How are they hiding these traffic bots?

I like finding bot farms just because I find them eerie in a funhouse/dark ride kind of way. Anyway, I'm pretty stumped as to how to view the bots in this particular sim. There's a furniture store with one actual customer on site and 120,486 traffic. The sim stats show 88 avatars in-sim right now, and 86 of them are obviously traffic bots, as there are only 3 dots on the minimap.

They are in the Quark sim at around 203, 138, and below ground level. (You can tell by watching the green arrow turn to a green dot on the minimap when you cam straight down.)

This is a really weird case though, for a few reasons:
- I can cam exactly where they are but I don't see anything.
- I haven't detected any invisiprims, but those can be tough to find. Wireframe mode was no help, and switching off the rendering options didn't work either.
- My MystiTool still works even though scripts are off (when the random actual customer ports in they show up on my scanner), but the traffic bot avatars don't, even though they're DEFINITELY within scan range.

Do bot clients have a way to hide from scanners now? Can they hide the avatar and the avatar's name/group as well? Are any of you able to find these guys? I just want some screenies for my Snapzilla.

Link: http://slurl.com/secondlife/quark/203/138/23/

Someone told me that the minimap greendot indicators are unreliable, so I started flying. Found the avs at 4000 meters. My scrapbook groweth.

I can't speak for everything that's going on there, but, height can be deceptive. I have a neighbor who hangs out in a skybox at 4k altitude, and the minimap shows him as below ground. Maybe at a high enough altitude they don't show?

Anything over 1024 appears to be below ground level.

Wow !! what a pic.This just adds to my firm belief that almost half the online figures are bots.LOL

I went there, and filed an abuse report under "land fraud".

rofl at the pic


...but i am about to start a thread:

HOW ARE THEY CREATING USEABLE LINKS IN THE FORUMz

is this the biggest forum secret ?!

Salvador, if you are using Firefox, there's a Firefox plugin that helps with the link issue:

/327/b2/188445/1.html

With the img tag, but if you do that then I think people who's preference it is to see images inlined won't see that there's a link at all so it's better to just use it for images only and not regular links.

Wow they are all melded together as one lump of flesh & bones creepy...........

I think it's just a sculptie

Lol so do I. I noticed 60+ stacked green dots on Sine Wave island (or was it Bell Curve island right next door?). At the offest of off hours, with 8 visible people trying dances in those 2 sims and the scanner HUD picking up only the 8.. I'd think it's safe to say someones got around 50 hiding there somewhere.

they should put some of your Trafficbot pictures in with those the front of the Website

I find it very artistic. How on earth did the owner get them lumped into one big glob o' flesh and hair like that? Will wonders ever cease?

This would make a great Halloween decoration. Could you imagine walking into a haunted house and coming face to face with that? The owner is doing the world a disservice by keeping it hidden.

Use the img tag and make sure the URL has a ? in it. You can tag one at the end if the URL doesn't already have one. And it's not true that the links vanish when images are inlined (I certainly see them and I have inline images enabled... but I do not know what happens when inline images are disabled.)

The greasemonkey script is really cool, but I prefer to use the img workaround since most people don't use greasemonkey.

i've noticed people using bots in place of people that would come into areas..i've seen club owners putting bots on dance poles as dancers and them logged into tip jars hooked up to green chat spamming lines to the club..i've seen them put them on bar stools looking like patrons..

the past week i was thinking these people were afk or something but found out they were bots..i was like wtf..are people really going to start hiring bots and thinking this is going to help their club or business?
is me walking up and tipping a bot that will not say thank you a good thing?

i can see modeling a skin or shape..but when they think they are fooling us for lindens or to up their traffic by using these positions that would be jobs for people looking to work in sl.i think it is cheap and a rotten thing to do to the people of sl..slick only gets your customers sliding in and out ..glue gets them sticking around.

There's at least one business who does exactly that- provides bot armies to clubs and events to make it look like people are actually attending:

http://www.sluniverse.com/php/vb/business-land-economy/12155-hot-traffic-injection.html

"This club is full of stuck up people, none of them will talk to me!"

imagine an sl with only the owners and their Stedford wives..

hey!


this makes a feel just like "your absolutely NOT welcome -> move on"
thats what newbies will see. yes i have bad experience in my very first days with this bots, campers and finaly im afraid the amount of traffic_bots in sl is ...

on the other hand i can understand the usage of bots for entertainment - a securityguy at the door, a dancer, but tipjars for bots - thats poor.

well im running an alt in another viewer - he shows my shapes/skins/attachments
i would like to have real people for modeling, but im not sure when they get my shapes/skins/attachments - they maybe will run away with all for free?

jm2c

That's terrible! It's that sort of thing that gives authentic, professional bots a bad name.

After looking at the pic, the first thing that comes to mind is "neat & tidy".

define authentic professional bots.


because I guarantee you will get folks disagreeing with your ideas on those.


And I can tell ya traffic bots of any type are not going to fall into the good bots side.

n. authentic, professional bots.

bots used or owned by Phil Deakins




(Sorry Phil, just couldn't resist on this one. I may not agree with your viewpoints but at least you have the cojones to stand up and say what your viewpoint is)

I don't use bots, but to me, "authentic, professional bots" are not forced to hide in a skybox or deep underwater crammed all together in a flesh puddle. That is so undignified!

It's a shame to hide bots at all. Don't bots have rights too? Rights to pursue happiness and purpose in their virtual lives? Allow the poor things to have a real job and let them feel useful - not just used for the traffic numbers they can give. Let them have fulfilling careers!

Let them model, or greet visitors, or dance, or do acrobatics, or give them desk jobs, or have them man a food cart. Dress them up as nicely as any of your active avatars. Give them dog avatars and let them be your pets and give everyone who visits great joy! Dress them in appropriate costumes for the holidays to entertain your visitors!

There are so many possibilities for bots to be used to add to the atmosphere. Don't hide them away and waste their potential!