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.
