Seeking Crowd Wisdom

[jesse_the_k]

...to help us spread the word about speaking up.

One of the goals of this year's WisCon access endeavor is to improve the con's experience for members with hearing impairments. We're supplying more mics for the panels. We reserve spaces front and center (marked with blue tape) which are handy for people who are speech reading.

But the crucial element is cooperation from all the members. I've come up with a wordy and sober statement. I'd love it if the collective wisdom could make this more succinct, more powerful, more impressive, more funny ... it just needs a whole lot of "more":

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It's important for all panelists to use the mics when provided, without hesitation, shyness, or complaint. What we say is interesting enough for the people without hearing impairments. If we don't use the mics, we're effectively preventing members with hearing impairments from participating. Since members in the audience don't have mics, we ask panelists to wait until the moderator has repeated the question before responding.
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Ideas? Thoughts?

Comments

[fish_echo]

I have a few comments. I'm going to drop them rather randomly and separate them with dashes (because today transitions and I are not friends).

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I have a question: Why are you asking the panelists to use mics? Is it because the mics are hooked up to speakers which are loud enough to be heard easily throughout the room? Or is it because the mics are hooked up to those radio-ear-bud-things (which are used by people who are hard of hearing) as well as to speakers to the room at large (which is useful to ensure that everyone who lacks a radio-ear-bud-thing can also hear the panelists)?

I ask because in the latter case I would use the mic (because of the ear-buds) but in the former case I would probably request that my mic be turned off. Here's my reasoning: I'm very good at projecting my voice and I know the size of the room which my voice can fill (if anything, I underestimate this) and I find that I speak more naturally (and thus more clearly) when I am unmiced than when I am miced.

Not that I'm going to WisCon, but in case someone else is like me, I'm sure they'd appreciate the clarification.

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I'd be wary of putting too much emphasis on making it funny-- I'd very much rather have something which is informative than something which is chipper&cheery but not informative. (Partially this is because I tend to read faux-humourous or faux-chipper things as very condescending.) Clearly a happy medium is preferred for tone, but if I had to choose between more formal (which indicates respect and seriousness) and very informal (which indicates a lack of importance), I prefer more formal. (Um, I know the irony of saying this when my journal is generally very informal. But there's a difference between my jotted-down thoughts and a semi-official statement.) The current length doesn't seem long to me, fwiw.

Obviously, everything I've said in this section is a case of YMMV but since you asked my opinions I'm telling you them.

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If we don't use the mics, we're effectively preventing members with hearing impairments from participating. Since members in the audience don't have mics, we ask panelists to wait until the moderator has repeated the question before responding.

I suggest adding a transition in some fashion since I initially found that a bit confusing.

Possible suggestion: If we don't use the mics, we're effectively preventing members with hearing impairments from participating. In addition, as members of the audience lack mics, we ask panelists to wait to speak until the moderator has finished repeating the question.

Hmm, evidently I also changed some wording a bit? (Which is to say, any differences which follow 'we ask panelists' are changes I would make were I you but are not as important for clarity.)

(Sidenote: I found myself wanting to expand that contraction every single time I thought about rewriting this sentence. Which is not to say that you must do so but merely an observation/reflection upon my own tendencies. The advantage of expanding the contractions is that it emphasises the statement. The disadvantage is that it is more formal and some people bristle at that level of formality when they feel that it is not required.)

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I know nothing about the facilities available, so I have no idea how feasible this is, so please disregard if this is not useful. On the topic of the burden on the moderator to repeat all the questions/comments from the audience: Something I've seen done well before is to have one (or two, depending on the size of the room) standing mic in the aisle that the audience uses to ask questions. This is obviously not convenient for folks with mobility difficulties, but perhaps something else can be arranged-- perhaps raising an arm or a flag or some other signal to the moderator that zee wishes to speak? If there was a cordless mic, that would be easiest to use in this case, otherwise I suppose the moderator could repeat the question? .... I'm not terribly sure how exactly is the best way to go about this, obviously ...

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What we say is interesting enough for the people without hearing impairments. If we don't use the mics, we're effectively preventing members with hearing impairments from participating.

I found this bit clunky and perhaps a tad preachy. I also am not really a fan of leading with a conditional in the second sentence, since that puts the emphasis on not using the mics, rather than on *why* one ought to use the mics. I also think there is no need to use 'effectively' since it is not effectively preventing, it is actually preventing in the case of Deaf/Hard of Hearing audience members-- using 'effectively' just softens the statement unnecessarily.

Perhaps something like:

We ask this in order to ensure that everyone, Deaf or Hard of Hearing or not, can hear the panelists.

The advantage of this phrasing is that it gives the rationale for the request and assumes that the reader wishes to ensure that everyone can partake of the panel.

If you really want to keep the second sentence around, I'd suggest changing it to something like: Deaf/Hard of Hearing audience members are prevented from participating when mics are not used; if you really want to keep the active voice then: When we don't use mics, we prevent Deaf/Hard of Hearing audience members from participating

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The previous comments about the 'shy' bit make sense to me.

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I hope this all makes sense? If not, please do ask me for clarification!