AFK Timer for Traffic Generation
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Magician Vacano
Currently Traffic Generation for sims is broken and a misrepresentation of activity.
To improve upon this, there is the following proposal:
- An invisible timer that counts down since the last non-scripted action (Talking, moving, clicking, etc.) after 10-20 minutes of inactivity the avatar will stop generating traffic until an action is performed to reset the timer once more. Promoting active communities and social activities and draw individuals closer together.
- An additional counter next to traffic in the search function showing how many avatars are on-sim at the moment. This allows individuals to look for active sims that work within a resident's timezone.
Traffic generation this way should have the intention to draw the social and active parts of second life closer together and reward active social spaces more. Traffic should be an indication of social hotspots and active places within second life. Feedback is appreciated and I'm hoping to open a discussion on this topic.
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Zalificent Corvinus
Oh dear, another of these "Paranoid Bot Hater" rants about AFK...
"We MUST victimise ANYONE who isn't SOCIAL enough because BOTS"
And the usual STUPIDITY to try and achieve that.
"An invisible timer that counts down since the last non-scripted action (Talking, moving, clicking, etc.) after 10-20 minutes of inactivity the avatar will stop generating traffic until an action is performed to reset the timer once more."
So I am standing still, sorting my purchases from the MP, in my inventory, not doing the "Official Social N*zi Approved Activity (tm)", so I should generate no traffic for the venue I'm visiting.
"Promoting active communities and social activities and draw individuals closer together."
Trying to FORCE people to socialise and build artificial communities where they do not exist, is, was, and always will be a bloody stupid and counter productive failure.
Magician Vacano
Zalificent Corvinus
It does not punish anyone for being AFK. Rather it changes traffic to more efficiently portray activity rather than presence. Not moving and being AFK simply does not count towards activity. Additionally the suggestion provides an extra counter on the search function showing people on-sim at the time.
Bots are not the main issue here since it is already illegal to count those towards traffic, any bot account that is already following TOS is flagged to not count towards activity already.
You're perfectly fine not moving or doing anything, that's not the point of the suggestion. The suggestion implies that it would be easier to FIND social activity. It's something that is more difficult to find and the suggestion is focused on make that easier to accomplish. It is not forcing anyone to do anything.
There is nothing in the suggestion indicating victimization, only optimization and improvement. There are no suggestions to bring back the old 30 minute logout timer of yore, or anything similar.
Thank you for your comment, regardless of the aggressive undertone. I appreciate it nonetheless.
Zalificent Corvinus
Magician Vacano
You just don't get it do you.
You blather on about "non scripted activity", filing to realise that most of what YOU described CN be performed by remote bot client, in way that is impossible for an SL server to diferrentiate from a human.
You tech illiterate scheme punishes actual People, either contributing to traffic in places they LIKE, or running such places, actually liked by People, while leaving illegal unregistered bots to spam fraudulent traffic points like crazy with FAKE "activity".
The other point here is like many self serving bs-idea spammers, you think everything is about YOU, your desire that traffic ( which is NOT a measure of "Social N*zi approved Commuunityism" ) should be redefined.
You claim your version of "traffic" doesn't victimise anyone, and you are WRONG, it victimises merchants running inworld stores for example.
I TP to a clothing store, or a shopping event, I'm not thee to pander to your sense of entitlement to "Social N*zi Approved" interaction, I'm there to SHOP, I spend 60 mins camming around the event or store looking at vendor pics, that doesn't count under your moronic scheme, so NO traffic points for the store or event.
But a dozen griefer trash troll scum InfoHub rabble, screaming in voice spam, and orbiting people, does count, and clueless people will see the "massive traffic" numbers in the utterly useless SL Dump-stination Guide, and falsely assume its a NICE place for "Social N*zi Approved" official fun.
You scheme victimises EVERY place in SL that isn't a "Social N*zi" Voice Spam pit.
Magician Vacano
Zalificent Corvinus
Point 1 - You would be surprised by the amount of telemetrics that can and have been obtained through clients. Second Life not excluded in this. It's a common practice often used for the benefit of improving stability by having a larger source of data from a more varied pool of hardware to pinpoint issues and fix them. This is also often used to analyse behavior and find the differentiation between bot activity and player activity in MANY games and other online clients. And yes, such systems are not perfect in any way. However, running a sophisticated bot network to fake activity is not only massively inefficient in terms of hardware and costly in general. It's also often a dead giveaway unless the botnet is decentralized in some way.
Point 2 - One action per 20 minutes is hardly punishing for a place. Given that would give a parcel for each AFK resident at LEAST 20 points of traffic. It doesn't eliminate traffic at all, it just more accurately depict activity. As for my previous point, I've already explained on how having a massive bot network to boost activity would both be inefficient and obvious.
Point 3 - The purpose of putting in suggestions is to offer suggestions one believes to be an overall improvement to the game. That is hardly spam, nor is it an act of narcisism. And it especially not an act of nazism. It is an observation that Traffic at the moment is misleading.
Point 4 - In-world stores would be amongst the least impacted in regards to something like this. Most residents use an in-world store to test out demos, fit attachments, and look through a store and camming about. All actions that would reset the proposed timer. Things like clicking things, editing, and moving about all being non-scripted actions. I don't believe I've seen many residents go to a store to go AFK for longer than 20 minutes either. Those 60 minutes camming about would also be considered non-scripted activity.
As a closing statement, I believe that there is more activity to be had in locations other than InfoHubs, Trolls and voice spam pits. I'm simply looking for a way to make it easier for people who are looking for active places to FIND them. That does not mean that those are the only places to have activity. Finally, I am being respectful in my responses here, and I would ask that such can be reciprocated. There is no need to call anyone a nazi in this discussion.
Thank you for your reply, I do hope you have a nice day!
Zalificent Corvinus
Magician Vacano
Respect is earned, your suggestion hasn't.
"The purpose of putting in suggestions is to offer suggestions one believes to be an overall improvement to the game. That is hardly spam, nor is it an act of narcisism."
It is when the idea is some nonsense designed to appeal only to you own personal issues and which damages other peoples interests.
"It is an observation that Traffic at the moment is misleading. "
Traffic is NOT "misleading" because it's not some insane "Social N*zi" activity count, it's a measure of TRAFFIC, number of accounts visiting and how long they stay. THAT'S IT.
Claiming that it's misleading because it's not a measure of something else entirely is just you talking complete sh*te.
"I don't believe I've seen many residents go to a store to go AFK for longer than 20 minutes either. Those 60 minutes camming about would also be considered non-scripted activity. "
I've seen plenty of idiots claim cm shoppers were AFK, when they were not. Also, by the definition in your original garbage post, camming vendors would NOT be "Social; N*zi Approved Activity" since it does NOT automatically include doing ANY of THIS...
"test out demos, fit attachments, " "clicking things, editing, and moving about"
"I believe that there is more activity to be had in locations other than InfoHubs, Trolls and voice spam pits."
Your "belief" is of no consequence, when it is abundantly clear that the places with the largest amount of your "moving and clicking", are NOT "Social N*zi Entitlement Zones" at all, but places where almost nobody "Socialises".
And finally...
"There is no need to call anyone a n*zi in this discussion."
Oh? So you are deprecating the bit of your original garbage post where you explained that this worthless idea is intended to force people to conform to YOUR definition of social activity and communityism?
Just because you feel not enough people in SL will talk to you does NOT justify WASTING limited dev team resources repurposing the entire system to appease your ego's sense of entitlement.
Thee are far more important issues than yours.
Magician Vacano
Zalificent Corvinus
Respect is earned, but being polite in a discussion also does not hurt. Hostility helps absolutely nobody in a discussion, on the contrary it hurts many of the points you're proposing. I am replying to you because I am looking for more inputs, I am looking to open discussion on the matter. I'd like to do so because I believe you have points to offer in this, but hurling around insults and exaggerating makes one look like a bad faith actor.
Now on to some additional points. Linden Lab themselves have stated that Traffic currently is a flawed metric. I've also seen plenty of stores that do well despite having days of zero visitors. Because stores work well with advertising, word of mouth and events, all which have nothing to do with a metric that resets on a daily basis. Now there are plenty of sims, venues and clubs that would benefit from the changes.
You're saying this is constantly about myself, though I tend to mostly remain on my own private parcel, often with just. Scripting or hanging out with a handful of friends. A non-listed, non-advertised parcel. While places like that have a traffic score, it isn't used anywhere.
There ARE more types of places/activities that would benefit from these. Events, Club DJs, Workshops, Games, Roleplaying Sims, Sandboxes, smaller venues, and much much more. Unless all of that falls under the tag of "Social Nazi Approved Activities"? Because mind you not everything that would generate traffic this way would require social interaction, just presence.
At this point however, I believe that we're unlikely to find common ground on this issue. I’ve explained the intent and scope of the suggestion multiple times and tried to engage respectfully. You’re free to disagree, but I think the conversation has run its course. Thank you for your input.
Zalificent Corvinus
Magician Vacano
"Linden Lab themselves have stated that Traffic currently is a flawed metric."
Yes, they admit it's not the best way to measure TRAFFIC, that does not men they support some nonsense that damages the majority of venues.
"There ARE more types of places/activities that would benefit from these. Events, Club DJs, Workshops, Games, Roleplaying Sims, Sandboxes, smaller venues, and much much more"
Events, currently get tic points from ll the people standing still camming the vendors because it's less laggy.
Your Social N*zi stupidity reduces their traffic.
Club DJ's, the punters turn up, click the dance ball, and stay there listening to music they like for 2 hours worth of traffic.
Your Social N*zi stupidity reduces their traffic.
Smaller Venues, being smaller does not men that visitors re MORE likely to un around screaming in voice pam and clicking everything.
Your Social N*zi stupidity reduces their traffic JUST like larger venues.
Roleplaying sims, gain, often do not involve running round clicking on everything, often long periods of in-activity watching the "lead actors" take 10 mins to type their "hello" emotes, and even longer WAITING for another roleplayer to actually show up.
Your Social N*zi stupidity reduces their traffic.
Workshops, games, and sandboxes, which involve clicking on stuff and talking, no benefit from your scheme, their traffic remains the same.
So, basically, almost NOBODY does not LOSE under your proposal.
"though I tend to mostly remain on my own private parcel"
Thank you for admitting you haven't got a clue what you ae talking about.
"a bad faith actor"
Historically, the only people I've EVER seen use that meme expression, ae self centered fools who assume their stupid idea will gain universal support, and e shocked and outraged when people point out why it's a stupid idea.
Then they spam that sh*te-post expression, to try and dismiss all the well deserved ridicule.
jackiewallace Resident
I understand what you're aiming for, and I think it's a good idea, but we need solutions that can't be exploited by abusers. It should start with introducing a new rule that only those who rent a full private region are allowed to set up AFK areas. There’s also a need to develop a new algorithm to prevent traffic-generating games and the excessive use of alts from putting genuinely popular locations at a disadvantage.
Magician Vacano
jackiewallace Resident
I'm personally OK with people going AFK even for long periods of time, I simply do not want to see them affect traffic as a representation of activity. Traffic-generating games and the like are fine as it promotes interaction to some extend. Using alts to populate an area. Using Alt accounts and/or bots to artificially inflate traffic is already a violation of the terms of service.
It's also not a perfect solution, but it is a step in the right direction. Proactive measures with extra rules is another such step. And can be introduced side by side. If anything it can promote parcel/sim owners to be more proactive in encouraging social activity. Though that only glances towards the AFK part of the suggestion.
Another side of the suggestion due to the vague interpretation of presence from traffic is that it's difficult to read for new residents to find where people actually are, making SL far less attractive to engage in due to the feeling of isolation a non-responsive crowd can bring. If it represents activity rather than presence it will more readily bring new residents to make new friends, and engage in social activity as a whole.
Toothless Draegonne
The problem is systemic, and I honestly don't see any fixes that don't involve the Lab getting all jackbooty about it.
You have inconsistent enforcement of traffic bot rules. Many people know the regular offenders that get away with it, and nobody is going to do anything about it. The regions which get away with traffic bots, will get away with traffic bots that have mouse-jigglers attached and a bunch of LLM or Markov Chains word salad.
You have "games" where the sole purpose is just to click a button every now and then. This defeats any AFK timers, but doesn't turn a region into an active chat zone.
You also have regions that are intentionally more chill and relaxed and don't want 6 different dumb arguments about baby daddies and who did what, shouted over redlined voice connections while 50 people sit around sipping tea, munching pop corn and throwing peanuts. They will be penalised down to the bottom of any search lists that sort by traffic count, in favour of drama central, every single time.
There are already tools in at least some viewers that let you have a region tracker, showing a somewhat-accurate headcount of regions you're tracking. People interested in head counts can use that.
There is already an editor's choice section of the destinations list. That could be utilised if the Lab want to spend the effort to have it updated more than once every blue moon.
Until then, the old-fashioned word of mouth works. Newbies have the welcome hubs to wander around, assuming the mentors don't push too many older residents away so the newbies have people to talk to and bootstrap their initial networking efforts. Nothing beats actually exploring the grid and finding places that aren't bot-filled. If anything, it makes traffic count almost irrelevant, so less of an issue as far as "finding fun stuff to do" is concerned.
Magician Vacano
Toothless Draegonne
inconsistent enforcement of punishing the use bots/alts to inflate traffic is, while related, a different problem to this. Though that should be adressed nonetheless. That said, most sims that game traffic don't even require these to do so, as AFK residents are practically "legal traffic bots" with the way traffic works at the moment. On the note of mouse-jigglers and LLMs for word salads however, I can say that mouse-jigglers wouldn't per se work and LLMs are both more easily recognizable for analysts and residents as well as being far more costly to upkeep on a large scale.
The "games" to click a button every so often is something that would also be far less effective than one might think as most AFK residents just keep SL running in the background and likely would ignore such pop-ups. It would garner SOME activity, sure. But far less than expected.
As for more chill regions, you have a fair point there. Though with the inclusion of avatars present at the moment (See point two of te suggestion) you can find these more chill regions as well. Plus low activity "chill" regions would also be recognizable through the search. Low activity does not mean no activity after all.
As for tools being in some viewers, that is fine. Though they are a step in the right direction, it's best for it to add up to a whole. With no reason these sort of tools can't work alongside other suggestions. I've also seen a suggestion about an traffic graph to see active hours of a parcel or sim. One thing on its own is unlikely to fix the issue at hand however.
Finally both the editor's choice and word of mouth are excellent ways to find new places, I use them myself as well. But they are far from perfect on account of the editor's choice being accessible through the website primarily and word of mouth generally being inconsistent, especially for new residents.
Miles Doge
Good grief, yes please. I need to see more stuff like this to actually INCENTIVIZE people to move around and engage with each other, & the sim in general.
It becomes rather depressing/uninspiring to want to make cool gadget stuff that people can run around and play with, when the only thing anyone seems to want to do on SL these days is log on and forget its running in the background of their PC (for whatever reason)
Giskard Triellis
Perhaps add a limiter for IP address. If you have 5 avatars all from the same ip address and at the same location, it may be likely they are accounts just there to generate traffic.
Magician Vacano
Giskard Triellis
A great idea, though I am not sure how that will work out in terms of VPNs. Though it's still something that can be kept in mind.
Giskard Triellis
Magician Vacano I suspect the occurrence of say 5 accounts with the same VPN IP on the same SIM would be rather low. This might be part of the formula used to calculate traffic. Let's say after an hour those five accounts all go afk then it would be a safe bet to assume they are not active and to give them a lower weight in count.
What I would like to see is a function which reflects on the map to show Avatar activity in the last hour. Click a box and the afk accounts vanish. This would allow real time determination of active spots. Imagine using the region tracker and glancing at it to see when your favorite spots have people currently engaging as it reflects that function.
Logan Elf
Giskard Triellis It's not just VPNs though. Increasingly more and more ISPs are implementing CGNAT or MAP-T on non-business connections. A consequence of these technologies is that IPv4 addresses are NOT guaranteed to be unique.
SL Feedback
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SL Feedback
Hello, and thank you for your detailed feature request regarding the AFK Timer for Traffic Generation. We appreciate your thoughtful proposal to improve the accuracy and relevance of traffic metrics in Second Life. This topic has been brought up before by another resident, and we are merging your comments to expedite our review process. Your suggestions, such as implementing an invisible timer for inactivity and adding a real-time avatar counter, are valuable and align with our goal of fostering active and social communities. While we cannot provide an estimate on when this might be implemented, please keep an eye on future updates. Your input is crucial in helping us enhance the Second Life experience, and we encourage you to continue sharing your ideas. Thank you!