The Survey Probe

Hi, everyone.

I was messing around last weekend and whipped up a little probe that:
1. Scans from four points in the sim to detect all avatars (within ~70m of ground level, at least), and stores their names in a list.
2. Goes up to each avatar and asks them a question, following them until they respond or until 2 minutes are up (moves on to next avatar).
3. Stores the responses in list.
4. When all avatars have been questioned, the probe e-mails the list of names and responses to me, then kills itself.

Right now, it's not asking anything important (you may have seen it in the sandboxes), and all I've really found out is that some people are quite easily annoyed (nevertheless, they have the right, and I apologise for the times the probe got loose before I could recall it. I was testing it on myself).

This is what I'm wondering:
1. Could using this probe to ask people questions be considered harassment or invasion of privacy? (Someone's already threatened to report me for spamming)
2. Is there any point in using a probe to ask people questions anyway?
3. Is there some other use I could put this probe to?

These questions become important for the next planned version, with the following criteria:
1. Only one instance of the probe will exist in SL. It won't kill itself.
2. It will traverse all the sims on the main grid, avoiding no-script and off-limit areas.
3. It will periodically report its position to me by e-mail.

If it is to remain a 'survey' probe, the following will probably be required:
1. It will maintain a persistent database of all avatars detected and whether they have been questioned or not, so noone will be asked the same question twice.
2. It will also remember whether an avatar has opted not to be disturbed by the probe in the future.

Still, the least intrusive method would be an 'opt-in' instead of an 'opt-out' system. Frankly,
all surveys are a little intrusive, so I don't see it being a survey probe for long.

What I'm really after is a persistent agent that can roam the grid, report, and maybe interact with avatars. I'd love it if I could check my mail at work and have it tell me:
1. The sims with the highest amount of building activity this week are XXXX and XXXX (apart from the sandboxes). Go check them out!
2. The most crowded sims are XXXX and XXXX (apart from Da Boom).
3. I polled 2387 avatars this week, on the subject of XXXX and the majority of them responded with: "Get a life, Copper".
4. I was shot at, pushed or bombed 35 times this week. The best shot was XXXX who blew me 381 meters away from my original position.
5. I gave free copies of your Totally Worthless Product to 5 people this week.
6. I was infested by 12 parasites created by Icon Serpentine this week.
7. I have helped you accumulate -122 behaviour points this week.

Well, I wouldn't really like that last one. Anyone got some ideas?

Sounds really complicated to me, but looks interesting

Maybe if you have it ask its question and then say "if you wish me to leave you alone, say '... etc etc etc.'" The only thing I can think of as to objections people might have is if they get annoyed by it bothering them, if they think it will drain sim resources, and wondering what you will use the information for.

I hope you do manage to do this though.

I suspect this is EXACTLY what you will be in for if you continue to develop an item like this. Whether or not this is a useful item is completely open to a vast array of individual interpretation and player moods.

I remember back when I was new flying around and having a salesman bot or some such approach me when I came near to a store. I found it a bit, unnerving and creepy. It eventualy went away so it wasn't a huge deal, but was still a bit weird.

While from a scripter point of view the project does sound interesting and the statistics gained would again be interesting to look at.

However from a casual user point of view I would be annoyed at such a thing.

On the TOS/CS side, the bot could fall into the "unwanted solicitations" clause (which also states about spam, etc.). It's a bit like "cold calling" or door to door salesman but without doors. Alot of people find people asking to take surveys annoying in RL, so it's not surprising they'd feel the same way in SL.

Privacy is another thing, there are some things that people may be in the middle of that they really don't want a bot coming up to them and asking them questions (even if it is just a simple "Hi, I'm a bot, do you want to talk to me?".

It's a bit funny though, if you make something too intrusive, people will complain, however if you make something too elusive, again, complaining. Regardless of how innocent the data collected is. The boarder line would be something somewhere inbetween the two.

So, whats at risk?:

- Potential Abuse Reports against you (well, you'd definitly get them, but potential would be how legit they'd actualy be taken).

- Neg ratings galore (not many people really care about this anyway).

- Intruding on privacy and generaly getting a bad rep.

However! I do think the statistics you listed would be interesting to see as well. Various traffic statistics, and other such things to build a fine grade over trends in SL are always interesting.

Perhaps having some sort of opt-in system ahead of time? Or doing it amongst friends? But I suppose that would ruin the whole point of it anyway... So I really don't have a solution unfortantly.

Acedmeicly it's a great idea. But generaly from a social aspect, people won't like it.

I myself wouldn't mind if the thing went away and never bothered me at all (I probably would play around with it seeing how smart the bot was and what questions it had to ask and such) . But I know other people who will get more annoyed over it.

I think you deserve credit though for *asking* the general opinion before going out and releasing it in-scale. Others have released objects that zoom around suspiciously and all hell has broken loose, sometimes it's something that causes damage, sometimes it's not. You also sound like you've tested it pretty much, which is good before releasing anything out "into the wild".

I have made a little probe system that scans all people in a sim, emails it to a central prim, and moves to the next sim, etc... and then comes back to the first sim in the list (up to hundreds, potentially) and does the circuit again. It was used to make a localisation service, you'd enter part of a name and it'd tell you in which sim persons with matching names were last seen. IM inworld if you want details, also I still have a fully functional example for a certain 2-sim private domain, if you want a demo.

Does it spray you with perfume?

The first thing you should do is not call it a "probe."

I think that this would be an interesting item to have on my own land - is it possible to confine it to an area?

I wouldn't mind asking customers who take the time to visit me whether or not they found what they were looking for and whether or not they had any suggestions. If the probe took on the appearence of a cute little critter, it might be less obtrusive than being followed by a steel globe, so I agree with Pol, I would not call it a probe. You might even make it so that people who bought could select from 3 or 4 different appearences.

I also think that if a person does not want to respond that it should go away/shut down to that AV and that once someone does respond, it should do the same so that the person does not feel hounded.

A scripted telemarketer. Nifty.

Do you have a Do Not Call call list I can sign on to?

Hi,
I agree with most here in that I find this very interesting on the technical side, but likely to get you in trouble socially and bug lots of people. As for technical violations of the TOS I would say that this:
Could be considered harrassment unless there was a mechanism for *immediately* getting it to go away. Two minutes seems like forever when you are staring at V'ger!

As lots have said the answer here is obviously "yes" (depending on the circumstances the avatars find themselves in when the probe arrives) Approaching an avatar in a sandbox is one thing, but approaching people on the grid means going into their homes sometimes and perhaps catching them in "flagrant delicto" sort of speak.

Even though the intent seems benign and the data collected not personal, the act itself can be seen as "surveilance" IMO, and seems to be a fairly blatent violation of the TOS in that regard.

I agree with most of the folks here. I wouldn't appreciate being followed for 2 minutes by this thing (V'ger!! LOL). Even if I could dismiss it instantly the experience would be reminiscent of web-based pop-up ads.

As people become more and more creative with these kinds of automated devices, we are going to be faced with some tough questions as to where to draw the line. Is this device ok for conducting surveys? How about soliciting donations for charitable causes? Can we also have it place commercial advertisements in front of users?

It gets more complex when a process conducted by ONE person is benign, but crippling when conducted by everybody. For example, I don't see the harm if ONE little bot approaches me from a local store to ask me to take a survey (it could be dismissed by clicking on it). But when every store in the mall has these bots it could have a very negative impact on the shopper's experience.

this sounds like a tool with a couple of handy uses.


And a HUGE potential for abuse.

I pretty much agree with the comments already made. It sounds very neat from a technical standpoint but potentially annoying from a personal one. If one isolated probe swooped in and started asking me questions but gave me the opportunity to opt out of being bothered again that wouldn't really bother me, and since it's never happened before I'd probably think it was kinda cool. If a hundred people started doing this and I was constantly having to shoo pesky drones away the novelty would be replaced by abject hatred

It might be a good idea to give it a command to dismiss it immediately, rather than the two-minute wait.

Sounds cool! Do it! But yeah, 'probe' sounds awful .. ROFL Pol ... The best thing I think would be to have it ask "-Avatar name- can I ask you some questions?" and wait no more than 30 seconds for an answer before moving on. But by no means have it actually 'follow' anyone!!

Sounds too much like a telemarketer for my taste. When it comes on my land and harrasses me you'll get neg-rated, maybe abuse reported (depends on my mood and how persistant the thing is), and the probe will be deleted.

If you have a question for me, or want my input on a poll or survey, ask me by way of IM and I'll more than likely be happy to answer you.

-Ghoti

Funny you should say this. While having a bot ask you a question vs. having a human ask you a question is functionally the same, there IS a HUGE emotional difference. I think at the core it's a matter of disrespect. A person that creates a bot and sends it to ask you questions is essentially saying that they are willing to consume YOUR time but not their own in the survey.

Also, bots completely lack empathy and are prone to making social errors. If I'm in the middle of a screaming match with my significant other regarding who he may have been sleeping with last night... well, any bot that chooses that time to say "Would you like to hear to hear about some fabulous sales?" will have made a mortal enemy of me.

Thanks to everyone for the great comments.

I had little idea where I was headed when I was playing around, but with a bit more thought I guess that the problem with using any sort of automated tool to interact with real people on a large scale is that people generally *don't* prefer unsolicited interaction, and tend to tolerate unsolicited human interaction because of empathy with another human being (Just a guess).

Also, developing a 'social niceties' algorithm to allow such a device (ok, ok. out with the 'probe' ;) to be unintrusive would be quite an undertaking (as in, have an undertaker standing by) and probably defeat its purpose.
Speaking of which, there would be no real purpose, at least none perceivable to its interviewees (It's not doing anything helpful for me, so why should I tolerate it?).

In the restricted context of a group of consenting users or a certain area where it is appropriate (think robot waiter) it might be appreciated. Over SL as a whole, I think Beryl sums it up nicely.
As for what to call it, I was too excited about the code to think about appearance (no, it's not just a sphere, but it is just a cube.. with a metal texture ;p) and I tend to think sci-fi. Heh. Note that 'robot waiter' was the first thing that came to my mind and not a cute little critter, which it could be instead of course. I'd probably be quite tickled to have V'ger following me around, but I guess that's obvious ;)
It's definitely possible. In fact, the only reason I decided to make it roam around and ask people questions is because a) I have no land and b) I couldn't think of anything else to make it do.

Anyway, I think having the uhh.. device.. interact with people is out the window at the moment. I'll have to think of something else for it to do, if at all. So don't worry, you won't be seeing it around. I hate popups too (But I like surveys! (and brackets! (both left and right! (Hmm. I see that I need some sleep soon)))).

Oh well, it could be useful. I guess it's how you use the tool that matters.
Don't snigger, now ;)