RE: Web video accessibility

was not trying to embarass anyone but it does bother me when folks say 
things are "accessible" when in fact the accessibility is limited.  I 
would have been thrilled and have told them so if the you tube video had 
played with a discription.

and don't get me wrong I have praised those who do it so all can use.

"propaganda" may have been a bit strong but when all I get when I try to 
use it is them saying how great it works, but nothing works.

if it was advertised as doing X,Y,& Z and not everything then I probably 
wouldn't have said anything.

and open source is critical and becoming more so with everyone trying to 
exclude everyone else.  I test using a basic system that a person with 
little or no money might use (remember 70% of people with disabilities 
live below the poverty level.) testing can't just be for the latest and 
greatest and most modern equipment because that isn't what most people 
have.

maybe I'm wrong but when someone asks for a test I assume they want to 
know what works and doesn't work, lots of you guys will test the high end 
but only a couple of us will test from the average.  I use a special 
detuned if you will setup to test and it is a basic package that is 
avaliable at little or no cost to anyone and can run on an older computer.

I mean no harm to EmbedPlus they are trying but a little "truth in 
advertising" would have helped.   so far there isn't a single product out 
there that will provide a full range of access to everyone, so stating 
what it will do and what it won't is important.

personally the internet was far more accessible 25years ago than it is 
today, but it was very limited, all of the bells and whistles that makes 
the web so enticing to so many also has a disadvantage of excluding many.

isn't it our mission to make sure that the web excludes no one, for as 
soon as we exclude one we open the door to exclude all.

Bob
crawling down off soapbox and back into hole




On Tue, 16 Aug 2011, John Foliot wrote:

> Date: Tue, 16 Aug 2011 12:44:28 -0700 (PDT)
> From: John Foliot <jfoliot@stanford.edu>
> To: accessys@smart.net, 'EmbedPlus' <ext@embedplus.com>
> Cc: w3c-wai-ig@w3.org
> Subject: RE: Web video accessibility
> Resent-Date: Tue, 16 Aug 2011 19:45:08 +0000
> Resent-From: w3c-wai-ig@w3.org
> 
> accessys@smart.net wrote:
>>
>> the test view was
>> linux Ubuntu 8.4 and the browser was lynx
>>
>> and the propaganda was all the stuff saying how great Embed was.
>>
>> actually I didn't expect it to work, how do you get a basically video
>> format to work in an audio/text system of viewing.
>>
>> Bob
>
>
> Bob,
>
> Can you tell us what the point was that you were trying to make, exactly?
> Your appreciation of, and for, open-source software such as linux and lynx
> is well known, but in all honesty you put the folks at EmbedPlus through a
> minor "panic" when you said that their system didn't work.
>
> We all know that video cannot be played in lynx - and you certainly knew
> that. What was the point?
>
> As for "propaganda" - it is a site that is promoting their tool: one that
> they have come forward with, with a certain sense of "purity of heart" -
> the developers want to do the right thing and are asking if they are going
> in the right direction. They came to the "experts" for feedback and
> comments, not to be made fun of or used as some kind of pawn in your own
> personal mission. Cliff Tyllick's response is the kind of useful feedback
> they sought, and serves as an example of how we all should be interacting
> with those that come to the accessibility space: open, welcoming and
> willing to help, guide and instruct.
>
> Using language such as "propaganda" and sending the EmbedPlus developers
> on a wild goose-chase does very little to offer encouragement to the
> larger development community, and simply perpetuates the notion that
> "those accessibility people" can't be satisfied no matter how hard other's
> try.
>
> I for one am embarrassed that you chose to respond the way you did, and
> hope that the folks at EmbedPlus will not use your response as a measure
> of how the majority of the online accessibility community interacts with
> developers.
>
> JF
>
> ============================
> John  Foliot
> Program Manager
> Stanford Online Accessibility Program
> http://soap.stanford.edu
> Stanford University
> Tel: 650-468-5785
>
> ---
> Co-chair - W3C HTML5 Accessibility Task Force (Media)
> http://www.w3.org/WAI/PF/HTML/wiki/Main_Page
>
> ============================
>
>
>
>
>