Skyler Pancake

Let's be real. LL will talk about doing something. They'll release some half assed "solution." Then everything else will be ignored and nothing will actually change. This is why we need a change in leadership with Linden Lab. They are too content with what exists and aren't actually interested or capable of pushing for progress.

Bluesky! Still getting used to it myself, but it's by the original founder of Twitter who suddenly has a lot of money to make sure it's done proper.

AFK bots that just sit on the same region are a bit more difficult to prove.. But it can be proven occasionally by region restarts. If after a restart the account logs back in and immediately returns to it's position, the position that it's always constantly at, there's a very good chance it's a bot. Monitor a few more restarts and I'd say you could 99% conclude if it's a bot or not. Roaming bots are actually SUPER easy to identify. There's an individual (The whole not being able to link or name people policy on here is utter BS) who has done considerable work setting up monitors all over SL that track behavior patterns and can easily distinguish bots. If you were to Google "roaming bots secondlife" you might be able to find out some more information. That's not a Bonnie as the name states. There are tens of thousands of bot accounts at this point, with roughly 10,000 active, and a few hundred roaming the grid constantly. There's also hundreds of fake Bonnies at this point. If you're not sure if it's a real Bonnie you can check the group profile for Cult of Bonnie, as we regularly kick out fakes, or just check the website. There's 12 accounts that roam, one that sits at our home region, and one that gets brought on occasionally for testing or requests. If you ask nicely, you might be able to get some Bonnies to visit an event your hosting! You jest, but this might already be happening.. Just without the chains or dungeon. I know a few people who like to trap and toy with random bots. They can really make your soccer game much more enjoyable if you've got a big enough hamster ball.

Although it's possible for a bot to briefly(as in 5-30 seconds) cause region performance loss due to the scripts they initiate it's usually extremely minimal and as mentioned does not last long. The real region resource abuse that happens is with AFK accounts, such as AFK sex places and Tiny Empire, who will leave accounts idling on regions. This limits the availability for other accounts to access those regions as well as degrades the region performance. Most of the time these aren't actually bot accounts though, just alt accounts logged in to regular viewers on a secondary computer. LL has a longstanding history of relying on users to provide services. After all, why pay to create and maintain a service that you can get someone else to provide for you? These weren't bots. They were alt accounts being used to "troll" her. She posted a picture of a "Bonnie" visiting her, which was clearly an imposter and the picture looked incredibly staged. Considering some of the other claims made, I'm skeptical of much Coffee states regarding bots. That said, Coffee does seem to be coming from good intentions and does make some awesome contributions to SL. All registered scripted agents are banned from Bellisseria. This ban does not include the original Linden Home regions. We were unfortunately forced to remove all of our features involving the Linden Homes, despite our partnership with the BBB and the content being extremely helpful for residents looking for a new home. This decision is honestly the one I disagree with and regret the most from the outcomes this last spring.

I would like an achievement for having successfully petted Patch's ears. Also for pick-pocketing Walton Wainwright and successfully "stealing" his pocket watch.

The number of scripts ran and the damage that could be done within the even milliseconds of an account logging in, being connected to the grid, and then given a pop up dialog to confirm if they should even be logged in.. Welp, there goes your inventory, your friends list, all your money... The whole point of MFA is to prevent the completion of a login event until the account ownership is verified via the MFA. That can only be done via viewer update.

All of the BB bots were marked as Scripted Agents at the creation of the accounts. We had one of our accounts fraudulently reported as being unregistered and after much back and forth with LL we were able to get it unbanned, as it had never been registered as anything other than a Scripted Agent. We've actually experimented with a number of different methods to identify if an account is a bot or not and if they're registered. I've helped a number of bot operators make sure their bots are actually registered and have reported a number of bot operators who clearly had no interest in registering their accounts. We are very much in support of people openly sharing information about their bots and the information the bots gather.. Sharing information about Second Life and how people use it is what we're all about after all. As to bots being used to maintain the active user count.. Don't forget all the people who AFK. I used to stay logged in 24/7 for months at a time. There are also a LOT of accounts that aren't strictly bots but are left logged in for various reasons, including games such as Tiny Empire. I've talked with a number of people who keep multiple alt accounts logged in as well for various reasons, often times for RP. If your concurrent user count is being scrapped from the map, which is how most groups do it, then I'd suggest figuring at least 10-20k of the users online are not actual unique users. The individual who I'd say has done the best to track bot accounts in SL is Lou Netizen. https://lounetizen.com Lou uses a number of methods to track and identify bot groups and has done an amazing job at cataloging them. Lou is also amazingly respectful about privacy, so if you do run one of the bot cohorts and want to clarify what your cohort does but doesn't want your name shared please do message Lou and talk with her!

I think I figured out why this move by LL upset me so much. Second Life has been my escape from all the horrible *****ty things going on in this world. It's a place where I've been able to find friends, find a creative medium, find some solace for myself. There's been some hard moments. There's been some tears. But overall, Second Life has been a place I can feel welcomed and joyful. Seeing them create something that is so blatantly exploitive.. Made me realize that we're less separated from the abuses going on in first life than I'd like. That at the end of the day, Second Life remains less about the community and more about the profit.

We're at almost 40 pages of posts on this subject, over a week in, and there's still not been a single peep out of Linden Lab. Someone up high is crossing their fingers and chanting "They'll stop talking about it, they'll stop talking about it..."

I was definitely one of the people who'd go a bit bonkers on gacha. However, I'd only play those that I knew had resell value or that I would be able to use. The super popular ones I'd just go on the MP and buy what I wanted. My friend though.. She wouldn't care and would drop 5-20k trying to get whatever rare it was she wanted. It was definitely a bit of an addiction for her.

I'm generally of the same mindset. As long as someone isn't hurting others, I'm not one to involve myself. If LL had actually taken proper measures to actively address the potential for gambling addiction, I would have rolled my eyes at the casino and moved on. Simple acts of removing the pay to play feature, requiring you to read and acknowledge gambling addiction awareness before you can play, or even limiting the amount of tokens you can buy per day to something extremely minimal would help appease my concerns.

I wouldn't be leaving solely for the casino. There's a number of topics I could bring up that have been going on for years without even getting into the most recent issues. I'm still stubbornly holding on to the hope that they will start resolving some of the issues. This situation is greatly reducing my resolve though.

If this was the core intent, they could have made the entire thing free. A fun, yet free version of a casino would draw in far more interest than one in which you have to pay for. There would ultimately be no profit loss, as new residents will always mean more potential income for them. There is a good potential they are doing this. GamGard and GamTalk are owned by the same individual. GamGard does research on social casino games and such. GamTalk is an extremely unknown gambling addiction support website, but for some reason LL decided to use them as one of two mentions for gambling addiction help.

I'd offer more, but my wallet is still recovering from Fantasy Faire. I'm looking forward to taking my new bus for a ride soon!

Myself and a few friends are talking about leaving SL over this and a few other recent decisions. I wouldn't be making such a large issue of this and gotten myself banned for seven days though if I didn't care about Second Life though. I'm sincerely hoping LL acknowledges this was a horrible idea and refocuses themselves. It'd be a shame to have to leave SL.. But SL only exists because of the residents and if LL doesn't care about the residents anymore, then there's no reason for us to be here. It's not that strange of an idea. Second Life is a stable profit margin for LL, but Tillia is where the real money is going to be at for them. There's a very, very good chance that they're trying to use this to show they can handle processing payments for "gambling simulation" platforms. I tried to get them to chime in. The only response I got was to be banned for 7 days for "harassment" as apparently being "annoying" is considered harassment now. It's humorous, as they explicitly stated in their reply to my request for further details that there "were more appropriate means of engagement, such as the forums" while also stating my tagging the Lindens and Moles involved on the forums was part of the reason for the ban. 🤷‍♀️