UNMUTED

An acquaintance of Cyn Vandeverre's recently went to an SL show which used voice, and afterward, gave Cyn this summary:

"The event was fun, but I didn't really like the people very much. They would completely ignore anyone who wasn't using voice and would refer to them as 'muties'. They discussed how they wished the 'muties' wouldn't come around."

"Isn't it delightful," Cyn observes, "that there's already a derogatory term for text chatters?" 

Muties!  The next question, of course: is it a sign of coming social stratification based on voice, or just an isolated incident?

Comments

[Patchouli Woollahra]

As far as I'm concerned, anyone who starts getting derogatory on the basis of an inability to use certain aspects of SL's interface, on land with rules that do not specifically demand voice while I am managing it, can jolly well [insert relevant obscenity here involving genitalia, mouths and heated tongs]

[sharp barbed heated tongs]

[did I mention they were rusty?]

[Neo Rebus]

I experienced this several times in the beta voice grid, as well. Not the derogatory terminology, but the stratification of voice-vs-non-voice users. voice users couldn't be bothered to look at the chat history to see what people were typing.

I'm a "conscientious objector" to voice; I have all the hardware I need to use it, I just refuse to do so because of the divisiveness it causes.

- Neo

[Laetizia Coronet]

Really? Is that what those damn chatties call us?

;)

[Jesper Serapis]

I'll have to go ahead and second Pat and Neo's comments - I, too, have the hardware but not the desire to use voice.
I, too, have experienced the inability to get anything resembling a reaction from voice users to text questions - however relevant or polite (of course. Hey, it's me...).

In one incident it was even necessary to use the text even if I hadn't wanted to; because of voice lag all I could hear was garbled noise - which points at another problem with voice:
- in the case of text lag, well, sometimes a whole entry would go AWOL but mostly things would turn up, meaning they would also be visible in history. Thus, even a slow reader can easily keep up on several conversations at once - something nobody, I mean nobody can do in voice.
The chat lag incident also seemed to bring an already slow SL down to a crawl, I eventually had to quit because the lag in voice just refused to catch up and for some reason I couldn't even teleport out...

Then there's the issue of non-verbal signs - you might say SL has none but it does, they're just different (like, everybody knows what lol and :) means, you can write *smiles* or *smirks*, etc. - they're non-verbal as they don't have any semantic meaning in their context).

Good luck putting that kind, and variety, of emotions into your I'm-sitting-half-naked-and-unshowered-at-my-computer-smoking-endless-cigarettes-at-four-in-the-morning voice...

My final point on this occasion is voice griefing - I haven't experienced it yet but it'll have to be the easiest kind of griefing EVER, as all you have to do to disrupt a conversation is scream loudly into your microphone.
If you do it briefly enough nobody will know it was you - but every conversation within sound range will be ruined as we are much easier to distract from audible conversation than text based.

Voice communication is for one-on-one, preferably face to face, or on a regular, dedicated device like the telephone (notice next time you're on the phone how, when you direct your attention TO the conversation, it's directed AWAY FROM your surroundings. Why create a whole 3D virtual world, and then have people not pay attention to it because they're talking?) - it is not for social network services, and even less for metaverses, in their current form anyway.

[Lillie Guildenstern]

I've had the same sort of experience at other venues - seems everyone is AFK and when you ask if anyone is there, they (might!) say they're voicing. BFD. This was before voice went live for everyone - not all had it at that point. It's rude to communicate in a way that excludes anyone if it's preventable. Just because you have voice, doesn't mean you can't type. If folks are too lazy or too in love with the sound of their own voices to text chat, they probably have nothing to say that's worth hearing anyway. I do think that now that everyone technically has voice chat, whether they choose to use it or not, the stratification will become more marked. I will choose either, but I won't use voice in laggy areas or in large crowds (perhaps that's redundant). I certainly won't use it at live musical events, as some voice chatters were recently. Seriously rude! (Same with sound files and gestures - c'mon people! Wake up!)

Although, if voice chat replaces some of those ridiculous howwwwwwls I may be grateful. :P

[Morgana Fillion]

The neat thing about someone calling me a 'mutie' because I choose not to join the noisy babblehoards is...

... if they want me to know they're calling me names, they're going to have to type it out.

[Marianne McCann]

I just finished an interview for next weeks M2, in which a person was referred to as a "mutie" in a different venue. So the term does seem to be getting around

[Beauvoir Rousselot]

Yes typical elitist blabber by the few that need, just need, to be different at the expense of others. I personally think voice is a good thing, used properly yes. the speed increase doing collaborative work is tenfold. So, like all innovation, it has it's pros and cons.

[Ace Albion]

If you want a come-back term for voice only types, may I suggest the fine old epithet; "gobshite"?

[Cyn Vandeverre]

Returning insults in kind, does not reduce incivility, Grasshopper.

[Bobby Troughton]

I don't notice it much, maybe because I don't have voice enabled. :) I did have in on when it first was available but only to listen in. It wasn't too impressing, but interesting to hear people's accents from around the world. Anyway, who would want to chat with snobbery that calls others muties?

I tend to spend most of my time in the Star Wars roleplay sims, where it's either disabled or not used for roleplay. Not many people can speak Huttese irl. :)

[Elle Pollack]

Those who are going to sling derogitory terms at text chatters likely aren't worth hanging out with anyway but it seems too soon to say how widespread its going to be.

I just put in a new soundcard to fix a hardware issue that's kept me from using voice until now, but mostly because I'll be doing voice meetings for work (and for that mater, non-SL VOIP). I'll only ever use it socialy with people I'm allready friends with though...I think talking in voice chat lowers the boundry a bit between the real and virtual and that's something a lot of people will only want to do with those they trust. Am ambivilant to the feature otherwise.

In game worlds though its a little different; in a gang or clan colaborating on something voice is an invaluble tool and the disadvantage brought by trying to type messages and fight battle at the same time is severe. However that sort of thing has a different sort of structure...when your scout or gang leader barks "Break! Break!" into the mic, everyone had better shut up pronto and listen for directions or intel. SL has nothing similar in and of itself; the only hierarchy is that of social standing and/or cliques. (Maybe its possible many of those with especialy dismissive attitudes of text chat come from such games but there's no way of telling.)

[Anony Mouse]

I would like to start tracking these types of events. Perhaps if we have a central police blotter or something for these kinds of things outside of the Linden police blotter (which I don't think they look at) then it will do some good to deter this kind of behavior.

Anyway... it seems like these are isolated instances. I, personally, have not encountered any issues with people griefing me for not using it on the main grid.

Mainly, the types of problems involve voicers trying to make you use voice by insulting your or inciting you in some way to think that you HAVE to use it to prove something to them. My first rule in the Metaverse is: "Never let anyone convince you to give too much personal information about yourself." By trying to coerce you... they are trying to make you break that rule. That's rude of them. No one who is your friend should ever try to force you to do such a thing. People who try to stretch you beyond the boundaries with which you are comfortable... aren't your friends at all.

There will always be rude people and people who don't understand how others choose to live with their life or conduct themselves in SL. There will always be people who choose to judge... I've been judged a lot in my lifetime, so I'm used to it.

What's happened with voice, and what will happen with any technology that attempts to bring more RL into SL, is that it will give people a basis on which to judge you.... because that's what LL thinks that everyone wants. LL is too blind to see that, making SL mirror RL exactly they are killing the creativity until it becomes, not a virtual venue, but a phone call with pretty pictures and scripts. I don't find anything particularly appealing to that.

Before, we were all equal because we could create the avatar either in our own image, or in an image of something else... anything we wanted. Now, RL has invaded SL with this technology and, while it's still possible to be anything you want... it's now easier for those people who want to believe that everything is in RL what it is in SL to convince themselves of it one way or another.

What we're seeing is that feelings which were previously just under the surface: "Is this person who they claim... does he/she really look like that? Etc etc..." are all coming to the forefront very quickly because there's a quick and convenient way to "verify" people now (via any other tech which brings RL data into SL).

I'm not certain how many people feel this way... but I'm certain that some do.

In my mind, people should accept each other for what they are willing to give/present on SL and not judge one another for any reason whatsoever. If you feel like doing that, then, perhaps you should log out and never come back.

Voice is disabled permanently on my land and it will remain so for the rest of my stay on Second Life which I plan to be a very very long time.

Anony Mouse
"Wanna insult me? You'll have to type it."

[Anony Mouse]

"If you feel like doing that, then, perhaps you should log out and never come back."

I should clarify... what I meant was: if you feel like judging people you should log out and never come back.

I know it was more or less clear, but I wanted to be perfectly clear.

Anony Mouse

[Darkfoxx]

"The neat thing about someone calling me a 'mutie' because I choose not to join the noisy babblehoards is...

... if they want me to know they're calling me names, they're going to have to type it out."

Quoted For Great Truth

Also, the greifing possibilities of voice concern me, as well as the simple fact that hearing someone's RL voice seriously destroys the magic.
Big dragons with small squeaky voices or bloodthursty vampires with the voice (and laugh - *shudders*) of a typical nerd, that doesn't really work.

Not even mentioning the hundreds of guys in female AV's and the girls in male AV's. Or, the non voice using RL girls in RL av's who will be suspect of being a guy IRL, that naturally comes with that.

In all ways, Voice is undesirable. I can see the advantages of using Voice to teach classes or explain building...
But come on, there's hundreds of programs that do the same outside of SL. Skype, Ventrilo, and many many others. Even MSN has voice. Voice embedded in SL isn't needed at all.

[Darkfoxx]

Whoopsie, typo. Should have been "RL girls in girl AV's" instead of "RL girls in RL av's"