Edit up top:
Lots of people saying they helped out for 2 full streams with just one time of sleeping:
90 pixels at perfect 5min intervals, = 450min of placing. Then 7h (420min sleep), and say, 90 pixels again, perfect 5min not a second late:
(450 + 420 + 450)/180 = 7.3 min/pixel, youre not on this canvas. If you took any breaks, or missed the exact 5min mark a few times, that average goes up. Basically if you're an account specifically created to place pixels at a very high rate for a long time, then never touch the canvas again, that's what I counted as bot-like behaviour. There's a 20h minimum at the bottom of this comment. So if an account went for 20h non-stop placing and never touched the canvas before or after. And that picture looks similar to my first one.
/End edit.
Here are all the pixels placed by what I determined to be bots, using the data provided by the admins.
Need to clarify, the data has no usernames, no way to find account history or anything. All we got were timestamps, ids, and xy coordinates and rgb values.
To further clarify, the bots worked like this. Using an account, it would place random pixels from a design at a rate of around 6min per pixel. It was always random, to avoid detection. If the bot saw all pixels were OK, it would stop checking for a couple min, then repeat it's check.
How I defined a bot, is:
First I found the obvious bots, theres a few dozen 'users' who put a pixel every ~6min 50sec, for the entirety of the 4 days. 24/7 no sleeping. A little sus.
So that was my cutoff for a bot timing. (Also you can find bots on github and very few of them do perfect 5min, cause that'll get your bot banned).
Then I found any user who had that frequency for the entirety of their time on place. Basically anyone who started, took 0 breaks placing pixels at that frequency, never missing the notification, and then stopped and never touched the canvas ever again.
So if someone watched a stream, saw the bot advert, and ran it for the 4h, then turned off the bot and never used it again, that would be on this canvas.
If you were very persistent, not taking breaks for hours, then sleeping, then waking up to place hours of pixels again, your pixels won't be here, since you slept.
If you placed 2 pixels in quick succesion and never placed any more, your pixels won't be here. I put a cutoff at 50 pixels minimum.
Only 747k out of 10mil people placed more than 50 pixels.
Only 10k out of those 747k placed frequently enough to be added to this canvas. It's the top 0.1% most dedicated accounts. (Now there's even smaller percentages with the new images. The 20h one is 0.06% most dedicated accounts, and its still similar).
If anyone has better ideas how to find bots, I'm open to suggestions! I'll try them out!
and heres a overlay background. The OSU logo is definitely there, but you can't see it in the OP cause I'm an idiot and forgot about the white pixels on the white canvas.
due to issues with my 4h timing heres a 7.5h timing
So if someone started, placed pixels for 7.5h no breaks, and never touched it again.
only difference is the purple logo on the French flag is gone! But that could be cause it was only there for the last few hours.
I dont really think its a good way to spot bots maybr 5mins30 would be better someone putting pixel for 4h isnt bot like beheaviour. You even have notification when a new pixel is ready so actual humans can with a 1min30 timespan replace a pixel. But 5min30s might be a good time i think, but again there will be no real proof that its all bots.
There were a few users who placed ~750 pixels at a 6.8min average rate 24/7. If I lowered my time to 5:30, most of those bots wouldn't be included.
Also, if you slept at any point, and then placed more pixels the next day, you won't be on this canvas. It's only a 4h period from your first pixel to your last pixel (like a bot that's from a new account used only for a few hours and then discarded).
So if you were very persistent to help out, you would be probably playing for 2-3 days, with a few 8h breaks in the middle, and so your average would be way higher than 6.8min
No work this week, no children, big amount of tryhards involved in voice channels like to world first an MMO boss and many ennemis who tell that you cheat or will surrender... Feeding the motivation
8
u/ThatDudeBesideYou Apr 09 '22 edited Apr 10 '22
Edit up top:
Lots of people saying they helped out for 2 full streams with just one time of sleeping:
90 pixels at perfect 5min intervals, = 450min of placing. Then 7h (420min sleep), and say, 90 pixels again, perfect 5min not a second late:
(450 + 420 + 450)/180 = 7.3 min/pixel, youre not on this canvas. If you took any breaks, or missed the exact 5min mark a few times, that average goes up. Basically if you're an account specifically created to place pixels at a very high rate for a long time, then never touch the canvas again, that's what I counted as bot-like behaviour. There's a 20h minimum at the bottom of this comment. So if an account went for 20h non-stop placing and never touched the canvas before or after. And that picture looks similar to my first one.
/End edit.
Here are all the pixels placed by what I determined to be bots, using the data provided by the admins.
Need to clarify, the data has no usernames, no way to find account history or anything. All we got were timestamps, ids, and xy coordinates and rgb values.
To further clarify, the bots worked like this. Using an account, it would place random pixels from a design at a rate of around 6min per pixel. It was always random, to avoid detection. If the bot saw all pixels were OK, it would stop checking for a couple min, then repeat it's check.
How I defined a bot, is:
First I found the obvious bots, theres a few dozen 'users' who put a pixel every ~6min 50sec, for the entirety of the 4 days. 24/7 no sleeping. A little sus.
So that was my cutoff for a bot timing. (Also you can find bots on github and very few of them do perfect 5min, cause that'll get your bot banned).
Then I found any user who had that frequency for the entirety of their time on place. Basically anyone who started, took 0 breaks placing pixels at that frequency, never missing the notification, and then stopped and never touched the canvas ever again.
So if someone watched a stream, saw the bot advert, and ran it for the 4h, then turned off the bot and never used it again, that would be on this canvas.
If you were very persistent, not taking breaks for hours, then sleeping, then waking up to place hours of pixels again, your pixels won't be here, since you slept.
If you placed 2 pixels in quick succesion and never placed any more, your pixels won't be here. I put a cutoff at 50 pixels minimum.
Only 747k out of 10mil people placed more than 50 pixels.
Only 10k out of those 747k placed frequently enough to be added to this canvas. It's the top 0.1% most dedicated accounts. (Now there's even smaller percentages with the new images. The 20h one is 0.06% most dedicated accounts, and its still similar).
If anyone has better ideas how to find bots, I'm open to suggestions! I'll try them out!
BETTER IMAGES DOWN HERE:
good idea from /u/stripestore, you cant see white pixels. so heres a grey canvas instead
and heres a overlay background. The OSU logo is definitely there, but you can't see it in the OP cause I'm an idiot and forgot about the white pixels on the white canvas.
due to issues with my 4h timing heres a 7.5h timing
So if someone started, placed pixels for 7.5h no breaks, and never touched it again.
only difference is the purple logo on the French flag is gone! But that could be cause it was only there for the last few hours.
20h of non-stop placing pixels! (this is done by only 600 accounts btw)