Are Bots Disproportionate

The TOS clearly states:

4.2 You agree to use Second Life as provided, without unauthorized software or other means of access or use. You will not make unauthorized works from or conduct unauthorized distribution of the Linden Software.

Linden Lab has designed the Service to be experienced only as offered by Linden Lab at the Websites or partner websites. Linden Lab is not responsible for any aspect of the Service that is accessed or experienced using software or other means that are not provided by Linden Lab. You agree not to create or provide any server emulators or other software or other means that provide access to or use of the Servers without the express written authorization of Linden Lab. Notwithstanding the foregoing, you may use and create software that provides access to the Servers for substantially similar function (or subset thereof) as the Viewer; provided that such software is not used for and does not enable any violation of these Terms of Service. Linden Lab is not obligated to allow access to the Servers by any software that is not provided by Linden Lab, and you agree to cease using, creating, distributing or providing any such software at the request of Linden Lab. You are prohibited from taking any action that imposes an unreasonable or disproportionately large load on Linden Lab's infrastructure.


One bot hammers the database every 5 seconds. 17,280 times per day. Add multiple bots, multiply this figure greatly.

The question needs to be asked. Does the average user need to query the database 17,200 times per day and would this be considered "disproportionate" by TOS standards?

There is no human on earth, capable of manually generating 17,280 queries per day without macros.

Is it ok, for anyone to hammer the database 17,280 times for any or no reason?

Would thousands of bots affect the database?

Likewise, are bots "substantially similar in function" as the viewer?

What about imposing a disproportionately large load on the forums?

Off topic

Reported bad post. Trolling.

oo look .. i added to my bot thread collection..

/327/d6/173765/1.html

/327/7a/172826/1.html

/327/b8/173559/1.html

/327/ad/173653/1.html

/327/6c/173595/1.html

/327/d5/173403/1.html

You have them dead to rights on "disproportionately large load" IMHO.

Personally, I think it is time for LL to decide - what is the load put on and more importantly, how do any bots affect the experiences of other users and is this what LL wants for their users. I see plenty of opinions (how may threads on land bots now?) but the only singular opinion that really matters in the end is the company policy and practice.

Strife, could you please lock the other thread?, as I erred in clarity on the question

QUOTE: [Linden Lab has designed the Service to be experienced only as offered by Linden Lab at the Websites or partner websites. Linden Lab is not responsible for any aspect of the Service that is accessed or experienced using software or other means that are not provided by Linden Lab. You agree not to create or provide any server emulators or other software or other means that provide access to or use of the Servers without the express written authorization of Linden Lab. Notwithstanding the foregoing, you may use and create software that provides access to the Servers for substantially similar function (or subset thereof) as the Viewer; provided that such software is not used for and does not enable any violation of these Terms of Service. Linden Lab is not obligated to allow access to the Servers by any software that is not provided by Linden Lab, and you agree to cease using, creating, distributing or providing any such software at the request of Linden Lab. You are prohibited from taking any action that imposes an unreasonable or disproportionately large load on Linden Lab's infrastructure.: UNQUOTE]

Well as LL have now released the client as open source, there is nothing stopping anyone using it, driven by a few scripts off game, to actually perform a legit bot. The script can check the account at hourly intervals to make sure it is still logged in and then would cause 99% less load on the servers, than a 'live person'.

You can post as much as you like without affecting my experience of the internet, but the more times your bot searchs the the database the more of a negative effect you have on my SL experience.

Strife can we have a landbot discussion forum now please? *sighs*

Off topic, trolling.

Reported bad post.

Constant spamming.

Reported bad post.

I asked a legitimate question, based on a subsection of the TOS.

Please refrain from flamming or defamatory remarks.

As much as I dislike landbots, and even the word "landbot", it does seem to me that Resident Answers is being used to advance a political cause, disguised as polls and accompanying questions.

I'll go ahead and report this post myself as "bad post".

"Resident Answers is a simple, friendly place to ask your fellow Residents of Second Life for help. This forum came about after many suggestions dating back a long time, so in recognition of how many knowledgeable Residents we have who want to help others, we decided it's time to do something about it!"

Asking opinion really doesn't qualify as asking for help.

Off Topic,

Please do not cause this thread to be locked.

I would expect a simple login with the standard viewer results in a few 1000 queries to the database. Moving would also produce database queries, since new objects come in view.

Why? Because every object, every texture, every inventory item is stored at a central place, the database.

In contrast, a (land)bot written to search the database does not need all the other information that results in eye candy (textured objects) we users like. So I think a bot in fact produces much less load than a human user with the standard viewer.



A subset thereof.

Gregor, that is kind of irrelevant.

The database hits that moving around, logging in etc create, those hits go to a different server, and I suspect those servers have vastly more resources allocated to them compared to the search database that the landbots hit.

I actually don't believe there are any database queries happening when you walk around and stuff comes into view. The query occurs at the time the object is rezzed, or instantiated in the sim. From then on it's a persistent object that lives in the sim's memory, and is delivered directly to the client for rendering. I may be wrong.

The bots are using authorized software. (open source).


They can order the bot users to stop anytime they wish, yet have not.


Well i'm sorry, but I think LL does know what causes load on their infrastructure and deals with those things accordingly. The question is, how do you or any other person know what is affecting their infrastructure? I'm going to go with the people that actually work with that infrastructure and believe they no what is going on, more than the opinions and speculations of people who have no idea what is actually going on on the server end because they do not work for LL.





Yes they are. Open source which is approved to access the servers.

Keep quoting the TOS and I think you may just get a clarification that yes using a modified open source client for a bot is indeed approved. Then what will you quote?

I would say yes it is disproportionate. The typical resident can only click the "next" button in land sales only so many times in a certain amount of time before they are locked out of searching anymore for a couple minutes. It is to "reduce the load on the database" Well, perhaps the load would be significantly less if there were not 24/7 bots querying the same database so often all day long.

Well good then. I think we should all leave and let the bots take up the resources. After all, they're less greedy, aren't they?

coco

In this case a bot designed for searching won't affect the majority of users. At least I seldom have problems with search myself. But I don't search for land.

That, of course, is very plausible. It would only leave the the requirement to look up AVs themselves when they enter a sim.

I remember to have read about an effort to redesign the server side structure for decentralistion. But that included the necessity to change asset UUIDs to include information about storage location.

Who knows, maybe that gets implemented right now.

We could at least revert to a Ruth-AV without textures and attachments when the number of concurrent users exceeds 30k

A grid full of Ruths. The Horror!!!

Gah! No! I don't even have attachments to speak of, or prim hair, and I HATE RUTH!

coco