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Goals and how to achieve them

Okay, I've been turning this over in my head for the past few days. Our goals should be:
1 Make pages accessible

We could have a process wherein we go over pages and assure that they are usable by all- i.e. get rid of anything that could cause problems, like moving images (can cause sensory overload) or some sort of script that might make a screen reader crash. Once a page has been shown to be accessable, we stick a template on it that says we certified it. We could start with featured articles and work from there. We might also try to make it so we must certify a page before it becomes featured from here on out.

2 Assist users who need help editing

Obviously this would be different for every user. If we have enough members, there would likely be at least one person with experience for any given problem.

3 Protect users from community sanctions due to disabilities

We could have a couple of users (I'd volunteer for this) who act as advocates- talking to administrators, mediators, etc and helping to keep these "problematic" users from being blocked/banned, etc. Users would have to request assistance from us for this.


That's all for now... L'Aquatique talktome 21:18, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

I would certainly agree with checking individual pages - but I wouldn't agree with putting templates on the articles; maybe put small inconspicuous templates on the talk pages. There isn't that much to making sure a page is accessible - just make sure it uses standard formatting and heading conventions. Graham87 05:13, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
Yeah, what I was thinking would be just a little template at the top of the talk page that says "This page has been certified as accessible by Wikiproject Accessibility", with accessible wikilinked to the criteria. As far as what those criteria would be, I agree that it doesn't have to be complicated- make sure everything is properly formatted, no moving graphics, all images either captioned or coded so they have a label, etc. I'm sure it would not be difficult to come up with a checklist of some sort. The truth is, good articles should have this stuff already... L'Aquatique talktome 20:05, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
Exactly. An article that meets the Manual of Style would probably meet accessibility guidelines. Graham87 01:30, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
Right- so going through the already featured articles would be a breeze. The problem is, there are a lot of articles out there that I would consider "important" in topic that are really poorly written. A lot of wikiprojects seem to have lists of the articles in their scope, categorized by importance. Those lists might be good places to start. L'Aquatique talktome 04:26, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
How about going through some of the vital articles or the list of core topics? Graham87 08:21, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
Removal of moving images could be problematic in some cases, considering some of those moving images are in fact Featured Images. This is not to say that they must inherently have no moving images, however. We could certainly however suggest changes to the MOS to ensure that such images do not receive undo attention in an article.
I cannot see how it would be remotely acceptable to wikipedia that an FA receive "certification" from a specific group. However, we could certainly express reservations about any article receiving FA status if it might fail to meet certain accessibility criteria.
Regarding user assistance, one thing we might be able to do, even without a specific request. If any user adds a userbox to their page indicating that they possess some sort of accessibility issue, we might be able to speak for them in any event. I acknowledge that some editors might intentionally misuse such userboxes as an additional defense for blatantly, possibly willfully problematic behavior, but we more or less have to assume good faith in the user using that userbox. Also, if a specific user uses a userbox which does not even remotely imply the problematic behavior they might display, we would hopefully know that, and perhaps be able to, if necessary, indicate the misreprestnation. I'm not really comfortable with that idea, but it is something that might come up. John Carter 14:02, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
Yeah, a userbox (and corresponding category) wouldn't be a bad idea. I too would fear that it would be misused, but I suppose there's no way to avoid that... L'Aquatique talktome 15:07, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
There already are about 100 such templates in the Category:Health-related user templates. I think the ones that might be relevant to us would be:

John Carter 15:38, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

That's a good list, but if we used userboxes already in use, how would we distinguish between people who actually want our help and people who just have the userbox? L'Aquatique talktome 16:41, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
Probably the best thing to do would be to contact them and find out not so much whether they needed our help, but whether they would be interested in joining the group. I think it would be understood that we would help out each other as a project. We could also presumably point out that the person claims to have a certain condition if and when we find out that they are experiencing some sort of difficulty. John Carter 21:41, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
Sounds good to me. Also, in the way of criteria- this page could basically be turned into checklist style and be exactly what we need! I love it when these things are done for me! :D L'Aquatique talktome 01:58, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
Oh, by the way... We now have 5 members and can officially be granted a page in namespace. I was fiddling around with photoshop (I've come upon a fair amount of free time, as of late) and made a little icon that could be used on our templates. It's a globe (from a hubble space telescope pic) but there is a rainbow colored line running through it and... well I guess I'll just upload it and we can see if we like it. I just have a few little formatting things to do and I'll do that. L'Aquatique talktome 02:11, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Ok, here it is... I wanted something that would be readily recognizable, but also meaningful. I wasn't actually intending to make it, I was just fiddling with photoshop and thought "hey, this'd make a great logo IF I..." on and on. The first version looked too much like the NASA logo, so I fiddled with it more and ended up with this. I like the rainbow outlining- representing diversity. The two distinct sections of the globe look cool, but also sort of represent different ways of looking at the world.
logo If y'all don't like it, say so! I won't be offended, as I said it was just my random doodling. L'Aquatique talktome 05:01, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Looks good to me. John Carter 16:29, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
I like it, great job! Apart form the new logo, some time ago I read an interesting article about adding accessibility to an existing web site, specifically "5 Steps To Reworking A Legacy Site" by Mel Pedley. It remarks that usually the pages of the site for the disabled are not the first ones to be fixed, so I think we shouldn't forgot to address these articles/Wikipedia pages as a special group in the goals. —surueña 12:56, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

It seems like not many people posted on this page recently. I would like to understand the current status of the accessibility project, and to see how many people would be interested in working on it actively. I am an accessibility consultant who uses Wikipedia a lot. Tombabinszki (talk) 18:31, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

This project is still alive and while the new Accessibility policy (the first major goal of this project) is on hold, I suppose that their members are fixing accessibility problems while navigating through the Wikipedia (at least me!). You are welcome to join us, and contribute your expertise in the future accessibility policy. Best regards, —surueña 19:46, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
I've been dealing with insane amounts of classwork for like four months straight... but, I'm back now. I'd love to see more activity here. L'Aquatiquetalk 02:31, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
It's good to see you again! Cheers, —surueña 13:51, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Template making spree!!

Syntax Name Usage Associated Category
{{Accessible}} Accessible Article For use on articles that have been certified as being accessible. Category:Accessible Articles
{{WikiProject Accessibility}} Project Page For use on article talk pages for articles within the project Category:WikiProject Accessibility articles
{{AccessibilityDispute}} Accessibility Dispute For use on articles where the accessibility is in question. Category:Articles with accessibility problems
This user is a participant in WikiProject Accessibility.
{{User WPAccessibility}} Userbox Self-explanatory Category:WikiProject Accessibility participants
Fixed some accessibility problems. You can help! See Wikipedia:WikiProject Accessibility
Fixed some [[Wikipedia:Accessibility|accessibility]] problems. You can help! See [[Wikipedia:WikiProject Accessibility]] Edit log For use in edit logs when fixing accessibility problems. (Category:Accessible Articles)

Note: For whatever reason, they render funny in the wikitable. They look fine when you place them on a page. L'Aquatique talktome 20:16, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Is this compatible with Template:WikiProjectBannerShell? I'm somewhat reserved about templates for talk pages and userboxes - when I joined here, there were no userboxes and no WikiProject banners - most articles had a red-linked talk page and I enjoyed being the first to contribute to a talk page. But sentimental concerns aside, I support the idea - it will spread awareness about our project. Graham87 11:53, 17 October 2007 (UTC)
It isn't compatible, yet. I need to find out what that bit of code is to make it collapsible, then we'll be in business. The thing is, don't we want people to see it right off the bat? We're not saying that the page is part of our Wikiproject, we're saying that the page meets requirements to be considered accessible, as determined by our wikiproject. I dunno, I suppose we could use the shell template for articles that all ready have tons of them. L'Aquatique talktome 16:42, 17 October 2007 (UTC)
I think it should be hidden on a case-by-case basis. Definitely in articles with a dozen WikiProject banners, probably not in articles with three or four. Graham87 01:38, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
Agreed. By the way, is this conversation getting very difficult to follow for anyone else? L'Aquatique talktome 04:46, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
I'm agree, and I also suggest to use a "standarized" edit log when fixing articles, like "Fixing some accessibility problems. See [[Wikipedia:WikiProject Accessibility]]", or "See Wikipedia:Accessibility#Links" to explain the specific change (e.g. Wikipedia:Accessibility#Links for overlinking, Wikipedia:Accessibility#Article structure for inconsistent order of headings…). —surueña 13:08, 17 October 2007 (UTC)
Sounds fine to me. L'Aquatique talktome 16:42, 17 October 2007 (UTC)
OK, and and slight modification to attract new participants: "Fixed some [[Wikipedia:Accessibility|accessibility]] problems. You can help! See [[Wikipedia:WikiProject Accessibility]]". —surueña 10:05, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
When we have a page that lists our criteria, "accessibility" can link there. For now, I think it should to link to WP:ACCESS... however I don't have the touch apparently. When I try to add the nowiki tags to make the brackets appear on the links it erases everything up to that point?! If you could fix it that'd be great. *Smile* L'Aquatique talktome 17:30, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
Good idea that link to WP:WAI. And I have just reported this bug.[1] A possible workaround is to put only one 'nowiki' tag for the whole sentence. —surueña 20:47, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
I would like at some point to try to create a separate page for our criteria, checklist style. I have been chatting 'avec Neranei and she may be interested in doing this. We'll see. L'Aquatique talktome 04:50, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Some time ago I created the template {{wai-problem}} for talk pages with accessibility problems. However, it is virtually unused because I usually fix myself the accessibility problems. It is a good idea to have a consistent set of templates, so I can redirect my template to {{AccessibilityDispute}}. However, maybe you would like to reuse the Category:Articles with accessibility problems. —surueña 13:08, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

We can use yours, if you'd like. I sort of like mine because it looks like the NPOV dispute banners (I copied the codes and changed the words, hee hee). In the meantime, I switched the categories so that Category:Articles with accessibility problems is now used. L'Aquatique talktome 16:42, 17 October 2007 (UTC)
I've completed the redirection, and adapted the (few) talk pages which currently had the banner. I also redirected {{wcag-problem}}, which was a redirection to the {{wai-problem}}. —surueña 10:05, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

I almost forget… shouldn't the user box include a category, like Category:WikiProject Accessibility participants? Other Wikiproject userboxes provide one, like Category:WikiProject Science participants for {{User WikiProject Science}}. And I suppose we also have to register it in on Wikipedia:Userboxes/WikiProjects, and Wikipedia:List of WikiProjects, or something like that. Best regards —surueña 13:18, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Hmm... All the wikiprojects I belong to don't have categories in the syntax of their userboxes. It seems to me like it would be unnecessary because we already have a list of members right here on the mainpage. I will go register it under the userboxes/wikiprojects and see if we are not yet registered under list of wikiprojects. : ) L'Aquatique talktome 16:42, 17 October 2007 (UTC)
Yes CheckDone! I also added everyone who has joined to the category. L'Aquatique talktome 17:18, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

We should consider moving this discussion to the talk page... L'Aquatique talktome 20:16, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Okay, I made one more template: for use on pages that are part of the project, but not necessarily marked as so otherwise (like WP:ACCESS. One needs to go on the talk page for this page, but I can't bring myself to un-redlink the talk page when Graham seems to be so sentimental about doing it himself. *Smile* L'Aquatique talktome 20:36, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
I think that the way we have discussed is fine. If there is a problem, we should post it on the article page (just as we would if there was another problem, like weasel words). If we have approved it, I think the talk page will suffice as it is fine that way. Smartyllama 22:06, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
Right. The dispute template is a directly copy of the NPOV template, and should probably used in a similar fashion. L'Aquatique talktome 22:16, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Accessible template

Regarding {{accessible}}, I don't think that marking articles as "accessible" is a good idea at all. Monitoring such articles so that the article itself and any transcluded templates continues to be accessible will be a major task and all good articles should be accessible anyway. It is much better to highlight those articles that are not accessible and fix them. It would be like people going around and marking templates as "This article is written in a Neutral POV" and "This article is referenced". violet/riga (t) 10:48, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Now that you put it that way ... I can kinda see your point. It's not like marking an article as a featured article or a good article. Perhaps we could keep track of the pages we have checked with a list in a subpage here? Graham87 11:48, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
I don't know what's the best approach... It is probably a good idea to be able to know which articles/pages are accessible, so another member of the team doesn't waste time in checking the page again (some issues requires a careful review). However, using the {{accessible}} template or a list/subpage doesn't guarantee that the article has been edited, and therefore some accessibility problems could be introduced again... The best method is to watch the set of critical pages (featured articles, accessibility related pages, important project pages...), but that's also a lot of work and our team is still very small to do that. Any idea? —surueña 21:08, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
I would concentrate on ensuring that the Manual of Style covers all the important accessibility guidance - all FAs must be in line with the MOS and GAs are pretty much the same too. This would mean that accessibility becomes something that FA and GA editors and reviewers help to implement and maintain. Work it into other WikiProject rating systems as well and there is an even bigger range of editors to help out. violet/riga (t) 21:16, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
OK, if this approach worked for other WikiProjects, we can wait and see if this also works for us. I also vote for not using {{accessible}} at all but only {{AccessibilityDispute}} for problematic articles / templates. However, I'm still believe we haven't set the project goals and priorities correctly, and IMHO this is the first step of any project. —surueña 18:58, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

Field trip, anyone?

All right, if everyone could direct their attention momentarily to my sandbox, were I have made a rough draft of criteria... (I really just basically copied and pasted WP:ACCESS and made it bulleted... because I'm that lazy.) Add or take away as you see fit. L'Aquatique talktome 05:10, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Neat. Seems good. Will we need approval from anyone to get on our way? Smartyllama 11:28, 20 October 2007 (UTC)
IMO this is a good summary of the most important points. Smartyllama, I'm not sure if I understand your question. WP:ACCESS is a Wikipedia guideline, so it generally applies to every page. However, I sometimes encounter some reluctance from some editors who have reverted my edits, and told me that I must discuss first those changes in the article's talk page before. Should we try to promote WP:ACCESS to a policy instead of a guideline to ease our work? Cheers —surueña 14:27, 20 October 2007 (UTC)
L'Aquatique- that looks good, is it in the order that people would have to do things? Second: Should we all have screen readers to see if the article is awkward; that way, we can include copyediting so people with screen readers won't have trouble. Surueña, it would be a good idea to get WP:ACCESS to be policy, in my opinion. Love, Neranei (talk) 14:38, 20 October 2007 (UTC)
Smartyllama- no we don't need approval from anyone although as we have discussed we may encounter opposition from some editors unless WP:ACCESS becomes policy instead of guideline. Why, I have no idea, but some people are just... well, you know. I agree that we need to get it to policy- what must be done? I assume it is some sort of consensus/discussion type process, but I cannot find a place to do it. L'Aquatique talktome 18:16, 20 October 2007 (UTC)
The best way to propose policy changes is probably at Wikipedia:Village pump, at least initially. John Carter 18:26, 20 October 2007 (UTC)
See Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#Changing a guideline to a policy (perfect timing John, by the way *grin*) L'Aquatique talktome 18:33, 20 October 2007 (UTC)
Excellent, this should help things. :) Love, Neranei (talk) 19:36, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

(Deindent) I always interpreted Wikipedia:Accessibility as more of a style guide than anything - like the Manual of Style. I think it should be policy that Wikipedia should be accessible to as many people as possible - that's the whole idea behind the site and its consistent interface. To be honest I don't know if it can become a policy along the lines of blocking policy - even the often-referenced page reliable sources isn't a policy. If there is clear reasoning on the page about particular points, then it should stand up no matter what tag happens to be on top of the page at a particular time. Graham87 12:47, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

You can also get free screen reader demos of JAWS and Window-Eyes on their respective websites. NonVisual Desktop Access is a free and open-source screen reader for Windows with similar concepts to JAWS and other screen readers - it is however a bit slow on Wikipedia. Graham87 13:03, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Maybe not, but it seems like we should at least try. However over at village pump they don't seem too receptive to the idea. *sigh* L'Aquatique talktome 18:34, 21 October 2007 (UTC)±
I've only tested the demo version of JAWS, and the problem is that it stops working after an hour or so (I don't exactly remember), so you have to restart the computer if you want to try again. But I will test the other ones, although I usually don't use Windows. Gnopernicus and Fire Vox are available for Linux —surueña 21:50, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

It seems that the discussion over at Village Pump may be heading in the direction of an all out bar room brawl. If everyone would take a peek over there and maybe leave a comment... L'Aquatique talktome 20:10, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

:-) I'm pretty optimistic about this, and IMHO we should really push this change because otherwise we weren't able to build an accessible Wikipedia. We were continuously providing patches for the accessibility problems we find, but unless all editors are aware about universal access and new content is created with accessibility in mind, we can only fix slightly the mountain. Are there a idiom in English for this? (I'm not a native English speaker, thanks :-) —surueña 21:18, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
Not that I can think of... But it does seem to me that unless this passes as a policy, we will spend the rest of our days putting out fires, instead of preventing them! I suppose that's an idiom... L'Aquatique talktome 21:24, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

WP:ACCESS needs some care

As said in Wikipedia talk:Article accessibility#Overhaul required, the accessibility guideline doesn't completely follow the MoS itself. In theory this is a part of MoS, but in practice some work is needed to completely integrate with the MoS. Cheers —surueña 20:31, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Irony

Is it somewhat ironic that the Accessibility WikiProject ignores the standard convention of having discussions on the talk page? This page should clearly set out the scope and goals of the project. violet/riga (t) 20:41, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Yes, in fact it was suggested above that after the initial project discussions all conversations should now be moved to the talk page. However, IMHO I prefer to move this page to the talk page and then move the lead paragraph, participants, and copy the initial list of goals and templates/userboxes to the (newly created) project page. I think it is more important to save the history of the discussions in this case, instead of creating a talk page and moving all the discussions there. What do you think? —surueña 21:14, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
Maintaining the history of talk page contributions is helpful and given the substantial discussions here I would agree with your suggestion. It would be easy enough to move this to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Accessibility and then recreate this page. violet/riga (t) 21:18, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
Well, I didn't noticed that the talk page has some contents, in this case we need the help of an admin to move this page to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Accessibility. —surueña 21:23, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Screen readers

It would be interesting to know if there are any common problems that users of screen readers have anywhere on Wikipedia. I know that Graham87 uses JAWS but I don't know of any others that use similar - anyone else we know of? violet/riga (t) 10:09, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

I know of User:Academic Challenger and User:Lalue (who has set up a similar German project). Other editors who use screen readers are User:Weichbrodt, User:Fastfinge, User:Cannona, and User:SamHartman. Graham87 12:00, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
And the problems I've seen include dealing with diffs, section edit links, and the captchas used by Wikipedia. There was also Wikipedia:Using JAWS which I was going to add to but didn't get around to. Graham87 12:03, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
Perhaps we should invite these users to join us? I already left a note on Lalue's talk page, after seeing his (her?) involvement with Biene, but the more the merrier, right? L'Aquatique talktome 20:16, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
Probably to raise awareness of this project. Graham87 11:28, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
Good idea, after all we are also still defining the goals of the project, and the more the number of opinions / proposals the better. We can invite them to participate on the discussion. I'd also invite wikipedians with other disabilities, like color blindness, dyslexia... which disabilities are representative or can have more problems browsing/editing? —surueña 19:22, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
I agree. The more minds we have the better we will be. L'Aquatique talktome 05:10, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

Userboxes...?

I saw that Surueña added a listing of appropriate userboxes to the main page. I wonder, though, about some of them. Does Dysthymia really impede one's ability to edit or read wikipedia? It's depression. I think it's interesting that we have the userbox for dysthymia but none for Bipolar, psychosis, mobility problems (like a user who might not have full use of her hands), etc... As a matter of fact, I'm not sure a userbox even exists for bipolar. I may have to change that. *Sigh*... our society places too much stigma on these things! Well, I'm off to go on a userbox hunt... L'Aquatique talktome 20:40, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Well, I've not thought a lot about this, I only copied some of the userboxes listed above with the idea of giving visibility to all wikipedians with any disability (because accessibility really matters to a lot of users). But maybe I should had first discuss the objective here, sorry. —surueña 21:06, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
No problem, I fixed it. The only ones I couldn't seem to put in the table where the ones from namespace; multiple sclerosis, cerebal palsy, etc.. Also, looking over them it miffed me that most say "this user suffers from whatever". I much prefer has or lives with. Suffers invokes pity... I'm going to fix that too. L'Aquatique talktome 21:25, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
Done! I only edited the ones in template space, though. I didn't feel comfortable editing people's namespace templates. L'Aquatique talktome —Preceding comment was added at 21:44, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
Personally, I think that we might be best served by trying to include all those who have conditions which might be capable of inhibiting their ability to edit. I tend to think that the psychiatric conditions probably qualify as such, particularly if individuals find themselves editing while experiencing psychiatric episodes. In cases like this, I think they might be more relevant to the advocacy activities of the project regarding ability to continue to edit after having displayed problematic behavior, rather than the pure accessibility issues. John Carter 19:55, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
Yes, I agree, which I why I added many of them. As someone who has a good deal of those disorders, I myself have never had a problem editing, but I'm also good at only getting on when I'm feeling pretty stable. I'd be worried less about someone who is editing while manic than someone with a personality disorder getting in a fight with another editor... although there is something to be said for hypermanic editing... *grin* L'Aquatique talktome 05:01, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

I just passed your first accessible page

I reviewed WWYZ using Wikipedia:Accessibility criteria. It passed. I just want to make sure that I was supposed to put the template onto the talk page. ~user:orngjce223 how am I typing? 01:03, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

Huzzah! L'Aquatique talktome 06:23, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
I think we need to hold-fire with "passing" and tagging articles until it's decided if that is the best approach. This one could work as an example for now. violet/riga (t) 10:25, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
Or at least until we've agreed on the criteria... As of now the criteria are still living in my sandbox! L'Aquatique talktome 05:06, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
That's nice. Meanwhile... (see user page) ~user:orngjce223 how am I typing? 03:29, 26 October 2007 (UTC)
Oh man, that sucks Orange. Hope it's not. L'Aquatique talktome 03:36, 26 October 2007 (UTC)
Well, it didn't actually happen. Good thing. ~user:orngjce223 how am I typing? 03:36, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

Advocacy

Hi everyone... been pretty quiet the last couple of days, thought I'd throw in some food for thought.
We have been talking a lot about improving the accessibility of pages, but we seem to have overlooked our other goal- being advocates for users facing community sanction. I had originally suggested that we have a couple of members acting as advocates, as I recall I volunteered to be one. Anyone else have any comments or ideas on this front? --(L'Aquatique: Bringing chaos & general mayhem to the Wiki for One Year!) 19:31, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

I Could be one, but what exactly would I say? "This person shouldn't be banned because they have autism."? That might not work. Smartyllama 21:21, 28 October 2007 (UTC)
No, it would be more like "Hey, this user has identified herself as being autistic, which is probably why she is having trouble editing/communicating with other users. Let's hold off banning her for now and see if we can come up with a solution that would keep her on the wiki, since she seems to have good faith and likely has a lot to bring to our community. Obviously, some users are beyond our help- violent or angry users are not likely to fall under our protection- I think that having good faith is something that should be present before we agree to advocate for a user. --(L'Aquatique : Bringing chaos & general mayhem to the Wiki for One Year!) 21:38, 28 October 2007 (UTC)
I'd also be willing to be an advocate. Love, Neranei (talk) 00:05, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
Count me in as well. Maybe we could have a userbox that such advocates could use, with an attached category to make it easier to contact us? Maybe like, O, this one? I personally like the image. Feel free to change the color though.John Carter 00:22, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
Well, don't you think we should use the logo of the wikiproject? I could edit it a little, add a big A or something. 'Nee way, should we have specialties...? For example, someone who has or knows a lot about autism could be listed as a good advocate for users with that problem. We could have a page that says at the top "IF YOU HAVE" then each subheader with a different specialty and the people listed below. L'Aquatique talktome 01:58, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
I only really chose the symbol because it gave the impression to me of someone who might be "representing" someone else, but it could be changed. I'm not sure that I'd want to use all caps like you did above, but maybe we could add something similar, or maybe let people write after their names something along the lines of, "interested in working with people with (X)". Like I said, though, the template itself can certainly be changed. John Carter 02:18, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

(unindent)Check out what I did, see if you like it... L'Aquatique talktome 02:27, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

I'm all about the compromising. Ask and 'ye shall receive! Logo L'Aquatique talktome 04:43, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Towards an Accessibility Policy

OK, seven days later, our question about how to promote the accessibility guideline into a policy has been archived, so the discussion is over.[2] However, it seems that these pages are completely removed from time to time, so I'm copying it here for the record:

Changing a guideline to a policy

The following discussion is an archived debate regarding the category or categories above. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the WikiProject's talk page or in the village pump). No further edits should be made to this section.

Hello everyone! How does one (or in this case a group) go about trying to change a guideline into a policy? We at WikiProject Accessibility are using the guideline laid down at WP:ACCESS as our basis for making articles more accessible, but individual editors have reported problems with other users reverting their edits and claiming they need to be discussed on the talk page because WP:ACCESS is a guideline. Only in very rare cases are we actually removing content, so obviously this is getting to be a hindrance. Do you folks have any suggestions? Thanks, L'Aquatique talktome 18:25, 20 October 2007 (UTC)!

Could you give us some examples of these reverts? I'd like to know the nature of the problem.--Father Goose 22:04, 20 October 2007 (UTC)
Well, it hasn't happened to me, I'm just the temp spokesperson. I'll see if I can get one of the editors who've reported it to drop by here and give details. L'Aquatique talktome 05:09, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
Hi, sometimes I encounter opposition from some editors wrt my accessibility changes. But it must be said that I usually fix the accessibility problems of any page I read, therefore, although in some cases I return to consult that article again discovering that somebody has reverted my changes, I don't usually monitor my edits so I don't really know whether they survive. Some reverts I remember are [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11]. It seems that not every edits were caused by a direct disagreement with the WP:ACCESS, but sometimes they are, see the follwing discussion: [12]. Cheers —surueña 11:14, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
I see two issues here. The first is that the edits you link to were not discussed on the various article talk pages... so simply reverting them is a natural reaction to what is seen as "fly-by" editing. When editors who regularly work on a given article see sudden undiscussed structural changes, there is a natural tendancy to revert the change back to what is familiar. The solution to this is to first raise the issues of accessability on the talk page, and then conform the page to WP:ACCESS. If that is too cumbersome, at least you could reply to the revert on the talk page and explain why you made the edit. You may find that editors are more receptive to your edits if you give some explanation of why the edits are needed and what WP:ACCESS is all about. The second issue is whether the pages needed to be conformed at all... I don't really see any reason to force articles into conformity with WP:ACCESS, which is what making it a policy would do. As I see it, WP:ACCESS is great as a guideline, but it doesn't need to be policy. Blueboar 13:25, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
Yes, I can understand those reactions, in fact I always write onto the edit log the rationale behind those changes pointing to a specific section of the accessibility guidelines [13] [14] [15] [16] to explain why we are making those changes. But sometimes that's not enough and that's our point in asking how to convert WP:ACCESS into an official Wikipedia policy. And we really believe enforcing the accessibility rules are very important in the Wikipedia. As can be read in the mission statements of the World Wide Web Consortium [17] [18] the Universal access to the web is listed as the first goal of the organization, and namely accessibility is in addition listed as the first point of that point. If W3C recommendations have to consider accessibility before being approved, we do believe it is important enough to be a policy. Nonetheless, Wikipedia is the free encyclopedia that anyone may edit, including people with disabilities. Best regards —surueña 19:00, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
I'm all for accessibility, but looking at the examples you provided, many seem to be of the nature "this works better here than there when accessed through a text reader". That's fine, but where such changes make the layout work worse when accessed by a traditional browser, the changes should not be forced. For those cases, can you find other solutions that improve accessibility without negatively impacting the normal formatting?--Father Goose 19:24, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
The second issue is whether the pages needed to be conformed at all... I don't really see any reason to force articles into conformity with WP:ACCESS, which is what making it a policy would do. Okay, this really bothers me. Are you actually saying that you don't think articles should be made accessible when these edits make a page "look worse"?! May I remind you that point of this encyclopedia is about sharing information, not creating a pretty user interface. If there is a problem with a page that makes it so even one person cannot access that information, we as an encyclopedia have failed- it is just that simple. If we must "force" changes, then we must. L'Aquatique talktome 20:05, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
I agree with L'Antique. If in fact, conformity would make a page look significantly worse, one could invoke WP:IAR. However, I can not think of a single page which would lose content due to this.Smartyllama 20:23, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
I can't say that I think that accessibility should be an overriding concern that trumps everything. However, I will say that it should definitely trump fine points of cosmetics/aesthetics. This is about letting people use the site properly, fergoodnessakes. SamBC(talk) 21:13, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Changing a guideline to a policy is a big change, so probably we must give a better explanation about our proposal. We are a small group with only a few members. But even if we were a large team, simply we can fix the accessibility problems of all the 2,000,000 articles (and counting) of the Wikipedia, moreover if we must discuss them at the talk pages before. If editors create new contents with accessibility in mind, that would be a real difference, that's the reason we are interested in a policy about universal access. We only want to have the needed tools to make our work. Of course we know that the current guideline will probably be modified, it is not perfect and consensus will improve it. But I would like to remark that accessibility doesn't mean wikipedians without disabilities will end with articles having less rich content or presentation (there is a common myth that a plain text page is more accessible, and that's false). As I said above, modern web standards are built with accessibility in mind, so an article can be very rich and visually pleasant but without accessibility problems. The main point is not if the current guidelines are good enough to be a policy, but if universal access should be considered a Wikipedia policy. Thanks —surueña 21:11, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Reading through WP:ACCESS, it looks like most of the layout changes it recommends improve the formatting of the site on screen readers by arranging templates and other elements in a more logical sequence. Are there cases where material is completely inaccessible if certain changes are not made?--Father Goose 23:20, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
That's not an easy question, because it depends on the disability (a blind wikipedian has different requirements than a user with motor dysfunction due to cerebral palsy), but in the case of blind users which probably is the group most considered in the current guideline, the answer is yes: besides extensions like EasyTimeline, floating the table of contents can completely hide complete paragraphs, or links in headings can also suppress a part of it. Anyway, the point is not only avoiding these more visible problems, but also enhancing navigation to all users, because in some cases can be a complete nightmare even if in theory no contents are totally lost (like a logical order of the cells inside some layout tables). Universal design is beneficial not only for people with disabilities, but also for all wikipedians browsing through non-conventional browsers, like through a PDA or an iPhone. —surueña 07:54, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
Right. And things like floating the TOC and putting links in headings are discouraged for other reasons anyway. As for the policy aspects, I'll reply below.--Father Goose 20:10, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

As the writer of the first substantial text that was on Wikipedia:Accessibility, I feel I need to comment here. The great value for almost all people about Wikipedia is its consistent interface across millions of articles. However if someone decided to revert my change of the order of final section headings for a good reason related to their article, I wouldn't revert them because I don't think it's a huge thing to worry about. Wikipedia:Accessibility is not a stick to bludgeon people with - it's just a set of style guidelines akin to the Manual of Style. Of course there are things in there I consider are fairly high priority, like spelling fixes and abuse of CSS as in hidden structure. I think the discussion at Talk:Pulp Fiction (film) #RfC: Ellipses was worth it to provide an alternative to inconsistent formatting that didn't work in all browsers. I also think the table of contents shouldn't be moved from its default position below an article's lead section without a very good reason. I do support the idea of accessibility for Wikipedia - but the way I see it, the only thing that could be codified into policy is "Wikipedia should strive to be accessible to as many users as possible." Graham87 00:52, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

While I also think that some parts of the current accessibility guideline should not be policy and moved to the manual of style instead, I'm disagree with you with respect that nothing can stand as a official policy. Some of those changes are only under the hood, so they can and should be enforced without any problems, like those concerning with data and layout tables or some XHTML attributes. But others are beyond the scope of the current guidelines, like not accepting a new non-accessible Wikipedia extension if it can be made accessible. For example, nowadays the EasyTimeline extension is completely non-accessible to some types of users, although it can be easily modified to be fully accessible. Even fancy AJAX and Web 2.0 pages can be made fully accessible (i.e. rich web applications [19]), this will not be a disruptive policy at all for the rest of wikipedians, or a burden to MediaWiki developers. —surueña 07:35, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
I'd support a policy that compelled accessibility in any case where there was no loss of functionality for the non-disabled. WP:ACCESS in its present form is a formatting guideline, not that policy -- it should be supplemented by an accessibility policy that outlines general princples and practices.--Father Goose 20:10, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
I agree with FG. --Kevin Murray 20:38, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the WikiProject's talk page or in the village pump). No further edits should be made to this section.

So IMHO this is a good result, because there is a consensus about it is worth having an official policy about accessibility. We need to adhere to some requirements, but I think they are sound. The first step is then to split the current WP:ACCESS guideline into both a policy and a the Manual of Style. I'll try to draft a preliminary proposal in a few days (in /Policy proposal). Cheers —surueña 21:11, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. Good work, everyone! --(L'Aquatique: Bringing chaos & general mayhem to the Wiki for One Year!) 00:34, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Vision impairment friendly skin option would help

I have a vision disorder that makes it extremely tiring for me to read black text/white background. I know there are skin customisation options, but they are very difficult for an average user to apply. It would be a big help to me (and possibly others) if under the skin choices there was an option to have an inverse colour scheme (ie, white text/black background).Rokos 00:41, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

I haven't noticed that the user preferences can be improved a lot with respect to accessibility, good point. Probably instead of creating a new "accessibility" skin, the best option is to be able to adjust some attributes like color theme or text sizes in any skin. I also would like to ask if you commonly use a custom CSS style in your browser (for example [20]) but if it is not practical in Wikipedia for any reason. Thanks! —surueña 09:40, 5 November 2007 (UTC)
It's possible for an admin to edit a normal editor's CSS page, to customize a skin. If there were standard customizations (black text, white background, for example, or a standard for colorblindness, such as User:Wolfgangbeyer/monobook.css), then perhaps an editor could simply post a request that XYZ be applied to their CSS page? (I'm taking Rokos's word, for the moment, that it's difficult to apply a skin customization, not having done so; if it's not that difficult, with good instructions, then admin assistance wouldn't be necessary.) In any case, a standard set of customizations for different impairments would be a really nice thing to have, plus, of course, a set of links pointing to them. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 22:14, 6 November 2007 (UTC)
IMHO this is a good temporal solution until a DIY method is available, for example adjusting the skin. These customization options can be useful not only for disabled wikipedians (or with permanent disabilities). Cheers —surueña 21:52, 7 November 2007 (UTC)
Sure, there are plenty of uses for these kind of adjustments even when you don't have any sort of impairments. I use an inverted color scheme (black background, white text) when writing because it's easier to read and not so glaring. I know how to set my computer screen to do that, but it inverts all the colors so graphics look messed up. If it was simply a skin that reversed the white background with black and the black text with white, graphics wouldn't be effected. I'd use it. --(L'Aquatique: Bringing chaos & general mayhem to the Wiki for One Year!) 23:52, 7 November 2007 (UTC)
If we could get some sort of accessibility link included in the various welcome templates, that might be a good idea as well. John Carter 01:04, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
I'm on the welcoming committee, I can take that on. I don't think the WikiGods would look highly upon putting links to the wikiproject into welcome templates (could be construed as advertising) but I bet adding links to WP:ACCESS would be permissible. I'll go look into that... --(L'Aquatique: Bringing chaos & general mayhem to the Wiki for One Year!) 01:56, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

(unindent)See Wikipedia talk:Welcoming committee/Welcome templates#Can I... --(L'Aquatique: Bringing chaos & general mayhem to the Wiki for One Year!) 03:09, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Concerning visual-impairment mitigation, several basic Templates for messages are in the process of standardization, with Template:Ambox, Template:Imbox, and Template:Cmbox already deployed; further discussion has slowed down Template:Tmbox and Template:Mbox. Some of the background colors used with Template:Cmbox appear Irlen-compatible; but, as of this post, the plan for Template:Tmbox is tending toward a modification of the Coffee Roll standard of 2005, primarily in terms of adding a colored border, either thick left àu Template:Ambox, or thin around the perimeter àu Template:Imbox, to ID the type of message. What concerns for readability does this Project have concerning backgrounds for messages to Editors? B. C. Schmerker (talk) 23:50, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Question regarding blocked/banned users

What would the members of this project think of "taking on" people to advocate for who have been blocked, or even coceivably banned, for misconduct who subsequently request and receive a lifting of the block or ban? I personally can think of a few cases where individuals have behaved in such "unique" ways that their competence could be questioned. Would any of the rest of you be willing to function as, as it were, advocates for and potentially occasional monitors/mentors for editors who have had such difficulties in the past? John Carter 17:46, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Hmm... it could certainly be part of the advocacy project. I think the requirement (demonstrated good faith is what we agreed on, yes?) would have to be present. There are some people that may well be beyond our help... L'Aquatique talktome 17:53, 13 November 2007 (UTC)
Demonstration of good faith to the satisfaction of the proposed advocate would certainly be an absolute requirement, and the advocate could presumably withdraw at any time if they ever questioned the editor's good faith. I do get the impression that there would be rather a fair amount of use for such advocates/probation officers, though. And, clearly, there would be no obligation to continue to try to advocate if the objectionable conduct continued upon the editor's reinstatement. If the rest of you would be interested, I could mention this on the talk page of one of the administrator's noticeboards. I'm sure they would love to see people willing to mentor/monitor some previously troublesome editors. John Carter 17:59, 13 November 2007 (UTC)
Well, my question is: are we talking about any user who wants to make a fresh start or only those with a disability that would have qualified them for an advocate under our program? It seems to me like if it is the former, not only are we opening the floodgates, but going beyond our original scope... L'Aquatique talktome 18:11, 13 November 2007 (UTC)
Apologies for poor phrasing. I would think that it would only be limited to those cases where someone has specifically admitted to such a condition, with possible exceptions for cases when the conduct was so indicative of such a condition that many/most of the other parties involved, including admins considering lifting the block, came to conclude the individual in question clearly had such a condition. The only real reason for the variation is that it is kind of hard to verify any such claims one way or another, and many might refuse to acknowledge such a condition anyway. But under any circumstances the person would have to be proposed for "advocacy" and a specific advocate indicate a willingness to take on the individual. If all were to refuse, I don't see that the editor in question would lose significantly if the advocacy were rejected, but might benefit if the option was offered. John Carter 18:29, 13 November 2007 (UTC)
Ah, that makes much more sense. I think it's a good idea. Let's see what the other users say. L'Aquatique talktome 18:55, 13 November 2007 (UTC)
Remember WP:AMA? Please don't be repeating that. —— Eagle101Need help? 20:51, 16 November 2007 (UTC)
We would only step in if we were specifically requested to do so by either the party themselves, as a spokesperson, or by admins as a condition of a party having editing rights. Beyond that, the group as a whole is focused on simply presenting issues regarding accessibility for people with conditions which could inhibit their use in either using or editing the encyclopedia. -- John Carter (talk) 20:56, 16 November 2007 (UTC)
Alright, before ya all go running off and creating a group that looks an awful lot like WP:AMA, can you give me a few people that would have been helped with this system had it been there? Or is this a solution looking for a problem? —— Eagle101Need help? 22:57, 16 November 2007 (UTC)
I think you can understand how it might be difficult to mention names here? I can say that I have communicated via e-mail with an admin who has been involved in several instances of discipline, specifically regarding one party both that admin and I know well, and getting agreement from that admin that having something like this might help in the event that editor ever is approved to return to active editing. I simply have major reservations about revealing the name. If you were to demand it, however, I could try to e-mail some of the details to you. John Carter (talk) 23:05, 16 November 2007 (UTC)
Let me try this again, one of the reasons why folks did not like AMA was because it meant that users were helping out trolls. As you are presumably helping out users that were banned before... what and how is your mode of helping these people? This project has a noble goal of trying to ensure that wikipedia itself is accessible. Thats great and is something that should be done, however I"m a bit queasy about this sub-project. I mean this is not going to be another group that specializes in arguing the rules and policies for someone, right? So how exactly do you plan to assist these users, and whats the point exactly? —— Eagle101Need help? 23:10, 16 November 2007 (UTC)
I have received an e-mail. However it does not fully answer the questions I have. According to the mail you state that these folks will act as "parole officers". Does this mean that members of this project will not be arguing for the "clients" (sounds like AMA again ;) )? In essence this project is going to do what that an article or subject ban can't do? Will the user agree to this? What is the limits of what this project will do? Remember disruptive users are not helpful to us, regardless if they have a mental condition or not. I should also note that folks with the userboxs seem to do just fine without any intervention. —— Eagle101Need help? 23:36, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

(unindent)Your comment "I should also note that folks with the userboxs [sic] seem to do just fine without any intervention," shows a lack of understanding about the nature of the illnesses in question. Just like a vision or motor impairment, mental health problems span a spectrum of severity- an individual may have a case of bipolar that is very debilitative, or maybe just a case that causes occasional problems (like yours truly). The users (like me) that have comparatively minor differences(I hate the word disability when referring to this stuff...), most of whom are the ones with the userboxes, will not need our help. I was under the impression that this is the Encyclopedia that anyone can edit, but sometimes I wonder if it is really the Encyclopedia that anyone who is completely normal can edit. Prove me wrong, huh? L'Aquatique talktome 00:32, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

Personally, in all honesty, I myself question whether the person asking the questions might be explicitly operating from a preexisting notion, specifically some sort of overconcern regarding a failed program. Basically, to summarize what has already been said on this subject, and what I think has been basically, if not necessarily explicitly, agreed to:
  • (1) We would only act as advocates in the first place if the editor in question has specifically indicated they have a condition which could potentially impact their ability to edit and/or several editors have independently come to that conclusion without such indication, and said as much
  • (2) We would then try to understand the specific concerns that the general body of editors have regarding that individual and try to create an agreement determining what the standards of behavior that individual would have to abide by, what if any exceptions to those standards could be permitted, and if possible work with the editor on how to avoid those situataions. People with Asperger's syndrome, for instance, are said to often engage in abusive commentary on people whose conduct escapes their comprehension. For such individuals, we might suggest that they volunatily avoid discussions regarding subjects they have difficulties understanding, and maybe try to get them to agree to at least a voluntary temporary block from the problematic page or content if they can't keep themselves away. Measures taken would depend on the specific circumstances of each incident.
  • (3) In the event problematic behavior is seen again, we would work with the individual as quickly as possible to correct such behavior, if it has not already proven to have gone too far.
  • (4) If, despite all this, we do no not get the impression that these efforts are effective or will be effective in reducing the editor's problematic behavior, we would indicate as much either by withdrawing from working with that individual, which may, depending on the terms of the agreement, potentially be sufficient for a block/ban to be rescinded itself, or directly indicate to admins that we believe efforts to keep the person from being blocked or banned will not be effective. This would not necessarily obligate admins to block or ban the individual in question, although I think that would be the probable outcome.
Our objective in all of this would be to work to improve wikipedia by increasing the number of individuals who would have the ability to edit. If however, the presence of those individuals proves to be unlikely to improve wikipedia because of their conduct, then I know personally I would not risk my own status as an editor by arguing for someone whose continuing presence proved to be too disruptive to wikipedia to justify not blocking or banning them.
Bipolar disorder, asperger's syndrome, schizophrenia, and other such disorders all effect an individual's behavior one way or another. And, it should be noted that many individuals, not just those who do display the userboxes, can be said to have some sort of problematic conduct at some point in their lives. I remember having heard on the radio that 90% of the population of the United States is calculated to be in a position to benefit from mental health services at some point in their lives. Yes, that figure was from a mental health lobby, but it does indicate that the number of such individuals is a significant percentage of the population. Regarding standard "trolling", most of the problematic behavior the majority of these individuals would presumably display would not qualify as standard "trolling", so I very much doubt that the majority of the true "trolls" would be involved in any event. And as indicated above, many of these conditions only occasionally have pronounced effects on a person's conduct. In cases where such events are predictable or have certain telltale signs, we might try to engage in oversight or some sort of "soft block" until the condition improves. The primary object of the advocacy program however would I think always be to try to improve the encyclopedia, not to keep editors active regardless of the nature or quality of their contributions. John Carter (talk) 16:06, 17 November 2007 (UTC)
Seconded. l'aqúatique talktome 02:37, 18 November 2007 (UTC)
Alright, let me make this clear, nobody doing this project will be doing any sort of arguing for folks right? In that case, give it a try, but if it causes needless drama, I hope you guys are willing to evaluate the project down the road, say 3 months, and see what the general impact of it is. Remember we are working on an encyclopedia. This is a mentally challenging project. If folks are mentally unable to contribute effectively and with minimal problems/disruption then perhaps this is not the project for them. I should also note that if you have such a condition where your mood swings, then the solution is to not edit when you are feeling down/whatever, not for us to make excuses for it. —— Eagle101Need help? 16:55, 18 November 2007 (UTC)
Do I seriously need to spell this out for you? You do not understand mood and personality disorders, and with every post you merely dig yourself deeper and deeper into your hole. "I should also note that if you have such a condition where your mood swings, then the solution is to not edit when you are feeling down/whatever, not for us to make excuses for it." I believe the only thing left is to show you the door. Come back when you have even the slightest understanding of what it is like to live with one of these disorders. l'aqúatique talktome 20:52, 18 November 2007 (UTC)
Although I have read a lot about web accessibility and universal design, I must admit that I don't have a deep understanding of several disabilities, specially mental and personality disorders, and its implications in community projects like this. IMHO this is not only me, but a is very generalised problem. Probably another important task of this Accessibility WikiProject is to clarify the characteristics of each disability to all wikipedians, debunking all the related myths. The Wikipedia continuously improve each time editors with different backgrounds contribute to it, and IMHO this also apply with disabled people. Best regards —surueña 09:25, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

Would this project deal with articles as well?

Persuant to the above discussion, I note that there is a Category:Accessibility which includes several articles. Some of these articles might already be covered by one or more extant projects, but would the members of this project have any interest in perhaps including within this project's scope some of those articles, as well as, perhaps, some of the articles which directly relate to conditions which might be relevant to those that this project seeks to assist? John Carter (talk) 15:21, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

In the article "5 Steps To Reworking A Legacy Site" is remarked that usually the pages of the site for the disabled are not the first ones to be fixed. So as the first goal of this project is to Make pages accessible, IMHO these articles under the category:Accessibility should have more priority than others. Maybe we can create subprojects like fixing featured articles, good articles, accessibility articles, basic wikipedia pages... to better organise ourselves. What do you think? Cheers —surueña 12:35, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
Agreed. Perhaps we should, before we apply ourselves to other articles, fix up the articles mentioned. However, the category needs to be exanded, as of right now it deals mostly with visual and mobility problems... l'aqúatique talktome 19:40, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
I took another look at the category. In addition to improving the articles, the category itself is poorly organized and seems to be all over the place- improving it should be a priority. l'aqúatique talktome 19:50, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
It's almost always the case that a new project finds its categories to be incoherent. I'll create a list of the articles in the Category:Accessibility at Wikipedia:WikiProject Accessibility/Articles which we can at least use as the basis for a watchlist, and which would allow editors to review how the articles mentioned are and should be categorized. We could also potentially expand the category to include other articles as time goes by. John Carter (talk) 21:05, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
Okay, so I have some ideas.
  1. The categories and subcategories should be gone through. Certain things should be removed (what does a list of fictional blind characters have to do with accessibility?) and some need to be added.
  2. The categorization of the sub categories needs to be reworked. I would suggest something along the lines of a subcategory for each of the major "disabilities", within which different subjects regarding to that original subcategory could be found.
    1. For example, within the category, there would be a subcategory called "Deafness". Within that category would be a subcategory for "Assistive Technologies for the Deaf", within which would be articles such as Closed captioning, Telecommunications Relay Service, Rear Window Captioning System, and Hearing aid.
If this sounds good to you guys, we can start another page where we begin to categorize these pages as per my scheme or whatever one we agree upon before going and doing all the work of actually re-categorizing them.l'aqúatique talktome 23:34, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
Alternately, we could just not include the fictional characters or that category within the scope of this project at all. Those articles might be relevant to Wikipedia:WikiProject Deaf, whose banner I just updated for assessments, though, and it might be a good idea to leave the category intact, for the use of that project. John Carter (talk) 23:54, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Moving images below leve-three titles?

Hello there. I noticed that Suruena went through A Vindication of the Rights of Men and moved a number of images below the third-level title breaks. This appears to conflict with WP:MOS#Images, which says: "Do not place left-aligned images directly below second-level (===) headings, as this disconnects the heading from the text it precedes." I assume the changes were made in the interest of accessibility, but I don't understand what the connection is. Rather than revert-warring, maybe we can discuss it here or at my talk page? (Or else just point me to a page which can explain.) Thanks. – Scartol • Tok 18:49, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Hello Scartol. Maybe the wording of the MoS doesn't emphasize enough the conditions, but if you read again that sentence it refers to "left-aligned images directly below second-level headings" (emphasis on "left-aligned" and "directly"). I moved some images which were outside the section it refers to (usually directly above its heading),[21] but in the case of second-level headings either right aligned or below the "main article" text (i.e. not directly below it). Usually I prefer to right align all images below second level headings (even when there is a "main article" annonation), but in this case I suppose it was to alternate left- and right-aligned images. Anyway, I must say that I don't understand this rule. Of course, it's important to put each image within its appropriate section, otherwise wikipedians using a screen reader or a text browser won't see it (placing them directly above the heading of the relevant browsers works only in graphic browsers). However, I don't understand why this rule talks specifically about second-level headings and not any heading level. Probably this is a good place to ask :-) Cheers —surueña 08:43, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
Thank you kindly for your reply, Suruena. I suppose I don't understand the nature of text browsers. The reason I believe the MOS guideline is important (and I think it's important for all left-aligned images, regardless of whether they're directly below second- or third-level headings) is that the heading text gets cut off from the article text – as is currently the case here. From a layout perspective, it's jarring for the reader to see a headline on the far left, and then having the text start somewhere else horizontally. The eye generally prefers to have all these elements start from the same point on the horizontal axis. (This is why most newspapers use right-aligned images directly under headlines; of course they also have the luxury of center-alignment, with text wrapping underneath.) Perhaps if you explained the nature of text browsers and screen readers, I can better understand why the change was necessary, and/or suggest a third possibility. Cheers! – Scartol • Tok 12:24, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
I see... However, I still do not understand why the problem is with second or successive level headings, but not with first level headings (==). Thank you for pointing me that it is not enough to place left-aligned images below a {{main}} text, I though that wasn't a violation of that rule. I have modified that section and that image is also right-aligned now. With respect the problem with text browsers and screen readers, I forgot an important point in my explanation above: If you jump from the table of contents to a specific section with an image directly above its heading you will see the image and read its caption if using a graphical browser, however you will not notice the existence of the image/caption if using a text browser or a screen reader (although that image is part of the section, adding some information to it). The solution is placing the image inside the section it belongs to. Cheers —surueña 14:39, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
I think I understand the relevance of having the images inside the sections now, but when I see "text browser" and "screen reader" I imagine a format which doesn't include images in the first place. I guess I'm wrong?
As for the first/second/third headings, I think the MOS – and me, since I'm starting with it – suffers from weird context. What you refer to as first level headings (==) are often called second-level (hence the two equal signs), since the technical first-level is the article itself. I think. Don't quote me on that. Anyway, I think we both agree that it's best not to put an image right after a heading of any sort, if it can be helped. I believe Awad prefers staggering the images left-right, but I'll let her decide how to proceed with Vindication. Cheers! – Scartol • Tok 16:40, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
My (admittedly limited) understanding is that the screen reader will read the name of the image, and then the caption. Which should be under the correct heading, or you'd hear something like "Image:Something.png An example of this The Header Name", which makes less sense than "The Header Name Image:Something.png An example of this".~user:orngjce223 how am I typing? 04:51, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Tools for checking accessibility

I've just read the article "Learning from screen readers", which talk about how to use JAWS for evaluating web accessibility. An interested read, I will download again a demo version of JAWS to try this turorial during the weekend. Also, in one of the comments it is announced the free release of a Nielsen report about usability for disabled users. It is from 2001, and the web has changed a lot in those years (for example, wikis weren't widely used), but it can be an interesting reading.

Also, I have two Firefox plugins for checking accessibility: Colour Contrast Analyser (useful for checking the accessibility of some Wikipedia color schemes) and Fangs (screen reader emulator). Maybe we can create a list of tools for evaluating accessibility. Do you use any tool? Cheers —surueña 14:30, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

Small fonts in {{Reflist}}

Small fonts in {{Reflist}} - the title says it all? This is an issue that has been brought up many times, and there seems no sound reason for it. Yet, the small fonts remain. Comments? Rich Farmbrough, 22:16 3 April 2008 (GMT).

So, let's change them. I assume that that template is protected. Go ahead and request the change over at the template talk so an admin can do it. L'Aquatiquetalk 02:28, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
The only reason they remain is because of 200-ref FAs (referencing is good, but IMO this is pushing it) that need to not have 1/4 the article space taken up by the giant auto-generated refs list that sits on the bottom of the article.~user:orngjce223 how am I typing? 04:53, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
Okay, then how about hiding the refs, like with {{hidden}}? I'm going to run some tests in my sandbox, I'll report back here. L'Aquatique[talk] 04:57, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
It actually works fairly well. Check this out: User:L'Aquatique/Template Box#References and External Links. The only downside is you can't click on the little inline reference tag and be taken directly to the reflink, which could present an accessibility problem.
I used the CSS version of the {{hidden}} for the example. This would be fairly easy to implement on the technical end- we would just need to put the {{hidden}} around the {{reflist}} syntax and it should work. We could then increase the size of ref text L'Aquatique[talk] 05:32, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
Y'know, someone just brought this up at the WP:VPP and say they have a screen in the neighborhood of 800x600. That's also another issue with mini fonts. ~user:orngjce223 how am I typing? 01:57, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Team colors in sports templates

Just a heads-up since it's on the topic of this wikiproject, I've raised an issue about the use of team colors in templates over at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Sports#Use of team colors in templates. It was sparked by a bunch of infoboxes I found that were almost illegible for those with red/green colorblindness (and hurt my non-colorblind eyes to look at, to boot :) Bryan Derksen (talk) 18:24, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Tmbox standardization

I'd like to hear the views of people at this project on the standardization plan for templates designed for talk pages. I've listed my concerns at Template_talk:Tmbox#Accessibility and would be happy to have several people tell me that I needn't worry (or, of course, that there really is a problem, so we can fix it ASAP). WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:28, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

Accessibility Wikipedia skin

This was touched on lightly at Template talk:Tmbox#Accessibility. It would be a good idea to make a specific Wikipedia skin that would override css settings that we know would be less accessible. What I need help with is identifying what to look for, such as what color ranges or minimal font sizes should be targeted. -- Ned Scott 06:38, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

Aaargh

An editor with very limited experience outside of his single topic area has been giving me fits over an issue of accessibility. He's unhappy that there's a disambiguation link at the top of Da Costa's syndrome. He wants it buried at the end of the (not short) article, despite several explanations about accessibility, inconvenience to users of screen readers, etc.

Basically, the disambiguation page links to a novel (as in, a work of fiction) that doesn't agree with his WP:FRINGEy POV about the medical condition, so he wants it buried. He asserts that putting the disamb link before the article gives "undue weight" to the novel. (The disamb link doesn't even mention the novel. It just says "This article is about the medical condition also known as "soldier's heart". For other uses of the term, see Soldier's heart.")

We've been at this for days now. Would one or two of you mind watchlisting this in case the discussion gets out of hand? WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:11, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Which discussion on the article's talk page is the one regarding this? Gary King (talk) 01:13, 16 July 2008 (UTC)
Here. The most common semi-modern name for this outdated medical condition is Da Costa's syndrome. During Da Costa's life, it was commonly called Soldier's heart, at least when it happened in soldiers. (Da Costa was a physician in the Army.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:01, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
This was my response: [22]. L'Aquatique[review] 02:32, 16 July 2008 (UTC)
Gary King; J.M.DaCosta entitled his research paper, “On Irritable Heart”, not “On Soldier’s Heart”, and wrote it in peace time which WhatamIdoing is not telling you. I haven’t been provoked into an escalation, as was obviously expected, because I am sticking to facts, but two of your editors are now discussing it, which I appreciate; re NPOV, and it gives me an observers view of eventsPosturewriter (talk) 07:30, 17 July 2008 (UTC)posturewriter.
NapoliRoma; thankyou for your NPOV comments on the Da Costa Syndrome Discussion page; I would like you and your other NPOV editors to have a look at the requests for comment page here [23] —Preceding unsigned comment added by Posturewriter (talk • contribs) 05:08, 24 July 2008 (UTC)
NapoliRoma and NPOV editors; I have placed another item on the Da Costa discussion page here [24] and would like you to have a look at it. You are not under any obligation to respond, but I would appreciate it if you would consider it. ThankyouPosturewriter (talk) 09:35, 28 July 2008 (UTC)posturewriter

Usability of GeoTemplate

Comments on the usability of {{GeoTemplate}} (the page listing mapping services found by clicking on coordinates in articles) are invited, at Template talk:GeoTemplate#Usability redux. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 17:32, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

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