This is a cringe analogy but may be, just may be this will help since this is hacker news: think of the "Master Foo and the Programming Prodigy" and how writing comments is for your "future self." Well, making things accessible is for your future elderly or injured self if you're able bodied today. If you can't do it for others out of mere empathy, at the very least do it for a potential version of yourself in the future!
[0] http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/unix-koans/prodigy.html
Edit : this is actually mentionned in other comments.
This site especially has a vocal block of libertarian leaning self centered priviliged tech workers who see an affront in doing anything for anyone other than themselves, even if it is in their own best interest.
if the bartender had been apologetic I wouldn't have felt so furious, but his utter disdain had my blood boiling.
But no, I didn't pester him, I just went to seethe in a corner and ask my friends for help.
Also -- if the bar is on the first floor why would they be taking kegs upstairs in the first place?
also, how is it a reasonable expectation for me to crawl on my hands and knees up a flight of grimy stairs in public? why don't you try it sometime? it'd give you a taste of what it's like for me to live.
Good manners? The business he represents is unable to accommodate a customer's needs. He should be nice about that. We have no indication that the bartender got berated.
Are you American by chance? I find that lots of Americans seem to want and even feel they're owed that kind of false sincerity/kindness from "low skill" workers they interact with.
Also I doubt it got to the point of someone telling OP to fuck off just for asking if there's an elevator, there has to be more to that story.
Also also there's no indication that the same business that owns the bar is the same business that owns the building, maybe they just rent a space on the bottom floor. So again, not the bartenders responsibility to apologize for something they have no control over, and possibly they're not even a representative of the same business that owns the building that chose not to include the accommodations.
In regards to accessibility accommodations, the only responsibility I can see to the bartender is telling people that there's not an elevator when they ask and he seems to have fulfilled that.
So if you have a serious situatuon, like a disabled person stuck in the basement, and the responce is just, leave them there? Like what has to happen for the barment to get off his ass and get the manager?
- 'Mate, you have a dead body at the bar!'
- 'Sorry pal, calling the police is not part of my job description'
To the customer, you represent the business. I see no reason why an able bodied man can't help, but if so, he should get someone who can. Whatever is the highest level manager or owner present has figure out the problem
This is true to a sometimes weird degree, but...
> there's no indication that the same business that owns the bar is the same business that owns the building
A business is going to get judged on its physical space regardless of ownership or fairness.
There's a bar in Amsterdam with a rather unique tap collection and a remarkably annoying location, but every time I mentioned it to one of my friends there neither of those things would come up - it was always some variation of "oh isn't that the one where you have to walk up a sketchy spiral staircase to use the toilet?"
The portion you quoted from my post doesn't necessarily represent my actual opinion, I was just pointing out his statement doesn't always hold true.
But I don't disagree with you, you can definitely judge a business for it's physical aspects, however I don't think your friends go up to the bartender demanding they fix the sketchy stairs, and then get upset to the point your "blood boils" when they don't personally apologize to you for them. There's a difference between judging and complaining with your friends privately, and hassling someone that happens to work there over stuff they have no control over.
The value calculus of something always seems to be heavily dependent on who gets the bill.
> even if it is in their own best interest.
I'm one of those people blessed with knowing what's best for other people, but I restrict my efforts to giving them unwanted advice. I don't care to force it on them.
It isn't that he was against accommodations, it just didn't make sense for that location where each spot was right by the door.
Why? Because state law required that any part of the building being modified be brought into compliance with modern building code. In this case:
- Replacing the doors with outward-opening doors would mean bringing the doorframe into compliance by widening it
- Widening the doorframe would mean widening the alcove into which it opens, and in a 19th-century masonry mid-rise every wall is structural
- Widening the door also means widening the short (3-4 steps) staircase leading up to it and bringing them into code by making them less steep
- Making the stairs less steep means they are now longer than the alcove and protrude beyond the property line onto the sidewalk
The usual result was the pool got filled in, as it was too expensive to upgrade it.
Who came out ahead? Nobody but the lawyers.
"I read years ago that _nonspecific_thing_" should be a red flag for making broad judgements about the merits of accessibility. One story about "welfare queens" poisoned millions of people against anti-poverty measures for generations.
I'm sorry I don't have a photographic memory. But hey, a simple google search comes up with:
"In California, serial plaintiffs and their lawyers have found these cookie-cutter lawsuits to be lucrative as plaintiffs can claim statutory damages, compensatory damages, treble damages and attorneys’ fees."
https://hotellaw.jmbm.com/ada_defense_lawyer_pool_lift_l.htm...
So there's obviously something I'm missing here ... would you care to explain ?
The ADA is interesting because, to my understanding, the law asks for ‘reasonable’ accommodation without defining what that is. So it leaves it to the courts to decide. It is reasonable that new building should be completely wheelchair accessible. But is it reasonable for architecturally or historically significant sites to be modified for wheelchair accessibility? That’s where the lawyers come in.
But yes it gets increasingly hard to have a good solution for everyone when there are so few spaces.
Or like management of Grenfell tower in UK was asked to address fire safety problems, they didn't want to spend the money and about 100 people burned alive. Also the building is gone.
Or like that apartment block in US that collapsed recently.
Or like management of Bhopals fertiliser plant, that failed due to lack of maintenance and produced positions gasses that killed thousands of people, ofcourse starting woth employees of the plant. The CEO ofcourse escaped to US and US is refusing to extradite him.
In fact I don't know how to apply your advise to anything safety related, there are literally millions of examples of people saving a bit of money on safety and dying as a result and killing people around them.
or you know there really could be... There is entire sub-group of lawyers that are ADA Trolls, just like there are Patent Trolls, and Copyright Trolls. They exist not to make business more accessible, but to line their pockets and make business hard for everyone, these lawyers give the ADA regulations a bad name and it a real and actual problem.
>>Vast majority of people want to completely ignore accommodation and absolutely hate being told to do the bare minimum for other people
Ummm no. That is not actually true. the problem is often times the regulations are inflexible, and unaccommodating themselves businesses are often put in position where they simply can not comply for some reason or another to every letter of very regulation (of which are vast, vague, and complex)
Business owners also do not like to be continually threatened with heavy fines, and government violence in order to operate their business.
>This site especially has a vocal block of libertarian leaning self centered privileged tech workers
it is very sad that we have come to the point where only authoritarian control via threat of violence are to be seen as the "acceptable" solution to a social problem. At one point the liberal solution was anti-violence now it seems the only acceptable solution for vocal block of ill-liberal self centered privileged tech workers is to use the power of government violence to force their will upon others believing in their own moral certitude that their world view is the "correct" one, and anyone that disagrees has to be selfish immoral bigot or uncaring capitalist scum, or other such thing......
Liberal solutions instead would be using other incentives to persuade people to voluntary solutions
Another one talking about the virtues of Trump government. Its kind of surreal in its divergence from reality.
I really feel for people with disabilities, but there's a heavy profit motive to abuse the ADA, and that's what causes people to hate it. There's other issues as well like rising costs of construction and doing anything productive due to red tape that are no doubt related, but what people see are the ADA trolls.
At the end of the day the question is, are we content to let them crawl? Are we content for the public space to be segregated? Would we allow this for our family or ourselves?
If we consider these things unacceptable then we need regulations. Regulations come with drawbacks and avenues for abuse, all of them, but it shouldn't be the primary and prevalent focus when they're put into place to protect marginalized sections of society. In a healthy society, I would expect of a tech forum to mainly be discussing tech tips and methods to comply with these norms. The truth is people don't want to do the minimum work to help these people, western societies are incredibly individualist and every effort or capital spent on helping others is seen as personal injury. It's this mindset that makes it so even in new products and constructions, the simplest norms aren't applied. I think there needs to be a change of mindset, because the first thing that should come to people's minds when reading this article is the social good that will come of it, not the reactionary examples of abuse.
It's arguable, but in my opinion you've got the chain of causality backwards. People here focus on the trolls because the ADAs popularity is low, they don't like the effort it entails, and they don't like government regulations in general, and they'd just as much not have to apply norms at all.
I can tell you the vast majority of businesses are not ADA compliant and do just fine.
Now…I don’t quite remember much when the ADA has done good, but I do remember that one troll shopping for a settlement check. This is the popularity problem the ADA faces.
Wishing does not make it so, and human psychology does not work that way and never will. if you continue to base your responses of this flawed view of reality you will continue to be disappointed.
One must plan for how humans actually are, you know reality, not how we wish things were. This is often the problem with regulations, economic policies, etc. People crafting them are crafting them for a population of people that does not actual exist, so they always fail
Humans are tribal, that tribe is generally viewed to max out at about 100 people or so, any group that is larger than that is going to be an abstract concept not something that can be held deeply personal. For a pure altruist motive that is the target, that is why local community groups are far more effective at charity than national programs, the people are more personally connected.
>>western societies are incredibly individualist
Through out history collectivist societies always fail because they are incompatible with human psychology. A collectivist society must stay small, it could never be the size of a city let alone a nation state. Individualist pursuits are the best way to organized large groups.
Collectivism works at a small, family or tribe level, not for a mass population
Society is changed by writing laws and changing minds. Cultures evolve, people acquire new perspectives on issues based on their peers and the discussions they partake in. Regulations are being written and discussions are being held as to their moral importance. No one is content with wishing on a star for a better world.
As for collectivism, you only need to look across the Atlantic for examples of functional western societies which strike a different balance than America between individualism and collectivism.
You can also look at the past, back when black people weren't allowed in white businesses and black schoolgirls had to be escorted by the state to be allowed to attend school. People didn't ascribe to a fatalist view back then, they believed things could change and they fought for it.
I always find this argument ironic given the Jim Crow laws you are referring to were government regulations that required said discrimination, they were collectivist policies being imposed upon individuals. Would discrimination still have occurred absolutely, but it would not have been as wide spread nor as abusive. Only government action can cause the kind of oppression seen, only government has that monopoly of violence to allow such perversion of morality, that is the hazard of putting your faith in government.
Just like the EU nations you admire so much you only seem to want to ever talk about the positives of this "balance" of regulation and never talk about the enumerable negatives that come from those policies
Do you believe the EU is rainbows and unicorns and none of the their policies have any downsides, that the American model is 100% evil, and the EU model is 100% good? are you that much of a "naive idealist".
I do not claim the American model is perfect, though I am pretty sure we will differ on where the root cause of most of the problems are (hint I blame federal overreach for most of America's problems)
>>Society is changed by writing laws and changing minds. Cultures evolve, people acquire new perspectives on issues based on their peers and the discussions they partake in
Culture evolves yes, and laws always follow culture, not the other way around. you can not regulate ethics or morality, and attempts and trying always fail.
That is my point. The regulations that work, that do not have massive corruption, or massive amounts of unintended consequences or regulations that only need to control a small portion of outliers in society. to prevent actions that are viewed by the vast vast majority (not just a plurality, or even a simply majority) as abuse.
When "democracy" passes laws and regulations based on plurality, or simple majority you run into all kinds of problems, these are compounded even further if the regulation are acted via fiat authority by an unelected administrative state.
>> Do you believe the EU is rainbows and unicorns and none of the their policies have any downsides, that the American model is 100% evil, and the EU model is 100% good? are you that much of a "naive idealist".
I see now you were not being patronizing by accident, but are willfully insulting. Painting a caricature of my argument does not strengthen yours.
Why can't a university afford subtitles, this is not a tall order, its a job a part-time first year student could do.
This action may result in some benefits for those who need it, but the main beneficiaries will be law firms.
> Americans with Disabilities Act
> First, the ADA requires all places of public accommodation, including retail businesses, to remove barriers to access whenever it is readily achievable to do so..
> "Readily achievable" means easily accomplishable, and able to be done without much difficulty or expense. This is an ongoing obligation, and is required even if you are not performing any renovations.
> In addition, if you are altering or renovating an existing building, the ADA also requires you to make the altered areas readily accessible to and usable by people with disabilities. The ADA also requires you provide an accessible route from the building entrance to the altered areas, so long as doing so does not result in disproportionate costs.
> "Disproportionate costs" are defined as those costs exceeding 20% of the overall cost of the alterations. For example, if you are spending $50,000 on alterations, under the ADA you may have to spend up to an additional S10,000 providing an accessible route.
https://www.cambridgema.gov/-/media/Files/CDD/EconDev/Interi...
They were. AM talk radio hosts would whine about that one for years.
- complex information architecture, with nuanced relationships between nodes communicated by position, spacing, boundaries and other visual cues
- real-time data updates that transform the document in arbitrarily complex ways
- screens where nearly every square inch is actionable, and these actions transform the document in arbitrarily complex ways
- controls that are not simply a button or text link, but regions full of structured content embedded within them.
- screens that respond to inputs in real-time in arbitrary complex ways
- rich graphics that eschew the traditional document model, with its established accessibility guidelines, altogether
To make such an application accessible requires:
1.) auditing all the visual cues, writing supplementary text if necessary, and adding the ARIA properties to communicate these cues
2.) communicating all document transformation to the user, either by navigating focus to the new content, or communicated to the user some other way. In the case of real-time updates, this also can't obstruct the normal usage of the site.
This is certainly possible at a small scale, but very hard to do consistently by an organization if engineers and designers on each product team don't have a solid understanding of how screen-readers work or the ARIA spec. It is also hard to have any quality control on this without having someone actually test every product on a screen reader.
Unfortunately, few engineers (and even fewer designers) have this expertise. Many years ago, I did a 12-week, 70-hour-a-week web development bootcamp, and, of those 800+ hours, exactly 0 hours and 0 minutes were spent on web accessibility. To be honest, I doubt the instructors even knew anything on the subject.
Sure, it would be easier to build an accessibility web by just simplifying product requirements. But I have had little-to-no success doing this as an IC engineer.
That is a bit like saying "todays applications do all sorts of potentially dangerous operations and need to be integrated with social media etc. Making all that secure is certainly possible at a small scale, but very hard to do consistently by an organization if engineers and designers on each product team don't have a solid understanding of IT security work or the OWASP top 10. It is also hard to have any quality control on this without having someone actually pen-testing every product."
Yes, accessibility is work. But not optional. If you build non-accessible websites you are just bad at your job.
A forcing function is needed. Those wheelchair ramps didn’t get built because architects and real estate developers thought it was fun and interesting.
My last company, despite facing an actual accessibility lawsuit, was willing to let all 3 of the engineers with the most accessibility expertise walk (including myself) rather than allow a long-term WFH policy.
One very simple step a dev can take is to just `tab` over their pages and check that important elements (links, buttons, etc) receive focus. Especially if they toggle something on the page via JS. If something doesn't, replace the div soup w/ a focusable element like `<a href="javascript:;"></a>`
For those saying accessibility is hard, doing just this one thing can make a big difference.
The <a> tag, on the other hand, just does all that for you.
Not as far as I know, nobody I knew was hating on any disabled people, but laziness, procrastination, and the cost of accomodations was enough to prevent quite a few businesses from accomodating the disabled ( with ramps and such ) until they were legally forced to do it under penalty of law... And even today only businesses considered "public accommodations" are required to comply... that's it really not hate, just laziness.
Your proposal falls prey to a sort of "investment-productivity monster." What if we identified the brightest kids in 2nd grade and spent all of our education resources on them, while shuffling the rest into the Amazon Fulfillment Centers? Maybe that'd increase overall productivity. But it'd be wrong.
Let's for a moment disregard that there are a lot more wheelchair users than young black women in Chicago, and that the wheelchair users obviously are a lot more disadvantaged - a government is not a business. Its goal is not necessarily to use money "ideally beneficial" in a utilitarian way - its goal is to keep a society working, which in our liberal democracy environment means protecting the weak and keeping things relatively fair (in the sense: to help those who cannot help themselves).
While every young black woman from Chicago can stay in school, attend night school, or spend time in a library, not even the most athletic wheelchair-user can consistently hop their wheelchair (plus body-weight) up the stairs. And even if every single black young Chicago-woman becomes a new entrepreneur, resulting in a larger net-good for society as a whole, the wheelchair-user still would have the same problem.
So surprised to see so many negative comments here. Wondering if wheelchair users were hated back in the days when the law about wheelchair ramps was passed. Accessibility of websites is a real problem for blind people. And the thing is it is relatively easy to make your website accessible:
* Use simple HTML controls: all of them work great in all screenreaders. Only when custom behavior is implemented in javascript this might cause problems. * Test accessibility with keyboard. That fancy combobox that you wrote that expands with beautiful navigation cannot be opened from keyboard.
This ADA guidance actually doesn't even mention this. Sure, providing alt descriptions can be useful but it's almost never preventing me from using a website. But a combobox or a button that won't click is a real problem. But I hope this is just the first step in making Internet more blind-friendly.