Voice and Disclosure

The community standards say:

"Sharing personal information about a fellow Resident --including gender, religion, age, marital status, race, sexual preference, and real-world location beyond what is provided by the Resident in the First Life page of their Resident profile is a violation of that Resident's privacy."

How can a non-disclosure rule still make any sense when you assume that the average user will just speak into a microphone and by doing that tell everyone around them their gender, age and location (and maybe more - what about kid noises, the spouse talking...)? In a world where everyone is being expected to do so (unless you're "hiding something" right) non-disclosure is simply a joke.

Just don't speak into the microphone.

Dan L wants to abolish the disclosure guideline anyway.

So its potentially moot reguardless.

it says disclosing it about a fellow resident
doesn't say anything about yourself

you can not control the mic of another user, you can not make them speak into it or even use voice

now if you were to disclose their gender (etc), after hearing them, and they choose to not speak again on voice, and only ever spoke to you, that would be a big no no

Except there's no way to track what's being said, which means there's effectively no way to enforce *any* of the guidelines that are broken when using voice. Voice is the griefer's paradise tool from heaven because nowhere is it tracked what has been said, and of course LL would never ban anyone (like any other online provider) without "evidence" (generally meaning verifiable in logs or other wriiten media, rather than a "he said, she said" scenario).

I'm a 38 yr old White Male (5'1" & 97lbs) , in a relationship. She's Bi. I'm straight. I'm in a crappy small town of South Western Pennsylvania, 25-27 miles outside of Pittsburgh.

So there's a Disclosure for ya!
Will you violate me now??

Put a whistle next to your computer. That should take care of voice griefing.

Long before SL joinned the 21st century, There.com had voice.. the social testbed has already been performed and apart from listening to a lot of idiots using prolific expletives in place of punctuation, it was fun listening to all the various accents from all over the world, gaining an understanding of word phrases, not always caught in text, made the experience richer.
Having played quite a few 'online games' the revalation of discovering that sexie looking avie, was actually a gender swap, lost its jaw dropping shuddering moment.
The only real drawback to using text only, is like the days of text chatrooms, whereby there would be layers of conversations and even topics going on at the same time, that was difficult for us 'keyboard peckers' to keep up with.
For 'safety' reasons, I only use headphones, I don't want my child to pickup some of the more 'flavoured' chat going on. If voice was never introduced, as he got older, I would have to be perhaps more aware of him catching that 'flavoured' chat in text on the screen. Just because I am in a Mature Sim/Place, doesn't mean he is allowed.

Pretty sure SL has more than the average number of new to voice users. Like the poster above I've been in and out of voice chat in games for years- I could care less about gender swapping, or people being able to identify that I'm a 20-something female from the southern US (hell southerners could probably ID me as Texan). I know I'm not going to be ostracized or revered for using voice except in limited circles- which I can then pick and chose which of them suit my preferences.

It's just not that big of a deal in the long term.

Not that my opinion is going to change anyone elses- some people will simply never be able to get past their fear or loathing of voice communication with the unwashed masses on the internet. That's cool. I've got no problems typing things out to talk to them, but they're really going to miss out on the fun. ^.^

The days of the opposite-sex alt may seem numbered. However I'm sure it's only a matter of time before someone figures out how to implement pitch shifting technology into SL, allowing people to change their voice to anything from a soprano to bass.

Isn't science wonderful?

Thanks for this bit of information. Now it makes sense to me.

He actually said quite clearly that the entire community standards should go except for the "harrasment" clause.

And theat should only stay becuase of the message it sends.

He feels the Disclosure provission is entirely non-eforcable.

I find this telling, since he speaks as if he WROTE the Disclosure guideline.

You can just mute the griefer. Then, he can no longer grief you with voice. If he chooses to continue griefing in text, well then, now it's documented. It's really not that difficult to understand and ignore guys.

As far as disclosure, well...you can disclose as little or as much as you want. No one makes you fill out the forms, and no one makes you talk into the microphone.

Out of curiosity, I wonder how many cross-gender AVs there are, and I wonder how many of these people are sizzling with anger about their true identity possibly being uncovered. Well...I guess all you have to say is the standard, "I don't have a mic." It works every time.

I can see why so many people are in an uproar. Their hidden identity (gender) could be revealed.

There you go stereotyping people again.

You could have gotten your point across without the last sentence.

You are a drama queen. I said nothing offensive. You'll find any way of flaming me, won't you?

SL is a virtual world. What part of "virtual" you didn't unterstand? If you want real people use A WEBCAM. (or go to a local pub.)

Besides that.. there are cheap solutions to make a voice switch gender. If you want to fool someone you still can.

I have no problem with gender switching. Many admit it. It's part of a virtual world. I treat any av as the gender they represent, even when i KNOW they pretend. It's called roleplay.

There is only one kind of people having a problem with that: Escort costumers with sexual insecurities, many of them homophobic, who are afraid they might get their sexual identity shattered when they find out they just had SC with a man *ROFL*

/me is shivering in fear as her real identity as a member of the human species might be revealed!

No - I dont even really flame you.

I just point out where you are being thoughtless.


Your last sentence of your last statement is exactly the excuse used by many to harass non-voicers.

While some non-voicers might be gender-pretenders, they still dont deserved harassed.

Many non-voicers arent gender-pretenders, they dont deserve harassed either and they dont deserve being lumped in with that stereotype.

Knowingly endangering someone else's health goes beyond griefing. If you do it on the phone I think it is a criminal offense.

Exactly because of that I am against voice. Voice causes harassment, bullying and threatening, especially against female users who are not pretending anything but just want to keep their privacy.

Monolisa, Colette...you guys should get together and go bowling. Seriously.



Voicers don't cause harassment. You guys do...ok, wait...actually, that wasn't my point. Voicers don't cause harassment--it doesn't matter where you're from, what system you're on, what your preferences are, or whether you use a mic or not...if you like harassing people, you'll do it in ANY fashion available. Voice hasn't changed this one bit...don't pretend it has.

And with the option of mute, and the option to even enable voice, you should feel completely safe and at ease. If you're being ignored, you're in the wrong crowd.

One last thing: Mona: I don't think you really understand the connection between "virtual" and "inter-reality"--you should check those out in Wikki, and then try flaming me again. Your argument holds no water. Just because we now have voice, does not mean that our AV's and their egos are no longer virtual. It's all still virtual. But you sitting at home...are in the flesh...this is "inter-reality." It would be fully virtual if we ourselves were digital entities--at least, that's what you seem to be implying. Make sense?

Peace

Voice brought an atmosphere of social pressure into the SL world, especially (if not only) for women. Most Lindens are probably men and they cannot imagine what it feels to be a female user facing two options: Talk over crisp phone lines to complete strangers OR getting harrassed for not doing so. It's cruel and mean.

The only way out is probably to use a male av. Male non-voicers are unlikely to be bullied and suspected to be women.



Voice was enabled grid-wide. Unless the owner of the parcel bans it you are basically forced to enable it just to be able to hear what people are talking about. If you enable it but refuse to talk you get a "oh what are you hiding?" Unless you lie and say your mic is broken. Many areas are dead for me now, I will never go there again.



A person's boice is not virtual, it is part of their first life, as is a photo, an address, a phone number, the marital status. It is noone's business to know where somone comes from, lives or what their age or gender is. All these data will be revealed by using a feature that was forced on us.

It is not only about gender (unless you are an escort costumer - interesting that it's only men constantly talking about gender benders). Most of the SL users have avs much younger than themselves. Why should they use voice and ruin the illusion by some old guy's voice coming through the speaker? Many use avs with specific cultural backgrounds, for example japanese. Why should they use voice and speak with a texan accent? SL is about fantasy and illusion.

Hopefully they will implement a voice masking device or a text to speech generator.

I'm sorry Michael you just don't get it do you. Second Life is a chance for people to experience a side of life they can not experience out there in the real world. Men and can be women, women can be men, disabled people can try things like ... skydiving. Who cares if their real world gender does not match their virtual one. Let's not judge people who are different from ourselves and instead let's try to accept them for who they are. Plus SL is a much safer environment for women than what we experience out there in the real world. Let's keep it safe, let's make it a place where women want to come, play and experiment. You might just understand us girls more Michael if you walked a mile in our shoes just as I'm sure I could understand a man better if I got to experience your world.

Finally ...

I already accept that the future of SL will include voice. I am just peeved that it was forced upon us at a time when the platform is not stable. I am however (I hope I am not speaking too soon) encouraged to see that life on SL grid appears to be normal. Outside of the occasional homophobic sexist neanderthol who loves to judge those who are different than themselves (without ever bothering to look into a mirror), plenty of people are still using text out there. Now if I could just figure out how to make that damn new communication window from eating up 1/4 of my screen. I know I can install an older version of the client. But then I lose the ability to voice. Catch-22 ... I think this new interface was done on purpose ... those sneaky Lindens.

Now let's go shopping. I'm always on the prowl for that next cute outfit.

I always find statements like "Now that we have voice we can not roleplay the opposite sex." rather silly, and if chat at all, let alone voice, factors in you are roleplaying. That being said I am an avid roleplayer, and 90% of my characters are the opposite sex, I fully disclose that I am in fact male, and voice chat with my Guild Wars Guild on a dayly to weekly basis. This does not impact my ability to roleplay a believable female character any more or less than any other factor. Really from my experiences, only a very small number of people can not suspend their disbelief in a character regardless of the player gender.

As for people pretending to be female "just because", I see no reason why they should have to use voice at all, or why it would impact there alt. How can you tell who an alt belongs to? Maybe I am too much of a newbie, but I don't see a way to tell if an account is an alt or not much less who it belongs to. If I am right and there is no way to tell what Avs are alts or who they belong to, then there is no way your using voice on one account can impact another.

Really the whole "Voice killed crossplay (Cross-gender roleplay)" argument has a lot lacking from my perspective. If a persona is believable enough in text, hearing some ones voice out of character should not "kill" the character, and if it does for that person usually it will be true only for the minority.

Don't get me wrong, there are valid reasons for some people to not use voice as they can be identified by their voice and be put at some form of risk. There are also those that may access SL from an ambiently noisy environment that does not lend its self to open voice communication online. Some are just jittery as it's something totally new to them, and yet others I believe are against it because they are doing something on SL they don't want people in their RL to find out about and as such fear they may be identified and their activities revealed if they use voice.

I don't get what? Oh I get it alright. You don't think I "get" Second Life? Well, that's just plain silly...and judgmental.

I understand the freedom and wonderful adventure that takes place in Second Life. I understand the ability to lose your RL worries, and be happy in a SL (if that's the case). I understand you can do things here, you can't in real life. Where in ANY of my writings, have I suggested otherwise?

No one forces anyone to speak, and/or disclose information. Second Life is still a virtual adventure, filled with amazing things...if you seriously think adding voice "broke" Second Life, then maybe it's time to try other avenues.

*shrugs*

Michael, the point is that voice FACILITATES harassment, because

1) it gives griefers one more thing to taunt someone about, and more importantly

2) it doesn't leave any evidence in the form of a chat log if you want to AR someone for harassment.