Re: Hiding email addresses in an accessible way

First of all, I think there is a few problems that developers, even those
who try to make accessible their products, have missed. I you would check
the figures, there is a very large part of the citizens, disabled or not,
that do not have high speed internet. Many of these people run with no java
and no graphics. Reason, low band width. A quick check of the number of
internet connections vs. the number of hi-speed connections will verify
this. The last time I looked into this was over a year ago and then only
around 10% of the people had hi-speed connections and only about 20% even
had it available. I know many people who live out of metro areas that have
at best 56K that in many cases actually only manage around 25-30 K because
of the out dated phone lines. Then there are libraries, schools, and such
that may have  hundreds of computers on very few T-1's or less. The main
reason for access it to sell a product, when you do not use universal
design, you loose as much as 25% of your potential customer base. What
really makes sense is to go for the most coverage possible. As proven by
some of the best, Ken Bartlett for one, there is man reasons to provide
universal access.
As far as hiding emails, well there is enough of that buy exclusion. Buy a
spam filter until the W3C and world wide governments make spamming a thing
of the past. ( it could happen).

pegglegg

##############################################
Michael Van Randen
Web Accessibility and Usability Consultant
1236 Greystone Lane
Pensacola Florida, 32514
850-206-4715
tagi11@cox.net

"Counting users on the Internet is like counting the number
 of people using wheelchairs who are inside an inaccessible
 building.  It was once thought that since no wheelchair users
 were in the building, ramps were not needed. "
UNDERSTANDING THE DIGITAL ECONOMY
 Copyright  1999-2003 Cynthia D. Waddell JD
Executive Director of ICDRI
http://www.icdri.org/CynthiaW/the_digital_divide.htm

"...the law does clearly contemplate the coverage of the Internet by Title
III..."
http://www.ncd.gov/newsroom/publications/adainternet.html
Access not exclusion
#############################################
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Jon Hanna" <jon@spin.ie>
To: "WAI-IG" <w3c-wai-ig@w3.org>
Sent: Tuesday, August 19, 2003 6:30 AM
Subject: RE: Hiding email addresses in an accessible way



> Where is the evidence that anyone other than a few privacy freaks and
> Slashdot-reading Linux nerds turn JavaScript off? How many of them are
> disabled?

If 100% of the people for whom javascript is inaccessible are able-bodied
(for whatever threshold of that term you wish to use) does that make it
accessible?

As a developer I care about whether people can use what I produce, and if
they can't then the reason why is frankly none of my business except in so
far as knowledge of it might help me to fix the problem.

Now as a matter of civil rights and social justice it is important to ensure
that developers do not, by intent or by neglect, discriminate against people
with disabilities. However when a developer wants to avoid something that
causes an accessibility problem it doesn't matter who has that accessibility
problem, and acting as if it does benefits neither the developer, the users,
nor the civil rights campaigns.

Received on Tuesday, 19 August 2003 07:56:23 UTC