WebAIM - Web Accessibility In Mind

E-mail List Archives

Re: The a11y bugs project

for

From: Vlad Alexander (XStandard)
Date: Oct 26, 2011 11:18AM

John, this is the email I sent to Steve who questioned Firefox's implementation on Twitter. If you think this is unreasonable, let me know.

-Vlad

---- start email ----
Subject: The a11y bugs project

Hi Steve,

I am sorry that you were not involved at the start of this project 5 months ago. But these bugs have been reviewed and signed off by 15 experts. We have spent 5 months trying to convince browser vendors to implement the fixes.

Initially Microsoft and Opera responded favorably towards this project but have failed to follow-up on their initial willingness to work together with the accessibility community. That is why we have gone public with this project.

We have met stiff resistance and delay tactics from the browser vendors who are looking for any reason not to fix these bugs. Questioning our bugs at this time can give them another reason not to fix them. If this project fails, the browser vendors will do even less for accessibility.

So I ask you to reconsider publicly questioning these bugs. If you have any questions regarding Firefox implementation about these features, please contact Aaron Leventhal who was with Mozilla at that time. Please contact him privately via his email [email removed]

Regards,
-Vlad
---- end email ----


-------- Original Message --------
From: John Foliot
Date: 10/26/2011 10:03 AM
> Hello Vlad,
>
> It has recently come to light that you are now censoring (or at least limiting) public discussion around some of these bugs, and specifically that you have asked Steve Faulkner to refrain from publicly posing questions about the 3 current bugs.
>
> As one of the founders of html4all, and host of that web space, this is counter to the spirit of our founding, which was to provide a platform for open and honest dialog about issues around accessing the web and related accessibility issues.
>
> Can you please provide clarification on this issue? As you are hosting a11ybugs.org yourself, you are of course free to run it as you choose, but if this is your current stance on dissenting viewpoints then I must sadly remove the support of html4all from this project, and further ask that my name be removed from any indication of support to your project.
>
> The web belongs to all of us, and not just those who control the publishing part of the platform, and censorship of any kind is totally unacceptable to me, and I suspect many others reading this today.
>
> I await your response.
>
> JF
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Vlad Alexander (XStandard)"< <EMAIL REMOVED> >
> To: <EMAIL REMOVED>
> Sent: Wednesday, October 26, 2011 8:53:30 AM
> Subject: Re: [WebAIM] The a11y bugs project
>
> Hi Chris,
>
> a11ybugs.org is a campaign site for the initial 3 bugs. The actual project, which was started 5 months ago is located here:
>
> http://www.html4all.org/staging/a11y-bugs/
>
> When the project becomes public at the URL above (probably after the campaign to fix the first 3 bugs), participation will be on a bug-by-bug basis and open to all. It will have a proper database/search/workflow that will scale.
>
> To get the project going 5 months ago, we submitted 3 bugs to the browser vendors and then worked through back channels to get these 3 bugs fixed as a group.
>
> The campaign site is kept simple, with only one signature for all 3 bugs so that when we go back to the browser vendors, we can present to them a single number of people who support fixing these initial 3 bugs. I believe keeping this campaign simple and focused will make it successful.
>
> I agree that the pages do look "dated and uninviting" and someone from the community has volunteered to rework the look and feel.
>
> Chris, I recognize your concerns and acknowledge that there is room for improvement. Nevertheless, I hope you will support this effort by adding your name to the petition and writing a tweet about this project. Thanks in advance!!!
>
> Regards,
> -Vlad
>
>
>
> -------- Original Message --------
> From: Chris Heilmann
> Date: 10/25/2011 2:33 AM
>> On 24/10/2011 18:23, Vlad Alexander (XStandard) wrote:
>>> I am contributing to "the a11y bugs project" that aims to identify and fix browser/tool bugs that undermine accessibility on the web. Fixing some of these bugs can have a major impact on web accessibility.
>>>
>>> Please check out the project here:
>>> http://a11ybugs.org
>> I like the concept of it but there are some issues with the site itself:
>>
>> - you make users sign the petition of the idea of the whole concept and
>> then show the list under each bug. I might support the cause but I don't
>> necessarily see each bug as a bug. If it is not in context then the list
>> of names is redundant on the bug pages.
>> - Bug 1, Bug 2 and Bug 3 doesn't tell me much - if I want to know what
>> is going on these links should be the description of the bug
>> - Having a bug list in the right hand column doesn't scale at all - if
>> there are 20 bugs you'll already run out of space
>> - The page looks dated and uninviting (I know this is a personal taste
>> thing but design has moved on a bit) - why don't you offer the page
>> itself on github so people could provide styling?
>>
>>
>>