An army of Alts: What does it cost to create additional Basic accounts?

"Your first Basic account is free, and we won't charge you for a few alternate accounts. If we find that you've been creating an army of alts, we may charge a small fee of US$9.95 for the creation of each additional Basic account..."

That's what it says at the Knowledge Base:


An army of alts...

I have AR'd a shop/conglomerate that uses literally HUNDREDS (!) of Alts for gaming Search. I've AR'd them twice for Alt Abuse, but no action taken by Linden Research.

It's even in the Community Standards > Policies and Policing > Alternate Accounts: "Alternate accounts are generally treated as separate from a Resident's principal account, but misuse of alternate accounts can and will result in disciplinary action on the principal account."

An army of alts...

Oh boy. When does Linden Research wake up?

*grins*

How long are you willing to wait? That long and then some.

/me wonders if they're concerned with their concurrency numbers..

I'm sorry if this is going to upset anyone, but it's about time that people stopped paying lip service to the idea that "alt" = "bad".

Firstly, I doubt very much that there's a single poster to these forums, including the OP, who doesn't have at least one "Alt" account.

Given that, all we're talking about now is a matter of degree, and whether or not the "Alt"s in question are affecting you specifically.

LL tacitly accepted the use of Alts, in as much quantity as a person could be bothered registering, as soon as they allowed free accounts verified only by an anonymous email account.

Under this structure, who even decides what an alt is or what the "primary" account is?

Surname availability aside, there is absolutely nothing to stop me from creating many accounts of the following format:

Atticusnnn Lethecus with email address [email]Atticusnnn.Lethecus@hotmail.com[/email] (where nnn = 001 to 999)

Some may be premium, some may not..so how on earth do LL decide what is a "Primary" and what isn't?

The answer is of course, given the teeny tiny amount of info needed at registration time, they can't.

Of course they might be able to cross reference IP addresses at registration/login (if they record them), but to be honest that's very hit and miss, and they're not going to anyway - for many reasons.

Sorry and all that.

Alt = not bad. But an army of Alts? Hundreds of Alts, just for gaming Search?

Let's say, someone has created 400 Alts. It happens frequently, so don't be surprised. These Alts are being used to game search. Many shop owners complain that their shops can't be found. Why? Because other shops with many Alts have better search rankings.

If you all agree to that or downplay it, then nothing will change. Also copybots can go their way. I appeal to LL to enforce their Alt payment policy. Then gaming search will soon be gone, copybots too.

/me raises her hand. Think again, Skippy.

Wouldn't it be more effective to appeal to Linden Lab to enforce the bot and copybot policies instead?

i paid 9.95 for my alt when i made her..i thought premiums were only allowed 5 on that account..

not to say they couldn't just go and make a bunch of free ones that have nothing to do with the main account..
i don't think they are making them from their premium accounts

How do you know that anyone has created 400 alts and that it happens frequently......and that those alts are being used to game the search feature? Many shops use alts (or bots) as models for their sells efforts. Many people have what I would consider a lot of alts that are used for role playing, being someone "different" than their main, or just for fun. Personally, I hate keeping track of passwords so I have no interest in more than the two accounts I have.........but some people like having lots of different "personalities" to play with.

If you are seriously wanting help with this "problem" these forums are not the place to get anything resolved...........you'll get sympathy from some but that's about it. Contact LL. Submit follow up tickets, go to Office Hours, contact Live Chat.........do something that actually will lead to resolving your issue. If you've actually done that and the "problem" is still there then maybe your assumption about the "hundreds of alts being used to game search" is incorrect.

I think you do the forum an injustice. People have had far more than sympathy here. Many people have probably been down this road before, and their experience of what works and what doesn't regarding finding a solution is invaluable.

Rock

Not being silly here but how do you keep track of so many alts? That would confuse the heck out of me. Let alone how do you run so many at one time?

Together with another SL resident I have researched it thoroughly for the past few months. The more we found out, the more amazed we got. We have put our findings, including hundreds of Alt names and data, in Excel sheets for one specific conglomerate of shops here in SL. Unfortunately I can't mention the name of that conglomerate in these forums.

I have sent two AR's plus links to the Excel data to Linden Research, but nothing is being done about it and of course I got no reply whatsoever. The proof is solid. We also found other SL shops who game Search on a large scale by use of many Alt accounts, but we haven't collected all the numbers yet.

The reason for our investigation is simple: we just stumbled upon it and dug into it out of curiosity. With each day we got more and more surprised about the setup of this Alt army and the way they are all connected to a network of shops, all governed by one main account. The reason for the AR's is that I try to run my SL business in an honest way, but that it's becoming increasingly hard to get noticed, because of the Alt abuse by other shops. Linden Research should do something about this fraud, but they don't enforce their own rules. Maybe an open discussion on these forums and elsewhere can set things in motion.

Another one?

The OP didn't imply that alt=bad.
The issue is the use to which the alts are put.



Posting in the Forums is appropriate for this.
The OP says that they have submitted ARs - in vain.
Anyone who attends Office Hours knows that the raising of a specific location gets the standard "can't discuss specifics". Raising the general point gets a very vague response - they're 'working on it'.
Sticking to official LL channels just sweeps the issue under the carpet.

At this stage, there would be more potential for sympathy than there used to be. It seems that many people have been whacked for using traffic bots and then find that other places continue to use them despite ARs.
That being so, the best course is to raise the issue in numerous places, looking for cooperative effort in putting pressure on LL.

I take it the ALT army in question is a competitor? or your just naturally this inquisitive? snicker...


I love making alts. One for all my moods, and, I spend a 'Ton- O-loot' on them too. So businesses should be happy. In Fact, I even dont let them go homeless, so LL likes that as I aquire more land.

I need my alts, mostly my Bitchy one for "those days".

wait...
that one was me!

lol hahaaaaaaa.

Ive spent well in excess of 6 figures (and it doesnt start with a one either hun) on them and they love me for it. I bet im not alone.

Im not a 500bot collector thank goodness, do you know how much it would cost to buy hair skin clothes shoes boots house land boat cars airplanes pool and deep breathe Boobies for them all!!????

The bots your refering to wear 'Almiss' clothes hair and shoes. You know, noobs!

DISCLAIMER: No alts were created in the making of this posting (but a few ideas did occur which may lead to a new devil spawning! hahaa. )

seriously.

Alts and bots are two very different things. please make a note of it.

Paulo. You're up against an LL that doesn't want to get rid of them. They came up with the traffic bots policy to appease people who post in threads and such - not to get rid of traffic bots. They specifically asked for no ARs (I don't know if they've that by now) *because* they don't want to get rid of them en masse. Even now, with many traffic bots gone, and many remaining, the average concurrency is way down on what it was before the bots policy. The last thing they want is to shrink it even more by banning "several hundred" more traffic bots in one go. So...

If the person has hundreds of bots operating simultaneously, then they must be spread over quite a lot of sims or they must move around over quite a lot of sims. If LL have changed their minds about receiving ARs and acting upon them, then try ARing them in small groups and get someone else to duplicate the ARs with you. E.g. AR one sim's bots at a time. Asking LL to remove another several hundred from the average concurrency figure is asking them to do something against their own interests - and that they really don't want to do.

What I see here is someone that decided to go vigilante on their competition. Yes alt armies of bots are typically against the stated bot policies BUT where do you draw the line?

Example

When I did couples animations I routinely had myself and a female alt up to test animations and get the alignment just right. I usually did this in a skybox above my shop. We would be there for hours. Did it affect my traffic? Well Yeah. Is that why I did it? Nope. I didn't want to own a separate parcel just to build my products so a skybox was used. In theory I could have been accused of gaming traffic even though that was not in any way deliberate. Was this alt abuse? I don't think so. I imagine many people do something very similar.

Is there still serious alt abuse out there for traffic boosting bot farms? Yep I believe there is. I just think vigilantism is a bad road to go down. Doesn't take long before absolutely anything can be reported for an instant banhammer.

LL is notoriously hit an miss in acting on things. They miss the report on a 400 bot farm and nail the small clothing designer with 1 bot to demo their wares. LL doesn't really investigate things many times and often someone innocent gets the shaft. Please do not throw vigilante actions into that powderkeg.

The line is drawn at "seriously taking the piss" - which I seem to remember as a quote from Jack Linden. Example: 30+ bots stacked up 24/7
Leading up to the ban, there were comments from LL about traffic bots for hire - which they seemed to consider as very seriously taking the piss.

If someone has an alt or two logged in simultaneously in order to test something, it's possible that someone would scream "bots" and raise an AR.
One would hope the LL would do the sensible thing. If the G-team get it wrong, then that is a general problem that goes beyond traffic-gaming.


It appears that the OP has some analysis that points to an army of bots that move around a group of stores and that individually stay under the radar by variiations in activity pattern.
I'm all for raising conciousness of such a thing here or anywhere - and for ARing the activity. If it's an organised gaming of Search then it's a fraud - and also counter to the TOS.
It doesn't matter if some refer to the raising of ARs as vigilantism.
Is the suggestion that nothing should be ARed in case the G-Team get it wrong sometimes?

If they only counted premium accounts in traffic it would solve the problem of unfairness in the search.
As then you would only get good rankings with your army if you were willing to pay LL.

Usually when someone mentions this, you get a whole load of people saying free people are just as good as premiums and their traffic is just as good as anyone else’s etc etc

However if you understand mathematics you realise that what counts in traffic is the ratio between 2 places. For most businesses a popular place will have more premiums and more non premium accounts than an unpopular one. If you only count the premiums you still usually correctly determine which place is more popular.

Another argument against it is premiums are so cheap (when you count their free L$ and 512 land) that people would just farm them. Since this still means some income for LL I don’t see it as much of a problem.

Another argument against is they should scrap traffic. But Why. If it can be made to work (which it can) then it has value.

Some people do make their alts premium. plus you would be excluding a lot of basic accounts who shop and spend money. It would not solve the problem at all. You still would not get honest numbers.

Sling the problem come in LL's enforcement and in the fact that although in this case the person did their homework and seems to right about an organized scheme others are not so honest. They just AR bomb the competition and eventually LL says oh look we have had x number of ARs against this person banhammer falls and does absolutely no investigation on their own. That's what make the Vigilantes so bloody dangerous.

LL relying on residents to report other resident in this or any other major issue is inherently a bad plan.

If LL cannot police this on their own then they need to create tools and hire people to do it. People without a vested interest in weather business Y has to shut down.

I should mention that these Alts are not used for traffic, but Picks and therefore they highly influence search rankings. They don't have to be online or walk around in shops.

Darkness Anubis suggests that I'm 'going vigilante' on my competition. That is a logical thought. However, this is not the case. With my main search keywords my search ranking is better than this specific conglomerate. Without the use of Alts or Bots, I might add. I stumbled upon this Alt army simply because I always keep a close eye on Search. LL changes the Search criteria pretty often and I want to be sure not to fall behind. All of a sudden I saw many different shops under various keywords that seemed related. Out of curiosity I investigated the connections and one lead to another.

Although the Alt army doesn't hurt my own business at the moment (and therefore it's not a vigilante act) it's just a matter of time before many more other residents create Alt armies too, if LL doesn't do something about it. These Alt armies will eventually control the Search and honest shop owners will have no chance whatsoever to attract customer attention.

Nope. That's what makes Griefers so bloody dangerous - because the G-Team are apparently so bloody dangerous.



Residents relying on LL in this or any other major issue is inherently a bad plan.
At the time of the ban, LL said that they didn't need ARs as they would be monitoring Search. It became clear that they were not acting against all of the major offenders - and those sitting at the top of search with stacks of green dots were the really really easy ones to detect!

LL are not going to spend money on this id they can help it. They've done the PR exercise and whacked a few people. Only continued ARs and campaigning will move them along.

Gaming traffic is against the TOS - and rightly so.
AR any detected stunts I say.
Anything that stays unwhacked by LL will simply grow and spread.

I consider both of my premium accounts mains. To call either an alt would be insulting. I reserve the term 'alt' for freebie basic accounts I only used once or twice.


I wondered that too. When you file a support request they ask you if it is an alt account and if so what is the name of your main .... huh?

Okay, here is another Jig "Dear God! Where Has She Been?" Question.
What IS the issue with the use of alts? Arent they kinda like YOU with a different name? I've learnt you can hide groups and hide sex balls. So what's the deal with Alts?

What do people use them for? Please dont tell me it's sex or something like that and I've got it all wrong again.