Hear Why Adding Real Life Voicechat to Virtual Worlds is So Disastrous

It's NSFW (unless you work in, say, a motorcycle bar) and kind of funny in a stomach-churning way, but really needs to be heard as a reminder of how toxic the addition of real life voice chat in Second Life has been. (Especially contrasted with the poor dude just trying to enjoy a quiet sunset on his virtual yacht.) At this point there's really no feasible way to remove it from SL, though disabling it by default and definitely prohibiting it in official Welcome Areas and safe hubs would be a really, really good idea. I'd say this lesson applies to virtual worlds in general -- while you may need RL voice for real time multiplayer events, especially combat, it has far too many negatives than positives. (And consider what an abuse problem RL voice is in multiplayer game worlds like Overwatch.

Comments

[Willliam Burns]

The voice chat itself is merely a communications tool. It is the unruly users of said tool which are the problem.

[Gloria Wyatt Aquaglo]

I disagree

[Caitlin Tobias]

Dude in the video should learn how to disable voice, when he wants silence. I find voicechat adding a lot of good things to my SL experience, not just for chats, but also e.g. book- and poetry readings, panel discussions at events and other occasions where people know how to use voicechat. Not a disaster at all.

[Willow Dion]

It is not just unruly users some other users won't even be your friend if you won't voice chat. If you can't speak because of an injury or sickness you don't count. A big reason I enjoy virtual worlds is that I'm not forced to do something I'm not physically able to do so I can relax. One reason I don't like Sansar is that you are forced to voice chat in VR mode.

[Ilsa van den Broeck]

there are a lot of people who feel empowered by the lack of accountability due to the separation between avatar and RL.
They are disempowered for one reason or another in RL and use SL as their salve for their pain. This holds true for both voice users and typists, but I honestly have found that typists are generally more polite. the voice angle allows people who are to lazy to type or lack the education or typing speed for it to spew their vitriol and hate, and somehow, in their eyes, remain relevant in the conversation.
that said, I believe that there are reasons to keep voice access in SL, mostly for those that are physically unable to type.

[Wagner J Au]

> Dude in the video should learn how to disable voice, when he wants silence.

Why not the other way around? Enable it when one wants voices.

[David Olson]

Lol turn em down. Turn voice down lol. Some silly ppl.

[joanie34]

Clever, clever Shantell -- you add so much to the conversation

[sirhc deSantis]

It has its uses. Mostly to confirm that yep, have no interest in interacting with the people using it. That vid a case in point.
Funny that it seems to break so often too. Which is a bonus :)

[irihapeti]

turn it on when you want/need too. Off when you don't.

if my voice is off and some random person tries to engage me then I have no idea that they are. Its not something I particularly worry about. As its not like we are the only two people logged inworld. And its not like they don't have anyone else to randomly mic chat too