Do Something Good

Rob Lehr is an awesome guy. He’s the one and only person behind Hambone Productions–which does all the videography for Skepticon.

But here’s the thing about videos–they don’t work for the hearing impaired. Transcripts do. They’re also useful for people who want to quote excerpts, people who don’t have lots of spare time, people who use screen-readers, and on and on and on. Accessibility is important and the skepto-atheist community can do something.  Making these available to those who can’t do audio-only is the minimum standard of access.

So, here’s what’s happening. Transcripts–crowdsourced transcripts (with permission from Rob). Comment below with the one you want to take. And check the comments to make sure there aren’t duplicates! I’m doing Rebecca Watson’s, Miriam has JT’s, and I’ll keep updating this list with links as they go up, since not every video has been uploaded yet.

Rules of thumb I use:

  • Brackets for non-verbal activites [mumble] [audience laughs]
  • em-dashes to show interrupting (“and then she said–)
  • removing filler words (um, uhhh) unless they involve really big pauses or seem conversationally significant.
  • Bolding each speaker’s name.

The List:
Bolded talks have been taken, but check the comments too because I’m going to be away from my computer today.

Greta Christina
JT Eberhard
George Hrab

Phil Ferguson
Julia Galef
Panel Discussion – How should Rationalists approach Relationships and Marriage
Sean Carroll – The Higgs Boson and the Fundamental Nature of Reality
Jessica Ahlquist
Jennifer Oulette
Hemant Mehta – The Rise of Young Atheists
PZ Myers – Evolution, I Do The Kinky Stuff
Rebecca Watson
Keith Lowell Jensen

James Croft – God is Dead. So What?
Matt Dillahunty
Deborah Hyde – The Natural History of the European Werewolf
Richard Carrier
Darrel Ray – The Shame of it All, or Why Do We Act Like Christians
Amanda Knief – Caution: Atheists at Work. How to Avoid Employment Discrimination
Teresa MacBain – Shift Happens
Tony Pinn – Racial Diversity and/in Our Fight Against Theism

{advertisement}
Do Something Good
{advertisement}

50 thoughts on “Do Something Good

    1. 1.1

      So right now, no. Basically I’m setting this up via this blog post. Send the transcripts to me as of now (donovanable[at]gmail[dot]com). I’ll get them to Rob or the Skepticon team or find a place to host them.

      If this changes, I’ll edit this comment and the blog post itself to reflect that.

      Also, no deadlines as of yet, especially as the videos aren’t all available now.

  1. 2

    I’ll do Sean Carroll’s talk. Should be fun!
    Also, have you talked to the people at A+ Scribe about this? It seems like this would be right up their alley. It would at least be a good place to host the transcripts.

  2. 4

    You might be interested in A+ Scribe, a crowdsourced transcript project started by trinioler on the A+ forums. It’s basically what you have in mind here.

    It’d be great if you’d give trinioler permission to host transcripts you gather.

    1. 5.2

      Also a question – I’m assuming that the Q&A part should be included. Since Greta Christina’s is via Skype, should all the interplay as part of the questioning be included, or just the questions and the answers?

  3. 9

    I tell you what — in a few days, after this thread has died down, if you have any talks left over, I’ll be happy to cover one. You can contact me through my website.

        1. Glad I caught you before you got too far in. %) And thank you for knowing who my Gravitar is. Closest guess I’ve heard so far was “Tony Stark”, I suppose because they both have goatees.

          1. Also shiny circles on their chests, I guess? Our floor theme sophomore year of college was Marvel vs. DC, and my door dec was Doctor Strange. I have that poster on my wall now, so essentially, your Gravatar is about two feet from my head at night 0_o.

  4. 17

    Hi! If there are unclaimed talks still, I could do one or two or even three (I don’t care whose) during the week. Let me know.
    Also, I’m a language translator so should you ever need a volunteer Slovak/English translator and/or interpreter, I can help with that too.

      1. Looks like I’m having a conversation with myself, sorry, but FtB seriously needs an ‘edit’ button in the comments. I see both talks are taken already.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *