Re: [orca-list] Our list will be moving to Discourse

[Nolan Darilek <nolan thewordnerd info>]

If you haven't given Discourse a look in a while, I'd recommend checking 
it out.

In particular, over the last year or two it's gotten some screen reader 
improvements. Lists of topics/categories/posts are navigable by 
headings/tables. Posts are navigable by headings or regions. And, I 
believe in the last 6 months or so, focus position is restored to the 
last read message in a topic as is true for sighted folks, and pressing 
Back returns you to the topic you just read in the list.

For folks wanting a more mailing list experience, it's possible to 
subscribe to notifications on a category/topic basis as well. I think 
you only get the first message in a thread for a topic you haven't 
participated in, though maybe I'm wrong and there's a way to get everything.

If I wanted to start a new online group, I'd probably pick Discourse 
over a mailing list. I know it's had issues in the past, but it's also 
rapidly improving, and there's a topic somewhere on the meta forum where 
feedback from screen reader users is actively solicited and acted upon. 
Give it a try, and make suggestions for improvement if something is lacking.

On 9/13/2022 11:36 AM, Kyle via orca-list wrote:
> According to Christian Schoepplein:
> > moving the list to a webbased service will be the most inaccessible 
> > and most complicated solution, especialy if it is a discussion 
> > plattform for and with blind users :-(. Allthough I know the 
> > advantages of those webforums my expirence is that many blind people 
> > will not longer use those plattforms because they are to complicated, 
> > timeintensive and many unecessary content is presented on those 
> > sites. We tried to move mailinglists for blind people to webbased 
> > solutions years ago and they are dead now, the people do not longer 
> > use them :-(.
>
>
> Just to play devil's advocate for a minute ...
>
> https://forum.audiogames.net/
>
> has been online for many years, and many blind people use it. I don't 
> think they have an email list.
>
>
> I do have my reasons for preferring email lists over web-based forums 
> which I have mentioned, most notably the fact that they are easier to 
> keep track of and easier to follow, but accessibility isn't the make 
> or break issue, as accessibility of web-based applications has greatly 
> improved over the years, and forum software is no exception.
>
>
> > I'll try Discurse ofcourse, but I feel this is the wrong plattform 
> > for us :-(. The people that made this decission did not have 
> > accessiblity and inclusion in mind :-(.
>
>
> Interestingly, Discourse has been touted as a highly accessible option 
> as web forum software goes, right up until yesterday. Actually, I can 
> see where a web forum could be a much better platform for discussing a 
> screen reader than email. Consider the email options available to us 
> if something goes wrong with Orca and Thunderbird or Evolution. Maybe 
> it's only my opinion, but I find it much easier to sign into a web 
> forum via w3m in a terminal or text-only console than trying to set up 
> the likes of Mutt or even Alpine. Of course the forum software would 
> need to be able to take text-based browsing into account, just like 
> wiki software for displaying documentation,i.e. to install Arch Linux 
> just as an example, but if done right, it definitely works in those 
> emergency cases. Of course for something like that, Matrix, IRC or 
> some other form of real-time chat may be the best of all options, but 
> I can certainly see the benefit of having a web-based solution as well.
>
>
> I haven't tried this in pure text mode, but it does seem that 
> something that works very similar to groups.io is the gold standard 
> here. If Discourse can do this, then it is obviously the best option, 
> since it is fully free and open source, and is self-hosted rather than 
> running on a specific company's website. The major advantage to 
> groups.io is that it is fully web-based and fully email-based at the 
> same time. I can join and leave groups via the web and email, and I 
> can read every list I'm subscribed to and post on them both ways 
> interchangeably. In fact, everything they do is fully usable both ways 
> as far as I know. So if something goes horribly wrong with Orca, and I 
> find myself in a terminal shell only, as long as I have access to w3m 
> and either Speakup or Fenrir, I should be able to sign into the 
> website and post to the list. Perhaps this web and email-based type of 
> solution is what the GNOME folks are going for here, and if so, this 
> could actually be a good thing. The email features of Discourse do 
> look a little clunky to me from what I've been reading, but we'll have 
> to see how things go I guess. For now, I'll probably play a little 
> with it on one of my servers just to see how things work. The good 
> news is that accessibility isn't the biggest problem here, just some 
> ease of use considerations, especially as it relates to the ability to 
> track discussions.
>
> ~Kyle
>
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> https://help.gnome.org/users/gnome-help/stable/a11y.html