Censorship on DeafRead
January 25, 2008
I remember reading a comment from DeafRead’s founder, Tayler Mayer, where he claims that DeafRead is all about neutrality and that blog entries are published on DeafRead in an unbiased manner.
Well apparently, that’s not the case. Instead of allowing for healthy discourse on the subject, the DeafRead editors appear to have decided not to publish my last entry which questions their ethics in participating in a contest they are running. This blatant censorship is shameful. It makes me wonder how much censorship goes on at DeafRead.
Let’s face it. We’ve given too much power to DeafRead. They currently have way too much control over our Deaf blogosphere. They can suppress dissent and easily block information and ideas at their whim. We all have enough oppression in our lives. We don’t need it from DeafRead, too.
Like it or not, DeafRead currently has a monopoly on our Deaf blogosphere. It’s time for our community to come up with alternatives to DeafRead. DeafRead should not be the only place we obtain our news from and we should have other means of connecting with other Deaf bloggers.
Wouldn’t it be great if someone came along and created something better than DeafRead that celebrates free speech, sans all the egos, ads, and b.s.? If you have the technical know-how, please step forward. We need your expertise. We need more choices and alternatives. Most of all, we need more people who truly believe in free speech and who do not simply give it lip service.
Entry Filed under: Blogging, Censorship, Deaf, Deaf Community. .
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1.
aonymous | January 25, 2008 at 4:59 pm
I just comment on your other post. I find the censore disgusting. LIke ou said it is oppression. Shame on them!
2.
Barb DiGi | January 25, 2008 at 6:03 pm
Ok, I have been brought to the attention to your blog. First of all, nice to see you back.
Secondly, I just want to know if you have emailed to DR to alert them that your blog that had been inactive for a long time is now running? From what I understood, DR doesn’t pick up a blog that has been inactive for a considerable amount of time and they don’t automatically publish a blog that has been inactive for a while unless you personally notify them by email.
So have you emailed them directly to let them know that your blog is now active?
3.
Barb | January 25, 2008 at 6:31 pm
I never really thought about it but you’re right about them having a “monopoly”. I think they get away with a lot of stuff becuz of it. A resounding ditto on the need for more choices. Imagine having access to just one type of car, one type of resturant, one type of telly, one news station, one newspaper, one type of (fill in blank), because other types hadn’t been invented yet. I think that’s where we’re at with deafread.
Not to minimize their contributions. They helped connect deaf vloggers & bloggers.
Good on them for that. But they need some competition to keep them in check and discourage abuse of power.
RSS Readers are great tools but they don’t tell you about new vloggers & bloggers. So many of ‘em seem to keep popping up every day. Agreed that it would be wonderful if some one comes up with something new that goes a step beyound deafread. That would be a really good thing for our deaf/hh/db communities.
4.
LJ | January 25, 2008 at 8:23 pm
I feel TM’s ego is out of control.
More people should use RSS and subscribe directly to v/blogs and just use Deaf Read once in a while for back up or to see what’s new.
5.
sherlock Steve | January 25, 2008 at 8:33 pm
Welcome back Chris Leon! We missed you.
NOW ROAR, my friend, ROAR LIKE YOU HAVE NEVER BEFORE!! Make us PROUD of ya!
Again, welcome back!
6.
Chris Leon | January 26, 2008 at 4:57 am
Thank you for all your comments and the welcome backs. I just shot off an e-mail to Tayler Mayer and Jared Evans of DeafRead and inquired as to why DeafRead was censoring my latest blog entries.
I have a hard time believing it has anything to do with my blog not being active as I’m still listed as an active blog on the DeafRead blogger section. I’ve also seen a couple of links come in from DeafRead’s url, despite my last two entries not being published.
There is, of course, the chance I could be mistaken and this wasn’t an act of censorship. I highly doubt it but I will try to keep an open mind and see what they have to say.
My original post was about their participation in the DeafRead Awards contest they are running. I strongly feel that this participation is unethical. They should respectfully bow out of the contest or set up a new category for just editors.
Peace out,
Chris
7.
fan of chris leon | January 26, 2008 at 5:28 am
TM’s ego is legendary everywhere he has been. His actual knowledge and skills are nowhere near a close match — and those who know him personally already know that this is the case.
Maybe you were indeed marked as “inactive” by DR — but the rest of your points are indeed valid.
8.
H. Diaz | January 26, 2008 at 3:03 pm
A friend was raving about your blog this morning during our gym workout so thought I’d come check it out. It’s so rare to see deaf latino bloggers! Especially which such intelligence and passion. I *have* to meet you!!!
9.
Ima Anonymous | January 26, 2008 at 3:50 pm
Maybe its time to start a new rss feed site like deafread.com
10.
Paotie Rules My World | January 26, 2008 at 6:56 pm
DR censorship is nothing new. They pretend to be neutral but it’s not true. Paotie refers to the DR editors as *discriminators* in his blog at http://www.paotie.com/2008/01/08/yo-deafread/. That’s a good name for them as they do not really edit anything.
I’m not sure what we can do about this. As you pointed out, DR has too much control. They are like a dictatorship. And like any dictatorship, they should be overthrown.
I believe RSS software is the way to go. But many don’t want to bother with it. That’s why DR is popular. Agreed that we need something new that revels DR.
11.
White Ghost | January 26, 2008 at 7:40 pm
First of all, welcome b-a-a-a-k!
DR *CANNOT* sue new owners if there is a new HQ site for the blogs and vlogs. So, there.
Remember AT+T’s old case that wanted to keep the monopoly in 1970’s. I remembered that the AT+T tried to control the telephone business all over the USA alone. Supreme Court rejected the case.
12.
Debra R. | January 26, 2008 at 7:50 pm
Hooorrrrraaaaayyyyy Chris Leon is back!!!! {{{hugs}}}} How have you been? You hot, handsome hunk!!!
I must confess that I don’t read Deaf Read much. It’s kinda boring. Of course, less boring if they included YOUR blog. They are losers for not including you. Isn’t that what the “L” stands for in their logo? hee hee
mmmmmaaawwwwwhhhh {{{ smack }}}
13.
Raider's Ark | January 26, 2008 at 8:04 pm
Interesting. They seemed to have no trouble publishing your “Ridor Threatens to Sue” blog post and the ones before that. But when you write about them, it’s no go. I just read their guidelines and they have no valid reason to reject your blog post. Did they at least respond to your Email and explain why?
14.
Ann_C | January 26, 2008 at 8:21 pm
“We all have enough oppression in our lives. We don’t need it from DeafRead too.” Amen, you said it!
15.
Chris Leon | January 26, 2008 at 8:31 pm
Thank you for your comments. There’s been over 150 hits to this blog in the past 24 hours. Not much by DeafRead standards. But word is getting out and I appreciate those of you who believe in free speech and are circulating information about my blog. If you have a blog, please do link to me in your Blogroll.
I have not received a response from DeafRead. And as you can all see, they still have not published my recent blog entries of which DeafRead is the topic.
If this were not a deliberate act of censorship, one would think they’d be quick to clear that up. Apparently not so. Making me more convinced than ever that their censorship was in fact deliberate.
It’s unfortunate that our community puts so much trust in DeafRead. After reading about Tom Willard’s experience (see his comments in the previous entry), I’ve no doubt that the trust we’ve put in DeafRead has been abused. Alternatives to DeafRead are desperately needed. All of our voices should have the opportunity to be heard. Not just those that DeafRead thinks we should hear/see.
Chris
16.
Jared Evans | January 26, 2008 at 8:57 pm
Hi Chris,
We are sorry you are upset by not being listed on DeafRead. Because there are many blogs that we check on a hourly basis which can get taxing on the server, we periodically deactivate blogs that have not posted in a while. This makes it easier and faster for us to check all the active blogs for quicker updates.
Your blog was marked deactivated in our database. I’ve just activated your blog inside our system. We have not developed the code yet to check all deactivated blogs (probably once a day) to reactivate them if a post was recently added within a day. This would be done automatically and no one would have to get in touch with us via email to let us know that their blog is active again.
Instead of jumping the gun, it would be prudent to email us first to clear up any concerns that you may have regarding DeafRead.
There are times when everyone on the DeafRead team is busy and don’t check DeafRead for several hours. This means that we aren’t able to reply as quickly as we would like to.
I would like to reiterate that we do NOT censor anyone as long as the guidelines are followed. You can view all the posts either on the front page or the Extra page.
We try to strike a good balance between DeafRead and the bloggers and maintain a healthy relationship. We know that we cannot make everyone happy but we try our best to make sure the majority of the readers are mostly satisfied with how we handle things on our side. This is no doubt a very difficult challenge for us considering the growth of DeafRead in the last few months.
Our eyes are always open to constructive criticism and we are always trying to improve ourselves.
We encourage everyone to subscribe to the RSS feeds of their favorite bloggers and use DeafRead to discover new blogs that they would enjoy reading/watching. DeafRead should not be viewed as a replacement for your RSS reader. It’s not our goal to censor anyone but to make Deaf bloggers more discoverable and to send more traffic their way. We encourage the growth of the Deaf blogosphere when a new blogger feels that its worth the time to start a new blog when they are able to instantly get a lot of views and start a fan base of their own.
17.
Deaf LOL | January 26, 2008 at 9:08 pm
Thanks to our friend, Slemo Warigon who is one of Gallynet.org moderators because Deafread.com immediately posted your blog after they learned that Slemo shared your postings with us through Gallynet.org. We really caught Deafread.com staff with their pants dropped! Jared said that your postings were overlooked, but we know he is not telling the truth. He is the worst liar and might not notice that his pants are on fire. Good job, Chris and keep roaring!!!
18.
Annonymous | January 26, 2008 at 9:11 pm
Welcome back, Chris. TM is out of control with his own cocky! Booooooooo!
19.
Jared Evans | January 26, 2008 at 9:12 pm
Deaf LOL,
I suggest that you check the posting dates of his recent posts. You’ll see that it’s been nearly a year since he did so. I don’t appreciate being called a liar.
Thanks.
20.
DT | January 26, 2008 at 9:15 pm
Uh Oh, I guess somebody DID jump the gun on this. Oh well, that happens….
21.
Deaf LOL | January 26, 2008 at 9:19 pm
Jared, please stop being defensive. That is okay for making a mistake by censoring some of us and we shall forgive you unless you continue to deny. For now, you are dubbed as Jared the liar.
22.
C | January 26, 2008 at 9:24 pm
Abracadabra! whooo You’re on DR!
suspect indeed.
23.
Paotie | January 26, 2008 at 9:44 pm
Jared ..
Explain to me why the picture in my article was considered, “pornographic,” again, please?
JJ simply said my blog’s article was selected to NOT be picked up because I “pushed” or something.
Hey .. if anyone is interested, Rolling Stone publishes more provocative pictures than my article did.
And to anyone else .. check for yourself and let us know if the picture was really that “pornographic.”
See for yourself: http://www.paotie.com/2008/01/09/paotie-and-the-label-factory/
Which suggests what?
They choose which articles are picked up based on what THEY think is appropriate.
*shrugs innocently and kicks a small pebble*
Paotie
24.
deafk | January 26, 2008 at 9:46 pm
hi, there,
first of all, i am sorry that you feel this way.
i m not sure how things go like this. this sounds a lot of suspicions, and assumptions. i do not see any fact or evidence for this.
So, please be careful what you are saying on this. people love to ramble on for pleasure. that could be damaging.
peace, deafk
25.
J | January 26, 2008 at 10:14 pm
Yup. Sounds like someone jumped the gun and ran out half-naked, yelling hysterically, “DEAFREAD CENSORS!!!”
Chill, dude.
26.
Black Panther | January 26, 2008 at 10:21 pm
DEAFREAD does CENSOR. Countless of stories about censorship from DEAFREAD. Leon probably just roared the loudest. Gally-net-L published a message about it this evening and DEAFREAD scrambled to do damage control. No question about it.
27.
Nesmuth | January 26, 2008 at 10:33 pm
Competition is very healthy, increases unity, and it brings out the best values of the deaf community.
28.
Nesmuth | January 26, 2008 at 10:39 pm
But I don’t mind seeing a few new deaf owned rss aggregation sites popping up in the near future.
29.
anonymous | January 26, 2008 at 10:59 pm
Boo hoo. Your blog was omiited from DR? Tough luck and live with it. Not every single blog get the chance to be on deaf read.
30.
surfer | January 26, 2008 at 11:40 pm
anonymouse, you are an idiot. you missed the point.
31.
DeafPulse.com | January 27, 2008 at 12:45 am
Four words for you:
DEAF PULSE DOT COM
32.
Rene Visco | January 27, 2008 at 12:53 am
Well, that’s the problem when you tried to impose 19th century organization structure (a group of editors) on ever-changing 21st century social media network such as Flickr, digg, FaceBook, etc.
It would be best to show all blogs at once and GIVE us the power to omit/add the blogs ourselves via DeafRead’s network (once we sign up for DR’s accounts). That would be empowering, don’t you think? DR helps us find new v/blogs and we provide traffic to their v/blogs.
That way, DR and we, the users, are helping each other by creating and elevating an important place in Deaf cyberspace.
33.
J.J. Puorro | January 27, 2008 at 1:30 am
Rene,
First of all, good to see you in these parts! Hope all is well?
Secondly, check out DR Extra and you will see that I JUST NOW placed an enty for “Data Recovery”. This is why we need editors. The purpose of the editors is to screen out non-Deaf Centric stuff.
For example, Digg was just in hotwater because they admitted that they also had human editors…you cannot teach a computer what to screen and what to not screen…
A.I. is not that good YET…
Without us human editors, you would be wading through junk for deaf centric posts and adding them to your RSS feeders…at least we screen out the non Deaf Centric stuff and save you all some time.
============
Anyway, this goes for EVERYBODY…in the future if you have an issue with DeafRead…try sending us an E-mail first? OK???
============
Last, but not least…I J.J. Puorro was the ONLY ONE who counted all the nominations and sorted them. I did ALL OF THE WORK. Jared, Tayler, Amy, Carrie, Jon, and Elizabeth had ABSOLUTELY no input. I was clearly CHOSEN for that precise reason. Amy, Elizabeth, Tayler, Jared, and Jon all were nominated by the READERS of DeafRead.
I swear on MY LIFE that this is 100% true.
-J.J.
34.
MM | January 27, 2008 at 1:48 am
A certain amount of censorship is inevitable. America has a different way of thinking to Europe etc and different attitudes to sex, religion and politics. There are ythose here who want to see how far they can push the freedom of speech thing, with no holds barred, then you get into personal abbuse and offence areas, it’s then down to moderators to respectthe view of the majority, it’s not an easy job, because you are damned by both sides of the issue, what ever stance you take.
Neutrality is an ideal we strive for, but we rarely get to it. It is unfair to ask deaf.read to do what we can’t ourselves.
35.
ILY | January 27, 2008 at 2:07 am
Well said Rene. And JJ, how can you not see a problem with Deafread editors, including Jared and Tayler, competiting with other bloggers for Deafread awards? It’s bad form and really poor judgment.
36.
W. David Samuelsen | January 27, 2008 at 2:33 am
What are you complaining about?
Try write a letter to the editor of local large newspaper!
I can tell you from MY own experience. Editors of newspaper DO censor, edit or not allow letters from getting published in newspapers!
They have control over what go in THEIR papers.
Same thing with Deaf Read. It is a collection and it is the Editoral Board who have to decide how to allocate, organize or not allow the contents as they come in, NOT you.
DeadRead contests do not belong to you, they belong to TM and Jared.
37.
ILY | January 27, 2008 at 3:25 am
Again you are comparing apples and oranges W. David. And you are wrong, Deafread belongs to the Deaf Community.
38.
MeKenzie | January 27, 2008 at 3:57 am
Wow! Your writing quality is very awe-inspiring and definitely at the professional level. It is backed up strongly with solid, to-the-point evidences. It is as clear as the air can be! Obviously, I don’t believe I am capable of writing anything close enough to your incredibly well-organized, high-quality, and even convincing message. Nonetheless, you obviously got all down! Amazing! Not to mind that you’re also deaf… other proof that we *can* do it if we want.
I did not write this to make you blush or whatsoever, but to express what I genuinely thought of when reading your entry. It IS well-organized. I believe I could learn a lot from you. Your post is an excellent example of how to write a cystral-clear message and keep my audience interested. In fact, I have already learned few useful pinpoints from this! Therefore, thank you very much for writing, I do really appreciate it!
Anyway, back to the point (lol), the censorship on DeafRead is very wrong; however, from reading the posted comments, there clearly was a misunderstanding in this. In spite of it, it is still good to open people’s mind to the possible censorship in the future. Like anything, it CAN be the “monopoly” of all. Anything can happen!
Now, I shall close this with a short thought: One single butterfly flapping its wings once can cause a massive hurricane.
- MeK
39.
Mabel Tan | January 27, 2008 at 4:32 am
I thought it was interesting that it was Jared and not Tayler who responded to Chris here. Smart on Tayler’s part as he is not very diplomatic as far as I have seen. He can really rub people the wrong way. IMHO, Jared is the nicer and more believable of the two. I’m not too found of Tayler. But I’m gong off the point…. I spent some time visiting DR web pages and I could not find anything at all about the ‘inactive’ status. If this is really true, DR should mention it on their web pages so people are aware.
I’m also in favor of seeing more web pages come up that are like DR so we have more diversity to choose from. It is very true that we give DR too much power. We need to stop being lazy and use the Rss reader until something better than DR comes along.
40.
Eric | January 27, 2008 at 5:18 am
I’m with those who think it’s highly suspect that Deaf Read only acknowledged this blog — even after being emailed by Chris Leon — after people started circulating emails about it and submitting info about the censorship to the gallynet listserv. Shortly after it was posted on gallynet, it appears Jared scrambled to announce that it’s been added to Deaf Read and it was a misunderstanding. I don’t know about you, but I believe the lame excuse was to save face. This is not the first time that Deaf Read has censored a blog.
41.
Deaf Perplexed Reader | January 27, 2008 at 5:19 am
Chris, you made good points. Jehanne, a young girl, is even puzzled by DeadRead’s censorship practices. She made a vlog at her site asking for help from the Deaf community in asking Tayler to include her vlogs in DeafRead Youth http://www.deafread.com/youth , but no action has been made by Tayler or his team. Her KFC vlog http://www.jehanne.wordpress.com is amazing and it is not even at DeafRead Youth. I believe Tayler may have issues with anyone who speaks up including this young girl. Tayler’s ego is too fragile. It is obvious that the Deaf community wants to help Tayler and he needs to listen to feedback to make DeafRead an amazing place to visit.
42.
JD | January 27, 2008 at 5:30 am
TACKY — it is to have human editors or owners participate in contests, but what can we do? Simply do not vote for them. Vote for others. If DR listens to us, next year we will not see DR human editors or owners part of nominations or awards.
43.
White Ghost | January 27, 2008 at 5:43 am
I truly think that TM and editors need to repair the guidelines. I am baffled with the guidelines that did not follow-up.
Mike McConnell and Paotie have been saying about this all along.
The editors need to set up the meeting next week to discuss the modification on the guidelines in the private room at the hotel. They can find a way to get together to discuss about this…..
The whole thing in DR’s guidelines are now in the flip-flop.
That is something I do not understand the DR about the deafvideo.tv. The DR editors cannot control them. For what I learned was that the youtube.com already sponsored the deafvideo.tv, not the Sprint. However, the deafvideo.tv has shown the sprint logo.
44.
Sounding Off | January 27, 2008 at 6:21 am
You succeeded in getting heard. Bravo! No doubt they were under pressure to accept your blog posts or look bad.
Seems many of us have deafread censorship stories. I’m not a blogger but I do make comments from time to time. I made one the other week on the deafread blog when they announced the conference location. I pointed out that deafread was misleading people by saying their conference was in San Francisco when it is really taking place in Burlingame, which is in the middle of no where, about 25 -30 mins away from downtown SF by car in good traffic. I wrote that people should be aware of it or they would be disappointed.
Bigshot Tayler Mayer replied that it was in the southern part of SF (meaning South SF). However, it just showed how ignorant he is. South SF is not part of SF. It is an entirely different town in a different county. Shortly after his reply, my comments were deleted from the deafread blog. Thereby censoring dialogue that would have been very informative to those attending the deafread conference.
I used to live in SF and I know people in SF who are laughing their asses off at him for claiming the conference is in SF when it’s not. He is basically lying and misleading people by saying otherwise. There are actually 4 cities you pass from Burlingame to SF: Milbrae, San Bruno, South SF, Brisbane and depending on how you are going, add Colma and Daly City to that. Does that sound like ‘in SF’ to you? And if you are taking public transportation from Burlingame to SF, good luck. It will take over an hour to get to downtown SF. And just like Washington-Dulles is not really in Washington, DC, SFO airport is not really in SF. So saying you are close to SFO, doesn’t mean you are really close to SF. SFO is near San Bruno.
When TDI had their conference in Marin, which is not that far from SF, they did not lie and say it was in SF to make themselves look better and the conference location more exciting. They were honest about the location, even it if may have meant less people attending. Kudos to them and shame on Tayler Mayer for lying to people about the conference location. It speaks volumes about the kind of person he is.
For those planning to attend the deafread conference, make sure you rent a car. If the conference were really in SF, you would not need one as it’s easy to get around in SF by public transportation.
45.
Paotie | January 27, 2008 at 7:23 am
For what it’s worth, one reader left a comment at DR regarding CART services for non-ASL people attending DR Conference. The question was posted January 11 on DR.
Click here.
I left a question with Tayler that still has not answered regarding the original question as well as mine. My question was not answered, nor was it published.
My comment left at DR:
———————————-
# Paotie Says: Your comment is awaiting moderation.
January 25th, 2008 at 1:33 pm
Well ..
What’s the answer to Kim’s question?
—
kim Says:
January 11th, 2008 at 3:30 pm
Is the hotel prepared to accommodate a large number of D/deaf people? I hope they don’t have HDTV’s. Also will you have CART at the workshop for deaf people who aren’t fluent in ASL?
—
Or is this another “oversight” mistake?
Paotie
——————————
*shrugs*
Paotie
46.
LaRonda | January 27, 2008 at 9:16 am
Paotie, ….. Please….
“check for yourself and let us know if the picture was really that “pornographic.”
http://www.paotie.com/2008/01/09/paotie-and-the-label-fa”
Is it because the woman in your photo has covered her nipples,that you believe it’s not “pornographic?” (Cough! Cough!)
Gee…. It may not be “hard core” dude, but there is still nudity and basically, that’s the limiting guideline on DR. No nudity. That’s their peragative. Pretty simple.
~ LaRonda
47.
passingthru | January 27, 2008 at 9:58 am
Tayler does the coding for http://www.sprintrelayblog.com website.
Jared works for Viable.
So be aware of any biases…
48.
White Ghost | January 27, 2008 at 10:05 am
LaRonda –
LOL.
Take a look at:
http://gnarlydorkette.blogspot.com and look at the banner.
What about the Roman statues in Italy, France and Greece?
49.
JD | January 27, 2008 at 10:07 am
http://denareiter.blogspot.com/2008/01/censorship-you-bet.html
the link above discussed censorship at DR. we should list all blogs/vlogs that discussed DR censorship. from there, we can see how serious the problem is.
50.
Paotie | January 27, 2008 at 10:10 am
*laughs*
Ok .. here’s what happened at my blog:
I wrote an article, Yo! DeafRead and questioned DR’s neutrality.
A few editors came to my blog, pounded their chests and left grunting.
The next article I wrote was not picked up. Tayler emailed me and said my picture was “pornographic.”
Then, another editor claimed that I was being punished for “pushing the line” or something, perhaps the definition of “nudity,” though that was never addressed entirely by either editors.
My definition of pornographic includes a penis, vagina, nipples, a blow job and a good damn fingering-job.
Paotie
51.
White Ghost | January 27, 2008 at 10:16 am
It’s all the flip-flop that DR is facing right now.
TIme for the editors to wake up. Gotcha? Don’t think so.
Biased? Oh, yea. Neutrality? Oh, No.
*High-Five*, Paotie.
52.
drmzz | January 27, 2008 at 10:35 am
Unimpressed. This is the classic example of jumping in the pool w/o checking the water. Goes for other rats too, ouch (splatting across the concrete). All one needs to do is to send an email and have patience for a follow-up. Again, one can see certain people do thrive on negativity for entertainment value.
53.
jodi | January 27, 2008 at 11:35 am
Well, I’ve had two posts censored since I was picked up on deaf read. One post had a direct link to a sex toy, so I can understand, kind of, that censoring…but yesterday’s blog pissed me off that it wasn’t posted because I wanted to share my good news with everyone on deafread.com, which apparently was not good enough news for the deafread.com editors. I still feel as though I am a guest and not a member in this exclusive club. I shall blog on. Jodi
54.
Beta | January 27, 2008 at 12:23 pm
TACKY is right, JD. Of course they will try to play it off as being simply “fun and games”.
And censorship does not belong in our Community in any shape or form. DR needs to be held accountable for their actions.
55.
whitenacho | January 27, 2008 at 12:30 pm
DeafRead? Hmmmmm I’ll check it out.
56.
Dianrez | January 27, 2008 at 12:40 pm
Hey fellows, this is complaining over human errors and oversights. i have two blogs that were definitely within guidelines on Extra and a couple more that landed in Extra but when I emailed the editors to ask them to move the last two to the main page, it was promptly done.
Grow up, you people.
A suggestion for the editors: Put all blogs on the main page and only look if people complain. More than 5 complaints, for example.
This is where editors could examine the blog for relevancy, offensiveness, coherence, etc. and make the decision to censor or move them to Extra.
57.
r. | January 27, 2008 at 12:48 pm
DR’s credibility is shot to hell as far as I’m concerned.
58.
r. | January 27, 2008 at 12:53 pm
Check out
PAOTIE TO 2007 DEAFREAD AWARDS: NO, THANKS
http://www.paotie.com/2008/01/27/paotie-to-2007-deafread-awards-no-thanks/
I’m proud of him and others who are taking a stand against DR’s BS.
59.
Pam Estes | January 27, 2008 at 1:24 pm
Okay J.J., let’s say for the sake of argument that you are the only one counting the votes. Can you say without a doubt that none of the others, including Tayler and Jerd, will ever see the votes or have any way of knowing who voted for them or didn’t? After all, you are requiring our email addresses and our IPs and other identifying information logged with our votes. Tayler likes to have his hands in everything, I doubt he would not want to have a look. Can you swear he and others nominated will not have access to the votes? I seriously doubt it. Do you see the point of how this is a conflict of interest?
60.
JD | January 27, 2008 at 1:59 pm
From Gally net…..interesting!
Greetings!
I got this yesterday. I don’t know from whom, and why…
All the same, Chris Leon is a guy I hold in high regards. So visited his site after reading this to see what he had to say on the issue. In fairness, I don’t follow Deafread.com blogs. I don’t know the other side of the story. However, I’m totally against efforts by any individual, organization, or entity to silence/censor people.
Our community is large enough to accommodate different perspectives. We should not allow any group to dominate discussions on the Internet or force their views down our throats. Keep the freedom of speech flame burning….
Peace,
Zendun
61.
Beta | January 27, 2008 at 9:13 pm
That was very big of Patoie. I’m in awe. Gives new meaning to taking a stand. ** hands waving **
62.
from L.A. | January 27, 2008 at 10:59 pm
Let you know it very bad idea to drive car in San Francisco. Hard to find the parking and cost sky the high $$$. It will be much better DR find hotel in San Francisco, not outside.
63.
jodi | January 27, 2008 at 11:02 pm
Thanks for moving the post from deafread extra…didn’t even know it existed until I saw that it had been moved from there. Still learning…Jodi
64.
Gomez | January 27, 2008 at 11:13 pm
I love you to death, buddy. I’m smiling right now from ear to ear. Even though I could give a rat’s ass about Deaf Read, you showed them who’s boss.
A word to the wise: You can’t silence someone like Chris Leon. It’s stupid to even try. When my buddy roars, you’re going to feel the vibrations wherever you are.
Thank God for people like Chris who aren’t afraid to speak up when they see wrong-doing.
65.
Rene Visco | January 27, 2008 at 11:58 pm
Hi JJ,
Thanks for taking your time to reply to my comment. It’s not to knock DR down, but it has nothing to do with human editors or AI. I have said it in the past, leaving comments in Jared’s blog about the user interface design in DR.
It all boils down to a *flawed* interface design/placement. It’s not surprising that DR is modeled after the popular digg.com, listing the posts in a chronological order.
DeafPulse.com is different because it lists the popular blogs with their own posts. There is no paths for DeafPulse to censor any posts because there is no reason to do so. V/bloggers has their own sense of place in DeafPulse.com that resembles a virtual Deaf community.
However, both sites have their own pros and cons.
DR should look at it as an opportunity to push themselves to be innovative in interface design and present a lot of information in a clean and visual design. That’s a big challenge.
http://www.brijit.com/ is one fine example of how they aggregate the information in a clean and easy on the eyes design.
Why burden yourself in filtering the posts while you can have your own recommendation lists? It would make sense for DR to have its own recommendation lists, fostering dialogues.
One big problem with the blogs in DR is that it’s so hard to keep tracks of posts centered on an issue, not to mention the comments.
It would be cool if DR can develop a page that focuses on an issue then pulls all posts AND its comments on one page AND allow DR visitors/users to leave comments ON that page.
That would be a nifty idea, don’t you think?
Visual design and “information” architecture should NOT be underestimated.
Keep on roarin’
66.
RJ V. | January 28, 2008 at 3:50 am
I didn’t know about deafpulse. I like it!
67.
Andrew Marks | January 28, 2008 at 4:52 am
Very good blog. It stimulated my mind.
Yes, DeafRead do have monopoly as there is nothing else right now to compete. If DeafRead have too much power it is because we gave it to them. We can easily take it away. When there are more blogs like DeafRead, they will not have as much power like now. It is good to have more choices. I support that 100%.
68.
Peggy Sue | January 28, 2008 at 6:19 am
My husband is a computer programmer. He says it’s not hard at all to put something together like deafread. He says there is a lot of open source software available for free. It just requires some programming and customization. Maybe you two can work together to create something new, better than the current deafread. I’m sure many would love to have more choices. Contact me at my email address and I will put you in touch with him if you are interested.
69.
neon | January 28, 2008 at 6:52 am
i visit deafread.com maybe once or twice a month. its so boring and waste of time.
70.
Tom Willard | January 28, 2008 at 8:51 am
This is for DianRez (#56)
It is nice that you were able to contact DeafRead and get them to move your posts to the front page. Last spring, when I tried the same thing, I got a one-word reply from Tayler: “No.” It was a very sensitive post at a really difficult time, and that is how he chose to deal with me. So my perspective of DeafRead is different from yours.
Your suggested putting every post on the front page and only moving them to Extra if there are 5+ complaints. The whole point of Extra is that not every post by every deaf person is deaf-related. Mountain Mama, for instance, is deaf and some of her posts consist of recipes. They are good recipes, but they don’t belong on the front page of DeafRead, where people go for deaf-related v/blogs.
So the idea of having editors deciding whether a post is deaf-related or not is a good one and it ought to be a fairly straightforward process. DeafRead gets in trouble when they miscategorize posts and blacklist their critics and sponsor Best Blog awards that they also compete for.
PS .. I’ve enjoyed reading your (DianRez) recent posts on past job experiences and would encourage others to go to your blog (http://www.xanga.com/dianrez) and catch up on the series.
71.
Eric | January 28, 2008 at 12:35 pm
Tayler Mayer is an ass.
72.
RJ V. | January 28, 2008 at 2:00 pm
Hmmmm……… been checking out deafpulse. I like it but seems limited. Only 20% of bloggers? Easy to miss new ones that way. Hope Nathan will keep working on it. I like that it includes Technorati. Technorati is very unbiased. Can’t wait to see more like this. Keep it up!
73.
Anonymous | January 28, 2008 at 7:53 pm
Catching up on DR b/vlogs. This one was very interesting.
Here are points I agree with and my overall thoughts on several issues:
* The DR human editors work hard. So I want to say, let them be involved and win awards. But honest. I have to agree with those who said it doesn’t seem right. Why not have “Best Human Editor b/vlogger Award”?
* Please remember, human editors are human. They will make mistakes. Let’s give them a break. At the same time do let them know they made a mistake so that they don’t repeat those mistakes over and over again.
* I would like to see more diversity on the Human editor group. People of color, late deafened, CI users, oral deaf, etc. – there are none or not enough.
* I agree with the person who said people need to stop being laszy and learn how to use an RSS reader. That way you will not miss out on any of your favorite b/vlogs. Sometimes your favorite b/vlogger will write or video about a topic that is not deaf-related and you will miss it on DR. If you have RSS reader, you’ll see it listed. It is very worth it to get RSS reader on your computer.
* Yes, we do need more sites like DR. It would be very healthy and beneficial for us all if DR have competition. They will work harder to keep us coming back to their site and challenge themselves to do better. That is a good thing.
74.
Raining in the Northwest | January 28, 2008 at 8:25 pm
I respectfully disagree with the notion that just because you have a blog doesn’t mean your blog MUST be published in DeafRead. It’s their choice whether to accept your blog to be distributed on their website in the first place. Just because you have a blog revolving around deaf issues doesn’t mean that you’re automatically a member of their website. Did you pay a fee to join? No, none of us did. Did you sign a contract where they said they’ll publish each and every one of your blog postings no matter how provocative or challenging it is? No.
So is there somewhere written in the rule books that DeafRead HAS to publish your blog post? No.
And I have to side with Jared Evans in that it would have been a good idea to check and ask to see if they have received your blog post before jumping the gun and claiming “CENSORSHIP!!!”
I stress Tact as much as I can. The reason many of us get the shits is because we lack the tact and diplomacy to resolve issues rather than jumping to conclusions and make off-base assumptions. That’s how we get into trouble. Further, I do not see any accountability on your part in admitting that you jumped to conclusions before checking out the facts first.
The DR staff are doing the WHOLE deaf community a service by simply providing a place where all our blogs come together–they can make up all the rules they want and be as discriminating as they want–it’s THEIR site. If it was a paid service, then I’m sure it would be a different story.
Lastly, if anyone wanted to read your blog they could go STRAIGHT to your blogsite without going through DeafRead or simply subscribe to the RSS feed. Then, you wouldn’t have to worry about censorship. It would be censorship if the wordpress.com site actually took down your site because they didn’t like what you were saying. In another way of putting it, they would be putting the gag in your mouth. DeafRead didn’t do that.
So I reiterate–DeafRead can publish anyone’s blog at their whim–censorship or not. They can give out any award they please, biased or not.
Too much power to DeafRead?? Who gives people power to DeafRead? Nobody gave them power. If anyone wants to go and set up another aggregating site, go ahead. There’s nothing stopping them. By all means, competition is welcome!!
And lastly the one thing I notice lately is that no matter how much people are trying to be positive, there will always be pessimists and naysayers trying to rain on someone’s parade–but doesn’t mean you have the right to do so.
Till then,
BF
75.
My two pennies | January 28, 2008 at 9:31 pm
I’ve been lurking. Curious to see what transpires here. After reading Northwest’s comments, I’d like to add my own two pennies.
In my view it is the *deaf/hh community* that owns deafread. Even though it is created and maintained by T & J. It is the deaf/hh community that makes it what it is. Without the deaf/hh cmmunity, there would be no deafread. As a result, the deaf/hh community does hold deafread accountable for what it does. And rightly so.
Does deafread have to publish every blog-vlog? Of course not. But they *have* said that they *do* publish any that are deaf related that meets they’re guidelines. So our community holds them to that. Then when they don’t, we wonder why. We realize it sometimes has to do with bias. And we *do* have a right to complain. This is America.
Jared said Chris’s comments about speaking up about the deafread awards were not intentionally excluded from deafread. Others say deafread was pressured to include it on deafread after people went public about it on mailing lists. Which one is the truth? Maybe we will never know. One fact — many people are complaining about censorship on deafread. That alone is enough for me to believe there is some truth behind the complaints.
I will tell you this. I find censorship in any shape or form sickening. If deafread wants to continue to be the deaf/hh community’s central point for deaf/hh blogs-vlogs, they need to operate and behave responsibly and stop with the censorship and discrimination. As long as they continue and as long as people care, you will continue to hear people speak up about it. Saying “shut up, you don’t own deafread” is not going to make people shut up. Deafread is powered by deaf/hh people. We are what makes deafread ttick. We all own deafread as a community. We are the stakeholders and have an invested interest. Lucky for deafread that we do.
76.
Selene | January 28, 2008 at 10:07 pm
“Lucky for deafread that we do,” said the commenter.
Smiles. Well. Some do. Some don’t. I’m in the later group. I could care less. I’m checking this Blog out because I think Chris is hot. As he very well knows, I’ve had a big crush on him since high school. His hot Puerto Rican temper and his hot writings always make me ooohh and ahhhh.(dreamy sigh)
Here’s a wet one on you, Chris baby!! **kiss kiss**
@->———
77.
Frank | January 29, 2008 at 1:15 am
I’m a php/perl programmer and would be willing to help out. I know another programmer/web developer who is also interested. If we put our heads and energies together, bet we could create something pretty cool. I have many ideas already. I also believe we can easily find sponsors. A friend of mine works for a relay company and has already expressed interest. Contact me and let’s get the ball rolling
78.
Paotie Fan | January 29, 2008 at 11:34 am
T & J = Tom and Jerry Show
You have to admit they do kinda looks like mice/rats. Tayler with his big ears, mousey face and Jared with his big, bug eyes.
*lmao*
79.
Kim | January 29, 2008 at 12:34 pm
I like the questions from Pam Estes. I’m wondering too about the privacy.
80.
Paotie | January 29, 2008 at 4:24 pm
Who gave the editors permission to publish my full name on DR?
I didn’t.
And considering that many bloggin sites encourage people NOT to publish their private information, it stands to beg the question: who gave the editors the “right” to publish my personal information?
Ain’t no different from a person with a vendetta who tries to “out” other people, which happens too often on the blogosphere – even if their intentions were not malicious in nature.
Well, I’m not complaining since my blog has a newspaper article that was published with my full name. But I just wonder if the editors have any sense of respect towards people who do not want their personal information published.
Apparently not.
Paotie
81.
Beta | January 29, 2008 at 5:32 pm
Paotie that is so messed up. Where did they announce this?
And Paotie Fan, you are so funny. Thank you for making me laugh today.
82.
SFSU Alumn | January 29, 2008 at 10:55 pm
I lived in San Francisco for a few years and attended grad school there. It’s a beautiful city and a great place for conferences. I’d still be living there if it weren’t so damn expensive. My family and I moved back East so we could afford a nice home which would not have been possible had we stayed.
What Sounding Off was trying to convey is very true in my experience. It’s a major pet peeve of San Francisco natives for those who don’t live in the City to claim they do. If you want to say you’re from San Francisco, you need to pay your dues. You need to actually live there, pay the high rent, deal with the horrible parking, city crime, dirty streets and so on. That goes for hosting conferences too. If you’re not hosting it in San Francisco, don’t say you are. That’s pretty lame. And it’s San Francisco, people. Not ‘Frisco.
83.
Daniel is Learning | January 30, 2008 at 12:42 pm
This thread gave me a better understanding of some of the issues with Deafread. It also motivated me to download rss reader software. Wow. I didn’t realize how easy it was to use. I thought maybe you have to be a computer whiz to use it. Not true.
I encourage everyone to get their own rss reader. Rss readers don’t practice censorship.
Search on Google for free rss reader software. Good luck!
84.
Raining in the Northwest | January 31, 2008 at 10:23 am
If your name was published elsewhere, then by now it’s public information and there’s nothing you can do to control that. Additionally, if it does NOT result in you obtaining a job or slander of your character, then it’s not much to worry about. But if it is used to defame you, then there’s a lawsuit in the waiting.
Give the DR staff a break–they are learning as they go along and it’s people like you who give them what they need–feedback. How do you think the United States has a library full of laws? That’s because of our behavior that has evolved all through the past two hundred plus years that has necessitated these laws. I’ll bet you that many of the laws written in the 1800’s are so irrelevant now.
BF
85.
Willard Wills | February 23, 2008 at 2:07 am
I know both Jared and Tayler. Both of them are people of low character- Tayler most especially. Tayler has an anger issue, and is known for losing his cool. Jared is known for lying right through his teeth. Take no notice of these two.
Deafread DOES have a monopoly and they DO censor. I know this for a fact, as I have submitted some blogs and vlogs to Deafread that were considered good ones- and I have seen much less worthy articles on Deafread that were published.
There is no doubt that there’s a lot of self-interest on DeafRead. For that reason, I have not visited Deafread in over 5 months, and I have no plans to start reading DR anytime soon. Hearing impaired people have taken over DeafRead and called it theirs. They can have it.
–Will
86.
Seeker | July 12, 2008 at 5:17 pm
Deafread can suck my dick.
87.
Sarah J | September 22, 2008 at 5:54 am
WOW! Everyones comments pretty much summed up what I wanted to say except for comment #86 LOL!!!
Chris i might just take you up on the stepping forward in creating something better!!!
WATCH THIS SPACE!!!!
88.
Sarah J | September 22, 2008 at 6:05 am
WOW! Everyone basically summed up exactly my views on this! I might just take you up on the stepping forward challenge! So watch this space guyz!!!
89.
anonymous | November 30, 2008 at 2:29 am
It’s true. Deafread does censor.
I have submitted articles to Deafread several times myself and they were turned down, and I do know some friends articles got turned down, despite the quality of their articles.
Deafread has a tendency to turn down articles that seem to support Deaf culture strongly. Brian Mayer (Tayler Mayer) has an ego of incredible proportions, when in reality, he’s just a nobody.
For instance, once, he did an interview with Wayne Betts, and it was clear that he seemed to be quite proud of his association with Wayne Betts. The truth is, Brian and Jared Evans are members of the Kappa Phi Theta Fraternity, of which is now no longer existing, due to a hazing death of a pledge member within KPT. I do not know if Wayne Betts is a KPT brother, but he seems to have a lot of friends within KPT.
Wayne Betts is cool. Brian or Jared isn’t.
A lot of KPT brothers from the late 90’s are the computer nerds/ internet nerds that were there in the heyday of internet development… A good half of them do not really have good skills, and they simply exist because they have been there since the beginning and were able to almost monopolize the Deaf community online.
Fortunately, people are seeing them for who they really are. Time for Deafread to be shut down. Oralists & Hearies are the ones that runs it now.
Cheers,
-R