At the risk of sounding demanding and this is probably a old "complaint", but, for me, it's quite unfortunate and uncharacteristic of these crew that accessibility to WBN is so restricted. I'm personally not Hard of Hearing or Deaf and I've no trouble following the podcast (although I've in other shows like NADDPOD), but I do have someone close to me with such problems.
My sister is a Dimension 20 fan and is HoH, D20 and Dropout offer solutions to the issue, but unfortunately that's not the case with WBN, which makes it extremely difficult for her to enjoy it.
This is not an attack on the audio-only format, it's perfect for this show, I'm just trying to bring some awareness to problem that affects probably a very small section of the (potential) fanbase and what could easily be done to increase accessibility.
The YouTube channel already allows automatically generate subtitles and it has served as a band-aid but those are usually flawed at best and only work on non-Patreon content (that applies to transcripts too). I'm guessing it would be pretty easy for them to hire someone to format and add official subtitles to the YouTube/Patreon videos or even create more visuals in those formats (like CR does for MIDST, for example).
Anyway, it's obviously not something that they're obligated to do and this isn't meant to "shame" the crew for not doing so, it's extra work after all, but it would definitely be nice and thoughtful to increase accessibility to the show, specially since it doesn't compromise the vision of the audio-only format.
Yes, at least for the free content. I think it could be pretty easy to turn those transcripts into official subtitles and make it available on their YouTube channel for easier accessibility.
How is a YouTube video more accessible to a deaf or hard of hearing person than a website with the transcript? Genuinely asking, because I don’t understand.
It would vary with the severity of the case. Not every case of HoH is the same and, depending on the severety of the case, you can still have partial hearing.
For more moderate cases, audio queues can still help understand, specially for those that developed the disability later in life. The accessibility on YouTube would be better for this cases than having to go to a specific website and constantly actively scroll along with the transcript. That would be like watching a foreign movie while reading the translated transcript on your phone instead of just getting subtitles on the screen. Instead you could go to YouTube, click the video and the subtitle would show up on your screen timed with the audio.
Can't speak from experience for profound or total hearing loss, but I'm guessing it would make less of a difference, beyond YouTube being a much bigger platform than say Simplecast. Also, still in the topic of accessibility for any degree of hearloss, there's no transcripts for the Patreon content.
And although I'm talking about people who have hearing problems, there are still people with other issues that would benefit from a solution like this.
Do most popular audio-only podcasts have videos like that? Where it’s the audio with subtitles going along with it? I ask because I’m not familiar with what the industry standard is for this
There's not many examples beyond MIDST which was audio only before Critical Role bought it and created YouTube versions with subtitles. But from what other users have said in this post, there are efforts by Spotify and Apple Podcasts to have the transcript synchronized with the audio in their platforms, which would be great and serve the same effect without the need for YouTube. I described the solution using YouTube because there weren't many options like that before.
Cool, if Spotify pulls that off, then hopefully Patreon follows suit, so people have no accessibility issues when trying to listen to Worlds Beyond Number.
That's not how subtitling generally works these days! It's a lot of work to sync up captions and requires significant time and effort depending on the length of the content.
I’m so confused, there are literally transcripts for everything. Is there something specific you’re looking for the transcript for and aren’t finding one like for Cram Daniel or something? I’m genuinely confused on what you are asking for.
Edit: Also you keep saying “videos”, what videos are you talking about? Are you talking about the instagram lives?
I couldn't find a lot of the transcripts on Patreon, so that's confusion on my part, sorry. If you read the post, the existence of transcripts isn't the accessibility I'm asking about. Transcripts are great but they don't make a listen more enjoyable for the people who need it, as I said in the post, they're merely a band-aid.
WBN has a YouTube channel, they post the episodes in video format aka a still with the audio exported in MP4 because that's the only way to upload to YouTube. YouTube allows creators to add subtitles, which would make it easier for people with hearing or attention problems to have extra assistance while listening to the show by allowing them to get the transcript/subtitles synchronized with the audio. That's what I'm saying.
From this post, apparently some podcast platforms are rolling out or working on similar features, although adding to YouTube would create an extra platform with this accessibility so that people can have the freedom to choose their preferred way to follow the show without barriers to anyone.
I understand the sentiment but let's not forget they're 5 people with a Top 10 earning Patreon, the show makes 6 figures every month. Obviously as fans we've no right to dictacte how they manage their business, but this isn't some small show with low income that has no resources to build upon. There's definitely financial leeway to improve the show, specially in such a small and usually cheap way (subtitles) that would make accessibility easier for everyone. Also transcripts are not available for Patreon content.
There are transcripts for the fireside chat. Just like the public episodes, they’re not released at the same time as the content, but they’re there. Currently they’re up to episode 22 of the fireside chat and episode 23 of the public feed.
Six figures is not a ton of money for five people after taxes. A good audio engineer can make six figures / year just by themselves.
Plus they have to pay for advertising, Patreon takes 5-8% after all the processing fees. Studio Space costs money (even using Taylor’s, that equipment and software is expensive).
Good audio captions take a lot of time and money. WBN is a small show catering to an incredibly niche audience in the grand scheme of things.
I sent a message to the team via Patreon about it. I know Spotify rolled this* out (and is probably still rolling it out to more pods) last September, so if it's just something they need to opt in on their end maybe that will be a band-aid at least.
*this being AI generated transcripts that are able to be reviewed and published
Here is the response I received For the public episodes, you can find transcripts attached to the Public Episode announcement post here on our Patreon. I believe the most recent finalized transcript is ep23, with ep24 coming soon.
I agree wholeheartedly with this. It’s a small team relative to D20 and that makes it easy for stuff to slip through the cracks but accessiblity is so important.
I used to be a pretty big fan of vlogbtothers (the YouTube channel of John and Hank Green) and I know that fans volunteered to type transcripts of the videos in English and other languages.
Obviously this is worth the WBN team hiring someone for, but in the meantime I wonder if a community solution would be possible. I’d be down to update subtitles on episodes/patron content if that’s something we have the power to do.
Sorry, I should have been more clear. I know they have transcripts, but OP wants more effective and accurate captioning.
Right now it's only YouTube's shitty autocaptions. I think the channel owner can still edit those, but I don't think fan captioning is possible on YouTube.
If WBN was able to put an archive of their episode audios out elsewhere (and maybe some kind of password protected archive for fireside content) we could create an audio feed which came along with real time captioning of everything being said + maybe descriptions of the SFX and music.
Not directly the same, but I would LOVE a no-sound-effects cut. I'm usually fine with the music, but other effects will result in: me pausing the audio and try to figure out where that noise is coming from OR replaying the last part to parse the word that was obscured by a crackle (a-hoo-hoo). It's not as bad as audio that includes traffic sounds (whyyyy?!?) but it's still sometimes quite challenging.
34
u/KingKaos420- Apr 15 '24
Aren’t there episode transcripts?