Talk:List of deaf people
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[edit] Problems
There are some tremendous problems on this page. The most glaring is that the inclusion of some people such as Bill Clinton (I'm using him ONLY as an example and not for any imagined political reason) who experienced minor hearing loss at some point in his life; this trivalizes and diminishes the experiences and legacies of the profoundly deaf people who were pre-lingually deaf or born deaf. The ONLY reason in modern scholarship that a person's deafness is notible is because of the historic advances made by people from the signing deaf community.
Deaf people themselves made this subject a topic of interest; not former presidents, popular singers and other related ilk. We need to make clear that the happenstance incidents of deafness to rock stars and media celebs doesn't merit historic notation. What, for example, has Rush Limbaugh contributed to the history, culture and understanding of the community of deaf people? Nothing! Limbaugh, in fact, represents a kind of negative. His deafness was virtually self-inflicted due to his illegal use of pain medication. He's a very wealth man and he used his pocket change to have a $90,000.00 coclear implant installed in his head. There's a tremedous irony here. The history of the deaf is repleat with examples of the deaf children of the very wealthy and powerful being the ONLY ones believed worth educating. But aside from that, the underlying message is that if one can't afford such a device or if such a device doesn't benefit a deaf person, that deaf person isn't worth much. I think this list of names should be severely edited and returned to one of dignity.
[edit] Posting Criteria and Information Page Links
Two Questions:
1.By what criteria are deaf people being added to this list?
2. Why are people added when they are not linked to an information page?
Re: Criteria: What, may I ask, is the reasoning behind listing people here whose lives are not distinguished by their achievement as deaf persons, but rather by their achievements as hearing persons? Incidental deafness is completely irrelevent! Doesn't it make more sense to list people who achieved their reputations and greatness as deaf people? Partially deaf or deaf after their career was completed? That describes half the human population of the world over age 60! What's the big deal? It doesn't distinguish these people at all and it trivalizes the lives of people who achieved greatness or notarity and were severely or profoundly deaf at the time they made their mark on the world.
Here's a best case scenerio: Laurent Clerc is on the list. Who is he? Clerc is the *central* most important and distinguished individual in the history of American deaf education. He is deaf from infancy yet was a not only a distinguished man of letters, he was a polyglot, a master of four languages, and a renowned leader of both the Paris and Hartford deaf communities. He is a legend among the deaf because he founded the first system of deaf education in American history. Now THAT'S a case of of being distinguished as a deaf person.
Re: Link to Information page: Who posted Laurent Clerc's name yet provided no information page? What sense does it make to post a name that people do not know and then not link it to information that tells you who the person is? That ought to be a rule on this page. Please don't post unlinked names and if you do post and link people, make sure the information page describes why the person should be distinguished for their deafness.
[edit] Disambiguation of "deaf"
Relating to the disambiguation of the word "deaf" currently under discussion at Talk:Deaf... Since we appear to be working under the assumption that "deaf" means different enough things to warrant a disambiguation page for "deaf", should this list here now be split into Famous people in Deaf culture and List of famous hearing impaired people? eg. I would suggest that folks like Beethoven, Ronald Reagan, and Steve Jobs would be on the latter list but not the former (since Deaf culture either didn't exist at their time or they were/are not members of the Deaf community). --Ds13 03:59, 2005 Mar 1 (UTC)
[edit] Page renaming. "Notable" or "famous" is redundant
I've put this page back to its original title. The people in the list are implicitly notable or it wouldn't be "encyclopedic". That's how all the other lists operate. For example: List of people with dyslexia, List of pacifists, List of vegetarians. There is no need to have all these lists titled "List of notable x".
--Pengo 14:21, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)
[edit] VfD result
This page was voted on for deletion at Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/List of deaf people. The final result was Keep. --Deathphoenix 02:02, 16 Mar 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Julia Brace or Laura Bridgman?
This article lists Julia Brace as the first deafblind American to receive an education, as does the separate article on Laura Bridgman. Which is correct? And if one is correct, what is the other's claim to notability? GeeJo 11:23, August 22, 2005 (UTC)
- Well spotted GeeJo! Both have been claimed as the first deafblind person to be educated. I added a page on Julia Brace and updated the Laura Bridgman article, to hopefully clarify things. They are both notable as they tell us a lot about the lives of deafblind people in history, and both played a role in the development of deafblind education.
- I'm going to add an observation of my own — the page could almost be renamed List of deaf Americans! Anyone with information about non-American Deaf people, pls add them! ntennis 03:41, 23 August 2005 (UTC)
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