Voice and the Crisis of RL identity in SL

I am a user on SL…. one of the things that I have become acutely aware of since the beginning of my existence there is that identity is a central theme.

There are many people who want to know Age/Sex/Location immediately after meeting you, and it’s very annoying. It’s people like this who are really trying to turn SL into “Real Life 2.0″ rather than Second Life.

One thing that is of extreme concern recently is that Linden Lab appears to be pushing Second Life into being more of an augmentationist realm than a immersionist one, or so it seems. In March, it felt as though Linden Labs was waging a two pronged attack on anyone who’s real life didn’t match their Second Life by implementing two things (which ultimately haven’t been done yet…) and those are:

1. Identity verification where residents can “choose to share verified aspects of their identity.” and, of course,
2. Voice.

While some people say that “The only people who are worried about this are the ‘posers’ or ‘those who have something to hide’” there are plenty of people (in fact the majority, I’m starting to suspect) who don’t want to use the voice feature and also will resist verification.

Linden Lab seems also to have taken the tack of “We know best, discipline yourselves” instead of “okay, valued customer, we’ll do better.”

In a recent post about the Voice Gestures contest I posted a number of responses which were negative regarding voice… I’ll reproduce them here, since they have not been moderated yet and, I suspect, will remain that way.

Linden Lab has taken every single opportunity to not listen to it’s customers that it can, why should this be any different?

Here is the post… it was in response to someone claiming that people only started complaining about voice after it was implemented… I assure you that’s not the case:

People were complaining BEFORE it was planned… people were complaining WHILE it was being implemented…. people were complaining WHEN it was in beta… people are still complaining….

They are the majority of SL. SL has shown a disturbing trend of trying to force people to reveal as much about their RL selves as possible all the while being disingenuous saying “you don’t have to use it” or “it’s optional.”

Please, don’t play revisionist history and say that people only started complaining afterwards…. there are posts and discussions going back to 2003 about how people do not want voice in SL and never wanted it.

Unfortunately, until it’s in the main viewer, we won’t really know the impact it will have, not really. All I can tell you is that it doesn’t seem like people are downloading the First Look viewer with Voice in record numbers.

I, for one, will have it enabled, but I won’t be using it. I like my anonymity… I like people not knowing who I am. If that bothers anyone, that’s not really my problem, it’s theirs. LL has been going down the insane path of “making SL closer to RL” when 99.9999999999% of all residents DON’T WANT THAT.

People came to SL for a very specific reason… to have fun… to play… to be something they couldn’t be or to role play…. or to let something out that has always been hidden, to become something new.

Where does voice leave all of this… you must remember that 99.99999999% of all of the major content creators in SL are IMMERSIONISTS…. this means that they are not into making their SL a reflection of their RL. Many MANY MANY people in SL aren’t and won’t be and will never be part of that camp…

What I find most annoying is that so many “pro-voice” people try to convince people who are against voice that “oooh …. lots and lots of people wanted it… lots… really.” Where are they? Almost every single one of my friends in world isn’t for it, only one really likes it. I, for one, am not looking forward to the din of 10000 voices in my midst when and if I log onto SL.

Another tactic that I find the “pro-voicers” use is “oooh… people who won’t use it will be ‘quickly marginalized.’” HAH!!! When most of the people in SL are against it… and most of the content creators are against it… people who CREATED SL AND MADE IT WHAT IT IS TODAY…. are against it… I somehow doubt that they/we will be marginalized in any sense of the word.

You 20-somethings or early 30-somethings looking for a dating scene can have your “voice” feature… I, for one, will never use it and, if I do… I will only use it with close friends…. but I really don’t relish the though of SL becoming a big stinking conference call which is basically what is happening.

Good Day,

Anony Mouse1
“Fighting for your rights in the Multiverse.”

Here’s another post, this one was in response to Iridium Linden who said that “this blog entry is about the contest, not about the feature itself.” While I can understand that, Linden Lab has cut off any and all of the anonymous avenues of feedback to them and has simply chugged along their way:

@ Iridium…

Your comments are indicative of exactly the problem with Linden Lab. YOU ARE NOT LISTENING TO YOUR CUSTOMERS. *PERIOD* You are playing to COMPANIES *PERIOD*.

I hope, one day… you guys wonder what happened…. and you look back and say “hey…. maybe… we should have listened.” But… knowing and, indeed, observing how “customer oriented” you AREN’T you won’t.

You can tell Joe and Philip, that if this behavior continues… there are factions in SL that will start a competing service and beat LL at it’s own game *BY LISTENING TO IT’S CUSTOMERS.* Every post… ever post that has ever mentioned voice has been met with a *resounding* negative response.

The community at large is very very pissed off at you guys for this. You have implemented this feature without thinking about what effects it will have… you’ve just slammed it in.

Good Day…

AM1
“Fighting for your rights in Second Life.”

Here is another one to Iridium regarding his/her claim that the Lindens do read the forums:

@Iridium

If a lot of other Lindens keep a close eye on them, then why do you guys constantly force features down the throats of residents? It’s tiring and sickening to watch this kind of thing happen with LL again and again.

Why doesn’t LL simply change the name of Second Life to Real Life 2.0 and the motto to “Your imagination, your world… um… as long as your real life matches your second life.” Regretting that motto now are you?

I’m really really quite tired of yelling at a brick wall with you guys, because it doesn’t seem to go anywhere or do any good whatsoever. Linden Lab has proven time and time and time again that they don’t care about the residents and they explain it away by saying “You don’t have to use it…” or “it’s optional” or “you can use third party software to do that.”

The only time I think you’re going to witness full on voice adoption is when you implement something that can adequately disguise someone’s voice so that they can’t be recognized. Just because I bump into Bob from accounting, doesn’t mean I necessarily want him to know it’s me…. Second Life is Second Life, not Real Life 2.0 (Unless, of course… you follow my ‘advice’ from above).

And, before anyone says it… yes, this is about people sounding like whichever sex…. or a dragon or whatever the heck else they want to sound like… one of the basic, fundamental freedoms SL provides is the freedom to escape from who you really are. Voice, without such mechanisms *EASILY* in place, effectively mutes everyone who isn’t. Additionally, there are people for whom using voice isn’t an option…

What about the person who lives with other people, who doesn’t want them to hear him/her talking all of the time. The people I live with, honestly, would be a little annoyed at me if they heard me talking all of the time in my room… and, honestly, when I tried voice once, it felt like a conference call… seriously…. people were just standing there saying nothing most of the time. I can echo some of the concerns from the posts above where I was virtually ignored by people because I wasn’t using voice. However, I’m not sure if that translates to the main grid, since most people on the beta grid were there SPECIFICALLY to test the voice feature. I must say that, honestly, there were never more than a few people testing it at once.

There are ways to disguise your voice on both Mac and Windows computers…. some of the best suggestions I’ve seen for doing this were available here:

http://www.slpixelpulse.com/2007/05/08/voice-morphing-sample-available-at-trc/

Many people in the “AUGMENTATIONIST” camp find my views horrifying “What does this person have to hide?” or “If you don’t tell me everything about yourself you’re being a ‘fraud’.” To that I say… ahem…. up yours. I’m free to be whatever the hell I want and I don’t need to ask permission from you or any one else to be that. This is *my* Second Life and I’ll live it in a way that suits me (for those of you who don’t know… I’m paraphrasing the SLCS-Second Life Community Standards here).

If you don’t like it…. too bad.

Anony Mouse One
“Catch me if you can.”

Here’s another response to a person named “Kevin Paisley” who is among the most clueless people I have ever ever seen who said that “the only people who are complaining are men who are playing women.”  I, personally know a lot of RL women who play female avs and men who play male avs who DON’T want to use voice, since it will, essentially, turn the whole thing into a big conference call:

@Kevin #41

Ummm no.. most of the people who are complaining are people who bought into the whole idea that Second Life is just that… a *SECOND LIFE* a chance to experiment and play. Bringing in aspects of RL, like your voice, is a *problem*.

If I wanted to log into *SECOND* Life so that I could have more REAL Life, I wouldn’t have come at all. You really can take your “most of the people and complaining are men playing female avs” assertion and put it somewhere because it’s not always the case.

PEOPLE HAVE A RIGHT TO PLAY WHAT THEY WANT ON THIS THING. If a 50 yo man wants to make a 30 yo female av to play, he has that right. If a 60 yo woman wants to play a 20 yo male or female she has that right.

SWITCHING GENDER IS A FUNDAMENTAL FREEDOM IN SL… if it wasn’t then why not tie the gender of the av to the RL gender of the person who registered? I mean… that would solve the WHOLE problem for you, right?

The problem with voice is that it invades this and causes people to be essentially FORCED to bring their RL into their SL when they don’t want to.

I, personally, know a lot of RL women (yes… I know that they are women) who don’t want to use it because they feel as though it would be “too personal” and it’s “not what they wanted from Second Life.” If you, or any of your friends, wish to think that they are men…. so be it.

Second Life was *thriving* with a text based communication system… and it was really nice. It’s a shame the the “pro-voice” crowd can’t get it through their heads and constantly falls back on the “oooh… it’s the guys playing girls who are complaining” crud as a tired excuse.

We’re tired of hearing it… really… sheesh.

What really bothers me is the cavalier attitude with which LL is approaching this. Perhaps it’s time to start thinking about their replacement.
With all of these posts of mine censored… I start to wonder… how many other people have been posting and telling Linden Lab that they don’t want voice… and that they really just want to be left alone. Linden Lab has got to be one of the least customer oriented companies I’ve ever seen.