Electric Sheep Company's Searchbot Answers Go Here.

At least I give you some credit for admitting that you are a paid Electric Sheep consultant.

Please define "public" information in terms of SL. In point of fact, is it not true that your bot is scanning every object on the grid, and has to do so to determine which objects are marked "for sale" and which aren't? Please elucidate.

A simple yes or no to this question is all I need to know: is your bot is scanning every object on the grid?

If so, then you are scanning my land, my office, my house, my furniture, and so on, indexing those items, then *not* listing them because they are not for sale. Which of course means that you probably *do* have all my information in your private database. Last time I checked, Google and Microsoft are not scanning every object in my RL house, so your analogy breaks down. In short, on my land I do *not* want you scanning *anything* ever. How do you guarantee that?

Your analogy isn't much better - if it was possible for somebody to scan every item in your home, somebody would.

Actually, people already probably know more about what's in your house than you think, if you use a credid card.

This was also the point I was trying to make. Not that LL were particularly pro and anti ESC's bot but that they were for bots in general. As for the quotes being for libsl rather than for bots remember that absolutely all bots are written in libsl and that libsl has pretty much no purpose other than for writing bots. An endorsement for one is an endorsement for the other.

Here is the quote that Cocoanut is referring to I think

http://blog.secondlife.com/2007/01/30/new-continent-coming-to-second-life-mainland/


Note that his again is an indirect enodrsement of bots. They're saying we know bots exist, we're not going to stop them existing, we're considering (but have not decided on) changing things to make it more difficult for them.

/me sees the words "more difficult" in Rob's quote but does not see the words "slightly more difficult."

Go back and re-read your /327/96/178132/41.html#post1494330
post.

I would have never guessed you did this professionally. I saw no impartial and objective journalistic integrity when you tossed in lines like:



While you may think that kind of thing constitutes 'civil discourse', it let your temper show, and I wouldn't expect that from a professional journalist type. Your anger (or ego) got you lumped in with the rest of us mewling bickering forum malcontents.

Maybe it was all some tactic of yours to try to bully or provoke them into answering... I dunno. If you were attacking me like that I'd smile, say we're working on some answers for you and dismiss you without further thought.

Courage, Cocoanut. Old English legal principle: When the facts are against you, pound the law. When the law is against you, pound the facts. When both the law and the facts are against you, pound the table.

Stick to the issues, don't let this one, who admittedly is an expert on how to post with utter lack of integrity, lure you into a flame war, and soon enough all will be clear - to impartial observers, anyway. : )

Rusty you took that quote out of Context - Shed had been personally attacked by Forsetti (which later was smoothed out)

Please read the pages leading up to and after the Post you singled out.

Elanthius's post did include a very telling line:

Originally Posted by Cory Linden:
[14:38] Cory Linden: ... As we’ve talked about, the long term goals for Second Life are to make it a more open platform. Part of that process is learning how projects like libSL can be beneficial to all of Second Life.


Which, to me, indicates LL welcomes 3rd party services like ESC's searchbot, and other possible services, as long as they abide by Linden Lab's interpretation of the ToS and CS.

And it pretty much kills one of my questions: Is it okay for residents to export and re-publish secondlife object meta-data? Answer: Apparently, yes, if it's legal and doesn't lag secondlife.

A professional journalist wouldn't let that distract them.

Obviously, one would.

coco

I guess so. It's unfortunate that you let ESC bait you into unprofessional conduct.

Rusty - you are way out on a limb on this one. And I dont think you understand what all went down on the other thread.

Maybe you skim read, I dont know.

I typed about 50 more lines explaining what you seem oblivious of, but really its not worth it.

You are wrong. Period.

Hhmm. Rusty and his pals seem to want a flame war here. Methinks this thread is making them nervous.

Best response: Get the thread back on track and press the pedal to the metal once it is.

I'd rather we just left it alone, with the occasional bump, until ESC gets around to answering the questions, rather than risk the flames and the lockage.

coco

It sounded to me like his "answers" would come in the form of a release on the Electric Sheep Website.

Oh.

coco

Good call.


Cocoanut-

My criticism has been out of line. I have tried to quash this annoying part of my personality but it pops out again at times. Usually, I keep it reasonably restrained, but in this case I failed, in part because of your attack on Strife for agreeing with me with regards to one of Har's posts being a troll.

I have a bad habit of sticking up for people when I think they're being dealt with unfairly, which in this case, I clearly thought that you were demanding respect from ESC and offering none when they didn't reply fast or professionally enough to please you.

It's none of my business how you choose to conduct your correspondence with ESC, and what had been meant as a helpful suggestion on how to try to elicit answers more effectively out of ESC turned into a tirade about your style.

Again, I sincerely apologize for representing my thoughts in such a hostile fashion.

Thank you, Rusty. (I think!)

coco

Should someone report a hacked account?

On Topic: Big Brother Bot cannot, in the long run, be controlled by ESC. Because of ESC's financial status Linden Lab has allowed them to open Pandora's box onto the Second Life community. Eat your young, sell to the highest bidder and sit back and watch the commercialization roll in.

Is there a possibility to get the OPEN LETTER folks together with the BAN BOTS folks and start a effective movement?

I wouldn't hold my breath. At least with the SUBJECT MATTER of the "open letter", you had something with broad appeal that you could get a popular consensus on, and thus, the signatures. With this non-issue, you can't even get a firm consensus with the 0.001% of the population who are even bothering to waste words on it.

It's a tempest in a teacup, at best; but it sure inspires plenty of verbiage here.

It's worth a shot. If nothing else it might get LL to more clearly state that they are "Pro-bot".

Specific bots that violate the ToS and CS would likely be dealt with just like a human would.
The section of the CS regarding "Global Attacks" has general enough wording that can be used to justify suspending or banning any overly-hyper-active bots and their owners. If LL chooses to enforce it.

In a year , when the subjects are -

"How do I tell when its a bot?"

and

"How do I stop the bots?"

and

"How do I keep my information off the 3rd Party sites?"

and

"Who has a list of all the bots so I can ban them?"

we will see how much of a "tempest in a teacup" it is.

*quoted for posterity*

Yes, we will see, won't we?

"How do I tell when its a bot?" -- I would have said that a few moments of conversation will reveal this... but now... with so many international users and (sigh) rather inarticulate types could result in a lot of false positives. Invite it to voice-chat instead.

"How do I stop the bots?" -- same way you stop anyone else. Within the ToS and CS that is.

"How do I keep my information off the 3rd Party sites?" -- You convince Cory and the other Lindens that their "long term goal of having a more open platform" is wrong and get them to better protect object meta-data. (or, you use the DMCA to issue a cease&desist against the 3rd party site... if you can.)


"Who has a list of all the bots so I can ban them?" -- Who has a list of all the griefers so you can ban them? Who has a list of all the minors so you can ban them? Who has a list of all the people that desperately want to sell you something so you can ban them? Who has a list of all the annoying newbies that really want to be your friend, hey can this rocket launcher is COOL! --- so you can ban them.

we will see how much of a "tempest in a teacup" it is. We're gonna need a bigger teacup.

Not acceptable -
I thought voice was optional.



Not acceptable-
What they are doing is not against the TOS/CS - its just against what I want to happen on my land.



That will never happen.



Not acceptable -
Bots arent griefers, they are automated dataminers, Automated land buyers, automated picture snappers, Automated Survey takers, Automated WTF/E.

If were told one way to keep the searchbot away is to ban it - If this is a real solution it should be scalable. If its the solution for 1 bot its the solution for 500.



We sure will