Re: Recording teleconferences?

John Foliot wrote:
> Anne van Kesteren wrote:
>> Vicki Stanton wrote:
>>> It does seem to me,
>>> however, that we should be enthusiastically leading the way, not be
>>> dragged kicking and screaming into compliance with W3C policy.
>> Initially it was a question whether the W3C Systems Team could manage
>> it. When it turned out I or someone else could easily do the recording
>> it became a social and legal problem.
> 
> In a world beyond technology, respect for privacy and human dignity are not 
> 'problems', they are social ideals that help hold together the notion of 
> civilization.  Both of these 'problems' are easily overcome if they are seen 
> as simply things that we must do, rather than 'extra work' or a burden to 
> progress.
> 
> Asking a person if it is OK to record their words and publicly post them 
> over the internet is not a problem, it is a simple yes/no question - and if 
> they choose no, then they are advised to not speak as collectively the group 
> has decided they will publicly post the proceedings.  Providing a text 
> transcript is neither hard nor expensive, and it respects the fact that not 
> everyone can hear the proceedings. It has the added benefit of being more 
> easily translated, it is archived and easily indexed for search, and it aids 
> in overall comprehension for all.
> 
> You see problems, I see possibilities and opportunities.
> 
>> And now I'm being told that in
>> order to publish that data I first have to find some money source that
>> donates USD 80 each week to get the minutes transcribed. The result of
>> all this negative energy is of course that it will not happen at all
>> and nobody gets any better. I think that's a shame.
> 
> I do not see how insisting on equal access for all is 'negative energy' - 
> why do you consider it so?
> 
> * Apple: 2008 revenue report of $7.9 billion USD 
> (http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2008/10/21results.html )
> * Google: 2008 net income was $1.31 billion USD 
> (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/17/technology/17cnd-google.html )
> * Mozilla: reported 2007 revenue: $75 million USD 
> (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Foundation )
> * Opera: 2008 Net income (approx) $14.75 million USD [NOK 89.9 million] 
> (http://www.opera.com/media/finance/2008/annual-report-english.pdf)
> 
> Transcription: 52 X approx $80.00 USD = $4160.00 / year (to serve a global 
> audience - pricing based upon http://tinyurl.com/oey8so - it may actually be 
> slightly more or slightly less)
> 
> 
> (JF wonders aloud how much it costs each of the above companies to hand out 
> promotional T-Shirts each year...)
> 
> Anne, I offered to pay the first recorded session from my own pocket.  Would 
> you pay the second one?  And who, following this thread, will step forward 
> and pay the third?  If we collectively cannot find a sponsor for this 
> important contribution, then we should find a means to do it ourselves. 
> Continually it is driven home that this is a 'can-do' working group that 
> wants a more accessible web.  Blues legend Albert King once wrote: "Everyone 
> wants to go to Heaven, nobody wants to die".  So, who else will cough up $80 
> and put their money where their mouth is?
> 
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3hn6fFTxeo
> 
>> (I also think this is a problem with WCAG. Once it gets more and more
>> into government regulation data will just be hold back because it
>> becomes too costly to publish.
> 
> And so the solution is to simply ignore those people who cannot hear? To bar 
> them from active participation simply because we need an accurate 
> transcript?  Anne, have you really thought about this at all?  Seriously?
> 
>> I was a in Dutch government media
>> related meeting a little over a month ago and apparently there's a 100x
>> increase in cost in getting already recorded videos accessible. In not
>> so many words it was stated that if things actually became required it
>> would just mean that a bunch of data would get lost. That would be
>> terrible in my opinion.)
> 
> Accepting that it is OK to discriminate against people simply because of 
> their disability is even more terrible in my opinion.  And in many countries 
> around the world, it is, in fact, criminal.
> 
> As long as you continue to see this as a 'problem' it will be a problem: the 
> moment you see it as a solvable challenge a solution will emerge.
> 
> That we must still have this discussion with highly intelligent people in 
> 2009 is extremely sad.

Ironically, I believe that *this very* email thread is a prime example 
of how email is a less than ideal medium for coming to consensus.  John, 
please reread the above sentence and tell me if that is typical of the 
way you talk when you are face to face with an individual, or is closer 
to the type of polemics that you would place into a speech addressed to 
an "audience".

Let me remind people that last month we had a discussion[1] when *gasp* 
it was noticed that the editor was routinely having discussions which 
not only weren't transcribed, they not only weren't recorded, they 
weren't even public.

I will make a confession.  I, too, have had discussions that weren't 
transcribed, recorded, or public.  And I will further confess that I 
found some of them to be useful.

I plan to be accessible.  I don't mean to be in the narrow technical 
sense that that word as it is used in the W3C, I mean that in the wider 
sense of being approachable and reachable.

I encourage people to copy www-archive or public-html when they send 
email to me.  If people wish to record my conversations and share them 
with others, all I ask is that people let everybody know what they are 
doing up front.  Similarly, I encourage people to take and publish 
transcripts.

If it turns out that the W3C's provision of access to a bridge comes 
with a stipulation that prevents any of the above, then I will simply 
make myself available at other times of the week.

Anne: if there is a time that works for you, let me know.  I'm not 
currently enrolled with skype, but will gladly do so myself if that 
means that conversations can reach more people.

> JF

- Sam Ruby

[1] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html/2009Jul/0108.html

Received on Saturday, 15 August 2009 19:33:01 UTC