Re: Planet-A11y.net officially launched!

[Bryen <suserocks bryen com>]

I want to try to keep this short because I don't want to generate a long
thread about Planet-A11y on this list.  If this becomes a long thread, I
will have to ask that we move this discussion elsewhere.

First, I want to say that since this morning's launch, we have added
three new features to the site to ease navigation a bit.  1) If you
click on a posting's date icon, the post will collapse to view only the
title.  2) You can click on the Collapse All icon to collapse all to
title view only and 3) we have added paging so not all posts are
displayed on the first page.   There's still more work/features to do.

We absolutely agree with you that visitors to our site, whether through
a browser or their own feed reader, should have the inherent right to be
empowered to filter what they want or don't want to view.

I, personally, also feel that we shouldn't close ourselves off.
Accessibility is about being able to get to, get into, go wherever we
want to without barriers.  Currently, I feel Linux seriously lacks in
a11y support for Deaf people.  I often use OSX as an example when
discussing ideas with Linux developers about ways we can improve
ourselves.  And I think most devs DO want to know what is going on
elsewhere in the world.

Regardless of our personal philosophies, there are some technical
challenges to making categorization (or some other form of segregation)
possible.  Some problems are:
- Submissions would have to declare what categories they fall under.
- Bloggers would have to carefully and painstakingly ensure that they
properly tag every article to match up to the proper feeds.
- In this growing world of crossovers, the line of distinction isn't
always so clear.  What if it is a Mozilla a11y dev blogger?  Firefox
runs on most platforms.
- It would require us as administrators to carefully review each site to
ensure they meet the proper category guidelines.  Some of those sites,
while clearly discussing accessibility, may not be so obvious about
where their technical discussions fit into if we aren't familar with the
subject matter.
- In addition, we would have to review each post to make sure it stays
within the guidelines.   We simply don't have the manpower to create
that type of environment, and I'm not sure we want to build that kind of
a bureaucracy anyway.  We all have our lives and jobs elsewhere...

Regardless, I stand by my statement earlier that I DO believe visitors
should be empowered to decide what they want to see or not.  It just
isn't technically feasible right now.  But I have instructed Flavio to
continue thinking of ways we might overcome that challenge.   Rest
assured, when one does become available, we will address it and make
changes where possible.  Your points are valid and will remain foremost
in my mind as we continue to grow.

I also welcome direct comments to either myself or FlaPer87 for any
feedback anyone has.

Thank you,
Bryen


On Fri, 2008-09-05 at 20:41 +0200, Labrador wrote:
> Congrats! 
> nice site but:
> - IMHO too long especially without separating Linux and non Linux items
> - so a first suggestion should be: split between free software purposes and
> non-free: free and non-free are two different "planets", and I am personally 
> TOTALLY UNinterested in Jaws and other things I no longer use for more than
> 8 years now: 
> splitting between free and non free items will be nice so you don't force
> people to spend time with unwanted items (just an idea) 
> 
> Aldo. 
> 
> 
> On Fri, Sep 05, 2008 at 09:31:53AM -0500, Bryen wrote:
> > Through the hard work of FlaPer87, creater of the Phanet software used
> > to run www.planet-a11y.net, we are finally ready and we have LIFT-OFF!!!
> > 
> > For those of you who sent me your feed information, thanks.   I still
> > have a couple more to process.  For those who haven't, you can register
> > your feed directly on the website and we'll process it quickly for you.
> > 
> > Please note:  Planet-A11y is not restricted to only GNOME or Linux.  It
> > is meant to bring together everyone across all boundaries.  So please,
> > please, please, spread the word to everyone to register their feeds with
> > planet-a11y.net.
> > 
> > And thank you all to the GNOME-A11y team for inspiring this project!
> > 
> > Bryen
> > 
> > _______________________________________________
> > gnome-accessibility-list mailing list
> > gnome-accessibility-list gnome org
> > http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-accessibility-list
> 
> --
> 	https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/1 : 
> Micro$oft has a majority market share in the new desktop PC marketplace.
> This is a bug, which Ubuntu is designed to fix ! 
> 	http://www.ubuntu.com/ 
> _______________________________________________
> gnome-accessibility-list mailing list
> gnome-accessibility-list gnome org
> http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-accessibility-list