WebAIM - Web Accessibility In Mind

E-mail List Archives

for

From: Philip Kiff
Date: Aug 22, 2025 7:56PM

This is indeed sad news, Jared. Though understandable, given the
challenges of mailing lists these days, and the other reasons you mention.

I cannot express strongly enough how grateful I am to you and the WebAIM
team for starting this list and keeping it going all these years. It is
not often that anything on the web lasts more than 5 years, let alone
more than 25.

I just checked my files, and I see that I first subscribed to this list
around 2002-2003 - they year when I first started to learn about web
accessibility. My first post was in 2004. Since then, I have learned
more about accessibility from this list and its members than from any
other single source on the web. It has served as a virtual community for
me, and a vast, detailed archive of (sometimes obscure, and sometimes
arcane!) knowledge on all kinds of accessibility issues.

A sincere, deeply felt, thank you. I know that WebAIM will continue to
do great work moving forward, and I will no doubt consult the archives
for many years to come, but this list and its community and collective
knowledge will be sorely missed.

Philip Kiff
D4K Communications

On 2025-08-22 5:11 p.m., Jared Smith via WebAIM-Forum wrote:
> It is with sadness that I share that effective next Wednesday, August 27th, this email list will be shut down.
>
> Unfortunately with modern spam filters and complex and inane requirements for sending bulk emails (especially on behalf of others) it has simply become untenable for us to maintain the list. Many of the major email providers are currently blocking all list messages from being delivered and no suitable resolution has been achieved with them. Our hardware – which has sent 10s of millions of emails – is nearing its end of life. We have also seen a drop in participation and content quality in recent years. We’re very sad to see it go, but it is time.
>
> The WebAIM list was started almost 26 years ago with a small group of WebAIM staff members conversing back and forth. Since then there have been nearly 50,000 distinct messages distributed to thousands of subscribers. Once described as “the water cooler of web accessibility”, the list has provided invaluable information sharing and collaboration. The list archives (https://webaim.org/discussion/archives) will be maintained to provide ongoing access to this body of knowledge. WebAIM also hosts a blog (https://webaim.org/blog/), monthly newsletter (https://webaim.org/newsletter/), and will host another WebAIM online conference (https://conference.webaim.org/) next month – all to support the incredible WebAIM community.
>
> We’re grateful to all of you for your participation over the years!
>
> Jared Smith
> Director, WebAIM
>
>