RNIB Web Access Centre no longer exists...
Ben, any response back from the RNIB yet?
If not, I'm going to publicly call them on it. They are supposed to be encouraging accessibility, and they've pulled a whole archive of stuff relating to accessibility without warning or explanation - and they've been told about it.
Jack Pickard The Pickards Information Services| Blog | Twit
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Message posted on behalf of the RNIB Web Access Team:
Hi all.
We don't currently have a member of our team regularly visiting this forum at present. I was unable to register an account under our central mailbox address of webaccess@rnib.org.uk as it looks like there is already a legacy account using this address. In lieu of having the login details for this readily available, I have created an account in my name to post this message for now of behalf of the team, of which I am part.
Sorry for the slow reply to Ben's email, which we have just replied to directly. Most of the team were on annual leave over the festive break, meaning a backlog in our mailbox to work through when we returned in the New Year.
Firstly, we must apologise for the amount of time that the blog has been unavailable for. We realise that we should have been more transparent about the work that we were carrying out behind the scenes during this time.
The new RNIB site was launched in September 2009 as part of a larger project to improve our Intranet, main site and eCommerce presence. Unfortunately, the blog functionality wasn't complete at that time, but the decision to launch the main site had to be taken to avoid causing unacceptable delays to the overall project.
Since then, we've been working with our development partner, Content and Code, to create an accessible blog platform in SharePoint which is now on the verge of being ready to deploy.
Once the blog functionality goes live, we'll begin migrating content over from our old WordPress system (which unfortunately may need to be done by hand, we're not sure yet) to get the blog up and running again as soon as possible. The blog functionality will go live before all our content is migrated, as other parts of the RNIB intend to start using blogs and they aren't in the same situation of needing to move content between WordPress and SharePoint. Therefore, we felt it wasn't fair to delay their use of blogs whilst we work through this.
We hope you can bear with us whilst we carry this work out as we realise the content of the blog is extremely useful and valuable to a lot of people involved with web accessibility, both now and in the future.
I've asked our Web Team who are responsible for the RNIB's presence on the web, to put together a response regarding the new URL structure of the site and any current redirects that are in place and any ones that are planned for the future. These issues are outside the remit / authority of the Web Access Team, so I'd like them to respond in their own words on these points to answer some of the other questions in this thread.
Thanks.
Regards,
Andrew Ronksley.
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Thanks for your reply Andrew, I'm sure this info will be much appreciated by our members. Looking forward to seeing the new blog!James Coltham - Local gov web manager by day, web and accessibility blogger at lunchtime, freelancer by night. Tweets at @prettysimple.
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| Andrew Ronksley wrote: |
| [...] we realise the content of the blog is extremely useful and valuable to a lot of people involved with web accessibility, both now and in the future. |
Since I reported it just about on Xmas day, the time to respond is reasonable. Especially as you've given so much detail and been open about the events so far and the plans which are coming up.
(Incidentally, if you'd like your username changed from andrewronksley to Andrew Ronksley there's a Name Change Requests topic.)
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Given the active interest shown in these issues, I'm mightily glad that I started the ball rolling by mentioning the one broken link that I'd come across.
I may not have done anything more active on the matters arising, but here I claim medium-term health and hospitalisation problems.
I'd like to thank everyone who has participated and, especially, my thanks go to Ben for taking the ball direct to the RNIB.
I also appreciate Andrew's frank and full response to the issues...I'm sure the RNIB archives will be back online as soon as possible and will continue to be a valuable resource for a long to come!
Cheers!
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If you haven't already (and apologies if this has already been mentioned) you can grab Web Access Centre stuff from webarchive.org: http://bit.ly/7EGiOi
Cheers, Henny
Blog:www.iheni.com
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Brilliant, thanks for this Henny, really useful! James Coltham - Local gov web manager by day, web and accessibility blogger at lunchtime, freelancer by night. Tweets at @prettysimple.
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Great! Thanks for the link Henny.
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Still not back? I notice the RNIB Web Access Center uses all uppercase in its URL. 
Google lists it as:
www.rnib.org.uk/PROFESSIONALS/WEBACCESSIBILITY
Which then redirects to:
http://www.rnib.org.uk/PROFESSIONALS/WEBACCESSIBILITY/Pages/web_accessibility.aspx
So there's a bit of repetition in the final URL. As well as a redundant Pages level, probably due to the internals of the CMS framework.
The Web Archive link is very slow and doesn't contain styling. But at least the content is still available, which is something. It's like a permanent CSS Naked Day, which is quite appropriate for a blog which was partly about promoting semantic markup.
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Wow, this is still not fixed! It can't take half a year to migrate <100 pages. Even if it was done manually, one by one, copying and pasting each field between databases.
This was a really useful resource, one of the hubs we often referred to. Where is it?
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To be honest, I'm not totally surprised that it's still not fixed.
I've been waiting almost a year for some definitive information on qualifications I'll need to teach screen reader use to the visually impaired.
Seems the whole system of training and authorised trainers is being overhauled - some overhaul if it's taking this time!
Also, you can wait weeks for replies to queries - methinks there may be problems at the top?
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Hello People,
Looks like the Web Access Centre blog is back: http://www.rnib.org.uk/professionals/webaccessibility/wacblog/default.aspx
They're working on fixing some glitches so don't worry about these, they should go. I think URL's may have changed too and am not sure redirects are in place so if you link to posts it's worth double checking stuff.
Cheers, Henny
Blog:www.iheni.com
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Thanks Henny,
Things seem a little messy over at RNIB at the moment.
Hope they get back to where they were in terms of information provision.
Cheers!
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Good to see the cogs are turning. Seems to be quite a bit of fine-tuning left, which I expect RNIB are already aware of. A couple of show-stoppers (to my mind) are:
- I get a login page when I try to read the full text of any blog summary. (More on that later.)
- The "Reading and presenting with PowerPoint if you are a screen reader user" entry is listed twice.
- The summary text seems to have lost all formatting. Everything from <code> around code samples to <p> around paragraphs is not coming through.
- All of the entries say they were "Posted ... by Verity Cork".
- Doesn't seem to match the RNIB website's design. Removing the outer grey box with padding (.form-wrapper) and inner grey border with padding (.form-section) looks a lot better - easy to try that with Firebug. The headings and basic text formatting does match.
- Tags seem incomplete and inconsistent. Some entries are tagged "Article" but not all...this is either a catch-all for every post or it should always be replaced with more specific tags, imho.
- The sidebar text "Delicious/webaccesscentre" is too long to fit on one line at common screen sizes. Less sophisticated text wrapping engines won't split it at the forward slash.
Login Form
I guess this is a bug with the commenting system getting confused?
| RNIB WAC Blog wrote: |
| Your registration is nearly complete
We have sent an activation email to the email address you registered with us. You need to click on the link within this activation email to complete your registration of RNIB's website. Once your registration is complete, you will be able to login to the site and take advantage of all the benefits that registration gives you. Benefits for registered users. |
On the Plus Side
Since I can't get to the articles, it's difficult to be really positive. However, this is a tantalising indication that the cogs are turning and RNIB WAC Blog may well rise again!
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| Ben Millard wrote: |
|
Just to elaborate on that, I got the same login request when I clicked on "Articles" earlier today
I thought it was a bit odd that I should have to log in purely to read articles, but duly signed up for an account, clicked the activation link in the email I was sent and went back to the blog.
Only then did I notice that there was an "Admin" navigation in the right side column, giving me access to add/delete blog entries, comments, categories and all sorts! Some serious user authentication/priviledge flaw!
One swift phone call to them, and they seem to have fixed it. I could've had all sorts of fun with it!
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