I know you are, and I follow your stuff. :) My post was off-the-cuff a little sharper (to you, not to him) than I wanted it, because "shrill" is coded usually on this forum in a way you didn't mean it. Sorry for that.
I respect where you're coming from, and at the same time I don't think pointing out that putting something as the fourth-most-important priority means it will stay the fourth-most-important priority forever is "shrill". Because if you shove something baseline like a11y down the ladder like that, it's never coming up, and if characterizing that as "I don't care" makes somebody upset then it's probably a "look inward" moment, yeah? I think it's reasonable to demand that we as a profession not act to be noninclusive by default. Not, at this point, ask. Demand is OK. I think more must be expected of us as people, not just as technologists. The business world might indeed say "oh, small minority, screw them"--we must be ethically loaded as humane craftspeople to fight back against that.
It's kind of a money-where-my-mouth-is thing for me, and I'm very happy that my employer cares a lot about this. It's a video company, so there definitely are limits to what we are able to do for folks with sight impairment, but right now we're in the middle of an initiative for the conference we run to better enable hearing-impaired folks to enjoy and participate. It's not why I came to work here, but I'm glad we're doing it.
I respect where you're coming from, and at the same time I don't think pointing out that putting something as the fourth-most-important priority means it will stay the fourth-most-important priority forever is "shrill". Because if you shove something baseline like a11y down the ladder like that, it's never coming up, and if characterizing that as "I don't care" makes somebody upset then it's probably a "look inward" moment, yeah? I think it's reasonable to demand that we as a profession not act to be noninclusive by default. Not, at this point, ask. Demand is OK. I think more must be expected of us as people, not just as technologists. The business world might indeed say "oh, small minority, screw them"--we must be ethically loaded as humane craftspeople to fight back against that.
It's kind of a money-where-my-mouth-is thing for me, and I'm very happy that my employer cares a lot about this. It's a video company, so there definitely are limits to what we are able to do for folks with sight impairment, but right now we're in the middle of an initiative for the conference we run to better enable hearing-impaired folks to enjoy and participate. It's not why I came to work here, but I'm glad we're doing it.