Category: The Rave Board
Hi.
I wanted to share something with you.
It made me happy so i put it in this topick instead of geeks.
Anyway i wanted to become a member on a forum and they had this character thing.
I contacted them and explained that i couldn't read it because i was blind and not only they registered me with in minutes but after a few minutes i got another email from them telling me that they removed it and added something more accessible.
Something very simple but i think it is a very good idea.
It asks you a simple question like 3 and 5 and you have to write the answer.
So they know it's not a machine.
Their quick respons really amased me.
If the forum was in English i would share it with you but unfortunately it's not.
I am very happy because of that.
I am glad that some people can understand.
Hey that is an awesome alternitive! I wish more sites could do that sort of thing. lol It would make everything so much easier. hehe
Michelle
That's great. I hope you told them you were going to share the story about what they did with a bunch of people.
Anyway, that's great, and thanks for sharing the story with us. Wish yahoo and others were as accomodating.
Bob
Hi Nikos
I had a similar quick response from someone on another website recently. It's booksfree.com, a site where you can rent books on CD. Some of their books are on both regular CD and on MP3 files. I didn't know how to tell the difference and sent an e-mail asking if there was someway to tell. I got an immediate response saying that there was a graphic beside the topic of each book delineating whether it was the MP3 or regular CD. I explained that I couldn't see the screen, and again, almost immediately, things were changed so that there is now a tag that let's screen readers know whether the book is CD or MP3.
that's really awsome. think i will go to PHPBB, and see if it has it there.
and ooo, sounds good for my forum too
Hi again.
I am bringing this topicck back again to say about another olternative i saw instead of typing characters. If you go to the website http://hostfile.org and you go to the join link after the terms and conditions there are a few radio buttons with some statements. Only one is correct and you can only find it if you read the terms. So i found this methot very clever and accessible.
oh wow. i realy wish that these asian forum websites that i try to join up with had those methods instead of the captcha immages. maybe i will suggest that to the webmaster at this khmer music website that i go to.
Hi: I'm always glad to learn of web sites making accomodations in that way and when I find one I am always happy to give praise for doing such good work.
Geia sou Niko! Wow! This is from a Greek website? Oxi! Den to peistevo! I've never ever seen a Greek site that went out of it's way to be accessible! Come to think of it, I've never seen any site that did what you've described, fast answers and actually changing the site content to help the blind? Plus, the way they did it was very creative. I think these sites should be commended and brought to the attention of the blind community at large. Someone needs to let them know that their work is highly appreciated and that they will be promoted for it. Btw, Tti einai afto site? lol Den ksero i leksi gia website. As for the hostfile one, will it let you upload stuff and if so, how large can the files be and how long do they stay up?
Hi Tifanitsa.
The greek website is http://forum.alkinoos.gr/
I have to say that i didn't visit for long time so i hope the registration prossess is still as it was when i joined with not having to enter characters.
It is mainly a music forum so you could join and see if people like rebetika etc.
Now for the host website i decided it wasn't what i needed so i didn't use it much. At the time i was looking for websites to upload my music and other audio work for people to listen to but you could look at it.
And the greek word for website is istoselida.
Dude! That's fantastic! Well done Kirie Niko, and well done web site! OK guys, here's what we need to do. Whenever we come across inaccessibility like this, suggest it as an alternative to capture, or however you smell it, grin. See this is how it should be. When you're on the internet, especially if yu run a forum as part or whole of your service, you want people to sign up, put up barriers and they won't, grin. Simple really. So yeah! Well done to that site. Here's to more like this.
Just bringing this topick back because i read in another topick that zone has got the typing characters thing. Maybe if the admins read this they could change it a bit. The zone one has audio which is good but i like more the olternatives that i wrote here.
you know, we should site these sites as examples to other companies and just try to make something so that others will see there is competition. More specifically, by say, letting yahoo know that you highly preffer gmail or hotmaiil or whatever because of their willingness to acomodate could perhaps trigger something. Stuff like that. I haven't e-mailed any websites for captcha or anything mainly because I have found other alternatives. But still, way to go!
ok, so i went and actually came into the irc channel and asked someone to help me with registration for the pirate bay (torrent site). There were no admins on at the time apparently, so someone told me to take a screenshot of the page (you hit shift plus the print screen key) and it takes a screenshot image of the whole window and puts it on the clipboard. So, what i did is open paint, and then pasted in the image and saved the file. Then i uploaded it to imageshack.us and then the person told me what the code said. So, I was able to register. To my surprise, you needed captchas for uploading torrents and a lot of other things. Well, it turns out that (and i don't know how, I guess by time stamps or logs) they sent me an e-mail today in the morning and this is what it said verbatim:
Hi.
Missed you in the irc-channel and no other admins
awake when you registered at thepiratebay.
Just wanted to say that i made your account
vip soo you don't need to enter any captha codes
if you wanna upload any torrents. No ads aswell, might help
with the screen reader.
Have a nice day!
Himo
Admin
The pirate bay
So, this really excites me! I sent him a huge thank you "letter" and commended him for his treatment and contrasted yahoo to it. I also suggested getting the freely available audio captchas or designing questions or challenge fraces and gabe sites as examples to help him out and shed the light in the matter. Even to contact them via e-mail requires a captcha. But anyway if you wanna register just get into the irc channel (or perhaps they'll come up with something) but i really liked this as well.