[Foundation-l] Signal languages Wikimedia projects

[Mark Williamson]

Let's talk, please, about the bizzarre licensing situation.

Mark

2008/11/23 Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com>:
> On Sun, Nov 23, 2008 at 12:50 PM, Pharos <pharosofalexandria at gmail.com> 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.
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