Yes Or No Voice Activated On Property

hehe watch my typing for awhile, I stutter in text quite often LOL
and I do stutter and stammer and mix up my words and butcher the english language (the only one I know) on voice very often

I figure if someone doesn't want to hear my rambling they can mute me.

Since i've been labelled as a rapid anti-voicer ...

Ill explain my take on the whole issue.

I never was for the removal of voice from SL.

When voice was first announced and they claimed it was becuase the community all wanted it, I called them on their BS. Becuase the community HADNT been clamoring for it.

So I had a thread wondering what people thought about the idea. I wanted people to leave the performance issues out of their responses, but the forums being what they are At least Half of the people who didnt want voice didnt want it for perfomance reasons.

Thats still the case, at least half of the non-voicer set doesnt like any percieved performace impact - whether its a UI performance downgrade, or actual bandwith and application problems.

Now I said then and I say now, they didnt need our permission to add voice - I just dont like when they tell us they added it becuase of Broad Appeal amoung the community and no one could even remember being asked.

I was, and still am, concerned primarily with the Social Implications of what ammounts to an Opt - Out Voice system.

I have on several occasions been pressured into using voice both before SL voice and After. When I said No, I was accused of all sorts of untrue things.

So while its easy to say its optional - Its important to remember the option of "No voice" wont be accepted by everyone.

Id just like more of the voicers to get that , No socially its not always going to be truly "Optional".

And would like more voicers to stop and think before they pressure people in world for what it a personal decision on the part of the non-voicer.

you say half of the non voice users, but can only go on estimates, and only on those who speak up in the forums

you say the community did not want it, were you able to monitor and see every comment email etc sent to SL so therefor know for certain the community did not want it?

when I think community I do not think of it being 100% everyone wants or doesn't want something.

I think that when they use community in such context they mean majority, or they have had a significant # of people requesting voice.

*shrug* what do I know though, I do not have any insights either....

I would not dare say I know anything for certain when it comes to the user base of SL
I can only know for certain what I want, and that is on a good day.

ymmv though

and for those who will not accept you not using voice, is it worth your time to get upset about their disregard of someone's personal choice?
I will still talk to you, if I met up with you in game.

just do not do to me what other non voice users have and accuse me of ignoring you because I do not reply immediately, especially if I am helping someone else, NOT on voice.

Do not expect immediate responses, be it voice user or non voice user.

also I do not like how non voice uses shun me because I am a voice user, it will be nice when non voice users stop pressuring voice users to turn off voice

(it plays on both sides)

Edited to add more points that I missed

Any sampling is potentially non-representative.

However the forums is the best I had any access to.

And from the best I was and am able to determine its MORE representative of the userbase than any communications media in use by Linden Lab.

Considering the Forums does have a large number of voice advocates, and even a larger number of voice users, Id have to say its not necessarily as poisoned a sampling as people like to say it is.

There was no reason for Linden Lab to try to claim a mass appeal. It was just so they could Market an idea they knew would be controversal.

Pretty much like the whole "Broadly Offensive" nonsense that came later.

If they want to make business decisions, fine. Thats great.

They shouldnt claim popular support that doesnt exist. Nor support they are not sure exists or not.

now tell me, how can you be so certain that there was no mass appeal, after all we are talking millions of users and the fraction of those in the forums is very very low

do you have an insight into the private emails of LL, or to what all the userbase is saying?

I want to know how you know that there was not a demand as they said...

please tell me your ways of knowing so I can know too

No -

Im saying I asked if anyone remembered being asked.

And no one who posted could remember having been .. for months.

Eventually someone said they had talked to groups of people on the Beta grid.

The Beta grid, at least in my opinion, is less Representative than the Forums.

so you asked in forums, a very very small portion of the users, and some of them said no they were not asked, so therefor you presume no one wanted voice, and no one was asked?

ok.. I understand now.

thank you for clearing that up for me

Well, as long as everyone is being nice and calm here , I'll toss my 2 lindens in:

I started playing Second Life because I liked the game as it was-- a three dimensional virtual world that allowed one to create content, explore others creations, and chat with others using text.

Most changes to SL have been simple expansions of what that world is. Flexi and sculpties give more options for creation, and things such as Windlight make the world a bit prettier.

The problem with voice is that, IF it becomes the default mode of communication, it changes the game. It would still be a three dimensional world with a community, but that community would be using a completely different means of communication, one that many find unpleasant.

There is more than a bit of a "wait a minute!" feeling here, as the original game did not use voice. I'm terrible at analogies, but it feels a bit as if we had signed up for a tennis club, only to arrive one day to hear that there are plans to tear it all down and put up racketball courts. Some of us might like, even prefer, this new game. But many will not, and many might leave. But unlike our tennis players who can just drive across town to another club, there aren't many other virtual worlds like Second Life.

Now, this might just be concern for nothing. Vast bits of Second Life might very well remain text only. As someone who prefers text, I certainly hope so. I understand, however, that other games such as There.com went down this road and ended up being almost completely voice only. So, regardless of whether the same cultural/game shift occurs in Second Life, I think that the concern that it *might* is legitimate.

/waits for the "Voicers are all griefers" and "Anti-voicers are neurotic drama queens" posts to start up again...

You do understand how polling works right?

the Polls you see on CNN, etc they dont call EVERYONE up.

They use a sampling.

--------------------

Were you asked if you wanted voice and did you ask SL for it, before it was announced?

I wasnt. Ive yet to speak with anyone either on the forums or in world who has claimed they were asked.

If it was a Broadly Asked for thing - then we should at least be able to come up with a reasonable sized chunk of even Forums posters , shouldnt we?

Or are forums goers somehow not part of the larger SL world?

I wasnt claiming truley statisticaly accurate percentages - Just sizable a fraction would have worked.

please do not talk down to me, the attitude like that sucks

yes I understand how polling works, but you should know just from the posts, that the forums seems to be more anti voice than pro voice

and also how many do not even post on forums?

I would say a poll taken on these forums do not show a good representation of the overall player base

(just my opinion, and since I have logged into SL at the moment, I will not be checking forums for further posts)

have fun

no voice here, last thing i want is some jerk coming up on my land and verbally abusing me

Sorry I didnt mean for it to come across so negatively - you were saying the forums were a useless sampling. I disagree.

I never claimed the numbers percentage wise were accurate.

However trends of things you should at least get some indication of.

Same thing with the broadly offensive stuff that came later -

People were pretty much against that in world and here - but there were actually quite a few on the forums who admitted they AR and do not like sexual related material.

voice is off. Humans are not mature enough to use voice.

If you were in person-to-person private chat it will not be disconnected in my experience. You can even continue the p2p conversation during tp. We have voice activated on all our properties except when there is a club event and it would interfer with the dj/talent set. So far so good. If LL in future decides to charge for voice, off it goes

I have it off on the building used by my group, which is how the group wanted it.

I have it on at home on my own land, and use it to have what amount to telephone calls with my boyfriend.

I can't imagine trying to do normal SL stuff with voice on. The Gorean village I rent in has it on, but they were heavy Skype users even before voice came in, and they're used to it. I still start all conversations with "testing...testing...can you hear me?" I'm just not used to it yet.

Until it gets a lot less buggy, and there are voice changers for the shy among us, voice is an extra, and not a core part of my SL.

I am interested in how Sim owners will handle the the costs in the new year? How will you pass it on?

Are you charged if people disable in your enabled region?

Can voice be turned on and off by script?

I don't intend to ever use it, but I don't see the harm in leaving it active so that my customers can enjoy it if they want to.

Parcel settings only apply to "spacial audio". It should have no effect at all on person-to-person or group chat.

Wooooooo!!! Hahahaha. WTG!

To that I ask you to show me the steady decrease in established residents that should have occurred in SL as a result of not having any assurances whatsoever that their preferred method of communication would ever become a reality. If not only voice, but EMBEDDED voice, was such a priority to the majority of SL residents as some voicers here claim it was, where is the mass exodus to systems with embedded voice? Why do I continually hear people talking about leaving voice-embedded worlds for this text-only one, and never the reverse?

I must also say I agree with several other posters here in that the mantra of the voicer all the way through this debate, the platform on which the non-voicer has been labeled "paranoid" and "alarmist", has been the non-voicers refusal to accept that the feature can just be turned off. Now however, faced with post upon post from people who have or will do just that, why is it all of a sudden not "as easy as turning the feature off"? Why does that now resort in voicer claims of discrimination? Isn't that what you told us to do?

All the voice I've heard on Beta Grid sounded like old recordings of radio communications during space missons

I'd like to throw in one point that was being flamed on the previous page: did the SL community ask for voice?

VOIP (voice over internet protocol) --this is a relatively new technology. A technology that quickly crossed over to gaming. I've been playing games for several decades, and believe me when I tell you WE asked for VOIP. The majority of gamers want to be able to talk to each other as they play together, or kick each others' butts. VOIP has made guilds and clans extremely happy...it's a much more efficient and immersive way of communicating.

We (the community of SL) did not NEED to be asked. WE (the gamers) have been BEGGING for this technology for years! Finally it's being worked into a multitude of games, and SL has come up on the Que.

*shrugs*

I don't know what's so hard for you guys to understand. It's a gaming evolution. Period.

Lot's of people may dislike it for various reasons, but I can assure you, the reason it IS here...is because the majority of the real world ASKED for it.

We usually do not dream up cool things, and then implement them into the masses without a want for it--they are widely accepted, because we widely dreamed about them.

I have voice on my land. I own a club. Without even discussing it, all my members have waited till an event is over before using voice. This is obviously out of consideration for those who do not have voice, and an understanding of the fact that: 1) Our DJs work hard to provide us with great music and announcements; 2) Voice is impractical with large groups.

I had thought of disabling it during events, but I don't need to. I'm very proud of how respectful and considerate my members are.

Neither you nor Rhaorth seem to have understood the point of my Posts.

Of course Linden Lab can add features for whatever reason they want to.

The simply should not make up a more politically correct reason to quell criticism.

There was no flaming anyway - it was a Misunderstanding - he simply disagreed with my opinion on a reasonble community sampling.