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Saphirelda Jewell added a comment - 05/Feb/08 08:59 AM
why?
Please provide more context as to why this is undesired behavior.
Also, this isn't a "Meta Issue" – it's more likely a "Bug" so please reclassify if you reopen it.
Well because it should be an option to activate voice, not a default on thing and because it is a majority vote that it should not be on by default, see the blog.
Also, like someone pointed out on the blog, if someone has a new system, laptop and it is default on, they will not like that they may end up speaking through the built in MIC without wanting to. It is overall better for it to be off by default, like it was before, and optional to activate it. Reopening. And wasnt sure if it is a bug, as it was put in place intentionally, and isnt broken. Reopened, see comments.
Changed to Bug, as advised by Torley. Torely, i recommend you go back to the furor over slipping in voice behind our backs. originally voice was opt out and then, due to the furor over it being a privacy violation due to the possibility of accidental activation, etc., and in general the majority not wanting voice at all, (exactly 200 unique residents votd for it out of 5 or 6 million?), voice was made opt in. so its time to go down memory lane and remember that voice degrades the experience of sl for the majority of residents and thus should be an option to enable but not to slip it in on by default resulting in the loading into a process SLVoice.exe which further degrades system performance by using memory and CPU cycles.
In addition, I am getting tired of these flashmob lynch gangs running around accusing people without voice as being a male posing as a female on forums, blogs, and in world. The TOS addresses this so its time to begin warning, suspending, and banning anyone who openly suggests any avatar not using voice as a gender bender. i'm sure there are gender benders but this childish behavior by your voice fans appears to qualify as a TOS violation. This is more or less political.
But it can be a bug if somebody without headset or sound support install it and dont change it at installation time. It is always a better way to enable wanted features instead of disable any "gadgeds" 
Returning to making Voice opt-in means that no one will use voice unless it is completely intentional. If they want to give up that part of their privacy, and destroy any illusions others may have about what they really sound like, or what gender they are, then that is their choice. PLEASE go back to making Voice an intentional opt-in.
But when Voice is on by default? Well, a lot of laptops and even many new desktop computers have built-in microphones... So you turn on SL. even if you have NO intention of using Voice, suddenly you have a live mike that can unintentionally be triggered, by a press of the middle mouse button, robbing you of privacy, and possibly compromising other information that no one in Sl has any business knowing about, such as comments being made between the Player and family members or business associates that are not intended to be public knowledge. And in the period before you can turn it off, you are stuck with hearing the RL voices of others around you that you may NEVER want to hear. Forcing the default to opt-out isn't going to help the average clueless noob to use Voice. If they are too clueless to click one radio button on start-up, they will never get their headset properly connected and configured! In short, opt in harms no one. If you choose to opt in, you don't care what you hear or who hears the real you. Opt-out harms every Player that does not want to ever hear the RL voices of their on-line friends, or to have those people ever hear their own RL voice. It's an undesired behavior because voice is an extremely sensitive area to what clearly seems like a majority of SL residents. Many people come to sl as a pleasant diversion from RL; some log in at work locations, some while their spouses and children are within earshot; some log in to be a furry, a monster, a robot, or to gender-bend. Simply put: voice is an extremely intimate part of our rl identity, one that a resident should have the "choice" to use/disclose.
It's also undesirable because since the introduction of voice to the main grid, it has always been opt-in. To suddenly make it opt-out, without a blog announcement of such a big change, or even a mention of it in the release notes seems unresponsive to the very vocal concerns many people have about voice. In other contexts- Is this really a big deal though?
Personally, most of the time I don't use voice, and I don't like it either, for many reasons. But I do think people are overreacting over a simple preference. This "bug" shouldn't be "major". Actually that's not completely true, Nedrae. When I fired up the RC Voice was activated, despite the fact that I have never had it activated in the past, in fact I had specifically disabled it. I think a big reason why it got marked "Major" is that it went from opt-in to opt-out with absolutely no warning anywhere. Many people who previously disabled it are going to find it enabled and not realize that their stated preference has been overridden without so much as a "do you mind?"
This "Bug" as advised by Torley Linden, is set as Bug because he said set it as one. Also, it is Major, it does NOT ask if you want voice at first install now, that is what this is all about, are you even on RC and know what you are talking about?
It may also be against privacy, and should not be default on. Personaly, I ALWAYS have voice on, but alot of people don't want it default on, and it is easy to enable if you want it. We need to go back to how it was, and fast. I didn't see this as a problem. When I started the RC for the first time, it asked me what to do with Voice. I just told it not to actiavte it. It hasn't been on at all.
And afaik, if SL is auto-updated (when viewer goes live), it should take over the old prefs. If you have in disabled there, it should be in 1.19 too. Nanci: I don't agree with it being suddenly turned on by default, but it's not like the UI actively tries to hide the fact that it's on from you: You have the dot over your avatar's head, the "Talk" button along your toolbar, and if you have the chat history on, the local chat tab has a green/yellow icon that's not all that hard to miss.
Meghan: Yes, I do have the RC installed, and running. As for the privacy issue, it's kind of moot since you could also just type any kind of sensitive information you don't want to reveal. Which is harder, I'll admit (but SL likes to steal focus from other apps) but as I said, SL gives you plenty of opportunity before you "accidentally" say anything over voice. By "suddenly" I meant that in the previous RC it was off, and when I first launched the 1.19.0 RC Voice was on, without asking me if I wanted voice on. Also, this is the first time Voice was available for Linux users so I had no clue what that light above my head was. As far as icons go, they changed so much I have to put my mouse over them to see exactly what things mean.
As a matter of fact it took me several minutes to realize that Voice was even turned on, since I had always had it off before. So I suddenly had Voice enabled against my specific settings and without notifying me. Also privacy as in, alot of people log on from work, and sign confidnetiality but then at work may by mistake have voice on, and not realise and disclose info while talking in rl.
Also, even Linden's have this, do they really want this to be a possibility. Just make it default off again, and save the hassle of this : ) in the new windlight viewer voice just activates on install. no prompt. nothing. and some people don't even know their mic is on. time to yank these releases until this is fixed and LL pays attention to the privacy aspects of their own TOS.
To clarify a few things:
1. You need to have a Microphone connected and switched on to be "in danger" in the first place 2. "New laptops with built-in microphones" are no problem because SL uses per default the Push-To-Talk system, so you would need to actively enable voice to be heard, and the default key is the middle mouse button, which is either not at all present on a standard laptop or (on non-linux systems) so rarely used that people won't even think of pushing it accitentally. And even if they did, voice would switch off the very moment they release the button. 3. Additional CPU load or bandwidth with voice enabled are so low, if your machine has a problem with that, you should seriously not try to use Second Life at all. Every single 3D frame rendered eats by a multitude more CPU cycles than a whole second of voice chat. So, there is a lot of ruckus over nothing. Switch voice off, and you are fine. I don't particularly care if voice is on or off by default, I simply go over the settings after each update anyway, to see if there is new stuff in them. wrong Zi. although your points are thought out to a certain degree they do not reflect reality.
you are expressing your opinion without any facts to back it up beyond your personal system behavior. you do not speak for everyone. there is clearly a defect in play with the windlight viewer. your implied suggestion that people that do not want sl voice must disconnect any microphones before installing a new release indicates a total lack of expertise on the topic. also, a special message to voice fanboiz: this jira will be reopened anytime you try to close it until this matter is resolved by LL. I expressed my opinion in the last paragraph of my comment, the facts in the points above still remain, though.
I'm using several systems to go on Second Life, from high-end to lowest possible. My observations are not based on one single machine or Operating System. If the WindLight viewer disregsrded your previous settings, it's a bug and needs to be filed as one. This has not much to do with a default setting used with a fresh install. I didn't suggest to disconnect your microphone. I stated that voice can only be a "problem" (note the quotation marks) if there is a microphone installed. I don't see many people having a microphone connected to their machine, unless they want to use it. I also stated that merely having a microphone connected does not automatically broadcast your voice. By default, you still need to press the Talk button. If the Talk button was "always on" on your system, it's a bug (again) and needs to be reported as such. It didn't happen on any of the systems I'm using Second Life on. I just started the newest WindLight and it is noted here the Preferences on Voice Chat are indeed not imported and no initial warning is given. That is a bug.
I would also like to say 1.19 RC and WL are test viewers. Bugs can exist and bugs do exist. This is a bug, I'm sure it will be Fixed in later releases. Please don't make a huge dramatic deal of it now, if you're worried about bugs that may go against privacy, then do not use these test viewers. Just adding my vote and comments so that the Lindens know many of us are not impressed, and not happy with this.
But.. keeping that in mind.. it is just a release candidate and not a final. At load, SLVoice wants to connect to the internet.. blocked it at my firewall. I don't want it.. don't need it, and really don't appreciate the nature of the opt out feature. I didn't want to use voice in the 1.18 branch and I don't want to use it in this branch. I have no intention of EVER using voice and personally, would rather see LInden Labs spend their time and energy on correcting and upgrading the issues that cause the need for Rollbacks and Restarts. I would rather see them spend more time working on issues that we can all benefit from.. more groups.. better inventory settings and control.. less inventory loss.. better land and avatar management tools, etc etc etc. Personally, I would LOVE to see a poll question on the start up of the program (before you log an and mandatory to take).. Do you use voice... yes or no.. will you ever use voice.. yes or no. Then make the results available for all to see. I will just point out LL, did you ask all of your staff if they want this too?
I know of some, SOME not all that wont, because it's easy to leave it on, and forget you have voice on while working. Indeed on Mac, there is always a mic, and no way of knowing if it's on, middle mouse button is used for scrolling, and calling up system widgets in Dashboard. So you don't want your system functionality interfered with without notification.
You have to remember, if people are not expecting it to be on, then they will not have a headset engaged, that means not only their chat goes out when unintended, but chat coming in, like people's bawling 5 year olds will go out over speaker and may interfere with their own domestic situation. Not even beyond the possibility an elderly resident might have a heart attack with the surprise. You promised us with HetGrid all these features will be OPTIONAL, and if we don't want 'em, we don't have them. Enabling it on the sly because it is such a disastrous and unwanted failure, like we all said it would be, is breaking your word yet again. And dishonest. Think think think before you act, as we implore you to do all the time. With attitudes like this, it's frankly no surprise that the rejection rate of users coming to SL is 23:1 and climbing. For those of us with older systems, who can't afford to upgrade atm, it is serious extra and unwanted resources, and will be as long as yet more unwanted features are crammed in on a client that already hogs everything. Why can't you fix the myriad of borks still in existence all the way back to 1.14 first? Alphas, Group IMs, tps, inventory. Everything has gone to absolute rat shite this last week. Why is the Voice setting even a bug? Why was the need to tinker with it? Or how about Show in Search not working on new prims, which is a showstopper for many. Linking failures and problems. Not to mention lag lag and yet more lag from these things that are supposed to improve our lot, but always end up with decreased performance. Keep in mind, not all of us have microphones built-in to our computers ot laptops. I don't, so why have SLVOICE on using up valuable resources.
This is an easy win win situation for LL's customer service dept. Just set voice default to off. There has been no great clamour from voice users for this setting to be on by default, however there is oppositon to it.
Then there are those SL users with hearing difficulties, who will once again have to disable a feature they don't want to use, do you really need the bad press of a hearing impaired user complaining that you belittle them by having this setting on by default? You're also cooking up an unnecessary storm over an issue that is nowhere near a show stopper. Those who use voice, happily enable voice. There is no need for the default setting to be on, it won't upset voice users. I've been at office hours where Lindens themselves have accidentally had voice blaring out unintentionally, these are experience voice users. You really can't go wrong if you keep the default as off. Thanks for the additional feedback, I'm forwarding this to our Resident Experience Team for further insight.
I've confirmed this behavior in RC1.19.0(1).
Repro:
Note: I found selecting No unloads the SLVoice process. Choose "No" in the Voice Setup wizard to both unload SLVoice and keep voice from starting up on your viewer. Interesting to note: The Talk button on the Voice tab is disabled while the Voice Setup wizard. Apologies, I changed this to "New Feature" because I did confirm this is a deliberate change. We're currently discussing it internally and we'll update you.
@ Torley.
Ok Torley, though if you look at the top of comments you was the one who asked for this to be changed to a Bug, and I did state it was an intentionally thing LOL Let's hope this is fixed soon though : ) My understanding is that although voice is on by default, someone would have to still setup their microphone to be able to use voice. I'm not sure if that changes anyone's opinion on this issue.
I still don't see any reason whatsoever why voice needs to be on by default, nor do I see any reason why this isn't being announced in the release notes. The new viewer is a week or so away and it looks as if this intentional setting will remain, so at least have the decency to inform users of this change. The reason for this change is obvious, despite be in game (even if not in the platform I use) for 6 mounts, only one in five enables it, the rest didn't care. Now the voice people have to show result and to get the % level up, staring it for everyone is the easiest way. Fixing the sound quality or making any part of voice useful is simply not possible. Voice probably is good for someone, I never missed it. I tested it once before disabling it again. The Linux version still misses to many features. It's still probably better to run skype or ventrillo and SL at the same time for voice chat.
I installed 1.19.0(2) today, and was asked on login if I wanted to enable voice or not. I chose to enable it - but were you seeing the choice on your first login with the earlier release candidate?
If it's a fresh install, it should ask.
I just started 1.19.0.3, that just used my older preferences. Did not ask about Voice, did not enable Voice. I installed 1.19.0 Official client and voice was on, despite me having explicitly turned it off in RC3.
It did NOT ask and it retained all of my other preferences. That is not in accordance with Brent Lindens Post above, and as such I am inclined to agree with Nadine that this is being pushed because of internal LL politics and at the expense of the user community. @ Very.
Brent's comment is actualy a repro, is it not? Id ask that you don't make acusations of any sort of politics within Linden Lab, because that's not what this issue or the Jira is about and that is a serious accusation because it is a strict LL rule, from the tao of Linden that there is NO Politics. Thanx @Meghan,
this the exception of: > * Observe: The selected radio button is "Yes, enable Voice Chat.". That how it worked for me several times. Linux, 1.18, 1.19, RC's and home-brew's shifting login. Voice off in 1.18 as if don't exists and now and then in 1.19 i have the voice dot above my head. (I think many of LL's decisions about the viewer and policies have been political, but that's an other discussion.) I have entered the preference ctrl-p at least three times turning voice off. @ Nadine.
Thanx for your comment, and for making it easy to read like some I see lol I've noticed a number of comments from LL recently about voice being a success quoting some statistic that nn% of residents are using voice.
I'm not sure how LL can know if a resident actually uses voice rather just connects to the voice servers because they have voice enabled in the viewer. The cynic in me suspects that voice is now enabled by default because it makes that statistic look better! |
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New Feature
Reopened
Major
Voice on Second Life should not be on/enabled by default.
