Hi Jan. As a guy who seems to be (disconcertedly) loosing some of my hearing capabilities- age, motorcycles, chainsaws, rock 'n roll…-, I can understand your concern and appreciate your bringing this issue to our attention. But suggesting withholding of important information because of lack of closed-captioning seems a bit unrealistic and has a “I’m gonna hold my breath 'till I get what I want” feel to it. I poked around google and was surprised that there wasn’t an easy app to add CC to any video- hey, come on, this is the new millennium, right? Though I see YouTube has a page to encourage adding CC to submitted vids…Again, thanks for bringing this up, I’m sure it will be more important to me as the years progress. Too bad there’s not a “laser eye surgery” equivalent for our ears…Aloha, Steve.
Appreciate your reply Thatchmo. Nothing changes until people speak up. I try to change people via education and awareness. Legislation is not the way to go IMHO as it amounts to coercion which only serves to create more resistance. It became necessary though because there was so little being done willingly to support inclusion and accessibility. And the dance goes on… compliance remains abysmal even in spite of legislation.
Until one experiences exclusion as being the daily norm then it is nigh impossible to understand the devastating impact that has. To always be missing information that everyone else has is tough. This tends to be exacerbated on sites, this being one among many I read, that are primarily all about information sharing. For comparative purposes, try to imagine going about your life where every thing you read is missing words and phrases, and you have to try to figure out what you are missing, sometimes unsuccessfully. It’s not fun, and can in fact be life threatening in emergency situations in real life, such as an announcement to evacuate.
I could go on and on about accessibility issues. The bottom line for me is either people are willing to help or not. I am very grateful this site has transcripts for podcasts. Some videos are captioned, some are not. I hate it when they are not - as you say, this is 2017. Surely we can do better… but as long as people keep posting them not caring that x amount of people will not be able to enjoy them because of the lack of captioning then that is the way it is. C’est la vie.
There is a lot of unfairness in this world. Everyone has something to contend with - no one gets off scot-free. Profound deafness is my cross to bear and I do not always bear it well. It is a lot easier to bear when one knows they have support and that others are at least trying to ensure that what they do is inclusive. If that support is absent, well, don’t expect me to be a happy camper…
Jan
Another recommendation, for UK viewers or those that can set their VPN locale to UK…
http://www.channel4.com/programmes/escape-to-the-wild
Entertaining and thought provoking…