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Comment by prawn | Hacker News Reader

How do you judge which content then is released uncaptioned because it was impossibly expensive, and which because the creator prefers to keep their money? How many venues or historical buildings would have wheelchair ramps and lifts if they didn't have to or because it came down only to whether they could justify the cost?

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The obvious answer is that you grandfather in existing content, and only require accessibility for content created after a certain date. That way, actual courses are accessible, and the roughly 7 billion human beings who don't go to Berkeley can still access the old content.

The ADA was passed in 1990. What's Berkeley's excuse here.

The content only exists because it's cheap to put online. If you require that someone transcribe it for closed captioning, it is like putting a tax on video uploads. They just won't be uploaded.

Barring some public funding to make it possible for institutions to caption videos, which would be the reasonable solution, the demand for captioning vastly raises the barriers towards putting content online.

The content only exists because it's cheap to put online. If you require that someone transcribe it for closed captioning, it is like putting a tax on video uploads. They just won't be uploaded.

Because it's prohibitively expensive, or because they can't be arsed?

I used to assume the prohibitively expensive angle, but DEF CON has had live closed captioning for 3 or 4 years now, and is done so the recorded material can be used in classrooms with accessibility requirements. If DT can afford it, I have little regard for people who pretend to be committed to educating the masses and still don't bother.

DEFCON also has a budget of millions of dollars to host a 4 day event, as well as a very loyal and dedicated team of volunteers. What value is there in comparing such a vastly different organization?

...at $240 a head. That's what sticks out to me. If anyone is entitled to cut this corner on cost, certainly they are.

The UC system gets over $2B from CA, and I'm not sure, but certainly hundreds of millions from the federal government.

People said exactly the same about ramps; tactile flooring; high contrast bus interiors; elevators; etc.

They could have spread the cost over the 25 years the law has been in place instead of leaving it all until now.

Why are Americans with disabilities more important than people from other nations?

This is entirely separate from your examples, as people in india arent taking american buses or elevators - but they most certainly are taking advantage of american educational content that is publicly available.

Maybe because the video was created as an archive, or more generally, just not for general instruction. So ADA didn't apply.

Lack of funding and content that was created before 1990.

fta:

   legacy content that is 3-10 years old

Then I guess we are just left with a lack of funding.

Basically. Or at least, giving stuff away was cool, because it cost very little. But once it becomes expensive, why divert resources from paying students?

Some wider implications are very alarming. Consider all of the video content that libraries hold. If it's not ADA-compliant, having it available to the general public is arguably discriminatory.

Close captions for video are widely available. Try harder.

Widely available for what video? For popular stuff, sure. For torrented movies, it's often crowd sourced, and often almost inscrutable. If you mean software for transcribing audio, that was judged not good enough.

uhh, we are commenting on a post about a school who had to pull all of their videos because they were sued that the closed captioning was not accurate enough. try harder? did you forget an /s?

You don't, that's why it's tough. I truly feel bad for those who need these accessibility options and don't get them, but I also feel bad for those who need this content and don't get it. It's really a no-win situation.

It's no different from the ADA requirements for buildings: you don't need to retrofit, but if you do a remodel over size X, or a new build, ADA support is required. And ADA support doesn't just help the permanently disabled, but also people on crutches etc.

The approach typically applies to retrofits for fueling stations, coal power plants, etc.

This content is new enough (by 15-22 years by UCB's count) tht it should have had support for everyone. They just didn't notice or didn't care.

In a few years perhaps it can come back for everyone through a new tool. In fact they could spend some of the captioning money on a better autocaptioner than youtube. In fact I am surprised that KLH's auto-captioner didn't already do this since the letter says this material is on youtube.

> They just didn't notice or didn't care.

I don't think it's either one. If I'm a prof and I want to make my lectures more accessible, I'm going to put them online, and be glad that 95% of the population can see it. If I have time and budget, maybe I'll hire someone to caption it. But still, I'd rather have it out there for 95% of the world to see than not at all.

> In fact I am surprised that KLH's auto-captioner didn't already do this since the letter says this material is on youtube.

They were sued because the auto-captioner was wrong enough to be considered harmful.

Or they could just do nothing, not spend any money, and not share the content. That's the zero-cost option, and almost certainly what they'll do.

The benefit was to the public to have access to the material, much less so to Berkeley. By putting the onus on Berkeley to caption the videos, they've (very reasonably) just pulled them down, and the public loses.

> and the public loses.

You mean some of the public loses. Others in the public never had access to lose.

People said the same thing when the government decided buildings should have ramps, public bathrooms, etc. Things worked out OK.

Then just don't force it on people.

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