After almost three years of blogging, Taylor's blog RidorLive has built an impassioned readership that almost every blog on the web would be envious of. Ricky's long, almost daily posts on politics in the deaf community and elsewhere usually get more than 50 comments each from readers.

In the following interview we talked about how Ricky built his readership and the role of multimedia in deaf communities. I'm very excited to be able to post this interview, it was a lot of fun.

Marshall

Want to start with an overview? Blogging, you and the deaf community? The role that blogging has played in your larger engagement with your community, the world, social change - the big picture.

Ricky:

Initially, I did not create my blog for the deaf community. I did it for me, myself and my soul. When I resided in New York, the greatest city in the whole world where you can do many things with your fingertips ... but its deaf community was rather poor for me.

Being Deaf and gay, it kinda spells trouble for me in New York where there are not many deaf gay men that can stimulate me and my mind.

Then one day, a friend suggested me to write stuff on a certain blog. And I did it. Then for the next two years, the readership went from the readership went from 50 to 800 hits per day. I always made it clear that I am part of Deaf Community but I do NOT represent them. I am who I am, you know?

I guess, what changed everything is last May 1st.

When the Gallaudet [University dedicated to the deaf] students erupted in protest against the selection of Dr. Jane K. Fernandes as the next President of Gallaudet -- I blogged heavily on that -- I knew the administration would choose JKF all along since last September -- people in the deaf community started to rely on my blog for information.

My readership just exploded from 800 hits per day to 14,000 hits per day. I averaged anywhere between 4,000 to 8,000 on a good day these days. I guess you could say that they adopted me as the source of information within the community -- because I'm brutally honest when it comes to things like that.

Basically, Deaf people are tired of bullshit and sugarcoating comments by others. They wanted the real meat to kill. And I guess they found it in my blogsite.

I think my blogsite is entertaining and informative for all kinds of people.

You know what really made me gratified is that deaf people seemed to be OK with me being gay. They are willing to overlook that and read stuff about deaf people in general.

I started on September 14, 2003. I feel so ashamed when I read these stuff. I was so lame.

("VEEing in ASL means to overanalyze, to analyze -- if you sign "analyze" -- your hands looks like VEE")

Marshall

That's how they say we all start! So now it seems you've settled into writing long posts, frequently. What's your work flow like in writing the posts?

Ricky:

Thank god for 90 to 100 wpm. Blame it on my parents and Mr. Wayne Dingledine -- who forced me to learn how to type in very effective manner.

You see, I was raised using the TTY machine whom my parents insisted me to learn from day one. You know what the TTY machine is? It is a telecommunication device for the deaf but deaf people prefer to call it TTY instead.

Basically, I tried to shorten the postings but the readers protested. They wanted more information.

Marshall

Your posts get so many comments!

Ricky:

I think many readers are tired of the misconception that deaf people are so nice, patient and all that shit. So when they saw that I have no patience for things like that, I think they related to me.

Of course, I expect every 4 readers to like what I wrote, 1 to dislike what I wrote. Thanks to deaf clubs -- I learned how to gather interesting information that may entertain the readers, to select the right ones. I want the readers to react, though.

It kinda surprised me that people would check my blog every morning when they woke up -- they even coined "RWS" -- Ridor withdrawal syndrome. If I did not post anything more than 48 hours, they go insane.

Marshall

So persistence, brutal honesty and key information; anything else you've found helpful in building a passionate readership?

Ricky:

I think the key to everything is to find a pulse of what they wanted to hear, talk, learn, discuss or even fight about this, that and there. And when people emailed you in private, it is important to treat them with respect -- after all, respect is two-way street, not one-way street. I think they appreciated my position.

Recently at National Association of the Deaf conference, where many readers donated money for me to attend and report -- so many people I met, they remarked that I was much nicer in person than online -- so I think it also helped them to see that I can use several hats, you know what I mean?

Marshall

That's great. What kind of role does blogging in general play in the larger deaf community? It seems that there are a lot of deaf bloggers and video bloggers. Not that I'd ask you to speak for anyone else, but what's it look like to you?

Ricky:

It is growing, I'm glad to say. I was bit annoyed few years ago when I saw few deaf bloggers outside of my friends!

Many deaf people has blogs on xanga.com whose templates are designed for kids. I despise xanga.com -- but I want interesting stuff. In the last 12 months, it slowly gained but during or after the Gallaudet protest, I think I saw more blogs than ever.

That's good -- it provides the means for Deaf people to share their voices, professionally or not.

Since the national newspaper for the deaf has folded, I think Deaf people has been looking for a way to communicate -- and they found it on blogs and the current trend, video-logging which many called it vlogs.

I think it is healthy for the deaf community -- it empowers themselves in many ways.

Marshall

That's a pretty different scenario than the "will blogs destroy newspapers" discussion.

Ricky:

I think the deaf blogs already killed Barry Strassler's crappy email distributions!

Barry Strassler runs the deafdigest and deafsportzine digest -- many loathed the way he wrote. I think people abandoned him already, though. No big deal.

Marshall

These are good specifics, are there other specific or general observations you'd like to share with a global community of nonprofit/philanthropy/social change technologists?

Ricky:

Right now, many of us are annoyed with the fact that we have the technological means to add the captions on streamlining videos on websites but not many of them do that.

Just recently, AOL finally did some. What the fuck? Get with the program already!

That is probably their most annoying ... they could not read anything when they posted the latest videos. My attitude is like this, if I can't understand, so can't you!

If they cannot put the captions on it, then there should be no videos. That would certainly piss off the hearing viewers. But that is me, though.

If hearing people wanted to improve the living standards for deaf people across the globe, they can work with but not "for" deaf people -- do not work with them just because they are "deaf". Do it because it is the right thing to do.

There are many talented deaf individuals who can contribute to the imaginations within the technological views, but they are largely ignored. Start including them, that would be a good start, I feel.

Marshall

Are there other things, like trying to use video software that supports captioning, that would be good steps toward being good blogospheric allies?

Or is just getting together with folks and aiming to be inclusive the best first start?

Ricky:

I'm not technical whiz ... but from what I understand, there is free software that the websites can add the captions on the video -- one deaf friend who tested it and told me that it was so easy! If they can do it, why can't these hearing-owned websites do that?

Marshall

Fair enough.

Ricky:

Blogoshperic allies? Yes, a deaf blogger has talked about the lack of "centralized" system for deaf bloggers -- and they decided to set up one at deafread.com as the first step towards the centralized system -- maybe it may be a good way to build the ally ... but I think that if we only focus on deaf-owned blogs to do something about the captions, it simply will not work -- we must have the hearing-owned blogs to be part of it -- so being inclusive is the best option, yes.

Ricky Taylor blogs at RidorLive.com. Other blogs he recommends include Joseph Rainmound's Deaf in the City, Jared Evans' blog, Taylor Mayer's Y3, Beth Szymanski's Outgrowth and the way not safe for work (depending on where you work) blog I Probably Hate You.