Equal Access – When a Village Agrees

The one single issue unanimously agreed upon without hesitation by those who helped found Deaf Village was that submitted video blogs (“vlogs”) are required to be subtitled/captioned or included with transcripts to go with them. Currently there are a few people outside of Deaf Village who are having a bit of a conniption fit over Guideline #5. However, this was a decision that came from a diverse group of Deaf, deaf, hard of hearing and hearing people from a variety of background and life experiences. This was a decision that naturally made sense because greater communication access to video blogs (or any online videos for that matter) whether signed, cued speech or spoken would reach more people and increase inclusivity. This requirement is no more of an eye-brow raiser than the requirement for television shows or movies to be captioned just so the viewing audience can feel more “included” like any others. It just makes good common sense that videos need to have that kind of access. Not doing so merely shuts out those who do not know sign language, cued speech or unable to hear or understand clearly the spoken words in a video blog. The greater majority of the population with hearing loss does not know signing or even cued speech but rather English as their major language of use in the United States (even elsewhere, too). It’s better to grant communication access to the majority of the 30 million people with hearing loss than to exclude them along with the rest of the hearing population by doing an ASL-only video blog with no captioning/subtitling or transcripts. And it's just not a deaf thing either when it comes to captioning since hearing people benefit from it as well like those learning the English language. Deaf Village’s goal is about inclusivity rather than to practice total exclusiveness. And thus by allowing video blogs with captions/subtitles or transcripts the readers, whether deaf, hard of hearing or hearing, will have the opportunity to understand what was said.

It is NOT Deaf Village’s responsibility to provide captioning/subtitling or transcript services to video bloggers in order to ensure that their videos are accessible to the rest of the population. Deaf Village is in the aggregator business. After all, the onus falls on the vlogger to decide whether it's important to provide subtitles or transcripts for their online videos or not. And they should be mindful of their own demands from others (e.g. movies, tv shows, online shows, video blogs, YouTube videos, etc) on requiring/wanting/wishing that videos be subtitled/captioned or included a transcript at the very least. The irony of seeing people complain about Deaf Village’s guideline concerning subtitling or transcript requirement is that for years a certain group of people with hearing loss complained the loudest about how no captioning/subtitles were available over the internet when it came to online videos. Deaf Village now has that opportunity to help ensure that video blogs come with captioning/subtitling or transcripts.

Should a technology down the road come up with a software that can convert sign language into printed text automatically as easily as the spoken words into text then the issue of captioning/subtitling or transcript requirement wouldn’t be such an “issue.” But for right now those who submit videos online are asked to proactively make sure that their internet videos are captioned/subtitled or come with transcripts at the very least before Deaf Village accepts them. Doing so would allow deaf, hard of hearing and hearing people contribute and interact more fully in an accessible “village.”

Currently YouTube offers a way to add subtitles for your submitted videos. Overstream.net also allows subtitling capability for online videos. Laptops often contain software that allow subtitling such as Windows Movie Maker.

Regardless on how videos are prepared, the responsibility lies with each person to ensure that their own submitted videos be captioned/subtitled or included with a transcript at the very least. Lest he or she become a hypocrite by demanding all videos be captioned.

The idea of “inclusivity” simply opens more doors to those who want to participate and understand, in this case, what each vlogger has to say. For those who are serious about equal access themselves need to be proactive in what they believe in when it comes to captioning needs. This is about the assurances on providing an accessible service to the greatest number of people and not about a single communication ideology that promotes exclusiveness to the greater number of people. If one is serious on reaching out to the greater number of people then one should also seriously consider on taking the time and effort to add subtitles or transcripts to their own video blogs or online videos.

Deaf Pagan said it well,

“I’ve always been taught that it is not enough to just sit around and complain when there’s a problem. If you’re not willing to be a part of the solution, then you’re only contributing to being a part of the problem.”

After all, when I make my own online videos I make sure I take the time and effort to include subtitles to all of my videos whenever I speak. Hopefully others will take to task this same philosophy when it comes to signing, using cued speech or by using one's voice by speaking.

UPDATE: Deaf Village's requirement that submission of vlogs be captioned/subtitled or included transcripts is not intended to create "apathy towards ASL" or "drive ASL vloggers away" but rather to create greater inclusiveness *FOR ALL*. Not all can sign or understand sign very well and having, especially, a subtitled video can help create a continued interest for those who want to learn sign language someday. Or cued speech. Or whatever. It's the message that people want to hear, watch or read about. But if your target audience is a Deaf one then you don't have to worry about subtitling or adding a transcript to your vlogs. Or if you want your message to be heard by reaching out to a greater number of people then include subtitle or transcript to your vlog. But if you want Deaf Village to accept your vlog then their guidelines must be met, which means a vlog need to have subtitle or a transcript. Otherwise, it'd be practicing greater exclusiveness to the rest of the population.

The Achilles Heel - Saying What They Mean

It’s been several days since the deaf/hh community-wide uproar broke out over the forcible removal of Rachel’s blog from DeafRead’s aggregator site based on circumstantial evidence(s), assumptions, and the refusal to engage in due process (i.e. benefit of the doubt) regarding Rachel’s own defense. The Achilles Heel in DeafRead's justification for doing so in this whole thing are primarily three things:

1) No prior notification or warning
2) No due process
3) No real clarification on guidelines on what’s really permissible or not, and the unclear definitions of some of the words behind those guidelines.

The main guideline that prompted the removal of Rachel’s blog was under DeafRead’s #6 Guideline doled out to Rachel as their "reason" for her blogsite address removal which copied and pasted here:

“6) Commerical Sites
We do not link to commerical sites for the purpose of generating profit, other than our own (we have expenses to cover!).”

Now, it is rather curious to read Jared’s latest blog entry regarding this matter. that he has done on behalf of DeafRead’s editors and owner was to try and clarify certain positions *AFTER* the fact and not *BEFORE* in the attempt to somehow “prove” as if they actually had these clarifications already set in stone (of course, fooling no one). If hindsight is your friend so is owning up to your own mistakes, too. But that has never happened…yet. However, in Banjo’s blog, “Oh the drama!” (and who hasn’t?) Tayler supposedly admitted his own error about Amy’s DVDs advertisements in an AIM conversation with Banjo. But why “admit” this one particular error in Banjo’s blog? Why couldn’t Tayler just post that “grievance” in his own blog as a step towards reconciliation and acknowledgement in making the faux pas of the year? Either Tayler gave Banjo the “ok” to print his particular comment from their AIM conversations or he did not. I am supposing it’s the former rather than the latter. And if so, then why? Is Tayler somehow trying to move forward in a way to save face by giving Banjo the “ok” to use his comments in his blog? Well, it seems so.

In other blogs I’m seeing comments that essentially point out how Rachel’s blogsite is more like exhorting a “religious experience” based on her own positive experiences with her and other people’s cochlear implants. But it’s funny when people try and point that out using a particular euphemism since there are those who are just as equally “religiously supportive” on the use of ASL even to the point where purists rail against cochlear implants as being “bad” and not good for the Deaf community. Whatever. People who do that reminds me of this phrase, “You can’t eat your cake and have it too.” Hypocrisy comes to mind, too.

Now we get into this conflict of interest complaint. In the last sentence in Jared’s blog a comment made by him that was really wanting.

“We believe it is petty behavior to target a blog by disclosing evidence.”

I disagree. You say you (i.e. DeafRead) have “evidence” but the crux of this is you either have the “evidence” and you disclose it or you don’t have it. There is nothing petty about disclosing evidence to back up your assertions and reasons for a blog removal. What’s petty is targeting a blogsite based on circumstantial evidence hinged entirely on Guideline #6 that's open wide under the sun to interpretation with no means of due process, no advanced warnings or concerns, no efforts to contact the blog owner to try and work this out and get the underlying answers first, and no real clarifications on guidelines on what’s really permissible or not based on undefined set of terminologies. What’s obviously petty is to not acknowledge their own mistakes. Jared has made clear on behalf of DeafRead editors that they did in fact err in their judgment against Rachel based on the re-introduction on new "clarifications" about DeafRead’s quidelines. Which means, in short, that the DeafRead’s guidelines were never clear in the first place.

Jared's ends with this concluding remark on behalf of DeafRead.

I hope this vlog makes it clear the reason why we recently removed an aggressively marketing blog when its relationship to a corporation was discovered. As long as there is proper disclosure or the blogger stays true to the ethos of blogging, DeafRead will continue to list deaf-related posts of the blog.

Aggressively? And against all common sense and logic they still see this as an aggressive marketing blog (Rachel’s) when all it was it was about her experiences and others about cochlear implants. All this has been at best a continuing of mixed messages by the editors of DeafRead while making no attempt at reconcillation, acknowledgement or accountability. Kind of reminds me of the last two Democratic hopefuls' own messages in 2004 and 2008.