Traffic Bots Against the TOS of LL?

All well and good, but they do not have the resources to Police 30,000 sims, if you think that then you a really kidding yourself. I listed the things that they've banned and yet still exist to some degrees.
Camping manipulation is at far higher frequency than any of those and spread thorughout the grid.....they got a cat in hells chance in detecting "roaming camping"...whether there are 5 people milling around or 10 or 20 or even 50.

As regards Places Search.....abandoning traffic units is the only vaiable long term solution.

But ATM's were supposed to be removed too....or are WSE ATM's exempt.

WSE has ripped off far more money than some of those banned banks, in fact
its re-surfaced again so it can have another helping. Not everyone is aware of its history.

Key thing is: they rely on the population to police itself to a point.

A roaming camp system can be broken through a server side change rather easily.

Same for quite a bit of the ways that searches are manipulated.

It would be simple and effective to write a parser into the server side that strips code from parcels, picks, etc

I have said it a few times and will repeat here because it is very relevant. If they can pledge to implement mainland zoning which will require massive enforcement then I think they will be committing to generally enforcing many other rules and policies that require visiting the sims to make determinations. They will have to gain much more staff but how would they be able to commit to the mainland zoning otherwise?

Lol Ann- a bit of an exageraation on the bot numbers. Peak logins in Dec 07 were 58k, now in Sept 08 they are what....68k? So in 9 mths the grid has only grown by 10k at the Peak login stage,.... part are new regulars and part are bots. The rate of growth doesn't really suggest its going to cripple the system anytime soon. I think its reach saturation now..or very near it. The businesses that opt to have it...have them and the ones that chose not to...don't.

I know the business you're talking about -lol Trust me thats mild, i could should show places that make that company look like a pussycat.

And I'm forced to ask what WSE has to do with the Traffic? (not aimed at you Colette)

And I agree, with all the Colette said about WSE. I still think it was a bad idea to not include it in the bank ban.

By relying on the local population to report zone infringements. That's how I assume they'll do it - same as everything else.

well they had one 2 things in common...you could place them under ame umbrella "Financial Services or Financial Instititutions".....and they both ripped off a hell of a lot of people. ......the rest is just semantics.

That still means extra staff is needed to process those reports and go check them out doesn't it though?

Dunno. I'd doubt it for the new zoning. There isn't likely to be a flood of ARs over it. People generally stick to that kind of thing - PG sims, for instance.

Its a script Mort and not a complex one at that....the script can be renamed anything,
are LL going to disable all scripts on a Sim? ....I don't think so!. It simply relies on being in a particular group to be able to use it. It's that simple.

Even if by some miracle LL could detect the script and remove a roaming script.....theres another way even less detectable way. You create a group for your roaming campers and you pay them direct a set fee for a set time.....all of that can be arranged by Group notice or Group IM's.....no scripts at all, just provide them a self timer. There are many ways to skin a cat......and i'm not even as creative as some.

You forget there are ways they can disable or change the scripting language. So said script uses a function, they can disable that function across the grid.

And trust me LL can do the policing if they want. They can use group search, in fact they can automate it for keywords.

And there is always going to be folks willing to AR the groups and users if it is made against the TOS. Of course there will also be folks like one that admitted to seeing a TOS violation and refused to report it because it was someone's problem other than her's

And that is what happens a lot though. People see something and don't speak up, because it supposedly don't affect them... or they turn around and do the same thing thinking it's fine and dandy. (just look at how many screamed when they got banned for doing what they though was okay in other online worlds and games)

Would that extend to people's Estates sims? Have a member of the public grass on them?
I can see it all getting messy......business rivals reporting one another of non-existing infringements just to close the opposition down just being one.

The thread is escalating to science fiction if anyone thinks LL will go down this road. Now that its clear that traffic bots are only small part of the problem that can replaced by alternative means...we already dreaming up different scenarios.

Meanwhile on Planet Second Life..............WSE is doing rather nicely, Thank you!

The group doesn't even have to have the words "camping" in it....how do you still think underground gambling still exists-lol


Yes gambling.....an act that is disallowed on LL, against US gaming laws, .....and you think they would worry about paid camping? Camping which after all benefits noobs, allowing them to earn a bit of cash...who in turn recycle the money back into the economy.

its all very well a few wanting to change the LL landscape.....but it doesn't take into account what the majority of the SL population wants. It gets back to the "vocal minority" thing again. Your vision of how SL should be run might not be shared by your average user.......or maybe the don't give a damn anyway.

You know, its all well and good providing a list of things to ban.....but it's pointless if things are only going to be done half heartedly.


I mean....what's happened to all that "Age Verification" saga.....is that another thing that's been buried. ? For all the hoohah at the time.....its disappeared off the radar screen.

Age verification is impossible. They take steps, and the simple drop downs for age is all that is required by law.

It boils down to community involvement, there can be no silent majority or watchers.

And I guarantee you report a gambling system that operates outside of the rules LL has to enforce it will get slammed down.

And remember the vocal ones are who shape the future of change in the real world and the digital one. The sheep are not going to stand up and be counted, so it falls to the tigers and wolves to shape the futures.

"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man."
-George Bernard Shaw, Man and Superman (1903) "Maxims for Revolutionists"

i guess you're right
Well gambling is a "terminated account" offence....thats very black and white.

or "The smart business person adapts himself to the world and learns how to game it! ;

One could also say the unethical business person manipulates the system till something breaks enough that the sheep grow tooth and claw

Or in this case, LL can suddenly disable someone's land and items from being listed in search. If not outright terminate the account.

Search all was supposed to be the next step to bypass the manipulation of traffic metrics, but now it's being manipulated to the point of uselessness in being a useful tool for consumers.

So you have people aware of it standing up demanding it be fixed, and LL is going to work on it. Because the last thing they want is a search that can be controlled by a business owner, because it makes it less likely that SL will be seen as a place you can make money if the system is able to be manipulated to the point it is now.

And more and more press on the web about it, the more likely LL will have to hurry up and fix it. Especially if the various loopholes and outright exploits are published, since it means everyone can use them and then it's not X number but Z doing it (with the resulting impact on the grid)

Difference of opinion there....i have been using New Search since it was first introduced.....most of my searches i make, I find what i'm looking for. So i see it as being far from broke. and its because i find it pretty relaible i used SLEX search now a hell of alot less. Maybe people just ain't using it properly i don't know!!

I can't be that lucky...to have such a big strike rate? Then nearly all my searches relate to products & shopping. I don't use it for Events or places....so maybe thats the area that is having problems.

Searches is the least of there problems....and most likely for every person you cna find that compalins about it....i could find a person who likes it.

The issue of Content theft is far more urgent and well publicised........yet still no solutions.

Only ATMS which provide a direct "return on investment" or interest.

Stock Exchanges were not included in that.

I like the new search too. it's a marked improvement over what we had in many ways. But there were serious problems with the gaming of the old search and they've been carried over and exacerbated by the way the new search is set up. LL's mechanisms for trying to reward popular places have become so abused that it's time for LL to either police them or remove them instead of continuing to allow the system to reward deception and manipulation. Just because there are problems doesn't mean the new search is bad, it just means it's severely broken.

Tier pays for a part of the server that holds your land and for support, nothing more.

Inclusion in search is part of the overall service (for a L$30/week/parcel fee), but there's no reason why you can't make it subject to "good behaviour" just the same way your account is.

Nothing happens to the land someone's paying for if they'd get delisted, it's still there and they can do whatever with it that they'd want, they'd just no longer be listed in search.

They do if they could just be bothered to comment on something as it appears instead of waiting a few years until half the grid is doing it.

Camping, adfarms, pay/reward-for-picks didn't all appear in hundreds of locations overnight, it starts small and gains momentum until it eventually spins out of control.

As soon as the first instances of X start appearing, it's rather trivial to walk up to the GTeam and point out that "X is starting to happen. Are you allowing/endorsing it, or condemning it?". Yes means everyone is free to start doing X without all the discussions of whether it's allowed or not, no means it's instantly AR'able and since it's still early along there isn't all that much to clean up yet.

If you see a model on a posing stand, it's by definition camping and if camping were disallowed you just AR the model which ends up reflecting on the parcel owner.

As for your "roaming camping" it requires interactive AVies and a substantial amount of them. You'd have to constantly recruit new people to make much of a difference and it is going to eventually be found and considering the sneaky way of hiding it should just result in a permanent delisting.

And your reference is? You are wrong. Tier pays for the land and what goes with it, which includes the option to show it in search.

I already said that LL could ban a parcel from search if they want to. We are not talking about the future - we are talking about the present. And right now, the option to show a parcel in search is part and parcel of what is paid for.

Correct, and it may happen in the future, but we are talking about now. Remember? I'll refresh your memory. You said that being included in a search engine is a priviledge, and not a right. >> *IS* << a priviledge - now - the present. You are wrong about the SL search engine.

As nobody is writing in this thread just now, and I have nothing better to do, I'll expand a little on that "priviledge" thing

With web search engines, it is indeed a priviledge to be indexed and listed, and it works both ways - it is a priviledge for the engines to be permitted to index each website. It's a 2-way street as far as priviledge is concerned. That may sound odd, because it's easy to see the main search engines as the sort of centers of the web, and in a way, they are, but they are not the controllers of it. Websites contain the meat of the web, and engines are the signposts to them. Without the engines it is less easy for a website to be found. Without websites, search engines can't exist. Each needs the other, although the engines need websites much more than websites need engines.

What a major search engine offers to each website is much more than each website offers to the engine, of course, but that's because there are only a few major engines, but there are somewhat more than a few websites. Even so, it is 2-way - they each scratch the other's back, and neither charges the other for the priviledge afforded to it.

The SL search system is quite different. The owners of the search system charge us for owning land (the website equivalent), and we pay them for it monthly. Included in land ownership are a number of things:- the options to create things on the land, alter the land, decide who has access to the land, advertise it in the search system, have it shown in the generic searches, and more. It's all part of what we buy when buying land, and we pay a monthly fee to LL for it all. When using some options we pay a little extra, but having the options to use is all part of what we pay for each month. That's why it is currently a right to be listed in search, and not a priviledge, as it is with web engines.

Being listed isn't a right or privilege Phil, it's a service with terms and conditions.

Much like a lawn care service, it's not a right or privilege to have someone come cut your lawn. And the same is true for LL including you, your land or items in search.