“Linden Labs, Why the Hell Attack Me?”

The Foxworth sim, owned by Foxyfurman Kumaki, gets some residents passing through, notably at the Mayan Casino. But compared to the big gaming areas in Second Life, it hardly ranks in visitor numbers as a high-traffic place.

So why have there been some bannings by Linden Labs for “gaming” traffic numbers in the sim?

“Feels like I am (being) attacked,” Foxyfurman told SL Newspaper, “Look at Search, then the places tab. ... Type in games or Zyngo. Look at the top listings. Those are the places with the highest traffic, like 50K, 60K. Our sim the day after the fishing (tournament), was 15K. To get 50K, you stack ‘bots on each other until your number gets up. We don’t do that. Our numbers are normal. Can you imagine, you can hardly move (around) with the fishing event. To get that traffic all the time will close the sim with lag.”

“That us why twenty to sixty thousand is fake, and every one knows it. That is why when they say I am doing this, why the hell attack me?”

“Now you look at a list of discipline from Linden Labs. No one ever gets banned forever, just a warning or suspension. John (Diddy) got no warning, and is perma-banned for life. ... I just wish they removed the ‘places’ from Search. That way, no one would worry about bots, or sitting in your own sim. (laughs) I’ll get banned for listening to my own stream. If I was idle with Diddy, I would have been. Thankfully, I was not.”

Foxyfurman had a notecard, which contained his responses to the Lindens, plus a comment at the end.


Details: Friends and a few alts banned from SL for gaming traffic.

First I want to say I am disappointed and concerned, why a resident that has 2 mainland sims and 1 private region would be singled out for gaming traffic, when the traffic numbers are not high we are normally between 2+K to 12K all legitimate from Halloween hunts, 7 seas fishing events, and Midnight mania boards, this traffic is not high and the #s totally support my claim. We do not in any way rely on traffic to build our sim, for that we would need an army of bots and I don’t want to bother with that kind of silliness.

My real life business partner was working on a platform above our sim, (Diddy Darkmatter), He has a few of my alts out so he can test a listener device he has been working on with another resident, (Aiko Swashbuckler), then poof!! Everyone is banned from SL!

1. I want everyone who was banned on my sim reinstated (this may include customers I don’t know about who were banned as well).
2. I want and explanation of WHY my sim was a target of this attack, yes I call it an attack because our traffic is obviously not generated by bots; it is too low for that.
3. This is a fun place for me, I have the music playing on speakers in my warehouse all day while I work, and can I expect to be banned for sitting in my own sim listening to my music? I am really worried about this, and to be honest taking the time to write this letter is costing me time and stress that is totally unwarranted and unneeded.

In the end I want to say I am not mad in anyway, I am confused and a bit disappointed that you would treat a customer like this, it feels like a vendetta and while not a paranoid individual I still ask for a detailed account of the decision process as well as to speak to the individual(s) who were involved in this decision process, I hope the individuals involved do not have access to my billing information as well, as a business owner RL taking someone’s billing information and a customer/business relationship is to be taken very seriously and I hope this will be handled in the best manner.

I wish to talk to a real person for this as well my cell is listed below.

Thank you for your consideration

***-***-****
Foxyfurman Kumaki


Perry Linden Hi FoxyFurman,

Thank you for contacting us.

Your ticket has been escalated to the correct department.

They will contact you as soon as possible.

Kind Regards
Perry Linden


3/11/2009 4:05 AM PDT Closed
Matthew Linden Hello,
Linden Lab just completed its review, at your request, of a disciplinary action taken against your account.

Our investigation shows that the suspension of your account was correctly applied in alignment with the Second Life Terms of Service and/or Second Life Community Standards.

If any further information is required, Linden Lab will contact you regarding this incident. Otherwise, please consider the matter resolved as no further communications will be sent.

Sincerely,
Customer Support
Linden Lab


3/11/2009 4:56 AM PDT Reopened Foxyfurman Kumaki Dear Support,

You have given me answers to none of my queries.

You discipline a long time customer and sim owner and they maintain and still maintain innocence. I ask you for not a generic answer but details of WHY this was done; the canned response I get is not acceptable. You have also banned a paid account (Diddy Darkmatter) this is my business partner and he needs his account restored. He will contact you from his air card if he can as he is out of town ATM. Also you may have banned some customers as well, when you handed down your discipline a few other customers dropped off of radar as well. Again I pay US 330ish a month to LL, I just want a detailed account of the discipline not a canned response.

I want a call from a real person again I ask:

Thank you for your consideration

Foxyfurman Kumaki


Ticket closed and locked by support with no response Actions
You are not authorized to perform any actions at this time.

*********
In the end, my partners account was permanently suspended and as well my 2 alts I use for testing perms and games. I am not sure how many customers got the boot but I know some dropped off radar at the time of the LL raid.


Later, another notecard was sent from Aiko Swashbuckler, with some links to the Linen blog concerning rules about bots.

https://blogs.secondlife.com/message/9040#9040 - Further Clarification on Bots and Camping, “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.”

https://blogs.secondlife.com/message/28188#28188 - Re: Camping Crackdown, “I have heard that all residents on the sim were suspended for the hour, many may not have known and will be surprised when they see the email explaining why they were suspended. Did a Linden go rogue on us? Did the rules change while we weren't looking? I believe that suspending the campers is NOT disciplinary action.”

http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Linden_Lab_Official:Inworld_policy_on_bots - Official Policy on Bots

Following this were several examples of disclipinary action taken by Linden Labs on related matters:

Date: Sunday, November 8, 2009
Violation: Community Standards : Gaming Traffic Violation
Region: Ruwart
Description: Gaming Traffic.
Action taken: Suspended 1 days.

Date: Thursday, November 5, 2009
Violation: Community Standards : Gaming Traffic Violation
Region: Wexler Education
Description: Gaming Traffic.
Action taken: Warning issued.

Date: Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Violation: Terms of Service: Gambling
Region: Acris
Description: Terms of Service.
Action taken: Warning issued.

Date: Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Violation: Community Standards : Gaming Traffic Violation
Region: Dozer
Description: Gaming Traffic.
Action taken: Warning issued.

Foxyfurman has heard no further word from the Lindens about his friend’s account, but unfortunately the next message by the lindens concerning the bannings was not a good one, “fact is this same thing happened to my SLX account.”

“This is one of those things that it’s best that everyone knows what happened and exactly how Linden Labs handled it.”

Bixyl Shuftan

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Camping bots, an overdue change with side effects

Finally. After years of lax policy, the Lindens have let the community know that they will actively seek camping bots and crack down on their existence. The move is long overdue but we have to recognize its side effects and the poor state of search in Second Life.

First of all, this is something we should embrace and rejoice over immediately. Camping has been used to trick the traffic numbers ever since people knew how they are attributed daily. Even with the “new” Google-based search, this made a place come out on top because traffic is part of the relevance criteria.

This had heavily perverse effects, as you can guess. Business owners who wanted to play a fair game had a major disadvantage. The ones who did not want, did not have the means to pay for occupied camping spots or to set up bots paid the price for their choices.

Even some of us had wrong visitor counts. I cannot remember how many times when I saw an avatar landing and leaving within 5 seconds, after not having found a camping spot. This kind of “visit” makes it hard to figure out your true level of success in attracting people.

If the ban is mainly a positive element, there will be some negative consequences. Many business owners will actually lose traffic and, eventually, sales. This includes top quality content creators. They will have to find out different ways to make sure their stores come out on top of search results. But there is an element of fairness which could push them towards more traditional forms of advertising around the grid.

This is no small deal when you think of it, however. Despite adoption of Google-based search technology, Second Life search results still lack in quality. If so many people tricked the system, it was partly because the system was not very efficient. The state of SL search can still be compared to Web search before Google made relevance king.

This is yet another major challenge for Linden Lab. Will they come up with a solution?

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Jack Linden Says Camping Bots to be Banned

On the Second Life blog post on Thursday April 23, Jack Linden stated the following:


“Almost everyone agrees that using Bots to manipulate traffic (and therefore Search rankings) is unfair. Not only with respect to Search itself but also due to the load on Mainland Region resources and how that can impact other Residents in the area.

"Therefore we are setting policy that attempting to gain an unfair Search advantage, by the use of Bots to inflate the Traffic for a parcel, will be considered a violation. This policy applies to both Mainland and Private Estates as both are represented in Search.”

Jack Linden posted that residents would not need to report violations, but next week Linden Labs would “routinely look at the Search results” to look for camping bots. Where they found clear cases, the owner would be given a warning, followed by “an account suspension or removal from Search if it persists.”

He went onto reassure users of other bots, “We will not be banning or removing Bots from Second Life. There are many amazing and useful ways to use Bots and the fact that in some circumstances they can be misused should not impact the more constructive users of Bots. We wouldn't remove Scripting because it can sometimes be used in bad ways, and Bots are no different in that respect. ... ”

Of land bots, Jack Linden stated they would take no action against them for now, except when overused, saying people would later be able to buy and sell land on the website.

Read the full post HERE

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Eye on the Blog

Monday, April 28th, 2008 at 2:50 PM by: Jeska Linden

Second Life Showcase, Popular Places and the Future of Traffic

"Looking for cool places to visit within Second Life? We are too! We’re pleased to announce that the Second Life Showcase is coming to the 1.21 viewer release, which is planned for Release Candidate in 2-3 weeks and in final form in 6-7 weeks.
For a sneak peek at this new feature, please visit Second Life Showcase on our website. The Showcase is an editorially-managed guide that highlights a variety of inworld venues and intriguing locations to new and existing Residents. For more info, read our Second Life Showcase FAQ; it includes information on how to suggest a venue for feature placement. We are currently developing an easier way to nominate inworld experiences for the Showcase from within the viewer, so keep an eye on this blog for more news!"

"Brief History of Traffic
Popular Places was initially created as a list of the 20 parcels with the most traffic on the previous day. The data that drives Popular Places has been based on raw traffic numbers, which do not differentiate between bots, campers and active Residents, and as some have pointed out, this has resulted in the tab not being an accurate reflection of true popularity among Residents."

"It is clear that the current Traffic system is not an effective means of determining the success or popularity of a parcel, nor does it provide useful information about Residents visiting those parcels."

Key phrases in this post that show that maybe they are listening: some have pointed out, opening up the discussion, brainstorming sessions, We look forward to your ideas!

WOW!
They have actually started to listen, and yes I am amazed. Have they finally got fed up of all the bad PR and are working on generating some good for a change?
This is certainly a step in the right direction finally bringing the traffic stats under scrutiny.
They have as yet no idea what they will replace it with and to be honest do we really need it at all? The showcase mentioned will only show a few places and will obviously reflect the opinion of those editing it, rather than the community, so its not really an alternative.

There is a spark of hope that if traffic is removed it will mean the end of 'bots' used to cheat the traffic stats - as mentioned before I can't honestly see LL doing this as it will reduce their user stats probably by as much as half, if not more, immediately; they need those stats to keep people believing the figures businesses see!
Well we shall see what we shall see, but at least its a step in the right direction Kudos to whoever finally began to listen, long may it continue!
Dana

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