User:Andrew Linden/Office Hours/2009 02 17

Transcript of Andrew Linden's office hours:

[11:00]	Darling Brody gave you Stasis removed.
[11:00]	Kyrah Abattoir:	where is andrew?
[11:00]	Alexander9 Carver:	hi andrew
[11:00]	Kitto Flora:	200 scripts is very small number
[11:01]	Kyrah Abattoir:	ooh :)
[11:01]	Moon Metty:	hi everyone :)
[11:01]	xstorm Radek:	seems so it is crashing the sim on some restarts
[11:01]	Simon Linden:	There's a bear around here ... click on him and he'll give you instructions
[11:01]	Kyrah Abattoir:	hi andrew :)
[11:01]	Alexander9 Carver:	kk
[11:01]	Simon Linden:	I make people work for my bear :)
[11:01]	Andrew Linden:	Hello everyone.
[11:01]	Alexander9 Carver:	i love linden bears
[11:01]	xstorm Radek:	hi Andrew
[11:01]	Helena Lycia:	Hello
[11:01]	Kitto Flora:	Hello
[11:02]	Andrew Linden:	Moon, try the empty chair to my right.
[11:02]	Alexander9 Carver:	on the teen grid. you have to find alot of linden bears at the linden village there.
[11:02]	Moon Metty:	was this chair taken?
[11:02]	Simon Linden:	The one to my left should be the open one
[11:03]	xstorm Radek:	hi again Kyrah :-)
[11:03]	Alexander9 Carver:	andrew can i have ur linden bear plz???
[11:03]	Kyrah Abattoir:	'lo :)
[11:03]	Andrew Linden:	sure, one moment
[11:03]	Alexander9 Carver:	ty
[11:04]	xstorm Radek:	odd
[11:04]	Alexander9 Carver:	^.^
[11:04]	xstorm Radek:	why is the table rezzing like that ?
[11:04]	Andrew Linden:	alright, lets get started
[11:04]	Alexander9 Carver:	awwww nice bear andrew
[11:05]	Andrew Linden:	I don't have many announcements today...
[11:05]	Helena Lycia:	I have a question I tried to ask 2 weeks ago but ran out of time. Would if be beyond feasible for an attachment to behave like a vehicle in order to give agents more movment choices (not to carry people)? I release that attechments aren't normally physical.
[11:05]	Arawn Spitteler:	Map seems laggy
[11:05]	Helena Lycia:	Oops SOrry Andrew
[11:05]	Rex Cronon:	hello everybody
[11:06]	Andrew Linden:	The simulator hosts will soon start to get new operating systems (debian 4.x, 'etch')
[11:06]	Andrew Linden:	the process will take a few weeks
[11:06]	xstorm Radek:	hi Rex come sit
[11:06]	Moon Metty:	hi Rex :)
[11:06]	Rex Cronon:	hii
[11:06]	Andrew Linden:	I think some of the misc hosts are already being updated with etch
[11:06]	xstorm Radek:	eeeppp
[11:06]	Rex Cronon:	let me get my bearring:)
[11:06]	Alexander9 Carver:	hi baloo
[11:07]	Baloo Uriza:	Hi.
[11:07]	Andrew Linden:	I saw an email this morning about how xmlrcp.agni.lindenlab.com (or something like that) was updated yesterday
[11:07]	Moon Metty:	cool, and we're still here :p
[11:07]	Kyrah Abattoir:	Could we get a technical explanation for the sit bug when inside the bounding box of a sculpted phantom prim from the physics master himself?
[11:07]	Baloo Uriza:	Sorry abou tthat, got teleported into the middle, things are rezzing slow.
[11:07]	Andrew Linden:	Kyrah, do you have a jira number on hand?
[11:08]	Kyrah Abattoir:	yes just a second
[11:08]	Arawn Spitteler:	Is there a Jira on the Sit Bug?
[11:08]	Andrew Linden:	By your description it is not clear to me which one you're talking about.
[11:08]	Rex Cronon:	baloo, almost everybody has similar problems:)
[11:08]	Baloo Uriza:	I'm aware of that, still trying to be considerate. :o)
[11:08]	Kyrah Abattoir:	http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/SVC-3806
[11:08]	Alexander9 Carver:	main grid has more linden office hours than the teen grid.
[11:09]	Baloo Uriza:	Main grid has more Lindens than the teen grid, I would imagine.
[11:09]	Alexander9 Carver:	ya main grid is way bigger. but i miss my friends in the teen grid
[11:10]	Andrew Linden:	Ok, this is the first I've seen SVC-3806
[11:10]	Baloo Uriza:	Heh, give it a few months, they'll be here as they age.
[11:10]	Andrew Linden:	however yes, I'm the right guy to talk about it... let me read it.
[11:10]	Alexander9 Carver:	i hope the grids merge soon
[11:10]	Baloo Uriza:	I'm still split on that.
[11:11]	Andrew Linden:	Ah, you're standing inside a "bounding box of sculpted megaprim"
[11:11]	Rex Cronon:	when the merge happens things might get interesting:)
[11:11]	Andrew Linden:	when you try to sit.
[11:11]	Kyrah Abattoir:	yes this one
[11:11]	Arawn Spitteler thinks the Teen Grid was ordained by the Nanny State ofCaliforia
[11:11]	Baloo Uriza:	Every time someone brings an xbox with XBL enabled over, I tend to hope that never happens... unfortunately not all teenagers are Boy Scouts or otherwise mature for their age...
[11:11]	Helena Lycia:	How will they keep adults protected from teen obscene material?
[11:11]	Kyrah Abattoir:	no matter the actual shape of the sculpted prim it will fail any sit attempt to any prims in it's bounding box
[11:11]	Rex Cronon:	that is old andrew
[11:11]	Kyrah Abattoir:	exscepted those with a sittarget
[11:11]	Andrew Linden:	but according to the bug the megaprim is phantom.
[11:12]	Kyrah Abattoir:	yes it is
[11:12]	Alexander9 Carver:	they can restrict teens and adults from certain land
[11:12]	Andrew Linden:	Can you sit on phantom prims? I forget.
[11:12]	Baloo Uriza:	I don't see the age split as protection of children from adults so much as creating a childfree environment for the grownups, which is actually really nice.
[11:12]	xstorm Radek:	yes you can
[11:12]	Arawn Spitteler thinks that Phantom Prim Sits are subject to change.
[11:12]	xstorm Radek:	you can sit on phantom prims
[11:12]	Kyrah Abattoir:	the issue doesn't seems to accur with standard prims, my shop is in a megaprim skydome and never had any problems, however my other place has a megaprim sculpt landscape and any sits in the bounding box fail
[11:12]	xstorm Radek:	i hope not
[11:13]	Andrew Linden:	Ah, then I'm guessing SVC-3806 will fall into the "won't fix" category.
[11:13]	Kyrah Abattoir:	both are phantom
[11:13]	Helena Lycia:	Enough adults behave like children, we don't need the real thing as well :)
[11:13]	Rex Cronon:	that bug has its uses:)
[11:13]	xstorm Radek:	phandom beds and chairs work do not mess that up
[11:13]	Prokofy Neva:	what about the fact that PG is so criss-crossed with M, that it's sort of pointless to have PG because M is right smack next to it
[11:13]	Kyrah Abattoir:	yeah it's just it's not consistent across all prim types
[11:13]	Arawn Spitteler:	Sculpted Prims haven't the hollows, of other prim types
[11:13]	Andrew Linden:	A couple things about SVC-3806:
[11:14]	Andrew Linden:	(1) sculpty objects don't have the same collision shape that they appear to have
[11:14]	xstorm Radek:	PG sims are needed
[11:14]	Baloo Uriza:	I think a more ideal compromise would be some sort of maturity test to see whether or not your mental age is high enough to qualify for the main grid, but I understand the cost of the hundreds of occupational psychologists it would require to pull off are kind of cost-prohibitive.
[11:14]	Andrew Linden:	their collision shape is a "convex hull" of a torus
[11:14]	Alexander9 Carver:	i like pg sims
[11:14]	Kyrah Abattoir:	well if it's going to stay for good i will use it as a "nosit" field
[11:15]	Moon Metty:	people use megaprims for sculpties to fool the LOD system
[11:15]	Andrew Linden:	(2) the sit algorithm uses ray traces that hit the collision shape
[11:15]	Kyrah Abattoir:	aaaah
[11:15]	Kyrah Abattoir:	make sense
[11:15]	Andrew Linden:	so for sculpties you *must* use the llSitTarget()
[11:15]	Andrew Linden:	in order to get reliable results
[11:15]	Andrew Linden:	I'll comment on that bug.
[11:15]	xstorm Radek:	its better to just say no one under 18 years of age on the adult grid
[11:15]	Andrew Linden makes notes
[11:16]	Arawn Spitteler:	If you're ray trace is inside the collision shape, shouldn't you be able to sit?
[11:16]	Andrew Linden:	Ok, looks like we've got an alternate conversation here about... TeenSL and the main grid
[11:16]	Andrew Linden reads back
[11:16]	Helena Lycia:	Just chatting I think Andrew
[11:16]	Baloo Uriza:	True, xstorm, even if it doesn't exclude people who are obviously not 18 mentally yet, and excludes people who are underage but are otherwise well-behaved and mature individuals.
[11:17]	Kitto Flora:	Andrew: Any news of that punch/kick griefing attachment ? I have not seen it around for several days now
[11:17]	xstorm Radek:	the TOS is still the TOS and you sign it when you got on to SL
[11:17]	Kyrah Abattoir:	well it's strange i thought phantom prims had no collisions enabled...
[11:18]	Andrew Linden:	Kitto, I never heard anything more about that punch/kick grief attachment.
[11:18]	Baloo Uriza:	I'm not arguing otherwise. I'm just saying at least from the prospective of creating an environment of mature individuals, the age split isn't ideal.
[11:18]	Prokofy Neva:	I'm wondering how griefers are able to grab the name of every avatar on the sim and then bounce them back as shouting obscenities into chat, but that may not be your department.
[11:18]	Kitto Flora:	I suspect either the makers are keeping it very quiet, or some LL department found it and removed it.
[11:18]	Andrew Linden:	That is, I never got an example objects, nor heard people talking about it when I was paying attention
[11:18]	Kyrah Abattoir:	what i don't understand is that if the client use raytracing to determinate it's sitting position, shouldn't that apply to touch events too?
[11:18]	Kitto Flora:	Prok: Thats a very old trick. All standard programming.
[11:19]	xstorm Radek:	thats a mimic tool
[11:19]	Andrew Linden subscribes to several internal IRC channels at work, but can't read them all the time
[11:19]	Andrew Linden:	Kyrah, no the touch events use the info provided by the client
[11:19]	Kyrah Abattoir:	or are touch locations handled differently?
[11:19]	Kyrah Abattoir:	okay.
[11:19]	Andrew Linden:	that is, the client does the ray tracing and tells the simulator where it clicked on what object
[11:19]	Prokofy Neva:	Another thing I wonder is what those dates are on the prims on land now, they don't seem to correspond to the dates the avatar placed them, they seem to change based on the avatar's log-in to that group, and for that matter, what does the date on an avatar in a group mean, his last log-in period to SL or his last use of that group tag? But again, I'm content to live with these mysteries.
[11:20]	Prokofy Neva:	What was the reasoning for putting dates on prims now? It' sinteresting but I don't see what it does or how it works.
[11:20]	Andrew Linden:	Prokofy, you mentioned some grief attack about "bounce them back as shouting obscenities". Do you hava a jira number for that problem?
[11:20]	Neva Prokofy:	Hello, Avatar!
[11:21]	Andrew Linden:	I don't think I've heard about that one.
[11:21]	Prokofy Neva:	no because I have no idea how it is working, I thought it was prims renamed with avatar names that were set to spam, but there were no prims within 96 m2 so I dunno
[11:21]	Andrew Linden:	Or perhaps I don't recognize it for your description.
[11:21]	Baloo Uriza:	Age verification is kind of an odd situation. I was surprised to see how quickly I was verified... either the age verification system is doing no data validation on what's being entered, or they have a copy of the Oregon license database and can access their copy substantially faster than the State can against it's own DB.
[11:21]	Prokofy Neva:	I should think you could set up a bunch of prims named for the avatars and have them as objects then chat into the chat space but it is done remotely somehow
[11:21]	Andrew Linden:	Prokofy, perhaps you could provide some more details?
[11:22]	Kyrah Abattoir:	was fast for me but i'm not surprised considering the police state i live in :p
[11:22]	Andrew Linden:	If you have a time + place that is less than 7 days old I may be able to investigate.
[11:22]	Kitto Flora:	llRegionSay(0, "My nasty message")
[11:22]	Prokofy Neva:	I filed tickets on it, I could show you the chat log but it's obscene racist dreck
[11:22]	Moon Metty:	Regionsay doesn't work on channel 0
[11:22]	Neva Prokofy smells.
[11:22]	Kyrah Abattoir:	yeah i thought that
[11:22]	Andrew Linden:	Alas, I don't have easy access to tickets.
[11:22]	Prokofy Neva:	it starts with the day-old account shouting, then reverberates to everyone else in the room, simulating that they are shouting obscenities into chat with SHOUT
[11:22]	Rex Cronon:	regionsay doesn't work on chnnel 0
[11:23]	Kitto Flora:	Ah
[11:23]	Kyrah Abattoir:	can you imagine the spam otherwise XD
[11:23]	Kitto Flora:	Well - its just grifers. Find the object and AR The griefer
[11:23]	Baloo Uriza:	I live in a police state, too, and will be until I emigrate from the US this summer... but generally IDs only look up that fast if I'm using my US passport, not my Oregon license.
[11:23]	Prokofy Neva:	well I could try to file a JIRA but basically, it's a new version of an old hack into the chat space, where griefers would spam the chat space for you, no matter which sim you were on, spewing out nutty stuffy so you couldn't see anything but their spam
[11:23]	xstorm Radek:	i think we have gone off topic a bit
[11:23]	Rex Cronon:	i have been exposed to that grifieng and i know how it works
[11:23]	Prokofy Neva:	not it's not about objects, Kitto, if it were that simple you'd remove the object from the land
[11:23]	Prokofy Neva:	they are inside the system somehow, remotely
[11:23]	Andrew Linden:	If the grief chat is masquerading as real chat (indistinguishable from the real thing) then I'm particularly interested.
[11:23]	Prokofy Neva:	ok well nm if that's not Andrew's area
[11:24]	Prokofy Neva:	it is masquerading ANdrew that's just it
[11:24]	Kitto Flora:	Yeah :)
[11:24]	Andrew Linden:	Is it showing up as scripted object chat? No?
[11:24]	Arawn Spitteler:	Color of text?
[11:24]	Kyrah Abattoir:	in my 5 years i have never seen anyone ever masquerading client chat
[11:24]	Arawn Spitteler warns about anyone touching that box.
[11:24]	Andrew Linden:	Ok, then I'd like to know a time + place when it happens.
[11:24]	Rex Cronon:	is very easy to mimic somebody
[11:24]	Prokofy Neva:	I don't understand the topics of this forum, I'm just here to say hi to Andrew and hope he doesn't leave LL because he is Employee No. 1 and if he leaves, people might not know where to turn on the electricity or something, it could be devastating.
[11:25]	Prokofy Neva:	I believe it's green like a scripted object
[11:25]	Andrew Linden:	Prokofy, next time you see it please IM me the date + time + region_name
[11:25]	Baloo Uriza:	Though it's hard to fool people with that unless they're very new or they've tweaked their colors so regular chat and scripted chat appear the same color.
[11:25]	Andrew Linden:	Ah, so it does show up as scripted chat.
[11:25]	Rex Cronon:	can somebody try the mimic trick again:)
[11:25]	Kyrah Abattoir:	yeah, impersonation scripts exist since like... the begining of SL? but they show as green
[11:26]	Andrew Linden:	Hrm... then the grief trick is not too fancy, but still annoying.
[11:26]	Kitto Flora:	Its like a 1+ / week event in Orient Isl. Public
[11:27]	Andrew Linden:	I wonder how to fix the problem in a technical way. Anyone have ideas?
[11:27]	Baloo Uriza wonders if Rodney keeps office hours, and if so, when and where
[11:27]	Rex Cronon:	yes i do
[11:27]	Helena Lycia:	Could be very annoying when translation devices are being used. Are there any plans for LL to incorporate text translation into the client, now that so many people are from outside the US?
[11:27]	Andrew Linden:	Go ahead Rex.
[11:27]	Kitto Flora:	ban by URL
[11:27]	Arawn Spitteler:	Spoofers are a standard prank
[11:27]	Rex Cronon:	color is not enough
[11:27]	Prokofy Neva gave you Chat Hack.
[11:28]	Arawn Spitteler wonders if Gestures can carry the new line character
[11:28]	Rex Cronon:	the script that say somthing should show in chat, witht the name of the owner in front of its name
[11:28]	Prokofy Neva:	You can't search for Russian in the search in SL, it won't show up for some reason, you can read Cyrrilic but not search for parcels or avatars using Russian
[11:28]	Kyrah Abattoir:	nah that would be terribly clunky
[11:29]	Arawn Spitteler:	We have clickable names, now. Why not have clickable object names?
[11:29]	Rex Cronon:	like: "RexCronon: Andrew LInden: hi there"
[11:29]	Baloo Uriza:	As far as scripted spam, some kind of fence like there is on runaway recursive prim creation would be nice on scripted chat. like, no more than 15 messages a minute or one per second over five seconds, whichever is greater.
[11:29]	Andrew Linden:	Yeah, that is sorta what I was thinking Rex. Perhaps the script chat should have meta-information about it available in the UI
[11:29]	Kyrah Abattoir:	the popup boxes already have too much clutter at the top,
[11:29]	Simon Linden:	Helena - I don't think there are any plans to build in translators, but I know some people both inside and out of LL have experimented with them
[11:29]	Prokofy Neva:	you can m itigate the attack by going to edit/preferences/text chat and reducing the fade and the lines of chat to "1" then the entire viewer doesn't fill up with the spam
[11:29]	Andrew Linden:	that is, if you're interested in more information about the chatting object it should be accessible via a few clicks in the UI
[11:30]	Rex Cronon:	u can also mute owner
[11:30]	Andrew Linden:	I'm not sure I would have all meta-information visible by default, but it would be nice to have it easily accessible.
[11:30]	Prokofy Neva gave you WhoSaidWhat_Hud.
[11:30]	Prokofy Neva:	you can try to use whosaidwhat HUD
[11:30]	Arawn Spitteler:	You can't use Mute, when you're running a meeting
[11:30]	Baloo Uriza:	That can get tricky when efforts have been made to obfuscate the owner, as is common with PN and similar goon groups.
[11:30]	Prokofy Neva:	but you're in a blizzard of objects on physics, some of them bumping you across the sim, you can turn off particles view to try to get rid of them but the sim can crash before you manage
[11:30]	xstorm Radek:	the Mysty tool can mimic and there are god huds out there it may be a off shoot of them
[11:31]	Andrew Linden:	Yeah, good point Baloo.
[11:31]	Rex Cronon:	at least name of a scripted object should start with @, so everybody knows is script
[11:31]	Andrew Linden:	That is a good idea Rex.
[11:31]	Arawn Spitteler:	Scripted PObjects are alrady green, so @ is redundant
[11:31]	Rex Cronon:	is not redundant
[11:32]	Tegg Bode:	What if you're colorblind?
[11:32]	Kitto Flora:	Andrew: Any news of limits on attached scripts - settable by parcel or region owners? Yesterday I found an Av with a scrit load of over 5mS/frame.
[11:32]	Rex Cronon:	when transcripts are saved, colo0r is not saved
[11:32]	Baloo Uriza:	If you want to see the latest in griefing tactics, keep in close touch with someone on the g-team and go visit FurNation Hell during a raid. Sandboxes in public furry-themed areas are common targets, so FurNation Vista and FurNation Hell are just about gauranteed to get hit.
[11:32]	Andrew Linden:	Kitto, no news to report on attachment script limits.
[11:32]	xstorm Radek:	PN is old griefer group and i think they split and started another group and they are pulling other griefers in to there ranks
[11:33]	Prokofy Neva:	Could you explain the bit about the dating of prims if you know
[11:33]	Andrew Linden:	I think the only news on that is some work that Simon did on script scheduling
[11:33]	Andrew Linden:	I can't remember the details, and am not sure what branch it is in.
[11:33]	Andrew Linden:	Perhaps Simon could remind us.
[11:33]	Baloo Uriza:	I tend to call the PN and every group that operates like the PN as the PN because differences without distinction are meaningless to me.
[11:33]	Simon Linden:	I think it's in our maint-7 branch ... I added some code that could scale back time spent in attachments if the sim was geting bogged down
[11:33]	Andrew Linden:	There are some internal bugs already entered about limiting scripts per-object and/or per-prim.
[11:34]	mimic:  who am i:)
[11:34]	Kitto Flora:	Av-Script loading seems to be a new way to grief a sim :( Unlike other things discussed here, its hard to detect
[11:34]	Prokofy Neva:	It's all Mark McCahill of Croquet fueling the PNs, it's industrial sabotage.
[11:34]	xstorm Radek:	then its harder to track down the real griefers with out knowing what group they are apart of
[11:34]	Prokofy Neva:	LL should call the FBI and be done with it so that tier-payers aren't chased out of here.
[11:34]	Andrew Linden:	I'm planning on doing work on per-object script limits, but it must wait for a particular code branch to move through the system.
[11:34]	Simon Linden:	When we run a script, there's a time-slice allocated for it. This code cuts back on that time slice if it's an attachment based on the sim frame rate
[11:34]	Kyrah Abattoir:	the FBI? o_O
[11:34]	Tegg Bode:	I wonder if PN jave worked out how to get different textures on their mario/cosby griefers yet
[11:35]	Kyrah Abattoir:	wouldn't that be catching a flea with a nuke?
[11:35]	Andrew LInden:	is this me:)
[11:35]	Simon Linden:	It's configurable, and currently set to have no effect
[11:35]	Prokofy Neva:	no!
[11:35]	Baloo Uriza:	Yes.
[11:35]	Kitto Flora:	The problem isnt per-object, its per-av
[11:35]	xstorm Radek:	lol
[11:35]	Prokofy Neva:	you didn't spell your name right
[11:35]	Prokofy Neva:	the system prevents spoofing Linden names doesn't it
[11:35]	Andrew Linden:	Prokofy, I don't believe the Croquet connected conspiracy theory. I'm surprised you would propagate it.
[11:35]	Baloo Uriza:	I've seen some truly garish not-safe-for-work textures on griefer prims
[11:35]	xstorm Radek:	thats not funny the griefers take a lot of time to understand there MO
[11:36]	Prokofy Neva:	Well I'll email you addition information then Andrew, to bring you up to date. I propagate it because I've personally verified it 110 percent.
[11:36]	Rex Cronon:	[11:35] object listener: ATTENTION: object talk{date/time[2009-02-17T19:35:01], obj[Andrew LInden:5acb6700-587f-1582-995a-c2f2e35f4ce4], onwer[Rex Cronon:fbc19881-74d7-4c93-941d-78390c715dd1], text[13]: is this me:)}
[11:36]	Baloo Uriza:	It's sad they don't spend that time doing something productive, xstorm.
[11:36]	Andrew Linden:	Kitto, per-object is another problem. Per-av script limits will probably have to happen too.
[11:36]	Kyrah Abattoir:	per av script limit?
[11:36]	xstorm Radek:	yes it is
[11:36]	Kyrah Abattoir:	as in attachments?
[11:36]	Kitto Flora:	Kyrah: yes
[11:36]	Helena Lycia:	I know so old AVs have laods of scripts in them - AVs before llSetLinkPrimitiveParams
[11:37]	Andrew LInden:	i am an impostor
[11:37]	Kyrah Abattoir:	yeah , we could also add a prim limit too while we are at it, wearing half a sim worth of prims isn't really reasonable.
[11:37]	xstorm Radek:	they are a very smart group and can do so much with there skills if some one try to get them to see that
[11:37]	Rex Cronon:	the demo has ended:)
[11:37]	Baloo Uriza:	Along the same tangent, it seems quite advantageous if landowners could set ARC limits.
[11:38]	Andrew Linden:	Oy... no matter what per-avatar attachment prim limits we were to enforce we would certainly break content.
[11:38]	Prokofy Neva:	that idea that griefing is somehow hydraulic and you can steer the energy to productive coding is silly, the PN are adults, they are organized, they are deliberate, and they don't steer except to malicious destruction. Call the FBI and stop thinking you can make them go to a building class instead.
[11:38]	xstorm Radek:	but so far all we can do is AR them all
[11:38]	Kyrah Abattoir:	well land/sim owners would need a LOT more functions in my opinion
[11:38]	Helena Lycia:	Is there any news/progress on mega-prims?
[11:38]	Baloo Uriza:	Landowners in general get pretty hamfisted ACLs.
[11:38]	Andrew Linden:	I wonder what is the balance is between LL's will to limit per-avatar prims and its will to reduce content breakage.
[11:39]	Tegg Bode:	Well if content involves 10,000 prims and 500 scripts then I think we should break it
[11:39]	xstorm Radek:	well bring back the cornfield and stick them all in it
[11:39]	Andrew Linden:	I suppose if we made it a per-region or per-estate limit option then we could let the estate owners lay down the limits.
[11:39]	Prokofy Neva:	You mean the alphabet Lindens you have now? I would say 80-20 then.
[11:39]	Helena Lycia:	Heh - my primary AV has around 1000prims and that's not including any HUDs I use
[11:39]	Andrew Linden takes note: 10k and 500
[11:39]	Arawn Spitteler'd like the access page expanded to script-rbuild, and to allow by groups and ISPs: It would be nice, if we could keep German, and other corupt regimes, away from those who want to experiment with their sexuality.
[11:39]	Rex Cronon:	why doesn't ll allow sim owners to choose how heavy the avatar can be on their sim:)
[11:39]	Baloo Uriza:	I'll be interested to see what happens to No Copy / No Mod / No Transfer bits if congress criminalizes the implementation of DRM if doing so violates a consumer's rights under the fair use clause.
[11:40]	Simon Linden:	Um, hello Ella
[11:40]	Kitto Flora:	Per-Av prims are not much o a problem. Just slows limited capability viewers
[11:40]	Prokofy Neva:	Don't you DARE touch no copy/no mod/no transfer!
[11:40]	Kyrah Abattoir:	there is so much potential for region wide devellopment yet a region owner has little to no say on what avatars can or can't do during their journey in the region.
[11:40]	Kitto Flora:	Per-Av scripts are more of a problem. Slows down the whole sim.
[11:40]	Andrew Linden:	Rex, the main reason we haven't done it yet is that we haven't gotten around to it. It is a new feature after all and new features are not on the fast track right now.
[11:41]	Prokofy Neva:	It doesn't violate consumer "rights" to fair use because you are too broadly defining "rights" and there's always that hacker's excuse, "Gosh, I needed to put a copy on my other computer"
[11:41]	Kyrah Abattoir:	a few years ago i suggested a way to script a region the same way you would script a prim, only you would have access to an extended array of events and functions.
[11:41]	Prokofy Neva:	Andrew, what *is* on the fast track?
[11:41]	Rex Cronon:	if u do it that way than no content is broken:_
[11:41]	Baloo Uriza:	So far, I'm rooting for congress on this one... especially if it means No Copy / No Mod / No Transfer. More than one occasion some underhanded primhawker has sold me something without properly conveying that my ability to use what I purchased as I see fit may be infringed.
[11:41]	Andrew Linden:	For the record Prokofy offers this link for evidence in the Croquet vs SL conspiracy:
[11:41]	Rex Cronon:	:)
[11:41]	Andrew Linden:	http://secondthoughts.typepad.com/second_thoughts/2009/01/who-is-pixeleen-mistralreally.html
[11:42]	Prokofy Neva:	um, Congress consists of two parties, and different positions, this will be debated, and more fairly than it would on an SL JIRA, with more fair voting procedures, thank God
[11:42]	Baloo Uriza:	Which is a Bad Thing, since I automatically knock 90% off the remaining value for each permission bit set against my favor when I'm deciding how much I want to spend on something.
[11:42]	Prokofy Neva:	A private corporate entity with a subscription service that can no longer show itself to be a common carrier may not be obliged to follow some putative congressionally mandated DRM removals anyway.
[11:42]	Andrew Linden:	Things on the fast track are mostly scaling work and "LL initiatives"
[11:42]	xstorm Radek:	conspiracy: ? did i forget to bring my tin foil hat ahain ?
[11:43]	Andrew Linden:	We've got a project we're calling "Scalable Space Services" that is on the "fast-track".
[11:43]	Helena Lycia:	WHat's that?
[11:43]	Andrew Linden:	Which is to help us remove an old single-point-failure process we call "spaeserver"
[11:43]	Tegg Bode:	I guess the other problem is if you set limits whayt happens when people try to ebtre or TP in with higher numbers or add them while in the region
[11:43]	Andrew Linden:	er... spaceserver
[11:43]	Helena Lycia:	Ah
[11:44]	Andrew Linden:	We're going to replace spaceserver with an army of load-balanced servers that do the same stuff over HTTP
[11:45]	Arawn Spitteler expects we'll eventually be able to prescript avatar changes in teleport
[11:45]	Baloo Uriza:	Andrew, are you talking about the map?
[11:45]	Andrew Linden:	No Baloo, but there is some new map work in the pipe too.
[11:45]	Baloo Uriza:	I understand that's going to HTTP.
[11:45]	Arawn Spitteler:	Maps a bit wonky, when I teleported up here. It showed lots of people at Aric's Parcel, and none here.
[11:46]	Andrew Linden:	I think there is a big overahaul of the SL UserInterface planned in 2009. I suppose there will be some real features in that.
[11:46]	Arawn Spitteler:	They just upgraded precision, I think
[11:46]	Kyrah Abattoir:	there is so much potential for region wide devellopment yet a region owner has little to no say on what avatars can or can't do during their journey in the region. a few years ago i suggested a way to script a region the same way you would script a prim, only you would have access to an extended array of events and functions. Would that even be possible at some point? It would really bring the value in owning regions
[11:46]	Arawn Spitteler:	Get rid of that Stop All Animation Scam, in Tools?
[11:46]	Prokofy Neva:	For the record Prokofy has more evidence in the theory of the link, but to produce it on the Linden servers runs the risk of a ban for "disclosure" so whatever, make up your own minds based on the information published not on the Linden servers.
[11:46]	Andrew Linden:	Well, the green-dots info is actually transmitted in a different protocol, not really map related except they show up on the map.
[11:47]	Baloo Uriza:	If it's going to HTTP, will there also be a WMS layer available for GIS users? And if so, do you know if the Linden map data is licensed in such a way that I could use it to generate a GIS map of the continents? Things like highways, place names, railroads, ferry connections, etc.
[11:47]	Prokofy Neva:	Could you have the dots glow a different colour if they are bots? I am so tired of this nonsense coming from geeks that you cannot define or monitor or display bots. Of course you can. They have automated log-on routines. They have various behaviours on sims that are eminently detectable. When will you label bots, Andrew?
[11:47]	Prokofy Neva:	Label and *charge for the accounts* too while you're at it
[11:47]	Andrew Linden:	Baloo, I don't know the answers to thos map questions. I'll write them down and either try to find out or find someone with office hours who knows.
[11:48]	Baloo Uriza:	I'd love to start a project similar to OpenStreetMap.org in purpose and identical in functionality, focused on mapping Agni's mainland continents instead of Earth's continents.
[11:48]	Baloo Uriza:	Thanks, Andrew. Lemme know what you find out, pleas.e
[11:48]	Kitto Flora:	Is running a bunch of Bots on your land against ToS? Should it be?
[11:48]	Kyrah Abattoir:	I don't think so
[11:48]	Arawn Spitteler:	I'd like to see Agni on Google Maps. Can you imagine, when the US is Bug Reported, because you can't TP there?
[11:49]	Baloo Uriza:	Kitto, I don't think it is right now. But it should be.
[11:49]	xstorm Radek:	hi Ardy come sit :-)
[11:49]	Kitto Flora:	LL makes money from Bots - not much, but some
[11:49]	Andrew Linden:	Hrm... bot detection is something I'm a little bit interested in.
[11:49]	Kyrah Abattoir:	there isn't much that differenciate what is a human and what is a bot on the technical side, so ... no
[11:49]	Arawn Spitteler:	Bot isa matter of degree
[11:49]	Baloo Uriza:	I'm not sure Google Maps is the answer, mostly because Google's data is licensed in such a way that you can't even use one of their maps to tell people how to get to a party...
[11:49]	Ardy Lay:	hello
[11:49]	Prokofy Neva:	I hope you can get more interested, Andrew!
[11:50]	Ardy Lay:	bump bump...
[11:50]	Tegg Bode:	if traffic was calculated from scripted prims then bots wouldn't be a problem
[11:50]	Baloo Uriza:	Which is why I suggested the OpenStreetMap approach, which allows for reuse.
[11:50]	Andrew Linden:	I'm mostly interested in detecting them. Not sure what to do about response.
[11:50]	Prokofy Neva:	It is damn hard running the infohubs, seeing them all standing around like idiots, and people talk to them not realizing they are mere bots, or now, they have them as fashion models, you can't always tell, I usually tell by offering them money and they never answer
[11:50]	xstorm Radek:	like the Alice Bots on paid user accounts ?
[11:50]	Arawn Spitteler found an issue, pertaining to WEB-814, but doesn't know how to phrase a Design Philosophy Issue
[11:50]	Andrew Linden:	If we started cracking down on bots then we'd have an arms-race that I'm sure we could not keep up with.
[11:51]	Moon Metty:	that's true Andrew
[11:51]	Kyrah Abattoir:	Spot on
[11:51]	Tegg Bode:	90% of bots are just traffic cheating devices,, get rid of them and bots aren't as big an issue
[11:51]	Andrew Linden:	But, if we could detect them and learn more about why they are being used, perhaps we can eliminate some things that make them so useful.
[11:51]	Ardy Lay:	Is this where I come to say "Map loading is now awesome"? :-)
[11:51]	Kitto Flora:	Me - I dont care about Bots... but some residents seem to.
[11:51]	Andrew Linden:	That is, it has been proposed that we get rid of dwell, which would eliminate some camping bots.
[11:51]	Rex Cronon:	u could have them pass a iq test:)
[11:51]	Prokofy Neva:	Andrew, 90 percent of bot activity is not useful, but annoying, sucking resources, taking up avatar spaces when they land on infohubs because of poor home scripting, etc.
[11:52]	Prokofy Neva:	Those that find them useful should pay for them
[11:52]	Andrew Linden:	However, the "green dot effect" would still make bots useful.
[11:52]	Simon Linden:	Ardy - I'll pass that along to one of the people who worked on it, thanks :)
[11:52]	Kyrah Abattoir:	Some residents have obsessions, it doesn't mean it has to become a top priority issue for everyone.
[11:52]	Kyrah Abattoir:	bots are hardly a problem they are a symptom
[11:52]	Kitto Flora:	'Dwell' is obsolet e - gamed out of existance by bots.
[11:52]	Ardy Lay:	Simon, thanks. Speed and clarity are much appreciated.
[11:52]	Prokofy Neva:	No, that's cutting off your nose to spite your face, traffic is a perfectly valid and useful metric and is the engine of sales inworld, sorry, but you need to stop listening to geeks constantly screaming about a few gamed places. Traffic has merit, it is a useful public indicator of merit, and it should remain in search. But you should a) make it a TOS offense to game traffic with bots and b) label and charge for bots.
[11:53]	Andrew Linden:	Indeed, so suppose we stopped compiling/keeping dwell data. Some bot farms would be reaped by their creators.
[11:53]	xstorm Radek:	i do not see any thing about bots in the TOS but if a BOT is running a users account that can be AR as that person is no longer running there own account a script on the computer is
[11:53]	Andrew Linden:	But some would still stick around to create little crowds of green dots on the map.
[11:53]	Arawn Spitteler:	Traffic is a twisted stat, and has to be rethought.
[11:53]	Andrew Linden:	How to eliminate that need for bots?
[11:53]	Kyrah Abattoir:	my bots make usefull things, however most bots are used to game traffic, because it work, and any advertising company will tell you that as long as it is possible to game a system to get more exposure you would be a fool not to exploit it.
[11:53]	xstorm Radek:	there are more then one type of bots
[11:53]	Simon Linden:	Agreed about bots ... most of the discussion I'm heard at LL is about shifting the dwell and traffic usage, not trying to fight bots
[11:54]	Kyrah Abattoir:	if it can be gamed it isn't a relevant metric anyway because it isn't measuring what you intented it to measure.
[11:54]	xstorm Radek:	some bots drive and move prims
[11:54]	Andrew Linden:	Yes, more than one type of bot. Some are pretty stupid and probably pretty easy to detect.
[11:54]	Arawn Spitteler:	Soem users are dumb enough to pass for bots
[11:54]	Tegg Bode:	Traffic would be more relevant if it were just a number land owners plucked from the air and entered themselves :P
[11:54]	Andrew Linden:	Or... we could come up with estimates about when they are acting like bots.
[11:54]	Simon Linden:	I (personally) think some bot usage is good ... a well done scripted greeter, for example, can be useful
[11:54]	Rex Cronon:	most things can be gamed:)
[11:54]	Helena Lycia:	Some bots exist for legit reasons like performing functions that cannot be scripted inworld... I've been to shops that send you group invites almost instantly after a purchase via a bot
[11:54]	xstorm Radek:	in a way the zombie that got away from its maker was a form of a bot and it griefed even help island
[11:55]	Kyrah Abattoir:	Bots are a great open door for scripting npcs and quests in rpg sims
[11:55]	Rex Cronon:	that doesn't mean some people don't use them:)
[11:55]	Andrew Linden:	I think we're all agreed that some bots are cool.
[11:55]	xstorm Radek:	and that was removed
[11:55]	Helena Lycia:	Where I work we'd love to be able to automate group invites
[11:55]	Prokofy Neva:	Simon, the tiny minority of good usage should not be allowed to offset the glaring problems with them, that they are used as armies of traffic manipulators and they are confusing because they land everywhere and can't be distinguished
[11:55]	Andrew Linden:	Let's itemize the annoying bot behavior:
[11:55]	Prokofy Neva:	Erm, the National Guard in the United States is a good thing if it helps with the Katrina flood, it is a bad thing in Iraq. Surely you can accept such analogies, you don't declare an entire army "good" just because of a few "useful" things it does somewhere. And you mark them.
[11:55]	Andrew Linden:	camping bots and selecting bots are on my main annoying list
[11:55]	Simon Linden:	"Can't be distinguished" is key here, and why Andrew mentioned that we don't want to start a bot arms race
[11:55]	xstorm Radek:	there just needs to be a set of rules under the TOS what is a good BOT or not
[11:56]	Rex Cronon:	it takes server space. 1 mbot means one less user:(
[11:56]	Tegg Bode:	Some bots are good, but 90 packed into a box 24/7 isn't productive, traffic would be just as well calculated on the number of plywood cubes you put under you club or store
[11:56]	Prokofy Neva:	There isn't a bot arms race, Simon. You can figure it out. You know the routines, you know the log-ons they use, you know the behaviours. 99 percent of them are not scripted to run like ALICE, for God's sake, please.
[11:56]	Kyrah Abattoir:	as i said it's a symptom
[11:56]	Kyrah Abattoir:	traffic need to go
[11:56]	Andrew Linden:	ok so bots contribute to resource exhaustion
[11:56]	xstorm Radek:	i know a club that had 50 BOT's using free user accounts
[11:57]	Prokofy Neva:	It isn't provable to be "resource exhaustion" unless you define by that term "scarce avatar spots on a sim"
[11:57]	Rex Cronon:	not only to the sim they r in:(
[11:57]	Andrew Linden:	Prokofy, there is a small bot arms race between bot creators already.
[11:57]	Kyrah Abattoir:	technically an idle bot eat less than an idle user as they do not download assets :)
[11:57]	Prokofy Neva:	so one of those lovely greeter bots that Simon finds so useful uses up the 1 space on a sim that holds only 40 on mainland, and everyone then has to have them plus fashion bots and then you have 10 avatar spaces taken up by "useful" freebie accounts denying the rest of the owners on that sim the use of their sim eventually when they rise in numbers.
[11:57]	xstorm Radek:	they was using the BOT's to farm camping chairs
[11:58]	Tegg Bode:	There is a bot arms race why else would people run 90 trafficbots instead of 10. This allowing of unlimited anoymous alts just encourages this.
[11:58]	Prokofy Neva:	So? Are you not capable of deterring this, Andrew? Yo udon't have to have 100 percent effectiveness; even 27 percent deterrence is all to the good. this all or nothing stuff has to go
[11:58]	Rex Cronon:	technically the grid doesn't care is idle or not:)
[11:58]	Prokofy Neva:	it's what hobbles you and always hobbles you on every good action and has for 5 years
[11:58]	Andrew Linden:	That bots use resource it not a question. Whether they are using too much in some cases, also not in question.
[11:58]	Helena Lycia:	Has anyone tried using bots as a grief tool? To fill up a sim so noone else can get on?
[11:58]	Prokofy Neva:	You used to say you couldn't handle land cutting or ad extortion because of extreme "use cases" of good -- FINALLY you got over that sillyness.
[11:58]	Prokofy Neva:	It's done all the time Helena
[11:59]	xstorm Radek:	and now from what i hear there will be people selling there old BOT user accounts for real money on ebay
[11:59]	Kyrah Abattoir:	Prok, other peoples try to make a point too.
[11:59]	Andrew Linden:	Prokofy, I've never made any claims about what I could or could not do about land cutting. Some policies were made I think.
[11:59]	Rex Cronon:	if bots could exist only on and for the sim that they r in:)
[11:59]	Andrew Linden:	I'm much more interested in technical solutions (not policy) as you know.
[12:00]	Andrew Linden:	Which is where I'm trying to guide the conversation here.
[12:00]	Prokofy Neva:	Andrew, the "you" is the collective "you" of LL on the land cutting issue, it took you three long years to come out of the code cave ethos on that and act with a policy
[12:00]	Andrew Linden:	Hrm... bots on sale on ebay? That is interesting.
[12:00]	xstorm Radek:	i see that as the best way keep the bots only in the sims the owner has
[12:01]	Prokofy Neva:	Yes Andrew of course they're for sale, they are advertiesd on the Herald, you can buy a fleet of 40 in a program called "traffic infusion"
[12:01]	Arawn Spitteler:	The thing the unlawful bots are trying to alter, is the area to attach, and that's commercial stats.
[12:01]	xstorm Radek:	yes the bots use a free account so they sell the av account
[12:01]	Andrew Linden:	Oh I see, they are selling their bot services, not their bot accounts.
[12:01]	Kyrah Abattoir:	Soooo do we have an other subject to bring up before the end of the session?
[12:01]	xstorm Radek:	there account too even if its free
[12:02]	Arawn Spitteler:	WEB-814
[12:02]	Andrew Linden:	Ack. I've got a meeting immediately after this one.
[12:02]	Andrew Linden:	So I've got to run.
[12:02]	Andrew Linden:	Thanks for coming everyone.
[12:02]	Rex Cronon:	bye andrew
[12:02]	Helena Lycia:	Take care
[12:02]	xstorm Radek:	thank you Andrew
[12:02]	Arawn Spitteler:	Bye, Andrew. I'll try to make it Thursxdcay
[12:02]	Prokofy Neva:	thanks Andrews
[12:02]	Helena Lycia:	Bye guys
[12:03]	Moon Metty:	thank you Andrew
[12:03]	Tegg Bode:	Yes I got griefed by a bot that sent me a few thousand IM's from around 500 different sims in 4 hours which gave me a few hundred emails because I had IM diverted to email. there is a limit on how many IMs you can send from a sim so they jump from sim to sim. It was teleporting every 10 seconds or so, let a few hundred of them loose hammering the asset servers and see how well performance is.
[12:03]	Rex Cronon:	bye everybody
[12:03]	Moon Metty:	and Simon :)