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Comment by Isthatablackgsd | Hacker News Reader

As a Deaf person, the notification annoyed the heck out of me and there are not even an option to disable the notification. I muted my mic because I am Deaf and I don't use my voice to communicate with my fellow Deaf friends over Zoom/Teams.

And there is no option to disable Zoom joining-room audio (the one that when you join the room, Zoom present the option to ask which microphone you want to enable). Why would I need to enable the microphone if I am signing to my Deaf boss? Deaf communities have major grief with those notifications.

At least, I can disable the microphone access in my macOS and Zoom won't complain. However disabling mic permission in iPadOS will make Zoom to whine about it. Every time I join a meeting, it will let me know that the microphone access is disabled and "kindly" asked me to enable it. In Windows, I can deny the microphone access to Zoom in the Windows setting, however for some reason that made Zoom to crash.

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Then why mute yourself?

Even more interesting: Why do you prefer to sign over video instead of typing? Are there forms of expression that are more natural that way?

> Then why mute yourself?

Why not? The only sound they will find is my dogs barking, doors slamming (I lives in apartment), my partner talking in his phone, all of that background noise. Why participants should be subjected to those noise and why Zoom need to know the noises?

> Why do you prefer to sign over video instead of typing? Are there forms of expression that are more natural that way?

We signs because Signed Languages is our modality and the only form of expression in Deaf communities. There are no written sign language or spoken sign language. Using sign language is natural for us to use. We avoid using typing because it is not a true representation of the community, we don't have same proficiency of written/spoken languages as you and others. So to them, it looks like we are from a call center in India with broken English.

I'm fascinated by your last point. Are you saying that being deaf impedes your written communication ? As a layman I would have thought that written communication would be a godsend.

I'm not deaf and/or use sign language, but I have modes where I prefer speaking rather than written text. I would presume deaf people would be the same for their more personal and expressive communication.

Sign languages aren't English-but-via-hands (even American and British sign languages). They have their own unique vocabulary and grammar. For native speakers of a sign language, English is a foreign language.

I think you may not appreciate how intertwined your verbal cognitive skills are with your ability to think / type / communicate.

Absolutely. That’s why I asked

I am not deaf, but a family member of mine is a studied American Sign Language in college and worked as an interpreter and we've discussed this topic a few times at length.

Some interesting take-aways I have from discussing this:

* Sign language communication is very different. We can speak with our mouths much faster than we can manipulate our hands, so fewer words are used. I have to imagine this means that the words that are used are far more significant.

* Names are interesting. Most people names don't have signs, and signing every letter would be annoying, so apparently people get nicknames made up of descriptive words. So, you might go by "tall mustache" in normal conversation, but you're 10u152 in writing.

People wouldn't write the same way they would sign. ASL is a completely different language and direct translations to written English modifies the meaning of a lot of statements.

Is it a serious question? Why do you prefer to speak over video instead of typing?

I am curious about that too (although others have already answered). I prefer typing over speaking.

But I have realized that a lot of people I interact with find it more difficult to understand information in written form. Ie it's easier to teach someone with spoken language than over written text.

I dislike video calls.

Probably similar reason why, after about 5-6 back and forth cycles in a direct Slack chat, I will usually suggest we get open a voice call to finish the conversation. It is faster and the level of communication is better. Typing is slower and you don’t get nuance hence why some people use emoji.

I totally understand why the person above indicated that they preferred signing to typing.

Signing has tons of advantages over typing, since you can convey emotion/tone with your hands and facial expressions. I'd also imagine it has a higher WPM, although WPM might be a bad measure since some small words like "a" can get skipped when signing.

Sign language is an actual independent language.

Most sign at the same pace as speech. Both of which are faster than typing.

Sign language has the same, or more, expressive properties as when we use inflection etc. in voice.

Why do you prefer to talk over video instead of typing?

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