From owner-freebsd-advocacy Sun Nov 4 7:14:24 2001 Delivered-To: freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org Received: from brain.mics.net (brain.mics.net [209.41.216.21]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 67A6437B406; Sun, 4 Nov 2001 07:14:18 -0800 (PST) Received: by brain.mics.net (Postfix, from userid 150) id 6CA5F17BC1; Sun, 4 Nov 2001 10:14:16 -0500 (EST) Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by brain.mics.net (Postfix) with ESMTP id 4742315CC9; Sun, 4 Nov 2001 10:14:16 -0500 (EST) Date: Sun, 4 Nov 2001 10:14:15 -0500 (EST) From: David Scheidt To: Ted Mittelstaedt Cc: Mike Meyer , advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG, chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: RE: NatWest? no thanks In-Reply-To: <001a01c16501$8514f380$1401a8c0@tedm.placo.com> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG On Sat, 3 Nov 2001, Ted Mittelstaedt wrote: > 2) Getting back to NatWest, where is the evidence that IE is not blind > accessible? For the sake of argument assume that ADA applies to commercial > websites - well even if it did, it seems to me that there would only be > grounds to sue if IE somehow could not be make blind-accessible. After all, > consider a porno website - blind people aren't consumers of pornographic > images and thus there is no access issue here, thus to make IE Most blind people aren't consumers of pornorgraphic images. You might find a blind person who wanted to gather some images to give to someone else, or something like that. > blind-accessible > it would seem that all that would be necessary is to attach a braille > terminal and get IE to work with it. Since blind people cannot by definition > consume images, all that a braille terminal need display on a website is the > textual information on the site. > > It may be cynical to say this but wouldn't it be cheaper if someone like > AOL was sued for access problems, for them to simply work with Microsoft and > release a blind-enabled IE than to redesign their many websites. Not only > would it be cheaper but also profitable. It's a lot more complicated than that. First, it's not at all clear that were the ADA to apply to commercial web sites that it would be acceptable to require tha you use IE, as opposed to any generally accepted solution. Braille terminals don't work very well with GUI interfaces, though there are drivers for many of the newer models that allow work with windows. The people I've known who used them have much prefered to use command line interface. Second, reading the text on a web site is often not enough to be able to use it. There are lots of things that flash UIs, which are utterly inaccesable by the blind, and more that have images for navigation buttons, with no, or useless, alt attributes. > > Thus, there is no possible way that even if a blind person has all possible > permutations of a LaserJet 4+ front panel menu memorized, plus all the > buttons, > that he or she can walk up to a HP Laserjet 4+ that he has never seen or used > before and select options via the front panel because he has no way of knowing > what menus will be displayed. > > Now, suppose I'm HP and operating under an ADA mandate, and I put out > documentation > for the HP Laserjet 4+ front panel on my website. Well, what possible use is > it to make this documentation blind-accessible, because a blind person cannot > use the front panel anyway even if they could read the docs, without > assistance > of a sighted person? "Hey, Ted, want to read me the documentation while I stand here in front of the printer, where I can't see the computer?" Have you never helped fix a problem over the phone, where the person doing the work doesn't have access to documentation, buy you do? I do this fairly regularly. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message From owner-freebsd-advocacy Sun Nov 4 9:24:51 2001 Delivered-To: freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org Received: from guru.mired.org (okc-65-31-203-60.mmcable.com [65.31.203.60]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with SMTP id 8A6E637B416 for ; Sun, 4 Nov 2001 09:24:44 -0800 (PST) Received: (qmail 15286 invoked by uid 100); 4 Nov 2001 17:24:38 -0000 From: Mike Meyer MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Message-ID: <15333.31190.717768.983778@guru.mired.org> Date: Sun, 4 Nov 2001 11:24:38 -0600 To: "Ted Mittelstaedt" Cc: , Subject: RE: NatWest? no thanks In-Reply-To: <001a01c16501$8514f380$1401a8c0@tedm.placo.com> References: <15332.41849.327680.753795@guru.mired.org> <001a01c16501$8514f380$1401a8c0@tedm.placo.com> X-Mailer: VM 6.90 under 21.1 (patch 14) "Cuyahoga Valley" XEmacs Lucid X-face: "5Mnwy%?j>IIV\)A=):rjWL~NB2aH[}Yq8Z=u~vJ`"(,&SiLvbbz2W`;h9L,Yg`+vb1>RG% *h+%X^n0EZd>TM8_IB;a8F?(Fb"lw'IgCoyM.[Lg#r\ Sender: owner-freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG Ted Mittelstaedt types: > Let me throw in my $0.02 here: > > 1) Could you guys retitle this thread "ADA Website access" or something? > NatWest disappeared a long time ago. Don't get me wrong I'm interested > in how it comes out. You missed your chance... > 2) Getting back to NatWest, where is the evidence that IE is not blind > accessible? For the sake of argument assume that ADA applies to commercial > websites - well even if it did, it seems to me that there would only be > grounds to sue if IE somehow could not be make blind-accessible. After all, > consider a porno website - blind people aren't consumers of pornographic > images and thus there is no access issue here, thus to make IE > blind-accessible > it would seem that all that would be necessary is to attach a braille > terminal and get IE to work with it. Since blind people cannot by definition > consume images, all that a braille terminal need display on a website is the > textual information on the site. That was my second reason the complaint was wrong, which vanished from the thread a long time ago. If MSN requires MSIE, and MSIE's many accessibility options makes the site accessible, then the system as a whole is fine. > It may be cynical to say this but wouldn't it be cheaper if someone like > AOL was sued for access problems, for them to simply work with Microsoft and > release a blind-enabled IE than to redesign their many websites. Not only > would it be cheaper but also profitable. What really happened when AOL was sued by the National Federation for the Blind is probably safer.. They settled out of court after AOL agreed to make the next version of their software accessible. MicroSoft didn't need to get involved. > 3) Even if there was a US Supreme Court ruling that mandated ADA for > commercial > websites, how would it apply if the website content was not about something > that a blind person can use. If a blind person were acting in some capacity for a a sighted person - i.e., considering buying a gift, or researching options or some such thing. You know they really do put braille on the buttons in the drive-through ATMs. http://www.mired.org/home/mwm/ Q: How do you make the gods laugh? A: Tell them your plans. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message From owner-freebsd-advocacy Mon Nov 5 2:19:41 2001 Delivered-To: freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org Received: from mail.freebsd-corp-net-guide.com (mail.freebsd-corp-net-guide.com [206.29.169.15]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id F393B37B416; Mon, 5 Nov 2001 02:19:33 -0800 (PST) Received: from tedm.placo.com (nat-rtr.freebsd-corp-net-guide.com [206.29.168.154]) by mail.freebsd-corp-net-guide.com (8.11.1/8.11.1) with SMTP id fA5AJVT87471; Mon, 5 Nov 2001 02:19:31 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from tedm@toybox.placo.com) From: "Ted Mittelstaedt" To: "Mike Meyer" Cc: , Subject: RE: NatWest? no thanks Date: Mon, 5 Nov 2001 02:19:30 -0800 Message-ID: <004101c165e3$5b5715e0$1401a8c0@tedm.placo.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 (Normal) X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook 8.5, Build 4.71.2173.0 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V4.72.3155.0 In-Reply-To: <15333.31190.717768.983778@guru.mired.org> Importance: Normal Sender: owner-freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG >-----Original Message----- >From: owner-freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG >[mailto:owner-freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG]On Behalf Of Mike Meyer >Sent: Sunday, November 04, 2001 9:25 AM >To: Ted Mittelstaedt >Cc: advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG; chat@FreeBSD.ORG >Subject: RE: NatWest? no thanks > > >> It may be cynical to say this but wouldn't it be cheaper if someone like >> AOL was sued for access problems, for them to simply work with >Microsoft and >> release a blind-enabled IE than to redesign their many websites. Not only >> would it be cheaper but also profitable. > >What really happened when AOL was sued by the National Federation for >the Blind is probably safer.. They settled out of court after AOL >agreed to make the next version of their software accessible. >MicroSoft didn't need to get involved. > Well, there you go - it's cheaper to redesign the AOL software than to fix the sites it's being used to view. >> 3) Even if there was a US Supreme Court ruling that mandated ADA for >> commercial >> websites, how would it apply if the website content was not about something >> that a blind person can use. > >If a blind person were acting in some capacity for a a sighted person >- i.e., considering buying a gift, or researching options or some such >thing. > Hmmm... but how would a blind person research which porno site had the better pictures? Or how would a blind person select a modern art painting for a gift? >You know they really do put braille on the buttons in the >drive-through ATMs. > :-) Yeah, I've heard that joke before too, but actually since the same people make the ATM's that are used both as walk-up and as drive-through, your going to see that because it's cheaper to only make one kind of button and use it in both types. The ones that I can't figure out are the elevators in parking garages. Unlike ATM's, elevator buttons aren't standard even within the same manufacturer so the ATM reason doesen't apply there. Ted Mittelstaedt tedm@toybox.placo.com Author of: The FreeBSD Corporate Networker's Guide Book website: http://www.freebsd-corp-net-guide.com To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message From owner-freebsd-advocacy Mon Nov 5 2:41:57 2001 Delivered-To: freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org Received: from mail.freebsd-corp-net-guide.com (mail.freebsd-corp-net-guide.com [206.29.169.15]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 2464437B416; Mon, 5 Nov 2001 02:41:49 -0800 (PST) Received: from tedm.placo.com (nat-rtr.freebsd-corp-net-guide.com [206.29.168.154]) by mail.freebsd-corp-net-guide.com (8.11.1/8.11.1) with SMTP id fA5AfiT87527; Mon, 5 Nov 2001 02:41:44 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from tedm@toybox.placo.com) From: "Ted Mittelstaedt" To: "David Scheidt" Cc: "Mike Meyer" , , Subject: RE: NatWest? no thanks Date: Mon, 5 Nov 2001 02:41:43 -0800 Message-ID: <004201c165e6$75c34720$1401a8c0@tedm.placo.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 (Normal) X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook 8.5, Build 4.71.2173.0 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V4.72.3155.0 In-Reply-To: Importance: Normal Sender: owner-freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG >-----Original Message----- >From: David Scheidt [mailto:rufus@brain.mics.net] >Sent: Sunday, November 04, 2001 7:14 AM >To: Ted Mittelstaedt >Cc: Mike Meyer; advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG; chat@FreeBSD.ORG >Subject: RE: NatWest? no thanks > > >Most blind people aren't consumers of pornorgraphic images. You might find >a blind person who wanted to gather some images to give to someone else, or >something like that. > But even then they cannot make selection decisions because they cannot see what they are gathering and have no idea if the image is a real picture or a picture of an advertisement or is even worth looking at. So I think that because of this reason it's impossible to argue that everything on the Internet is usable by the blind and thus must be made accessible. > >It's a lot more complicated than that. First, it's not at all clear that >were the ADA to apply to commercial web sites that it would be acceptable to >require tha you use IE, as opposed to any generally accepted solution. Let's be clear on this, it's impossible for the website to require IE - all the website can do is require that the user use a web browser that appears to be IE. Since the browser is operated by the user, it's really in the power of the user to send back any browser ID string they feel like, support whatever active x ie supports, etc. Any accessible browser that someone might develop could be made to emulate IE, and in fact would have to do this to make it as accessible as possible. (since the entire point of such a program would be to give access, spoofing the ID is just another component of the access) >Braille terminals don't work very well with GUI interfaces, What you mean is that _existing_ Braille terminals don't work very well. It's not because of any inherent property of a GUI interface, it's because not enough effort has been put into the braille terminal software. Even with the navagation button example you later cite, well we have OCR software for reading documents, you could certainly use that to OCR a navagation button that had text in the image. >though there are >drivers for many of the newer models that allow work with windows. The >people I've known who used them have much prefered to use command line >interface. Possibly because nobody has put enough money into developing a decent braille browser. > Second, reading the text on a web site is often not enough to be >able to use it. Exactly my point. If the knowledge gained from something made accessible is unusable to the blind person, then what is the point to making it accessible to start with. >There are lots of things that flash UIs, which are utterly >inaccesable by the blind, and more that have images for navigation > buttons, >with no, or useless, alt attributes. Frankly, I've never met a sighted person, upon seeing Flash on a website, exclaim "Wow that really is something that really needs to be on this website" The response generally is more along the lines of "get this ^&*$ off the screen" So you won't get any arguements out of me if the Supreme Court tells all commercial entities that Flash cannot be used because it doesen't meet ADA. On the contrary I'll be jumping for joy. Keep in mind that I'm not arguing against a court judgement that forces the issue of ADA on commercial websites. If one came down everyone, including sighted persons, would benefit because there's far too much crappy HTML on commercial sites as it is. What I do think, though, is that it's very easy to push this thing way too far, much easier than something mundane like building access. It's easy enough to argue that public buildings need ramp access - not only is it good for the handicapped, but there's lots of normal everyday things like deliveries on handcarts that don't go through the loading dock and why should the minimum-wage UPS delivery kid have to throw out his back carrying loads up steps all day long? But, while ADA access to commercial websites really needs to be written into the law, it also needs to have a whole lot more exceptions in it than building access. Ted Mittelstaedt tedm@toybox.placo.com Author of: The FreeBSD Corporate Networker's Guide Book website: http://www.freebsd-corp-net-guide.com To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message From owner-freebsd-advocacy Mon Nov 5 8:17:31 2001 Delivered-To: freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org Received: from clmboh1-smtp3.columbus.rr.com (clmboh1-smtp3.columbus.rr.com [65.24.0.112]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 4780F37B416 for ; Mon, 5 Nov 2001 08:17:25 -0800 (PST) Received: from potentialtech.com (dhcp065-024-023-038.columbus.rr.com [65.24.23.38]) by clmboh1-smtp3.columbus.rr.com (8.11.2/8.11.2) with ESMTP id fA5GD8T01110 for ; Mon, 5 Nov 2001 11:13:08 -0500 (EST) Message-ID: <3BE6BC06.356C4CE6@potentialtech.com> Date: Mon, 05 Nov 2001 11:19:18 -0500 From: Bill Moran X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.76 [en] (X11; U; FreeBSD 4.4-RC i386) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: advocacy@freebsd.org Subject: Article in pcmag Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG There was recently an article in pcmag that shows that Linux running Samba is faster than W2K. I thought it would be interesting to see the same tests run on Samba+FreeBSD, so I sent an email. Here is the article: http://www.pcmag.com/article/0,2997,s%253D1474%2526a%253D16554,00.asp My thought was that this could be good publicity for FreeBSD, if they run the test with the system properly tuned. If anyone wants to send email, I couldn't find an address for Oliver Kaven (who wrote the article) so I sent one to Davis Janowski (davis_janowski@ziffdavis.com) who appears to be Oliver's boss. -- Bill Moran Potential Technology http://www.potentialtech.com To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message From owner-freebsd-advocacy Mon Nov 5 10:18:50 2001 Delivered-To: freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org Received: from hotmail.com (f113.law4.hotmail.com [216.33.149.113]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 38D8837B416; Mon, 5 Nov 2001 10:18:49 -0800 (PST) Received: from mail pickup service by hotmail.com with Microsoft SMTPSVC; Mon, 5 Nov 2001 10:18:48 -0800 Received: from 24.17.92.79 by lw4fd.law4.hotmail.msn.com with HTTP; Mon, 05 Nov 2001 18:18:48 GMT X-Originating-IP: [24.17.92.79] From: "ZeR0 ZeR0" To: cvs-all@freebsd.org Cc: freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org Subject: subscribe Date: Mon, 05 Nov 2001 18:18:48 +0000 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed Message-ID: X-OriginalArrivalTime: 05 Nov 2001 18:18:48.0950 (UTC) FILETIME=[50902960:01C16626] Sender: owner-freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG subscribe _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message From owner-freebsd-advocacy Mon Nov 5 11: 8:56 2001 Delivered-To: freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org Received: from guru.mired.org (okc-65-31-203-60.mmcable.com [65.31.203.60]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with SMTP id 466BE37B418 for ; Mon, 5 Nov 2001 11:08:46 -0800 (PST) Received: (qmail 41380 invoked by uid 100); 5 Nov 2001 19:08:44 -0000 From: Mike Meyer MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Message-ID: <15334.58300.361356.19614@guru.mired.org> Date: Mon, 5 Nov 2001 13:08:44 -0600 To: "Ted Mittelstaedt" Cc: , Subject: RE: NatWest? no thanks In-Reply-To: <004101c165e3$5b5715e0$1401a8c0@tedm.placo.com> References: <15333.31190.717768.983778@guru.mired.org> <004101c165e3$5b5715e0$1401a8c0@tedm.placo.com> X-Mailer: VM 6.90 under 21.1 (patch 14) "Cuyahoga Valley" XEmacs Lucid X-face: "5Mnwy%?j>IIV\)A=):rjWL~NB2aH[}Yq8Z=u~vJ`"(,&SiLvbbz2W`;h9L,Yg`+vb1>RG% *h+%X^n0EZd>TM8_IB;a8F?(Fb"lw'IgCoyM.[Lg#r\ Sender: owner-freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG Ted Mittelstaedt types: > >> 3) Even if there was a US Supreme Court ruling that mandated ADA for > >> commercial > >> websites, how would it apply if the website content was not about something > >> that a blind person can use. > > > >If a blind person were acting in some capacity for a a sighted person > >- i.e., considering buying a gift, or researching options or some such > >thing. > > > > Hmmm... but how would a blind person research which porno site had the > better pictures? Or how would a blind person select a modern art > painting for a gift? By the description that would be attached to the image(s) in a properly designed site. > >You know they really do put braille on the buttons in the > >drive-through ATMs. > :-) Yeah, I've heard that joke before too, but actually since the > same people make the ATM's that are used both as walk-up and as > drive-through, your going to see that because it's cheaper to only > make one kind of button and use it in both types. The ones in CA were clearly added after the ATM was installed. The real reason is that the person in the car using the ATM doesn't have to be the driver. > The ones that I can't figure out are the elevators in parking garages. > Unlike ATM's, elevator buttons aren't standard even within the same > manufacturer so the ATM reason doesen't apply there. Again, the person using the elevator button doesn't have to be the person who drove the car. http://www.mired.org/home/mwm/ Q: How do you make the gods laugh? A: Tell them your plans. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message From owner-freebsd-advocacy Mon Nov 5 11:33:30 2001 Delivered-To: freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org Received: from guru.mired.org (okc-65-31-203-60.mmcable.com [65.31.203.60]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with SMTP id 27D1837B416 for ; Mon, 5 Nov 2001 11:33:16 -0800 (PST) Received: (qmail 42203 invoked by uid 100); 5 Nov 2001 19:33:15 -0000 From: Mike Meyer MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Message-ID: <15334.59771.604079.307131@guru.mired.org> Date: Mon, 5 Nov 2001 13:33:15 -0600 To: "Ted Mittelstaedt" Cc: , Subject: RE: NatWest? no thanks In-Reply-To: <004201c165e6$75c34720$1401a8c0@tedm.placo.com> References: <004201c165e6$75c34720$1401a8c0@tedm.placo.com> X-Mailer: VM 6.90 under 21.1 (patch 14) "Cuyahoga Valley" XEmacs Lucid X-face: "5Mnwy%?j>IIV\)A=):rjWL~NB2aH[}Yq8Z=u~vJ`"(,&SiLvbbz2W`;h9L,Yg`+vb1>RG% *h+%X^n0EZd>TM8_IB;a8F?(Fb"lw'IgCoyM.[Lg#r\ Sender: owner-freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG Ted Mittelstaedt types: > >It's a lot more complicated than that. First, it's not at all clear that > >were the ADA to apply to commercial web sites that it would be acceptable to > >require tha you use IE, as opposed to any generally accepted solution. > Let's be clear on this, it's impossible for the > website to require IE - all the website can do is require that > the user use a web browser that appears to be IE. Since the browser is > operated by the user, it's really in the power of the user to send back any > browser ID string they feel like, support whatever active x ie supports, etc. Note that Lynx used to warn people that changing the UA string might well be a violation of copyright. And since IE lets you disable Active X, discriminating based on the UA string will incorrectly exclude some people, and incorrectly include others. The correct solution is to detect the feature - or lack thereof - in question, and respond appropriately to that. See for a longer essay on that topic. [That's a temporary location while I'm waiting on a the hardware needed to fix my server.] > > Second, reading the text on a web site is often not enough to be > >able to use it. > Exactly my point. If the knowledge gained from something made accessible is > unusable to the blind person, then what is the point to making it accessible > to start with. Actually, those are two different points. At least, I think they are. The first is a complaint that many web sites are poorly designed, and don't make use of the ability to display an alternative if the media used isn't supported by the browser. The second is trying to make the point that the information provided may not be usable by the person doing the browsing. Which ignores the many cases where the person driving the browser isn't the final consumer of the information. > So you won't get any arguements out of me if the Supreme Court tells all > commercial entities that Flash cannot be used because it doesen't meet > ADA. On the contrary I'll be jumping for joy. Actually, the DoJ already has guidelines on this case - after all, it's been established that the ADA *does apply to web sites run with public funds. The answer is that it doesn't matter what the sighted person sees, so long as the unsighted or otherwise disabled can access the same information. Meaning that you'll get to disable flash plugins in your browser, and hopefully get text instead. > What I do think, though, is that it's very easy to push this thing way too > far, much easier than something mundane like building access. It's easy > enough to argue that public buildings need ramp access - not only is it good > for the handicapped, but there's lots of normal everyday things like > deliveries on handcarts that don't go through the loading dock and why should > the minimum-wage UPS delivery kid have to throw out his back carrying loads up > steps all day long? But, while ADA access to commercial websites really needs > to be written into the law, it also needs to have a whole lot more exceptions > in it than building access. I don't think you've made your case, for three different reasons. The one that's been discussed is that it's hard to determine exactly when some page would never be used by someone who is disabled. The second is that we've been concentrating on the blind, but there are other impairments that effect the browsing experience that need to be considered. Finally, as someone who consults professionally on creating accessible web sites, it's that the cost of creating an accessible web site is *very low*. Adding ramps to a building changes the look of the building, and may be a fundamental design change. All the W3C-designed standards provide for an alternative presentation if the browser doesn't use the primary one. All it takes to build an accessible web site is *using* those things with intelligence. Unfortunately, web site designers seem to be seriously lacking in that last ingredient. http://www.mired.org/home/mwm/ Q: How do you make the gods laugh? A: Tell them your plans. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message From owner-freebsd-advocacy Mon Nov 5 12: 3:32 2001 Delivered-To: freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org Received: from snipe.prod.itd.earthlink.net (snipe.mail.pas.earthlink.net [207.217.120.62]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 4A30237B416 for ; Mon, 5 Nov 2001 12:03:29 -0800 (PST) Received: from dialup-209.245.136.200.dial1.sanjose1.level3.net ([209.245.136.200] helo=mindspring.com) by snipe.prod.itd.earthlink.net with esmtp (Exim 3.33 #1) id 160pxv-0004hV-00; Mon, 05 Nov 2001 12:03:27 -0800 Message-ID: <3BE6F0BD.9F4173C4@mindspring.com> Date: Mon, 05 Nov 2001 12:04:13 -0800 From: Terry Lambert Reply-To: tlambert2@mindspring.com X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.7 [en]C-CCK-MCD {Sony} (Win98; U) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Bill Moran Cc: advocacy@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Article in pcmag References: <3BE6BC06.356C4CE6@potentialtech.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG Bill Moran wrote: > There was recently an article in pcmag that shows that Linux > running Samba is faster than W2K. I thought it would be interesting > to see the same tests run on Samba+FreeBSD, so I sent an email. > Here is the article: > http://www.pcmag.com/article/0,2997,s%253D1474%2526a%253D16554,00.asp > > My thought was that this could be good publicity for FreeBSD, if > they run the test with the system properly tuned. If anyone wants > to send email, I couldn't find an address for Oliver Kaven (who > wrote the article) so I sent one to Davis Janowski > (davis_janowski@ziffdavis.com) who appears to be Oliver's boss. Best not to play in the road, unless it's your turf. They didn't say which clients they were using; because of past discussions, I'm going to bet that these were older clients, and not NT Workstation/2000/XP clients, which perform significantly worse under Linux than Windows, because of the data conversions required. There is also some obvious Linux bias in the cut off on number of clients; extrapolation of the curves shows at a small number of addiioal clients, there are some additional heels in the curves, and at least three of them have the Linux numbers so close to converging on the Windows numbers, that the lines would be bound to cross. It's also pretty clear that the limiting factor was memory utilization of the per client fixed cost, and that as soon as that was converted from cache to client state, the Linux box augered in -- I epxect a FreeBSD box to do the same, and the only fix would be to reduce per connection overhead in the UNIX in question, and in the SAMBA server code itself. It is pretty clear that NT has a bigger initial footprint, but the per client footprint is smaller, and it's more efficient at the data miss handling, where it has to load from disk, rather than serve out of cache. Perhaps the most telling point on where the heels were is the amount of RAM in each box, relative to the heel-over. I don't see a CPU utilization plot vs. number of clients, so the graph seems to me to incorrectly correlate CPU speed, while glossing over relative RAM size, which appears to be the determining factor. From my own similar measurements in the past, I expect that the CPUs are vastly overpowered for the NT, and might be much closer to being consumed on the Linux side of things. The bottom line is that I would not be happy to see FreeBSD show similar curves to Linux, even if it beat Windows on the limited number of clients in the test. -- Terry To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message From owner-freebsd-advocacy Mon Nov 5 14:20:43 2001 Delivered-To: freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org Received: from clmboh1-smtp3.columbus.rr.com (clmboh1-smtp3.columbus.rr.com [65.24.0.112]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 6B21137B405 for ; Mon, 5 Nov 2001 14:20:39 -0800 (PST) Received: from potentialtech.com (dhcp065-024-023-038.columbus.rr.com [65.24.23.38]) by clmboh1-smtp3.columbus.rr.com (8.11.2/8.11.2) with ESMTP id fA5MGLT24556; Mon, 5 Nov 2001 17:16:21 -0500 (EST) Message-ID: <3BE71127.8030607@potentialtech.com> Date: Mon, 05 Nov 2001 17:22:31 -0500 From: Bill Moran Organization: Potential Technology User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; FreeBSD i386; en-US; rv:0.9.3) Gecko/20010914 X-Accept-Language: en-us MIME-Version: 1.0 To: tlambert2@mindspring.com Cc: advocacy@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Article in pcmag References: <3BE6BC06.356C4CE6@potentialtech.com> <3BE6F0BD.9F4173C4@mindspring.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG You don't have to email pcmag, Terry, but advocacy is advocacy, and (as some have stated) any PR is good PR. Terry Lambert wrote: >They didn't say which clients they were using; because of past >discussions, I'm going to bet that these were older clients, >and not NT Workstation/2000/XP clients, which perform significantly >worse under Linux than Windows, because of the data conversions >required. > I guess that's why there are lies, damn lies, and benchmarks ... You _are_ right, they absolutely should have described the clients used, not to do so taints the results by rendering them non-reproducable. They also leave out important details such as Linux & Samba version and W2K sp level. > >There is also some obvious Linux bias in the cut off on number >of clients; extrapolation of the curves shows at a small number >of addiioal clients, there are some additional heels in the >curves, and at least three of them have the Linux numbers so >close to converging on the Windows numbers, that the lines would >be bound to cross. > I'm not seeing the same thing in the graphs that you are. The response time graph shows nothing that you describe above, and I would argue that, while the graphs for transfer speed show a performance drop after a certain number of clients, your assumption that the lines will cross is presumptious. > It's also pretty clear that the limiting >factor was memory utilization of the per client fixed cost, and >that as soon as that was converted from cache to client state, >the Linux box augered in -- I epxect a FreeBSD box to do the >same, and the only fix would be to reduce per connection overhead >in the UNIX in question, and in the SAMBA server code itself. It >is pretty clear that NT has a bigger initial footprint, but the >per client footprint is smaller, and it's more efficient at the >data miss handling, where it has to load from disk, rather than >serve out of cache. > Except for the memory limiting issue, I don't see that at all. W2K with 512M RAM drops off at exactly the same # of clients as W2K with every other amount of RAM, whereas Linux does not drop off at all with 512M RAM. This (to me) says that the Linux/Samba combo is better at managing large amounts of RAM than W2K. The other RAM amounts show an equal "heel" (as you call it) for both Samba and W2K, the 128M downturns at 8 clients, while 256M downturns at 16 clients. How this means that W2K is better at data miss handling is beyond me. > >Perhaps the most telling point on where the heels were is the >amount of RAM in each box, relative to the heel-over. I don't >see a CPU utilization plot vs. number of clients, so the graph >seems to me to incorrectly correlate CPU speed, while glossing >over relative RAM size, which appears to be the determining >factor. From my own similar measurements in the past, I expect >that the CPUs are vastly overpowered for the NT, and might be >much closer to being consumed on the Linux side of things. > Well, I agree that RAM is the limiting factor, but I've never seen an NT machine with more effecient CPU usage than a Linux box, and certainly not one that had better CPU usage than FreeBSD. W2K I can't speak of as I haven't done enough experimenting with it to pretend to be expert. > >The bottom line is that I would not be happy to see FreeBSD >show similar curves to Linux, even if it beat Windows on the >limited number of clients in the test. > Well, the solution to that is to aid the coding effort to produce a better FreeBSD. And the main reason I put this on the list is that I _don't_ believe that FreeBSD would display the same curves. Especially with the new dirpref and dirhash code, I think FreeBSD would show much better curves. Obviously, you're not obligated to email pcmag, I just put this on the list in case anyone else might be interested. -- Bill Moran Potential Technology http://www.potentialtech.com To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message From owner-freebsd-advocacy Mon Nov 5 15:41: 7 2001 Delivered-To: freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org Received: from mail.wolves.k12.mo.us (mail.wolves.k12.mo.us [207.160.214.1]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id A8E4137B416 for ; Mon, 5 Nov 2001 15:41:04 -0800 (PST) Received: from mail.wolves.k12.mo.us (cdillon@mail.wolves.k12.mo.us [207.160.214.1]) by mail.wolves.k12.mo.us (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id RAA06845; Mon, 5 Nov 2001 17:40:55 -0600 (CST) (envelope-from cdillon@wolves.k12.mo.us) Date: Mon, 5 Nov 2001 17:40:55 -0600 (CST) From: Chris Dillon To: Terry Lambert Cc: Bill Moran , Subject: Re: Article in pcmag In-Reply-To: <3BE6F0BD.9F4173C4@mindspring.com> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG On Mon, 5 Nov 2001, Terry Lambert wrote: > Bill Moran wrote: > > There was recently an article in pcmag that shows that Linux > > running Samba is faster than W2K. I thought it would be interesting > > to see the same tests run on Samba+FreeBSD, so I sent an email. > > Here is the article: > > http://www.pcmag.com/article/0,2997,s%253D1474%2526a%253D16554,00.asp > > > > My thought was that this could be good publicity for FreeBSD, if > > they run the test with the system properly tuned. If anyone wants > > to send email, I couldn't find an address for Oliver Kaven (who > > wrote the article) so I sent one to Davis Janowski > > (davis_janowski@ziffdavis.com) who appears to be Oliver's boss. > > Best not to play in the road, unless it's your turf. > > They didn't say which clients they were using; because of past > discussions, I'm going to bet that these were older clients, and > not NT Workstation/2000/XP clients, which perform significantly > worse under Linux than Windows, because of the data conversions > required. I can't tell from this sentence wether you're saying NT/2000/XP is worse for Linux, or the older Win9X clients. From personal experience, Windows NT 4 (and probably 2000 and XP) clients are quite a bit faster than Win9X clients when talking to Samba on a FreeBSD box. Far faster than NT4 to NT4 (haven't tried yet with 2000/XP). I regularly run six instances of PC-Rdist on a Windows NT machine (five instances talking to five other identical Windows NT machines, and one talking to a FreeBSD box running Samba) all syncronizing exactly the same humungous file tree and the PC-Rdist instance that handles the Samba box flies through its task at lightning speed and is done in about 30 seconds compared to about 5 minutes for the rest of them. Not only are the enumerations of the 50,000 files relatively instantaneous with Samba/FreeBSD, but it saturates the 100Mbit network on each file transfer, too. NT4 to NT4 doesn't come anywhere close. Win9X network performance sucks even with an NT4 server. I don't know wether Samba would be any faster or slower than NT4 with Win9X clients, but I'm guessing faster. Again, I don't know how things would change if a 2000 server were brought into the picture. -- Chris Dillon - cdillon@wolves.k12.mo.us - cdillon@inter-linc.net FreeBSD: The fastest and most stable server OS on the planet - Available for IA32 (Intel x86) and Alpha architectures - IA64, PowerPC, UltraSPARC, and ARM architectures under development - http://www.freebsd.org To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message From owner-freebsd-advocacy Tue Nov 6 3:19:51 2001 Delivered-To: freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org Received: from mail.freebsd-corp-net-guide.com (mail.freebsd-corp-net-guide.com [206.29.169.15]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id C527237B416; Tue, 6 Nov 2001 03:19:45 -0800 (PST) Received: from tedm.placo.com (nat-rtr.freebsd-corp-net-guide.com [206.29.168.154]) by mail.freebsd-corp-net-guide.com (8.11.1/8.11.1) with SMTP id fA6BJhT90805; Tue, 6 Nov 2001 03:19:43 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from tedm@toybox.placo.com) From: "Ted Mittelstaedt" To: "Mike Meyer" Cc: , Subject: RE: NatWest? no thanks Date: Tue, 6 Nov 2001 03:19:42 -0800 Message-ID: <002801c166b4$eec7c320$1401a8c0@tedm.placo.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 (Normal) X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook 8.5, Build 4.71.2173.0 Importance: Normal X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V4.72.3155.0 In-Reply-To: <15334.58300.361356.19614@guru.mired.org> Sender: owner-freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG >-----Original Message----- >From: Mike Meyer [mailto:mwm@mired.org] >Sent: Monday, November 05, 2001 11:09 AM >To: Ted Mittelstaedt >Cc: advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG; chat@FreeBSD.ORG >Subject: RE: NatWest? no thanks > > >Ted Mittelstaedt types: >> >> 3) Even if there was a US Supreme Court ruling that mandated ADA for >> >> commercial >> >> websites, how would it apply if the website content was not >about something >> >> that a blind person can use. >> > >> >If a blind person were acting in some capacity for a a sighted person >> >- i.e., considering buying a gift, or researching options or some such >> >thing. >> > >> >> Hmmm... but how would a blind person research which porno site had the >> better pictures? Or how would a blind person select a modern art >> painting for a gift? > >By the description that would be attached to the image(s) in a >properly designed site. > OK, try this one: "Modern art painting - bloches of color like paint or bird droppings on canvas" It tells you absolutely nothing about the painting because the whole point of such paintings is to evoke an emotional response and that will be different for each person. Without being able to see the painting you cannot get an emotional response, and any description that lists what emotional response your supposed to get is going to be wrong for anyone but the author, besides most likely being objectionable to the "artist" (who is going to rebel at a description that tells people how to feel when they view his painting anyway) In short, there's going to be some, probably few, graphics that have no coorespondence to text and that a blind person cannot use. Applying access rules to them is very weird, to say the least. Ted Mittelstaedt tedm@toybox.placo.com Author of: The FreeBSD Corporate Networker's Guide Book website: http://www.freebsd-corp-net-guide.com To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message From owner-freebsd-advocacy Tue Nov 6 3:44:12 2001 Delivered-To: freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org Received: from mail.freebsd-corp-net-guide.com (mail.freebsd-corp-net-guide.com [206.29.169.15]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 2012137B417; Tue, 6 Nov 2001 03:44:05 -0800 (PST) Received: from tedm.placo.com (nat-rtr.freebsd-corp-net-guide.com [206.29.168.154]) by mail.freebsd-corp-net-guide.com (8.11.1/8.11.1) with SMTP id fA6BhwT90853; Tue, 6 Nov 2001 03:43:59 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from tedm@toybox.placo.com) From: "Ted Mittelstaedt" To: "Mike Meyer" Cc: , Subject: RE: NatWest? no thanks Date: Tue, 6 Nov 2001 03:43:57 -0800 Message-ID: <002901c166b8$51faefa0$1401a8c0@tedm.placo.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 (Normal) X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook 8.5, Build 4.71.2173.0 Importance: Normal X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V4.72.3155.0 In-Reply-To: <15334.59771.604079.307131@guru.mired.org> Sender: owner-freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG >-----Original Message----- >From: Mike Meyer [mailto:mwm@mired.org] >Sent: Monday, November 05, 2001 11:33 AM >To: Ted Mittelstaedt >Cc: advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG; chat@FreeBSD.ORG >Subject: RE: NatWest? no thanks > > >The correct solution is to detect the feature - or lack thereof - in >question, and respond appropriately to that. See http://www.idiom.com/~mwm/supported-myth.html > for a longer essay on >that topic. [That's a temporary location while I'm waiting on a the >hardware needed to fix my server.] > Yes, I agree that this is the correct way, but I have little hope that web designers that are dead-set to code to specific browsers are going to give a damn about doing it the right way. These are designers that don't give a rip about the users accessing the site, they are doing what they are doing purely for the site owner's benefit. > >Actually, those are two different points. At least, I think they >are. The first is a complaint that many web sites are poorly designed, >and don't make use of the ability to display an alternative if the >media used isn't supported by the browser. The second is trying to >make the point that the information provided may not be usable by the >person doing the browsing. > Correct. >Which ignores the many cases where the person driving the browser >isn't the final consumer of the information. > But this also ignores the point that some kinds of information must be used interactively, in short the person driving the browser MUST be the final consumer of the information. For example, how would ADA requirements for blind-accessiblity be useful for a on-line certification test for, say, a hunter? (gun safety) Are you going to argue that states that require hunters to pass online gun safety tests before getting Elk tags are going to have to make sure that those tests are blind-accessible? Is this so that the blind people can pass the gun safety test so they can get an Elk tag and go out in the woods with their gun and hunt it? > >I don't think you've made your case, for three different reasons. The >one that's been discussed is that it's hard to determine exactly when >some page would never be used by someone who is disabled. Ah. So, because something's hard to do we are going to take the cop-out excuse and end up with stupid things like online gun-safety tests that blind people can take so that people that monitor ADA compliance don't have to think. >The second >is that we've been concentrating on the blind, but there are other >impairments that effect the browsing experience that need to be >considered. > Quite true. I'm sure that wheelchair accessible people are going to be lining up to get Elk tags too, right after the blind hunters. This is my point again - you say it needs to be considered, yet you aren't advocating consideration, you seem to be just advocating a blanket "lets slap on ADA to everything regardless and be done with it" >Finally, as someone who consults professionally on creating accessible >web sites, it's that the cost of creating an accessible web site is >*very low*. Adding ramps to a building changes the look of the >building, and may be a fundamental design change. All the W3C-designed >standards provide for an alternative presentation if the browser >doesn't use the primary one. All it takes to build an accessible web >site is *using* those things with intelligence. Unfortunately, web >site designers seem to be seriously lacking in that last ingredient. > Sigh. You know the saddest thing that I find in this whole thread is that at one time web designing used to be a respectible profession. But look at how all the idiots and their crap websites have wrecked it. Today, you cannot trust an arbitrary web designer to be intelligent enough to use their brains and think for a change. So, the only answer seems to be to ram ADA compliance down all of their throats. It might keep the idiots inline but it's going to be a pain for the rest of them because sure as shooting there's going to be a blind person bitching about not being able to take the gun safety test and get his Elk tag. Ted Mittelstaedt tedm@toybox.placo.com Author of: The FreeBSD Corporate Networker's Guide Book website: http://www.freebsd-corp-net-guide.com To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message From owner-freebsd-advocacy Tue Nov 6 3:49:46 2001 Delivered-To: freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org Received: from guru.mired.org (okc-65-31-203-60.mmcable.com [65.31.203.60]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with SMTP id 7067737B419 for ; Tue, 6 Nov 2001 03:49:39 -0800 (PST) Received: (qmail 62335 invoked by uid 100); 6 Nov 2001 11:49:38 -0000 From: Mike Meyer MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Message-ID: <15335.52818.493844.899017@guru.mired.org> Date: Tue, 6 Nov 2001 05:49:38 -0600 To: "Ted Mittelstaedt" Cc: , Subject: RE: NatWest? no thanks In-Reply-To: <002801c166b4$eec7c320$1401a8c0@tedm.placo.com> References: <15334.58300.361356.19614@guru.mired.org> <002801c166b4$eec7c320$1401a8c0@tedm.placo.com> X-Mailer: VM 6.90 under 21.1 (patch 14) "Cuyahoga Valley" XEmacs Lucid X-face: "5Mnwy%?j>IIV\)A=):rjWL~NB2aH[}Yq8Z=u~vJ`"(,&SiLvbbz2W`;h9L,Yg`+vb1>RG% *h+%X^n0EZd>TM8_IB;a8F?(Fb"lw'IgCoyM.[Lg#r\ Sender: owner-freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG Ted Mittelstaedt types: > >From: Mike Meyer [mailto:mwm@mired.org] > >Ted Mittelstaedt types: > >> >> 3) Even if there was a US Supreme Court ruling that mandated ADA for > >> >> commercial > >> >> websites, how would it apply if the website content was not > >about something > >> >> that a blind person can use. > >> >If a blind person were acting in some capacity for a a sighted person > >> >- i.e., considering buying a gift, or researching options or some such > >> >thing. > >> Hmmm... but how would a blind person research which porno site had the > >> better pictures? Or how would a blind person select a modern art > >> painting for a gift? > >By the description that would be attached to the image(s) in a > >properly designed site. > OK, try this one: "Modern art painting - bloches of color like paint or > bird droppings on canvas" It tells you absolutely nothing about the > painting because the whole point of such paintings is to evoke an emotional > response and that will be different for each person. That's not a "properly designed site" (ain't vague descriptions wonderful?), as indicated by the fact that the description tells you absolutely nothing about the painting. For modern art, whatever is applicable of artist, title, date, style and period would probably be appropriate, and would make for a proper site design. That would allow a blind person to order a print for a friend, knowing that the work is by the friends favorite artist, etc. > In short, there's going to be some, probably few, graphics that have no > coorespondence to text and that a blind person cannot use. Applying access > rules to them is very weird, to say the least. Actually, there are a *lot* of graphics on the web that a blind person has no use for. Then again, neither does anyone else - they're just ducks. The correct alternative text for them is an empty string, so they don't clutter up the textual presentation of the page. That's the *easy* part of making a site accessible - make sure that every graphic that has no real function is replaced by a blank string as it's alternative. Figuring out what to replace the ones that have a function with is the hard part :-). http://www.mired.org/home/mwm/ Q: How do you make the gods laugh? A: Tell them your plans. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message From owner-freebsd-advocacy Tue Nov 6 4:23:51 2001 Delivered-To: freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org Received: from guru.mired.org (okc-65-31-203-60.mmcable.com [65.31.203.60]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with SMTP id 4C4D337B418 for ; Tue, 6 Nov 2001 04:23:40 -0800 (PST) Received: (qmail 62988 invoked by uid 100); 6 Nov 2001 12:23:39 -0000 From: Mike Meyer MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Message-ID: <15335.54859.676721.164993@guru.mired.org> Date: Tue, 6 Nov 2001 06:23:39 -0600 To: "Ted Mittelstaedt" Cc: , Subject: RE: NatWest? no thanks In-Reply-To: <002901c166b8$51faefa0$1401a8c0@tedm.placo.com> References: <15334.59771.604079.307131@guru.mired.org> <002901c166b8$51faefa0$1401a8c0@tedm.placo.com> X-Mailer: VM 6.90 under 21.1 (patch 14) "Cuyahoga Valley" XEmacs Lucid X-face: "5Mnwy%?j>IIV\)A=):rjWL~NB2aH[}Yq8Z=u~vJ`"(,&SiLvbbz2W`;h9L,Yg`+vb1>RG% *h+%X^n0EZd>TM8_IB;a8F?(Fb"lw'IgCoyM.[Lg#r\ Sender: owner-freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG Ted Mittelstaedt types: > >The correct solution is to detect the feature - or lack thereof - in > >question, and respond appropriately to that. See >http://www.idiom.com/~mwm/supported-myth.html > for a longer essay on > >that topic. [That's a temporary location while I'm waiting on a the > >hardware needed to fix my server.] > Yes, I agree that this is the correct way, but I have little hope that > web designers that are dead-set to code to specific browsers are going > to give a damn about doing it the right way. These are designers that > don't give a rip about the users accessing the site, they are doing what > they are doing purely for the site owner's benefit. I think most of them are doing what they are doing solely for the *designers* benefit. If the site owner realized what was being done, they'd probably want it changed. > For example, how would ADA requirements for blind-accessiblity be useful > for a on-line certification test for, say, a hunter? (gun safety) Are > you going to argue that states that require hunters to pass online > gun safety tests before getting Elk tags are going to have to make sure > that those tests are blind-accessible? Is this so that the blind people > can pass the gun safety test so they can get an Elk tag and go out in > the woods with their gun and hunt it? Actually, such as site is already required to be ADA compliant, as it's run with public funds. On the other hand, the DoJ seldom acts unless there is a complaint from a citizen. So if you get a nimrod designer for such a site, chances are that nothing will happen. > >I don't think you've made your case, for three different reasons. The > >one that's been discussed is that it's hard to determine exactly when > >some page would never be used by someone who is disabled. > Ah. So, because something's hard to do we are going to take the cop-out > excuse and end up with stupid things like online gun-safety tests that > blind people can take so that people that monitor ADA compliance don't have to > think. That's funny, considering that you're arguing for a position that requires a lot of "not thinking". You're using not thinking of any cases where such a site might be useful to argue that you should be able to not think about making the sight accessible. No, the real argument is that it's harder to decide that a making a site ADA-compliant is useless than it is to make it ADA-compliant, so why not do the lesser amount of work, and just do it right in the first place? > >The second > >is that we've been concentrating on the blind, but there are other > >impairments that effect the browsing experience that need to be > >considered. > Quite true. I'm sure that wheelchair accessible people are going to > be lining up to get Elk tags too, right after the blind hunters. Sigh. Sure, grab another idiotic example. Why not consider some *real* examples that you can run into of people that the ADA guidelines help: people who are colorblind, people who are deaf, people who are nearsighted, etc. Or consider some of the people that being ADA-compliant help that *aren't* disabled, but are on the cutting edge - why shouldn't I be able to take the test from my cell phone just because the designer was an idiot and decided that all the real content could be put in a graphic with no alternative text? > This is my point again - you say it needs to be considered, yet you > aren't advocating consideration, you seem to be just advocating a blanket > "lets slap on ADA to everything regardless and be done with it" No, I'm not arguing for ADA compliance on everything. I'm pointing out where it does - and possibly does not - apply. The thing is, if you design a web site for the WORLD wide web, and not for the web balkanized by browser type, your site will be ADA compliant. In other words, if the web site is properly designed to interoperate with the hundreds - if not thousands - of different agents that read web pages, ignoring the ADA completely, then the web site will be ADA compliant. No special effort is needed. I will argue that all sites should be so designed, because the web site designer doesn't control the browser or it's settings. > >Finally, as someone who consults professionally on creating accessible > >web sites, it's that the cost of creating an accessible web site is > >*very low*. Adding ramps to a building changes the look of the > >building, and may be a fundamental design change. All the W3C-designed > >standards provide for an alternative presentation if the browser > >doesn't use the primary one. All it takes to build an accessible web > >site is *using* those things with intelligence. Unfortunately, web > >site designers seem to be seriously lacking in that last ingredient. > Sigh. You know the saddest thing that I find in this whole thread is > that at one time web designing used to be a respectible profession. When was that? Before the introduction of Mosaic? > But look at how all the idiots and their crap websites have wrecked it. Yup. > Today, you cannot trust an arbitrary web designer to be intelligent > enough to use their brains and think for a change. So, the only answer > seems to be to ram ADA compliance down all of their throats. It might > keep the idiots inline but it's going to be a pain for the rest of them > because sure as shooting there's going to be a blind person bitching > about not being able to take the gun safety test and get his Elk tag. It won't be a pain for the ones who aren't idiots, because their web sites have been and always will be compliant, because they'll be doing their jobs right. And if an idiot designs the online gun safety test and someone complains to the DoJ, they may just have to go back and do the job right. http://www.mired.org/home/mwm/ Q: How do you make the gods laugh? A: Tell them your plans. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message From owner-freebsd-advocacy Tue Nov 6 5:15: 1 2001 Delivered-To: freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org Received: from mail.freebsd-corp-net-guide.com (mail.freebsd-corp-net-guide.com [206.29.169.15]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 5FA8E37B418; Tue, 6 Nov 2001 05:14:56 -0800 (PST) Received: from tedm.placo.com (nat-rtr.freebsd-corp-net-guide.com [206.29.168.154]) by mail.freebsd-corp-net-guide.com (8.11.1/8.11.1) with SMTP id fA6DEsT91082; Tue, 6 Nov 2001 05:14:54 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from tedm@toybox.placo.com) From: "Ted Mittelstaedt" To: "Mike Meyer" Cc: , Subject: RE: NatWest? no thanks Date: Tue, 6 Nov 2001 05:14:53 -0800 Message-ID: <005201c166c5$06164dc0$1401a8c0@tedm.placo.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 (Normal) X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook 8.5, Build 4.71.2173.0 Importance: Normal X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V4.72.3155.0 In-Reply-To: <15335.54859.676721.164993@guru.mired.org> Sender: owner-freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG >-----Original Message----- >From: Mike Meyer [mailto:mwm@mired.org] >Sent: Tuesday, November 06, 2001 4:24 AM >To: Ted Mittelstaedt >Cc: advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG; chat@FreeBSD.ORG >Subject: RE: NatWest? no thanks > > > >The thing is, if you design a web site for the WORLD wide web, and not >for the web balkanized by browser type, your site will be ADA >compliant. In other words, if the web site is properly designed to >interoperate with the hundreds - if not thousands - of different >agents that read web pages, ignoring the ADA completely, then the web >site will be ADA compliant. No special effort is needed. > Then how about instead of mandating ADA compliance, you mandate EITHER ADA compliance, or W3C compliance? I'd rather see ADA compliance mandate a website comply with a public standard than with it's own set of special rules. Ted Mittelstaedt tedm@toybox.placo.com Author of: The FreeBSD Corporate Networker's Guide Book website: http://www.freebsd-corp-net-guide.com To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message From owner-freebsd-advocacy Tue Nov 6 6:36: 8 2001 Delivered-To: freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org Received: from mailsrv.otenet.gr (mailsrv.otenet.gr [195.170.0.5]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 7CEA837B417; Tue, 6 Nov 2001 06:35:59 -0800 (PST) Received: from hades.hell.gr (patr530-b160.otenet.gr [212.205.244.168]) by mailsrv.otenet.gr (8.11.5/8.11.5) with ESMTP id fA6EZrN08330; Tue, 6 Nov 2001 16:35:53 +0200 (EET) Received: (from charon@localhost) by hades.hell.gr (8.11.6/8.11.6) id fA6ETlq11411; Tue, 6 Nov 2001 16:29:47 +0200 (EET) (envelope-from charon@labs.gr) Date: Tue, 6 Nov 2001 16:29:46 +0200 From: Giorgos Keramidas To: Ted Mittelstaedt Cc: Mike Meyer , advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG, chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: NatWest? no thanks Message-ID: <20011106162946.C1331@hades.hell.gr> References: <15334.59771.604079.307131@guru.mired.org> <002901c166b8$51faefa0$1401a8c0@tedm.placo.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <002901c166b8$51faefa0$1401a8c0@tedm.placo.com> User-Agent: Mutt/1.3.22.1i Sender: owner-freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG On Tue, Nov 06, 2001 at 03:43:57AM -0800, Ted Mittelstaedt wrote: > > For example, how would ADA requirements for blind-accessiblity be useful > for a on-line certification test for, say, a hunter? (gun safety) Are > you going to argue that states that require hunters to pass online > gun safety tests before getting Elk tags are going to have to make sure > that those tests are blind-accessible? Is this so that the blind people > can pass the gun safety test so they can get an Elk tag and go out in > the woods with their gun and hunt it? Although a test that certifies users for hunting is well, a bit inappropriate for blind people, in a site that offers a variety of tests and certificates, where at least some apply to blind people, keeping a consistent look and feel to the entire site, might mandate making all tests use the same overall design. Then, all tests will probably be accessible to blind people, although some reason should be applied to which tests have any validity at all, since I'd hate being shot down like an Elk by a blind albeit certified Elk hunter :-) To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message From owner-freebsd-advocacy Tue Nov 6 11:54: 9 2001 Delivered-To: freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org Received: from smtppop1pub.verizon.net (smtppop1pub.gte.net [206.46.170.20]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 0C2F637B41A; Tue, 6 Nov 2001 11:53:58 -0800 (PST) Received: from gte.net (evrtwa1-ar4-4-34-145-186.evrtwa1.dsl.gtei.net [4.34.145.186]) by smtppop1pub.verizon.net with ESMTP ; id NAA39049782 Tue, 6 Nov 2001 13:52:54 -0600 (CST) Received: (from res03db2@localhost) by gte.net (8.9.3/8.9.3) id LAA53437; Tue, 6 Nov 2001 11:54:06 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from res03db2@gte.net) Date: Tue, 6 Nov 2001 11:54:06 -0800 From: Robert Clark To: Ted Mittelstaedt Cc: David Scheidt , Mike Meyer , advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG, chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: NatWest? no thanks Message-ID: <20011106115406.B53379@darkstar.gte.net> References: <004201c165e6$75c34720$1401a8c0@tedm.placo.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline User-Agent: Mutt/1.2.4i In-Reply-To: <004201c165e6$75c34720$1401a8c0@tedm.placo.com>; from tedm@toybox.placo.com on Mon, Nov 05, 2001 at 02:41:43AM -0800 Sender: owner-freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG On Mon, Nov 05, 2001 at 02:41:43AM -0800, Ted Mittelstaedt wrote: > >-----Original Message----- > >From: David Scheidt [mailto:rufus@brain.mics.net] > >Sent: Sunday, November 04, 2001 7:14 AM > >To: Ted Mittelstaedt > >Cc: Mike Meyer; advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG; chat@FreeBSD.ORG > >Subject: RE: NatWest? no thanks > > > > > >Most blind people aren't consumers of pornorgraphic images. You might find > >a blind person who wanted to gather some images to give to someone else, or > >something like that. > > > > But even then they cannot make selection decisions because they > cannot see what they are gathering and have no idea if the image is > a real picture or a picture of an advertisement or is even worth > looking at. So I think that > because of this reason it's impossible to argue that everything > on the Internet is usable by the blind and thus must be made > accessible. > > > > >It's a lot more complicated than that. First, it's not at all clear that > >were the ADA to apply to commercial web sites that it would be acceptable to > >require tha you use IE, as opposed to any generally accepted solution. > > Let's be clear on this, it's impossible for the > website to require IE - all the website can do is require that > the user use a web browser that appears to be IE. Since the browser is > operated by the user, it's really in the power of the user to send back any > browser ID string they feel like, support whatever active x ie supports, etc. > Any accessible browser that someone might develop could be made to emulate IE, > and in fact would have to do this to make it as accessible as possible. > (since the entire point of such a program would be to give access, spoofing > the ID is just another component of the access) How much of an incentive do companies have to make "spoofing" a browser a violation of the DMCA? -snip- > > > Frankly, I've never met a sighted person, upon seeing Flash on a website, > exclaim "Wow that really is something that really needs to be on this > website" The response generally is more along the lines of "get this > ^&*$ off the screen" I've gone to flash based sites just to see the flash. The "fatkid" stuff was good for a few laughs. > > So you won't get any arguements out of me if the Supreme Court tells all > commercial entities that Flash cannot be used because it doesen't meet > ADA. On the contrary I'll be jumping for joy. > > Keep in mind that I'm not arguing against a court judgement that forces the > issue of ADA on commercial websites. If one came down everyone, including > sighted persons, would benefit because there's far too much crappy HTML on > commercial sites as it is. For this purpose, was gopher better mosaic? > > What I do think, though, is that it's very easy to push this thing way too > far, much easier than something mundane like building access. It's easy > enough to argue that public buildings need ramp access - not only is it good > for the handicapped, but there's lots of normal everyday things like > deliveries on handcarts that don't go through the loading dock and why should > the minimum-wage UPS delivery kid have to throw out his back carrying loads up > steps all day long? But, while ADA access to commercial websites really needs > to be written into the law, it also needs to have a whole lot more exceptions > in it than building access. > > > Ted Mittelstaedt tedm@toybox.placo.com > Author of: The FreeBSD Corporate Networker's Guide > Book website: http://www.freebsd-corp-net-guide.com > > > > To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org > with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message From owner-freebsd-advocacy Tue Nov 6 12: 4:56 2001 Delivered-To: freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org Received: from guru.mired.org (okc-65-31-203-60.mmcable.com [65.31.203.60]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with SMTP id D224937B41C for ; Tue, 6 Nov 2001 12:04:46 -0800 (PST) Received: (qmail 72403 invoked by uid 100); 6 Nov 2001 20:04:39 -0000 From: Mike Meyer MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Message-ID: <15336.16983.259208.90433@guru.mired.org> Date: Tue, 6 Nov 2001 14:04:39 -0600 To: "Ted Mittelstaedt" Cc: , Subject: RE: NatWest? no thanks In-Reply-To: <005201c166c5$06164dc0$1401a8c0@tedm.placo.com> References: <15335.54859.676721.164993@guru.mired.org> <005201c166c5$06164dc0$1401a8c0@tedm.placo.com> X-Mailer: VM 6.90 under 21.1 (patch 14) "Cuyahoga Valley" XEmacs Lucid X-face: "5Mnwy%?j>IIV\)A=):rjWL~NB2aH[}Yq8Z=u~vJ`"(,&SiLvbbz2W`;h9L,Yg`+vb1>RG% *h+%X^n0EZd>TM8_IB;a8F?(Fb"lw'IgCoyM.[Lg#r\ Sender: owner-freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG Ted Mittelstaedt types: > >From: Mike Meyer [mailto:mwm@mired.org] > >The thing is, if you design a web site for the WORLD wide web, and not > >for the web balkanized by browser type, your site will be ADA > >compliant. In other words, if the web site is properly designed to > >interoperate with the hundreds - if not thousands - of different > >agents that read web pages, ignoring the ADA completely, then the web > >site will be ADA compliant. No special effort is needed. > Then how about instead of mandating ADA compliance, you mandate EITHER > ADA compliance, or W3C compliance? I'd rather see ADA compliance mandate > a website comply with a public standard than with it's own set of special > rules. By that, I take it you mean the W3C's accessibility guidelines that can be found at . I'd say no. The federal guidelines - used for federal government sites - don't mandate what technology be used; they mandate that there there be accessible options available for all disabled - not just blind - users. The W3C guidelines tell you how to do that using the technology available at the time they were written. Would you rather have "Your site must have accessability options", or "every img that carries content must have a meaningful alt"? http://www.mired.org/home/mwm/ Q: How do you make the gods laugh? A: Tell them your plans. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message From owner-freebsd-advocacy Tue Nov 6 21:38:27 2001 Delivered-To: freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org Received: from mail.freebsd-corp-net-guide.com (mail.freebsd-corp-net-guide.com [206.29.169.15]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 3393937B419; Tue, 6 Nov 2001 21:38:19 -0800 (PST) Received: from tedm.placo.com (nat-rtr.freebsd-corp-net-guide.com [206.29.168.154]) by mail.freebsd-corp-net-guide.com (8.11.1/8.11.1) with SMTP id fA75cFT93011; Tue, 6 Nov 2001 21:38:16 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from tedm@toybox.placo.com) From: "Ted Mittelstaedt" To: "Mike Meyer" Cc: , Subject: RE: NatWest? no thanks Date: Tue, 6 Nov 2001 21:38:15 -0800 Message-ID: <000001c1674e$6587e780$1401a8c0@tedm.placo.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 (Normal) X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook 8.5, Build 4.71.2173.0 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V4.72.3155.0 In-Reply-To: <15336.16983.259208.90433@guru.mired.org> Importance: Normal Sender: owner-freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG >-----Original Message----- >From: owner-freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG >[mailto:owner-freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG]On Behalf Of Mike Meyer >Sent: Tuesday, November 06, 2001 12:05 PM >To: Ted Mittelstaedt >Cc: advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG; chat@FreeBSD.ORG >Subject: RE: NatWest? no thanks > >> Then how about instead of mandating ADA compliance, you mandate EITHER >> ADA compliance, or W3C compliance? I'd rather see ADA compliance mandate >> a website comply with a public standard than with it's own set of special >> rules. > >By that, I take it you mean the W3C's accessibility guidelines that >can be found at . > >I'd say no. The federal guidelines - used for federal government sites >- don't mandate what technology be used; they mandate that there there >be accessible options available for all disabled - not just blind - >users. The W3C guidelines tell you how to do that using the technology >available at the time they were written. Would you rather have "Your >site must have accessability options", or "every img that carries >content must have a meaningful alt"? > The problem with sentence 1 (which I assume is the fed guidelines) is that it's too easy to slime your way out of it. The web designer/site owner could argue that since there's a web browser that has a braille driver out there that he doesen't have to bother changing his coding as long is his site renders in some fashion on the braille browser. This ignores that because of crummy html the rendering is a much more unpleasant experience for the blind person than for the sighted person. Although it's been a while since I've looked at w3c, since it's a standard it surely is worthless if not updated to stay current with current technology. Forcing sites to stay compliant with it to remain OK under ADA gives a yardstick that is very definite, there's no wiggle room for the designer to slime out of it. If the designers have a beef then they can take it up with the standards body and have a public discussion that settles things rather than some backroom sealed deal (which is how the government seems to like to handle things) I liken this to the ADA requirements for ramps for building access. The standard requires a ramp, but the codes also specify how wide and the degree of incline of the ramp. You cannot for example put in a 45 degree ramp that extends 6 feet and is 6 inches wide and claim that it makes the building wheelchair accessible. So why would you advocate that the websites that fall under ADA requirements be given more wide lattitude than ADA gives for building access? Ted Mittelstaedt tedm@toybox.placo.com Author of: The FreeBSD Corporate Networker's Guide Book website: http://www.freebsd-corp-net-guide.com To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message From owner-freebsd-advocacy Tue Nov 6 22:56:34 2001 Delivered-To: freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org Received: from guru.mired.org (okc-65-31-203-60.mmcable.com [65.31.203.60]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with SMTP id B92E337B417 for ; Tue, 6 Nov 2001 22:56:26 -0800 (PST) Received: (qmail 84284 invoked by uid 100); 7 Nov 2001 06:56:15 -0000 From: Mike Meyer MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Message-ID: <15336.56079.519166.80672@guru.mired.org> Date: Wed, 7 Nov 2001 00:56:15 -0600 To: "Ted Mittelstaedt" Cc: , Subject: RE: NatWest? no thanks In-Reply-To: <000001c1674e$6587e780$1401a8c0@tedm.placo.com> References: <15336.16983.259208.90433@guru.mired.org> <000001c1674e$6587e780$1401a8c0@tedm.placo.com> X-Mailer: VM 6.90 under 21.1 (patch 14) "Cuyahoga Valley" XEmacs Lucid X-face: "5Mnwy%?j>IIV\)A=):rjWL~NB2aH[}Yq8Z=u~vJ`"(,&SiLvbbz2W`;h9L,Yg`+vb1>RG% *h+%X^n0EZd>TM8_IB;a8F?(Fb"lw'IgCoyM.[Lg#r\ Sender: owner-freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG Ted Mittelstaedt types: > >> Then how about instead of mandating ADA compliance, you mandate EITHER > >> ADA compliance, or W3C compliance? I'd rather see ADA compliance mandate > >> a website comply with a public standard than with it's own set of special > >> rules. > >By that, I take it you mean the W3C's accessibility guidelines that > >can be found at . > >I'd say no. The federal guidelines - used for federal government sites > >- don't mandate what technology be used; they mandate that there there > >be accessible options available for all disabled - not just blind - > >users. The W3C guidelines tell you how to do that using the technology > >available at the time they were written. Would you rather have "Your > >site must have accessability options", or "every img that carries > >content must have a meaningful alt"? > The problem with sentence 1 (which I assume is the fed guidelines) is > that it's too easy to slime your way out of it. The web designer/site > owner could argue that since there's a web browser that has a braille > driver out there that he doesen't have to bother changing his coding > as long is his site renders in some fashion on the braille browser. This > ignores that because of crummy html the rendering is a much more > unpleasant experience for the blind person than for the sighted person. Sentence one is not the fed guideline, but my interpretation of a bunch of the collapsed together. The guidelines proper can be found at . As for the web site experiences, that changes time the viewer changes a browser setting. That's life on the web, and nothing can change it. One of the things the government tried to do was *not* limit the technology that designers could use to make information available for the temporarily abled. The critical idea behind the ADA is not that the experience should be the same for everyone, no matter how abled, but that everyone should have the same information available. This can be done using one site and the W3C's mechanisms for alternatives, or it can be done with a text-only site. > Although it's been a while since I've looked at w3c, since it's a standard > it surely is worthless if not updated to stay current with current technology. > Forcing sites to stay compliant with it to remain OK under ADA gives a > yardstick > that is very definite, there's no wiggle room for the designer to slime out of > it. If the designers have a beef then they can take it up with the standards > body and have a public discussion that settles things rather than some > backroom > sealed deal (which is how the government seems to like to handle things) The part of Section 508 that covers the web are based on the W3C WAI. Unless the W3C is made part of the government, it really can't write regulations. The regulatory agency responsible for electronic access has adopted the WAI rules. That's as close as you can legally come to what you want. > I liken this to the ADA requirements for ramps for building access. The > standard requires a ramp, but the codes also specify how wide and the degree > of incline of the ramp. You cannot for example put in a 45 degree ramp that > extends 6 feet and is 6 inches wide and claim that it makes the building > wheelchair accessible. So why would you advocate that the websites that fall > under > ADA requirements be given more wide lattitude than ADA gives for building > access? Because they are working in a medium that's a bit more pliable than concrete. The rules - again, adopted from the W3Cs WAI - are designed to insure that the site will be accessible to any standards-compliant browser. They don't say "every IMG must have an ALT"; they say "every non-text element must have a text equivalent" (and 15 other rules, some of which aren't quite so general). The first is tied to the technology. The second one isn't - which was my point. http://www.mired.org/home/mwm/ Q: How do you make the gods laugh? A: Tell them your plans. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message From owner-freebsd-advocacy Tue Nov 6 23:55:20 2001 Delivered-To: freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org Received: from mail.freebsd-corp-net-guide.com (mail.freebsd-corp-net-guide.com [206.29.169.15]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 87F6E37B419; Tue, 6 Nov 2001 23:55:16 -0800 (PST) Received: from tedm.placo.com (nat-rtr.freebsd-corp-net-guide.com [206.29.168.154]) by mail.freebsd-corp-net-guide.com (8.11.1/8.11.1) with SMTP id fA77suT93326; Tue, 6 Nov 2001 23:54:56 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from tedm@toybox.placo.com) From: "Ted Mittelstaedt" To: "Robert Clark" Cc: "David Scheidt" , "Mike Meyer" , , Subject: RE: NatWest? no thanks Date: Tue, 6 Nov 2001 23:54:55 -0800 Message-ID: <005b01c16761$7d9219a0$1401a8c0@tedm.placo.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 (Normal) X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook 8.5, Build 4.71.2173.0 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V4.72.3155.0 In-Reply-To: <20011106115406.B53379@darkstar.gte.net> Importance: Normal Sender: owner-freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG >-----Original Message----- >From: owner-freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG >[mailto:owner-freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG]On Behalf Of Robert Clark >Sent: Tuesday, November 06, 2001 11:54 AM >To: Ted Mittelstaedt >Cc: David Scheidt; Mike Meyer; advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG; chat@FreeBSD.ORG >Subject: Re: NatWest? no thanks > >> >> Keep in mind that I'm not arguing against a court judgement that forces the >> issue of ADA on commercial websites. If one came down everyone, including >> sighted persons, would benefit because there's far too much crappy HTML on >> commercial sites as it is. > >For this purpose, was gopher better mosaic? > Like Star Trek, people today want to believe all problems have simple solutions. A simple solution is a short solution. The Web encourages all information to be condensed down to a 1024x768 resolution of about a page to make it fit. Gopher did the opposite as it was more of a cataloging system of documents, which could easily be quite long. So, the web definitely fits most people's temperment much better than gopher does because people only want to learn enough to know something exists, but not really understand it. PS This is sarcasm. Ted Mittelstaedt tedm@toybox.placo.com Author of: The FreeBSD Corporate Networker's Guide Book website: http://www.freebsd-corp-net-guide.com To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message From owner-freebsd-advocacy Fri Nov 9 0:14:55 2001 Delivered-To: freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org Received: from mail.freebsd-corp-net-guide.com (mail.freebsd-corp-net-guide.com [206.29.169.15]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id DD98237B416 for ; Fri, 9 Nov 2001 00:14:52 -0800 (PST) Received: from tedm.placo.com (nat-rtr.freebsd-corp-net-guide.com [206.29.168.154]) by mail.freebsd-corp-net-guide.com (8.11.1/8.11.1) with SMTP id fA98EqT99670 for ; Fri, 9 Nov 2001 00:14:52 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from tedm@toybox.placo.com) From: "Ted Mittelstaedt" To: "FreeBSD Advocacy" Subject: BSD's strength lies in devilish details Date: Fri, 9 Nov 2001 00:14:52 -0800 Message-ID: <003b01c168f6$9b6dea80$1401a8c0@tedm.placo.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 (Normal) X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook 8.5, Build 4.71.2173.0 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V4.72.3155.0 Importance: Normal Sender: owner-freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG Interesting article... http://www.infoworld.com/articles/tc/xml/01/11/05/011105tcbsd.xml Ted Mittelstaedt tedm@toybox.placo.com Author of: The FreeBSD Corporate Networker's Guide Book website: http://www.freebsd-corp-net-guide.com To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message