Today's thread on bots

i am not debating one single point you have made. you are quite valued here too. i look up to you and others (including Phil) as mentors of creation and business sense. i really do.

but this thread has degenerated to a point of him vs us mentality. in that regard, it's become ridiculous, no matter the intentions...

i don't see how it won't evolve to that every single time, because debates of ethics always do. you have said your peace and made your point. and it was a lovely presentation. i don't see how repeating the same thing over and over 100 different ways, all with the same meaning, helps anything though.

perhaps i am missing the point completely.

LOL you sound paranoid.

but.....

but.....

but what if they are? and they probably are. what harm is it in monitering your own company?

Oddly enough, when I wrote a certain post in this thread today, I thought about the idea of putting up a similar sign at the landing point. Something along the lines of, I use bots that help to get this store higher up the Places search rankings. If you came from from there, you wouldn't have arrived here without those bots. Click this sign if that bother you. And having a script to count the unique clicks. It'd be interesting.

A fair point. Consider it a compliment to Phil that I think he may be redeemable.

Actually, I am interested in AI, not paranoid. I had even begun writing a sci-fi book concerning AI.
And I could care less if LL monitors their own company, I would just ask them to keep their lag out of the sim that I am in.

i camp. it has paid my tier many many times.

There's a very simple end to this discussion, but some people here are unlikely to settle for it...

Bots are a fact of second life, and there is nothing that users can do about it. LL could outlaw them, or certain types of them (e.g. camping and traffic bots), and that's where people's energies should be aimed.

That's the simple end to it, but it doesn't satisfy everyone. Some people think that certain things are unethical, and therefore anyone who does them is unethical, and others think that ethics doesn't come into it. Some people want to argue/shape SL in the way they want it to be, and others don't want to be shaped according to their desires. Some enjoy being argumentative. In short, people like to voice their opinions.

i only disagree, in that it is ALL about ethics. one finds it unethical, one doesn't.

LL allows it, and you are right that the fault should be placed squarely on their shoulders. what any of us peons think is irrelevent as long as it doesn't damage their income potential.

having said that, you are all wrong to continue trying to have the last word on the matter. just agree to disagree and be on with it.

Do you really think the amount of tier paid based on a camping income is a huge percentage of the whole? I can't see it. Even if it was substantial, we need to compare it with what happens in the absence of camping: you would see more money being spent on classifieds, which is direct income for LL (and an LL income with fewer liabilities than tier); more money going into marketing, which will benefit those who work in the field (and they would provide income to LL via tier, and contribute to the economy), and I'm sure many of those that currently camp AND pay tier would look at alternative ways of making L$ (or pay for it directly) to cover that tier.

Removing traffic may affect some individuals (campers, campees), but I don't see how it could substantially affect LL's income. I also can't see it substantially affecting the economy, either - for one, I can't see it being a major part of the economy anyway, and for two, in it's absence, other opportunities will spring up which contribute to the economy.

Nope

I am not waffling.

You have suggested on numerous occasions that if people are at a competitive disadvantage due to their low traffic numbers that they should game the system.

Further You have suggested that people who won't do that because of their principles are making poor business choices.

Although you can find several posts on these topics in the bot annihilation thread...

It really seems to annoy you that I refuse find the exact quotes... Which I find funny.

How is running camping bots to inflate traffic any LESS unethical than hosting tringo events on the same parcel as your store to drum up fake traffic? Or paying real campers?

And yet that's all rather common place as well.

Are these unrelated-at-best self-promotional activities really 'cheating' or merely 'competing'?

Who cares if some third person makes a spittance of L$ for sitting still instead of an unpaid bot (using a fraction of the same SL resources)... it has nothing to do with the quality or merit of the revenue device the land owner is hoping to push.

Chip- You clearly offer a superior product and promote it with your well known name, longevity, experience and willingness to help others... all noble, and I certainly do my best to stick to the same model with my Particle Laboratory... which pretty much leaves anyone that wants to compete with us at a serious disadvantage.

I can't blame them for trying 'creative' ways to promote their own stuff, even if it does artificially inflate relatively meaningless statistics that make them more visible.

I've said it before, somewhere, SL is a tourist based economy. There is no educating our new residents... they come in, gravitate towards whatever is shiney and in their face, flitter about, burn out, leave and are replaced by the next boat-load of tourists. Until we have some sort of well-known 'zagat survey' or 'best of SL'-like review/recommendation portal that is comprehensive, populated by articulate reviews, and 'gaming resistant' (fat chance), people will continue to do what they feel they must... just to get noticed during the short number of days or weeks that most residents are active.

I think bot should be legalized. Honestly, haven't we taken this war on drugs far enough? With the discovery of legitimate medical uses for bot and the fact that the jails are crowded with people who got caught with a little bot, not to mention the drains on the police resources and valuable court time, it is apparent to me that it is high time we abandon this nanny-state, patronizing nonsense and let people do what they wish in the privacy of their own homes. The tax revenue on legal sales of bot could pay for any number of programs for people who are actually looking to escape the cycle of addiction, and the regulation of bot by the state could provide for a safe supply for those who wish to make decisions about their own bot usage for themselves.

That's my opinion on bot.

Botcaine and bothamphetamine should still be illegal, though.

Initially

Removing traffic will reduce concurrency.

It will also reduce the "users logged on in the last 90 days" number.

If that increased capacity leads to people logging on more often, this might balance out.

But I guess that lower concurrency and "users logged in .." is something LL doesn't want. Like they are stubbornly clinging to their idea that hugely inflated numbers impress business.

But really I think its what Qie said .. Linden Lethargy. Its just easier to let stuff go without solving it.

You're probably right.

I owe somebody a response from many pages back, but RL has kinda intruded. Unfortunately I have no idea how UDP packets with the same IP address and same port number end up getting routed to the right end-user computer; frankly, I'd have thought it impossible, because as I understand it, that MAC address should be completely hidden by the NAT gateway. Sorry, perhaps somebody with deeper knowledge of UDP will chime in.

And as for gaming the system, really, I do kinda dispute that landbots game the system, unfairly taking advantage from humans--unless we say the same about electronic trading in RL markets. But I for one do not say that about either of these markets. I rather like it, in fact, that I can set my land for sale at a tiny amount less than the going rate and the noble ninjas will swoop in and snarf it up, rather than having it sit around waiting for a human to stumble upon it in the backwater sims I favor for residential rentals. So... to me, anyway, it's just a market tool. It's dopey that it has to be done by bots at this late date, but such is the state of the art in SL commerce.

Now, traffic is a whole other thing, but it is kinda beyond "gaming the system" now, to the point of utter nonsense. I submit that even if it weren't gamed, traffic would be a universally stupid way to rank any kind of search. The world has simply outgrown it, such that our hosts would be well advised to *discourage* folks from finding high-traffic areas whenever possible, just to make in-world experience less dreadful. And then there's the "gaming" part of it that both exacerbates the problem with traffic as any kind of useful search metric and simultaneously creates this quite crazy inflation of disinformation: businesses are motivated to line up loads of bots to maximize a metric that ranks results so as to favor the too-crowded places it would be best to avoid. (Ironically, the bot-infested sites are probably less lagged than the ones holding "real" traffic, but since we can't tell which traffic is bot and which is not, that's kinda academic.)

And since trafficbots are hardly pushing the bot technology envelope, the business skill involved in packing a bot-box is not exactly brain surgery. Hence, as I've said before, we could just as well have a slider in About Land that adjusted how high we want our parcel to rank in Places search. We could call that slider "traffic" or "dwell" or "nubile young kajirae"; in any case it would mean exactly what Traffic means today, which is precisely nothing.

They are all unethical to an extent.

And just becuase they are unethical it doesnt mean they should be banned.

But if something is unethical it doesn't make it ethical just because its "good business"

If Phil had said "Yeah I know running Trafficbots is cheating to produce false numbers - but thats business" I'd have largely left him alone.

Its the bogus claims that cheating and gaming a system is not cheating and gaming a system what bothers me.

Which is true, but theres a whole learning curve where potential customers do not know this.

It is true that it is inevitable that ethical self-policing cannot be expected from some of those whose motivation in SL is primarily for personal financial gain and since this is the case, then it is LL's responsibility to outlaw and plug the holes in any kind of gaming of the system and exploiting of the economy.

This also means they have to either fix or remove "traffic," and other broken components, that lead some people to game the system as though it is a "arms race." They need to outlaw all Bots without exception.

Beside, making some fundamental changes to SL, such as tying all alts to a master account and applying a sensible limit to the possible number of alts in a master account, they need to ban people who exploit the economy in various unethical ways.

The best example of successfully managing in an online virtual world is Warcraft.

Their TOS has these statements:

"Cheat or utilize "exploits" while playing the Program in any way, including without limitation modification of the Program’s files; "

"Using or exploiting errors in design, features which have not been documented, and/or "program bugs" to gain access that is otherwise not available, or to obtain a competitive advantage over other players; "

They ban people for exploiting the economy. Here is a letter they send out to a banned account.

***Notice of Account Closure***

Greetings,

Account Name: XXXXXXXXXX

This is a notification regarding your World of Warcraft account. Access to this account has been permanently disabled for ***exploitation of the World of Warcraft economy or for being associated to accounts which have been closed for intended exploitation. *****

While we try to be as lenient as possible in our assessments of the results of exploitation investigations, reoccurring trends in exploitative endeavors on your account have ultimately resulted in account closure.


As a result, this account will no longer be able to access any aspect of World of Warcraft. This action has been taken in accordance with the Terms of Use

(http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/legal/termsofuse.html) and our game policies ().

According to the World of Warcraft Terms of Use, to which all players agree when installing World of Warcraft, Section 3, Paragraph C [Rules Related to Game Play] states that you may not do anything that Blizzard Entertainment considers contrary to the “essence” of World of Warcraft.

Thank you for your time and understanding of our position in this matter. Please feel free to contact us with any questions or concerns you may have.

Regards,

Account Administration
Blizzard Entertainment


If LL doesn't want SL to become a far worse scammer's paradise, which should be considered as "contrary to the essense of Second life," then it already is, they should follow the example set by Blizzard.

You flatter yourself, Colette. I'm not annoyed at all by your inability to substantiate your claims. In fact I find it quite funny that you openly accuse, but can't back it up with real evidence. Now, I know what you are, and you what you are. Perhaps others also know what you are - they certainly should. I repeat, put up or shut up. If you won't put up, you're nothing but a stirrer and waffler.

Oh get over yourself, Phil

What you really mean is *you think* if I wont "put up or shut up" that i am nothing but a stirrer and waffler.

Luckily I don't really care about *your* opinion of me.

Stirring your waffles is an important step, if you want to achieve the proper consistency for the batter.

QFT.

Any ranking system that relies on automatically counting some action of residents can be gamed. For example, a better measurement of whether a business was successful or not would presumably be to have a stat of how many items of a price over 10L were being purchased, coupled with a searchable tag on the "type" of item it is. But of course, then business owners would have bots buy their products and get automatic refunds all day long.

And bots are not going anywhere. They have too many legitimate uses.
.

More waffle (what a surprise). You enjoy it - it's fun to you. Traffic bots do produce false numbers - I already said that in this thread. But cheating? LMAO! You're completely clueless, Colette.

If you are producing false numbers which are used as a metric, then you are cheating.

That's a very interesting point.

New people come to SL.
They go looking for things that might interest them.
What they find from search is not necessarily the best or even actually relevant. They might never get exposed to high-quality experiences.
They leave disappointed, because they think that the experiences offered by people who reached their eyeballs by dishonestly gaming the system are the best on offer.

LL should be concerned about retention percentages. A search that is not truly relevant must be a factor in low retention rates.

Would Google be where it is today if it had not clearly identified and separated the sites paying for exposure. Would it have the same value if it did not fight a continuing battle against people trying to game the search?