Bye bye traffic bots

Show me the term "automated account" in the Linden Lab policy.

AKA "bot"

Problem is that someone have the same traffic numbers unlike others like me.
If you have less traffic than a 16 sqm adcutted plot why you need to put thousand $ buying land in SL?

I agree no more traffic bots but that's just ridicoulos if a 16 sqm plot have better search resutlts than a full sim.

I don't know what you mean. I have never seen a 16sqm adplot with traffic other than 0. If that is what you are talking about, check some posts above; they are having technical issues with traffic atm which is forcing many plots' traffic to 0. It's a temporary service outage and has nothing at all to do with the issue.

So next month I will not pay land fees?

It is completely your option to pay your tier or not.

If you are asking if your tier will be suspended because they had a temporary glitch, the historical answer is "no", however, you are free to put in a ticket and ask them to suspend it anyway, if you like.

Where i worship, of course.

I deem this policy already a failure. A quick scan of search results on the the term Skyboxes results in at least 10 places with obviously gamed traffic numbers.

You didn't show me the term "automated account" in the policy. The key is not what you think a bot is, but what Linden Lab deems a bot. And without a definition, we are just guessing.

And when I last read the policy, there was no definition of bot. And there still doesn't appear to be. And there is no link to a definition of bot.

However, in the course of making this post, intending to quote the policy, I came across a Knowledge Base article of which I was not previously aware. Whether it's new, or whether it's old and I never found it, I don't know. (Apparently the "What is a bot?" item was created on 3/24/2009, but I never saw it before. And in all the similar posts I've made in the forums complaining about vagueness for lack of a definition of bot, no one pointed me to this Knowledge Base article.)

The definition of bot should still be in the policy itself. But at least it exists somewhere, so I guess it's not quite so bad.

Though interestingly enough, it's not just an automated avatar that is a bot. It's a specific kind of automated avatar- one automated by a custom viewer.

You know, I don't know if I could run a whole army of avatars in multiple instances of the official SL viewer on my computer. But I bet I could get 10,000 points of traffic out of it.

Search is not working and peoples are paying millions $ of land fees. It's ok you are free to leave and cash out thanks Talarus.

You've caught up then, Isablan I deemed it a failure when it was announced. I could have been wrong, but that's what it looked like to me and, so far, it's proving to be exactly that.

Was gonna say... but even without the definition, only someone looking to rules lawyer their way out of being ganked over it will claim not to understand what is meant by the policy. It's a fairly simple thing; using multiple logged-in accounts with avatar presence to drive the traffic stat up. People know when they are gaming the traffic stat; it's not something that people are going to "accidentally" run afoul of on any semblance of a normal basis.



Well, I think the policy is intended to extend a bit farther than that, even to the point of camping chairs, if Jack's latest Office Hour ramblings mean anything.

URL?

I would have put the url in my post, but since one cannot directly link to Knowledge Base articles, and the workaround is a pain in the butt, I didn't.

But okay:

https://support.secondlife.com/ics/support/default.asp?deptID=4417&task=knowledge&questionID=6053

Seeking clarity in the rule is not shifty or dishonest. Because I or anyone else is not able to read the mind of the Linden Lab employee who wrote the policy as to what it is intended to mean does not make me or anyone else dishonest.

People do not just "know" they are "gaming" the traffic stat unless they have some reason to know.

Here is a legitimate question about the policy, with an answer that would contradict your reading of the policy.



Is TheDreamingDragon just a gamer trying to weasel out of the rule? Is the answer of 3Ring obviously wrong? To me, it looks like an honest question with an honest answer.

There would be fewer questions and less divergence on the answers if the policy were more clear.

It's like a lawn sign saying "Don't walk on the grass". People who claim to have problems understanding what "grass" and "walk" means are generally those who are caught doing it, and looking for ways to get out of it attempting to feign ignorance.



He even said himself why the main reason why he did it:

"And,yes,I did it for generating traffic."

Hence, yes, he would fall afoul of the rule, and should reconsider use which is blatantly against the new rules.



Again, I think it is very clear. Most people so far I have seen who claim to have issues with understanding it are those who want to do what it proscribes.

But there are people who are taking exactly the same actions for other reasons that traffic, because you can't script prims to act like an avatar and their build wants an avatar right there. So if two bots on a parcel acting as models may be seen as "traffic bots", if the guy "did it for generating traffic" but not otherwise, it comes down to intent. Like the fine details of the Adult Content policy. And I know how much you like that one.

On the other hand, I don't want to do it, I hate traffic bots, but that example really makes me wonder exactly what the policy is.

Much as I despise traffic bots, and you know I do, what's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.

Well, here is another one for you. I sometimes leave myself logged in on my land, instead of just logging out, while I watch television. I stay logged in just to get the extra traffic boost. So if I keep my avatar logged in for two hours while watching television, am I gaming traffic and violating the rule?

Without that KB article defining bots as being automated by a custom viewer, the answer is yes, I am violating the rule.

In fact, if I take a ten minute break from SL, and do not log off then log back on because I don't want to lose the 10 traffic points, I am violating the rule.

When I posted it on whatever thread before, everyone said it was silly for me to suggest that the rule meant that I was in violating when, with my main account, I stay logged in the ten minutes because I want the 10 point traffic boost. Yet the policy (without the definition of bot) indicated I would be.

So you are saying that, even with the definition of bot, I am in violation if I don't log out when Aqua Teen Hunger Force comes on, and log back in when I'm done?

Well, that isn't what the rule seems to say. If I am not using a custom viewer, I am not in violating. If I have multiple instances of the SL viewer running with avatars to increase my traffic, under Linden Lab's own policy, I am not in violation.

Linden Lab themselves specifically put in the definition of bot that it was automated by a custom viewer. Why specify that if that is not what they mean? I have to assume that Linden Lab wrote that specific point for a reason.

It may be true that Linden Lab intended something else. But the only way I have to know of what they intended is what they actually wrote.

Maybe you think that it's just a matter of common sense that Linden Lab meant something different than what they wrote, because what they wrote doesn't seem fair. Linden Lab has a lot of rules that do not seem fair. Linden Lab does not let me off the hook in breaking their rules if, in my subjective opinion, the rule is unfair, or in anyone else's subjective opinion the rule is unfair.

You or I simply don't know what they "really meant" when they defined bot as they did.

Nothing in Second Life is common sense, because there is nothing common about it.

Now, you may think that the policy is wrong as written, and it should be changed so that multiple instances of the SL viewer- for the purpose of increasing traffic- should be covered. But there is a difference between what you think Linden Lab should have enacted and what they actually enacted.

And the rules that bind me are the rules that Linden Lab actually enacted, not the rules that others think they should have enacted.

Are they walking on the grass?

I'm not talking about people who are using bots as group-invite systems, or buying/selling land. However, if someone is BLATANTLY and OBVIOUSLY using their bots to game traffic (even going so far as to ADMIT IT IN PUBLIC), then I think it is a no-brainer. There's no room for "determining intent", because it is STATED intent. When intent is not stated, THEN you have to determine it. That clearly wasn't the case here.

As for tying this into the Adult Content policy, if someone comes to my mall, whips out their freenis and tries to go at it, then I think the INTENT is pretty cut and dry, and they are gonna get the boot. If they do it just outside on the Linden road, then ARs will be issued, and the perpetrators should be dutifully excised from the region by the Lindens.

You'll note that I, like others, have no problems with the issue of confining adult content with common sense discretion; however, you and I both know that our issues with the Adult Content policy are that it does stupid and ghastly inane things in a misguided and futile attempt at achieving similar goals on a broad basis. This isn't the same thing by a longshot.

I don't have an issue with someone using a bot; I have issues with someone misusing them to game the search system. Just like with adfarms and extortion parcels, it really isn't that hard to discern where the vast majority of cases fall, and once they are taken care of, then you can micromanage the edge cases.

Lots of people cut corners walking on grass, that's why you often see dirt corners on otherwise nicely manicured lawns. You get the occasional mis-step, which leads to accidentally stepping, or even falling onto, the grass. These are example of edge cases, too. Most people aren't going to yell at you for accidentally stepping on the edge grass, but, by god, you blithely walk across the middle of it, and you can expect that groundskeeper to come over and give you a piece of his mind.



You're preaching to the choir again. The difference is that you are taking this one blatant example of ADMITTED abrogation of the rule and trying to extend it to all edge cases, or, indeed, all general cases.

If the sign says "don't walk on the grass", DON'T EFFIN' WALK* ON THE GRASS**.

*walk, run, crawl, step, fold, spindle, mutilate, ..
**green manicured plant matter that someone busted their tail (or went to other great expense) trying to make look nice

Yes, yes, yes. What's so confusing about it? If you're not at the keyboard controlling the avatar manually then the avatar is a bot. This is especially the case if you're idle for significant periods of time. I imagine there's some balance. Being AFK for 1 second is clearly not botlike, being afk for 10 months clearly IS botlike. There'll be a point somewhere in between where the line can be drawn.

If I write my own viewer and sit at the keyboard manually controlling the avatar, maybe replying to IMs or whatever that is not a bot. By any definition. If I do the same thing and leave the avatar idle forever or automatically controlled then it is a bot. The same logic applies for my special, secret, viewer I concocted from bits of string and old pieces of C# and the latest official viewer distributed by LL.

First you got it wrong, and then you got it right - all in one paragraph. If a person is not at the keyboard s/he is *not* a bot. S/he is "botlike", as you put it. It's not the same thing at all.

I have one for you. I have an alt set up to be a help/group invite/greeter bot which is an orb avatar in my store. I have no desire for it to "bump traffic" (as if one bot is going to do that anyway); its purpose is to fulfill useful functions for me that I cannot do via the LSL scripting system. In fact, if LL gave me a way to OPT OUT of generating traffic with that account, I would GLADLY do it (and I have asked for it, too); I am the last person in the world that would ever want to cheat.

I don't need two bots to do it; I don't need 5, 10, 20 or more. Hence, it is fairly EASY to determine that it is NOT there with the intent to game traffic.

I know there are people out there who want to use bots as "models" for various avatar accoutrements and clothing, and it is a huge loophole that bot runners are going to exploit that LL is going to have to deal with. Personally, I don't see it as anything other than abusive to have more than one or two, because it DOES skew the traffic numbers, and prevents legitimate residents from accessing the region when it gets full. Now, if LL disconnected traffic from search (one of the suggestions), or allowed people to "opt-out" a bot from traffic figures, as well as make bots not count towards region avatar limits, then I would otherwise say "go for it", but they don't have that capability yet. Until they do, I am afraid I would have to side with LL on banning large numbers of "model bots", too, simply because they are an obvious loophole to traffic gaming, as well as a resource drain to the regions and the grid itself, with detrimental effects to other residents.



Nope, never said any such thing.



Sounds to me like an awful lot of justification.

"I only stepped on the corner of the grass, so I'm OK."

1) Are you gaming traffic?
2) Are you using exceptional, automated means to do it? (ie, "bots"

If you answer "Yes" to both questions, then you're likely to fall afoul of the policy.



Did you read the blog posts and the ensuing discussions? I think they spelled what they "really meant" out pretty clearly.



You know, I read stuff like that, and I go back to a recent debacle in WoW that demonstrates why people have such a hard time exercising any kind of self-control in their lives. There was a screwup which gave a GM item called "Martin Fury" to someone, and their guild went and actually used it, then promptly got banned for it. There were justifications a-plenty by the guildmaster "Karatechop" in his interview with one of the MMOG news sites, but it still came down to the fact that he was WELL AWARE that it was a GM item, but used it anyway. The item's description left no doubt in anyone's mind that it wasn't a normal, usable player item.

What this underscores is that people will justify walking on the grass no matter what you say or do. To most people "don't walk on the grass" is more than enough to keep them on the sidewalk. That's what makes it common sense; the fact that people realize that someone's hard work went into making that grass nice and pretty, and that walking on it KILLS it and makes them have to work twice as hard.

"Don't cheat" is another biggie, but people still cheat anyway, justifying it in the face of the common sense of the destructive nature of cheating, both to themselves and to others.



That's why they aren't going with the "letter of the rules" with this policy; they are going with the spirit of the rules. Just like with the extortion microparcel policy, they are giving a statement of intent using a generalized policy, and are going after people who are blatantly violating it and working towards the edge cases. If you are caught gaming search, even using multiple instances of the SL client, guess what? You're likely going to get ganked for it.

The message is clear: Don't game traffic. If you do, expect to be contacted by LL over it.

LL also made it clear in the chat and elsewhere:

Models should have the 16m parcel they are on cut from the main store land, and the same for invite and security bots

When they have the bot flag available then they can operate on the main plot as a whole since the system will no longer count them for traffic.

If you write a program that connects to SL and while logged in,passes the Turing test, demonstrates self awareness, insight into human emotional states, etc. etc., would that be a bot to be bannedfrom SL, or have you created a new type of sentient being that should be accorded political rights?

If you trained a chimp to play SL for you, would that be ok because the software is running in wetware instead of silicon?