Bot Annihalation

I have read all the posts on this thread and all I can say is people need to get over themselves and their self-righteous attitudes. Camping and bot are real and are in SL, people use them for various reason including traffic gaming.

I have a real novel idea for those of you that don't like it. When you go to a place that is using bots to inflate traffic, LEAVE. It is your choice to stay there, but then it is also your choice to come here to the forums and make a complete ass of yourselves afterward.

If you don't like a movie, leave, if you don't like a price find it cheaper and if you don't like traffic inflating bot go somewhere that they aren't used.

It is really that simple.

LOL. Yeah. I thought it was funny too. But I thought it's better not to have to deal with idiotic noobs who think that orbiting bots is fun. Nothing personal, you understand

[added]
You're not banned from the sim. Feel free to check the devastating impact that they are having on the sim

Gee Phil, you must be new here. See, there was this guy used to come in to the forums boasting about his ad farm, and how he would game the system and the Lindens would not touch him.

He's very quiet now that his gaming days are over.

Then there was this girl used to sell weapons on slexchange, she got all excited about her "skillz" and decided to put residents names in her weapons auto attack list.

Haven't heard anything from her in ages, and slxchange has refused to sell her weapons.

It would be a shame for you to make a lot of noise about your traffic gaming habits and then disappear just as we're getting to know you.

A real shame.

I have a bot whose only purpose in life is to fight with others. People use it for "combat training", for stress relief, and because it's novel to have a bot kick your ass (or the other way around) in melee combat. It's fun, and nearly everyone that's interacted with it has reported a positive experience.

Some researchers use bots for artificial intelligence testing, which, while not the best platform available, is pretty interesting itself.

Some merchants use bots to automate the management of groups, reducing headaches for the merchant and hopefully providing a bit of a service to the customer.

Ajaxlife is a fascinating and innovative project that is essentially an HTML/Ajax interface to what is essentially a bot, and allows people to sign into SL and do some (limited) things even in real-world locations that don't allow Second Life client installation (local library, for instance).

There are lots of "good" - or at least "not evil" - uses of bots, which tend to be glossed over and ignored in the forums, leading to oft-repeated and emotional comments like "Personally I'd like to see all bots officially reduced to the level of NPC's and fair game for anyone who feels like going on a shoot-em-up spree."

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Granted there is some hysteria, however as you are a legitimate bot user, you should be protecting your ability to use bots in a constructive method.

Those who use them to game the traffic system are not contributing to the "SL" experience in a constructive way.

~W.

I totally agree. People using bots to "game the system" are, if not technically in the wrong, doing something of a questionable nature.

I do everything I can to protect my right to run bots in a constructive manner, including (but not limited to) posting here on these forums in an attempt to educate people that not *all* uses of bots are bad, even though these forums are not exactly best known for rational and balanced discussion of "hot-button" issues. I've been attacked more than a few times for my position

I'd love to find some way to enable so-called "legitimate" uses of bots while curbing (let's call it) "less savory" uses, but so far I have yet to hear a workable solution and have not managed to come up with one myself

I would very much like to see a third-party certification program implemented, not just for the use of bots, but for the use of all manner of third-party software designed to interact with Second Life. I don't see it happening, there are too many potential pitfalls and Linden Lab seems to have no motivation whatsoever to move in that direction, but it could be beneficial in the long run.

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Me new? We've been through it all before in great detail, so I'm not divulging anything that wasn't already well known here. And I'm not boasting either. I'm posting facts about something that some people prefer not to believe. I'll tell you what happened that caused me to enter this thread...

A few days ago, there was a short thread about the number of 14 day suspensions given for "Violations using Alternate Accounts". They were all on one day, and there were a lot of them. It looked as though LL was clamping down on something, and I was obviously concerned. So I contacted live support, who suggested that I submit a ticket, and he would wait for it and move it on quickly. I did that, he moved it through quickly, and I had the reply the next day.

In the ticket I stated that my concern is because I use traffic bots to compete in the Places tab search, and I said that I would like to feel easy that traffic bots are not the cause of the penalities. What I stated above is the response.

We've seen statements in this thread to indicate that LL doesn't accept traffic bots, etc., but they are mistaken. They'd like it to be unacceptable to LL because they don't like traffic bots (a personal preference, that's all) but it isn't true. They wouldn't be acceptable to LL if they have a negative impact on a sim, as I stated above, but traffic bots are not intrinsically unacceptable to LL.

I do just that. And I am happy that you acknowledge my right to make an ass of myself on the forums. I do that, too. In fact, I am about to do it again. Watch:

Traffic and camping bots are evil. They should be the next major "social problem" in SL to receive LL's attention. (As opposed to "technical problems", like grid stability, which are just as important, so don't stop working on them please thankyouverymuch.)

I believe a personal boycott of parcels that use traffic and camping bots is good, but not sufficient. So I will continue to speak out against the practice.

So there.

I disagree. Those who use traffic bots, do it to get people to the stores. If the products are very good, then it's better for SL users if the stores are listed at or near the top. If the products are poor, then it would be better for SL users if bots aren't used to get up the rankings. Stores with both types use bots, and those whose products are good ADD to the SL user experience.

To put it another way, bots can be used to get people to see poor items and good items. They are used for both. They add to the user experience when they help people to see the good items.

LL tolerates traffic bots because their presence grossly inflates the numbers of "resident" accounts. Makes SL appear more popular than it really is.

Even if traffic bots aren't bogging down a SIM's resources, their very existence renders the in-world search function (ranked by "popularity" completely USELESS.

So....."sabotage of a search engine"......


Gee Phil, that's terrorism isn't it?

LOL. Could be. I prefer to think of it as simply competing in the circumatances in which I find myself. I've said before in this forum, that I'd be perfectly happy to see the traffic based search disappear altogether. But as long as it exists, and some people use bots for it, then I'll use bots in order to compete. I didn't start it, but I'm not going to lay down and refuse to compete in that way. It's business and, in my case, it adds to the SL users' experience.

But what you're saying here is that the products add to the experience. The bots are irrelevant because they can be used to drive up traffic to stores with bad products just as easily as good ones. And who decides what a good product is? The bot runner who owns the store and wants to drive up traffic?

Phil, you're gaming the system. It may be legal, but it's cheating just the same. You're trying so hard to justify it that you're losing credibility.

Last thing: The "Blood Sport" response cracked me up. Phil may be right, MoxZ may be a nutter. But God dang! That was a good line.

I have sim I love visiting but in recent months its incredibly difficult to stay there for long.
The neighboring sim always has large group of people there. I have no clue whether or not they are bots. When I lived in bluehound, the neighboring sim had tons of bots at their club.
Which would have been okay if it didn't impact the sims next to them or their neighbors. My friend owns most of the sim I like to visit but when she complained about the resource stealing neighboring sim they said that they couldn't do a thing about it.
I really sucks to have 3 fps and not be able to walk, move or interact with anyone.

In my first month in SL I used the traffic number in search to find places where I thought I would expect to find a crowd. After that one month, I learned my lesson, and now refuse to visit places with high traffic numbers unless I have found something SERIOUSLY good there.

Actually... I go as far as to avoid page 1 and 2 in any search I run now unless I'm searching for a place by name.

One of my favorite activities is still dot-hunting the map to find crowds of people to meet. It's always a disappointing part of my SL experience to find a a bunch of zombies parked in camping chairs or hovering over lucky chairs waiting for their letter to show up.

I hate shopping in RL. I love shopping in SL. And it's even more fun when I'm in IM/TP tag with friends or in a store where people are chatting the place up. If I find a store loaded with camping chairs/dancepads/whatever... I usually just move on since that's a clue to me that the quality/price is not going to be the best I will find. (>_>

Shoppers pay as much attention to the numbers game as the sellers do. Even noobies like me know what's going on. I would just love to see the day when traffic ACTUALLY meant traffic of REAL people and not just store owners 'playing the game'. (>_<

Phil is right...MoxZ IS a nutter - and will have her fun.

And Phil - that's "Miss Informed Newbie" to you.

Edited a little, but I do exactly the same thing. If I use search to find something and see a place with a huge traffic number, I assume it's a cheater and if they cheat traffic, they cheat elsewhere, so the quality will be bad, the price will be bad or I can't trust the customer service. I just don't go to those places. I look down the list for places with honest traffic or I ask around for recommendations to a good store.

I can't lose any credibility here. Start a thread asking people's opinions of me There are people here who are so full of how things *should* be (to suit themselves) that anyone like me loses all credibility, by simply being in SL.

I've never said that it's not gaming the search. I'm not keen on the word "cheating", but I won't argue that point right now.

You asked who decides what a good product is. SL users decide. I get so very many compliments for my stuff that I have to think that mine is very good, especially for the very low prims that I use in them - and I target the phrase 'low prim furniture' in the searches.

I *am* justifying it - not "trying to" I specifically asked LL about it, and got the all clear. That's good enough for me. I agree that bots should be got rid of when they negatively impact a sim. I would like the Places search to disappear altogether, but my SL store is my RL livelihood, and as long as Places doesn't disappear, I'll do what I can to make it a decent livelihood. If I can outrank stores with poor goods, then it's good for SL users as well as for me. If I can outrank stores with good goods, then it helps me. It's normal competitive business. I don't promote things that I don't sell, and I don't claim that my stuff is good when it isn't. Everything is above board, and nobody can complain that my store is near the top of the rankings for low prim furniture.

I do not avoid page 1 and 2. But then I do re-sort the results so it is sorted by name, not traffic. I do not pay attention to traffic.

My problem with that is that I'm too lazy to filter through "!!!*** Japanese Furnature Not Bare Rose B@R ***!!!" (>_<

want to see a sim with bots ?
not bots to drive up traffic, but bots camping.
i have counted as many as a minimum 80-100 bots in this sim at varying times.
go visit "Freebies".
if the sim wasnt underwrtitten by an actual RL company, the camping would have ended long ago like it did at France Money Camp, Apfelland and others.
the fact that this sim is constantly lagging with intermittent FPS/Dialation is because the bots are constantly scanning for the status of objects and avatar UUID's in order to automatically camp and resit.
place 99 sleek bots not moving around with no attachments in any class 5 sim with one regular avatar and tell me that you will see poor fps/dialation, you wont.

"[13:30] xxxxx xxxxxx: o hey phill love your stuff"

That's what a stranger in the store just said as I was clicking the Quote button to write this post, and I get loads of comments like it.

The quality will be bad?
There are no low quality prims in SL. They don't wear out. There may be poor textures, but your eyes will tell you about that.

The price will be bad?
Absolutely untrue. If you don't believe me, check out my store.

Can't trust the customer service?
Whether you trust or not is up to you, but there is no reason to think that the customer service is poor. Customer service? How many store owners do you know who go into their stores when there is a transaction problem like today, in case they are needed? You do know one - me. Today's customer services - so far:- (1) made a new product for someone because i didn't have what she wanted. (2) passed an undelivered item to someone (3) replaced an item when I discovered that the one she had had been improved since she bought it (4) explained to someone how to find the many items that she'd lost in an SL glitch - her whole house and contents - and Linden's help didn't help her to find them, so she was resorting to asking makers if they'll replace them. As I've been writing this she IMed again to say, "i cried of pure happiness today" - it was because what I told her caused her to find everything she had lost and she could rebuilt her house. She originally asked me if I'd replace what she'd bought from me, and I would have if they hadn't been where I suggested she looked. Customer service? What you said is illogical.

There is no reason to suppose that people who use traffic bots make poor quality, expensive items, and offer low customer service.

lol Phil did you think she was really going to TP to your place and orbit your traffic bots?

I won't tell you that. I'm against bots that cause negative impacts on sims.

I have every reason to believe that your products are good, but that's not because of the bots, it's because you are good at building the products. The bots are irrelevant with regards to the quality of the product and the customer service you offer. They only artificially inflate your traffic by presenting an incorrect picture of the number of people who frequent your store.

Don't sell yourself short. You posted on maximizing the New Search by changing key words and making some other changes. That was excellent information and at least one shop owner I know of has improved traffic to their store by really working on some of the things you mentioned - not by using bots. You have credibility there. Where you lose credibility is when you essentially say, "Yes, I'm gaming the system, but it's ok because LL says so and it works."

What business is it of yours?

She can check out the sim performance easliy enough, but I prefer not to have nutters messing around. Prevention rather than cure