• Introduction
• Interface
  • Status bar
  • Avatar list
  • System Menu
  • Debug Menu
  • Settings Menu
    • Scanning Distance
    • Color
    • Size
    • Rating
  • Search
  • Avatar Menu
    • Rate
    • Rating Type
• Getting Started
• TrustNet API
• How To Use It
• FAQs
• Commissions
• Distribution
• Known Problems
• Errors

Introduction

The TrustNet Avatar Scanner is a HUD attachment that constantly scans for avatars in a 96m range and shows the list of the 16 nearest ones (maximum LSL allows). It shows the distance, age, payment data and TrustNet score.

Interface

Status bar

The topmost part of the scanner displays the current status. This indicates which rating type is currently being shown, and whether any operations are pending. Some operations like score retrievals are not executed immediately, but buffered for a short time to request several of them at once.

Clicking the status bar brings up the system menu, which allows access to the website, settings and other general functions.

Avatar list

The avatar list displays up to 16 avatars, sorted by distance. The colors can indicate distance, payment data, age or score. The default coloring is by distance.

Clicking an avatar in the list brings up the avatar action menu, which allows doing something to the avatar.

Each avatar line displays the following data:

• Avatar name
• Distance: Distance to the avatar in meters.
• Age: Avatar's age in days
• Payment data: This field indicates whether the status of the avatar's payment data:
  • UV: Unverified. Doesn't have any credit card data on file.
  • FI: Payment data filled, but never used.
  • PM: Payment data filled and verified. This avatar has a credit card on file, and it has been verified to work.
  • CH: Charter member (has a lifetime account obtained when SL was in beta)
• TrustNet score: Your score for this avatar calculated by the TrustNet system.

System Menu

This menu contains buttons for the settings and commands that don't apply to a specific avatar.

• Hide: Hides the avatar list
• Debug: Shows the debug menu
• Subscription: Allows renewing the subscription
• Web: Opens the TrustNet website. This option performs a password-less login.
• Settings: Shows the settings menu
• Find: Allows to search for avatars by rating
• Help: Gives a help notecard

Debug Menu

This menu allows accessing the debug options. These options shouldn't be necessary during normal usage, although if there is a problem I may ask you to use them. Using these options may result in lots of text output and reduced performance.

• Memory: Makes every script in the scanner report the amount of available memory. Warning: there are a lot of them.
• Reset: Resets the scanner. The same thing can be accomplished by detaching the scanner and reattaching it.
• Enable: Enables debug mode. Various scripts will produce debug messages.
• Disable: Disables debug mode.
• Cache: Dumps the contents of the score cache, as well as some cache statistics.

Settings Menu

This menu allows changing settings that affect how the scanner works.

• Notify: Enables or disables notifications of new avatars appearing nearby.
• Web pass: Generates and shows a new password that you can use to log into the TrustNet website. Only you can see it. Every time this option is used the previous password will become invalid.
• Distance: Changes the scanning distance.
• Sound: Enables or disables sounds when avatars appear nearby. Only has an effect if the Notify setting is enabled.
• Color: Changes how the avatar list is colorized.
• Size: Changes the vertical size of the avatar lines.
• Rating: Changes the rating type displayed on the scanner.

Scanning Distance

This menu changes how far the scanner will scan for avatars. The default is 96m, the maximum possible. A larger avatar list takes more time to update than a small one, so this option may improve scanner responsiveness on a busy sim.

Color

This menu changes how the list is colorized. The default is by distance.

• Age: White if data hasn't been retrieved yet, red for age <= 7 days, yellow for age <= 30 days, green for age > 30 days.
• Distance: Green if the avatar is within 10m (whisper distance), yellow if within 20m (talk distance), red otherwise (shout distance)
• Payment: White if data hasn't been retrieved yet, red if unverified, yellow if payment data is filled but not used, green if verified, cyan if avatar has a lifetime account.
• Score: White if data hasn't been retrieved yet, grey for score = 0.0, red for score < 0, green for score > 0.

Size

This menu changes the height of the rows in the avatar list. Font size may be different for some people, and it is impossible for a script to determine the right one. If rows in the list overlap each other, use this setting to make the row height larger.

If the font size used by your client is small enough your list may have extra space in it, in which case this option will allow you to compress it.

Rating

This menu changes the rating type that's shown in the scanner. By default the scanner displays the behavior score. The scanner will automatically reset if this option is changed.

Search

This menu allows to search for people with a particular rating type. For instance, if you select "Scripting", the server will return a list of avatars with the highest scripting ratings.

Avatar Menu

This menu appears when you click on an avatar. Every option will affect the selected avatar in some way.

• Rate: Allows rating an avatar
• Tools: Brings up the tools menu. The content of this menu is dynamically generated and depends on where you are. If you're in Luskwood, then this menu will contain commands for the gohomer (if you don't know what's that, then you probably can't use it anyway).
• Point at: Shoots particles at the avatar. Helps determine where exactly somebody is. The use of this feature requires an attachment, which will be given to you automatically if you don't have it. The pointer attachment has full perms, so you can customize the effect to your liking.
• Get key: Gives the key for this avatar.
• Give copy: Gives a free copy of the scanner to the avatar.
• Unsit: Forces the avatar to stop sitting. Only works if the avatar is on your land, or on land where you have this privilege.
• Eject: Ejects the avatar from the parcel. Only works if the avatar is on your land, or on land where you have this privilege.
• Send home: Sends the avatar to their home. Only works if the avatar is on your land, or on land where you have this privilege.

Rate

This menu allows rating an avatar. The default rating type is "behavior".

Misc options:

• Explain: Requests the server to explain how it calculated the rating for that avatar.
• Other: Allows changing the rating type

Rating types:

• Behavior: How well this person behaves. Basically, whether you'd like to have them around. This is the most used rating type and the one that has a dual purpose: Rating somebody's behavior positively means their ratings will be used to calculate scores for you.
• Building: Building skill
• Scripting: Scripting skill
• Avatars: Avatar making skill

Rating Type

This menu changes the rating type you want to give to the selected avatar. Once a type is selected, it will become the default next time the "Rate" button is used.

• Behavior: How well this person behaves. Basically, whether you'd like to have them around. This is the most used rating type and the one that has a dual purpose: Rating somebody's behavior positively means their ratings will be used to calculate scores for you.
• Building: Building skill
• Scripting: Scripting skill
• Avatars: Avatar making skill

Getting Started

Attach the TrustNet scanner. It will periodically scan the area for avatars and query the TrustNet server for their ratings.

In order to start getting useful results you need to start rating people. Click a name in the list, select "Rate" in the dialog, then choose a rating. If you make a mistake, just go through the process again. New ratings will override any previous ones. The "Neutral" rating removes a previous rating.

There are no global ratings in TrustNet. Instead, scores are calculated for you personally, based on the opinions of the people whose behavior you rated positively. If you rate positively somebody's behavior and they have a scanner as well, their ratings will be used to calculate scores for you.

A simple way of explaining how it works is this: Imagine if every time you met somebody new, you sent an IM to all your friends asking whether they met that person before. Your friends would IM their friends in turn, and they'd all report back to you. TrustNet does essentially this, only automatically.

See HowTrustNetWorks for a complete explanation of how scores are calculated.

TrustNet API

If you can script, you can also get the API (Application Programming Interface) package. This will let you talk directly to the TrustNet database, and will let you ask it to calculate scores, which you can then use for whatever you want.

Obvious applications include home security, anti-griefer defence and global ban lists.

If you can't script, I could do it for you (for a price).

Note: Currently the API isn't available for sale anywhere. You'll have to IM me (Dale Glass) to get it. The protocol is documented at the LSL Wiki

How To Use It

There are many ways of using the TrustNet system. These are just examples, you probably can come up with some use I haven't imagined yet.

• Global ban list: Use a TrustNet enabled security system to query the scores of the people passing through your land, and eject or ban them if it's bad enough. Use the scanner to ban a person from anywhere in the world, from all of your land at once.
• Griefer control: Some people will grief one person, then go on to annoy another when they get banned. By rating your friends positively you can rely on their opinion to automatically remove those people from your land without having met them before.
• Shared moderation: Get an alt account, use it to rate trusted people up, then run a scanner that automatically bans people with bad enough scores from the land. By doing this you can make it so that no single person can ban somebody from the area, requiring multiple people to agree.

Positive scores can be used as well. You could make a TrustNet enabled door which can be locked, but still opens to your friends.

FAQs

TrustNet FAQ
TrustNet Avatar Scanner FAQ

Commissions

NOTE: As of 2006/12/26, commissions have been deactivated and replaced by the "Give copy" option. Since the scanner is now free of charge, the previous system didn't make sense anymore. Commissions will return in the future, as a reward for getting people to subscribe.


You can get a commission (currently 20% of the purchase price) for helping spread my product. It's very simple.

• First, you need the person who recommended the scanner to appear on your scanner's list.
• Click on ther name, and then click the "Commission" button.
• Done! If they buy it, you'll get some cash as a reward.

If it doesn't seem to be working, please wait a few minutes before reporting a problem.

Conditions:

• Only up to 3 unfinished commissions can be active at once.
• Only one person can have a commission for another.
• You must register your commission before the other person buys the scanner.
• Commissions expire after an hour, and can't be renewed afterwards.
• The new user must pay for it. Free versions I may give out don't count.
• Your own scanner can be a free copy, however.
• The new user must attach the scanner after buying it.

Distribution

As of 2006/12/26, the scanner has been made free (but the subscription is still there). Now the scanner has a "Give copy" button instead. This button allows requesting the delivery of a free scanner to the specified person. The reason why this is done this way instead of making the scanner transferrable is that it allows me to keep control and slow down distribution should my infrastructure's limits be reached.

Due to the way this system is done, a number of limitations have been added to prevent problems:

• The "Give copy" button can only be used by a TrustNet Scanner owner 10 times per day. This limit may be increased in the future.
• There is a global limit of 3 attempts of delivery per destination avatar, per week. This is intended to prevent flooding people who don't want to accept it
• Attempts to deliver a copy are refused if the destination avatar already has used the TrustNet Scanner system.
• The name of the giver will appear in a message sent before delivery
• The receiving avatar will be given a link to the FreeScanner page.

Known Problems

This is a list of known problems with the system. Not all of them are bugs. Some are because what can be done in SL is limited, and a perfect solution is difficult.

List redraw problems, like names getting duplicated for a time.
This is due to the difficulty of doing something like this in SL. Updates must be sent to multiple interface elements, and despite my best efforts to make things update as smoothly as possible, sometimes it still doesn't work as well as it should.

Most problems of this kind are due to bad sim performance. When sims perform badly, the first thing they do is slowing scripts down to try to keep everything else running at the proper speed. Unfortunately this means that complicated scripts like mine behave noticeably worse.

Errors

Sometimes things go wrong. This is a list of the error messages you may get, and what they mean.


SL is supposed to return the results of a scan sorted by distance. Sometimes that doesn't hold true, though. The scanner detects those times, and sorts manually. If this happens 5 times in a row it stops trying to use the results as they come in, as it means a performance impact.


This means that requests for age and payment data timed out multiple times, and the scanner gave up trying to get them. This almost certainly indicates a problem with either the sim or the grid. If this happens, the scanner will stop retrieving the age and payment information, but data that was already retrieved will remain there. Other than that, the scanner should work normally.

After the sim or grid problems are solved, you'll need to reset the scanner (Debug -> Reset) to make it fully functional again.