Unashamedly Bots

[Rowan Amore]

4 minutes ago, Zalificent Corvinus said:

Well the invisible thing means either wearing a full body alpha layer, or...

Using a client SO old, that it doesn't accept that system layers are no longer delivered via UDP.

So at their end they are stuck with "system layers not found" for system skin, eyebrow shaper & hair, eyes and shape.

Whatever the reason, I'm still.going with someone's bots.  Hard to imagine NEW residents finding some old viewer to use (these are all new accounts), logging in and standing around the welcome hub for days but anything's possible.  😁

[Zalificent Corvinus]

7 minutes ago, Rowan Amore said:

Whatever the reason, I'm still.going with someone's bots.  Hard to imagine NEW residents finding some old viewer to use (these are all new accounts), logging in and standing around the welcome hub for days but anything's possible.  😁

Yeah, though I wouldn't put anything past some of the SpewTube Streamer 4 Lolz griefer trash.

Use some ancient hack viewer to hide their IP/MAC, then get disapointed when they can't rez in and wear a "funny" avatar, and alt tab out, forgetting they have the viewer running and are still logged in.

[Prokofy Neva]

How do you know they're bots? 

[ArtCurator]

58 minutes ago, Prokofy Neva said:

How do you know they're bots? 

That's what I would like to know, if there's some magical insight or script you can run to ascertain whether an account is a "bot/scripted agent" or whether they are an alt account; which are two totally different things.

Edited September 27, 2023 by ArtCurator
clarification

[Rowan Amore]

Here's the type of place those invisible bots end up at.  86 people in this region that is at the top of search.  One person in the club...

People create literally 100s of accounts and do not register them as scripted agents.  The log in at the welcome hub for their first time.  Some are moved out quickly as I've observed.  Those usually have numbers.  Joe101, Joe102, Joe103 and such.  Some just hang around for days being pushed into wall or moved out of the main rez in area.

Their behavior, or lack of, is indicative of avatars used in this way.

 

[ArtCurator]

23 minutes ago, Rowan Amore said:

Here's the type of place those invisible bots end up at.  86 people in this region that is at the top of search.  One person in the club...

People create literally 100s of accounts and do not register them as scripted agents.  The log in at the welcome hub for their first time.  Some are moved out quickly as I've observed.  Those usually have numbers.  Joe101, Joe102, Joe103 and such.  Some just hang around for days being pushed into wall or moved out of the main rez in area.

Their behavior, or lack of, is indicative of avatars used in this way.

 

but what would be the point of creating an account just to sit for days and days at the welcome center? it would only help traffic numbers for the welcome center, not any other parcel/region

[Rowan Amore]

6 minutes ago, ArtCurator said:

but what would be the point of creating an account just to sit for days and days at the welcome center? it would only help traffic numbers for the welcome center, not any other parcel/region

Maybe they lost track of all of them or are simply using them for some other purpose.  The point being, regardless of their use, it's disconcerting to have them where new people rez in.  Trying to say hello to people who aren't there and seeing nothing but a a tag or cloud.

LL needs to be a bit more proactive in moving them elsewhere.  Maybe a designated bot park.

[ArtCurator]

2 minutes ago, Rowan Amore said:

Maybe they lost track of all of them or are simply using them for some other purpose.  The point being, regardless of their use, it's disconcerting to have them where new people rez in.  Trying to say hello to people who aren't there and seeing nothing but a a tag or cloud.

LL needs to be a bit more proactive in moving them elsewhere.  Maybe a designated bot park.

perhaps auto moving accounts older than 3 days automatically to another region

[ArtCurator]

4 minutes ago, Rowan Amore said:

Maybe they lost track of all of them or are simply using them for some other purpose.  The point being, regardless of their use, it's disconcerting to have them where new people rez in.  Trying to say hello to people who aren't there and seeing nothing but a a tag or cloud.

LL needs to be a bit more proactive in moving them elsewhere.  Maybe a designated bot park.

did Linden restart their Mentorship program? Aren't there supposed to be designated Mentors on standby at all welcome centers to greet and assist any newbies with questions?

[Love Zhaoying]

14 minutes ago, ArtCurator said:

did Linden restart their Mentorship program? Aren't there supposed to be designated Mentors on standby at all welcome centers to greet and assist any newbies with questions?

I hope the Mentors step up to help those Bots. Blots are blinkin' stupid, they are!

(No offense to anyone who reads this that happens to be blinkin stupid..)

[Love Zhaoying]

17 minutes ago, ArtCurator said:

perhaps auto moving accounts older than 3 days automatically to another region

Theoretically, even the WelcomeHub Regions would be restarted weekly.

You'd think this would clear out any accumulation of "dead" bots. (Nice mental picture, innit?)

Whether "normal" avatars and/or Bots would re-rez at the WelcomeHub after a relog following a Region restart..I have no clue.

[Rowan Amore]

21 minutes ago, ArtCurator said:

perhaps auto moving accounts older than 3 days automatically to another region

It's not about how old the avatar is that's the issue specifically.and they do move the clouds or invisible ones to a changing room apparently.  They're often obviously not NEW new residents but alt/bot account.  Those are the ones that just stand there in a shrubbery.

19 minutes ago, ArtCurator said:

did Linden restart their Mentorship program? Aren't there supposed to be designated Mentors on standby at all welcome centers to greet and assist any newbies with questions?

Yes, there are Mentors there who do help new accounts.  Hard to help if there's nobody in there, though.  One went up to the changing room with the 8 invisible ones and not a word back from any of them.  There is only one main Welcome Hub run by LL and the mentors.

[ArtCurator]

2 hours ago, Rowan Amore said:

It's not about how old the avatar is that's the issue specifically.and they do move the clouds or invisible ones to a changing room apparently.  They're often obviously not NEW new residents but alt/bot account.  Those are the ones that just stand there in a shrubbery.

Yes, there are Mentors there who do help new accounts.  Hard to help if there's nobody in there, though.  One went up to the changing room with the 8 invisible ones and not a word back from any of them.  There is only one main Welcome Hub run by LL and the mentors.

Isn't there more than one Welcome Hub newbies could potentially rezz into? Why does LL not have Mentors at all welcome hubs?

[Love Zhaoying]

3 hours ago, Rowan Amore said:

Yes, there are Mentors there who do help new accounts.  Hard to help if there's nobody in there, though.  One went up to the changing room with the 8 invisible ones and not a word back from any of them.  There is only one main Welcome Hub run by LL and the mentors.

I imagine that before a procedure was put in place for "what to do about the bots", it was disheartening and confusing for the poor Mentors.

Here is the scenario I am envisioning: the Mentor starts their shift, and is told "hey, there's a bunch of bots coming in". The bots don't talk or ask questions, because they're bots. Worse, they don't even Rez. The non-bot avatars are probably confused when they come in and see these silent clouds..

But putting myself in a Mentor's place, I can imagine there are long periods when there are no users to help, only a lot of bots that just stand there (and won't even Rez in some cases).

The decision to usher the non-rezzing Bots to another area makes perfect sense, given this scenario. 

[Spooky Shadow]

On 9/22/2023 at 8:47 AM, Sid Nagy said:

LL doesn't have to fiddle with bots to influence the numbers.
They control the software that comes up with the numbers and in that way what is published. Who knows, they might have a routine in their software to brush up the numbers. The numbers could even be total made up bogus. We simply don't know. But the Lab certainly doesn't need bots to influence the numbers.

Some shop owners still do. The person next to my land has constantly the same 10 avatars up and running (or better standing) somewhere in the sky above his shop. Most likely there will be a lot more shop keepers still trying this traffic trick.

Yesss and some clubs use bots to "fool" people into thinking a club is popular. 
I've seen one, recently, that used about 8 to 12 just to make it seem like they had people showing up. No one was actually showing up.

[Ardy Lay]

6 hours ago, Rowan Amore said:

Maybe they lost track of all of them or are simply using them for some other purpose.  The point being, regardless of their use, it's disconcerting to have them where new people rez in.  Trying to say hello to people who aren't there and seeing nothing but a a tag or cloud.

LL needs to be a bit more proactive in moving them elsewhere.  Maybe a designated bot park.

[Prokofy Neva]

On 9/27/2023 at 1:48 PM, ArtCurator said:

That's what I would like to know, if there's some magical insight or script you can run to ascertain whether an account is a "bot/scripted agent" or whether they are an alt account; which are two totally different things.

Recently, the Lindens introduced for islands and homesteads only a function where you can ban scripted agents - although it's couched in a bit of a confusing way -- you admit scripted agents -- or not. (And did they automatically add it to Bellisseria?)

They said they wouldn't put it on Mainland, probably because it ads to lag and CPU usage with all that checking of every parcel.

No creator seems to have come up with a way to identify bots and likely that's because LSL doesn't have the right functions.

Of course, we all can tell them sometimes by their names or by how they slump awkwardly at infohubs -- another pet peeve of mine, that instead of returning to the home of their makers, they pile up at infohubs during rolling restarts or when their home base goes down.

If you have to register a scripted agent, then it shouldn't be a big deal to put a symbol on that avatar's profile, along with their owner to send complaints. You start with registering and making obvious the compliant, then worry about the illegal bots.

Edited September 28, 2023 by Prokofy Neva

[Phil Deakins]

28 minutes ago, Prokofy Neva said:

No creator seems to have come up with a way to identify bots and likely that's because LSL doesn't have the right functions.

Yes they have, and yes it has.

[Prokofy Neva]

3 hours ago, Phil Deakins said:

Yes they have, and yes it has.

Great! So provide the links then. Not seeing it. If you mean the new Linden things for islands and homesteads, and there's an LSL function for THAT, great, but that's not on the Mainland where it is needed.

Edited September 29, 2023 by Prokofy Neva

[animats]

On 9/27/2023 at 6:37 PM, Ardy Lay said:

LL needs to be a bit more proactive in moving them elsewhere.  Maybe a designated bot park.

(Hint to bot controller developers: When your bot-control viewer gets the RegionHandshake message, check the SimName field. That's the region you just arrived in, which may not be the same as the one you asked for in the login request. If it's not where you intended to send your bot, your destination region is probably down. Log out and try again in a few minutes. Increase the retry interval with each retry. This will prevent your bot from cluelessly cluttering up safe hubs.)

[Phil Deakins]

3 hours ago, animats said:

(Hint to bot controller developers: When your bot-control viewer gets the RegionHandshake message, check the SimName field. That's the region you just arrived in, which may not be the same as the one you asked for in the login request. If it's not where you intended to send your bot, your destination region is probably down. Log out and try again in a few minutes. Increase the retry interval with each retry. This will prevent your bot from cluelessly cluttering up safe hubs.)

That's exactly what my bot system from way back did.

[Phil Deakins]

10 hours ago, Prokofy Neva said:

Great! So provide the links then. Not seeing it. If you mean the new Linden things for islands and homesteads, and there's an LSL function for THAT, great, but that's not on the Mainland where it is needed.

No I don't mean something for islands and homesteads. I mean for everywhere. The first post in this thread came about as a result of one such device - the one I wrote and offered free to anyone who wanted it. It spots avatars that are recognised by the SL system as scripted agents, which doesn't necessarily mean that the owners have registered them as such. I don't know of any commercially available ones but there might be some.

Edited September 29, 2023 by Phil Deakins

[Love Zhaoying]

1 hour ago, Phil Deakins said:

That's exactly what my bot system from way back did.

[Redacted, as I forget you made your "mint" on furniture, not Bots]

Edited September 29, 2023 by Love Zhaoying

[Prokofy Neva]

2 hours ago, Phil Deakins said:

No I don't mean something for islands and homesteads. I mean for everywhere. The first post in this thread came about as a result of one such device - the one I wrote and offered free to anyone who wanted it. It spots avatars that are recognised by the SL system as scripted agents, which doesn't necessarily mean that the owners have registered them as such. I don't know of any commercially available ones but there might be some.

I checked, and the first post in this thread does NOT mention that you are offering such a device. Maybe it's later in the thread? Even if it is for free, and not pay, it still is used to enhance your sales business, if you still have one, or your reputation. So it seems you started this thread to advance yourself in SL, the usual function of the forums. Good for you!

It's funny to recall how you used to make heavy use of traffic bots and constantly justify these extra avatars as "models" etc. etc. So now that the Lindens have nerfed traffic enhancing, you're accommodated. Perhaps you should offer the device for sale and really take advantage.

 

[Phil Deakins]

1 hour ago, Prokofy Neva said:

I checked, and the first post in this thread does NOT mention that you are offering such a device. Maybe it's later in the thread? Even if it is for free, and not pay, it still is used to enhance your sales business, if you still have one, or your reputation. So it seems you started this thread to advance yourself in SL, the usual function of the forums. Good for you!

It's funny to recall how you used to make heavy use of traffic bots and constantly justify these extra avatars as "models" etc. etc. So now that the Lindens have nerfed traffic enhancing, you're accommodated. Perhaps you should offer the device for sale and really take advantage.

It doesn't mention the device because I think pretty much everyone knew about it since it was in a recent thread, and I assumed that everyone would be interested in the results. We had forum discussions on the topic very recently. It was discussed here in GD and in 

Incidentally, AGENT_AUTOMATED isn't flawed, as is seen later in the thread I linked to. It turned out that LL keeps their own internal flags for scripted agents, separate to the scripted agent status page, so AGENT_AUTOMATED can return positives when the scripted agent page has the account set as being operated by a human. It does make sense that they would do it.

Nope. I sell a few security devices now, that's all, and I don't plug them anywhere in the forum. I don't even have a signature line to promote them. It's merely a means of me keeping a tiny bit of interest in SL, and nothing more. LL introduced the LSL means of spotting scripted agents recently. You obviously missed it.

Right from the moment I started using traffic bot, I never made a secret of it in the forum (RA). They were perfectly legal. When LL nerfed them, I removed them, but I did keep demo models on some furniture in the store, as you stated, all of which were registered as scripted agents.

I won't be offering it for sale. Those who wanted it, got it, and that's it. I have no need whatsoever to take advantage of anything.

Edited September 29, 2023 by Phil Deakins