[thelist] Is this a list?

Shawn K. Quinn skquinn at speakeasy.net
Sat Oct 1 23:07:24 CDT 2005


On Sat, 2005-10-01 at 17:50 -0700, Jeff Howden wrote:
> > From: Shawn K. Quinn
      [Jeff wrote:]
> > > Moreover, some sites, there is simply zero benefit to 
> > > offset the cost of making them accessible.
> > 
> > There's zero cost to making Web sites accessible, [...]
> 
> 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.

> Sites are not accessible simply by being created.

If you spend extra money to replace HTML and CSS that works 100% of the
time with Javascript, Flash movies, and other digital equivalents of
bent coat hangers and duck tape, of course you're going to wind up with
accessibility problems. Obviously, don't do that.

> > 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.

> > > 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.

Do you call your car a Champion car because that's who makes the spark
plugs?

> I suppose that would depend on the nature of the content in those
> notes.  If he's aware of the risk, assessed how much of a risk it is
> to him, and still willing to live with it, then I'd say there's
> nothing negligent about it at all.

I would be honestly surprised if anyone who does this, does a true risk
assessment. Too many people think adequately securing such a setion is
putting an HTTP server on a non-standard port somewhere, and then just
praying nobody finds it. There are a *lot* of bored people (not all of
them teenagers or even college-aged) out there with nmap and a shell
account, who *will* find it if it's world accessible with no
authentication.

-- 
Shawn K. Quinn <skquinn at speakeasy.net>



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