DEAF CON [ Copy of t=13487 ]

[arose4beni]

Re: DEAF CON

Thank you Cot. Your post helped organize ideas, suggestions, and things to consider. :)

[YenTheFirst]

Re: DEAF CON

I've seen the live subtitles idea thrown out once or twice, and I was wondering, for speaker-and-audience talks:

1) Would real-time subtitles be useful for Deaf/Hard-of-Hearing people? Are interpreters preferable, the same, or worse (in case of lack of technical experience)?

2) What technical issues would there be to making this happen (does a giant LED sign work, can we overlay the subtitles on the slides, etc.).


My thought is, if we provide live-subtitling for the major track talks (and possibly other talks), then

A) there's a good base for video subtitles later, and
B) the harder-to-acquire interpreter resources can be focused on other areas like the Contests and Villages, where there's no video, no planned talk, and people want to communicate back-and-forth conversationally.

[TheCotMan]

Re: DEAF CON

I wouldn't mind being one of the organizers for this. However, I would really like one or two people also being co-organizers. The next two months may become busy for me, so having at least another person (ideally two) could divide the task and planning a bit more.

Huzzah! Progress! :-)

2 other people above appear to be invested in wanting to see something happen, too, maybe they will offer to join you.

Now that someone is interested in starting the process, here is what you should start doing...

* Planning:

* ... you'll need at least two interpreters to cover the main sessions and depending on the number of Deaf people who are interested, scale up if needed.
* ... [interpreters] are expensive so you're best bet is rallying interpreters who are dedicated to getting talented Deaf coders involved with some of these great conferences.
* ...The next question would be, outreach?

Implementation/Identification:
* [renderman] statistics, how many people will want this, crowd-sourcing donation, maybe Defcon can kick in some money
* Do you plan to work with Security Goons, and/or Speaker track goons? How will you interface?
* Live closed captioning / Subtitles: is this realistic, possible, who would do it? (They would need to interface with the video team, which I think includes Lockheed (person and nickname, not business)
* [Knollgrass] start small, or modest attempt, or balls to the wall? (How big, how much in resources/funding will help drive the answer to this question.)
* Things are really spread-out at Deacon, as they have grown organically with people/groups volunteering to run their own contest, event or social gathering. Most events are not centrally planned/controlled with a single authority dictating how people run their events, but each managed independently by a person, team or group. (Manage your expectations; you shouldn't expect to have immediate authority over anyone... you'll have to spend effort to reach out to the people running each contest, event or social gathering and see what you can offer and what they can provide.)
* [Knollgrass] Registration? Self-identification? Pre-registration? Stats? How many people will be interested?
* [Knollgrass] With limited resources, and no survey to know where resources are needed, announce which sessions will have interpreters and see the interest?
* [Deviant Ollam] Reserve seats in speaker tracks for Deaf people, and get Security goons to pre-escort Deaf people to these seats before anyone else gets to rush into the room
* [Deviant Ollam] Deaffon twitter feed: https://twitter.com/_DEAFCON_

Criticism:
* New volunteers can't quickly and easily become skilled interpreters in specialized fields, so it may require cash to hire people. Identify sources of funding and what to do if there is not "enough" money. Fund raising? Donations? Crowd-sourced charity? Tax forms for official non-profit? etc.
* New volunteers might be able to help in villages, or places where groups of people practice or work at tables, and speed can be throttled to focus on accuracy and feedback. Maybe if paid vs. unpaid, classifications determine? (live stage-presentation interpretation is one class, village table is another, and tour-group is another)
* The rate for Defcon 21 was previously published ($180) so there probably hasn't been a plan for a budget to support that this year. (I don't control any money, but it is good to manage your expectations and not get your hopes "up" with an idea that thousands of dollars are available or even hundreds of dollars. It is not like this is BlackHat charging thousands of dollars per attendee with a majority of staff paid.)
* [Deviant Ollam] Legal matters, ada, services for disabled

Civil unrest/issues to consider:
* If some are volunteers and other are paid, this has historically caused unhappiness
* If able-bodied people cut in line-- that is, people physically capable of waiting in a line, this can cause unhappiness and ill will when those that waited in line were denied entry by people "cutting" ahead even though they physically could have stood in line like everyone else, and self-identified once they arrived at the room door.
* Reserving front-row seats in a location off to one side (so interpreter is not blocking speaker, or slides for everyone else) may have some detractors, but functionally makes sense.

Several people above have commented on willing to volunteer, but you can find them.

Take all of these ideas, and your own ideas, and detail a few ways to make this happen.
Include ideas on volunteers, and/or some kind of compensation if there are not enough volunteers, and consider all of the above.

Now write one or more proposals. Ask if there is money for this, and if so, how much. Ask if there are any legal problems with crowd-sourcing this as a charity for service at Defcon. (Once money is part of the process, legal issues may appear, and you'll want to know what restrictions if any might exist when advertising your charity in association with Defcon and who would handle the money, and file for status as a "non-profit" or "not for profit" entity.)

Hopefully other people will offer to join you as "co-organizers" and help you with this step.

Because this has the potential to hit so many departments, politically, if I were you, I would then send your proposal to Jeff Moss and then ask for a favorable reply to CC people like: Nikita, Lockheed, Noid, Great Scott and Pyr0 with your ideas, so you can inform them, and ask for a reply-all if it is approved so everyone that in in a department you may end up interfacing with is aware of what you want from them, and your objective.

Political:
Each department has a lot of experience with running their area of focus at Defcon. It is in your advantage to include in your proposals, "objectives," you would like to see happen, and then let each department find a solution to the objective.
Feel free to offer suggestions on ways that the objective could me made, but really try to avoid dictating , or micro-managing *how* they should do the work involved to meet the objective.
In this way, it is kind of like collaborative multitasking.

You have time, but don't waste it like many procrastinators do. Starting early improves your chances, but last-minute planning risks denial, high-latency replies, if any replies at all. Don't be "that guy" that asks for something 1 week after the program has been sent to be printed, expecting goons to move mountains for you.

Pyr0 will not be asking for people to send in their "RFI" (Request For Info) on the "thing" they want to run in the contests/event spaces until April 1.

If I were you, I would spend the rest of Feb identifying co-organizers to help with this, and then choose one of you who is active, determined, and reliable to be the POC (Point Of Contact) for all discussions with Defcon departments, and goons.
March 1, have them email Jeff (and cc nikita) with your proposal, and maybe ideas that could be possible with "X" Dollars, or "Y" Dollars beyond volunteers.
Don't expect any immediate response.
Ask for the reply (if favorable) to include the CC list of departments, so you can try to plan with them.
Mid-March, if there is no reply (about 2 weeks after your first reply) send reply to yourself and the original recipients to ask if anything has been decided. (People are busy now and will continue to get more busy as we get closer to con.)

Repeat the process once a week or two, until you get a response.

If this is approved, then I can make a forum for it to contain its planning.
Once it is approved, you can begin to recruit people and take actions to make things happen.

Most of the people you might work with are volunteers, and do this work in their spare time away from the job that pays their bills. Be patient in waiting for replies.

Any suggestions from people not actually doing work for this can be dismissed; if people aren't willing to do the work they suggest you do, don't feel that you have to do the work because they asked. Take my suggestions or don't; it will not offend me if you "do what I say you should do" or not. :-)

Managing expectations:
The first year that almost anything happens at Defcon, there are problems. Don't expect it to be perfect the first time. As you and your team are working on this, start making lists of, "things that would have been nice to have this year," so that if you return next year, you have feedback on how to improve it... Successful things at Defcon are driven by passion of people with an interest in their volunteer work, and a desire to constantly improve it and out-do their previous work.

Hope this helps.

[ladymerlin]

Re: DEAF CON

seeing as how my brother is one of the deaf people who will be attending i plan to be involved in any way needed.

[arose4beni]

Re: DEAF CON

Is nobody interested in being the central point of organization for this, to give it direction, recruit people and interface with other volunteers at Defcon? Maybe two people could agree to co-team the organization of this.

I wouldn't mind being one of the organizers for this. However, I would really like one or two people also being co-organizers. The next two months may become busy for me, so having at least another person (ideally two) could divide the task and planning a bit more.

[TheCotMan]

Re: DEAF CON

...

Right now, we are mostly a bunch of people that are not bankers, butchers, or ranchers saying, "You know what would be great? Free steaks and cash!" and replies like, "Yeah! That would be a good idea!" Really, we need to hear from the butchers, bankers and ranchers. (Like other metaphors, this one is not perfect, but hopefully illustrates a serious problem with this discussion.) (Also, some people here appear to be offering their skills as interpreters/translators, so those people talking about how they will contribute are exceptions to this issue.)

...

In working from this point of view, suggesting a scope of control and responsibility... how would you want to provide access to your own services as a volunteer rancher? How would you want to interface with different goons? Who would you see yourself working with? (speaker goons? security goons?) How would you be most effective and efficient in donating your time and working with others? What is the best way you see that the resources you would like to offer could be best utilized for the greatest benefit?

Is nobody interested in being the central point of organization for this, to give it direction, recruit people and interface with other volunteers at Defcon? Maybe two people could agree to co-team the organization of this.

It looks like there are a small number of people interested in participating, but are there any leaders among them?

Without someone to head up this idea, and submit a proposal, it probably won't go anywhere.

Other good ideas have gone this way too... without volunteers, good ideas don't become part of our reality.

As for proposals... you don't have to get it right the first time. Mature services, events, contests, and other things at Defcon grow as final products of iterative enhancements, addressing opportunities. The first year something happens is often not perfect, but a first try helps to identify where things can improve, and the planner can address those.

So... who wants to be the rancher, farmer, etc. that grows this, with planning, encouragement, recruiting, and submits your plans for how to integrate Deafcon into Defcon? Look above, and you find there are some people that have expressed interest in participating in some capacity as volunteers.

[TheCotMan]

Re: DEAF CON

and as for viewing, etc... our hope was to have one or two rows at the very front but off to one side given priority for DEAF CON seating. with the interpreter off to one side of the stage (either seated in a chair or sitting on the edge of the stage itself) the viewing angle should be pretty good.

my hope would be for Deaf/HoH attendees to be able to make their way to those seats slightly before the main crush of people filing in when the room shifts happen. (this can be handled with badges...

I've got a problem with this, in a very specific way:

* So long as there are ZERO PRE-SPEAKING LINES to enter a speaker track room?
ZERO problem. Letting deaf people fill in reserved front row seats on one side or the other, where the interpreter/translator can be seen and see the intended audience make sense; there is no real contention over a limited resource (seats.) This is functional, and nobody is denied access to the presentation by "line cutters"

* But lines of people waiting to see a talk when there probably won't be enough seats?
Problem. I think *everyone* should have to get in such a line when there is a line. Seats can still be reserved in a space near the front of the room for deaf people, but not the front of the line and once all other seats are filled, if the last people in line to be admitted to the room of a popular talk are deaf or not, they get to start taking those seats. (Remove THIS incentive to "hack" the system and abuse considerations when there are not enough seats.)

Disabilities make things more difficult, but being deaf does not mean standing in the same line as everyone else is "too hard" for some people. Even people with wheelchairs have waited in lines. I've seen people on crutches waiting in lines, too. I'd feel more pity for those people if they are standing in pain, and I've seen line goons take pity on some of these people, providing a chair for them to sit in line., or sit at the front of the line until a token for their space in line arrives at the front. (What has been done depends on the goons in the line, and their actions are that of charity because they want to, not because they were told to obey.)

Whatever is done would create more work for security, or speaker track goons or both, and ultimately, THEY are the ones that should have the authority to make decisions on how to implement this and who would be responsible.

Right now, we are mostly a bunch of people that are not bankers, butchers, or ranchers saying, "You know what would be great? Free steaks and cash!" and replies like, "Yeah! That would be a good idea!" Really, we need to hear from the butchers, bankers and ranchers. (Like other metaphors, this one is not perfect, but hopefully illustrates a serious problem with this discussion.) (Also, some people here appear to be offering their skills as interpreters/translators, so those people talking about how they will contribute are exceptions to this issue.)

Responsibility follows control. If you want to make them responsible for doing the work, they should be the ones that decide how best to do the work, and should be encouraged to develop their own plans. They may come up with ideas even better than any discussed in this thread, as they are much more experienced than all of us in allocation of their own (always) limited resources.

My comments? Suggestions and ideas for people that like them; not using my ideas is not an insult... there is zero value in me feeling invested in an area that I am not contributing the actual *real* work. It is in their right to say, "Cot? Butt the fuck out; we can figure it out." Direct and to the point -- much better to know how people feel than for them to hide it. :-)

In working from this point of view, suggesting a scope of control and responsibility... how would you want to provide access to your own services as a volunteer rancher? How would you want to interface with different goons? Who would you see yourself working with? (speaker goons? security goons?) How would you be most effective and efficient in donating your time and working with others? What is the best way you see that the resources you would like to offer could be best utilized for the greatest benefit?

[ewilliam]

Re: DEAF CON

Hello everyone!

I love the idea of a "DEAFCON", and would love to participate. I'm a deaf dev in SoCal and have a couple of friends, local and from college in DC, who would be definitely interested to come.

I've been planning to start a group, DeafHackers in the spirit of deaf-related open source projects, I think this would be a great opportunity for growth.

However, interpreting as always is an issue. We'd need competent interpreters in the computer field for the best experience, but is likely expensive/hard to find. Professional interpreters with years of experience may be able to adapt to new jargon, etc. CART can be a good solution when good interpreters are not available. A mix of both could work throughout the event.

Yes, a large/professional event like DEFCON will have to assume the costs of accommodation for deaf attendants. An organized effort like "DEAFCON" will make it worth it!

[Deviant Ollam]

Re: DEAF CON

Trouble is, if we don't have some way of knowing the number of Deaf people coming or what they intend to do while there it will be tricky.

correct. there will be almost zero advance knowledge of how many folk will be there or what talks they will want to see.

i've created a DEAF CON twitter feed and i'll have folk monitor it during DEFCON. if people want to see interpreting for a particular talk, they can always try to tweet and vote and hopefully somehow we'll correlate it all into something workable.

[Deviant Ollam]

Re: DEAF CON

The real issue I see here is finding someone that can translate all the tech lingo to ASL for the audience. Oh, and unless we put the signer up on a big screen, we'll have to put the hearing impaired in the front rows.

Knollgrass and his firm do ASL interpretation (which is not translation, see above, heh) for tech talks and content like this. As long as the 'terps get some time with a speaker before they go on stage, in order to be a little bit familiar with the direction the talk will be headed, it should all be fine.

and as for viewing, etc... our hope was to have one or two rows at the very front but off to one side given priority for DEAF CON seating. with the interpreter off to one side of the stage (either seated in a chair or sitting on the edge of the stage itself) the viewing angle should be pretty good.

my hope would be for Deaf/HoH attendees to be able to make their way to those seats slightly before the main crush of people filing in when the room shifts happen. (this can be handled with badges... all DEAF CON participants will get badges, colored for Deaf/HoH, casual ASL, fluent ASL, interpreter, ally, etc) If it's possible for Security Goons to handle the situation that way, it might all work out. (I'd keep tight controls over the badges so that no hearing people can grab a Deaf badge and try to game the system like an assface in order to jump lines)

Once the talk is 2 or 3 minutes away from starting, then any non-occupied seats in that front interpreter-view section could just be up for grabs by anyone at that point.

thoughts?

[russ]

Re: DEAF CON

Oddly, I'm 90% deaf in my left ear due to Menieres (manures disease if you ask Roamer). I'd be interested in seeing this happen. The real issue I see here is finding someone that can translate all the tech lingo to ASL for the audience. Oh, and unless we put the signer up on a big screen, we'll have to put the hearing impaired in the front rows.

-Russ

[Knollgrass]

Re: DEAF CON

hummmm sounds great. Love this style of open conference.

Trouble is, if we don't have some way of knowing the number of Deaf people coming or what they intend to do while there it will be tricky.

The fallback option is announcing what session will be interpreted and just seeing what happens with turn-out. Could let people voluntarily contact us with their interest and count so we can gauge the resources needed.

[ButterSnatcher]

Re: DEAF CON

I know that registration is a cash payment type of thing but is there a form that people fill out or is it more like buying a ticket to enter?

You basically buy the pass and go anywhere you like. Nothing to fill out, nothing to survey. You can go in and see no talks which some people do, you can go in and see the various villages and get hands on learning, go to public parties, etc. All the pass does is says your allowed in the conference area and that its look or function is kool

BS

[Knollgrass]

Re: DEAF CON

It'll make it more tough to figure out interpreter placement without knowing beforehand what they want to go to.

Though it would be easy to solve. When people register just have them give out their email addresses so we can ask what sessions they're interested in. Then plan for interpreters to be flexible when someone changes their mind.

I know that registration is a cash payment type of thing but is there a form that people fill out or is it more like buying a ticket to enter?

[TheCotMan]

Re: DEAF CON

Do we have any way of knowing what sessions or things people go to? Or is it a 'go where ever you want' kind of thing?

Go where you want, when you want, so long as your badge allows you there, security doesn't tell you no, there is space and the fire marshal doesn't complain.

Some of the busiest have historically been:
* Speaker Tracks (some popular talks end up getting lines, and some people get turned away, but this has been less common with videos piped to the rooms.)
* Other Contests/Events that use speaker-track rooms: (Not a full list)
** DC101 (a pre-defcon event, a good place to target services)
** Hacker Jeopardy
** 10,000 cent hacker pyramid
** Social Engineering Contest (has been in speaker-tracks, and in contest room)
** Spot the Fed (can be anywhere, but the accusation and Q/A often happens on stage before normal presentations and the are not scheduled ahead of time -- they just interrupt whatever is in the speaker track, usually right at the beginning for a few minutes, and when the speaker is setting up for their talk.)
** Defcon Movie Night (last 10+ years, when this has happened, it has been in speaker tracks. Before then, I'm not sure if it counted, but people did play VHS or DVD movies in a part of the con space for attendees to watch... kind of like a pre-DC-Movie channel, and I only remember this happening one or two years.)
* Contest floor (so many contests all running on the same floor that there are often many people here, and many contests in the same room all happening at the same time. Some start as others finish, and some are only for a few hours while some run the whole Defcon timeline until just before the closing ceremonies begin. This has also been where the Goon Band plays, though they have also played in the same room as the B&W Ball.)
* The Vendor Room (though it may not contain many people, a HUGE number of people visit it over the conference, with the greatest numbers on the first day.)
* Villages:
** Lock Picking Village has been a popular favorite visited by many. I'd guess half of the people you see sitting in here have been sitting for over an hour, and the other half just arrives or are standing, or working as volunteers)
** Wireless Village ( did not attend last year, but I heard it was popular, just really cramped. There are promises to allocate more space for it this year, IIRC.)
** Hardware Hacking Village
* Other areas that have sometimes been away from any spaces mentioned above:
** Toxic BBQ (takes place off-site, but has had many attendees visit: this is a social event)
** Hack Fortress 2
** Lost @ Con Mystery Contest (Has started in one place, but then some teams go private. Has also been convention-wide, with people visiting many places and people throughout the con.)
** OpenCTF (has been on the regular contest floor before, and in an off-shoot or extra room attached to it.)
** Defcon Shoot (Off site, about a 45-60 minute drive from the Rio, in the desert but higher elevation.)
** SkyTalks (separate room for all skytalks, smaller than the main speaker tracks)
** Many Parties both on and off site.

You can check a list of contests, events and social gatherings from last year in our archive:

THIS IS FROM LAST YEAR AT DEFCON 20, NOT FOR THIS YEAR:https://forum.defcon.org/forumdisplay.php?f=616

Not all will return, and some new ones will probably appear which are not listed here.