Seconded.

I understand the desire of people to "control" the channel.  I used to
completely agree, and when I first implemented Ventrilo into our large
raids we did just that.  However, we quickly found that it wasn't very
useful and that it was simply a mechanical solution to a social
problem.  I've run 40 and 25 person raids with everyone unmuted
without problems.  People manage themselves very well overall,
especially in smaller communities like this one where reputation is
important.

Default chat to "on".  Give people the option to turn off chat
altogether, and give them the ability to mute individuals.  In pickup
games people can either not be on chat or can mute the 10 year old kid
that decides to sing Back Street Boys songs during the game (this has
actually happened to me).  If it's a clue game, it's the captain's
responsibility to keep control of the channel.  If someone fails to
comply, folks can simply mute him and not invite him again.

Jeffrey.

On Fri, Apr 4, 2008 at 5:51 PM, James Cameron <quozl at us.netrek.org> wrote:
> I disagree with Zach, the audio link should default to on, with an
>  option to turn it off.  The preferences of the existing players are not
>  relevant.
>
>  I also think that 8 players on a single audio link is not at all
>  impractical, given the expected conversation latency.  I'm regularly on
>  conference calls with that number of people, and we all learn rapidly to
>  do random back-off, just like in real life.



-- 

"He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy
from oppression; for if he violates this duty he establishes a
precedent that will reach to himself." -- Thomas Paine