I’m considering bringing up a multi-user voice chat server* specifically for use by Go players (*either ventrillo, teamspeak, or mumble). I am thinking it could be useful for study groups, game reviews, or possibly even lessons & group lessons.

More so than that, I think it might be an interesting community building tool. At least for me, interacting with someone on the forums is much different than something as simple as a five minute conversation.

Of course a server is nothing without users. I’d like to get a feel for if there is anyone else interested in this idea enough to give it a try if I set it up. If a handful of people are interested, I’ll fund a month or two of server time to see if it catches on.

I’d be interested in any other opinions about this idea as well. Particularly if this has been tried in the past, or someone else is already doing this now.

I realize that playing serious go and chatting don’t mix. so there would definitely be a mute channel / room for those who don’t want to be disturbed as an alternative to just logging out.

I'd give it a shot?

It's a good idea, but it's likely to degenerate quickly to chats about many things other than go. And I'm not sure that voice is the best way to do it; text can be a lot better for people speaking in a language other than their own, assuming that it's possible that many discussions would be in English and many participants would not be native speakers.

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My blog about Macs and more: Kirkville

Be sure to post when and where you are willing to test this, I'd love to give it a try. Might indeed be fun for study groups, and seems like a solid combo with KGS. Cool idea

As Kirk says, there are a lot of people who write English fluently but would be reluctant to speak it. I also agree that conversation might degenerate - look at KGS as an example. From a personal point of view I would not use it at all as I never have sound turned on. Mostly in the evenings I am sitting in the same room as my wife, working on the computer while she is watching a movie.

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Still officially AGA 5d but I play so irregularly these days that I am probably only 3d or 4d over the board (but hopefully still 5d in terms of knowledge, theory and the ability to contribute).

I'd be interested

An IRC (text chat) channel about go exists (#go on Freenode) and is completely dead. I'm afraid there would be even less interest in voice chat.

^

But I'd be willing to give it a shot.

But this is offset by the people who speak it but cannot write it intelligibly.

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Help make L19 more organized. Make an index: https://lifein19x19.com/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=5207

You may be right. But go players are generally of above average intelligence I have a strong feeling that there are a lot more who have learned to read and right it but don't feel as comfortable speaking it. Maybe I am wrong.

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Still officially AGA 5d but I play so irregularly these days that I am probably only 3d or 4d over the board (but hopefully still 5d in terms of knowledge, theory and the ability to contribute).

I think that he did that on purpose.

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My plan to become an SDK is here.

I have the server up - but have had very little time to clean house. Go users are welcome.



I went with TeamSpeak 3 just to try it. Could switch if there is a compelling reason.
I'll be fairly tolerant of off topic (a.k.a: starcraft) - just so long as it doesn't become an issue (a.k.a: whole wow guild moves in).

Um. How does it work?

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Patience, grasshopper.

You download the teamspeak 3 client, tell it to connect to the given address and hope somebody is online.

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Sanity is for the weak.

What's wrong with, say, skype?

Second Life enables voice chat for whole groups, and there is a Go community there, sort of.
I think such existing venues should be untilised first to make the small community stronger.
Otherwise it just leads to dilution, imho.

There are probably other services like that already in existence.

Personally, I do not see much value in what you propose. Many Go players, me included, have thick accents, and adding to this the distortion of voice chats - it is usually easier to communicate by writing than voice. Just my opinion.

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- Bantari
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WARNING: This post might contain Opinions!!

Skype as far as I know doesn't allow constant groups, so it's not useful for this.

Having to install Second Life is a bit overkill for this.

Well, one could argue that going to a club is overkill when you want to talk to a few friends and have a game.

As for Second Life:
It might be overkill, but it installs very easy and is cross-platform, which cannot be said of all the voice chat clients out there. It also provides some other advantages, like actually combining with a Go club - yes, you can play games while voice chatting, which is really cool for teaching, for example. Any voice chat clients can do that? It also provides many other things you can do (while chatting, or not) if you wish - which is really cool while you sitting there waiting for somebody to show up to play or chat with you.

And, I think most importantly - the infrastructure is already there, is free, widely available, and already maintained by somebody without the need for additional admins and/or services.

There are other venues like that as well out there, so I am not necessarily pushing for SL here.
The one thing that speaks in favor of SL is that there already exists a Go community there, although a small one.

But hey - if you wish to reinvent the wheel and get involved in creating and running yet another very important service - knock yourself out.

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- Bantari
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WARNING: This post might contain Opinions!!

I've been thinking about this idea for a long time. At least since May of this year (See previous post).

In the end, I honestly couldn't decide if it would be successful. So I finally decided to jump in and give it a try.



Download and install the client software here:
http://www.teamspeak.com/
Be sure to grab "version 3 Client", since that's the server we are running.

There are some tutorials on the teamspeak page, but they are likely overkill.
To get up and running, you only really have to worry about a couple things.

1) You need a microphone. Possibly a headset. I mostly use the built in microphone on my laptop.

2) dig around in the settings until you find an area to configure "push-to-talk". You set up a key binding, like Ctrl-m (or anything you want). When you press this key combination, your microphone becomes active and transmits chat to the server for others to hear. You must hold down this key binding for as long as you are talking. Once you release the key binding, your microphone is muted. You do not need to change focus to the teamspeak application for this to work. You can stay in KGS, or IGS, or whatever you happen to be doing. When testing push-to-talk, you should hear your own voice in your headset speakers even if you are not connected to a server.

3) Try to connect, you should be prompted with a dialog that will let you enter server details.

4) Once you connect, users are divided into rooms, just like in KGS. you are in the Lobby right now. If you'd like to change rooms, there are a couple rooms set up for general use.

That's the quick and dirty intro.



Teamspeak 3 has official native clients for Windows, Mac OS, and Linux. It is one of the major considerations I used when selecting it.

This experiment has essentially been a complete failure.

It's possible that if I had put more effort into it, like possibly arranging a regular Tsumego study session, the results may have been different. But, probably not.

Hmm, onto the next idea...