>At the 2025 market, vendors and Christmas Village staff had temporary ramps that they could place out to accommodate shoppers who used wheelchairs or walkers.
>"Well, it was a great approach, but a very small group of people do not like that they need assistance to enter booths which able bodied don't need to ask for," Bauer wrote.
I wonder if that small group of people are pleased with the outcome.
This is a very Harrison Bergeron outcome, enforcing equality with a least common denominator. I wonder how many bureaucrats could read that story as a guidebook.
>how many bureaucrats could read that story as a guidebook.
All of them
This required a solution so creative and comprehensive that it took 32 months of many stakeholders and the best legal minds they could get.
If you can't add access for all, then add barriers for all.
Too bad the regulators didn't spell out plainly that the default under imperfect conditions is always more barriers not less. They should have made it obvious that the law primarily requires more barriers the whole time without having to waste almost 3 years to achieve clarity.
And the additional barriers have to be so effective even the most able-bodied can't overcome them.
It's the law.
I liked it better when there were more able-minded regulators.
counters and booths? like most other Christmas markets? (do a google image search for Christmas market vendor .... endless pics of booths with counters and vendors standing behind counter offering up goods laid out at front)
Weird that Philly was doing walk-in booths in the first place.
Nah, people with disabilities aren't an exception that can be safely ignored, they are real humans who exist and who deserve to be respected and accommodated equally by those who build public accommodations.
Your virtue signaling is irrelevant to my point -- technology has caught up to the point that no special changes to infrastructure are needed anymore (by the time the law would get repealed, anyway.) They get better accessibility while the public has lower cost.
Another ADA disaster, along the same lines as when UC Berkeley was forced to get rid of all their free online course videos, because they didn't have the budget to have someone write captions for them. You should never have to take something away from people who aren't disabled just because making it accessible isn't feasible.
> You should never have to take something away from people who aren't disabled just because making it accessible isn't feasible.
The ADA is a horribly-designed law precisely because it encourages this behavior. Reforming it is necessary, but doing so would be so politically toxic that it will probably never happen.
Really just a case of needing common sense judges and enforcement or this law.
Temporary event and with an accommodation solution for the minority of disabled guests shouldn't have to inconvenience everyone just because a few people "feel" inconvenciend for having to ask for the accommodation. It's not like this is a subway station, public building, or some other kind of venue where a permanent access solution is needed.
I think some people who are disabled are just miserable people who go around trying to make everyone else miserable too. That's the only reason these lawsuits are filed.
Seems to me both are examples of institutions not complying with the rules (laws, regs, etc.) by choice.
The Philadelphia government could have budgeted for ADA compliance and it chose not to, just as Berkeley could have budgeted for captioning. Budgets reflect our priorities. It is clear from both examples that meeting the needs of people with disabilities is not a priority.
Why would Berkeley budget for captioning on a series of videos that they're giving to the public for free?
Expecting them to accommodate everyone for loss-making global educational philanthropy is a ridiculous overreach. It has made the world poorer and entrenched the disadvantage of everyone not in the US. Thanks, disability advocates.
The same reason the free sidewalks in front of Berkeley can fit a wheelchair. Because it is illegal to make one that discriminates against people who use one. Even if it's free.
But also, "really cheap" is only cheap when something is done for profit. When it's done as a charitable side gig then pretty much any expense is expensive.
For many charitable activities it may be, but also, the University of California system has a 53.6 billion dollar budget. They could pay some people to caption them if they cared to do so.
They could have, but they didn't, then they got sued, and now kids in Kenya can't watch world-class lectures. Thanks, disability advocates! Thanks, UC!
It was solely UC's decision to pull the lectures rather than comply with the 36 year old law that they were already well aware of but decided of their own accord to ignore. They never cared about being charitable, they cared about the ROI on their marketing stunt to make themselves look charitable.
You presume wrong. No college professor will waste the amount of time required to fully write out everything they will say in class in advance. Notes, yes. Detailed notes, not unlikely. Full script to be read verbatim, nope.
The ADA isn't some surprise gotcha that crept up on any of these people, it has been around for 36 years. The problem is that 36 years later, people are still ignoring the fact that disabled people even exist.
Whether or not we want to admit it, this stuff happens because people think and act like it is okay to disregard accessibility.
> The ADA isn't some surprise gotcha that crept up on any of these people
The ADA was written in an extremely non-specific way that allows unelected bureaucrats to reinterpret it every so often. To be honest, the US would probably have a more accessible society if the law was better written.
I agree but also is it really that difficult to use some sort of auto-caption program with maybe an asterick not assuring accuracy? I feel like it would be impossible to legislate the quality of captioning and it isn't like mistakes don't happen even with a human transcriber.
That article (slash advertisement for Speechpad) spends a lot of words not explaining why human captioning is preferable in general to automated captioning. If I, a human, make a mistake in captioning my videos, am I any better off than if I'd used whisper and it messed up?
Are you sure? When I went to college, the whiteboard was a supplement to the lecture, so either/or would not have worked.
What if they are hard of sight and can't read the whiteboard or blackboard, even if they might be able to read a captioned video?
Lord knows I remember barely being able to read some professors handwriting, even in person, or being able to understand what the hell a professor was saying in person.
How many people are there that can efficiently caption complex mathematical equations?
>At the 2025 market, vendors and Christmas Village staff had temporary ramps that they could place out to accommodate shoppers who used wheelchairs or walkers.
>"Well, it was a great approach, but a very small group of people do not like that they need assistance to enter booths which able bodied don't need to ask for," Bauer wrote.
I wonder if that small group of people are pleased with the outcome.
This is why envy is a sin.
This is a very Harrison Bergeron outcome, enforcing equality with a least common denominator. I wonder how many bureaucrats could read that story as a guidebook.
>how many bureaucrats could read that story as a guidebook.
All of them
This required a solution so creative and comprehensive that it took 32 months of many stakeholders and the best legal minds they could get.
If you can't add access for all, then add barriers for all.
Too bad the regulators didn't spell out plainly that the default under imperfect conditions is always more barriers not less. They should have made it obvious that the law primarily requires more barriers the whole time without having to waste almost 3 years to achieve clarity.
And the additional barriers have to be so effective even the most able-bodied can't overcome them.
It's the law.
I liked it better when there were more able-minded regulators.
counters and booths? like most other Christmas markets? (do a google image search for Christmas market vendor .... endless pics of booths with counters and vendors standing behind counter offering up goods laid out at front)
Weird that Philly was doing walk-in booths in the first place.
ADA needs to be repealed, as technology has developed enough to allow disabled people access by themselves.
Quadrupeds, ai vision, etc.
Nah, people with disabilities aren't an exception that can be safely ignored, they are real humans who exist and who deserve to be respected and accommodated equally by those who build public accommodations.
Your virtue signaling is irrelevant to my point -- technology has caught up to the point that no special changes to infrastructure are needed anymore (by the time the law would get repealed, anyway.) They get better accessibility while the public has lower cost.
Fuck the poor ones that can't afford that, right?
wheelchairs, mobility scooters, and screen readers aren't free
I'm tired of this world
[dead]
Another ADA disaster, along the same lines as when UC Berkeley was forced to get rid of all their free online course videos, because they didn't have the budget to have someone write captions for them. You should never have to take something away from people who aren't disabled just because making it accessible isn't feasible.
> You should never have to take something away from people who aren't disabled just because making it accessible isn't feasible.
The ADA is a horribly-designed law precisely because it encourages this behavior. Reforming it is necessary, but doing so would be so politically toxic that it will probably never happen.
Yeah the ADA can both be a good idea, while also having perverse incentives/externalities. Reform is the answer.
Really just a case of needing common sense judges and enforcement or this law.
Temporary event and with an accommodation solution for the minority of disabled guests shouldn't have to inconvenience everyone just because a few people "feel" inconvenciend for having to ask for the accommodation. It's not like this is a subway station, public building, or some other kind of venue where a permanent access solution is needed.
I think some people who are disabled are just miserable people who go around trying to make everyone else miserable too. That's the only reason these lawsuits are filed.
Seems to me both are examples of institutions not complying with the rules (laws, regs, etc.) by choice.
The Philadelphia government could have budgeted for ADA compliance and it chose not to, just as Berkeley could have budgeted for captioning. Budgets reflect our priorities. It is clear from both examples that meeting the needs of people with disabilities is not a priority.
Why would Berkeley budget for captioning on a series of videos that they're giving to the public for free?
Expecting them to accommodate everyone for loss-making global educational philanthropy is a ridiculous overreach. It has made the world poorer and entrenched the disadvantage of everyone not in the US. Thanks, disability advocates.
The same reason the free sidewalks in front of Berkeley can fit a wheelchair. Because it is illegal to make one that discriminates against people who use one. Even if it's free.
Counter point is captions are also really cheap. I presume the lecturer read from a script, just use that.
They were archival footage of old lectures.
But also, "really cheap" is only cheap when something is done for profit. When it's done as a charitable side gig then pretty much any expense is expensive.
For many charitable activities it may be, but also, the University of California system has a 53.6 billion dollar budget. They could pay some people to caption them if they cared to do so.
They could have, but they didn't, then they got sued, and now kids in Kenya can't watch world-class lectures. Thanks, disability advocates! Thanks, UC!
It was solely UC's decision to pull the lectures rather than comply with the 36 year old law that they were already well aware of but decided of their own accord to ignore. They never cared about being charitable, they cared about the ROI on their marketing stunt to make themselves look charitable.
My response to that would be
“Hey intern/grad student, enjoy your new assignment”
>I presume the lecturer read from a script.
You presume wrong. No college professor will waste the amount of time required to fully write out everything they will say in class in advance. Notes, yes. Detailed notes, not unlikely. Full script to be read verbatim, nope.
The ADA isn't some surprise gotcha that crept up on any of these people, it has been around for 36 years. The problem is that 36 years later, people are still ignoring the fact that disabled people even exist.
Whether or not we want to admit it, this stuff happens because people think and act like it is okay to disregard accessibility.
> The ADA isn't some surprise gotcha that crept up on any of these people
The ADA was written in an extremely non-specific way that allows unelected bureaucrats to reinterpret it every so often. To be honest, the US would probably have a more accessible society if the law was better written.
Already had accessibility. Now there's none.
I agree but also is it really that difficult to use some sort of auto-caption program with maybe an asterick not assuring accuracy? I feel like it would be impossible to legislate the quality of captioning and it isn't like mistakes don't happen even with a human transcriber.
Automatic Captions are not ADA compliant.
https://www.speechpad.com/blog/ada-compliant-captions-vs-aut...
If you have a risk of getting sued because someone notices a transcription error versus just not uploading videos, people will choose the latter.
That article (slash advertisement for Speechpad) spends a lot of words not explaining why human captioning is preferable in general to automated captioning. If I, a human, make a mistake in captioning my videos, am I any better off than if I'd used whisper and it messed up?
How does one auto-caption a white/black-board in a world before insanely cheap computer vision?
Captions are for audio. I presume if someone is reading captions they can read the whiteboard.
Now if you are talking about the blind then sure thats different but the blind don't need captions.
Are you sure? When I went to college, the whiteboard was a supplement to the lecture, so either/or would not have worked.
What if they are hard of sight and can't read the whiteboard or blackboard, even if they might be able to read a captioned video?
Lord knows I remember barely being able to read some professors handwriting, even in person, or being able to understand what the hell a professor was saying in person.
How many people are there that can efficiently caption complex mathematical equations?