Thoughts on Interactive Discussions in SL

Hi Everyone,

I would like to share some thoughts I have in hosting interactive classes and round tables in SL.

If you have hosted an interactive discussion before, please add your experiences to this thread. I am especially looking for ideas on how to increase immersion, cut down on crosstalk, and encouraging high signal to noise by leveraging SL avatar features and other SL functionality.

Here we go:

Round table versus Town hall Format

A round table has a lot of definitions about its composition, but for me it has a host (the person who called together the event), guest speaker(s) (those who are directing the conversations and topics), and the audience. Ideally, the audience will (at times) get to fully participate in the round table.

I believe that the round table format represents SL well. The townhall format, which is answers to questions without discussion, can be done effectively (probably more effectively) in SecondLife forums. However, the lively back and forth / give of and take of RoundTables really leverage the hard wrought features the Lindens have struggled over and, at least to me, seem a more appropiate group activity in SL.

Cut down on crosstalk with SL techniques

That being said, we need to deal with crosstalk that occurs and undermines group discussion. There are a number of visual and aural techniques we can use:

1. A particle beam, a colored chair, a prim 'conch' to visually indicate the person who currently has the floor. Everyone else should try not to interrupt when someone else 'has the conch'.

2. However, some opportunity should be made to open up the floor for discussion to everyone at times, but when the conch moves again, the floor should be closed until it is clearly re-opened by either host, guest speaker, or the individual who has the floor.

3. Clapping, whistling, and other visual / aural gestures should be used to indicate approval or disapproval about what is being said. Having a gesture alongside helps people know who's making their opinion known without disrupting things too much. The aural sound effects should be not be overly amplified. Aural/visual gestures are better than text chat emotes because they do not disrupt the chat text flow.

Needless to say - keep your camera trained in a way that you can see everyone clearly to fully appreciate the gestures.

Ensuring intelligent and fair coverage

By utilizing some of the visual indicators above, we can keep the conversation moving when people start to monopolize the conversation. Everyone should respect the indicators and reinforce that respect so the conversation will be equal and fair. Try to stick to a timed amount, say 5 minutes, per individual conversations.

Still - do not be a stickler. If there is a guest speaker, let them dwell (or cut short) conversations that make sense to them. Of course, gently remind them via IM not to spend too little or too long with a particular individual. It is a balance and both host and speaker should respect that.


Avoiding time wastage

I would really like go go all out here and let people queue up their questions so they get automatically typed, however I do recognize that might be overly complex. So, I suggest everyone simply make sure that their question is ready to be cut and paste. Use a note card or something to have your points ready to be typed out.

Also, if you have something to say, type it out but do not hit return right away. Wait until the other person is finished and if your comment is still relevant - then hit return, otherwise go back and edit it or rewrite it. (Use the home key to scroll to the beginning, home-shift to clear, etc)

Picking a Topic

In SecondLife, I would like to host a topic which can leverage the medium. For example, we could bring props, prim or LSL, and have interactive discussions around those props. I have done this with my classes and some day I hope to do it with a round table conversation. This is the sort of thing that has to be queued up.

Immerse Yourself

It's important to feel like you are there in in a shared space. When you do so, you feel less anonymous and you're more likely to participate in social graces such as not interrupting, respecting other viewpoints, and using a polite and friendly tone when talking about your ideas.

I know I'm probably one of the few, but I find chat bubbles really help immerse myself in the dialogue. They tell me when someone is about to type and I get to visually see immediately who is typing. You have to be careful though, some prim setups will block the chat bubbles. Keep your chat history open so you can refer to it if necessary.

Limiting the Audience - fairly

This is the hardest yet and by far the most important. Unfortunately, SL lags under too many avatars and it's too easy to interrupt when you're anonymous. Keeping it small and intimate helps solve both these problems.

Instead of limiting who can come by going invitation only, try to simply advertise in places that those who are really interested will likely find it.

Another advantage to a small audience is that you can watch for typing animations and other things so that you can be respectful of avatar body language.

Future Projects

I'd like to create a queueing device that people can touch to queue themselves, their questions, and their props up. They can also use it to find out where they stand in the queue. The guest speaker or host can type "Next" to move to the next person in the queue automatically. Some bleed over and crosstalk will still occur, of course, but the previous and next speaker should expect that and deal with it by watching for typing animations. And, of course, as with everything here - being patient.

I have some functionality from my virtual classes I'd like to integrate as well, such as real time surveying via dialogs and automatic transcript recording. Having a place to go afterwards to collect and organize the information would be cool, I think.

I read no post longer than my hand.

~Ulrika~

Gwyneth Llewelyn uses a "Soapbox" device when she hosts Thinkers Meetings. The soapbox animates the current person that is on top of it, and if there is chatter in the crowd while the person is speaking, the box reprimands them. I'm making it more simple than it is, but it is actually pretty neat! You may want to talk to her about taking a look at the box and testing it out. She also has some at the Neualt Expo right now (I can't remember if they are free or if they are just a few Lindens). I bought one and would be happy to meet up sometime to give you a demonstration. Just in case it could be something useful to you!

Thanks for your reply Pendari, this is a topic very dear to me and I was really hoping for feedback like this.

I'll see if I can catch up with Gwyneth.

The pros and cons of having to virtually move if you wish to be the speaker is interesting.

I like the idea of staying seated because that keeps the dialogue more flexible.

If people think they have to move in order to talk, then they might resist being the center of attention. Also, if they miss-click when they go to move, it might disrupt things.

One possibility, would be to move the chair itself. I get nervous doing that too much however as it seems like it could start crashing the client(s) of the people in the meeting.

Still, making it even more visually obvious who has the floor might be a good idea.

Due to speed of typing.. it is often easier for two people chatting to let their conversations overlap slightly.

Waiting while a person is typing becomes a more important issue when it's more than 3 or 4 people talking, however, the main tool is simply restraint, patience and attention. While a conch/laser/soapbox can help, nothing can combat those who wish to speak at all costs.

One thing that does help, for me at least, is to give the speaker a mic (which btw can be scripted to only listen to it's assigned speaker). The mic would caputure the speakers chat from a silent channel and rebroadcast it in another color (depending on user settings)

The speaker can either allow double lines or speak to it on a channel, or man other configurations. Either way, minimally one line will be in a different color and this will be the "speaker", while "cross talk" is in the normal chat color.

(hopefully users have object chat set to a different color than av chat, I personally set av chat to a warm vanilla while objects talk in bright green)

While no cross talk would be nice... this does help other who want to follow the main thread.

I think it's reasonable to eject someone from a meeting if they talk out of turn too many times or try to discuss topics which clearly are not on the floor at the moment.

I'm usually pretty lenient about this, and have found that subtle warnings and peer pressure usually do the trick, ie. I've never had to eject anyone. I think the fact that people know that they can be ejected is usually more than enough to keep them on track.

The mic is a good idea because not a lot of people use chat bubbles. I use that for my classes, where notes are broadcasted by an object and interjections I make come from my avatar.

I think the Thinkers soapbax is definitely a step in the right direction - a more automated cueing device like you mentioned, Iron, would probably be even better. Some simple dialouges that let people add themselves to the queue, skip their turns (if their intended remark is not longer necessary or they are done 'talking'), request extensions of talk time etc. Of course people would still need to 'play by the rules', but I think that's fairly easy to establish with a well working device like that.

Too often have I seen in-world discussions gone out of control, because too many conversation threads have emerged and messages have crossed each other, especially with longer and more elaborate points. I think it would also allow those who aren't very quick typists to participate more in discussion, which they might not now, or at least not to the full extend.

Having auto eject on pointed at anyone who types might be fun to find out who has cats!

I was recently at an educational meeting that was held at a midpoint between order and chaos. We all spoke in and out of turn and on and off topic... It worked for us, but this could not possibly work for anything but tight knit groups. It "self healed" now and then but having an official moderator/host/shusher just can NOT be overlooked.

There is a level of "comfort" at not having too many rules, and I say this from experience (and have the transcripts to prove it) that once a group has enough diverse points, ideas, vies, and visions, there must be enforced order.

While the topic of Robert's rules hovers near all these situations, I'm glad to see SL technology put to use.

*works on script to bounce anyone who uses the phrase "there are those who say..."

Yeah that's an idea, have the system bounce you after X comments while it's not your turn.

Nothing personal if it is scripted. And I think it's the personal bit that upsets everyone.

Roberts rules are great, but all too often we find ourselves sometimes thinking more about the rules and less about the conversation at hand. Having it all taken care of for us helps quite a bit.

Anyways, great ideas Blueman. Which educational meeting were you at? Can I get an invite.. I'm very much interested in education and secondlife.

One thing that hasn't been discussed here, though, is the use of clapping. I really like that and I think it's a nice immersive tool which provides another dimension (an aural one) to the discussion.

Well we did talk about ya

I'll IM you in game.

I clap very often when I'm at a meeting and someone says something I like, but that I don't want to make a text comment for. It is also one of my gestures that has sound and animation, but that I do not have an astrick text message to go with also. Like, when I wink, I do the sound and animation and it shows up *wink* on the chat screen. I left clapping without one so that I could be more free to use it even when text would be inappropriate.