• Kent Mentolado (unregistered) in reply to Monkios
  • Anony-Moose (unregistered) in reply to Kalle

    lol

  • wgc (unregistered) in reply to cyclops
    cyclops:
    Am I the only one who thought the phrase "As long as we, the majority, can access content, that’s all that really matters." was sarcasm in the context it was used?

    Obviously the disability one of the person doing the complaining is a failed sarcasm detector. Quick, someone start a donation fund for his/her transplant!

  • ... (unregistered) in reply to Noah Slater
    Noah Slater:
    > You're right, mentioning handicaps in any way, especially for > a story involving accessibility, is totally unacceptable.

    The term "handicaps" is SO offensive I can only assume it was satire.

    You say you're offended at disabilities being ignored

    Can you quote me on that?

    then say you're offended about being called 'different.'

    Yes, and about being mentally segregated from the normal readership of the site.

    Can you imagine if the post read:

    "Anyway, issues with 'differently coloured people' doesn't matter as long as us whites are more dominant."

    Can you imagine reading this as a black man?

    It's just the same...

    It's a bit hard to not assume everyone is able bodied if we aren't allowed to even NOTICE disabilities!!!

    I never asked you not to "notice", instead only:

    a) Not to label, just like "differently coloured persons" b) Not to segregate, just like "us whites"

    get. over. it.

    fucking whiners...

  • dolo54 (unregistered)

    To Noah: Please read this article on euphemisms http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euphemism

    It explains why all euphemisms are stupid and ultimately pointless, such as 'retarded' at one point was a nicer way of saying 'idiot'. But because it ultimately had the same connotation as 'idiot' it too fell out of favor. 'Differently-abled' was used sarcastically as it is as retarded a euphemism as they come!

  • dolo54 (unregistered)

    Plus, exactly term would you prefer? "Handy-capable"??? Plenty of black people I know have said that the term "people of color" is fairly offensive in that it sounds pretty much like "colored" where as "black" is totally fine with them.

  • (cs) in reply to Noah Slater
    Noah Slater:
    I have taken back my comments about segregation due to the obvious sarcasm which I missed initially.

    To the commenter who mention hearing aids etc... these are not forms of segregation.

    http://www.uhh.hawaii.edu/~ronald/HandicapDefinition.htm

    Anyway... I am going to bow out now as there is nothing left to put.

    Queue the 14 year old d00ds misquoting me and making further issue from this.

    Oh oh I'm much older than 14 but can I misquote you too? In my infinite wisdom I know I should always ask permission first.

  • (cs)

    The irony is that a leftist would call me prejudiced or insensitive for calling Noah "disabled," event though he prefers the word to "differently abled."

    The left creates new PC terms like "differently abled" every ten years or so. They are uncomfortable with minorities-- having taken advantage of them for so long-- that they must do something to remove the perceived "stigma" attached to the old name.

  • dolo54 (unregistered) in reply to operagost
    operagost:
    The irony is that a leftist would call me prejudiced or insensitive for calling Noah "disabled," event though he prefers the word to "differently abled."

    The left creates new PC terms like "differently abled" every ten years or so. They are uncomfortable with minorities-- having taken advantage of them for so long-- that they must do something to remove the perceived "stigma" attached to the old name.

    Ummm ok. wait no. must resist urge. to. feel. troll!

  • James (unregistered)

    Noah Slater is the Jesse Jackson of handicapped people.

  • (cs) in reply to Ted
    Ted:
    erKURITA:
    Why does the link to this WTF is called AcceBiBility. Is it a WTF itself?
    Sounds to me like the programmer of the WTF website is German. Strasse -> Straße
    Ugh. If that assumption is true, the programmer is in desperate need of a German language course. (But the programmer's presumed nationality aside, your explanation sounds disturbingly plausible.)

    There is no trivial mapping of "ss" to "ß" in German. We do use double-s in our language; "ß" is a distinct character, even though it's occasionally transcribed as "ss" where the "ß" letter isn't available (in plain ASCII, for example). In some cases "ss" vs. "ß" makes all the difference between distinct words, e.g. "Masse" (de) = "mass" (en), "Maße" (de) = "measurements" (en).

  • Cochrane (unregistered) in reply to Monkios
    Monkios:
    Eulbobo:
    One of the "first" recommendations for accessibility is the possibility for a website to work without javascript enabled.

    Good try, but it's hard to beat the habits

    The target attribute isn't included in the anchor element in strict XHTML.

    You can do what this guy did or you can change the DTD for your website to allow the target attribute. Most web developper don't know this.

    Or you can use the target attribute even though it's strict XHTML. The impact on actual operation is the same as altering the DTD, only less work.

  • Lucas Goodwin (unregistered)

    DOWN WITH POLITICALLY CORRECT! Truly love it when people who are different from some social/political/physical majority take offense to the most retarded of comments.

    Why should I bend to your whims if you won't bend to mine?

    Captcha: burned - I oh so wanted to burn every over sensitive group I could think of in this comment.

  • kungfu (unregistered) in reply to SomeoneElse
    SomeoneElse:
    First, No one can keep up with the current PC words/phrases we are supposed to use, so I think you are being a bit thin-skinned about the "differently abled" part. As far as I knew, that was the current popular PC euphemism to use.
    Because it became the defacto PC euphemism, it is now not PC.
  • Lucas Goodwin (unregistered)

    On topic:

    Popups are just bad design even with-out the added irony of putting a pop-up link on the term accessibility.

    I'll never understand why designers try to make webpages behave like client apps. Web pages are good at static display. Client apps are good at interaction. People predominately don't go to websites to interact. They go to websites to find information. Interaction should be the rarity in a design for the web, not the majority.

  • (cs) in reply to Lucas Goodwin
    Lucas Goodwin:
    On topic: People predominately don't go to websites to interact. They go to websites to find information. Interaction should be the rarity in a design for the web, not the majority.

    Hello, its not 1995 anymore. Yes "teh intar-webs" weren't really designed to be (ab)used the way they are today. However the web is not used as an academic repository anymore. When I do my banking online, post on forums, buy books I want interactivity. Hell most information repositories are interactive (wikis). The fact that you can do so much with http really is amazing and yes it wasn't intended for the degree of interactivity we're accustomed to now. Still most people are accustomed to it and expect it.

  • (cs) in reply to Lucas Goodwin
    Lucas Goodwin:
    On topic: People predominately don't go to websites to interact. They go to websites to find information. Interaction should be the rarity in a design for the web, not the majority.

    Hello, its not 1995 anymore. Yes "teh intar-webs" weren't really designed to be (ab)used the way they are today. However the web is not used as an academic repository anymore. When I do my banking online, post on forums, buy books I want interactivity. Hell most information repositories are interactive (wikis). The fact that you can do so much with http really is amazing and yes it wasn't intended for the degree of interactivity we're accustomed to now. Still most people are accustomed to it and expect it.

  • Anonymous Coward (unregistered) in reply to Noah Slater
    Noah Slater:
    No, you are right - it wasn't his major point, the objectionable language was used seriously.

    I quote:

    "As long as we, the majority, can access content, that’s all that really matters."

    How would this make you feel as a disabled reader? Alienated? Maybe you will reply "no" but the fact of the matter is that this language distances this site from disabled readers.

    Actually, taking sentence immediately before that into account, I think that was sarcasm.

  • (cs) in reply to dolo54
    dolo54:
    Ummm ok. wait no. must resist urge. to. feel. troll!

    I find them lumpy and squishy when I feel them. Kinda like the week-old rotten kiwi I found under the counter yesterday (silly cats!)

    -- Seejay

  • (cs) in reply to Noah Slater
    Noah Slater:
    Actually, it depend which model of disability you subscribe to .

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disability

    I subscribe to the social model in which I am "disabled" by society - whereas to label me as someone "with" a disability is wrong.

    And yet again, the language is crippled by someone who just plain doesn't understand the words. "Dis" = not, against, missing; "ability" = a capacity or skill to accomplish or do something. Thus, "disability" simply means "lacking a skill or capacity to accomplish something". Is a blind person "disabled"? Well, he/she does not have the capacity to see, ipso, he/she is "dis"-"able" to see, ipso, "disabled". Same for someone lacking legs = lacking the abilities for which legs are necessary = disabled.

    Is that a pejorative or insulting term? Not at all. It expresses a simple fact. Claiming it is "bad" or "offensive" to use that term means, in general, it is "bad" or "offensive" to ever, in any way, describe anyone at all. Thus, if you are offended by simple words being used to describe a state, you should simply ignore all language used anywhere by anyone. If you never listen to anyone and never read anything, you will never be offended.

    You must be equally offended by the words, "age", "gender", "height", "weight", "hair color", etc., so whatever you do, don't get a driver's license or passport. Those words are just exactly as "offensive" as "disabled", because they do exactly the same thing, they describe a state.

    Alex was making a joke. This is, primarily, a humor site for light entertainment. Attacking people for making jokes about how overdone political correctness is (politcal correctness can be defined as, "lying your ass off so that you can avoid losing any votes, because being 'inoffensive' is more important than being honest"), is just dishonest, in my opinion.

    And before you go on some all out attack on me, keep in mind that I've got phyiscal disabilities that hamper my ability to participate in a large number of normal activities. I'm not some majority trying to "keep you down". I'm just sick of people taking perfectly normal words that have absolutely no pejorative meaning, and claiming to be offended by them, just so they can get up on some high horse and make themselves feel superior to others.

    Had Alex been making fun of someone with a disability, that would be, at best, very bad manners, and taking him to task for it would be appropriate. He was, however, making fun of someone messing up their website's ability to deal with the very thing this code was meant to help.

    So, you could say the person who wrote that code was disabled, because he/she can't write code well (lacking an ability). From that point of view, the whole site is one huge mass of offensiveness, and you should just stay away from it. You should also stay away from all other websites that have any humor or opinion on them at all, and stick to technical sites with nothing but mathematical formulae on them.

    So, now I'll get off my high horse, since I've adequately expressed my own view of my own superiority. Ha! Take that!

    Oh, and if the subject at hand had to do with skin pigmentation, as opposed to web site features for the visually impaired, then "people of color" shouldn't be offensive either. For example, in a discussion of sunburn, the statement, "pale skin, like that possessed by caucasians, is more succeptible to sunburn than more heavily melinized skin, such as that possed by people of color, and thus requires a higher SPF sunscreen to be safe". Would you consider that statement offensive? Should it be avoided, thus leaving the subject dangerously incomplete (skin cancer kills, this statement could save lives)? Your statements and attitude are thus capable of resulting in death. Do you still defend them in that circumstance? Is being politically correct, avoiding potential offense at all possible cost, more important than human lives?

  • (cs)
  • Anon (unregistered)

    I once had a job interview for a position that transformed from 'backend systerms developer' to 'web developer' the closer I got to the intervier date. After looking at the source of their site, I decided to go in anyhow just for the hell of it.

    They proudly touted their xhtml strict compliance and accessability right on the site. Being the smartass that I am, I asked them to explain the risk / benifit of wrapping all the content in javascript widgets (page was useless without it turned on), all the 'target=' popups (page didn't validate) and all the forms that died horrible dealths without javascript enabled. Etc, etc, etc.

    The answer I got was:

    "Why should we care about blind people or cripples wanting to use the site? Who cares about them? I know I don't".

    That job interview went well, I assure you.

    (captcha == sanitarium, heh)

  • Sigivald (unregistered)

    Disgruntled: Feature!

    Not seeing those extra links in lynx makes it faster than Google's normal "Jesus Christ why's it so farkin' hard to search with lynx?" interface, doesn't it?

    Honestly, I wish they'd check the agent - assuming lynx reports itself honestly - and do something special and sensible for lynx/links users.

  • (cs) in reply to Sgt. Preston
    Sgt. Preston:
    PJH:
    Turn on your humo(u)r detector.
    I am totally offended by your patronizing way of accommodating my spelling preference.

    xD

  • (cs) in reply to Michael Buschbeck
    Ted:
    erKURITA:
    Why does the link to this WTF is called AcceBiBility. Is it a WTF itself?
    Sounds to me like the programmer of the WTF website is German. Strasse -> Straße

    While I can understand the ss -> ß mapping, replacing letters with their ASCII lookalikes is ridiculous. It's even funnier in the Russian version. Ы is translated to b. Ь too. I just wonder what would be Ъ translated to? Maybe... b? The other russian letters seem to be simply transliterated. WTF?

    I wonder what was the point behind ß -> B? Transliteration seems to make much more sense (though ss -> ß -> ss is woodentablish).

  • Rich (unregistered) in reply to Gsquared
    Gsquared:
    For example, in a discussion of sunburn, the statement, "pale skin, like that possessed by caucasians, is more succeptible to sunburn than more heavily melinized skin, such as that possed by people of color, and thus requires a higher SPF sunscreen to be safe".

    What I find offensive is the implication that I am a person without color.

    Rich

  • no, YOUR name! (unregistered) in reply to Lucas Goodwin
    Lucas Goodwin:
    I'll never understand why designers try to make webpages behave like client apps. Web pages are good at static display. Client apps are good at interaction. People predominately don't go to websites to interact. They go to websites to find information. Interaction should be the rarity in a design for the web, not the majority.
    Sounds like someone is Web-2.0-disabled. Hey man, I feel your pain. My browser lost its CSS in a terrible car accident.
  • (cs)

    The content of accessibility.htm:

    <HTM><BODY BGCOLOR=WHITE ONLOAD=javascript:alert("Welcome to our accessibility page.");><HEAD><TITLE>Accessibility
Accessibility. We don't give a flying 
<font color="BLUE" face="TAHOMA">CRAP
<font color="NORMAL" face="TIMES"> about it, thanks
 for asking.
</font></font>
    <font color="BLUE" face="TAHOMA"><font color="NORMAL" face="TIMES"> </font></font>
  • Neil (unregistered) in reply to cyclops
    cyclops:
    Am I the only one who thought the phrase "As long as we, the majority, can access content, that’s all that really matters." was sarcasm in the context it was used?

    Exactly

  • (cs) in reply to cyclops
    cyclops:
    Am I the only one who thought the phrase "As long as we, the majority, can access content, that’s all that really matters." was sarcasm in the context it was used?

    That's what I took away from it. I would have called it 'ironic overstatement' (or maybe "Floyd"), but sarcasm works just as well.

    It was clearly intended to be tongue-in-cheek.

    Oh crap. Now I've offended all those readers without tongues. Or cheeks. Or both.

    Damn. By writing "oh crap," I've offended all those people that can't crap.

  • (cs) in reply to dolo54
    dolo54:
    To Noah: Please read this article on euphemisms http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euphemism

    It explains why all euphemisms are stupid and ultimately pointless, such as 'retarded' at one point was a nicer way of saying 'idiot'. But because it ultimately had the same connotation as 'idiot' it too fell out of favor. 'Differently-abled' was used sarcastically as it is as retarded a euphemism as they come!

    Yeah. I'm going to have to agree on that, "differently abled" was dead as a euphemism the day my college Electromagnetism introduced this solution to Maxwell's Equations as the "Differently Abled Potential." He's British and teaching at an American University, so we all laughed, and he looked at us in horror and followed up with, "That's terrible! You shouldn't laugh at that!"

    Ah, culture clash.

  • (cs) in reply to Noah Slater
    Noah Slater:
    No, you are right - it wasn't his major point, the objectionable language was used seriously. (...) It's subtle,

    And, apparently, so was the sarcasm.

  • (cs)

    Anyway, TRWTF is that he's clearly aware of the bug, since he made a special case to cover it up for ClaBics Week, but didn't bother actually fixing it

  • (cs) in reply to Spectre
    Spectre:
    While I can understand the ss -> ß mapping, replacing letters with their ASCII lookalikes is ridiculous. It's even funnier in the Russian version. Ы is translated to b. Ь too. I just wonder what would be Ъ translated to? Maybe... b? The other russian letters seem to be simply transliterated. WTF?
    Even more oddly, on the Russian site, "сс" is converted into "B". There are several "nedelya klaBiki" posts. Not sure what sort of weird round-trip transliteration is going on here!
  • AC (unregistered) in reply to Noah
    Noah Slater:
    The term "differently abled" is offensive to me as a disabled person, as is your assumption that all of your readers are able bodied.

    I am a disabled person and I read your site - please don't refer to me as if:

    a) I am "different" is some way b) I should not be reading your site due to my disablement

    Perhaps you should have thought of this before you made the link to your accessibility page require javascript. Obviously you need to read the site much more if that is the kind of code you produce.

  • my name (unregistered) in reply to Rick

    Not only google. For example, they wanted to prevent user from mirroring their site with offline browser.

  • jbinaz (unregistered) in reply to Noah Slater
    Noah Slater:
    No, you are right - it wasn't his major point, the objectionable language was used seriously.

    I quote:

    "As long as we, the majority, can access content, that’s all that really matters."

    Maybe I inserted my own <sarcasm> tag, but I thought it was there.

    jbinaz

  • (cs) in reply to Rich
    Rich:
    Gsquared:
    For example, in a discussion of sunburn, the statement, "pale skin, like that possessed by caucasians, is more succeptible to sunburn than more heavily melinized skin, such as that possed by people of color, and thus requires a higher SPF sunscreen to be safe".

    What I find offensive is the implication that I am a person without color.

    Rich

    It's not that you're without color, but rather you are "colorly challenged". So instead of "people of color" we should use "colorly enhanced".

  • (cs) in reply to Noah
    Noah Slater:
    The term "differently abled" is offensive to me as a disabled person, as is your assumption that all of your readers are able bodied.

    I am a disabled person and I read your site - please don't refer to me as if:

    a) I am "different" is some way b) I should not be reading your site due to my disablement

    It offends me to no end that it is not legal to shoot habitial whiners of those who don't use the whiner's version of favor de jeur of polical correct speak. I was born with the "shoot the damn whiney-ass polical correct control freak" gene, and it is blatant discrimination to try and deny me the blissful joy of giving into my natural inclinations.

  • Zelda Fan (unregistered) in reply to Martijn van Zal
    Martijn van Zal:
    I once saw a site where they did all their hyper links in Bar style :)

    Weren't they featured on the Daily WTF?

  • Joseph Newton (unregistered) in reply to Noah Slater
    Noah Slater:
    No, you are right - it wasn't his major point, the objectionable language was used seriously.

    I quote:

    "As long as we, the majority, can access content, that’s all that really matters."

    How would this make you feel as a disabled reader? Alienated? Maybe you will reply "no" but the fact of the matter is that this language distances this site from disabled readers.

    It's subtle, but it's important.

    Noah, you are missing the point. One ability you will have to develop if you wish to enjoy the discourse here is the ability to recognize sarcasm. The article concerned the cynical attitude of the IT industry towards accessibility. The sentence you cite was an attempt to characterize the underlying attitude expresed in design and marketing decisions.

    As to terminology, well, that's up to you. You can be as "disabled" as you choose. Those persons with disabilities whom I choose to associate with do not make that choice. Each recognizes that he or she differs from the majority in one or another capacity, expects and asserts the right to reasonable accomommations, and otherwise moves on with life with the set of abilities he or she does possess.

    I suggest you do likewise.

  • Caleb (unregistered)

    Another WTF that I don't think anyone has mentioned: The popup is pointing to a page within the same site. It is standard practice to keep internal links in the same window and only create new ones, at most, for external links.

  • Jon (unregistered) in reply to Kent Mentolado
  • yet another Matt (unregistered)

    at least its not a flash animation.

  • anon (unregistered) in reply to Noah Slater

    seriously, stfu. whining like this is why the discrimination you speak of happens.

  • anon (unregistered)

    hmm, i forgot how much of a wtf this forum is.

    the above should be quoting:

    Noah Slater:
    Intention does not get anyone off the hook. It's the collective ignorance of the masses that hurts minorities - not individual malice.

    Anyway, what attitude are you speaking of? Should I be afraid to voice my opinion in case YOU don't like it?

  • iw (unregistered)

    I'm sure the accessibility page itself says something like:

    "Accessibility: You can't."

  • (cs) in reply to Noah Slater
    Noah Slater:
    > You're right, mentioning handicaps in any way, especially for > a story involving accessibility, is totally unacceptable.

    The term "handicaps" is SO offensive I can only assume it was satire.

    You say you're offended at disabilities being ignored

    Can you quote me on that?

    then say you're offended about being called 'different.'

    Yes, and about being mentally segregated from the normal readership of the site.

    Can you imagine if the post read:

    "Anyway, issues with 'differently coloured people' doesn't matter as long as us whites are more dominant."

    Can you imagine reading this as a black man?

    It's just the same...

    It's a bit hard to not assume everyone is able bodied if we aren't allowed to even NOTICE disabilities!!!

    I never asked you not to "notice", instead only:

    a) Not to label, just like "differently coloured persons" b) Not to segregate, just like "us whites"

    Hmmm .... I am quite confused about some of the issues mentioned and the language used here. Maybe you can help me out.

    But before I address my confusion: let me state clearly here that I am totally opposed against jokes or satire which make use of a person's (or group of persons) medical conditions, mental conditions, skin pigmentation, gender etc. to make their point. Doing so is just savage .... We are all better than that (I fervently hope so).

    Now to my points:

    1.) There is obviously a great sensitivity as to the correct language vocabulary when addressing the issue of handicapped people - including the use of the term "handicapped". AFAIK (and I am not a native english speaker), the term "handicapped" translates directly into the corresponding german term "behindert" (yes - I am german) and as far as I can remember language lessons in school, "handicapped" was a correct translation for "behindert" and the correct term to describe people with disabilities. Pls correct me if am wrong.

    2.) You guys talk about labeling and segregrating groups of people through use of language. Obviously, it is correct to label certain groups of people like for example "men" and "women" - if we did not do that then there would not these handy places convienent places labelled "gents" and "ladies" in public places. Other labels are of course offensive - the most offensive example I can think of comes right from my people's history: "Juedische Untermenschen" and "Arier" - I think you all can understand that even without understanding german - the mindset behind that one caused the death of more than six millions jews and countless other persons back in world war 2. The point I am trying to make now is that labeling people is what we humans do - it is part of basic human nature. We do it all the time and the behaviour as such has not significantly throughout human history - in this point we are all still savage.

    3.) As I am writing this my colleague (a civil engineer & architect) is reading over my shoulder and told me that he constantly has to think about the needs of physically handicapped people when designing his projects and that to him not addressing the needs of that specific group of people in terms of physical accessibility is simply unacceptable. And he this talking about this issue all the time when presenting his desgns to his principals .... so for myself it is again obvious that is impossible not to address the needs and issues concerning handicapped people without identifying and labeling them as a group.

  • (cs) in reply to me
    me:
    It's a basic rule of the internet - no matter how obvious you make the sarcasm, someone will take it seriously :D

    And that is why Alex needs to sit down and implement a [sarcasm][/sarcasm] for the BBCODE used on this site ...

  • (cs) in reply to Rich
    Rich:
    Gsquared:
    For example, in a discussion of sunburn, the statement, "pale skin, like that possessed by caucasians, is more succeptible to sunburn than more heavily melinized skin, such as that possed by people of color, and thus requires a higher SPF sunscreen to be safe".

    What I find offensive is the implication that I am a person without color.

    Rich

    <sarcasm>Rich - you got a colour: pale.</sarcasm>

    As for the SPF thingy:

    1.) There is one exception: Infants and young children with dark sking pigmentation still require the same (very high) SPF's as similar kids with pale skin pigmentation due to the fact that kids in these age groups do deal well with UV due to their biological development stage at these age groups.

    2.) Regardless of your skin pigmentation exposing yourself to UV radiation will give you a tan (hopefully not a sunburn). If your skin pigmentation is dark to begin with, you will just become darker .....

    3.) A certain amount of UV radiation is required to keep your body healthy (for infants/toddlers: the vitamin D issue). Check on Wikipedia.

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