Visually Impaired List Members

[Lorenzo Taylor]

The most important thing to consider when posting a reply to a message is 
whether or not the reply makes its point clearly. As for rethinking the way we 
post to the list, I don't think that is entirely necessary, because properly 
edited messages don't cause visually impaired users much trouble. The most 
important thing is that your reply should cut out as much previous quoting as is 
possible if you do quote at all. The things we have the most problems with are 
the big long quotes with a reply waaaaay down at the bottom somewhere and the 
quotes of quotes of quotes, example:

On 2009-05-09 at 8:00 pm, Person C wrote:

 > On Saturday, May 9, 2009 at 7:42 PM, Person B <personb at ilovemail.com> wrote:
 >
 > > --- Original message ---
 > > From Person A <persona at crufty-outlook.com>
 > > Sent: Saturday, 5/9/2009 at 7:36 PM
 > > Subject: Re: My message
 > > >
 > > > My message about this and that is rather long, I hope you will find the
 > > > time to respond. ...
 > >
 > > I wish to respond to your message by posting a lot of my own original work.
 > > ...
 > > --
 > > an amusing signature, but it's in the way here
 > >
 > > --
 > > Ubuntu Users mailing list
 > > Ubuntu-users at lists.ubuntu.com
 > > ...
 >
 > I found the original post and this response to be very interesting and
 > enlightening. Let me just add that ...

I agree wholeheartedly with the original post, but I contend that also ...


If most or all of this is cut out and the replies are stated clearly enough that 
little or no quoting is needed, those of us who use screen readers will have no 
trouble reading the list. The main problem is that we have entirely too many 
*bottom* posters on the list who probably haven't been made fully aware of the 
problems associated with bottom posting and screen readers. I have actually seen 
on other lists people's mails that say "please only top post" because of the 
screen reader issue. However I submit that top posting isn't exactly the 
solution to the problem either. Trim *all* the fat and things should be fine.

As a side note, there are things I am able to do in Thunderbird when there is a 
lot of quoting, but for some reason these things don't always work, or they 
don't work the same way twice. I have the ability to press p to jump to the next 
paragraph, which is basically hit or miss for some reason. The other thing I can 
do is press o to go to the next "large object", but that seems to work even less 
than p. As yet, there is no function to move to the beginning of unquoted text, 
though there is a way to move to the next section of quoted text, exactly the 
opposite of what I need to be able to do.

HTH,
Lorenzo
-- 
Nia diligenta kolegaro
En laboro paca ne laciĝos,
Ĝis la bela sonĝo de l' homaro
Por eterna ben' efektiviĝos.
--La Espero, himno de Esperanto