Let's talk, please, about the bizzarre licensing situation. Mark
2008/11/23 Gregory Maxwell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>: > On Sun, Nov 23, 2008 at 12:50 PM, Pharos <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >> Greg, this has nothing to do with cochlear implants. >> >> The deaf activist community is not a monolith, and the SignWriting >> folks are not advocates of isolationism at all. > > Gah, I would not presume to insult them so. For clarity: I'm not > claiming that most SignWriting advocates advocate isolationism or that > SignWriting doesn't have many non-isolationist uses. > > Only that due care is required if we don't want to end up being a tool > for isolationism and this is true for all cases where we create > distinct Wikipedia communities and is not at all limited to speakers > of sign language. > > As far as I can tell many people who advocate isolation don't even > bother mentioning SignWriting as it's pretty much invisible in much of > the deaf world today. > > SignWriting is simply not useful to most deaf people today because > they do not know it. It is potentially controversial because many > people believe that fluency in non-deaf oriented written languages is > believed to be important by everyone who isn't isn't trying to create > isolation. The line between inclusion and mutual exclusion can be > thin. > >> They simply believe in bilingualism, and that attaining literacy in >> one's everyday language is valuable in itself, > > No "community is (…) a monolith". > > I'm honestly sorry that I spoke unclearly: I expect that many people > on these lists would find the concept of pro-isolationsm in the deaf > community rather mind blowing, I know I certainly did in my own first > encounter with it. My effort was only to increase awareness in it as a > word of caution, and not to discredit the honourable work done by many > on SignWriting who are not trying to promote isolation. > >> and should also be a >> great aid in improving literacy in English and other spoken languages. >> Several SignWriting studies have focused on its use as an educational >> tool that increases student's real literacy in spoken languages. > > I have no doubt, but at the same time there have been studies showing > that fluency in morse code has similar kinds of benefits. Shall we > add morse code support to Wikipedia? :) (perhaps) As I've said in > every post on this subject: I do not oppose SignWriting in Wikimedia > projects (well, ignoring the bizarre licensing situation), but I think > it's important that we understand that it is not an accessibility tool > and will not be in the near term, and that there exist some people who > would promote it for isolation, a reason we should resolutely reject. > _______________________________________________ > foundation-l mailing list > foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l > _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
