BOT places! List them here!

I added the clause to indicate that the techniques are not done in secret, and everyone can see them. That's what I meant by "above board, out in the open". Perhaps the wording wasn't the best. I'll remove the "above board" bit, and it will still mean what I intended it to mean.

As someone who addmittedly is looking at this from a pretty uninformed standpoint, I'll stick my two penneth in anyway.

LL appears to tacitly approve the use of BOTs by virtue of the following.

1. Free Accounts with a valid email address being the only true requirement.
2. More than one account can be created for a given email address.
3. As far as I know some searches in SL present results in descending popularity order (by default anyway).
4. Availability of libsl which makes development of a "BOT" app straightforward.

Why would LL do such a thing?

Not to go over old ground again .. ok I will... registered accounts and/or concurrency attracts money.

Given the apparently simplistic nature of BOT scripts I suspect that by using a simple system admin task LL gains a far more accurate understanding of the true number than any of us. They may well be lowballing it in public, but then they'd be pretty foolish not to.

I can see that old Phil takes a beating on this whenever the topic is mentioned, but why the beef with him? The market is designed to make/almost demand the use of BOTs as a viable strategy in some sectors.. what sort of business person wouldn't use any legal tool at their disposal.. (oh and anyone who says this is a moral issue.. well never mind).

This may be a simplistic analogy but here goes anyway, let's say the local council (or whatever the equivalent in the US is), designates the busy road outside your house as a free parking zone - no restrictions.

This obviously presents a pain in the bum to the residents for all sorts of reasons, especially if they have no parking of their own.

Do you really run out into the street and start to berate the motorists making use of the legal facility because you reckon they should put your quality of life before their need to park, or do you lobby the decision makers to change the zoning?

B

I believe I have been stuggling to undertstand why people who, I believe, have such obvioulsy better ways to spend their time are, I believe, wasting so much of it flogging each others' horses that have been dead for days. I believe I have the answer. I believe Phil has discovered that forum postings boost his ranking in the places search, and I believe he is generously helping his debating partners by engaing them in futile argument in order to share the benefits of his discovery.

None of the things you list compell the creation of traffic bots.
They do enable them.

The same sort of argument could be applied to any other abuse that is enabled by the tools available but not yet banned outright.

Umnik H. would claim to be completely ethical when he was ripping off others and destroying the enjoyment of SL by others. He was simply using the land tools. What he was doing was "not against the TOS".
Therfore by your argument, LL appeared to "tacitly appove" his actions.
"Why would LL do such a thing?"


The argument that something is legitimate simply because there is no explicit law against it, or because the authorities are slow to slap it down, is bogus.
That is the argument of the moral bankrupt.

No it isn't. It's perfectly legitimate. It's not exactly an oversight, y'know. LL has known about it for years and they've let it be. They may do something about it in time, but that doesn't mean that it's not legitimate in the meantime. The "bogus" argument is that it's not legitimate now, which you seem to be suggesting.

/me smiles.. well you know in my time I've often been accused of being a Troll, but never of being "morally bankrupt".

I think, personal insult aside, that before the hysteria really does take over your reason you should probably consider more carefully your terms.

If for no other reason than, for the most part, "legitimate" actually does mean "in accordance with the law".

I've actually got no problem with your right to an opinion, and normally I'd leave you alone to your own little delusion of being on the side of the "morally solvent" .

It's just.. well to be frank.. you're such easy game..

So in your opinion, Umnik Hax was perfectly legitimate.
You had no issue with his operation at all?

Had he continued to operate after the Ad-Farm ban, but had modified things to stay just inside the letter of the policy,while still extorting, you would say that he was perfectly legitimate?

To be frank Sling, I am not so hysterically immersed in the politics of SL to know or care what Umnik Hax did.

As far as I know we're talking about BOTs used for the sake of bumping up "popularity" metrics.

I've explained why I think LL leaves the subject alone for the most part, why the presence of these types of BOTs actually aids their business plan, and why business people with SL are "legitimate" in their use of them.

If you want to get down to the nitty gritty of what is and isn't a valid argument, I'm quite happy to do that, but I should point out that in your little detours from reason you actually can't seem to help yourself from commiting any number of what are called "arguments from fallacy".

B

I'd like to leave this to who it was addressed to, but I can't. I have to give my answers too.

Yes. What he did broke no rules or laws.

Yes, but that's different. Objections to something do not make the 'something' illegitimate.

Yes, albeit he would still be doing something obnoxious to my way of thinking.

It appears to me that those debating the pro-BOTs stance continue to base their argument behind their notion that they can not possibly be morally and/or ethically corrupt simply because the act in which they are engaging in is not against the law, or the authority of the law are simply indifferent to their nuisance.

Let's not lose track of the fact that one does not necessarily need to be specifically breaking a law to be considered morally and ethically challenged. I believe we can all come up with a long laundry list of acts, that while certainly morally and ethically deficient, are indeed not specifically addressed by any law authority to be illegal.

One need look no further than the profession of Criminal Defense Attorney for the irony on the subject of ethics and morals within our criminal justice system.

Long story short, one does not necessarily have to be operating on the criminal side of the law be considered morally and ethically corrupt. So that while I think we can all, by now, agree that all of you proud traffic-bot abusers are not necessarily operating BOTs against any SL law, this does not alleviate you from the fact that you are lacking in morals and ethics.

Ok.. I'll spell this out. Sorry if I appear a wee bit personal but it seems it's the nature of this thread.

I do not and have never used a BOT

As a business LL publishes the number of registrations and concurrent users as a tactic in their marketing strategy. They include BOT numbers within these published figures, even though it's completely within their power to itemise them separately or not include them at all.

The SL Client actually invests valuable screen estate in communicating these figures.

At the end of the day, BOTs would be so easy to identify from a system perspective that LL could solve the problem tomorrow by treating them as a virus and killing them where they rezz.

This is not a moral question. Anyone that says it is, cheapens morality in it's widest form simply to score very poor points in what what has deteriorated into silly name calling.

If you feel so strongly about the presence of BOTs, raise the issue with LL. My opinion is that you don't because that would actually involve developing a structured case, which is much harder than coming on here and pontificating vaguely about morality.

BOTs are both a de jure and de facto part of SL life. You guys will just have to live with it.

B

I suggest this thread be renamed "The Morally Bankrupt: Out Yourselves Here!"

ahh.. touche on the valuable contribution Chip..

/me smiles.. Since we're playing silly games now..

I'm all for a difference of opinion, but it gets a bit stale if you haven't even got the initiative to come up with an original form of abuse.

Or are you just staking your place within the "Intellectually Bankrupt" position.?

I didn't see morals or ethics mentioned in the parts that you quoted, and I didn't see anyone basing any arguments on either of those - except you anti-botters. It's what you use when reason goes out the door.

The rest of your post is opinion, so I'll leave it at that.

You're veering completely around the core issue here, which is not about bots per se. I think any reasonable person can see nothing intrinsically ethical or unethical about a bot.

The issue is what they are being used for in this case, which is gaming a system for personal advantage - a system around which there is a preponderance of evidence supporting the stance that these practices constitute misuse.

The intent of the Resident picks and parcel dwell/traffic features has always been, from its very inception, to provide metrics to both the community and to Linden Lab which are useful for determining interest in, and relative popularity of a given parcel of land. The use of bots to inflate traffic, and the buying and selling of Resident picks renders these systems ineffective as for their intended purpose, and produces the added consequence of putting competitors who choose not to misuse these systems at a disadvantage to those who do.

I do agree with you - this is not necessarily a moral issue, but I do believe it is an ethical one, and moreso than just academically.

I do believe, with all due respect, that the above is a well structured case, and far from vague.

To claim that reason and ethics can not go hand and hand is a pretty shaky stance.

------------------

As to the other -

You are right about Chris calling you a liar .. of course he called you a liar because he feels those who run trafficbots are liars. You run trafficbots, and thus you are a liar. Its a cause/effect reasoning.

If indeed running trafficbots to game traffic is lying then those who use them are liars .. its a simple connection.

In fact most of the "insults" you feel slighted by are variations on this same theme.

That is not the same thing at all as throwing out direct insults with no correlations.

---------------------

Since you feel that gaming the traffic system is not lying, I wonder why you feel so "insulted" by the insinuation regardless.

In fact you call me a liar in your recent post for the things I have said. I do not respond in anywhere near the fashion you do.

Of course the difference is I know I am telling the truth and thus your lashing out and calling me a liar didn't really faze me.

Liar!

Ok.. ok.. You've won me over. The people who see no problem with the use of BOTs are morally and ethically bankrupt even if they are acting "legitimately".

The only question now is where does this taint end. If the Bot users are tainted, then perhaps, just perhaps LL are also equally reprehensible for allowing these sordid practices to continue when they could so easily quash them.

I believe the saying goes something like;

"The only thing needed for evil to triumph is that good men do nothing "..

Maybe however we're giving LL the benefit of the doubt when we shouldn't..Maybe they aren't good.. maybe they are simply the evil architect.

So really, if SL is hell and LL are the facilitating satanic horde.. shouldn't a person protective of their stainless morals simply leave and find nirvana?

No, I hear you cry.. we are evangelical and it is our sacred duty to act as missionary to this fetid few and show them the light.

Is it true then that you won't ever be happy until LL, me , and The Dark Lord Deakins are kneeling with you before the glowing icon of your moral touchstone.."Whinging B*stard"..?

B

(Sorry.. when you get to this point you just have to follow your Dad's advice.. never argue with a fool.. from a distance no-one can tell who is who)..

Zaphod,

Quite a good piece, this.
After doing some reading about ethics, I can go along with the fact that a group of people find our behaviour against their ethics. No idea how big the group is, but that does not matter for this one.

Wether something is ethical or not, is apparantly impossible to prove, and probably that is why it is too vague for someone like me. Too much a beta person, I guess. But as said, I can go along with being called unethical for what I do, since I now know a bit more how ethics work.

There are different well known views on ethics, of which the liberal one fits me best. Most ethic views are theological based, something I can do without thank you.

Bottomline: from your point of view (you=antibotters and pickpayers) we are unethical. From our point of view we are not. Both of us are right. This way, ethics become even fun

The example of Hax: He deliberately tried to abuse people, from my point of view. Extortion with ugly adds. From my, and most peoples point of view, unethical. So this also proves, that using the tools LL provides indeed does not always mean it is ethical. Its legitimate as long as its not forbidden, but not ethical.

So, in the end, I learned from this thread. Hope more people did. Now do feel free to call me unethical. Scammer and cheater, no. Unethical, yes, to some I probably are.

I think you should read further. It is entirely possible for something to have an ethical connotation that extends beyond someone's personal code of right and wrong.

You realize that this last statement could just as easily be applied to you as anyone else.

In fact I wonder at your stance on this issue. You have a strong "protect the children" stance on other issues supposedly,

Yet on this issue you prefer the Laissez-faire approach.

Who is protecting the misguided newbies and newbie business owners from the gamed traffic numbers?

/me smiles.. I never said that there isn't room for two fools in an argument Colette.

To answer your question.. I'm not a political party. My views are tempered and exist within the context of the question.

I know it might look like I'm a random Troll, but somewhere in all of this my views are consistant with a somewhat contorted internal values system.

A morally bankrupt one by all accounts...

B

Well the thing is many of your detractors... I suppose you should be proud you already have gained some... claim you were arguing just for argument's sake on the verification thread.

Considering how it seems inconsistant with the business-by-no-rules attitude which is what essentially makes up the Trafficbotter's stance I found myself wondering if they might have had a point.

Since you also called yourself a Devil's advocate in yet another thread.

The problem with often playing the Devil's advocate that you can run into on a forum is that no one can tell if you say something because thats your actual opinion or if you are just "trolling"

Well you know, as far as I'm aware this Forum won't actually follow me to the pearly gates and be held up as some sort of litmus of my character.. good or bad.

Also my "detractors" might be right.. maybe I was arguing for argument's sake.. what's actually wrong with that? It raises issues.. gets them talked about and at the end of the day.. misguided as it may seem to some, I don't actually lose any sleep over my "rep" within the Residents Forum.

I come here to see what people are talking about, that's all. There are many reasons I stick in a response.. maybe I genuinely have a view.. or maybe as in this thread, I just want to rattle a few people who seem a bit up their own b*ckside..is that wrong..?

The obvious possible consequence of this approach is that I'll end up on so many "mute" lists that most people will miss my gems of wisdom..

Well then I suppose I'll just fade into the sunset and find something else to do with a quiet afternoon....

Thanks for being interested though.... and you can call me foolish any time you want..