Camping Bots???

I have a couple of camping dance pads that I put out as an experiment. They are not often used but I have noticed an odd pattern. If they are used they are usually occupied at virtually the same times each day. Each time it is a totally newbie avatar. Always different names no profile information and all wearing exactly the same jeans and lilac t shirt. None have ever respond to me when I try to talk to them and the very second the limit is reached they disappear.

Does this sound familiar to anyone else?

I know newbie outfits are pretty limited but for 15 in a row to have exactly the same is stretching the boundaries of probability, so I'm thinking there is a camping bot out there, has this been going on for ages and I'm just naive or is it a new phenomena

Any ideas?

The lilac/jeans combo is a default so that in it's self is not entirely strange.

However it does sound slightly suspect.

I curious what do you want to gain by putting out camping pads?

that's the girl next door. it's probably the most common newbie girl av.

I often stop and say hi to campers, figuring that if human they must be bored. It's rare to get any response out of them.

Try turning the pad off then move it a meter or so in any direction
if they hop back on the second its back on try kicking them..dont ban just kick if they hop back again..its a bot or av with auto sit then ban..but not till after you make a note in thier profile. This asumeing they dont respond to you when you do any of this

I'm not sure specifically about bots (purely autonomous programs), but seeing camping drones (manually camped by a person, then ignored) is rather common. It is obvious that some people have taken to running multiple avs at a time with the specific purpose of earning lindens by camping.

The outfit you describe is simply the default one for new avs, which just tells you that the avs are probably used solely for this purpose.

The real question is whether this is a problem for you. Generally the camping agreement is simple... you give someone money, and they stay on your land parcel to increase your traffic. You get what you paid for even if the av doing the camping is just one of many bots/drones.

If your intention is to attract new people and get them to spend money at your business, offering camping is not a good way to do that. The campers don't usually spend their money at your place, and although camping does improve your positioning in search, many users will actually refuse to purchase from you because you are gaming the traffic system and putting undue strain on the system in the process. You mention having 15 camping pads. That is considered a lot, and it makes it look like your store can't draw business on its own merits.

Yes, but 16 in a row and half of them with male names, my partner dumped her girl next door avatar within 10 minutes of joining SL.

If it does turn out to be a bot scam what should I do? just take the Pads away or report them to Linden?

You mention having 15 camping pads. That is considered a lot, and it makes it look like your store can't draw business on its own merits.[/QUOTE]


No I only have 2 camp pads that I put out for a test. The 15 or so I referred to are the identical avatars who have consecutively used the pads at the same times each day

Ah, I see.

Still, what exactly is the problem with bots using your camping pads? They drive up traffic just like everyone else. Are you expecting something more from campers?

Ava, where the hell have you been? Camping?

You left me tied up with Brenda while you went off to play with Sarah.
</jealous pout>

Brenda has been quite a lot of fun in the meantime, though.

It's ok, I got the whole thing on hidden camera.

So here's a question.... Do they all have the Ruth body shape?

I ask because I make sword-fighting bots for my community, and use the libsecondlife code, and the libsl code responsible for the bot's appearance was recently broken. All bots that use the broken versions of the code will have the default Ruth body style regardless of what they are supposed to have.

In the case of my bot, it's somewhat disturbing to have an Oni demon with boobs coming at you with a katana

I've seen other bots in-world with the same Ruthed problem, like ESC's sheepbots, so that might be one possible indication. Not foolproof, just maybe a little bit of info to help the determination.

btw: There are probably a few flavors of camping bots, the only one I am familiar with is GhettoSL. If you Google that, you should be able to find at least the older GhettoSL code and perhaps looking through the code would provide some clues as to how to identify such bots through behavior? Just a thought.

.

Well, speaking as an occasional camper, I'd like to add that there is a big difference between leaving your avatar (or maybe even an additional alt) on a dance pad overnight and the campbots that are often controlled by one central user and are solely used to make money. The tools the real bots use are very fast, often snatching the spots away right under the butt of the "regular", human-controlled campers, leaving the real players not a snowball's chance in hell. Plus, they have such advanced forced resit mechanisms, they often sit on one dancepad for days, no matter how short the cycles are set there.

Okay, now some of you will say what's the big deal, there's not much to be made from camping, right? Quick calculation then: I can on my (not very new machine) up to four clients simultaneously. (Tested that once as some sort of experiment.) Bot tools can as much as seven clients through a single client window. (I think that was what a horrendously expensive bot tool advertised at least.) So that would make at least 28 clients on an elderly pc. Now, what if each of these avas catch a spot that pays 3/10... well, that'll be 12,096 L$ in 24 hours then...

As campers are often newbies and need a bit of pocket money, I think the camping money is of way better use in their hands than in those of just one or two shady users that make a lot of money with it...

SEX...LIES...and....ewww, camping bots.

We had 3 dance pads (camping) and we've removed them because of bots.

We put them there for new users to earn whilst interacting (chat). The pads made the AV click on a dialogue box every couple of mins.

We found a few bots started to use them... Upon clicking on them, the bot would TP away...

We removed them as they avoided the reson for us putting them there - not to increase traffic (we would have used "zombie" camping chairs for that), just to give a few lindens to newbies...

So, a gain of a few lindens to the bot creater has been a loss of income to newbies....

Gomez

But that makes no difference to the person who puts out the camping pads. They put out camping pads to drive up their traffic, and bots/drones do that just as well as conscious avs.

I still don't understand why this bothers the store owner. They paid for traffic, and they got traffic. Why are they acting like they've been cheated?

report them for what?
what are they doing wrong?
you put out camp pads to game traffic they are assisting you by being on the camp pads and giving you traffic

Like they care ...

I like playing Camperbaiting, I stand on the opposite side of the room from a bunch of campers and offer $100 Linden to the first one to reach me, never had to pay out yet

You don't know that. Yes, a lot store owners do that, mostly the big ones. I also know a lot of others who put up pads and money trees to actually help out newbies. And I think I would care whom I give my money to. If it were just one well-organised guy draining my money for his own sake... yes, I'd see it as a scam, just as much as I'd see rigged casino games as scam.

Well, how is a bot/drone runner to know that a particular store's camping pads are not meant for them? Most camping pads exist solely for driving up traffic numbers, and a bot/drone runner is perfectly reasonable in assuming their use of the camping pad is exactly what the store owner desires.

So many people say "But I am doing it to help the newbies!" Well, you don't need a camping pad to do that. If you want to give money to newbies, go to a Welcome Area and give money to newbies. Of course that doesn't artificially inflate your store's traffic numbers...

I know what you mean. I still think there is a big difference in making a few Lindens every now and then and doing it commercially and in way that robs other people of the opportunity to join. The bot owners are not in for the fun in SL or even contributing to its economy. They'll never spend the Lindens earned inworld, they'll just cash out and be gone. That's just my way of seeing it, though.

I think a "okay" ammount of camping chairs, benches,towels or pads is alright in any locations if mall or club as long as it is not in your eye and all over. Some places are just bad but we use a few benches as well across our sim, a beach towel and a janitor. But we also have daily events at the linked club to the mall with live DJ and contests and regualr events at the mall etc.

I agree that for the land owner it dont really matter if the camping system is used by a bot or a human. But I like real humans better and sometimes I'm quite nasty to the bots