Should WordCamps supply captioning for talks?

[Joe Dolson]

Many WordCamp talks end up on wordpress. Tv; but very few end up captioned for the hard of hearing. I think that WordCamps should consider this to be pay off the cost of generating video for upload. I don’t know what attention is placed on live access (such as CART transcription or signing) but this is certainly a related issue.

[Jen]

paying for transcribers is very expensive. We created a system to allow volunteers to contribute by transcribing but there has not been enough momentum. We really need a person or two willing to wrangle volunteers (we get a lot but don’t have a person to send them to). This might be better discussed at the community team meetup, which includes wptv folks.

[Joe Dolson]

For a reference, having Amara provide captions for a 45 minute developer talk at 98% accuracy using their machine/hybrid workflow cost me $130. I found the captions to be entirely satisfactory at this level, but it’s very easy to allow authors to make additional tweaks as they find necessary.

I would think that the organization could negotiate a volume discount with Amara to lower this, as well.

(Wherever it gets discussed!)

[Morten Rand-Hendriksen]

100% for this. If this type of service was standard and used ubiquitously the cost would be substantially reduced. And the benefits of providing CART at events go far beyond providing accessibility for those with hearing problems etc. CART would mean the talk can be published immediately as searchable text, the talk has a transcript for future captioning of video, and those in attendance can follow along and read back if they missed something during the talk due to distractions and poor mic placement etc.

We have an opportunity here to set a standard for the rest of the web community. Accessibility has been overlooked for too long and in many countries it is now being legislated because the web community has been dragging its heels. If we put accessibility on the map through initiatives like CART at all events (or at the very least big ones like WCSF) we’ll push the entire web community forward and take a giant step toward a truly accessible web.

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