Bots?

Well if LL intend on allowing us to all stay logged in 24/7, why not just leave avatars where they stand when people log out? It's the same thing, how long before griefers just block people from sims by filling them with AFK'ers.
It's just plain lazy and greedy to leave your Account logged in with no valid reason, or just camping. Great when you can't login on a weekend but some tool who left his computer on has been interstate on holidays for 3 weeks and their avatar is happily standing around just doing nothing or making a store look like it has customerservice that ignore their customers.
Just think how good it would be for LL to be able to say we have a million avatars in world to interact with and in reality they are motionless undead who logged out 2 years ago blocking roads and infohubs.
Hmm you could perhaps steal them and move them to your own land, bury them in a hole under your shop for traffic purposes.

Os there an actual increase in people, or a decrease and increase in bot numbers?

Unfair is a pretty relative conception.
Though I do not run bots (used to have 2 of them), I don't see the problem and certainly don't see it as unfair. How about this thought:

Because I am premium, and pay Linden a yearly sum of money, I am entitled to my bots. Even if my 20 bots keep out 20 basic members, tought luck. I am the one that is paying.

Now I do not have 20 bots, but probably people will say the above statement is not fair either. While the premium member saying it, thinks it is perfectly fair.

There are only 2 solutions to fight bots:

1 - stop the free accounts. As long as free accounts are available, bots will be created. Limit the amounts of alts for each paying account, so you pay 72 dollar a year for one main and 2 alts, for example. This makes bot running at least more expensive, and less interesting. To limit the options even more, disable the possibility of more then one account logged in: use your main -> no alt can log in. Not very hard to implement either.

2 - Make traffic useless. As long as traffic is important to get a good ranking, people will use bots.

I agree with you 100% - I never do it but there are some premium members who are going to be upset if they cannot - that was my point there.

I don't beleive that is right. You are entitled to the same as everyone plus what LL says are the benefits of being premium. Last time I looked operating any bots, let alone 20 of them was not amongst the listed benefits.

Thanks. Yes, inventory must have an overhead and certainly takes time to build when you log on. But I still don't see that anything more is needed when you move between regions. Why should the sim you are leaving need to know anything about your inventory (apart from what you are wearing, that is)?

You are missing my point Gabriele. What I was trying to say, is that the perception of what is fair and unfair, is quite relative. Why you find unfair might be different from what I find unfair, for example.

LL does not condemn the use of bots, so everybody can use them freely. Now I do not particularly like bots, but I understand businesses running them. The opportunity is there, so why not use it. It is not an exploit, it is just one of the tools that is offered. So in my opinion, it has nothing to do with unfair.

Yep, someone sells people island land then bans them after payment and resells it, it's not an exploit just business using the tools LL provided.
Orbiting, deforming and killing other Avatars isn't an exploit either, just entertainment with the tools provided by LL.
If one thing is fair then so should any other usage of LL tools provided.
If an infinite supply of bots continually wade through the oppositions stores shouting out advertising for my products, it's just business use of the tools provided by LL after all I'm helping their traffic aren't I?
Just because your employer provides you the tools capable of injuring another worker doesn't mean it's ok to do so.
Tools need responsible usage, we can't make safety edges on every saw so you can't cut your finger with them.

Because we sleep together! LOL

Eh? I *HAVE TO* login each day with 2 or 3 accounts because of my (SL) work, and the sad thing is that i need to use 3 clients, i would like the opposite feature: log into SL with the same client multiple time.... lol.



I believe they are doing this already.. aren't they?

Even though I should not react to this, I do so anyway.

You drawing your own conclusions from my words in such a way, it's almost rediculous Tegg. As I said in other threads as well, I do not mind a good discussion but let's keep it sensible. The fact you are having some deep founded hate against bots, should not obscure your view.

About all things you mention are ARable, so no, they are not right. Where as long as I do not use too many sim resources (keep other people out of the sim because it is full) you can AR as much as you want, the bots will stay.

The only thing Lindens will not do much about is the Island scamming, but you could try and sue them in real life.

Then the last comparision, about the tools and me hurting my co-worker, I really do not see how that is even remotely related. When I ran my 2 bots, who did I actually hurt?

We all are using a platform that is created and owned by Linden Lab. They think it is allright to run bots. They think it is okay to pay for picks, no name another thing some of you have issues with. And as I said in another thread: you, as user of the grid, are not as important as you thing you are. (you as in any player, not specificly directed to Tegg but to all of us).

People, please stop trying to stuff your own morals into other people throats (poor translation of a dutch saying). We are all adults, and when talking about morality, and fair/unfair, no one on this whole forum, is going to tell me what IS right or wrong. The most they can do is telling me they THINK what is right and wrong. If they have good arguments, I might even change my mind. But so far, the quality of arguments is pretty low. Thank you very much.

Well in that case you should pay for 3 accounts as well. If we actually are talking about a fair system, my guess is that this would be closest to fair. I use 1 avatar, and pay for 1. You use 3 and pay for 3. But then again, that's just my opinion.

Sidenote:
Now I do not know why you would need 3, but couldn't you use Sleek for 2 of the 3? With Sleek you can sit on a chair for example, so for that purpose its good enough. Might save you some resources.


No they are not. At least not for Places Search. They were doing it for places search as well but as reaction to a Jira that Kitty filed, they decided to keep the traffic system for the moment.
For Search All traffic is almost irrelevant, for Places it still is very important. So people will keep their bots running.

I think you mean condem btw, condone suggests the opposite. If they don't condone them then nobody should be using them.

I agree that often what is fair and unfair can be relative to the person. The word "fair" though has been used by both sides of the argument on this and many subjects. If you examine fair on this basis, nothing is ever going to be fair and the concept of fair is completely flawed for the exact reasons you state.

In most things it is considered bad if you take excessively in a resource constrained environment. We talk about a "fair share" and it is true that those taking more than most others do not see fair in the same way as the majority but that does not make grabbing more resources than most people acceptable either. It is about being reasonable and realising that a bot farm could be logged out and allow others in. It would have a far more positive effect for those suddenly able to get than the negative effect it has on the bot herder.

Thanks, that shows I am not native speaking and still trying to use words too difficult for me



Well, probably it is that way. When I tell Vittorio that when he/she uses 3 accounts, they should pay for 3, I believe that is nothing more then fair. While Vittorio might beg to differ. That why when using words like fair, it is important to state that it is your opinion. Many people tend to use words like fair, cheating, an dishonest as if they were the one and only truth. While regarding this topic for example, I disagree on that so called truth.



IF that is right, you are right of course. But no one could give arguments that convince me that this is true.

You know, that is the funny thing that keeps popping up in bot threads. Earlier (in an older thread) I gave a perfectly clear set of arguments why I think that bots are absolutely not the cause of the problems regarding resource use. And I am willing to give them again. They are nothing more then my guesses, based on my knowledge of infrastructures. As long as wel do not know exaclty what happens at the LL side of the line, that is as good as I can do.

Guess how many valid arguments I got in return? That is why I even got rather pissed off in that particular thread, which I seldom do.

In my opinion, a discussion always needs to be accompanied by arguments. And seldom, a discussion has to end with someone being right. But all people involved in such an argument, learned something.

The point I was making is that, when LL add capacity, bot runners do not suddenly add more bots to fill the new capacity as was suggested.

My stance and Colette's too I beleive is that even if they do not consume as much as an avatar when used with some bot programs - the potential for using as much as an avatar is there for some bot users and they even the low consumption ones still consume *some* resources. There are no zero-impact bots.

This is a flawed argument, just the same as the "only using the tools provided" argument.

I very much doubt that LL think that it's okay to pay for Picks, for instance.
It is possible to pay for picks (using the tools provided). It is possible to grief (using the tools provided)

LL are trying to provide a search facility that is helpful to residents as a whole.
Some residents are trying to subvert that purpose for their own gain.
It is not valid to argue that LL think is is okay to do so, simply because they have not worked out a way to stop it.

This is the tired old E Dusk mantra - 'If it's not against the letter of the TOS, then it's okay.'

It doesn't work like that; i.e. that wouldn't solve anything. It isn't the number of simultaneous logins that's ever the problem. You can see that by looking at the concurrency number each time. Logins get restricted at 59k or so, whereas everything works fine at 60+k. The problem is casued by what all the logged in avs are doing, and most bots do nothing. Logging one av out, at the time of the restricted logins, wouldn't make a space for another av to log in.

Ding! Ding!

Friendly greetings!

Hey,hey, hey.

How to set up your very own bot farm !!!

You are mistaken, Sling. LL specifically said that it's ok to run traffic bots, which means that it's ok to do it to modify the search results (Places tab). If it's ok with them to do that, then it's reasonable to assume that it's ok with them to modify the All search results.

You're not getting off the hook that easy

Of course I agree with you about the fact they do use resources. But that still does not justify the fact I should log off my 2 bots (that I don't run anyway ) at peak times for example. Because I have another one in that case:

My inventory is 8k items. And I run a few bots.

Your inventory is 40k and you run no bots. But also have 200 prim hair, and 300 prim boots.

Now who uses the most resources?
You can't answer that question can you? Neither can I by the way. Probably LLL could say something sensible about it, but up to then it is guessing.

So if the system gets into trouble again, I have as much right to tell you to use less prims in your appearance, and to clean up your inventory, as you have the right to tell me to disconnect the bots.

The 3 different Lindens I spoke about this when trying to figure out wether NPIOF avatars counted for my search result, all three were aware of the reason for my question. Because I was very open about it. They had eventually the Search team investigate and came back to me with an answer. If they would not think it is okay, would they have done this?

Lol I am not a fish Marcel. Who said your 2 bots were the ones that would be targetted when there is such low hanging fruits of major bot farming? Might be that LL says that any person has the right to 2 alts max on when loggings are limited - then you would be fine. I cannot imagine anyones definition of reasonable includes 20 alts or bots though.

Mine does.

Except of course the bot farmers themselves.