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When we tried it, gather.town set an awkward expectation that team members had to stand at their virtual desk, otherwise they weren't _actually_ online / working.

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That tracks. To me, gather.town is an attempt to replicate office dynamics in a remote setting. In an office, being AWOL is looked down upon. I can see how gather.town builds the same expectation.

In my experience, this expectation gets set either way. Whether that be a green light on slack or having your video on for all calls.

I used a 3d-world collaborative environment in a remote company once, and the only effect I noticed was that it brought the awkward parts of the physical world into the digital world. Where do I position myself? Where do I "sit"? Should I "sit"? Is this the right room? What's the "physical" location I'm supposed to be in?

It was like those flash/java-applet 3D navigation interfaces for websites that were semi-popular for a few years, way back: cute, but just made everything slower and harder.

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