Tyler Adams

33 Followers
30 Following
337 Posts
Having a hard time summing myself up. Writer. Tinkerer. Activist. #seattle, still. Weird, right?

Extremely happy to report that Run Your Own Social (https://runyourown.social) is now available translated in a Korean language print anthology called 무슨일선집 (What's Happening? Anthology)

https://www.aladin.co.kr/m/mproduct.aspx?itemid=304737824

There will be an online version available in the near future at http://afterneworder.com/ (their security cert is currently expired)

How to run a small social network site for your friends

This document exists to lay out some general principles of running a small social network site that have worked for me. These principles are related to community building more than they are related to specific technologies.

You can turn off the news and sign off social media for a bit. It's okay.
OK #Mastodon. I've seen several toots on #accessibility for #screenreader users, however, I've not seen one from a screenreader user (as far as I know). I've used ZoomText, Outspoken, JAWS (AKA JFW), Supernova, NVDA (Windows), and VoiceOver (both on Macs and iPhone). I don't have experience with Windows Narrator or TalkBack. I would like to rectify and clarify a few small things.
First off, any awareness of accessibility issues, and endeavours to make things more accessible is great. Keep going!
But…
Blind/low-vision people have been using the internet as long as everyone else. We had to become used to the way people share things, and find workarounds or tell developers what we needed; this latter one has been the main drive to get us here and now. Over the past decade, screen readers have improved dramatically, including more tools, languages, and customisability. However, the basics were already firmly in place around 2000. Sadly, screen readers cost a lot of money at that time. Now, many are free; truly the biggest triumph for accessibility IMHO.
So, what you can do to help screen readers help their users is three simple things.
1. Write well: use punctuation, and avoid things like random capitalisation or * halfway through words.
2. Image description: screen readers with image recognition built-in will only provide a very short description, like: a plant, a painting, a person wearing a hat, etc. It can also deal with text included in the image, as long as the text isn't too creatively presented. So, by all means, go absolutely nuts with detail.
3. Hashtags: this is the most commonly boosted topic I've seen here, so #ThisIsWhatAnAccessibleHashtagLooksLike. The capitalisation ensures it's read correctly, and for some long hashtags without caps, I've known screen readers to give up and just start spelling the whole damn thing out, which is slow and painful.
That's really all. Thanks for reading! 😘
Sometimes the best self care is doing that hard thing you've been putting off.

The city got me expanded light rail service for my birthday.

[Selfie of me with an envomask on near "Oct. 2" on a sign, I'm obscuring most of the other text.]

Portland’s Gardenburger House — Michele Kraus Bennett

When I see a totally wild and crazy home come on the market I have to see it with my own eyes. My coworker Grant and I went to Portland’s Gardenburger house last week to see this spectacular 90s / 20s mashup in person. It’s called the Gardenburger house because the former founder of the meatless

Take a break. Find a window and check the weather.
Once the problem of online harm is framed as content moderation, it is already a lost cause for victims.

"At the most basic level, Facebook’s process, like other attempts to address online harm, suffers not from faulty algorithms, but from a crucial misrepresentation of the problem."

https://logicmag.io/care/do-no-harm/

Do No Harm

Social media is broken. Restorative justice offers a way to repair it.

Logic Magazine
Boutta hold my own power button down for 5 seconds