Should We Charge For Scripts and CPU Draw?

Ok I will jump in here for a moment, since I have caught a few of Prokofy's posts as quotes (I blissfully have him on ignore). He is way too condescending and self-referential to ever be able to debate this topic in any meaningful way, so here goes, for everyone who is not Prokofy (I love you all):

What can be done about the problem of a user being able to affect the quality of a sim by the overuse of scripts? I am not in favor of charging for scripts, which would be stifling, or even for some arbitrary script count. However, there is an obvious problem that needs some fair solution - one that does not trounce on the freedom to create, but at the same, doesn't hold the rest of a sim hostage because some script kiddie is on a binge (or worse, some club owner wants to add another security script that has a sensor set for miles).

As an example of this, a friend of mine lives in a sim with a woman who has hundreds of scripts on her land - all filled with listens for show/hide sex balls, moving birds, fountains, dance floors, dance machines, teleporters, all scripted, and all bringing the sim to its FPS knees. The Lindens are aware of it but have done zero to help. The people in the sim approached the woman nicely to see if they could come to some resolution - her response was a variation on the BigJohn Jade response ("fuck you my land I do what I want".

That is a perfect example of an average user - the common people that Prokofy is so enamored with and a spokesperson for - abusing the use of scripts. Is it the privileged scripterati's (which is actually only Francis Chung anyway) fault? Nope. No one to blame here - but the problem is the same, regardless of origins. There has to be a fair way to not allow users to cause the lag of doom in a sim in this way. The answer is not punishing scripters, but at the same time, something's got to give.

There, the issue, without 9 pages of hyperbole.

Aww... where's the fun of that?

I'm just hoping against hope, that when they do switch to Mono, it really does speed up all scripts to make them 100x faster. Unlike some people, I don't think that the scripters will immediately make scripts that will use up all the freed cycles once the switch is made... and if the neighbor's scripts you mention take only 1% as much of the sim's resources to execute than they used to, that should improve the sim's lag remarkably.

Does anyone here script for resources (I mean, besides conservation) or do you write to acheive goals? Yeah, that's what I thought.

So, timesharing and prioritizing and then Mono when it comes around will most likely put us in a position where no one even notices script resources. It's just handled automagically in the background for us.

i don't think getting a better scipt allocation system will solve lag when there are 30 some avatars in a sim, but it's still a useful thing to do.

Prokofy... while you bring up a valid issue (runaway script usage) you should really consult with people who *know* about scripting before making solid suggestions. If it was just a suggestion to open dialogue on the issue, fine - take the constructive criticism and run with it. Don't pretend your way is THE way, because IMHO it is a flawed approach.

I have to disagree with your suggestion of charging by the script. Scripts are not like land. Land is always there, whether you're using it or not. A script is not, necessarily, using the CPU, as many have said. They are not always 'there'. Because of that and because there is a definate time factor that must be included when looking at the total load on the server, you cannot treat it in the same fashion as you would land.

I can only imagine how much time and effort it would take LL to come up with a system that tracks not only the # of scripts on a parcel, but the amount of time each on is actually active, and the load each one places on the server. Nightmare, anyone?

I confess, I have a finite mind



Amen. In fact, I had the dubious honor of throwing the Montmartre sim into what I suspect was deepthink earlier this week, because I was futzing with something that I'd never tried before. I've never been in a deepthink storm before, but I've never seen this happen before either, and if this wasn't deepthink, I don't wanna know what deepthink is

And, oh, the scripts involved. There were, wait...*counts on fingers*...three.

Three scripts and a total of about three dozen lines of code. But they were horsing some physical objects around in just the wrong way, and I froze solid. When I re-logged, I was still frozen, the other two avies on the island (including the owner ) had either been booted or TP'd out, and half the island's builds wouldn't rez. It took me a good minute and a half, and some furious camera work, to FINALLY grab my little Tom Swift project and stomp it into the ground. But Mae runs a sandbox area, and it was off-hours, so...no harm, no foul.

From three scripts. In this case, definitely three too many



I'm sure it is relatively easy, but you're probably right...nobody wants to do it. Because, while you're tackling an important issue, you're trying to rally empathy around an intrinsically meaningless metric.

The metric sounds meaningful, because some of the folks who run huge numbers of scripts are either ignorant of, or contemptuous toward, any idea of good citizenship. But others have built and relentlessly tested complex systems, modularizing their behavior by breaking tasks into multiple, simultaneously-executing scripts. They take pride in optimized, efficient systems.

Those folks...whose products-in-action I would think generate as much appeal among the trial user population as the land development...can NOT be hampered by some artificial limit on the number of cooperating scripts they can use to design their products for maximum maintainability and minimal draw on sim resources.

The bottom line seems to be this: You either don't get, or don't care, that 15-20 scripts on my land, checking email every half hour and the sun's position every ten minutes, or awakening only at my touch to listen to me while I'm in the immediate area and then going back to an await-owner-touch state, are probably way less noticeable than three or four scripts with multiple listeners and sensors and a 0.1-second timer, running 24/7.




Sometimes, it's just people who don't know any better until they have a chance to learn. But other than that, I pretty much agree with that assertion.

== danny d.

I'm here as a refugee from an only slightly more recent thread here:
/130/fc/45554/1.html

which seems to be addressing almost precisely the same topic.

The other thread is in Land and the Economy. Oh, yes, and its a poll. I think maybe this is a better location to continue.

Anyway, Jillian linked us through to here, for which I am grateful. I find here a very elegant description by Jillian of a "slow-down-the-over-budget-user" suggestion which is almost the samein essence as I just proposed, unknowing, there.

What I need help with - I can't work out what is the status of Jillians proposal. She speaks almost as though its decided on. Is this a theoretical proposal from Jillian ? Or is it a description of what LL are working towards, gained from inside information ? Or is it a description of how Mono already works?

This is quite important, as I see a solution like this as far and away the best way to go if it can be implemented without excessive cost or overhead. I would love to hear it is already on the way.

Yes, slowing down the over budget user is the best.

Simply charging their credit card for out of control scripts would be a recipe for disaster, I think.

Lag tends to be caused by poorer people, and kids, and griefers, and clubbers, who buy up cheaper land far from the telehub because that's what they can afford, then they lag 4 sims around.

I've handled probably a half a dozen of these chronic and stupid situations.

They are *all* like the woman with the sex balls, listeners, fountains, birds, blah blah.

The fact that some scripterati had an experience with just 3 of these things lagging a sim more doesn't override our garden variety plain vanilla experience on new sims, where we get a new sim, we all move in, it rots after 2 weeks, it goes from 12000 or 1200 if you have post-inflated numbers, and it's down at 100 or 37 -- because of a couple of fuckards with LOTS of scripts. That is usually the pattern. Please don't step on our actual, inworld, on-the-main-grid real experience with some thing you experienced on your private island somewhere.

Numbers matter. You will never talk us out of that because we see the correlation.

Cristiano has said exactly what I said, only shorter, and more eloquently.

Please listen to Cristiano.

I've performed my function, which is to get it raised, in as in-your-face, obnoxious a way possible because otherwise, neither Gwyn nor Cristiano nor Corey Linden would bother.

So carry on, talk among yourselfs, just FIX IT.

blaze, it is not unreasonable to charge for someone tiering up only once a month, only by a meter -- it happens. So why is it unreasonable to charge for someone overscripting even only once a month, even by only one especially laggy script?

Lag tends to be caused by poorer people, and kids, and griefers, and clubbers, who buy up cheaper land far from the telehub because that's what they can afford, then they lag 4 sims around, of people who fled from telehubs to get residential areas.

I've handled probably a half a dozen of these chronic and stupid situations.

They are *all* like the woman with the sex balls, listeners, fountains, birds, blah blah. They are absolutely resistant to education, and they say "fuck you I do what I want to on my land" and they are absolutely locked down tight into their fuck-you hedonism, and you'll have HELL to pay to get them to climb out of it. (Just deal with this kind of situation for an hour in one of my communities wasting the time of 3 people on it to get it to stop.)

The fact that some scripterati had an experience with just 3 of these things lagging a sim more doesn't override our garden variety plain vanilla experience on new sims, where we get a new sim, we all move in, it rots after 2 weeks, it goes from 12000 or 1200 if you have post-inflated numbers, and it's down at 100 or 37 -- because of a couple of fuckards with LOTS of scripts doing the usual bounce-script-sex-ball-turntable thing. Juro, you don't live in the world. You live on the forums. And you live, I dunno, in sandboxes and welcome areas and friends' houses and private islands. GO in the world, then tell me what you see.That is usually the pattern. Please don't step on our actual, inworld, on-the-main-grid real experience with some thing you experienced on your private island somewhere.

Numbers matter. You will never talk us out of that because we see the correlation.

Cristiano has said exactly what I said, only shorter, and more eloquently.

Please listen to Cristiano.

Gwyn has made a poll about it, more succinctly than I could. It already shows most people want this phenom dealt with.

I've performed my function, which is to get it raised, in as in-your-face, obnoxious a way possible because otherwise, neither Gwyn nor Cristiano nor Corey Linden would bother.

So carry on, talk among yourselfs, just FIX IT.

Well, I think the risk will be chargebacks.

Calling up your credit card and saying "LindenLabs is scamming me" is a trivial exercise.

LindenLabs has zero recourse, and even will have to pay a fine and risk their ability to accept credit cards over the internet. In cases like this, the customer is always right.

Also, I believe you have confirm your tier up, don't you? So that'd be pretty hard to screw up..

Merely a suggestion. I am going to flesh it out a bit and add it to the suggestion voting system once I have a vote free to do it.

Any thread in the forums about economics, politics, and technical aspects will always have the same end...

Economicists are worried about customers. They want to make better business in SL. For them, everything that makes their customers angry has to be changed. All their arguments will employ hyperboles on what's wrong with SL that isn't making the economy more fluid.

Lag hurts customers. Customers complain. The owner/business manager finds out that lag is caused by abusive scripts. Nothing can be done to prevent others from using scripts. The system is flawed; it has to be changed. Now. Before it's too late.

Politicians are worried mostly about inter-relationships and "fair usage". They want SL to be a "better" community (sometimes by redefining the word "better" but that's all right). They will argue that the current system gives unfair advantage to some residents over others.

Lag hurts everybody. Most people don't know how to script properly in order to reduce lag; others do it on purpose to hurt innocent third parties. A fair system will educate residents to help them out in getting low-lag scripts -- setting up scripting classes, giving out notecards with cues, promoting the Wikis where tips are exchanged, discuss the issue in the forums. And they will encourage low-lag scripts by promoting their creators. The system is flawed, but we can work together to deal with the flaws.

Technicians are awed by the almost boundless ability to create amazing things in SL. They recognize that the creative aspect involves a certain know-how, or a specialized training (even if it's in-world training). You either have it, and can understand the issues, or you don't have it, and thus you're welcome to learn more about it -- or go away with your incomplete understanding of the issue. They will argue that the current system is certainly not perfect, but essentially working, and the Lindens can always improve it by themselves -- with the technicians' advice, of course.

Lag is irrelevant. Buy a faster machine, lag will disappear. Wait a few months, and the Lindens will come up with a new, fantastic technology that will make lag disappear magically overnight. In the mean time, they will propose lots of new features to the Lindens to make them think about developing the Next Good Thing in SL, resting assured that all the issues discussed in a certain point of time will be "the old days" and quickly forgotten. People have short memories; let others dwell in the past while the technicians are really creating the future. The system is flawed, yes, but why should we bother to fix it? It'll be fixed sooner or later, anyway - Linden Lab does not really want unhappy customers, and they will certainly take notice of things.

Heh

Of course, nothing in the world (RL or SL...) is "black and white", and certainly there is a mix of the three to a certain degree in most of us. Well, some of us. Well, one of us at least Yes, I'm guilty of siding with all three factions, sometimes in the same thread...

I am SO VERY thankful I have you to tell me how I'm spending my time, because, you know, I wasn't sure.

Where shall I start, Prokofy?

You have no idea where I live and unless you're stalking me, you have ZERO idea of how much time I spend inworld and where I spend it. I do not have a private island nor do I visit them often, if at all. What were you trying to portray me as with that comment, Prokofy? Someone who's totally out of touch with the 'regular' AV slumming it out on the main grid? Puh-leeeze. You amaze me with your deductions. Bravo! Bravo!

Instead of making shit up about me and my time inworld - why not just ask? You'd probably look less inane by doing so. Oh well.

I believe that a person buying land has an entitlement to a fair and proportionate use of that sims resources.

A person who buys land SHOULD be entitled to use a proportionate percentage of the prims available in that sim - as we do now. They should also be able to exersize the right NOT to use those prims.

Many people buy an amount of land to protect views - land features - or even to buffer themselves from other things they find undesirable (for some that could be malls and clubs).

It isn't the case with scripts - but I believe it should be. Scripts at the moment are similar to land/prims under 'the old system'. You could own 50% of a sim, have someone move next door on 32m and rez the entire sims quota of prims and stash them away for later.
At the moment you could own 50% of a sim and have someone next door on 32m grind into the realms of the lagtastic.

I don't agree with the 'number of scripts' method - it simply doesn't solve the problem.
Not all scripts are created equal. You could say 'Running less programs on your computer will increase it's performance - 3 programs won't slow it down as many as 10'
On the face of it - this is a fair general assumption.

But if those 3 programs are Second Life, Photoshop, and Poser......

Likewise with scripts - that one liner that lets you drop a notecard into a box is not going to cause as much lag as something that does a sensor repeat at maximum rate.

Assuming that script runtime is something allocatable - I would like to see it divided up in the same way as prims in a sim.

X amount of land guarrantees you X amount of timeslice.
X amount of time in a sim is allocated for 'transient' scripts - in the same manner that prims are allocated for attachments/vehicles/temp on rez.

I personally don't like the idea of a variable rate. Throttling up and down dependant on what isn't being used... Why? Because it doesn't allow someone to excersise their right NOT to run scripts...

If a person owns 60% of a sim because they wanted a place where they didn't have to deal with script lag - it is a reasonable thing for them to expect that 60% less script based lag.

If the 32m plot guy wants to create a mega object that uses 100 scripts - fine - it will just run within limitation of his allotment... that is - slower.

I think that is a good thing.

When land had no relationship to prims, prims were rezzed like water - when land and prims were coupled, people started living within a means and made the most of what they had... This led to many innovation in prim usage.

I think tying it to your land will lead to the same with scripting - tighter, more efficient code... and better living conditions all round.

Siggy.

Good suggestions, Siggy!

OMFG, LL, COULD WE ALSO GET A WORDS-TYPED-PER-PLAYER-ON-FORUMS CAP TOO?

Prok, yes I am teasing, but GEEZZ can't we be a little more concise??? Seriously, I mean verbosity is not helping you get anything across! I read 1/5 of that first post and understood what you wanted to say, really. I think...I stopped halfway through. (And I thought I had a decent attention span!)

Anyway.

I do agree, but I think you're overcomplicating things. All we need is a cap that limits script resources relative to land ownership (perhaps with some allowance IF THERE IS SPARE CPU TIME for some "free" CPU time, if not everyone is using up their max). Also allocate a pool for player attachments, and you're done. Seems to me it's as simple as that. It's not a new idea either...quite old really.

But most importantly, it's describable in less than 100 words! (Sorry couldn't resist.)

can we charge per letter of forum use? * *

Hiro, you stole my idea!