Talk:Blindness/Archive 1

Media
How about adding a list of books and movies etc. in which blind characters appear? --Mithcoriel 22:27, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Not a bad idea. It might also be a good idea to have a section or article about blind societies. I know that in medieval Japan, there were many groups of blind priests and performers. I think that's definitely relevant, but I don't know very much about it. Could someone add something about it?


 * I think you mean Biwa hoshi. Shui9 05:39, 24 March 2007 (UTC)


 * The article on Biwa hoshi is linked to through the Blind musicians which is listed on this article under see also. Jeepday 13:48, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Wired magazine article
I don't think that disturbing and rambling Wired Magazine article should be in the links list, but I'm not going to remove it quite yet. I would like some feedback first. 68.149.35.104 22:47, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Reconstruction of the “blindness” page
I’ve making extensive edits to the “blindness” page, since it had started to look more like a hodge-podge of incoherent thoughts than an encyclopedia article. This is a work in progress, however, and so copy additions and edits are encouraged.

One of the most drastic changes I’ve made involves moving the web accessibility discussion to another page. This concept is broader than blindness and, besides that, the technological talk doesn’t really have much to do with the physiological condition. Kael 00:43, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Eww, who wrote that?
Who wrote the 'social attitudes towards Blindness' section? Remarkably slim, and looks like it was stolen from a book. (Awfully stilted book...) --Penta 01:11, 20 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * I wrote it when I overhauled the entire article a few months ago. The idea here on Wikipedia is to make copy changes if you have additional information. 68.149.34.143

Dead links
these articles were linked, please add them when the article is written.
 * The Blind and the Deaf


 * Blindness in Children
 * History regarding blindness
 * Blindness in Law
 * Blindness in medicine
 * Organizations associated with blindness

What do those numbers mean?
I rather like updating the blindness-related pages, as it is one field in which I’m interested. If you’d like to see anything added to them, please say something - User:Kael


 * You need to explain the 20/200 notation, or provide a reference to a page which explains it. Gdr 10:26, 2004 Jul 28 (UTC)


 * Sorry it took me so long. Broke my leg skydiving. There's a new link at the bottom of the page. User:Kael


 * Is there nothing about speaking-semaphores and those who play some music? There's one next to my house and it continues uttering "Verde para los peatones de la calle Francisco Gourié. Crucen con precaución." all the night =D --euyyn 08:35, 16 Sep 2004 (UTC)


 * Yes, for instance in our country (Czechia, and I believe in most of Europe), we have semaphores that emit two different clicking sounds, depending on the state they're in. Also, one blind guy once told me that in Prague there is a system of radio identification of bus and tram lines (which tells things like which bus just came), and also radio identification of entrances to various important buildings. I don't know much more about it, but it seems interesting. Also, we have lines along the platform embossed in subway, so blind people can track those with their stick and avoid falling from the platform (I suspect there are also other such cues). Samohyl Jan 07:07, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

Internal links are redundant?
The first time I visited this article, I could find the internal link to Braille within the "Reading and magnification" section.

Now I found it removed by Martin-C with the comment removed redundant braille link. But why are internal links redundant?

In my mind, in Wikipedia internal links are like a skeleton, and the articles around them are like the flesh. Are bones redundant?

Please help me to understand this.

-- Madeleine 08:25, 2005 May 15 (UTC)


 * It's preferable to have only one internal link per term per article (when the term is first mentioned), because it makes (I think this is the reason) resulting html code shorter without affecting usability. Samohyl Jan 07:13, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

Emotion-induced blindness
See article on Slashdot. Samohyl Jan 07:13, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

Very old movie about blindness
Does anyone recall a movie of about 20 years ago which was made by the British? it starts with a guy in the hospital who has been attacked by these very large plants with stingers (the plants are about 7 feet tall). The guy has been temporarly blinded and, as fate would ahve, is bandaged over his eyes when a comet is coming into range of earth. The comet creates a spectacular light show however, the next morning, anyone who looked at the comet has gone blind. The man recovers from his own blindness to find an England devastaed by mass blindness and he trys to survive in those new society. At the end of the movie, it is revealed that te comet might actually have been a Soviet weapon. I sZw it in the 80s on PBS, Channel 26 in Washington, D.C. as I remember. Any idea what the name of it was? -Husnock 18:22, 18 February 2006 (UTC)


 * It was The Day of the Triffids (1962), directed by Steve Sekely, based on the John Wyndham novel. [JPP]

NPOV
This article has a slight POV, as some sections are written more like an advertisement then encyclopedic entry. I would correct them, only my knowledge of ocular trauma isn't that great. _-M     o      P-_   23:48, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

If you're referring to the webaccessibility sections, there's a reason; it's a heavily monopolized industry.


 * Do you mean the JAWS reference? This is not unreasonable: they're dominant (cf mentioning Internet Explorer in an article about web browsers). Disclaimer: I work for a competitor of Freedom Scientific. User:Alasdairking 22 June 2006.

tag
The tag was removed with the following comment: "article contains sources, please be more specific". I am the one who originally added the tag. The sources that currently appear in the article were also subsequently added by me. The specific statements in the article that still need references and sources are those statements that do not have references and sources (i.e. a few sentences in the introduction and nearly everything below the section entitled "Epidemiology"). It's not appropriate to add the tag after every sentence requiring a reference, so I'm going to reinsert the  tag. -AED 05:11, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

Picture
Who put a picture in the same infobox as the ICD codes? It's aesthetically unattractive and wrong, you could place it farther down in the article, besides it's not that illustrative --Shandris 10:33, 8 May 2006 (UTC)


 * I've replaced the picture of The Blind Girl with a picture of a white cane, the international symbol for blindness. Graham 87 05:39, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Expansion of Article
This article is entirely related to human blindness. It should cover the basic causes of blindness, physiology, etc, and link to separate articles on human blindness, evolutionary blindness, etc. I came here looking for blindess in cave dwelling animals, not humans and their adaptions.
 * MSTCrow 17:00, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

I removed the NPOV tag. I found little evidence of slant, though the article still needs some work.

Audio File
It seemed too ironic that our article on blindness had no audio file. I have therefore added one. [[User:Brinticus|Brinticus\\ 11:49, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Unintentionally funny
"...but nothing definitive can be said of the blind as a class except that they cannot see well." It's true, of course, but somehow that sentence made me chuckle. Perhaps a small rewrite? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 84.86.23.99 (talk • contribs) 14:35, 23 October 2006 (UTC).
 * I agree. The comment does not appear to be encyclopedic. -AED 00:19, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Hysterical blindness?
There's an article for a movie of this name, but not for the phenomenon, which I guess is now called a form of Conversion disorder. Does anyone know enough about it to add something? Шизомби 18:55, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Blind people can't dream
Read it somewhere. I think it was on yahoo answers. Is it true? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Berserkerz Crit (talk • contribs) 07:57, 17 December 2006 (UTC).

It is not true that blind people can not dream. They can and do dream and have visual dreams - original research Jeepday 13:15, 21 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Blind people have visual dreams? Well, you'd better read this (Maybe this will be good for the article): http://psych.ucsc.edu/dreams/Library/kerr_2004.html Fiction Alchemist 00:37, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

If you become blind, it doesn't mean that you'd forget what everyones faces look like or what a book, tv, bed, etc. would look like so why should you forget it in dreams? (just speaking the unsaid)-anonymous never2told4 6:06, 4 december,2007

Yahoo answers is a terrible place :S --Meridius (talk) 16:33, 8 December 2007 (UTC)


 * What if you were BORN blind, though? You wouldn't have visual dreams then because you wouldn't know what visuals looked like. Obviously someone who could first see and then became blind WOULD still have visual dreams, however. And yes, Yahoo Answers is a terrible place. >=) C.V. Reynolds (talk) 16:26, 19 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Blind people do dream. Whilst it isn't visual, it is the same sensory input as the blind person has when they are awake. jonathon (talk) 00:14, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

People who are born blind can't have visual dreams, but people who develop blindness sometimes have visual dreams. I don't have an official source for this, but it does make sense logically, since you would remember what things look like and in dreams you see with your mind's eye, not your real eyes. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.226.209.87 (talk) 23:49, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

blindness by tv or other crt or lcd
could looking at a crt monitor or lcd screen make you go blind if you look at it all day?

probably not. but it might be hard to see for a few min. if you look away. (never2told4)6:11, 4 december,2007

The Chicago Lighthouse
I removed this recent entry per Spam '''*The Chicago Lighthouse for People Who Are Blind or Visually Impaired provides free technical support for people who are blind or visually impaired. Anyone with a question may call the HelpDesk’s toll free number, 888-TCL-0080 (Voice/Relay). Support is available via e-mail by sending a message to ray.campbell@chicagolighthouse.org or AOL Instant Messenger screen name “tclhelp.”*'''

My Rational - It is clearly not intended as a resource for the blind as it is in bold. It is advertising but is (IMO) relevant to the article and may have potential for encyclopedic addition to the article as a reference with some modifications. It is not suitable for a bold entry in the center of the article. Assume good faith does not trump Policy of  content and style. Good Faith tell us to assume the editor was not intending to spam Wikipedia. Policy tells us the content is not appropriate as given and Neutral point of view tells us that it needs to be rewritten (at least) for the article. In it's given version it implies to sighted users that the The Chicago Lighthouse is the only resource for such service and is endorsed by Wikipedia neither of which is true. Jeepday 13:33, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Question
Are there any more causes of congenital blindness? Only two are listed and I was wondering whether there were others, including idiopathic ones. Lady BlahDeBlah 01:04, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

different levels of vision
Does anyone know of a website where you can enter what kind of vision you have or are interested in and see what something would look like to someone with that level of vision? For example if you have 20/20 vision, you enter that, and then you could enter 20/50 to see things through the eyes of someone with that level of vision. Crd721 09:33, 2 April 2007 (UTC)


 * You might get a better response if you posted your question to the Reference Desk. Shui9 15:50, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Neurological physiology for blindness?
I think it would be helpful to include a section on the neurological physiology for blindness (e.g. specific inhibitions of the optic chiasm/optic nerve). Is there anyone who could include something on that? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 130.64.135.11 (talk) 07:33, 27 April 2007 (UTC).

Cones restored in blind mice
"University of Florida researchers used gene therapy to restore sight in mice with a form of hereditary blindness, a finding that has bearing on many of the most common blinding diseases..." Brian Pearson 23:53, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

psychological causes of blindness
The beginning of the article mentions two main reasons for blindness. The first one (physiological) is quite obvious, wihle the second one seems a bit strange. The rest of the article gives no further clues as to how and why a state of mind could cause blindness. I wold like to know how it is possible. Does one just loose eyesight as a result of denying it?

Dose the page say that the most common way of people been blind is been blind from birth? Well I think its the most comon way if it dose not say it then I'M going to add it in. cooment made by SOMEGUY who is not a member.


 * your right, whoever wrote psychological factor is an idiot. A better term is NEUROLOGICAL factors, as brain damage could cause blindess etc --172.212.113.11 11:35, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

blind fare quite well
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5AR_ZMlPoVs&feature=related - this is an interesting video, it shows a blind playing StarCraft with the progamer. I wonder if it could be added as some kind of mention, that blind fare well? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.156.191.13 (talk) 00:11, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

Blindness Cure?
An interesting story i found from the bbc about the cure to blindness. and also Wow, this seems to be the one i heard about: And here we even have a diagram!  Same of some of the others, just more reading: Isnt it amazing what science can do? Adam (talk) 12:58, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Image copyright problem with File:Banknote feature.JPG
The image File:Banknote feature.JPG is used in this article under a claim of fair use, but it does not have an adequate explanation for why it meets the requirements for such images when used here. In particular, for each page the image is used on, it must have an explanation linking to that page which explains why it needs to be used on that page. Please check


 * That there is a non-free use rationale on the image's description page for the use in this article.
 * That this article is linked to from the image description page.

This is an automated notice by FairuseBot. For assistance on the image use policy, see Media copyright questions. --16:27, 2 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Fixed. Graham 87 00:43, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

The cane
Thee Long cane.jpg picture is far too tall for the page. --199.246.40.54 (talk) 21:23, 19 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Fixed. - Hordaland (talk) 00:20, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Computer and Internet usage

 * "Most legally blind people (70% of them across all ages, according to the Seattle Lighthouse for the Blind) do not use computers. Only a small fraction of this population, when compared to the sighted community, have Internet access."

This appears to be based on 1999 data, which gives a figure of 30.4% computer usage for vision-impaired people in the US. More recent data shows a much smaller gap. For example this data from 2003 gives the following percentages for internet (not just computer) usage:

I'm removing that claim from the article. -- Tim Starling (talk) 03:58, 15 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Good catch. 70% sounds like an awfully high number to me, and the 2003 figures sound a bit more realistic, even though they're probably low by today's standards. In my admittedly small circle of blind acquaintances, almost all of them have at least *some* access to computers and the Internet. How effectively they use them is another story entirely, but that's also true for sighted people. :-) Graham 87 15:06, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

non-U.S. Symbols and Definitions for Blindness
Does anyone have information about the symbols, or objects, used in other countries to alert others to blind people, or to those with visual impairment? I know that the Germans use armbands and that the definition of blindness which entitles a person to use blindness symbols varies from country to country. There was movement at one point to have yellow canes for low vision and I recall that Belgium may have adopted this standard. It seems to me that such information would be helpful either here, or under a separate title related to blindness. Dbriefly —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dbriefly (talk • contribs) 13:06, 29 October 2009 (UTC)


 * In Australia and the UK, the white cane is the symbol for blindness. I'm not sure about other countries, and info about blindness symbols in other countries would be interesting. Graham 87 13:34, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

Tactile guides in public places
"Tactile paving and audible traffic signals can make it easier and safer for visually impaired pedestrians to cross streets.'

You might query organizations for the blind on this statement, particularly the National Federation of the Blind (for whom I worked from the early to mid-90s), and the National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped, Library of Congress (for whom I worked as a reader and reviewer for many years in the 80s and 90s).

The brief comment is this: tactile paving is an annoyance and hazard to sighted people and conflates two concepts: safety and accessibility. Safety is the blind person's concern (up to the point at which he/she is equal to a sighted person).

Also, tactile guides, such as detectable tiles on streets and in subways, are considered controversial by some blind people, as they send the signal to the sighted public (especially potential employers) that blind people need this extraordinary expenditure of funds for accessibility because they have deficient travel skills.

One might say that if your travel skills require the remaking of the world, you have no business walking out in it.

74.103.33.83 (talk) 23:51, 8 February 2010 (UTC)Ronald B. Meyer


 * I've removed your email address because spambots routinely crawl Wikipedia pages for email addresses to harvest. I won't comment on the actual contentof your message, since I myself am totally blind, and due to being born premature, I have significant mobility issues. Graham 87 06:29, 9 February 2010 (UTC)