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What good does it do a deaf person who can't read to arrive at pages that are not sign-translated? Maybe I'm missing something obvious, but the reason that thi

What good does it do a deaf person who can't read to arrive at pages that are not sign-translated? Maybe I'm missing something obvious, but the reason that this feels like a combination of government-waste and possibly virtue-signaling is that only the column headings seem to be sign-translated. Even if it lets some people know that they click on the tourism or jobs or culture section of the website, the content within those pages doesn't seem to be sign-translated. So how does it really help anybody? Hell, can you even get to this website in the first place if you can't read? And I don't know how Columbia's Internet works, but if you can read and aren't wealthy enough to afford fast Internet, maybe loading up videos while trying to browse the site makes the site slower and a worse experience for everybody. Perhaps the sentiment behind this is noble, and as an experiment it sure is interesting, but I'm not convinced that it really helps as is yet. Maybe this is a foundation for something more interesting down the road, but we'll see. PS: As a side note, while I can't read the content, the site itself looks pretty visually interesting and well-done.

hjdhdfjfhfhg 4y ago
- yreg 4y ago
  I don't understand what you are saying at all. Care to elaborate in a less passive-aggressive way?
bee_rider 4y ago
Hypothetically anything could be government waste, but adding a little accessibility feature doesn't seem like a huge project, right? They have to hire a translator for an afternoon, and then embed some videos into their site. And if they have the virtue of supporting accessibility, why shouldn't they signal that? It seems like it would be helpful info, if you were deaf and thinking of visiting, to know that the local government was at least trying. I mean hypothetically they could be lying, but in that case the issue still isn't virtual signaling, it would just be the lie.
IncRnd 4y ago
Hover over one of the sign-language symbols and see video of a person signing to provide information.
xienze 4y ago
> but the reason that this feels like a combination of government-waste and possibly virtue-signaling I’ve felt this same way about all these government press conferences that have a picture-in-picture of someone doing sign language translation. I genuinely don’t understand the point apart from virtue signaling. Why not just use live transcription? I can’t imagine that we don’t have the tech to do a good job of it now, in real time, or close enough.
- richbell 4y ago
  > I’ve felt this same way about all these government press conferences that have a picture-in-picture of someone doing sign language translation. I genuinely don’t understand the point apart from virtue signaling. Why not just use live transcription? I understand why you might feel this way, so let me try to explain. Sign languages are a completely different modality/type of language than written and spoken languages. For example, American Sign Language (ASL) is completely unrelated to written and spoken English, and conveying a message between languages is often complicated and requires someone to actively interpret -- it's more of an art than a science. So while Closed Captioning was a huge step forward for making things accessible to deaf and hard-of-hearing people, it's still a subpar method of communication because for deaf people, especially deaf immigrants, written English is often their 2nd/3rd/4th language. When you are communicating important information where comprehension is essential, you *need* an interpreter.
  - logicalmonster 4y ago
    > American Sign Language (ASL) is completely unrelated to written and spoken English Do you have any resources that could explain this different more fully?
    - MrDrone 4y ago
      This parent-commenter is correct, ASL is a completely separate language from spoken English. Many people who are raised with ASL as their first language prefer seeing ASL rather than reading English. Modern ASL includes elements of "signed English" but it it's own language, the third most common in the US. I am a hearing person, so take my understanding of this with a grain of salt. Here is a Deaf primary resource to describe the difference. https://www.lifeprint.com/asl101/topics/history8.htm https://www.lifeprint.com/asl101/topics/history8.htm
jen729w 4y ago
> Columbia's Colombia. I correct this at 80% of coffee shops I go to. Yeah, I’m that guy. I went to Colombia in the early 2000s and adored it (I’m British), so this gets my goat.
- besnn00 4y ago
  No reason to get upset over language conventions. There are many countries in which Colombia is refered to as Columbia (mostly phonetically). Same for the US: most countries refer to it simply as America. There are at least two countries which can be refered to as Congo. Beijing is refered to as Peking in old literature and in many european countries as well.
  - jen729w 4y ago
    But if there was a famous guy called Congu who was so famous people had named territories elsewhere after him and he had his own clothing label to boot -- ensuring that his name was foremost in the popular psyche -- then it wouldn't change the fact that if one called 'Congo' 'Congu', one would have made a simple spelling error. If I was a resident of Congo, I would appreciate it when people corrected this error. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
quechimba 4y ago
This PDF has some recommendations for how to make web pages accessible for deaf users. Page 13 explains why they recommend having sign language. http://www.insor.gov.co/home/wp-content/uploads/filebase/recomendaciones__paginas_web.pdf http://www.insor.gov.co/home/wp-content/uploads/filebase/rec...

hjdhdfjfhfhg 4y ago

yreg 4y ago
I don't understand what you are saying at all. Care to elaborate in a less passive-aggressive way?

bee_rider 4y ago

Hypothetically anything could be government waste, but adding a little accessibility feature doesn't seem like a huge project, right? They have to hire a translator for an afternoon, and then embed some videos into their site. And if they have the virtue of supporting accessibility, why shouldn't they signal that? It seems like it would be helpful info, if you were deaf and thinking of visiting, to know that the local government was at least trying. I mean hypothetically they could be lying, but in that case the issue still isn't virtual signaling, it would just be the lie.

IncRnd 4y ago

Hover over one of the sign-language symbols and see video of a person signing to provide information.

xienze 4y ago

> but the reason that this feels like a combination of government-waste and possibly virtue-signaling I’ve felt this same way about all these government press conferences that have a picture-in-picture of someone doing sign language translation. I genuinely don’t understand the point apart from virtue signaling. Why not just use live transcription? I can’t imagine that we don’t have the tech to do a good job of it now, in real time, or close enough.

richbell 4y ago
> I’ve felt this same way about all these government press conferences that have a picture-in-picture of someone doing sign language translation. I genuinely don’t understand the point apart from virtue signaling. Why not just use live transcription? I understand why you might feel this way, so let me try to explain. Sign languages are a completely different modality/type of language than written and spoken languages. For example, American Sign Language (ASL) is completely unrelated to written and spoken English, and conveying a message between languages is often complicated and requires someone to actively interpret -- it's more of an art than a science. So while Closed Captioning was a huge step forward for making things accessible to deaf and hard-of-hearing people, it's still a subpar method of communication because for deaf people, especially deaf immigrants, written English is often their 2nd/3rd/4th language. When you are communicating important information where comprehension is essential, you *need* an interpreter.
- logicalmonster 4y ago
  > American Sign Language (ASL) is completely unrelated to written and spoken English Do you have any resources that could explain this different more fully?
  - MrDrone 4y ago
    This parent-commenter is correct, ASL is a completely separate language from spoken English. Many people who are raised with ASL as their first language prefer seeing ASL rather than reading English. Modern ASL includes elements of "signed English" but it it's own language, the third most common in the US. I am a hearing person, so take my understanding of this with a grain of salt. Here is a Deaf primary resource to describe the difference. https://www.lifeprint.com/asl101/topics/history8.htm https://www.lifeprint.com/asl101/topics/history8.htm

jen729w 4y ago

> Columbia's Colombia. I correct this at 80% of coffee shops I go to. Yeah, I’m that guy. I went to Colombia in the early 2000s and adored it (I’m British), so this gets my goat.

besnn00 4y ago
No reason to get upset over language conventions. There are many countries in which Colombia is refered to as Columbia (mostly phonetically). Same for the US: most countries refer to it simply as America. There are at least two countries which can be refered to as Congo. Beijing is refered to as Peking in old literature and in many european countries as well.
- jen729w 4y ago
  But if there was a famous guy called Congu who was so famous people had named territories elsewhere after him and he had his own clothing label to boot -- ensuring that his name was foremost in the popular psyche -- then it wouldn't change the fact that if one called 'Congo' 'Congu', one would have made a simple spelling error. If I was a resident of Congo, I would appreciate it when people corrected this error. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

quechimba 4y ago

This PDF has some recommendations for how to make web pages accessible for deaf users. Page 13 explains why they recommend having sign language. http://www.insor.gov.co/home/wp-content/uploads/filebase/recomendaciones__paginas_web.pdf http://www.insor.gov.co/home/wp-content/uploads/filebase/rec...