New Feature: Scripted Agent Estate Access Discussion

[Coffee Pancake]

7 hours ago, Zalificent Corvinus said:

How many times have any of us used an out of date LM, , and then said "whoa this isnt where i thought i was going", and left, there are already people claiming thats "proof you are a bot" and banning people from their parcels, or adding them to voodoo banlists.

Humans go to a dead landmark once and then don't go back.

Bots don't care and do pop in and move on every 20 seconds, all day, every day, and will always come back.

No one will be thinking you're a bot because you showed up once and immediately left never to be seen again .. and even if they did care, you we're at the wrong place and wont be seen again .. so no big deal.

58 minutes ago, Rowan Amore said:

I do wish it extended to parcels on mainland.

No love for us Horizons dwellers. 

[Coffee Pancake]

5 minutes ago, belindacarson said:

At least that site we can't name, identified it's purpose and published what they were up to

The devil you know is still the devil.

[Love Zhaoying]

5 minutes ago, Coffee Pancake said:

1 hour ago, Rowan Amore said:

I do wish it extended to parcels on mainland.

No love for us Horizons dwellers. 

How is Horizons different? I has teh dum.

[Rowan Amore]

12 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

How is Horizons different? I has teh dum.

Horizons is sort of a Belli without the covenant.  Each parcel is the same size, 1024 but double prim and they provide houses that don't count against your LI.  The houses can also NOT be used which seems to be what most people prefer.  It's technically the only mainland aside from Zindra that is completely Adult rated.  

[Coffee Pancake]

19 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

How is Horizons different? I has teh dum.

Horizons is a precursor to Belli in many ways. Roads, theming, set plots, ready made "free" houses from a rezzer, it's even double prim!! At launch it had a covenant that distinguished it from mainland just like Belli.

The only difference is how Horizons was managed.. LL put it for sale rather than managing occupancy themselves and it ended up a gift to land barons and failed.

Belli is in many ways a do over of Horizons. More effort into landscaping, management handled by LL, and themes with broader appeal.

Edited March 31, 2023 by Coffee Pancake

[Love Zhaoying]

4 minutes ago, Rowan Amore said:

The houses can also NOT be used which seems to be what most people prefer.

What does this mean?

[Coffee Pancake]

Just now, Love Zhaoying said:

What does this mean?

On Belli you have to pick a themed house. 

On Horizons "none" is one of the options.

You can pick "no house" and then rez your own.

[Love Zhaoying]

1 minute ago, Coffee Pancake said:

Horizons is a precursor to Belli in many ways. Roads, theming, set plots, ready made "free" houses from a rezzer, it's even double prim!! At launch it had a covenant that distinguished it from mainland just like Belli.

The only difference is how Horizons was managed.. LL put it for sale rather than managing occupancy themselves and it ended up a gift to land barons and failed.

Belli is in many ways a do over of Horizons. More effort into landscaping, management handled by LL, and themes with broader appeal.

But the "No love for Horizons" part? Did you mean Horizons has no way to "ban bots per Region", or did you mean Horizons did not get the same "Ban them all!!1!!1!" as Belli, or...?

[Coffee Pancake]

1 minute ago, Love Zhaoying said:

But the "No love for Horizons" part? Did you mean Horizons has no way to "ban bots per Region", or did you mean Horizons did not get the same "Ban them all!!1!!1!" as Belli, or...?

Horizons is no longer its own estate, it's now part of the mainland estate so bots aren't banned.

There is no way for people living on horizons to change the setting themselves.

[Extrude Ragu]

18 hours ago, Moose Houston said:

It would be nice if LL would just ban all bots PERIOD. Allow places and clubs with raw real traffic to succeed over those big bot clubs and malls.

I think some nuance is advisable here so we don't shoot ourselves in the foot.

Specifically, I think you are thinking about bots that roam the grid, invading peoples privacy/harvesting data/gaming traffic - Which I agree I think should be banned. Indeed, it seems like the majority of bots on the grid are like this.

Still there are also bots that do provide a useful function on SL, so I would be against an outright ban personally. For example, Caspervend redelivery bots, Bots that display clothes for us in stores so you can preview the clothes before you buy them. NPC bots in game sims. Just to name a few use-cases.

[Paul Hexem]

3 minutes ago, Coffee Pancake said:

Horizons is no longer its own estate, it's now part of the mainland estate so bots aren't banned.

There is no way for people living on horizons to change the setting themselves.

All the more evidence it should have been per parcel, not per region. 

[Love Zhaoying]

2 minutes ago, Coffee Pancake said:

Horizons is no longer its own estate, it's now part of the mainland estate so bots aren't banned.

There is no way for people living on horizons to change the setting themselves.

Ah, finally gottit!

Well, that gives Horizons dwellers a reason to also lobby for parcel-level Scripted Agent restrictions. 

Parcel owners such as myself need all the help with lobbying we can get (at least until we hear LL actually plans to do something for us).

[Love Zhaoying]

3 minutes ago, Extrude Ragu said:

I think some nuance is advisable here so we don't shoot ourselves in the foot.

Specifically, I think you are thinking about bots that roam the grid, invading peoples privacy/harvesting data/gaming traffic - Which I agree I think should be banned. Indeed, it seems like the majority of bots on the grid are like this.

Still there are also bots that do provide a useful function on SL, so I would be against an outright ban personally. For example, Caspervend redelivery bots, Bots that display clothes for us in stores so you can preview the clothes before you buy them. NPC bots in game sims. Just to name a few use-cases.

I agree, I finally listed the two "Classes" of Bots / Scripted Agents in a post above. (Roamers vs. Helpers.)

[Coffee Pancake]

5 minutes ago, Paul Hexem said:

All the more evidence it should have been per parcel, not per region. 

That isn't practical and not in line with how SL works. It has to be the whole region or nothing.

[Ceka Cianci]

1 hour ago, xDancingStarx said:

There already existed a ban on bots. The ban to be excluded from traffic counting. According to most people in this thread there shouldn't be a problem with bots and traffic anymore. Why is there still?

Lack of enforcement of those that didn't follow the guidelines for registering their scripted agents..

That will more than likely be the reason this change will not do much as well.. This change is sitting on the foundation of the enforcement of the registered scripted agents guideline..

If the passed is any indication of that, then it's easy to see how thin this change is until proven otherwise by actions..

It's a feel good thing at the moment and feels like a win for some, but actions are gonna speak louder that words on this one, especially if things end up underground and the switch estate owners flip lost power..

If they do start to really enforce that rule, we should see bot houses that get reported taken down rather than just sitting there not phased.

It'll all come out in the wash soon enough..

Until then I just see this hitting those that followed the rules while ignoring the real problem ,which is the rule breakers.

[Rowan Amore]

20 minutes ago, Coffee Pancake said:

Horizons is no longer its own estate, it's now part of the mainland estate so bots aren't banned.

There is no way for people living on horizons to change the setting themselves.

It's also a place where A LOT of bots show up at the info hubs there...

 

Edited March 31, 2023 by Rowan Amore
Changed picture to one without bewbies and stuff

[Paul Hexem]

Just now, Coffee Pancake said:

That isn't practical and not in line with how SL works. It has to be the whole region or nothing.

It's exactly in line with how SL works- no parcel owner in SL has ever been able to decide access for the whole region without owning the region themselves.

Who you ban from your parcel should always be up to you, not your neighbor.

[Coffee Pancake]

Just now, Paul Hexem said:

Who you ban from your parcel should always be up to you, not your neighbor.

Who. Yes. Exactly.

Bots aren't people.

[Love Zhaoying]

Idea:

If "Scripted Agents" were considered as "Objects", they could be included in "Ban Object Entry". (I thought that was a parcel setting..)

Now, was that so hard?

 

[Paul Hexem]

3 minutes ago, Coffee Pancake said:

Who. Yes. Exactly.

Bots aren't people.

Except when they are.

Like I said, by banning them on a region level instead of parcel level, I now have to unregister my own in order to bring them to my own personal parcel.

The decision invalidates the entire concept of registering bots at all and encourages ignoring the setting. 

[Coffee Pancake]

4 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

Idea:

If "Scripted Agents" were considered as "Objects", they could be included in "Ban Object Entry". (I thought that was a parcel setting..)

Now, was that so hard?

The problem presented by bots isn't simply the presence of an avatar, its the data that an avatar can collect even when it's not on your specific parcel. 

2 minutes ago, Paul Hexem said:

Like I said, by banning them on a region level instead of parcel level, I now have to unregister my own in order to bring them to my own personal parcel.

Good luck with that.

[Love Zhaoying]

Just now, Coffee Pancake said:

7 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

Idea:

If "Scripted Agents" were considered as "Objects", they could be included in "Ban Object Entry". (I thought that was a parcel setting..)

Now, was that so hard?

The problem presented by bots isn't simply the presence of an avatar, its the data that an avatar can collect even when it's not on your specific parcel. 

Well, fine. But, does my idea have merit for a way to implement "parcel-level bot banning"?

[Silent Mistwalker]

8 hours ago, Zalificent Corvinus said:

And when have "we the people" ever done that?, One of my former SL housemates was threatened with being AR'd for "harassment" because she asked some home invader to leave more than once, nowhere in the ToS does it state you can't ask an unwelcome visitor to leave.

Not one single word of this post addressed anything in my statement. Most of the residents of SL DO USE THE TOOLS PROVIDED.

I can tell exactly what would have happened in the case you presented. LL would have done precisely nothing to your friend. LL has all chats available to them to see what exactly happened. That includes private messages and group chats.

Been there done that many, many times over the past 20 years.

Your bs don't fly with me when you are trying to make a mountain out of a molehill.

 

[Paul Hexem]

Just now, Coffee Pancake said:

The problem presented by bots isn't simply the presence of an avatar, its the data that an avatar can collect even when it's not on your specific parcel. 

Good luck with that.

Don't need luck, it's already done. Just a single click solved the problem.

If it's that easy for me, think of the actual bad actors.

Half assed technical solutions don't fix a policy problem.

[Love Zhaoying]

5 minutes ago, Paul Hexem said:

Don't need luck, it's already done. Just a single click solved the problem.

If it's that easy for me, think of the actual bad actors.

Half assed technical solutions don't fix a policy problem.

Uh-oh! Patch was watching you..now he's probably going to visit you and cut off your Bot's tail or something.