Privacy addtion - "soundproof" land.

There should be a setting on land that allows you to soundproof it - i.e. - no text or sound gets in or out. This would be a HUGE increase in personal privacy and not annoying neighbors.

We already have a setting for local sound. This prevents sounds from escaping your plot.
The rest would be nice to have as well, but I dont think its easy to do with the current system.

I wasn't aware of the prior. But, it's so much easier from a player perspective to prevent sound from coming in rather than having to deal with a neighbor that may or may not be nice.
As for the rest, I realize this might be a simple suggestion, but it would be such a big step toward privacy issues that I think it would warrant a larger amount of work.

There are two separate issues here:

Privacy - keeping your chat/sound among those intended to hear it.
How to go about it:

- Enable local sound.
- Use the Talk To feature to keep your chat within 10 meters.
- Have a special place at the center of your plot where you can speak freely.
- Use IMs.
- Buy a bigger parcel

Peace & Quiet - keeping people's chat and sound the heck away from you
How to go about it:

- Increase the "Distance Rolloff" setting so as not to hear distant sounds.
- Get further away from your neighbor than you presently are.
- Buy a bigger parcel

Thanks for playing Devil's Advocate so we can hash out the counter-arguments.
1. Okay.
2a. This only works with 1 person.
2b. I may have people walking around my plot and want to talk to them all.
2c. So I'm supposed to stay 10m away from all sim borders? Screw that.
3a. Why should I be restricted to the center of my plot.
3b. What if I have a strip of land and there really is no "center"?
3c. What about people who have smaller plots, whether by cost or choice? Should they have no privacy with text?
4. This works with 1 person, but what if I want to talk to more than one person? What if I want to emote, even with just 1 person?
5. Unacceptable to demand a person buy a bigger parcel to provide privacy.


1. Thereby sacrificing the sounds on my land? No thanks. I use environmental sounds, and they are an integral part of my Varney build. Not a good solution.
2. Again, what if I have a smaller parcel? What if I can't afford one? What if I just don't want or need a bigger build?
3. See above.

...

Again, thanks Eggy for providing proof that there is no good solution to this.

To throw another problem into the mix... what about passers-by who don't know about the strange behaviour of chat, and who try to talk to someone less than five feet away, but on the other side of the parcel border? Poor person would think the other guy was ignoring them. You'd end up with the problem of people having to talk, realize what was happening, move five feet, try again, move five feet, try again, until they could find a place where they could talk normally. Then they couldn't move around.

If you want privacy, use IMs.

"Talk to" is 10 meters in radius, therefore it is a 20x20x20 sphere that can be contained in a 20x20 plot = 400 sq. m. which is < default 512 sq. m. plot size.
Normal chat is 20 meters in radius, 40x40x40 meter sphere, so a 40x40 plot is 1600 sq. m. which is pretty damn small as far as SL builds go.
Also, concurrency rates are not that high, and people in SL are usually not "at home" or spread in a remotely even way. They instead tend to congregate in popular spots. like malls, clubs, casinos, the welcome area, sandboxes etc.
I honestly believe this isnt that much of an issue.
Heck, a year ago normal chat radius was 50 meters. Yes, I said FIFTY!
So your chat would spread in a 100x100x100 sphere requiring you to own around 1/3 of a sim in order to get some privacy!

Every point has a counterpoint.

I've explored some of these options in depth.

I have a history of being personally adverse to text-only chat programs, mostly due to my desire to see more expressions and not just words. I have enough difficulty reading body language as it is, and wish to learn. The multimedia of SL is rich in this regard.

I have tried having privacy by being right next to someone inworld and then IMing. It seemed odd alright, and it worked to a degree -- but what was puzzling was when we'd try to emote, and type those out in public. It soon became a strange multitiered situation of "s and "pffts" coupled with, well, what was kept in private. Also strange was when passerby buzzed by, not knowing what was happening, and wondering what was up.

Odd.

Some thoughts on features we could easily add:

- Add an option for allowing IM text on a specific window or set of windows to trigger gestures.

- Allow us to make the IM window background transparent.

- Add some toggleable visual cue as to how far our chat text will spread.

- Make it easier to form an IM group. Having to plow through 1000 calling cards and drag them all into a folder one by one is not my idea of a usable group chat GUI. Add an Invite button on the IM window that would allow us to type in the name of someone. Or let us right click on a person to add them.

- Add an optional visual cue to let people know we are IMing. It could simply prefix our name with (IMing) like it does with (Away) and (Busy).

- KILL THE FREAKY "TALK TO" CAMERA MODE!

Then use IMs =p

See, your solution is just as useless for that one as to mine.

Very simple solution. Put a little icon at the top, just like combat, no build, no fly, no script, to indicate a muted sim.

No biggie.


Already you've said, for someone to get privacy, they need a 1600m square plot.
Problems with this:
1. That's, at minimum, $14 a month (assuming paying yearly for premium +$8 land tier. So you're saying people on the bottom two tiers shouldn't be able to have privacy on their land? Come on.
2. This assumes your plot is perfectly square. Most plots aren't, so you're talking an even higher tier.
3. This still means you can't have privacy around the 10m wide perimeter of your land.

Problems not solved.

Thanks again for playing Devil's Advocate. It's becoming even more clear that we need this to get some privacy.

Note: Local sound also keeps outside sounds out of your plot as well as keeping inside sounds inside.

does that option include the "sound" of people "talking" (typing)? actually i mean the text of what they say, not the typing sound.

Not sure, haven't tested it, I suspect so though.

How is the use of IMs useless to you for privacy?

Another possible solution:

Use IMs, but have LL code in the ability of IMs to pass gestures when desired. Maybe you have an attachment that when worn enables IM gestures to pass. Otherwise, a code could trigger a gesture; something like /pfft in an IM would trigger your pfft gesture in-world.

Once again, how does IMs solve the 3+ person problem?

This is why I say the IMs solution is useless. In addition to all the other reasons I've listed.

Oz, thank you for that information - in that case obviously I'd be happy to revise my suggestion to just be for Say in/out of the parcel.

Heck, what if I'm on my land, and my neighbors are just chatting away and I don't want to hear it?

You can group conference with as many people as you like in IM, whether they are present or not.

Create folder.

Place copies of cards in folder.

IM folder.

Simple, no?

No. Simple is simply speaking as normal.

Besides, that solution requires people to trade calling cards. And even if this wasn't an issue, it'd require to open a new group conference anytime someone came to or left my land.

Hassle much? Yes.

I've often thought that adding a "Soundproof" checkbox in the prim editor would be useful. Ideally, it would mute both audible sounds and chat. When you build the walls and ceiling of your home or add a fence to your yard, you could check this option, effectively blocking sound or chat from infiltrating from either side.

However, I like the idea of giving these same options to landowners' parcel boundaries.

Yeah, plus you could do shouts without worrying about bothering the neighbourhood.

Posted the following in this "camera proof" thread.