Bot Count, The Estates Strike Back: 50%

Sometimes I'm not counting every bot in a sim just within the radius of my scanner. Again, this is a sampling technique not an attempt to locate every avatar in the grid.

Of course, my data is subject to these kinds of reviews because my data is wide open unlike the OP where we have to take her at her word.

I would place more reliance on a method that looks at the entire sim than one that "sometimes" (??) only looks in a 96m radius from some point in the sim.

I think that the OP has been very up-front about her methods and observations.



There are a number of snags with 'non-movement' as the bot-detection method.
1. Some camper bots move around the grid. This would be due to them hitting the earnings quota set by the camping system.
2. It is trivial to cause the bot to move at intervals.



on camping bots:
A while back I had a neighbour who set up a retail/club operation.
She had 20 camping spots.
It was clear from observation over time and chat attempts that these were not attended by humans.

She adjusted to camping control to trigger a response from the camper every 5 minutes.
She went from 20 full spots down to 3 or 4 as I recall.
She obviously decided to eat the cost in order to boost traffic again. She turned off the bot-check.


I really don't see any difference between camping and bots-in-a-box. They only exist to game traffic and map-dots. It's just plain dishonest.
Until their eyes are opened, people reasonably assume that traffic and dots indicate live people. Effectively, they are being lied to.

All the bots I found (still there 8.5 hours later) are at ground level. Where are you scanning?



We have to take your word that this is all you found, and that your programming works. If your response to a review is that you didn't scan where the bots are then you didn't provide anything that can be reviewed, did you?

My method requires only common sense, and occasionally a few notes and a second or third look. Unlike yours, my results are easy to reproduce. You *can* try this at home.

3. About half the camping is done using a log-in system and a scanner. These campers don't sit, so they can be bumped by other visitors and by arriving campers.
4. Some camp systems un-seat an avatar when their maximum time has expired, or they don't answer a challenge. Those campers that aren't scripted to detect this will stay nearby (camping for free) but will have moved.
5. A lot of store owners camp in their own store or in a box over it. They likely borrow their avatar to do things, then return, and if they don't sit they won't return to the same spot.
6. Even boxes of bots change over time, as some are logged off or crash and then sign back in. When they come back, they may not only arrive in a different position, they may bump others around as they fall into place.

Part of the value of doing the scan by hand is to identify challenges to bot detection. So, even if the goal is automatic detection, you have to look with your eyeballs to see what needs to be automated.

Most of the challenges of bot movement could be solved by detecting that they're on the same parcel, not at the same location. I don't think it can be done in lsl.

[checks]

I think it could be done using llGetParcelDetails. You'd record the UUID of the owner of the parcel the avatar is on, rather than (or in addition to) the avatar location.

I wasn't going to get into this thread, but I can't help myself.

Are you serious??? People have to take your word for *ALL* of your figures and *ALL* of your conclusions about avatars.

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Elanthius' 96m scanners are valid. Anya chose to examine whole sims, but there is no logical reason for that except that sims are nice squares on the map and they help to keep track of where you've been and what you've done. At the end of the sweep she can say that, "Of all the avs I encountered in those sims, etc. etc." But sims are not under scrutiny - avatars are - and it's just as valid to examine all the avs that a system encounters, regardless of sims, which is what Elanthius' system does. E.g. if a scanner could scan up to 4096m, it could examine all the avs found in that range, and it doesn't make any difference that it misses bits of some sims. The same is true of any scan range. It's encountered avs that matter.

However, since it's known that many traffic bots are placed high above the ground, 96m scanners on the ground are likely to miss some, and it's better just to use a system that includes checking high in the sky, and leave the ground-based 96m scans out of it.

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A(nother) serious flaw I find with Anya's data is that, although she has now labelled non-active avs as "bots and campers" as a result of the objections in the previous threads, nothing is stated about how many bots there are and how many campers there are, which devalues the data all by itself, simply because so many campers are real people avs, and not bots at all. She counts mannequins as bots too which, if my memory is correct, everyone who has expressed an opinion in the past doesn't count as bots although they usually are. In a nutshell, Anya's figues appear to be tainted by a personal agenda.

And what does that tell you? To me, it says that the people in the camping positions move on when they are done, and others take their place. It seems that, to you, they are bots, just because they are camping. You are not thinking straight.

Exactly! *YOU* would find that three are bots, but you would have no idea about that.

Your conclusions, and therefore your numbers, don't appear to be very reliable.

In that case, you'd count me as a bot. When I am working on projects, I sit on my perch at my work platform at 600m and script/build away for hours.

Not a very convincing metric, as I know I am not unique in doing that.

And that's a big problem. Anya would count three people sitting in a club, who were still there some hours later, as bots, without knowing what they are or why they are there.

Both systems would count me as a bot. I'm logged in as an alt, standing on top of a box of bots, usually not replying to anyone who comes by and tries to chat. I don't usually move at all, but it's me logged in and keeping an eye on things.

Anya's finding exactly correspond with my recent trip around the sims from the private island sim where I live.

I think the difference between what some people are reporting probably stems from the type of sim visited. Certainly residential sims have far fewer (usually zero) bots than commercial sims.

After also seeing that well over half the sims near me on the world map were empty, and visiting all the islands I could see with green dots, and finding that not a single one was a real avi I could talk to, I found it all so thoroughly depressing. However, having now revisited all those sims yesterday, and finding the same again (all bots, except one real customer this time), I can also now say that all those sims were commercial sims. But, still depressingly, it was the empty sims that turned out to be the residential sims.

I would like to see a nice survey, similar to Anya's, that measures bots v. real avis, and states whether the sims were residential, commercial, mixed, or neither (the aesthetic sims, for example).

Vi

No, they don't. They can go look for themselves. My method does not require programming or the ownership of 1000 parcels. It requires only eyeballs and common sense.



I've had campers in my description from the start.

/327/cc/293027/1.html



I stated that it'd be difficult to get this number since some bots are disguised as campers and some (perhaps the majority) of campers are bots. Because I don't care about the distinction, I didn't record a separate count, but I did give my estimate of the numbers.

/327/cc/293027/1.html



Of course I count them as bots, because they're...bots. If I excluded bots I liked, *that* would be an agenda, wouldn't it?

I wish you would do as you say.

I am finding your constant attacks on Anya very disturbing, and I think it is you that has the personal agenda here. This is getting to be more like a vendetta with each of your posts, and more personal in the attacks.

Why the hell don't you just shut up, or, better still, do something useful with your time, such as conduct a survey which meets your very exacting standards? Then we could all have a go at your methodology.

I have been thinking for a while now of leaving SL, because my experience matches Anyas. I find no real avatars to talk to anywhere on the world map around the residential sim where I live. I don't care about your quibbling about whether these speechless avatars are 'bots' or 'campers', because the nett effect is exactly the same. They are avatars that you cannot interact with. And don't forget, there are real people behind bots too.

I also think that your admission that you log in and spend long periods not responding to people as also being part of the problem, perhaps you are too busy in this forum mouthing off?

Vi

Nobody is going to put the hours in to repeat your efforts, so we are all left with believing your numbers and conclusions about avs, which you've shown to be unreliable.

You've mentioned them, but your figures were:-

44% bots, overall
52% bots, overall

And your thread titles were just "Bots count: ..." - nothing about campers.

It's clear from your threads and posts that you have a personal agenda, and that it taints your findings. We all know that many campers are real-people avs, but to you they are bots - not campers - bots, as is shown in the thread titles and percentages (see above). You have no idea which campers are people and which are bots, but you count them all as bots. Tainted results.

You don't know that. They usually are, but you don't know whether the ones you saw are bots or not. Also, people in general are not against bot mannequins, but the main thing is that you jumped to conclusions about the ones you saw, without any reason other than a personal agenda.

I'm sorry, but the results of your efforts are unreliable.

Why not just go around and count the obvious cases of bot abuse? Like the skyboxes with 50 half rezzed avatars piled on top of one another.

Apparently you can or you wouldn't have posted a reply?

In my experience as a landlord, most people are not socializing at home. If they are, they are usually being intimate or maybe have a friend over. I will find that when I am going about my business, some people will be at home, and sometimes quite a few of them in my more heavily populated areas. But they are not interacting with each other, because they value their privacy. Much of the angst over Openspace sims is because it used to be able to afford people complete privacy at a reasonable price, for single tenants. Many people like having their homes be a refuge from the rest of the world. SL being as cosmopolitan as it is, having a lot of people home at any given time is tough, due to the wide variance in playing times.

Maybe what you need to do is look for a community that is focused on your particular time zone. European sims, it seems, by the time of this posting. Or look for a complete community that has events of their own. I would also use the Events search to find real people. Live music is easily one where you are likely to find real humans and not just bots. Plus you already have an interest in common with the people there.

I haven't attacked anyone. I'm discussing something that was posted for discussion. If you don't like someone finding fault with something, don't read it.

Whilst what I do is none of your business, I think I am doing something useful with my time. I'm pointing out what's wrong with Anya's efforts, hoping to prevent false rumours from spreading.

Who is mouthing off?

What I do with my av is nobody else's business. If it being at 4085m in the sky, and choosing not to chat with people who come by, that's just the way it is. If you just want to socialise, there are many places in SL, and they are not hard to find. Just don't try looking so high in the sky

Campers who eventually move on are still campers. I'm counting bots and campers. Ergo, I see eleven people camping I record...eleven people camping.

FWIW, I have a snapshot of them, and 10.5 hours later those same 11 campers are still there, though curiously one of them has moved to a different position. And a twelth has joined them.



10.5 hours later they're still there. What would you like me to call them?

I know. But I couldn't help myself after reading a post.

There is just no way to know, Anya. Plenty of people who camp do it overnight at places that will let them. I used to do it, friends of mine used to do it. They aren't bots, they are just asleep.

What Cristalle said.

The thing is, you start threads with inflated bot percentages, which can only lead to people believing things that aren't true.

Apart from the words "bot abuse", I agree with that. With anything else, there are too many grey areas.

I'll elaborate further. Most camping devices have a payout limit, if not all. The camping rate is typically so low (e.g., 1L/10 minutes) that one could literally sit on the camper for over a full day without hitting the limit. CampMasters typically, in my experience, reach their payout limit faster, as the limit is not usually that high thanks to the high volume of campers that usually comes with the use of that device.

So, some stores with a sweeper that has a 500L max can have someone sit on it for over a day trying to rack up the L. Real players, however, will eventually get off and actually shop or socialize in some way, but they will bird-dog camping devices before going to bed, to do the process all over again.

Is excessive bot use better? I didn't think of a better term to use when I posted.

I like that phrase better

As you have not defined precisely what constitutes a 'bot' or a 'camper' you are in no position to say that the one does not equal the other. That in turn means you are in no position to state whether the figures are 'inflated' or not. Where is your evidence to the contrary. I said EVIDENCE?? Show us your evidence that the figures are inflated, or shut up. Evidence, evidence, evidence. All we hear from you is words, words, words.

I believe that the evidence provided by Anya is true, because it matches my experience.

As I have not heard one piece of evidence from you, not one, ever, I take your words for what they are, totally meaningless. But there again, you can't help yourself, can you?

There are those that talk, and those that do. I know which category to put you in.

Vi