1. Well, this customer demanded it, and is glad its finally arrived.

As for Hamlet's "survey" it indicates very little given how much it relies on motivated response. The anti-voice cadre is much more against voice than those who are pro-voice are for it (as an example, I saw Hamlet's survey and didn't care to answer it. But I'm willing to wager that someone who is strongly against voice was much more likely to answer the survey than I was).

In any event, the customers "demanding" this feature of LL were customers they didn't have yet. Lack of voice chat was a criticism of the platform made by many who had tried and rejected SL. Now, at least, one impediment to adoption has been removed. And given that there are likely many more potential customers-to-be who are happy to use voice than those who are nonplussed by it, voice was always going to happen.

Posted at 5:19PM on Aug 18th 2007 by Luciftias Neurocam

2. if you wear good quality headphones and put as many volume controls as possible on the maximum will you still not be able to hear stuff well?

Posted at 8:04PM on Aug 18th 2007 by TigroSpottystripes Katsu

3. No Tigro, whatever technique I use, and believe me I've tried them all, I can cope with listening to dialog without lipreading for a maximum of 5 minutes or so. A *really* clear signal, like a professional reading for a CD recording I can do for a bit longer.

Posted at 8:07PM on Aug 18th 2007 by Eloise Pasteur

4. The people who like voice don't seem to have any feelings for those of us who are hard of hearing. Between our loss of hearing and in some cases heavy accents understanding speach even when it is loud enough can not only be impossible but also very frustrating. Many times the moderator has no sympathy. I like seeing the works in type. I could actually figure out what was being said even when the english was broken. With voice I barely have a chance. I have the Bose noise canceling headphones and it just isn't enough. I wish voice had never been introduced, now I can't participate in many activities because of voice. I hope those without a handicap like it because it sure isn't fair to those of us who can't hear.

Posted at 10:03PM on Aug 18th 2007 by Enigma Snook

5. For me, Voice in Second Life has been a mixed blessing. While I hear very well, I'm an RL mute. SL was pure joy for a long time because I could "talk" to people! And they would understand without an interpreter (I use American Sign Language).

Then Voice was announced. Okies, I missed the announcement. I was on the Beta Grid when I heard an I-Live-In-My-Mom's-Basement voice of some juvenile come from a fierce dragon. Shock and amusement were followed by tears. For some time after that I railed against the "advance," even making and handing out t-shirts to others in the mute community. And I took my case to various Websites (http://nwn.blogs.com/nwn/2007/03/voice_survey_on.html for example).

My anger grew when I noticed that the Vocal Minority were beginning to ignore chat as they relied on the new toy. Once again I was being ostracized. I was becoming second class in Second Life, too.

Then I read "As We See It" in the July Second Opinion (http://secondlife.com/newsletter/2007_07/awsi.html) and felt a bit of shame. I was too focused on me until this piece pointed out how Voice can benefit others. This kick in the pants was just what I needed.

I now use Voice as an enhancement to chat, despite many around me thinking I'm strange for talking to myself if they aren't listening in Voice. My participation has simply changed. Some for the worse, but some for the better. It has made me closer to my friends.

You will still "hear" me grumble, though, and still find me in my puke-green Mute shirt from time to time. And you might even catch me teaching some folks a lesson or two about the new SLetiquette of Voice to those who discriminate. But you will mostly see me building my Second Life and helping others build theirs. Obla dee, obla dah, Second Life goes on.

Posted at 10:30AM on Aug 19th 2007 by Uccello Poultry

6. "The people who like voice don't seem to have any feelings for those of us who are hard of hearing."

whenever I am riding my bike and I pass by someone on a wheel chair or with some issue that would prevent them from riding a regular bike I feel bad for them, everynow and then I design a human powered vehicle that "handicap" people would be able to use, but like most of the stuff I invent in m head it has never come out, but that doesn't stop me from riding my bike


I asked about using louder sounds cause some hearing impaired people can hear well if it is loud enough, that is how many hearing aid devices work, they have a mic on the outside and they relay what the mic picks up toa tiny but loud speaker inside the person's ears, and since most the hearing impaired people I've met had that kind of "malfunction" of the ear I thought the probability of Eloise having the same thing was high

btw, would you mind I asked exactly what is (or isn't) happening on your ears (and;or brain)so I can look up on the net more info about it and perhaps figure out possible solutions?

Posted at 12:38AM on Aug 20th 2007 by TigroSpottystripes Katsu

7. Voice has a diferent set of problems for me. I own an internet radio station, the had recently opened a presence in SL. We had a good number of people coming in, to listen to the music and chat in text with others. Now with voice forced on us, the crowds dont even turn on the music stream, but almost exclusively use voice. and those who dont use voice are, as others have noted, relegated to being "outsiders". This supposedly "mandated" technology is just causing anohter divide to residents.

Posted at 8:23AM on Aug 20th 2007 by Vox Mullen

8. While I definitely empathize with the issues that people with hearing problems will be having with voice I don't see it as a valid reason to limit features for the rest of us.

I have a friend in SL who has trouble seeing more than a small portion of her screen with her face all the way up to it. Up until voice came out she pretty much kept to herself because it was hard for her to follow the chatting going on.

Now that she has voice she's tripled her friends list (with legitimate friends) and started her own club where she is the main DJ playing constantly to a packed house!

If you were to take voice away (which won't happen) then you'd be limiting her and many others with her situation (there are plenty out there). How is that fair?

In reality it sounds like people have been pretty accomidating to you by going out of their way to transcribe or explain the conversations around you. I'm not sure how much more you can expect from people.

Posted at 11:51AM on Aug 20th 2007 by SqueezeOne Pow

9. if you have the required land abilities you can turn voice off on your parcel, check the media tab of th about land window

Posted at 3:53PM on Aug 20th 2007 by TigroSpottystripes Katsu

10. I'm not against voice, myself - but there are now six events per week that I can no longer participate in - out of the seven that were on my normal calendar. They're all in audio now - and that just doesn't work for me.

I still attend in case voice goes wonky and the sessions fall back to text, which happens about a quarter of the time. Other than that, I stick around for 20 or 30 minutes, getting IMs from people all around who see the lack of a little dot above my head and keep IMing me with "You don't have voice turned on. You'll need it."

I think all those IMs are the more frustrating part. Even if someone is kind enough to make a transcript afterwards for me (this happened once, thankyou) - the simple fact is that I can't participate during the event. I may as well not turn up and grab a transcript at some later date.

I'm not against voice. I don't want it to go away. I don't believe it would be a good thing if it did.

I'm just frustrated at my inability to participate in what were my only social activities in SL. I'm allowed to be frustrated, by overall circumstances, right? It's not like I'm blaming anyone.

Posted at 11:22PM on Aug 20th 2007 by Tateru Nino

11. You are definitely allowed to be frustrated, and I'm not surprised that you are. The places you've been going have suddenly changed; who wouldn't be frustrated?!

For all those little helpful IMs, have you considered putting a note in your active groups label over your head? Something like "Can't use Voice Tateru Nino?"

Posted at 7:09AM on Aug 21st 2007 by Cyn Vandeverre

12. "it sounds like people have been pretty accomidating to you by going out of their way to transcribe or explain the conversations around you. I'm not sure how much more you can expect from people." says the wonderfully condescending SqueezeOne Pow. I mean, really..people going out of their way to use the system that was all there was until a couple of weeks ago. I hope they are enjoying their "noblesse oblige" (sp?).

I think you see right there the thinking of the voice enable people, and the divisions after only a couple of weeks. They are doing you a favor to diegn to talk to you using text.

Too all those of you with hearing problems who have enjoyed yourselves in a world where you were treated as "normal" (without any pitying looks or people slowing down their speach and using nice simple words for you , as if that might help), welcome back to the real world, where the loud and obnoxious get their way just by outshouting everyone else, and your inclusion is reliant upon the kindness of strangers....

Posted at 8:49AM on Aug 21st 2007 by shin

13. Please limit discussion to the post and comments themselves, and not the people who made them.

Posted at 11:43AM on Aug 21st 2007 by Tateru Nino

14. I've got to say that although I might not have written it, Shin's comments are pretty much spot on for how a lot of the deaf and mute people I know in SL are feeling. Not all of them, but a lot.

Tigro, I have a batch of conditions. I have "dead patches" of frequencies I don't hear well, so simply boosting everything is unacceptable, because some will be overloud, some too quiet. I also have a processing problem, I find it very hard to discriminate sounds against each other, particularly voice against other background sounds, so even if I get the right frequencies boosted I find it hard to understand unless I'm listening to a very clean single voice audio track.

Posted at 12:07PM on Aug 25th 2007 by Eloise Pasteur