Image Text:

Since the news broke regarding the forthcoming changes to reddit’s API and the ippact that will have on the third party apps and tools many of us rely upon the mods here at r/blind have been working on an accessible option for those who either cannot or will not be staying on reddit. As talk of alternatives like mastodon, lemmy, and the like have increased we decided that it would be best to reveal what we have been working on, hence this post. Several days ago we shared this with those of you on our Discord server and have been asking for feedback. This project is by no means finished or polished, and is currently operating on development backend code and a beta UI to allow for access to still unreleased features that our community needs such as up/down votes displaying state changes, and nested comments, read this as there are and will be bugs and outstanding accessibility problems. However, the advantage of this platform is we control the servers, the UI, and can fix accessibility concerns ourselves instead of relying on a for profit company or the generosity of app developers to do it for us, not that the latter is unappreciated. So please be understanding of the above and we hope those of you who decide to join and see what we have done so far for all of us, and please report problems as you find them. https://rblind.com/

  •  ericjmorey   ( @ericjmorey@beehaw.org ) 
    link
    fedilink
    English
    104
    edit-2
    1 year ago

    This post is inaccessible to anyone who is blind.

    So here’s the content of the original post on /r/blind:

    Announcement !!Open Alpha!! RBlind - A community on Lemmy, brought to you by the moderators of the /r/blind subreddit.

    Since the news broke regarding the forthcoming changes to reddit’s API and the ippact that will have on the third party apps and tools many of us rely upon the mods here at r/blind have been working on an accessible option for those who either cannot or will not be staying on reddit. As talk of alternatives like mastodon, lemmy, and the like have increased we decided that it would be best to reveal what we have been working on, hence this post. Several days ago we shared this with those of you on our Discord server and have been asking for feedback.

    This project is by no means finished or polished, and is currently operating on development backend code and a beta UI to allow for access to still unreleased features that our community needs such as up/down votes displaying state changes, and nested comments, read this as there are and will be bugs and outstanding accestsibility problems. However, the advantage of this platform is we control the servers, the UI, and can fix accessibility concerns ourselves instead of relying on a for profit company or the generosity of app developers to do it for us, not that the latter is unappreciated.

    So please be understanding of the above and we hope those of you who decide to join and see what we have done so far for all of us, and please report problems as you find them.

    https://rblind.com/

    • Image text: Announcement

      1!Open Alpha!! RBlind - A community on Lemmy, brought to you by the moderators of the /r/blind subreddit.com

      Submitted 11 hours ago by user DHamlin Music (flair: Bilateral Optic Neuropathy)

      Since the news broke regarding the forthcoming changes to reddit’s API and the ippact that will have on the third party apps and tools many of us rely upon the mods here at r/blind have been working on an accessible option for those who either cannot or will not be staying on reddit. As talk of alternatives like mastodon, lemmy, and the like have increased we decided that it would be best to reveal what we have been working on, hence this post. Several days ago we shared this with those of you on our Discord server and have been asking for feedback.

      This project is by no means finished or polished, and is currently operating on development backend code and a beta UI to allow for access to still unreleased features that our community needs such as up/down votes displaying state changes, and nested comments, read this as there are and will be bugs and outstanding accessibility problems. However, the advantage of this platform is we control the servers, the UI, and can fix accessibility concerns ourselves instead of relying on a for profit company or the generosity of app developers to do it for us, not that the latter is unappreciated.

      So please be understanding of the above and we hope those of you who decide to join and see what we have done so far for all of us, and please report problems as you find them.

      https://rblind.com/

    • They tried to walk it back by only cutting deals with app developers that blind people rely on, like RedReader with its screen reading functionality. But that just highlights how selective reddit is being at working with third party developers. So fuck spez and reddit. I hope the blind community gets everything they meed from their Lemmy instances.

      •  Kamirose   ( @Kamirose@beehaw.org ) 
        link
        fedilink
        English
        12
        edit-2
        1 year ago

        Plus, they made it so only non-commercial accessibility apps could use the API for free. So basically, reddit is saying: you can do our job for us and fix the shit we should have fixed on our end over 8 years ago, but you can’t get paid for it.

        Most blind iOS redditors were using Apollo I believe.

  • It wouldn’t have made any difference long term anyway. They would’ve made a teeny tiny change to the official app, proclaimed it as proof they were working hard on it, then cut off API access for the accessible 3rd party apps. Kudos to r/blind for knowing this and taking proactive action.

    • They have a definition, they just won’t tell the users because it’s not a realistic definition and they plan to pull the rug out later on.

      If third-party apps were only 3% of total traffic and reddit was willing to destroy its image and massively increase the viability of its only competitor just before IPO over it, I’m sure they’ll have no problem getting rid of whatever percentage of blind people who can’t see the ads reddit wants to serve anyway.

    • They have the same problem with “moderator-focused tools.” Lots of third party tools are useful for moderation, but aren’t necessarily composed only of moderator-specific functions. Analysis of what public activity a specific user has engaged in, like where they’re active and what kinds of comments they tend to make, are helpful for moderators to decide how to handle a report that a particular user is a serial harasser, a troll, a spammer, or a bot.

      So which tools get an exemption from the API fees/rate limits, if they’re useful for both moderation and just plain old people watching?

    • How are they going to determine which apps have free API access without this definition!?

      If there’s one thing that I’ve learned from this trainwreck, it’s that they’re not going to define it publicly. If the internal definition is fluid, it can serve as a moving target to be whatever is most beneficial to them at the time.

    • Indeed. People sometimes wonder why bother, but here we can clearly see why it’s so much better than a centralized organization with a closed codebase. Ultimately, if it is not open source, you’re subject to the whims and wishes of someone else, which may not align with your interests.

      Open source is about freedom.

  •  Lupieblue   ( @Lupieblue@beehaw.org ) 
    link
    fedilink
    English
    11
    edit-2
    1 year ago

    https://browse.feddit.de/ This is a link to the lemmy community browser. It looks like there are 7 communities focused on the blind. I am still learning how to navigate through the fediverse but maybe this will help you find or link to what you are looking for. I used the link and just searched “blind” hopefully the link will show that or you can use it as a search tool to find what you want.

    It takes a bit to load. Not sure if it is the search tool or just my Internet being throttled.