Open Forum: Have Bots and Camping Chairs Gone Away?

It's been at least three months since the Lindens banned bots and free L$ camping chairs, and it's one of many items on my To Do ledger to see how far that policy took. What's your sense, dear reader? Have you noticed a significant decline in traffic-gaming bots or chairs? Or a change in the way they're deployed?

Comments

[Non-bot Camper]

Camping chairs,towels,dance-pads and camp-masters are vanishing. I know because I used to use an alt to camp while I was doing other work on the computer. Even shops with models now have them awake...bots and afk "models" won't cut it any longer.

That's my experience so far. But I'm sure that some owners are figuring out ways to hide rooms of bots they use to drive traffic up. How I don't know--but there are still lots of green dots on the map in places that are empty when you TP in.

Where I work, the models stay alert and talk to visitors (most of whom don't reply as they run straight for the lucky chairs). Some of them do buy stuff from our vendors.

[Jura Shepherd]

My last trip to scout for adboards was last week sometime. There's still plenty of bots around.

[ArianeB]

I'd say more than half the population of Zindra continent right now are bots. As long as there is an advantage (real or perceived) in boosting traffic, there will be bots and/or camping.

[Tinsel Silvera]

As far as I can tell from my daily travels around the grid, the bots are still all around. Whatever decision was made regarding bots it's yet to be put in force. I'm not sure what the hold up for the bot ban enforcement is.

[Hylee]

I have not seen any reduction in the use of bots or camping. The most popular venues are still populated by avatars that never move.

[Jovin]

Agree with ArianeB - Zindra is Bot Central right now. Hard to avoid the shouting Tip Jars and group-invite bots too. You'd think the first emigrants to Zindra would have more sense than to even bother and that LL would have more sense of what's happening and stop it before it really takes hold.

[Ari Blackthorne]

Well, one thing to remember is this:

Bots and camping chairs are not banned.
What's "banned" is the use of them to "game traffic".
The "Penalty" for gaming traffic is to be "temporaily or permanently" removed from search.

So, it's not a clean-sweep to *remove* bots and camping systems. It's supposedly a sweep to prevent them from being used to actually game traffic - or the cosenquence is: 'go ahead and keep your boys and camping systems, but you won't receive any benefit from the search system'.

Ciaran Leval mentions this here where a friend was asking why he wasn't showing up in search results:
http://www.your2ndplace.com/node/1546

[LittleLostLinden]

Hey Ari.

You mention that game traffic bots are banned. This doesn't appear true in my travels. I see them everywhere still.

If you can give me a contact, of where to report the gaming bots to, please do so, as I have a couple thousand to report. thanks

[Tateru Nino]

Linden Lab said they don't want reports from users about traffic gaming.

[Ari Blackthorne]

@LittleLostLinden

Traffic bots are not banned. That's the point.
What IS banned is the -activity-.

Check Second Life blogs for "further clarification on bots and camping (by Jack Linden)

Jack Linden: "The policy we announced is about Traffic, how that relates to Search, and how a deliberate attempt to falsely drive up the traffic score will no longer be allowed."

"So the policy statement is that where we see a Resident unfairly increasing their Search ranking, regardless of how that is achieved, it will be considered as 'gaming'. We will give a first warning to begin with and direct people to the policy. However continued gaming can result in suspension or removal from Search listings altogether."

[Ari Blackthorne]

Full thread:
https://blogs.secondlife.com/community/land/blog/2009/05/21/further-clarification-on-bots-and-camping

[LittleLostLinden]

Yeah, I'm very familiar with the link and it's vagueness, which is my point.

There is no real way to report the abuses because they don't want to hear about it.

So, as stated before, what do I do with all the sims that I know of that are still using bots to game the search numbers?

What can I do with them? Who should they be reported to?

What is the proper course of action? or, is there really none yet, due to the vagueness of the new "almost" policy?

[LittleLostLinden]

Nobody seems to know the answer to my questions.

I just found 8,000 bots. I need to know what to do with them. thank you

[LittleLostLinden]

I'm still finding more and more bots and camping places.