It is your attitude that is the problem – whinning about “significant costs” for accessibility services and trying to tell everyone to get away from the FEDERAL law. It is not appropriate to quote those fees into our faces, either.

There are ways to get your expenses covered – by seeking a sponsor, for example. It is very common for conferences to get them. I have been to some conferences that had sponsors who cover for parties and alcohol. It would make them look much better if they had spent money on accessibility for more people, for example, than getting more people wasted all night.

There are also other services for the deaf and hard of hearing, called CART (Communication Access Realtime Translation) that would have benefited not only them, but also non-native English speakers, those learning to read, those in noisy or quiet environments, not having speakers, etc. Also, transcripts from the CART could be put online to share with more people – that way killing two birds with one stone by solving the problems of getting transcripts for the increasing number of videos and podcasts.

You said it is not an “educational” event. Well WordCamp happens all over the country in different cities. If people are free to attend, then would you say that hearing people are free to come but we deaf and hoh can “only if” a host thinks they “can” provide communication services to us? No wonder why deaf readers here are really upset – this got me upset, too.

To wrap up this, I would like to mention that of all the expenses you mentioned, it’s the t-shirts were the major expenses at your conference. Actually, they cost about twice as much as interpreting services did. Hmm.. It makes me wonder if it was really worth to spend $3,500 for those shirts? I personally think it was not necessary and even a waste of money since not everyone is interested in shirts or “need” them.

I write this also because I am a fan of WordPress, its commitment to open source and accessibility. Therefore, l would not tolerate attitude of event organizers like yourself who are not sensitive to people with hearing loss.

Clearly you’ve failed in your research prior to making these comments:

1. “We” provided interpreters at this event. In fact, it is the only WordCamp on Earth to ever provide them as far as I know. Ever. This one. We had two. Did you see them? Were you there? What exactly is your problem?
2. I personally paid $1,600 out of my own pocket for this service. And I was only thanked by one person. One. Hint: it wasn’t you either.
3. WordCamp is NOT an “educational event”. It is NOT an “entity”. There is no organization behind it. It was a purely voluntary gathering that I personally organized. People were free to attend, or not. Don’t mistake the fact that I throw one hell of a party to be anything other than a well-done informal gathering with only ME personally behind it.

What in the HELL do you want from me? And why did you decide to attack the only guy who ever subsidized interpreters for one of these events? You think I’m ever going to do that again now?

John P.

http://www.nad.org/issues/education/other-opportunities

Entities that provide educational opportunities, other than public schools, colleges, and universities, also have a responsibility to make sure they are accessible to deaf and hard of hearing individuals. Deaf and hard of hearing consumers want to – and have rights to – participate equally in these educational programs. Use the information in this section to inform others or advocate for equal access to a wide range of educational opportunities.

How insensitive of you to dismiss us deaf and hard of hearing people from those events. How would you feel if you or your family wakes up one morning to find out you or they no longer hear anything? And experiencing all those frustrations every day for the rest of your lives? Hearing people babbling and laughing and leaving us out of their conversations? Missing announcements about subway diversions or flight changes? Hearing employers not hiring highly qualified workers with hearing loss or some of them firing them to “resolve” communication issues? Trying to educate hearing people that hearing aids are not like eye glasses? Being asked stupid questions such as if we can drive or if we can lipread (with our hands extended with a paper and pen). It is not fun.

And how dare you to compare this educational event with a “private party” at home! Not just this event is educational, it provides valuable network with many specialists in the same field. It is even more valuable for people with hearing loss.

As for the law, you overlooked this part:

http://www.nad.org/issues/civil-rights/ada/trade-shows-and-exhibitions

Title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) prohibits discrimination based on disability in places of public accommodation. Public accommodations include hotels, convention centers, stadiums, and other places of exhibition, entertainment, or public gathering.

In compliance with Title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), Trade Show, Exhibition, Employment Fair, or Other Marketing Event Operator (hereinafter “Trade Show”) is committed to providing individuals with disabilities an equal opportunity to participate in Trade Show events and equal access to the services, facilities and accommodations offered by Trade Show at the events. Trade Show will not discriminate on the basis of disability in connection with the operation by Trade Show of Trade Show events.

Probably it won’t be until you or someone in your family gets stuck in a wheelchair or loses hearing or becomes blind that you will finally understand all those frustrations we go through.

However, we only confirmed the interpreters less than a week before WordCamp. One important learning would be to either commit to doing this from the very beginning, or forego it. We did not give the deaf community enough notice to make everyone aware of the availability.

John

http://www.wordcamp.co.za/

Now off to another point – I do agree if the admissions was only $30.00 bucks I would have charged higher. Some other events from some other open sourced events charge even 100% more than what was charged so it would be feasible to charge alot more. I mean heck if I was getting a shirt and a couple other freebies to go along with it – then $75.00 to $100.00 would be alot more feasible. But it is all a learn as you go type of experience.

Now in regards to the interpreter situation, I hope it becomes a learning experience and in the future that ways can be found to help to meet in the middle ground where we all can benefit from this.

South Africa would be awesome! I’d love to come down and help put on a WordCamp! :-) But there have to be a group of willing organizers there, and the ability to spread the word to the local community…

John P.

The Americans with Disabilities Act (aka the ADA) has a very, very specific set of circumstances in which it applies. For God’s sake people! If it normally would apply to you I would think that you would study it and understand it!

Here is the link. READ IT! Especially before you talk about it as if you were an authority…

The ADA:

… prohibits discrimination on the basis of disability in employment, State and local government, public accommodations, commercial facilities, transportation, and telecommunications.

WordCamps are absolutely, unequivocally, and without question, NONE of these. And in case you want to quibble about the definition of any of those – don’t bother. If you follow the link they are all spelled out quite clearly.

As I’ve stated before on numerous occasions, the ADA does not apply to privately held events. Think about it logically. If I wanted to have a party at my house and invite a bunch of friends over, you expect me to pay for an interpreter for my deaf friend; install ramps for my wheelchair ridden friend; have the invites interpreted to braille for my blind friend; etc.? Impossible! No matter how much I love them all.

I believer that Hare had the best suggestion for us all. While the ADA is there to protect disabled people from discrimination in the PUBLIC, it is up to the community to find creative ways to be accommodated in private settings.

Deaf people specifically need to get organized, form local groups on Meetup.com, pool resources, and reward people who accommodate you with your business and goodwill. Being nasty and making idle threats with laws that do not apply will get you nowhere, fast.

Good luck,

John P.

Mr. Hall’s comment should not have offended some of us; instead, it should have provided us with an opportunity to educate the general public as to why communication access is necessary. Not everyone is familiar with neither the ADA nor the importance of providing communication access. If we (as Deaf individuals) want people to understand our communication needs, then we need to help others reach that understanding through diplomatic dialogue.

Unfortunately, some of these comments are setbacks for individuals like me, and possibly aiding the general public’s resistance for needing to accommodate us in the future. Again, I think this is a perfect opportunity to provide feedback as to how we can maximize the use of interpreters for events like this. But I will give that opportunity to someone else.

I did not delete any comments off of this thread. It is possible that Akismet flagged something as spam if you used a word that triggered it. Feel free to re-post whatever it was; however, I’m getting very upset at the comments directed at Aaron, so if people don’t lay off him I will begin deleting freely.

This blog is not here to insult fellow participants, so if people want to put forth rational arguments about why private citizens should pay to subsidize the needs of others, then so be it. But I’m putting everyone on a short leash here.

John P.

R-

Since I noticed that you are an attorney, in case if you are new to ADA, please go back to the law school where you get your degree from and relearn the law all over again while you are still at it.

I suggest that you should think twice before speak like that especially if you are an attorney.