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Posted: Fri Jan 21, 2005 3:07 am
by feyd
the next version of mine will likely switch the policies under which anonymous users can see the site. i.e. All user posted links will not be linked (for anonymous users only). All personal details (sans username, maybe) will be removed as well under this policy. That includes the member list and view profile page.
I'm going to be working on getting that modification into DevNet's code in the next week, I hope.. unsure of a release date for it though, as we're using cvs now.
The script originally, was a change to the profile/registration page that removed the signature and website components. The back end processor would immediately add any IP that tried posting either of those fields (as a human couldn't, the fields didn't exist)
This time around, I'll probably remove everything but the usename, password, and email address fields from the registration page. With everything working in the edit profile page, and being visible to registered users only.
This will take care of anyone trying to get a page rank bonus from Google among others, I hope, as there won't be a link for them to see. We'll see what happens when I get it published.
Posted: Fri Jan 21, 2005 3:09 am
by onion2k
fresh wrote:How could handicap accessiblity laws affect websites, the output is text based, and you could suggest the page is a text file, which it is, and therfore the author can not be obligated to make it accesible to the blind or deaf. Just like a book or magazine, you certainly don't see Rolling Stones Magazine including brail. However, I don't know the laws on website accesibility so there may be a valid argument that I have overlooked.
Anyway, nice code man

The UK law that covers it is called the DDA, Disability Discrimination Act. There are equivalents in most other countries. What it says is that disabled people should be able to access any information a business provides if abled bodied people can access it too. I brought it up in the thread this has spun off from as it was about a security system that requires the user to retype a passkey thats written in an image, and is
not available in the text. Any blind person using the sight with either a brail reader or a screen reader would be blocked from accessing it.
The law can also be interpretted as requiring sites to be built in such a way that they make sense when browsed through a screen reader.. so table or image based layouts would become 'illegal' if you can't access the information in the site without linearizing the HTML (taking all the formating out basically).
This is not a particularly new thing. American Airlines were sued over their website under the Americans With Disabilities Act back in 2002, Barnes & Noble and Claires before that, and AOL before that:
http://www.wired.com/news/print/0,1294,55708,00.html
People are beginning to notice. This is going to be a big issue this year.
Posted: Fri Jan 21, 2005 4:30 am
by fresh
hey feyd read this page here:
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1752901,00.asp
it has some good tips for combatting comment spam, which is what this forum is experiencing.. some ways google/msn/yahoo has come up with to prevent indexing certain links, etc..
which reiterates nicely with what I have been saying, which is to focus on the problem at the source which is indeed the post it's self.
regards
EDIT: I guess as for the DDA, you should simply make a txt version of all the text in your site and upload it to a folder which would be displayed via link something like "Handicap Accessible Format" and that would solve that. Excep for the login procedure, I still don't see how anyone that is blind could use a login form.
Posted: Fri Jan 21, 2005 6:19 am
by onion2k
fresh wrote:EDIT: I guess as for the DDA, you should simply make a txt version of all the text in your site and upload it to a folder which would be displayed via link something like "Handicap Accessible Format" and that would solve that. Excep for the login procedure, I still don't see how anyone that is blind could use a login form.
You could make a seperate text version of your site, and if you're only delivering content that might be good enough.
However, if you're remotely professional about writing web sites, 'good enough' doesn't really measure up. Some of us want to do a decent job of things and create sites that are accessible to everyone. Usually those of us with this attitude are the ones who are paid more and get bigger clients.
Posted: Fri Jan 21, 2005 3:01 pm
by fresh
of course.. you should make your pages universal for sure.. but i dont plan to draw pretty pictures for the blind to feel.. I think the text only format would be what they preffer anyway, plus it would not disrupt their reading devices.
regards
Posted: Fri Jan 21, 2005 3:07 pm
by onion2k
Its not just blind people either. Imagine a user with no arms tries to use a site where the navigation requires using a mouse? Or someone colour blind tries to view some charts that use a colour key? Or you have reports in PDF format but no links to Adobe's conversion tools?
Theres a lot to think about. Of course, in the long run this is a very good thing. Firstly because it means our sites are more usable, and secondly because all this stuff takes time, and time is chargable.

Posted: Fri Jan 21, 2005 4:06 pm
by fresh
lol.. see that's what it boils down to.. the mighty dollar..
To tell the truth I never even thought about making my sites handicap accessible.. I guess I just assumed they didn't use the internet, which now I feel ignorant about. If I were working on a site for myself, I wouldn't try to make it so universal, meaning handicap accessible.. but if a client wants that I would be obliged to build whatever they want and take as long as it needs.. but i wouldn't try to drag it out. Besides I'd probably get bored with the project by that point and would just want to move on to the next project.
regards
Posted: Fri Jan 21, 2005 4:33 pm
by feyd
in the lawsuit happy US, I'm more obligated to tell them that this feature request or whatever could bring down a legal battle, if for nothing else than to cover my ass stating in documented occasions that "X and Y" could be illegal in some jurisdictions. That way, I can't be held liable for not saying something.. since I am supposed to be the expert in that area.

Posted: Sat Jan 22, 2005 12:52 am
by AGISB
I think that noone can expect that a handicapped person could use a website like a non handicaped can. The problem on hand is that noone can forsee what the handicap might be.
All you can do is make sure you have put it into consideration and your site makes at least some sense for people browsing with textbased browsers.
How those flash driven sites could at all meat such requirements is beyond me. I have seen sites that use flash menues for flash content. I never liked this development. Maybe this will fight this 'we always have to use the latest technologie' attitude.
Back to the topic discussion.
I have created a signup process like the following.
Surfer fills out the form and presses submit to formverify.php. On this site I simply validate any input and if something is wrong display it with an error message. If all is correct I display the input and use 2 hidden forms.
1. 'All correct - save' is pointed to the php that submits it to the database.
2. 'Change data' which is pointed back to the input form.
Both forms include a md5(hash) from all verified data + a secret string
As this hash is impossible to guess as long the secret string stays secret.
As it makes no sense for my application that people with the same email address sign up I just made this a unique index and simply catch the error of any bot submitting this data more than once. I could even count the errors and simply drop the connect if it submits more than e.g. 3 times
Combined with sessions (using SID) I even disallow the normal user to submit more than once in a valid session. (sure you could simply disallow cookies and change 1 letter in the url but well nothing is perfect)
This hopefully just works the way that anyone abusing a systems simply turns to an easier target as optimation is the goal for most of those people.
Posted: Sat Jan 22, 2005 3:17 am
by onion2k
AGISB wrote:I think that noone can expect that a handicapped person could use a website like a non handicaped can. The problem on hand is that noone can forsee what the handicap might be.
Exactly the same argument can be used for real-world things like offices and shops. Noone can make a building thats completely accessible to absolutely 100% of people. So noone tries. But there is a reasonable level at which public buildings are supposed to deliver, and there are laws in place to ensure people don't ignore the disabled in order to save a bit of cash.
And now these laws are spilling over into cyberspace. So long as you make a reasonable effort to make your (clients) site accessible you'll be fine. Fortunaetly there are online tools to help.. notably
http://www.cast.org/bobby/
Posted: Sat Jan 22, 2005 3:35 am
by AGISB
That site test is not taking a lot of things into account. It puts tags up on some graphics that are merly design and marked with alt=""
alt="" means that any browser and program that can't read graphics should ignore it. It basically marks any graphics as noncompliant. Not a really good test if it is so far of the reality
Posted: Sat Jan 22, 2005 4:55 am
by onion2k
AGISB wrote:It basically marks any graphics as noncompliant.
Are you sure you read it right? It doesn't do that for my code.
Posted: Sat Jan 22, 2005 6:10 am
by AGISB
After spending more than a minute on the site I would have to say that it does indeed work.
It just left out my css so it had some problem related to layout
The site I tested is compliant but has some ? for some tables with leftout headers and graphics without tilte tags (which is ok for design ones with alt="")
Posted: Sat Jan 22, 2005 7:59 am
by onion2k
AGISB wrote:The site I tested is compliant but has some ? for some tables with leftout headers and graphics without tilte tags (which is ok for design ones with alt="")
Title attributes are for adding a title to an element. Alt tags are for text thats used as an alternative when the image is not displayed. They are
not interchangable. Doing so goes against the HTML specification.
Posted: Sat Jan 22, 2005 1:06 pm
by AGISB
onion2k wrote:AGISB wrote:The site I tested is compliant but has some ? for some tables with leftout headers and graphics without tilte tags (which is ok for design ones with alt="")
Title attributes are for adding a title to an element. Alt tags are for text thats used as an alternative when the image is not displayed. They are
not interchangable. Doing so goes against the HTML specification.
I am not stateing they are interchangable but as you need to add an alt="" tag to make text browsers ignore the grafic you don't have to title="" in it as it actually displays as an empty title window on some browsers.