Jupiter Rowland @JupiterRowland

I generally try to get along with people. I'm not looking for trouble.

However, trouble keeps looking for me. That's because I've got some opinions which some people here in OpenSim are very opposed to. I've been taken for dumb or clueless for having these opinions, not to mention stubborn because I refuse to adapt to the mainstream and do as almost everyone else does.

If you convert from MLP to SFposer, and you've got trouble adjusting the angles of props, that may be because MLP uses Euler angles, and SFposer users quaternion rotation.

This can help you convert your angles: https://www.andre-gaschler.com/rotationconverter/ At least it did for me. (Expect SFposer'd Clutterfly bathtubs at some point in the future.)

Also, feature request for one of the next versions: How about different default menus/poses for male and female avatars? This is the one feature from AVsitter that SFposer really lacks IMHO.

One reason for the trouble the Otters face may be that Otterland isn't running a recent stable vanilla version of OpenSim. It's running an old, now-obscure fork that seems to be OpenSim 0.8.2.0 or older with a few things from OpenSim up to 0.9.1.0 backported by the maintainer of the fork. You can tell because Otterland is one of the last grids that don't support BoM yet. And I guess there are some more things it doesn't support, not to mention the many security fixes from over three or four years that are missing.

I'm pretty sure Priscilla not only already knows all of this, for you find out the instance you teleport in, but actively exploits it.

The best way to harden Otterland would be the difficult and painful process of first switching the grid from that fork to vanilla, if that's possible at all, and then upgrading it at least to the current stable version.

Yes, there are multiple issues with this.

First, virtual worlds are so new that there are practically no specific real-life laws covering them. If you wanted to convict whoever is behind Priscilla, you'd have to apply laws created for conventional Web services, and they may or may not apply to non-commercial services.

Second, since Otterland is non-commercial, courts may judge that the economic damage can be neglected. But even if Priscilla managed to disrupt the service of a commercial business sim, the economic damage wouldn't be that high.

Third, before you can convict Priscilla, you have to find her real-life location. Priscilla may be an Italian (= Jack Marioline?) who sometimes speaks Portuguese for the lulz. But Priscilla may just as well sit in Portugal or Brazil and use a VPN that exits in Turin.

Fourth, the instance that law meets OpenSim, all hell will likely break loose. If you try to get the authorities to go after griefers, these authorities will first need to know what OpenSim is and what's going on inside the Hypergrid. And then they'll discover that some 99% of all content on the Hypergrid aren't "free as in freedom" but "free as in pirated MS Office and pirated Photoshop". Chances are that what all of you have been so very certain won't happen for the last seven or eight years WILL happen. That the law will turn against copybotting and theft of protected commercial IP from Second Life, sided by Linden Labs and content creators. And if you're lucky, Linden Labs will only have grid owners delete all illegal content and not force them to shut grids as big as OSgrid down for good right away. That is, if it's possible to track down on Priscilla Kleenex in real life, it'll be a breeze to track down content thieves.

My suspicion is that the IP in Turin is nothing but the endpoint of a VPN.

I know from personal experience that Priscilla speaks Portuguese which would be an unusual native language for an Italian.

I had a little problem with the box on the right which I've just fixed. In case you came and picked it up for your own store during the last few days, you may want to fetch it once more.

Well, Austin was surprisingly fast. He added both boxes to the official sim (hg.osgrid.80:RuthAndroth) yesterday.

Right, there are only a few kinds of places that really generate significant amounts of traffic.

a) Event sims with enough regular visitors
b) Event sims with famous DJs/performers
c) Freebie sims with exclusive SL content that nobody else has (as long as nobody else has it)
d) Lbsa Plaza

Nope, it'd only require a change in the backend of the website OpenSimWorld and the in-world OpenSimWorld beacon.

Bots in plain sight are one thing. Maybe the sim owner has arrived from Second Life not long ago and doesn't know that, unlike Second Life, OpenSim supports actual NPCs. Or they don't know how to make NPCs yet. Or they find actual NPCs too inconvenient to handle.

The least a sim owner could do then is put the bots on the exclude list in the OSW beacon. I'll be honest: Not doing so reeks of cheating, especially now. Doing so says, "I'm not cheating, and I do what's necessary for everyone to know."

But it's something else to put AFK avatars clearly made for this purpose (if their profiles are blank save for maybe one group, you can be certain they're purpose-made) somewhere where visitors can't see, much less interact with them. Inside a building on a parcel set to private, for example. Or even more blatantly, on a sky platform 5,000m above the ground with no teleporter to take you there.

If you do manage to teleport there, and you spot a bunch of standard Ruths or whatever starter avatars the grid gives out, the case is clear.

If the sim owner insists that what OSW measures is actual visitor traffic, the case is clear.

If the sim owner attacks you personally and/or blocks you on OSW or even bans you in-world after finding out your UUID just because you've ever spoken out against visitor count cheating, the case is clear.

There are also those who justify un-excluded bots by stating that literally nobody cares for the popularity ranking anyhow. But, believe it or not, there are always those who are like, "Wait, people don't care for it? I always use it to find cool sims where lots of people go!" And if they're newbies, they're also like, "What do you mean it isn't accurate?"

It's mostly seasoned users of many years for whom the list of most popular sims is bogus. Fairly new users of a few weeks or months who don't know about the manipulations take it at face value. And other seasoned users say that this list should either be made as accurate as possible or removed altogether instead of letting it misguide less experienced users.

Somewhere out there in the vastnesses of the Metaverse, someone had a terrific idea for an avatar.

And I'm not talking about Wednesday, I'm pretty sure she has been done as an avatar already.

"Don't bogart that traffic, my friend..."

Three problems with this.

One, the "button" is a bit hard to find and not obviously a button. Think "reverse dark pattern". And don't forget that there are people who have been on OSW for years and still have yet to discover the groups (https://opensimworld.com/groups).

Two, I've made the experience that many users of online platforms can't be bothered with ever reporting anything and try to convince themselves that the moderators see everything quickly enough.

Three, OpenSimWorld doesn't have moderators. And Satyr seems not to be online often enough and for long enough to be able to take care of everything in sensible amounts of time, if at all.

The best proof for the last two points is that there has been an ad for a real-life escort service amongst the rentals for more than a year already. Granted, there is no report button for rentals, but still.

So, is artificially inflating visitor stats okay now because the wrong person has criticised it? Or even the thing to do because it opposes Pagane and her endeavours?

What'd you say if Satyr Aeon, the OpenSimWorld creator, owner, admin and ruler himself, had posted a written statement about this? What if he pointed out that it is indeed not allowed here as mentioned in the FAQ (https://opensimworld.com/page/faq), last paragraph but one, first sentence, literal quote: "We want to help hypergrid users meet REAL people, so we don't allow regions that inflate their avatar counts using bots or parked avatars." Would you declare him a troll for "siding with Pagane"?

I think a statement from Satyr is overdue, and be it just to see how the OSW community will react. Don't forget he's the boss here.

Or let's imagine for a moment that another AviTron sim has its visitor stats blown up by AviTron staff with two dozen purpose-made AFK avatars. Just like what happened and caused a shitstorm earlier this year.

You can either protest against it and thereby join sides with Pagane. Or you could go on opposing Pagane, say nothing about this blatant cheating and thereby openly and unconditionally support Alex Ferraris.

What would you do?

(Okay, now go and cancel and attack me for picking the wrong side. This is nothing new for me. I've actually picked the wrong side long ago when I decided to support and promote legal content made in and for OpenSim.)

This. https://opensimworld.com/hop/89574
https://opensimworld.com/post/95316
https://opensimworld.com/post/95371

tl;dr:
>Sim owners permanently park AFK avatars on their sims, often on sky platforms where nobody can see them
>Counts as visitors
>Counts into popularity here: https://opensimworld.com/dir/?vm=traffic
>Sims with lots of AFK alts of the sim owner on them = popular as fuck
>Nothing is done against this unless it's absolutely blatant, AND Satyr is alerted
>Pagane makes BestFakeSIM
>Puts 50+ AFK alts on it
>Beats Lbsa Plaza in no time
>Pagane be like, "Look how I fucking cheat my sim up the popularity ranking just like so many others"
>Mentions 11 sims with inflated visitor stats due to AFK avatars
>Sim owners with AFK avatars start shitstorm against Pagane
>Throw in whataboutisms against her that have got nothing to do with visitor counts
>More so if Satyr has put their sims' visitor counts on "Inaccurate" for being just that
>Everyone joins in because they love most of those sims that happen to have AFK avatars

They say you can build nothing on a sim with a land capacity of only one prim.

You were the first to prove that, yes, it's possible. You really can build nothing there.

Must-have for party sim owners, me thinks, to find out who really causes all the lag.

Come back next week when we play the Avatar Salad game: Everyone on whose avatar everything rigs into place is kicked and banned for the duration of the event. Last avatar standing wins a Clutterfly Ruffled Bottom Dress (ARC just a little over 500,000) with exclusive animated 1024x1024 textures.

I'm also wondering who makes all the obviously unofficial OSW beacons (Satyr has only made two recently), and whether they're kept up-to-date along with Satyr's official beacons. The unofficial ones usually don't have a version number.

Also, how do you even obtain unofficial beacons? I've never seen them in store anywhere, and as for beacons that are in use on a sim, you must never make them copyable.

Wieviele waren wir maximal in der Bude? Viele jedenfalls, es war gut voll.

Woanders lebt die Wüste nur, hier bebt sie.