This is an archive of past discussions about Disability etiquette. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

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

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

LDC, a good start on a really sticky subject.

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.

--User:Larry Sanger

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 User:Lee Daniel Crocker/The Perfect Martini.

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.

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

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. --User: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?

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. --User: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.

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.

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. --User:LMS

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...

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)

This annoys...

Ugh. I'm reading this article, and I partially want to bust out laughing (awkward in a library), and partially want to throw my monitor across the room (see above).

Now, I am partially-sighted, and this article drives me nuts.

Some of it is good. Others of it makes me want to bash someone's head in.

Penta's rules of disability etiquette

There is 'no' one, universal ruleset. Each disability is different, and each person is more different still. Thus, I won't try.

However, I can comment on rules for blind people. So I shall. Warning: I am grumpy.

Do not take a blind person's cane, distract their guide dog, or distract someone guiding them. Taking their cane is like taking someone's prosthetic limb. More to the point, it is as if you casually walked up and ripped their eyes out. A guiding cane could never be a weapon. It would break.
As a rule of thumb, if someone is using a cane, guide them by taking the elbow, not the hand. Additionally, take the elbow opposite of the hand holding the cane; This keeps you from throwing off the rhythm essential to proper use of the cane.
It is distinctly unnerving to have someone come close to you and talk to you, and it's worse if you can't see them. If circumstances permit, say something from a distance first, so the person you're speaking to at least has an idea where you are.
The blind do not have enhanced hearing or other senses. Sorry. They just learn to use what they have better.
Curiosity is not a bad thing. Most people with disabilities know full well that they stick out, and that people with disabilities are rare for most people to ever meet. If you're curious, just ask. You may not get an answwer, but asking is never bad.

--Penta 00:11, 2 Sep 2004 (UTC)

This page and discussion looks like its gone through a huge set of arguents...which shows that it has the potential to be a wonderful page, if folks can work together. I do not say this as an abled person. I have multiple disabilities some of which bring in different points of view.

I have Learning Disabilities. In university i would take a sheet to the prof from the disability centre. For the first few years the page listed the type of disability...for some of the reasons that followed it was changed to just stating there was a disabiliy and what the appropriate accomodatin had been assessed as. So the profs would see i had a LD. Asking if there was any particular way in which they could help, but not pushing it was not offensive. Asking me to please explain how the results of my psychological testing resulted in the diagnosis of a learning disability (and the people that asked this were always questioning if there was one) was very annoying. I actually did get used to providing some of the information, one part was actually neurological...but i'm no psychologist i was a university student! Teachers who thought i would need a lot of extra help were annoying generally. But if they had helpful solutions it could be very good. One prof pointed out that my writing was all that good (it wasn't). She also pointed out that the university had a free service where a TA would help you write your papers better by going over them to show how they could be more academic and such. The service generally looked at papers before you handed them in, but i never had sufficient time. Instead i brought in a previous term paper where i got a C plus but had worked hard and rewrote sections of it for when we met each week based on advice. This helped me ENOUROUSLY. Because of written output problems i had managed to learn how to write enough to scape by, but not how to write properly. I was good at getting facts together hence i was in university. But i missed how to write. So i learned it there....now a lot of people are missing that, but it was a wonderful suggestion as to how i could improve my work that fell into the area of etiquette. The TA had never seen anyone that would bother to work on something that was already marked but got used to it and saw i was learning. It helped that i explained that i thought i'd missed part of how to write and wanted to learn it.

Personally i'm more uncomfortable discussing the psychiatric disabilities that i have because there is even more stigma attached to them. I think in some ways etiquette depends on the disability (from observation and experience). Can this be added to the page in some way? ie ask what my LD is...i'll answer or not. Ask what my psych disability is...i'm not as comfortable although politically i take the stance of replying, but its a hell of a lot more uncomfortable. And in that situation a person saying "we all get the blues" is annoying as hell because it diminishes....although some people word it in a way that works fine.

Given all the argument on this page might it not make better sense to wipe it clean and to start again? I'm not saying i disagree with all or a lot of it, i'm just saying i want to make it work because i think its important but that i don't know how given the condition that it is in now.--Marcie 17:59, 23 Oct 2004 (UTC)