🧵 Even before I formed @ucaccessnow, I persisted through campus channels trying to get them to acknowledge that cycle racks ALSO have to be accessible, not car parking spaces. After months of brick walls with UC and my union, I got a meeting with the head of UC Davis TAPS, who
proposed that instead of making all cycle racks accessible, I give them a list of my classes & they'd install accessible racks with "blue badges" at each bldg I had a class in.
I told them this was not a sensible solution. Not only would my classes likely be in different bldgs each quarter, making an inefficient use of funds & labor doing bespoke installations, but abled ppl (often NCAA athletes!) 2/? #UCAccessNow#Accessibility#Cycling#CycleParkingAudit
with upright bikes these racks were ostensibly made for, prefer the end spaces and take them first. They prefer the end spaces because these racks aren't even good for the bikes they prioritized: narrow upright bikes for typical-sized adults.
The inaccessibility of the cycle infrastructure at UC Davis was only one of many ableisms here & I went on to form UC Access Now, release the Demandifesto, and #UCAccessNow#Accessibility#Cycling#CycleParkingAudit
launch a form so coalition members & supporters throughout UC could pressure the Governor, the Board of Regents, and every UC chancellor to finally make the University of California accessible to the public that built it - including disabled ppl.
UC has stonewalled every step of the way. It has cherrypicked ideas from the Demandifesto and from our activism, implemented them without working with us
Worse, non-activist disability groups within UC are pulled in to give it the veneer of being UC just happens to be doing for the disabled community at UC and some folks within the disability community have been happy to take credit for UC Access Now's work and put UC's approval on their CV.
This is UC strategy. Ableist power does not want student-led activism to get credit or it will beget more.
Rationing out the space is both ableist and car-centrist. It says that disabled people's needs are "special" and must be rationed & policed by the university's Disabled Students Center & Disability Management Services and UC Davis TAPS...not that UC has multiple legal and moral obligations to make things accessible by default.
It also says that space must be maximized for drivers -
not only untold square yds of dedicated single story auto parking space, but UC Davis driving employees parking on sidewalks blocking egress to & from bldgs simply because the abled drivers of air-conditioned vehicles want to park them in the shade of trees or don't want to walk 15 feet further to legal safe parking.
This is the 3rd installation of more accessible (but still not the equitable solution) cycle racks at UC Davis that I know of.
IT IS DUE to work I & later UC Access Now did.
UC Davis TAPS has never notified me when these are installed nor credited my work as the impetus. They would not have installed these without a lot of hard work (including the damage to my health) from me.
For Global Accessibility Awareness Day, we want to recognize the work being done on accessibility by @matt as part of the @gnome Foundation. He is the lead for @accesskit and is currently working on Newton, a Wayland-oriented solution for assistive technologies that can modernize accessibility on the Linux desktop!
The Fedora Accessibility Working Group is looking to work closer with upstream as we aim to improve accessibility on Fedora. If you are interested in joining, participating, collaborating, or sharing your experience, please reach out with the Fedora DEI tag on our forum.
I'm asking because it is really difficult to find a place for discussing accessibility in Fediverse posts beyond the limits of any one Fediverse server application....
I think a good approach could be to think about how you could reach users of different platforms.
A lot of Mastodon users follow hashtags, so including relevant hashtags (#accessibility and #blind seem like good starting points) might be a good idea. Tagging groups, such as @accessibility, might also help.
I think Kbin/Mbin might be better suited for this than Lemmy, as it integrates better with other federated networks. You can follow microbloggers and boost content, which in turn makes them likely to follow you back and creates a community beyond which Lemmy community you choose to post in. Your Mastodon followers will see your posts, but it won't matter to them which community you post it in.
It's hard for content to make the jump from Lemmy to Mastodon as Lemmy does not make itself discoverable, but as soon as content reaches Mastodon users nothing stops them from interacting with it (by boosting or replying).
Sadly Kbin.social lacks sufficiently active moderation these days, so you might be better off with an mbin instance. I also have no idea how accessible Mbin is to blind users.
Edit: I over-emphasized the point about reaching a broader audience. If you want to discuss a narrow topic but you don't want most ActivityPub users to see it because you don't value their input, I guess Lemmy is as good as it gets.
A lot of Mastodon users follow hashtags, so including relevant hashtags (#accessibility and #blind seem like good starting points) might be a good idea. Tagging groups, such as @accessibility, might also help.
As I've already said, for someone who is not on Mastodon, it's pretty much worthless to try and discuss Fediverse post accessibility as applied on something that isn't Mastodon with people who are on Mastodon. And Guppe is practically exclusively used by Mastodon users.
One example: Many Mastodon users have stuck in their heads that you can't post more than 500 characters in the Fediverse. For even more Mastodon users, "alt-text" and "image description" are 100% mutually synonymous and mean the exact same thing. Image descriptions, no matter what they contain, always go into the alt-text. It's like a law of physics, deviating from which is unimaginable.
If you talk about describing or explaining something in the post text body, whoosh, it flies over their heads. No matter how much sense that'd actually make.
Not to mention that you have to keep every post and every comment at 500 characters or below, otherwise a large number of Mastodon users will pretend you aren't even there or mute or block you outright. I know that from personal experience. And there are things that simply can't be discussed in glorified tweets.
Also, Mastodon seems to only know two kinds of pictures. One, screenshots of social media posts. The stuff that requires transcripts. Two, simple real-life photographs, especially cat pictures.
Edit: I over-emphasized the point about reaching a broader audience. If you want to discuss a narrow topic but you don’t want most ActivityPub users to see it because you don’t value their input, I guess Lemmy is as good as it gets.
Ideally, I'd discuss this topic with people from all over the Fediverse. And I want these people to discuss it with each other within the comments section. Mastodon users who really care a lot for accessibility, who want everyone's needs to be catered to, and who are shooting for WCAG level AA, just as well as users of Pleroma, Akkoma, Misskey, Firefish, Iceshrimp, Sharkey etc. etc. who have much higher character limits in their post and users of Friendica, Hubzilla and (streams) who do not have a character limit.
I don't just want a bunch of one-on-one discussions between myself and someone else. I want to discuss such matters with Mastodon users and non-Mastodon users, and I want the Mastodon users and the non-Mastodon users to read and reply to what the other side has written.
I want people on non-Mastodon projects to tell Mastodon users who only know Mastodon what things are like on other projects. I want Mastodon users to tell non-Mastodon users how important accessibility is and which aspects of accessibility is how important. And I want to learn from this discussion.
I want to read opinions and ideas from all over the Fediverse. And I want users from all over the Fediverse to read these opinions and ideas.
And in particular, I want to discuss with them edge-cases in accessibility that go far, far beyond Twitter/Mastodon screenshots and cat photographs.
The mask ban being proposed in North Carolina is discriminatory & dangerous. I’m grateful this clip covered the risk these bans pose to POC & marginalized individuals. It won’t be limited to people committing crimes…. If you truly believe that you need to listen to more marginalized voices.
I found it especially telling that the senator mentioned “trusting” law enforcement not to arrest Granny for wearing a mask in Walmart. The de facto implication here is that they CAN arrest Granny for that. They may not be able to criminally charge you - but if they’re allowed to stop, search and arrest just for masking in public there will be abuse. There will be situations where people are forced to remove their mask and consent to a search AND risk infection.
Im incredibly grateful to all the groups fighting back against this bill - and encourage everyone to watch this brief clip:
@PCMag
Absolutely. When I have some time I'm gonna roll-back and stay there until EOS. You missed the very poor #accessibility#Windows 11 has - a dark theme which has almost zero contrast with the dark parts, smaller and harder to see notifications, narrower/disappearing scroll bars, etc. not to mention annoying stuff like round corners. Just the worst Windows UI ever - #Microsoft don't seem to understand "if it ain't broke then don't fix it". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-BiJKq7ynms
How can stuff be more accessible for neurodivergent people? I think this gets pushed aside sometimes in favour of more visible accessibility needs
If you run a club or have recurring events, ‘we have a calendar for you to check’ can be a lot less accessible than ‘we run regular events, sign up for weekly reminders / reminders for upcoming events’.
Less need to remember to go check something, on a schedule, to keep up to date, which can be hard for folks with executive dysfunction- among others, those with ADHD. Issues reasoning about time can impact this, too.
It can seem like a style preference or a design choice, but it can be really helpful!
Do you have things you wish people knew could make the world more accessible to neurodivergent people?
Many deaf people don't have proper access to the news and other important digital media content. So we set out to create a #SignLanguage#avatar – only to find out we had made a lot of wrong assumptions.
Daniela Späth and Pauline Beck on an #AI / #3D / #accessibility tech project that failed (but in a good way):
Anecdotally - it feels like I know way more people sick with respirator viruses right now than I have in a long time. None of them are testing for COVID and none seem to think it’s strange they’re so knocked down in May.
One of them just got over a terrible cough & loss of appetite that lasted 3 months starting in December …. And is already severely ill again.
Does anyone have any positive stories of people who suddenly got fed up being sick all the time and finally masked up again? Or came to you and asked for more information on Covid precautions? I’ve been brushed off just for suggesting they test … and it’s feeling pretty bleak.
I genuinely believed that when previously healthy people started getting sick over and over (and for long durations) they would start to question the narrative that COVID is over/mild. They would get curious. They would ask questions. None of that is happening.
It makes me very scared that it’ll never happen. That no amount of sickness or statistics will get people to reconsider their stance on Covid, masks and mitigations.
So if anyone has hopeful stories - I would love to hear them!
NC are proposing a bill to ban masks (including medical masks) in public settings. This is not only discriminatory - it’s dangerous. It’s removing the LAST tool we have to protect against COVID.
It also sets dangerous precedent & fuels damaging narratives about COVID.
The proposed bill would see all masks banned in public settings. If a person requires a mask - they would need to have a medical exemption. Disabled people are exhausted. We’ve been forced into dangerous situations for 4 years thanks to “you do you” COVID policy.
To now expect us to do additional work to procure a medical exemption just to be able to wear a respirator to help us prevent death or further disability? It’s unnecessarily cruel. Doctor’s appts & notes cost money. They’re not accessible to everyone.
COVID mitigation is already a significant social justice issue. By virtue of the fact our governments and public health have done nothing to protect people - individuals are left to procure protection for themselves. This protection isn’t affordable for everyone.
Respirators, HEPA filters, rapid tests, far UV… all these tools are out of financial reach for many people. We have fantastic organizations attempting to get respirators into the hands of those who need them - but some people are always left behind.
Now we’re adding an additional barrier by putting the burden of proof that a mask is required on the disabled individual. We’re forcing them to risk exposure to go to a doctor, spend money out of pocket for a note and then carry it around in the hopes they don’t get arrested?
If governments and public health would take Covid more seriously -
People wouldn’t need to don respirators nearly as often. But when the powers that be take away access to vaccines & anti-virals, refuse to clean the air, provide testing or paid sick leave? We have no choice.
Even if everything goes perfectly (which rarely happens) and a person has access to a respirator, can afford to see a doctor & obtain medical exemption… there’s still a good chance they’ll be forced to remove their mask while law enforcement analyze the exemption’s legitimacy
COVID infects extremely quickly. Breaking the seal on your respirator - even briefly - can result in infection. We’re asking people to jump through an inordinate amount of hoops and spend ridiculous amounts of money only to quite possibly end up infected anyways.
There’s also a bigger issue that stems from the idea that the “medically vulnerable” can and should obtain an exemption. It continues to drive the narrative that Covid is ONLY a threat to people who are already vulnerable. Which we know is untrue.
COVID is a multi system disease that has a 10% chance of causing disability. The odds of Long Covid go up with each infection. It’s not 10% in those that are already vulnerable - it’s everyone. Many young & healthy people have had their lives ruined by this disease.
The lie that only the vulnerable need to be concerned is one of the most devastating of the pandemic. People are getting infected over & over & think they’ve “gotten away with it”….When there’s good odds that they’ve got silent damage & their next infection will disable them
It also propagates the notion that the vulnerable are expendable. That it’s ok if we die or become further disabled because the rest of the world needs to “go back to normal”. There’s nothing normal about a society that turns its back on others.
This desperation to return to the way the world was in 2019 is quite literally killing people. It’s ruining lives. It’s dividing people, straining healthcare systems and causing long term health consequences that will have ripple effects for decades to come.
This NC bill to ban masks is just the latest in a string of terrible decisions that are costing lives. And it didn’t have to be this way. Had we admitted Covid was airborne and worked to implement clean air standards - we wouldn’t be in such a dire situation now.
After several days of work, I finally pushed several commits to my website to accommodate those who rely on high contrast themes. Huge thanks to @acidiclight for helping me out by sharing a lot of feedback!
And a request to the broader community - feedback wanted and highly appreciated.
Please boost in the hopes of reaching someone who can answer:
Can someone direct me to a form and/or a person responsible for ensuring ADA compliance (not a defensive "cover your ass" thing, but actually caring about accessibility) at USDA?
For discussing Fediverse accessibility, where would you recommend me to go? Or stay here?
I'm asking because it is really difficult to find a place for discussing accessibility in Fediverse posts beyond the limits of any one Fediverse server application....