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Curiouser and curiouser


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Lately there's been an avatar that's appeared in my home sim of Crescent that has taken to sitting on the stony hard ground of an abandoned parcel. I'm not the type to make snap judgements of people so I thought nothing of it. Until she was still there 2 weeks later. Linden Lab restarted the sim for some reason or other and she reappeared within the hour and has been there ever since. I tried to engage her in conversation but, predictably, I got no response.

Here's our lost avatar:

Lost avatar-01.jpg

and here's the view of the world that she's been looking at for the last month:

Lost avatar-02.jpg

We've had a few bots over the last couple of years that park themselves in the middle of one of the nearby water sims but this is downright creepy. She can't be a landbot.... well it seems highly unlikely seeing how the land market collapsed. Heck, if autoreturn hadn't been enabled before  that parcel was abandoned I'd have slipped a cushion underneath her and built up a little zazen do to make her feel at home. I'm at a loss here. Anyone got any suggestions?

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In all seriousness, it's probably a bot of some sort .. especially the tendency to reappear in the exact same spot, sitting down, after a restart. I seriously doubt there's a human sitting there ready to log back in again at a moment's notice.

Not sure what category to use for an AR though, but it does kinda seem like something you should let LL know about .. especially if their profile does not have them set as a Bot (Scripted Agent Status).

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Is it against the ToS to log on then go on vacation without setting your avatar to "Scripted Agent"?   Being the avatar in on abandoned land that is evidently public access it's pretty obvious it's not an attempt to increase traffic......so I don't think it's neccessary to have scripted agent set even if it is a bot.  I haven't heard anywhere where bots have been banned from the grid.  I just can't see where anything AR'able is happening.

 

It is weird though.  :matte-motes-agape:

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Years ago, when I "lived" at a vidchat site, we had a guy on open cam that was sleeping just a little TOO soundly. (Yeah, he was .. *sigh*) But I seriously doubt this is the same situation.

Yup, pop the AR and see what happens. Or at least do a little creative landscaping and give her a decent escarpment to situpon.

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Then it might be a scripted agent..........is that against the ToS to have a scripted agent sitting on abandoned land that is public access?  Or, even if it is strange, maybe there really is a human behind the avatar and they saw they got logged out for the restart and logged back in.......no way of knowing really.  I don't think either case is a ToS violation. 

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I would suggest gettinga  gesture or scripted item that allows you to take pictures as you wrap your legs around thier neck and give a few thrusts. I have one that does noises as well if you need it. Don't forget pictures or it never happened.

On a serious note though has there been any checks for chat bugs or is she withing 21 meters of another parcel. Could be a logger of some sort?

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not against TOS... but sometimes I wonder if it should be....

setting scripted agent status is only required for bots that run on land in search, and there is no way for people in SL to know if that status is set.

you can always AR for abuse of resources

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Darrius Gothly wrote:

However having a scripted agent connected to the Grid with a profile that is not set to indicate a Scripted Agent .. that's a no-no.

Been told otherwise in specific detail by a linden before - that whether or not someone is a scripted agent is not a matter for the public to know.

I vote spybot or landbot. The landbot could be idling waiting for a call to jump - by a landflipper who's too foolish to keep the thing on their own land.

The spybot might be tracking something on the sim, or again waiting for a trigger to occur.

It could also be a form of ghosting - this person might be trying to log in and unable to do so. I suggest an AR just so that if it is a ghosting, the linden's can fix it.

I've had a person thank me before for doing that (I'd IM'd them, they got the email, but couldn't respond. A few days later after a linden booted the person properly offline, I got an IM telling me they'd seen my message).

- An AR will also catch any abuse. I tend to type into ARs of that nature that I'm seeing something I can't explain, so can somebody 'look' and see if its a technical problem or ToS problem. But its been a while since I've seen something like this.

I -have- seen a lot of tiny empires bots - but they like to cluster and tend to move every few hours or days.

 

 

 

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Pussycat Catnap wrote:


Darrius Gothly wrote:

However having a scripted agent connected to the Grid with a profile that is not set to indicate a Scripted Agent .. that's a no-no.

Been told otherwise in specific detail by a linden before - that whether or not someone is a scripted agent is not a matter for the public to know.  [..]

I stand corrected. Apparently the "Scripted Agent" status is not even visible to "The Public" so it's moot whether their profile is set that way or not (from our POV anyway.) Thanks for clearing that up Pussycat.

I do agree though, the fact that "she" has survived and returned after several region restarts is a bit suspicious. My earlier advice still stands .. pop the AR button and let the Lindens sort it out. (But I like your advice to enter a reason along the lines of "not sure what this is about so could someone please check it out".)

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Strangely I've also had a mute / non-communicative Linden show up at my last two shows. The same one both times. Logs in, stands on the spot, goes AFK and then logs out after a while. Doesn't respond to any chat or IM contact. I can't see the point here. If LL really wanted to monitor me they've already got the means to do so without resorting to a spy bot. Maybe this is their idea of a courtesy to inform me that I'm under investigation for something or other. But for what? All I do is log in, do a bit of building, play some music [most times to no-one at all] and then log out.

On a brighter note, I seem to be gaining popularity amongst the SL zombie crowd.

 

FWIW, I've just double-checked and she's not a ghosted avvie that's had a faulty logout. Which means that she's definitely logged in and set to be there.

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Osprey Therian wrote:

Zippity, your name has been my fave since I first saw it eons ago.

Why thank you! That's very nice to hear, especially from somebody who could claim a Therian name. I was a friend of Tim Thereian, aka Hungry Linden, if he was known to you.

But forgive me if I direct our intrepid readers back into the serious investigation at hand!

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I was intrigued by the story so far, so before retiring for the evening I decided to see if I could confirm this phenomenon with my own eyes. Imagine my delight to discover that not only was the subject of our curiousity still present, but that precautions had been taken to make sure she wouldn't wander off while nobody was looking!

Zombie Containment Apparatus

You can see that ventilation has been provided, and that the subject has ample room to move about in case she comes to her senses. She looks quite comfortable in there, and won't even have to worry about inclement weather.

captive-zombie-1.png

... continued ...

 

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