do we even want voice?

Well if it's voice abuse, as Colette points out, then yeah that's a problem but typed abuse, the chat history window will have that information.

Nice try buddy. No it isn't a tad dramatic. And no she didn't have a "choice."

It's been in beta and first look for quite a while.

I have no interest in voice, but I am really bothered by the fiasco this weekend.. As LL keeps trying to come up with clever new ideas, people quit because of lost assets, inability to teleport or do any of the normal things people come to SL to enjoy. The grid is already burdened without the strain of new trendy features. Please, LL, test everything thoroughly first, weekends like this are really bad for morale, and bad morale equals people leaving. And please work on bugs and grid stability as the primary top goal, above all else.

Well they did say it happened in a welcome area, maybe she was new. I doubt that many new players would bother with finding out how to report abuse, they'd simply logoff and not return.

Have a little consideration for the fact that it was a noobie perhaps?

If you are harassed on your first DAY in a virtual world you have as yet developed no vested interest in - the temptation to quit rather than AR would be strong.

Besides the fact that a brand spanking noobie isnt going to know what the rules are or how to AR.

Harrasing new players is bad. The impact is greater than harrassing experienced players.

Yes, but the friday update that borked the grid was done in order to improve some voice functions. Obviously this update hasn't been tested in any environment off the main grid.

voice? NO thanks...can you imagine a foreigner like me trying to undertand Scottish people,some Americans, Australians( I love you, you know!)......nightmare! And maybe all talking together....I'm going to place a nice flip title on my head:MUTE AND DEAF....

Not necessarily so. They could have got it wrong despite testing.

Yeah, I find that kinda annoying too. But if that is as annoying as the new interface gets, I can live with that.


I don't follow your logic. Damage? How can then 5-60 seconds of my voice (the time it takes you to either turn your sound off, teleport away, mute me, or do any of the many things you can do to not hear my voice) damage you? If you play SL you are an adult. In second life, much like real life, people are going to say things that you don't want to hear. That's reality, my friend. Also, in my person opinion, if someone allows themselves to be "damaged" by what someone says in the voice channel of Second Life, that person needs to stay away from the outside world in general, including via the Internet. Someone's always got something to say that is going to offend someone. That's not news.



Racism: Nothing new here. Mute the resident that makes racist remarks. Actually *read* the TOS and realize that racist comments via text or voice can be reported to Linden Labs, although I don't see why anyone would need to go that route. Just mute the resident. Personally, there's not a single racial slur anyone could direct at me in the few moments it takes me to mute them that would possibly affect me. Some people are complete idiots, and that's okay -- why let them upset you?

Sexual Abuse: Read the aboce paragraph, insert the phrase "sexual abuse" where you see "racism". It's called MUTE.

Terrorism: What? You mean RL acts being planned on SL via it's voice chat feature? Dude, if you are planning on blowing some shit up and you think that SL's voice channel via your home internet connection is a good way of keeping in touch with your buddies to plan violent acts, you have *serious* problems.


Way to say *nothing*, WilliamAvalanche. How did this girl not have a choice? She was unable to choose to ignore those that were offending her? Did someone find her RL identity and tie her to her chair and force her to be offended in Second Life? From what it sounds like, the persons that hurt her feelings were a bunch of jerks anyway, right? These people were the only people out of 25,000 or so online that our poor girl could talk with? Please. It's just like television, dude. If you are offended, change the channel - don't expect the programming to change to fit your views on offensive.


She very well may have been new. When I am new to a online community, I genrerally learn how to use the communication features *before* i engage in public conversation. As far as I am concerned, someone that logs into Second Life for the first time and is so offended by something that someone says, and does not bother to learn how to mute or ignore the person that is offending them and logs out and never comes back -- that's one person gone that we don't need in the first place. People that can't deal with the reality that someone is always going to try to find a way to annoy / offend you and expect the world to adapt to their inability to accept human nature confuse me



I have lots of considersation. I'm a really nice guy If I was there and overheard this newbie being abused, I would have probably dropped her a IM and welcomed her to Second Life and told her that just like real life, some people just *suck*.

As far as I am concerned, feeling "harassed" in second life by what a user says in text or voice chat is due to a person really wanting to feel harassed. You can mute them. You can simply not care what the say. Harassment = actually impacting the users ability to play Second Life. Such as parcal enroachment, scripted attacks designed to cause DoS, etc.

Brand spaking noobies need to read the rules before they play. It's not our fault or Linden Labs fault that they don't really the TOS before clicking "accept." It's not anyone's fault that they don't click the word HELP on the top of their screen.

As someone said, I don't think it will be an issue after a while. Imagine if zones in MMORPGs were voice enabled instead of having third party software limiting it to who you wanted to hear. *click* When 90% of all land owners have it disabled, it will be obvious how important it was.

Of the "big six" only one, assault, isn't doable with voice. All the rest will fit nicely into the big gaping hole voice creates. How will abuse reports go? "He said yadda yadda", "No I didn't, she's lying"... Instead of having a screenshot or a log to cite... nothing. I've only been here a short time, but I know how your word against theirs complaints turn out.

Again, as a tool for particular tasks, sure. I don't relish classes being taught with it because I rely on the logs for notes, and now I guess I'll have to jot notes myself. I can see it as a use, though, and a few others. All this work to create a feature that will be unused 90% of the time? Lack of priorities...

WoW is getting voice. I haven't logged in there for a couple of weeks so I don't know when it's coming but as voice seems to be the in thing, LL would be foolish to ignore the facility.

Why do you need a screenshot or a log to cite of a user that you don't want to hear from? You can just mute them. Leave the Lindens free to deal with violations that actually *matter*. Lindens won't accept screenshots or logs you provide as evidence of anything anyway, and they never have, you know? Becuase logs and screenshots can be changed.

A feature that will be un-used 90% of the time for *YOU*, perhaps. Unless you've been doing some serious survay and voice use traffic analasys, or have been elected to speak on behalf of the entire grid regarding the voice client features -- I suggest you stick to speaking for yourself only.

Really, I have to say it, you are being extremely unimaginative here. I can think of what it is like to be a shy person, joining a new community, and suddenly being picked on and being the subject of aggression. It is not pleasant, and the most likely reaction is flight. Just because YOU can stand up for yourself, doesn't mean everyone can.

And the issue here is not that there are jerks in general. This poor girl was being hassled specifically because she was a a girl and didn't have voice support. It would not happen normally. This is why the argument "if you don't want voice just don't use it" fails. The effect will be to split SL into two camps, voice users and non-voice users, with considerable hostility between the two. This is why it's such a bad thing. It's not about personal choice, it's about the overall effect on SL.

And that's not counting the effect on the already overstrained grid, as we have seen.

So I assume you read the TOS before even logging into SL for the first? Read the manual?

I didn't... bad me. I read the TOS after I made up my mind that SL was something I wanted. At first I was far too overwhelmed by all that hitted me with the first logon into SL. I learned the basics on the help-isle. But most I learned from people around me.

And I think that is the way it went for most people. There is big difference by the ideal way of things to go and between how they really go.

Morwen.

I never said that I was unable to think of what it was like to be a shy person and joining a new community to find myself being picked up. Far from being unable to imagine this sort of thing happening, I *expect* this sort of thing to happen. But what is to be done? Start banning users that pick on and offend other users?

As for your argument that this "poor girl" was being harassed because she was a girl and did not have voice suppport, and on how this would not be an issue if Voice was not a part of second life -- let's face facts here: people are going to harass and offend others regardless of what feature is added to second life. This is hardly a valid rebuttal of the "If you don't want voice, don't use it" argument. In fact, it is totally unrelated. Corrallation does not equal causation, to put it more elequentally. Your example does not point out a failure in the "Don't like it, don't use it" argument, it points out a logical failure in your argement. Simple because voice chat or lack of voice chat was involved in this girl's situation does not mean voice chat *caused* the situation.

I highly doubt that adding Voice chat will have quite the dramatic effect you describe. I love voice chat, and I voice chat with lots of people. I also have many friends and business partners that don't use it, and I talk to them also via text. Not all of us here on the grid crave the strife and drama that some users seem to thrive on.

I find this "poor girl" case so unleated from the issue of voice chat that it's not even funny. This is an issue of someone needing to learn how to either stand up for themselves, use ignore/mute functions, file an abuse report, or just log out and find somewhere on the internet that is not going to make her uncomfortable.

Actually, I did read the TOS before clicking accept! I always do, and I am shocked that people don't. Considering the fact that I am a premium account holder with land, tier fees, and profits from my SL business ventures, you better be sure that I've read that TOS quite a few times As for the "Manual" -- I have been using computers for twenty years of the thirty that i've been around, so I generally am able to figure out a program without reading the manual from cover to cover.

I'm sure as a new player you may have been harassed or offended by what others said or did, or some parts of the world around you. But does that mean we should remove players and content that offends other players, or provide tools to allows the players to filter their content themselves insead of expecting the entire world to do it for them?

I think we already have the answer to every single case of voice or text chat harassment. It's called Mute.

I'm more sceptical than you regarding a TOS, I don't have much faith in them so I'll give them a cursory glance. If I was investing big then I'd take more notice but I'd still take the TOS with a pinch of salt.

I agree with you largely on voice, I've enjoyed using it, with ladies, and I didn't say anything dirty to them!

I don't agree with you totally on the mute issue. Prevention is better than cure and all that. Just clicking mute only hides the problem, it doesn't address the cause.

This is a case of not being able to see the wood for the trees. There will be two communities. The voice-users will complain about the non-voice users, and possibly vice versa. This story is plain evidence that this is what will happen.

You are making the mistake of thinking of your experience, what you do, what you would like, are general. I'm thinking about what is actually likely to happen, things being what they are, and personal considerations aside.

But whichever of us is right on this, the grid issues remain, and we've had a demo of what that effect will be.

Ahhh, that's where I have to shake my head and get on my soap box, I hope you will forgive me.

Prevention is *not* better then are cure in this case. Here's why.

The problem is harassment of players via voice or text chat. In both cases, the player feeling harassed is able to mute the person harassing them.

But, to prevent that situation from happening in the first place, we have to make second life a much worse place to live in. We either would need to make all new accounts log into an area where NO ONE was around to harass them or make them feel offended. Or we'd need to totally remove chat from newbie areas totally. Both of those ideas make second life a worse place to live. As for outside of the newbie areas, the same logic applies.

We already have control over this. We have PG and Mature sims. We have the mute feature. We can teleport away from any situation, we can log off, we can ask for help when we need or find the help we need ourselves.

One of the *biggest* problems with free speech is that some people are going to say things that other people do not like. That's just reality.

In second life we have it even better then first life. Think of how nice it would be in real world if you could simply mute anyone that offended you and never have to think about them again? Or simply ban them from your land and never have to worry about them getting in? How is mute and ban not enough? Should we start deciding what is offensive to some and impose their standards onto an entire metaverse? Surely not.

When I played EVE Online, I experienced nothing but the best, highest quality Service in the world. GM's serve YOU hand in foot, not the other way around. They responded to my questions I e-mailed in less then 6 hours, and the same GM sent me another e-mail later to see if everything was alright.

Remember, Everybody pays for this game though, I wouldn't mind paying a 10 dollar a month fee for Second Life and keep everybody else that doesn't out, you get what you pay for!

These days LLABS caresless and whats even worse good people are getting trapped in what is called a witchhunt for some. Frankly speaking, If llabs workers have nothing else better to do then causes harm,stress, etc...... Why in the world are the LIndens to start with?

Believe If linden Labs wants you OUT. They do Their best to do it. And they always win. Reguards less if your guilty or Not.........This was not the case back in 2004 2005....But then again the game was smaller. And ther was control in the lindens. Now..........you have to watch your back even with LLABs workers. I found this out the hard way last year.

Usagi

No, not really. Am I not that easily to harras... as RL business woman I mostly have a fast and clear reply ready. And if that doesn't help, there is always the way of reporting the matter through the proper ways.

But that is me, not everyone is like that.

Concerning the TOS, I think you are the exception. Not many read the TOS or something alike the first time. They will read when it becomes important to do (as moving to a premium account and buy land) or after you have been harrassed and want to know what is allowed and what not.
To be honest, I am actually shocked to know there is someone that does read the TOS really before enter the game the first time.

And in my opinion is "mute" a bad way to handle harrasment. It solves nothing, it just makes you don't notice it anymore. That is turning your back to the real problem.

Morwen.

It is perhaps your belief that 5 of the big six don't matter. Others may feel differently. As for screenshots the client itself makes them in the process of reporting, so you can't tamper with them. The one report I made about someone had a pristine screenshot of them doing it attached. In terms of logs I mean the logs that are created on LL's servers.

As for muting, it's been said over and over, in this discussion and others. Why say it again? If LL's stance was "Sticks and stones, mute them and leave us out of it" we wouldn't have the policy at all.



As in all online discussions, again, "free speech" is twisted to mean something it was never intended to. You have freedom of speech in terms of the government silencing you. You don't have freedom to say whatever you like in my house, or on these forums, or on the SL grid.

It wont be long till LL have to watch their back more closely. Alot of curruption, and I bet, some lindens are involved. Problems I've had, have and still are effecting my investments for this game, espeically for their lack of interest in the players view of things.