There is an ongoing controversy involving DeafRead and Deaf Village, the new blog aggregator for the deaf and hard of hearing bloggers and vloggers. People gave birth to Deaf Village out of spite to DeafRead over due to the dispute concerning their policies. They felt that DeafRead was being unfair to them. The removal of Cochlear Implant Online was the final straw. I'm just summarizing it up for everybody who may not be familiar with the situation. It is not up for debate, so please don't bring it up in the comments section. We will be focusing on the new guidelines at Deaf Village and compare some of them to DeafRead's guidelines.
One of the Deaf Village team's goals is to be inclusive of people from all walks of life. Eventually, they will be put to the test. For now, I will just compare Deaf Village's guidelines to DeafRead's and see how they differ.
Deaf Village's guidelines are now online for everyone to read. I have read all of the guidelines. I took my time reading to make sure they are what they appear to be.
Deaf Village is a new blog aggregator. The guidelines appear to be rather short and vague at times. Over time, it is likely that it will become more detailed like DeafRead's guidelines are right now. Currently, Deaf Village has around six rules for everybody to follow.
Regarding the first rule of the six rules, it was originally said that Deaf Village would publish everything from the deaf and hard of hearing bloggers and vloggers even if their blog entries are not deaf-related.Deaf Village Guideline #1
Blog entries from ACCEPTED contributors that do not relate to hearing loss are subject to moderation discretion, which can and may result in an article not being published on Deaf Village.
DeafRead Guideline #1
Deaf Related Posts
The entry must pertain to the deaf community and culture. The blogger being deaf or the vlog being in ASL is not enough to qualify. For example, let's say a blogger decides to do a film review of "Forrest Gump", it will not be posted because it is not deaf-related. However, if the blogger were to do a review of the availability of captions/subtitles in the "Extra Features" section of the 'Forrest Gump' DVD, that would be acceptable. Also, say a blogger initially writes about something deaf-related then goes off on a tangent and remarks about how the movie is rated. This would be fine. In short, it needs to pertain to the deaf community no matter who makes the blog/vlog entry.
The first rule contradicts that. It is similar to DeafRead's rule about what can be published and what cannot be. If it is deaf-related, it will be published onto the front page. If it is not deaf-related, it will be published onto the Extras page instead. Below is an excerpt from Aaron Rose's blog, he is responsible for the public relations at Deaf Village.
"As we the founders went further with the concept of creating a “deaf village,” we asked ourselves how we could be different from Deafread. There will be no “extras” page. Entries will be published automatically so that there is no moderation until the “village” has seen it. In the event that an entry is deemed to violate the guidelines of Deaf Village, the moderators will contact the author to remedy the situation. We are all human, thus no one is perfect and make mistakes from time to time. Rather than judging quickly, we understand the importance of discourse. The moderators of Deaf Village will utilize the removal of posts only as a last resort."
Source: Aaron Cues
The reason why I mentioned this is because it was one of the biggest controversies involving DeafRead's policies excluding blog and vlog entries, which are not deaf-related from the front page. They said they wouldn't do that. From what it looks like, they flip-flopped and decided to take cue from DeafRead's first rule. They are already changing the rules.
At the moment, I can see that they are still currently publishing blog and vlog entries, which are not deaf-related in a category called Non-Deaf/HOH Topic. It seems they have not really enforced the first rule just yet. The real question should be, will they enforce it? If not, then why is the rule there to start with?
Deaf Village - Guideline #2
Posts to Deaf Village must pass the "network TV test" and maintain a level of decorum regarding profanity, adult issues, etc. that does not exceed a "PG-13" rating.
DeafRead Guideline #2
2) Adult Material
There cannot be anything on your post that could be objectionable to parents of children under 18 years of age. This includes nudity, vulgarity, grotesque photos (i.e. a photo or video of Richard Pearle). Acceptable cuss words would be anything that is allowed to be on network TV at primetime.
Both rules are similar. Like I said, DeafRead's policies are more detailed since they have been around for quite a while. So the policies will become more detailed and more rules may be added later on. Both versions of the same rule are clear and easy enough to follow.
Deaf Village - Guideline #3
Deaf Village operates on a basis of respect for individuals' choices and respects each person's individual "deaf experience." Direct personal attacks will not be tolerated.
DeafRead Guideline #8
Name Calling and Discrimination
DeafRead is enjoyed by all kinds of people worldwide ranging from children to senior citizens. It is also safe to assume that people from all races enjoy DeafRead. We will not post anything that is an attack on a specific race, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, age or religion. This offense is serious and the offending blog will be promptly considered for removal from DeafRead's subscription.
I should point out the difference. DeafRead's policy shows that if a blogger/vlogger post an entry attacking a specific group of people, they will not be published. They may even be removed from DeafRead. They do not mention the words, personal attacks. The rule shows that if you make an attack on a person using a specific trait of theirs, you may not be published. Even though it's not directly mentioned, the rule already involves personal attacks to a degree.
Deaf Village's policy on this differs from DeafRead’s; they will not publish personal attacks, but says nothing about publishing entries attacking specific groups of people. They should consider revising this rule to make it appear more articulate and specific on what can be considered a violation of their policy.
In layman's terms, we are to attack the opinions, not the people for who they are. Although one can easily interpret Deaf Village's policy differently from what I did and that's not a good thing. Policies should be crystal-clear and everybody should be able to interpret it the way it is supposed to be. If not, then people will be able to take advantage of it and use it against them.
Deaf Village Guideline #4
Exaggerated and unfounded claims will not be given space on Deaf Village.
DeafRead has no policy on this from what I could gather. This is an interesting guideline that is open to interpretation. It is quite vague and need to be better detailed. It has the potential to stir up a storm if one objects to how a moderator interprets it.
What claims can be considered exaggerated? What would they determine to be unfounded claims? Can an opinion involving scientific theories without support be removed from Deaf Village? Can an idea for a new approach to educating the deaf children end up being unpublished since there is no research to support it? I could go on and on. The fourth guideline is definitely wide open to interpretations by the moderators and the readers. Will they interpret it all the same way? No, not at all.
Deaf Village Guideline #5
We require all vloggers to include captions, subtitles, or transcripts to their vlogs as not everyone understands cued, signed, or spoken languages.
Yes, you read that right. This is the guideline that made me raise an eyebrow. Earlier, I mentioned that one of their goals at Deaf Village is to be inclusive of people from all walks of life. Did they mean the bloggers and vloggers? The readers? Or both?
The reason why this guideline will become a controversial topic is because not every vlogger will want to provide subtitles or transcripts. This means they won't be published simply because they are determined inaccessible to some of the Deaf Village readers.
I do offer subtitles on my vlogs as an option, they can be turned on or off, and it’s that easy. I have made my position on this subject quite clear in the past. I said that vloggers should not be required to provide subtitles or transcripts. It should be entirely optional.
Some people may come up with some arguments that some may think to be ridiculous while some may not. Some people who are not fluent in English may say the same about bloggers not providing a signed version to being inaccessible. Sounds stupid to some of you, doesn't it? To some, it doesn't sound stupid. People have opinions that differ from each other.
So, how are they meeting their main goal of being inclusive if they exclude vlogs without subtitles or transcripts simply because they are not accessible to some people? What it means is everybody must be capable of writing in English or they can't be published.
In my opinion, I don't think it's a good policy to enforce upon the vloggers because they will only fade away from Deaf Village while very few will remain. DeafRead largely thrives on vlogs. Its likely Deaf Village will be thriving more on blogs than it will on vlogs. it has been shown that vlogs with captions get more hits compared to uncaptioned vlogs. It's a choice a vlogger can make if they want to broaden their audience.
It should be up to everybody. I’ve always believed it should be optional. DeafRead has no policy on subtitles and transcripts for vlogs. It was up for debate before, but it was quickly decided that it was not necessary to mandate it. They felt that they had no business telling bloggers and vloggers what to do with their blogs and vlogs.
Deaf Village Guideline #6
All guidelines are subject to the interpretation and discretion of the Deaf Village moderating team. By submitting your feed to Deaf Village, you are agreeing to the guidelines above.
There is that word again, discretion. It was first mentioned in the first guideline. All blog entries that do not relate to hearing loss are subjected to moderation discretion. They mentioned the word again in the sixth and final guideline. Deaf Village may have painted themselves into a corner. The word, discretion voided all of the six guidelines that they laid out for everybody to follow.
The meaning of the word, discretion is to give one the freedom to decide what should be done in various situations. It means they are free to decide to do whatever they please, no matter what the guidelines say. That's the corner they painted themselves into. If that was not what they intended, then they need to revise the guidelines.
DeafRead's policy is different. All of the human editors are expected to follow the guidelines. They don't have the discretion to interpret it differently from what they were told in the first place. Granted, they make mistakes sometimes, both little and big. To err is human. The moderators at Deaf Village are human beings too. We learn from our mistakes. Sometimes we don't. Therefore, we are doomed to repeat history.
Now I have covered all of the six guidelines. There is one more thing I would like to mention. A friend of mine observed that Deaf Village categorizes the blog and vlog entries based on who they are and what they use instead of the contexts. DeafRead categorize the blog and vlog entries by the contexts. I thought it was worth mentioning.
I did what I could to compare Deaf Village's policies to DeafRead's policies. Personally, I believe the guidelines are too vague and some guidelines are too wide open to wild interpretations. Ultimately, it is the sixth guideline that rendered the rest of the guidelines vulnerable to abuse of power. If the guidelines are not revised and modified, Deaf Village will be experiencing quite a lot of abuse before they know it.
My blog feed goes through both DeafRead and Deaf Village and several other blog aggregators. So do not bother to accuse me of being associated with this and that. I am not afraid to speak my mind. I am pointing out the strong and weak points. Constructive criticism is an excellent way of learning on how to make improvements in some areas. Right now, Deaf Village's weak points outweigh their strong points. If I was in their shoes, I would be worried.
The more I read their guidelines, the more distant they seem to be from reaching their goal on inclusivity of people from all walks of life.
6/14/2008 4:20 PM
This is one of your best postings yet! Keep up the good work! :)
6/14/2008 5:29 PM
Bango,
I concur with Deaf258 that you did a great job. I knew there is something very fishy going on with deafvillage.com. They just copied and pasted the cloned business from the DeafRead.com.
What if deaf villiage webiste will offer the raw music for the Cochlear-Impaired people which is unfair for the Deafies. Keep in mind that they are still hearing-"impaired".
I would not be surprised that the deafvillage.com subscribers will decline later only if DeafRead.com will probably improve its website.
Hearing-impaired people still copy from the Deafies. Isn't that right, Rachel?
I do not need to read their lips of CI motor mouths like non-ASL Rachel...
I am still the wonderful fan of DeafRead.com for a few years...
Mookie
6/14/2008 5:32 PM
Requiring vlogs to be captioned in itself is a direct way of excluding deaf people who's primary language is ASL, therefore that go against the concept of a "deaf village" captioning and subtitling isn't done that simply and many of these people do not know how to do this and it does raise an eyebrow at my end as well.
In fact it has me pondering the thought of not going to deaf village anymore, simply because that rule alone goes against trying to build unity among all communication modes in the deaf culture a lot more than it helps to unify them.
I would highly recommend that they change the word of that to say that it is strongly encouraged, as opposed to saying that it is mandated. In order to help with that, this aggregator should create a tab that people can click on to learn where to find free captioning software and how to use it. As I am sure that many of these deaf people that are ASL first, would love to get their message across to non-signers but they simply do not know how to caption it.
6/14/2008 6:49 PM
Banjo...
*thumbs up* Great blog! I couldn't have said it better since you did an incredible research on both guidelines. You hit right on the target.
Honestly, I'm really appalled that they have exclude ASL vlogs unless we put up the captions, text or whatnot. I read Deaf Village's guidelines and found they did very poor job since they didn't put them with context. Without context, that guidelines are more problematic for everyone involved.
Mookie....OMFG, you called Banjo
"Bango"?!?!? OMFG....ROFL!!!!!
Misha :D
6/14/2008 7:13 PM
Could not identify myself, just to protect myself. I am no stranger to several bloggers from deafvillageI am CI-er. I decided that Deafvillage is not good for me since I have several friends who are in ASL Community. I embraced ASL Community. One of my friends submitted a link which was published in Chicago Newspaper's website to Deafvillage. The article called "Inspiration generated from her frustration"
This article is a remarkable story!!! Every sub-community of deaf community need to hear. Deafvillage rejected this submittal, they just show true colors. They are anti-ASL which is tolerated me. Again, I am fully CI-er and very open-minded in deaf community.
6/14/2008 7:18 PM
Hey Banjo,
Good post as usual and good job researching on it to see the difference between these guidelines, in fact I didn't even know DV has their own guideline already until you just brought it up.
After reading it, I realized that they are pretty new so it is always for others to make many mistakes and unclear on many things when someone starts a new thing anywhere then learn more from it as it goes by so it is kinda expected with DV and let's wait and see how it goes for them, I hope they will change for the better.
As for captions, that took me by surprise because like you, I personally do not agree with theirs since it is always right of choice for everyone. If they don't want to provide subtitles or transcripts, no biggie. I hope after your post pointing that out, they can make some adjustment because I believe in welcoming everyone whether we like it or not except.. of course the ones who repeatedly attack others.
-SG
6/14/2008 8:01 PM
Well, Banjo.
As for the captions, think about the hearing-impaired, i.e. lattened deaf late in life (due to the ages) as well as the visual-impaired people are facing the new reality. They do not know how to sign language. They need to read the captions. Thanks to the technology.
Many non-captioning deaf vloggers' voices are not perfect. Many people who wear CIs or hearing aids late in life have depended hearing the voices. It's their habits.
Deaf Village would have wanted to include any hearing/visual impaired v/bloggers to include theirs in the walk of life.
I have noticed Deafread (DR) have declined the vlogs. There are more blogs than the vlogs in the DR.
I rather to read more blogs than vlogs. I am not fond of the vlogs.
Love your thinking, Banjo!
White Ghost
6/14/2008 8:09 PM
oopps..
Deaf Village would have wanted to include any hearing/visual impaired v/bloggers into theirs in the walk of life.
I put *two* "to include" in one sentence! Oooopps.
White Ghost
6/14/2008 8:15 PM
Actually, now that I think about it and after reading White Ghost, she does have a good point.
And also, there are some ASL vlogs I can't bother to watch because I am having difficult to understand due to quality, background, the style of their signs, etc. I'm the type of person who loves to understand everything, I hate it when I miss out something either on written or in video so having subtitles or transcripts is a big plus, of course.
That is one reason why I decided to remove video comment off my site a while ago because some of us had a hard time understanding them even with our ASL skills so I ended up asking them to repeat or to type in text.
But of course it is still everyone's choice regardless. I'm like White Ghost but in opposite way, I prefer videos over blogs especially when you go back and look at them remembering how young you were.
;-)
-SG
6/14/2008 8:20 PM
Hey Banjo,
Your research on both of websites is excellent. I like your responses on results.
Only one thing is that Deaf Village is clearly setting up systematic discrimination against Culturally Deaf. Deaf Village should be responsible in providing accessible for everyone. It does not. Bad one.
Deafchip
6/14/2008 8:31 PM
Seek Geo!
Your'e the unique who have provided the captions/subtitles which is appreciated me and others very much.
I must admit that I am one of your huge and pink fans!
Hugs, White Ghost
6/14/2008 8:54 PM
Misha,
Did I just misspell Banjo "Bango"? Thanks for catching.
Banjo, Sorry about my accidential error...
SeekGeo,
You have already decided to join the elite membership of the CIBC: CI Band Club. BTW, OC stands for Open Caption....
6/14/2008 8:56 PM
Great blog!!
6/14/2008 9:18 PM
"Deaf Village - Guideline #3
Deaf Village operates on a basis of respect for individuals' choices and respects each person's individual "deaf experience." Direct personal attacks will not be tolerated."
After reading a couple of comments, I noticed that certain individuals, one of those who left DeafRead long before the removal of Rachel's blog, had not shown respect for opposing beliefs and been making personal attacks on people i.e. "stupid, and putting them down. This occurred on CIO on June 11. I wonder what the DV moderators will do about this individual's personal attacks.
6/14/2008 10:15 PM
If TV/Movies DVD's weren't captioned any more, there would be a hue and a cry about equal rights and the ADA laws would be challenged by the whole Deaf Community. Discrimination would be the word used.
Vloggers that don't caption their vlogs are in fact, discriminating against those who don't know sign language.
Why should vloggers NOT caption their vlogs to a). get a wider audience, and to allow equal opportunities for others to 'read' their vlogs
Not everyone knows ASL you know - I know NZSL - completely different, so I can't follow the vlogs on Deafread unless they are captioned.
It's simple - you want me to notice and understand where you are coming from, and to learn from you, or listen to your story, then you need to caption the vlogs.
If the boot was on the other foot - then I can imagine the wrath of the Deaf Community over it.
Technololgy is there, no reason why things couldn't be captioned.
Cheers
Robyn
6/14/2008 10:31 PM
Banjo,
I thank you very much for your analysis of the guidelines. Yes we are new at this and the Deaf Village team agrees that creating guidelines is a very arduous task because we have to consider what works and what doesn't. We expected that readers would provide criticism and we welcome such insight.
As Deaf Village continues to grow, we understand the need for revising the guidelines. One point we must stand by is the issue of captioning or text to go with vlogs. The Deaf Village team has heard your voice and we all agree we still must require that vlogs on Deaf Village be accessible to all.
We will be posting updates in the following weeks on Deaf Village. Again thank you for your insight. After all it takes a village...
Aaron Rose, Public Relations - Deaf Village
6/14/2008 10:51 PM
Aw.. thanks, White Ghost! Hugs to you!! :-)
Robyn,
I find it very true per your comment about captions. That is the same question I always ask these some deaf people who bashed me simply just because I provide captions but yet they get upset if they don't get captions on their TV, isn't that funny?
As for Aaron's comment,
Wow.. what a great and well manner response by one of staff from Deaf Village. That is alright, we will go by whatever you have decided and you have our support, look forward to see where Deaf Village goes, good job and keep it up, I feel more welcomed there for sure.
-SG
6/15/2008 12:04 AM
DUH, vloggers without caption are discriminating???
WHy dont you go and learn ASL or other sign langauge!!!
Why dont we ban radio - worse discrimination!!!!
Why dont Deaf Village provide closed capiton program for vloggers. Can Deaf Village do for a million of YouTube videos? It has its policy then it is its responsible to provide closed caption. Same with TV system. If it does, that would be great.
In another word, it shuts Deaf vloggers up.
Deafchip
6/15/2008 12:34 AM
DeafRead and DeafVileage are two different cultures, one has the light and the other likes the darkness, ie, cockroaches.
See this http://www.deafread.com/go/44985
And you will understand.
6/15/2008 1:15 AM
Hi David,
Yes, I agreed that "discriminating" might have gone too far but then again, I wonder where did they get it from? Is it because we say it is discrimination when a TV show do not provide captions? Do we say it is discrimination when a movie do not provide captions and the same goes with online videos like CNN, etc. Many of us say they are discriminating us so that's maybe why they got the idea of saying we discriminate them by not providing captions. It's just my two cents even tho I agree it is way too far because it is personal choice on own videos for vlogging.
As for saying, "you must learn ASL" - we couldn't want to say that because then we would have to learn russian if we want to watch russian films. Many foreign films are provided english subtitles so we can actually enjoy, it'd won't do any good if they tell us, we must learn their language to watch.
-SG
6/15/2008 1:21 AM
To avoid discrimination, vloggers are expected to provide captioning. Where is ASL translation of all written English blogs for ASL users? With this guideline, the ASL Deaf people are discriminated!!!
6/15/2008 1:30 AM
Um anonymous,
I thought ASL is visual language not written - "ASL is a visual language, not a written language." on wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Sign_Language
So it doe not help this case.
-SG
6/15/2008 4:12 AM
The Village was not set up in 'spite', it was a reaction to what people felt was a very bad and biased mis-application of the deaf.read guidelines. The whole thing could have been handled better than making it look like a blogger was excluded because she was a CI advocate, and loved it.
Your blog tends to inflame the negatives by stating 'spite'. The issue is clearly what constitutes advertising ? a debate that hasn't yet taken place, and should be, since a number of gray areas represent themselves at deaf.read, including never-ending 'adverts' for 'Blackberry', a tool to help deaf ? is a hearing aid or a CI a 'tool' ? or just things sign users hate to see highlighted ?
6/15/2008 4:16 AM
Banjo and all who may find it discriminatory to require a transcript for your vlogs. . .I should think anyone who visits DeafVillage would be able to read English. If this is so, why do you think it's discriminatory for DeafVillage to require a written transcript? If you can read English, you can write it, NO?
6/15/2008 4:25 AM
David - you write..
"WHy dont you go and learn ASL or other sign langauge!!!"
Yet - if you had read my comment properly you would see I already did say - I know NZSL - not ASL. Why would I want to learn ASL when no one uses it in my country?
Regards
Robyn
6/15/2008 4:38 AM
SG, not sure where you saw an Anonymous saying "Written ASL" but I think it's the Anonymous who said "ASL translation of all written English blogs..." ASL translation, meaning bloggers who do written entries should provide ASL translation obviously via video since like you said ASL is not written language :-)
In that case, I concur. Why is it every time ASL vloggers are expected, demanded and now even REQUIRED to provide subtitles but bloggers are not expected to provide ASL videos (translations) of their written entries.
What I am seeing is Double Standards.
No, it is not the same thing as shows not being captioned on TV, because WE PAY to view (e.g. cable, etc) and film/TV industries make a lot of money. In most cases, ASL vloggers do not make money, and they usually are using vlogs for personal - not for business.
Like you, I believe that providing subtitles is a personal choice... wait, your view seems to be changing...
6/15/2008 4:38 AM
Also-- I agree with rule number two. It makes sense to limit posts to Deaf related subjects. That way D/deaf/HH people looking for info on deafness and hearing loss will find this aggregator full of interesting deaf related stuff, rather than articles on motherhood, trips to the beach and political rants. It doesn't bother me a bit that DeafVillage may not pick up all my posts, as long as they're not posting other blogs with non-deaf related content.
As for personal attacks against individuals I think that may pertain to the blog, not blog comments. Spending an entire blog ranting about another blogger makes boring reading.
Further-- I think it's smart not to pick up blogs that post unfounded claims, though it will be interesting to see how they moderate those blogs. Anytime a person makes a controversial statement or claim, they should be able to back it up.
6/15/2008 4:49 AM
"Banjo and all who may find it discriminatory to require a transcript for your vlogs. . .I should think anyone who visits DeafVillage would be able to read English. If this is so, why do you think it's discriminatory for DeafVillage to require a written transcript? If you can read English, you can write it, NO?"
I did not say that it is discriminatory. I just don't think it's necessary to require a vlogger to provide transcripts or captions.
I don't care if it's ASL, Cued Speech, Spoken English or anything. I still don't think it should be mandated. It should be optional.
6/15/2008 5:01 AM
Aaron Rose, I want to let you know how much I appreciate your response. It shows that you are taking your job at public relations with a great stride of pride.
I will say that I respectfully disagree with the DV team over the fifth guideline. I made it clear why I don't think it's necessary to mandate it.
But thanks for the comment, I really do appreciate it.
6/15/2008 5:30 AM
brenster,
Ok, my apologize.. you are right. I misunderstood so it's all cleared up now and yes that is correct it is not fair to require vloggers providing captions/transcripts while we don't tell bloggers who writes to provide ASL video.
That is exactly why I always believe it is an optional for vloggers since day one.
-SG
6/15/2008 6:12 AM
Alternatively if an ASL Vblogger is making comment about other people's views and IS able to provide some text back up, then they should,it should NOT be an option to rant at people in a form they can't follow.
Is providing access an 'option' to be preferred ? I disagree ! and so does the ASL/BSL user. If we demand mainstream must provide access in the form best suited for us, then we have an equal obligation (if we are able), to provide access for them surely ?
No one has a right, to use access as a weapon for exclusion, which it is being used for by some. If deaf are able, they should provide too, if only so they aren't talking to themselves. How does this aquaint with those who ARE unable to provide English text, but refusing to allow people to do it for them ?
This is then a DELIBERATE stance of "I am NOT going to provide access for YOU.. Why should I ?" They laud isolation as a neccessity.
6/15/2008 6:52 AM
Hi there
Just got up this morning with a large cup of coffee.
Hi Robyn,
Thanks for your response. Perhaps I am not making myself clear. If an article (written in Russian) is posted, will Deaf Village remove it or keep it in post? If it is removed, then it is only one language policy being enforced or Language police. If it is kept in post while ASL only video clip is not allowed to be posted, then I find that discrimination because of its rejection of visual language. That is my argument.
Hi Geo,
Long time no chat! Yes your #30 response is the one I agree with.
Deafchip
6/15/2008 12:17 PM
We've all been down this road before and I don't think we have all ever agreed on this.
My personal view is that captioning or subtitling should be an option. However, if one were not to caption or subtitle, then it would be nice to provide a transcript for those that do not know signs such as maybe late deafened who is learning or whatever..
So...I don't think we all will ever agree on this issue. I figured if we demand CC on TV and DVD's at least we should understand why equal access is important for those that are learning ASL or whatever. It would benefit YOU more because you'd have more people reading your blog due to increase equal access by providing CC or Subtitles or transcripts, etc.
6/15/2008 1:49 PM
Great blog and comments!
It will be interesting to see how things evolve at Deaf Village...It is nice to see that they are open to suggestions and feedback for their website. Pretty soon, I think we will see a duplicate of Deafread... wouldn't that be funny?
There is one thing that bothers me about Deaf Village, the categories they use. I posted this comment in All the Young Dudes blog:
Among the categories used in Deaf Village are: ASL, AVT, Deaf, Hard of Hearing, Cochlear Implant, Cued Speech, Hearing Aid, Hearing Loss, Late Deafened and etc… Compare this to Deafread’s categories: Media, Higher Education, Language, Audism, Art and Storytelling, Education, Tech, Legal, etc… It seems that DV is all about how much hearing we have? It kind of puts the deaf community into categories rather than treat it as a whole community, a place where people of all kinds of hearing losses can go to share their experiences regardless of how much hearing they have. DV’s categories kills the spirit of the community as a whole, not in terms of being all-inclusive, but by using categories that have long divided the deaf community. This puts the focus on how much a deaf person can hear or what tools (Cochlear implants or hearing aids or choice of communication) makes them more or less successful. If you look at all of the categories on DV, you will find duplicate postings where same blogs or vlogs are categorized into deaf, hard of hearing and CI categories if it applies to all of them. If a blogger/vlogger is signing and they are discussing about their love for ASL and their cochlear implants… this puts them in all three categories which is kind of ridiculous to me.
Also, have you noticed how many blogs/vlogs have been categorized into the ASL, Deaf, AVT and CI categories? Does this smell of a new commercial aggregator for Cochlear America? LOL!!!
6/15/2008 1:54 PM
I agree with comments #3 & #11. The rule requiring English caption or
transcript is an effective way to exclude Deaf vloggers from Deaf Village (Should that
be "deaf Village"?). This is similar to the way corporations used to keep women with
families out of the executive level positions by making "travel required" one of the
job requirements. That was one part of the "glass ceiling" we have heard about
recently.
If equal acess is really the only issue, then DV moderators should prepare
transcripts of the vlogs - IIRC, one of the moderators stated she was "fluent in ASL".
Indeed, for equal access, the moderators should prepare ASL translations of each
blog, too.
How about it, Deaf Village?
David
6/17/2008 4:14 AM
I think that including captions/subtitles or a transcript is a good idea, as it allows for EVERYBODY to have equal access to the information being presented. It goes both ways too - those who are hearing or oral who put up a vlog will need to provide accessibility for the readers who CAN'T hear them!!! After all, if an oral/CI person put up a vlog with just speech, and no translation I'm sure everybody would be complaining that they can't understand it unless they have a CI or can hear!!
If captions/subtitles are an issue or a hindrance, a short transcript explaining what is being discussed shouldn't be hard to do - its not hard to take a concept and translate that into English even if it isn't word-for-word.
Remember, Deaf Village is about INCLUSIVITY. If you don't want your vlog to be accessible to everybody who comes to the site, then don't submit it. It is actually a wonderful thing to know that everybody who comes to Deaf Village will have the opportunity given to them to be able to view/read EVERY blog, instead of just those they can understand.
I can understand quite a few vlogs, but there are some people whose sign is simply too difficult, and I just close out those vlogs, and wonder at what I might be missing. With this rule, that won't be the case for anyone anymore. Its not about pushing ASL vlogs out - its about encouraging them to think of everybody ELSE, not just themselves.