do we even want voice?

<nods> World is in a pretty useless state -- but i'm not so sure that voice is the cause of this problem. Is there any offical confirmation that the most recent rolling restart that changed some of the voice features is offically the cause of the sillyness this weekend? If there is I totally missed it, spent most of today staying away from SL hopeing that some of the issues would be resolved by tonight

Let me explain something to you. Very little of your thread content to this point suggests to me that you have anywhere near the universal support for your opinions required to be using the word "us" to refer to anything you would like to hear. I believe the response here, to quote you, would be:



So now I'm asking you. Who exactly elected you mouthpiece for what will or won't let "us" down? Best speak for yourself then.

Additionally, since your responses to me have been little more than a weak attempt to spin the pages upon pages of aloof judgments you've made on other people where you've chalked up every negative experience they've had to a personality flaw, I find it utterly hilarious that you somehow still have the sand to try and patronize me.

Hilarious, but not atypical. Your arguments, responses, and complete point of view might as well have been cut and pasted from dozens of other pro-voice (is that better hunny) excuse-fests where the only action required to deal with negative experiences with voice is to pretend they didn't occur or, failing that, to wonder aloud what the problems of other "community" members have to do with you personally.

Don't look to me for predictability. You have it mastered. As did others with your viewpoint before you.

Ent I added you to buddy list - is that friends list?
I also notice that my avatar is more angular and pre-2007. Many issues must be resolved. I'll see you in SL.

Kascha dont try to argue with him - I 'll patronize him in SL as a sweet revenge.
LOL!!

Hmmm.

As for your first point: Fair enough. My use of the word "us" in my last post was used carelessly. My apologies.

I'm not trying to chalk up every negative experience of a user to a personality flaw. Far from it. I'm simply stating that I feel 99% of all "harassment" cases can be handled by using the ignore feature.

I'm not quite sure about this, but I really have to ask: Do you think there's some issue that makes folks like me that enjoy using voice chat have to not get along with folks that don't like to use voice chat? I don't feel so.

I don't want a flame war. I'm not a unkind person, or a person that does not have any compassion for some newbie getting harassed on her first day in second life. My compassion, however, does not extend to feeling that Second Life should be modified to prevent people from harassing others via voice or text chat. That's gonna happen no matter what. We could take away voice chat and text chat and there's jerks that are still going to find a way to harass others.

Hehe - there's really no argument here. The guy has shrugged his way through 8 pages of this thread blaming every reported problem on people's inability to either ignore others, mute others, or wield the TOS with deadly effect. The voice feature could never be an unnecessary feature tailor made for the abuse of others - no never that.

Instead I'll take refuge in the knowledge that the typed words all over this thread tell a completely different story about what's been said here. They hold the speaker accountable - something that would never have been possible if the words had been spoken into a mike.

I leave it to all of you to speculate on whether or not this exact same phenomena can and will occur in voice, with much more harmful things being said, and with absolutely no road to recall.

<grins> Oh no!

Btw, I think that's the same thing as friends list -- however even after a relog i don't see you on mine

To all reading - HE is right (unfortunately). Friends/Search/map all offline

Do you really feel that the voice feature was tailor made for the abuse of others? That the intent of Linden Labs was to add a new feature with the hopes that players would use it to abuse others?

*EDIT Typo, changed "real" to "really".

Excuse me all but what does TOP right screen of SL screen mean when it says "loading" - loading what???

n

Your L$ balance.

If you log in and out a few times you might even get it to show your balance, but you can't spend it xD

Okay. Thanks. I am gonna TRY and get SL work done. I read all comments in a little while.

Cool -- was good to meet you, have a great day Catch you on the grid sometime, I hope.

Nobody is looking at where voice comes from. it's a lot of effort (read; a LOT) to add such a thing to a platform like this, so why are they doing it? What's in it for them?

I think the answer is, it's a tick-box thing. Somewhere, there's a market review of "friend based chat" systems, which tries to lump SL in with MSN Live Messenger, Yahoo, etc - and the others had a tick box column marked "voice chat", filled in - and SL didn't. In considering how to approach the rest of the industry and compete with them, SL had a hissy fit - "we must be comparable!" is the usual cry.

In my line of country this is known as golf-course IT planning. The boss comes back from the golf course having been fed a line of BS by his golfing buddies: he has no idea whether having a leveraged intranet (or whatever) is relevant or important or anything else: all he knows is, he was embarrased in front of his pals because he couldn't say he had it. So now, he WANTS IT RIGHT AWAY...

Voice on SL smacks of that kind of effect, to me.

I'm not a great believer in 99% of anything - it is far too general for me to support. Regardless, the number of reports of this behavior is mounting, and doing so quickly. Maybe a fair number can be handled using "Ignore", but as the incidents increase, one has to consider the quality of the experience when it is spent with the arrow constantly hovering above the ignore button.



I agree with you; it is not predisposed or inevitable and there shouldn't be an issue. However, the lack of compassion and forethought that I have witnessed here from pro-voice residents has been in a word, nauseating. It is that lack of compassion that causes me to doubt the commitment of the voice community towards easing any transition.



This is a common viewpoint; that SL has to be modified to reckon with people who fear being harassed. The reality of the matter however, is that the only modifications made to SL thusfar in this area were to reckon with people who don't want to type. There is a disturbing tendency among voicers to simply "decide" that SL without voice is a modification. It is not. It is what it has always been.

I don't pretend to know who you are as a person. All I know is what I've read from you here. I can tell you with no fear of contradiction that your words concerning the plight of that newb did not smack of compassion at all. Be that as it may, my problem is not with you specifically. My problem is that it's all well an good to say what one thinks is going to happen. When the truth comes out however, it is time to dispense with the spin and accept it for what it is. To not do so makes one more a part of the problem than the solution. You say the problem is not voice but the existence of a-holes who are using it? Fine, but then when the a-holes do what they do best, admit it. Don't reverse responsibility for it. If the victim can be blamed for not taking action then LL can be blamed for putting an enabling tool in their hands such as voice and forcing their customers to have to take action for them.

That is not what tailor made means here. Tailor made refers to the ease of application of voice as a tool for abuse. We both know that implying that LL created the voice feature for the sole purpose of griefing is absurd. Had I meant to imply that, I'd have used the phrase "purpose-built".

Couldn't have said that better myself.

Where we disagree: I don't see voice as an "enabaling tool" for people to harass others with. I see it just as another communication feature, and like any communication device every developed in the history of mankind: people are going to use it to harass other people. That's not the fault of Linden Labs.

I realize that my words might not make me appear as being compassionate -- but I am not lying to you when I say that I have literally taken *dozens* of newbs under my wing and helped them on their first days of Second Life. My land at one point was handing out almost $1000 L a day to campers (Sure, I was doing this for selfish reasons also, namely my land's traffic score!) -- I am not lacking on compassion --- I just simply feel that there's little if any reason to ever let anyone in Second Life make anyone feel harassed.

That's what I thought --- I was a little suprised by your comment and wasn't quite sure what you were trying to imply

If muting someone would prevent him from speaking, it would help. In reality it will only prevent you from HEARING them. So you cannot even hear how they say bad things about you to other players...

Wait a second, now we're treading on dangerous ground here.

You're not saying that we should prevent someone from using voice chat because they might be saying bad things about *you*, are you?

If someone offends you, fine -- you don't have to listen to it. But to imply that that person should not be able to talk at all becuase they have offended you is something quite different. That's imposing your standards of who deserves to speak and who does not onto the rest of the grid.

Regadless of if we are talking about voice chat, text chat, or banging rocks together -- someone out there is going to find a way to do it that is going to annoy the hell out of you. Who cares if they say bad things about you after you mute them? If they are a complete jerk, does it matter what they say?

Just because people are going to say bad and ugly things about other people does not mean we should remove their ability to say anything at all - regardless of if you speaking of voice or text chat.

Because maybe it may give the others who hear it a very bad and not correct view/opinion about you? And if someone really misbehaves, they should not get THAT easy away from it.

If someone is out there to really annoy me and crosses the borders of the TOS, I AR... once, twice and as often as it is needed. Correct, detailed AR's....

I still think mute is a wrong way to handle harasment.

Morwen.

I lag bad enough and some places general chat is bad enough along with random im's..i am not gonna give them the chance to let my ears actually suffer aswell..
did i mention that i lag bad enough already too? hehehehe

I can understand why voice is being implemented but I do have several very real concerns about it coming to SL, first off due to my household situation of my husband and family being around much of the time I wont be able to use voice so I will probably get the “oh look another girl who is a guy” aspect. It worries me that voice may well bring more people to SL but will these people be coming to SL for the wrong reasons I ask myself? And how many griefers and idiots’ will it bring to the system?
I can see that it may well have its uses and will be by many considered a “step forward” for SL, but please oh please can we not sort out some of the “issues” that SL suffers from already before we add another thing to the already over laden camels back?
Please can you get the overall SL system working correctly and up to some sort of decent standard before you implement this voice chat system and other un-needed things.