINT of bot registration.

7 minutes ago, EliseAnne85 said:

One of the Linden moles said that scripted agents do NOT add to the traffic count?  I thought it was one of the pro-bot debaters who said that.  

Well, the OFFICIAL Scripted Agent Policy says that scripted agents DO add to the traffic count.

Therefore, a clean sweap, as Coffee suggested, may be necessary.  Or those who have large amounts of traffic bots will not turn on deny_bots then; and, if they rent homes, that would leave the renters open to the bots if the land owner does not turn on deny_bots.  

Further, avatars only count towards traffic scores if they remain on a parcel for at least 5 mins, so roaming bots who stay seconds, basically do not count, this in part is why LL has tended to be slack on enforcing bot registration in the past, as it was intended to stop the use of traffic bots, and roaming bots simply don't count towards traffic.

 

That meant all they had to do re enforcement was wait for people to report clusters of NON roaming unregistered bots.

[Love Zhaoying]

2 minutes ago, Dyna Mole said:

AHEM ... Moles are fun-loving creatures in the world of Linden but we are not "the same thing". 

I should have been more specific, what I mean was: Moles, while not Lindens, have the same level of knowledge and their answers deserve the same level of respect and consideration. 

[EliseAnne85]

3 minutes ago, Zalificent Corvinus said:

Further, avatars only count towards traffic scores if they remain on a parcel for at least 5 mins, so roaming bots who stay seconds, basically do not count

Right, this I get. 

The Official Scripted Agent Policy doesn't give much info regarding traffic & scripted agents.

 

 

[Phil Deakins]

39 minutes ago, EliseAnne85 said:

I just wanted to make something clear *because* I could have sworn someone in this thread said SCRIPTED AGENTS *do NOT* add to the traffic count.  Yes, they DO!   I don't know why someone would say that and it not be challenged in this thread - because, again, yes scripted agents add to the traffic count.  

Keeping bots out of the traffic counts is the ONLY reason why the scripted agent system was invented in the first place. When it came in, scripted agents did not count towards traffic. Judging by the page you linked to, it has either changed since then, or the person who wrote that page got it completely wrong. The way to find out for certain is to test it, and that's exactly what I will do.

The only reason I can think of for the change is that LL have changed the search system, and traffic data is stored in the current one. It wasn't stored in the search system when scripted agents came in, because it was the Google search appliance and they couldn't change it's programming. Perhaps the programming behind traffic and scripted agents  now resides in the open source search system that LL uses, and, by choice or by not getting round to it, they haven't programmed it to not count scripted agents for traffic.

I'm going to test it. If what the page says is true, I'll be absolutely astonished, because traffic was the sole reason for inventing scripted agents in the first place. There is no other reason for them.

Edited April 3, 2023 by Phil Deakins

[Phil Deakins]

6 minutes ago, EliseAnne85 said:

Right, this I get. 

The Official Scripted Agent Policy doesn't give much info regarding traffic & scripted agents.

The page you linked to makes it perfectly clear. Scripted agents DO count for traffic now.