Question from New Land Owner

I have just received this IM: Xerses Goff: The land near you in Belgarath has been spammed with an ad field, we are working as a group to help curb this practice, I dropped you some information.

I also received a Clocktower Project Probe 1.0.4

I IMed Xerses back to ask what it was for but have had no reply. Can anybody shed any light on this and explain?
Thanks

A group called the Arbor Project is trying to limit the amount of spam in the form of rotating signs being created in SL. They plant trees and rejoin 16m plots in an effort to make the Mainland look more attractive and have more value to all who pass through or live there.

I believe the Clocktower probe is an object that monitors certain Spam Farmers from your property, making it harder for them to keep up with their practice of dividing plots and placing their signs on them.

Call me suspicious, but if anyone sends me something without my paying for it, asking for it, or giving explicit permission for it to be sent, I decline it. Especially if I've never met them and am not face-to-face with them when it happens. At the very least, it's presumptuous, and at the worst it's dangerous.

Spam sucks. It was really bad after AdBot which brought on all these anti ad bot spammers. Good luck!

I know that within the last week, my home sim has sprouted no less than 5-6 boards that cycle ads for Dell, Circuit City and Adidas.

Hello, big companies. Welcome to SL. I look forward to seeing some interesting stuff from y'all, even if it's ads. On the other hand, spamming ads in a 100% residential sim will not encourage me to buy your products - far, far from it.

This is the first I've heard of RL companies using rotating ads. It's usually porn, escorts etc. Marketing folks who do not understand that no one in SL wants to see these eyesores are making a big mistake. Or at the very least, wasting their money.

What does it do when it detects a spam farmer cutting land up?

I don't know if that is what it does. I need to do more research on it. I believe it has a list of known spam farmers and bans them from land carrying clock towers.

I have just been back to my land and opened up the banned folder and about 6 names have been entered that i have not put in there so it does look as if you are right Raymond. great work Clocktower.

Not sure I see the point of that, to be honest - it's not like they would need to be on my land, so banning them isn't going to hurt them.

Clocktower Network Information

The Clocktower network is a distributed blacklist system for use in the virtual world of Second Life. It allows a central repository of banned avatars to be automatically distrubuted to any parcel in the world that has our network client (probe) installed on it.

The Clocktower network was designed to limit movement of Ad parcel splitters. This notecard describes the basics of how the system works.

A Centrally managed repository of names is created and updated by the Arbor Project.

Instructions for Joining the network:
----------------------------------------
1) Rez the object "Clocktower Network Probe 1.0.2" Somewhere on your parcel
If you own the land there is nothing more that needs to be done

If your land is Group Owned, the probe needs to be deeded to the group so it can manage the parcel banlist.
To join: Place the Clocktower Probe on your land, if your land is Group Land, share it and deed it to the group.

** VERY IMPORTANT: probes on group owned land MUST be deeded to the group or they will do nothing at all!

Make sure you join the "Arbor Project" group for updates and questions.

Frequentlly Asked Questions:
--------------------------------
Q: How many parcels can I place it on?
A: As many as you or your group owns, the more probes places, the wider the coverage. So All of your land parcels would be appropriate.

Q: What is the colored orb I see everywhere?
A: This is the network 'client', it communicates with the central information repository to retrieve, and apply blacklist entries to individual parcel banlists.

Q: What does this have to do with clocktowers?
A: I (The Author of the technology) Have in the past had to build large clocktowers to keep unsightly ad farm parcels from plain view of my land. This was written in hopes that I have to make less and less of these in the future.

Q: Someone put one on my land without my permission, can you come remove it?
A: We only place orbs on parcels of land we own. If you rent land and find one there, Your landowner may be a participant in the network.
If it is your land and you did not place it there, it has no effect on your parcels banlist. You can and should return it to whomever placed it there.

Q: This thing is lagging the whole sim
A: No.. It's not likely the probe itself is causing performance issues, The probe runs a single timer event, no sensors, it doesn't listen to chat, it doesn't log avatar information Except the owner or group key
of whoever placed it there.

Q: I want to leave the network
A: No problem, once you delete the orb from your land, it will no longer be able to manage your banlist, you can either manually remove the banlist entries or let them expire automatically.

Q: What can/cannot the orb do?
A: The Orbs only function and ability is to install bans in your parcel banlist, it is not capable of doing anything else other than that.

Q: The Orb Disappeared off my land, what happened to it?
A: The orb normally runs in 'Stealth' Mode, basically it turns itself invisible, but it is still running. We control this setting at the repository level. If the Orb is actually gone from your parcel and you did not remove it, That is probably because we discovered a bug or an issue in the current version and told the Probe to commit SLUicide.

Q: Who runs the repository?
A: The Arbor Project sets policy, and manges the blacklist repository

Hi Stephen,

You're right, they can still purchase parcels, even if they are blacklisted, unfortunately LL provides no way around this although I do have a proposal in the vote tool to fix this. Discussion forum is here /13/3b/170605/1.html

I really need to stress that the blacklist is a last resort tool. A person who has been submitted is contacted, research is done and dialog is open with them to try and get them to realize what a foul practice this is.

Additionally this is no secret society. It is open to ALL who want to participate, infact a few of the names on the blacklist participate in our forums. Our goal is to get them to stop and the only way we can do that is through open dialog. This is really grass roots effort to better the experience of the Second Life Residents including you.

The Arbor Project has been around since August 2006, here is what we've done
through the combined efforts of many talented and passionate individuals:
Recombined 7 ad fields into build able parcels of 512 to 1024
Reclaimed most of a sim and reopened a previously blocked lake to recreation
Given away or sold below market over 1/2 sim worth of land to residents who will recombine them
Currently hold over 200 plots of land that have been landscaped with trees and parks to better the experience of SL residents

Since releasing the blacklist tool just over 2 weeks ago we have over 650 probes deployed covering 284 regions by over 100 individuals who have decided to participate in the network.

We have an Infohub setup in Pero (185,157,107) http://slurl.com/secondlife/Pero/185/157/107 Which provides more detailed information on not only the blacklist, but the bigger picture of what we are trying to accomplish. Mind you this is a rough draft but it does provide valuable information.

You can also pickup a network kit at that location.

Please feel free to IM myself or Xerses Goff in-world if you have any questions, comments or concerns.

Regards,
James