Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Disability/Archive 1

Archive 1 Archive 2 Archive 3 Archive 5

Thanks Bib

Thank you Bib for the invitation to join this WikiProject group. I would like to join - especially as I proposed for such a WikiProject group last year! However, this will be the first WikiProject group to which I have belonged, so please can you give me help in learning how to be a member. Many thanks, ACEOREVIVED (talk) 19:40, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

Welcome. (Left a message on your talk page.) There are several ways to be a WikiProject member. Passive or active or something in between. Any involvement in the project works. This specific WikiProject is very new, started by Roger on June 11. I added myself as a member on June 12, and so far I've been doing stuff from the to do list. I started the Paralympics Task Force quite recently, and have copied some codes from there. There are loads of WikiProjects to draw inspiration from for the WikiProject Disability setup. Bib (talk) 23:12, 13 June 2010 (UTC)
Welcome on board ACEOREVIVED! Roger (talk) 09:11, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

Can a bot tag relevant articles automatically?

Is it possible to arrange for a bot to automatically place our wikiproject template on relevant articles? For example all articles in Disabilty categories. Roger (talk) 08:23, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

I found the right way to do it - see Wikipedia:Bot requests#Please help a new WikiProject Roger (talk) 08:54, 14 June 2010 (UTC)
There already exist such bots. (I very recently suggested one for another project at the WikiProject Olympics talk page.) You would need to create a page with the appropriate categories at Wikipedia:WikiProject Disability/Categories, and then suggest it for a bot, for example Xenobot. See instructions at User:Xenobot Mk V. (See also current requests at User talk:Xenobot Mk V#Pending tasks.) Bib (talk) 09:05, 14 June 2010 (UTC)
Please watch and participate in the process here: Wikipedia:Bot_requests#Please_help_a_new_WikiProject. Your input would be apreciated. Roger (talk) 15:59, 14 June 2010 (UTC)
In view of the unanticipated complications that have surfaced (see the discussion on the Bot requests page), I have suspended the request until such time as this project develops clarity on what to include and exclude. Roger (talk) 11:07, 15 June 2010 (UTC)
As I mentioned at the bot request, I'm sorry if I confused you, and I'll be happy to do a simple project tagging of just Category:Disability (not it's subcategories, that would be too many unrelated page). I can take care of all the confusing settings for you. Feel free to drop me a message on my talk page if you're fine with that. - EdoDodo talk 15:18, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

((tick}} Should be done with Category:Disability, feel free to leave me a message on my talk page if you would like me to tag more categories. - EdoDodo talk 17:06, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

Meshes with medicine

This project overlaps extensively with medicine. Might be best to turn it into a medicine task force such as those found here [1]. It will keep our small number of volunteers all in one place.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 19:41, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

No No No and a thousand times NO! It is precisely to broaden the field away from being purely medical that this project was started. Disability issues range from politics, law, education and human rights to engineering to sport and so on. Medicine is only one aspect. I will fight such a move with my last breath because it is in fact the "Medical/Welfare POV" of disability that is to blame for most of the problems that disabled people face in everyday life. Roger (talk) 09:41, 15 June 2010 (UTC)
Further explanation of my position: There are two competing fundamental "models" of Disability: One is the Medical model of disability and the other is the Social model of disability. Please read both articles. The two models represent the two major branches of what this project is about, to subsume it into the Medicine Wikiproject would effectively "prune away half of the tree". Note also that the Medical model of disability article is included in WikiProject Medicine, while the Social model of disability article is included in WikiProject Sociology but not vice-versa. WikiProject Disability exists specifically to join these two separate branches into a single tree. (Apologies for overusing the arboreal metaphor.) Roger (talk) 11:00, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

Definitions

This is an interesting initiative.

There is bound to be discussion about whether specific "disabilities" are or are not disabilities. For example, people with Blindness or Autism might argue that they are not disabled, while people who don't know what it is may argue that Non-24-hour sleep-wake syndrome is not a disability while it most decidedly is. Non-24's cousin Delayed sleep phase syndrome may or may not be a disability, depending on how severe it is and the life-situation of its victim.

Are these discussions anticipated, and a way of dealing with them thought out? Good luck, - Hordaland (talk) 08:55, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

My own POV is that we should discuss each case on its own merits. I'm looking forward to such debates. I believe we should, as a matter of urgency, work on fully developing the article Disability and use its definition(s) insofar as they exist, to inform the criteria we develop for the project as a whole. Roger (talk) 09:52, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

I would certainly like to see non-visible disabilities, such as diabetes, epilepsy or asthma, and indeed, possibly autism, included in the auspices of this project group - in the United Kingdom, the first three would certainly be counted as non-visible disabilities. While I am here, can I say that I think the to-do list needs expanding? I appreciate that this group is still in its infancy, but I think that we do need to think more specifically about our aims regarding specific articles. ACEOREVIVED (talk) 21:26, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

I agree, invisible disabilities are just as legitimate as the obvious ones. I think we should "use" the Disability article to flesh out the definition(s). As it stands it relies on UN convention, as well as US and UK law and refers to the medical and social models - IMHO a fairly good start. Roger (talk) 08:00, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

To Do list proposals

Propose and discuss additions to the list here:
(Archive discussions when they are concluded)

Improve and expand our Top Importance articles

Disability, Social model of disability, Medical model of disability These articles to a large extent define what this project is about. I believe it is important for them to be high quality articles. Roger (talk) 08:00, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

Are there other articles that deserve a Top importance rating? Roger (talk) 07:22, 17 June 2010 (UTC)
Copied to the list on the main page. Roger (talk) 13:34, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

Improve the Category:Disability

The tree could do with a good pruning, there are articles in it that IMHO do not belong there. Even some subcategories are suspect. (BTW how does one format a link to a category? When I use double square brackets it becomes invisible!). Roger (talk) 08:00, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

Put a colon (:) infront of it. (Like [[:Category:Tea]] for example, which would create Category:Tea.) Bib (talk) 08:26, 16 June 2010 (UTC)
Thanks Bib you're a wizzard on the technicalities, I'm a muggle LOL! Roger (talk) 08:46, 16 June 2010 (UTC)
Thank you, you're not a muggle, and you're welcome. Bib (talk) 23:28, 16 June 2010 (UTC)
Copied this item to the To do list on the main page. Roger (talk) 13:37, 16 July 2010 (UTC)


What articles do people consider are needing to be pruned from this category? I was not too sure about low back pain myself - this is a problem, but not a disability. ACEOREVIVED (talk) 19:51, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

Change the WikiProject image

The current image is focused on accessibility, and could be more fitting for for example WikiProject Accessibility. Since WikiProject Disability is meant to be about a broader scope, there could be other eligible images. Bib (talk) 23:28, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

I was thinking along those lines, but came up blank. Too, accessibility broadly defined is one key need for those with invisible as well as visible disabilities: access to the job market, for example. - Hordaland (talk) 03:18, 17 June 2010 (UTC)
Then accessibility should be included in the image, however the current image might be too narrow. Found some examples on how others have done it. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Bib (talk) 11:11, 17 June 2010 (UTC)
 
 
 
 
That is an interesting collection. I like that the last one includes the brain, as so many disabilities are neurological in whole or in part. Hordaland (talk) 16:31, 17 June 2010 (UTC)
It is a great collection of examples (I like the dolls) but IMHO most of them over-represent the sensory/communication disabilities (blindness and deafness). I'm to blame for the current image, I just grabbed the first thing that looked relevant. Though I must say if one interprets "access/accessability" in the broadest sense it is a very apropriate concept: Access not just in the physical sense (buildings, transport, etc.) but also to social and economic activity, political representation, enabling technology, education, etc... Roger (talk) 07:30, 18 June 2010 (UTC)
Copied this item to the To do list on the main page. Roger (talk) 13:40, 16 July 2010 (UTC)
Now we see it is also used by fr:Portail:Handicap I think it would be sensible to keep it (and change it in a coordinated way with other portals if ever necessary). Speaking as the man on the Clapham omnibus I must say that this is the universally recognised symbol for "something to do with disability". The accessibility project is using icons from Gnome which have a specific relationship to accessibility (in one of its aspects.) I think we can remove this from the list of things to do: there is after all no shortage of work. Mirokado (talk) 23:44, 18 September 2010 (UTC)
That's exactly what I was thinking when I saw the French site. I've become used to the present logo anyway and as you say it is the "universal" symbol for disability. I "vote" to remove it from the "to do" list. Roger (talk) 06:49, 19 September 2010 (UTC)
No further comments in 9 days so I am removing that item. Mirokado (talk) 07:19, 28 September 2010 (UTC)
Hope this can possibly be reconsidered, I made a symbol, inspired by THIS, including some other universal symbols. Bib (talk) 21:04, 5 January 2011 (UTC)
There is I think too much fine detail for this to be effective at the icon sizes, but it would be fine at 100px on the Portal page. Mirokado
Good. I'll try it now, and link to this talk page in the edit summary. Bib (talk) 18:19, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
Ha! I had forgotten about the sidebar at 80px. I think that is also OK from the point of view of resolution. (images embedded further up this section) --Mirokado (talk) 20:48, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
I know practically nothing about copyright, but that image is very close to the iStockphoto version, which is for sale.  ?? --Hordaland (talk) 06:46, 7 January 2011 (UTC)
I think it's far too busy to be a good logo/icon - needs to be far simpler and bolder - my "vote" is still with the original logo which is recognised as the universal logo for disability in the broad sense. Roger (talk) 17:42, 7 January 2011 (UTC)
Hordaland, each symbol in the image was free to use at Wikimedia commons, and anybody can use them in any way, even try to sell them online if they wish, such as that site is doing. Bib (talk) 18:49, 8 January 2011 (UTC)
Roger, could it maybe be an option if the image was made out of 4 symbols. I see that of the logo's 8 symbols, there's the one wheelchair symbol, and the other 7 are all about hearing and visual impairment, it could be enough with one wheelchair, one hearing and one visual symbol. Bib (talk) 18:49, 8 January 2011 (UTC)
In that case the fourth could be ASL for communication, that's a very pretty symbol. --Mirokado (talk) 18:56, 8 January 2011 (UTC)
Suggestion. Bib (talk) 19:13, 8 January 2011 (UTC)
Try swapping the bottom two so the two human figures are on the leading diagonal, I think it will be more balanced like that. --Mirokado (talk) 19:38, 8 January 2011 (UTC)
Swap. Bib (talk) 20:22, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

All used sizes. Swapped on the right. I think the swapped are better, the diagonals in the human figures follow that leading diagonal nicely. The two smaller sizes still do not work but as far as I am concerned 100px and 80px are rather nice. --Mirokado (talk) 20:48, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

Not really liking the braille logo - the fact that it contains text spoils the "iconicity" of the whole image for me. There's an alternative in the form of a "crossed out" eye that I believe would look better. Here is an example although its not in the standard white on blue colour scheme - http://lh3.ggpht.com/_5eCQilBo4E8/S3Mhdi-NRUI/AAAAAAAADeA/R4LY1kzu_jc/TH_visuel.gif Roger (talk) 22:09, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

 

 
Assuming the figure with the cane also represents blindness, it doesn't seem right that 2 of 4 icons represent the same; I agree that if any of the 4 looks "wrong", it's braille. A head on a pillow could represent sleep disorders and migraine. Or a drawing of a brain could represent everything neurological, from dyslexia on. Hordaland (talk) 23:17, 8 January 2011 (UTC)
The correct "walking stick" icon is either the 2nd one in the second row or the the 3rd one on the bottom row on this page - http://www.istockphoto.com/stock-illustration-12473237-accessibility-signs.php. It represents a person using a stick to walk - not the white cane of the blind. It can also represent aging/elderly - which as we know is associated with many disabling conditions. I disagree with Hordaland - we should stay within the standard ISO pictogram set. I can't find a website that shows the entire set all drawn to the same scale and colour, not even the ISO's own website has them! Roger (talk) 08:07, 9 January 2011 (UTC)
The present one looks like the white cane of the blind, and is used as such. The 3rd on the bottom you mention looks like a walking stick for sure. Hordaland (talk) 11:05, 9 January 2011 (UTC)
The symbol with the stick is called Pictograms-nps-accessibility-low vision access.svg. New image with ear and with brain. Bib (talk) 13:42, 9 January 2011 (UTC)
The one with the ear has a successful visual balance. There is a theme of mobility for the leading diagonal and communication for the trailing diagonal. The brain on the white background does not work at all in conjunction with the others though. Would it be possible to have that white on blue? There is also too much detail for an icon. I was wondering about a white brain with a fairly prominent, stylistic, blue lesion running through it and blue background... Thanks for continuing to provide examples :) --Mirokado (talk) 14:01, 9 January 2011 (UTC)
Thanks for your patience, Bib! The ear addition and the sign language pic give 2 of the 4 for deafness. The brain would be good if the colors were reversed. Possible? Hordaland (talk) 13:59, 9 January 2011 (UTC)
Take a look at this - http://www.epa.gov/inter508/images/icons/icon_brain.gif - maybe it can be the basis of a "clearer" more iconic symbol for the brain. Roger (talk) 14:39, 9 January 2011 (UTC)
I used another "brain in head" image, couldn't resize that one properly. Brain in head white background, brain in head blue background, brain blue background. Bib (talk) 17:38, 9 January 2011 (UTC)
I like that! A minor change for consistency with the others would be to colour the brain solid white - like this. Roger (talk) 18:17, 9 January 2011 (UTC)
Oooh, the brain is now perfect. The poor fellow should be facing inward (center), so he could change places with sign language. And the white stick should be changed to the walking stick. That would make the whole thing just great, IMO. --Hordaland (talk) 18:28, 9 January 2011 (UTC)
I don't think the cane needs to change anymore as the brain has replaced the braille. Mobility/physical impairment is already represented by the wheelchair. Roger (talk) 19:10, 9 January 2011 (UTC)
The current icon kindof looks like it has a walking stick, some people might believe it is even if it is not changed. If it is changed to a walking stick, there won't be any visual impairment symbol. Bib (talk) 19:18, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

All sizes again. Looking pretty good now. We still need the original symbol at the two smaller sizes I think. --Mirokado (talk) 19:43, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

Should there be a vote over which image to use, or how does this work? Bib (talk) 09:34, 10 January 2011 (UTC)
I don't think a vote is necessary - nobody has raised any objection here so we have consensus anyway. There's just one small tweak I'd like to see - "brain" should face towards "wheelchair" as Hordaland mentioned earlier. I also agree with Mirokado that for the two smaller sizes we should rather stay with the wheelchair logo by itself, because at those sizes the detail of the new logo gets too fine and it loses its "iconicity" (is that a word?). Roger (talk) 09:49, 10 January 2011 (UTC)
Head is turned now, I misread that earlier. Bib (talk) 14:13, 10 January 2011 (UTC)
Hehe, didn't know that, but it is: Iconicity. The image is ready to be added then? Cause then I'll do it, unless somebody else does it first. Bib (talk) 18:15, 10 January 2011 (UTC)
Not quite the meaning I had in mind LOL! I think the image is ready, but I'm not sure if we have consensus about using it for the smaller sizes. When this image gets too small (the two smaller sizes in the example here) I think we should switch back to using the wheelchair sign by itself. So templates that use a small logo, such as the userbox and the little portal link, should not be changed. Roger (talk) 19:38, 10 January 2011 (UTC)
I like best the image where the brain-man is looking forward. I agree that the wheelchair sign should be used on templates that uses the small logos. Bib (talk) 20:54, 10 January 2011 (UTC)
I agree with Bib here. With all the faces pointing to the right there is a sense of forward movement to the montage. --Mirokado (talk) 21:26, 10 January 2011 (UTC)
That's something I hadn't noticed before. You're right, they should all face/move "forward". I think this process is now complete - use the montage (with all elements facing/moving to the right) for the larger logos and for the small ones keep the previous wheelchair symbol. As far as I am concerned the change can now go ahead. We've done good work here everyone! Special thanks to our graphic artist Bib for patiently doing all the fussy little changes we suggested. Roger (talk) 21:45, 10 January 2011 (UTC)
This was fun. Great suggestions. Bib (talk) 23:11, 10 January 2011 (UTC)
This is SPECTACULAR. I know I've said it before, but I just gotta say it again. Great job all!!! Kikodawgzzz (talk)

Fundamental articles

I have identified a few articles that IMHO are of fundamental importance to this project: Disability is the cornerstone, next to it but equally important are Social model of disability and Medical model of disability. I have in fact used these articles to defend the independent existence of this WikiProject in the section "Meshes with Medicine" above. Please give your attention to these articles to improve their quality and usefulness. We also need to include an importance rating in the Project template used to tag articles similar to that used by other wikiprojects. (Don't forget to invite more participants.) Roger (talk) 11:22, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

Added importance rating in the Project template. Bib (talk) 17:18, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

Policy on the Importance rating

We need to develop a guideline in using the importance rating. I'm thinking we could have a fairly systematic hierarchy that somewhat resembles the category tree. Roger (talk) 07:31, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

I've created a section for this at Wikipedia:WikiProject_Disability/Assessment#Importance_scale Roger (talk) 10:35, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for doing this, Roger - I somehow think that rating articles related to disability for both their quality (are they stubs, start class, grade B, A or Featured Articles) and for their importance should head our to-do lists. What do other members of this WikiProject group think? ACEOREVIVED (talk) 20:08, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

Make that two to-dos.
  1. Rating quality is fairly easy.
  2. Rating importance is more difficult, and the WikiProject article importance scheme could use some rewording, or at least new examples, specific to the project at hand. IMO. Hordaland (talk) 20:40, 18 June 2010 (UTC)
So, in bed last night I was thinking of this rating issue. (Please warn me if I'm showing signs of the sin of owning the project because I catch myself thinking of it all the time!) In the case of biographies of notable disabled people do we rate people who are notable as a consequence of their disability (Oscar Pistorius, Marlee Matlin) higher than those who are notable for an unrelated reason but just happen to also be disabled (Stephen Hawking, Franklin D. Roosevelt)? Roger (talk) 08:56, 19 June 2010 (UTC)
Does nobody have an opinion about this?I posted a more specific question (not hypothetical, a real and relevasnt question) here: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Disability/Assessment Roger (talk) 12:03, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

Does an article like Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 belong to the project? If so, what importance should it have? Do articles about disabling conditions and ailments, such as Blindness belong? Importance by prevalence, severity, ??? Hordaland (talk) 14:05, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

The ADA article definitely should be included. I think it should have a high importance rating - at least to start with - ADA is a very significant piece of legislation with far reaching effects on the lives of the disabled population of a large country. Articles on disabling conditions must naturally be included too, though I don't know where to rank them in Importance. Maybe we need to have a substantial number of articles of a wide variety (politics, biography, law, sport, technology, medicine, etc.) before we can really figure out a sensible importance rating "system". We should also take a good look at how other projects do it. Roger (talk) 18:07, 22 June 2010 (UTC)
I've never been a huge fan of the importance parameter. For one thing, it's so subjective and anyone can go along and change it, depending on what they think is important. Also, although I can see the value of rating things as "top" or "high", I don't really see the point of rating things as "low importance". I like the way the Film project does it, at Wikipedia:WikiProject Films/Core, rather than using the template parameter, they worked out, as a project, which articles were the most important. Now, this is just my 2 cents, and I'm not necessarily suggesting we do that. The film project is much bigger and more active, and they had outside sources to work from (like top 10 film lists) to help them decide. However, it might be useful to have a page somewhere here with a a list of the articles we think are important, and we can discuss them there. As Hordaland said above, it's a much trickier thing than rating class. Another thing to bear in mind is the traffic that articles get, as mentioned below. That will surely have some impact as we want our most heavily trafficked articles to be as good as possible. Anyway, just some thoughts...--BelovedFreak 10:17, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

Proposed merge of two similar articles within this project.

Please take a look at Talk:Universal_design#Merge_proposal and participate in the discussion. Roger (talk) 12:09, 20 June 2010 (UTC)

Programme on disability

I live in the United Kingdom, where, recently, on BBC Two, there was a programme about disability - I do not know who else might have seen it, but maybe some of the things mentioned could go in an article somewhere (although the programme was not a terribly academic one - it was on the coverage of disabled people in television programmes, such as sitcoms or soap operas. ACEOREVIVED (talk) 23:22, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

Take a look at these links, there may be enough material for an article although we must be careful not to create "activist" articles here on WP.
OK that is quite enough for a start. Roger (talk) 10:45, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

Intelligence Citations Bibliography for Articles Related to IQ Testing

I see that several articles within the scope of WikiProject Disability mention issues related to IQ testing. I have posted a bibliography of Intelligence Citations for the use of all Wikipedians who have occasion to edit articles on human intelligence and related issues. I happen to have circulating access to a huge academic research library at a university with an active research program in those issues (and to another library that is one of the ten largest public library systems in the United States) and have been researching these issues since 1989. You are welcome to use these citations for your own research and to suggest new sources to me by comments on that page. I especially appreciate suggestions from members of this project. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 20:33, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

Joseph Merrick

Hello, I was wondering if you would do me the favour of having a quick look at Joseph Merrick, an article I'm currently working on. Merrick (aka the Elephant Man) was famous for his physical deformities and was exhibited as a "freak" in Victorian England. Another editor suggested that I ask the advice of the members of the disability project with regard to whether or not the language used in the article is appropriate. For example, I'm trying to avoid labelling Merrick as a freak, but have still mentioned freak shows. In your opinion is this appropriate? --BelovedFreak 23:49, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

I've read it and I think its a really good article. Well done! Roger (talk) 10:40, 6 July 2010 (UTC)
Thanks very much! No problem with any of the language used?--BelovedFreak 10:48, 6 July 2010 (UTC)
Nothing struck me as inappropriate. But then I am in principle opposed to using PC language on linguistic grounds and I also intensely dislike the intellectual dishonesty inherent in political correctness used for its own sake. You'll get no brownie points for calling me "differently abled" <puke> but I will give you a dirty look if you say I'm "wheelchair bound". But that's just me - others may of course disagree. Roger (talk) 11:05, 6 July 2010 (UTC)
Ha, thanks. I think it's hard to strike that balance sometimes especially when some terms are ultra-PC in some countries but actually considered quite offensive in others. I can't imagine hearing someone use the term "mentally retarded" in the UK without being offensive, but it's apparently quite acceptable in the US. Anyway, I just wanted to cover all bases. It was pointed out to me that people may be more likely to read certain articles if they have a personal connection ie. that someone with deformities similar to Merrick's might be even more drawn to the article, so I didn't want to inadvertently call someone (by association) a freak in my zeal for telling good story! Again, thanks for your input.--BelovedFreak 11:52, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

Pageview stats

After a recent request, I added WikiProject Disability to the list of projects to compile monthly pageview stats for. The data is the same used by http://stats.grok.se/en/ but the program is different, and includes the aggregate views from all redirects to each page. The stats are at Wikipedia:WikiProject Disability/Popular pages.

The page will be updated monthly with new data. The edits aren't marked as bot edits, so they will show up in watchlists. You can view more results, request a new project be added to the list, or request a configuration change for this project using the toolserver tool. If you have any comments or suggestions, please let me know. Thanks! Mr.Z-man 00:48, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

Scope, coverage and adding more articles

I've tagged a few more articles for the project this morning. As I did, I started thinking that we perhaps need to nail down the scope of the project and criteria for inclusion. For example, I tagged epilepsy which some may disagree with, but it did so because a) it can be very disabling in itself and b) it's often associated with more complex congenital disorders. I presume it was for similar reasons that articles like schizophrenia and psychosis have been tagged. Obviously labelling conditions/syndromes/disorders/illnesses as "disabilities" can be controversial, often to people that have said condition, but I think that as a wikiproject, we should focus on any condition that has a disabling effect on a person's life. Any thoughts?

We also need to think about what biographies we will include. Will we include anyone that has a disability? Only those that are well known for it, or for whom it has had an impact on the reason they are well known (eg. paralympic athletes)? Disability activists would presumably be included. What about doctors or scientists that have had an impact on a certain disability?

For tagging of more relevant articles that we may miss, Xenobot Mk V is very handy. All you have to do is make a list of the categories you want to include, and the bot goes through and tags all articles within that category with the project template. I would be more than happy to set that up if people want it. You do have to be a little careful as sometimes categories contain subcategories that contain articles unrelated to the project, but with a little care, I think it's doable. Do people think that would be helpful?--BelovedFreak 10:09, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

I would be happy to clean up whatever the bot mistags. It seems much more efficient than tagging articles by hand.

I emphatically endorse the suggestion that conditions such as epilepsy or psychosis are in our scope - they are unseen disabilities. ACEOREVIVED (talk) 23:05, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

For what my opinion is worth, I would only include biographies of people who are notable for something related to disability. Paralymic athletes, yes. Inventors of assistive technology, even they do not have a disability themselves, yes. People who have a disability, but who are not in most part known for that (David Paterson comes to mind here), no. I'm involved with Wikiproject Wisconsin, which somehow decided that any person who had a significant event in Wisconsin, like being born, is part of the project's scope, giving us thousands of articles not related at all to Wisconsin. --Danger (talk) 19:07, 25 August 2010 (UTC)
Do we really want to exclude people like Stephen Hawking a highly notable scientist but also known for having motor neurone disease? Roger (talk) 09:55, 28 August 2010 (UTC)
Stephen Hawking wouldn't be excluded because he is known in large part for being a person with a disability. If you know anything about Hawking, you probably know about his disability. On the other hand, even if you know a lot about Angel, the X-Men character, you probably don't know that he's an amputee. --Danger (talk) 10:05, 28 August 2010 (UTC)
I see what you mean and agree, but you are contradicting your own earlier post. We must be careful to clearly distinguish between "notable for" and "known for" because the word "notable" has a very specific meaning on WP. Roger (talk) 14:11, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

Added to project

I've been working on Ray Murphy, Jr. for some time in sports. When I became aware of your project here, I added the project template to the talk page. Please take some time to review and help to improve the quality of this article.--Paul McDonald (talk) 02:24, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

disability sidebar?

Sociology has a sidebar. Every subset of politics and religion imaginable has a sidebar. Even discrimination (by itself!!) has a sidebar. Yet Disability has no Sidebar. None at all. IMHO that's reprehensible. Let's make a sidebar! How is a sidebar (technically) made? I tried going to Wikipedia:Sidebar but it doesn't have a "creation" section. Kikodawgzzz (talk) 18:11, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

Since I'm not fluent in template-ese, when I want to create a template like a sidebar I copy the code from something that looks like what I want and then alter it. I would suggest doing that. --Danger (talk) 19:37, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
Assuming I know what sidebar means, I'd ask that it not be an ugly, gawdy one like 'organized labour' uses. See for example Shift work. --Hordaland (talk) 08:19, 2 September 2010 (UTC)


People with disabilities

I have just noticed that there is a category in Wikipedia entitled "People with disabilities by nationality". This could interest our members. ACEOREVIVED (talk) 23:20, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

thanks re template mods

I want to thank User:Fvasconcellos deeply for his work on my new Template:Disability thingie. I am, as you can see from my Talk page and my intense attempts to add it to disability-centric articles, very very proud of having started the sidebar and gotten it off to a good beginning. So Fvasconcellos's efforts represent a wonderful effort and I just want to express my appreciation. I also hope that others on WikiProject Disability (and elsewhere on Wikipedia) will over time expand and deepen this Template with as much maturity and grace as has this user. Again, many thanks. Kikodawgzzz (talk) 10:05, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

Well done to Kikodawgzzz for getting it started. I'm just a little concerned about some of the content that has been linked on the sidebar. I feel we should keep less important links off it - stay with the major "themes" of disability issues (law, rights, models, sociology, etc. and high importance articles otherwise its very easy to clutter it up with all kinds of "trivia". I've just noticed a dance company has been added to it. While it may be a very good dance company and very deserving of an article - in in the big picture of disability issues of serious global significance, it really is just a small noise. Roger (talk) 11:42, 8 September 2010 (UTC)
What say we leave it to the regular editors of the AXIS Dance page to decide whether or not it belongs in the sidebar. I would think it would chiefly depend on whether AXIS regards itself as important enough to do so, and whether it can prove that the general population agrees with that assessment. Overall, however, AXIS is very well known worldwide (mostly because it's one of the only companies on the planet that openly and consistently uses chair-user/ambulatory dancer interactions such as the ambulatory dancer lifting the chair into the air etc). Kikodawgzzz (talk) 12:18, 8 September 2010 (UTC)
I think you may be misunderstanding my position. I'm not at all opposed to placing the template on any relevant articles but I am concerned that the template itself should not contain an indiscrimiate heap of links to any and all articles. There simply isn't enough space in the sidebar for it to contain a link to every single page the that it (the template) is placed on. Therefore I am suggesting that the sidebar itself should contain links to only key topics and the most important/significant articles. BTW the same argument applies to my removing the link to Personal Care Assistant from the sidebar - but not the sidebar from the article. Due to the practical limitation of the size of the sidebar we should be selective about its content
Yes. I'm absolutely the first to admit that the Sidebar should be kept well-pruned and subject to only the most relevant articles. I really and truly mean that. But, with that in mind, it also comes down to which articles are by their nature the most relevant to disability. Things like Personal Care Assistant and SSDI are nothing if not exactly that, as are the other links that I tend to add to the sidebar. I am mostly doing additions and excisions myself at the moment considering that no significant number of other users working on this stuff seems to want to take up the mantle themselves (and I'm fine with that, of course). I actually do not consider my additions to be indiscriminate in the least, on any level in fact, and in fact I personally believe my additions to the Sidebar have been quite discriminate indeed — you'll notice that I haven't added nor do I plan to add a list of specific conditions, such as cerebral palsy or muscular dystrophy, into the Sidebar, for example. Anyway, if at any time a significant portion of others in this WikiProject (meaning more than 1 or 2!!!) definitively considers a particular addition I've made to be a stretch, then obviously they are free to call for its removal and/or to add better ones. That's the democratic way to do things. I've never claimed to "own" this thing, but I DO believe that anything that the Sidebar links to should also have the Sidebar within the corresponding article. It makes things more uniform. So whatever decisions are taken should be taken in a way that they keep the article Sidebar>Sidebar text thing consistent, or at least as much as possible. Kikodawgzzz (talk) 22:13, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

Society for Disability Studies article

This article is unacceptably sparse given the admittedly small, but still noticeable, presence of the Society and its disability studies partners in several countries. I don't have the information to fill this article out as I am not involved in any Society activities, but that doesn't mean this article can't or shouldn't be expanded massively.Kikodawgzzz (talk) 12:20, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

template reactions by WP:MED

I've had some (predictable) resistance by the WP:MED community over my placing of the Disability Template in some of their articles. Their complaints are echoed in a related forum that tries (but fails) to properly detail Wikipedia guidelines on Templates.

I detail my reaction in both places this way:

"Hordaland and Noleander, et al., I am the creator of the Disability template and I can tell you that my adding of it to distinctly disability-related articles does mean that the adding is anything but indiscriminate. I do agree with both of you that there should definitely be a central location at which to discuss the appropriateness or inappropriateness of templates — it would make life for Wikipedians a whole lot easier, including myself. For instance, I have had zero idea of whether to paste it into just articles that refer strictly to disability culture and organizations, or whether to also paste it into articles about conditions that are widely recognized by humanity to be definitive disabilities, such as cerebral palsy, multiple sclerosis and muscular dystrophy. So I've largely done both. That does not mean my major "tagging" job has been indiscriminate or that I am trying to make trouble by defending my case. I just wish that this could all remain open to discussion by as many different people as possible, and I also hope that mass reverts won't occur in an effort to purge most of these without discussions as to their appropriateness within each individual article's Talk page (for the most part anyhow). Lastly, again, I hope that some kind of discussion area for the specific guidelines' for sidebars could be started, or better yet, an official Wikipedia page detailing a policy on them. Kikodawgzzz (talk) 13:30, 8 September 2010 (UTC)"

What do people think? Kikodawgzzz (talk) 13:40, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

My position, as I guess you know, is that the vertical template at top right should be used in "just articles that refer strictly to disability culture and organizations" as you phrase it. In articles about disorders which are described from several angles, the disability angle is not primary and a top right template should not be used.
A horizontal show/hide navbox at the bottom of the page would, however be appropriate. In such a one, should all of the project's articles be listed alphabetically, or should they be limited and/or categorized somehow? Hordaland (talk) 13:55, 8 September 2010 (UTC)
P.S. I never tried to make one of these things before, but:
-- Hordaland (talk) 14:46, 8 September 2010 (UTC)
Yes the horizontal box is a move in the right direction. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 14:52, 8 September 2010 (UTC)
High importance and Mid importance are not good classifications and would be high maintenance. Suggest better ones, thanks. Hordaland (talk) 14:58, 8 September 2010 (UTC)
I agree that Importance is not a good way to sort them - I think we could use "themes" such as:
Rights and law - (Articles about UN conventions, ADA, etc.)
Social issues - (Articles about Inclusion, Special education, Sport, etc.)
Medical issues - (Articles about Diseases and conditions that lead to disability)
Technology - (Articles about wheelchairs, hearing aids, etc.)
and so on. Roger (talk) 16:32, 8 September 2010 (UTC)
I don't think we can link to the project on an article page, as the project is not part of the encyclopedia. You really need Portal:Disability and an icon for that. See (ironically in view of some of the articles affected by recent actions) Dance, Portal:Dance and Project:DANCE for the relationship between the technical article, the topical article and the project management pages. Then you can add the portal icon to most articles which are already supported by the Disability project, as many other projects do.

{{Portal|Disability}}

Like this. If the article concerned already has portal icons but no more detailed link display (or has no such icons), then this is probably the appropriate way to link to Disability, respecting the current style of the article and avoiding inappropriate emphasis on any one aspect of the article's main subject.
Bear in mind that we do not have displays in every single dance article linking to all the main styles of dance, nor are there displays in every single music article linking to the main musical genres. The portal icon is the normal way of guiding the reader to a relevant, supported subject area and the portal is the normal user interface for that presentation.
Please take the trouble to create a good portal for Disability. I am astonished that this has not already been done: it seems to me a serious omission. I suggest that you make that a top priority for the project. I've started you off with a portal icon.
I will revert any of the recent additions which seem unduly disruptive to the article concerned since they clearly have no consensus at present. In the case of an article which is a stub or similar the addition of a large mostly-unrelated box amounts to hijacking the article. Such actions risk damaging acceptance of Project:Disability support for articles as it may appear to be a "hostile takeover" however good your intentions. Mirokado (talk) 19:20, 8 September 2010 (UTC)
@Roger - good thinking.
@Mirokado - sounds like you know what you are talking about. I think we're going to need help with that. --Hordaland (talk) 19:39, 8 September 2010 (UTC)
I will create a draft page.... There is a category for templates in preparation, so I will use that and post here when I have got a bit further. You the project members should have a look at WP:Portal and related articles, also a few other portals to get ideas. (updated) — Mirokado (talk) 20:25, 8 September 2010 (UTC)
I need some help here to clearly understand the different functions of the Sidebar, Navbox, Portal and Portal Icon. The WikiProject template is obviously meant to be placed only on the talk pages of relevant articles. The Project page's function is to discuss and organise the activities of interested editors' work on relevant articles. I'm not entirtely clear on the distinction between the functions of the Sidebar and Navbox - there seems to be a lot of overlap between them. From the (negative) reactions to the inclusion of the Sidebar on some article pages (mostly peripheral to disability) it appears that the Sidebar should only be used on what I losely term "core" articles. A Navbox seems to be more welcome on "non-core" pages than a Sidebar, while "peripheral" pages (such as the one about the dance company discussed above) would support only a low profile Portal Icon.
I want to end with a plea in reply to the comments that have been posted here and elsewhere "I'm surprised that there isn't a Disability portal/navbox/sidebar/whatever already". Please bear in mind that the WikiProject itself has only existed for about three months and until a few weeks ago it had only 4 or 5 active participants, so please cut us a little slack and assume good faith. To all those who have recently joined the project and are making valuable contributions - thank you! Roger (talk) 20:35, 8 September 2010 (UTC)
Hi Roger. I'm not the one to help you with the jungle in your first paragraph, as I've only been reading up on it for a day and a half.
Re your 2nd paragraph, I don't think you need to be touchy. People are, I think, reacting to the fact that there wasn't such a project years ago, and that's not your/our fault. Take it rather as a compliment: good job, something is finally being done to remedy the lack! --Hordaland (talk) 20:59, 8 September 2010 (UTC)
The portal is now ready for content addition: Portal:Disability (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs). This is just a basic framework, please change it as you feel necessary... See the portal talk page for a few hints/suggestions about how to continue. — Mirokado (talk) 01:39, 9 September 2010 (UTC)
I have started adding some content, thanks for setting it up. Roger (talk) 13:14, 9 September 2010 (UTC)
I have updated Template:WikiProject Disability Navbox with Roger's suggested groups. Please can we make any immediately necessary updates to this so we can start using it where appropriate? — Mirokado (talk) 03:12, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

Navbox

I have created the navbox template by copying the example created by Hordaland above to Template:WikiProject_Disability_Navbox. Please don't use it yet - it needs extensive editing before it is ready for "public display" - see Template talk:WikiProject Disability Navbox. Roger (talk) 12:36, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

I have moved this to Template:Disability navbox (I think I saw a suggestion about this but cannot find it.) The new name is as consistent as feasible with usage in Category:Social science and society navbox templates. The old name is a redirect which will continue to work fine: we could change it in the articles using is as convenient, for general consistency. See the change history for changes needed to a navbox template source when moving it. Mirokado (talk) 18:00, 19 September 2010 (UTC)
I tweaked the note about this that you've placed on the "index of pages" to remove the linebrak that IMHO broke the "flow" of the index. Roger (talk) 18:07, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

Index of Pages and Templates

I created this as a tool for myself just to keep track of all the Project and Portal stuff - but I thought it would be a good idea to share it here.

WikiProject

Pages

Wikipedia:WikiProject Disability (Project main page)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Disability/Assessment (Project sub-page for article assesment)
Wikipedia:WikiProject Disability/Popular pages (Project sub-page for evaluating article popularity)

Templates

Template:WikiProject Disability (Talk page banner - placed at the top of the talk pages of all articles relevant to the project)
Template:Disability (Sidebar - placed in or near the lead section of relevant articles)
Template:WikiProject Disability Navbox (Navbox - placed at the bottom of relevant article pages)

Portal

Pages

Portal:Disability (Portal main page)

Portal:Disability/Intro (Portal component)
Portal:Disability/Selected article (Portal component)
Portal:Disability/Selected picture (Portal component)
Portal:Disability/Selected biography (Portal component)
Portal:Disability/Categories (Portal component)
Portal:Disability/News (Portal component)
Portal:Disability/Headlines archive (Portal component - not directly visible, it is linked from the News box)
Portal:Disability/Related portals (Portal component)
Portal:Disability/Projects (Portal component)
Portal:Disability/Opentask (Portal component)
Portal:Disability/Wikimedia (Portal component)
Portal:Disability/Did you know (Portal component - Commented out)
Portal:Disability/Topics (Portal component - Commented out)

Templates

Template:Portal/Images/Disability (defines the portal icon, currently: Portal-puzzle.svg )

Note: All of these pages and templates also have Talk pages.

Please help maintain and update this index. If there is sufficient interest we could move this to the main project page. Roger (talk) 13:27, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Added portal icon definition. Mirokado (talk) 20:29, 10 September 2010 (UTC)
Copying this index to the main project page. Please continue to maintain it there. Roger (talk) 08:02, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

integrations

As people see, I have tried to integrate the Portal link into the sidebar/Template, and integrate the sidebar/Template into the Portal. I believe I have done so adequately and that to do so bridges the "divides" between the different aspects of the Disability stuff on Wikipedia. Or at least starts to. ;) What do others think? Kikodawgzzz (talk) 20:23, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

I reverted that before I saw this section in the talk. The sidebar is totally unsuited to the portal page layout. I suggest you concentrate on finalising the format and content of the navbox which can go at the bottom of the portal (see any number of other portals for examples) and is needed for quite a lot of articles. Mirokado (talk) 20:32, 11 September 2010 (UTC)
Mirokado, I am not in charge of the finalisation of the horizontal navbar, but other people here at the WikiProject Disability seem to have taken it upon themselves to finalise it, so I'm leaving it to them. I'd ask you to keep in mind that one, I am not a vandal; two, I have no malicious or egoistic intent; three, the side panel/Template as it exists now is not in itself inappropriate, it just belongs in certain places and the horizontal navbar will belong in others, each to its own; and four, ALL disability-related portal, template, and navbar phenomena must be linked together somehow, in some way, either overtly or not. This is because to have separate Wikipedia phenomena on the same topic not linking together is going to be confusing for the average Wikipedia lurker. Whether that means that one link or another should be low-key, as in text-based, or very overt, as in a button-like image with the portal, or the sidebar, another overt thing, or the horizontal navbar which is an in-between thing... well, that's for all of us to decide, together, via discussion. Kikodawgzzz (talk) 20:48, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

making sidebar collapsible

I can foresee the sidebar/template getting to the point where it's too long to be comfortably read and/or to fit inside some of the shorter disability articles without overwhelming the appearance of that article. Would some Wikipedian be kind enough to either tell me how to make the sidebar as a whole collapsible, how to make individual sidebar sections collapsible, or both? I believe that the sidebar as it is right now is definitely long-term usable (though it should obviously only be used in places where the in-progress medical-type horizontal page-bottom navbar isn't), but at the same time we're going to need to control how big it gets, so it doesn't end up like the Discrimination sidebar, for example. ;) Kikodawgzzz (talk) 21:21, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

I'll have a look at that sometime over the weekend. Mirokado (talk) 21:25, 11 September 2010 (UTC)
There are reasons why the Navboxes are full-width and go near the end of the articles:
  • Having a element of variable height across only part of the screen makes it close to impossible to ensure the article always displays tidily
  • Everything appearing after the variable height element must be re-rendered if the height is chahged. This is something that should be avoided if possible
Thus I don't think we can make a side box collapsible.
Basically a side box should not become too deep because that means it interferes too much with the article it appears in. There are of course articles with very deep side boxes (some royal family member articles for example), but those boxes have been designed specifically for such articles and the articles have been written to take account of the boxes. Even then the resulting display is often unsatisfactory.
I think you need to identify a small number of top-level articles, perhaps one per existing heading, of which Disabled sports is probably a good example, and link to those from the side box, plus a very small number of mega-important individual articles. If no such article exists, create it: if it is incomplete, expand it. These can become lead articles of Topics. Something like Disability in the arts might be another possibility: that could link to or mention theatre and dance companies, major exhibitions, the statue which appeared in Trafalgar Square a few years ago and so on. — Mirokado (talk) 17:11, 12 September 2010 (UTC)
I actually spent a few hours today just looking at the possibility of a Disability in the media article. There is a huge amount of reference material available. I've particularly found the Disability Studies Quarterly, journal of the Society for Disability Studies, to be a goldmine. I'll start a page under my userpage for it within the next day or two. Roger (talk) 18:23, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

disability studies article

The article dealing with the concept of disability studies contains a lot of unsubstantiated claims. I'm actually not saying that I personally have a problem with the things being claimed, because any of them could be true enough; it's that they are not backed up properly, and they don't even give in-line clues about where what they claim originates. I wonder if there might be a way to gather citations on some or most of the claims made in order that they wouldn't have to eventually be removed. It would be sad if they were removed unilaterally. At the same time, it's disconcerting to have bunches of uncited claims sitting amidst a major disability article. Kikodawgzzz (talk) 15:16, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

mobility device article

I can barely believe that the "mobility device" article is so sparse. Is there another article somewhere on the wiki that goes into the different types of mobility devices (crutches wheelchairs powerchairs etc) in an overview of each, but that has a different name? It just seems ridiculous to me that there is somehow a page called "mobility devices" that has maybe four lines of a general definition and leaves it at that. In any written encyclopedia I can all but guarantee you there would be pages upon pages (with images) giving overviews of the major mobility devices out there. Kikodawgzzz (talk) 15:46, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

Brace (orthopaedic) article

I have suggested several merges of "orthotics" articles into this article here. I also believe the field of orthotics in particular bears enough relation to disability that either the horizontal navbar or the sidebar should be used. What do others think. Kikodawgzzz (talk) 15:52, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

New high importance "core theme" article

I have just created a stub Disability in the media, please feel free to expand it. I listed a number of good sources on the Talk page. Roger (talk) 08:12, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

This is a good article to have, but I question any overly-extensive use of Society for Disability Studies writings, or those of their closest allies, without ensuring that other sources from within the same circles but with differing viewpoints are also included. Otherwise this could all easily become a one-trick pony. Your newly-created article is going to have to eventually have "teaser sections" for larger articles the way disability in the arts does. One of the reasons I can already tell you why that would be necessary, in fact, is that the article I created long ago on inclusion (disability rights) could then finally, at long, long last, be broken up and most of its contents distributed to articles corresponding to the media organizations and grouplets themselves (such as the disTHIS! Film Series, which I do believe should have its own page, and also the Ouch! Podcast from the BBC). People here might not have thought I'd want to see the content of an article that is "one of my babies" distributed across several articles, but in fact I do, especially given the renewed vigor with which we all have been pursuing this stuff now. I believe that a proper (re)distribution would clear the inclusion article of clutter and make it much more easily readable to the average joe n' jane. If the content articles were created for these inclusive phenomena being described in the inclusion article, then we would automatically readily have several "media-based examples" of inclusive practices that we could then immediately incorporate into the disability in the media article.... see?. If done properly, then there would barely be any need at all for the article on inclusion except for its widely-accepted core definition. We could pare it down, if there were articles that corresponded to the phenomena introduced. That is the point I would like to see reached as a result of all this work being done on Disability on the wiki. Kikodawgzzz (talk) 09:12, 15 September 2010 (UTC)
See my reply here.
We must keep discussions about an article on that article's talk page, so that newcomers to the article have immediate access to the complete history of the article's development. Roger (talk) 11:22, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

Many duplicate web-accessibility articles; merges needed

Design for All (in ICT), e-inclusion, and web accessibility are just three of possibly bunches of articles that use different terms and different wordings to describe exactly the same concept: Disability accessibility in the world of IT (information technology for you laypeople out there). There might be a few naysayers who scream "nooooooo!!" at the idea of merging them, but I am a big big fan of weeding out schlock in pursuit of a better Disability section on the wiki, and I wanna know other people feel about taking the plunge and merging these and similar things into a single, better, tighter article. Kikodawgzzz (talk) 19:26, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

WP:WikiProject Accessibility also has an interest in this subject so I suggest we include them in the process. Roger (talk) 19:42, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
Whoa. Two of these articles are already fairly long already and have a lot of potential to be extended. For example, the French version Accessibilité du Web is much more detailed and complete because it was written by an accessibility expert.
There are also wide differences in their topics. For example, it would be a good idea indeed to merge Universal design and Design for All (design philosophy): those two words are synonyms. But design for All (in ICT) his high-level where web accessibility is a really specific subject. I would support merging e-inclusion into Design for All (in ICT) though.
Anyway, it would be great to have them better organized between each other. As of now design for All (in ICT) is not even mentioned in Web accessibility. Regards, Dodoïste (talk) 02:05, 18 September 2010 (UTC)
Kikodawgzzz, it appears I wasn't clear enough. Well, since I'm not a native English speaker (you probably noticed already) my poor english might be responsible for it.
At any rate, stop merging article that are not related. For example, if you did pay attention and actually read Universal usability, you should have realized it is completely different from Design for All (in ICT). Basically, Universal usability is related to usability. Design for All (in ICT) is related to accessibility. Those articles have very little in common. Dodoïste (talk) 19:04, 19 September 2010 (UTC)
I just had a look at some of your contributions. To be fair, I'd like to point out that merging universal access into universal design was a good idea indeed. ;-) Just so you know that I'm not being overly negative. :-) Dodoïste (talk) 19:19, 19 September 2010 (UTC)
Thank you for your clarifying comment. I'm not one to not steamroll ahead with merges and related editing that I consider to be improvements, and then to wait for others' reactions — it's part of what I do on here as a very active Wikipedia contributor. But that doesn't mean others aren't equally free to raise a stink about it, and to revert and/or relocate based on what they justifiably believe are better choices. Admittedly, I didn't really read the universal usability article before I recommended merging it into the Design for All (in ICT), so I trust you that they are different. That being said, other Wikpedians working on this Disability Wikipedia project should be sure to do their best to merge all articles that deal with the same specific topic but use different words in the article title to describe that thing. Kikodawgzzz (talk) 21:26, 22 September 2010 (UTC)
OK, fair enough. We'll just discuss it on their talk pages for a while. It's still a mistake, and it doesn't meet Wikipedia:Merging requirements. But I suppose you're free to waste your time. Dodoïste (talk) 14:38, 23 September 2010 (UTC)
I see it as active struggle between conscientious and constructive members of Wikipedia, not "wasting my time". But thanks. ;) Kikodawgzzz (talk) 15:28, 23 September 2010 (UTC)
I'm copying this section to Talk:Design for All (in ICT)#Many duplicate web-accessibility articles; merges needed where it provides essential context. Please keep the discussion of these merges on that one talk page. Section title tweaked to start with a cap. Mirokado (talk) 20:50, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

Boundary between (Performing) Arts and Media

I'm raising this issue in anticipation of the "blurred" boundary between the topics covered in Disability in the arts and Disability in the media. The way I see it the division is:

Arts

  • All the visual arts - painting, sculpture, etc.
  • Theatre
  • Dance
  • Fictional film and television
  • Poetry
  • Music
  • Fictional literature

Media

  • Newspapers
  • Radio and Television news and actuality progamming
  • Documentary film and television
  • Factual literature
  • Websites including blogs, forums and similar participatory sites that discuss disability issues (e.g. Facebook groups)

What say you all? Roger (talk) 07:01, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

1000% agreed. You've described the demarcations perfectly IMHO. Pursue on that basis, would be my recommendation. Kikodawgzzz (talk) 21:23, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

Disability articles have been selected for the Wikipedia 0.8 release

Version 0.8 is a collection of Wikipedia articles selected by the Wikipedia 1.0 team for offline release on USB key, DVD and mobile phone. Articles were selected based on their assessed importance and quality, then article versions (revisionIDs) were chosen for trustworthiness (freedom from vandalism) using an adaptation of the WikiTrust algorithm.

We would like to ask you to review the Disability articles and revisionIDs we have chosen. Selected articles are marked with a diamond symbol (♦) to the right of each article, and this symbol links to the selected version of each article. If you believe we have included or excluded articles inappropriately, please contact us at Wikipedia talk:Version 0.8 with the details. You may wish to look at your WikiProject's articles with cleanup tags and try to improve any that need work; if you do, please give us the new revisionID at Wikipedia talk:Version 0.8. We would like to complete this consultation period by midnight UTC on Monday, October 11th.

We have greatly streamlined the process since the Version 0.7 release, so we aim to have the collection ready for distribution by the end of October, 2010. As a result, we are planning to distribute the collection much more widely, while continuing to work with groups such as One Laptop per Child and Wikipedia for Schools to extend the reach of Wikipedia worldwide. Please help us, with your WikiProject's feedback!

For the Wikipedia 1.0 editorial team, SelectionBot 22:22, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

I took a quick look at the selected version of Disability, I'm not impressed - later versions are substantially better. I would like to propose that we undertake a co-ordinated effort to significantly improve all the articles on the list and then nominate the improved versions. We must keep in mind the October 11 deadline - so I propose further that we set ourselves a "benchmarking" deadline of Monday 4 October. This would give us one more week for minor tweaks and to come to agreement about which versions to nominate. Let us make this article improvement drive our highest priority for the next two weeks. Roger (talk) 07:37, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
Aye aye. I will not make the obvious pun on your name. I will not. I will not. I am strong. What do you mean by benchmarking? --Danger (talk) 08:09, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
Maybe "benchmarking" isn't quite the right word - what I mean is that we have the improvements substantially complete by then and use the remaining week until the Editorial team's deadline to do minor tweaking and decide on the version we wish to nominate. Roger (talk) 09:09, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
That's going to be very tough to do, but as the chief wikipedian to have jump-started this improvement drive (hope you don't mind if I take my due credit in that respect!), I wish you all the best! I won't be able to steamroll forth with article improvements of my own that fast. But others surely can, and will!! Kikodawgzzz (talk) 21:21, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

web accessibility vs. DfA (in ICT) articles

Web accessibility and Design for All (in ICT) deal with the same overarching topic and should be merged. I will do this merge myself in a few days unless there are immediate objections. Kikodawgzzz (talk) 13:15, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

Replied at their respective talk pages. But now I'm really wondering what you are playing at. Dodoïste (talk) 14:32, 23 September 2010 (UTC)
I'm not "playing at" anything. I want someone to give me a clear reason (based on article content) why DfA(ICT) and Web Accessibility aren't essentially the same thing. Kikodawgzzz (talk) 15:29, 23 September 2010 (UTC)
Also, please see the fleshed-out version of my response over at this talk page here. Kikodawgzzz (talk) 15:37, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

proposal: splitting physical, sensory, developmental, and mental disability definitions into their own articles

The current overarching "Disability" article is IMHO a mess. I believe we should split the article into Physical disability, cognitive disability, developmental disability (into which the medical content of mental retardation should also be merged), sensory disability, and mental disability (perhaps leaving that last one over at mental illness or emotional disorder where the content probably is now, but I dunno). In each of these articles should be subsections linking to main articles dealing with disabilities of the corresponding general type. Kikodawgzzz (talk) 13:31, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict)
You don't mean then to delete the article "Disability"? It should have (small) sections with the above titles, + sections for medical and social models + discrimination + +, I should think. The title "Physical disability" makes one think of obvious ones that one can see, so a section need point out that, for example, neurological disorders can be hidden. Some disorders overlap: sensory and physical. --Hordaland (talk) 13:35, 23 September 2010 (UTC)
As I explained on Talk:Disability I am opposed to the article becoming just a disambiguation page. There is room for the various articles proposed in addition to the main Disability article. See WP:NOTPAPER. BTW I don't agree that the article is a mess, its a bit disorganised, a bit vague and unfocussed, but far from being a mess. The biggest mess on the page IMHO is the huge chunk of unnecessary templates at the top - which I AGAIN had to untangle from the Sidebar as the order the were placed in created yet another a whitespace problem. Roger (talk) 14:13, 23 September 2010 (UTC)
Sorry for the unnecessary chunk of templates at the top; that's partially my fault (as the wiki records will show). Hordaland, of course I don't friggin' wanna delete the Disability article, nor do I, Roger, want to make it into a disambiguation page. (The "split" tag I added mis-spoke in declaring that intention; sorry again.) What I want is basically what you guys also want-- splitting the Disability main article page into a "featured sections" type of page similar to disability in the arts. That way, we could have a comprehensive rundown of all the different general categories of disabilities plus the conditions where physical-based and brain-based overlap, all of it organised into clear, concise sections with "Main Article:X" below each section header. Kikodawgzzz (talk) 15:15, 23 September 2010 (UTC)
If I understand you correctly, you are withdrawing the split proposal and instead proposing creation of "main" articles for the different "categories" of disabilities. If that is correct I fully support the proposal. Roger (talk) 15:58, 23 September 2010 (UTC)
I'm not withdrawing the split proposal; it's still a split proposal, it's just not the way the box I put in there says, with that whole "into a disambiguation page" malarkey. I hope my subsequent messages clarified what I think should happen. Kikodawgzzz (talk) 16:38, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

"ambient assisted living"

The language and assertions in Ambient Assisted Living add up basically to an nonsensical article. There is no inherent self-proof in the article that it needs to stand as an article at all, and whatever usable information there is in it could easily be merged into assisted living if it's absolutely necessary (which I doubt it is). If there is no usable information in the Ambient Assisted Living article that could be integrated into the Assisted Living article, then I'm going to post a Speedy Deletion box onto the Ambient Assisted Living article. Let me know what you think, all. Kikodawgzzz (talk) 15:49, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

Kikodawgzzz please stop discussing individual articles here. This page is for discussing issues affecting the project as a whole. Matters related to individual articles must be discussed on the specific article's own talk page. Individual articles may be watched by editors who are not concerned with this Project and many articles are of interest to other Projects as well, not only this one. It is of course acceptable to post notices here about matters relating to individual articles (to bring the matter to the attention of the Project members) but the substantive discussion must take place on the article's own talk page. Roger (talk) 16:15, 23 September 2010 (UTC)
Well, I would do that, but there is zero discussion of any type at all on the Ambient Assisted Living page. I pasted this there, but I doubt anyone's gonna see it. Therefore, I have also posted my deletion proposal over at the assisted living page. I'll do similar from now on; sorry for any inconvenience to WikiProject members. Kikodawgzzz (talk) 16:40, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

Where the template does and doesn't belong

Some people, especially Dodger67 and Jmh649 (and to a lesser extent Mirokado who is the only one I've gotten to speak directly to and with whom I have developed a cordial relationship), don't seem to want to ease up on the reverts of articles, removing the Sidebar, that are specifically disability arts-and-culture related, which to my understanding is how the consensus on both the WikiProject and the Portal project have been evolving. I really would like to see more discussion and less "edit warring" on the part of people who have the tendency to assume, working on the basis that consensus has already been fully reached (since when? we have just now started on all this work; give it time to develop), that the Sidebar does not belong even in articles that are listed on the Sidebar itself and are clearly relevant at least to the "art-and-culture-centric" flavor that the consensus seems to be thinking should be one of the Sidebar's themes. Fighting is not the solution here; let's keep up with the discussion. Animosity is not the answer. Kikodawgzzz (talk) 00:03, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

I have replied at Portal talk:Disability#Where the template does and doesn't belong. Please keep the conversation in one place.
Please stop double-posting on both the portal talk page and the project talk page. One or other is enough. (Fixed a redlink in your original post and cap for the section title) Mirokado (talk) 02:49, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

Subsequent responses archived from Portal talk:Disability --Mirokado (talk)

Well... there is clearly no consensus that this sidebar should be widely used.
  • "Guidelines in this area are already clear enough; horizontal navigational templates at the bottom of the page are more appropriate. Imagine the mess we would have in leads of articles if every editor wanting to add every remotely related template to the lead did so-- the lead would be longer than the article. ..." (original post User:SandyGeorgia 11:59, 8 September 2010 (UTC))
  • "If you insist on putting this template in the lead section of articles, please make it auto-collapse by default, for screen reader users like myself. I would have no problem with a disability template at the bottom of the page that is initially collapsed." (original post Graham 14:01, 8 September 2010 (UTC))
So we see the Disability project accused of destroying accessibility for disability-related articles!
  • From Roger just above (reply to Portal talk:Disability#Integrations: "Such a prominent template on articles that are only of low importance to the Disability Project can create antagonism towards us from the editors of the Projects for which those articles are more important - the reaction from the Dance project to the Sidebar placed on one of "their" articles is an object lesson in how not to do it."
And a day or so later you add the sidebar to the very same articles, without having attained any further progress towards a consensus.
I could add more quotes from people telling you that this sidebar is not suitable for many of the articles it is already on, but I think the above is clear enough.
Saying that articles are listed on the sidebar is a distraction. Those dance articles are far too trivial to appear near the top of a Featured medical article for example. I have already suggested a better approach for such articles, at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Disability#making sidebar collapsible.
To answer your question briefly, in my view:
  • The sidebar belongs on the Project top page and on the Disability article.
  • It will be appropriate for any other articles substantially about disability per se, for example Society for Disability Studies where it enhances the article very well.
  • Every article to which it is added should be checked carefully for resulting layout problems at the time the sidebox is added. If the sidebar is deeper than the article, it is not appropriate. If it pushes other article content down or causes section bunching, the article must be adapted while respecting its current layout, or the sidebox not added.
  • For other articles relevant to the Disability project a horizontal Navbox at the bottom, or just the Portal icon, is better, see above. Which to choose would depend on the individual article, sometimes the Portal icon will be enough. If there are already only portal icons for a low-importance article, I would suggest adding the portal icon for example. The project box should be added to the talk page if it is not already present.
Please stop double-posting on both the portal talk page and the project talk page. One or other is enough. (Fixed a redlink in your original post) — Mirokado (talk) 02:34, 13 September 2010 (UTC)
I suggest as a quality criterion for inclusion of an article in the Sidebox: the article must be of Top importance to the Disability project. "Top importance" could include Lists or Topics referring to articles which are not themselves of Top importance. Mirokado (talk) 02:40, 13 September 2010 (UTC)
Capitalised section title for targeted links. Mirokado (talk) 02:46, 13 September 2010 (UTC)
I understand your points. All the same, I am going to wait for a significant number of others to weigh in on this before taking any further action of any kind, at all, and I'll see where that leaves us. My purpose here is not to instigate or aggravate any animosities, but I do insist on a consensus (meaning, more than 1 or 2 people telling me something) before being okay with doing what someone else tells me. Otherwise things can get easily dictatorial, with one or two people barking orders at someone and the person needing to "snap to it." I don't like that and I doubt anyone else would either. Also, you neglect to recognise the good work I have done thus far but instead have just tried to tear it down as inappropriate. I don't particularly appreciate that, either. Kikodawgzzz (talk) 04:23, 13 September 2010 (UTC)
I have now created Disability in the arts and added it to the Navbox. Please use that instead of the individual dance and theatre company links in the side box too, that will help reduce the depth of that box. Project members please review this new article. See the quality statement on the talk page. Incidentally, the sidebox is on that article since (to quote myself) it is an article "substantially about disability per se". It was necessary to use {{Stack}} to correct section bunching, which I did straight away, as I suggested above.
It is essential that we also remove the side box from the remaining dance company that you again updated earlier today, since that already has a full-width Navbox for Project Dance and the side box pushes that almost the depth of the article itself away from the rest of the content (apart from incorrectly suggesting to readers that the main subject of the article is disability.)
I think it will help us (and perhaps get input from other editors) to have the Navbox on a small number of articles now, so instead of just removing the side box, I will replace it by the Navbox and put that on the other two dance articles too. I will leave a message on the dance project talk page explaining. — Mirokado (talk) 07:28, 13 September 2010 (UTC)
I've added the Navbox to DV8 Physical Theatre, no time for more at present. The dance Navbox does not start expanded as I wished, probably some change needed there too. Mirokado (talk) 08:23, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

I fully agree with Mirokado's posts above. Roger (talk) 09:45, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

I'm a tad more careful than Roger. No one, not even Mirokado, is perfect. I'm very grateful for the work Mirokado is doing and am generally in agreement with her/him. Hordaland (talk) 10:09, 13 September 2010 (UTC)
I'm definitely not saying Mirokado is perfect - I just happen to completely agree with him in this instance Notice that I restricted my agreement by specifying "above" - I reserve the right to disagree anywhere else. I'd also like to add a word of advice to Kikodawgzzz: Try not to take anything on WP personally. On more than a few occasions I have seen edits that I worked on for hours totally wiped out within minutes of posting. It's all part of the normal process of creating and improving the material here on WP. Roger (talk) 12:32, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

I have updated Template:Disability navbox so that it has more-or-less the same contents as Template:Disability. The main motivation for this is so that we can now place whichever of these seems most appropriate for each article, without having to consider at the same time the contents of whichever box is used. Thus changes to improve the presentation of an article can be neutral with respect to other issues. I think we should start maintaining these two templates in parallel and expect that both will evolve further with time. The substantial current difference in content is that I have not added the trivial links to walking sticks etc (yes I understand that a walking stick is not trivial if you need one but one mobility aid topic link would be better). I will now have a look at Mobility aids which should be a suitable topic leader like Disability in the media etc. There are also differences in link order and grouping. Mirokado (talk) 16:09, 25 September 2010 (UTC)

Good thinking and good work, thank you. Hordaland (talk) 17:07, 25 September 2010 (UTC)

FAR

I have nominated Down syndrome for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Delist" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Ten Pound Hammer, his otters and a clue-bat • (Otters want attention) 01:52, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

New article

I have started an article - Karin Muraszko. She is Professor of pediatric neurosurgery at the University of Michigan and is the first woman to head a neurosurgey department in the US. She has a mobility disability due to spina bifida. (I must declare a bias with respect to this article - I also have spina bifida.) Roger (talk) 15:03, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

Social construction of schizophrenia - addition to popular pages

Hi

I've been looking at statistics for Social construction of schizophrenia which are

Total hits: 308 Average hits per day: 10 as of September 2010.

Statistics for "Social construction of schizophrenia" for the period of Jul 10 through Sep 10: Sum: 716 Mean: 239 Median: 181 Standard deviation: 52

I'm requesting that this article can be added to the wikiproject disability popular pages section , so that its importance can be analysed alongside other articles. (Darwinerasmus (talk) 21:49, 20 October 2010 (UTC)). Done : key The request key is 64g5g18 (Darwinerasmus (talk) 21:53, 20 October 2010 (UTC)).

That list is maintained by a bot. Articles are added and removed automatically according to the hits statistics. It's not dependent on personal opinion or judgment. Roger (talk) 07:56, 21 October 2010 (UTC)
I see the article is currently ranked 189th so the bot has picked it up. Roger (talk) 16:50, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

Union of the Physically Impaired Against Segregation

I have just created an article Union of the Physically Impaired Against Segregation. This was a very significant organisation in the history of disability rights. Their work led directly to the development of the social model of disability. Please help to build this article. Roger (talk) 16:18, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Accessible tourism

I've just added Accessible tourism to the project scope. – Mirokado (talk) 08:46, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

Disaability category

Heading the to-do list category here is to improve the category "disability" I take the point - I have just looked at it, and found some of the suggestions rather suspect - do we really need to have an article on a magazine called "Logan" there? However, my main plea is that "invisible disability" gets promoted to being a sub-category. When I looked at the article Invisible disability, I was shocked that it did not include reference to asthma.ACEOREVIVED (talk) 19:56, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

According to its article, Logan is a magazine targeted at people with disabilities. I don't see why it shouldn't be categorised so. It could perhaps be in a more specific category like Category:Disability media, but that is easy enough to sort out. As for "invisible disability", I'm not sure what you mean by "promoted to a sub-category". Do you mean you want to create a category by that name? If you want asthma to be mentioned in mentioned in the invisible disability article, why not add something about it? That sounds reasonable to me. --BelovedFreak 20:15, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

someone is trying to merge medical and social model articles

There's an apparent merger proposal wanting to meld the content of the social model of disability with the medical one, over here, presumably on the grounds that the very term "medical model of disability" ideologically 'belongs' to the disability rights movement, and has no real objectively-relevant credence outside of it. I have already registered my objection to the merge proposal but I think others in this WP would do well to hop over there and register theirs. We wouldn't wanna be faced with a situation where the articles get merged now and then a year or two down the line we gotta go in and re-separate the two and add references to each article separately, all over again. That would suck. Kikodawgzzz (talk) 02:04, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the "heads-up". Roger (talk) 10:57, 28 November 2010 (UTC)
Didn't you get a notice on your talk page, Roger? If I did and you didn't, that sounds like it might be canvassing. --Hordaland (talk) 11:18, 28 November 2010 (UTC)
No I didn't. I believe a talk page notice is normally sent to all editors who did significant work on the articles concerned - I havn't done much/any work on either of them. In any event I first saw the merge proposal on my watchlist, I was just being polite thanking Kiko for alerting the Project. As an aside the Medical Model article needs a lot of work - it has no citations even though there's a large mass of good ones out there. Roger (talk) 12:43, 28 November 2010 (UTC)
The argument put forward for the merge doesn't really hold any water. Many concepts were created/formulated as counterpoises for other concepts. Examples "Capitalism" was created by socialist/communist philosophers as a term to describe that which they oppose, another example from politics, "conservative" was originally an epithet invented by liberals to describe the opposite of what they stood for - before liberals there were no conservatives. "Racism" also didn't exist as a concept until there were people opposed to it. The "Roman Catholic Church" only aquired that name once other churches were established, until then they were simply "The Church". Roger (talk) 13:03, 28 November 2010 (UTC)
Merge proposal cancelled. Close call, y'all. Thanks for sticking together. Kikodawgzzz (talk) 13:21, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

I found an important source document for the concepts and models involved in Disability

Please see my post to Talk:Union of the Physically Impaired Against Segregation. Roger (talk) 14:21, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

Sad news about Laura Hershey. (Off topic but I'm sure it's of interest to many of us anyway.)

She passed away on Friday 26 November. http://disabledfeminists.com/2010/11/27/you-get-proud-by-practicing-laura-hershey-writer-poet-activist-consultant-has-died/ Roger (talk) 16:10, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

Multiple disabilities

Hi. I wonder what is the translation of french term polyhandicap. It designs a person with a severe intellectual disability, associated with a physical disability. Is it person with "multiple disabilities"? Should an article be created about multiple disabilities then?

Oh, and I just created a draft about physical disability. I'm not a native english speaker so I don't feel comfortable to expand it further. Plus the english-speaking definitions seems to be quite different from the french ones I know. But there is a lot of potential with this article. Yours, Dodoïste (talk) 17:22, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

Bonjour, Dodoïste. I think multiple disabilities would probably be right for polyhandicap. See for example this entry. --Mirokado (talk) 19:18, 5 December 2010 (UTC)
Thanks, I just made a draft : multiple disabilities. Mostly added relevant sources for the next user who would like to exapand the article (don't have time myself). Dodoïste (talk) 21:59, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Draft article

I have added a page Wikipedia:WikiProject Disability/Draft for new Intellectual disability which may be built up to provide a new article Intellectual disability and then moved in conjunction with maintenance of the current article. See Talk:Intellectual disability#Rename from Mental Retardation if you are interested. --Mirokado (talk) 19:13, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

Impairment

Please take a look at the comment I posted at Talk:Impairment. I believe we should develop an article that dinstinguishes impairment and disability. Before my edit the disambiguation page Impairment simply stated that impairment = disability, but that doesn't match up with the now widely accepted social model. Roger (talk) 11:22, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Schizophrenia

I have nominated Schizophrenia for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Delist" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Basket of Puppies 23:44, 25 December 2010 (UTC)

Assessment

I've completed assessing all the articles currently tagged as part of this project for quality. In most cases, I've left the importance field alone, because I think that determining how articles are classed according to importance is a task that requires community input. Any suggestions on what should be considered "top", "high", and "mid" importance? --Danger (talk) 03:32, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

Just a few quick thoughts (I'm on vacation and there is a cold beer calling me loudly). We have so far been quite conservative in assigning "top" and "high" ratings to articles. I believe that this is the correct approach fro us as a small, young project - we simply don't have enough people to look after dozens or hundreds of top and high articles.
My own "mind map" of this project and its collection of articles is in the form of a taxonomy or a family tree. The trunk of the tree is the Disability article which broadly defines what the project as a whole is about. This trunk splits into the two main competing models of disability the Medical and the Social. The two trunks then split further and further into branches carrying sub-themes such as Law, Sport, Assistive devices, Politics, Medical articles on disabling conditions, biographies, sociology, history, etc.
This taxonomy or hierarchy (which so far existed only in my head) seems to approximately follow the structure of the Category system. I believe this concept can be developed and refined further. But not now - there is a beer that needs drinking. Happy New Year to All! Roger (talk) 09:51, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

James Charlton article issue

Please see Talk:James Charlton (activist) help resolve a "coatrack" problem. Roger (talk) 08:20, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

I've posted on the article's talk page, as a blockquote, the summary of Charlton's "Typology of Disability Rghts" sourced directly from his book. I think it's important enough to at least be included in his bio - or even as a separate article once it is developed more fully. Roger (talk) 09:10, 12 July 2011 (UTC)