Option request - a choice for the sight-impaired

[Kent]

I would like to request an option for players to self-identify as sight-impaired, if they so choose.

How to manifest? I suppose if this option is toggled on, then a good way to show it to other players would be if you profile them, a line shows up at the bottom:

Profile Redmond

Redmond is feeling mysterious and is not sharing a public profile.

Redmond has self-identified as a sight-impaired player.

Another way would be to put an asterisk after their name in the Who list. I am not sure how this would show up to other sight-impaired players.


Maybe my approach could here could be polished, with suggestions from sight-impaired players, but I am hoping such an option would alleviate some frustration (eg. asking questions about where something is, being told, 'use the map, chump', having to explain they are blind and can't use ascii, all around embarrassment, etc. ) And the sight-impaired player doesn't have to use it if they don't want to.

[Jaster]

If a player is sight impaired can't they self-identify just by saying so? I don't know why it needs to be hard-coded.

[Noctere]

I like the fact that this suggestion is trying to be courteous to those who are visually impaired however I think this idea would inadvertently cause more harm than good.

In one of my past jobs I used to work with some people who had physical disabilities. I am by no means an expert however I found most folks tend to not like being labeled. Those with disabilities are people just like you and me and are probably sick and tired of being reminded of their impairment on a daily basis.

That is one of the nice things about CLOK. People of every kind can come online into a fantasy environment and be anyone they want to be. In fact, I have been playing with a few players for some time and I didn't even know they had a visual impairment until they mentioned it, which I think is awesome!

As long as you are polite (as you should be in all OOC communications) you shouldn't have to worry about any "awkwardness" or "embarrassment". You don't need to walk on eggshells either. Just be yourself and if a player mentions that they are unable to see an ascii map due to a visual impairment, just remember that for the future.

[xavier]

speaking as one of those blind players, and yes for those of you not commonly aquainted with it, visually impaired is a politically correct term and I don't hold with the PC junk. However I personally do not want to see something like this implemented, I don't have any problems with people asking about blindness or even asking me what would normally seem personal questions concerning it. However I find your idea quite offensive Kent. To unvoluntarily delve into my business without any care as to what I think other than as a tag to ID me as something not like you is a sign of discrimination. No, I'm not saying you consciously meant it that way, but I've seen it before and that's where it leads eventually.

[Kent]

speaking as one of those blind players, and yes for those of you not commonly aquainted with it, visually impaired is a politically correct term and I don't hold with the PC junk. However I personally do not want to see something like this implemented, I don't have any problems with people asking about blindness or even asking me what would normally seem personal questions concerning it. However I find your idea quite offensive Kent. To unvoluntarily delve into my business without any care as to what I think other than as a tag to ID me as something not like you is a sign of discrimination. No, I'm not saying you consciously meant it that way, but I've seen it before and that's where it leads eventually.

I am sorry it seemed offensive. I meant to help, not to harm.

In my own defense, I did not say such a thing was to be unvoluntarily implemented. I suggested that players be empowered with the option to self disclose if they made the choice, or not to, if they made that choice. If no one thinks offering this choice to each individual player to select as they see fit is a good idea, then indeed I will retract the suggestion and delete the post with my apologies. I am sorry for the feelings that have already been hurt over it.

[xavier]

the reason I object is simply this. Other players have been around since the beginning of the game and yet nobody has wondered about putting a mechanic in to tag people as catholic, muslim, atheist, pagan, black, white, brown, yellow or whatever. The only thing in Clok that I have a problem doing that you as a sighted person does is reading the ascii map and yes even as a totally blind person if I'm willing to commit the time involved I can do that too. Because I have to look at the map character by character though the time/effort involved in such a thing is absolutely pointless when there are other ways to do the same job. Regardless of how you meant the suggestion, it's discrimination based on a physical attribute. This is one of the reasons I play text based games is to not have to deal with the idiotic people in the world that think they can catch blindness from a blind person, and before anyone says anything to the contrary, there are people like that out there and I've been treated like I had the plague because I walk around with a long white cane and that in the city that has one of the highest blind/sighted ratios in the world. I appreciate your apology and have taken it in the spirit it was given, but you perhaps need to think and learn something about what you are talking about before you go making suggestions on something next time. I've encountered a few things from you in game that you were so helpful with but were either way too pushy about or because of your ignorance don't do right.

[xavier]

oh and just to show I'm willing to help you along on this particular education, some things you might try throwing support behind are option requests such as the ability to toggle the
(M: 100 vs d:100 p:100 B:100)
that shows up after every line of attack. This is an awesome thing to be able to see when you want it, but it's hell on the screen reader because of the extra time needed to read it. I've heard that its implementation is possibly in the works already and other things are like what they've already done with the maps (coord system) and exits command (showing keyword room desc exits). There aren't many things I can't compensate for with triggers and thingsand there are already a lot of things in the game that do the compensating for the visually impaired, for which I'm extremely grateful and there will probably be other things that come up in the game thatwill complicate our lives that when you look at them you don't see the problem. Something that is one of these is the custom emotes, I hear they are surrounded by () or something, well unless the person using the screen reader is willing to leave their punctuation on most or full (which basically means it reads all punctuation I.E.
Kent says comma quoteHi there comma how are you doing today question mark quote
we never know about the () around a custom emote and thus lose the ability to differentiate between someone using them to do whatever and in most cases this doesn't matter at all but if someone were to custom emote something an attack which is why I assume they installed the () there really isn't anyway we can tell the difference without taking the time to manually check on it which can require up toa few seconds. Doesn't sound like much I know but just because I'm visually impaired doesn't mean I want to be restricted to a pacifist and thus have the potential for that situation. Like I said in the previous post you might want to consider asking the people who will be effected by your assistance if it's a good thing or even if they want it. I personally as I've made plain by now I hope don't want a tag labelling me as blind nor think it would do anything at all since profiles area out of character and I came here mainly to play a game where I can role play I find most of the OOC things in Clok disruptive to an extent. I leave OOC on mostly to help out people by sharing the information I've gained while playing but all the unnecessary chatter on it makes me turn it off sometimes, and no you aren't the only one guilty of this nor am I wholely innocent of it.

[Aerotine]

In Kent's defense. He wasn't say you HAVE to be labeled blind.

Did you ever consider that maybe some visually impaired players may WANT to be and not CARE what your opinion is?

What if said player needs a little more time or patience from others because they have to read more lines of text and cannot skim as quickly as a visual player? Why would you limit their ability to enjoy the game?

I don't think your peeves should speak for everyone. What he is suggesting is a CHOICE. Why would you want to limit any other players CHOICES? Why would you even suggested that such choices are RESTRICTIVE? It's a freaking CHOICE in a TEXT BASED game.

If I CHOSE to be any ethnicity in a game it is a choice and not something that was crammed down my throat.

[Rithiel]

This is not an option we will be adding, for a variety of reasons.

This topic is now locked.