Re: [orca-list] Our list will be moving to Discourse

["John G. Heim" <jheim math wisc edu>]

On 9/13/22 11:36, Kyle via orca-list wrote:
> According to Christian Schoepplein:
> > moving the list to a webbased service will be the most inaccessible 
> > and most complicated solution, especialy if it is a discussion 
> > plattform for and with blind users :-(. Allthough I know the 
> > advantages of those webforums my expirence is that many blind people 
> > will not longer use those plattforms because they are to complicated, 
> > timeintensive and many unecessary content is presented on those 
> > sites. We tried to move mailinglists for blind people to webbased 
> > solutions years ago and they are dead now, the people do not longer 
> > use them :-(.
>
>
> Just to play devil's advocate for a minute ...
>
> https://forum.audiogames.net/
>
> has been online for many years, and many blind people use it. I don't 
> think they have an email list.
>
>
> I do have my reasons for preferring email lists over web-based forums 
> which I have mentioned, most notably the fact that they are easier to 
> keep track of and easier to follow, but accessibility isn't the make 
> or break issue, as accessibility of web-based applications has greatly 
> improved over the years, and forum software is no exception.
But what you say isn't really to the point. Sure, blind people can use 
web forums if motivated. The point the OP made is that they probably 
won't. And I agree. If this group is moved to a web interface, it will 
almost certainly be used a lot less. I don't have any scientific data to 
back this up but I would bet my house that even among technically 
literate blind people, the percentage of Facebook users is far lower 
than in the general population. I do a lot of volunteer work for blind 
organizations and the problem of promoting our group or our events on 
Facebook comes up all the time. But in a group of a dozen blind people, 
you are lucky to find 1 or 2 Facebook users. Well, a lot of people say 
they have a Facebook account, they just never use it. And this is the point.