Caption your videos for accessibility – and you may reap a viral reward

Skeptics should be doing our part to improve accessibility – for our events, our online content and in general. If the message of rationalism and science is truly of value, then it should be accessible to everyone, regardless of their abilities.

One way to do this is to ensure that online audio and video content is provided with transcripts and/or closed captions. This allows deaf and hearing-impaired people to access the content.  That’s 5% of the world’s population, or 360 million people worldwide according to the World Health Organization.

Aside from feeling good about doing our civic duty, it can benefit outreach as well. Captions can be used as the basis to translate the content into other languages, allowing your content to reach other countries. And as I explained in my YouTube meta-data post back in January, the additional text of the captions helps make your content more attractive to search engines like Google.

There are some skeptics who are leading the way with this, whose efforts I’d like to highlight in this post. But I’m also going to update you on my own efforts, which recently helped one video become a viral hit.

Please help update my skeptic podcast census

Back in May 2011 I attempted to measure the amount of skeptic podcasting being produced and generated some interesting statistics.  In April 2012 I ran an update post attempting an overall census of what podcasts were out there, and found I had missed a bunch the first time through.  This post is an attempt at updating the data once again.

It seems there was some untapped demand for a good catalog of skeptic podcasts – that 2012 post is the number 3 most popular single post on this blog for the last year!  Podcasters have told me they see new listeners coming to their sites regularly, referred from there.  Noticing that phenomena, Shane P. Brady took the data I generated there and turned it into an interactive catalog called Skeptunes.  I encourage you to give it a look.

One of the things I noticed in the 2012 survey was that the number of different skeptic podcast titles seemed to be topping off around 100, and it looked like there was a slight trend downward.  It’s always dangerous to extrapolate from real-world measurements like this, so I didn’t draw much of a conclusion.  So now that more than a year has gone by, I think it’s time to measure again and see what is actually happening.

I’ve started with my data from last time, and looked in Skeptunes, SkepticsOnThe.Net and of course iTunes for any new ones I missed. But I’m sure I still must have missed something. Check out the list in the rest of this post and let me know which ones I’m missing.

Morning Toolbox – November 9, 2012 – Bond Friday

Morning Toolbox is a (nearly) daily digest of interesting tools and techniques that skeptics can use online.

I’ve written about and talked about TruthMarket several times over the last few weeks, I think it could be cool skeptic tool. You should check it out. They just announced Chris Mooney has joined the Board of Advisors, joining other familiar faces like Shawn Otto and Michael Shermer.

Read on for more tools and ideas for skeptics working online…

Morning Toolbox – November 8, 2012 – Post election catch-up

Morning Toolbox is a (nearly) daily digest of interesting tools and techniques that skeptics can use online.

Have to do some catch up today due to several missed toolboxes. (Things have been busy at my day job).

Simon Perry has updated the Fishbarrel plugin for Chrome.  This is a great skeptic tool for reporting online quackery. This fixes some bugs and adds support for some new forms, and it is now easily downloadable from the Chrome store. You should uninstall your existing copy first.

Read on for more tools and ideas for skeptics working online…

Afternoon Toolbox – November 1, 2012 – Sandy fakes, WOT and podcast awards

Morning Toolbox (which sometimes appears in the afternoon) is a daily digest of interesting tools and techniques that skeptics can use online.

Apologies for the recent missed toolboxes, been very busy this week with real life stuff and a shortage of links for you.  I may start doing these toolboxes on an as-needed basis, perhaps three times a week.  Let me know what you think.

First off, big congratulations to Web of Trust for reaching 50 million downloads!  I’ve blogged a bunch about Web of Trust and how it is a great tool for skeptics. Now you are reaching even more people with it.

Meanwhile Russian ISP mail.ru is expanding into other countries. Why do I mention that? This is the same ISP that recently started bundling Web of Trust for their customers.

Read on for more tools and ideas for skeptics working online…

Morning Toolbox – October 29, 2012 – Post-CSIcon Monday Blues

Morning Toolbox is a daily digest of interesting tools and techniques that skeptics can use online.

Would you say skeptics are “outgunned by well-funded adversaries when trying to correct false claims”? I would. Well TruthMarket is starting an Affinity Program for such groups. They’ll support your efforts, do press for you, etc. while you use TruthMarket to challenge falsehoods. Check out this PDF document explaining the program, which runs from November 1 to December 31.

Read on for more tools and ideas for skeptics working online…

Morning Toolbox – October 26, 2012 – CSICON continues

Morning Toolbox is a daily digest of interesting tools and techniques that skeptics can use online.

I’m at CSICON this weekend, so this post is small and late again. Normal pace will resume on Monday.

Google Instant is that feature where it will suggest popular searches as you start to type in the search box. It appears they are now pulling this info not just from searches but from the content of web pages too. I wonder what skeptic content is getting pulled in here? Have you seen any?

PBS Frontline has posted its program on climate change denial online.

Rebecca Rosen has an interesting piece at Atlantic about how Wikipedia is nearing ‘completion’ and that actually poses a problem for it.

ReadWrite suggests that a good place to go for political fact checking is your local librarian.

Don’t forget you can vote in the Stitcher Podcast Awards once per day, give your favorite podcasts some love.

Another short toolbox, have a good weekend!

Follow me on Twitter at @krelnik.  You can submit stories there or via submit at whatstheharm.net.

Afternoon Toolbox – October 25, 2012 – Short news from CSICON

Morning Toolbox is a daily digest of interesting tools and techniques that skeptics can use online.

I’m at CSICON this weekend, so my toolbox posts may be a little short and often late in the morning

Another day, another Chrome browser plugin it seems. This one is called Unpolitic.me and it removes politics-related posts from your Twitter and Facebook feeds. Could be handy if you are tired of that stuff by now.

Wikipedia reformats their pages for mobile devices like smartphones, which is very very useful. They recently redesigned their mobile formatting to make it more legible and easier to use.

I mentioned Blekko the other day, this is an alternative search engine that lets you customize the results in ways that are difficult to do in Google. Handy for skeptic-oriented searches, among other things. They have posted new tutorials, so go learn about this tool.

PunditTracker is teasing that they may add some sort of incentive program next week.

Don’t forget you can vote in the Stitcher Podcast Awards once per day, give your favorite podcasts some love.

Another short toolbox, have another good day!

Follow me on Twitter at @krelnik.  You can submit stories there or via submit at whatstheharm.net.

Morning Toolbox – October 24, 2012 – Slow news? Here’s an infographic

Morning Toolbox is a daily digest of interesting tools and techniques that skeptics can use online.

Not a ton going on today, it seems – everyone must be getting ready for CSICON this weekend.

But as they say, a picture paints a thousand words, so here’s a picture of some Wikipedia statistics:

I’ve pointed out before how Wikipedia gets huge traffic compared to skeptic web sites. You can see here Paul Kurtz’s bio on Wikipedia got almost 17,000 views in two days after news of his passing. Good thing Susan Gerbic and her team are keeping an eye on this, helping ensure vandals don’t take advantage of this (as I mentioned yesterday).

WordPress updated their iOS app yesterday. I’m finding it more and more useful with each update, especially for moderating comments as they come in.

Don’t forget you can vote in the Stitcher Podcast Awards once per day, give your favorite podcasts some love.

Another short toolbox, have another good day!

Follow me on Twitter at @krelnik.  You can submit stories there or via submit at whatstheharm.net.

Morning Toolbox – October 23, 2012 – Awards season

Morning Toolbox is a daily digest of interesting tools and techniques that skeptics can use online.

Online awards may seem silly, but they can really help your favorite web sites and podcasts gain visibility, which is good for skepticism. Voting is open on the Stitcher Podcast Awards and many skeptic favorites like Skeptoid, Skeptic’s Guide and Geologic Podcast are nominated in various categories – along with other good podcasts like RadioLab, StarTalk and so on. You can vote once per day. It does require a Facebook “Like” from you, so you’ll need an account there, but they don’t spam you as far as I can tell.

CSICOP founder Paul Kurtz died over the weekend. When people are in the news or die, that is a key time that their Wikipedia articles get vandalized. Fear not, Susan Gerbic and her team leapt into action.

Remember how Google’s Knowledge Graph has given added visibility to skeptics in search results? Well now Google is adding “explanations” to the related people displayed below. It’s mostly actor and actress appearances now, but I’m wondering what the explanation for James Randi below Sylvia Browne will be?

Chrome browser plugins like Fishbarrel and RBUTR are key skeptic tools. If you’re switching to Chrome to take advantage, here are some tips to get the most out of Google’s browser.

A short toolbox, have a good day!

Follow me on Twitter at @krelnik.  You can submit stories there or via submit at whatstheharm.net.