Events/Discussions using Voice?

Only things I can really see voice used for is maybe stand up comedy, singing, or a meeting in which only one person speaks.
...any other voice encounters I'm likely to avoid.

EDIT: Reading back a bit there is some I agree with, will be great for teaching and the like.

Heh heh. I still don't understand the strong hostility from the anti-voice crowd. Many of them appear as though they wish to impose their way on those around them. How silly would it be if someone that didn't like cheesecake demanded that no one else ever have cheesecake either? Mmmm, cheesecake

Oh well, I'm for liberty...i.e. choice. I don't see how my talking to friends in voice is such a burden.

As for my experiences with voice - they have been generally positive(cheesecake). The people I visit with know how to use voice and are quick to help any new people they meet so they to can use voice. Noisy open mic problems are taken care of quickly in this fashion so they are not an issue. But, of course(Cheesecake), the use of voice is a choice - we don't demand they use it - and you know what? It isn't a big deal either way. I'm comfortable using voice or not.

As for events with voice - I have tried to look for some to attend, but Search is so spamdexed that any search for "voice" tends to be useless. (CHEESECAKE!) So, I mostly just use voice with some friends. I have had the most luck finding voice events via groups devoted to the use of voice. The problem with this approach (ROAR!! CHEESECAKE!!!) is that the only thing you may have in common with those people is the desire to use voice.

Right! I'm off to find some cheesecake!

The thing I hate about voice is that when I'm with people I want to talk to, but they have to use voice for some reason, I can't participate in the conversation and feel ignored. I'm all for talk to text to be created.
But I hate voice for the same reason I hate talking on the phone, I can't multitask if people are going to make me have to listen to them. I love reading sites while watching SL conversations in the background, and I can't do that with voice.
But if it were used in the above scenerios, then that would be best.

Well Ceera and I just managed to have a nice talk where she replied in text and it all worked fine ... till I suddenly realised my friends were getting married in exactly 8 minutes time!

Re the cheesecake. It's not just "we don't like cheesecake so no one should have it" ... in here, "how dare you mention cheesecake without saying it is evil and boils kittens ... you are a vile person for liking cheesecake and therefore deserve to be reviled!!".

Which is ok, I guess, since I don't care if anyone else likes cheesecake or not. I like to make sure there's a WIDE variety of cheesecake and alternative desserts, including fresh fruit for those watching their calorie intake and, occasionally, I guess sour old lemons can be handed out for the bitter.

I would very much like to thank Cherry for her polite invitation to drop by her place, so I could verify that I can at least listen with Voice, even if I am unwilling or unable to talk using it. It worked well enough. She and two of her friends were quite polite, and we had a nice 'conversation', with the three of them talking audibly using Voice Chat, and me typing. For someone like Cherry and her friends, who each have a voice that suits the avatar they use in SL, Voice is fine. And in such polite company, it was bearable to be the only one typing, and not talking. At least now I know that if there is some sort of voice-required activity that I really feel I need to be a listener at, like a LL Town Hall meeting, I can at least passively listen, and attempt to type replies.

However...

From my RL family's point of view, my experiment was about as annoying as having a rude stranger loudly chattering away on a cell phone at the table next to you in a restaurant. My RL mate was halfway across the house, in a different room, and could hear Cherry and her two friends - Loud enough to be annoying/distracting, but not clearly enough to make heads or tails of the conversation. So they came in and glared at my screen, and tried to figure out what the heck I was doing, without interrupting me. And I didn't have the volume on my speakers up any louder than needed for me to hear Cherry and her friends clearly. It seems clear that in order not to be rude to my own family, I would have to at least use headphones when doing that sort of "they talk and I listen and type" conversation. And if I tried to hook up a headset and talk myself? Well, then my family would hear only my side of the conversation, which would be just as rude to them, really. Especially if I was making any attempt at all to actually change my voice to match whatever avatar I was logged in as at the time. (Can you imagine sitting nearby, and having to listen to a soprano female trying to sound like a deep-voiced male Scottsman?)

And that doesn't even begin to get into the problems with roleplaying as multiple characters at once. Voice changer software may allow a male to sound like a female, or vice versa, but I haven't seen one yet that can rapidly switch on-the-fly between multiple preset voices, being a deep male voice, a sultry female voice, a child's voice, and a voice suitable for some anthro creature, all rapidly interchanging with each other. In text, I can be anything or anyone, and can be all those things and more with three or even four characters at once. Voice would just shatter that kind of illusion completely, as all four characters sound like the same person, and most of the characters don't fit the voice that you hear. I can't see myself trying to make up an audible voice suitable to every one of my various avatars. Even the ones that closely match my gender and appearance just... well, in my own mind, none of them ARE me, and none of them should sound like me.

So I generally retain my previous view on Voice. It may be fine for some people, if you live alone, or if your computer is in the basement or a back room or some other quiet location where you can chatter at the computer and not bother anyone else. But if, as is the case in my home, the computer is in the middle of busy, noisy family room? It just doesn't work well.

It is!!

Imagine trying to explain the basics of using Maya to build Sculpties, NURBS, and the basic components of 3D Creation just by typing!!!

I tried!!! Its HORRIBLE to type out!!!

I dont buy into the "But with text you have instant class notes" argument.

Anyone who's been to ANY type of schooling should be able to listen & write.

How'd I learn to use 3D Software & Photoshop?? By listening to a teacher & doing it as I follow along and every so often jot down some notes. How'd I learn to work with Windows Server & Cisco stuff? By watching/listening to the teacher and following along and jotting down notes every so often.

Wow! It must be very quiet at your house.
Doesn't anyone ever watch tv or have conversations in the other rooms? But your right in saying having a headset is probably more discrete - who wants everyone to hear what we're saying in SL...
Thanx for trying it out, Ceera (guinea pig).
I wondered if it was possible without a headset. Still not sure if I'll get one but it's good to know I could still participate in a course without one.

Some people call using voice bad but have yet to use it themselves. Without trying it they already have an opinion made up. Seems to me all the non users are in these forums.

These forums must have a broader base than I thought then. There's so many of us out there without the glowing white orb over our heads. Makes it easy to determine who's in our clique....almost everyone that I can see. Not a very exclusive group.

Exactly. It is very difficult to teach more complex software applications within the SL platform. With voice students can have their screen full of the program they are being taught and follow step-by-step verbal instructions.

Voice is good... as long as no more then 5 people are talking and no one has there miked locked or is using speakers. Which cuts down on many of the group activities of sl. There is no such thing as background chatter in voice I have found. You either hear someone or they are the aggravating just barely out of hearing range mumble. Which mean only on group can talk at a time and everyone else just has to be quiet. And of course for role playing or such I find text much much much better. For joking around with friends and making a big fool of yourself voice is much better. I have laughed till my chest hurt so many times with voice. They each have there uses and in general text is the more useful one. But that does not make voice bad. Though I also have a advantage of having a good voice and a pleasant accent as I have been told. And I am normal in a room by myself leting me be as loud as I want to be.

Though voice has killed one thing for me. I can't run around in my female avatars on tasrill any more. Not because I can't hide anything but because I am now very firmly male 100% of the time. I can talk to someone for an hour in a female ava and then at the end they well tell me i'm 'ruthed' and I have to explain no i'm not I just felt like being a girl for the day. Just like some days I feel like being a horse or a demon. Very funny that on voice people will go with any rp I have about being a nonhuman as long as I have an outie and not an innie. The second that one single part of anatomy flips around it freaks people out. I can be a daemon with giant horns, tentacles, breathing fire, with a forked tail, a 8 legged spider lower body and people will go with that avatars look and react to it as it is presented. Reacting to spider legs touching them or wings wraping around them or such things. But put boobs on a completely normal looking human ava and people just stop going along and some even saying i'm a freak or a liar. I don't understand it. I can be a demonic hell beast as long as I have the same bits that I popped out of my mothers orifice. But change those and I am just trying to trick people when I make no claims nor never lie about who I am rl. I just want sl to be something other then face book. It is not like I can hide my deep voice I just want them to think of me as a narrator to my characters reactions not my character. But I have to be a voice actor on sl I guess not just reading like it was a story reading.

I learnt to script here in SL, and worked through various sculpty tutorials online (admittedly, not Maya, just the various freebies like Wings3D and Rokuro). I managed it through the help of SL classes, tutorials kind hearted people put up, and an awful lot of patient mentoring from friends.

I found the interactive text environment infinitely preferable to college lecture halls (and yes, I am quite capable of taking notes. I did well enough). Questions seemed far more succinct, and there was no need to ask the instructors to repeat themselves. Without taking away from the effort people put into them, the least useful tutorials I've found tend to be the video tutorials. While the visual aids are helpful, this is often overwhelmed by the need to constantly rewind the video when one doesn't get the point, and the need to sit impatiently through sections in which one does.

In my mind, unless there is a specific need for interactive voice (such as a language class), it is unnecessary and somewhat determental to insist that all class attendees use it, especially considering some cannot. If the instructor feels that being able to lecture verbally is important, it would be far better to use streaming audio. It wouldn't prevent people without voice clients from listening, and it would prevent audience members from yabbering away whilst the lecture is trying to speak.

Tasrill, I understand what you're saying. I certainly wouldn't think of you as a liar if you came up to me as a female avatar, voicing in male. I've walked around as a male a few times (more because I wanted to be left alone) and think it's great that we have the choice - why not?
The thing is, that one single part of anatomy (as you put it) is _really_ important in RL. Some people pay $ to be able to see or use it. Others would do just about anything to make theirs bigger and last longer. It can even be used as a weapon. When you put these 'pieces' of anatomy together, they can make babies - yeah, something called reproduction.
People see many differences between the genders, even when there aren't any. Around the world, what gender you are affects how others treat you and what rights you have as a Human Being. Gender is a big deal...
Demons, Furries, Dragons, Spiders, etc are all different _species_, but they can have a gender, too. Try walking around as a feminine Demon with 'boobs' using a male voice, you'll probably get the same reaction. It is what it is in RL, and so, too, as well in SL...
I think that if you're going to 'play' a female, you better stick to typing

To address some of the comments or concerns since my last post I would like to add the following...

New York style cheesecake with some strawberries is frickin' awsome! (not necessarily a concern, but it is dang good)

As for the voice issues - I recommend always using a headset. That way you do not run the risk of folks in your house over hearing everything (if that is a concern) It also prevents the sometimes bothersome feedback or echo that can occur when your mic picks up other voices and sounds from your speakers.

As for the number of max number of people being able to talk in a group at the same time. I used to hang in a place where it was common for us to have around 12 folks with almost no difficulty. It is just like real life in that folks take turns. If we did have a bothersome fellow - we would usually simply mute him or kick him out. But, it is true that if everyone spoke at the same time then no one could hear anything - I actually find that is also true in text chat - I cannot follow a large group of folks texting at the same time - I lose parts of the convo and miss out on what all is going on. I end up having to live in chat history to follow everything and I'm often too late to add interesting comments at the appropriate times because of that fact.

I enjoy smaller groups in general, but not for the reasons mentioned above. I like the smaller groups because the conversations tend to have more depth. The reason being that people tend to be more comfortable expressing their views in smaller groups than in larger ones. The chances of a negative reation to a comment increases as the group gets larger so folks are more guarded. Add to that a fear of public speaking and the converations become more superficial as the group grows larger. This is not always the case, but it often true.

Now on to what really gets me going! BBQ!!!!! BBQ makes everything taste better! Yum!

Unless they are in a conference or (very common) voice IM.

Does that include BBQ Cheesecake? The palate boggles!!

The question is when does something go form exploration to lying. We are all born with a genetic hand and on sl 99% of us don't follow by what gametes dna that was endzytozisted each other at gestation would tell us to be. Does a 40 year old mother making herself look like an idealized 25 year old version of herself a lie? Or a man adding himself some more muscles and taking away that balding spot? And to the "genetic and real world differences" the same argument can be applied to race. When I but on a asian skin or a black skin am I lying to everyone or am I simply freeing myself from the limitations of the flesh. There are testable ((and minute) differences between races and sub races but this does not mean not being exactly who you are irl is the same as lying does it? If I white girl puts on a Asian skin or a black man puts on a Irish skin is the fault in them for not being true to something they had no decision in or in the person judging them based on it. There are differences in gender and race and looks between all of us in the world but that does not mean judging based on them is a good thing or calling someone a fraud because they are not the same rl as they are sl is proper.

Even in rl there are similes. If a woman gets a boob job she is shallow but calling someone beautiful who did nothing but win the genetic lottery is a compliment. Yet on the other hand you have make up whose entire purpose is to hide your flaws and no one is giving a negative stereotype of wearing it as long as they wear it well. But i'm probably getting way way way to far into the philosophy of this... like I normally do *chuckles*

But this is an excellent post ... and I often look at the cookie cutter avs out there and thinks something similar.

I am so idealised. I still think I look like a monkey but I guess I have a theme - I only care what those who care about me think. If I get complimented on my av I say thanks, I take it as a compliment to the work I put into stopping her looking like Bernard Manning. However ... I don't feel that it is ME that they are complimenting.

So is it lying? I dunno ... I am sure there are some who are posting a photo of their girlfriends into the 1st Life tab, and then refusing to voice under any circumstances.

It's only lying, I think, when there's intent to deceive someone and play on their emotions as a result.

Sarah Nerd will be interviewed tonight on Wurl's show. Come take a listen and see for yourself how it works. 9:30pm SLT at Flossberg Studios in Cevedale.

I actually agree with you. It's a shame we judge others on their appearance. I actually think people are prettier (or more handsome) without make-up. It's our 'flaws' or differences that make us unique/interesting. When someone says that I'm pretty (yes, it does happen, lol) I don't really know what to reply. Thank you? I hardly had anything to do with my looks. Would you tell me if I my looks weren't pleasing to you? It's unfortunate, but a reality in both RL and SL - people judge. Maybe you're right, too far into the philosophy of this
Now, what were we talking about? Oh yeah, wearing a female avatar - voicing in male. If it makes you feel any better, I wouldn't judge you , or freak, if I met/heard you. But if I'm honest, I've got to say that I would be surprised.

Mmmm, just imagining it now! I'm off to find a recipe!

How do you think Jerk Cheesecake would fare against BBQ Cheesecake?