Private discussion, forwarded to the list with approval.
If the discussion triggers someone to develop a Free Software Hebrew ASR
engine (even if not perfect, but enough to save labor on transcribing
lectures), then it will be worth it.
--- Omer
-------- Forwarded Message --------
From: Dov Grobgeld <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: Omer Zak <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Recording the Lecture [was Re: Date Correction [was Re:
Telux:"Linux Kernel Tuning and Customisation" on 26 March]]
Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2006 00:10:17 +0200
Hi Omer,
Indeed I ment to send my reply to the list, but made i mistake in the
sending. But never mind. I didn't read the whole thread before I
responded and I realized others said the same thing I meant to say
publically.
When working with volunteers there is no other way than begging, I
believe. And giving positive feedback. This is true of free sw
contributions, wikipedia, community volunteer work etc. If you (the
collective you) are the reciever you should smile and thank the giver
for what you received. Of course you have in parallell the right to
demand the same service should be provided by the government, social
services etc, in order not to be dependent on volunteers.
Larry's lecture was the first work I ever worked on transcribing. And
it wasn't easy, as Larry is using a special perl specific vocabulary.
When listening it doesn't really matter whether he sais "simil" or
"situal" or "sigil" (which is the word he used). But when transcribing
you really have to understand it. Which is good per se, because it
forces a different level of understanding of the lecture. The reader
as well, has the advantage of seeing the exact words, which is another
advantage of the transcription, that you can add to your list of
transcription advantages.
But the fact is a lot of times the contents is too casual for people
to bother to make the effort. Or they want to hide the fact that they
didn't understand everything. Or they might not be interested in
learning enough to give a sensible translation. Most lectures are like
irc conversation transcripts. It might be nice to read through quickly
once. But it is not something that you want to return to. (That is not
the case with Larry's talks though, which I feel are quite eternal.
:-).
I'm falling asleep so I'll stop here.
Feel free to forward this email to the email list if you feel like it.
Regards,
Dov
On 3/21/06, Omer Zak <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Hello Dov,
> You sent the following message to me in private but I assume that you
> meant to sent it to discussions@hamakor.org.il based upon the language
> which you used. For now, I am replying to you in private.
>
> Let's try to be creative and find a win-win solution to the problem.
>
> 1. You (the collective you) want recorded lectures ASAP, even if they
> are not accompanied immediately with written transcripts.
>
> 2. Like everyone, I was born with limited begging rights. I can ask for
> favors and beg for volunteer time only up to a limit. I prefer to use
> those begging rights for other purposes, if possible. So I am looking
> for ideas for getting those lectures transcribed without my having to
> beg people for this.
>
> 3. I was trying to identify benefits to the hearing from availability of
> transcripts for recorded lectures. Can you please look for additional
> advantages for the hearing from those transcripts?
>
> Thanks,
> --- Omer
>
>
> On Tue, 2006-03-21 at 23:38 +0200, Dov Grobgeld wrote:
> > Some sort of compromise must be found. On the one hand, it is not
> > reasonable to deprive the hearing-abled of their perceived
> > appreciation of listening to a recorded lecture, or tie the release of
> > a recording until a transcription is ready. It would be similar to not
> > releasing a book in Swahilii until a translation was available, e.g.
> > in Swedish. I don't understand Swahilii, but I appreciate the fact
> > that there are millions of people who do. But of course I would feel
> > frustrated if there was something available just in Swahilii that I
> > would very much like to take part of.
> >
> > These conflicts don't happen daily to most of us, as we don't live in
> > an environment where we don't understand the language. But to Omer and
> > other deaf, this, I assume, is the situation.
> >
> > The problem with transliterations is that we are all volunteers, and
> > the only thing that Omer can do in this case is to ask us and hope for
> > somebody to do it. (Him asking on the mailing list was the trigger for
> > the amount of time I spent on the transliteration of Larry's
> > perl-lecture, by the way.)
> >
> > So the only thing anyone looking for volunteers can do, is to ask
> > nicely, kindly probe the volunteers, and then thank them. There is
> > nothing like feedback and email of appreciation for any volunteer
> > activity.
> >
> > Regards,
> > Dov
> >
> >
> > On 3/21/06, Omer Zak <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > > On Tue, 2006-03-21 at 19:33 +0200, Alon Altman wrote:
> > > > I fully agree with Orna on this. This is against the FOSS spirit. If
> > > > at
> > > > all, the government should be supplying the deaf with the tools to
> > > > transcribe audio when needed (in the US they do via "relay calls"). A
> > > > free
> > > > software approach to this issue would be similar to what project
> > > > guntenberg
> > > > uses (http//www.pgdp.org/) which is cutting the work to small peices for
> > > > volunteers to work on, WITHOUT limiting access to the originals.
> > >
> > > The suggestion to tie access was only one possible solution (and bad one
> > > due to technical reasons) to the problem of motivating volunteers.
> > > Other suggestions are welcome.
> > >
> > > > However,
> > > > even this may not be cost effective. The community as a whole will
> > > > benefit
> > > > more from these volunteers' time if they would have contributed in other
> > > > means, such as writing software or localization, which outweighs Omer
> > > > Zak's
> > > > personal wishes to hear a lecture.
> > >
> > > My personal wishes?!
> > >
> > > My inconsidrate whim to be included in the community rather than be
> > > excluded? After all the effort my educators spent on me in getting me
> > > to study in normal schools and learning to lipread and speak to my best
> > > ability, with the goal of integrating me in the wide community.
> > >
> > > If any of you is parent of a deaf child, you probably find it difficult
> > > to accept that your deaf child should have access to Sign Language and
> > > be part of the Deaf Community. It is probable that none of you is
> > > parent of a deaf child, but you probably know relatives or friends who
> > > have deaf children and are faced with the dilemma of trying to integrate
> > > their child into the wide community versus isolating them in the Deaf
> > > Community. Ask those parents what they want for their children (but
> > > without trusting vaportechnological wishes for technology which solves
> > > all problems and which is just hiding behind the corner). Then look at
> > > them straight in the eye and tell them that their deaf children will not
> > > be able to access the content of the lectures recorded in audio files.
> > >
> > > About 10% of the general population have varying degrees of hearing
> > > impairment. While my degree of hearing impairment is the fate of about
> > > 0.1% of the population, few percent have sufficiently bad hearing to be
> > > unable to benefit from, or avoid coming to lectures.
> > >
> > > You do not see other people with disabilities, but they exist. This
> > > E-mail message is being BCC'ed to few deaf software developers, who
> > > currently do not feel enough self-confidence to participate in the Free
> > > Software related meetings, discussions or forums.
> > >
> > > Consider that some of those people might contribute to Hamakor's pool of
> > > volunteers, for tasks and projects which are not related to deafness.
> > > But they cannot contribute without access to the information, which they
> > > need in order to contribute.
> > >
> > > > "Discrimination" is not a problem here. There will always be people
> > > > for
> > > > which the information will not be accesible, say people who don't know
> > > > English, or people who do not have a programming background.
> > >
> > > I refuse to accept this attitude!
> > >
> > > A better attitude would be "yes, this is a problem. Let's continue
> > > looking for a good solution to the problem". I do not accept the
> > > attitude of "let's do nothing, and leave people with 'difficult'
> > > disabilities out in the cold".
> > >
> > > Enlisting volunteers for transcribing all lectures does not necessarily
> > > come at expense of other voluntary activities of the community, because
> > > some people do not have other skills, which they can volunteer. For
> > > other people this may be a gentle introduction into the world of
> > > voluntary work. Eventually they'll graduate to heavier volunteer work.
> > >
> > > How about looking for, and listing benefits from textual transcripts,
> > > which people with normal hearing may get.
> > > For example:
> > > - Much shorter files, faster to download.
> > > - Ability to speed-read by busy people.
> > > - Maybe other benefits, which occur to the creative minds so abundant
> > > among Hamakor members?
> > >
> > > This is another approach to solving the problem of justifying the effort
> > > of transcribing lectures.
--
Every good master plan involves building a time machine. Moshe Zadka
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