Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Accessibility/Archive 2

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Archive 4

Archive 5

WebAIM Survey of Preferences of Screen Readers Users

A preliminary summary of results from WebAIM's Survey of Preferences of Screen Readers Users has been published. —Michael Z. 2009-02-02 05:13 z

I have RSI and get constantly discriminated

ivRSI'ngetCONSTANTLIDISKRIMINATED!!!

I'm working with the author here to help make this section more easily readable --Onorem♠Dil 20:53, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

talk

temp/'inworks'transcript[tx21.usahelp:):):

Because of crippling pain in my arms, I use shorthand or phonetic. What do I get for my effort [= typing through pain]? Abuse (I’m stupid,inane,talk gibberish), including getting blocked, like when actually putting up a link to RSI, reality beats fiction--Nobody'd dare harassing a person with a walking disability, let alone banning him/her from the sidewalk, yet I have to suffer the equivalent of such totally impossible behavior, and when I’m assertive about my condition, I get loutish mocking; when I then get back just how offensive and ignorant their attitude is, it’s me getting blocked once more 'cause ‘just look, a terrible (blocking) history’

This made and still makes me so mad--yes, M-A-D. Why? Push me long enough, and in the end, that will happen, I do will get emotional. I’m not from the 'coolest' part of the world, that is, when pushed over-the-edge i'll lose my cool, yes, but then to just hold my anger against me, instead of also looking what elicited it - How is that possible here on a site like this? See also Sven70, where I divulged personal information in hope of understanding – in vain, short-cut by yet another block - what a torture these 2 months here have been.

I typed this through pins and needles and dysesthetic (feeling cold within, hard to imagine if one's never experienced it) hands. At the very least I hope for once a discussion will ensue, like how to also have people like me onboard. I’m only a doctor who speaks 6 languages with a masters degree in education who lived in different cultures for half his life you know. How to perhaps enable voice input and messaging, reducing clicking and typing to a minimum? Wiktionary is the biggest offender of all, with the people there one cannot talk at all. They are condescending? Don't mention it, as you'll be blocked for it. A dictionary for the non-specialist user? Nay, by (which is ok) and for linguists. Pointing out long lists of synonyms are not so good (as one has to click down thru them, pages), and please request to have them horizontal, separated by commas - sacrilege! and blocked once more. As a newbe one’s expected to grovel to have right of existence, once again: How’s this possible?? … It really amounts to a disgrace, and one should not get blocked for in the end stating it as such, as it’s merely spelling out what actually happens, a spade is a spade is a spade!

I feel very very strongly about this, was about to write Wikimedia, of which Wiktionary, the most disgusting part rogue/ignorant/uncommunicative admin was, but you are all in the same boat, and when I brought my concerns over here I was blocked. No communication is possible over there, emails get ignored. Colluding against the disabled bunch there. Yes, this is a megarant, but duly so – In the end, I won’t sue Wikimedia for it, though I’ll be a pain in their butt for the abuse I suffered, but others might and will and then what? Why not prevent, be proactive? sven0921, skyp. See? I keep the communication channels open. Result? I just get shot down. In the end, I do call the above incriminators retarded, as what they’re doing, in ignorance. I tried to explain 20 times now. [RSI--2DADEF] Funny, that became a pun cause what they’re doing is retarded, no hypocrite PC’d be held against me for calling them a spade. The first to tell a disabled one to get out of their way, and perhaps locked inside the house, so the able can do their stuff undisturbed, nay, undisrupted/harassed in their words.

I am so utterly disgusted, even my large vocabulary (surprise x2) fails me. I don’t expect everybody to read my shorthand, but do tolerance, [nper] sound file there would be no problem for starters. And yes, I vent, which normally only leads to a block. I didn’t start this, but a guy called SB on Wiktionary. [npl] Do check the histories. You can marvel at my consistency, as well as using longhand on actual entries – so disheartening… And since then it has been one complete nightmare. This all makes one feel so bad and how can there be no transparency, like an area to denounce outlandish behavior/attitudes from said admins? …. Gauss curve tells us most people here would be ok, newbies/veterans alike, so how can this happen? And sadly enough, everybody can get RSI, just do enough typing pref in bad circumstances, this ought to be that especially wikimedians would know about, if not for others then already for their own good – read, health.

But, oh, I offended people through stating the archaic nature of English spelling - Lots of redundant typing that they offend me to the max by ridiculing me that’s irrelevant to them. How can this be? Caution Please refrain from making unconstructive edits. If you would like to experiment, use the sandbox. Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? 11:38, 25 December 2008 (UTC) Stop already with the nonsense you're posting on WP:ANI. Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? 11:46, 25 December 2008 (UTC) Any further nonsense out of this account will result in an indefinite block. I cannot understand at all what your posts resemble, and you have been posting such garbage at multiple talk pages and archives. seicer | talk | contribs 13:41, 25 December 2008 (UTC) And as promised, this account has been blocked indefinitely. You are free to appeal this block using the instructions provided. seicer | talk | contribs 14:32, 25 December 2008 (UTC)

[niashu?polaithu?] Makes wonder who the actual garbage is. Hint: Not me, but I’ve got to suffer as such extreme ignorance, about which they feel no problem to be blatant about it, as a rather educated, fair, and sharing person it leaves one baffled, at a loss, just how to deal with such people who seem impervious to all reason – AGF? Nah, wikilawyering. Exception, yeah. Indefinite block, yeah. Definitely not in the spirit of Wikimedia, but they’re above it you know, ganging up against me, as if my life already isn’t hard enough with debilitating pain in my arms, day in and out.

Before, in my youth (20 years ago) we thought soccer hooligans would “think” like such, but how can this happen here? And don’t get me wrong, I love watching soccer and kickin a ball, I’m just against discrimination and violence.

And the wording, “Stop already.” Excuse me, I’m 39 this year, accomplished academic person, who do they think they’re talking to? Their dog? Hope they don’t talk nicer to him. And that block … me trying to explain what RSI means as an affliction, on his talk page, I mean, who’s actually trying hard and behaving like a wikipedian here? Further names I’ve been called:stupid, inane, gibberish, shall I go on? But me, I’m the problem. That’s a cruel reversal. Luka those admins talkpages/names, I thought my computer was actually bugged, like infected.

Nice welcome, man, can you feel how angry this makes one, but if I name one, like ignorant, O-block x3. On Monty Python, it’d be funny, not in reality. And I’d not go through the humiliating deblock instructions, I mean, who’s the actual victim, the bully or the victim? And I’ve seen how some admin’s conduct themselves, requiring the newbie to be meek, apologetic, r/asabl* child, where, apart from some angry response from my hurted. Said, it’s clear cut to me where the problem lies.

Why, somebody would talk to them, as to me, a good source as MD and sufferer, they don’t care in the least, which is hard to understand for me. I’m willing to explain, but that’s how it has been for two enraging months. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 219.69.85.251 (talk) 03:24, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

It would be helpful if you would actually reply to the inquiries posted on your numerous accounts, instead of spawning off new IP addresses every few hours. Others have attempted to work with you in the past, in an attempt to standardize communications so that it is comprehendable by others, and by recommending software products that can make editing and communicating on Wikipedia easier. No one is advocating against your accessibility, nor is anyone discriminating, but you need to under realize that by posting continuously on various talk pages and article pages, text that is unreadable, that it will be reverted by other editors and administrators, and that after a time, it can be considered disruptive. Stick with one account (Sven70), and you will be free to post without having to randomize IP addresses. seicer | talk | contribs 12:36, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Sven70 (talk · contribs) is indef. blocked. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 19:36, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

But he can still edit that page, providing that he is willing to put forth an effort to provide readable text. seicer | talk | contribs 21:58, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Maybe this user could contribute to Spoken Wikipedia project. ~user:orngjce223 how am I typing? 21:30, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Accessibility icon

Access icon

Hi. I'd like to suggest adopting the Gnome icon to represent accessibility issues in Wikipedia. I think it has some good qualities, and advantages over the current globe:

1. It is simple, high-contrast, and visually bold
2. The blue colour is associated with other accessibility symbols
3. It is iconographic rather than realistic, serving as the symbol for a concept rather than a representation of a thing
4. It refers to issues of human ability, through the widely recognized image of da Vinci's Vitruvian Man
5. It refers to relative ability by showing a stylized human body, rather than by representing a particular disability or type of disability, like the stereotyped wheelchair person “handicapped symbol”.
6. It is recognizable to users of Gnome and Mac OS (screen), which use the same or similar logos for accessibility preferences.

Any objections? —Michael Z. 2009-01-25 19:16 z

I've never seen this logo before, despite involvement in web accessibility issues for over a decade. Is there any evidence that it is widely recognised outside the mac world? Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 20:44, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

“Standard” icon

Not that I know of, except that it's well-enough known that Gnome adopted this imitation. The only one that I know of having any status, or at least ubiquity, is the wheelchair, representing “handicapped parking”, and “wheelchair access”, which is sometimes coöpted to represent other accessibility issues.

I don't see that as an important requirement however; I'm just saying it already has the status of an accessibility symbol, as opposed to the globe. It would be used in the various templates, and always associated with appropriate text and links. Just like any of the warning and project icons used in Wikipedia article and talk-page templates, this would be our symbol for the concept (and this would be the best of the bunch).

Example below. —Michael Z. 2009-01-25 21:04 z

WikiProject Accessibility/Archive 2

I've replaced the icon, since there was no objection for a week. Hope that's okay. —Michael Z. 2009-02-01 16:56 z

Research group and ARIA

Hello, we are currently evaluating accessibility and usability of wikipedia for the blind. We are a research group composed of 5 people, one is totally blind and navigates web content via the Jaw screen reader. We are available to participate this project. We suggest to use the W3C WAI-ARIA suite WAI ARIA Overview to simplify interaction via screen reader and enhance keyboard navigation. Maribu2009 (talk) 22:24, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Barrier free

There's a Wikipedia article called barrier free. Is the title of that article really correct? I have always thought that "barrier free" was an example of waseieigo, similar to "salary man" or "free dial". (212.247.11.156 (talk) 17:42, 4 March 2009 (UTC))

WP:NOT#PLOT

Apologies for the notice, but this is being posted to every WikiProject to avoid accusations of systemic bias. Hiding T 13:18, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Site Notice Not Accessible

What message is so important that it is put on the top page, one every page?

But that same message violates Accessibility 101.

Did you know that there are events throughout the year, e.g. WikiManina?

You wouldn't unless you used their browser.

Or someone told you to monitor Meta:Special:CentralNotice.

And say you want to leave a a comment there to that effect. But it is a Special Page without a Talk page. However it says "Please don't modify the settings on this page without checking with Tomasz Finc." which links to Meta:User:Tfinc which says to see foundation:User:Tfinc wherein we try to leave a comment on meta:User_talk:Tfinc , but that is a read-only site for normal users, so we go back and successfully leave a comment, meta:User_talk:Tfinc#Site_notice_accessibility_issues, which he never sees. Jidanni (talk) 01:52, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Submitted bugzilla:18832. Jidanni (talk) 02:47, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

Could someone take a look please

(Copied from WT:Accessibility) Over at WP:CYC we are trying to establish a template for articles on races. A habit has emerged over using coloured backgrounds in tables to indicate holders of the various jerseys used to denote honours and competition leadership. See, for example 2008 Tour de France or 2008 Giro d'Italia, and especially the Jersey progress sections of each. I believe that we should indicate far more clearly a key for the significance of these colours, but I come here in search of your expertise on the suitability of these background colours for those with colour perception difficulties. If you give any observations here I will post them across to our discussions: if you wish to post directly, we have started the discussion at User_talk:Nosleep/Style_guide/Short_stage_race. Kevin McE (talk) 15:21, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Heading accessibility

It would be really useful to have an expert of the topic talk about why skipping out heading levels is actually bad for accessibility at this RFC. I've only written a couple of sentences and already I feel I cannot do it justice. That would be great (if you could manage it today, that'd be even better). - Jarry1250 ^{(t, c)} 09:05, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

Bot proposal to add alternate text to stub icon images

Please see Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Xenobot 6.1. –xeno^talk 18:29, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Alt-text as a requirement for featured articles criteria?

There's a discussion ongoing at Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates#Alt text in images. –xeno^talk 13:30, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

Image alt text in templates

Hi, the template Template:Research-Project supports the inclusion of a project logo, but there seems to be no way to add alt text for the image (see Template talk:Research-Project). I asked one of the editors of the template how this can be fixed but got no response. Can anyone help me? Other templates may have the same issue. --ChristopheS (talk) 13:48, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

Adding something like this will allow a template to take an |imagealt= paramater. –xeno^talk 02:40, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, that solves the issue. Apparently the documentation for that template needs an update. (I'll look into that.) --ChristopheS (talk) 09:08, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

Navbox location

Hi, unsure if this is the best place to ask, if not then can you point in the right direction. Is there any guidelines on having navboxes in the middle of articles. I removed one on grounds of MOS:SCROLL thinking that accessibility on collapsible boxes in text would not be allowed. After reversion I was wondering if there was any policy/guidelines over their placement the best I can find is MOS:LAYOUT where there is a passing reference to their order in the footer sections. Thanks. Keith D (talk) 20:26, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

As implied by MOS:APPENDIX, navbox templates are indeed footers, and should only be employed at the end of articles. Putting the elsewhere breaks articles up. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 08:13, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

The place of the Navbox is not a matter of accessibility, it is a matter of ergonomy. It is for the community to decide if the Navbox is relevant or not in the middle of an article. In most cases, just like Chris Cunningham said, Navbox templates should be employed at the end of articles.

Actually, the accessibility of Navbox is pretty bad, but it needs the be fixed, not to be hidden. Dodoïste (talk) 00:36, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

How do I find the color-blind Wikipedians?

Is there a list of color-blind Wikipedians somewhere, perhaps organized by type of color blindness? That seems like an awfully useful reference for this project's purposes. — Athelwulf ^[T]/_[C] 06:44, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

• Special:WhatLinksHere/User:Ginkgo100/Userboxes/User color blind & Special:WhatLinksHere/User:Ginkgo100/Userboxes/User colourblind are folks who have self-identified as colourblind through userboxen. –xeno^talk 01:06, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

Thank you! — Athelwulf ^[T]/_[C] 04:43, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

Use of icons as infobox labels

I've started a thread here regarding the use of icons in lieu of text labels in infobox templates. Input would be appreciated. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 08:08, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Abbreviations

FYI: the <abbr/> element for abbreviations can now be used. I've updated {{abbr}}. —Ms2ger (talk) 12:18, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Input requested at Dustbin Baby (film)

I would appreciate input from other accessibility-minded folks at Dustbin Baby (film): I'm currently in a conversation with an admin who is advocating for the usage of this phrasing: "(person) suffers from Asperger syndrome". The assumption that all people on the autism spectrum "suffer" for it strikes me as inappropriate. If you'd like to weigh in, please see Talk:Dustbin Baby (film)#Phrasing of content addressing Asperger syndrome. Thanks. Whatever404 (talk) 20:18, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Am I the only one who can see the irony in coming to a project, the aim of which is "promoting better access for disabled or otherwise disadvantaged users" when trying to tone down language that implies that a certain condition is a disadvantage? That's like someone seeking help from a pressure group supporting ape rights on a racism issue... J Milburn (talk) 10:35, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

programming help for different display for visually impaired

Hi, it's great that you wikipedians have gotten together for this worthy project. Looks good so far!

I visit because i am hoping to find my way to a programmer or someone else knowledgeable about display for screen readers, Braille readers, etc. The issue is about how to provide access for colour-blind or other visually disabled people, for the information covered by use of color in a big system of list-tables within WikiProject NRHP. One heavy-handed way is to add a symbol tied to a legend to explain the info, in every cell in a table that is colored, but we'd like to try something else if possible. One editor more knowledgeable than me about programming commented:

"I think it might be possible ... to define some text that appears only on a screen reader or on a printout, but not on a screen. This could be done with CSS classes that set "display:none" for screen media. Unfortunately, I'm not sure if there's currently a CSS class that defines different display methods for screen versus printers, screen readers, Braille readers, or other media where color can't be rendered. I've looked through the styles at Wikipedia:Catalogue of CSS classes, but I'm not satisfied yet.... There may be other people who work on accessibility issues who might have some suggestions." (This is extract from here)

Does anyone here have any suggestion, or anyone you can refer us to? doncram (talk) 00:06, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Can you link to an example of the type of table you're referring to? Images can have alt text. Information conveyed only with colour might not be understandable to non-color-blind sighted users not familiar with the project either... --Alynna (talk) 12:52, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Join

This project is really needed. I have watched my mother and colleagues who haven't used Wikipedia before (or the internet for that matter) and can provide a good report on what needs to be fixed (which is a lot!). More to come... -- penubag  (talk) 06:34, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

One question about the scope of this project: This includes Wikipedia's UI right? or is it dealing with content articles? The former I can be a help of. -- penubag  (talk) 06:36, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

ArbCom election reminder: voting closes 14 December

Dear colleagues

This is a reminder that voting is open until 23:59 UTC next Monday 14 December to elect new members of the Arbitration Committee. It is an opportunity for all editors with at least 150 mainspace edits on or before 1 November 2009 to shape the composition of the peak judicial body on the English Wikipedia.

On behalf of the election coordinators. Tony (talk) 09:27, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

font-size

Every now and then someone change the font-size in the reference section. This is done at the somewhat obscure MediaWiki talk:Common.css page, which perhaps only the more technically savvy are aware of. However, many have problems reading small text, and reading on screen doesn't makes it any easier, so I think it is unfortunate. There is currently a discussion going on there (MediaWiki talk:Common.css#Reflist font size) that is suffering from lack of interest right now. It would be nice to get some more input on this.
—Apis (talk) 11:51, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

OpenID at Wikipedia

While not related to accessibility in terms of aiding the disabled, OpenID could make login and registration at Wikipedia even easier.

A while ago, the WP:OpenID Proposal was made, but never really took off. I have expressed my feelings at User:B Fizz/OpenID and invite you to all to join with me in discussing the ups and downs of the proposal. ...but what do you think? ~BFizz 10:28, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Accessibility/usability mini-debates over Template:Notice

Readers here may care about 1 or more of the 4 subthreads of Template talk:Notice#Cleanup fixes. I can't think of an anti-usability/accessibility forum here, so I'm not sure whom else to notify who might have a stake in this. :-/ — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 00:17, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

Accessibility noticeboard

Does this project maintain a noticeboard, similar to the administrators' noticeboard? I ask because an editor has removed the alt tags from Lady Gaga, and I'd like other editors to review the alt text. I didn't know if this was the place to make the request, or if there's another venue. —C.Fred (talk) 07:10, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

Template:Inappropriate comment

This template places an inappropriate comment under a semi-transparent floating divbox. I cannot myself see where it would go wrong, but this seems like the sort of thing that might cause difficulties with accessibility. Discussion at Template talk:Inappropriate comment. Many thanks to anyone who can take a look. - 2/0 (cont.) 18:48, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Graphic texts unreadable when using accessibility features

I have a visual impairment that makes it difficult to read black text on a white background, and so I have used the accessibility wizard on my computer to set up all windows with black backgrounds and white text (including on my web browser). Wikipedia is almost perfectly compatible with this feature, except that graphic texts are sometimes "blanked out".

As an example, on the page for the ampersand or "and" symbol (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ampersand) under the "History" subheading, there is a graphic box with the caption "Evolution of the ampersand". When viewed normally (or with black text on a white background), there is a very interesting and useful series of numbered symbols that are precursors to the modern ampersand. Yet, when using the accessibility option of white text on a black background, the black-colored symbols are unreadable against the also black background.

Is there a way to have such graphic texts also be converted to a white color, like the rest of the text on each page? This would make it possible for a visually impaired person (such as myself) to read Wikipedia pages without missing out on the graphic additions to the articles.

Help, please?--Leonwyot (talk) 06:42, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Template talk:Earthquakes in 2010

Input requested at Template talk:Earthquakes in 2010#Accessibility. Rettetast (talk) 15:30, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Morgan's Wonderland

(I originally posted this to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Texas/San Antonio, but since that's a very, very small project, I'm posing this request here as well given the much larger membership here. Since I originally posted it, the CSD mentioned below has been processed. But the basic action request still stands.)

Morgan's Wonderland is getting national attention. I think it really deserves an article on the project. At the time of this writing, it has one, but it is a blatant copyvio, based originally off of a cut&paste from the park's press release. This creates major issues, not the least being the copyvio itself, and the totally promotional nature of the text. I've tagged the page for G12 CSD deletion, as I don't really think there's much salvageable there, given the roots of the current article. But once the G12 CSD is processed, I think we do need an article in that place. Given all the current media attention, I would think there would be plenty of sourcing for a good, non-spammy article. But my skills do not lie in article writing. (I'm a Wiki-gnome by skill set.) So I'm asking if one of the other wiki-project folks would be willing/able to take on the task of, fairly quickly, getting a real, non-copyvio, non-spam, article written up to replace the current one. - TexasAndroid (talk) 14:27, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

The Paralympics Task Force Invitation!

	You are cordially invited to join the Paralympics Task Force!
	You appear to be someone that may be interested in joining the Paralympics Task Force. Please accept this formal invitation from a current member of the project. We offer a place for you to connect with users who also like the Paralympic Games and facilitate team work in the development of Paralympic Games articles.
	If you decide to join the project, please add your name to this list.
	I hope you accept! - ~~~

Bib (talk) 08:54, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

Discussion re poor colour contrast on maps at World Cup article

Could people with good knowledge about how to produce maps which are legible to people with a range of different types of colour vision please provide input at [[1]]? The thread concerns the introduction of a map which colour codes how far different team reach in the competition. Someone is defending the scheme on the grounds that it matches the equally-illegible maps in the other world cup articles. Some support especially with people who can give clear advice on how to fix the maps will be useful.--Peter cohen (talk) 14:19, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

Plant and animal distribution maps

Hi - I'd like to draw your attention to a discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Maps#Biogeographical maps about colours on plant and animal range maps. Your input would be appreciated. Cheers Kahuroa (talk) 01:54, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

replied at Biogeographical maps (1st round). Dodoïste (talk) 11:38, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Timeline of computing

Timeline of computing may be of concern. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 21:44, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

It sure is. But we can't produce accessible timelines as of now. MediaWiki's not good enough at that. Regards, Dodoïste (talk) 11:41, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

RfC on Consensus

Given WP:CONLIMITED, to what extent and under what circumstances can individual WikiProjects and users customize article appearance with individual styles that deviate from site-wide style guidelines? Interested contributors are invited to participate there. -- Quiddity (talk) 19:19, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

Problem with grayscale printout of articles?

Hi, I'm reposting an issue that was brought up at WP:EAR that I thought the good folks at this project could hash out more readily (original thread). The editor noted that using the "download as PDF" feature, and printing out the PDF on a grayscale printer, produced a problem with the S.M.A.R.T. article. The editor posted a scan of the PDF ([2]); compare to the table at S.M.A.R.T.#Known ATA S.M.A.R.T. attributes, specifically those cells that are shaded red and have an arrow (e.g., "Reallocated Sectors Count"). Clearly, the colors are chosen to provide good contrast, but when converted to grayscale, they appear to render as the same shade. This doesn't appear to be a problem with the PDF generator or the version of the article linked to. Thanks for your help! —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 13:19, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

I'll be glad to answer this request. We'll continue at Wikipedia:Editor assistance/Requests#Readability / visibility concerns for some graphics. Dodoïste (talk) 19:50, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

 Done Dodoïste (talk) 11:39, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

Improvements to this project

Hi all. I'd like to improve this project greatly using the guidelines and experience we have on the french Wikipedia. The french accessibility project was founded by by an accessibility expert, who is still leading the project. So we have detailed guidelines, accurate reviews, a clear approach and all.

I have a ton of things to improve here. My first job will be to create a sandbox page to prepare great changes to Wikipedia:Manual of Style (accessibility). After a discussion on it's talkpage, we saw there is a real need to prepare the great changes that I need to make to this MoS page.

Afterwards (and if I have enough time), I'd like to create a FAQ, a list of resources, guidelines for template editors and developers, coordination and task force pages, a page to teach the methodology used to work on accessibility, and so on.

The one thing that would really help me is to get help from french to english translators. I'm not familiar with en.wiki yet. Anyone willing to give a hand with this translations is warmly welcomed. Also, if anyone knows where to ask help from translators please tell me. :-) Kind regards, Dodoïste (talk) 12:06, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

I've just began working on that. If anyone knows of users that would agree to begin the translations for Wikipedia:WikiProject Accessibility/FAQ and common pitfalls and Wikipedia:WikiProject Accessibility/What is accessibility? that would really help me. Does someone know an active user in Category:Translators fr-en? Kind regards, Dodoïste (talk) 23:48, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Accessibility/What is accessibility? is now complete. It needs rereading by a native english speaker though. Help is welcomed. :-) Dodoïste (talk) 00:48, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

New logo for Wikiproject Accessibility

Wheelchair with the Wikipedia logo on the wheel.

Hi! I wanted to have some fun, so I made a new logo. How do you like it? :-) Kind regards, Dodoïste (talk) 21:30, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

Even if WikiProject Accessibility doesn't use it, WikiProject Disability might. I am an editor over there; would we have your permission to use it there, if the Accessibility people don't? Kikodawgzzz (talk) 20:56, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

Sure, go ahead. :-) Dodoïste (talk) 00:31, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

articles related to accessibility of computers and internet

Please see this thread over at WikiProject Disability for our discussion on the probable need for merging these articles. We would appreciate your input and the chance to talk with you on this matter. Thanks. Kikodawgzzz (talk) 21:00, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals)#Add_projectwide_css_to_highlight_different_posts_in_a_discussion

As this concerns a proposed accessibility change, I invite any interested parties to provide input at the above thread. /ƒETCHCOMMS/ 03:37, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

Template update: em and strong

I've updated Template:Strong and created a matching Template:Em. These not only make it easier to use the &lt:strong> and <em> which can be styled differently than non-semantic boldface and italics, the templates should also thwart the ability of the average bot or WP:AWB run to turn intentional semantic use of the strong and em elements into wikimarkup plain bold and italic. I've already found one bot (Yobot (talk · contribs)) that has been making invalid changes of this sort, and have asked the operator of the bot to make it stop doing that, but inevitably there will be other bot authors and various random editors, who (manually and with AWB) will make such changes because they don't understand Web semantics and separation of content and presentation. These templates should put up at least a minor barrier to willy-nilly undoing of semantic markup. And it's a little easier to type {{{em|whatever}} than <em>whatever</em> (and only three characters longer than ''whatever'' so there's not much excuse for not using {{em}} when intending emphasis instead of purely typographic (book titles, etc.) italics. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 10:18, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

Good. The template documentation is a little confusing about when normal italic is preferred, and when we want to use semantic emphasis. I suggest adding an explanation like:

There are two kinds of bold and italic usage. The first is the emphasis, where you want to use strong and em instead. The second is layout: typography conventions, page layout, etc.

For example, the following codes are correct: "The album ''[[Black and Blue]]'' was released in..." and "The movie ''[[Charlie Is My Darling (film)|Charlie Is My Darling]]'' was released in 1966". These are used for layout, and are not supposed to have a semantic meaning. But you would write: "Whoa, this movie was so <em>amazing</em> I shed a tear". In this case, there is an emphasis on the word amazing that is supposed to have a semantic meaning.

Could you add a similar explanation to the related templates, so that editors can know how they are supposed to use them? You might want to rephrase my poor English though. Kind regards, Dodoïste (talk) 12:41, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

Clarification done. Dodoïste (talk) 17:48, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

Colored map accessibility cleanup

If anyone's an old hand at SVG maps and has some time to kill, please see Talk:Sexually transmitted disease#xs. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 05:01, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

I went and commented there, but didn't get a reply. Dodoïste (talk) 10:20, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

Warning and information templates

I came here because of some comments from User talk:204.112.104.172. This user's page says they're blind so images are useless for them. when someone templated them about a MOS issue with a template that contained an image they've complained here [3] where they said:

please review the rules at my talk page, they clearly state that i am blind, so the whole visual and fancy font stuff is impossible for me. My screen reader (jaws), does not pick up that stuff. Thanks for telling me, Inna was most likely in episode 203 of biz kid$ and please don't bring this up again. Any comments, feel free to leave on my talk page. Please review what i have at the top, ok? nothing negative, just letting you know. thanks.

My understanding is this is more of a personal preference thing, and the presence of the image in the template doesn't cause any disruption to screen readers, am I right? (I can understand why someone who uses a screen reader and can't see the images might not like unnecessary images.) We don't currently have alt text for the information/warning icons in templates from what I can tell. Looking at the survey linked above, it suggests what I would expect, whether to give alt text when it doesn't really matter is not something that there's any real agreement on. But in general do people feel our user warning and information templates are fine for those using screen readers? Are there any ways we can improve them? Nil Einne (talk) 05:41, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

Interesting case, thanks for bringing this up here, you're definitely at the right place. :-)

Could you provide a link to the information templates you are talking about? And what was the diff concerned, was it this one about information.svg?

Note that the survey is only interesting for accessibility experts: it gives them ideas to further explore and experiment on. It's not something you can rely upon. But it does provide interesting insight on the diversity of blind user preferences.

The current accessibility guidelines says that all images should have an alt= parameter. Decorative images should have a nearly blank alt text (except when there is no link: in this case it's a blank 'alt='), so that the screen reader users knows it doesn't contain any information. In the case of the information.svg image, it's sufficient to provide 'alt=information'. If I remember correctly, this is the solution that user:Graham87 (a blind admin) preferred.

Now the real concern of this user might be that of a user preference. He may not like to hear his screen reader informing him there is images on the page, when they are unnecessary. Thus, the best solution for him would be to add |link=|alt= to the decorative icon. It will remove the link, and leave the alt text blank. With this, the screen reader will appropriately ignore the icon, since it is announced as a decorative icon that doesn't contain any information. From what I understand, this my be what this blind user would prefer. It's worth trying at the very least.

In conclusion, two methods are possible. It's worth testing them and asking this user what he prefers.

Just like I told you, user:Graham87 is an experimented blind admin. I bet it would be worth it to put those two in contact.

Judging from his talk page: "you can call me spaceman 204 if you want", this anon might want to create an account. But as a blind user, he is currently unable to do so himself. Wikipedia's CAPTCHA consist of a sole image, without a sound version for the blind. This is an important accessibility failure - that I find utterly disgusting. Lots of Websites do have an audio version, it's considered to be a best practice. See Wikipedia:WikiProject Accessibility/MediaWiki accessibility specification#CAPTCHA. We should definitely get the developers to implement this audio CAPTCHA, but how? With a petition or something? Yours, Dodoïste (talk) 12:42, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

Collapsible menu

The current "collapsible menu" is buggy in all its states --- unexpanded, collapsed, expanded --- on my MS Internet Explorer. I would favor either redoing the box using a standard collapsible menu, if it would meet the needs of users with visual impairments just as well. Thanks! Sincerely, Kiefer.Wolfowitz (talk) 19:09, 3 November 2010 (UTC) (P.S. I left this message on the menu's discussion page, which is nearly empty: Thus, I leave another message here.)

Which version of IE? Your bug is strange, because this menu is a simple use of Template:Hidden. It uses the same code (albeit shortened to remove useless code), and more importantly the same JavaScript. So the bug your are experiencing should also happen with Template:Hidden. Dodoïste (talk) 19:40, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

(Responding in middle of Dodïste's comments): I experience no bug with template hidden. Kiefer.Wolfowitz (talk) 20:59, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Could you provide screenshots of the bugs, and upload them at imageshack for example? Or a more detailed explanation of what you experience?

As you can see at Wikipedia:WikiProject Accessibility/Navigation menu, I am planning to make a better menu using User:Dodoïste/navmenu.css and User:Dodoïste/navmenu.js. It is ready, but it uses JQuery, which is only installed in Vector. Thus this better menu works only with Vector now. Yours, Dodoïste (talk) 19:40, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

I'm sorry but I lack the time and knowledge to do that now. Maybe in a 10 days or so. Thank you for your kind work and quick response, which helps so many of us, now and in the past. My best regards, Kiefer.Wolfowitz (talk) 20:59, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

I did look at your pages, but they seem to have source-code, which may have French text. Maybe this is a problem of English-language chauvanism ;-) by Internet Explorer! (I don't see how they would help me, I'm afraid to say . . . .) Thanks again, Kiefer.Wolfowitz (talk) 21:02, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

I suppose you're referring to User:Dodoïste/navmenu.js. Yes, it's the code for the upcoming menu, which will improve usability and accessibility. It's not really supposed to help you. I can't even figure out what problem you experience, when I test with Internet Explorer 8 everything works just fine. Dodoïste (talk) 01:10, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Like editor Dodoïste, I'm using IE 8 also. Best regards, Kiefer.Wolfowitz (talk) 20:33, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

I'll do my best to solve your issue, when you will provide further details about it. And when I will be able to reproduce the issue, which is a necessary step to understand where it comes from and how to fix it. Yours, Dodoïste (talk) 22:36, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

I made a snapshot of the screen using Snagit. I didn't find an email link on your English user-page; on your French page, I sent you an email, but I saw no way to attach the screen snapshot. Thanks again. Kiefer.Wolfowitz (talk) 16:44, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

I can't find the issue. Anyway, I intent to solve the problem with the new script in a few weeks. :-) Dodoïste (talk) 01:51, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

Hi! I was using IE on Windows XP, using an archaic and non-standard processor. With an updated laptop running Ubuntu and using Firefox, everything looks great! Kiefer.Wolfowitz (talk) 11:06, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

Featured list candidate and accessibility

Well here we are again. Another WP:FLC vs WP:MOS vs WP:DISCOGSTYLE vs WP:ACCESS scenario. The discussion, so far, centres on Wikipedia:Featured list candidates/Fantasia Barrino discography/archive1‎. Within this FLC, it was revealed that a number of featured lists have been modified for accessibility purposes, while there still seems to be an internal conflict with MOS. I'd like some more insight into what's going on here before I revert all the relevant changes to those lists. It mainly centres around (1) the wild overuse of bold text and (2) the over-the-top textual description of each table, again in bold, at the top of each table. Thanks. The Rambling Man (talk) 12:48, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for the notification. I assure you there is no conflict between MOS and ACCESS, and MOSBOLD specifically states that table headers are to be bold. It would not be an improvement to any of those articles to degrade their accessibility simply in order to modify a visual effect. It would be better to discuss your concerns than to start reverting articles, as I'm sure you'll agree that is unlikely to move us nearer to consensus.

I'd recommend members of WikiProject Accessibility to take a look at Wikipedia:Featured list candidates/Fantasia Barrino discography/archive1‎, as your views there would be helpful. --RexxS (talk) 13:49, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Yes, well I clearly stated that I wanted to know what was going on before I made any changes. That's why I came looking for help from this project in the first instance. I'd love to hear more on this back at the FLC linked above. Cheers. The Rambling Man (talk) 13:54, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Table headings

I have another question. In this table (an example of one of the worst formatted tables I have ever seen) which has recently been updated by the ACCESS crew, there's a table heading which effectively repeats what's in the table. What is the purpose of this heading? Is it for screen readers? Also, that table uses small text, which (in my admittedly naive mind) would prove more of a problem in accessibility terms, than non-bold text. Should that be "fixed" (i.e. we should never use small fonts)? The Rambling Man (talk) 15:43, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

I do not understand which table header you are referring to? Could you copy-paste it's name? Kind regards, Dodoïste (talk) 17:07, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

It says "List of Rihanna's music videos, showing year released and director" in bold above the table. This information is clear and obvious to sighted people, to unsighted people it should be used in the same way we use alt=, i.e. not displayed, but accessible to screen readers. That way everyone wins. The Rambling Man (talk) 17:10, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

So you're asking the same question as at RexxS's talk page. Please don't do that. ;-) I'll reply at RexxS talk page if necessary, but RexxS is able to answer that one too.

This mess is spread out over half of Wikipedia, so please don't tell me where to and where to not discuss things. The Rambling Man (talk) 17:38, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

I will, please don't make this mess even worse. Dodoïste (talk) 17:59, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

You see, that's one major problem this has created, you didn't involve all the stakeholders in one place. Now we're where we are. And we're trying to pick up the pieces. Cheers. The Rambling Man (talk) 18:01, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, right. As it was all my fault. Next you'll probably assume that I had bad faith. :( Dodoïste (talk) 18:25, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Involve the people who need to be involved. That's pretty obvious. The ACCESS people didn't. Now we're in this mess and we have appallingly formatted lists as featured quality. The Rambling Man (talk) 18:27, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

As for the solution chosen, it is the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) accessibility standard. The one implemented in browsers and assistive technologies. We did not choose it randomly, we are following an international standard. United States, the European Union, the United Nations and various countries approved this standard, and are progressively making the necessary arrangements to conform their Website to accessibility guidelines. It takes years to do so, but it's definitely happening. Slowly but steadily. Dodoïste (talk) 17:34, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

What's wrong with my solution? Sighted people can read what the table has, unsighted people can get the information from their screen reader. What makes this problem any different from alt text? The Rambling Man (talk) 17:38, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

What's wrong? It's doesn't work, it's as simple as that.

What doesn't work? Tables are self-explanatory. Or should we have text at the top of every section of prose that summarises what people are about to read? The Rambling Man (talk) 18:01, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Table captions are also useful for sighted users, especially users with cognitive disabilities who have a hard time to understand what the table is about. And it has numerous useful uses, that I just don't have time to summarize now.

Please, take your time. The Rambling Man (talk) 18:01, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

You probably never realized it but {{infobox}} such as Template:Infobox company and most infobox produces an identical table caption. Tables captions are already an accepted standard at Wikipedia, and it's been like that for a long time already. Dodoïste (talk) 17:56, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

I probably did realise it, thanks. It's usually a couple of words, and never conflicts with a section heading, like all tables in featured lists would do if these captions were rolled out. The Rambling Man (talk) 18:01, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

I've attempted to start a centralised discussion here. Please contribute there. The Rambling Man (talk) 19:03, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Rhaaa! Couldn't you wait until tomorrow? I did intend to do that, but I can't reply everywhere at the same time. I'm not a native English speaker, it takes me quite some time to reply. Dodoïste (talk) 19:09, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

The discussion is open there, take your time, and if you can, please respond to any questions the community there may have. The Rambling Man (talk) 19:14, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

OK, fair enough. :-) I appreciate your calm replies. Dodoïste (talk) 19:57, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Accessibility of ƒ

At Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mathematics#Back to the original discussion there is a discussion over the use of the character ƒ. An unresolved question is how accessible the character is, especially compared to the letter f. Because nobody there has much experience with these issues, I would like someone more knowledgeable to advise us. Can someone from this WikiProject help? Thanks. Ozob (talk) 21:13, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

I just tested with NonVisual Desktop Access (NVDA) and ƒ is read "letter 1 9 2", which is obviously not what we want. NVDA is free, unlike JAWS. I suggest to ask the advice of user:Graham87 on this matter, since he is using a fairly recent version of JAWS (screen reader) - the most widely used screen reader. If JAWS gets it right, it's OK. If it doesn't, you might want to replace it with f, or an image version of ƒ with f as alt text. Thanks for your interest in this matter. :-) Yours, Dodoïste (talk) 00:20, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

Linking short titles

When displayed article titles are very short--say, just one or two characters--it can be difficult sometimes for any user to get the mouse over the hot spot. (The particular case I have in mind is the link to the article I (EP) in the Infobox of Nothing (Meshuggah album).) Is there any way to give a short link a slightly wider hot spot to improve accessibility?--ShelfSkewed Talk 06:12, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

Noticing the link itself is already quite difficult. :-) Well, this is indeed a usability issue that should be taken care of. It's not really an accessibility issue because most so-called "normal" users would also have troubles to accurately clink on this link. Anyway, this issue should rather be fixed in MediaWiki : it would be hard work for users to add the relevant template. And it would be yet another widely used template that will scare off newbies. MediaWiki could fairly easily detect small link titles, and make them noticeably wider. Try bugging the developers at "wikitech-llists.wikimedia.org". Yours, Dodoïste (talk) 19:51, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

Requesting editor comments

Hello. Currently there is a large discussion going on at the Manual of Style (Japan-related articles). The issue has been debated for months now and one aspect of it that frequently comes up is the possibility of a compromise based on the use of tooltips. While many editors are in favor of this compromise, the worry is that it will violate WP:ACCESS. I am now asking for comments on this issue.

To sum it up as briefly as possible:
Currently there are two conflicting policies describing how to display Japanese terms. The proposed compromise differs from both of them. Below are examples of the three possibilites:

• Guideline 1 - Super Mario USA (スーパーマリオUSA, Sūpā Mario Yū Esu Ē)
• Guideline 2 - Super Mario USA (スーパーマリオUSA)
• Compromise - Sometimes Super Mario USA (スーパーマリオUSA, Sūpā Mario Yū Esu Ē)
  and sometimes {{nihongo tip|'''''[[Super Mario USA]]'''''|スーパーマリオUSA|Sūpā Mario Yū Esu Ē}}

The first guideline is clearly in line with WP:ACCESS.
The second guideline also appears to be in line with WP:ACCESS as it argues that the phonetic transcription is so similar that it isn't necessary to be included.
The compromise would require that guideline 1 be followed unless by editorial consensus it can be agreed that the phonetic transcription is so similar that it isn't necessary to be included in which case it is placed in a tooltip.

So does the compromise meet the requirements of WP:ACCESS? You can either post your answers here or at the Request for comment on Nihongotip Compromise at WP:ACCESS subsection of the discussion. Thanks for any help you folks can provide! -Thibbs (talk) 00:43, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

One thing that was forgotten to mention: The proposal is restricted to terms where the Japanese text is an approximation of words of non-Japanese origin (such as in the above examples). Words like Tokyo Metropolis (東京都, Tōkyō-to) are unaffected and remain without tooltips. Prime Blue (talk) 02:50, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

I am thankful that you request the comment of this accessibility project. I have replied there. :-) Dodoïste (talk) 21:17, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Thank you very much for your input, Dodoïste! If anyone else would care to give his/her opinion on the matter it would still be greatly welcomed. At least 1 or 2 more opinions would be ideal. -Thibbs (talk) 23:48, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

You're welcome. :-)

It is not necessary to ask for more users to comment on accessibility, since we will all have the same answer (except if someone made a mistake). The approach to make Wikipedia accessibile is based on W3C's official WCAG 2.0 guideline. We are not giving our opinions nor thoughts on the matter. We are merely rewording the WCAG 2.0 into a guideline hopefully easier to understand for people that are not familiar with accessibility nor web development. That's why the answer about accessibility should be the same whoever replies. Yours, Dodoïste (talk) 01:28, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

OK. That's fine then. I just thought it would look like there was full consensus with your interpretation if more people agreed with you publicly. I'm sure your interpretation is a sound one and for all I know it's probably the only one. At any rate if nobody else cares to comment on the issue then I think the mediation will probably accept your take on it. Thanks again for your help. -Thibbs (talk) 02:33, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Fair enough. Not many users intervene on this talk page, so I've asked User:RexxS to comment. Yours, Dodoïste (talk) 23:15, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Infobox stadium/tenantlist

Unresolved

{{Infobox stadium/tenantlist}} needs some accessibility improvements; I don't have time at present, if someone else fancies a go. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 17:04, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

{{done}}, thanks for pointing out this template - that had serious issues indeed. I fixed it, I just hope it will be consensual and kept. Kind regards, Dodoïste (talk) 18:41, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, but I don't think that's fixed the problem. Look, for instance, at Long Island Arena. The dates are not semantically associated with the respective clubs. They now render as:

Long Island Ducks (EHL)
New York Tapers (ABL)
New York Nets (ABA)
Long Island Cougars (NAHL)
Long Island Ducks (EBA)
1959-1973
1962
1968-1969
1973-1975
1977-1978

when

Long Island Ducks (EHL) 1959-1973
New York Tapers (ABL) 1962
New York Nets (ABA) 1968-1969
Long Island Cougars (NAHL) 1973-1975
Long Island Ducks (EBA) 1977-1978

would make more sense. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 19:24, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

Concerning the corrections I previously made, I bet a few explanations are needed. I removed a nested table, and associated the "Tenant" and "Years" headers with their corresponding lists. According to our data table accessibility guidelines. Which means that the most important and easy to fix concerns are addressed.

Still, you sure are right: there is one more issue to fix. But that one won't be as easy. The current uses of the template does not allow us to fix this issue with a simple edit to {{Infobox stadium/tenantlist}}. Instead, we would need a bot to update every inclusion of this template, to fit in the accessible version of the template. I can prepare the new template, and provide accessibility instructions. But I don't have a bot.

We have user:Xeno here who owns a bot. If possible I'd like to involve more bots in this accessibility project, because bots are really useful and needed here. Do you know anyone who might be willing to take on the job? Kind regards, Dodoïste (talk) 12:38, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

This still needs fixing. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 17:49, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Create cleanup templates for accessibility?

I was looking at Wikipedia:Template_messages/Cleanup and didn't see any template to mark a page as needing accessibility cleanup. I think it would be good to have one or more. I'm not sure whether it might be best to have just one which reads:

This page may have content which is not accessible to people with disabilities. See the talk page for details.

or divide it by type of disability (blind, low-vision, mobility) or type of content (tables, images, maps).

At the very least, there would be a second template:

This page may have content which cannot be made accessible due to Wiki software limitations. See the talk page for details.

which would not encourage editing but rather would serve as an alert to people with disabilities that they may encounter problems with the page. Perhaps that one needs to be split up by particular issue (collapsing tables, etc.) so that when the particular software issue is resolved, either all such messages can be removed or the pages be marked for code update as appropriate.

Thisisnotatest (talk) 07:06, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Good idea. We already have the template {{AccessibilityDispute}}. Could you add it where you feel is appropriate in Wikipedia:Template_messages/Cleanup?

Concerning the alert for people with disabilities, it's not that simple and your proposal might do more harm than good in most cases. There is quite a number of requirements for a page to be accessible to everyone, but very few to be accessible by a particular category of people (blinds, motor-impaired, deafs, etc.). It would state that a page is not accessible, and all disabled user might be turned away by this alert. The thing is, a significant part of them might well be able to use the page normally. In order to solve this issue, we would have to specify exactly for whom a content is not accessible, and why. The list would be too long to be useful. Moreover, I'm not even sure it's feasible. Yours, Dodoïste (talk) 19:11, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

I'm no expert, but I would guess that 99.9% of the pages here would be of reduced accessibility to everyone. The suggestion is a good one, but not practical because I guess (again, a guess) that we'd possibly even be tagging the main page, Today's featured article, most/all DYKs, most/all ITNs etc. Accessibility has always been an "aim" not a "mandate". Creating such a template may be useful but encouraging editors to create decent content which takes this sort of thing into account from the word go would be better. The Rambling Man (talk) 19:17, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

It depends what the requirement is. If the requirement is for the content of the article itself to be accessible (and thus removing the templates, skin and JavaScript issues), I guess most of the articles are accessible. Out of 5 randomly selected articles, three were similar to Bill Richardson (footballer) meet such a requirement. The other two needed a trivial edit to meet the Headings accessibility requirement.

And the purpose of these templates is not to tag every article, it is to draw attention from editors in order to fix the issues. However, I completely agree with your last statement: "encouraging editors to create decent content which takes this sort of thing into account from the word go would be better". Yours, Dodoïste (talk) 21:40, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

I think I was saying that if you took the WP:ACCESS guidelines to the letter of the law then many, many articles would fail and we'd need to tag literally millions of them. But yes, working on making them accessible from the word go is what should be encouraged. The Rambling Man (talk) 21:44, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Yes. It was saying that if we don't take the WP:ACCESS guidelines to the letter of the law, and take what really matters in this context, about 10% to 15% of the articles should be tagged by a template asking for accessibility cleanup. It's still a huge lot, and I don't recommend to tag 350 to 400 thousands articles.

I'm just trying to be realistic, and to state that our situation is not that alarming. About 80% of the articles contain accessible content. The main content of Wikipedia is text, headers and links. By default, MediaWiki produces them correctly, thus these contents are accessible.

The biggest source of issues are images, tables, lists, false headers, templates and MediaWiki mistakes. Cheers, Dodoïste under IP, 83.173.207.141 (talk) 12:35, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Screen magnifiers and <DOLPHINTEXT> tags

Has anyone with a screen magnifier experienced a problem like this one? I've been using a magnifier for a couple of years, but this problem has only recently started occurring. Apparently, according to this discussion the software is inserting its own tags, something I don't think it should be doing. If there are others experiencing this I'm wondering if it's worth creating some kind of template that users with the software could add to their user or talk pages to let others know of the problem, and hopefully avoid any misunderstanding. I wouldn't like myself - or any other users - to be accused of vandalism when that wasn't the case. Any thoughts on this guys? Cheers TheRetroGuy (talk) 22:47, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

Message originally copied from here and reposted following advice. Useful parts of the discussion are duplicated here:

Sure creating a template is a good idea. We might be able to do something about it. We will investigate if the cause is Dolphin itself (did you updated it recently?) or a change in MediaWiki. At the very least, we will be able to write a detailed bug report to Dolphin or MediaWiki developers, and ask them to fix this bug. Cheers, Dodoïste (talk) 22:28, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for getting back to me. I haven't manually updated the software recently, but it's possible I suppose that it has automatically updated, or that Internet Explorer has updated and caused some kind of clash with an aspect of the software. It first appeared on some of my emails before Christmas, and has only been showing up on Wikipedia for the last couple of weeks. Anyway, thanks again. Cheers TheRetroGuy (talk) 22:43, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

You're welcome. I do not know how Dolphin updates. But if your version is earlier than the v12.02 released the 27th of January, updating Dolphin might solve your problem. v12.02 is a stability release that solves several bugs and crashes. By the way, see the Dolphin support: How do I turn on the Internet Updater?

If you are already using Internet Explorer 8 I am most certain that it has not updated. IE doesn't update between major releases (IE6, IE7, IE8). Or rather it may update to fix security issues, but will never update things that may affect the behaviour of the browser or the rendering engine. What I do know is that Wikimedia wikis recently shifted to using MediaWiki software version 1.17, which may be the source of the issue.

For now, let's focus on Dolphin. Which version are you running, and does an upgrade solves your issue? Cheers, Dodoïste (talk) 23:21, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

I'm using version 11.04 which I bought in October 2009. Will I be able to upgrade this to the latest version online or would I have to buy an upgrade? Also I use Windows Vista so am not sure if the latest version (for Windows 7) is backwards compatible, though I imagine it would be. I'll take a look at their website tomorrow and see what I can discover. TheRetroGuy (talk) 23:57, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

OK. Please let me know if updating solved your problem. Cheers, Dodoïste (talk) 21:18, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

ok, I've been in touch with Dolphin this afternoon and they've given me a solution which involves changing some of the settings. I've done that and so far everything seems to be fine. I could post the information here if this would be useful for other users. Let me know if that would be ok. Cheers TheRetroGuy (talk) 16:42, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

Glad to hear it. :-) Sure, please go ahead and post this information here. Another user might encounter the same issue later on, so your information is very valuable to the accessibility project on my opinion. Cheers, 19:46, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

I actually have instructions for Lunar and Supernova as the guy sent me Supernova in error, so I'm happy to repost them here

Instructions for Lunar

1. Open the web browser you use (e.g. Internet Explorer)
2. With the browser the program in the foreground, press CTRL+SPACEBAR - the Dolphin control panel should appear on top
3. Choose File > New > Map > and from the list (which should currently show Internet Explorer 7-8" choose the item called "No MSAA V1" then choose OK

Instructions for Supernova

Firstly, close all web browsers, then

1. Press CTRL+SPACEBAR to open the Dolphin control panel
2. Open the General menu with ALT+G
3. Choose Web Page Settings
4. TAB into the list of items and ARROW DOWN the list until you reach "Use Non Caching Option" and press SPACEBAR to select this
5. TAB to Apply and OK and ENTER

Cheers and good luck to all. TheRetroGuy (talk) 21:05, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks! Dodoïste (talk) 17:23, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Unbelievably, it got me again. I've managed to stop it appearing in my emails, but it seems to still be happening in Wikipedia. I think we may need a bugbuster or something after all. TheRetroGuy (talk) 23:53, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

Did you try repeating the same instructions a second time? Maybe you need to fix it regularly? Cheers, Dodoïste (talk) 22:10, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

General Accessibility

Hi folks, I don't know if this is the right place to post but you can maybe point me in the right direction. I am new editor. It's taken months of struggle to finally be directed to this page. I have the following suggestions:

• An automated welcome template to be placed on all new user pages which includes accessibility information. I got one put on my page by someone but I know another very new user who got nothing and has already had an article deleted. That's really discouraging: If a welcome box was automated and contained good information for new users it could help wikipedia stop the editor loss.

• I can't find any of these wikipedia: pages, can there be a different search box, or other system, because at the moment I am only finding them when listed by other users. The current search box only shows main space articles because I do not know what prefix to put on a search. Basically I can only find pages by links, not from the search. I have found navigating wikipedia to be my greatest and most frustrating challenge.

• I am vision impaired but do have some sight and only use screen magnification. I didn't even know there were user boxes for people with disabilities. I didn't see a user box for people like me, only for those who are blind. Is there one?

• Anything that can be done to assist reading discussion pages would be helpful, as I can't participate in a lot of topic discussions because many users write very long paragraphs with no visual cues to identify salient points. Often they don't even use paragraphs which makes it very hard to follow a discussion. One editor (who has been here many years and is an administrator) writes on the same paragraph/dot point level as the previous post so if the previous poster does not sign (which I have encountered) it is very difficult to see where the posts begin and end.

• I don't have any difficulty composing articles, the main barriers for me on wikipedia are:
  • using wikiMarkup - in particular when I have a lot of inline citations. I usually use a text editor but even then it is quite challenging.
  • navigation - finding information I need is difficult because it isn't clear to me how to search for it
  • construction and organisation of help pages - often when I find a page that seems right, (usually by accident) it actually isn't and I have to click through numerous links to find what I need. Some of the help pages are really long and it's a very time consuming process to go through them. Could smaller summary pages be created?

I think a lot of the problems I have identified above would probably apply to sighted users as well. I think the problem could lie partially in the fact that many editors have been here a long time and because they know where everything is, they forget how hard it is to find things when you don't know where to look or how to do things. It took me several days, for example to work out what wikipedia meant by a template and how exactly I was supposed to put the help me template on my user page. Aakheperure (talk) 23:16, 19 March 2011 (UTC)

As for your second point, to find the pages with "Wikipedia:" at the start of them, type "Wikipedia:" in the search box then type your search phrase. For example, this is a search for all pages with the "Wikipedia" prefix which contain the word "yellow". The pages with the "Wikipedia:" prefix are technically in the Wikipedia namespace.

Most new users with full sight find Wikipedia's help system to be less than ideal. The pages linked from the Wikipedia:FAQ Index might suit you, as they are clearly laid out in headings and the answers are in relatively short paragraphs. Graham87 01:55, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

As for a userbox indicating a user's visual impairment, I can't find one either, but you could either provide a textual indication of that issue on your user page, ask someone to create it (the technical village pump or help desk would get the quickest responses), or create it yourself. Graham87 02:10, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

Horizontal lists in navboxes

Many thousands of Wikipedia articles have navboxes, in which lists of links are presented, horizontally, without using list mark-up, but instead using {{·}} or suchlike as a kludge. This is semantically poor and has implications for accessibility.

I created {{Flatlist}} in an attempt to begin addressing this, but previous discussion (two-and-a-half years ago) petered out before various concerns were resolved. Now that CSS an browsers have moved on, I'd like us to find a solution. Please contribute to centralised discussion on MoS (accessibility). Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 14:09, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Colour

Could a user well-versed in accessibility issues (particularly in the use of colour in article text) please comment at Talk:List of bus routes in Ipswich & Woodbridge#Overcoloured. The article itself bears a {{overcoloured}} which has placed it into Category:Articles overusing colours. Many of the articles in that cat were put there by me, and in each case I left a note on the article talk pages, but the Ipswich & Woodbridge talk page is, so far, the only one which has provoked a response. I would be grateful if other opinions are offered besides my own. --Redrose64 (talk) 20:22, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks or asking us. I've been busy lately, but I've found some time to answer at Talk:List of bus routes in Ipswich & Woodbridge. Cheers, Dodoïste (talk) 20:48, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

Dolphin and IE8

Hi. I've been experiencing problems editing in IE8 with Dolphin software running, and just wondered if anyone else had encountered this problem. It started when I upgraded from IE7 to IE8, and began with my being unable to edit semi-protected pages, although it has now spread to everything. Basically it's only allowing me to use Wikipedia in readonly format. Is there a bug to fix it? Cheers TheRetroGuy (talk) 13:39, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure I will have the time nor the knowledge to analyse the issue you are experiencing in detail, as it seems to be complicated. Did you try to use Dolphin with another browser, as it may solve your issue? I know accessibility softwares are expensive, but maybe you could switch for another screen reader of screen magnifier? Yours, Dodoïste (talk) 20:58, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

Succession boxes

We're discussing the use of colours in succession boxes over at WT:SBS. Some input in regard to Usability and Accessibility would be appreciated. Thanks. Bazj (talk) 12:48, 1 May 2011 (UTC)

Heading issue in 'Documentation' template

There's an outstanding accessibity issue with header levels in {{Documentation}}; see Template talk:Documentation/Archive 4#Heading fix which still needs attention. Earlier discussion, with one dissenting voice, is at Template talk:Documentation/Archive 2#Heading fix.Could we get some extra eyeballs on that, please, and comments in the new section at Template talk:Documentation#Heading fix redux? Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 10:22, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

New template requested — Discreet abbreviation

Hello,

See this discussion.

--Nnemo (talk) 23:46, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

Hello

Hi guys,

I don't know how active this project is but I've been merrily hacking away at the Assistive_technology article - it's still very rough and it could do with a few more editors helping out or giving opinions :) let me know if anyone fancies a push on it :) Failedwizard (talk) 21:51, 30 September 2011 (UTC)

Infobox college football single game

I'm concerned about the accessibility of the table in {{Infobox college football single game}}. See 2006 Michigan vs. Ohio State football game for an example. Does anyone agree, and can anybody suggest how it might be improved? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 10:43, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

Alt text in galleries: now possible!

Hello. We can now add alt text to galleries. I would appreciate a few inputs on how to update the guidelines. Please see Wikipedia talk:Alternative text for images#Alt text for galleries. Cheers, Dodoïste (talk) 01:21, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

Accessibility of junction template

The junction template is not accessible as it does not produce a unique first column that can be used by blind people to distinguish each row from the next. It would be better to use mile as the first column, since that is unique within a state. If a junction table covers multiple states, then perhaps it would have to be broken into a series of tables, one per state. Thisisnotatest (talk) 08:38, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

Current broader activity

Could anyone clarify whether there's any ongoing secondary focus on broader accessibility issues anywhere, as mentioned on the front page here? I saw in first talk archive there may have originally been a very broad ambition regarding a one-to-one service to help people contribute, but get impression that now things are very narrowly focused on webpage/article appearance, and maybe only really active over at the Manual Of Style? Does anyone have any plans to develop guidance or help pages on the broader issues? They don't seem to be mentioned in the current documents, but I see in the second archive someone talking about having suffered through all the help pages & not finding a place like this for months. Or is this maybe considered more a 'meta' issue relating to Wikimedia rather than just Wikipedia in itself? I'd be interested in trying to help in this area, particularly in regard to mental disorder issues, but I wonder what experience might suggest could be the best or most active base for such efforts? Eversense (talk) 00:37, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

Infoboxes and Plainlist

See Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Film#Using Plainlist in Infobox film

The nutshell is a concern about replacing the use of <br> in infoboxes with {{Plainlist}}. I think that this may trace back to an accessibility issue, but I'm not sure. Can any one here shed some light on this and provide a little clarity over at Film?

Thanks,

- J Greb (talk) 01:00, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

Display problem with mathematical formulas in dark themes

A user just posted Wikipedia:Help_desk#Feature request: displaying mathematical equations as png images with solid background. To me, this seems like an accessibility issue because it makes it (almost) impossible to read formulas when a high contrast theme has been selected, even for a person with no visual impairment such as me. You're the experts, so I'll let you judge if it's worth a feature request. — Sebastian 00:11, 2 January 2012 (UTC)    (I stopped watching this page. If you would like to continue the talk, please do so here and ping me.)

NBA color

Many of the colour-combinations used by {{NBA color}} do not meet current WCAG] accessibility guidelines, and so breach MOS:COLOR, because they the foreground and background are not distinguishable from each other. Your comments on how to resolve this are invited, at Template talk:NBA color#Accessibility. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 19:32, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

Headings in Infobox3cols

{{Infobox3cols}}, for example as {{Infobox football biography}} on Fred Barron (footballer), has, four column headings (in that example, Years, Team, Apps†, and (Gls)†). only the first of these is a TH; the other three are TD, and without scope="col". Can this be fixed? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 19:45, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

Re: iPhone 4S

Please see Talk:IPhone_4S#Accessibility. Viriditas (talk) 11:46, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

Question about accessibility tag

The dissociative identity disorder page currently has a {{AccessibilityDispute}} tag at the top. My understanding is that the tag is meant to be used for those with reading issues. Another editor Tomcloyd (talk · contribs) is using it because he believes the article and talk page is hostile and unwelcoming to those with dissociative identity disorder (that is, the page presents no reading issues but Tom believes the tag should be used because it is emotionally distressing for those diagnosed with DID).

Is this the appropriate use of the tag and is this part of the wikiproject's scope? WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 13:27, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

See the nature of the page tagging here and the related administrator's noticeboard posting. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 13:31, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

As someone uninvolved in this project and the DID dispute but who raised a related question above (Current broader activity), I note that this project page still says "The secondary focus is on actively assisting editors who possess disabilities or other characteristics which inhibit their ability to contribute to the encyclopedia." If that isn't the case then that should be deleted, so at least people aren't misled. But I mean, no doubt it makes little sense to use the same tag for readability issues as for contributing issues, but I think some guidance is needed. Without taking sides in the linked noticeboard discussion, I noticed someone said they're leaving Wikipedia and were told 'experienced editors don't normally believe people who make noisy claims about leaving' and 'Threatening to leave is a well-known manipulative ruse regularly used by people'. That does not reflect my view in general, and if it represents the general assumption of many others it would appear to amount to a mass violation of WP:Assume good faith. Eversync (talk) 13:20, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

AGF doesn't require us to pretend that human nature changes merely because the humans in question are editing at the English Wikipedia. meatball:GoodBye has documented the problem of resignation manifestos in response to conflict for many years. It isn't news to anyone who's been around for a while.

Additionally, discounting the claims to be leaving that are made during a dispute is not within the realm of good or bad faith. In the real world, statements like "I hate you, I'm leaving, and I'm never coming back" are not meant to be taken literally or factually. Being aware that people say things when they're upset that they don't actually mean in practice is a sign of experience, not a sign of thinking that these people are trying to hurt Wikipedia (that would be an assumption of bad faith). A threat to leave is often a bit of emotional venting. It is very rarely a factual statement. Someone who persists in making such overblown claims is embarrassing himself in public, but to decide that he's not serious about following through on his threat does not mean that you believe he's trying to hurt Wikipedia (=acting in bad faith).

It happens that threats to leave do actually hurt Wikipedia: they personalize disputes, they contribute to a hostile environment, and they make some people believe that this is a way to get what they want. But I don't know of anyone who thinks that these threats are intended to hurt Wikipedia. Even good-faith actions—like repeatedly announcing that you're so emotionally hurt that you are leaving and never coming back—can hurt Wikipedia.

EverSince, I think that you need to consider the difference between being friendly and assuming good faith. They are unrelated concepts. You can assume good faith—that means "you can assume that the person is trying to help Wikipedia"—in a POV pusher or in a person threatening to leave or in a completely incompetent person, without being the least bit friendly to the person who is inadvertently creating problems or breaking policies. You can be friendly to a person that you know, without a doubt, is deliberately trying to destroy an article. The concepts are unrelated. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:48, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

I've read that non-Wikipedia meatball article before and I think it makes wise points about not bending to or rewarding statements of departure - but it also makes wise points about not punishing or isolating in response. And that doing the latter can itself be harmful to the community if it prevents learning. Unfortunately its own page is divided a priori into insincere versus other departures, which applied to an individual on Wikipedia without specific evidence or psychic powers would surely violate WP:AGF. It seems the tagger was a protagonist and I'm not trying to suggest the end result could have been avoided given POV-pushing etc, but there does not appear to be a neutral Wikipedia accessibility guideline for the related issues. Eversync (talk) 05:39, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

A sincere person just leaves, if they genuinely see no point in continuing to contribute, they just stop. Most people I've seen who aren't simply permanently blocked climb the histrionic mountain of "talk page > noticeboard > arbitration > appeal to Jimbo" with stops along the way for a snack and long rants on the failings of wikipedia. Then they either set up an account at Citizendium where they can edit as an "expert" that lets them really flood the page with their POV, or take it up on Wikipedia Review where they can complain about being dun rong. Generally this is due to the fact that they can't accept that their POV must coexist on a page with another POV. Seen it many times.

To get this thread back on topic, does this wikiproject exist simply to help the visually impaired and learning disabled better read articles? Does it (right now) support making talk pages a less hostile environment (which would be more WP:DR or WP:WQA I would think)? Or is there consensus of project members that it should expand into such a role? Oh, and I've already removed the tag on DID [4].

Put simply, I don't think this project, or any other, should help those who can't put aside their personal opinions to get more of a voice on the page. Even though people might find the article on their diagnosis (or hobby, or lifestyle choice) offensive, that doesn't matter - what matters is whether the page represents the mainstream majority and minority opinions as documented in reliable sources with due weight given to the issues in accordance to their prominence within the relevant literature. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 12:39, 4 February 2012 (UTC)