Comment by lift_ticket83 on 05/06/2023 at 20:02 UTC

-118 upvotes, 14 direct replies (showing 14)

View submission: API Updates & Questions

We absolutely know we need to address these issues. If you are willing to chat, we’ll be reaching out to you and other moderators interested in this topic today, to set up a meeting in which we can share our current plans and discover if there are use cases we haven’t accounted for.

Replies

Comment by ConfessingToSins at 05/06/2023 at 22:27 UTC*

129 upvotes, 1 direct replies

Blind moderator here: rollback and postpone these changes until you are in compliance with the Americans with disability act. That's it. There are no other terms and there is no negotiation or discussion. Third party apps will die because of this and your app is not in compliance. You will not do anything else until you are in compliance.

Knock this behavior off. It is ableism. I've already given quotes to two journalists over this and so have others. You are acting in bad, unreasonable faith.

You will not do a road map that has accessibility features sometime in the nebulous future where you can miss targets while killing apps that are providing those accessibility features.

*This is discrimination. Stop.**

I as a disabled moderator would like to be involved in this meeting.

EDIT: Thank you for gold, but please do not give a company committing ableism/discrimination against the disabled your money. Instead please donate your money to a charity for the disabled. My personal choice is the Marfan Foundation, but for a blind specific charity, the Seva Foundation is also a good option.

Comment by gschizas at 05/06/2023 at 20:12 UTC

174 upvotes, 0 direct replies

The problem is that you shouldn't be making breaking changes until you have something in place to replace them. If your app did have consideration for blind users for example, this would be a different conversation. Since it doesn't, wait until it does before changing the API pricing rules to effectively shutdown 3rd party applications.

Again, I doubt it would be hard, even from a business side, to make special considerations for 3rd party apps and ask for considerably less for API calls (I'm not even saying make API calls free!).

As I've said elsewhere, I do understand (and even agree) the main reasons behind these changes was banning AI trainers and NSFW harvesters that seems the motivation behind them. But you should consider the consequences.

Comment by fastfinge at 05/06/2023 at 20:41 UTC

106 upvotes, 0 direct replies

While we're happy to engage in this conversation once more, we've had multiple good-faith meetings with Reddit admins, as represented by u/itsthejoker, and Reddit continued with the announcement anyway. These are not "use cases we haven’t accounted for." These are use-cases that you knew about weeks ago, and decided not to account for. Making changes that would prevent Apollo and other third-party apps from functioning, *before* you make changes to fix the accessibility problems with the official apps and website, will mean that the r/blind community will be unable to continue on Reddit, and blind and visually impaired mods will be unable to operate across all of Reddit. It seems critical to us that you hold off of these changes, until blind users and mods of Reddit have a way forward.

Comment by MostlyBlindGamer at 05/06/2023 at 20:39 UTC

112 upvotes, 1 direct replies

Please update us on the state of our spoiler tag bug report for screen readers.

Please, in reply to this comment, explain your concrete plans for making WCAG 2.1 level AA compliant websites and mobile apps, by July 1st 2023. If your apps and website are not accessible, when we lose access to third-party apps, we will be forced out of the platform. If you cannot make this happen, we must maintain access to third-party apps.

You have not done your job, others will. You have not given feedback on this bug report, while a third-party app developer asked for implementation details at its first mention. Your website fails basic automated accessibility testing. Your apps fails basic automated accessibility testing. Your website crashes screen readers.

We will conduct ourselves with transparency, in the open. We will stand with our fellow Redditors, as they stand with us.

u/MostlyBlindGamer

r/blind

Comment by Kryomaani at 06/06/2023 at 12:23 UTC

23 upvotes, 0 direct replies

If you are willing to chat, we’ll be reaching out to you and other moderators interested in this topic today, to set up a meeting in which we can share our current plans and discover if there are use cases we haven’t accounted for.

I'm sorry, what? You're a multi-million company running a website and you need to get some unpaid volunteers on a VOIP call to tell you how to make your site accessible to blind people?

This is mindboggling. Hire an accessibility consultant (*you don't have one yet!?*) like any other web dev company that is not too high on sniffing their own farts. It's a real, paid job title you'll find on any social media (like "moderator"...).

And you know, all those third party apps you are killing off already had that accessibility part all figured out. The sole reason people were accepting your site being not accessible was because they had alternatives, but you've chosen to take those away. You take a massive dump on people's work and yet expect us to come to your aid to fix your problems for free? This is all your own doing and you're acting in bad faith, plain and simple.

Comment by Minifig81 at 05/06/2023 at 22:17 UTC

33 upvotes, 0 direct replies

We absolutely know we need to address these issues.

There are ***so*** many more things you should fix instead of doing what you're intending to do. Abuse from other users when you're a moderator is insane, spam controls, which we were promised ***years*** ago, haven't been implemented and the reporting tool we have is an absolute joke. The problem with users getting around bans *even with* the ban evasion reporting tool remains a problem... etc etc.

Comment by djspacebunny at 05/06/2023 at 20:47 UTC

67 upvotes, 0 direct replies

Lies. This has been brought up multiple times to you folks before. There has been no meaningful dialog. It is lipservice. Just because we're disabled doesn't mean we're fucking stupid.

Comment by notacrook at 05/06/2023 at 22:52 UTC

29 upvotes, 0 direct replies

We absolutely know we need to address these issues.

No one believes you.

Comment by AnotherCrazyChick at 06/06/2023 at 00:26 UTC*

22 upvotes, 0 direct replies

Please reach out to me as a moderator of r/aspergirls or our mod team. Members of our community require use of third party accessibility applications.

Edit: I was contacted by a Reddit Rep offering to include me in a phone call regarding this subject. However, the phone call was scheduled same day (less than 24 hours notice) and I requested accessibility accommodations of speech to text and received no response from Reddit.

I'm still open to having dialogue with Reddit regarding this subject if they will follow professional protocol and common business courtesy of scheduling a meeting with at least 24 hours notice, taking into consideration difference in timezones, as well as communicating and discussing compromises involving requested accommodations.

Comment by CaptainPedge at 06/06/2023 at 01:49 UTC

13 upvotes, 0 direct replies

Sort that shit out before you do this. How DARE you not have this in place already?

Comment by hello_dali at 06/06/2023 at 17:17 UTC

5 upvotes, 0 direct replies

lol that is the laziest damage control response.

Handicapped people aren't profitable for you, you will do nothing but non-responses and count on people just accepting your trash or forgetting. At least more people can see how Ableist the company is at the core.

this whole rollout looks like it's being done by middle schoolers, you should be embarrassed.