Scripted Agent D-Day is Jan 20th

From the blog:

"Also on the 20th, we will be releasing code that excludes Self Identified Scripted Agents from the traffic score. Scores visible on January 21st and onwards will reflect the revised calculation."

https://blogs.secondlife.com/community/technology/blog/2010/01/14/search-upcoming-release--update

Will concurrency figures drop?

No more endless debates about whether people should be using bots to improve their search ratings? Oh dear..

I read the title as Scripted Argent D Day.

Wow, what a visual...

It's good to know the date. Also on the 20th, they'll be pushing out the announced update, which should mean that keyword-stuffing will be affected. It's all good.

I'll be extremely interested to see what the difference is to the traffic numbers for many places.

My LOL of the day...

Here come the scripted Argents! O noes!

Scripted, Agent Man, Scripted, Agent Man. They've givien you a deadline, and taken 'way your game.

JLU can run around policing the grid reporting unlicensed androids!

I'll say concurrency takes a hit somewhere between 5k-8k eventually (not straight away).

Its not an easy job for LL...as they have to check whether Bots or Models are self-identified or not. It shouldn't be an issue on any high traffic scoring parcels seen on Places Search, they easily discovered.

That's about it. They *could* review the high-traffic Places.

There is no mention of making the status of Scripted Agent visual. There were suggestions that the name tags might be a different colour.
If anyone bar LL look at a bunch of bots, there is no way to tell if they have been registered.

Given that bot farms over high-ranking places can still be found, I wouldn't hold my breath on something that can only be detected by LL.

We could see a migration of bots from boxes to models/ greeters/ visitors on the ground. Given that blatant bot farms still exist, these ground-based bots would not be registered.

1 user laughed

and sang it out loud

oh the memories

*interrogation scene*
*harsh lighting, tough detectives abound*


"You see a turtle."

"It's on it's back."

"The sun is really hot."

"The turtle tries to turn over, but can't."

"It tries and tries, but just can't turn over."

"What do you do?"

Or, when they get round to talking to Phil's employees:

--Have you felt yourself to be exploited in any way?
--Like what?
--Well... well, like to get this job. I mean, did... did you do, or... or were you asked to do anything lewd... or unsavory, or... or, otherwise repulsive to your... your person, huh?

/me quickly builds a temple named "TRAFFIC SCORE", sets ban lines around it, and puts a bunch of bots that look like bronze robots around it bouncing off and droning "Must get into traffic score" over and over and over ....

Opportunities for art are endless in SL.

Well if it only stops self identified bots (oops, I mean "Scripted Agents" then it won;t make any difference to the numbers at all

I'd bet that fewer than 5-10% of all "scripted agents" are in fact "self identified"...

Two of my three accounts are "scripted agents," so I can work in the shop without my own traffic counting. Even though they don't log themselves in or so I hope...

Will scripted agents not count toward reported concurrency numbers?

I bet we're about to see a bunch of shopping bots.

It says traffic calculations will be affected, it doesn't say anything about concurrency calculation.

Yes, but if people who've been running bots just for the purpose of inflating their traffic figures no longer have any reason so to do, then perhaps they won't bother logging them in. That would affect concurrency.

Don't go asking them questions like that! They'll drop me right in it (I pay them in peanuts but they believe it's real money).

This announcement is brought to you by the Linden Labs - helping Secondlife into the New World.

I wonder how many trafficbot runners won't notice this until the next day?

What I wonder more is the way it will pan out. Will LL actively deal with unregistered traffic bots or will they do what they did all along concerning traffic - make a rule and then more-or-less forget about it.