Do you prefer audio or text townhalls?

Oddly enough, I liked the voice better. You can 'hear' a lot more in voice than you can in text. Meaning, like how uncertain/certain Phil was on things. I've always prefered to call any customer support, rather than email for that reason

But there were a lot of bugs that definately needed to be worked out, even though he did answer far more questions with the vocal than the text. And I admit, it was kinda nice to hear the voices of fellow forum posters. And to listen to the Lindens slaughter names I've learned to live with my names (in game and RL - although I kinda got rid of the RL one when I got married) being slaughtered.

*ponders asking a question for the next one if it's in voice* Yes, I'm evil. I know this

Hello to you too, sir. Nice to meet you.

(Most of us just use the sign for "hello", which is sorta like a casual salute...or sometimes fingerspell "Hi". I usually just nod myself. hehe.)

I just sniff someone's ass. I'm a furry, so it works out, except for those odd RL situations when the people just give me a weird look when I do it!

I loved both, but i picked audio. i know robin would agree. XD did a lot of typing there. ;p

With all the outages in the stream it was good to read what i might have missed.

That is what we had yesterday. Personally I liked it - Philip is not a good typist, as he admitted, and when he was chatting the whole thing flowed much better, even with the buffering of the audio stream. I just felt sorry for Robin, who had to type like mad to get everything down.

I much prefer my SecondLife town halls to be held in SecondLife, not an out-world third-party site.

Guess one could easily tell I didn't listen to the broadcast.


- Newfie

I prefer text.

It includes everyone.

If griefing is an issue - how hard is it to just NOT have a central location for a TH, philly can type all by himself with Robin and/or Jeska at some undisclosed location, and the rest of us can grab a repeater and "problem" solved.

IM questions to Robin or Jesk to supplement the one's taken from a forum thread. Always its leaps and bounds into a shaky new (exlusive) frontiers with these folks, instead of just taking a few simple steps.

Telling folks who are deaf that well ok don't sweat it =- there's a transcript pretty much tells them they aren't welcome to participate in the format at hand. That doesn't go down well with me or my Partner who happens to be deaf. Not to mention the members of her SL Deaf Underground group.

I really feel bad that philly can't type good, I really do. But he can go pick up a typing course or something like the rest of us did. He's had a couple of two three years to figure out he might need to communicate thusly with the residents of his world.

If LL wants to expand into the world wide arena, busting into "new" frontiers that leave out members of its population, is definitely NOT the way to go.

Hey, everybody I know types faster than they speak. But OK, whatever.

I'm familiar with a lot of the points, counterpoints, and countercounterpoints here through personal experiences.

First, I am hearing-impaired (I have hyperacusis), so I like text in that I can reread it as often as I like without having it "pass me by". (And yes, "Pardon me?" is not a strange line to the self.) I also like text transcripts because they're searchable... should I need to look up someone's name in order to quote them, I can do this easily.

Interestingly, I traditionally have a history of misreading the cues in someone's tone of voice. Over time, that had gotten better. Hyperacusis got to me in May 2004 and things went downhill after that, until I found out about Second Life.

Genetically, hearing isn't good in my family. I have several deaf relatives, who I'd love to show Second Life to. They don't know English either, but text, generally speaking, they can do.

As you can imagine, I'm big on avatar-centric communication. I'd sometimes like to Ctrl-drag my hand inworld to wave it, just like I can move a prim, and watch it flop back down (gracefully) as I let go.

I also realize there's an uncomfortable chasm from one technological advance to another. While vocal genderbending is by far and large still in its infancy and unconvincing, when I last was actively involved in electronic music over two years ago, there were already promising advances being made such as TC Helicon's fine line of products. They don't just mask your voice: they transform it.

You know how it goes: "My fave singer sounds so good on the CD--er, digital audio file--but live, they sucked!" That's not just acoustics, that's voice sweetening and extensive processing. If some shim wants to call in to the Live Help using a VoicePro and convince Philip he's a really sexy woman... heh.

There are certainly things which I have to do outside of SL, which I'd like to do from within. That ol' saying, "Eating your own dog food" (or "cat food" if you're picky).

Another thing which is going to come up--maybe it already has--is "Why can't Lindens have a different color of text to represent them inworld? Like they're burnt sienna on the forums!" Point taken.

I'm really happy that actually doing this audio Town Hall was effective test for the launch of Radio Linden too. Collab'ing with Johnny Ming of SecondCast, who happens to be a really fast typist himself. Can't work out a knot without running your hands along the rope.

I remember when Haney Linden was dubbed "the human firewall". Watching Jeska and Robin blaze along was really incredible. The whole event was such a rush--and thanks to good discussions like this, what we've learned will be applied to the next one, no matter what format--text, audio, video, holophone--it's in.

I would get a kick out of SL "footage" advancing to such a stage that it can be broadcast live on televisions, crispy and smoothly, with events like this coming across like they're being beamed just like from anywhere on Planet Earth. I also think of those sci-fi alien conferences where they have all sorts of interpreters for an intergalactic delegation.

And gawd, what happens when we get more flexible, sentient pets in SL? We'll need to put special cozy devices on them to find out what they're saying, and make sure they don't miss out on Town Halls either.

"Live in Second Life!"

That was the purpose of having Robin typing what Philip said as he spoke. There has been all of one town hall so far in this format, it is a bit premature to write the whole thing off.

Regardless of how many people you know who type faster than they speak, it is still different for each person. Philip feels more comfortable answering questions in voice than in text. To each their own, what is right or normal for you isn't necessarily the same for someone else.

That can be attributed to the breakneck pace at which LL decided to do this town hall. It was literally a week earlier that the idea was even discussed, and then the audio town hall was rushed out the door one week later. I think Johnny did an excellent job given the time constraints he had to deal with, and a constantly shifting format plan until literally the day before the town hall. As with anything new, it rarely goes completely perfect the first time. If they continue in this format, they can only get better with time and practice - this was very much an experiment in seeing what worked and what they needed to improve. It definitely could have used a bit more time/testing in advance, but LL often moves at a sudden accelerated speed understood only by them.

I just want to see the notes is all.anyone have them?????????????

I wonder if a voice to text program (one for each speaker) could be of any value in producing an instant transcription.

I suspect because of the buffering we were getting the audio stream delayed by a few seconds.

Is it beyond the realms of common sense for someone who can type fast to be sitting next to Phil whilst he's on the microphone, typing in on his account so it's his avatar that's 'talking'?

It's all an illusion anyway, so what difference would it make for Phil to be speaking on voice, with someone else typing what he says through his avatar?

Personally I'd rather keep the text format, and get the questions we ask answered, rather than messing about with new ways of doing something - that didn't need changing in the first place?

Do we even need a Town Hall? Do they actually benefit anyone?

Lewis

I prefer text or audio with a text transcript.

I voted for Other cause there was no "less bullshit" option

That wouldn't be very townhall-ish then.

I would prefer text.

I listened to the Town Hall from NCI, where some people were unable to listen to the stream because their PCs didn't have the power to run the stream at the same time as SL. There were frequent break-ups. And, I'm still not quite sure about the rules regarding using a headset rather than a microphone. Either way, it seems like an awful lot of extra hardware/software etc. was needed.

Audio is also, from what I experinced, MORE easily griefed than text. Yes, people can spam text chat channels, but at least the legitimate text remains there. From where I was listening, several people started looped dance samples or taking off in noisy jets, which made it hard to hear what was being said. You can't mute or turn down non-streamed samples, and in audio, if you miss something, you've missed it until the transcript or podcast comes out, so you won't get a chance to respond to it.

I'm also a bit worried that the privacy issue is being glossed over by the example of RL males playing SL females being raised over and over. There's also RL females playing SL males (usually for safety/"no sex please" reasons), and people who might not want their age or nationality announced; and, of course, the possibility of any person who knows them IRL recognizing them. Just because you and your boss both happen to play SL doesn't mean that you both want the other to know that.