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Harvard and M.I.T. Sued Over Failing to Caption Online Courses

nytimes.com

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Re: Harvard and M.I.T. Sued Over Failing to Caption Online Courses

#121

Post by Crito »

jamesbrownuhh wrote: post #98
murbard2 wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with you and find it immoral to compel MIT and Harvard to close caption their courses. This is because I embrace a deontological ethic. If I were to be the devil's advocate however, I would say that the difference between you putting a video out there, and MIT doing it is one of elasticity. The effort of putting closed captions on your informal video would be much too great and would be very likely to prevent…

> The effort of putting closed captions on your informal video would be much too great. $1 per minute (if you farm it out) or even less if you do it yourself. In exchange you get 7-15% more views - is that really an unbearable deal?

Wikipedia suggests that it costs more like $40 per minute. For movies anyway.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rear_Window_Captioning_System

I have no idea why it would be "even less if you do it yourself", unless you do not value your own labour.

Re: Harvard and M.I.T. Sued Over Failing to Caption Online Courses

#122

Post by sadfaceunread »

sp332 wrote: post #105
SamReidHughes wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the "discriminatory cause" you're talking about here?

It was hypothetical, but I guess you could say that donating courses only to non-deaf people is a cause.

So what about any charitable effort that discriminates on the basis of a protected class. If you can't do something for free to help one group without excluding some others no charity would be possible. Should MIT/Harvard intentionally avoid captioning? No. Should the government force them to use CCing? Hell no.

Re: Harvard and M.I.T. Sued Over Failing to Caption Online Courses

#123

Post by jamesbrownuhh »

Crito wrote: post #121
jamesbrownuhh wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The effort of putting closed captions on your informal video would be much too great. $1 per minute (if you farm it out) or even less if you do it yourself. In exchange you get 7-15% more views - is that really an unbearable deal?

Wikipedia suggests that it costs more like $40 per minute . For movies anyway. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rear_Window_Captioning_System I have no idea why it would be "even less if you do it yourself" , unless you do not value your own labour.

Captioning celluloid film is a wholly different thing to transcribing an online video - the prices are in no way comparable.

I create captions for hundreds of hours of video every year - I know exactly how much work it can be, and, at the same time, exactly how easy it can be.

Re: Harvard and M.I.T. Sued Over Failing to Caption Online Courses

#124

Post by [deleted] »

sp332 wrote: post #59
Someone1234 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fair enough. So you're saying that deaf people ARE a charity case, you just want them to be a charity case for the original content producer rather than a third party?

Yeah, that could have been clearer. Deaf people are 100% as deserving of this content as non-deaf people. They should not be treated as a separate group. Captions are a required part of the distribution, not an optional add-on. There is not "the real message" and then "the message for deaf people".

[deleted]

Re: Harvard and M.I.T. Sued Over Failing to Caption Online Courses

#125

Post by ars »

sp332 wrote: post #59
Someone1234 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fair enough. So you're saying that deaf people ARE a charity case, you just want them to be a charity case for the original content producer rather than a third party?

Yeah, that could have been clearer. Deaf people are 100% as deserving of this content as non-deaf people. They should not be treated as a separate group. Captions are a required part of the distribution, not an optional add-on. There is not "the real message" and then "the message for deaf people".

So would you rather they don't distribute it at all, if they can't (or won't) caption it? (Not a rhetorical question, I'm actually asking you.)

Keep in mind that these are recordings of a professor talking - there is no script, no captions exist already.

The choice is paying for captioning, or not releasing at all.

If they are unwilling to pay, which should, in your opinion, they pick: Not release, or release without captions?

Re: Harvard and M.I.T. Sued Over Failing to Caption Online Courses

#127

Post by Sanddancer »

hga wrote: post #63
Symmetry wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some information hasn't been written down in books.

Indeed. I'm pretty sure there's no book treatment of Lady Gaga being greeted by Harvard students. (I swear I am not making this up: http://nad.org/news/2015/2/nad-sues-harvard-and-mit-discrimi... and if those are the best examples they can come up with for a national campaign....) Disclaimer, I'm MIT Class of '83, donate to OCW, and am beyond annoyed.

You're taking the example of the Lady Gaga video deceptively out of context. It was both preceded by four other examples covering Ebola, Brown V Board of Education -- a case of equal access to education even --, and discussions with Bill Gates and Noam Chomsky. The Lady Gaga video was submitted to show how laughable the automated captioning system is; it creates useless word salad out of videos. Your alma mater can do better than that.

Re: Harvard and M.I.T. Sued Over Failing to Caption Online Courses

#128

Post by aneeshm »

Sanddancer wrote: post #115
erok wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. There goes free online courses from MIT and Harvard due to the impending legal fees implied. Thank you National Association of the Deaf.

Which means you'll have just as much access to the knowledge as deaf people. Accessibility should never be an add-on.

Deaf people's problems are not my problems (except insofar as I choose to act on empathy I may feel), and making something accessible is a choice, and not something deaf people have any right to, nor I any obligation to provide. They are entitled to nothing (from me) I do not freely choose to give. They may have achieved sufficient political power to force others to do what they want, whether or not the other person wants to - but that is just coercion and nothing more than thuggery, and should be treated as such. To destroy other people's access to a good because you have the power to, in order to coerce them into acting so that you receive such a good yourself, is wrong.

(If I have the resources to make something accessible, and if I value making something accessible to deaf people over other uses of those resources, then of course it's a good thing to make it accessible. Personally, I think making these videos accessible would be a very good thing; I also think that, as long as it's reasonably feasible, the universities should . But the existence of deaf people does not represent any kind of a claim on my (or anyone else's) resources, nor a shackle on my behaviour; and if it does under current, it damn well shouldn't, and that law is unjust and oppressive.)

Re: Harvard and M.I.T. Sued Over Failing to Caption Online Courses

#129

Post by Sanddancer »

Retra wrote: post #117
Sanddancer wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which means you'll have just as much access to the knowledge as deaf people. Accessibility should never be an add-on.

You have a good point, but I would point out that deaf people watching a silent un-captioned video is more access to knowledge than watching no video at all.

Watch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ei8fyGwsy1o without looking at the captions and see how much you get from it. You're not going to get much if anything from the video. Now, add a professor who will be turning to write on a blackboard, doesn't move their lips enough for you to read them, etc, and you can start to see how this is a real problem.

Re: Harvard and M.I.T. Sued Over Failing to Caption Online Courses

#130

Post by Crito »

jamesbrownuhh wrote: post #123
Crito wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wikipedia suggests that it costs more like $40 per minute . For movies anyway. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rear_Window_Captioning_System I have no idea why it would be "even less if you do it yourself" , unless you do not value your own labour.

Captioning celluloid film is a wholly different thing to transcribing an online video - the prices are in no way comparable. I create captions for hundreds of hours of video every year - I know exactly how much work it can be, and, at the same time, exactly how easy it can be.

As I understand it, Rear Window Captioning Systems specifically don't modify the actual film of the movie. That's their advantage over baked-in captions.
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