Black and white clip art depiction of audio being turned into a transcript. On the left, the sound is depicted by a pair of headphones with an audio wave going between the two ears pads. A simple black arrow goes from left to right. On the right, the transcript is represented by a stylized typed document.
In order to make these transcripts as accessible as possible, each one is produced in four formats: as an online post for access convenience, in a word document with a low vision friendly font (Veranda), in a pdf with a dyslexia friendly font (OpenDyslexic), and a low contrast blue on black pdf as an access option for people with migraines (Veranda).
- Audio link (includes the show notes): https://writing-alchemy.net/podcast/announcement-podcon2/
- Main transcripts page: https://writing-alchemy.net/podcast-2/transcripts/
- Word doc of this transcript: Writing Alchemy PodCon2 Announcement transcript
- Pdf of this transcript: Writing Alchemy PodCon2 Announcement transcript OpenDyslexic3
- Blue on black transcript: Writing Alchemy PodCon2 Announcement transcript blue on black
- Transcribed by: Fay Onyx
Writing Alchemy Announcement – “Making RPG Podcasts Accessible” at PodCon2
[*Happy, bouncy, electronic music plays and then fades out.]
Fay Onyx: Hello everyone! I’m here because there is an announcement that I’m really excited to share with all of you! I will be leading a workshop entitled “Making RPG Podcasts Accessible” on January twentieth at PodCon2 in Seattle. If you will be attending PodCon2 in-person, I’d love to meet you at my workshop.
Here is the workshop description: In the US one in four adults has a disability. This means that there are a lot of disabled people in the RPG podcast community, however physical, social, and game play barriers often prevent the full inclusion of disabled participants and audience members. This workshop is about identifying common barriers and addressing them. We will discuss areas to be aware of, accessibility tools, strategies for handling pitfalls, and ways to improve representation of disabled people.
For those who can’t attend in-person, my workshop will also be in the remote attendance feed. Remote attendance costs forty dollars. PodCon2 does offer scholarships, but they seem to be focused around physical attendance and I’m not sure how many are left at this point. I will, however, put a link to the scholarship application page in the show notes, because that is definitely worth checking out.
At this point PodCon2 does not offer transcription of their remote attendance feed, so transcription is up to the people they record. Thanks to my amazing volunteers, it will happen at some point, but I can’t make any promises about the timeframe.
I am excited to say that I will be getting a copy of the audio of my workshop and I will be putting it on this podcast, but it will take a while before I am able to do that.
I have however, created a roughly ten thousand word reference document that goes over all of the topics covered in the workshop in greater detail than I have time to discuss in the workshop itself. These topics are: what accessibility is, what ableism is, different experiences of disability that are important to know about, how to make a podcast accessible to disabled audience members, techniques for including disabled participants, how to deal with game systems that don’t handle disability well, how to create disabled player characters that are respectful representations of disability, and negative patterns of representation to avoid.
This reference document is intended to serve as both an accessibility feature (especially considering transcripts are not going to be available right away) and as a resource that people can use to follow up on specific topics. If you want to check it out, you can find it in the resources section of the Writing Alchemy website. A direct link will be posted in the show notes. I am also hoping that this document can serve as a community resource to further the conversation about accessibility in the role-playing game podcast community.
Before we go I have one more announcement to make. I did an interview with Tess on the I Am Hear podcast, which is a podcast all about diversity and representation in the role-playing game community. This episode is scheduled for release this Tuesday, January fifteenth. In it we talked a lot about disability, accessibility, my first experiences with role-playing games, and the way I’m designing my role-playing game, Magic Goes Awry, around the core principle of accessibility. You can check that out on the I Am Hear podcast feed starting this Tuesday. A link to their website will be in the show notes, and once the episode goes up I’ll put that in the show notes as well.
Thank you so much for listening! I look forward to talking with you again soon!
[*Bouncy jazz music fades in and then ends.]
Fay: (outtake) Hello Everyone! Oh no! (laughs) I don’t like that, that’s — oh dear.
