How do you feel about Linden Lab continuing to shut off voice in many places?

[Cindy Evanier]

26 minutes ago, Alwin Alcott said:

firestorm has a setting for that

I got a new laptop and so all my settings had to be redone.. that was one I hadn't got round to reactivating.  I went to see a singer yesterday and OMG I remembered so fast to turn them off again.  

[Alazarin Mondrian]

I turned off voice on my land because I use my place as a venue for my live streamed music shows that go out on YouTube, Facebook, Periscope and Twitch. I got fed up with random griefers using voice to spam my place with noise during a show. Same with avatar sounds as well as making it safe / no-damage. Similarly I made it so all the avatars in the live band are locked in place as a way of putting an end to idiots who found it funny to push musicians' avatars off stage.

[Gatogateau]

Like several others have said, "What? They've turned off voice in some areas? Who knew?" I rarely voice, again for the reasons most state. When I do, I find using other ways (Skype, Discord) rather than the viewer to be more stable, unless I'm in some sort of group discussion on a given sim for a given reason and topic. Going to an area where everyone is yammering about anything? Gawd. No.

[Conifer Dada]

The few times I've been anywhere with voice turned on, it's always been the same. One unhinged and barely coherent angry individual picking on someone else, a few others half-heartedly trying to defend the victim and another person making random comments about something completely different or just making silly noises. I only 'voiced' once, just to try it out when it was a new feature.. 

[Gatogateau]

Just now, Conifer Dada said:

The few times I've been anywhere with voice turned on, it's always been the same. One unhinged and barely coherent angry individual picking on someone else, a few others half-heartedly trying to defend the victim and another person making random comments about something completely different or just making silly noises. I only 'voiced' once, just to try it out when it was a new feature.. 

Ah! So it is like if the Forum was held in voice?

[Conifer Dada]

Just now, Gatogateau said:

Ah! So it is like if the Forum was held in voice?

Yes, probably 😃

[Garnet Psaltery]

I use it perhaps once a year when listening to Ebbe tell us all about the exciting things to come, twice if someone similar faces the crowd, but otherwise I have no interest in it.  I haven't even got a microphone any more.

[Chaser Zaks]

Personally I am not a fan of disabling voice, but I completely understand it when there are various people who ban evade, come back, and do the same stuff that caused them to get banned in the first place.

This stuff started out in safe hubs, noticeably for me in the Zindra safe hubs. I personally didn't mind it as I am a anti-censorship/pro-free speech person (Not saying that what LL is doing is censorship, just that is my position on stuff), when I was raised, I was taught if someone said something you didn't like, just ignore them, problem solved. However when there are new people getting sent to Safe hubs for various reasons(downed regions, etc), and they hear the hateful/controversial stuff that goes on in discussions from those people, it is probably best to just keep voice disabled in safe hubs.

A nice side effect is it stopped them from bringing random objects in and decorating the safe hubs as if it were theirs.

However, it has become quite a bit of a cat and mouse game, and may in turn be causing more issues for residents than before. They went to Nelsonia, then Arapaima, then Oritz. From Oritz since it is a multi region build, they went east to Gilda(other part of the safe hub), and then Leonards Field where they stayed for quite a while causing a bit of issues with a person who owns a parcel there. Now they sit in Gianno waiting for yet another voice disable when they irritate another land owner.

The whole moving them out of safe hubs and (indirectly) towards land people are paying can be arguably a worse situation than having them in a safe hub where people can just TP out of.

Whenever LL disables voice in one parcel, and they just move again. This will result in every Linden owned parcel in Zindra having voice disabled, which is an idea that I am not a fan of.

While I understand that it is a difficult situation to deal with ban evaders, I don't think disabling voice leaving a large trail of no voice parcels is the best solution. Unfortunately while I believe that, it also appears to be the only solution. It isn't like they can just have someone from governance sit there and babysit them all day, and having some sort of automated detection isn't possible either.

I should clarify that not all of them cause problems, but there are a few obvious "cause problems" accounts that are new accounts. And I am certain a few older accounts have gotten suspended briefly. I've sat around listening to the conversations that go on in the public voice crowd and they get a bit spicy.

Edited December 4, 2020 by Chaser Zaks

[Syo Emerald]

1 hour ago, Conifer Dada said:

The few times I've been anywhere with voice turned on, it's always been the same. One unhinged and barely coherent angry individual picking on someone else, a few others half-heartedly trying to defend the victim and another person making random comments about something completely different or just making silly noises. I only 'voiced' once, just to try it out when it was a new feature.. 

You forgot someone chewing, a dog braking in the background and a kid crying/demanding attention/being generally loud.

[Ardy Lay]

1 hour ago, Chaser Zaks said:

I've sat around listening to the conversations that go on in the public voice crowd and they get a bit spicy.

I too have sampled some of this.  I would not call it "spicy".  I would call it blended refuse.

[Love Zhaoying]

My experience with voice at my favorite hangouts was crowned by this one woman who loved to constantly tell stories about her punk days, and how she would accomplish something (violence? survival?) in a mosh pit.

Edited December 4, 2020 by Love Zhaoying

[Lyssa Greymoon]

2 hours ago, Chaser Zaks said:

While I understand that it is a difficult situation to deal with ban evaders, I don't think disabling voice leaving a large trail of no voice parcels is the best solution. Unfortunately while I believe that, it also appears to be the only solution. It isn't like they can just have someone from governance sit there and babysit them all day, and having some sort of automated detection isn't possible either.

I think the best solution would be to leave voice on in a couple of the safe hubs and take them off the list of places to route people to when their last location isn't available. That way who cares? That way anyone who goes there is going there on purpose and people who want to voice and mess around with the decor can without annoying anyone else.

[Chaser Zaks]

1 minute ago, Lyssa Greymoon said:

I think the best solution would be to leave voice on in a couple of the safe hubs and take them off the list of places to route people to when their last location isn't available. That way who cares? That way anyone who goes there is going there on purpose and people who want to voice and mess around with the decor can without annoying anyone else.

Well, there is mosh south with was supposed to be a mall but never got used. Not to be confused with regular Mosh which currently has overpriced parcels for sale on it.

Mosh South currently has voice enabled, it isn't used as a safe hub(at least to my knowledge), and has plenty of seating.

[Ceka Cianci]

It really doesn't matter to me either way what they do with voice..  I can live with or without it.

 

[Orwar]

   I seldom use the in-world voice. It happens on occasion in private settings with people I'm comfortable with. When out and about I tend to find people voicing to be annoying, and it's almost frightening to get a glimpse of some people's RL surroundings. Children screaming and crying in the background whilst the presumed parent is busy flirting (or rather soliciting their services) to someone on voice at a gaming region, occasionally screaming at their pets and children to shut up - my parents may not be perfect, but damn.

   Had it been a one time thing, it probably wouldn't have disturbed me - but I have observed it countless times throughout the years I've been on SL. I just don't want to be exposed to that. But at the same time, it can be a bit like watching a derailing train.

   I think that for the sake of making SL a more welcoming environment to new people, reducing the exposure to some of the madness that comes through strangers voicing is a good thing. Besides, the SL voice is clunky, especially if you're moving around so that the voice levels keep going up and down - it's better to just ring someone up on Discord or Skype to have a stable, dedicated voice channel, in my opinion. 

[HeathcliffMontague]

Never noticed, up to them. Maybe for tech reasons, maybe they want to make SL more like SL.

Never got the point of voice anyway. Done that, and at times had fun (like racing), but afterwards I was always like "OK, going back to SL mode now".

[Bree Giffen]

For me there has always been this expectation that I would hear a conversation like you’d hear on television, radio, news shows, interviews etc. or even like regular people talking on the street, cafe, store. But, voice in SL is something else. I don’t know what happens but the anonymity and non face to face interaction with no physical presence seems to make in-world conversations very strange. 
 

LL turning off voice in their regions might be a boon for private regions and land owning residents. Maybe a new kind of conversational clubhouse could be created. 

[Kimmi Zehetbauer]

It's good if voice is PKed in the hub areas.  Few times falling in them due to a island being crashed and burn when logging in and getting moved to one that had voice going and awful language there.

[Kyrie Deka]

I was unaware "Lindens" were turning voice off selectively.  But I wouldn't be surprised if owners turned off sound.  

I've used it to provide inworld help to folks at times because if I had to type all that out in chat *eek!*.  I tried it several times over the years here and there generally, and ended up always (yup, every time I tried) accidentally hearing *RL conversations of suspected/likely NON-SL users (or worse) talking about RL things in the background* and I didn't want any part of that. So yah, clicky clicky off.  But for fast inworld support with those who might be skittish about connecting voice outside of the viewer, it is really helpful to have it available when both user's pc's can handle it smoothly.  

[Nick0678]

1 hour ago, Kyrie Deka said:

accidentally hearing *RL conversations of suspected/likely NON-SL users (or worse) talking about RL things in the background

Yes that happens a lot with some people in Second Life although personally never bothered me.The only thing that really annoyed me during voice conferences was when i could hear very young children being ignored because their mother's were "busy" playing SL and that never ended well because i would simply remind them not in a polite way that they are mothers. So eventually over the years i avoided voice.

Other than that i never really cared if people had their husband's/wife's/family in the background talking to them or if i could hear farts, burps, etc (or the classic snoring because someone fell asleep while playing, although still don't get it how can someone become so addicted and instead of going to their bed to have some normal sleep they end up dozing off with their microphone enabled).

Edited December 5, 2020 by Nick0678

[Ardy Lay]

On 12/4/2020 at 2:56 AM, Alwin Alcott said:

firestorm has a setting for that

I have a challenge for you Mr Firestorm Evangelist.  Name a viewer that does not allow the user to avoid hearing gesture sounds.

[Ardy Lay]

Most of my attempts to use spacial voice, private voice or group voice ended with me suggesting a visit to the region Voice Echo Canyon.  They either refuse, after which I shut off voice, or they go there.  Most return no longer wanting to use voice.  Some fix their sound and return.  A few return still making offensive noise and still want us to hear them. They tend to get shunned.

[Kyrie Deka]

3 hours ago, Nick0678 said:

was when i could hear very young children

Yes.