There is often a need for the user to increase the audio playback volume above the volume level known as "100% volume". While increasing the audio volume above 100% can result in degraded audio quality, sometimes the audio was, for example, originally recorded at an extremely low volume, and the user has no other option to clearly hear the audio. Unfortunately, most MATE applications with volume controls do not allow the user to set the volume level above 100%. For example, the main MATE Sound Preferences dialog lets you set the audio volume beyond 100% (when possible), whereas the Volume Control Applet, Volume Control status icon, and special "multimedia" volume control keys do not. In fact, if the user even tries to change the volume using any of the latter methods, and the current volume level is above 100%, these latter methods will all reduce the volume to 100%, even if the user tried to increase the volume! This is part 1 of a patch to change this situation. All that this patch does is add a new, standard MATE setting which determines whether the user should be allowed to set the audio volume above 100%. The rest of the functionality of this patch is in other commits / pull requests.