[A2k] Users' rights

[John G. Heim]

The phrase "information users rights" works for me. It nicely captures the
point I made last week about  the importance of information to blind IT
professionals.

I understand the concerns people have voiced about not focusing on the needs
of the blind. On the other hand, I think that if you need a concrete example
of why these issues are important, the competitive IT business is about as
good as you can come up with.  I am not sure if I would be employed today if
I didn't have bookshare.org.  I was in a group that was being considered for
layoffs at one point in my career. I got another job based on skills I'd
learned in my own time with materials downloaded from bookshare. And I am
certain that there exist blind people who are unemployed today because they
either didn't know about bookshare or didn't have access to it because they
live outside the USA.

I am working on creating an organization meant to address this and other
problems related to being a blind computer professional. We are calling our
organization the International Association of Visually Impaired
Technologists (IAVIT). See www.iavit.org.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Seth Johnson" <seth.johnson@realmeasures.dyndns.org>
To: "James Love" <james.love@keionline.org>; "A.C.Story"
<A.C.Story@kent.ac.uk>; "Janice Pilch" <pilch@illinois.edu>; "Federico
Heinz" <fheinz@vialibre.org.ar>; <a2k@lists.essential.org>
Sent: Sunday, June 28, 2009 9:41 AM
Subject: Re: [A2k] Users' rights


>
> I think "users" is at least an advance beyond "consumer."
>
> Remember that regardless of their falling short in some ways, this is
> still a new administration (in the US) and so you are still in a
> position of being able to take the initiative in unexpected ways that
> can delineate things.
>
> I say this because something that strikes me that would handle all
> concerns really well would be to call it "information users' rights."
>
> Get away from the work as a static whole, let the context clarify that
> the information you're speaking of is the information that comprises the
> work, and audaciously use the term "information users' rights."  You can
> disregard the grumblings that will arise and just welcome in the
> transformed context.
>
> It seems to me that this is a good moment to all-innocent-like raise the
> fact/expression dichotomy point.  The implications will be huge, but
> undeniable at bottom.  You're already in with the A2K initiative; just
> take this step and you induce all the right discussion.  The dismay
> won't matter.  The point will be scored and you'll be all set to play a
> new game that's all about the right concepts.
>
> And you get to see what this administration has to say about this.  They
> haven't been posed with this analysis yet, and it will take the
> discourse back to the terms of (was it the Green Paper or the White
> Paper?  Or both?).
>
> :-)
>
>
> Seth
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Federico Heinz <fheinz@vialibre.org.ar>
> To: James Love <james.love@keionline.org>
> Cc: "A.C.Story" <A.C.Story@kent.ac.uk>, Janice Pilch
> <pilch@illinois.edu>, "a2k@lists.essential.org" <a2k@lists.essential.org>
> Date: Mon, 29 Jun 2009 10:54:59 -0300
> Subject: Re: [A2k] Users' rights
>
>> On 29/06/2009, James Love wrote:
>> > I think it is appropriate to set out rights for different
>> stakeholders,
>> > without having to prove in all cases that the rights meet a
>> particular
>> > standard used for human rights.
>>
>> That was not my point. I was agreeing with Alan in the idea that
>> thinking in
>> terms of "limitations and exceptions" is a problem, and only pointing
>> out that
>> "user's rights" may not be the best alternative because it bolsters
>> an
>> artificial creator/consumer dichotomy.
>>
>> I realize that "human rights" has its own problems, because it is
>> usually
>> interpreted in a narrow sense as defined by the Human Rights
>> declaration,
>> that's why I offered "people's rights", but there are probably better
>> alternatives which I am too stupid to think of.
>>
>> Fede
>> _______________________________________________
>> A2k mailing list
>> A2k@lists.essential.org
>> http://lists.essential.org/mailman/listinfo/a2k
>
> _______________________________________________
> A2k mailing list
> A2k@lists.essential.org
> http://lists.essential.org/mailman/listinfo/a2k
>
>