Website accessability issues (was Re: new FreeBSD-webpage)

jonathan michaels jlm at caamora.com.au
Sat Oct 8 16:51:49 PDT 2005


On Sat, Oct 08, 2005 at 11:13:33AM -0700, Murray Stokely wrote:
> On Sat, Oct 08, 2005 at 11:48:59AM +0200, Brad Knowles wrote:
> > 	I think maybe we need a few more ADA lawsuits filed against 
> > companies (and other organizations) for the crimes they are 
> > committing with their websites.
> 
> Indeed.  We have committers with all sorts of disabilities (including
> blindness) and so keeping the site fully accessible serves our own
> internal needs as well as those of our users.

if that is the case then why is teh freebsd website as it is now so
disabled hostile ?

i've asked several people that i know who have different parts of thier
bodies and brains damaged to mine and every one of them to a man (and
two women) all, and independantly, berate teh bew version as being
various degrees of uslessness from hostile to bearly usable.

seveeral of these garbage (me included in this identifier) can warriors
(we are all anti pc speak and do so at every opportunity so i am
speaking/describing us with there permission .. for teh simple minded
pc types) use old ibm pc's (real ibm pc intel 386sx cpu with 8/16 mb
dram) have tried to use the site with text to speach software ranging
from lynx on pc dos v6.0 and v7.0 and a novell dos v6 from memory. also
several gui products using (integrated gui) operating systems ms
windows nt v3.51 and v4.0, beos, GEM (very disabled person friendly,
pity thier is no support anymore) several gnu/linux (debian) iterations  
and of cource various bsds ... we are an informal group that tries to
find a usable solution that we can all share and build a good stagle
reliable package that will enable us to have a 'blind fredie' type
operating system that requires no thinking as we confrence call to
discuss project issues and not have to worry/consentrate on our fingers
falling over operating system 'troubles'.

this actually is a position that all users of an operating system
package should be able to get into fairly quickly and relatively
easily. again if us disabled guinea pigs crash test dummies can achieve
this then the so called not disabled "intelligent" endusers should be
able to make a cake walk of off it well this is the conclusion we (us
peer reviewers) have reached over some 20 or more years of on and off
research.
 
> The new site continues the move away from HTML 3.2 era visual tags
> that we've been working on for several years.  It is supposed to be

the addition of java, javascript and some odd xml that for the time
being lynx just (graciously) steps over, fortunately for me (us text
console users, hampered or not).

> more accessible than the old site.  If there are regressions then
> please post them to freebsd-www at FreeBSD.org so we can fix them.

is this going to be the usual humilliate teh messenger because we
cannot speak/type the american english like a native ???? yes, i do
have dificulties with english and americam varietal being teh most
significant, could be because it changes so quickly and diferentially.
as well thier are issues with oclour blindness (different from the
usual red/green male eyes variety) dsylexia and damaged neurology. as
to why i and those like me do not use the available spelling checkers,
simple they are american based algorithms with dictionaries that spell
most of teh simple words that we use incoreectly and the superposition
of z for s is most silly as far as we are concerntde, it is most
difficult to understand and hence to use correctly and makes using teh
freebsd (and all american sourced/developed/uiltb) websites awkward to
say teh least.

ok, this is my honest and open opinion given the things that most
significanly impact this disabled man with his journey through the
freebsd web site.
 
well the balls in yor court now lets see what happens this time. i am
prepared to face being treated the way i was on several ocasions over
the years that i have been a freebsd user in an attempt to try to
communicate in as damaged a manner as i cam. i don't have much
programing skills any more, i don't have any disposable income to buy
cd's et al all that i can do is to communicate as best as i can that
teh website is hard if not impossible to use for if not disabled people
as a whole then at least this (attempting to vocalise the issues most
as best as i can inspite of teh in teh past most hostile responce) time
inspite of my history of much anxiety, fear but inspite i am prepared
to make teh best of it so that other people like me can find the same
level and freedom that is afforded when the person finally gets usable
tools that grants them the ability to be able to communicate freely and
to not have thier damaged body/mind become the limiting factor in ones
ability to communicate as a free and equal human being.

this might soudn corny but it is teh reason i persist because i am
cogniscient enought to know what it feels like to have this skill
ability taken away from me by loutish boorish bigots who think its
funny to trample on another persns  ... ok i hope you all have got the
idea by now 

kind regards

jonathan

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