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Re: Hi everyone

for

From: John Foliot - Stanford Online Accessibility Program
Date: Feb 20, 2007 3:20PM

Tim Rutherford wrote:
> My name is Tim and I am a beginning web designer that wants to start
> off by being accessibility
> focused. I think that you guys may be way over my head because until
> I joined this list, I had never
> heard of microformats and stuff. Also somone mentioned things that
> was included in the HTML 2.0
> specification and I started with HTML 4.01.
> Is this the right forum to get started or could you all suggest
> another mailing list that I can join ?
>
> Ciao,
> TR
>

Tim,

Welcome aboard. Yes, sometimes the discussion may be 'advanced' but do not
be put off by it; might I suggest you sit back and just lurk for a bit...
You'll catch on/catch up in short order.

The 2 references you make are certainly from the fringes: HTML 2 goes
'wayyyyy' back (the point that Jukka was making is that the concept has been
well established), and microformats are something kind of on the leading
edge (depends on perspective of course) that are peripheral to online
accessibility (although as I'm sure you've picked up *might* have some
accessibility issues, although I for one do not see them as severely as
Jukka does). And for what it's worth, Jukka and I have corresponded on many
occasion, both publicly and privately, and while at this time we are on
opposite sides of the discussion, I have great respect for him and the
contributions he has made to this field - he is one of the "old soldiers"
(sorry Jukka) of this field, and his postings are always worth reading.

You will find that by-and-large the discussions on this list are focused,
reasoned, respectful and helpful - you just happened to enter into a
somewhat technically higher-than average discussion. However, if you have
questions, feel free to ask - there is always somebody willing to help and
offer suggestions.

Good luck.

JF
---
John Foliot
Academic Technology Consultant
Stanford Online Accessibility Program
http://soap.stanford.edu
Stanford University
560 Escondido Mall
Meyer Library 181
Stanford, CA 94305-3093
Tel: 650-862-4603