At 11:24 AM 7/1/98 -0500, you wrote:

>        I have in fact been out of the US.  Why would you assume I haven't
been --
>because I don't agree with you?  Yes, some people don't have access to
>e-mail -- I mail things people I know who don't all the time -- but by your
>reasoning should we not use e-mail as one way to announce professional
>events or communicate until everyone has it?  What's your point.

Announce yes.  I think everyone is in agreement on that.  Sending documents
that might be potentially too big for some people to handle is the issue.
Just because it takes you 20 seconds to download does mean that it takes
everyone 20 seconds to download.  Frederich pointed out that it took him
much longer and politely asked that documents of that length not be sent
out on the general list.  I agree.  I think that things like that should be
announced on the list and people can e-mail the sender if they would like a
copy.

For example, an announcement about the ICOM would be of interest to the
general list.  Posting a schedule would probably not be because not
everyone is going or would be interested in going.  Announcing that a
schedule is available for download, at a certain website or could be
e-mailed by request is much better.

>        Why do you assume I make this assumption because I don't agree
with you.
>Are you saying that because some people only have text browsers, all web
>pages should only have text?  What's your point here.

No, I'm saying that your web page should be accessable to people with only
text browsers.  Putting lots of large graphics, .movs and java scripts are
going to cut off people with lower end browsers and text-only browers, or
people that don't have quick connections.  Making a nice, simple site with
smaller graphics that won't come out as ASCII garble on lower browsers is a
much better design.

>        What is "troubling" about pointing out that based on response the
large
>majority of people on the list did not have a problem and that the message
>conveyed appropriate information?   I fail to see any irony here either.

If someone came to your museum and complained that they couldn't read the
exhibit lables because they were too small or set too high to read from a
wheelchair, one would immediately (I would hope) take it up with an
accessability committee and try and get the situation changed.  One would
never say, "Well most of our visitors have no problem so deal."

Yet when someone has trouble with e-mail because of a technology problem,
that can't be easily fixed (until Austria upgrades all their phone lines),
people take the attitude of "deal with it because most of the people on
here have no problem."  It's not Frederich's fault that he has to deal with
an analog phone line just as it's not a person's fault that he might have
limited vision.

And a lot of other lists have regulations about post sizes specifically for
that reason.  Not everyone is on the same technological level so some
things just shouldn't be sent out to the list as a curtesy to them.

Deb Fuller

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