Re: Recording teleconferences?

On Fri, Aug 14, 2009 at 6:43 PM, <jfoliot@stanford.edu> wrote:
> Apologies for top posting.
>
> Jonas, I am having a hard time understanding your confusion. There is no
> technical restriction that prevents the posting of an audio file without a
> transcript, however without the transcript the posting will not meet the
> WCAG requirement. Does the HTML WG care about this?
>
> Dan C. posted earlier that by W3C policy transcripts must be included with
> audio and video content. Does this affect the decision process?
>
> In both cases the decisions are policy driven and not technology driven.
> Creating accurate transcripts today is still relatively low tech: a
> transcriptionist, a stenography machine, a set of head-phones and the audio
> track. I have offered to pay for at least one telecon transcription from my
> own pocket, and Matt has suggested that WAI has resources that might also
> assist in this area. The one thing that I think neither Matt nor I want is
> for this to be seen as "the accessibility extremists" frustrating progress.
> The WG should do what it thinks is right.
>
> Assuming however that publishing an audio file as part of official W3C
> business, without a transcript, is actually a viable option completely
> ignores the social component of the larger discussion - a continued sticking
> point *especially* in this working group.  This is another classic case of
> understanding (or failing to understand) that accomodation is part of
> ensuring full access - and that technology alone cannot solve all access
> problems.

I care much more about what helps people than what is policy. So if
something helps people but goes against WCAG (or any other policy)
then I would choose to go against WCAG policy in order to help people.
It would also seem like a good idea to notify WAI that WCAG is
suboptimal, but I wouldn't wait for WAI to change WCAG.

My preferred option is of course to publish both the recording as well
as create a transcript and publish that.

However, if creating a transcript is not possible for financial
reasons, then that reduces our options to either publish recordings
without transcript, or publish nothing. Out of those two options I
think publish recordings is better.

I'm sorry you feel the need to point out especially this working
group. I can only guess as to why and since I don't think that will be
very productive I will refrain from doing so.

My confusion stemmed from the fact that I had missed that there were
financial resources available to pay for transcripts, that is all.

/ Jonas

Received on Saturday, 15 August 2009 05:09:59 UTC