The following is the text copied from the reddit post in the /r/blind sub reddit.
Moderators of r/blind—along with moderators in other communities who use assistive technologies and Reddit users with accessibility expertise—had a Zoom meeting with representatives at Reddit on Friday, June 16, 2023. While the call was promising in that Reddit invited us to be part of continuing dialog and demonstrated some well-conceived accessible designs for Reddit users, we came away with serious concerns which Reddit was either unable or unwilling to address during the meeting.
Reddit is currently prioritizing accessibility for users rather than for moderators, and representatives were unwilling to provide timelines by when Reddit’s moderation tools would be accessible for screen reader users. Further, Reddit representatives seemed unaware that blind moderators rely on third-party applications because Reddit’s moderation tools present significant accessibility challenges. They also seemed unaware that the apps which have so far received exemptions from API pricing do not have sufficient moderation functions. u/NTCarver0 explained that blind moderators will be unable to ensure safety for our communities—as well as for Reddit in general—without accessible moderation systems, and asked Reddit representatives how blind moderators were supposed to effectively moderate our communities without them. Reddit representatives deferred the question, stating they would have to take notes and get back with us. A fellow moderator, u/MostlyBlindGamer, also pointed out that blind moderators who are unable to effectively moderate the subreddit and thus will become inactive may be removed at Reddit’s discretion per policy, and that such removal would leave r/Blind with no blind moderators. Reddit representatives also deferred comment on this issue.
Reddit representatives refused to answer questions concerning the formal certifications, accreditations or qualifications of employees tasked with ensuring universal accessibility. These certifications demonstrate that a professional has the knowledge necessary to create universally-accessible software and/or documents. Because Reddit cannot confirm that employees tasked with universal accessibility hold appropriate certifications or that the company will provide for such training and certification, we have concerns that employees do not have the appropriate knowledge to effectively ensure access for all assistive technology users both at present and in the future. Reddit has also indicated there are not currently any employees who work full-time on accessibility. This is a necessity for any organization as large and influential as Reddit.
Reddit representatives had previously disclosed to r/Blind moderators that an accessibility audit had been performed by a third-party company, however they refused to answer questions as to what company performed the audit or how the audit was conducted. Answers to these questions would have allowed us to determine whether the audit was performed by an accredited organization known for credible and thorough work. Reddit also could not answer questions as to what assistive technologies, such as screen readers, screen magnifiers, dictation softwares, etc., were used during the audit. Bluntly, we cannot know the thoroughness or scope of the audit—and therefore the extent to which Reddit is aware of the accessibility barriers present in their website and apps—without this information.
During the previous meeting, Reddit representatives raised a question regarding perceived disparities between the accessibility of the iOS and Android apps, suggesting the audit did not confirm that the accessibility failings in the iOS app are much more severe than those present in the Android app. During the latest meeting, u/MostlyBlindGamer explained that the iOS app has no labels for the ubiquitous and essential upvote and downvote buttons while the Android app does. This question raises the concern that Reddit representatives may not have a full and actionable understanding of the issues at stake or, in fact, the exact accessibility failings in their apps.
Reddit representatives narrowly defined the scope of the latest meeting less than an hour ahead of it, explicitly excluding third-party apps and API pricing from the conversation. They did acknowledge that this made it difficult to adequately prepare for the meeting.
Reddit refused to define the term “accessibility-focused app,” alleging that this was outside the scope of the meeting. This term is not industry-standard and was instead created when Reddit carved out an exemption in their upcoming API policies for third-party apps used by blind people to access the platform. Without this definition, we are unable to ascertain whether apps that have not been approved but are nevertheless relied upon by community members qualify for an exemption.
Reddit gave no firm commitments as to when accessibility improvements would be rolled out to the website or apps. However, it is obvious that the Reddit website and apps will not be ready for disabled users—and especially moderators—by July 1.
In general, moderators of r/Blind who attended the call came away with mixed impressions. Reddit seems to be somewhat aware of the myriad accessibility barriers present in their applications and website, and the company appears to be laying the groundwork to fix issues which they are aware of. This is excellent news. However, we also feel that Reddit does not know what it does not know, and this lack of knowledge is exasperating, disheartening, and exhausting. We also came away frustrated that Reddit representatives were either unwilling or unable to answer prudent and pertinent questions which would allow us to determine not only how we can best keep our community safe and healthy, but also whether Reddit is truly prepared to commit to ensuring accessibility for all disabled users both now and in the future. Finally, we hope that our concerns—especially those pertaining to moderation—will be addressed expeditiously and satisfactorily, thus assuring that r/Blind can operate effectively well into the future. Despite our concerns, we remain open to continued dialog with Reddit in the hope that it will foster a more accessible platform.
What’s accessibility like for Lemmy/kbin? I wonder if we could get an early start on accessibility with kbin, since it has a much younger codebase.
I was thinking that as well. /r/blind users just want a place they can talk and post threads that is accessible they owe no loyalty to reddit.
Kbin seems to be continually looking into updating things but I doubt accessibility / vision support is high on the priority list right now, the issues tracker is almost 300 long.
I wonder if we could find/contact/contract a developer with an accessibility focus. I’m planning on leaving some moderately significant donations in a few days (damn settling periods and bank holidays making that slow), and maybe there could be a community fundraising effort to get an accessibility expert in to submit some PRs. I made a big fuss out of accessibility on Reddit in the lead up to the protest, and it feels hypocritical of me to not keep pushing for it now. Not sure if Ernest would be interested in that or not, but it seems like it might be a good idea.
Some of the Devs whos apps that will be shutting down will probably be on board.
I think that would be great!
Not that it wouldn’t be worthwhile anyway, but as a general thing, changes which greatly improve accessibility for some tend to be positive for everyone. I think that above post really demonstrates that. The /r/Blind users were using the same 3rd party apps as everyone else. Contrary to what reddit is trying to say, there are not particular “accessibility”-only apps. Like there’s no daisy reddit. Being accessible was part of the general high quality, thoughtful design. And now they are being told to use the same low quality, shitty tools which nobody else wants to use, but they can’t use. Accessibility goes hand in hand with quality. No news to you I’m sure.
I would be shocked (and sad) to learn if the devs here wouldn’t appreciate PRs from a knowledgeable contributor along these lines. I think it could be hard to prioritize doing these things already because of how many bazillions of communications are coming in from people who are already using the platform. And if the main dev doesn’t have expertise in this area it is also easier to apply oneself to the many problems you do know how to solve rather than going off on a research project… (I have no idea about the skills of the kbin devs.)
Agreed, great idea. Maybe a code bounty for this?
Ernest says he’s definitely interested in accessbility – he replied when I originally posted “Don’t tell people “it’s easy”, and six more things Kbin, Lemmy, and the fediverse can learn from Mastodon”, which has a section on accessibility. But there are a heck of a lot of other priorities so boosting this would be very helpful.
Here’s a post from @weirdwriter noting that kbin’s fairly good for accessibility. but I know there are some problems – here’s a bug I filed last week.
@jdp23 I remember that, and it’s still high on my priority list. In recent days, the instance has been growing so rapidly that I’m focused on keeping it running until the infrastructure is in place. That will happen very soon, and then I’ll be able to focus on that and many other aspects that I had to postpone.
Thanks for all you do! I do devops shit for a living and I can’t imagine what it’s like to keep the lights on in a situation like this. I’m just really excited for what it feels like this place will become, as are so many others here.
@jdp23 Yes. Accessibility is a good start on KBin but more still needs to be done. Like, for example, I would wrap all comments to a post in a nested list item that is ordered so that way we can tell which comment is a hierarchy to another comment. I am also a little worried that others will submit code requests and additions that are not as successful as his original design, and then it’s approved, and then this one’s accessible thing is not as accessible anymore thanks to a third party contribution. Not saying that it will happen. I’m just worried because I’ve seen it happen previously
A valid concern – and a good point on the nested list item!
One of the easiest things to do is honestly just to learn how to use something like VoiceOver and fix stuff that feels broken. Broke my wrist a while back and had to rely on Talon Voice for getting around my computer cause I couldn’t type, was a huuuuuuge eye opener and made it much easier to write accessible software lol.
Mlem seem to have accessibility as an important focus from what I’ve gathered
I’ve never messed with web code before, but I am an experienced professional programmer and I think I can safely say that filing an issue that basically just reads “Kbin needs better accessibility for the blind” would not be particularly useful or welcome.
But what would be very useful indeed would be filing a long, detailed issue that starts with “Kbin needs better accessibility for the blind” and then goes on at great length with bullet-point lists and detailed paragraphs on exactly what it is that needs to change on Kbin to make it more accessible to the blind.
There’s a great example right in the quoted article regarding Reddit’s iOS app, for example - the upvote/downvote buttons there need to be labelled with alt text. A fully sighted developer might never think of something like that but it would likely be pretty trivial for them to fix.
So if there’s any visually impaired users reading this, or users who have experience with making web pages accessible to the visually impaired, I bet that an hour or two of your time compiling a list of such things would be a great use of time.
Edit: Well, it looks like the issue that’s basically just “Kbin needs better accessibility” was filed. There’s plenty of room for comments to be added, though!
Just for starters (knowing that they can be changed with themes) is color contrast
For example up top whether I have subscribed, all, etc selected isn’t clearly obvious.
I mean I can “tell” if I look really closely but there isn’t enough contrast.
There’s some great SASS tooling for identifying if the colors you have meet the recommended WCAG guidance for contrast/visibility.
Alt text and descriptions for items visual elements too.
While it’s hard to enforce across the fediverse I do like how I’ve seen some people post memes and write descriptive text of what is in the panels.
Here’s one I commented on.
As a UX designer with a specialty in accessibility, I’d break up requirements even smaller. Accessibility is an ongoing process (like security,) not an achievement.
A dev can get pretty far just using Lighthouse to audit code, then running through with a free screen reader and with keyboard only. But accessibility can seem daunting if you try to make it one huge ticket.
The best way in my mind is to build basic accessibility testing into every ticket, the way you should do with security concerns, and then have a designer or QA run periodic audits to generate specific update tickets.
And much like security, you have to design accessibility into the app. It can’t be a feature you implement later once everything else is in place. The fact that Ernest is taking this seriously from the start tells me that while he won’t hit 100% of the targets 100% of the time, the notion that accessibility won’t be a focus because there’s bigger fish to fry doesn’t quite ring true. If he’s thinking about these things, he’s going to be approaching requested features with the idea in mind that the new feature should work for people with accessibility needs first, and be pleasant to use for everyone second
There’s a great example right in the quoted article regarding Reddit’s iOS app, for example - the upvote/downvote buttons there need to be labelled with alt text.
Good lord I didn’t realize how bad the app was. This is like… basic stuff I feel like lol.
Agree. Previous comment is too forgiving. No alt tags on essential interface items is sloppy as shit. No excuse.
Yep, this would be fantastic. Ditto goes for the apps. If anyone with experience developing accessible apps wants to help the Artemis dev, that would be awesome. I’m 100% backend, usually in Go or Python, so I don’t have much to contribute personally :(
There’s a great example right in the quoted article regarding Reddit’s iOS app, for example - the upvote/downvote buttons there need to be labelled with alt text.
This is actually the core problem with accessibility in iOS apps. VoiceOver (the text-to-speech engine in iOS accessibility) automatically reads out the Title property of a button - which developers almost never set for image-based buttons because it’s of no use to anything but VoiceOver. Instead VoiceOver reads out the name of the image file used for the button; if you’re lucky the file name is “UPVOTE.png” and it sort of works, but more likely it’s something like “RESOURCE007.jpg” and completely useless.
@AnonymousLlama He cares about accessibility, see https://kbin.social/m/kbin/p/425385/-/reply/857566
One nice thing is that because Kbin/Lemmy is federated, they can build an accessible platform and not worry about the powers that be flipping them the bird. There are good accessibility tools in the form of 3rd party apps for Reddit, but those are getting shut down.
That’s an excellent point! Like, I still think that it would be great for kbin and Lemmy to be accessible (if they’re not), but that’s another benefit to federation that I hadn’t considered.
Absolutely, the community that contributes to kbin/lemmy also want to help with the accessibility, unlike spez there’s no monetary interest.
At least, I can/must add alternative text of image when I post the image to Kbin. Another fediverse tools also might be so.
I wonder if you could automatically reverse generate a description using AI.
Unlikely since many images include text.
On Reddit there was a massive volunteer effort of people writing transcriptions for images of tweets, etc.
Here is a free to use model: https://huggingface.co/Salesforce/blip-image-captioning-base Try the demo
I have no idea, but I have professional experience in the space and getting to accessibility standards (WCAG / ADA) compliance is hard for existing apps that didn’t consider it out of the gate. That being said there’s some low hanging fruit that is pretty easy to implement and hopefully some devs contributing have experience in that space.
During the latest meeting, u/MostlyBlindGamer explained that the iOS app has no labels for the ubiquitous and essential upvote and downvote buttons while the Android app does.
Whelp, at least the upvote/downvote button on lemmy-ui has proper
aria-label.There were issues filed by screen reader users at the Lemmy-UI github, and a lot of them have already been fixed with pull requests. However, the 0.7 releases don’t have grate accessibility. rblind.com, a community created by the moderators of /r/blind is in open alpha, and is running development code directly from the github, in order to get our community the most accessible Lemmy we can, as quickly as we can. We recognize this is terrible devops practice, and we intend to move onto stable releases when possible. In the meantime, we’re taking regular backups, and warning our community to expect frequent bugs and issues. We’ve chosen Lemmy for our community, largely because the documentation and support around deploying an instance was better. While we hope blind folks will be welcomed at all instances across the fediverse, no matter what software they’re running, it’s important to us to have a place where the former /r/blind community can keep together, and we can begin making custom changes to the themes to create the most accessible Lemmy possible. We will, of course, make all of these changes open, and contribute them to the main version of Lemmy. But running our own instance frees us from waiting for other instance owners to make changes for us, while still allowing us to post to any community on any instance.
Hey it’s not thatttt horrible, your just limit testing CI/CD :)
Godspeed, friend. You’re doing God’s work
That’s badass, I’m really happy that’s happening! As someone doing devops type stuff, you do what you have to. Running alpha code so you can test and continuously improve accessibility seems like a perfectly good thing to do to me, especially early on. I may or may not have deployed things into prod that were pre-alpha 😅 I hated it, but it solved a problem, and I had a shitton of alerts around that component.
Thanks again for responding. Any way I could throw a few bucks your way to help with server costs?
Thanks for the offer! But we are doing fine for now, and we are not comfortable asking anyone for money until we have demonstrated that we can build our Lemmy into a stable and accessible home for our community. Speaking personally, I’m a self taught hobby sysadmin learning as I go. Right now the focus is on leveling up our mod team; not only do we need to be good moderators, we also need to build digital infrastructure that our community can trust.
I actually just found the rblind.com instance based on where it’s hosted and I was coming to recommend it as I thought it was very cool that it’s already running on version 0.18-rc1. But that makes sense because of how fast the development is right now, and being as bleeding edge as possible unlocks all the extra little accessibility features that get added.
Also, it’s not actually running 0.18-RC1; I never ever remember to update the version when I update the docker image. It’s running something much later than that, pulled directly from the github. I guess I should be putting the git commit we’re on in there?
Is there any way a regular Joe like me, who is not a programmer, is not blind, can help in any way?
Honestly? Encourage people to describe images. Here, on Mastodon, wherever. Alt-text/image descriptions make a huge difference. Blind people don’t want to just engage with other blind people. If we can normalize alt-text the way it has been on Mastodon in more places, that alone will be a giant accessibility win.
The Mlem app for Lemmy has 100% a11y compliance in the upcoming release, so unlike Reddit we’re embracing accessibility from the start.
I’m so happy to hear this! If you’re looking for a full-time IOS screen reader user to test, drop me a message. I’m happy to help out.
@Badabinski Both have accessibility patches and foundations that make them far more accessible than Reddit ever was but we need to ensure that foundation holds as more developers submit patches for both without accessibility awareness or care from outside developers.
The android app, Jerboa has been working hard on accessibility since the spike of incoming users. Haven’t tested it out personally but code wise it’s looking very promising
They are just blowing smoke up your asses to reduce the bad press before the IP.
Burn them down.
I agree. They are telling you, well, half of what you want to hear, and expecting you to accept that. Don’t. Don’t expect them to follow through on anything.
My thoughts exactly.
It’s funny cause they failed to even blow smoke up anyone’s ass. Instead they revealed to everyone how woefully inaccessible they are and how much they do not give a single fuck about disabled people. Everything was an afterthought because they are planning to throw those notes in the trash (AGAIN). It’s been happening for years.
I hope media picks this up … This is the biggest reason I am pissed at reddit. But media only gave a sentence at most about the accessibility issues in their articles :/
I would like to say that everyone can see through the BS, but some of the comment’s I’ve been reading about the protests (and even what I saw on r/lounge when I was given a gold award just before I quit Reddit) leads me to believe that some people are all too willing to consume the bullshit with wide open mouths because they’re either: woefully ignorant about the point of the protest (have they been living under a rock?); have never learned to read between the lines of corpobabble and just absorb it all at face value; or belong to the category of people that consider themselves part of of the Upper Echelons®™© of society (therefore thinking in the same way as fuckwits like spez) and conclude that the rest of us peasants are a bunch of Whiney Whingers who should Just Work Harder. Actually there are also people who are so far up their own bums that they cannot understand any issue that doesn’t affect them personally and so everyone else is pointlessly complaining about a non-issue and ruining their enjoyment.
PR damage control.
I found it interesting that after such a depressing bullet-point summary of their meeting, the last paragraph was still mixed and not more negative. I wonder if they actively try to stay on Reddit’s good side to not end up in Reddit’s crosshairs or if that’s truly how they feel.
Of course they’re trying to stay in Reddit’s good side, we already saw what happened with the Apollo dev - one small joke and they freaked out. I’d be walking on eggshells too
I don’t think accessibility is particularly good anywhere, but when software is open source, or failing that APIs free, people take things into their own hands and make it good. I read this in that context, even the fact Reddit would meet with community representatives rather than ask an “expert” is better than a lot of companies, though you would by the outcome if that is genuine or for optics.
well what they say in the above report is that they want reddit to meet with an “expert”. they want to know about credentials, accreditation and audits.
problem is that either way you go, or both ways, talking is not enough, need to actually then go implementation.
You misunderstand the use of quotations here, they’re air quotes. Reddit has already met with an “expert” - the mods at r/blind would like them to meet with an accredited professional.
Remember, this is a company that had nearly 2k employees before the layoffs (5% of the workforce, so still 1k+), and they can’t do accessiblity even at the minimum viable level.
From what I understand, that’s up from around 700 employees pre-covid.
They nearly tripled their workforce in the last few years, what exactly have all those new employees been doing? The site certainly isn’t 3x better than it was…True, but how many of those employees were tasked with improving the accessibility of the site for a few users who couldn’t see their advertisements anyway, versus how many employees tasked with finding ways to increase the number of advertisements visible to the rest of us? Reddit’s priorities are not Lemmy/Kbin’s priorities.
That’s my point, out of hundreds and hundreds of employees, they couldn’t task a few for accessibility. Instead they went to do a failed Clubhouse clone, NFT related rubbish, and goodness knows what else.
@Gamers_Mate Reddit’s disregard for accessibility is truly appalling. Blind moderators are treated as an afterthought, with no timeline for accessible moderation tools. It’s clear that u/spez and Reddit prioritize their own agenda over the needs of disabled users. Shameful.
I think worse actually. They want to say “we are meeting with the /r/Blind mods and had a productive conversation, we are working with them, blah blah blah”
They are cynically using /r/Blind as an empty “virtue signal” type thing.
Also I saw various people suggesting ADA lawsuits. I presume this sort of thing delays that sort of action.
And it will work, since many people can’t distinguish decent behavior and trying to completely selfishly signal decent behavior without actually wanting to do anything.
It’s more and more sounding like they have no plan and had no idea how much they were gonna fuck up to implement this plan with no plan.
I think I can confidently say Reddit’s planning is at Star Wars Sequel Trilogy level of planning.
somehow, palpatine returned
spez is copying his idol Musk
I’m a disability spouse, and this aspect of the whole scenario makes me so angry. It’s not that they’re ignorant and dismissive of people’s accessibility concerns, it’s the manner in which they’re ignorant and dismissive of people’s accessibility concerns.
Crassly, this whole farce has left me with the impression that most Reddit employees spend most of their time playing Freecell and jerking off, and the sudden expectation that they actually accomplish something has caught them entirely off guard.
Just look at how much money they blew threw for their “new reddit” redesign a few years back and gained zero profitability.
Don’t forget this bullshit https://nft.reddit.com/
The site has been basically the same and unimproved for a decade. What do the Reddit employees even do? When was the last time they actually improved the site?
I’m sure other former users of old.reddit, like myself, would contend that it actually got worse. Third party apps have been doing all of the heavy lifting. Now that they’re being kicked to the curb in favor of profits in anticipation of the IPO, there’s a whole bunch of admins sitting on their hands because they have no idea how to do what the community has been doing for nearly two decades.
I never would have gotten into using reddit if I hadn’t been told to use old.reddit, and I hadn’t soon learned about RES.
I am honestly shocked to learn that “95%” of people use new.reddit. everytime I have ended up there, like if I am using someone’s else’s computer, I am so annoyed. it sucks. not saying it to be snobby, but you searched for a thing and you found a result but instead of the stuff you searched for there is a bunch of recent threads in other subreddits. do not understand the appeal.
most Reddit employees spend most of their time playing Freecell and jerking off
To be fair, if that’s all they did Reddit wouldn’t be in this dumpster fire of a situation right now.
So I noticed there was a mention of accessibility certifications in here - as a side topic, does anyone know of a trustworthy / reliable certification I could look into getting? I know about the WCAG guidelines and some basics, but I would love to get some more formalized training so that I know I’m doing the best possible job when designing or writing code, and can pass that knowledge on to others in my team.
I second this. I haven’t got a certification in like decades but an accessibility certification sounds fantastic.
There hasn’t been an IT certification I’ve seen in forever where I was like, “yeah I can’t just go and learn that on my own” but one that’s all about accessibility does sound like something I couldn’t just learn on my own… since I’m not disabled/blind and don’t know anyone who is.
What I really want is to learn about accessibility testing. Oh man that’d be like having a superpower! With a skill like that I’d be useful to literally any and every FOSS team that exists!
Aside: I am blind in one eye so I’m one accident away from actually being blind some day. I should learn this stuff now just in case!
It’s not an area I specialise in… but a quick look around seemed to show https://www.accessibilityassociation.org/s/certified-professional-web-accessibility as a good starting place?
I was also intrigued by that!
My favorite has been the Deque training.
The IAAP is currently the industry standard, with the CPACC being the best place to start.
Exactly what I was looking for - thank you!!!
So perhaps this is tangential, but while it was clearly meant as a last-second “oh shit” move, one of the apps that is being excepted from the API charge is Dystopia for iOS. It’s currently only on Apple Testflight, but they’re working to get listed on the app store. I am not blind, and I have tried it, and while it’s no Apollo, it’s… decent. The same text-centric, simple UI that makes it work well with assistive technology also results in a pretty clean app for people who just want to read and discuss. It’s also under active development.
Once it pops up in search I think some folks in the general public are going to like it better than the official app. What does Reddit do if and when their designated “blind people” app starts attracting users with no connection to the blind community? Will they allow it to continue?
they are now emphasizing the “accessibility” aspect of what u/spez said in the AMA (which I guess is official policy???). but don’t forget in the original comment it was also mentioned “non commercial”. my read on this is nobody is allowed to get paid. if the app becomes massively popular, and everyone who has been booted out of their prior app tries to go there, the developer is going to want to get paid. so it will be out of the running.
Yeah, this is a pile of bullshit. I don’t believe for one single second that there was ever an “accessibility audit” or that anyone in that building has any accessibility certifications whatsoever. They couldn’t talk about them because they don’t fucking exist, never existed, and there are no plans to bring any of them into existence.
Edit: Recalling terrible dad joke because it wasn’t obvious enough I was making fun of the Reddit admins.
Can anyone give tl;dr?
Reddit has no tools for blind users, because it never considered that they needed them.
Reddit cannot commit to creating these tools, because “we’re working on accessibility” is purely a lie to placate the masses.
Reddit doesn’t even know what they’re supposed to be working on or what the problems are, because they simply do not care about users with disabilities.
Reddit doesn’t even know what they’re supposed to be working on or what the problems are, because they simply do not care about users with disabilities.
That’s hardly fair. They clearly care even less about moderators with disabilities!
Seems clear to me that they only reason they’re even bothering to pay lip service is that they’re trying (poorly) to damage control the HORRIBLE pr disaster of screwing over a bunch of disabled people. They didn’t even know blind people existed. The problem isn’t disappearing and reddit is panicking because they can’t have their good pr for the blind cake and eat the 3rd party apps go away cake too.
Well, it’s reddit not heardit or feltit. Those could be good app names for a reddit accessibility feature, but at the moment it’s more ‘stuffit’. (Not the Mac utility.)
Reddit: “we’ve tried nothing and we’re all out of ideas!”
Best TL:DR I’ve read in a while … thanks
Lots of lip-service from Reddit, very little in the way of actual solutions.
When 3rd party apps are blocked on July 1st, Reddit is no longer going to support accessibility features that blind mods and users need. Reddit’s owners don’t seem to have considered how much work it’s going to be to provide said features “in-house.”
Reddit does not know what it does not know, and this lack of knowledge is exasperating, disheartening, and exhausting. We also came away frustrated that Reddit representatives were either unwilling or unable to answer prudent and pertinent questions which would allow us to determine not only how we can best keep our community safe and healthy, but also whether Reddit is truly prepared to commit to ensuring accessibility for all disabled users both now and in the future.
Chat GPT generated summary:
_The moderators of the r/blind subreddit recently had a meeting with Reddit representatives to discuss accessibility concerns. While Reddit demonstrated some accessible designs, there were serious issues that the representatives couldn’t address. They didn’t provide timelines for accessible moderation tools, seemed unaware of blind moderators’ reliance on third-party apps, and refused to share information about employee qualifications and the details of the accessibility audit. This lack of knowledge and transparency raised doubts about Reddit’s commitment to accessibility. The moderators hope their concerns will be addressed promptly to ensure an effective and accessible future for the subreddit.
In summary, the meeting highlighted Reddit’s prioritization of user accessibility over moderator accessibility, the lack of knowledge and transparency regarding accessibility efforts, and the absence of firm commitments for improvements. The moderators remain open to dialogue but express frustration and concern about the platform’s accessibility and its impact on the r/blind community._
Reddit demonstrated some accessible designs
no they didn’t
, the meeting highlighted Reddit’s prioritization of user accessibility over moderator accessibility,
wrong, they aren’t caring about anyone’s accessibility
tldr: reading the last paragraph (traditionally known as a “conclusion”) would be more useful than reading dumb bullshit chat gpt
Oh crap sorry about that. Lesson learnt for me, I shouldn’t rely on ChatGPT for summaries anymore because it can miss a fair bit
GPT-4 is much better at summarizing (or at everything):
Moderators from r/blind and other communities had a meeting with Reddit representatives on June 16, 2023, to discuss accessibility issues on the platform. The moderators expressed concerns that Reddit’s current focus is on improving accessibility for users, not moderators, and lacks clear timelines for accessibility improvements in moderation tools. They also noted that Reddit seemed unaware of the reliance on third-party apps due to Reddit’s own tools’ lack of accessibility.
Moreover, concerns were raised about Reddit’s unwillingness to share details about the qualifications of their employees tasked with accessibility, the specifics of their previously performed accessibility audit, and the definition of their term “accessibility-focused app.” Reddit’s lack of full-time employees working on accessibility was another worry.
Although Reddit seems to be acknowledging and planning to fix known accessibility issues, the lack of knowledge about what they aren’t aware of was disheartening for the moderators. They expressed their frustration over unanswered questions, and emphasized the need for accessible tools to effectively moderate their communities. They remain open to continued dialogue with Reddit to promote a more accessible platform.
Unless working on accessibility features will directly bring Reddit money, it’s safe to say that they won’t do so. If they can guarantee that every member of r/blind will become a paying customer (rather than a non-paying user), they’ll make a move. Until then, expect nothing. It’s the same as dealing with any business about accommodations - unless there’s a visible opportunity cost that offsets the accommodations, they won’t do it. The ADA and local authorities serve as the cost to brick-and-mortar businesses (they might get fined for more than it takes to just do the accommodations; or they might get shut down), but there’s no such recourse on the internet.
I’m really interested in accessibility certifications. i did not know that was a thing. does anyone know about them?
They’re are specific accessibility standards that have been work on in various arenas over the years. For example: https://www.w3.org/WAI/standards-guidelines/wcag/
Aligned with this there are specific courses and certifications various languages might have associated with them, for example https://www.digitallearninginstitute.com/courses/professional-certificate-in-accessibility-and-universal-design/ or https://www.accessibilityassociation.org/s/certified-professional-web-accessibility
If you’re going to factor in the need for accessibility in your application its far better to have someone experienced in the issues up front, and certification can help with that, then to try and retrofit things later.
Reddit as a company seems to be terrible high school club
