Quote:
Originally Posted by davidA
A deaf forum will mostly appeal to the deaf. The deaf have their own culture, that is not (and has never been) fully understood by the masses.
Deaf folk, because of earlier educational difficulties (it's difficult to learn to read and write if you are unable to hear) often make vocabulary errors; they also have difficulty with complex structures such as complements and relative clauses. Many (not all) tend to stay away from forums dedicated solely to the masses; many of them use Blackberry devices I will add.
I am wondering as well why anyone would be against a deaf forum - what harm would it do? considering that it only takes about two minutes to create a new forum (using the vBulletin software) and about the same amount of time to delete one (if the idea does not fly)
Let me also appeal to the capitalistic nature of these forums; there is (I have noticed) great support for our forum 'sponsors'  I suspect that a new deaf forum might receive lots of new sponsors (relating to gadgets, devices, and services, and Blackberry software for the deaf) but will add that this might take some time, and that I suspect that interest will be very low (in the beginning) Likely there are only a few deaf members posting here (possibly none at all) If there is no interest at all, I suspect that the idea might not be worth pursuing.
Lastly, I would advise to not put too much weight on my post. I am not deaf myself and do not speak for the deaf, they are quite capable of speaking for themselves. |
what you said
the reason I asked for this subforum is that although we all have one thing in common is using the BB...there are devices and other conveniences that deaf/HOH members might know of to pass it on to other deaf/HOH members here in this forum.
and I'm not saying that we're being exclusive about it, it's just another forum that we have in common and to get information about deaf/HOH devices for our BB's. I don't think any of the hearing folks would know of voice to text software that works with certain type of BB's. how about relay services? how about data plans for the deaf/HOH clients? having this subforum would help get any or all information about extra things for our BB out to the deaf/HOH members who aren't up to speed, and I feel it would help out tremendously.
as for languages...this had NOTHING to do with languages...it had to do with creating a subforum to get information out. It's just an extra thing on top of other BB forums to help us with technical issues, that's all. I've never studied sign or ASL til I got to college. My grammar wasn't improved til I took Business English. I'm HI with 80% -90% loss. I can do voice and hear ok on the phone...but it's texting that I prefer to use with my BB to cut down the frustration from hearing people and myself.
yes, the deafies have their own culture, but that's not what I'm after...I'm after getting information out to those who aren't on the up and up about cool devices, headsets, etc...
hope that makes sense about my request