Over the weekend, Jared and I got together and worked for 7 hours on DeafRead, giving it much needed changes.

Categories are wiped out. Replacing them are three super-categories. They are People, Organizations and Captioned. People are individual bloggers. Organizations are teams of bloggers, or blogs by organizations. Note that organizations’ blogs appearing on DeafRead are not for-profit, with the exception of DeafRead’s sponsor, Purple Communications.

Finally, the third super-category is Captioned. Also of note, this Captioned category is NOT moderated. Further, the feeds coming into the Captioned category must be dedicated to captioned videos only. Blogs having a mixture of both captioned videos and uncaptioned videos or no videos will not be added to this category. Make changes to your blog if you wish to be fed into the Captioned category – and let us know. Captioned entries do NOT appear in the main page. To see Captioned entries, click on the “Captioned” button on the navigation menu area.

That is, the main page shows a mixture of only People and Organizations. Click on their respective menu buttons to narrow down on these types.

We found and marked scores of blogs as Organizations. If we missed any, do let us know.

The server will be upgraded on Tuesday January 5 at 8PM EST/5PM PST. The server will be down for between 1 and 3 hours. We apologize for any inconvenience.

I thought I’d join the 2009 Lists craze and do one for DeafRead. Here are the top posts for 2009, ranked by number of visits. As of December 10, 2009, DeafRead published 13,179 articles in 2009.

Blogs

1. Michael Jackson’s sign language children choir (Fookem and Bug)
Michael Jackson 1958 – 2009 By Bug Two weeks ago Michael Jackson made requests for his comeback concert – he wanted a choir full of sign language children from a variety of ethnic backgrounds for his concerts in London next month. Michael Jackson wanted every child to know sign language and they should be in the age of [...]

2. 26 arrested in connection with Viable, Inc (submit by: Kevin)
Indictments were unsealed today against 26 people charged with engaging in a scheme to steal millions of dollars from the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) Video Relay Service (VRS) program, announced Assistant Attorney General Lanny A. Breuer of the Criminal Division, Assistant Director of the FBI’s Washington Field Office Joseph Persichini Jr., Deputy Chief

3. What Do You Think of the VRS Arrests? (Jamie Berke – About.com)
What do you think about the recent indictments of 26 people for stealing millions of dollars from the telecommunications relay services funds? There has been a lot of emotions expressed over this; share your thoughts on the forum. Incidentally, someone asked if I had any relationship to two of the men arrested, because my last name is the same as their last name. I would like to publicly state that I have no relationship to them.

4. FCC: No prison for 26 charged defendants? (Tayler Mayer)
I’ve been in middle of a cross-country move, and with Thanksgiving dinner being prepared, I’ve slowed down. Being busy, the headlines of the 26 people being arrested did not escape my attention. Of course it did not; it’s probably the biggest news in the deaf community since the Gallaudet protests of 2006. It certainly ranks [...]

5. 26 Arrested for VRS Overbilling Fraud (Mishka Zena)
The investigations conducted by FCC had resulted in arrests of over 2 dozen pepole involved in overcharging FCC for generating fake calls. These arrests took place in New York, New Jersey, Florida, Texas, Pennsylvania, Arizona, Nevada, Oregon and Maryland. “The indictments charge owners and employees of the following seven companies with engaging in a scheme to [...]

6. Ella come back! (Tayler Mayer)
Ella, I strongly urge you to return to your post as CAD secretary. First, you walkout of DeafVIDEO.TV, and you’re now abandoning your elected position at CAD. You were nominated and elected by people who believed in you. You’ve been a long-time CAD board member. I admire your passion for Deafhood Foundation, but what are [...]

7. FBI Visit Viable VRS Headquarters (Crazy Deaf Joe Blog)
This story came to my eyes and was shocked. This is from Gazette, a Maryland newspaper that they are doing some research. This is scary but sad. Story: The Rockville headquarters of Viable Inc., which provides video interpreting services for hearing-impaired people, was visited by federal investigators recently, and the company is “cooperating fully” with investigators

8. HERE”S MY ANSWER TO WASHINGTON POST ABOUT JOHN YEH (RLMDEAF)
From: robert mason (rlmdeaf@hotmail.com) Sent: Fri 11/27/09 2:47 PM To: mario washington post (glodm@washpost.com) Maria, I got to know John Yeh after joined the student organization, the Asian Pacific at Gallaudet University. I heard about John Yeh before meeting him personally. Yeh welcomed the Asian Pacific student members to his Potomac residence to make an example of him being the role model to the deaf Asian students about succeed in life working with all races of people, instead of being cliqued within their own racial group all the…

9. United States of America VS John T.C. Yeh and his partners (Fookem and Bug)
[Read more about it, click USA vs Yeh, Yeh, Mowl and Tropp] By Fookem and Bug Also read about the Department of Justice Press Releases to Federal Bureau of Investigation, Click: [link] Are they hurting the Deaf communities across the United States of America? Be aware that they are presumed innocent until proven guilty. Here is a new article and see below. Gazette.Net [...]

10. Blog about Viable and DeafNation (submit by: anonymous)
Blog about Viable and DeafNation

Vlogs

1. Larry Fleischer has passed away (The Frost Village Blog)

2. Dr. Lawrence Flesicher (Jean Boutcher’’s Collection of Quotations)

3. Re: Teri Sentelle’s Bad News Vlog on FaceBook (Shel: A Deaf Canadian’’s Thoughts)

4. HURWITZ! ROSEN! STERN! WEINER! WHOA! (Amy Cohen Efron)

5. Watch Marlee Matlin at the FCC hearing on Broadband Access (cc) (Jared’s Global Microbrand)

6. Deaf Sex ! (At The Rim)

7. BREAKING: Gallaudet President Finalists (Insane World of Misha)

8. THE CODA BROTHERS SHOW! (LAUGH. LEARN. SIGN)

9. Video Showing A Cop Breaking Deaf Driver’s Nose During A Traffic Stop (Mishka Zena)

10. Ella’’s Vlog about Larry Flesicher (Where’’s Maisha?)

Because DeafRead co-founder Jared Evans lives in Washington, D.C. and I live in Los Angeles, it’s not often that we get to meet in person. We meet frequently by instant messaging and e-mail one other nearly everyday. We were both at the recent DCARA vblog symposium in the Bay Area. We took the opportunity to meet and discuss DeafRead.

The first thing we talked about was DeafRead Custom. We felt that it wasn’t being used enough. Perhaps visitors did not understand how it was used, or what it was for. We decided we would re-brand DeafRead Custom and in doing so, re-name it to DeafRead Hide. The name itself says what it does.

(Currently there are 543 active Dashboard accounts and 257 “hides”).

You can personalize DeafRead to your liking. Blogs that you don’t want to see on DeafRead can be hidden. This requires registering for an account, which is called DeafRead Dashboard. If you’re not logged in, you’re seeing everything. Logged in, you can customize your Hide list. A hidden blog won’t appear on DeafRead.

When you register, an e-mail is sent to your e-mail address to confirm you’re the owner of the e-mail address. Enclosed in the e-mail is a link. Click it to verify and activate your Dashboard account.

There are two ways to hide a blog. The first is within your Dashboard. Click on “Hide”, and on the following page you are presented with a list of all of the blogs at DeafRead. Click the button “Hide” next to the blog you want hidden. After clicking “Hide” for a blog, this hidden blog will be shown on the top of the page. On this list of hidden blogs, click “Show” to undo this.

The other way is from the front page of DeafRead. Under each post summary, there’s a button “Dashboard” with an icon of a gear. Clicking this pops up a menu. Click “Hide” in this pop-up menu.

You can check whether you are logged in by checking the upper right corner of DeafRead. Next to DeafRead Hide: it says either “On” or “Off”.

Register for a Dashboard account and personalize your DeafRead.

Would you believe it if I said DeafRead had 45,298 articles?!

1,028 days passed since DeafRead was born, so this figures to a mind-boggling 44.064 posts per day. In and out! On Saturdays and Sundays. On Valentine’s Day, July the Fourth and Thanksgiving! (Thankfully DeafRead slows down on these days.)

Before you start saying the moderators could do a better job, try doing it yourself! 44 posts per day average. That’s a lot of plagiarism to catch. Lots of excessive negativism to filter. Lots of subtle marketing to detect. Lots of decisions to make, lots of discussions with team members.

Granted, it’s not a job for everyone. It requires a difficult level of neutrality and undying commitment. Finally, it is a THANKLESS job! I want to fix this by writing this post. It is long overdue.

Since DeafRead exists because blogs exist, I felt that team members should be bloggers themselves to understand the real world of blogging. Live, eat and dream blogging. And the occasional nightmare. Jared and I wanted to help deaf blogs reach the masses; without bias. So we wanted moderators that blogged themselves and could still find it within themselves to moderate posts with which they disagree. This includes publishing posts that argued against their very own posts!

Moderators must withstand unprecedented pressure! With a single click, they seem to hold too much publishing power–but thankfully we decided to show the posts that weren’t shown on the front page of DeafRead. We didn’t know it at first, but it uncovered an important tool: check and balance! DeafRead Extra empowers YOU to check the moderators’ work. Did I say pressure?! Oh yes! The pressure!

Keep in mind, the moderators are good at what they do. As we’ve seen, they do this day in and out. Possibly for reasons not obvious to you, the moderators have found reasons not to publish a post. First acquaint yourself with the DeafRead Guidelines. If you still find yourself disagreeing with the decision, e-mail us. Rather than come off with an offish attitude; simply ask why it was moved to DeafRead Extra. We’ll appreciate it very much!

When a hot topic surfaces on DeafRead, all the more meaningful for the deaf community because concerned individuals are gathering and deciding action was now mandatory–the kind of events that result in change. Whether it’s good or bad change–it’s progress! In times of high emotion, people can say things they don’t mean. But stop for a minute to imagine the pressure on the moderators. Think of it. I can personally tell you we don’t always sleep well at night. There has been many strings of sleepless nights.

I cannot possibly imagine being a moderator for DeafRead. Strangely, I am seeing it unfold before my eyes.

Why are they doing it? They tell me they see the impact of DeafRead on the deaf community. The empowerment. The shifts. The communication. The idea sharing. Yes, bad things come with these positives, as many things do. A car can get me to San Francisco in 5 hours, but not without dumping carbon into the air.

By moderating DeafRead, they are contributing to the impact! THANK YOU DeafRead moderators! Thank you, Elizabeth Gillespie. Thank you, Amy Cohen Efron. Thank you, Carrie Gellibrand. By doing the impossible, you are helping the deaf community in so many unforeseen ways. The best part? There’s more impact yet to come!

THANK YOU!

(And of course, thank you, J.J. Puorro, who is no longer with us but our friendship is none the weaker. Hat tip!)

From the bottom of DeafRead Guidelines:

Please remember that…
Human Editors are not created equal; in fact, their unique background and experience are what makes them human. The same goes for blog authors. Because a Human Editor publishes an opinionated post does not mean the Human Editor agrees with it. We will often publish posts with which we disagree.