Midnoot Posted January 24 Share Posted January 24 (edited) We all know about the massive amount of sims /regions that abuse the use of bots in order to create a false traffic number , right? You know those sims you go to that were seemingly active according to their traffic results , but when you get there , it's just a bunch of bots with the sims group title on, sitting at desk, appearing to be doing NPC Jobs, etc. Surely I'm not the only one who noticed huge clusters of green dots on the world map, teleported to them and found out that it was a weird group of bots , sitting In the sky, right ? Sometimes related to breedables it seems. What about the ones that teleport into areas and stand at the entrance, scraping data ? Sometimes with a name like " AutomateSL" >`>. Has anyone else encountered similar situations or noticed these uses of bots? Edited January 24 by Midnoot added one more example 2 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Anna Nova Posted January 24 Share Posted January 24 I find the same thing in RL. Usually they are labelled 'Politician' or 'Media'. They are even less use than the ones in SL, which have the virtue of being decorative. 1 1 12 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scylla Rhiadra Posted January 24 Share Posted January 24 51 minutes ago, Midnoot said: We all know about the massive amount of sims /regions that abuse the use of bots in order to create a false traffic number , right? You know those sims you go to that were seemingly active according to their traffic results , but when you get there , it's just a bunch of bots with the sims group title on, sitting at desk, appearing to be doing NPC Jobs, etc. Surely I'm not the only one who noticed huge clusters of green dots on the world map, teleported to them and found out that it was a weird group of bots , sitting In the sky, right ? Sometimes related to breedables it seems. What about the ones that teleport into areas and stand at the entrance, scraping data ? Sometimes with a name like " AutomateSL" >`>. Has anyone else encountered similar situations or noticed these uses of bots? Oh yes. It has been much remarked upon! And there have been numerous threads on the subjects of bots here (going back to at least 2008!), both in their capacity as traffic bots and, more recently, those that wander the grid harvesting information. People have also spoken about using bots as scripted NPCs, greeters, etc., and in conjunction with off-grid AI. That's not to suggest that you can't start a new thread on the subject, especially given how people can sometimes respond to "necroposting" in older threads, but it might be useful to do a quick search of the forums for context on this subject. 7 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Istelathis Posted January 24 Share Posted January 24 Yeah, they are not that bad though. Usually most of the regions I travel through are pretty empty, then I will stumble upon one that has a parcel with a bunch of what I assume are bots that are being used for some reason or another, they don't really bother me unless there are so many that it prohibits entry into a region which is pretty rare. I actually find them to be pretty interesting, from my understanding some of them are pretty beneficial for SL users in general, some are scraping data that serve practical purposes, some are probably scraping data we would rather not have them scraping data for. Some are serving different purposes such as NPCs. When I earn Linden, be it through fishing or lindo there are usually bots, which tend to annoy people to no end, especially people who want active users engaging in social activity on their land. Then there are the Linden bots of doom, which will suck you into their bowels, and spit you out in some foreign wasteland.. ya gotta watch out for those ones. I haven't seen any of those since last April though. 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Midnoot Posted January 24 Author Share Posted January 24 23 minutes ago, Istelathis said: Then there are the Linden bots of doom, which will suck you into their bowels, and spit you out in some foreign wasteland.. ya gotta watch out for those ones. I haven't seen any of those since last April though. Imma be honest . If this was a real random event in SL, I wouldn't even be mad. Suddenly while you're in the middle of whatever you're doing , bright beams come down around you and the teleport sound happens . Lolol 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Love Zhaoying Posted January 24 Share Posted January 24 2 hours ago, Midnoot said: We all know about the massive amount of sims /regions that abuse the use of bots in order to create a false traffic number , right? You know those sims you go to that were seemingly active according to their traffic results , but when you get there , it's just a bunch of bots with the sims group title on, sitting at desk, appearing to be doing NPC Jobs, etc. Surely I'm not the only one who noticed huge clusters of green dots on the world map, teleported to them and found out that it was a weird group of bots , sitting In the sky, right ? Sometimes related to breedables it seems. What about the ones that teleport into areas and stand at the entrance, scraping data ? Sometimes with a name like " AutomateSL" >`>. Has anyone else encountered similar situations or noticed these uses of bots? Are you relatively new to the Forums? Lots of drama and arguments about the "Pros" and "Cons" of Bots the past couple of years (and going many years before that). Most recently, drama regarding the new "Scripted Agent" status and features, and before that, "BonnieBots". The "traffic" bots is perennial favorite topic. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Midnoot Posted January 24 Author Share Posted January 24 (edited) 41 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said: Are you relatively new to the Forums? Lots of drama and arguments about the "Pros" and "Cons" of Bots the past couple of years (and going many years before that). Most recently, drama regarding the new "Scripted Agent" status and features, and before that, "BonnieBots". The "traffic" bots is perennial favorite topic. Edited January 24 by Midnoot 2 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xDancingStarx Posted January 24 Share Posted January 24 (edited) 3 hours ago, Midnoot said: the use of bots in order to create a false traffic number , right? If you call those "bots" you get to the wrong conclusion. You can artificially increase your traffic with any viewer that you just park. It doesn't need to be a bot. Therefore if you think you got rid of the problem by "banning bots" you're wrong. If you want to reduce the fake traffic, you'll have to add to the TOS that no account (independent of the viewer) may park at a place to artificially create traffic. Have fun implementing that.. Edited January 24 by xDancingStarx 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Midnoot Posted January 24 Author Share Posted January 24 15 minutes ago, xDancingStarx said: If you call those "bots" you get to the wrong conclusion. You can artificially increase your traffic with any viewer that you just park. It doesn't need to be a bot. Therefore if you think you got rid of the problem by "banning bots" you're wrong. If you want to reduce the fake traffic, you'll have to add to the TOS that no account (independent of the viewer) may park at a place to artificially create traffic. Have fun implementing that.. Yes. I've done some experimenting with distinguishing mobile viewer users who are just left on " 24 hour log in " and bots . If we focus only on the idling for traffic numbers , they're almost the same . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
InnerCity Elf Posted January 24 Share Posted January 24 I mainly roleplay, and I like NPC bots, it at least feels less lonely like that, hanging out in some medieval tavern, waiting for actual players to pass by. I might even say hi to them. When I am where many people are, like events, music venues, popular scenic sims, and such, I never had the impression it's bots. I've certainly read about and also noticed "bot pollution" when looking at the map too often to know how often, but never tried to purposely tp to spots with lots of green dots stacked one on the other, but I'm sure it must feel annoying or futile if you do that to find actual people and up with lots of mute bots instead over and over. What I wonder is what would happen, if all those bots got AI-ed up. Would people notice? Would they prefer them to non-interactive bots, or the contrary? Would they even notice? I'd hope that we'd at least get a clear tell, so we could decide if we'd like to chat away our time with an imaginary friend in form of a bot, or not. Personally, I prefer interacting with real people, even if it's someone just asking for Lindens, or where I bought something, or even someone I don't really like all too much, it's just more fun, more alive. But there's loads of otome games, guys with virtual girlfriends, even one famously "married" to some virtual idol,... So, the demand may be there, I don't know. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Midnoot Posted January 24 Author Share Posted January 24 (edited) 14 minutes ago, InnerCity Elf said: What I wonder is what would happen, if all those bots got AI-ed up. Would people notice? Would they prefer them to non-interactive bots, or the contrary? Would they even notice? I'd hope that we'd at least get a clear tell, so we could decide if we'd like to chat away our time with an imaginary friend in form of a bot, or not. Personally, I prefer interacting with real people, even if it's someone just asking for Lindens, or where I bought something, or even someone I don't really like all too much, it's just more fun, more alive. Oh, you can definitely tell in ai's current state. " Hi, how are you doing today , ai-bot? Your momma still comparable to a planet?" Ai-bot: Hello , human. I am exceptionally well. The mother is the child bearer of the offspring . Jupiter was established as a planet in 1404. ( random number) Would you like to inquire about something else from my wiki base? " But yes, if the smallest thing gives an avatar away as a bot , I'm immediately discouraged . It's not fun to know that it's just pulling wiki and has no relatable experiences of its own . Edited January 24 by Midnoot 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
InnerCity Elf Posted January 24 Share Posted January 24 Yes, sure, in the current state, you can. I have to compete with AI in my rl line of work, I know well enough. But that kind of development is exponential, and depending on how far things will go regarding "cross referencing", who knows. Maybe not in SL, or so I hope, but the potential is somewhat scary, not just in regards to the grandchildren scam sphere. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zalificent Corvinus Posted January 24 Share Posted January 24 5 hours ago, Midnoot said: We all know about the massive amount of sims /regions that abuse the use of bots Do we? I know there are a great many clueless Captain Oldbies who constantly whine that "more than half of SL is filthy bots!", and I know they are invariably wrong. 5 hours ago, Midnoot said: Sometimes related to breedables it seems I've never seen a group of bots "related to breedables", ever. 5 hours ago, Midnoot said: found out that it was a weird group of bots , sitting In the sky And another "Clueless Captain Oldbie" whiny complaint, that is in fact quite suspect. There's a place on Zindra, where you will see a large group of green dots up in the sky. If some OBVIOUS outsider, especially a guy, teleports up to that group, they will almost certainly be ignored by the avatars standing about NOT talking in local. Such an outsider, might then assume they were all "filthy bots", and he'd be... 1000% wrong. That particular club is full of people who are buried deep in IM's, and who have absolutely NO interest in random outsider guys wandering in and saying "Hi, what can I do here". A significant number of places have little patience with or sympathy for random outsider guys who THINK they are entitled to a conversation. 5 hours ago, Midnoot said: What about the ones that teleport into areas and stand at the entrance, scraping data ? And what "data" exactly are you worried is being "scraped", The name of the store where you bought your tin-foil hat? 1 hour ago, Midnoot said: Yes. I've done some experimenting with distinguishing mobile viewer users who are just left on " 24 hour log in " and bots Good luck with that, there is NO reliable test any mere user can make to tell an AFK avatar from a bot, or from somebody who just doesn't want to talk to some random outsider guy who THINKS he's entitled to a conversation. None. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zalificent Corvinus Posted January 24 Share Posted January 24 3 hours ago, Love Zhaoying said: Are you relatively new to the Forums? I thought feline predators had a keen sense of smell, you didn't pick up on the aftershave? "Eau de Chaussette-Marionnette" 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Midnoot Posted January 24 Author Share Posted January 24 1 hour ago, Zalificent Corvinus said: Do we? I know there are a great many clueless Captain Oldbies who constantly whine that "more than half of SL is filthy bots!", and I know they are invariably wrong. I've never seen a group of bots "related to breedables", ever. And another "Clueless Captain Oldbie" whiny complaint, that is in fact quite suspect. There's a place on Zindra, where you will see a large group of green dots up in the sky. If some OBVIOUS outsider, especially a guy, teleports up to that group, they will almost certainly be ignored by the avatars standing about NOT talking in local. Such an outsider, might then assume they were all "filthy bots", and he'd be... 1000% wrong. That particular club is full of people who are buried deep in IM's, and who have absolutely NO interest in random outsider guys wandering in and saying "Hi, what can I do here". A significant number of places have little patience with or sympathy for random outsider guys who THINK they are entitled to a conversation. And what "data" exactly are you worried is being "scraped", The name of the store where you bought your tin-foil hat? Good luck with that, there is NO reliable test any mere user can make to tell an AFK avatar from a bot, or from somebody who just doesn't want to talk to some random outsider guy who THINKS he's entitled to a conversation. None. You sure are oblivious to a lot of things, aren't ya? Must be nice. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zalificent Corvinus Posted January 24 Share Posted January 24 (edited) 25 minutes ago, Midnoot said: You sure are oblivious to a lot of things, aren't ya? Not in the slightest. I'm just used to the "shocked and outraged" tactics of people claiming their tin-foil-hat conspiracy club nonsense is "something that must be address NOW" I recall a thread where some 2-digit-IQ-score type, a real Captain Oldbie, got them selves punted and banned from an infamous Noob Pit. "Shocked and outraged" at being banned, they immediately tried to go back there in several of their Captain Oldbie alts to complain, and discovered they were all banned. Being a clueless Captain Oldbie, the tin-foil-hat werarer screamed that the Noob Pit "must be using filthy bots to datascrape his IP address" and demanded to know if this was legal. It was a handfull of pages of support from other Captain Oldbies before somebody with a THREE digit IQ score pointed out that it wasn't "filthy bots datascraping his IP" but simply an ESTATE level ban, which automatically bans the targets alts too. That train-wreck of a thread ran for dozen of pages with Captain Oldbies ignoring the stated fact of the Estate Ban, and eventually got NUKED by the mods, as were several "followup threads", and eventually resulted in the almost useless "bot ban" option for estate owners. Almost useless, because it ONLY bans the legal bots, and leaves the illegal ones standing. The Irrational-Bot-Hater-Rant threads have been done to death. Edited January 24 by Zalificent Corvinus 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Theresa Tennyson Posted January 24 Share Posted January 24 (edited) 7 hours ago, Midnoot said: We all know about the massive amount of sims /regions that abuse the use of bots in order to create a false traffic number , right? You know those sims you go to that were seemingly active according to their traffic results , but when you get there , it's just a bunch of bots with the sims group title on, sitting at desk, appearing to be doing NPC Jobs, etc. Surely I'm not the only one who noticed huge clusters of green dots on the world map, teleported to them and found out that it was a weird group of bots , sitting In the sky, right ? Sometimes related to breedables it seems. What about the ones that teleport into areas and stand at the entrance, scraping data ? Sometimes with a name like " AutomateSL" >`>. Has anyone else encountered similar situations or noticed these uses of bots? https://www.txst.edu/philosophy/resources/fallacy-definitions/begging-the-question.html Edited January 24 by Theresa Tennyson Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rowan Amore Posted January 24 Share Posted January 24 The LL viewer search will show different traffic numbers using the same keyword search. Try Escort. Always popular with the traffic bot crowd. LL's viewer search will not show the very top club, as seen on firestorm, as top club. The 100K traffic that the firestorm viewer shows is not what LL sees. LL has also said they were going to be proactive on bots gaming traffic but if their employees are using their own viewer's search, they aren't seeing what everyone on firestorm sees. I've shown pictures taken at these 'popular' escort venues. Not a soul around but 20-30 library avatars up in skyboxes. Those places aren't near the top in LL search but always near the top in firestorm. This is a picture of them from radar. All made around the same date and all standing around in a box. 2 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Love Zhaoying Posted January 24 Share Posted January 24 34 minutes ago, Theresa Tennyson said: https://www.txst.edu/philosophy/resources/fallacy-definitions/begging-the-question.html There's a nice pseudo-equivalent often in the news, "Nobody knew.." (when someone first learns something surprising that was common knowledge). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arduenn Schwartzman Posted January 24 Share Posted January 24 11 hours ago, Midnoot said: You know those sims you go to that were seemingly active according to their traffic results The (search) system has failed (since the early 2000s). Don't trust the machines. Make friends, ask people in fora or groups, find the interesting places in SL in other ways than using the failed the search system. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Midnoot Posted January 24 Author Share Posted January 24 4 hours ago, Arduenn Schwartzman said: The (search) system has failed (since the early 2000s). Don't trust the machines. Make friends, ask people in fora or groups, find the interesting places in SL in other ways than using the failed the search system. I do , I do, but the endless curiosity gets through better of me and I start searching and being disappointed by my results p:. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Midnoot Posted January 24 Author Share Posted January 24 7 hours ago, Rowan Amore said: The LL viewer search will show different traffic numbers using the same keyword search. Try Escort. Always popular with the traffic bot crowd. LL's viewer search will not show the very top club, as seen on firestorm, as top club. The 100K traffic that the firestorm viewer shows is not what LL sees. LL has also said they were going to be proactive on bots gaming traffic but if their employees are using their own viewer's search, they aren't seeing what everyone on firestorm sees. I've shown pictures taken at these 'popular' escort venues. Not a soul around but 20-30 library avatars up in skyboxes. Those places aren't near the top in LL search but always near the top in firestorm. This is a picture of them from radar. All made around the same date and all standing around in a box. That's a great example Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sirhc DeSantis Posted January 24 Share Posted January 24 Those that think traffic and dots on map mean things. Those that are alts.... I may have cross reffed here so sue me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PheebyKatz Posted January 24 Share Posted January 24 (edited) Based on years of experience, best I can gather is that most people just hate it when they're on a private island, trying to enjoy their privacy, and someone shows up out of nowhere, and won't even hang out naked with them. Me, I used to try and get a hat onto their head before they could poof away. Make it fun at least, you know? I also used to greet every dot that appeared on my home island, on the off chance they were an actual visitor, and not a bot. Occasionally I'd get a response. My brother however, would simply ban anyone who showed up that wasn't on his friendslist, assuming they were all bots. Talk about some grumpy people messaging him! "Why did you ban me? All I did was show up!" "Prove dat you notted a BOT!" "How?" "Datted is for yous to fwiggers outs!" Sigh. lol. Edited January 24 by PheebyKatz 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JUSTUS Palianta Posted January 30 Share Posted January 30 The owner of bonnie bots is taking the micky out of us. Just saw NotAnotherBonnieBotMakeItStop pop up at my home sim. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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