Automated Burglary

*bump*

The TOS and Community standards are minimums we should abide by. There is nothing that says we can't elevate ourselve beyond them in our behavior and ideas.

Nope- just precedent, sadly.

This whole sheep bot thing reeks. All you need to do is look at the average 'view count' of any given thread and you'll come to the conclusion that relatively few SL residents view these forums. I'm sure glad I do and read this thread - it was the first I'd heard of this questionable "tool." I'll have to warn my friends about this - I'm pretty sure most of them don't read the forums on a regular basis.


Was it by any chance on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying ‘Beware of The Leopard’?

"Interestingly enough, using the search engine, I found a number of my copy, mod, NO TRANSFER items for sale by some individuals. Some had items that they had purchased somewhere and the original was set for sale."

Same thing happened to me when I searched for my items. What I *didn't* find, however, was the items I actually have for sale, on the public mainland sim where I have my main shop. I assume that sheeplabs hasn't got round to searching the entire grid yet, since my shop's been there for over a month, and that's a heck of a latency.

So, what happens to content creators like me, who while not wanting any of our personal items available, would actually rather like the option of having our commercial items listed?

Theoretically, if you ban the bot Grid Shepherd from your personal property, the items located on that parcel will be excluded. However, many people doubt this will work, because the bot can scan the whole sim from any parcel it happens to be on.

For example, all of my store items on the site are listed as being on lots that I don't own, because that's where the bot was when it was scanning. BTW, only a few of my store items are listed - the bot seems to be rather hit or miss. And it lists items from a store I closed a week ago, so it's clearly outdated information.

I am testing the system - I have banned Grid Shepherd from a small parcel that I recently bought in another sim, and I placed items on it marked for sale after banning Grid Shepherd from the parcel. If the site lists any of the items in this sim, I'll know for sure that it doesn't work. I'll let y'all know if this happens.

Hey, I have a solution for the problem of items for sale in vendors not being listed in the search. How about a submission page for content creators to manually list items for sale? To ward off spammed listings, the item can be held back from the list until Grid Shepherd verifies that the object listed actually exists. As for fraudulent listings of things for sale that aren't actually for sale, well the current system is already vulnerable to the kind of fraud suggested in the estate owners thread so this isn't any worse.

It doesn't work. Items accidentally set for sale on a parcel I manage were erroneously listed as being on another parcel in that sim. This was on the mainland. So banning Grid Shepherd does not work. Going and opting out isn't going to help me either since these objects were made and placed by someone else. Hopefully by now, he's gotten my message and fixed it.

This is a lot of hassle for a system that should have been voluntary to opt-in and not sprung on everyone without a good warning.

If it had been a voluntary to join thing, I'd actually support it, as something like this is needed. But it isn't voluntary, and people are getting burned by it, which is why I find it obnoxious. I find the apologists in this thread to be lacking in a little neighborly respect. I really hope the Sheep will reconsider and make it voluntary. It is NOT true that will destroy its usefulness.

Really doesnt matter how good it works,

It doesnt matter if I can ban the bot or not.

I never asked it to come scan and list my items.

Period.

You are right Brenda - it doesnt even make sense that banning would have worked.

Since obviously the bot wouldnt travel to every single parcel in a sim.

Only sim-wide bans would work. And on the Main grid even that wont help you if you live on the edges.

I put landbot on sale, why it is not listed there?
http://search.sheeplabs.com/core/se...hString=landbot

This thing definitely is NOT updating every 24 hours. I check my items every day with no change, and items from my long-gone store are still listed.

Perhaps people should list Grid Shepherd as a sale item. Free to good home - tends to wander into places where he is not welcome.

If ESC in the beginning had offered an opt in service then this would be a great idea John, its just a shame the coporate brians didnt engage before releasing the service, unless that is, the intention was always to be an OPT OUT service rather than OPT IN.

I felt tho that the use of the word fraud was a bit strong as fraud, in criminal law, is the crime or offense of deliberately deceiving another in order to damage them – usually, to obtain property or services unjustly, so if anyone has acted fraudulently it is ESC, as they are producing the instrument of fraud with the search bot as people have lost things already because of the opt out system.

What i see suggested in that thread is not fraud but rendering the database useless with false positives, so as to make ESC sit up and take notice of the community, as they refuse to talk and come to a compromise that will benefit them and the community as a whole, as i think the idea is a great one but not in its current form imho

Peace

I see even an Opt-in system as Intrustive- Since their whole concepts involves sending a spybot around the grid scanning peoples Prims, reguardless of where they have them.

An Opt-in system would have been less bad though,
in the same way a punch in the face is less bad then being run over by a truck.

Gee, isn't that called SL Boutique? They already RUN a commercial opt-in service where content creators can voluntarily list their merchandise, at no charge or commission to the content provider, and where people can purchase on the web for immediate and direct delivery in-world.

SO WHY DO THEY NEED THIS BOT?

Well the difference is this would be a search for a person's store in-world, but you're right it's not a huge difference.

I Think one reason they want this bot is for giving sales pitches.

"Here were made a Inworld version of a interent spider/crawler, Now here - look we run this site called SLB ... , and we built these sims... , ... "



SO basically part of a dog and pony show. Im sure that this sort of thing is far more improtant to them than any disrespect they are confronting us with.

Agree, Colette. I begin to suspect they want to portray themselves as the Google of SL to other corporations like CBS who have $7 million laying around to throw at whatever is au courant.

Problem for them is, this particular innovation makes ESC look bad to anyone who examines it closely. It is a blunder, a bad one IMO, and they are busily compounding it.

Lol Ive seen enough Corporate managers to know they wont notice "little things" like us. The gee whiz will matter far more.

And the reason that there will be no actual consquences to the company is because very few people actually examine it closely.

The search page doesn't seem to be operational atm. A temporary glitch? Denial-of-service attack? ESC being sensitive to concerns voiced here? Anybody know?

Maybe they've decided to start over with a new version that's opt-in!

coco

I saw the furor over the eSheep bot and decided to take a look. I typed in 'cabin' as I have several types of cabins I've created and sell. The results were:

1. Nearly useless, cluttered with noise entries
2. Confusing as I couldn't tell shops from private locations very well
3. Didn't include ANY of my cabins
4. Illustrated more than a few souls selling freebie cabins for $L in violation of the ToS

The last bit is interesting indeed. I followed up with a few more simple searches, including 'house' and found more ToS violations. More than a few were selling freebie Linden products at marked up rates!

So, two thoughts occur to me; first, is LL or anyone else going to pursue this new evidence of ToS violations? Second, if this is part of the $7 million invested in eSheep can someone please direct those folks my way because I can do better for lots less

Well - over the past couple of weeks, the search has shown my objects appearing under the wrong parcel, and I have sent this as feedback a couple of times. Now, er, it doesn't show any of them at all. Unless I've been amazingly unlucky in picking a time to search when the bot is scanning Caledon, this isn't very good.

I think it was down for a while, Oridinal, but I looked not long ago, and it was up again.

I have opted out of it, but now I'm thinking about opting in all the way - with ALL my objects. I'd like to see what that does.

coco