Talk:Disability etiquette

I know of atleast ONE disabled person that do NOT want to ask for help, but for people to help anyway. my Mom.

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Unattributed as this is, it seems more like commentary than neutral information. Is this a consensus from some advocacy group for the disabled, or is it a personal opinion? Some of these ("...want to be as independent as possible...") look to me like stereotypes no less than those fully-abled people might hold. --LDC

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LDC, a good start on a really sticky subject.

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I agree, Lee. I see absolutely nothing wrong with having practical advice and even, in some contexts and presented the right way, moral exhortation on Wikipedia. Knowledge, which encyclopedias catalog, includes not just declarative knowledge (knowledge "that") but also procedural knowledge (knowledge "how"). Sometimes it can be of great interest to try to codify procedural knowledge in declarative (or imperative) sentences.

The big question is how to formulate such how-tos. (We need a how-to for how-tos.) In keeping with Wikipedia's general interest in being unbiased, we want advice of a sort that is often given by experts, or in guide books. Where different experts would give different advice, the differences should be noted. We could talk about this further on how to.

--Larry Sanger

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Oh, I absolutely agree that unvarnished personal opinion is just as valuable as neutral information, and has a definite place here as long as it is properly attributed. Articles about books and movies, for example, should contain pointers to reviews. See also Lee Daniel Crocker/The Perfect Martini.

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A good example of this is a topic such as chess/strategy.

Strategy in a game such as chess can largely be personal opinion.---- The information here is a synthesis of material from the "able" community, which I have used unteenth times and heard as many times in training staff at public events on how to interact with the disabled. Here, may I mention, the disabiltiy training for the staff at the Clearwater Revivial, Central Park Free Public Concerts, Summerstage a Central Park, the Achilles Runner's assistants at the NYC Marathon and private organizations who offer this info and training for money to businesses. Now I will be more than happy to remove this, if you think this is opinion. This is information developed by and used by the Able community.

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No one is doubting that it is valuable information, and we want it here. The point is that the article itself should say where the information is from. Is "able" as you use it above an organization of some kind, or a community of people and organizations from a certain area? Say so; I'm sure their experience in this are is valuable, but that doesn't make the recommendations any less commentary. If they are an informal group, start the article with something like "The following guidelines for dealing with the disabled are recommended by an informal consensus of American advocates for disabled causes:" --LDC

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Ruth, I'm not sure what you mean by "able community"--perhaps those people who are not disabled but are concerned about disability? Anyway, if what you say is true, then perhaps this etiquette could be presented in an encyclopedic format rather than just as a set of rules. Here are some questions, I imagine, that an (exhaustive) article about disability etiquette would include: what is it (generally); why think there is a need for it; who has been concerned in developing it; what items in the history/culture of how the disabled have been treated has led to the developing of a disability etiquette; are there professional associations, books, experts, etc., associated with the topic; and, of course, what some actual rules are that constitute or express a disability etiquette. I think just having the rules without further ado, particularly when the rules aren't attributed to anyone, does look like just so much personal opinion. --LMS---- Able is as opposed to disabled. Nothing more or less. This distinction divides, in a genral way, the whole population of the world. There is no implication that the able community is particularly concerned about the disabled. I should think you would realize that. What term do you use..normal?

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As for me, I think that the page is great and could be moved out of commentary without much trouble at all. I see that other people have the same idea that I have -- attribution can really help here.

Etiquette in general can be treated in an encyclopedic fashion, even though some aspects of etiquette are a matter of opinion or personal/group preference.

Attribution is one of the easiest in our bag of "encyclopedia-making" techniques. It isn't that the Wikipedia advocates these rules of etiquette, although of course we probably generally do, it's that these are widely accepted, as evidenced by the such-and-such organization's promotion of them. --Jimbo Wales---- I don't know what more you want from me. Another place we used this training was the Good Will Games in NYC. If you want a statement from these organizations that they support these guidelines, you will wait a really long time. I, however, offer to remove the pages, because I am very tired of having my work moved and manipulated by pseudo-editors and pseudo-assistant editors, when we don't have any editors at all, that I know of. I will not engage in a p*ssing match with these people, by moving my pages back. Watch for my Wikipedia-Questions You Should Have Asked. This is not directed at you Jimmy.

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You clearly misunderstand our intentions here, Rose. Jim, Larry, I, and I'm sure many others find this to be an accurate and useful piece of text that we want to include here, and have said so consistently. We have never questioned your expertise in the matter or the value of your contribution. It also happens to clash with the stated neutrality policy, so we suggested ways to remedy that, notably a simple attribution or introduction that doesn't even have to name names if you don't want to. Something like "This is a set of rules that have been used successfully at..." would be wonderful. I really don't understand what the problem is. Also in accordance with Wikipedia policy, we made direct changes without a second thought, since the concept of "authorship" is rather flexible here. Perhaps commentary pages placed under the author's name will discourage direct wholesale editing, or we could establish a policy to that effect. --LDC

You, sir, are now one of the psuedo-editors I refer to. I suggest that you work on your own content. Who made you class monitor? I have already moved this page to my site. One more word of guidance from you and I will surely delete it. Is that clear? And, I believe I actually misunderstand nothing that is going on here at wikipedia. Maybe, you had better look around you, eyes wide opened. See a small set of self-appointed people who are here almost all day, checking each change for bias, commentary, clarity etc. Gee- I could swear I was writing for Nupedia- funny thing that.

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Ruth, one of the things I like about Wikipedia is that there are any number of self-appointed editors who go about editing other people's stuff, including yours. --LMS

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This is a great article, but... once something has been published under the GPL it can not be unpublished. Anybody is free to use it for ever. Is this true for the GNU FDL? In that case the poster could not just take the article off, as anybody could legitametely just reproduce it. Whether they would want to do this out of respect of the other persons views though...

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It is provocative and a bit unnecessary to change spellings like patronise which are OK in some versions of English and not others. Personally I prefer the -ize spellings but I often revert it on principle when people have changed the spelling for no good reason. I fear it shows a failure to think of other people's views. It's not the same as a real speeling mistaike. 138.37.188.109 12:43 Jan 29, 2003 (UTC)