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Feb 16, 1999, 1:47am

Hi folks,

this is a gentle reminder that you should upgrade all of your SDK
applications to use build 13 of the SDK as soon as possible. I can see from
the server logs that there are a lot of bots running out there that are
still using builds from 10 through 12. Builds 12 and earlier will be
disabled very soon, probably before the end of this week.

-Roland

Feb 17, 1999, 1:27pm

When 2.1 is officially released this week, and the SDK beta period comes to an
end, can we expect to use SDK bots on the public-building COF worlds, where the
people are? Will the COF worlds like Atlantis, Mars, Meta, and Yellowstone be
opened to bots, now that we've tested them out? Or should we expect to buy our
own worlds, if we want to run our bots at home?

[View Quote] > Hi folks,
>
> this is a gentle reminder that you should upgrade all of your SDK
> applications to use build 13 of the SDK as soon as possible. I can see from
> the server logs that there are a lot of bots running out there that are
> still using builds from 10 through 12. Builds 12 and earlier will be
> disabled very soon, probably before the end of this week.
>
> -Roland

Feb 17, 1999, 3:15pm

I am not sure what the plans are yet in this department. I will have to
check with mgmt and get back to you on that...allowing bots in these worlds
isn't so much related to whether the SDK is beta or released, it's related
to the potential for bot abuse in these worlds (e.g. massive robo building
projects) and whether or not people are actually going to abuse them.

-Roland

[View Quote]

Feb 17, 1999, 3:55pm

Just as with every other tool, abuse will happen as a given and probably
involve more things than just massive building. The question really is
how to manage/minimize that abuse?

1. Maintain COF worlds as is.
2. Implement a broader form of bot rights on the world server level.
3. Some other wise and wonderful solution.

Not having time to jump into the SDK yet, allow me to make one other
comment. This group is a perfect example of what the other newsgroups
hoped to achieve. Beta does a good job as well and the other two are
debatable. SDK, however, not only fills the need for beta
testing/feedback but also has encouraged better more efficient
development and use of the SDK. The tone here is almost always upbeat
and mutually supportive. If the mood here could just permeate to the
other non-technical groups what a change.

Anyway, enough rambling and thank you for your time.

[View Quote]

Feb 17, 1999, 4:46pm

Well, I was just interrupted, while building on a COF world, to receive an
update to Version 2.1. And I can report that one COF public-building world, at
least, does allow bots! :o) Thanks, Roland.

[View Quote] > I am not sure what the plans are yet in this department. I will have to
> check with mgmt and get back to you on that...allowing bots in these worlds
> isn't so much related to whether the SDK is beta or released, it's related
> to the potential for bot abuse in these worlds (e.g. massive robo building
> projects) and whether or not people are actually going to abuse them.
>
> -Roland
>
[View Quote]

Feb 17, 1999, 11:57pm

On Wed, 17 Feb 1999 09:15:44 -0800, "Roland Vilett"
[View Quote] >I am not sure what the plans are yet in this department. I will have to
>check with mgmt and get back to you on that...allowing bots in these worlds
>isn't so much related to whether the SDK is beta or released, it's related
>to the potential for bot abuse in these worlds (e.g. massive robo building
>projects) and whether or not people are actually going to abuse them.
>
>-Roland

Roland,

You will always have cases of citizen / tourist abuse. Even without
sdk bots, anyone can use a keyboard accelerator, even tourists. The
problem is being examined, in my humble but firm opinion, from the
wrong angle.

I think one should seriously start to consider ways to control human
misbehaviour in a more effective way. This becomes more urgent when
tools become better and more elaborate. At the moment, control on
human abuse is not being implemented well, maybe due to lack of
resources.

It's illogical to develop new techniques only to ban them because they
might be missused, when it is technically perfectly possible, in the
case of bots, to trace the owner of the bot. Only, unluckily, the sdk
itself can't do that at the present moment. As we all know, a bot logs
in identifying its owner at the universe level. Therefore, if a person
uses a bot to build in an undesirable way, get that person, but not
the bots in general.

One step in the good direction would be to have the sdk producing
automatically the citizen number of the owner of the bot, as a
companion attribute to the session number. This would help world
owners and bot makers to identify the culprits.

I don't know how 'banning' is implemented, but it seems to me that a
list like the rights list (255 chars i believe) is totally inadequate.
Some way must be found at universe and world level to register and
implement negative rights.

In short, concentrate in solving *human* abuse. We wouldn't have cars,
airplanes nor computers if the current trend of 'ban the bot' had
prevailed in those areas.

Congrats for the launching of the 2.1 browser!

XelaG :o)





>
[View Quote] --
Xelagot 46ADB [Delph]
creator: XelaG
email: decastro at cable.a2000.nl

Feb 18, 1999, 12:41am

Hi Xela,

I agree on all points. These problems must ultimately corrected by adding
new functionality (e.g. building quotas to defeat robo-building) not
blocking the existing functionality. However, with all new features we will
have interim phases where the potential for abuse will outpace our ability
to restrict that abuse, and during such phases we have to proceed
cautiously. The last thing I want to be doing for the next three months is
chasing after and banning people who abuse the SDK in public building
worlds...I'd much rather be working on new stuff, like the improvements you
suggested.

-Roland


[View Quote]

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