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Voice: Yes or No?


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No. Aside from my deep bass voice, I simply hate to talk. If I wanted a voice conversation, I'd pick up the phone and call a relative, but I'm just not much of a speaker. Especially not in English.

SL residents hail from all over the world, and I think most of them lack the listening comprehension to have an English conversation with a native speaker. The global village can only speak the same language if we all stick to text chat.

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I don't use voice myself, and have SL sound turned off completely about 90% of the time.

But that's not why I'm responding.  What interests me in this thread is a couple of posters who have circles of friends who co-exist as a mixture of voice and non-voice participants in conversations.

I have literally never seen this work effectively.

It definitely rules out participation by folks who, like me, usually can't have sound turned on.  But aside from that, it just seems to happen that the voice people end up talking to each other and ignoring text, and vice versa.  From what I've seen, the conversation simply bifurcates into parallel and non-overlapping voice and text threads within just a few minutes.

I'm intrigued that others aren't experiencing this, and wonder what their groups are doing differently to keep the conversation connected across the different media.

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Janelle Darkstone wrote:

I like voice.  How else can you make a grand fool of yourself at karaoke?  :smileytongue:

And for those who leave their mics open, or eat Cheetos, or yell at their dogs -- you have to be
patient
and gently explain the hows and whys to them.  Once they understand what they've been doing wrong they'll never do it again, and you'll have another unique voice in the conversation.

Okokok I like voice - with you! Still, I've *had* to take down all the chatlog in shorthand (still wish I'd learned car maintenance instead when I was at night school) so I can obsessively type it all up into my archives in another three year's time when I get around to it. :matte-motes-tongue::matte-motes-smile:

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Alright, I'll compromise... I'll voice with you the next time we go for a paint ball rematch! You gotta be able to speak in accent though... I'm so used to English accent so they don't do much for me but If you can impersonate the Irish, South African, French Canadian or Japanese english, that would sure gurantee you a win.

 

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It's very possible to have a conversation with someone that doesn't voice but has voice enable. I wouldn't dream of ignoring someone simply because they aren't voicing, I always look at chat in that case. If they don't have voice enabled at all that's a different story altogether, there's just too much that they'd miss.

I've known people that didn't care if they couldn't hear the conversation, but it always bothered me because I felt like they were being left out, even though they said they don't care. It can be quite a conundrum being stuck between the two.

I've seen people get bullied into turning on voice when they didn't want to, and even voicing themselves... to be honest, that's why I first started voicing (damn you Noel), though I was probably more predisposed to doing it than some. I wanted to voice, I was just afraid to.

I've always been self-conscious of my voice... I can't tell you the amount of times I've been referred to as ma'am over the phone or at the drive-thru (though it can be quite amusing to drive around grinning, with facial hair). Seems through SL I actually sound like a guy... surprised the poop ("**bleep**" avoidance) out of me... tbh.

...Dres

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Clearly, not many people in this thread are gamers.

Voice isn't an issue for me, and I'll use it if someone requests.

The first time I used voice online was actually via my XBox 360. The statement was "Pop a grenade around that corner and kill that mother****er. I'll cover you."

After communicating* through games like Call of Duty and Rainbow Six and Medal of Honor, casual conversation is nothing.

 

*I call it communicating instead of conversation because there often wasn't time for idle chit chat. You got a word in edgewise before something exploded. Usually the word was "cover me" or one of the cardinal directions, if you know where the shots are coming from.

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Gadget Portal wrote:

Clearly, not many people in this thread are gamers.


That's a good point.  It helps to put the question into context.  I have no use for voice myself, but I can see that voice has value for the gaming community, and I agree with some of my colleagues in education that it can be helpful for them.  I have a hard time thinking of other groups that might make a similar case, but that's perhaps saying more about my lack of imagination than about SL residents.  Still, I wonder if anyone knows even roughly what percentage of SL residents would call themselves gamers or educators, just to focus on those two groups.  My totally uninformed guess is that the percentage is significant but not dramatically high -- perhaps 20%?

 

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@Qie: I don't know that the people that I hang out with are doing anything differently, except maybe making it a point to pay attention to local chat when we have people who won't (or can't, at that moment) go on mic among us. The only "problem" seems to be when someone is multi-tasking, and SL is in the background. They do come back and get caught up pretty fast, though.

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One of my favorite things when people wear 'evil titlers' is to change the text to "I Can't Do Voice Now, My Mom Is Home."

I use voice on and off.  Just depends on with whom, when, what I am doing, etc etc.  If I am at a live music show voice goes off.  In private one on one I may turn it on.  I generally don't ask but if the person I am with asks I will generally accommodate them.

A few girls have been surprised to learn that I really do giggle.

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It's not just gamers or educators (which I am neither) that can get a benefit from voice beyond mere socializing. Like I said in my previous post, having a job in SL that required a lot of information being passed back and forth basically made voice mandatory. Not to mention building things with other people which goes on a lot. I couldn't see doing that without voice. Although it can surely be done, just not at all as efficiently.

...Dres

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You should just try it and see if you like it.  It may be a hassle or it may be fun for you.

If you're asking me if I'd like to be on voice my answer would be yes and no depending on the difficulties or problems with it.  If it's too much of a hassle, I'd say oh well I tried, move on, and still have a great time on SL!

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1.  Yes.  I like and use voice in SL... or Skype with others in SL also on Skype.  I'm perfectly happy to text among those that prefer it or in locations where it is more appropriate.

2.  There are lots of voice groups.  You can type voice in the Group Search and get a list.

3.  There are also voice sims where voice is the norm and not the exception.  You can find them much the same way.

4.  I explored the text vs. voice dichotomy in my virtual world travels, in a "Psi Shrinkers" social group on RLetc.com and in my own blog.  You might find this interesting.  Based on my observations of what people have had to say about text and voice...

(continued due to character limits in posts)

 

http://whatleesaid.blogspot.com/2011/06/fear-of-other-text-vs-voice.html

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Continued from first post reply...

 

Apparently text is considered either...

 

✘ boring, cold and dry

✘ slow

✘ cut and paste

✘ banal, contrived, maudlin, phony, pretentious and shallow

✘ annoying and lazy if it is textspeak (e.g. u & ur for you and your, lol for sentence enders)

✘ the dominion of the broken, socially awkward or those with something to hide

✘ a cover for men pretending to be women

✘ a crutch

✘ walls and barriers

✘ more conducive to people going on and on and on

✘ more conducive to misinterpretation or misunderstanding (especially over subtleties in sarcasm, etc.)

✘ lacking emotional tone

✘ subject to parsing and twisting, to pervert the texter's original ideas and intentions

 

or

 

◆ enjoyable and entertaining

◆ like writing a book or play

◆ creative and imaginative

◆ beautiful prose, literary

◆ transcendent, maintaining the illusion and the fantasy

◆ an acquired (and acquirable) skill

◆ inclusive

◆ more personal

◆ a way of slowing things down to either level the playing field, savor the moment or self-edit and voice knee-jerk reactions that may be regretted later

◆ a necessary enhancement to the animation

◆ suitable to the character being played

◆ suitable for someone operating multiple avatars

◆ more appropriate for storyline paraRPers

◆ easier for speakers of other languages to participate in (slower speed, translators)

◆ easier to follow, track, copy and keep

◆ easier to moderate

◆ free of the barking dog, crying kid or ringing phone in the background

◆ practice in patience

◆ more conducive to reflection

◆ more conducive to maintaining the mystery

◆ more conducive to being truly "heard" and to truly "hear" what someone is trying to say

◆ an excellent medium for the hearing or speech impaired

◆ easier and more discreet if you don't live alone

◆ anonymous 

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continued...

 

Apparently voice is considered...

 

✘ rude

✘ annoying

✘ overwhelming and confusing

✘ a mood breaker

✘ interfering

✘ exclusionary

✘ insular

✘ invasive

✘ too intimate

✘ too revealing

✘ reactionary (not based on reflection)

✘ an unwelcome interruption

✘ unimaginative

✘ too much reality, spoiling the illusion and the fantasy

✘ suitable to fewer character possibilities

✘ might be recorded without permission or control

✘ the dominion of the rude, oblivious, uncreative, unintelligent or intolerant and kiddie-social media addict types

 

or

 

◆ enjoyable and entertaining

◆ like acting

◆ like real life

◆ sexy

◆ intimate

◆ creative

◆ easy

◆ spontaneous

◆ a verification (typically gender and age)

◆ conveniently hands-free for masturbation or other purposes

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Lee, are you leaving? I guess that is the meaning of your name, LeeHere and now Absent. I've been reading your blog. Really fascinating. I'm adding your blog to my RSS reader. I consider it to be one of the most thoughtful and interesting SL blogs that I've come across. Hope to hear from you again.

<Bows deeply>.

 

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