THMs: voice vs text

I see that Zee is doing a _voice_ THM around the VAT stuff.

Personally, I'm not a fan of voice (not an 'enemy' just not a fan) and am wondering what others think about using voice for things like THMs..

Also, TY to Zee for seeing that some residents are quite unhappy about VAT and doing the blog/THM, even if it isn't in chat.

So, what do people think? Voice? Chat?

The presenter can voice.

Questions and comments from the audience should be in text.

Anything else would, I think, be very chaotic

What Lindal said is the way most RL conferencing systems do meetings where there are presenters. If the meeting is big enough, you can also have an "operator" for the meeting, with a "raise hand" feature. Participants who wish to speak push a button to "raise hand", the operator possibly speaks to them to see if they are worth listening to, and then explicitly gives them the floor. Otherwise, everyone other than the presenter is muted.

That's a good option - wish I could edit the poll..

So, assuming you want others who couldn't attend to be able to see/hear what happened, what form would the recording take? Audio, text or both?

it might help if you could explain what a 'THM' is? O.o

I think that would be a Town Hall Meeting.

In the unlikely event I would attend one of those things, since I don't have a voice client installed, I voted text only

In the past, Lindens have been pretty good about transcribing Philip's town halls (or the ones I went to anyway, even if they made it less than obvious they had it in place) so hopefully they'll do the same thing for Zee.

I do hope they'll reconsider using SL voice though, an audio stream is much more accessible (people can listen to it all over the grid), there's no chance of being drowned out by the crowd, and it's loud and clear regardless of where you are (or point your camera).

(Townhalls usually draw in 100+ people too so I'll bet the whole thing just won't even work )

The main problem for me is that voice still isn't available on Linux. As such, I don't think it's fair that official meetings such as Town Halls are made voice-only until it's rolled out for all 3 supported versions of the viewer - Windows, Mac & Linux.

I've actually opened a Jira about it, I'm a bit annoyed about not being able to go ot the VAT town hall as it affects me so much.

http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/MISC-725

I have a problem cos i cant hear very well, following a chat with all people chatting just isnt going to work for me, and im affected by the VAT issue, now only are we discriminated against because we live in europe and have to pay moreor the same service, Im discriminated against because I cant have my say or hear their explanations about it. Im starting to wonder why I keep coming here now.

Utterly ludicrous to hold THMs in voice format as far as i´m concerned. (Quite apart from the fact that I´ll never be able to attend these things because of the time.)
There are so many people who cannot use voice for whatever reason, it seems mad to exclude those people from even participating. And if anyone makes it to that meeting...... perhaps could suggest that transcripts should be available and easy to find for everyone.
Also thanks Stephen for the jira issue, might open a non-Linux related one on the same subject myself, because there doesn´t seem to be one (unless search in the Jira is as borked as it is in the forums).

Ok, now that I know what a THM is, i can say yes, it would be completely backward to do it in voice only. There is a good reason why in RL forums, question are submitted *in writing*, because otherwise you get 50 people all shouting their questions at once. Text is the only way to have an effective dialog amongst huge crowds as it allows you realtime "rewind" and "fast forward" to see what was said you may have missed. I couldn't imagine conducting such a meeting any other way.

The meet happened yesterday, didn't it? How'd it go? Anything good come up? What did people think of the voice format?

edit: somebody voted voice!! It was you, Zee, wasn't it?? Fess up!!

On the human side things went pretty well (attendence was rather low for a town hall though, 50-60 people I think?): noone really interrupted Zee and follow-ups were asked for in chat first for the most part.

On the technical side my voice did die 2 or 3 times which was rather annoying and towards the end it died entirely for everyone ("robot voice" for 10-15 minutes at which point Zee had to drop to text and then at the end everyone's SLvoice process just crashed). A normal stream would have been much better.

He clarrified some points (mostly on LL's side of things) although there were still a lot of misconceptions and Robin gave an explanation of why communication happened the way it did (which didn't truly make much sense to me honestly). Nothing earth-shattering for the most part .

He did dismiss the paying tier in L$ option, and hinted that LL might be interested in actually establishing a business presence in one EU country (in which case the VAT % would be the same for all Europeans instead of per country as it is now), and that the site would be updated to show prices both VAT included and excluded.

Robin tried to do a litle transcribing, but it wasn't really enough or usable (to be fair, she was the only other Linden there and she had to wade through the questions as well so her attention was probably very divided and she crashed and couldn't get back mid-way through).

I think it should be both voice and text--with the 'raise a hand' option for those that wish to have the floor.

For the main presenter/speaker, I think voice would be much more efficient and intimate. The WAY someone says something is crucial when you want to get to the bottom of something, interpret hidden meanings, or enjoy the subtleties of humor or sarcasm.

Ah joy. Gotta smile or you cry. I R srs busines and edukational platfurm. My voice let me show you it! Oh noes! My voice r browked!
I R srs busines and edukational platfurm. My online prsunce let me show you it! Oh noes! My presunce r browked! Heylp me I can't loginz! (Sorry I had too many lolcats for dinner).

Ok. And the logical solution seems to me ... Have the speakers use a Shoutcast stream broadcasting on all 4 sims and with the address announced before. Have at least 250 listeners on stream depending on interest. Record the stream at source during the meeting.
The speaker also turns on chat and IM logging. Take questions in either text or voice and begin each answer "X raises the question Y..." and then summarise the question.
Then publish an MP3 of the stream only and get someone to transcribe it, giving them the chat and IM logs so they can fill in any details they need.
Job done and accessible by hundreds.

YAY!

I can haz thread killer award?!?!