🔔 LindenLab 🔔 : The Strong Need For Differentiation Between Actual Residents Versus Bots, Scripted Agents And NPC's In Second Life

[Count Burks]

This topic is about the need to distinguish between the actual Second Life userbase or Residents in world versus the large amount of bots, scripted agents and NPC's which appear to have grown in large amounts and are making up for an increasing percentage number of the in-world population.

This topic is not a complaint thread about bots or to discuss bots. The focus of this thread is on NPC's which appear to be used more and more frequently by many land owners in world for a plethora of reasons.

Chapter 1: Inaccurate presentation of the product

During recent exploration in world I have never seen so many places populated with NPC's or scripted agents. Some are bots used to bump traffic on regions or parcels. You arrive at a sim with 45 people on it but the sim appears to be empty, upon further investigation where all he actual green dots are, you notice groups of avatars being stacked together in skyboxes or in holes under water just to drive up traffic numbers for that specific parcel or region.

I visited places in the destination guide to look what people create. Upon arrival at certain locations, while the destination guide tells me there are 6 people at this specific region at the moment, when I arrive I find there are no actual people to be found who are in actuality  bots. Bots which have been put in place at the location by the owner. In this case to populate a nude beach with naked avatar bodies doing gymnastics on beach chairs.

Another region had avatars running around as police officers, at first they appeared as normal people who were doing things until you notice the pattern in how they navigate on the region. Again no actual Residents to engage with.

And the list goes on and on....

@Linden Lab when you advertise to your userbase there are currently 40000 logged in users but 20000 of those logged in users are not actual humans but NPC's in your game or virtual world you are committing to deceptive advertising. You must be the only game platform or virtual world on the planet who are calculating their in game NPC's as users and advertise these numbers to the public. "Look what a vibrant world we have there are 48000 people logged in" . 

By doing so you create false expectations for your merchants, regular users, entrepreneurs but most importantly towards actual new players or users for your platform.

After thinking about the numbers of NPC's that are logged in I have a made rough estimation of 12000 to 18000. This is a total number for the collection of bots, scripted agents and NPC's. I came up with this number after teleporting around on the grid using the map, visiting destinations in the destination guide and other knowledge I have. This number also continues to grow and that is an issue which is my reason to post about this here.

Chapter 2: The main complaint

I find it abnormal when I explore in world and teleport to regions claiming to have a lot of visitors that I almost exclusively meet scripted agents or bots. This didn't provide me with a good impression @Linden Lab When I click on the map on a sim with plenty of green dots I expect to find a vibrant place with users, a place that has things to offer. Now think for a moment, when myself, a 17 year old account perceives this as negative to find these zombie populated places, what kind of impression is this giving to normal casual visitors or even worse to new users who visit Second Life for the first time?

I am not the only one to bring up the fact that users are having a hard time to find actual people in world, here is an example what people think about this:

Pay attention to the last sentences, where the user is unsure about the fact if there are even actual people or if they are just bots, scripted agents or NPC's. Pay attention how this fact spoils the user experience for this individual, and for thousands like him. While new players might meet some people on social island or help island, what comes after that for them? The Destination Guide filled with false statistics because @Linden Lab views a bot or scripted agent the same as an actual user?

It is strange that the head of product @Grumpity Linden is completely overlooking the fact how the product is perceived by the user, or this mess, where non player characters are just included within the  actual user numbers of the platform. This very fact spoils the new user experience for people who join the platform and absolutely nothing is being done to fix this.

When a new user walks into Second Life and views the virtual world as: "Second Life the fake world populated with fake bot avatars" this will of course lead to incredible low user retention.

New users in particular should be clearly notified through the destination guide and other resources such as the map or mini map where there are actual people whom they can interact with.

Bots or NPC's or Scripted Agents should vanish completely from every statistic relating to traffic or user numbers. Destination Guide locations should not mention false user number statistics anymore like it is the case today. Every single Non Player Character needs to be excluded from every statistic pertaining to user numbers or traffic numbers.

New Users should find it very easy to identify actual residents versus Non Player Characters.

New Users should not be mislead through the world map where the busy places are with actual people versus the bot infested traffic boosting places.

All Second Life users should be able to clearly distinguish a Resident from a Non Player Character with the click of a mouse if they are in doubt about the identity of an avatar.

 

Such measures will lead to improved user satisfaction and will enhance the user experience for both current residents but also for new residents who join the platform as they will be able to identify and locate each other in world much better. 

Chapter 3: Need for transparency and activation of workable solutions

"Well Count Burks you like to complain a lot so what can we do?"

While the measures and techniques described in this section will not completely solve the lack of user retention for Second Life it can and will be a first step which will drastically improve the ability for residents both new and old to locate and make connections with other users on the platform, and all of this this without affecting the usage of bots, scripted agents or Non Player Characters NPC's.

These little adjustments inside of the viewer combined with the filtering of scripted agents and subtracting those numbers from the logged in user statistics, and also deducting these numbers from the Destination Guide statistics will vastly enhance the accuracy and ability to find other people in world. 

This will lead to enhanced user satisfaction where the amount of frustration and confusion for residents decreases as they will be able to identify other players clearly and distinguish them from the many Non Player Characters active in world and who continue to rise in numbers month after month.

1. User Versus Non Player Character: The World Map

Bots, Scripted Agents and NPC's are in essence all viewed as Scripted Agents by @Linden Lab and per Linden Lab their policy must be registered as a Scripted Agent.

Having this status makes it easy for Linden Lab to identify any NPC in world. The very first step is to identify any NPC character in world on the main grid map. This will allow any platform user to easily filter between actual people in a location versus locations where bots are gathering.

For example: A certain Resident mainly likes to be in Second Life for its social aspect, this resident will be interested to find actual people to talk with. Making it easy for this person to find and discover active places where he can talk to others by using the main map will significantly reduce his frustration in not finding people in world, therefor this measure will enhance his user experience and level of satisfaction with the platform. This will lead to more frequent visits and participation in the Second Life world.

The image below provides an example of a sim populated with 21 bots versus 3 real users. Bots are being used to boost traffic mostly. A casual user might click on this region as he is curious about the people there but find a mostly dead place which will frustrate the user as his time has been wasted visiting this place. 

By clearly distinguishing between users and Non Player Characters a Resident is less likely to visit this region after viewing all the pink dots on the map. The resident will just skip the region and look for other regions with more green dots. No frustration, no time wasting, no negative experience as it should be. The user is no longer misled by false expectations of finding a vibrant active region where he can interact and find other Residents to talk to in his search for social contact. 

This is easy to program for Linden Lab, has a low cost to implement and will improve the Second Life experience for everybody.

 2. User Versus Non Player Character: The Mini Map

Just as with the main map, the mini map will also assist residents in better navigation in world. By implementing this same feature on the mini map a user who is active on a Roleplay sim will find this feature useful when he needs to locate NPC characters on the sim instead of his fellow players. Seeing a clear difference between users versus Non Player Characters will again assist platform users in avoiding frustration. People who like to explore the mainland and use the mini map in doing so, will again be spared from bot gathering places or fake traffic places where they waste time and become frustrated by the lack of human interaction and log out because of this. Again this is an easy and low cost measure for @Linden Lab to implement.

 

1. User Versus Non Player Character: The Profile Window

As I wrote above there is a need to clearly identify users versus Non Player Characters, especially for newer residents in world. The increase of NPC's in world causes confusion with people.

For example a new Resident comes from the Help Island or the Social Island. This user put his Credit Card in the system as he would like to go shopping to buy items for his avatar.

The user visits a store and notices an avatar with the Group tag of the store. The user would like to ask for more information so he IM's that particular avatar who is nothing more than an NPC being placed by the store owner within their shop. Instead of getting an answer nothing happens. The user is not very impressed with the lack of response so he teleports away not understanding why he got ignored. 

Making users aware of Non Player Characters and allow anyone to identify a Non Player Character with the click of a mouse will make it more transparent for residents to see what they are dealing with. A small adjustment in the Profile Window will assist residents to clearly distinguish between a human controlled avatar versus a bot or NPC. Again removing frustration and confusion for new players, in particular newer residents.

As in the image below, setting a specific status for the NPC or Scripted Agent inside of the profile is again a low cost and easy to implement measure to enhance transparency between users and Non Player Characters as to remove any confusion about the identity of an avatar. It is there so use it. A simple pink icon in this case is all what is needed to properly inform anyone about the status of an avatar in world.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

SUMMARY

 @Linden Lab years of complaints by users about "Where are all the people?" Complaints about the many bots who have been replacing your user base little by little. A higher amount of fake user statistics that is being presented to your customers and user base. It is time, well more than time that you take active steps to filter between all the fake NPC's which you are calculating and presenting as your userbase to the outside world and your actual users in world.

"But Count Burks Second Life always has had the bots included in the user stats for many years."

That might be the case but those bots did not make up such a large percentage of users like they are at the moment. Hence the reason to filter them out of the user statistics, destination guide statistics and filter them from the main world map and mini map.

It is perfectly achievable for Linden Lab to do this as each scripted agent is identified or is supposed to identify itself. Every bot farmer who offers bots knows he needs to register his bots and is doing so.

When you put up a statistic that there are currently 48000 users logged in while you in fact have 30000 users logged in does not help you and creates false expectations. 

As a social platform people expect to find and meet, interact with other people, yet you make it incredible hard for this to happen, this leads to your userbase eroding a little at the time, frustrations with your customers and statements like "Second Life is a ghost town" or "I think they were bots".

@Linden Lab it is perfectly within your options to fix this and will benefit you and hopefully for you increase the user retention on your platform. The fact that your staff does not think about implementing this, or that your staff is not taking measures to reduce user frustration with the platform causing them not the return and lacks taking steps to find solutions for this issue will not do your company any good.

@Grumpity Linden head of product, your product userbase is eroding, people do speak about their frustrations with your product but you do not seem to listen much, let alone come up with solutions and implement them. As head of product you are responsible to fix issues with the product, clear visible issues you should handle.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

The reason I am posting this here is that I am curious to hear from other platform users are thinking about this.

As a Second Life user would you like to see this implemented in the viewer?

Would it benefit you in navigating the world?

Would it help you in not wasting time teleporting to regions you would otherwise avoid?

Would you find it good if you can just right click an avatar and see via its profile status if it is a bot or an actual user?

Do you think this will increase user retention especially with new people who come to Second Life?

Do you have anything else you wish to add?

 

*To the usual trolls, do not litter the thread, do not post idiotic comments or other garbage and smiley faces. To the forum dragons, no drama and spitting venom. If you have useful things to add you can.

[Blaise Glendevon]

Oh, this again?

[Zalificent Corvinus]

1 hour ago, Count Burks said:

This topic is about the need to distinguish between the actual Second Life userbase or Residents in world versus the large amount of bots, scripted agents and NPC's which appear to have grown in large amounts and are making up for an increasing percentage number of the in-world population.

First of all, "bots" and "scripted agents" are the basically same thing, and secondly, "NPC's are usually neither of the first two labels. NPC's is a term usually used for non-user account based  greeters, basically an in-world rezzed OBJECT, that moves and "speaks" via an LSL script, so your rant about flagging NPC's as pink dots not green is pointless, because NPC's are not map dots at all.

 

1 hour ago, Count Burks said:

 

@Linden Lab when you advertise to your userbase there are currently 40000 logged in users but 20000 of those logged in users are not actual humans but NPC's i

Again, "NPCs" don't log in, because they are OBJECTS, and in addition, your claimed 20,000 out of 40,000 is well known to be a wild exaggeration of the number of bots, which is certainly under 3,000, and probably less than 2,000, judging from available concurrency data, before, during, and after the temporary "bot viewer failure" a couple of years back.

 

1 hour ago, Count Burks said:

After thinking about the numbers of NPC's that are logged in I have a made rough estimation of 12000 to 18000. This is a total number for the collection of bots, scripted agents and NPC's. I came up with this number after teleporting around on the grid using the map, visiting destinations in the destination guide and other knowledge I have.

Yeah, no... You almost certainly, by way of an example confuse people who are afk with "bots", and most of your "other knowledge that you have" is likely to be fact free assumptions.

I know for a fact that many "bot haters" seldom bother to check if avatars they see actually ARE bots, they often just assume. I my self was once accused of being a bot because I was standing on a pose stand in a store, provided by the store owner so customers could edit the fit of the items they had just bought, which was exactly what I was doing. When I told the idiot in question I was not a bot, the idiot replied "you're just cleverly scripted".

Another common reason for fraudulent bot accusations is the ever popular "but  they are in the sky!". A friend owns a full mainland region, she and her friends and aquaintences often gather in one spot because its easier to have a conversation if we're all within chat range, and that spot is 1600 m up on a region sized "city" skyplatform.

Somebody porting around at ground level, seeing us on the next region, a bunch opf dots all in one place up in the sky, miight well make a total fool of themselves by screaming "Oh noe! bots". Had they done thisd on Saturday evening, they would have fraudulently accused about 20 actual people actually having a damn good time, at a Halloween party.

 

1 hour ago, Count Burks said:

While the measures and techniques described in this section will CERTAINLY not completely solve the lack of user retention for Second Life

Fixed that for you, let's proceed.

 

1 hour ago, Count Burks said:

Bots, Scripted Agents and NPC's are in essence all viewed as Scripted Agents by @Linden Lab and per Linden Lab their policy must be registered as a Scripted Agent.

Bots  ARE scripted agents, and are supposed to be registered, many are, NPC's, are OBJECTS, and not "scripted agents" and are no more required to be "registered" than a greeter mat, or a sofa or a rentals box.

 

1 hour ago, Count Burks said:

Having this status makes it easy for Linden Lab to identify any NPC in world.

Bots, not NPCs, and no it doesn't make it easy, as many bots are NOT registered. And enforcing registration is hard, as it can be difficult to positively identify a bot from an afk avatar, or just somebody who fell asleep at their pc.

 

1 hour ago, Count Burks said:

The resident will just skip the region and look for other regions with more green dots. No frustration, no time wasting, no negative experience as it should be. The user is no longer misled by false expectations of finding a vibrant active region where he can interact and find other Residents to talk to in his search for social contact. 

Ah the dreaded "SL is a Social Platform" fallacy. NO, SL is NOT a social platform, it's a platform where people CAN be social if they CHOOSE.

Simply teleporting to a large cluster of green map dots will probably dump you at a shopping event for example, where NOBODY is socialising, because they are just there to SHOP ( the clue is in the name, shopping event ), or to some "sexy singles" place where once again, NOBODY is being social, they are all sunk deep in one-to-one IM's with people sitting on the same furniture item.

 

1 hour ago, Count Burks said:

The user visits a store and notices an avatar with the Group tag of the store. The user would like to ask for more information so he IM's that particular avatar who is nothing more than an NPC being placed by the store owner within their shop. Instead of getting an answer nothing happens. The user is not very impressed with the lack of response so he teleports away not understanding why he got ignored. 

That's also NOT an NPC, it's a store greeter bot, it's usual function is to welcome the visitor to the store, send them a landmark, and offer a group join for the store group WHERE THEY CAN ASK FOR ASSISTANCE FROM THE STORE OWNER OR A CUSTOMERR SERVICE REP. Do try to keep up with the way things are done after 2010, nobody pays HUMANS to stand in their store all day any more.

 

1 hour ago, Count Burks said:

As a social platform people expect to find and meet, interact with other people, yet you make it incredible hard for this to happen, this leads to your userbase eroding a little at the time, frustrations with your customers and statements like "Second Life is a ghost town" or "I think they were bots".

Again with the "SL is a Social Platform" fallacy, the MAIN reason that people don't gather in LARGE numbers to socialise is that socialising in a room with 70 people, is basically impossible, local chat becomes a teleprompter running at a speed too fast to read, voicespam is a VILE jumble of noise.

Then there's the 48,000 avatars spread over 27,000 plus regions, that averages to LESS than two avatars per region, so no, only an overentitled jerk would assume they will meet crowds of real, live, awake, interested humans everywhere they go.

And the final fallacy is assuming that everybody in a location WANTS to socialise with a recently arrived visitor, they might not, and are under NO obligation to do so.

 

1 hour ago, Count Burks said:

The fact that your staff does not think about implementing this, or that your staff is not taking measures to reduce user frustration with the platform...

... is obviously due to the fact that it's not as "easy" as you claim, nor do they expect it to result in anything worth the expenditure of time, effort and most importantly, MONEY.

 

1 hour ago, Count Burks said:

The reason I am posting this here is that I am curious to hear from other platform users are thinking about this.

As a Second Life user would you like to see this implemented in the viewer?

Not really, not important enough or useful enough to warrant the waste of resources better used for fixing REAL problems.

 

1 hour ago, Count Burks said:

Would it benefit you in navigating the world?

Would it help you in not wasting time teleporting to regions you would otherwise avoid?

Not in the slightest, I don't teleport to places because they have a lot of green dots on a map, quite often the reverse, I loathe places with 40, 50, 60, 70, avatars. Vile Lag pits with nothing of interest to me, except possibly some shopping, for which I can wait till the event dies down a week later.

 

1 hour ago, Count Burks said:

Would you find it good if you can just right click an avatar and see via its profile status if it is a bot or an actual user?

Again no, I feel no need to "hunt down and destroy all bots" thanks.

 

1 hour ago, Count Burks said:

Do you think this will increase user retention especially with new people who come to Second Life?

Not in the slightest.

 

1 hour ago, Count Burks said:

Do you have anything else you wish to add?

Oh yes...

 

1 hour ago, Count Burks said:

The reason I am posting this here is that I am curious to hear from other platform users are thinking about this.

1 hour ago, Count Burks said:

*To the usual trolls, do not litter the thread, do not post idiotic comments or other garbage and smiley faces. To the forum dragons, no drama and spitting venom. If you have useful things to add you can.

Asking for people's opinions then trying to DICTATE what they can say, and making it clear you want NO dissent, isn't really "asking for opinions" is it.

Edited October 31, 2023 by Zalificent Corvinus

[Unity Evermore]

As a Second Life user would you like to see this implemented in the viewer?

Yes

Would it benefit you in navigating the world?

Yes

Would it help you in not wasting time teleporting to regions you would otherwise avoid?

Yes

Would you find it good if you can just right click an avatar and see via its profile status if it is a bot or an actual user?

Yes

Do you think this will increase user retention especially with new people who come to Second Life?

Yes

Do you have anything else you wish to add?

Would also like to be able to right click on user and see if the user is AFK or Busy. Maybe use a blue dot for AFK and busy residents.

[Solar Legion]

Oh hey, a thread wherein the OP presents dubious information as if they were hard facts and wishes to pretend they can prevent other users from having any sort of discussion (which of course means the presumption that they can prevent a user from countering said dubious information) ...

You do not own the forum and from the very second you pressed "Submit Reply" you forfeited all control - deal with it.

We get that you're on some misguided crusade - it isn't the first one either. Give them all a rest already.

[Count Burks]

34 minutes ago, Zalificent Corvinus said:

First of all, "bots" and "scripted agents" are the basically same thing, and secondly, "NPC's are usually neither of the first two labels. NPC's is a term usually used for non-user account based  greeters, basically an in-world rezzed OBJECT, that moves and "speaks" via an LSL script, so your rant about flagging NPC's as pink dots not green is pointless, because NPC's are not map dots at all.

Just to clarify for you. I refer to any avatar in world who is not a normal regular user avatar controlled by a human as NPC. I deliberately choose the term Non Player Character to broadly categorize bots, Scripted Agents and avatars used to greet, camp or do anything as they see fit.

The reason for suggesting the description of NPC is because every gamer on the planet knows what a Non Player Character is. With the eye on user retention of new residents in Second Life using a term that will be able to understand clearly for everybody seems the most appropriate. 

One could use the term NRC as in Non Resident Character but do you really want to confuse new players? 

Putting a Status of Non Player Character into the user profile where it is adequate seems the most logical to me, especially towards new people.

[SpiritSparrow Skydancer]

6 minutes ago, Count Burks said:

Putting a Status of Non Player Character into the user profile where it is adequate seems the most logical to me, especially towards new people.

Not everyone who is in SL is a gamer, so not all will even know what that means.  A lot of people join for community and "player character" suggests that there is role playing.

However, I do agree about the misuse of bots in world.  So, more enforcement should be done on that part particularly when the bots are driving up traffic and thus placement in listing.

Good luck, I doubt they will do anything.

[Rowan Amore]

2 hours ago, Count Burks said:

do not post smiley faces

😁

[diamond Marchant]

2 hours ago, Count Burks said:

To the usual trolls, do not litter the thread, do not post idiotic comments or other garbage and smiley faces. To the forum dragons, no drama and spitting venom. If you have useful things to add you can.

The issue of this thread should be of lowest priority to LL because it has no effect on my inworld experience at the moment. Also, your admonition to forum participants is adversarial and not appreciated.

[Love Zhaoying]

Thank you!

[Orwar]

   Even got the bells in the thread title. Nice!

Edited October 31, 2023 by Orwar

[elleevelyn]

5 hours ago, Count Burks said:

.

 

 

i don't see this as a bad thing. Scripted agents shown as pink on the map

is 2 ways that scripted agents are flagged. The public flag on our Account webpage (which we can set/unset as we like) and a second internal flag that Linden sets when they recognise that an account is acting as a bot (regardless of its public flag setting)

is not a major major to send the scripted agent flag(s) setting to the viewer. I don't think that adding a system badge to a scripted agent's profile is necessary tho. The pink dot is sufficient for all the purposes you have mentioned

[Polenth Yue]

Only blue dots matter because I have to run towards them shouting "Bear!!! And/or trading card!!!" before they can escape. But if scripted agents did turn a different colour on the mini map, I'd think, oh, that's nifty. I do look at bot profiles and immediately I can see they're a bot, so a tag wouldn't matter much. I never look at the number of people logged in. I've never teleported somewhere based on there being many people. I go because it sounds like an interesting place.

Useful? Not often. A lot of the big issues were handled by giving people control over bot visits and ways to detect them.

Help keep new residents? No, they don't care about the maps, they've got a shoe box stuck on their right hand. I'd like to see a more general official help group, like the new Belli help group, as it's been a great way for some of us to answer a few questions without needing to be full-time mentors.

Make people talk to each other again? I'm a mushroom. People won't stop talking to me. They tend to assume that I'm going to be friendly and I'm not looking for sex, both of which are correct assumptions. Which suggests to me that the primary reason that people are shy around strangers is not bots. It's bad experiences with other residents.

Make clubs happening again? Too many clubs are human only, so I don't have any interest. However, I've not had issues at parties in the fantasy community. People talk.

But how do I find these events where people talk, Polenth?! Right now, we have to hope people will see event suggestions here or keep up with the official blog. It'd be nice to have a year summary of the big events where people could easily find it and plan ahead. A lot of those events happen every year.

[Anna Nova]

at least the rant is on the Forum.  Just think how bad it would be to have this in-world.

[BilliJo Aldrin]

Count Burks, you say out of 40,000 logins, 20,000 are bots etc. You are being overly optimistic.

From traveling Second Life, I would suggest that at any time, maybe 10 % of the people logged in are actually logged in. So, its not 20,000 bots is 36,000 bots.

Nothing makes me leave a place faster than to see a crowded club that is actually 30 bots up in the air

[Zalificent Corvinus]

6 hours ago, Count Burks said:

Bots which have been put in place at the location by the owner. In this case to populate a nude beach with naked avatar bodies doing gymnastics on beach chairs.

I just had to add a comment on this particularly amusing quote.

So, how do you KNOW the naked avatars doing the sexy time on the beach furniture on the nude beach were "filthy bots"?

=============================================================

Rantman2008: Well, I teleported to "xxx Sexy Singles Nude Swingers Orgy Beach", and there were 12 avatars there, paired off, doing rude stuff on the beach, so, LIKE A "NORMAL PERSON (tm)", I said...

"Hi there fello beach fans, so, who wants to join me in a nice high brow debate of the importance of Hegelian Dialectic when discussing the Aristotelian Unities, with regard to my neightbour's 2nd cousin twice removed's dog-walker's hairdressers boyfriend's disdain for 'The best of Acker Bilk, vol 47, 90 mins of gratuitous abuse of an innocent clarinet', sounds fun eh, discuss!"

... and NONE of the expensive mesh avatars with mesh bodies, mesh heads, mesh rude bits, mesh hair, expensive skin, expensive sticky fluid splatter systems, etc., with an average cost of about $60 US EACH, not one of thenm stopped doing rude stuff to join my suggested interesting conversation, so OBVIOUSLY they must have all been filthy bots and not real people at all!

 

Sane Person: Alternatively, having spent $60 each on their avatars, and gone to an XXX Sexy Singles Nude Swingers Orgy Beach, for sexy time with another $60 avatar, they simply had NO DAMN INTEREST in conversing about some dead jass musician with somebody who looks like they spent a whole dollar back in 2008.

 

Rantman2008: But... But... "Filthy Bots destroying SL! Something must be done!", you MUST agree with me!

============================================

 

Let's not and say we did.

Edited October 31, 2023 by Zalificent Corvinus

[BilliJo Aldrin]

I used to go to a long gone bdsm / blues club. The owner insisted on having 3 bots on the dance poles, thus stopping any actual visitor from using them. It is obvious almost right away they are not there, so what purpose does it serve, except to annoy guests?

Of course, now all the rage is animesh "avatars"which  I always derender on sight. Why lag me to create the illusion you have a populated club?

 

[Garnet Psaltery]

Pink is too nice a colour to use for bots.  Pink should be used to identify cuddly, fluffy people who will be happy to talk to you.  Or even not a bit cuddly and fluffy people who will talk to you.

[Caitlin Tobias]

7 hours ago, Count Burks said:

do not post idiotic comments or other garbage and smiley faces.

🤪

[Qie Niangao]

3 hours ago, Orwar said:

   Even got the bells in the thread title. Nice!

Not to mention seven—count 'em, seven!—separate orange-flag call-outs to "Linden Lab" in case that would help a long-suffering social media minion get extra super annoyed at the thread.

(Plus two for Grumpity but, ya know, she has hardly anything to do so I'm sure she'll be… flattered by the attention.)

1 hour ago, Anna Nova said:

at least the rant is on the Forum.  Just think how bad it would be to have this in-world.

Oh, I dunno. I think people might pay for such a performance. Given the right costume, of course.

[Love Zhaoying]

The OP is in SL Real Estate. (See their post history.)

Will the proposed changes "help" or "hurt" the SL Real Estate business?

Assumption: "Bots" are a vital tool in Second Life used for Land Surveys (among other positive uses), which benefits SL Real Estate greatly, and could be seen as a "critical tool" - at least for SL Mainland Real Estate.

An argument for "helping" SL Real Estate: 

By reducing the "controversial" Bot usage detailed by the OP, the "relatively benign" "Land Survey Bots" may be unaffected. This is because the general focus would be removed from Bots, both harmful and benign.

This would allow SL Real Estate businesses to continue using Land Survey Bots, without any threat those Bots would be impacted by the changes.

This would probably only benefit Mainland Real Estate, who in my understanding use the Land Survey Bots.

Non-Mainland Real Estate would possibly not be impacted because, in my understanding, they do not use the Land Survey Bots.

However, any improvement in the general perception of Second Life would in my opinion help ALL SL Real Estate businesses. So from this perspective, removing the "assumedly overall negative" Bots would increase User likelihood of "investing" in SL Real Estate. This may have an overall positive impact on non-Mainland Real Estate.

An argument for "hurting" SL Real Estate: 

By reducing the "controversial" Bot usage detailed by the OP, focus may then shift to the use of "Land Survey Bots". Or worse, any changes may have a negative impact on the use of "Land Survey Bots".  

This could hurt SL Real Estate business - but probably will not have an impact on non-Mainland Real Estate businesses.

In fact, if there was some "harm" done to Mainland Real Estate businesses, that could HELP non-Mainland Real Estate businesses (as they are not part of the controversy and would benefit from any reduction in competition from Mainland Real Estate.

Conclusion

At least according to my logic, any changes to how "non-benign" Bots are handled would have a positive impact on non-Mainland Real Estate! A "win-win" scenario for them (and presumably for the OP).

Edited October 31, 2023 by Love Zhaoying

[belindacarson]

What were you smoking?

[Lyric Demina]

Whether or not there is any merit to the idea, the argument has been invalidated by so much gross generalization.  Chapter 1, inaccurate presentation of the product -- I disagree, because my experience of the product is actually exactly as advertised, and if there's me there will be others.  Chapter 2, again, I disagree, because my experience has nothing in common with "grady vukovic" or whoever else complains "there are no people, it's boring, there's nothing to do, everything is fake."  My experience is there are a great many people in a great many places wanting a great variety of different experiences in a great variety of different languages, and because I know that, I think "it's not us, it's you who can't find the party." 

In Chapter 3, an idea for a different colour on the map makes me think this entire post can be reduced to a one sentence suggestion with a one sentence proposed benefit up for debate.  That would be a good debate, imho.

Because when you generalize, otherwise, about the experience of Second Life users in the way you did in chapters 1 and 2, you lose a lot of support and gain a lot of unwanted emojis.

[Arielle Popstar]

5 hours ago, Anna Nova said:

at least the rant is on the Forum.  Just think how bad it would be to have this in-world.

The bots don't care about rants so it is only in the Forums where there is a reaction. 

[Rowan Amore]

53 minutes ago, Floryn Tordenskjold said:

unwanted emojis.

People want emojis!  So much so that they've worked long and hard to incorporate them into the viewer.  Who these people are that want them, I can't say.  I'd actually prefer the pink dots for scripted agents before an emoji.  I have no idea how all that works but it would seem easier to tag scripted agents than rework the viewers to include emojis.  

We DO, however, still need that eyeroll reaction in the forums.  🙄