[thelist] Is this a list?

Robert Gormley robert at pennyonthesidewalk.com
Sun Oct 2 00:05:42 CDT 2005


 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: thelist-bounces at lists.evolt.org 
> [mailto:thelist-bounces at lists.evolt.org] On Behalf Of Shawn K. Quinn
> Sent: Sunday, 2 October 2005 2:07 PM
> To: thelist at lists.evolt.org
> Subject: RE: [thelist] Is this a list?
> 

> > There are all kinds of costs for user studies, development, 
> > consulting, UI, etc. that come into play.
> 
> You would incur these anyway, as part of the cost of making the site.
> The net cost to make it *accessible* is thus, by definition, zero.

I'm scratching my head on this one. I can build a site in Dreamweaver,
in a day, at $x / hour. If, at the risk of oversimplifying, I build the
same site, investing my time (and note, I am not being dismissive of
this, I fully agree with accessibility. I disagree with your assertion
of net cost = zero) in adding alt attributes, aural stylesheets, so on
and so forth. This is /extra/ work. By definition, it takes time. Ergo,
its cost is most certainly not zero.
 
> > > Dropping random users off your site (and yes, those users 
> affected 
> > > by poor accessibility go far beyond the categories you 
> usually think 
> > > of) is an incredibly poor choice. Such companies usually wind up 
> > > turning the page to Chapter 7 or 13 in relatively short order.
> > 
> > Name *one*.
> 
> Unfortunately, the bankruptcy filings usually don't include 
> this information in as many words, but I will give you the 
> closest anecdotal evidence I have. I know one of the former 
> incarnations of http://www.sixdegrees.com was absolutely 
> awful. 640 pixels fixed width, and relied on way too much 
> Javascript with no reasonable non-Javascript alternative. I 
> cancelled my account there, and surprisingly, when I went to 
> see if anything had changed a year later, they were gone.
> 
> It would not, unfortunately, surprise me if this company did 
> in fact turn the page to chapter 7 or 13. At the time, I 
> didn't really care, so I didn't bother to find out who even 
> owned the domain then.

I think that's a pretty impressive causal leap from 'no non-reasonable
javascript accessibility' to "quite probably filed chapter 7 as a direct
result". Whilst bankruptcy filings usually don't, if the company is
public, then there /will/ be filings with the SEC, etc, something
shareholders might use if they want to rake people over the coals for
complete fiduciary misconduct.
 
> > > > If you run a Linux
> > > 
> > > GNU/Linux, see previous messages on the topic
> 
> > Yeah, Linux...
> 
> No, GNU/Linux. A GNU variant booting a Linux kernel. Even 
> Linus Torvalds himself has said the Linux kernel is useless 
> without the GNU software distributions.

I think relying on a quote in relation to a 0.01 release of the kernel
is being a little disingenuous and contextually deceptive. The first
computers relied on punch tape, were useless without it. They're
not,now. Yes, he /has/ said it, about 12 years ago when nothing else had
been written for it because he'd only just managed to compile a working
release. He doesn't refer to it now as GNU/Linux, he refers to it as
Linux. Are you saying all the years he's being working on the project,
giving interviews, referring to Linux, he's being intellectually
dishonest and deceptive?
 
Robert





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