i got the server up and running on my linux mini pc.

the voice quality is great, and the video streaming is good, someone mentioned the resolution looked super smeared when they joined, but it corrected itself before i could ally tab look at it.

i have found that an important detail is that the text chat is either directly attached to the voice channel, and to see/manipulate it you must jump into that channel, or there are global chats that are separate entities from the channel, even if handled by the same ui. once you find your friend server, make sure to book mark it as it’s not an automatic thing.

also right now hosting your own server is preferable, as the explosion of users maxed out the us located servers, and japan is not an acceptable server spot.

For a room to chat or to talk with mic or webcam? I never used Teamspeak before.

Can we all not move to another proprietary paid service again? Good god.

Stoat has been wonderfully simple so far and is free and open source. It’s got voice chat. It’s only been about a week of using it so far so please correct me if I’m wrong or point out issues that I haven’t seen or mentioned.

It seems like the most realistic option to me since I doubt the masses wanna get into self hosting.

In context, defeating the privacy exposure of requiring to use CC details would be by getting an anonymous credit card, which in most countries are now either very difficult to obtain or simply no longer offered (outlawed).

Hope that helps.

(Edit: spelllering)

For anything, is my understanding. If they try to open it, they’re just represented with a “server full” notification.

Only the person who creates the room have to pay or everyone who want to join a room that is bigger than the limit?

Whoever hosts the server

Yeah honestly. Running the teamspeak server executable is hardly selfhosting, and they’re just another closed source proprietary service. Cool they’re still around after all these years I guess but they shouldn’t even be considered as a migration option.

Stoat and Fluxer are both open source, very straightforward and familiar, and I believe self-hostable. Much easier for casual users than Matrix too.

I’m unsure what is difficult about Matrix.

I’ve had several “casual” friends register and join my space on their own.

That’s 32 connected users to voice, not total server users isn’t it?

I don’t know. They call them “slots” without elaborating and tell you to contact them for more details.

It is the same effectiveness of scanning an ID since that could also be their parent’s.

The point of scanning the ID is (supposedly) to verify the age of the user, not their parents.

Using a credit card or an ID are both just using a physical item to ‘verify’ an age of someone who may or may not be that person. Getting a credit card has a minimum age, so the end goal of age ‘verification’ is met either way although the ID has way more personally identifiable information like skin color, actual birth date, gender, etc.

It isn’t like scanning an ID verifies that the person scanning the ID is the person on the computer.

Getting a credit card has a minimum age

Not true, anyone can become a “verified user” on another’s account. That’s what my parents did when I was a kid.

• Signup can be tricky.
• Managing your encryption keys is tricky for normal people (I know someone who signed up for it on incognito because they weren’t sure about it yet then got a bunch of confusing popups when they signed on with their phone).
• Room organization is missing a layer used on discord (server->room instead of list of rooms) leading to confusing moderation structures and nearly required manual organization of rooms if you’re in more than 10.
• notifications rules can be obtuse.
• having different commands based on the clients used can lead to confusion.
• most clients have security related popups that just confuse people (This person reset their identity!).
• people can struggle with how to properly interact over federation, much like in the fediverse
• screensharing tools just aren’t there yet

Things have been getting better fast for matrix, but its just not ready for the masses IMO. I still suggest it when I can when the use case makes sense.

You are a verified user for their account. That is literally using their card with extra steps.

Also, there is frequently an age 13 requirement to be an authorized user which would count for everything except porn.

Correct. 32 people connected to voice simultaneously, but there isn’t persistent text chat. So really, only 32 users at a time, at all. The lack of text made me set up a Matrix homeserver instead.

You are a verified user for their account.

Right, which is different from the user’s account, and thus does not verify their age.

there is frequently an age 13 requirement to be an authorized user which would count for everything except porn.

Discord doesn’t have a 13 age group. It’s just adults and children.